2023-05-31 2 1 0 House of Reps 0 1

Wednesday, 31 May 2023

The SPEAKER ( Hon. Milton Dick ) took the chair at 09:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.

 

BILLS 1 BILLS Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023 1

Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023

Second Reading 1 09:01 The SPEAKER 53517 In accordance with the resolution agreed to on 30 May 2023, I will put the question immediately. The question before the House is that this bill be now read a second time.    

The House divided. [09:05]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

 120 AYES Albanese, A. N. Aly, A. Ananda-Rajah, M. Andrews, K. L. Archer, B. K. Bandt, A. P. Bates, S. J. Bell, A. M. Bowen, C. E. Burke, A. S. Burnell, M. P. Burney, L. J. Burns, J. Butler, M. C. Byrnes, A. J. Chalmers, J. E. Chandler-Mather, M. Chaney, K. E. Charlton, A. H. G. Chesters, L. M. Clare J. D. Claydon, S. C. Coker, E. A. Coleman, D. B. Collins, J. M. Conroy, P. M. Daniel, Z. Doyle, M. J. J. Dreyfus, M. A. Dutton, P. C. Elliot, M. J. Entsch, W. G. Fernando, C. Fletcher, P. W. Freelander, M. R. Garland, C. M. L. Gee, A. R. Georganas, S. Giles, A. J. Gorman, P. Gosling, L. J. Haines, H. M. Hastie, A. W. Hill, J. C. Husic, E. N. Jones, S. P. Kearney, G. M. Keogh, M. J. Khalil, P. King, C. F. Lawrence, T. N. Laxale, J. A. A. Le, D. Leeser, J. Leigh, A. K. Ley, S. P. Lim, S. B. C. Marino, N. B. Marles, R. D. Mascarenhas, Z. F. A. McBain, K. L. McBride, E. M. McIntosh, M. I. McKenzie, Z. A. Miller-Frost, L. J. Mitchell, B. K. Mitchell, R. G. Morrison, S. J. Mulino, D. Murphy, P. J. Neumann, S. K. O'Brien, E. L. O'Connor, B. P. J. O'Neil, C. E. Payne, A. E. Pearce, G. B. Perrett, G. D. Phillips, F. E. Plibersek, T. J. Price, M. L. Rae, S. T. Ramsey, R. E. Reid, G. J. Repacholi, D. P. Rishworth, A. L. Roberts, T. G. Rowland, M. A. Ryan, J. C. Ryan, M. M. Scrymgour, M. R. Sharkie, R. C. C. Shorten, W. R. Sitou, S. Smith, D. P. B. (Teller) Spender, A. M. Stanley, A. M. (Teller) Steggall, Z. Stevens, J. Sukkar, M. S. Swanson, M. J. Taylor, A. J. Tehan, D. T. Templeman, S. R. Thistlethwaite, M. J. Thompson, P. Thwaites, K. L. Tink, K. J. Vamvakinou, M. van Manen, A. J. Vasta, R. X. Violi, A. A. Ware, J. L. Watson-Brown, E. Watts, T. G. Wells, A. S. Wilkie, A. D. Wilson, J. H. Wolahan, K. Wood, J. P. Zappia, A. 25 NOES Birrell, S. J. Boyce, C. E. Buchholz, S. (Teller) Chester, D. J. Conaghan, P. J. Coulton, M. M. (Teller) Gillespie, D. A. Goodenough, I. R. Hamilton, G. R. Hawke, A. G. Hogan, K. J. Howarth, L. R. Joyce, B. T. G. Landry, M. L. Littleproud, D. McCormack, M. F. O'Brien, L. S. Pasin, A. Pike, H. J. Pitt, K. J. Wallace, A. B. Webster, A. E. Willcox, A. J. Wilson, R. J. Young, T. J. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.

 Consideration in Detail 2 09:12 Mr LEESER 109556 Berowra by leave—I move amendments (1) and (2), as circulated in my name, together: (1) Schedule 1, item 2, page 3 (lines 13 and 14), omit all the words from and including "In" to and including "Australia:". (2) Schedule 1, item 2, page 3 (lines 17 to 20), omit paragraph 129(ii). I move these amendments as a supporter of the 'yes' case and as someone who will campaign for a 'yes' vote in the referendum. I believe the constitutional recognition expressed through the creation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice nationally and fed through from the local and regional levels will be able to move the dial on so many of the intractable issues in Indigenous affairs. It will help ensure that federal government spending is better directed to achieving outcomes on matters that have beset Indigenous affairs for nearly 60 years. In moving these amendments, I'm mindful of the engagement of the 23 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders comprising the referendum working group in the development of the constitutional alteration before us. My goal is not to hollow out or to weaken the alteration, as some have claimed; rather, it's to remove the central argument of the 'no' case. As I said on the day I resigned from the front bench, my goal has been and is to put the constitutional alteration on a stronger electoral footing. I want to see the 'yes' case win and win handsomely. Unfortunately, the polls indicate a downward trend, with support for the 'yes' vote in the high 40s or low 50s. As I have been talking to people in my electorate and around Australia, I know there are Australians who are keen to vote 'yes' but who are concerned about the wording of the alteration. These amendments are not about parliamentary colleagues; they're about securing the support of the Australian people—a majority of Australians and a majority of Australians in a majority of states. A successful referendum requires getting as many Australians as possible to vote 'yes'. Constitutional changes are notoriously difficult to secure. We've changed our Constitution only eight times out of 44 attempts. Even in 1977, when three of those eight amendments were made, a fourth referendum question regarding simultaneous elections was supported by 62 per cent of the Australian population but was opposed in three states and, as such, failed. Winning a referendum is hard, and I want the Voice to win. The alternative is too dreadful to contemplate. When I resigned, and previously at the National Press Club, I argued for three things to strengthen the proposition for change. The first was for a commitment to the rollout and funding of local and regional voices. I am pleased the government has provided $20 million in the budget to do that. The other two things are contained in the amendments to the wording of the constitutional alteration to improve the referendum's chance of success at the ballot box. Let us return to first principles. The constitutional alteration needs to do three things: first, recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; second, give The Voice a permanent place in our constitutional architecture; and, third, provide for the supremacy of parliament. The two amendments before this House are consistent with those aims. The amendments remove paragraph (ii) of the proposed section 129, which relates to representations to executive government about matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. I argue for it to be removed not because I don't want the Voice making recommendations to the executive government on a range of matters, because I do—I want the Voice to speak to ministers and to public servants and I have long argued for that, ever since I put forward proposals almost a decade ago, and there's nothing stopping the parliament from mandating that this should be the case—but this clause is the centrepiece of the 'no' campaign's arguments about the Constitution. I argue for the removal of paragraph (ii) because it will leave the 'no' campaign with nothing constitutionally to stand on. My second amendment relates to the symbolic language in the chapeau. Let me be very clear, the symbolic statement in the chapeau sets out an incontrovertible fact with which I agree, that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the First Peoples of Australia. But constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is already provided through the long title of the bill, which will form the question on the ballot paper: A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. It will also be provided in the heading of chapter 9 itself. That heading reads: 'Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples'. These words do not raise legal issues. They support and affirm constitutional recognition, as does the creation of the Voice. Our Constitution is a document relatively free of symbolic language. This is a strength of the Constitution and it makes it very different to the American Constitution. Australia's constitutional debates generally have not ventured down the American path with activist judges from the left and right. My concern about symbolic words includes the fact that it might even restrict what the Voice can make representations about as a Voice is established 'in recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as First Peoples'. That is, the chapeau might restrict the Voice to making representations on issues only relating to the status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as First Peoples rather than the broader range of issues that confront them today and may confront them in the future. These amendments are offered in order to put the Voice in a stronger electoral position. They're offered in order to find common ground with more Australians by respecting the first principles on which the Voice is based. I commend the amendments to the House. The SPEAKER 53517 The question is the amendments be disagreed to. 09:17 Mr DREYFUS HWG Isaacs I thank the member for Berowra for his support for the Voice and engagement on this issue over many years. He has demonstrated his principled support for the Voice despite personal political cost. I know that the member for Berowra is moving these amendments in good faith because he thinks these amendments might improve the prospects of the referendum succeeding. With respect, the government does not agree with the member for Berowra. In our view, these amendments are neither necessary nor desirable. The first amendment proposes to omit from the constitutional amendment the words 'in recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia'. These introductory words reflect the fact that establishing the Voice is an act of recognition in the manner sought in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. These words will pay respect to the unique status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia and the more than 60,000 years they have occupied this continent. These words will rectify over 120 years of explicit exclusion and omission in Australia's founding legal document. The constitutional expert group has advised that the introductory words appropriately and succinctly explain the purpose of the amendment without giving rise to any legal concerns. The government agrees. The second amendment proposes to omit section 129(ii). Section 129(ii) is a vital component of the bill. It provides for the core function of the Voice—that it 'may make representations to the parliament and the executive government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples'. Section 129(iii) gives the parliament broad legislative powers with respect to matters relating to the Voice, including the power to legislate in relation to the legal effect of the Voice's representations. But it is important that the Voice's function of making representations to the executive government is guaranteed in the Constitution. Without that guarantee, a future parliament might entirely remove the ability for the Voice to make representations to the executive. It is the executive government that makes policies and develops proposed laws about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. To improve the laws and policies that affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and to improve outcomes, the Voice must be able to make representations to the executive government. Australians can have confidence in this constitutional amendment. The two changes proposed by the member for Berowra should not be supported. The bill as introduced should be passed by this House and ultimately put to the Australian people. As I said at the end of the second reading debate, it has been just over six years since more than 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates gathered at Uluru from all points of the southern sky to make the request for voice, treaty and truth. We in the parliament have spent many hours discussing how to fulfil the first part of that request, a request built on more than a decade of work. But it will soon be up to all Australians to make a choice. It will be up to the Australian people to take the opportunity offered by the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017—an opportunity for our nation to do better, to come together and to walk towards a better future. 09:22 Ms DANIEL 008CH Goldstein I understand and respect the reasons the member for Berowra is putting forward these amendments. He's trying perhaps to take the sting out of the referendum debate to get more opinion leaders and decision-makers onside to improve the chances of success for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make amends to the First Nations people, whose occupation of this continent for more than 60,000 years was not acknowledged when European settlement began. I've also listened intently to and observed his comments here and elsewhere when he has said he'll vote yes, even as he argues that the reference to 'executive government' should be dropped in this constitutional amendment. The member for Berowra is saying that removing the term 'executive government' from the legislation will improve the referendum's prospects. As I said in my speech in the second reading debate, I fear that it will do the reverse. I understand the member's good-faith intention to alleviate the concerns of some, but I fear that such a change will undermine confidence in the point of all of this among all Australians but particularly First Nations Australians, who rightly deserve something more than symbolism. The threshold question before us today is this: will these amendments make any difference to the attitudes expressed by the parliamentary representatives of the Liberal and National parties? Will it encourage them to reverse course and wholeheartedly campaign for a 'yes' vote? Based on the fact that the member for Berowra found it necessary to resign from shadow cabinet because he could not accept the opposition frontbench position, I don't think so. Based on the opposition leader's speech in the second reading debate, I also very much doubt it. When he declared that the Voice would re-racialise and permanently divide us by race, I cannot see how the member for Berowra's amendments will change a thing. These amendments are more about politics than they are about the law, and it is the people to my right who are seeking to divide, not those of us who support this referendum. The opposition leader is particularly troubled that the Voice will have access to the executive, arguing that it will be able to make representations on any matter and that there's an obligation on the government to advise the Voice in advance before making any law or policy relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, not to make any law before receiving representation, to consider any representation and to give effect to representations when making any law or policy. But respected constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey says this is just not the case. As she said in her submission to the joint select committee reviewing this legislation: There is no obligation upon Parliament or the Executive Government to respond to the representations or give effect to them. There is no obligation of prior consultation. There is no requirement to wait to receive a representation before the Executive Government of Parliament can act. The SPEAKER 53517 Order! I just pause the member for a moment. We are dealing with the detailed amendments of the member for Berowra. Under the standing orders, the member is required to deal with those amendments only, not a broader debate. I ask you to direct your comments to the member's motion. Ms DANIEL 008CH Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will conclude simply by saying that the Voice is a simple proposition to make representations—a simple and generous invitation. I will not be supporting these amendments. 09:25 Mr GEE 261393 Calare I have tremendous respect for the member for Berowra and for the enormous amount of work that he has carried out on this vitally important issue for our country, but I cannot support the amendments that he is proposing today. The point of the words that are currently contained in the bill, unamended, is that the bill goes beyond just symbolic recognition of Australia's Indigenous peoples. It goes beyond the tokenistic; it is recognition that means something. If you take out clause (2), which is the operative clause, the Voice is rendered meaningless. Indeed, the joint select committee that looked at this Voice referendum heard evidence to that effect. If you really want constitutional uncertainty or if you really want constitutional chaos, then take out the very clause that defines the Voice. That is what these amendments propose: they take out the operative clause and leave the Voice as totally ill-defined. I don't think that that serves the interests of the nation or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people because, at the end of the day, the Voice is about getting better results on the ground for communities around Australia. We know, and many in this House have seen firsthand, the very important and crucial role the executive, or Public Service, plays in the formulation, the implementation and the progress of policy on any different subject matter. So it is vitally important that the Voice is able to speak to the executive, and I don't think it's too much to ask. It will lead to better results on the ground if this bill is unamended and remains that way. As I have said, I have tremendous respect for the member for Berowra, and I regard him as a friend, but I am not able to support these amendments today. I commend the bill, unamended, to the House, and I commend the Voice to the Australian people. The SPEAKER 53517 The question is that the amendments be disagreed to. Question agreed to. The SPEAKER 53517 The question before the House is that the bill be agreed to.    

The House divided. [09:33]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

 121 AYES Albanese, A. N. Aly, A. Ananda-Rajah, M. Andrews, K. L. Archer, B. K. Bandt, A. P. Bates, S. J. Bell, A. M. Bowen, C. E. Burke, A. S. Burnell, M. P. Burney, L. J. Burns, J. Butler, M. C. Byrnes, A. J. Chalmers, J. E. Chandler-Mather, M. Chaney, K. E. Charlton, A. H. G. Chesters, L. M. Clare J. D. Claydon, S. C. Coker, E. A. Coleman, D. B. Collins, J. M. Conroy, P. M. Daniel, Z. Doyle, M. J. J. Dreyfus, M. A. Dutton, P. C. Elliot, M. J. Entsch, W. G. Fernando, C. Fletcher, P. W. Freelander, M. R. Garland, C. M. L. Gee, A. R. Georganas, S. Giles, A. J. Gorman, P. Gosling, L. J. Haines, H. M. Hastie, A. W. Hill, J. C. Husic, E. N. Jones, S. P. Kearney, G. M. Keogh, M. J. Khalil, P. King, C. F. Lawrence, T. N. Laxale, J. A. A. Le, D. Leeser, J. Leigh, A. K. Ley, S. P. Lim, S. B. C. Marino, N. B. Marles, R. D. Mascarenhas, Z. F. A. McBain, K. L. McBride, E. M. McIntosh, M. I. McKenzie, Z. A. Miller-Frost, L. J. Mitchell, B. K. Mitchell, R. G. Morrison, S. J. Mulino, D. Murphy, P. J. Neumann, S. K. O'Brien, E. L. O'Connor, B. P. J. O'Neil, C. E. Payne, A. E. Pearce, G. B. Perrett, G. D. Phillips, F. E. Plibersek, T. J. Price, M. L. Rae, S. T. Ramsey, R. E. Reid, G. J. Repacholi, D. P. Rishworth, A. L. Roberts, T. G. Rowland, M. A. Ryan, J. C. Ryan, M. M. Scamps, S. A. Scrymgour, M. R. Sharkie, R. C. C. Shorten, W. R. Sitou, S. Smith, D. P. B. (Teller) Spender, A. M. Stanley, A. M. (Teller) Steggall, Z. Stevens, J. Sukkar, M. S. Swanson, M. J. Taylor, A. J. Tehan, D. T. Templeman, S. R. Thistlethwaite, M. J. Thompson, P. Thwaites, K. L. Tink, K. J. Vamvakinou, M. van Manen, A. J. Vasta, R. X. Violi, A. A. Ware, J. L. Watson-Brown, E. Watts, T. G. Wells, A. S. Wilkie, A. D. Wilson, J. H. Wolahan, K. Wood, J. P. Zappia, A. 25 NOES Birrell, S. J. Boyce, C. E. Buchholz, S. (Teller) Chester, D. J. Conaghan, P. J. Coulton, M. M. (Teller) Gillespie, D. A. Goodenough, I. R. Hamilton, G. R. Hawke, A. G. Hogan, K. J. Howarth, L. R. Joyce, B. T. G. Landry, M. L. Littleproud, D. McCormack, M. F. O'Brien, L. S. Pasin, A. Pike, H. J. Pitt, K. J. Wallace, A. B. Webster, A. E. Willcox, A. J. Wilson, R. J. Young, T. J. 0 PAIRS

Bill agreed to.

 Third Reading 6 09:37 Mr DREYFUS HWG Isaacs by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. The SPEAKER 53517 The question before the House is that this bill be now read a third time.    

The House divided. [09:41]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

121 AYES Albanese, A. N. Aly, A. Ananda-Rajah, M. Andrews, K. L. Archer, B. K. Bandt, A. P. Bates, S. J. Bell, A. M. Bowen, C. E. Burke, A. S. Burnell, M. P. Burney, L. J. Burns, J. Butler, M. C. Byrnes, A. J. Chalmers, J. E. Chandler-Mather, M. Chaney, K. E. Charlton, A. H. G. Chesters, L. M. Clare J. D. Claydon, S. C. Coker, E. A. Coleman, D. B. Collins, J. M. Conroy, P. M. Daniel, Z. Doyle, M. J. J. Dreyfus, M. A. Dutton, P. C. Elliot, M. J. Entsch, W. G. Fernando, C. Fletcher, P. W. Freelander, M. R. Garland, C. M. L. Gee, A. R. Georganas, S. Giles, A. J. Gorman, P. Gosling, L. J. Haines, H. M. Hastie, A. W. Hill, J. C. Husic, E. N. Jones, S. P. Kearney, G. M. Keogh, M. J. Khalil, P. King, C. F. Lawrence, T. N. Laxale, J. A. A. Le, D. Leeser, J. Leigh, A. K. Ley, S. P. Lim, S. B. C. Marino, N. B. Marles, R. D. Mascarenhas, Z. F. A. McBain, K. L. McBride, E. M. McIntosh, M. I. McKenzie, Z. A. Miller-Frost, L. J. Mitchell, B. K. Mitchell, R. G. Morrison, S. J. Mulino, D. Murphy, P. J. Neumann, S. K. O'Brien, E. L. O'Connor, B. P. J. O'Neil, C. E. Payne, A. E. Pearce, G. B. Perrett, G. D. Phillips, F. E. Plibersek, T. J. Price, M. L. Rae, S. T. Ramsey, R. E. Reid, G. J. Repacholi, D. P. Rishworth, A. L. Roberts, T. G. Rowland, M. A. Ryan, J. C. Ryan, M. M. Scamps, S. A. Scrymgour, M. R. Sharkie, R. C. C. Shorten, W. R. Sitou, S. Smith, D. P. B. (Teller) Spender, A. M. Stanley, A. M. (Teller) Steggall, Z. Stevens, J. Sukkar, M. S. Swanson, M. J. Taylor, A. J. Tehan, D. T. Templeman, S. R. Thistlethwaite, M. J. Thompson, P. Thwaites, K. L. Tink, K. J. Vamvakinou, M. van Manen, A. J. Vasta, R. X. Violi, A. A. Ware, J. L. Watson-Brown, E. Watts, T. G. Wells, A. S. Wilkie, A. D. Wilson, J. H. Wolahan, K. Wood, J. P. Zappia, A. 25 NOES Birrell, S. J. Boyce, C. E. Buchholz, S. (Teller) Chester, D. J. Conaghan, P. J. Coulton, M. M. (Teller) Gillespie, D. A. Goodenough, I. R. Hamilton, G. R. Hawke, A. G. Hogan, K. J. Howarth, L. R. Joyce, B. T. G. Landry, M. L. Littleproud, D. McCormack, M. F. O'Brien, L. S. Pasin, A. Pike, H. J. Pitt, K. J. Wallace, A. B. Webster, A. E. Willcox, A. J. Wilson, R. J. Young, T. J. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to, with an absolute majority.
Bill read a third time.

 Migration Amendment (Giving Documents and Other Measures) Bill 2023 7

Migration Amendment (Giving Documents and Other Measures) Bill 2023

Report from Federation Chamber 7 09:48 The SPEAKER 53517 The question is that the bill be now read a second time.    

The House divided. [09:52]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

91 AYES Albanese, A. N. Aly, A. Ananda-Rajah, M. Bandt, A. P. Bates, S. J. Bowen, C. E. Burke, A. S. Burnell, M. P. Burney, L. J. Burns, J. Butler, M. C. Byrnes, A. J. Chalmers, J. E. Chandler-Mather, M. Chaney, K. E. Charlton, A. H. G. Chesters, L. M. Clare J. D. Claydon, S. C. Coker, E. A. Collins, J. M. Conroy, P. M. Daniel, Z. Doyle, M. J. J. Dreyfus, M. A. Elliot, M. J. Fernando, C. Freelander, M. R. Garland, C. M. L. Gee, A. R. Georganas, S. Giles, A. J. Gorman, P. Gosling, L. J. Haines, H. M. Hill, J. C. Husic, E. N. Jones, S. P. Kearney, G. M. Keogh, M. J. Khalil, P. King, C. F. Lawrence, T. N. Laxale, J. A. A. Leigh, A. K. Lim, S. B. C. Marles, R. D. Mascarenhas, Z. F. A. McBain, K. L. McBride, E. M. Miller-Frost, L. J. Mitchell, B. K. Mitchell, R. G. Mulino, D. Murphy, P. J. Neumann, S. K. O'Connor, B. P. J. O'Neil, C. E. Payne, A. E. Perrett, G. D. Phillips, F. E. Plibersek, T. J. Rae, S. T. Reid, G. J. Repacholi, D. P. Rishworth, A. L. Roberts, T. G. Rowland, M. A. Ryan, J. C. Ryan, M. M. Scamps, S. A. Scrymgour, M. R. Sharkie, R. C. C. Shorten, W. R. Sitou, S. Smith, D. P. B. (Teller) Spender, A. M. Stanley, A. M. (Teller) Steggall, Z. Swanson, M. J. Templeman, S. R. Thistlethwaite, M. J. Thwaites, K. L. Tink, K. J. Vamvakinou, M. Watson-Brown, E. Watts, T. G. Wells, A. S. Wilkie, A. D. Wilson, J. H. Zappia, A. 53 NOES Andrews, K. L. Bell, A. M. Birrell, S. J. Boyce, C. E. Buchholz, S. Chester, D. J. Coleman, D. B. Conaghan, P. J. Coulton, M. M. (Teller) Dutton, P. C. Entsch, W. G. Fletcher, P. W. Gillespie, D. A. Goodenough, I. R. Hamilton, G. R. Hastie, A. W. Hawke, A. G. Hogan, K. J. Howarth, L. R. Joyce, B. T. G. Landry, M. L. Leeser, J. Ley, S. P. Littleproud, D. Marino, N. B. McCormack, M. F. McIntosh, M. I. McKenzie, Z. A. Morrison, S. J. O'Brien, E. L. O'Brien, L. S. Pasin, A. Pearce, G. B. Pike, H. J. Pitt, K. J. Price, M. L. Ramsey, R. E. (Teller) Stevens, J. Sukkar, M. S. Taylor, A. J. Tehan, D. T. Thompson, P. van Manen, A. J. Vasta, R. X. Violi, A. A. Wallace, A. B. Ware, J. L. Webster, A. E. Willcox, A. J. Wilson, R. J. Wolahan, K. Wood, J. P. Young, T. J. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.

Consideration in Detail 8 09:57 Mr TEHAN 210911 Wannon by leave—I move amendments (1) and (2) as circulated in my name together: (1) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 3), omit the table item. (2) Schedule 2, page 11 (line 1) to page 12 (line 4), omit the Schedule. The coalition supports the first two changes to the act that the bill makes, but we have reservations on the third proposed change. The first two areas of the bill make relatively minor amendments to the Migration Act which will improve the operation of the act and reduce matters that go to the AAT or the Federal Court on minor technical matters. The third area basically reduces the workload of the minister and the department by removing the requirement for the minister to consider an application to allow someone to be able to lodge a protection visa application due to dual citizenship issues. The coalition cannot support this change as we believe it will have unintended consequences. Therefore, I have moved the amendment circulated in my name. I note the bills digest prepared by the Parliamentary Library on the bill suggests that the provisions that the government are now trying to remove were introduced in 1999 by the enactment of the Border Protection Legislation Amendment Act 1999. The specific provisions were not included in the original bill but were put passed by the Senate with the support of the then Howard government and the opposition. As noted in ALP Senator Chris Schacht's second reading speech, the amendments were intended to prevent forum shopping by persons seeking to enter Australia. Senator Schacht said: Clearly there is evidence emerging that forum shopping is about how people, with the assistance of people smugglers, try to make arrangements to end up in the country of their first desire, where they think would be the nicest place for them to go, and the place that would provide the best facilities and the best future. We cannot blame people for having that view; that is a natural human reaction. But when it gets to the stage where, in one form or another, the international and national procedures for dealing with refugees are being, if not abused, at least bent, so that countries like Australia are unnecessarily targeted, we have every right as a nation to make laws in respect of those arrangements. This is reflected in section 91M of the Migration Act, which states that these provisions were enacted: … because the Parliament considers that a non-citizen who can avail himself or herself of protection from a third country, because of nationality or some other right to re-enter and reside in the third country, should seek protection from the third country instead of applying in Australia for a protection visa … When this amendment was introduced, the Labor Party supported it. Now they're seeking to remove it. If the government is not careful, undermining the strong border protection regime bit by bit will lead to a consequence that I think none of us in this place want to see, and that is the boats returning. So that is why we have moved those amendments in my name. 10:01 Mr GILES 243609 Scullin The government will not be accepting the amendments proposed by the shadow minister. I'll speak very briefly to that. I want to acknowledge he and his staff and other members of the crossbench have engaged in good faith on this bill which deals with some serious matters, including this aspect. I note and welcome the support of the opposition and, I believe, all members for the first two parts of this bill. In respect of the second part, I hear the concerns that have been expressed and will speak briefly to them knowing that there will be debate and further consideration in the other place. Firstly, I think it is important that we all recognise that quite a bit has changed since 1999, particularly in respect of the circumstances of dual citizenship. More broadly, I think it is important to recognise and for me to put on the record that, of course, a protection visa application can still be refused for dual nationals who can avail themselves of protection from a third country because of nationality or some other right to re-enter and reside in that third country and, of course, section 36 of the Migration Act broadly provides that Australia does not have protection obligations in respect of a person who has a right to enter and reside in another country, including countries of which that person is a national. For these reasons, I commend the bill, unamended, to the House. The SPEAKER 53517 The question is that the amendments be disagreed to.    

The House divided. [10:07]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

 89 AYES Albanese, A. N. Aly, A. Ananda-Rajah, M. Bandt, A. P. Bates, S. J. Bowen, C. E. Burke, A. S. Burnell, M. P. Burney, L. J. Burns, J. Butler, M. C. Byrnes, A. J. Chalmers, J. E. Chandler-Mather, M. Chaney, K. E. Charlton, A. H. G. Chesters, L. M. Clare J. D. Claydon, S. C. Coker, E. A. Collins, J. M. Conroy, P. M. Daniel, Z. Doyle, M. J. J. Dreyfus, M. A. Elliot, M. J. Fernando, C. Freelander, M. R. Garland, C. M. L. Georganas, S. Giles, A. J. Gorman, P. Gosling, L. J. Haines, H. M. Hill, J. C. Husic, E. N. Jones, S. P. Kearney, G. M. Keogh, M. J. Khalil, P. King, C. F. Lawrence, T. N. Laxale, J. A. A. Leigh, A. K. Lim, S. B. C. Marles, R. D. Mascarenhas, Z. F. A. McBain, K. L. McBride, E. M. Miller-Frost, L. J. Mitchell, B. K. Mitchell, R. G. Mulino, D. Murphy, P. J. Neumann, S. K. O'Connor, B. P. J. O'Neil, C. E. Payne, A. E. Perrett, G. D. Phillips, F. E. Plibersek, T. J. Rae, S. T. Reid, G. J. Repacholi, D. P. Rishworth, A. L. Roberts, T. G. Rowland, M. A. Ryan, J. C. Ryan, M. M. Scamps, S. A. Scrymgour, M. R. Shorten, W. R. Sitou, S. Smith, D. P. B. (Teller) Spender, A. M. Stanley, A. M. (Teller) Steggall, Z. Swanson, M. J. Templeman, S. R. Thistlethwaite, M. J. Thwaites, K. L. Tink, K. J. Vamvakinou, M. Watson-Brown, E. Watts, T. G. Wells, A. S. Wilkie, A. D. Wilson, J. H. Zappia, A. 56 NOES Andrews, K. L. Archer, B. K. Bell, A. M. Birrell, S. J. Boyce, C. E. Buchholz, S. Chester, D. J. Coleman, D. B. Conaghan, P. J. Coulton, M. M. (Teller) Dutton, P. C. Entsch, W. G. Fletcher, P. W. Gee, A. R. Gillespie, D. A. Goodenough, I. R. Hamilton, G. R. Hastie, A. W. Hawke, A. G. Hogan, K. J. Howarth, L. R. Joyce, B. T. G. Landry, M. L. Le, D. Leeser, J. Ley, S. P. Littleproud, D. Marino, N. B. McCormack, M. F. McIntosh, M. I. McKenzie, Z. A. Morrison, S. J. O'Brien, E. L. O'Brien, L. S. Pasin, A. Pearce, G. B. Pike, H. J. Pitt, K. J. Price, M. L. Ramsey, R. E. (Teller) Stevens, J. Sukkar, M. S. Taylor, A. J. Tehan, D. T. Thompson, P. van Manen, A. J. Vasta, R. X. Violi, A. A. Wallace, A. B. Ware, J. L. Webster, A. E. Willcox, A. J. Wilson, R. J. Wolahan, K. Wood, J. P. Young, T. J. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.
Bill agreed to.

 Third Reading 10 10:11 Mr GILES 243609 Scullin by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures No. 2) Bill 2023 10

Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures No. 2) Bill 2023

Report from Federation Chamber 10 Third Reading 10 10:13 Mr KEOGH 249147 Burt by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2023 11

Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2023

Second Reading 11 10:14 Ms BELL 282981 Moncrieff As a constructive opposition, we've always said that we will assess each of the Albanese government's proposals on its merits. The Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2023 seeks to amend the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999 to correct administrative errors regarding the way overpayments of the childcare subsidy are recovered by the Commonwealth government. These errors were unintended, and these amendments will ensure the legislation matches up with the policy and practice of recovering childcare subsidy overpayments. The government has assured the coalition that this will not change the way overpayments are collected, and so the coalition will be supporting this bill. We also understand that the bill will make it easier for providers and of course families to know which debts they may be responsible for, ensuring early childhood education and care providers are responsible for debts incurred by their actions—reporting and maintaining enrolments—and families are responsible for debts incurred by their actions, and income and activity details. The amendments also ensure that providers are not claiming CCS for children who have yet to attend their centre—this is sometimes known as place-holding—or have left the centre with no plans to return. The federal government spends billions of dollars a year through the CCS. So any measures put in place to protect the integrity of the scheme and to prevent fraud will always be supported by the coalition. The coalition government's 2018 reforms to the childcare subsidy were the biggest reforms undertaken in over 40 years. We stand by those reforms. And we stand by our record in government. On our watch, we almost doubled childcare investment to $11 billion and locked in ongoing funding for preschools and kindergartens. We increased access to CCS for more than 1.3 million children from around one million families. We got 280,000 more children into early childhood education. We brought down out-of-pocket costs by 4.6 per cent in the year to June 2022. We saw women's workforce participation reach record highs, at 62.3 per cent in May 2022, compared to 58.7 per cent when Labor last left office in 2013. I would also like to take the opportunity to talk more broadly on the early learning sector and to ask the government what they're doing to ensure that, come 1 July, every family that wants to access ECE can do so. We've all seen the Mitchell institute data; we know that over nine million Australians live in a childcare desert. It's particularly bad in South Australia, where 82 per cent of South Australians are living without access to a centre. We also know, from data released this week by the ACCC, that many families are struggling to get off waitlists and into care, even if they're registering their children before they are even born. The coalition supported the Albanese government's cheaper childcare bill last year. We support additional access to ECE so that families can return to work or study or take on more hours, and, in this current cost-of-living crisis, many families need both parents to work. But we again raise concerns that we have raised for almost 12 months now: that little is being done to ensure families living in regional, rural and remote Australia have access to ECE equal to those living in our major cities. I've visited and spoken with many communities who have no access at all. Tumby Bay is one such community—a beautiful town in South Australia represented by my friend and colleague the member for Grey. There they have no access to ECE at all and an increasing number of new and expectant mothers. There are nurses who cannot return to work in the nearby hospital, so the hospital must fly in nurses from WA. There are teachers who cannot return to work at the local school, which may actually have to close. There are families leaving this beautiful town to go somewhere else because they cannot work and need the income. This government needs to do more for those families. They deserve access to quality ECE and they shouldn't be forgotten about just because they live outside the major cities. The regions are the backbone of this country, and it's time this Albanese government acknowledged that. We also know that, come 1 July, there'll be families who cannot access traditional ECE—maybe they work shift work, and so the standard nine to five or sometimes seven to six doesn't work for them. More needs to be done to support those families who will not benefit from cheaper ECE from 1 July. The coalition has always believed in choice—choice for you to spend your money, and choice for you in how you raise your family. We want to see more choice and more flexibility in the sector so that all families, no matter where they live or what they do for work, have equal access to early childhood education. 10:19 Dr ALY 13050 Cowan I thank the member for her contribution to the debate on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Subsidy) Bill 2023. This bill will align family assistance legislation with longstanding policy and practice. It will confirm who is responsible for the repayment of overpaid amounts of CCS subsidy and provide further clarity for providers and families. Where an error in existing legislation is identified it is important that we act swiftly, and that is what this government has done with this bill. I welcome the opposition's support for the measures in this bill—they are important measures which will improve the integrity of the childcare subsidy system and ensure that recovery of payments is made appropriately. I commend the bill to the House. Bill read a second time. Third Reading 12 10:21 Dr ALY 13050 Cowan by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023 12

Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023

Second Reading 12 10:21 Mr SUKKAR 242515 Deakin This omnibus social services bill includes a range of measures that the government announced in the budget. We have considered each of the proposals put forward by the government, and in essence we can say that we will be supporting the expanded eligibility for assistance for single parents, we will support the expansion to the higher rate of JobSeeker for those aged 55 as opposed to 60 at present. We will support the increase in Commonwealth rental assistance of 15 per cent, as announced. But we will call on the government to support the coalition's policy in relation to JobSeeker as announced in the Leader of the Opposition's budget-in-reply speech in relation to the government's announcement to increase working-age payments such as JobSeeker by $40 a fortnight. I will largely confine my remarks to that aspect of this bill and will be moving an amendment in relation to that aspect of the bill in a moment. At the moment, we have historically low unemployment rates, we have 438,000 formal job vacancies and, I suspect, many hundreds of thousands of informal job vacancies. We have a small- and medium-business sector—indeed all businesses, let's be frank—who are crying out for workers, crying out for employees. I expect there are few people in this chamber and, indeed, few people in Australia more broadly who can walk down any shopping strip and not see signs in the windows advertising for staff, asking people to apply within for a job. The tightness of the labour market is very clear to everybody, and the human toll of that is quite significant because we have millions of Australians who get up every single day, work hard and pay their taxes to fund our social welfare system, and who are working harder. Under this government, their cost of living is skyrocketing. The average mortgage holder is paying an extra $22,000 a year more, spending thousands of dollars more on grocery bills and thousands of dollars more on power prices. These are the people who ultimately fund our social welfare system—the millions of Australians who get up every day and are very happy to pay their taxes and are very happy to contribute to our social welfare system—but they do expect that people avail themselves of the opportunity to work where there are jobs available. I think it's without question that there are hundreds of thousands of jobs available today. That is why in the opposition leader's budget-in-reply speech, we outlined a far preferable way of providing additional support to people on JobSeeker. Our approach has been to increase the income threshold before which the very punitive taper rates of JobSeeker payments kick in, from $150 to $300 a fortnight, giving those people more opportunities to work, which we know is wonderful for the economy, we know is crucially vital for small and medium businesses who are looking for more employees and looking for people to do more hours but, more importantly, is the best thing for that JobSeeker recipient. Encouraging a JobSeeker recipient by giving them that financial incentive to take up hours of work that we know are available or to take up even further hours of work if they are already working is a far better way in this economic environment of providing support to those JobSeeker recipients as opposed to simply increasing the amount of JobSeeker that they receive for no work, with no requirement or incentive to do additional work or even to do some work. 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: (1) notes: (a) while in Government, the Coalition through disciplined economic management was able to deliver the largest permanent increase to the JobSeeker income support payment; (b) this increase saw a $50 per fortnight increase in JobSeeker with the income free area increased to $150 per fortnight to support job seekers as they secure employment and re-enter the workforce; (c) throughout the height of the COVID-19 pandemic the Coalition Government provided $32 billion in emergency support payments; (d) JobSeeker payment is not meant to be a wage replacement and creating jobs and getting people back into work is the best way to improve the living standards of people and their families; (e) every taxpayer dollar spent is a dollar that someone else earned; (f) there are over 840,000 JobSeeker recipients of which more than 75 per cent had no reported earnings, that is, no part-time work; and (g) the failure of this year's Budget to reduce barriers to work and get Australians to fill over 438,000 job vacancies; and (2) calls on the Government to scrap the $40 per fortnight increase to the base rate of working age pensions and implement the Coalition's policy to increase the income free area to $300 a fortnight to allow job seekers to earn more and still retain the full JobSeeker allowance". It goes without saying that removing what I think most people acknowledge can be very punitive taper rates in our welfare system, particularly for JobSeeker, and by increasing the income threshold from $150 to $300 a fortnight achieves each of the objectives that I suspect all fair-minded people would be after. Firstly, it helps alleviate labour shortages that are currently being faced throughout the economy. As I said, there are 438,000 formal job vacancies, and we all know there'd be hundreds of thousands of informal job vacancies—that sign in a window that's not formally captured or reported. It helps those businesses. I know of businesses like this right now. In Melbourne there is a restaurant and cafe which operates from morning to night, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The small-business owners of this cafe-restaurant have never, since they started the business 20 years ago, had to work both ends of the day: opening up the cafe at six o'clock in the morning, getting that started, and then closing it after dinner, late in the evening. But they are doing both ends of the day now because, for the first time in a very long time, they're unable to find an employee who will do the hours they now have to make up. They have said to me, 'We'll do this for as long as we can, but we're not sure we can do it for long. Physically, we're not sure how long we can do this for.' Our amendment not only helps them by encouraging more people to do more hours or, as I pointed out, encouraging the 75 per cent of JobSeeker recipients who had no reported earnings to actually do some hours without it eating into their JobSeeker payment. It helps that small business as well. It helps that family. It helps those people who are creating jobs and creating wealth for our country. It also means that people are getting the vital skills that they need for meaningful long-term employment. We all know that the longer you're out of the workforce, the harder it is to re-enter it. Again, it should be plainly obvious to everybody in this House that the coalition's approach of incentivising work, not incentivising welfare, is the best approach for those people. It's ultimately best for the JobSeeker recipient too. It's not just about the economic dividend, the improvement that it provides to our economy more broadly, which I know we often focus on in this chamber. Think about the individuals on JobSeeker. Surely nobody believes that encouraging people into work, removing the barriers to employment, is anything other than a policy designed to help those individuals on JobSeeker. We all know the dignity of work and the dignity of having a mission. For that reason, our approach is far superior, and we will continue to encourage the government to adopt this policy. I give credit to the government; they partially adopted the policy that we announced in our budget reply in October, in relation to senior Australians being able to work further hours. They did it begrudgingly, but in the end they saw the absolute commonsense in our proposal. The logic and commonsense in this proposal are just as profound as in that one. In defence of people who are doing part-time hours on JobSeeker, the taper rate of what you lose for every marginal extra dollar you earn over the $150 threshold is punitive. People are making decisions, asking themselves, 'Do I do those extra hours even though I'm going to lose a huge portion of that in a reduced Jobseeker payment which I would otherwise receive?' That's what I mean when I'm talking about removing barriers. I think, undoubtedly, the best way to help facilitate people into meaningful work is to help them make that first step. How do you make them make that first step? You remove the barrier, the financial disincentive, of doing that extra hour, taking that job or taking on that part-time work. The evidence is clear: where you can facilitate someone who is unemployed into part-time work it is often a pathway into meaningful part-time or full-time work. That's an outstanding dividend for that person, for our economy and for our welfare bill. It's a trifecta. Compare that with what the Labor Party is proposing. The Labor Party's proposing, in this bill, $9½ billion of spending over the forward estimates, undoubtedly putting even more pressure on inflation. Every dollar the government spends, at a time when the Reserve Bank is trying to effectively remove money from the economy, just means that the government and the RBA are working at cross-purposes to one another. It means the risk that inflation stays higher for longer, which means mortgages stay higher for longer. The perverse part of this proposal from the government in relation to JobSeeker is that the people who get up and work every day and happily pay their taxes—work their guts out—not only are having their living standards go backwards at a rate of knots but also are going to fund increased spending from this government that is likely to have the impact of higher inflation for longer. That is going to impact their living standards even further. So, not only do they pay for social welfare out of one pocket but they get smashed on the other side as well, with higher cost-of-living expenses. The coalition's strong view is that we need to respect those people who get up every single day and work hard. Many of them, quite rightly, say to me that there are hundreds of thousands of jobs available right now—hundreds of thousands. So, there is widespread support for our approach to removing these disincentives to work and encouraging people to work. Sure, it's a fairness objective as much as anything. It's good for the person themself. But we can't keep expecting hardworking Australians to be funding our social welfare system if the government's not going to help them and encourage those jobseekers to re-enter the workforce. That's what this proposal does. We encourage the government, either here or in the Senate, to have a rethink, to reflect on this far superior proposal. The wonderful thing about this amendment, too, is that if a jobseeker avails themself of this opportunity then they will be financially better off. A jobseeker who increases their earnings, under the coalition's proposal, from $150 to $300 a fortnight—obviously earning that extra $150 without impacting their JobSeeker payment—will be $150 better off, compared with $40 better off under the Labor Party. So they will be personally better off as well, and that's without taking into account the other benefits I've spoken about—of re-entering the workforce, of engaging in the workforce: what it does for your self-esteem, for your morale, for your life, by being engaged in work. Again, most fair-minded Australians would say that when there are hundreds of thousands of jobs available then able-bodied people who are able to work should be working; they should be taking up those jobs. Then the question is: how do you encourage them or remove the barriers for them to do that? Well, it's very clear: you provide them with an incentive to work; you remove the barriers, rather than what the government is proposing, which is simply to increase the payment and ask hardworking Australians to fund just a little bit more—just a little bit more of your tax, a little bit more from you, while your cost of living is skyrocketing, while in material terms you're poorer now than you were 12 months ago, when the Labor government was elected. When the cost of the absolute basics of life—mortgage, food and energy—is skyrocketing, this government's asking those people to pay a bit more, rather than the alternative which we are proposing here again today, which is to encourage those people who are not in work to find and take up the abundant jobs that are available and to do it not just for themselves but also for the broader economy. I'll reiterate our position in relation to each of the other measures contained in the schedules. We will support, and we do continue to support, the change for eligibility for assistance to single parents. I think it's worthwhile noting, though—and it's very important that I mention it in this context—the quite disgraceful things that the government has said and that the government, sadly, is going to do in relation to the ParentsNext program. In an astonishing attack on what I consider some of our most vulnerable people, the government confirmed that it will abolish the ParentsNext program. This is a program that keeps young parents, who are overwhelmingly women, connected to the workforce. This will clearly punish some of our most vulnerable people and reduce and remove a very successful way of keeping them connected to work. It's a vital program to help them maintain that connection whilst facilitating their parental responsibilities, and it shows to Australians that this government has no understanding of mutual obligation, or maybe they do have an understanding but they have an ideological opposition to mutual obligation. For a parent who is out of the workforce for many, many years, it's to some extent cruel for the government to say, 'We're going to remove the ParentsNext program which helps keep you connected and job ready, but once your child turns 14'—so they're potentially out of the workforce for that long—'all the mutual obligation kicks in again, and you're expected after 14 years of being out of the workforce to get straight back into it.' That is essentially the expectation of removing ParentsNext. Even though this is an increase from eight to14 years, it's an extraordinarily long time in a policy sense to say that someone who is potentially out of the workforce for that long is going to be job ready once their child turns 14: 'Bang! I'm ready to go, even though I haven't been in the workforce for that long.' So it's quite shameful, ideologically, that the government has abolished the ParentsNext program. I would be very keen to hear from the minister what the government proposes to do to keep people connected to the workforce and to be job ready when their child does hit those milestones. When they are able to work and they do want to work, what practical and tangible assistance will be provided instead of the ParentsNext program? Abolishing this program, we all know, is ideological, but even the government, through their ideological lens, must accept that they have to do something to help parents, whilst managing their parental responsibilities, also to remain connected to the workforce. The point in time will come when, under our mutual obligation system, they will be expected to re-enter the workforce. The government is thinking that, magically, after many, many years of being out of the workforce, people are going to be ready to jump back in. Undoubtedly some will be, but many will not. Without the ParentsNext program, I fear that that situation will get worse for those parents. To sum up, we will support the expansion of the higher rate of JobSeeker to those aged 55. We will support the increase to Commonwealth rental assistance. We are, to some extent, drawn to the position of supporting Labor's increase to CRA because of how badly they have managed the housing portfolio and how desperate the situation is out there now. We have a government with no housing agenda. We have a government that is seeking to bring in 1½ million migrants over the next five years, with absolutely no plan for where those people will live. The situation right now is absolutely dire, and the government isn't even saying: 'Things won't get worse. We've got no plans to make things better, but it will at least plateau at this level.' Instead, they are saying, 'We'll bring in 1½ million people with absolutely no idea where those people will live.' That is, it's going to get a whole lot worse. We saw in the budget in October the government with their Rudd-esque announcement of a million new homes over five years. They didn't really want to mention that a million new homes had been built over the previous five years. That was business as usual, to be frank. Everybody knows—every economist, the HIA and the MBA—that they will now fail to meet that target. There won't be a million homes built. It will be significantly less than that. So we are drawn to supporting the increase to Commonwealth rental assistance, perversely, because of how badly housing policy has been mismanaged by this government. So we are brought to the table in supporting this measure because—whether you are a renter, whether you are a prospective first home buyer or whether you are struggling with a mortgage at the moment even though you were promised cheaper mortgages by the Prime Minister before the election—every single one of those groups is struggling so badly. Let's be frank. The increase to Commonwealth rental assistance will help a relatively small number of people. It'll be very few people around the country. But we are drawn to supporting this measure because the Labor Party has trashed the housing portfolio so badly in just 12 months that we can't in good conscience oppose this. So we will support that aspect of the bill as well. We are asking that the government reconsider their approach, that they adopt the far superior proposal from the coalition, which has respect for taxpayers, which will reduce inflationary pressures in the economy and which will remove the disincentives for people to work either more hours or at all. That will help hundreds of thousands of businesses around the country, businesses that are struggling, people who are literally working themselves to the bone, by giving them additional sources of employees. Finally, we call on the government to support our proposal, as opposed to theirs, because it will materially improve the lives of those jobseekers. Not only will they have more money at the end of every fortnight; they will re-engage in the workforce in a way that we know is the best thing for their lives, morale and self-esteem and financially, quite frankly. It's a trifecta of good outcomes for the economy, small businesses and the individual, as opposed to Labor's very lazy approach to JobSeeker. In this chamber, if the government does not adopt our approach and stubbornly refuses to adopt the more superior approach of removing disincentives to work and giving people the ability to earn more money, we will not stand in the way of the bill and will therefore support it. But that doesn't mean that we won't be encouraging the government at every opportunity here and also in the other place to take up what is an eminently sensible idea. The hallmark of a good government is when you take up ideas, even when they are not your own but you know they are good. It shows a maturity when you can say, 'Okay, it wasn't our idea, but clearly what the opposition here has proposed is superior for everybody.' If the government decides to do that, I will be very grateful and I will give them great credit for adopting another policy that we are proposing that makes so much sense. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265979 Is the amendment seconded? Mr Conaghan 279991 I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak. 10:51 Mr BRIAN MITCHELL 129164 Lyons I don't know what we just heard from the member for Deakin, honestly, talking about there being no housing plan from this government. We have a $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund in the Senate that his party is opposing. The member for Deakin, in concert with the member for Brisbane and other members of the Greens, are opposing in the Senate a $10 billion fund that will fund 30,000 homes for vulnerable Australians over five years, including 4,000 for women and children escaping domestic violence. He comes in here as a former housing and homelessness minister and talks about this government's record on housing, when we have a $10 billion fund in the wings ready to go; the green button is ready to go. We can press go any time the Senate passes that legislation. The reason it's being held up in the Senate is because of the member for Deakin's party and the member for Brisbane's party. We have a very comprehensive housing plan so for the member for Deakin—one of the most hopeless housing and homelessness ministers this country has ever seen, who allowed the housing shortage in this country to build up on his watch—to give lectures is just beyond the pale. Cost-of-living pressures are absolutely affecting every Australian, and the ripples are felt everywhere as we attempt to recover from a global pandemic that paused the world, decimated supply chains and damaged business. We are also dealing with a trillion-dollar debt left over to us by the former Liberal government. As prices continue to rise, families are forced to make difficult decisions and cut their budgets in order to make ends meet. In the face of soaring expenses, many families can find ways to navigate these challenging times. They become more conscious of their spending, they adopt practical strategies and they make sacrifices to ease the burden of rising costs. People make compromises in their everyday lives. They re-evaluate lifestyle choices and make conscious decisions to prioritise needs over wants. But for millions of households on low incomes, compromise can mean spending less on food, limiting energy use, downsizing homes or leaving study to return to work. It can mean taking on second or third jobs to make ends meet. These are the choices that people on low incomes make every day—pay the rent or buy food. They are not choices people should have to make. Regional and rural Australians in particular who find themselves in financial hardship do not always have the luxury of choice in these matters, and we need to support them in any way we can. I'm proud to be a member of an electorate that has some excellent neighbourhood houses and other groups in my that do food bags and food hampers for people in need. We are seeing a change in the demographics of people coming through who need those services. It used to be people who were unemployed or people with mental illness or addiction issues who required the services. Increasingly, it is people on low incomes who need those services to supplement because prices are rising. We are seeing that change going on not only as a result of worldwide inflation that we have but also as a result of the economic conditions we inherited from the former government. We saw 10 years of deskilling our young people. Those opposite ripped billions of dollars out of the skilling budget and we need time to build those skills up again. This government has taken the challenges facing our most vulnerable head-on in our 2023-24 budget, when the Treasurer announced $14.6 billion dollars of targeted cost-of-living relief, investing in Medicare, cheaper child care and medicines, supporting people with the power bills and increasing social security payments. The member for Deakin, in his risible contribution, made out that somehow—again, sowing division—people who are waged will resent offering this support to people who need it. But I remind the member for Deakin that most people who are unemployed have been employed previously. You're only a couple of pay cheques away from requiring hardship yourself. And the great Australian ethos is that you look after your mates, you look after people who need a hand up. That's what social security does, and we make no apologies for wanting to do that and strengthening the social security net. In our budget we targeted our most vulnerable people, to help them through these difficult times, without adding to inflation which would devastate even more Australians. We're very conscious of the impacts of inflation, and our budget was a reasoned and carefully considered response to the times we're in. We've made practical, measured changes that benefit people who need it and sets us up for a better future. Now, we've got nine years of mess to clean up. Those over there deskilled the economy, they ripped services out—I mean, robodebt: you'd need a 15-minute speech just to talk about the shocking impact of robodebt on people's lives. So, there is nine years worth of mess to clean up. But we won't let that get in the way of helping Australians who need our support. The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023 implements the income support measures in the government's cost-of-living package that was announced in the budget. As I said, Australians can find themselves financially vulnerable at any point in their lives. None of us are immune to requiring a hand up at some stage. This bill introduces amendments to strengthen the safety net that is there for all Australians when they need support. The measures in the bill will provide additional assistance to around two million income support recipients. With the amendments in this bill, the rates of JobSeeker, youth allowance, parenting payment, Austudy, Abstudy, disability support, and youth and special benefit will increase by $40 a fortnight from 20 September 2023—$40 a fortnight, or $20 a week. It's a modest increase, no doubt, but this increase will assist people who are on some of the lowest incomes in Australia and who rely on a safety net for support. I see that the member for Brisbane is about to get to his feet—after my speech, perhaps. No doubt he'll be calling for more. I respect his point of view in wanting there to be more for people on low incomes, but our budget response was carefully considered, with a lot of issues to weigh up, and we think this is the targeted, measured approach that we needed. More than one million Australians rely on these payments to live on. Whether they are out of work or have chosen to study to enhance their career prospects, they need support in these tough times. We're seeing record lows in employment at the moment—a remarkable achievement when we look back just a few years to the aftermath of the pandemic. But we're still seeing people struggling to get by. I want to draw the House's attention to a couple of comments the member for Deakin made about workforce shortages. Like him, I see in my electorate the posters on windows, and employers are coming to me saying they've got workforce shortages. They're undoubtedly there. But I say to employers: do better. I've heard personal stories, even just yesterday, about workers who are in jobs and their employers are not treating them as well as they could, so that they've got good employees on the books, willing to do the work. Employers are still putting them on casual contracts, still not doing the right thing by them. Look after the staff you've got and I think you'll have a better chance of getting the staff you need. I know from personal experience, from people very close to me—young people very close to me—that they've responded to some of those job advertisements on shop windows and have heard nothing back, from the same people who are crying out saying they desperately need staff. Young people are going through the exercise of applying for the jobs, and then they hear nothing back, and when they try to follow it up, they hear that their application's been lost or the employer will back to them at some stage. Do a bit better. Treat people with more respect, treat people with more dignity when they actually apply for these jobs, and I think you'll probably do a bit better. We are very proudly the party for the working people. We want to help people get back to work so they can support themselves. It's in our DNA. We are the party of higher wages, better working conditions and full employment. It's what we're here for. We know that, for some, our safety net is their lifeline to support them through difficult times as they ready themselves to get back to work. Financial payments are automatically indexed annually to reflect changes in cost of living, but many income support recipients are facing financial hardship with prices of food, rent and energy all increasing at the same time, and they're just the measures that the budget sought to address. It must be said that, again, those opposite come in here every question time talking about the impact of higher energy costs on businesses and on people, yet they sat there in December and voted against the government's energy bill relief bill. How they can do that in good conscience and then come here and lecture us about the impacts of higher energy prices, which we know are fuelled by international conditions, when they voted against a measure that is having a material effect on those prices themselves. They have no credibility on this matter at all. They just want to say 'no' and play the politics every single time. With the $40 increase of indexation changes over the past 12 months since May 2022, the base rate of JobSeeker payment has increased by 14 per cent. This is more than $90 more in people's pockets each fortnight to help them deal with cost-of-living pressures and equates to more than $2,300 in additional support each year. Payments, including JobSeeker, parenting payment and Commonwealth rent assistance, will also be indexed on 20 September as usual. This means recipients will receive increases resulting from this bill and from indexation at the same time. We know that single parents are finding times tough. In particular, juggling family with financial issues, work, study or looking for work is a daunting prospect. Single parents sacrifice a lot in their own lives to give their kids a better start in theirs. We need to support them in the tireless work they do. That's why we are expanding eligibility for single parenting payment to parents with their youngest child under 14, up from eight. This is a good measure. As children get older, the demands of parenting don't go away but they do change. Single parents are in a much stronger position to take on more paid work as their children get older. At the age of 14, kids generally need less parental supervision and single parents find themselves in a better position to find more paid work. More than 57,000 single parents will be better off by more than $170 a fortnight. We see older Australians, mostly women, struggling to get back into the workforce following bringing up their families or perhaps relationship breakdowns. The increased level of support for these people, the majority of whom are women, acknowledges the additional barriers that older Australians face when they are looking for work such as age discrimination or poor health. Over the past 10 years, the proportion of mature-age recipients on JobSeeker has significantly increased. The evidence shows that 81 per cent aged 55 or over stay on that payment for more than a year and over half stay on it for five years or more. So, we are expanding eligibility for the existing higher rate of JobSeeker to single recipients aged 55 and over who have been on income support for nine or more months. The higher rate is currently already available for people 60 and over. This will benefit more than 52,000 Australians. We, as a government, recognise that many renters are struggling with recent increases in their fortnightly rent bill, so we are supporting renters with the largest increase to Commonwealth rent assistance in more than 30 years. For those who have reached the maximum amount of rent assistance, we are increasing their payment by 15 per cent. Around 1.1 million households will benefit from an average increase of around $24 per fortnight. This includes recipients of JobSeeker and other working-age payments, student payments, the age pension, disability support, family tax benefit and veteran payments. With this 15 per cent increase since May 2022, the maximum amount of rent assistance for JobSeeker recipients who are single and living on their own will have increased by 24 per cent. This is $35 more each fortnight to help people on low incomes pay their rent. Sarah, a single parent in my electorate, will receive increases not only to her single parenting payment but also to JobSeeker and rent assistance payments. This means she will, as a result of the Labor government's policies, be at least $200 better off per fortnight. She will be eligible for cheaper childcare rebates and for an energy rebate. She can get herself and her young daughter to bulk-bill doctor's payments, and her regular medications will be cheaper. We're not saying this will remove all the financial pressures that Sarah faces and that other low-income earners are experiencing, but it will certainly help along the way to ensure that our vulnerable are not left behind. In conclusion, as a Labor government we believe in a strong social safety net which is there for all Australians when they need it. These payment increases benefit single parents, low-income households, students, older jobseekers and renters. These changes, paired with cheaper child care, additional paid parental leave, bulk-billing investment and cheaper medicines, work hand in hand as a package to alleviate the financial strains on people who have fallen on hard times. We will never look down on people needing our support. Our social security system is a safety net that any of us may need at some time in our lifetimes. Under this government, we will not leave anyone behind. That stands in stark contrast to the attitudes of those opposite, who seem intent, still, on demonising and victimising people requiring income social security and who still want to sow those seeds of division between the waged and unwaged and somehow make people who have jobs resent those who do not. It's not a game we're going to play. We believe every Australian, no matter who they are—no matter their gender, no matter their sexual orientation, no matter their ethnicity—deserves respect and dignity in this country, and we're determined to achieve it. 11:06 Mr BATES 300246 Brisbane I move, as an amendment to the second reading amendment moved by the member for Deakin: That all words after "second reading" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "the House calls on the government to ensure no one is left behind and lift all income support payments above the poverty line". Australia is in the midst of a housing crisis that is leaving more people in poverty than ever before. Inflation and the cost of living have soared while household incomes have not even shifted. Students, young people, disabled people, renters and entire communities are being asked to choose between turning on the heater and buying groceries. Meanwhile, the Labor government have shown, through their latest budget, that they care more about the approval of corporate CEOs in board rooms across the country than they do about the people facing hunger and homelessness. The Labor Party's budget has left people behind in the midst of a housing crisis, leaving people in poverty, and they won't even acknowledge that they're doing it. We know from evidence to the poverty inquiry, chaired by my colleague Senator Rice, and from the voices we've heard directly in communities across the country that poverty compounds disadvantage. There are impacts on young people, on students, on LGBTIQA+ communities, on disabled people, on single parents, on older people and on a number of other groups. As the Greens spokesperson on students and young people, I want to talk particularly about the impacts of the housing crisis and poverty on those groups. The latest data which was compiled by the Australian Council of Social Services shows that the average rate of poverty in 2019-2020 was 17 per cent among children and 14 per cent among young people 15 to 24 years of age. More than one in six children in this country live in poverty. Those figures were prepared before the latest inflation surges. They show that we were already in a crisis, and everyone knows—we can feel—that it has gotten worse. I want to particularly mention the powerful report prepared by the National Union of Students, Locked out of Youth Allowance:Student Poverty + Centrelink in Australia. Eighty-six per cent of students said that not being able to access youth allowance negatively impacted their financial stability, 38 per cent said it impacted their housing stability and 65 per cent said it negatively impacted their mental health. That report also includes direct evidence from people forced to rely on inadequate payments or with no access to them at all. Jesse, who's 23, said: One day a friend and I were having a chat about how much Youth Allowance and other payments from work we were receiving—and we realised we were living way under the poverty line. That's when it really hit me that this isn't the way I should be living right now. Darcy, who's 23, said: Receiving the COVID supplement was the first time in my life I experienced financial stability. Which was a real revelation for me—it's actually this easy to not suffer. Sarah, 23, said: Receiving the COVID supplement in 2020 meant that I didn't have to stress so much about work and losing my job. My grades actually went up a lot during that period, because I was able to focus more on my degree. Another student said, if they had received Youth Allowance payments: I would have probably, as a disabled person, been able to work less and focus more on my education. I ended up having to study part time and take time off in order to work and pay rent. Darcy said: The scariest part of it was that I needed to get verification from my parents that it was unreasonable for me to live at home. Which is a ridiculous barrier that people face in accessing Youth Allowance, often when it's not safe for people to live at home it's difficult to get that proof and people usually won't even have a relationship with their parents. QUT Student Guild President Zoe Davidson was quoted in the ABC about the crisis students are facing: They are working multiple jobs well beyond their means and ability to just afford rent, food, and then on top of it as well paying back these [HECS-HELP] loans. Young people are facing a crisis and this budget effectively gives them nothing. The challenges young people face on inadequate payments are compounded by the housing crisis, and recent research from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute highlights just how devastating this housing crisis is for young people. Their report notes: For teenagers and young adults (aged 12 to 24), high housing costs have extra impacts, including issues of not being able to escape family violence or being able to stabilise life paths, as well as simply having the space to establish an identity independent from their family of origin. The 2021 Census shows that young adults aged 19 to 24 years have the highest rate of homelessness of any age group, with 91 people of every 10,000 Australians aged 19-24 (and 53 of every 10,000 Australians aged 12-18) being homeless. Nearly one in four of all people experiencing homelessness (23%) is aged 12 to 24 years. It's particularly devastating because we know that this is something the government could act on. The Greens have been calling on the government to coordinate and implement a freeze on rent increases for a long time now, but we have seen no action, despite recent polling showing 60 per cent of people in this country support that approach. I am disappointed. I feel betrayed that Labor has left people behind in this budget. I feel particularly betrayed, given all the statements that the Prime Minister and other Labor leaders have made before the election about not leaving people behind. There was a time when the Labor Party used to talk about giving a helping hand to people who needed it. They said it was the light on the hill that they were striving for. In fact, former prime minister Ben Chifley said in a speech: We have a great objective—the light on the hill—which we aim to reach by working the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labor movement would not be worth fighting for. To paraphrase that statement, I ask a question to the members opposite: if you spent an entire election campaign saying no one would be left behind, and now you're in government just to continue the status quo, and give tax cuts and exceptions to billionaires but only $2.85 a day to people living below the poverty line, what was the point? I thank and congratulate Labor MPs and all the MPs in this parliament who had the courage to at least sign the open letter calling for the government to substantially increase Jobseeker, Youth Allowance and related income support payments so as to not leave people in need behind. That includes the member for Canberra, the member for Higgins, the member for Boothby, the member for Jagajaga, the member for Wills, the newly elected member for Aston, the member for Chisholm and the member for Hindmarsh. I also thank the member for Bass for her advocacy to increase the rate of income support. Similarly, I thank those members of the crossbench who have advocated for action and called for the government to do more. But, particularly to those Labor MPs, I would say that as well as your voices, people on income support need your votes. There will be votes in this parliament about the rate of income support today and into the future. We have a second reading amendment calling for the increase to income support payments. Actions speak louder than words—and that is true in this place as well. The Greens were the only party to have our entire federal party room sign on to that open letter, and we were the only party that had a clear election platform before the election with a commitment to lift all income support payments above the poverty line. Sadly, we know this could all be so different. We can actually write budgets and policies that value human lives. The Labor Party's failure to act really underlines the central issue here—that poverty is a political choice. That's borne out by the choices the Labor government has made since it has come into government. The stage 3 tax cuts will now cost $313 billion over a decade. The AUKUS submarines will cost up to $368 billion over their lifetime. And the Labor Party has chosen to give the gas giants $94.5 billion, bypassing any meaningful changes to genuinely tax fossil fuel corporations. Now, these are all political choices, made at the same time that the Labor Party is telling everyone out there that all they'll get is $2.85 a day while they're left behind on income support payments which are well below the poverty line. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 265979 Is the amendment seconded? Mr Bandt M3C I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak later. 11:15 Ms THWAITES 282212 Jagajaga I am very pleased to be speaking in support of this bill from our government, the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023, which will be delivering much-needed support to Australians at a time of need. The measures in this bill are good measures that will make a real difference in people's lives. These are changes that are made in recognition of the fact that our government understands that the cost-of-living pressures being felt by many in our community are real, and that those cost-of-living pressures are particularly being felt by people on lower incomes. I do hope that that is something that those across the parliament can appreciate, and that they can support our government to get this cost-of-living relief into people's pockets as soon as possible, to support additional assistance to around two million Australians who receive income support, and to make sure that that safety net that our country expects is there, and which Australians understand is there for all of us if we need it, is an adequate safety net. I was pleased to see, in this morning's news, that it seems those opposite will—despite the amendments they're putting forward—ultimately support this bill. That is an important move, because of course we do know that those opposite do not have a wonderful track record when it comes to supporting those in need. Plenty of people remember—indeed, they cannot forget—the first budget of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government in 2014. That was a cruel budget that seemingly wanted to make life harder for many Australians, including those who needed support the most. It included cuts to family tax benefit B. It included severe proposals impacting people under 30 on youth allowance and on what was then Newstart. It had changes to indexation arrangements for pensioners, a proposal to increase the pension age to 70 and cuts to the senior supplement. It was their first budget, and it was rightly described as a 'horror budget'. In contrast, our government's first full-year budget could not be more different. It could not be more clear where our priorities are. They're about making sure that we are providing well-targeted cost-of-living relief to Australians, and making sure that that safety net—which is a part of our system and something that all Australians expect and that any single one of us might need to rely on at some point—is there and that it is adequate. I do hope that, as I said, this can be supported across the parliament. The budget handed down in early May featured, as its centrepiece, a $14.6 billion cost-of-living package, which includes not only the income support measures in this bill but also a range of other measures that I know will make a real difference in people's lives, including people in my community. That includes our Energy Price Relief Plan, which is targeted support totalling $1.5 billion for bill relief for five million households across the country, including almost $380 million in my home state of Victoria. It also includes important measures to relieve cost-of-living pressures, in our history-making tripling of the bulk-billing incentive—focusing again on keeping those costs in health care down. So the combined effects of our efforts across single parenting payment, JobSeeker, youth allowance and rent assistance, as well as these investments in health and energy relief, will mean that this is really the first budget in a decade that has included the needs of Australians—particularly, vulnerable Australians—at its centre, and that, for the first time in a decade, a government has looked at Australians doing it tough and thought, 'Well, that is something we need to address in our budget.' As I said it is a marked change, a marked contrast to the first budget we got from those opposite, and it does show the values of our government. It does show that our government understands that we are a better country when we have a strong safety net in place. That is something to be proud of and something that, as a member of the Albanese government, I am proud of. With the amendments in this bill, the rates of JobSeeker, youth allowance, parenting payment, Austudy, Abstudy, disability support pension and special benefit will increase by $40 per fortnight from 20 September this year. This is an increase targeted at people on some of the lowest incomes in Australia, who, as I said, have the greatest reliance on our safety net for support. While these payments are automatically indexed to reflect changes in the cost of living, we know that times are tough for many income support recipients, who are facing financial hardship to a degree that they haven't in the past. I, like many members in this House, have heard stories from people who are making very difficult choices about whether they can afford food, whether they can afford electricity or whether they can afford their medications. Those are very real concerns for many people in our country, and those are the concerns that our government is addressing through this bill and through this budget. The measures our government is introducing will provide additional support to 1.1 million people, including 12,220 people in my community of Jagajaga. With this increase and the indexation changes over the last 12 months, in the past year the base rate of the JobSeeker payment will have increased from $642 to $733, which is a 14 per cent increase. This is over $90 more in people's pockets each fortnight to help them deal with cost-of-living pressures, and it equates to over $2,300 in additional support each year. Of course, we are a government who also wants to support people into work. We know that the JobSeeker payment, the safety net that is there, is important, but it is also really important for people to be able to get a job. We also know that that's not always simple. We know that for some people there are barriers to work, and being able to get and hold a job is not as easy for some as it is for other people in our community. Over the past years with the pandemic, I think we've all seen how life can be precarious and how things that have seemed certain, and support that has been there, can sometimes be taken away quite suddenly. We could all find ourselves in a position where we are actually looking to the safety net and to payments such as JobSeeker for support. That is why these measures are very important. It is why it's important that our country has this solid safety net in place and that we are supporting vulnerable Australians who need it most. In addition to this, eligible payments, including JobSeeker, parenting payment and Commonwealth rent assistance, will also be indexed on 20 September as usual. This means recipients will receive increases resulting from this bill and from indexation at the same time, and that assistance will continue moving forward. Our government is also expanding eligibility for the existing higher rate of JobSeeker for single recipients aged 55 and over who have been on income support for nine or more continuous months. The higher rate is already an existing feature in our social security system and it currently applies from age 60. The increased level of support for these recipients, the majority of whom are women, is our government's acknowledgement that older Australians do face additional barriers to work, such as age discrimination or poor health. Over the past 10 years we have seen the proportion of mature-age recipients of JobSeeker payments significantly increase. The evidence has shown us that 81 per cent of people aged 55 or over stay on the payment for more than a year and over half of them are on the payment for five years or more, so there does seem to be a difference in this group of recipients. These changes expand access to around 52,000 Australians aged 55 to 59, who will receive an increase of $92 per fortnight, including 640 locals in my community. That will mean less pressure on the budgets of those individuals. It will deliver much-needed relief for them. Our government also knows that single parents can find it very tough to balance caring responsibilities and full-time work, study or looking for work. The balancing act for those people doesn't end when their child turns eight. The demands of parenting don't just go away as children get older, but they do evolve. We know that as children get progressively older single parents are generally in a better position to take on more paid work. By the age of 14, kids have typically settled into high school and, hopefully, need less parental supervision. With the changes in this bill, we are expanding eligibility for parenting payment (single) to parents with a youngest child under 14. Some 57,000 single parents will be better off by at least $176 per fortnight, including 735 single parents in Jagajaga. We know that the rising cost of rent is one of the biggest issues that Australians are facing at the moment, so another measure included in this bill and in our budget is our 15 per cent boost to the maximum rates of rent assistance. We are providing additional support to renters with the largest increase to Commonwealth rent assistance in more than 30 years. Around 1.1 million households will benefit from an average increase of around $24 per fortnight. This includes recipients of JobSeeker and other working-age payments, student payments, the age pension, disability support pension, family tax benefit and veterans payments. In my community, 6,590 households will benefit from these changes. With this 15 per cent increase since May 2022, the maximum amount of rent assistance for JobSeeker payment recipients who are single and living on their own will have increased from $145 to $180—a 24 per cent increase. This is $35 more each fortnight to help people on low incomes pay their rent. As a package, this is a substantial investment in making sure that Australians are able to keep up with some of the cost-of-living pressures and making sure that our safety net is adequate. In the lead-up to any budget, there is always a balancing act. There is always a lot of work going on to try and make sure that you get that balancing act right. That is absolutely what our government has tried to do in this budget. We are making sure that we are providing the cost-of-living relief that so many Australians need, while also making sure that we're not adding to some of the pressures in our economy. We do know that inflation is a genuine issue at the moment, and we do have to make sure that our budgets are being crafted in a way that ensures that we as a government are not adding to those inflationary pressures. We recognise that this is important work. It is the work that the people elected us to do; it is the work that people rely on Labor governments to do. They do trust us to provide the safety net that should be there for our country. Our government is doing this in a measured and considered way. We did establish the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee and the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce. Both of these have provided really solid advice to the government, and they will continue to do so for upcoming budgets and more broadly, of course, on relevant issues across government. I know that our government will continue to consider the advice that those groups give us, and we will consider these payments from budget to budget, as we would for all areas of government. Labor governments do believe in a strong social safety net which is there for all Australians, if they need it. Our government is demonstrating with this bill that we understand that cost-of-living pressures are real. We understand that too many people in our country at the moment are having to make difficult choices that they shouldn't have to. We don't want people left in a position where they are deciding whether they can have a meal or whether they can turn the heater or the lights on tonight. Our government is giving targeted support to make sure that those people who are vulnerable in our community and those people who are doing it the toughest get the support they need. We are doing this as part of a broader budget which will also support all Australians with things like energy relief, support for health care and support for our GPs. We do recognise that now is a time of need in our communities and that, as a government, we have a responsibility to try and help people meet that need. The measures in this bill, such as the increases to payments including JobSeeker, youth allowance, disability support pension, parenting payment and rent assistance, coupled with the wider cost-of-living measures that are included in our budget do bring together what is really the first budget in at least a decade to put vulnerable Australians and those in need front and centre. I know that these changes to payments together with the tripling of the bulk-billing incentive and the energy relief plan will make a difference to people in my community and to communities across the country. I again highlight the difference from the approach we saw from those opposite over nearly a decade. As I said, they came into government and in their first budget, in fact, proposed some very serious changes to many of these payments which would have severely impacted many people's lives. We saw over a decade a lack of interest in supporting those Australians who do need it most, and a lack of understanding of the very real consequences of some of the decisions in this place and how they play out in people's lives. Our government does understand that these are decisions that have real impacts on people's lives, and that all Australians benefit when as a community we support each other and all Australians benefit when we have a strong safety net in place. At a time of high cost-of-living pressures, our government is doing all it can to make sure that we support those who need it most and support people right across our community. 11:30 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne Imagine having the power to lift people out of poverty but not using it, because that's what Labor is doing. We are a wealthy country, where the gas corporations are making record profits, the supermarkets are making huge profits and the banks are making huge profits, all off the back of people's pain. Meanwhile, one in eight people in this country live in poverty, and one in six children in this country live in poverty. That is an absolute shame in a wealthy country like ours—that one in six children are living in poverty. What that means is that there are people like Abigail, who told the Senate inquiry, 'There were some fortnights where I had to decide whether I was buying myself groceries or paying electricity bills.' Joe told the Senate inquiry, 'I am 58 years old. I have been waiting for a total hip replacement for 14 months. I get $683.40 a fortnight on JobSeeker. It should be more than that, but Centrelink have not recognised my new lease that I have uploaded three times.' He said, 'I'm going to lose this tooth because I can't afford to see a dentist.' After hearing the stories of people living in poverty, with those one in six children in this country living in poverty, having promised to leave no-one behind, what does this government do? Labor is leaving millions behind, leaving people in poverty, while giving tax cuts to politicians in this place and to billionaires. The best Labor say they can do for people who are struggling to make ends meet is give them $2.85 a day so that they've still got less than $50 a day to live on. Meanwhile, Labor finds $313 billion to give billionaires and politicians $9,000 a year in a tax cut—$2.85 a day that keeps people below the poverty line, for those who are doing it toughest, but $9,000 a year for the very wealthy and for every politician in this place. Billionaires like Clive Palmer, and politicians do not need $9,000 a year while people are skipping meals in order to pay the rent. That is the choice that Labor is making. We just heard from previous speakers that Labor had to make tough choices in this budget. Labor are not making tough choices; they are making bad choices. Labor are not making tough choices; they're making everyone else make tough choices. There are things that they could do right now—right now—to address the massive cost-of-living crisis that people are facing. We could lift income support payments above the poverty line so that, in a wealthy country like ours, no-one goes without. We could freeze rents, which are growing six times faster than wages. We could get dental and mental health into Medicare so that people like Joe don't have to put off going to the dentist to get their teeth fixed and the problem gets worse and worse and worse. We could do all of those things in a wealthy country like ours, and we could make good choices and not make everyday people make tough choices, if we stop giving $313 billion in tax cuts to politicians and billionaires. We know that with JobSeeker, an income support payment—and Labor's budget forecasts unemployment to rise; therefore, Labor's banking in a rise in unemployment and the number of people who are going to have to rely on this—in the second half of last year 62 per cent of people on this payment were eating less or skipping meals. And we know that many had difficulty getting medication or medical care because of the increased cost of living; 96 per cent said their inability to cover the cost of living harmed their physical and mental health. That's what it means for people to live below the poverty line. This increase of $2.85 a day from Labor keeps people below the poverty line. We know that one of the biggest pressures on people who are doing it tough—which is a growing number of people in this country—is housing. I think people accept that Labor, a year into government, have not caused the housing crisis, but they want them to step in, to intervene and take action to fix it. Instead, what do we have from this government? The single-biggest expenditure on housing in this government's budget is tax breaks for wealthy property investors who've already got two, three, four or five homes so they can go and buy their sixth, seventh and eighth. This government is spending $7 billion a year to push house prices up and out of the reach of first-home buyers. How does that happen? Well, a first-home buyer goes to an auction and bids on the basis of the savings they've got, but there's someone standing next to them who's already got three houses and knows that if they keep bidding the price up they can come back to the government—the public purse—and get a tax break for writing it off in the form of negative gearing and capital gains tax deductions. This pushes prices up, out of the reach of first-home buyers. So, this government's spending $7 billion a year on that. And I'm not talking about people who've got one investment property, because that's what they've got for their retirement. I'm talking about people who've got three or more properties to their name. Why do they need a handout—$7 billion a year? And in n the middle of this housing crisis the government says, 'Oh, well, it's okay, because we're going to lift rent assistance.' Well, for the 1.1 million people who get rent assistance—and they could get as little a $1.12 a day—rents in capital cities have been growing 10 times faster than that. And we know that no places in capital cities are affordable to rent for people who are living on these low incomes. If you're looking for a place for yourself, you just can't afford it. This increase will not help them. A small increase to rent assistance that is outpaced 10 times by the rise in capital cities will leave people behind. Meanwhile, 5½ million renters in this country who don't get rent assistance get nothing. That is why the government needs to step in, take control and organise a national rent freeze. Otherwise, we are going to see more and more people struggling to keep a roof over their head. Already this government is putting housing prices out of reach of first-home buyers, so that for so many people owning your own home has become completely out of reach, and parents are looking at their kids and thinking, how are my kids ever going to own a home? But now even renting, near where your family is or where you work or where you study, is becoming a dream. And this bill and this budget do nothing for them. Labor is leaving renters behind. What's worse, Labor come along and say: 'We can find $313 billion for tax cuts for Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and every politician in this place, but I'm sorry, we can't afford to lift you out of poverty. And we can find $7 billion a year to give tax breaks to wealthy property moguls, but I'm sorry that you can't afford to pay the rent. There's nothing we can do for you.' Then they turn around to the big gas corporations and say, 'We could be bringing in an extra $9 billion a year from you to do things like fund dental under Medicare, fund a rent freeze and wipe student debt,' but instead they write laws that let them off the hook, and they go out and beg the coalition to say, 'Please come and support our weak gas tax laws, because we'd much rather that everyday people bear the burden of dealing with the inflation crisis than ask the big gas corporations to pay their fair share.' Tomorrow students and people who have a HECS debt will face a massive increase on their HECS debt because Labor blocked the Greens' bill to freeze the indexation on HECS repayments. Labor said it is okay to make students and former students pay more in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. Where students and recent graduates are finding it hard to get into the housing market, finding it hard to make ends meet, Labor actively says, 'We're going to put students and former students into even more debt.' That is Labor's answer. This will hurt people. This failure to make the big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share and instead to shift the burden, as Labor is doing, onto everyday people in this country by allowing rents to keep going up and by lifting student debt is going to hurt people. We have a chance to not make the bad choices that this government is making but to make good choices that will tackle rising inequality in this country and stop Australia becoming a US style society where the gap between the haves and have-nots grows. Labor needs to stop bringing a bucket of water to a house fire. The rental crisis and the housing crisis are now hurting people. They are hurting people to the point where people are having to choose between food and rent. And Labor says their magic silver bullet to it all— Honourable members interjecting— Mr BANDT M3C I hear interjections from the opposite—is to leave people in rental stress now and to say their housing bill, which won't see a single home built if at all until after the next election, is somehow going to solve it. Renters are in trouble now. Labor is leaving them behind now. They are saying 'pass this tick-a-box bill because something might happen after the election, if our $10 billion gamble on the stock market returns money', which, by the way, it didn't last year. There would have been zero spent under Labor's approach last year. Labor have ignored renters, Labor have ignored the rental crisis and they have nothing for renters now. I have in Melbourne people who are spending 60 to 70 per cent of their incomes on rent. Now we hear the Reserve Bank governor has apparently just told estimates that next year rents are going to go up by another 10 per cent. What is Labor's plan? Nothing. It is to wash their hands and say, 'We will leave it up to the market. There is nothing we can do about it.' If this approach of bringing a bucket of water to a house fire and ignoring renters and ignoring the cost-of-living crisis and instead giving tax cuts to politicians and billionaires—leaving the big corporations, supermarkets and banks off the hook—continues, people are going to fall behind and they will fall behind for a generation. They may never get out. This is the chance to lift people out of poverty. This is the chance to make the reforms that will ensure this country is a fair society, where no-one is left behind. There are the numbers in this parliament to pass legislation through the Senate to ensure we can fund a rent freeze, get dental into Medicare and stop giving tax cuts to politicians and billionaires. We can do the things now that people are expecting us to do. The only obstacle in this parliament to making progressive reforms, like getting dental into Medicare or freezing rents, is Labor's ambition. To the people who are doing it tough at the moment and who are worrying about whether the next rent increase is going to see them evicted, who are worried about whether they can pay for the next meal, put food on the table or whether they will have to skip it in order to pay the rent, the Greens are fighting for you. More can be done to lift people out of poverty if we have the courage in the middle of one of the biggest profit booms we have seen from the big banks, the big corporations, the supermarkets and the energy companies, to make them pay their fair share of tax. Now is the time to say there are better things to spend $313 billion of public money on than giving Clive Palmer a tax cut when one in six children in this country live in poverty. Labor cannot justify the continued handouts to people of the very wealthy, the politicians and the billionaires, who frankly don't need them. Now is the time to have the guts to take on the big corporations and the billionaires and make them pay their fair share so that in a wealthy country like Australia everyone can live a good life and no-one has to go without. 11:45 Mrs ELLIOT DZW Richmond I am very proud to rise today to speak in support of this bill, the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023. I am very proud because this bill really is significant in Labor's ongoing commitment to improve our social safety net, which of course forms the backbone of our nation's welfare system. We're doing that because we know people are doing it tough and we know there are massive increases in the cost of living. We speak to people every day who are in this situation. That's why, through this bill and our budget, we have addressed many of those issues. We understand how important it is. Labor hears what the community says and acts. By implementing the income support measures outlined in our government's $14.6 billion cost-of-living package, what this bill aims to do is assist the lives of those millions of Australians who we know are having a really difficult time. We did this through our budget and through our budget measures. It was a responsible budget. Despite inheriting that trillion dollars of debt from the previous government, we have rightly provided very much needed cost-of-living initiatives. We were able to provide over $14 billion of cost-of-living initiatives, and they have made a difference and will be making a difference to the lives of so many people, particularly in tripling the bulk-billing rebates for GPs so many more people can access a doctor. It's such an important issue. I know in my electorate, where we have a large number of senior Australians, it makes such a difference as they regularly have to access their doctor and have difficulties. We have addressed that major cost-of-living concern. Another initiative provides cheaper child care. It's such an important initiative for so many reasons—for the children to access child care and for the parents, predominantly women, to be able to go back and engage in the workforce, which is very good for our economy as well. There have been many calls for all these measures. Other initiatives provide cheaper medicines, which are so vitally important, and assistance with power bills. Then, of course, there are all of the measures in this bill as well. This is a whole suite of measures to assist with cost-of-living issues at the moment. We can only have these measures in place and deliver that funding with responsible economic management. We have to have that to deliver those funds to make sure we can increase these social safety nets. Yes, budgets are about making tough choices, but we know it's important to deliver this support for the most vulnerable Australians. Remember, many of these measures had not been addressed over the past decade with the previous government, because it takes a Labor government to be able to balance the budget whilst also providing support for vulnerable Australians. There are many aspects of this bill that are very important in terms of strengthening the social safety net. Indeed, as I have said, one of the Labor Party's core values lies in providing that support for the most vulnerable in our community. Our social safety net, along with Medicare, stands as a strong foundation for our society, all built by us, by Labor governments. It offers very important assistance to those who are facing financial hardships or unforeseen challenges in their lives. It should be there for people when they need it, and it's therefore our responsibility as a government to strengthen this vital support system whenever we can. We have made sure we have done that through our responsible budget measures. The amendments proposed in this bill are both comprehensive and wide-ranging, addressing key areas of concern within our social safety net. One of the central provisions of the bill is the increase in working-age and student payments. Again, this is a major issue that I speak to many people about in my electorate of Richmond on the New South Wales North Coast. It is one that they have raised with me on many occasions, as is the need to increase it. We brought up this issue many times when we were in opposition, and we didn't see any support from the now opposition when they were in government in terms of these measures. What we have seen in this budget are changes to payments such as JobSeeker, youth allowance, parenting payment partnered, Austudy, Abstudy, disability support pension, and youth and special benefit. What those changes will mean is a $40 per fortnight increase, commencing from 20 September 2023. I know that these measures and these increases are ones that many Australians have called for for a very long period of time. We have made these increases within the context of our budget framework, and within our economic framework as well—our responsible budget. These increases are targeted at helping those Australians who are doing it tough. Indeed, whilst these increases are modest, they are important for those individuals and families who rely on these important payments. Importantly, these increases are specifically targeted at individuals who are facing financial adversity. They acknowledge the real struggles faced by countless Australians who are on the lowest incomes. It's also important to note the automatic indexation of these payments, which will reflect changes in the cost of living. By providing these increases, I think we really do send a message to the Australian community about the values of our government. We have listened to them about needing to increase those supports. This increase will provide essential assistance to approximately 1.1 million people, offering more assistance for them. In my electorate of Richmond alone, this increase will support more than 7,000 people who need it the most across that entire range of payments that I listed. When we look at the impact of this increase in numbers, combined with the indexation changes over the past year, the base rate of the JobSeeker payment will have had a 14 per cent increase since May 2022. This translates to over $90 more in the pockets of recipients every fortnight, resulting in over $2,300 of additional support each year. This boost in that income is for those individuals and families needing assistance with the rising cost of living. Another really important aspect of this bill in our budget was extending the eligibility for the higher single rate of JobSeeker for older Australians. This bill extends that eligibility for the higher single rate of JobSeeker to single recipients aged 55 and over who have been on income support for nine or more continuous months. This expansion recognises the very unique challenges faced by older Australians in the workforce, including age discrimination and, often, health related obstacles. This is particularly the case for older women. This extension is also an acknowledgement of their many valuable skills, their knowledge and their experience whilst looking to address some of the additional barriers they encounter when seeking employment. With this extension, approximately 52,000 Australians aged 55 to 59 will receive an increase of $92.10 per fortnight, providing greater financial support to them. In my electorate, this higher rate, which already applies to those aged 60 and over, will now support an additional 370 people aged between 55 and 59. Another important aspect of this bill is expanding eligibility for the parenting payment single. This is very important. We know that single parents face immense challenges as they balance caring responsibilities with work or study commitments. They're often unable to get to those study commitments or work commitments because of the nature of parenting, and these challenges don't disappear when their child turns eight. In fact, as children grow older, the demands of parenting can alter, but those challenges are ever present, and ever time consuming as well. By expanding the eligibility for the parenting payment single to parents with a youngest child who is under 14, this does give those parents greater capacity to take on more paid work, to perhaps pursue other opportunities for professional development and to work towards a better future for themselves and their children. This change will positively impact over 50,000 single parents, providing then with at least an extra $176.90 per fortnight. I am really proud to be part of a government that is delivering this much-needed boost. This will be making a huge difference for those 450 eligible single parents in my electorate on the New South Wales North Coast. I think that this increase recognises those very unique challenges that single parents have. A really important aspect of this bill is increasing Commonwealth rent assistance, an issue where many people in the community have called for an increase, because housing affordability is such a huge issue that affects countless Australians across the nation. Again, in my area, housing, homelessness and rent are an absolute crisis, particularly with our devastating floods that we had last year. They have added to the situation, making it extremely difficult. We also understand that rising rents are placing a huge burden on individuals and families struggling to keep a roof over their heads. We have a whole suite of measures that we are putting forward in terms of addressing the housing situation. In this case, this bill acknowledges the pressing need for support in the rental market and it includes a significant increase in Commonwealth rent assistance—indeed, the largest increase in over 30 years. For those who have already reached the maximum amount of assistance, we're proposing a 15 per cent increase in their payment. This injection of support amounts to an average increase of approximately $24 per fortnight for over 1.1 million households. That boost will provide assistance for many of those individuals and families who we know are struggling to meet their rental obligations. In my electorate, more than 6,000 people will benefit from this increase. I know how important it is. Many people have raised with me the fact that there hasn't been an increase in rent assistance for such a long period of time. When we examine the impact of this increase, we see that, since May 2022, the maximum amount of rent assistance for JobSeeker payment recipients who are single and living on their own will have increased by 24 per cent, which is a marked increase in that assistance. It does represent an additional $35 every fortnight, assisting many of those people who are doing it tough. As we know, one of the biggest issues is addressing the housing, homelessness and rent crisis, and this government has a suite of measures. In fact, we have some in the Senate right now, and I implore those opposite—the Liberals, Nationals and Greens—to stop locking our $10 billion housing bill that will provide social and affordable housing for Australians who desperately need it, providing 4,000 homes for women and children fleeing domestic violence. I implore those opposite to think about those people that need these homes the most and actually pass the bill. It is disgraceful that many of them—particularly the Greens—are adamant about blocking it when there are desperate people who need to access affordable housing right now. In conclusion, as a Labor government we make no apologies at all for being committed to our absolute belief in the strength and importance of providing all of the strong safety nets that people need. We do that in the context of responsible budget management. We can do both. We need to have the responsible budget management to provide the funds for of these increases which were never made under the previous government. I think this bill highlights our values as a Labor government to provide a range of measures to assist those millions of Australians who really are doing it tough in the current climate. We understand that because every day in our communities we speak to these people about the difficulties they face. This is what Labor governments stand for. We have a proud history of delivering major reforms that assist many Australians, particularly those vulnerable Australians that need assistance. In this case, that's exactly what the Albanese-Labor government delivering on. I do want to recognise impacts that this bill will have on the lives of millions of Australians and, indeed, tens of thousands in my electorate, as I've outlined throughout this speech. Many will be assisted, particularly with those increases in JobSeeker and those other payments, particularly with the increase in rental assistance, providing greater support for older Australians too. Right across the board, we are addressing so many of these concerns about which nothing has happened for so long, but this is what Labor governments do. We address many of these issues in the context of responsible economic management. By supporting this bill, we will have power to make a genuine difference in the lives of millions of Australians, to assist them at a time of greatest need, when we do have many cost-of-living pressures, and ensuring that those most vulnerable Australians are actually getting greater support. We are very proud in the context of our budget to have had such a major package—more than $10 billion—in terms of cost-of-living relief, whether that's accessing GPs, cheaper medicines, providing support for power bills or cheaper child care, and all of these social net significant changes will assist millions of Australians. I commend the bill to the House. 12:00 Ms TINK 300124 North Sydney When I reflect on my own life, I know it is invariably my parents, my elders, and some extraordinarily strong and determined women who have shaped the person that I am. In this context, I rise to welcome many of the measures in the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023 and recognise that they are indeed the result of many years of advocacy and resilience. I welcome the expanded qualification for the parenting payment (single) to single principal carers whose youngest child is aged under 14 years, lifted from eight years. This $1.9 billion investment is a huge win for single parents and I am grateful that, where my electorate and I advocated for reform, this time it was successful. Recently, the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce, established under the current government, argued to restore access to the parenting payment (single) to all single parents until their youngest child turns 16, noting the high number of single mothers falling into poverty. On behalf of the people of North Sydney, I added our voice to these calls. In March this year I co-hosted a panel discussion on women's economic security, safety, and certainty in Australia and, hearing from experts in the area, it became apparent just how stark the reality of economic insecurity is for single mothers in Australia. I learned that 95 per cent of parenting payment (single) recipients are women. After receiving a distressing call from a North Sydney mother who, along with her three young children, was facing homelessness after fleeing a domestic violence situation, I was pushed to take even stronger action. The issues of domestic violence, housing unavailability and unaffordability, the cost-of-living crisis, and the weaknesses of the current parenting payment (single) program are linked and have created a serious threat to vulnerable women and children in Australia. Not only is domestic violence occurring at extraordinarily high rates in our country but crisis centres for women and children are also overflowing, and the housing and cost-of-living crises are preventing single mothers from finding as a place to live. In the story of the mother I previously mentioned, she was eligible for the New South Wales government income support, but with payments topping out at $450 a week to cover rent, and a rider being that wherever she went she had to ensure there was a bedroom for every single child, this was not going to be anywhere near enough to cover the cost of the rental for her family. For, you see, in Sydney right now there is no way you will find a four-bedroom home for less than around $1,000 a week. Before it is suggested that she should simply move somewhere cheaper, she couldn't change her location because the interim custody orders mandated her children stay in their current schools. The decision she faced was: leave and live in poverty or stay and continue to face abuse, praying it would not escalate. I ask you, Deputy Speaker, what choice would you make? Herein lies the rub. The truth is parenting payments and other financial supports aren't adequate for people fleeing violent situations, the majority of whom are single women—mothers. Through conversations with family support services in North Sydney it became apparent that this woman's story is not uncommon. There is literally nowhere for mothers and children fleeing domestic violence to go. Crisis services are pushed to their absolute limits and government support payments are not sufficient. I've worked hard to raise the profile of economic security and safety for single mothers in Australia, and alongside the member for Goldstein and my crossbench colleagues I called on the government to expand the qualification of the parenting payment (single) as a positive first step in response to the current challenges. I therefore welcome the provisions in this bill. With that said, parents and families are doing it tough right now, and while I welcome the changes to eligibility—which will see 57,000 single carers receive a higher basic payment to help them with the cost of raising children—I am concerned for the many who will fall through the cracks during a pivotal transition period. For this reason I am today moving an amendment to the bill which would bring forward the implementation date of the eligibility changes for parenting payment (single). As it currently stands, the commencement date for these changes will see many families fall through administrative cracks. With the current start date of 20 September 2023, an estimated 8,145 parenting payment (single) recipients with a youngest child turning eight between May and September will see their payments reduced by $100 a week, or nearly $2,000 for the entire period. Not only will these parents be subject to a much lower JobSeeker payment; they will also face stricter income tests and income limits. This means that if a single parent has a part-time job under the current parenting payment (single) they may have to change their roster and hours of work to avoid losing money for the next few months and then change back again in September. Life as a parent and a worker is hard enough. We don't need further complication. I don't think this is an efficient or fair way of implementing the change, and therefore I'm encouraging the minister to consider changing the commencement date or implementing an interim measure for these parents to retain the parenting payment (single) income test and income limits. The government is prone to grabbing a good headline. And don't get me wrong: I loved this particular headline, too. But my role here on the crossbench is to ensure that the headline is backed by substance and detail. I suspect that the minister will respond to my amendment by saying Services Australia needs time to adjust IT systems and publicise the new payment settings. But I would argue that COVID-19 and other times of crisis have shown us that where there is political will there is always a way. While this bill delivers a huge win for eligible single mothers, there remain huge holes in the social security safety net for women and families fleeing domestic violence. The $723 million worth of funding allocated in the budget for women's safety falls well short of the $1 billion that peak bodies in this space indicated would be needed to fully address women's safety in Australia. The most recent data shows that, of the single mothers in Australia who are currently accessing single parenting payments, three out of five had experienced violence. The $326.7 million over four years for the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children includes minimal extension of fleeing-violence payment. Without this, the reality is that women who are fleeing domestic violence are vulnerable and have to choose between living with violence and living in poverty. With crisis shelters overflowing and housing still unaffordable, this choice is being made every day in Australia. Expanding eligibility for the higher rate of JobSeeker payment to recipients aged 55 and over who have been on a payment for nine or more continuous months is an important improvement. Older Australians are finding it harder to get back into work, often because of age discrimination or poor health, with statistics showing that 81 per cent of people aged 55 and over are on the payment for more than a year. Alarmingly, women over 55 are at the highest risk of homelessness in Australia. We will not lift Australians out of poverty until we show the bravery required to move beyond bandaid solutions and meet the challenges of the future head on. Ultimately we are also facing an era when the oldest generations risk failing to deliver the same opportunities that they were given to those younger than themselves. Unless we are prepared to face a review of the way our economy works in its entirety, young people are going to bear a secondary burden, because we're not adequately supporting their parents and their grandparents. I will go as far as saying that real support for young Australians was the missing piece in the recent federal budget. Increasing the maximum rates of Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent means that just 1.1 million households who are paying high enough rent will benefit from an increase of up to $31 a fortnight. I acknowledge that this is the largest increase to Commonwealth rental assistance in more than 30 years. And whilst I'm sure any increase is going to be welcomed, 15 per cent is inadequate in the face of massive rent rises. In Sydney, the median rent has increased by 24 per cent just in the past 12 months, and the sad reality is that if you're looking in my electorate you'll be paying upwards of $1,000 a week for a house and more than $650 a week for a unit. The build-to-rent incentives will eventually reduce pressure on the rental market. However, they will not help people who are currently homeless and need immediate relief. Nor will they ultimately get people into their own homes as, while the assets to rent are being built, there is no rent-to-own support. A North Sydney constituent recently shared with me that: 'The present housing crisis places me—like hundreds and thousands of Australians—at imminent risk of homelessness, at the age of 73.' This long-time resident with a successful career should never be in a vulnerable position like this—a position that a 15 per cent rental assistance increase is unlikely to address. High rents and unaffordable housing are also driving essential workers out of my electorate. When I met with midwives in the electorate of North Sydney recently, I learnt that staff shortages are exacerbated by staff moving away to find more affordable rentals. The desperation felt by Australians both young and old in the current environment is something I feel very deeply. The measures implemented through this bill show me that the government does recognise the challenges faced by many, and I thank them for that. But I can't stand here earnestly, with the desperate stories of constituents in North Sydney echoing in my mind, and accept this bill as it stands. The bill offers a welcome starting point. But I urge the government to consider a system-wide review of Australia's revenue, to ensure more can be provided for Australia's most vulnerable. Tackling intergenerational inequity and poverty requires a whole-of-system approach addressing activity, productivity and wages, and it will require the government to do some heavy lifting. Instead, we've been given a budget that has done little to offend but even less to drive a future-focused economy through reform. I move the amendment circulated in my name: That all words after "the House" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: (1) welcomes the changes to eligibility for parenting payment (single) which will see 57,000 single carers receive a higher basic payment to help with the costs of raising children; (2) notes that with the current start date of 20 September 2023, over 8000 families whose children turn eight in the interim period will lose over $200 a fortnight, and face tighter income and work tests; and (3) in light of the growing cost of living challenges, especially those faced by single parents, calls on the Government to bring forward the start date to 1 July 2023. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 Is the amendment seconded? Ms Daniel 008CH I second the amendment. 12:12 Ms STANLEY 265990 Werriwa I rise to make my contribution to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023. Australians right now are experiencing the economic after-effects of both the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine, with high inflation eroding their wages and fuelling the rising cost of essentials. On 9 May, the Treasurer, the Hon. Dr Jim Chalmers, delivered a strong Labor budget with strong Labor values. It delivers responsible and practical cost-of-living relief that many Australians need now. It's helping to tackle inflation whilst also easing the pressure on households. The Albanese government has a $14.6 billion plan, and this legislation will implement the measures that will strengthen our social safety net. It is important, at a time of high inflation, that those on lower incomes are provided with some additional relief, because we know that, whilst inflation affects everyone, it disproportionately impacts those on lower incomes, as they are forced to spend more on necessities. This legislation makes meaningful changes to strengthen the social safety net that many Australians rely on today and many may need in the future. From 20 September this year, there will be an increase to the rates for JobSeeker, youth allowance, Austudy, Abstudy and other payments by $40 a fortnight. Across Australia, 1.1 million people will benefit, and, in my community, more than 12,000 will see an increase to their fortnightly payments. This increase brings the base rate of JobSeeker to $733.10 per fortnight. This doesn't include the regular indexation that will also apply from 20 September. I know the difference that this will make to many who are feeling the effects of the cost-of-living crisis, especially those in my community who are often forced to travel out of the electorate for work, education and health care—and these things create additional barriers for those on social security payments. Further measures in this bill include lowering the eligibility age for the highest single rate of JobSeeker from 60 to 55 and over, because we know that older Australians who find themselves unemployed are the ones who are less likely to be able to find work again and this is due to several reasons, including health and age discrimination. Last year, there were more than 171,000 Australians aged between 55 and 64 who were unemployed but would have preferred to work. It's an unfortunate reality that older Australians are more likely to remain on JobSeeker payments, with more than half still on the payments after five years. We know the fastest growing group to experience homelessness in Australia are women over 55. This change is in recognition of the difficult challenges that many older Australians face, and it will benefit over 55,000 Australians. Another change will be to extend the eligibility of parenting payment single till the youngest child turns 14. Currently, single parents on this payment are moved to the JobSeeker payment when their youngest child turns eight. But we know that caring responsibilities do not end then, and neither do the pressures of finding employment and ensuring your financial security. This change will help single parents focus on their children until they are in a much stronger position to take on full-time work and study responsibilities. This is another way in which the Albanese government is tackling gender inequality, because we know that the majority of single parents are women and they are the ones who will benefit most from these changes. Across the country, more than 50,000 single parents will benefit. With these two measures, more than a thousand will benefit in my community. The Albanese government also knows that having access to safe, secure and affordable housing is critical to economic, social, mental and physical wellbeing, and therefore it is necessary for the wellbeing of our nation. Australians are acutely aware of the crisis in affordable housing and rent, and, while the Albanese government have long-term policies to help more Australians buy their first home and to boost housing supply, we know that Australians need support now, and that is one of the things this legislation does. It increases Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent, plus the usual indexation from 20 September. The other thing that would help the housing crisis, of course, would be the passage of the housing bill that we have sent to the Senate, and I urge those opposite to reconsider their position and help that go through so that we can start the process of providing more housing for our community. This is the largest increase in 30 years, and more than 9,000 households in my community and 1.1 million nationwide will benefit from the changes that this rent support will give them. With this increase, the maximum amount of rent assistance for someone on a JobSeeker payment who is single and living alone will have increased by 24 per cent since May 2022. The Albanese government is also aware of the tough economic conditions facing Australians, and the May budget is a direct response to support those who need it most, because that is what Labor governments do—and this legislation delivers on that plan. But of course we know that there is more to do, and we will be introducing further legislation in the House to continue our plan to help Australians. I commend the Minister for Social Services for introducing this bill and for the work she has done to ensure that Australia's safety net is strong for all Australians that need it. I commend the bill to the House. 12:18 Ms DANIEL 008CH Goldstein Women's economic equality is one of my key priorities—one of the reasons why I decided to contest the seat of Goldstein. I've spoken about it many times in this place and I will continue to do so because women don't have true equality yet. Women's economic participation across their lifetime is less valued, less secure and less safe, which leads to lower incomes, less job security, job segregation, lower super balances and a higher likelihood of poverty. In fact, women comprise more than 60 per cent of all those relying on the lowest income support payments: JobSeeker, student and parenting payments. Economic security is the only way out. We must enable women's workforce participation across all sectors. As lawmakers we must intentionally focus on empowering all women and girls to have equal opportunities and pathways to secure jobs. Women must be at the starting line if they're to have any hope of thriving socially and economically, and many are a long way back. The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023 will help get vulnerable women, who are most impacted by cost-of-living pressures, to the starting line—but not much further. The bill implements, or partially implements, two of the six urgent and targeted Women's Economic Equality Taskforce recommendations. From 20 September 2023, single parents—95-plus per cent of whom are women—will have access to the parenting payment single until their youngest child turns 14. This is a critical policy shift. Under the current rules, the payment stops the day the youngest child of a single parent turns eight and reverts to the lower JobSeeker benefit. As Terese Edwards from the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children told me pre budget: 'We do not celebrate our child's eighth birthday. Some of us become homeless and some return to the place of abuse, but we all struggle. We skip meals, limit heating and cooling, and miss medical appointments, but it's not enough. We can't stop the hardship despite our skills, talents and determination.' The government's decision to increase the threshold to 14 is long overdue. It is a huge relief to single mothers, many of whom have been forced to choose between poverty and violence—a dire and dangerous choice that no woman should have to make. According to The Choice, the report released by Anne Summers, single mothers with children under 18 were three times more likely than the general population to have had violent partners and, of the single mothers living in Australia, 60 per cent had experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a previous partner. The changes to the single parent payment will mean an increase of about $176 a fortnight for 57,000 single parents. It means a lot, and it could save lives. I've been advocating for the single parent payment to return to the previous threshold of 16, but this is a good compromise and, hopefully, a stepping stone on the way to 16. Housing insecurity is another part of society that disproportionately affects women. Women or girls made up more than six in 10 clients of homelessness services in 2021-22. Australian women aged over 50 are at greater risk of financial and housing insecurity than older men. This has been linked to several compounding and systemic factors. Women in this older age group today didn't benefit from compulsory superannuation at the beginning of their working lives. They were more likely to have been paid at a lower rate than their male counterparts, more likely to be concentrated in low-paid care sectors and likely to have taken time out of the paid workforce to have children and fulfil caring roles. This is the cycle that holds women back. It's deeply entrenched and hard to shift. The 15 per cent increase in Commonwealth rent assistance is welcome, but, with renters at the mercy of escalating rental housing prices, vacancies as tight as one per cent and inflation very high, there may be less there than meets the eye. The JobSeeker payment is also skinny. The government ignored the recommendation of its own Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee to return JobSeeker to 90 per cent of the pension, where it once was, or around $70 a day. Instead it opted to increase payments by $40 per fortnight. That's less than $3 a day, effectively increasing it from $50 to $53—less than the price of a sandwich or a train ticket. This measure also extends to youth allowance, parenting payment partnered, Austudy, Abstudy, special benefit and disability support pension youth, which will provide some relief to young people and First Nations people. The expanding eligibility for the higher rate of JobSeeker payment to recipients aged 55 and over will go some way to helping older women break the poverty cycle—but only some way. The strengthening the safety net bill comes as CHOICE survey data reveals Australian households are more concerned about the cost of living now than at any other point in the last seven years of data collection. In a national survey of more than 1,000 people conducted in March and April this year, a record 93 per cent of households said they had seen their household bills and expenses go up over the last 12 months. The cost of food and groceries was the highest concern for 85 per cent of households surveyed, followed by the cost of fuel and household energy bills. CHOICE survey data also shows the rising cost of housing is hitting both renters and mortgage holders hard. Back in January 2021, 46 per cent of mortgage holders and just over half of renters—51 per cent—said that the cost of housing was a concern. This year, the level of concern has jumped to 78 per cent of mortgage holders and 72 per cent of renters. There is no escaping the level of discomfort in communities across the country. The $14.6 billion cost-of-living relief package was the centrepiece of the May budget. In handing it down, the Treasurer said that the budget struck the balance of spending restraint to reduce inflation and 'doing what we can to help people struggling to make ends meet'. We do have $1 trillion of debt. We do have a structural budget problem. We do have tax and revenue systems that are not fit for 21st century purpose. Again, I'm going to say that we need broad tax reform. There've been only tweaks and no major reform since the introduction of the GST in 2000. Politics killed any consideration of the Henry tax review, written in 2009. A decade and a half on, we need another clear-headed, broad-based review. We do need to be sure that, when we spend taxpayers' money, it's prudently allocated. But there are occasions when it's wise to spend now to avoid the risk of much greater spending in the future. We will not get the return to productivity our future prosperity requires unless we enable more women to return to the workforce. We will not get that return to productivity if many of the jobless are consigned to poverty because the rate of JobSeeker is so low that people can't afford to clothe themselves to make themselves presentable for job interviews or if they can't afford the bus ticket to get to an interview. The same goes for the single mothers who have faced the same dilemma when the single parent payment has cut out when their youngest child has turned just eight. It is the case that the changes in this legislation don't go far enough, but they are a step in the right direction. More women and more young people will now be enabled to find work. That should make for a more productive workforce, and that, in turn, should make for a more prosperous future, and that's why I'm supporting this bill. 12:27 Mr RAE 300122 Hawke The measure of any good government is the impact it has on the quality of life of its constituency. While this may sound like a simple proposition, there are many levers that government must carefully balance in order to deliver this positive impact. Since being elected in May last year, the Albanese Labor government has had a clear focus on addressing the cost-of-living pressures facing so many Australians, including those in my electorate and in my community. We started last year by legislating cheaper child care for Australian families. This will have a profound impact on 6,800 families in Hawke alone. We commenced an expansion of the Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave scheme that will deliver six months leave for parents by 2026. At the start of this year, we reduced the cost of medicines by $12.50 per script and we'll soon further reduce the price as we allow Australians to purchase two months worth of medication for the price of a single script. We have also modernised workplace relations laws to help get wages moving again. We know that those opposite spent a decade in government exercising a policy of deliberate intent to suppress wage growth in our country. It was a decade of Liberal wage suppression that we have got straight onto addressing. We've also shielded families from the worst of the energy price hikes by intervening in coal and gas prices in order to keep energy prices down, to reduce their growth and to try to control their growth for families, households and businesses, protecting jobs along the way. The recent budget handed down by the Treasurer seeks to continue this agenda of responsible relief, repair and restraint. It seeks to steer us through global economic turbulence while addressing the deep structural problems caused by a decade of Liberal economic mismanagement. Most importantly, it seeks to deliver the financial support and relief that Australians need as the cost of living rises in our communities. The Albanese Labor government's strengthening of the social safety net is about protecting and supporting some of our most vulnerable Australians. This bill recognises the disproportionate impact that cost-of-living pressures are having on income support recipients and provides them with an increase in their fortnightly payment above and beyond the usual CPI indexation. This is an important component of the government's broader $14.6 billion cost-of-living package and will provide increased support to around two million Australians. The amendments in this bill will see a $40-per-fortnight increase for the 1.1 million Australians receiving working age and student payments, such as JobSeeker, youth allowance and Austudy, including more than 10,000 people in my own electorate of Hawke. This targeted relief is designed to help the people who are on some of the lowest incomes in our country, and it ensures that they and all Australians can continue to rely on the safety net when they need support when they face economic hardship. While these payments are already indexed against the CPI, this additional increase recognises the financial hardship faced by so many who are receiving income support, which can in turn create barriers to broader economic participation. With this increase and the indexation changes over the past 12 months, the base rate of JobSeeker has seen increases equivalent to $2,300 in additional support each year. The changes in this bill will also expand the eligibility into the higher single rate of JobSeeker to single recipients aged 55 and over who have been on income support for nine or more continuous months. This change in eligibility from 60 to 55 years is recognition of the barriers that older Australians are facing when looking for work. Over the past 10 years the proportion of mature-age recipients on JobSeeker payments has significantly increased, and we know that older Australians are likely to continue receiving payments for longer. The evidence shows that 81 per cent of those aged 55 or over stay on the payment for more than a year, and over half for five years or more. This change will expand access to around 52,000 people, who will receive an increase of $92.10 per fortnight. Another significant change in this bill is the expansion of eligibility for parenting payment (single) to parents with a youngest child under 14. We know that single parents do it incredibly tough, balancing their caring responsibilities with full- or part-time work, study, or looking for work. It is clear that the current eligibility does not reflect the reality facing these single parents. The balancing act doesn't end when a child turns eight. This increase will ensure that single parents are better supported for longer and will leave them and their families in a better position as they seek to take on more paid work as their children get older. With this change, 57,000 single parents will be better off by at least $176.90 each fortnight, including more than 600 single parents in my electorate of Hawke. This bill will also deliver the largest increase to Commonwealth rent assistance in more than 30 years, providing an additional $2.7 billion over five years from 2022-23 and benefiting around 1.1 million households, including the more than 8,000 households in my community that are currently eligible for maximum Commonwealth rent assistance rates. With this increase, the maximum amount of rent assistance for JobSeeker payment recipients who are single and living on their own will have increased by 24 per cent since May 2022, when the Albanese Labor government were elected. You see, our government knows that the cost of housing is one of the key pressures facing Australian families and households. We also know that this record increase to the rate of rent assistance is not the whole solution. The Albanese Labor government has committed to building 30,000 new social and affordable homes in the first five years of the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund. Sadly, the hypocrisy and political grandstanding of the team between the Greens and the Liberals is blocking the rollout of that investment. Their persistent use of housing as a political football is preventing the passage of legislation that will provide significant, long-term investment in social and affordable housing in my community and in every community around our country. At every level of government, the Greens' record on housing is clear: hypocrisy, grandstanding, and blocking of meaningful investment and construction of social and affordable housing to increase our much needed housing supply. We know that despite his florid performances in this House the member for Griffith is proposing a housing development in his very own electorate. And we know that the people who are relying on these homes are being let down by the Greens party and their refusal to support the government's practical approach to moving forward and increasing supply of housing all across our country. I very much hope that this petty politicking will not extend to this legislation. Like the Housing Australia Future Fund, the 'strengthening the safety net' legislation is part of the Albanese Labor government's plan to address the cost-of-living challenges facing Australians. Labor governments are elected to ensure that, amongst other things, a strong social safety net is there to provide for Australians when they need it. That's why we're increasing the payments available to the approximately two million Australians who need them most and providing the much needed cost-of-living relief that people, families, and employers are crying out for. I know that the Liberals opposite come to this place, to these debates, with the shortest-term views—winning the day, arguing the point, scoring a couple of cheap political hits along the way. In my community these changes, these interventions, these modest supports provide dignity to the human beings, to the families who rely upon them. This isn't a matter of cheap politicking amongst my neighbours, my friends, my family. This is a matter of providing the best possible life and opportunities for our children. It's about ensuring that those who, for reasons often beyond their own control—health, circumstance, in some cases terrible matters like family violence—aren't left languishing. I know that the Liberals opposite sometimes see the short-term gain of opposing these measures as something of a political opportunity. But I would urge them—I would urge everybody in this House, the Greens included—to understand the true impact that this bill and its meaningful outcomes will have on communities like mine and like their own and all across Australia. This is an opportunity for us to take positive steps to improve the lives of Australians everywhere and ensure that our communities are living happily, healthily, and with dignity. 12:39 Ms CHANEY 300006 Curtin I rise to support this Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023 and urge the government t do more to alleviate poverty in Australia. In a country like Australia, we should be able to set our safety net at a level that means people can access the basics of life and live with dignity without destroying incentives to work. We should be able to avoid people living below the poverty line, which is about $68 a day for a single adult. This would still be significantly lower than the minimum wage and would be unlikely to disincentivise people from finding work. Below this level, we are trapping people in poverty. People are unable to pay rent and bills or cover the cost of fresh food. Buying petrol or fixing the car are nearly impossible, as is buying suitable clothing for a job interview or even getting a haircut. It is hard work living in poverty and our system can be punitive. People feel shame, isolation, they lose connection with their communities and find themselves in entrenched disadvantage. Under this bill, people on JobSeeker will move from $49 a day to $52 a day, well below the poverty line of $68 a day. This will provide a small amount of help to 580,000 women, 318 people under 25, 150,000 First Nations people and 245,000 mature age Australians. This increase is better than nothing but it won't make a significant difference. The government's own economic inclusion advisory panel found that, on every available indicator, the current rates of JobSeeker and related payments were seriously inadequate. This was true whether they were measured against payments overseas, against the minimum wage, against pensions or against the poverty line. It recommended restoring the relativities of the mid-1990s when unemployment benefits were about 90 per cent of the age pension. This would be an increase from $49 a day to $68 a day, but the change made in this bill is $3 a day instead of the $19 a day recommended by the panel. Across communities there is also broad support for a substantial increase. ACOSS has issued an open letter calling for a scientific this $19 a day increase. It has been signed by a huge range of MPs, community leaders, economists, prominent leaders and academics. The Business Council of Australia and the Committee for Economic Development of Australia also back this change. My electorate of Curtin is relatively wealthy, but one of the things that constantly impresses me is that my community is not entirely self-interested. I meet people every day who are worried about others, people who want to live in a country where we treat people should fairly. The data bears this out. Surveys consistently show that a majority of people think that JobSeeker should be higher than it is. What would it actually costs to pull unemployed people out of poverty? ANU analysis shows that lifting JobSeeker to 90 per cent of the pension rate would cost $5.7 billion a year, which is a four per cent increase in total welfare payments and less than one per cent of total government spending. So it would increase government spending by one per cent and left a million people out of poverty. I acknowledge that we need to address the structural deficit in the budget. Inflation affects everyone. But in a budget of $680 billion, surely we can find $6 billion so that all Australians can be fed, housed and live with dignity. There are numerous ways to do this and there is broad appetite for a broad Ken Henry style review of our tax system. We could consider taxing passive income. We could increase GST. We could make serious reforms to the PRRT or, in the absence of broader tax reforms, we could reshape the stage 3 tax cuts. Therefore, I support the member for Brisbane in his call on the government to ensure that no-one is left behind and to lift all income support payments above the poverty line. I would also back the opposition's call to increase the income free area to $300 a fortnight to allow jobseekers to earn more and still retain the full JobSeeker allowance. I think work needs to be done to at least cost this option. In relation to other changes in the bill, I support the increase of $92 a fortnight for single JobSeeker recipients age 55 and over. This drop in eligibility age from 60 to 55 reflects the fact that that older Australians face additional barriers to work and are more likely to stay on JobSeeker for longer. I support allowing parents to stay on the single parenting payment until their youngest child turns 14 rather than eight years old. I, along with a number of people on the crossbench, have been calling for this change for a number of months. About 57,000 people will benefit from this increased financial support provided each fortnight. More than 90 per cent of the parents who will benefit from this change are single mothers. As a mum, I know that kids don't stop needing you when they turn eight. It will give mums the support they need while they have primary-school-aged kids. Single parents won't be forced to juggle child care and working obligations until their children are older and more self-sufficient. I also support the increase of 15 per cent to the Commonwealth Rent Assistance. While this will do little to assist most renters in our current housing crisis, at least it's something for the 1.1 million Australians who are on income support or family tax benefits and currently receive Commonwealth Rent Assistance. Rent increases are having a huge impact on a large number of Australians. The ABS showed that almost 95 per cent of new tenants in February 2023 signed leases charging more than the previous tenant paid at the same property and close to 70 per cent of new tenants had their rent increase by more than 10 per cent. With vacancy rates at record lows and no real relief in sight, this is a start for the people who need it most, but it doesn't address the longer term issues in housing. Until we are willing to look at broad reform of our housing sector in Australia, small changes like this will have to do. Most Australians want to live in a country that gives people a fair go. We should be able to afford to provide a decent safety net that helps people get to their feet rather than trapping them in poverty. These changes make a start and recognise that there are a lot of people struggling with the cost of living at the moment. I urge the government to listen to the voices of the community, business and its own committees and build on this start to give all Australians a fair go. 12:46 Mr KHALIL 101351 Wills This government has delivered the 2023-24 federal budget, which focuses on tackling our immediate economic challenges whilst also supporting households with cost-of-living pressures—no easy feat. Since we were elected on 21 May 2022, the Albanese Labor government has been working hard and working substantively to deliver the better future and better outcomes that Australians voted for. That includes targeted relief for the most vulnerable Australians, those who need it most. It is good—it's refreshing—to be part of a government that has delivered a budget that lays the foundation for that better future while helping Australians who need it and are under pressure right now. The budget announced a $14.6 billion cost-of-living package. That's significant. That means around two million income support recipients will be better supported. This bill introduces amendments that will strengthen our social safety net, ensuring all Australians can be supported when they need support. I know many of my constituents and many other people around Australia are doing it tough right now. The cost-of-living pressures are having a serious and adverse impact on the day-to-day lives of many Australians. It's not easy to count every cent just to scrape together enough to pay bills, to find enough to make a trip to the supermarket or to pay the rent. I also know that the loss of a job or being unable to find one is too often beyond an individual's control. This is why our social security system should also always be accessible and available to those who need it, when they need it. These income support measures will mean additional supports for so many vulnerable Australians. They will help students, older Australians, those with a disability, those experiencing financial hardship, single parents and those struggling to pay rent who are on Rent Assistance. This is such an important start to ensuring that Australian people can get support when they need it most. The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023 and its amendments increase the rate of JobSeeker, youth allowance, parenting payment partnered, Austudy, ABSTUDY, the youth disability support pension and the special benefit. These payments will increase by $40 per fortnight from 20 September this year. That means 1.1 million Australians will get the support they need. That means that we will be supporting people on some of the lowest incomes in Australia who rely on this safety net for their support. With this particular increase in the indexation changes over the last year since May 2022, the base rate of the JobSeeker payment will have increased from $642.70 to $733.10. That's a 14 per cent increase. This means over $90 more in people's pockets each fortnight to help them deal with cost-of-living pressures and equates to over $2,300 in additional support each year. Eligible payments including JobSeeker, parenting payment and Commonwealth rent assistance will also be indexed on 20 September as per normal. This means people will get even more support. The bill also expands eligibility for the higher rate of JobSeeker to those aged 55 and over who have been on this support payment for nine or more continuous months. This rate currently applies from age 60, but we are making sure older Australians can be better supported even earlier. We know that most people receiving this payment are women, including that demographic of women over 55. We know that older women face additional barriers when looking for work, such as age discrimination. We also know that poverty is the daily reality for so many Australian women. Many experience housing stress and homelessness. Some don't even have enough superannuation or savings because they have been in caring roles for their families or have been in casual or part-time roles. We want to make sure that older Australian women are given the supports they require. We want to ensure that older Australian women are supported after giving back so much to so many—to their families and to their communities—to ensure that they can live with dignity. The amendments in this bill will mean that 52,000 Australians aged 55 to 59 will receive an increase of $92.10 every fortnight. The government knows that single parents have a tough time trying to balance caring responsibilities with full-time work, study or even looking for work. It's very tough. I am a parent; many of us here are parents. We know that caring responsibilities will not simply end when a child turns eight. In some respects, it gets harder or more challenging. It becomes a different challenge. In fact, as children get older, the demands on parents actually probably continue to grow in many different ways. Single parents will likely be in a better position to take on more paid work as their children get a bit older. The amendments in this bill mean that more people can be eligible for single-parent parenting payments in cases where they have a child under 14. These changes will help more than 57,000 single parents, who will be better off by at least $176.90 per fortnight. I know many Australians who are currently struggling with the cost of rent. This government knows that rental stress is front of mind for many Australians right now. Young people might line up at a rental inspection for a couple of hours only to get to look at the property and see that the taps don't work and the rent is $800 a week. There's not much supply. I've spoken to many people in my electorate of Wills who are struggling also with rent increases. Many younger people have told me this is particularly concerning for them. They're working or balancing study and work often, and they're struggling with rent increases. It's also a concern for working Australians: teachers, for example, nurses, ambos, people who work in emergency services and aged-care workers. These are the people who supported our communities so brilliantly and kept the wheels turning during the height of the COVID pandemic. This government will be providing additional support to renters with the largest increase to the rate of Commonwealth rent assistance in over 30 years. This government is finally providing leadership on a significant issue that affects so many Australians. For those who have reached the maximum amount of rent assistance they can get, we're now increasing their payment by 15 per cent. That means around 1.1 million households will benefit from this and be better off, with around an additional $24 per fortnight. This includes those receiving the JobSeeker payment and other working-age payments, student payments, the age pension, the disability support pension, family tax benefit and veterans payments. This 15 per cent increase since May 2022 means the maximum amount of rent assistance for JobSeeker payment recipients who are single and living on their own will have increased from $145.80 to $180.80. That's a 24 per cent increase. That's $35 more each fortnight to help people on low incomes pay their rent. Of course, rising power prices are one of the biggest burdens on Australian families and business at the moment. As part of the Albanese government's plan to reduce cost-of-living pressures—as part of that $14.6 billion package—more than five million households and one million small businesses will also be eligible for energy relief rebates from 1 July. This government will be helping households to manage cost-of-living pressure through energy relief rebates of up to $500. This will help ease the pressure on families and small businesses, and it will help reduce electricity bills for eligible households and businesses. The Albanese government has already—from September last year—boosted social security payments for more than 4.7 million Australians in the largest increase to allowances in 30 years. For my part, as the member for Wills, I will continue to support increased rates for payments such as JobSeeker for my community. As a government, we believe a strong safety net is essential. These supports need to be in place for all Australians if and when they need them. The Albanese government will continue supporting people who are doing it tough. The substance and the detail of this whole package, some of which I've outlined, are real. This will make a difference to people's lives. That's why the government has been so committed to supporting Australians during this difficult time, and we will continue to ensure vulnerable Australians are not forgotten. 12:56 Ms SHARKIE 265980 Mayo I rise to support the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023. A cost-of-living package of $14.6 million is a very significant sum of money. The government is spending that money in a number of ways. One of the things that I think is most important is that the government is lifting the age threshold, largely for women but also for single parents who, when their youngest child turns eight, right now move onto the JobSeeker rate. That lowers the amount that they can earn prior to losing 50c in the dollar, as well as lowering the actual payment overall. Moving that to the age of 14 is, I think, a very welcome measure, one that many advocacy groups have been calling for for a very long time. I remember being part of a committee several years ago now that was chaired by the member for Monash. That was a select committee that was looking at intergenerational welfare and intergenerational disadvantage. One of the recommendations that we were looking at and grappling with was how to ensure that families were not living in poverty. So I think that this is a very welcome move by government. I would say, though, that we need to work much earlier with women who are in those circumstances, before the child is 14, to help them get ready to get back into the workforce and perhaps not leave it until the child is aged 14 to do so. We need to ensure that people have the training and have the skills, because many people who are single parents and in the situation where they're not in the workforce are often out of the workforce for a very, very long time. That in itself provides a number of barriers around confidence and the change in skills and technology in the workforce. Even if you were in quite a senior position prior to having a family, re-entering the workforce a decade later is a very different experience. Ensuring that we're helping those single parents, and single mums in particular, to transition back into the workforce is really important. This bill is also providing an extra $40 per fortnight for people who are on a number of payments, including JobSeeker, youth allowance, parenting payment, Austudy, Abstudy and the disability support pension youth payment. This is so desperately needed. With respect to JobSeeker, what a lot of the evidence showed us is that, for people who are on that payment long term, it actually starts to become a barrier itself to finding employment. If you have been on that payment for a long period, you generally don't have all of the things that you need—you haven't been able to afford all of the things you need in order to find employment, so it becomes a barrier. Lifting that as well as that 15 per cent increase to Commonwealth rent support is critical, and I really welcome these measures. It's a challenge, though, because many small businesses in my community have so many vacancies that are just left wanting. I don't know how we manage this in this place, or whether it even is something that the departments need to look more closely at, but we don't seem to make a very good marriage of people who are looking for work and businesses. I think we need to be able to do that much, much better, because how can it be that we have, as of February this year, 438,000 job vacancies? That is such an extraordinary amount of job vacancies. In March this year, if I have my fingers right, 809,740 people were looking for work. We could do a lot better in marrying those two things together. Another very welcome measure in this legislation is reducing the threshold for the higher payment for JobSeeker from 60 down to 55. I think it's fair to say that older women in particular who are 55 and north of 55 have a very challenging time, particularly if they haven't had a very long work history with great depth to it, in finding employment. Recognising that and then lifting the payment for those 55 and over is the right thing to do and it is a very welcome measure. We need to make it as easy as possible for people to be supported to go into training—and meaningful training, not just one-day-a-week training but meaningful training. In my electorate we desperately need more aged-care workers—desperately. But they need a Certificate III in aged care, and that is not always easy to achieve. There is a cost to that. There is a huge commitment to do that study, particularly if you haven't been in study for 30-plus years. There is a real cost to that, and I think we can do a much better job of supporting people into those areas and doing a better matchup of the skills that are needed in a region, making sure that those who are seeking employment are able to get the skills needed so that there is a much better connection between the two. All in all, I support these measures by government. There are some advocates who say that it's not enough, and others who say that it's too much. I think that this finds a very happy medium in between the two. I do think that some of the measures that the coalition has been talking about with respect to lifting the threshold that can be earned before someone loses 50 cents of the dollar in their payment, particularly with JobSeeker, is a very wise thing to do. Otherwise, it can become quite a poverty trap. At the moment, a person can earn, I think, only $150 a fortnight before they start losing 50 cents in the dollar in their payment. Many people are reluctant to take on those extra hours. Perhaps they have only an eight-hour job a fortnight, or less, or slightly more, but they are reluctant to take on extra for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they're worried about losing 50 cents in the dollar and then potentially losing all of the other suite of supports—in particular, the healthcare card—if they earn too much. Secondly, they're really worried about losing their payment altogether and then having to go through the rigmarole of applying for Centrelink again if that job doesn't turn into something that has a long-term prospect. So I think that we could very much look to increase those threshold payments so that we are really conditioning people back into the workforce and to be working more hours than perhaps they currently are and encouraging aspiration in that regard. I would urge the government, in a bipartisan manner, to look at some of the measures that have been proposed by the opposition and supported by me here today. 13:05 Dr HAINES 282335 Indi I rise to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023. The measures in this bill will make life a little bit easier for our most vulnerable Australians at a time when just getting by is harder and harder to do. These measures include: an increase of $40 per fortnight in working age and student payments; a higher rate of JobSeeker payments for 55- to 59-year-olds; and increases to Commonwealth Rent Assistance and single parenting payment. The $40 increase will apply to the JobSeeker payment, youth allowance, parenting payment partnered, Austudy, ABSTUDY, special benefit, disability support pension and youth payments. Right now a single person with no kids who is receiving JobSeeker receives around $49 a day. From September, it will be $52.36 a day or $733.10 a fortnight. I support this increase because for families in my electorate counting the dollars and seeing how far they can stretch every cent absolutely helps. We are in a cost-of-living crisis. Groceries, rent and petrol prices keep going up and, in relative terms, families are getting by with much less. Any increase, then, is welcome. But we do need to be honest with each other and with the Australian public. These payments remain unconscionably low. An increase of $2.86 a day won't fix this. It's almost impossible to live a dignified life on these payments alone. I certainly couldn't do it. The rate of payments is so low that instead of helping people back into work it pushes them down into poverty. A study from the University of New South Wales and the Australian Council of Social Service found 60 per cent of JobSeeker recipients and 34 per cent of youth allowance recipients live in poverty. The local food bank organisation in my electorate, Albury Wodonga Regional FoodShare, says that in their catchment there are 22,230 people living in poverty, and this includes 4,942 children. This is truly shameful I believe that the goal of our social security system should be to support people who can work to do so and to support people who are unable to work to live a decent life. This is how we should measure the adequacy of our social security system, yet these low payments neither give people unable to work a decent life nor encourage people who can work to do so, because the structural barriers remain so fundamentally high. For those who are unable to work, it condemns them to daily difficult decisions that no-one should have to make, such as choosing between paying the telephone bill or paying the rent or between putting dinner on the table or switching on the heating. In my regional electorate it is harder to make ends meet on these payments and harder to find a job if you rely on them between periods of employment. If you need a car to get to a job and you don't have one, your employment options are very limited. We have no public transport reliable or frequent enough to use to commute. If you live in the town of Bright and there's a job in Wodonga and you don't have a car, it is pretty simple: you can't take that job. Then there is the shocking lack of child care, with waiting lists extending more than two years in some towns, especially child care for shift workers, which keeps many women of working age right out of the workforce. If you are a single parent receiving JobSeeker and there's a cafe offering a job at lunchtime and you can't find child care then you simply can't take the shift. In regional Victoria we have a higher than average chronic burden of disease. If we need to see a doctor in Indi, only 12 of our 33 GP practices bulk-bill, and the bulk-billing rate is only 18 per cent, according to research by Cleanbill. So the incentives announced in the budget by the government to increase the amount of bulk-billing by GPs are extremely welcome. I really hope that they do work for the people of Indi, because this is a major cost and a major contributor to the lack of access to GPs and to the chronic disease burden that we experience. With additional barriers and costs, income supports don't go as far as they should in rural and regional Australia, and that's against the national statistic of the relative value declining from 50 per cent of the minimum wage in 1997 to under 40 per cent immediately before the addition of the coronavirus supplement. Everywhere this government turns, the call is the same. Groups as diverse as ACOSS and the Business Council of Australia, and the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, have called for a substantial increase—not just an increase; a substantial increase. The government's own economic inclusion advisory panel found that the current rates of payment were seriously inadequate, whether measured against payments overseas, the minimum wage, pensions or poverty lines. The panel recommended that: The Government commit to a substantial increase in the base rates of JobSeeker Payment and related working age payments as a first priority. And they recommended increasing it to 90 per cent of the age pension to improve adequacy. The $40 increase which this bill sets up falls far below this. Before the budget, I signed an open letter to the Prime Minister calling for a substantial increase in payments, along with 12 MPs from the government's own party, including the member for Hunter, the member for Bruce and the member for Dunkley. I'm sure these members were left disappointed, as I was, with what they saw in the budget. I am glad the government has committed to assessing the JobSeeker payment and other income support payments before each budget. The government should publish this assessment, so we know on what basis it keeps making this choice that leaves so many in poverty. I welcome the increase in the JobSeeker payment by $92.10 per fortnight for people aged between 55 and 59, which will benefit 340 people in my electorate. Yet many older people want to keep working, and, with a workforce shortage, we need all hands on deck. I'll be seriously considering the opposition's proposal to raise the income-free area for recipients from $150 to $300, although I don't support the member for Deakin's second-reading amendment in its entirety; there's much in that amendment that I disagree with. However, on this issue, I think we seriously do need to consider raising this opportunity to work. I think we need to consider raising the income-free threshold to allow people on JobSeeker to work more when they can and want to work more, like many pensioners I hear from in my electorate; they're very interested in this. But we must also increase JobSeeker at the same time. Department of Social Services figures from last year showed more than 350,000 people on unemployment benefits were unable to work full time due to illness or disability. So we must adequately support people where work is just not possible for them or where they need that extra help to get into the workplace in the first instance. In supporting older people, we cannot forget the extreme financial pressure facing our younger generations. I want to quote directly from Harry, a 23-year-old young man from Indi, from the town of Wangaratta. This is what he said: Those under 55 are the first generations to be worse off than their parents. We are facing a climate crisis, a cost of living crisis, a housing crisis and are witnessing a real time erosion of the Australian middle class. Furthermore, younger Australians are the most educated generations ever—yet we are still comparatively underpaid, even before historic increases in net productivity are considered. Harry went on to say: We want fair and equitable policies that benefit us all. Not short-sighted legislation that only seems to serve wealthy, asset rich Australians, whilst winding back the benefits that our parents enjoyed. And whilst I understand— says Harry— that those over 55 on JobSeeker do need additional help in our current affordability crisis, this does not mean those under 55 need it any less, or that they are any less deserving of the basic dignity of affordable living. This bill will increase Commonwealth rent assistance maximum rates by 15 per cent, and, according to the government, this will affect 5,055 households in my electorate. The average increase will be $24 per fortnight. Now, while this may be the largest increase in this payment in 30 years, it is essentially meaningless when compared to the increased cost of rents, especially over the last two years. In the 2021 census, the median weekly rental in Indi was $270. But today this is a very different picture. Before coming to this chamber, I checked on domain.com to see the average cost of renting a place in some of the towns in my electorate. Here are a couple of examples. In Wodonga, it's $430, up 7.5 per cent in 12 months. In Wangaratta, it's $420; and, in the Alpine Shire, it's $505, a staggering increase of 12 per cent in one year alone. In the more than 35 years that I've lived in Indi, I've never seen a situation in housing like we're seeing today. How can my constituents afford to pay the rent when in some places it has more than doubled in two years? According to the national campaign Everybody's Home, 40.6 per cent of renters in my electorate of Indi are facing rental stress—40.6 per cent—and this is leading to desperate situations. So, unfortunately, while the government's increase is welcome, it really is not going to make a difference to these people. I want to see the solutions to this housing crisis across our communities in regional Australia—solutions that help those experiencing homelessness, as well as solutions to help essential workers. My regional housing infrastructure fund is one such proposal. Housing is the No. 1 issue I hear about from my constituents now, and I'll keep lobbying the government to adopt the proposal I've put to them to be a national leader where government has previously fallen short. I also want recognise the increase in payments that are designed to support students, including Abstudy, youth allowance and Austudy. I represent many, many students studying at La Trobe University in Wodonga and Charles Sturt University in Albury, many more undertaking study either online at our country university centres or in other cities and then coming home when they can, and those students who are undertaking studies alongside full-time employment. I know this extra money in their pockets will be appreciated. Yet, while this supports current students, young people with a HECS debt will tomorrow face indexation of 7.1 per cent on their loans, the highest rate in more than three decades, adding more than $1,000 to the average loan. Many in my region are now looking at their degrees as a lifetime debt burden. One constituent has returned to university to study education—thrilled to hear that. But she's reconsidering whether to continue with her studies, because of the seemingly endless debt that comes with higher education. We desperately need teachers and so many other professions in regional Australia, but the high rate of indexation means that many more people will be looking at university study and seeing only a burden, not an opportunity. Indexation of loans also disproportionately affects women in the workforce who take time out to care for their children. The degree ends up costing them more than those who don't undertake care outside of their work, and this situation simply isn't fair. It's in the government's power to fix it, and I really urge them to do so. The cost of living is biting hard, and the government should be relieving costs on our young people, not adding to them. Single parents in my electorate are extraordinary, caring and balancing part-time work to make ends meet, and the extension of the maximum single parent payment from when the youngest child is eight to when they are 14 is a no-brainer. I congratulate the government on doing this. This change will benefit 380 single parents in my electorate alone. I wanted to share the perspective of one of these single parents, in Barnawartha. She told the Border Mail recently that, with the rising cost of living, single parents were being forced into the workforce when they had primary care of their children. She's the mother of children with extra needs and has chosen not to work so she can support her kids. When she has to apply for work and do government courses that prevent her from supporting her kids so that she can afford to live, this is an enormous burden. She does this, in spite of having to move back in with her parents so she can reduce the cost of rent. What broke my heart, reading her story, was that she said she's not the worst off; there are many people much worse off than her. So I welcome this payment. In conclusion, I support this bill because we need to do a lot more to support our vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians. I represent an electorate where 31,000 people aged 15 and over have government benefits as their main source of income, and I know that any increase, however small, will make a difference. People experiencing poverty don't have time to lobby federal parliamentarians or to host fancy breakfasts where they can put their case to government over pastries and coffee. By and large, they don't flood our electorate offices with calls or emails, unlike those for other trending issues of the day. They are too busy just getting by. That's why as their representative I will keep using my platform here to fight for this government to do more and to make the choice to guarantee Australians a safety net—a true safety net—and a real opportunity to lead a decent, honourable, dignified life and contribute to their community in the best way they can. 13:20 Mr STEVENS 176304 Sturt I rise to speak on the amendment to the amendment to the amendment to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023—which I suppose gives me an enormous amount of latitude—having read through the three amendments, let alone the great breadth of the bill itself. We are addressing issues of appropriate Commonwealth support, and we all support having in place a safety net that looks after vulnerable Australians—those who might be in temporary difficult circumstances or, from a more permanent point of view, who, appropriately, need support from government. I'd like to particularly touch on the amendment moved by my good friend the member for Deakin. He contributed to the debate on this bill and moved an amendment that reflects some important points that we in the coalition wish to make. We're not standing in the way of changes the government are seeking to put in place from their budget. Regrettably, we've heard only in the past few hours that year-on-year inflation is now ticking up again—6.8 per cent is the annualised rate for the month of April. We were told that by Christmas inflation would have peaked and that we were now coming off that. The term 'transitory' was used, particularly early on, in this inflationary challenge period. That's now been dropped by the economists and others. We were then told that inflation was peaking. Well, certainly and regrettably, data from the ABS as of today is not suggesting that inflation has peaked and is tracking down; it ticked up in the month of April, annualised, compared with the month of March. Other speakers have commented particularly on the challenges around the rental crisis that we now have in this nation, and unfortunately other data released just this week around housing commencements reinforces that there is an enormous squeeze going on in the rental market. I mention that in speaking on this bill because the people who will be supported by the changes in this bill are those who are in some of the most vulnerable circumstances and indeed those who are struggling with housing challenges at the moment. The member for Indi, whose comments I was able to listen to, made these points about those challenges in the rental market, and members whose contributions I haven't been able to keep abreast of no doubt made these points as well. And of course today's inflation news confirms that rents are driving that, amongst other pressures, and also underscores that what was announced in the budget is probably already out of date. So many Australians are finding it even tougher than what was predicted in the budget, and things were pretty tough in the budget as it was—predictions around power prices going up, around the impact on a whole range of household goods. If you've got a mortgage, your mortgage repayments have gone up dramatically. Rents are going up. We've now seen in the ABS data that fuel costs are again driving a serious increase in inflation. These all affect household budgets, and people who can least afford these sorts of movements are feeling them with the most difficulty. This is also an environment of very low unemployment. That's why, as the member for Deakin foreshadowed in his contribution and as his second reading amendment points out, we in the coalition believe there's never been a more important time to incentivise those who are on unemployment benefits to do all they can to participate in the workforce. That's why we commend the opposition leader, who made this central to his budget reply speech. We indeed believe that the time is opportune, more than ever, to encourage people by increasing to $300 a fortnight the amount of money that can be earned before it impacts on people's unemployment benefits. I speak to businesses, as all local members do, on a regular basis. The challenges of getting staff at the moment are acute, and they are enduring. This has been a problem for years now. It is not going away, regrettably, because there are businesses that are in a perverse circumstance. The member for Deakin outlined the good example of a cafe and the business owners of that cafe, who he knows well. They relayed the fact that, because of their staff challenges, they have to work such long, taxing hours that, whilst they are enduring that for now, they've got a sustainability question around whether or not they can continue to operate their business with that kind of enormous burden on them personally from having to work such long hours because they simply can't get staff. The measure that we're talking about in our amendment is an excellent example of encouraging people to work a little more without penalty. Whilst everyone's unique out there, we're very convinced that there is indeed a cohort of people who receive unemployment benefits that will not be jeopardised by triggering that threshold. If we were to double the threshold to $300 a week then there would absolutely be a cohort of people in a position to take on some extra work but who currently don't want to, frankly, because of the impact it would have on their unemployment benefits. They could, therefore, undertake that extra work in a fortnight and not impact their unemployment benefits and other entitlements they receive. This is an opportunity to both acquaint them more comprehensively with the value of work rather than living on entitlements and, equally, provide that additional labour to businesses that need it so badly. We think this is a very obvious opportunity that will address the challenges of getting long-term unemployed into work, because it would be a very unique person that wants a job right now in our economy that can't get any job whatsoever. That would be a very small cohort of people that are unemployed, and, equally, we know that there are more job vacancies than the total number of unemployed at the moment anyway. So anything we can do to increase the amount of hours worked by people is better. Other speakers have talked about the economic inclusion unit report, about which in the couple minutes I've got left I'd like to briefly make two points. The first is that it's quite remarkable that the government commissioned this report, which came back with recommendations which would see in this bill a much more comprehensive increase to support than what the government have provided for in the budget. That's something that we really need to note, highlight and reflect on, because they have actively chosen to commission a report and completely ignore it. Now, they were required or they negotiated to commission that report in exchange, as I understand it, for support on certain legislation in the Senate by a crossbench senator, and that crossbench senator can undertake the action that they choose to around whether or not the government honoured their commitment to that senator by ignoring a report that they committed to that senator to undertake. Why you would undertake a report and not consider any of its recommendations is interesting, but that's not for me to explain; that's for the Treasurer and others to explain. Of course, when the now government were in opposition, their tune was a very different one to the one that they play now. From the now Prime Minister down, it was absolutely the case that they had a very different position on increases to support for those on government assistance, well beyond the CPI increases that we see in legislation like this, and that now is not occurring, which we can see through this bill. The second thing I'd like to say, particularly to all the pensioners in my electorate and, frankly, pensioners across the nation, is that I completely reject the suggestion that unemployment benefits should be linked to the pension. That is an absolute insult to pensioners. The pension is a vastly different Commonwealth payment to unemployment benefits. Pension is something that has been earned and is deserved by hardworking Australians to support their retirement. Unemployment benefits are a completely different policy objective, and the suggestion that there should be some link between the pension and unemployment benefits I wholeheartedly reject. I think that is insulting to pensioners. The pension that they are paid is something that they are entitled to for the contribution they've made to this nation, to our society and to our economy. While supporting other Australians in need in difficult times is important, there is no correlation between the two. With those comments, noting the time, I conclude my contribution on the bill. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS 40 STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS Coastal Erosion 40 13:30 Mr GOODENOUGH 74046 Moore Moore is a spectacular coastal electorate along the popular northern beaches of Perth, coveted by the Prime Minister. The 20-kilometre stretch from the City of Stirling to the City of Joondalup is utilised daily by thousands of local residents. Coastal erosion is a major problem at the popular Mettams Pool and Watermans Bay, where infrastructure, including access stairs and ramps, have been washed away and the beaches have become rocky. The dunes, footpaths, public toilets, utilities and major infrastructure along West Coast Drive are at risk of erosion. In response, the local government has implemented measures including sand renourishment, dune restoration, and sandbagging at considerable expense to ratepayers. The City of Stirling expends $600,000 annually on coastal erosion treatments and, in the longer term, will need to implement extremely costly and capital-intensive engineered measures such as artificial reefs, groynes and seawalls. I endorse the motion moved at last year's Australian Local Government Association conference by the Mayor of Stirling, Mark Irwin, and call upon the Albanese government to urgently provide federal funding to local governments to protect coastal areas from the effects of erosion. Local government ratepayers should not be left to bear the full burden of implementing engineered coastal protection measures. Sisters Cancer Support Group 40 13:31 Ms BYRNES 299145 Cunningham Last Sunday I attended the Sisters Cancer Support Group fundraising luncheon at the Harbourfront Restaurant, organised by Nesrin Salem and Maha Elhage. The fundraising luncheon was a huge success, and I thank the entire committee for their assistance in this event and all the amazing things they do in our area. The Sisters Cancer Support Group is a community based not-for-profit registered charity organisation that provides support for women from multicultural backgrounds who are affected by cancer. They are also the first multicultural cancer-specific support group registered with Cancer Council NSW and Breast Cancer Network Australia. They host monthly cancer support groups that provide a safe, sensitive and culturally appropriate environment where participants can share their thoughts and their personal experiences of their cancer journey, give and receive social, emotional and spiritual support, and learn about cancer prevention, treatment and management. Last year I attended their incredible Multicultural Health Week. With the assistance of the Multicultural Communities Council of Illawarra and the local health district, this event brought together local health services and community groups to host information stalls, live healthy food demonstrations, aerobic exercises, cancer screenings and free health checks. The day also included four interpreters for Arabic, Macedonian, Turkish and Burmese language speakers to ensure accessibility. A special shout-out must be given to Thit Tieu, the group's founder, chair, and facilitator. Thit's enthusiasm and dedication to our community is unwavering. Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme 40 13:33 Mr HAMILTON 291387 Groom I rise to speak on the impact of Labor's changes to 60-day dispensing. It's important that this government take every step it can to help Australians suffering through the current cost-of-living crisis, particularly those who are most vulnerable to economic hardship. However, it is the consequences of this policy, rather than the intentions, that matter. The direct impact of this policy will be to reduce the viability of small regional local pharmacies, in some cases to the point of closure. Having spoken at length to several pharmacists in my electorate, my greatest concern is for residents of small communities like Goombungee, Kingsthorpe, Cambooya and Westbrook. The small local pharmacies in these towns simply are not large enough to sustain significant changes to their business model. Nathan Jarvis, the owner of the Oakey Pharmacy, told me that the impact of this change would be a direct bottom-line cost of $283,000. Not only would this change impact the service he is able to provide to his community, including free deliveries and cheap provision of Webster-paks, it reduces his ability to support the local sports clubs and community organisations in the town of Oakey. This family run business plays a crucial role in its community, and the impacts of this decision will be broadly felt. I don't doubt the government's intention here, but, given the complete lack of consultation with regional pharmacists prior to announcing this policy, I do doubt that the government has fully understood the consequences of its actions. Small country towns are doing it tough right now, and this government must not make a bad situation worse by rushing through this ill-considered policy. I implore the minister to go out and listen to those regional pharmacists and understand the consequences of this policy. Housing 41 13:34 Ms MURPHY 133646 Dunkley My community, like many across the country, is struggling because of the housing affordability crisis. There are no two ways about it. It's hard to buy a house, particularly if you're someone who has had to leave a relationship, an older woman or a younger person trying to save up, and it's hard to afford to pay rent. We on this side of the chamber know that, and that's why the minister and the Prime Minister, with the support of all of us here, have been working so hard to bring in a multipronged approach to deal with the housing affordability crisis. When you list everything together, you realise how much work has been done, much of which is not being recognised or, in most cases, supported by other parties in this parliament. You can start with the Housing Australia Future Fund, our key election commitment of $10 billion for social and affordable housing. It is held up in the Senate by Greens and Liberals and Nationals who have no rational argument whatsoever to not support a policy which will build more housing for people who need it. We have the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council. We've established and will be rolling out a help-to-buy scheme, assisting 10,000 people a year. There is the National Housing and Homelessness Plan with the states, which has been missing, as well as increasing Commonwealth rental assistance, investing more in social affordable housing, above the future fund, and expanding the Home Guarantee Scheme's eligibility. Bailes, Professor Matthew 41 13:36 Dr RYAN 297660 Kooyong Today I'm thrilled to congratulate Professor Matthew Bailes, an extraordinary astronomer from the electorate of Kooyong, who was yesterday named the joint winner of the Shaw Prize for the discovery of fast radio bursts, mysterious pulses of energy from beyond the Milky Way. Professor Bailes and his colleagues discovered a pulse of energy a trillion times brighter than anything seen in our galaxy from a billion light years away—a pulse lasting a fraction of a second. At first, other astronomers thought that this discovery was an anomaly caused by a thunderstorm, but they were wrong. Professor Bailes works at the dynamic and innovative Swinburne University in my electorate of Kooyong. He founded Swinburne's Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, which is home to about 80 research staff and PhD students. Next month he'll supervise four girls from local schools in his work experience program. He's now the director of the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery and greatly enjoys public outreach and inspiring students to pursue careers in STEM. I know of at least two young women from my electorate who have this year commenced science degrees in physics. Professor Bailes's work will inspire them both. The Shaw Prize is sometimes a precursor to the Nobel Prize, and the people of Kooyong and all Australians will wish Professor Bailes every future success. This prestigious award should bring attention to the incredible opportunities for scientific research in this country. Premier of Western Australia 41 13:38 Mr LIM 300130 Tangney Today I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to an extraordinary leader and, in my view, the finest statesman of our time, the Premier of Western Australia, the Hon. Mark McGowan. In the face of unprecedented challenges, he displayed unwavering strength, unwavering courage and unwavering leadership. During the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, he stood tall, fiercely protecting the state of WA. With immense personal sacrifice and under immense stress, he made tough decisions that were not always popular but were crucial to protecting us from the troubled times. Through his unwavering dedication, we have witnessed the transformation of our state from darkness to a golden age of hope and prosperity. We owe him a debt of gratitude for his steadfast commitment to the safety and wellbeing of all Western Australians. As he embarks on a well-deserved break, I wish the Premier all the best in his future endeavours. May his legacy continue to inspire generations to come. Thank you, Premier, for being the guiding light during our darkest hour. Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games 42 13:39 Mr BATES 300246 Brisbane Earlier this year I conducted a survey of the residents of Brisbane for their opinions on the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. My electorate is due to play host to several new venues for the games, including the proposed athletes village in Hamilton. Residents were overwhelming clear about their expectation that any infrastructure build for the games with public money must stay in public hands. In the case of the athletes village in Hamilton, it is imperative that these new apartments be converted into long-term social and affordable housing to deal with the games' anticipated negative impacts on housing affordability. Already, Brisbane City Council, the Queensland government and federal government have shown a total reluctance to be transparent about the billions of dollars they intend to spend on the games. So I'm pleased to announce that my Greens colleagues have secured a Senate inquiry to scrutinise the adequacy of oversight and accountability related to the games, its claims of economic benefits and the impacts of the games on housing affordability, communities and small businesses. Brisbane residents should be excited about the 2032 Games and deserve to see a positive legacy created from them, but this will only be possible if we continue to put major pressure on all three levels of government to be accountable to the people. Cost of Living 42 13:40 Mr BURNS 278522 Macnamara The people that I'm privileged to represent in suburbs like Elwood, St Kilda, South Melbourne, Southbank and so many others are dedicated to their families and their work and they are generous and passionate about our community. They are studying, working hard, raising families and living in our local community, adding so much. But, increasingly, through the many conversations that I'm having throughout my electorate, one thing that is clear is that people are finding it pretty tough at the moment. There's real pressure on household budgets from the cost of groceries to education, energy prices, child care and housing. Young professionals are finding it harder to get financial security as they leave university and start careers, and years of low wages under the previous government mean that there is little ability to absorb any increases in inflation. So governments need to be there to ensure people can get by in these difficult times. While I acknowledge there is a lot more to do, there is significant reform that has already been done, things like lowering the cost of medicines; making sure that we're tripling the bulk-billing incentive for people to be able to access a GP; delivering up to $3 billion of electricity bill relief; strengthening the safety net by increasing JobSeeker, youth allowance and single parent payments; and, of course, increasing the rent assistance; reducing the cost of child care; and a few other things as well. We have a lot more work to do, but we are listening, we are acting and we are ensuring that hardworking Australians can get by in these difficult times. Capricornia Electorate: Sarina RSL Building 42 13:42 Ms LANDRY 249764 Capricornia Six weeks ago the community of Sarina lost one of their most treasured buildings in a devastating fire. The former Sarina RSL building had been constructed by diggers in 1964. Its purpose was to allow returned serviceman a place to come together and, while not spoken about in those days, support each other's mental health battles over a beer. Unfortunately, due to the pressure COVID caused on the branch, the RSL was forced to close its doors. However, the life of the old RSL building was far from over, when in January this year it was purchased by selectability. A not-for-profit organisation, selectability, was in the midst of transforming the structure into a mental health hub to support the Sarina community when the tragedy struck. Only days before the highly anticipated opening, a fire broke out in the kitchen before quickly spreading and destroying the old RSL and damaging A&M Parts and Auto Repairs next door. As the fire began to encroach on A&M Parts and Auto Repairs, workers and locals nearby jumped into action to push every car out of the workshop. Not one vehicle was lost that afternoon due to the swift action taken. Unfortunately, A&M Parts and Auto Repairs was forced to close to assess the damage and undergo repairs with the reopening date unclear. As is the case with country towns, locals rallied around Adam, Mark and their team to help them through these stressful weeks. The Sarina community may be small but it is mighty when someone is in need, and I'm happy to say that A&M Parts and Auto Repairs reopened this week. I wish Adam— (Time expired) National Reconciliation Week 42 13:43 Dr REID 300126 Robertson This week marks the start of National Reconciliation Week, a time when Australians from all backgrounds and from all corners of the country reflect on our shared history with our First Nations brothers and sisters. We remember and we acknowledge that First Nations people have had an enduring connection to this land for almost 60,000 years. They were and continue to be the First Peoples of this land, and we recognise that there have been horrible atrocities committed towards First Nations people over many decades. We understand that this has led to intergenerational trauma in our First Nations communities. This has caused significant gaps in health, education and employment measures compared to non-Indigenous Australians. Importantly, this week is a time for all Australians to move forward together, creating a nation strengthened by respectful relationships. We all have a role to play, and I encourage all members of the Australian parliament to consider the significance of this historic moment in our country's history. The next chapter in our nation's reconciliation journey awaits, and history will forever remember the people who had the power to make change. In 1967 Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people were counted in the Australian population. In 2017 we asked to be heard. In 2023 Australia will vote in a historic referendum on recognition and an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice. This year we can make history again. Let us grasp this opportunity together and not let it slip away Economy 43 13:45 Mr HAWKE HWO Mitchell Australians will receive the news today that core inflation has again risen with great trepidation. Australia has one of the highest core inflation rates among every advanced economy in the world. The government needs a serious plan to tackle the rising cost of living and inflation, which is at the heart of these costs. They are adding to the cost of transport through their budget. They say they are cheapening the cost of medicine, but we have pharmacists here today who have reported to me that their changes will increase the costs of medicine. Their industrial relations changes are increasing the cost of labour at a time we have an inflation crisis, and electricity continues to rise. All of these cost inputs for business, all of these cost inputs for productive sectors, are challenging us in a way that we have not seen for a long time. The government needs a cohesive plan to tackle inflation, which means reducing its costs, reducing its taxes, charges, levies, regulation costs, costs of doing business, so we can put downward pressure on inflation. Inflation is the most serious threat to the economic prosperity of every single Australian, of their individual income, of their small and family businesses, and of our entire economy. Yet, from the government, all we hear all day is these are just minor cost impositions. These things will not make a big difference individually but, collectively, these costs are adding pressure to the inflationary pressures in our economy. The shadow Treasurer says if you don't have a plan to tackle inflation then you don't have a plan, and he is right. Solomon Electorate: Australian Defence Force 43 13:46 Mr GOSLING 245392 Solomon At the Nightcliff Seabreeze Festival over a week ago, I was delighted to speak to a local poet Ynes Sanz. Ynes writes free verse, haibun and haiku, short stories and children's books. Her publications include The Pity: Unheard Voices from the Great War. Ynes gifted a copy of that to me. Part of that book of poetry is The Unknown Mother, which I will now read. I raised my son well, taught him to honour his country in respect his elders. Now he studies the Laws of War. Let him quickly learn their artful distinctions: to kill combatant is honourable, to kill a civilian, criminal, to kill 'treacherously' will bring him certain death by hanging. Let him grasp that to lay waste a man's farmlands is a necessity of war, but to steal his possessions is a punishable crime. When he left, he was just a soft boy, and now he can kill on command with bullet or bayonet. When he comes back, if he does come back, will I recognise this stranger-son? At the first glimpse of that lad they stole from me, I will reach out my arms and clasp his poor, bloodied, hands in mine. It is a powerful piece of poetry from a local artist in Darwin that reminds us not only of the sacrifice of our serving people but of their families as well. Crethar, Mr Harry 44 13:48 Mr HOGAN 218019 Page Recently, Harry Crethar celebrated his 40th year on the radio in Lismore. Harry and his wife, Maria, of 57 years are proud Lismore residents. Harry migrated to Australia with his mother in 1948 when he was 11 years old. When Harry arrived in Lismore, he met his father for the first time, as he had immigrated to Australia much earlier. Harry left school at the age of 15 to commence working in his uncle's cafe, Crethar's Airconditioned Cafe. He then bought the Wonder Bar in 1956 from Spiros Coronakis, who became his father-in-law. Harry sold the Wonder Bar in 1980 and went on to establish Premier Picture Framing and Art Supplies in Lismore, which operated until the devastating February 2022 flooding event. In 1983 Harry was approached by Peter Carr, who was working as a presenter on the Greek radio program. Harry had a love and passion for music and accepted the offer. The program started as a half-hour program once a week and in now a two-hour weekly program on air every Tuesday on 92.9 River FM Lismore. Harry was excited to celebrate his 40th year on air. Harry and Maria have four sons—Ricky, Spero, Dion and Peter—and four beautiful grandchildren—Ava, Harrison, Sophia and Harry. Congratulations, Harry, on your 40th year on the radio. Minister For Regional Development, Local Government And Territories, Holt Electorate: Infrastructure 44 13:49 Ms FERNANDO 299964 Holt I was proud to host the Hon. Kristy McBain MP, the Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories, at Casey Fields in my electorate of Holt. Members of the inaugural Holt Young Leaders Initiative had the opportunity to hear directly from the minister and learn about her story. They were impressed by her leadership of the Bega community during the Black Summer bushfires and had many questions for her. The minister also got to try my home-cooked Ferrero Rocher-Nutella cupcakes, which put my cooking skills to the test, but she did mention that having 'pastry chef' on my Instagram bio was well deserved! The following day, I joined Minister McBain at Casey Fields as she announced that over $2.5 million would be granted to Casey city council as a part of round 4 of the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program. This crucial investment will help deliver priority local road and community infrastructure projects in our region and create jobs and long-lasting benefits for my community. I am so proud to be a part of a Labor government that puts people and communities at the front and centre of policy-making. Once again, thank you so much, Minister McBain, for coming down, and I look forward to seeing you soon. I thank the House. Petrie Electorate: Crime 44 13:51 Mr HOWARTH 247742 Petrie On Saturday, I was invited to a community meeting in Bridgeman Downs in Petrie, my electorate, about the increase in youth crime. Residents in that community are living in fear, having been the victims of a range of brazen crimes in their homes. I heard many stories, from people like Kym, Vinod, Lyn and Cathy. One resident said: 'I've been broken into at 8 am in the morning. They smashed the glass of our front door and ransacked the house while the alarms went off. They continued to stay there.' Delia, another resident, said: 'We, the community, are not satisfied. We are disappointed and we are scared.' Some residents are now so traumatised and fearful that they don't want to even share their first name. We will never forget Boxing Day last year, when a North Lakes family's home was broken into by a group of four young offenders, which ended in the murder of a young mother. State Labor MPs have been warned about these incidents and invited to these meetings, but they do not show up. Who did show up? The Leader of the Opposition, David Crisafulli MP, because the state Liberal National Party cares about the safety and wellbeing of Queenslanders and want youth crime addressed. The Labor government have failed in their responsibility to turn around the alarming rise in crime. To the residents of Bridgeman Downs: keep working together. Stay connected. Thanks for working for a better Bridgeman Downs community. Australian Public Service 44 13:52 Ms PAYNE 144732 Canberra At the moment, Senate estimates is going on. This is a really important accountability mechanism of government, where departmental officials come to be questioned by senators—in this session, about the recent budget. If anyone ever wanted any proof of how hardworking and dedicated our public servants are, Senate estimates is a good place to start. These hearings run from first thing in the morning to 11 pm each night, with departmental officials required to be ready to answer just about anything about the portfolios they work in. So you'd expect, during budget estimates, that we might have some serious questions from the coalition—perhaps, about the budget. But instead we saw a line of questioning from Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson to the secretary of the department of infrastructure, Jim Betts, about why he wasn't wearing a tie. Now, this shows two things: first of all, how disgracefully out of touch these people are, but, secondly, their absolute lack of respect and even contempt for our public servants and their professionalism. It is an absolute disgrace. I am so proud to represent so many members of our Australian Public Service who live in my electorate. These are some of the most dedicated, hardworking and professional people in this country, who work every day to get the best outcomes for the Australian people. I saw this firsthand when I worked at the Treasury, and I saw it in my father's career and everything he taught me about the principles of frank and fearless advice and getting the best policy outcomes for Australia. And I see it every day in this— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 The member for New England. Rural and Regional Health Services: Pharmacies 45 13:54 Mr JOYCE e5d New England I'm actually quite pleased to see the group we've got here in the gallery. As I came in, I thought it was a religious sect, but it's actually the Pharmacy Guild! This is actually for you, and I didn't know you were here. We have a real problem with what's happening to dispensing fees in regional areas. This is causing massive problems. If we don't have the frontline capacity of chemists, then in many towns we have no frontline capacity whatsoever. What happens in places such as Scone? If we lose the local chemist in Scone, who does the dispensing for the local aged-care facility? This has not been thought through. This is causing massive problems. I am being continually approached in my office by so many chemists—like the good people we have in the gallery here today—and what we have to do is get the government to understand that this policy change has created massive problems. It shows a distinct misunderstanding of how regional Australia works. We do not have the chemist supermarkets of the cities. We do have local family chemists. If they lose their capacity to earn a buck from dispensing fees, we will lose that chemist. And, when that chemist is gone, there is nothing that is going to take its place. It's good to see you people here today. I ask you to consider the consequences of your government's actions, to revise the decision you've made, to come back and to secure the frontline health facilities that are so essential in regional parts of Australia. Parramatta Electorate: Save Oatlands 45 13:55 Dr CHARLTON I8M Parramatta I want to express my gratitude and admiration for the Save Oatlands community group. Oatlands is a special place. Located just north of Parramatta, its lush landscapes and historical significance have made it a place where parents can raise children in a safe, family-friendly environment. In March 2022 a plan was put forward to build high-rise units, with little to no consultation with local residents, who have lived in the area for decades. I've doorknocked hundreds of homes along Bettington Road and in the surrounding streets, listening to the stories of residents who felt that their voices and concerns were being ignored. Since late last year, the local community in Oatlands has come together to fight the proposed high-rise development at the Oatlands Golf Club. The most remarkable part of this campaign has been the community. People from all walks of life have come together and united behind this common cause. Over 680 people have signed the Save Oatlands petition, more than 250 locals have attended five Save Oatlands forums, and over 90 unique submissions were made to Parramatta council to object to this development. Thank you for your unwavering dedication, your passion and your action. Your commitment to saving Oatlands shows the power of grassroots community action. Western Australia Government 45 13:57 Mr HASTIE 260805 Canning I was going to talk about the opening of the Lakelands train station in a few weeks time in Canning, something I'm very proud of, but I want to address the Prime Minister's remarks in caucus yesterday, when he indicated he was targeting Canning at the next election. Well, I say in return, Prime Minister, bring it on and do your worst, because we love a contest and WA Labor has completely overlooked my region. Everyone is so busy handing out bouquets to Mark McGowan, they've forgotten how bad his record actually is. He'll get no bouquets from me or from other members from Western Australia, because he has left us with record ramping hours in WA, particularly at my local hospital, the Peel Health Campus. WA Labor have had six years now, and they've done nothing to fix the Peel Health Campus. Less than two weeks ago, we had black mould in the hospital, forcing an evacuation of many patients. It was the former coalition government that funded the upgrade of the emergency department with $25 million for the hospital. WA Labor has completely overlooked our region's infrastructure, with delays to the Tonkin Highway, a freeway critical to the economic development of my region; and delays to the Pinjarra heavy haulage deviation, with $200 million from the former coalition government—to get 600 trucks every day out of Pinjarra—delayed and probably cut by this government. So, Prime Minister, we'll see you in 18 months. Bring it on. Australian Constitution: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice 46 13:59 Ms RYAN 249224 Lalor I was six when, in 1967, the Australian public voted yes to the referendum question to count First Australians as Australian people in the census. I sat on the opposition benches when the member for Barton joined us here in this place, and I listened to her talk about that moment in her young life and what that meant to her—half insult, one would think. Since then, we've been joined on the government benches by the member for Lingiari, whose story has moved me deeply, and the member for Robertson, who speaks of the love at the core of First Nations culture. All three reach out to us, looking for generous spirit, and, on this side, I'm proud to say we bring them that generous spirit. I am so proud to be a member of this government, building a fairer, more resilient, stronger Australia, an Australia that can look its history clearly in the eye, an Australia that is looking forward to being more reconciled. To my people at home, I say: bring on the 'yes' vote, bring on the momentum; let's get this work done. On this side, I'm proud to say, we bring them that generous spirit. I am so proud to be a member of this government building a fairer, more resilient, stronger Australia--an Australia that can look its history clearly in the eye, an Australia that is looking forward to being more reconciled. To my people at home I say: bring on the 'yes' vote. Bring on the momentum. Let's get this work done. The SPEAKER 53517 In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded. MINISTRY 46 MINISTRY Presentation 46 14:00 Mr R36 Grayndler ALBANESE (—) (): I present a revised ministry list, which includes the changes to arrangements I announced last week and which were made by His Excellency the Governor-General at Government House earlier this morning, and new representative arrangements. I understand the document will be included in the Votes and Proceedings and Hansard. The document read as follows— CONDOLENCES 48 CONDOLENCES Childs, Mr Bruce Kenneth 48 14:01 The SPEAKER 53517 I inform the House of the death on 4 May 2023 of Bruce Kenneth Childs, a former senator. Bruce Childs represented the state of New South Wales from 1981 to 1997. As a mark of respect to the memory of Bruce Childs, I invite all present to rise in their places. Honourable members having stood in their places— The SPEAKER 53517 I thank the House. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 48 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Cost of Living 48 14:01 Mr DUTTON 00AKI Dickson My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister clearly promised Australian families before the last election that no family would be worse off and that he had 'lasting plans for cheaper mortgages and better pay'. With the typical Australian family now $25,000 worse off since Labor was elected, why won't the Prime Minister apologise for misleading Australians into thinking life would be easier under Labor? 14:02 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question and I note that the RBA governor, Philip Lowe, has appeared at Senate estimates just this morning. Prior to the appearance, the Leader of the Opposition's deputy said this about Governor Lowe: 'He's a straight shooter and I'm sure he'll tell it as it is.' And indeed he has done that across a range of areas in which the government is delivering. This is what the governor had to say this morning. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 The Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the member for Deakin will cease interjecting. Mr ALBANESE R36 He said, 'I don't think that the budget is adding to inflation. It's actually reducing inflation.' That's what the Governor of the Reserve Bank had to say after that glowing endorsement by the deputy leader just this morning. He went on to say this: 'The government has got a lot of extra revenue, improved our public finances—that's fantastic. It could have elected to use this revenue to increase spending, but it didn't do that.' I wonder who the governor was thinking of, eh! He wouldn't have to think back too far. He would have just had to think back to the 2022 budget handed down by the coalition, which was handed down in the context of the highest quarterly inflation—2.1 per cent—this century. That's what they provided over. He went on again to say this: 'The fact that it did not recycle that money back into the economy—that is, withdrawing stimulus that otherwise could have been injected—is helpful. If that money had been recycled back into the economy, we would be facing yet higher interest rates. So it's fair to say that we had very responsible action by the government.' He went on as well to endorse the actions that we have taken on energy. 'The energy price caps in electricity and gas have roughly taken half a per cent off inflation over the next calendar year, and then the rebates will take another quarter per cent off. The combination of those measures is reducing inflation by three-quarters of a percent.' There it is: the Governor of the Reserve Bank, just after the fine endorsement by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, making it very clear that Labor's responsible budget is making a positive difference, including the measures that were opposed by those opposite. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice 48 14:05 Dr REID 300126 Robertson My question is to the Prime Minister. Earlier today the House passed the Constitution alteration bill. How will recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our Constitution move our country forward? 14:05 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I thank the member for Robertson for his question, for his leadership as a fine new representative of the people of Robertson in this House and for his leadership on this issue. Six years ago at Uluru, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people invited all Australians to walk together toward a better future. The 'yes' that we heard here this morning was a great step forward on that journey together as a nation. This referendum can be a moment of national unity, just as the Apology was—an extraordinary opportunity for every Australian to be counted and heard, to own this change and be proud of it and to truly live the spirit of the fair go. Today's progress is the result of a grassroots movement, the culmination of years of discussion, consultation and hard work by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This is not something that began in Canberra. This certainly has not been rushed into. It is a response to a gracious request from our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—an invitation built on a desire to bring us all closer together as a people reconciled and to lift our great nation to even greater heights. This referendum is about two things. It's about recognition in our Constitution, something other advanced economies that became colonies in past centuries did a long time ago: New Zealand, way back in the 19th century, and Canada, in the last century. We are the only advanced economy that has not done that. The referendum is also about listening. Indigenous Australians, when they met together at the First Nations constitutional convention, decided not just that they wanted recognition but also the form of it. And the form they requested us to grant for them was a voice, an opportunity for us to listen to them about matters that affect their lives, about matters that go to the heart of the need to close the gap between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. The Voice is the means to an end. The end is about closing the gap. As the Solicitor-General said, it will enhance our system of representative government. The Constitution alteration bill will now go to the Senate, and soon this extraordinary journey that began so far from parliament will return to the people, and it will be the people who decide. Today this House said yes to holding a referendum. We look forward to the Australia people saying yes to recognition. Economy 49 14:08 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer My question is to the Prime Minister. This morning's monthly CPI release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that inflation has once again risen, higher than even the market expected. Will the Prime Minister finally take responsibility for this cost-of-living crisis that is hurting so many Australians? 14:08 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I thank the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for her question, and I congratulate her on calling out the Reserve Bank governor this morning for the straight shooter that he is. The Reserve Bank governor has had a lot to say about inflation and about the issues that are there in the economy, including the global pressures on inflation. But of course the member would know that the quarter with the highest inflation that has occurred this century was the March 2022 quarter—the last full quarter that those opposite presided over. The Reserve Bank governor has made it very clear about the government's response. He said this: 'I don't think that the budget is adding to inflation. It is actually reducing inflation.' That's pretty clear. That's a pretty clear statement. I don't know how it could have been more unequivocal than that. The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The member for Hunter. Mr ALBANESE R36 The governor was also asked—helpfully, by the shadow finance minister, who I must say asked some very good questions today—this: 'Do you believe that not adding to inflation is still something that fiscal policy should be prioritising today?' This is what the governor said, 'Given my job is to get inflation down, that would be helpful, and I don't think the budget is adding to inflation—it's actually reducing it in the next financial year.' Thank you, Senator Hume, for that question. Thank you. It made it very clear. Those opposite like to talk down the Australian economy. The SPEAKER 53517 The member for New England will cease interjecting. Mr ALBANESE R36 They like to talk down the positive future that Australia has. We're getting on with the job of making a difference. Our budget, that turned around what was predicted to be a $78 billion deficit and instead produced a forecast $4.2 billion surplus, actually has a downward impact on inflation. I would have thought that was pretty obvious. The governor knows it's pretty obvious. I would have thought that those opposite should recognise that as well. Uluru Statement from the Heart 49 14:11 Dr GARLAND 295588 Chisholm My question is to the Minister for Indigenous Australians. How is the Albanese Labor government advancing its commitment to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full? 14:11 Ms BURNEY 8GH Barton Can I thank the member for Chisholm for her question and her enthusiasm in relation to this issue. Today, the House of Representatives passed the constitutional alteration bill without amendment. Today, we are one step closer to a referendum. Today, we are one step closer to recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our Constitution. Six years ago, 250 First Nations leaders gathered at Uluru. They called for a voice and for Makarrata to oversee a process of truth telling and agreement making, expressed in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Last Friday, I had the opportunity to go to Mutitjulu, to meet with leaders and with the local community. Uluru-Kata Tjuta and the land around them have always been very special places. The traditional owners, the Aṉangu, believe that the physical landscape of Uluru was shaped by ancestral beings that still exist today. And Uluru, that sacred rock, is at the very heart of Australia and the Uluru Statement from the Heart. That gracious invitation, as the Prime Minister has said, to walk together to a better future, that historic First Nations consensus on a way forward, guides us like the stars in the Southern skies to a better future, a better future that is centred on making practical differences. I say that again—practical differences—because that is what the Voice will do. The Voice will make a practical difference, and here's why. For too long governments have made policies for Indigenous Australians and not with Indigenous Australians, and for too long they have contributed to the gap in life expectancy, the gap we all know so well. Because a voice will be an independent advisory body that can give advice to government and the parliament on the issues that affect communities, it's about listening, it's about making a difference. So I say to Australians: We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by supporting the Voice. It's time for recognition, it's time for a voice and it's time to say, 'Yes.' DISTINGUISHED VISITORS 50 DISTINGUISHED VISITORS Fox, Ms Mem, AM 50 14:14 The SPEAKER 53517 I am pleased to inform the House that present in the gallery today is Mem Fox AM, much-loved children's book author and former South Australian Australian of the Year. I advise the House that this is the 40th anniversary of her magical book Possum Magic. Hon ourable members: Hear, hear! QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 50 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Audit and Assurance Industry: PricewaterhouseCoopers 50 14:15 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne My question is to the Prime Minister. Estimates hearings have revealed the enormous scope of the PwC scandal, including last night that the ATO reported evidence of PwC's conspiracy to defraud the Commonwealth to the AFP back in 2018. Meanwhile, PwC remains the governance and internal risk auditors for the AFP and Treasury and has made big donations to Labor and the Liberals. Will you refer the growing PwC scandal to the National Anti-Corruption Commission when it begins in July? 14:15 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I thank the member for Melbourne for his question, and I certainly agree with him that the breaches in confidentiality by PwC are an absolute scandal. It is deeply troubling. I am sure that anyone who has looked at the details that have been revealed for those events that occurred back in 2018 and around then when PwC was giving advice to the then government on multinational tax changes finds these revelations shocking. The Treasury has already referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police, so it's gone well beyond the step that the member suggests there. The PwC breach did not arise as a result of an active procurement or Commonwealth contract. The Department of Finance has already taken a number of actions under the Commonwealth procurement framework to strengthen our systems following the disclosure of the PwC emails. These include PwC being directed to stand down employees who were involved in or had knowledge of the tax matters from government contracts until the Switkowski investigation is completed and the department is satisfied that the direction can be lifted. New clauses will be included in the standard government procurement contracts to further strengthen the ability of the government to cancel these contracts in response to such behaviour in the future. Secretaries have been reminded that ethical behaviour must be taken into account as part of the value-for-money assessments which underpin decisions under the procurement framework. The government reserves the right to consider further changes if they are required. I'll conclude with this point to the member for Melbourne. One of the things that this government spoke about before being elected was the reduction in the capacity of the Public Service to give that frank and fearless advice which is so required and the increasing use of contractors. In the most recent budget, we committed to further conversions of third-party workers—that is, not Public Service—to Public Service employment directly for critical jobs, including in Defence, Agriculture, Veterans' Affairs and the ATO. The context in which we made those commitments was certainly not around this. I am certain that members of the then government weren't aware of these details either. These revelations are indeed shocking, but they do point towards a policy failure as well as— (Time expired) Economy 50 14:18 Mr BURNELL 300129 Spence My question is to the Treasurer. What did today's monthly inflation indicator reveal, and how is the Albanese Labor government responding to the inflation challenge in the economy? 14:19 Dr 37998 Rankin CHALMERS (—) (): I thank the outstanding member for Spence for his question about the cost-of-living pressures that people are facing right around Australia. Today the ABS did release the monthly CPI indicator, which rose by 6.8 per cent over the 12 months to April. This is a tick-up from the previous month's indicator, but it is well below the 8.4 per cent peak it reached over the 12 months to December last year. As I said yesterday, and as I think the Treasury secretary said yesterday, we need to be careful about the monthly figure, which bounces around from month to month and can be volatile. But what we see in the data today is that the ABS is pointing out that the tick-up in the indicator this month is being largely driven by the changes to the timing of the fuel excise that impacted the indicator in April of last year. What is really clear is that the peak in inflation is behind us. While it has been higher than we would have liked for longer than we would have liked, it is expected to moderate over the year ahead, which is a point that the RBA governor made today in his testimony. This side of the House does understand that Australians are under the pump with these cost-of-living pressures. That's why responding to the inflation challenge remains a central focus of the Albanese government's economic plan and the budget that we handed down earlier in May. It's why we delivered a responsible budget that struck the right balance between restraint and targeted cost-of-living relief, so that we don't add to inflation pressures in the economy. The Governor of the Reserve Bank said today—and he said it very, very clearly—that he doesn't think the budget that was handed down from this dispatch box is adding to inflation; if anything, it's taking the pressure off inflation. With that testimony this morning, the Reserve Bank governor absolutely torpedoed the rubbish argument that has been peddled by those opposite since budget night. I mean, going around the country trying to get people to write that the budget is inflationary and it's going to put upward pressure on interest rates—the Reserve Bank governor said today that his outlook for inflation and interest rates has not changed as a consequence of the budget. It's taken some of the pressure off inflation in our economy, and that was the point of the budget. The budget combined spending restraint with savings measures to try and get genuine value for money after a wasted decade of waste, rorts, economic mismanagement and nowhere near enough to show for $1 trillion in debt. The SPEAKER 53517 The Treasurer will pause. I couldn't hear what the Treasurer was saying, because there was far too much noise, but I want to hear from the Manager of Opposition Business. Mr Fletcher L6B On relevance, the Treasurer is a serial offender. The question was commendably tight, but the Treasurer could not restrain himself from going into the record of the previous government, which is not within the terms of the question or the answer. He should be directed back to the question. The SPEAKER 53517 I uphold that point of order. The question was not an opportunity for the Treasurer to compare and contrast. I ask him to return to the question. Dr CHALMERS 37998 I was asked about the inflationary pressures in the economy, and the wasted decade did not help. When it came to the pressures that we inherited, our budget combined cost-of-living relief and investment in the supply side of the economy. It was a responsible budget, and, as the governor made clear today, it's taking the pressure off inflation, not adding to it. Rural And Regional Health Services 51 14:22 Mr LITTLEPROUD 265585 Maranoa My question is to the minister for health. In the gallery today is Jo Rhodes, a pharmacist from Nowra, along with 70 other concerned pharmacists from around the country. Hundreds of regional pharmacies like Ms Rhodes's face potential bankruptcy because of Labor's new 60-day dispensing policy. Will the government enter into a new agreement with pharmacists before this policy commences so that cost-of-living relief can be delivered without the risk of bankrupting community pharmacies? The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The member for Macarthur is warned. The member for Riverina will cool his jets. I want to hear the answer in silence. I give the call to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. 14:23 Mr BUTLER HWK Hindmarsh I welcome the pharmacists in the gallery here. I welcome the work they do and the work they did all through the pandemic, particularly. They were the most accessible health service in almost all of our communities through three years. I welcome a question about our commitment to cheaper medicines. We are delivering on our commitment to make medicines cheaper for all Australians at a time of cost-of-living pressures hitting all people in Australia, particularly people who are reliant upon medicines not just for one month because they have an infectious disease but for years and years, if not decades, because they have chronic disease. But there is more to do. Although we have a strong record of cutting the price of medicines in just 12 months, there is more to do. We did accept the advice of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee that there could be 60 days of supply for 300 common medicines prescribed for chronic disease. And that is not new advice, because the former government received that advice five years ago about common medicines for chronic disease. The SPEAKER 53517 The member for Page is warned. Mr BUTLER HWK They decided in their wisdom— The SPEAKER 53517 The minister for infrastructure will cease interjecting. The health minister will just pause. There is far too much noise. The member for Page is now on a warning. The warnings won't be issued if that level of noise continues. I will hear from the Leader of the Nationals on a point of order. Mr Littleproud 265585 I rise on a point of order: relevance. This is about a renegotiation agreement because this minister is taking— The SPEAKER 53517 Resume your seat. The Leader of the Nationals has abused the standing orders. The question was about the changes the government is making. The minister is being relevant. I am listening to him carefully about the impact of these changes. Whoever is yawning there can just remain silent. The House will come to order so the minister can be heard in silence. Mr BUTLER HWK As I was saying, this is not new advice. The advisory committee provided the same advice five years ago. The former government, in their wisdom, decided not to follow it and, as a result, millions of patients paid twice as much for their medicines than they otherwise had to. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars have been paid out by patients because the former government decided not to follow the advice of the experts. Now, we are following the advice of the experts. It will halve the costs of medicines for six million patients, which is why the Consumers Health Forum has supported our decision, as has the Heart Foundation, Diabetes Australia, Arthritis Australia and the Breast Cancer Network. Every other patient group that has reported on this has supported our decision. It will halve the number of times those six million patients have to visit a GP, freeing up millions of GP visits every year that can go to other patients who are currently waiting to see their doctor, which is why every single is doctor's group has supported it. As I said, every dollar saved by this measure will be reinvested into pharmacy, because on this side we support sustainable community pharmacy. We are talking with all groups in the pharmacy sector, including the Pharmacy Guild, about the best way to make that investment, including, in particular, the impact on rural pharmacies. I look forward to those discussions continuing. The SPEAKER 53517 The Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the member for Riverina will cease interjecting immediately. Korea-Pacific Islands Summit 52 14:28 Ms SWANSON 264170 Paterson My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence. What is being done to build Australia's standing in the Indo-Pacific, to play our part in protecting regional security and the rules based international order? 14:28 Mr MARLES HWQ Corio I thank the member for her question and acknowledge her commitment to the defence families of our country. On Monday I represented Australia at the inaugural Korea-Pacific leaders' summit in Seoul, which was a welcome step forward in Korea's engagement with the countries of the Pacific Island Forum. I was able to hear from and speak with most of the Pacific's leaders. Security in the Pacific is grounded in the 2018 Boe Declaration, which has as its heart the idea that the Pacific security should come from the Pacific family itself, which is a profoundly important principle. But of all the security threats that are faced by the countries of the Pacific, far and away the greatest is the existential threat of climate change faced by the countries of the Pacific. That is why the change in Australia's policy, under the Albanese government, of putting our country on a serious path to net zero emissions by 2050 has completely transformed our relationship with the countries of the Pacific, which is so important in terms of our own national security. Yesterday I met with Korea's President Yoon and defence minister Jong-sup Lee. In November Korea published its own Indo-Pacific strategy, and, seen alongside the Defence Strategic Review and our government's response to it, the similarity in the way in which both of our countries are seeing the world is really remarkable. We both understand that our respective nations' security lies in the collective security of the region in which we live and the maintenance of the global rules based order within that region. We have a huge economic relationship with Korea. They are our fourth largest trading partner. So yesterday Minister Lee and I decided that the 2011 defence MOU, which underpins our defence relationship, should be revitalised but, more significantly, upgraded so that our defence partnership reflects the significance of our overall bilateral relationship. He and I will have an opportunity to meet on a number of occasions over the coming months to pursue this, the first of which will be this weekend at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. The keynote speaker at that dialogue will be the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister and I are heading off to Singapore tomorrow. This affirms the seriousness with which Australia is now being taken within the world. When we came to office, just over a year ago, Australia was drifting in a sea of broken relationships. But over the last 12 months all of that has changed as Australia has taken its rightful place at— (Time expired) Pharmacy 53 14:32 Mr DUTTON 00AKI Dickson My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, what's your message to the pharmacists in the gallery today? The SPEAKER 53517 The member for McEwen is warned. 14:32 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. My message to the pharmacists in the gallery today is: good on you; good on you for the work that you do in the community. That is one of the reasons we argued during the pandemic that pharmacists should do more. But those opposite held back, left them on the bench. Pharmacists could have been used to assist with vaccines. I don't know whether my friend Adele is up there today—yes, she's up there; my friend Adele Tahan is there. She's the Vice President of the Pharmacy Guild. I met with Adele in my electorate office—because, as a good local member, I still represent the people of Grayndler—and I had a very constructive chat with Adele. Her pharmacy at Rozelle does extraordinary work—I can see you, and good luck with the twins, Adele; congratulations on their birth! One of the things I understand about small business is that people like Adele Tahan and my local pharmacy across the road from my electorate office, on Marrickville Road— Honourable members i nterjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order! There is far too much noise on my right. The Prime Minister is being relevant by directly acknowledging someone in the gallery. I'm not sure if this point of order is on relevance, but I'll hear from the Leader of the Opposition. Mr Dutton 00AKI Mr Speaker, it is on relevance. The Prime Minister has ripped $160,000 out of pharmacists— The SPEAKER 53517 Resume your seat. Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting immediately. The SPEAKER 53517 The Leader of the Opposition: I took your point of order, out of respect for the office you hold. I'm going to hear from the Leader of the House. M DYW Mr Speaker, I'd just raise that it was a deliberately frivolous point of order, that his response was then out of order and then he continued to interject from out of his seat. Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order. The Leader of the Opposition gets a lot of latitude, but simply getting up in this chamber and having a free-for-all is not on. The Prime Minister was asked a question about a message to people in the gallery. He was directly talking to people in the gallery— Honou rable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order—by name. I'm not sure how more relevant he could be. Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order! This is a huge issue— Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order!—that is having an impact on the House. I'm just going to ask that the Prime Minister be heard in silence, out of respect for the office he holds. Mr ALBANESE R36 As I said, I respect the job that pharmacists do. I interact with them all the time. I regard them as people who, like the post office masters in the past, and like the newsagents, are people who service their local community and who I have had a long contact with. The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The SPEAKER 53517 The Leader of the Nationals, if he says one more thing, will leave the chamber. Mr ALBANESE R36 And that is why, when we considered this measure, that was the subject of vast consultation between the government and the Pharmacy Guild— Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order! Members on my left will cease interjecting. Order. The Prime Minister will continue his answer in silence. Mr ALBANESE R36 That is why we made sure that every single dollar that the Commonwealth will benefit from goes back into community pharmacy. And I've had discussions— Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order! Members on my left, this is not acceptable, this response. Further action will be taken if this behaviour continues. I'm going to move to the next question. The time has now concluded. Small Business 54 14:37 Mr NEUMANN HVO Blair My question is to the Minister for Small Business. How is the Albanese Labor government supporting small businesses? And what have been the challenges to delivery? 14:37 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin I want to thank the member for Blair for his question. The SPEAKER 53517 The member for Fairfax will leave the chamber under 94(a). The member for Fairfax then left the chamber. Ms COLLINS HWM I know that the member for Blair is a great representative of the local small businesses in his electorate, and we are supporting small businesses because we know that small businesses have been having a difficult few years and they have been having a tough time, which is why our budget has provided targeted support, while not adding to inflation. We want to help small businesses, and we are, to save on their energy bills through the Small Business Energy Incentive and, indeed, through the targeted energy bill relief that we're delivering in partnership with the states and territories. We're making it easier for small businesses to invest and to grow, with cash-flow support through the $20,000 instant asset write-off. We're ensuring that small businesses can innovate, invest and grow, by providing that cash-flow support. We're also ensuring that small businesses adopt and adapt to digital technology, through the industry growth plan, and we're helping them thrive online through the Digital Solutions program. We are also helping to protect small businesses from cybersecurity attacks through a new $23 million Cyber Wardens program. This program is a pilot that COSBOA has developed with some private sector partners but with content developed alongside the Australian Cyber Security Centre. We're reducing the time that small businesses spend doing taxes. We're saving small businesses both time and money with these changes. We're also expanding the Tax Clinic program to support small businesses and individuals, and it was a great opportunity for me to be able to visit this in my home state of Tasmania, to see how it's delivering critical support. At every opportunity, we have been saying 'yes' to supporting small businesses. We've updated the Commonwealth Procurement Rules to give small businesses a bigger slice of the $70 billion that goes to tender each year. We've said yes to making unfair contract terms illegal, something those opposite talked about for a long time but, in nine years, didn't get round to. We have legislated it. We've supported small businesses in terms of being paid on time; we have a current review into the Payment Times Reporting Act. Importantly, we've also brought together the small-business ministers from around the country—who hadn't been brought together for more than eight years—to make sure that we can work across states and territories to support small businesses. Whilst we've been saying yes to small businesses, those opposite have been saying no. They said no to the Energy Bill Relief Fund, a direct rebate for small businesses. They came in here and they voted against it. They said no to the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund that will support supply chain resilience for small businesses. They came in here and again voted no. In fact, they did very little when it came to supporting small businesses against cybersecurity attacks, but we have already moved. They failed, as I said, to make unfair contract terms illegal. They have done very little. (Time expired) Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme 55 14:40 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister guarantee that, under his 60-day dispensing rule, no pharmacist will be worse off? 14:41 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I can guarantee that, under our cheaper pharmaceuticals policy, six million Australians will be better off. Six million Australians will be better off. We had questions at the beginning of question time about the cost of living, and then those opposite stand up and say that people who have arthritis, people who have heart conditions, people who have diabetes, should pay more for their medicines. That's what they say. Just like the only government that produced cheaper medicines for Australians in the history of the pharmaceutical— The SPEAKER 53517 The Prime Minister will pause. I'll hear from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition on a point of order. Ms Ley 00AMN Are you sitting down, Prime Minister? Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The deputy leader will proceed with her point of order without commentary. Ms Ley 00AMN My point of order is on relevance. The Prime Minister is not answering the question about whether— The SPEAKER 53517 Resume your seat. The question was about the 60-day dispensing rule. The Prime Minister was being relevant, and I'll make sure he remains relevant for the remainder of his answer. Mr ALBANESE R36 The pharmacy sector make a vital contribution to the health of the local community. They have my respect. I have sat down, including with Trent— Mr Joyce e5d You haven't met them! Mr ALBANESE R36 You wouldn't know. You would not know. I not only have sat down— Opposition members interjecting— Mr ALBANESE R36 You struggle to find the chamber, mate! I sat down with the head of the Pharmacy Guild in Brisbane two weeks ago. I sat down with the vice-president of the Pharmacy Guild in my electorate office just a couple of weeks ago. I'll continue to engage with community pharmacies, including in my own area, as will the health minister. And every member will because every member here knows the important role that community pharmacists have. But what we won't do is ignore completely, which those opposite want us to do, the cost-of-living pressures on people who have a health condition that requires regular drug treatment for the rest of their lives. Why should they pay double what they need to? Why should they? That's what those opposite have to ask. They can be angry—all this fake outrage from those opposite. What we are doing is delivering on cheaper pharmaceuticals. We, through the minister, are and will continue to be engaged with the Pharmacy Guild and with community pharmacies. But we will be engaged in the interests of their customers as well. (Time expired) Economy 55 14:45 Ms MURPHY 133646 Dunkley My question is to the Treasurer. How was the budget carefully calibrated to address cost-of-living pressures in the economy? 14:45 Dr CHALMERS 37998 Rankin I thank the wonderful member for Dunkley for her question. As we have acknowledged today and on many other occasions, we on this side of the House understand that Australians are under the pump as a result of high inflation and interest rates, which started rising before the election. That's why our economic plan and the budget we delivered this month were carefully calibrated and designed to take pressure off the cost of living, rather than add to it. The Reserve Bank governor, as I said before, acknowledged that this morning, telling Senate estimates: 'I don't think that the budget is adding to inflation; it's actually reducing inflation.' Those are the words of the RBA governor. He backed the spending restraint that we showed in the budget as well. He said: 'In the most recent budget, I was pleased that the government saved most of the upgrade in revenue, and the electricity price package is helping with inflation as well. That's important because if it knocks over three-quarters of a percentage point off inflation over the next financial year that will help lower the headline inflation rate and help contain inflation expectations, which we were talking about before, so that is helpful.' He went on to say: 'The budget, largely through the electricity price package, is taking pressure off inflation.' The Reserve Bank governor said that the budget hadn't changed the outlook for interest rates, telling estimates: 'We incorporated the broad parameters of the budget into our forecasts. We have got good liaison through the Treasury secretary and the Treasurer. We understood the parameters of the budget, so it hasn't affected our outlook for the economy or for interest rates.' As I said before, this puts to an end for all time the ridiculous argument being put by those opposite about the budget's impact on inflation and interest rates. They are very angry today because they have been sprung. They voted for higher electricity prices and now they want to vote for higher medicine prices as well. That will put upward pressure on cost of living rather than downward pressure. The SPEAKER 53517 The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order? Mr Fletcher L6B Again, it's on relevance. The Treasurer has just done it again. It was a commendably tight question. He has wandered into matters that are outside the terms of the question, and he should be directed back to it. The SPEA 53517 The question was about the budget being calibrated to address cost-of-living pressures. I'll ask the Treasurer to return to his answer and make it relevant to that question. Dr CHALMERS 37998 The Reserve Bank governor's testimony today torpedoed the ridiculous argument that the budget is putting upward pressure on inflation or interest rates. It isn't. In fact, as the Reserve Bank governor said today, it is having the opposite effect. It's taking pressure off inflation. It's taking pressure off the cost of living. People on both sides of this parliament had the opportunity to vote for taking some of the edge off electricity prices or vote for making them worse, to vote for taking some of the edge of medicine prices or for making it worse. We know whose side we are on. We are in favour of taking cost-of-living pressures off Australian families. That's why the budget was responsible, carefully calibrated and methodically delivered to take pressure off the cost of living in our economy rather than add to these inflationary pressures. The Reserve Bank governor has said, in his opinion, it's doing the job it's supposed to do. Student Debt 56 14:49 Ms TINK 300124 North Sydney My question is to the Minister for Education. Tomorrow more than three million Australians will see their student debt rise in line with inflation, adding more than $1,000 to the average loan, the highest increase in more than three decades and nearly double the rate of wages growth this year. So far, the minister has not acted to freeze debts ahead of the 1 June deadline. In this time of ongoing high inflation and economic uncertainty, the need for reform seems clear. What plans does the minister have to provide some relief to the millions of hardworking Australians copping this smackdown tomorrow? 14:49 Mr CLARE HWL Blaxland I thank the member for North Sydney for her question. I also recognise my friend the great Mem Fox, who's in the gallery today. She has enriched the lives of millions of children here in Australia and right around the world. The short answer to your question is that there are no changes to HECS or the indexation process in the budget. The changes we've made and the relief we're providing are helping students with the cost of living by increasing youth allowance, Austudy and rent assistance. There are a couple of important points to make here. Changing the way HECS is indexed doesn't put an extra dollar in the pocket of a university student today. That's not the way that HECS works; it's not like a mortgage. The amount that you pay back every year is based on your income. Now, I get that affordability is an issue, and that's why I've asked the Universities Accord team to look at this, along with a whole bunch of other serious issues in our higher education system. I can advise the member that Professor Bruce Chapman, the architect of HECS, has been engaged by the accord team to work with them on this. Going to university is important. Going to university is your ticket to the show. Nine out of 10 new jobs created today require you to go to TAFE or university, and going to university makes you money. The average income of someone with a university degree is about 94 grand. The average income today of somebody whose last year of education was year 12 is 68 grand. That's a big difference. That's a life-changing difference, and HECS has made it possible for millions and millions of Australians to go to university, to get that degree and to change their lives—but not everyone. In the member for Wentworth's electorate, 67 per cent of young people aged 24 to 34 have a uni degree. But in the member for Rankin's electorate, it's only 19 per cent. In the member for Melbourne's electorate, 69 per cent of young adults have a university degree. But in the member for Longman's electorate, it's only 16 per cent. And in the member for North Sydney's electorate, 71.3 per cent of young adults have a university degree. But in the member for Spence's electorate, it's only 15 per cent. There is a cost to going to university, but what is the cost of those kids missing out? I don't want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on how rich your parents are, where you live or the colour of your skin, but these statistics tell us that that is where we are today, and that, at its core, is what the Universities Accord is all about. Early Childhood Education 57 14:52 Mr GEORGANAS DZY Adelaide My question is to the Minister for Early Childhood Education. How will the Albanese Labor government's plan for more affordable early childhood education benefit Australian families, including those with First Nations children? 14:53 Dr ALY 13050 Cowan I thank the wonderful member for Adelaide for his question and for his ongoing commitment to families and children in his electorate. In just over a month—very little more than a month—early childhood education and care will be more affordable for 1.2 million families in every single electorate across the nation, including for 9,800 families in Adelaide, 10,800 families in the electorate of Lalor, 9,500 families in the electorate of Gellibrand, 9,400 families in Bennelong, 9,200 families in Rankin, 10,300 families in Mitchell and 8,300 families in North Sydney. And there are many more, including 265,000 families in rural and regional Australia. Cheaper early childhood education and care is not just good for the economy because it allows primary caregivers to take on more hours of work or go back to work; it's good for families who have faced increasing fees, often putting it out of their reach, and, importantly, it's good for children. Now, we know that First Nations children are twice as likely to be developmentally vulnerable when they start school, but we also know that early learning plays a significant role in school readiness and outcomes for First Nations children. That's why we introduced a base entitlement of 36 hours per fortnight of early childhood education and care for First Nations children regardless of their family's activity. But we've also committed to 50 Connected Beginnings sites by 2025, and we are well on our way to achieving that. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago I visited the Connected Beginnings site in Armadale with the member for Burt in his electorate and saw firsthand the difference that wraparound services that support families, that support a child's education, that support a child's health and their wellbeing have made to First Nations children right across the nation. We're doing this in partnership with SNAICC through the Early Childhood Care and Development Policy Partnership, which focuses on improving early childhood outcomes for First Nations children and their families. The Albanese Labor government is committed to ensuring that every child, no matter who they are, no matter what their background, no matter where they live, no matter what their postcode, can thrive and can get the best start in life. Whether through more affordable early childhood education and care or whether through our support for First Nations children, this government has worked tirelessly to deliver our election commitments, and we will not stop, because we know there is more to do. Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Voice 57 14:56 Mr HAMILTON 291387 Groom My question is to the Prime Minister. The last time a proposed constitutional change was put to Australians, a constitutional convention was held, a proposed republic model was agreed and the public was given more than 18 months to consider the detail. Why is this Prime Minister asking Australians to first agree to put the Voice permanently into the Constitution and then to give him six months to work out how it would work? 14:56 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I thank the member for his question. The First Nations constitutional convention was held at Uluru in 2017, just more than six years ago, and it was timed to commemorate the date of the 1967 referendum. That arose out of, originally, the proposal from John Howard as Prime Minister, who went to the election in 2007 saying that he would support a referendum on constitutional recognition. Then the Gillard government began a process with a constitutional recognition working group, which led to the process of people, including the member for Berowra and others like Noel Pearson and other senior legal commentators, working on proposals. Then there was a series of consultations in the lead-up to the Uluru statement, in the lead-up to that constitutional convention. When that occurred then, there was— Mr Wallace 265967 That's not a constitutional convention. The SPEAKER 53517 The member for Fisher will cease interjecting. Mr ALBANESE R36 Then the former government, the coalition government, established a range of processes. Included in that was the parliamentary inquiry, which was jointly chaired by now Senator Patrick Dodson and the member for Berowra, and that made recommendations. There was then a process set up, chaired by Tom Calma and Marcia Langton— Ms Ley 00AMN We still haven't had a constitutional convention. The SPEAKER 53517 The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is now officially warned. The Prime Minister is going to be heard in silence. Mr ALBANESE R36 That process then led to a report that went to the cabinet of the Morrison government not once but twice. This is a process that has been many, many years in the making, leading up to this. We also, I note, established a time frame very clearly for people when I indicated that there would be a draft, which I announced at Garma last July. We then had a process through a referendum working group that included people like Ken Wyatt, the former minister for Indigenous affairs, which came to a common position. It then went to the parliament here. It's unfortunate that decisions were made—but they're entitled to do that—before that process had even reported to this parliament. The legislation will now go to the Senate, and then it will go to the Australian people. The Australian people will get to decide, and I certainly hope that they vote 'yes' in the last quarter. (Time expired) World No Tobacco Day 58 14:59 Dr FREELANDER 265979 Macarthur My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Today is World No Tobacco Day. How is the Albanese Labor government reclaiming Australia's rightful position as a world leader on tobacco control? 15:00 Mr BUTLER HWK Hindmarsh I thank the member for Macarthur for his question. After Mal Washer left this building, the member for Macarthur spearheaded the entry of a number of doctors into this place, on our side particularly and on the crossbench, who, alongside other health professionals in the House of Representatives, add real value to our deliberations on health policy. Today is, as the member says, World No Tobacco Day. It's a reminder that, in spite of the huge inroads made over many decades, tobacco use is still the leading cause of preventable death and disability here in Australia. It's a reminder that still two million Australians today are daily smokers, with the vast majority of them, we know from research, still wanting to kick the habit. It's a recognition that we face emerging new challenges like vaping—a product deliberately designed to recruit a new generation to nicotine addiction. Ten years ago, Australia did lead the global fight against tobacco with visionary plain packaging and graphic health warning reforms, and they were hard fought. The Leader of the Opposition, who was health minister at the time, said they were a bridge too far, and big tobacco fought our reforms tooth and nail through the courts. But we prevailed, and those reforms made a real difference. Dozens of countries around the world have followed Australia's lead, and today, here in Australia, there are one million fewer smokers than there were before those reforms. We on this side of the House know there is more to do, because, while the former government was happy to bank a 152 per cent increase in tobacco excise under their watch, none of that extra revenue was invested in new tobacco control measures—none of it whatsoever. As a result, smoking rates have now flatlined. After decades of decline, smoking rates for the first time in decades have flatlined. Indeed, because of vaping, our youngest Australians are the only cohort in our community where smoking rates are actually increasing. We on this side are determined to stamp out the marketing strategies of big tobacco put in place to get around the reforms from a decade ago. The Vogue-style fashionable thin cigarettes will go. The menthol bombs and other flavours designed to make cigarettes more tasty will go. The brand names designed to mislead consumers like Cool Crush, Fresh Burst, Smooth Cigarettes will go as well. We on this side are determined to drive down smoking rates even further and to prevent a whole new generation becoming addicted to nicotine. Today, I've published draft legislation on our website to do just that. We're determined to have that legislation passed by the parliament. A decade ago we had to get the Leader of the Opposition kicking and screaming onto the side of reform. I hope he comes to it quicker this time. Audit and Assurance Industry 58 15:03 Ms DANIEL 008CH Goldstein My question is to the Prime Minister. Australians are rightly concerned at the evident lack of integrity that's become apparent in the relationship between the Commonwealth and the consulting firm PwC. My question is twofold. Will the government suspend all current contracts with PwC while this situation is fully investigated? Will the government trigger an integrity review of Commonwealth relationships with all large private consultancy companies? 15:03 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I thank the member for Goldstein for the question, and I refer to my previous answer to the member for Melbourne, in which I outlined the government's position on this. The breaches in confidentiality by PwC are indeed extraordinary, outrageous and deserving of complete condemnation, not just by the government but by all Australians, I believe. To have a brief that is then turned into an opportunity is what occurred here, and, of course, the Treasury has referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police. The PwC breach did not arise, I repeat, as a result of an active procurement or Commonwealth contract, which we have. I'm very concerned about it. I repeat: prior to the election, one of the things which we spoke about and which there has been some criticism of is an increase in the use of the Public Service, but one of the things I want to do as Prime Minister is restore the Public Service to the primacy that it should be in. The Public Service should be the body that provides the primary advice to government, not the private sector and not any other interest, be it industrial or community groups. Everyone can have input into government policy through the political process and that's important, but the fact that— The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The Prime Minister will pause for a moment, and I will hear from the member for Goldstein on a point of order. Ms Daniel 008CH It's on relevance. The question went to an integrity review of all private companies consulting to the government. The SPEAKER 53517 The Prime Minister is answering the question. He has a minute to continue with his answer. Mr ALBANESE R36 One of the things I said before was that secretaries have been reminded that ethical behaviour must be taken into account as part of the value-for-money assessments which underpin any decisions under the procurement framework. What we've been about is restoring the Public Service through the work that Gordon de Brouwer did and the work that we've done in reassessing the Public Service and how important it is— Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The member for Moncrieff, the member for New England and the Minister for Social Services will cease having a conversation across the chamber. The Prime Minister, in continuation, will be heard in silence. Mr ALBANESE R36 Thanks, Mr Speaker. I take these issues very seriously indeed. Anything that we do, though, will not interfere with AFP investigations, as is appropriate. It is important that people be held to account, and sometimes you need to take a step back and allow those processes to occur. That is what the government is doing here. This is, rightly, troubling, but the government has taken very swift action— (Time expired) Broadband 59 15:07 Ms COKER 263547 Corangamite My question is to the Minister for Communications. How is the Albanese Labor government fixing the rollout of the National Broadband Network and delivering productivity benefits for Australian businesses? The SPEAKER 53517 I give the call to— Mr Coleman 241067 You lost 8,000 customers in the last three weeks. The SPEAKER 53517 The member for Banks! I have been crystal clear about giving commentary when ministers are walking to the dispatch box. You'll leave the chamber under 94(a). It is non-negotiable. Ministers are entitled to walk to the dispatch box without commentary or groans. The member for Banks then left the chamber. 15:08 Ms ROWLAND 159771 Greenway I thank the member for her question and acknowledge her longstanding advocacy for her community to receive the best-quality broadband. Labor, of course, founded the NBN with the purpose of providing fast, reliable and affordable broadband for all Australians. That's why we're investing $2.4 billion over four years to give an additional 1½ million premises full fibre access, including almost 17½ thousand in the member for Corangamite's electorate alone. Our investment will also expand full fibre access to more than 660,000 additional regional homes and businesses that currently rely on copper wire. This will boost the reliability of services and the productivity of those businesses, and that supports remote work and learning and access to important services like telehealth. The Albanese government understands the productivity benefits that are unleashed by the highest-quality technologies. Unfortunately, those benefits could not reach their full potential due to the poor technology choices made by the former government. It is just over a decade since the coalition launched its disastrous broadband policy that promised a second-rate multitechnology mix for $29 billion, which blew out to $58 billion, a doubling of costs. The SPEAKER 53517 The minister will resume her seat. I want to hear from the member for Petrie. Mr Howarth 247742 I rise on a point of order under standing order 104—relevance. There was nothing in the question about opposition policies or what happened 10 years ago, absolutely nothing. The SPEAKER 53517 The question was how was the government fixing the rollout of the NBN, which in the question itself implies there may be a compare and contrast. I am sure the minister is talking about fixing the NBN as part of the answer and I give her the call. But I will make sure she remains relevant. Ms ROWLAND 159771 That is because the decision to abandon fibre by those opposite was always about cheap politics and not about the future. We know that productivity is supercharged by high-speed broadband that is underpinned by the best technology. So mind-boggling is it that the Liberals and Nationals purchased over 60,000 kilometres of new copper, enough to wrap around planet Earth 1½ times. But Labor is investing to expand the NBN fibre network because we believe in helping all Australians to reach their full potential through quality broadband. And we are continuing to see the benefits of improved productivity as more fibre is rolled out delivering gigabit speeds to 90 per cent of homes and businesses in the NBN fixed-line footprint by 2025. The fact is only a Labor government can be relied on to invest in the long-term infrastructure that Australians need, including in the NBN, to be globally competitive. But there is more to do, including our continuing investments in the fixed wireless network, including our $480 million investment to upgrade that technology, trialling new uncapped satellite products to deliver faster internet in rural and regional areas. We are getting on with the job of delivering the highest quality broadband to all Australians. Mr Albanese R36 I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper. STATEMENTS 60 STATEMENTS Personal Explanation 60 15:12 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong I wish to make a personal explanation. The member for Bradfield has misrepresented my actions as minister in today's media. 15:12 The SPEAKER 53517 Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? 15:13 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong I do. The SPEAKER 53517 Please proceed. Mr SHORTEN 00ATG In today's Herald Sun, the opposition whip, the member for Bradfield, said that he was worried that Services Australia and I were not providing answers to questions on notice asked by the opposition. He went on to say that they were going to grill the government today in Senate estimates. The Senate estimates session, however, has come and gone and no coalition senator raised it. But just to put the opposition member's mind at ease, the opposition has asked over 900 questions on notice in my portfolio. Every one of them has been answered. In fact, my staff have answered 8½ thousand matters to do with Services Australia since being elected, some 22,000 matters all up in our portfolios. Furthermore, we have handled over 500 matters directly from opposition members. I will finish on this note: opposition members raised legitimate issues about Services Australia and matters to do with their electorates, but it is very hard to fix your problems when the member for Bradfield keeps wasting our time. DOCUMENTS 60 DOCUMENTS Ombudsman's Report 60 Presentation 60 15:14 The SPEAKER 53517 I present the report of the Commonwealth Ombudsman's activities under part 5 of the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 for the period 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022. Document made a parliamentary paper. AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORTS 60 AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORTS Reports Nos 28 and 29 of 2022-23 60 15:14 The SPEAKER 53517 (): I present the Auditor-General's Audit report No 28 entitled Debt management and recovery in Services Australia: Services Australia, and Auditor-General's Audit report No. 29 entitled Governance of the Anindilyakwa Land Council: Anindilyakwa Land Council. Documents made parliamentary papers. MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE 60 MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE Advertising: Harmful Products 60 15:15 The SPEAKER 53517 I have received a letter from the honourable member for Mackellar proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The urgent need for greater regulation of the marketing of harmful products in Australia, including of gambling, junk food and alcohol. 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— 15:15 Dr SCAMPS 299623 Mackellar The topic I would like to bring forward for debate today as a matter of public importance is the pervasive marketing of harmful products to children in Australia. The products I am referring to are ones that have the potential to cause or contribute to harm at both an individual and a societal level—products such as junk food, alcohol and gambling. Our government spends billions every year treating and trying to manage preventable chronic diseases and social problems that are fuelled by such harmful products—problems such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke caused by unhealthy diet and being overweight, problems such as mental distress, suicide, family breakdown, crime and bankruptcy resulting from gambling addiction and problems such as family violence, job loss, injury, accidents and sexual assault resulting from alcohol misuse or abuse. And the list goes on. These products don't cause harm if used occasionally or in moderation, but the problem is that our children are being deluged daily with marketing of these harmful products online, on radio and on TV. Their world is full of these products. They are everywhere and inescapable. Nor is it just incidental encounters. On digital media platforms, the marketing is individualised and targeted. This is occurring during their most formative years, setting them up for unhealthy behaviours often for life. In my time today I will focus on the marketing of junk food. What is the problem? One-quarter of Australian children and two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese. Being overweight is a leading cause of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. It's also a strong risk factor for things like cancer, depression and dementia. The national obesity strategy found that being overweight and obese costs the Australian health system $12 billion a year, and this could rise to $88 billion by 2032 if nothing is done. These figures show that this is a societal problem, not just an individual one, and it requires a societal response. At a time when our health system is in crisis, rather than pouring endless dollars into end-stage disease management, we should be acting to prevent these problems and not just because it would save the budget bottom line but because we should be creating environments that support our children to thrive both physically and mentally. Our current situation, however, is very different to this. Children are exposed to endless junk food ads on TV, radio and digital media platforms. The average child aged five to eight years old is exposed to at least 827 unhealthy food advertisements on TV each year. But far more dangerous is the individual targeting of our children on digital platforms, where their personal data is being mined and sold. One study of teens active on social media in Victoria showed that they had been individually tagged with over 1,000 labels and that this data had been sold to 194 different companies. Social media advertising algorithms are targeted and they learn. What does this mean for the obesity epidemic amongst our young people? Research has shown that exposure to junk food advertising leads directly to an increase in both caloric intake and weight gain. So a powerful way to help prevent being unhealthily overweight at both the individual and the population level would be to regulate children's exposure to unhealthy food marketing. Approximately 40 countries, including the UK, Ireland and Norway, have already regulated or are planning to regulate junk food advertising. Just last year the UK government legislated a ban on junk food advertising on TV between 6 am and 9 pm from 2024, and it will ban it entirely from social and digital media platforms. I am proposing we introduce a similar model here in Australia. Our Privacy Act must also be strengthened so that our children's personal digital data cannot be collected or sold. It should not be possible for our children to be preyed upon for profit in this way, to their own detriment. Today is World No Tobacco Day. Australia led the way and has been really successful in reducing smoking rates in this country by ending tobacco marketing, amongst other measures. Now it is time to act to regulate other forms of harmful advertising, including junk food advertising. 15:20 Ms McBRIDE 248353 Dobell I thank the member for Mackellar for bringing this important issue to the House today. I know that in the member's work as a GP the health and wellbeing of Australians has always been front of mind. I recognise the member's advocacy and look forward to continuing to work collaboratively on this important issue. What I want to make clear is that the Albanese government is committed to minimising the harms of gambling, junk food and alcohol in our community. I would also like to note that harmful advertising does not start and finish with gambling, junk food and alcohol. Just today, on World No Tobacco Day, the Minister for Health and Aged Care released our government's draft of the proposed tobacco control legislation, which supports the National Tobacco Strategy and commits to reducing daily smoking prevalence to below 10 per cent by 2025 and five per cent or less by 2030, with a particular focus on First Nations Australians. This is a critical step in the government's fight against tobacco and nicotine addiction. It consolidates various tobacco related laws, regulations, instruments and court decisions. Importantly, it introduces new measures to discourage smoking and tobacco use and their prevalence and to prevent the promotion of e-cigarettes. As a priority area, the strategy calls for the elimination of all tobacco related advertising, promotion and sponsorship. There is serious concern about gambling advertising across the community and it's clear the status quo isn't good enough. On a per capita basis, Australians are losing $1,300 each year. That is higher than any other country. We want to make sure our approach to reform is comprehensive, is evidence based and examines the multiple channels over which advertising is delivered, including broadcast, social media and branding. The Albanese government establish an inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on those experiencing gambling harm and we await the final report, which will be presented in the coming months. As a government, we will take the recommendations from that inquiry very seriously and, of course, provide a considered response. In doing so, we will make sure that our action is thorough, evidence based and, critically, safe for the community. However, the issues we face when it comes to marketing of gambling extend beyond gambling ads. They run throughout many aspects of our lives. This is especially true for our young people and video games. Just two weeks ago, the Minister for Communications launched a public consultation to address proposed improvements to the National Classification Scheme. The proposed changes to the scheme would introduce mandatory minimum classifications of R18+ for games which contain simulated gambling and M for computer games containing loot boxes that can be purchased or other in-games purchases linked to chance. This is something that we have been working towards. It is something that we are acutely aware of. Our government's position was informed by growing evidence of harms associated with gambling-like products in computer games, including a review by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts in 2022. This research demonstrated links between in-game purchases, paid loot boxes and simulated gambling and gambling harm. Following the consultation period, the ministers will work with the state and territory governments as co-partners in the scheme to finalise the proposed new guidelines. We are also proud to have implemented and continue to support BetStop. BetStop is the national self-exclusion register for online wagering, and it is a key priority for our government. BetStop is the final element of the National Consumer Protection Framework for Online Wagering. Two other elements—consistent gambling messaging and wagering staff training—came into force just over a month ago. Last month, the Minister for Social Services and the Minister for Communications announced the government will ban the use of credit cards for online wagering. People should not be betting with money that they do not have. We expect to introduce legislation to implement this important consumer protection by the end of this year. We are working through the Australian Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code, commonly known as the ABAC, to reduce the effect of alcohol advertising and ensure that it is marketed in a responsible manner. The landscape of alcohol advertising is complex and wide-ranging. Nevertheless, our government is committed to making sure that alcohol advertising does not encourage excessive or rapid consumption and doesn't encourage minors to drink or to behave in an irresponsible manner that would put them at risk to themselves or others. The government funds other programs that provide information and education about the risks of alcohol consumption, including the Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline, the Alcohol and Other Drugs Knowledge Centre and the Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test Initiative. We are also supporting research into the effects of alcohol consumption. The government funds research projects that are investigating the effects of alcohol consumption on health, social behaviour and the economy. This research helps to inform the government's policies and programs on alcohol. This includes the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, the National Drug Research Institute and the National Centre for Education and Training on Addictions. Our government is addressing the urgent need to reform junk food advertising for all Australians but especially for children. In the 2022-23 budget, $500,000 was included over two years to support a feasibility study to explore the current landscape of unhealthy food marketing and advertising to children and to consider options for implementing restrictions across Australia. We are continuing to support that measure. The study will provide a better understanding of the regulatory and non-regulatory options available to limit such marketing and advertising to children as well as the costs and benefits of these options, with recommendations to be provided to government. After an open-tender procurement process, the University of Wollongong was contracted to undertake the study. The project team includes sector experts in the fields of both unhealthy food marketing to children and health economic analysis. The final report is due by June 2024. The Australian Association of National Advertisers, commonly known as the AANA, recently launched a review of the Children's Advertising Code to ensure the code continues to meet community expectations of advertising to children on all media platforms. The AANA also oversees the advertiser code of ethics and the food and beverage code and has flagged its concern with the rise of influencer based activities on social media, which I know is of concern to many. Our government, the Albanese Labor government, is committed to a program of work to modernise media regulations and fulfil the legitimate expectations of consumers and industry for consistency, transparency and equity in our regulatory environment. The need to monitor the marketing of harmful products in Australia, including gambling, junk food and alcohol, is certainly a matter of public importance. It is a matter of concern to many people in this House and in the communities we represent. It is discussed in families and classrooms right around the country. We are also aware that we can't change it overnight and that change will require serious collaboration. Change will require sustained effort from governments at all levels right around Australia and strong collaboration with the sector and particularly with advocacy groups. We in this government know just how important the voice of lived and living experiencing is, and we want to make sure that the voices of lived and living experience are at the centre of all of our policymaking and decision-making. I know that's a priority of the health minister. I know that is a priority of our government and the entire health team. We know that people that know the system best should be at the centre of decision-making. We will be setting up two peak bodies for consumers and the people who care for them, to make sure that lived experience is at the heart of all our decision-making. I once again thank the member for Mackellar for bringing this important issue to the House today. It is one that so many of us are concerned about, are involved with and are really keen to see real change in across Australia. The Albanese government is committed to a program of work to modernise media regulations to fulfil the legitimate expectations of consumers and industry for consistency, transparency and equity in our regulatory environment. That includes minimising the harms of advertising in gambling, junk food and alcohol in our community. As the Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Health and for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, I will make it the top priority for me and our government, and we look forward to working with you towards these exchanges. 15:30 Ms STEGGALL 175696 Warringah I thank the member for Mackellar, as this is an important topic. The effects of marketing for products like gambling, junk food and alcohol, especially on young people, are dire and it is extremely important these are addressed. Australians have become susceptible to influence by marketing owing to almost constant exposure through social media, and the government should be able to track and measure the influence of such advertising. Australia successfully banned advertising on tobacco products, and today is World No-Tobacco Day. We could do the same, I could argue, for fossil fuel companies. Worldwide, deaths from tobacco use are estimated to be over seven million per year. The government has done its part to minimise the harm of tobacco product advertising in Australia. However, there are over eight million deaths per year associated with the effects of burning fossil fuels. Breathing in contaminated air leads to horrific health repercussions and, currently, fossil fuel companies can spread greenwashing and misinformation unchecked to promote their products. Greenwashing is a deceptive marketing tactic that has become a powerful weapon of the fossil fuel industry's arsenal, hindering climate action while millions pay the price. There are over eight million deaths per year associated with the effect of burning fossil fuels, and no regulation. Straight from the tobacco, alcohol and gambling industry's handbook, fossil fuel companies seek social licence by greenwashing their activities through advertising and sponsorship. Frequently, fossil fuel companies will spend more time and money on marketing themselves as environmentally or climate conscious than they do on genuinely minimising their environmental impact. Mining and fossil fuel companies know that they need community support to continue their operations, and they will invest in protecting their massive profits through marketing and sponsorship rather than actually transitioning their businesses. Fossil fuel companies will rarely talk about their products in advertising. Instead, they will use clever imaging and associations with community groups like sports clubs to present an impression that the company is positive. For example, BP frequently uses ads to promote its renewable energy projects, but nowhere do they say these make up only four per cent of the total investment, while 96 per cent remains in gas and oil. Greenwashing by the fossil fuel industry has seriously delayed action and is harmful to Australians. These companies exert huge influence, and through greenwashed advertising use phrases like 'net zero future' and 'boosting renewables' without providing any information on concrete action they are taking. The ACCC recently found examples of greenwashing across industry, including where businesses are exaggerating benefits and omitting relevant information, claiming that offsetting their carbon emissions has a positive impact on the environment. However, these businesses have taken no steps to actually reduce their overall emissions. Additionally, the ACCC identified the use of aspirational claims with little information on how these goals would be achieved. In many other cases it was unclear what practical changes were being implemented to even achieve these goals. Finally, through the use of images which appear to be trust marks—such as leaves, images of the planet and the colour green—consumers may be misled into believing the business or product is certified by a third party when it is not the case. There is an opportunity to regulate advertising to reduce emissions and keep Australians safe. We deserve accurate representation of what companies are really doing to our planet. We know we have successfully banned tobacco advertising and we could do the same for fossil fuel companies. Of course, that would require political will, which generally is lacking in terms of actually coming down with strong action. When we pursue legislation in relation to this, it's clear we can make a huge difference. I welcome the Climate Council's voluntary code, released today, to assist sports codes to shift away from fossil fuel sponsorships. We should also introduce mandatory information on emission standards on information labels, in advertising and on products. These measures will help people to be informed and will direct their consumer habits and practices. We know that greenwashing, with all other kinds of advertising of harmful products, should be appropriately regulated by the government. I strongly urge the government to pursue action on these issues and reduce the influence and disinformation that we are seeing at the moment. 15:35 Dr FREELANDER 265979 Macarthur First of all I'd like to thank the member for Mackellar for introducing into the House this matter of public importance regarding marketing regulation. It really is a matter that is very important to me and my electorate. I would also like to thank her for her work and her advocacy as a medical professional in the House, and I'm delighted she'll be joining our health committee inquiry into type 1 and type 2 diabetes and obesity. There's no question in my mind that Australia has an obesity epidemic. I've practised as a paediatrician in my community for almost 40 years now. Obesity was very rare when I started my private medical practice. Incidentally, in February 1984, the same time that Medicare was introduced, it was extraordinarily rare for me to see a child with type 2 diabetes. Shamefully, it's now very common. Not only can the disease be difficult to manage once it develops but also it is a harbinger of problems in the future. We're now seeing in much of our community the long-term complications of type 2 diabetes, with increases in renal failure, amputations and vision loss due to the complications of type 2 diabetes. As a paediatrician, I want to protect our children from that, and it is very hard to do that in the face of the massive advertising that assails our children every day—on screens, on radio, on their devices—with very little thought to long-term complications. I will just mention that tonight is the Rugby League State of Origin 2023, which is well known to most members of the House. Unfortunately, while the game is good fun to watch and I enjoy the competition, the problem is that many people will be severely damaged by the advertising that's going to appear tonight. When I say 'damaged' I mean that they will, because of the advertising of junk food and gambling, develop problems that the rest of the community will be paying for well into the future. One reason our health committee is having an inquiry into obesity is that there are long-term effects of obesity that (1) we're not fully aware of and (2) we aren't fully aware of the causes of. It's not just about eating less and exercising more. It's about the types of foods we're consuming. People talk a lot about high-sugar drinks, but there are also concerns about some of the ingredients in our fast foods. Unfortunately in my community, where people travel long distances to get to work every day, food preparation time is very limited, so more and more people are resorting to fast food to feed their families. And it's not just the sucrose, the sugars. It's also the trans fats, it's the complex corn sugars, and it's the sugar substitutes, which may well be having a severe effect on people's metabolism that we don't quite understand. So it is time to look into this in great detail. I could talk for hours about this, but unfortunately there are other issues with advertising, not just food advertising but also things like gambling advertising. I'll be watching State of Origin tonight, and I know I'll be assailed by gambling advertisements aimed at young people and the most vulnerable groups, with euphemistic catchphrases like 'Bet with your mates'. What a ridiculous, idiotic phrase that is. The advertising industry is pushing this down the throats of our young, often male, adults to their huge detriment. I've seen friends of my kids bankrupted by being involved in online gambling. The fact that the minister is going to introduce a bill to prevent the use of credit cards for gambling online is a great idea, I think, but there is much, much more to do. I'm aware that there are so many other things I could talk about in this debate. There is alcohol, and the incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome in many of our very disadvantaged communities, not just our Indigenous communities. The fact that sometimes the first thing that kids can say is 'McDonald's' and they can recognise the McDonald's trademark is very, very sad. I thank the member for introducing— (Time expired) 15:40 Ms SHARKIE 265980 Mayo I'd like to thank the member for Mackellar for bringing forward this matter of public importance. I'd like to take us back to the 1980s, when we all had really big hair. It was also a really important time in Australia, when we took the lead with respect to the advertising of tobacco products. In the early 1970s, Australians were smoking at record levels, tobacco advertising ran for eight to 14 minutes on Australian television, and 74 per cent of Australians really disliked cigarette advertising and wanted it banned. That took some time, but it was between 1973 and 1976 that we put in a ban and we phased out cigarette advertising on radio and television. Between the 1980s and the year 2000, there were progressive bans on smoking in public and in the workplace. In fact, when I started work—this will show my age—in an office back in 1991, there were still secretaries with ashtrays on their desks. Of course, it took a lot longer for the senior partners to give up their cigars, but it happened. It happened. Since then, we have seen Australia take the lead with respect to plain packaging, point of sale and health warnings. But we're not seeing that level of progress on other harmful products, and I would like to talk about gambling advertising in particular. With respect to tobacco, apart from the National Party and I think the Liberal Democrats, the major parties and Independents no longer accept political donations from the tobacco industry, but they certainly do still accept them from gambling organisations—and a very significant amount of money, too. According to democracyforsale.net, since 2012, between gambling, tobacco and alcohol, the Labor Party have accepted more than $8.7 million in donations; and the Liberal and National parties, over $10 million. So, really, when we're talking about addictions, I think we can certainly say that the political party system is addicted to the political donations that they receive from those three harmful product areas. We need to make a change. We know that gambling is harmful. In Australia, we lose $25 billion every year. That figure is so outdated; it's from 2019. I'm quite sure that has potentially doubled. It is a huge loss for individuals and for communities. We know that gambling advertising is very much directed towards young people, it is harmful, and we in this place need to take the lead and stamp it out. Apart from the individuals who are addicted, the major professional sports, particularly the AFL, take huge amounts of money from gambling organisations. It's said that a proportion of revenue generated from betting on a sport under commercial agreements entered into with licenced wagering service providers is paid to sports. How can those different sporting codes say that they are truly supporting the people who are their members? We need to do better in this place. I think this is an excellent MPI. I think that we need to have some very real conversations in this place about harm. We don't do enough. I think the first step would be to wean the major parties off the donations that they receive from these very obviously harmful industries. 15:45 Dr ANANDA-RAJAH 290544 Higgins I would like to thank the member for Mackellar for bringing forward this matter of public importance. Like her, I am a doctor and I am heavily invested in public health problems and harm minimisation in relation to gambling and obesity as well as alcohol misuse. These were problems that I dealt with on a daily basis on the frontline at the Alfred Hospital for the 13 years that I worked there and every day for the 26 years of my career as a doctor. Just yesterday, the multipartisan health committee launched a parliamentary inquiry into diabetes and obesity. This can't happen soon enough. This will be a far-ranging inquiry, much like our long COVID inquiry was, which will delve into the drivers of diabetes and obesity. As we know, these are bedfellows. They march together. One problem synergistically interacts with the other. They are driven not just by traditional conventional health risk factors but by the social determinants of health. They are driven by poverty, poor education, financial insecurity and a lack of access to fresh fruit and vegetables. These are the factors that actually drive over half of all health outcomes, and diabetes and obesity are no different. The health inquiry that I will be part of will be doing a deep dive into the social determinants that require not a prescription pad but a parliament to solve. That's why I'm standing here in this parliament. It's one of the reasons. There's no question that obesity is at, I would say, pandemic levels in Australia. One in four children are affected and two in three adults are affected by obesity and being overweight. So we need a holistic approach to tackling this problem. Junk food advertising is certainly something that we as a government are looking at. We have committed $500,000 to commission the University of Wollongong to look at how unhealthy food is marketed to children. I welcome that. This is in addition to the health star rating that we already have on food packaging. That is something that's public facing and at supermarkets—but it's clearly not enough. On the matter of alcohol misuse, my observation has been that people resort to using alcohol or, indeed, illicit drugs as a maladaptive response to life stressors, acute stress or chronic stress. This is where we really need to focus on the drivers of mental health. Mental health reform is at the forefront of our government. Our budget response demonstrated that, with over half a billion dollars committed to mental health reform. I want to focus on some of the things we are targeting in that package. One of the things we are targeting is workforce. We know that we are just simply not going to have enough psychiatrists to deal with all the mental health impacts that we have in our community. So a substantial amount of that funding is going towards supporting the training of psychologists. We have dedicated significant amount of money to upskilling the allied health workforce so that they understand what mental health first aid means. That means that we all become part of the solution. The other aspects include 500 internships for psychology trainees. We're looking at redesigning the entire psychology pipeline. It is unclear to me as a doctor why it takes six years to train up a clinical psychologist. That is the same time I spent in medical school. The problem with that is it acts as a drag on training and people drop out. You get attrition of highly skilled, intelligent, hardworking, committed students. They fall away simply because they can't deal with the duration. Six years is a long time to not be earning a decent income and to not be working. We will be looking at all of that. In addition to that we're committing funding to 2,000 supervisors to get paid to get re-credentialled to re-enter the psychology workforce in order to supervise trainees and beef up that pipeline of workers that we need in order to support our community going forward. But that's not the only thing. There's no point even talking about referrals to psychologists unless you support the primary healthcare network. That's something that we're doing in a stunning way, by tripling the bulk billing incentive. Frankly, patients just need to get to see their GP as the first port of call. There's a lot that's going on at the table. Focusing on the social determinants of health as well as specific interventions is really important. 15:50 Ms SPENDER 286042 Wentworth In Australia today, we are overwhelmed by advertising of products that we know are harmful to our health. It's impossible to watch sports without seeing an alcohol promotion. You can't scroll on social media without being offered a betting account. You can't go to the cinema without watching a junk food ad. Marketing of harmful products is ubiquitous, and much of it is aimed at our kids. Children watching YouTube cartoons are being targeted by alcohol delivery services. Kids as young as seven are being exposed to unhealthy snack ads online. And 98 per cent of social casino games available for download on Android have an age rating of just 12-plus. I thank the member for Mackellar for raising this issue today, because it's an absolutely critical one. This aggressive marketing of alcohol, junk food and gambling is enabled by the mass harvesting of young people's data. By the time a child reaches the age of 13, one estimate suggests that 72 million data points will have been collected on them. This staggering volume of data builds a profile of that child, which is then used by advertisers to push harmful products. Take Johnny, for example. He's 17. He doesn't gamble and he doesn't drink. Whilst participating in a study on digital advertising, it was revealed that Meta had created nearly 1,200 interest tags for Johnny. These tags included alcohol, bourbon, beer pong, poker, gambling, Bacardi, brewery, whiskey and Sportsbet. The list goes on. And the consequences? Johnny was deluged with ads for harmful products, many of which he wasn't even old enough to buy at the shops. From beers to betting, to spirits and lotteries, Johnny saw them all. Johnny's experience reflects the stories I've heard from parents in Wentworth, one of whom recently told me that their seven-year-old had asked them, 'What is a same game multi?' This marketing is not without consequence, and we are seeing frightening impacts on children's health. Almost a quarter of children aged between five and 17 are overweight or obese. Nearly one in five teenagers have engaged in drinking activity that exceeds the safe limit for adults, and nearly one-third of secondary-school kids in Victoria have gambled. When much of this advertising is pushed through social media, the use of which is already associated with depression and anxiety amongst adolescents, it's no surprise that our children's mental health is deteriorating. We are failing our children, and we must act now. To date our efforts have often been focused on dealing with the consequences of harmful products. We have spent millions on anti-obesity campaigns. We've set up support services for problem gamblers. We have funded alcohol and mental health rehabilitation centres. But when the social cost of gambling is $4.7 billion a year, when the impact of alcohol abuse is $14 billion a year and when medical bills for childhood obesity are $43 billion a year, our efforts to tackle the consequences look like a drop in the ocean. We are spending our time and our money on the consequences when instead we should be trying to tackle the root causes, which include the aggressive marketing of these harmful products in the first place. We are failing as a result. This parliament has an opportunity to change things. The Keating government's Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act shows what can be done when the political will exists. The current government's clampdown on illegal vaping shows that the appetite for reform exists in the government; they just need the courage to go further. Real reform is needed, and the government is fortunate that the crossbench has done a lot of the heavy lifting. I'd like to acknowledge the members for Clark and Mayo, who over many years have presented a series of bills that would better regulate harmful industries, particularly gambling; the member for Goldstein, who has tabled a private member's bill that would clamp down on gambling advertising; and, of course, the member for Mackellar, who will soon present a bill to regulate harmful junk food advertising. Even the coalition has woken up to the need to reform. Through its reform to the Privacy Act, the government also has the opportunity to take the lead and place better controls on the collection and use of data, especially where it relates to children and vulnerable people. It is time for some holistic reform in this area so that the gambling ads are not then displaced by alcohol ads or junk food ads. We need to look across the sectors. The government has the opportunity to be bold and to act decisively to leverage the work that has been done by the crossbench and end the aggressive marketing of harmful products for good. They must take this opportunity. 15:55 Dr REID 300126 Robertson I will just thank the member for Mackellar for raising this extremely important matter of public importance. We know that there are issues surrounding gambling, fast food and alcohol use. But, to start, today we heard from the Minister for Health and Aged Care about our government continuing our world-leading tobacco control, especially with regard to vaping, and I want to thank the minister for health and Assistant Minister McBride for all the work that they're doing in that space. I also want to thank them for continuing our commitment to improving Medicare and strengthening Medicare. In particular, I thank them for their work in medication affordability and access. We know that vaping and cigarette use has seen increased morbidity, increase mortality and significant suffering throughout our communities—in particular, in our clinical environments. I know, as I continue to work in the emergency department at the moment, we see people coming in who are breathless while lying on the bed. It's looks like they've just run a marathon. They're lying on the bed. Their oxygen saturations are declining. Sometimes, in some cases, you can't even give them oxygen. There's unimaginable suffering that comes from not just vaping but tobacco as well, and we need to ensure that we're continuing our work there, which we on this side of the House absolutely are. But our work doesn't stop with just tobacco and vaping controls. I will just go into a bit more detail, as the member for Macarthur did, with regard to pathological gambling, fast food and obesity, and problem alcohol use or alcohol dependence. In particular, pathological gambling is very common in my community, and it's particularly common amongst young people. The number of people with gambling problems is increasing and, therefore, the societal impacts of gambling are increasing. That relates to issues around relationships, whether that be the professional relationships at work or the relationships in the home. With regard to housing, the member of Macarthur brought up a close colleague who went bankrupt as a result of gambling. That also is common, and it's actually one of the reasons that people will present to the emergency department. If people are unable to afford their rent, are unable to afford their mortgage repayments and have nowhere to live, and if shelters are full, they're going to go to the emergency department, where the lights are always on. With pathological gambling, there are also issues surrounding employment and crime. With regard to fast food and increased fast food consumption, particularly amongst young kids, we're seeing increases in obesity, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. That's why I'm very proud to be part of that parliamentary committee that has been established to look at obesity, type 2 diabetes and diabetes in general. We know for a fact that if we establish healthy eating patterns, particularly amongst children, that's linked to decreases in chronic diseases—things like obesity, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and the like. If they're not eating properly to begin with, there are also the adverse effects on nutrition for children as they grow, and even diet related cancers later in life. Then there are those alcohol related issues that many in this chamber will know. I'm not going to go through the big list. There are things that are quite important with regard to alcohol dependence. We can look at liver disease and we can look at the increased incidence and prevalence of cancer amongst people who consume alcohol—in particular, the increase in consistent evidence of breast cancer with low and high levels of alcohol consumption compared to people who abstain or don't drink. These are issues that are in society. They're issues that are in my home electorate on the coast. It's important that this MPI is being brought to the House today by the member for Mackellar. I particularly want to focus on the fact that our government is committed to protecting children online and offline with regard to these issues, and to advertising that respects community standards. These issues are the subject of recent and current reviews, and we will continue to work in this area, particularly with regard to advertising, alcohol use and tobacco controls. Thank you. 16:00 Mr WILKIE C2T Clark Not a week goes by—sometimes not a day—that I'm not approached by someone in the community who is sick to death of gambling advertising. They literally are sick of it. They're sick of seeing gambling advertising every time they turn on their TV. They're sick of seeing gambling advertising every time they pick up their phone or their iPad. They're sick of the advertising in the newspapers. They're sick of the billboards. They're sick of the signs at the sports fields. They're sick of gambling company names on the strips, on the shorts, on the tops. They are sick of it, and they want to see an end to it. If there's one thing this government could do to please the community more than anything else, it's to ban gambling advertising. That's what the overwhelming majority of the community want. The community is sick of gambling advertising for a broad range of reasons. Many members of the community are sick of it because of the way it spoils their enjoyment of what they're trying to watch on TV, often a sporting game. Also, members of the community tell me they are sick of gambling advertising because of the way it is promoting and normalising gambling. No wonder Australia has one of the highest take-ups of gambling of any country in the world. In fact, by some measures we are the biggest gamblers in the world—and no wonder when, every time you turn on the telly or open the Mercury or whatever, it's wall-to-wall gambling ads. And of course the community is deeply worried about the way this advertising is presenting gambling to our children as being normal and commonplace. We have this bizarre situation in Australia where gambling advertising is banned during G-rated TV times but there's a specific carve-out for gambling advertising either side of a sporting event. So, on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, when all the kids are in front of the telly, watching their sporting heroes and their role models, before the game and after the game these children, often little toddlers, are being bombarded with gambling advertising. This just beggars belief, and it raises the question: how on Earth have we allowed this situation to develop? Well, regrettably, up until now there've been lots of quite obvious explanations: the donations of gambling companies to some politicians and some political parties, and the hospitality that's extended to some politicians. In fact, even in this parliament there's been controversy about a senior government member inappropriately enjoying hospitality from the gambling companies. There's also that fear of a media backlash. The AFL, for example, spends countless millions of dollars on gambling advertising: Ladbrokes, Sportsbet, Betfair. All these companies between them spend hundreds of millions of dollars on gambling advertising. So, is the government prepared to wind back the advertising and basically take on the media barons? Up until now it has not. But I will give credit where it's due. Hopefully things are changing. I hold out considerable hope that some hard recommendations will come out of the current inquiry by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs into online gambling and its impact on problem gamblers. If that committee has listened carefully and accurately reflects the views of the community and witnesses, I would be very surprised if it doesn't recommend a ban on gambling advertising. I say to the government: even if you won't ban gambling advertising, at least get rid of this carve-out that affects children, allowing gambling advertising to be on the telly during G-rated TV times, when it is most dangerous. But of course the government needs to go further. Yes, it has announced a ban on using credit cards for online gambling, and that's good. I would also take this opportunity to call on the government to take that next big step, which is to ensure that not only is there a ban on credit cards, not only is there a ban on advertising but that their daily limits are linked in real time so that when someone hits a limit with one company they're locked out to the rest—that was an opportunity to give that a little plug there! I applaud my colleagues who have spoken today. I think we are speaking for millions and millions of people who want advertising reined in on gambling, on tobacco and on other dangerous products. That's what the community wants. There is a test for this parliament: are we standing with the community, or does this parliament continue to stand with the big corporates and the dangerous products they pedal? 16:05 Mr 245392 Solomon GOSLING () (): I want to thank the member for Mackellar, and I note all the doctors that have spoken and all the doctors who are here in the chamber. I think we should be listening to them. As health professionals, day in, day out, they see the results of the harm that is done in our community by harmful behaviours. We've heard from a number of people, including the member for Macarthur, my friend, who detailed his experience of some of those harms. I won't repeat those, but, as someone who is not a health professional, I will simply reflect on my thoughts as a father. It is as a parent that I want to focus on our children and why they need protection in particular. It should be obvious to everyone, but our children require protection from harmful advertising. Why is that needed? Because they are little sponges. Last week, here in the parliament, I and my friend, the member for Leichardt, launched the Parliamentary Friends of Australian Children's Storytelling. Why was that needed? Because our children are sponges, and they get a lot of American and British content. They get a lot of content that is not from Australia, so not only do we want to support Australian creatives but we want our kids, when they are such young sponges, to see themselves reflected in what they're consuming. It concerns me that our children are consuming a lot more than we may think. They are consuming the gambling advertising and the junk food advertising, and that is a concern. Our children, as little sponges, need to be protected, and our government is committed to protecting our kids, both online and offline, to make sure that advertising respects the standards that the community expects that we uphold. I can tell you as a parent that parents all around this country think there is too much advertising, particularly gambling advertising but also junk food advertising, that is being sent the way of our kids, and, because they are sponges, they are taking it all on board. All these issues have been the subject of reviews, both recent and current. Marketing, advertising and different sectors of industry need to respect community standards and respect the parents out there as well as the kids. It is the parents who look to us as their federal representatives to take action, particularly at the advertising that is directed at our children. There is too much gambling advertising that our children are exposed to. The Australian Association of National Advertisers recently launched a review of the Children's Advertising Code to ensure the code continues to meet community standards of advertising to children on all media platforms, and an updated code is expected this year. I mentioned before that I'm a father, a parent of our two young kids. I see what they are subjected to. Our daughter Sally turned 11 yesterday—happy birthday, darling; sorry I wasn't there—and our son Francis is 10½. Only the other day, they said something about McDonald's as we drove past. They said, 'There are healthier options, aren't there, Dad?' or words to that effect. I said that they've improved their offering in some ways a little bit. But my children know what good, healthy choices are because my wonderful wife, Kate, and I spend some time in telling them and guiding them in these aspects, whether it be about gambling or anything else, as they're— (Time expired) 16:10 Dr HAINES 282335 Indi This year marks 50 years since the Whitlam government decided to phase out tobacco advertising. Due to the change of government in 1975, the eventual decision to implement the ban on tobacco advertising was made by the Fraser government and came into effect in 1976. That little bit of history shouldn't be a surprise to anyone in this chamber. In the years before those government decisions, the evidence about the harm caused by tobacco was mounting. What we were also learning in those years was that the advertising and marketing of those products was contributing to their prevalence and, therefore, their harm. This is relevant to today's debate in a few ways. It's clear that policymakers have known for decades that slick marketing and advertising campaigns increase the likelihood that we will consume products that are harmful to our health. We also know from this example that the debate around regulating such advertising does not need to be divided along party lines. We can also draw parallels with the ways in which industries will fight any regulation on the marketing of their products, seeking to self-regulate in order to avoid more punitive or evidence based limits on their activities. Alcohol companies regularly break advertising rules with rarely any penalties or consequences for that. The Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, FARE, has discovered dozens of breaches of the advertising code on the Facebook pages of popular alcohol brands. FARE found content that contained images of under-25-year-olds drinking, celebrated binge drinking and implied that alcohol is connected to social success. We know that celebrating heavy drinking among young people is linked to increases in alcohol use and alcohol related problems. We're now at a moment when we are faced with mounting evidence about the harms caused by other harmful products, such as gambling and junk food, in addition to alcohol. The ways in which these products are advertised, particularly to children, is becoming more insidious, more targeted and more advanced much more quickly than policymakers can keep up with. We're not just talking about advertising on television and radio, but advertising on social media, billboards, sponsorship deals and more, as we've heard this afternoon. The ways in which these products have become synonymous with sporting codes, competitions, clubs and activities is no accident. None of this is by accident. We know that children between the ages of four and six believe that a product is better for you if it has a cartoon on its packaging. We also know that Australian adolescents are exposed to almost 100 promotions for junk food per week from online sources. I'm particularly concerned by the proliferation of sports gambling advertising on television and social media. It's aimed at young men in particular. This has been drawn to our attention in multiple ways by multiple members of this parliament. In particular I want to single out the member for Goldstein who has done a lot of work about this recently in this parliament. We know that advertising normalises placing a bet on every statistic at every stop in play. This advertising makes it seem that the only lens through which we can enjoy sport is one where we socialise with our mates through a sports betting app and that mateship is not about playing or watching the game but about placing bets on it: 'No harm in that, eh? It's just a bit of fun. Stick with your mates.' The Australian Institute of Family Studies reports that one-quarter—23 per cent—of betters reported being under 18 when they placed their first bet on sports. Further, they report that, of all of these young men who bet on sports, 70 per cent were found to be at risk of problem gambling. As a healthcare professional myself and now as a member of parliament, I'm committed to working towards policies that help people both in my regional electorate and across the nation to live longer, stronger and healthier lives. I'm grateful to the members in this place for talking about the social determinants of health which impact on these decisions. The reality is that, in my electorate, we are more likely to face chronic disease that's impacted by poor diet, alcohol and, indeed, the problems of gambling. So we must take action to turn these statistics around—we truly must. I'm not talking about a nanny state—no one here is—but what we have in this parliament is the greatest proportion of health professionals as MPs that we have ever had. Let's make it a legacy of this parliament: that we work together, that we don't take partisan lines on this, that we actually listen to the people we represent. The member for Clark just talked about this: this would have overwhelming support from across the nation if we actually made this a legacy of this parliament. Back in '76 I think it was Mr Whitlam who said, 'It's time.' Well, it's time again. Let's do something about problem advertising for these harmful products. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 The discussion has now concluded. COMMITTEES 70 COMMITTEES Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity Joint Committee 70 Report 70 16:15 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, I present the committee's report on committee proceedings in the 45th Parliament. Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e). Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 by leave—I rise as chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Commission for Law-Enforcement Integrity to briefly speak about the committee's report on proceedings in the 45th Parliament. The committee has become aware that a former MP and member the committee, the Hon. Stuart Robert, may have held a conflict of interest during the 45th Parliament that was not properly managed. This matter has been raised in media reports and in the proceedings of other committees. From this committee's perspective, the central matter relates to a private briefing that the committee received from Unisys, a technology company, on 30 November 2017. It has been alleged that in this briefing Mr Robert held private interest that was not disclosed. Given the seriousness of the matter, the committee reviewed its records from the time and agreed to publish this report to put on the parliamentary record details of committee proceedings that have been discussed publicly. This report provides key points from the committee's review of its records, including information that would not normally be published, but only to the limited extent necessary to respond to concerns raised in the public domain. Based on minutes, this report confirms that a private meeting was held by the committee on 17 October 2017, and included on the agenda a proposal from Mr Robert to meet with Unisys in relation to an ongoing inquiry into the integrity of Australia's border arrangements. At some point in the meeting, in the absence of the chair and deputy chair, Mr Robert was appointed acting chair. Then, on the motion of Mr Robert, the committee agreed to hold a private briefing with Unisys. On 30 November 2017, the private briefing with Unisys was held. The minutes show that the chair left during the briefing, and in the deputy chair's absence the chair appointed Mr Robert as acting chair. Based on the minutes, the committee has not identified evidence that Mr Robert declared a conflict of interest in relation to the Unisys briefing. Having reviewed its records, the committee is confident its deliberations were not unduly influenced by the private briefing with Unisys. The invitation to Unisys shows a clear understanding of how the briefing related to the committee's inquiry. Moreover, the committee's report on that inquiry does not mention Unisys, nor do any of the recommendations appear to relate to Unisys. As to whether or not Mr Robert held a private interest that should have been declared and managed, the committee is not able to form a view because it has not received evidence in relation to this question. It also does not have an opportunity to gather such evidence before it ceases to exist on 1 July 2023, at the commencement of the National Anti-Corruption Commission. The committee is mindful that Mr Robert has rejected any imputation or allegation of improper conduct. As a general principle, the committee is of the view that any committee member who has a private interest in the subject of a committee inquiry should, at a minimum, declare that interest. I trust that the information in this report will usefully inform parliament and the public in relation to the committee's proceedings in 2017. DELEGATION REPORTS 70 DELEGATION REPORTS Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the 2022 United Nations General Assembly 70 16:19 Ms MURPHY 133646 Dunkley I seek leave to provide a brief oral report to the parliament on the Parliamentary Delegation to the United Nations undertaken last year. Leave granted. Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e). Ms MURPHY 133646 Last year, the member for Gippsland and I were privileged to represent this parliament at the annual proceedings of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. It really is, I think it's fair to say, one of the more extraordinary delegations and one of the more extraordinary opportunities that a member of this parliament has an opportunity to be part of. He will provide his own report, but I know I can say on behalf of both of us that we are incredibly grateful to have had that opportunity and to have played a part in representing Australia at the United Nations. It's worth remembering—and Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, noted this in her country statement to High-Level Week when we were there, that Australia is one of the founding members of the United Nations. In fact, our country played a prominent role in the negotiation of the UN Charter in 1945, for which we owe a debt to Doc Evatt, for his role in that as the head of Australia's delegation, and to William Hodgson, who was the Australian ambassador. We were one of eight nations involved in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Australia has a really proud history of involvement well above our population, well above what some might think is our status internationally, at the United Nations, and it's that involvement which actually means that our international status traditionally has been regarded as one of the important countries in multilateral actions and treaties despite where we are at the bottom of the globe—or the top of the globe, depending on where we are in the rotation—and the population of our country. So it was with honour that the first thing we got to do as the delegation was to participate in High-Level Week, which is a very UN named week, where prime ministers, presidents, foreign ministers—high-level representatives of every member country—make a statement on behalf of their country. The member for Gippsland and I got to play a small but, we think, incredibly important part in the government's agenda to step up Australia's engagement with our Pacific and ASEAN neighbours and friends during that time. We did meet, get photographs with and shake hands with prime ministers, presidents and foreign ministers from countries in the Pacific island areas and ASEAN—so much so that the member for Gippsland and I may have started referring to that week as 'Peta and Darren's Excellent Adventure Across the Pacific Islands and ASEAN'! But it was a privilege to be there on the floor of the General Assembly, talking to our friends from other countries on behalf of Australia and reiterating Australia's commitment to a number of really important policies for us and for our neighbours, not the least of which was about climate change. It was also a privilege to be there with Senator Pat Dodson to talk about recognition of Indigenous Australians and the important role that that sort of recognition is playing in countries around the world. For me, the highlight of High-Level Week, of course, was being there when our foreign minister, Penny Wong, gave Australia's address. If anyone hasn't had the opportunity to read that or see that, I recommend it, because it shows how important Australia's engagement with the rest of the world is. I won't take up too much time of the chamber's time. I do want to talk about some of the highlights, but I want to thank Australian Ambassador to the UN Mitch Fifield for his hospitality and Australia's then consul-general to New York, Nick Greiner, for the educative and enjoyable trip that he took the member for Gippsland, his wife, me and my husband on to West Point. It's actually quite disappointing now that, when Darren Chester and I walk into a room, we don't get greeted the way we got treated by the cadets at West Point. That will never happen again. It was quite amazing. Alice Volkov at the mission had the unenviable task of coordinating the member for Gippsland and myself in our activities. I wanted to thank Yunei Kim who did Australia's representation at the Third Committee. She did a lot of human rights work, and I did work with her and had the privilege and the opportunity to present Australia's statement on protecting children from sexual exploitation, particularly online, and on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Being involved in the work of the Third Committee again just emphasised some of the commonalities around the world of the issues that we face and how we don't need to think, in Australia, that we can solve them on our own. We are part of a world and a United Nations where we're working towards predominantly the same thing. I want to give a special acknowledgement to Milli Allan who chaired on behalf of Australia with Costa Rica the renegotiation of the motion on a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. She did an amazing job in the face of some pretty tough negotiating tactics from countries that wanted to keep, and are keeping, the death penalty. Ultimately, on the 15th anniversary since that motion was first adopted by the United Nations, the General Assembly re-adopted the resolution with the historic majority of two-thirds. Australia can be very proud of Milli and everyone who worked on that. I also want to thank everyone at the Australian embassy in Washington where the member for Gippsland and I had three or four days. The member for Gippsland accompanied me to think tanks focusing on things like women's equality at work, and I accompanied the member for Gippsland to meetings about improving the lives of veterans. I think we both learnt more about the topics that we had been working on, and we also learnt more about each other's interests in an incredibly beneficial way by doing that together. It was a whirlwind lead-up to both of us going to New York, which was no-one's fault. It was due to COVID, an election in May and various other things. One thing I did notice was the lack of us as parliamentarians, DFAT, the parliamentary travel office and the mission in New York being able to prepare for us being there. That meant that perhaps we didn't get quite the involvement that we otherwise could have, and the mission didn't perhaps get quite the use out of us that they otherwise could have. So, on behalf of whoever it is that gets the opportunity to go this year, I urge that that decision be made as early as possible and that preparatory work be done to enhance opportunities. We had extraordinary opportunities, but I think there are more. We were there at a time when the Security Council and the General Assembly were debating the issue of Russia and the Ukraine. It was an extraordinary time to be there and see how that body was dealing with an illegal and unwarranted war. We were there at a time when a lot of the debate in a lot of the committees focused on why we aren't hitting the targets for the sustainable development goals, particularly climate change, and how that is impacting the most vulnerable people and communities around the world the most and what, as a world, we can do about it. They are just some of the things that we were able to learn about and be part of over there. It was an invaluable experience, and I'm sure the member for Gippsland and I will bring back some of the things we learned and saw to contribute to this parliament and to our communities. I know I already have. I just want to finish—I did say I would be brief, but I never am—by thanking the member for Gippsland, Darren Chester, and his unarguably better half, Julie, for their friendship. Darren and I knew each other a little bit before we went, but, over the time that we were there, I believe Darren and Julie became good friends to me and my husband, Rod. They were very generous. They cooked us a meal once a week to make sure that we had a home-cooked meal. The way they looked after the younger staff at the mission and took them under their wing was incredible to watch. I think it was because Julie missed her own children—I'm sure it was—but it was also because they are two people who cared about the welfare of young Australians in New York working for the Australian government, and it was an immense credit to them the way they looked after the young employees. I'm very grateful to have had those two as our travel companions and to have the member for Gippsland as the person I went to events and worked with at the United Nations. It enriched the time my husband, Rod Glover, and I had over there and I learned a lot from them. Finally, to Fiona Webster, the deputy chief of mission, thank you for your support over there, for your hospitality for us, and for the message I have yet to respond to noting that you and your husband finally knocked off the rest of that bottle of gin that I left you at the last dinner before we came home. I thank the parliament again for the opportunity. Good luck to whichever two lucky people get to go this year. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 To get the alternative version, let's hear from the member for Gippsland! 16:31 Mr CHESTER IPZ Gippsland by leave—I was going to look for an extension of time if the member for Dunkley was going to regale us with more stories about how wonderful me and my wife are! I thank the member for Dunkley very much, that was very generous of you. It is my great pleasure to speak today on my shared role as parliamentary advisor to the United Nations General Assembly for 2022. I genuinely extend my thanks to the member for Dunkley for her camaraderie and professionalism, and the very constructive engagement we had across a broad range of issues during our time in New York and in Washington. It may surprise people listening at home, or the young people I see up in the gallery today, to hear members on this side of the House in furious agreement with members on the other side of the House when all they ever see of parliament is question time and the argy-bargy. It may surprise them to hear that there is bipartisanship in this place from time to time, and particularly when delegations leave this country and travel abroad. We're all part of team Australia in those moments. To have that very rare opportunity as a member of parliament to spent such an extended time away from our electorates is something I feel incredibly privileged to share with the member for Dunkley. I have to say it was one of the more amazing life experiences a member of parliament could ever have. I would encourage other members, if they get the opportunity, to embrace it fully and to do everything they can to learn from the experience as well. For a member of a parliament who represents a rural and regional electorate—my hometown has 8,000 people—it was somewhat of a culture shock to turn up in New York City where the greater area population was about 18 million people. I think there were more in our apartment building than actually live in my hometown! That culture shock from day one—the noise and the vibrancy and the activity of New York City—is something that took me a bit of getting used to, but we embraced the experience and were determined to make sure we learned from the culture as well as from the opportunities that were presented to us at the United Nations. I thank my electorate for their indulgence in letting me do this, for letting me take those three months to represent Australia at the United Nations with the member for Dunkley. I think it was incredibly decent of my community. I heard hardly a whisper of complaint from them, knowing that I was there representing the parliament and trying to do my little bit as a member of the House of Representatives in the United Nations environment. I also thank my own staff. The challenging time zones that apply—a 16-hour time difference—became a bit awkward at times, trying to participate in public debates here in Australia, correspond with ministers, and stay involved with local issues while also giving full justice to the role in New York. I really do appreciate the opportunity that was provided by the parliament to both myself and the member for Dunkley to spend that amount of time away from our electorates. It's a program that I think the parliament should be comfortable in continuing to support going forward. There has been an absence for a couple of years because of COVID, and the previous speaker quite correctly indicated that the outgoing delegation in 2023 would benefit from having more preparation time and being able to really focus their areas of interest so they can correspond with the mission in New York and let them know exactly what they're seeking to achieve. A little more structure around that would help them get even more out of the experience. There is also a reverse to this question about the staff in the mission—and this is by no means a criticism of anyone. I think the staff in the mission would benefit from getting a better understanding of the roles that members of parliament could play or how they could assist the mission in their diplomatic efforts. Particularly I think of the member for Dunkley, who is trained in law and an incredibly capable woman in her own right. There were times during International Law Week when I thought her skills in particular could have been more fully utilised if we had had a little bit more preparation time for that. Again, that's not meant to be any criticism whatsoever, because the senior staff from the ambassador himself right down through the staff were very engaging and supportive towards us. I want to thank a couple of staff perhaps a little bit lower down the rankings in the mission and who probably met with us more regularly—in particular, Alice Volkov, the coordinator. She had a tough gig trying to herd the member for Dunkley and I around and fulfil our expectations according to our various interests and our determination to get the most out of that experience. So, Alice, thank you so much for your support. The interns that we met very early in our experience we basically adopted as our New York children—Paige Likos and Tim Hobbs. Because they didn't have security clearances they were stuck in the outer office, which was where the member for Dunkley and I had our offices. So by virtue of the fact that they had to put up with us on a daily basis they became our adopted New York children. We had them around for dinner and had a great time. The point I want to make when referring to the staff is just how incredibly young and incredibly talented they are. We can be so proud of the work that our DFAT staff are doing representing us on the world stage. The member for Dunkley quite correctly named several other staff members who she dealt with more directly. Their capacity, their abilities and their willingness to work hard for Team Australia in that environment is something we should all be very, very proud of. As a cultural experience for someone like me who has only spent a very small amount of time in the US in the past, being there at a time when the US mid-term elections were in full swing was educational. It was informative. It was also a pretty good indication of where we don't want to go. As a nation, we need to just take stock from time to time and see the tone of debate that is experienced during those most heated moments in the US system. That is not where we as a nation want to be. The level of personal denigration in some of the advertising I saw was something that just wouldn't be welcomed here in Australia. But that's the rough and tumble of a democratic system. We were lucky to spend some time in Washington, DC, and have some engagements on the hill. I would suggest for future planning of this delegation and given the increasing importance of our US relationship, with AUKUS in mind, that it should allow for a longer period of time in Washington, DC, and more direct peer-to-peer engagement. That's because, as we all know, in this job in particular we are all in the people business. We are building relationships, building networks and having exchanges of ideas. Having those connections in an increasingly globalised world is so important. Members of parliament who go there to represent Australia having more time in the capital would, I think, be time well spent. We did have some very interesting conversations with senior US officials around a whole range of issues. As the member for Dunkley indicated, my pet subject of natural resource management may not have necessarily been the thing she really wanted to spend an hour talking about, but she tolerated my passion for that area, just as I tried to maintain some level of intelligent conversation on areas where she was much smarter than I was by a very significant margin. I made the point at the outset that once we as members of parliament get out of this country we are all on the same team and we do try to do our best to represent the parliament in a very constructive way. The United Nations itself—and I have a few comments to make on that experience—is an enormous beast and it is very difficult to navigate. There are complex issues and a range of very obvious competing interests and national interests. I was struck, though, by the simple fact that Australia has a very solid reputation within the walls of that building. We are not perfect, but certainly our reputation in the global community as being a like-minded country on whole range of very important issues impressed me, and I was very heartened to see the relationships that the Australian mission has formed. The critics will say that, at it's worst, the United Nations is a bloated bureaucracy and a debating society. But, at its best, it is delivering aid and peacekeeping missions on the ground, setting standards for a rules based order, pursuing sustainable development goals to eliminate poverty and secure peace and stability in a very troubled world and also doing its best to improve the health of communities right around the globe. So it's important to reflect, for all the critics, that, if we didn't have the United Nations, the first thing we would be talking about it is: 'How do we form one?' because it's an opportunity for the people of the world to get together in the one location and find areas where they can agree and then work through the areas where they don't agree. The member for Dunkley reflected on the High-Level Week. They didn't spend a lot of time coming up with a name for it! But High-Level Week was where all the high-level diplomats turned up and our own foreign minister and many other leaders were there. There was the opportunity for us to do our little bit to engage, particularly with the leaders of the Pacific, and have conversations with them, at a time when that relationship has never been more important. It was a small role that introduced the member for Dunkley and I to the world of diplomacy. As far as we know, we didn't cause any international incidents, and we seemed to be well received by each delegation that we met. The highlight for my wife, Julie, was clearly meeting Princess Mary. For the member for Dunkley, her royalty was our own foreign minister. But that's okay; we each have our own particular passions, I guess. The United Nations is a forum where the smallest nations in the world can be heard alongside the biggest nations, and that really struck me as well: to see the delegations—quite small delegations, from nations of not enormous size—having the opportunity to get in there in the General Assembly and give their view in that environment where the largest countries are there alongside them. I thought that was a really important part to remember, as I represent a small community and small communities often feel that they're not heard in the big communities, but that was something that really struck me: small towns, like those in my area of Gippsland, want a voice at the big table, and, when it comes to the United Nations, there's no bigger table for people to assemble around. In conclusion, I think—and without risking making headlines about a broader debate—we should make no apology in this place, as members of the House of Representatives, or as senators, for engaging in overseas delegations. The media and the public are sometimes very quick to suggest that it's a junket; it's just a trip overseas; it's a bit of a jolly. I'd have to suggest that it's quite the opposite, particularly in the challenging world environment we face today. I actually wrote to the incoming foreign minister just after the last election and suggested to her that we should be doing more outgoing delegations, not because I suddenly had more time on my hands but more because I took the view that, if there were a strategic direction set by the foreign minister, set by the government of the day, and she would allocate where the priority countries were, MPs from both sides should be engaging more in those priority areas. Obviously, for us, it would be the Asia-Pacific region. I think it's important because it avoids any chance of members in this place becoming too insular, and they're more likely to embrace the wider world and have a greater and a deeper understanding of our near neighbours. Just as the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program has been used to introduce members of parliament to the Defence Force and to give them opportunities that no-one else would get to do and to go and spend time with our men and women serving—because most of us haven't served—I think opportunities to spend more time with DFAT and to get an experience of what they're doing and the complexities of their task and to spend time in-country and actually get a greater appreciation of their roles, is something that we should work towards in a bipartisan way. The minister, to her credit, told me she would consider it. That's now a question for her and, I guess, budgetary processes, as to whether that's possible. But more structured visits, more cultural exchange and more trade engagement, and witnessing firsthand how Australian aid dollars are actually spent on the ground and the benefits they create, I think would make the case for this parliament to be a bit more tolerant when it comes to conversations about the foreign aid budget and how our place in the world is seen in this particular region. I think it would also provide a better standard of public debate and increased mutual understanding on those complex issues. In conclusion, again, I've no doubt the delegation to the United Nations has made me a better member of parliament. I will work hard to try and draw on my experiences for the remainder of my political career. I want to repay the faith shown in me by my electorate in allowing me to embark on this particular delegation. I will just reinforce my comments at the outset about the bipartisanship and the camaraderie and the professionalism of the member for Dunkley and her husband, Rod, and the opportunity to spend time with another member of parliament. For the life of me, I don't understand why she's not a minister in the Albanese government. This is not my time to give her a job reference; I've probably just finished off her whole chance of being promoted now! But I think she has some enormous talents and abilities that could be applied at a more senior level in this place, and I wish her in particular every success in her role in this place. Again, I thank the parliament for giving us the opportunity to spend some time at the United Nations and expand our understanding of that important organisation. BILLS 75 BILLS Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023 75

Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023

Second Reading 75 16:45 The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 The original question was that this bill be read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Deakin moved as an amendment that the words after 'that' be substituted with a view to submitting other words. The honourable member for Brisbane moved to that amendment that all words after 'second reading' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The honourable member for North Sydney has now moved a further amendment. The question is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for North Sydney be disagreed to. 16:46 Ms LE 295676 Fowler This year's budget promised untold cost-of-living relief, with a proposed $14.6 billion cost-of-living relief package. But the reality behind the headlines is that these measures are far too modest and perhaps far too late. Look closely at the so-called relief package that has been offered to our socially and economically disenfranchised communities, to students and the unemployed. It is all too clear that it is not a safety net for all who fall outside the periphery. One of my constituents—Cam—contacted me last year when I was first elected. He implored me to advocate for an increase to JobSeeker and other Centrelink payments immediately, especially during this extreme cost-of-living crisis we have right now. As I said, that was a year ago. I can't imagine the struggles Cam would have faced in the last few months. Cam said, 'The only thing about $45 a day is definitely so mean and just unsustainable for these people on JobSeeker. Don't forget they were also taxpayers for this country before they became unemployed.' While I support the government's move to increase JobSeeker and other income support payments to assist those most vulnerable in our community, I question how a $2.85 a day increase can go towards assisting families in Fowler on JobSeeker, the age pension, the disability support pension, as well as young people studying and looking for jobs when everything has gone up so much. Fowler has the sixth-highest number of residents on JobSeeker across the country, so many of my residents would have received this small benefit. I also want to make it clear that people who have come to rely on these social services are not and shouldn't be painted with the brush of being dole bludgers, because we often don't know the reasons why people end up on that path. There are myriad reasons why people rely on JobSeeker. For example, some people may have lost their jobs during Covid. I know a lot of my community members lost their jobs during Covid and have struggled to get back into the workforce. Some may also be from a migrant or refugee background and are struggling to integrate into our society. In fact, the Refugee Council of Australia has conducted a lot of research over the years which provided insights into why there are barriers for refugees and migrants to gaining meaningful employment. Studies found that refugees were often forced to choose between learning English and looking for work, and there was a severe lack of support and services for those who wanted to create their resumes or practise skills for a job interview. Put yourselves in their shoes: if you were an engineer, a doctor or nurse in your homeland, you would hope to be able give back to the country which welcomed you with open arms, but you couldn't because your qualification wouldn't be recognised. It is a constant battle to get your qualifications accepted. With the red tape, the burden of learning a new language, many have given up on their dreams of practising in their field again and are placed into work for the dole placements, putting them into positions that don't match their expertise and qualifications. This is not a dignified way to live for anyone. I have strongly advocated with the government to address our workforce shortages since I set foot here in the House. I have met with various ministers, asking the government to create pathways for these migrants by recognising their prior qualifications so that they can rejoin the workforce. My community is struggling with the cost-of-living increase in grocery bills, the price of petrol, rents and electricity bills, which have gone up again. Many Australians will be seeing an increase of at least $100 per quarter in their next energy bills this coming winter. I'm not sure how a $2.85-a-day increase in payments for some of the most disenfranchised in our community—those on JobSeeker, youth allowance, parenting payment, Austudy, Abstudy, special benefit or the disability support pension—can be claimed as fixing the cost-of-living crisis for people. Does the government really believe that they should be absolved of their responsibility to tackle the cost-of-living crisis by their announcement to increase social service support by an extra $2.85 a day. That's what the $40 a fortnight equates to. At the end of the day, it comes down to what we value as a society and how we look after people who need help the most. For a student who lives in my community in Fowler, $2.85 isn't enough money to pay for a return trip to the city. Did you know that the return trip from my area to the city is about $12 to $14, depending on the time of travel? For kids who want to go to the city to work, to do an apprenticeship or to study, it's just not feasible. That $2.85 per day is not enough to provide the basic needs. People are desperate to put food on the table, and you'd be surprised to know that $2.85 isn't enough to buy a five-pack of two-minute noodles for students—advertised in a well-known supermarket chain this week for $5. And $2.85 will not be enough to cover the 7.1 per cent indexation that students will have to face from tomorrow, as their HECS debt will increase their student loans burden—the highest rate increase in 30 years. The government is probably thinking that we should feel grateful that there is some relief. But the government announced a budget surplus and spending in such areas as AUKUS, which amounted to $368 billion over 24 years. That equates to more than $40 million a day, an unfathomable figure compared to $2.85 a day for cost-of-living relief. Forty million dollars a day versus $2.85 a day: I ask you to put those two figures into perspective before we can crow about how much we're doing to assist those in need in our community. The community of Fowler have some of the highest unemployment rates in the country and some of the lowest incomes. Many people on JobSeeker payment understand that it's not meant to replace a wage you earn, and they would rather be working or running a small business to earn an income. Being productive and having an income brings with it freedom and dignity which a government support payment cannot match. With over 840,000 people on JobSeeker, of which more than 75 per cent had no reported earnings, this means that our government has failed to reduce the barriers for these people to get back into the workforce when many workplaces and industries are crying out for workers. As I have mentioned previously while debating the workforce incentive scheme, the government should not only incentivise pensioners to go back into the workforce but extend a similar scheme to those on JobSeeker so they can work part time but not be penalised and lose out on their small JobSeeker payment. I therefore support the opposition's call for the government to increase the income-free area to $300 a fortnight, to allow jobseekers to earn more and still retain the full JobSeeker allowance. Just imagine the potential revenue from people going back to the workforce part time. Yes, I applaud any measure which has the potential to help families put food on the table and send their kids to school. I'm glad to know that the government has acted on the advice of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee and the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce in the implementation of this budget and the cost-of-living measures, but they simply aren't enough. I welcome the highest single rate of JobSeeker payments to single recipients aged 55 and over after nine continuous months on payment. This change means recipients aged from 55 to 59 will receive an increase of at least $92.10 per fortnight, or $46.05 per week. But the fact remains that anyone over the age of 55 who is unemployed for more than nine months with a family and children to support knows only too well how far an extra $46.05 a week will go on a weekly budget, especially when you put that amount of money in the context of housing, which we all know is one of the biggest problems we face in this country. According to the Reserve Bank, rent inflation for apartments with new tenants was 24 per cent over the year up to February 2023. This has led to greater demand for rental properties, causing price volatility, with rent increase becoming more common and, on average, larger. In my electorate of Fowler over 42 per cent of people rent their homes, and of that number more than 45 per cent spent over 30 per cent of their total income on rent. Rents are steadily increasing and rentals are becoming increasingly difficult to secure. As you can imagine, in an area like Fowler the demand for rentals is high, and with prices on the rise I have been calling on the government to help out our most socially disadvantaged by providing greater Commonwealth rental assistance. Since I came to parliament I have asked for an increase in Commonwealth rental assistance. So, I was relieved when the government announced in the budget an increase in the maximum rate of Commonwealth rental assistance of 15 per cent, the largest increase in 30 years. This will enable approximately 1.1 million households to see an average increase in rental assistance of around $24 per fortnight. While I welcome this increase, this small amount will not plug the huge rental increase for renters. I'm glad the government has made provisions to support single parents by $176.90 per fortnight, or $88.45 per week, until their child reaches 14 years of age. As I understand it, this is reversing what the Gillard government had implemented, and I thank the Minister for Social Services for acknowledging where previous governments got it wrong and for righting some of the wrongs of the past. It's a step in the right direction, but it's a long way from solving the deeper issues that many single parents face every day. This so-called safety net is filled with holes, and we need safeguards to protect our people. It's just not enough in an area where just over 20 per cent of our community earn a total household income of $650 a week. It's hard to imagine how they will make ends meet over the cold winter months. For these people, turning on the heat to stay warm will simply not be an option this winter. Just yesterday my office received a call from a constituent from the next electorate. She lives just outside my area, but she was so angry and frustrated, and was adamant about venting, that my office listened to her grievances. Her name is Angela, and she told us she lived with her son. She was terribly upset at us—yes us, the politicians of this country. She told my staffer in no uncertain terms that it is a disgrace for us all to sit here in parliament playing a blame game on the cost-of-living crisis. Instead, she needs help. She says she doesn't need to watch this blame game when she has just received a $580 energy bill. She asked my staffer to explain how that could be possible when it's just her and her son living at home. She wanted to know why this was happening to her. She was desperate, but she was grateful she had enough money to go and buy a loaf of bread that she could eat with her son. While I've listened to stories like this, I've felt so hopeless that I couldn't provide people like Angela with immediate support to help with her electricity bill. These are not just stories; they are real people. They are Australians like you and me and everyone here today. The ones who are struggling the most need more than a few dollars a week. I believe it is up to us to deliver solutions to a country that is drowning in disillusionment. We have a responsibility to ensure that our people are safe, warm and fed. Right now, many are not. 16:58 Mr VAN MANEN 188315 Forde It's a pleasure to rise to speak on the Social Services and Other legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023. As outlined by the shadow minister, the opposition will be supporting the majority of the provisions in this bill, including expanding the eligibility for assistance for single parents, the higher rate of JobSeeker for those over 55 and the increase in Commonwealth rent assistance. But we call on the government to support the coalition's superior policy to increase the amount jobseekers can earn before it impacts on their payment, and that's the amendment and the contribution that I want to focus on this afternoon. When in government the coalition, through disciplined economic management, was able to deliver one of the largest permanent increases to the JobSeeker income support payment. While in opposition, Labor criticised the coalition government in the face of this increase to JobSeeker at that time. In the last 30 years, no government has done more for Australians doing it tough than the former coalition government through a range of measures over our time in government. In contrast, while in opposition Labor continually called for the government to increase the rate of JobSeeker, going to the 2019 election pledging to review welfare payments, yet on the eve of last year's election Labor dumped that policy and stakeholders rightly condemned the Labor Party for backflipping on reviewing the payment. It remains disappointing to see that the government clearly has no plan to address the issues facing those Australians within our welfare system and no plan to provide real relief through the cost-of-living crisis. We've just heard from the member for Fowler a particular story, and I can say that those stories equally apply across my electorate of Forde. I think it's important in this debate to focus on the coalition's record whilst we were in government. Through the height of the pandemic we provided $32 billion in emergency support payments, and, on top of that, we delivered one of the largest increases to unemployment benefits since 1986. We saw the unemployment rate hit a record 50-year low, and it has had a three in front of it for more than a year. From 1 April 2021, the coalition increased working-age payment rates, including JobSeeker, by $50, and permanently increased the income-free areas to $150 per fortnight to support jobseekers as they secured employment and re-entered the workforce. Every dollar we spend is a dollar someone else has earned, so it is incumbent on us to ensure that spending on our social security safety net is sustainable into the future and goes to those who need it most. We should be proud in this country of the social security safety net that we have. Few other countries provide the strong safety net available in Australia, and the JobSeeker payment is not meant as a salary or wage replacement but is meant as a payment to tide people over between one job and the next. As we stand here, the labour market remains very tight with over 438,000 job vacancies, and there are over 840,000 JobSeeker recipients of which more than 75 per cent have no reported earnings. That is, no part-time work. As we've seen many times in this place, Labor continues to fail jobseekers, business, communities and taxpayers across the country by doing nothing to alleviate the entrenched disadvantage and to further incentivise jobseekers to take up employment opportunities. As I go around my electorate and speak to business, from small to medium to large, they are all looking to bring more staff on board. Frequently they complain to me about what they call people just coming in and 'ticking a box' to meet their mutual obligation requirements. These people actually don't have a genuine desire to find a job and work. Yet the opportunity is there for those people to actually take a job and start to build their lives. We all know that creating jobs and getting people back into work is the best way to improve the living standards of people and their families. The value of employment is evident across so many aspects of the lives of everyday Australians. It integrates individuals into broader networks, which they would otherwise not be exposed to. Particularly on a social and community level, it enables them to participate more fully in society. It empowers an individual in their own personal life, delivering a financial independence and freedom that comes with it while assisting with mental and physical health. In direct contrast, the longer impact of sustained unemployment is also well documented. It is not just the individual that suffers but society as a whole, as we're not seeing these people's true potential being realised. Some of the costs of long-term unemployment may include social exclusion; reduction in freedoms due to not having the finances or ability to get out and about; loss of learned skills; psychological harm, such as depression and anxiety; ill health and reduced life expectancy; loss of motivation; undermining of family relationships; inequality across racial and gender lines; loss of social responsibility, values and participation; and loss of national output and income. All of those things that I've just listed should give pause for thought as to why there should be encouragement and support systems in place to get people who are unemployed into work, particularly when we see the mismatch of so many vacancies and so many people on JobSeeker. It goes to show that, by unnecessarily prolonging an individual's unemployment, those who are already our most financially disadvantaged are further burdened through greater social—or societal—mental and physical imposts. This is why the Leader of the Opposition announced increasing the amount that can be earned before benefits are reduced, incentivising jobseekers to take up employment opportunities. Increasing the amount that can be earned supports jobseekers and the many small-to-medium businesses that are crying out for workers and have been left stranded by the Albanese government. The coalition also recognises the crucial role single parents have in the lives of their children. As I said earlier, we'll support expanding eligibility for assistance for single parents, which the government under former prime minister Julia Gillard previously cut. This is an important payment that will help single parents and children when they need it most, during those formative years. The coalition also understands the unique challenges older Australians face when seeking to re-enter the workforce. Sadly, I have had more than one discussion with a constituent over 55—or even over 50—who is looking to get back into the workforce about the difficulty and resistance they get from employers when seeking to do so. I would take this opportunity to ask employers out there this question: Why are you not taking advantage of employing older Australians, who have a tremendous set of life skills, a tremendous set of work skills and a tremendous work ethic, and want to genuinely contribute to our community by working? It is an enormous untapped resource. I think if our business community could take it on board it would benefit all of us. At a time of increasing rents, with the government's housing policy in tatters, the coalition will support the increase to Commonwealth rent assistance. Increasing how much people can earn before their benefits are reduced also incentivises jobseekers to take up opportunities. In conclusion, the coalition has a proven track record in delivering support to those on JobSeeker throughout the pandemic, while still getting people back into work. Our alternative approach to these amendments will only further support low-income Australians. I commend the member for Deakin's amendments to the House. 17:09 Mrs ARCHER 282237 Bass How do you realise aspiration if you're never given the opportunity? This was a comment made to me a few weeks ago by a bright, intelligent young man who believes that the dream of an equal playing field of opportunity is increasingly narrowing in 2023. Lifting our communities out of poverty should be beyond political lines, as it benefits all of us in the long run, but, as we know, the discussion surrounding how this can and should be done, particularly in regard to income support, has long been a political football. This area of complex policy, which has real-life consequences for our communities, too often gets distilled down to simplistic rhetoric on both sides. I want to acknowledge and thank my co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Ending Poverty, the member for Canberra, for working with me as we seriously look to a bipartisan approach on matters relating to poverty and how parliamentarians can meaningfully work together to create change. Delivering the goal of lifting individuals and communities out of poverty requires the delivery of a wide range of supports and services, and, yes, providing adequate income support plays a significant role. However, as I've said several times before, we can't and won't move the dial on long-term unemployment or intergenerational unemployment if we don't have wider reform. But more on that later. To the matter at hand, as someone who's lobbied my own side while in government for an increase in JobSeeker, I of course support the $40-a-fortnight increase proposed by the government, which also extends to recipients of youth allowance, partnered parenting payment, Austudy and youth disability support pension. I also support the increase in rent assistance and the proposed expansion in eligibility for the higher rate of JobSeeker payment to recipients aged 55 years and over who have been on payments for nine or more continuous months. While I do support the coalition's policy to increase the earning threshold to $300 a fortnight before the rate of income support is impacted, I will not be supporting the second reading amendment put forward by the member for Deakin, as it calls for the scrapping of the $40 increase. Yes, a job is the best way to improve the living standards of individuals and their families, but I'd say it's a little hard to look for a job if you're starving, cold or can't afford transport. In my view, $40 a fortnight, while a step in the right direction, is not enough and falls short of the coalition's increase of $50 a fortnight in 2021. Whilst I note the government has a fine line to walk between addressing the cost-of-living challenges and addressing inflation, I don't believe that providing this minimal increase to income support, which still falls chronically below the poverty line, is the right approach, nor is it living Labor's own values, particularly as they've promised time and again not to leave any Australian behind. I'm acutely aware of the struggles facing the many in my community of northern Tasmania who are struggling to make ends meet as they choose between paying their rent or putting food on the table—or worse, trying to find a place to live. I do acknowledge that these challenges are not confined only to those who receive income support, as I see a rise in working northern Tasmanians who are struggling to afford the basics. When back in my community recently, I caught up with several local charity organisations that are witnessing an unprecedented demand for their services, particularly from households where one or even both parents are working and are still struggling to keep up with rising costs. Stephen Brown from Launceston's City Mission recently told the local media that the demand for fresh food and clothing is at its highest in 10 years and that the charity is seeing up to 25 new clients seeking help each week. Kirsten Ritchie, who runs Strike It Out, which offers food supplies, clothing, sleeping bags and tents to northern Tasmanians in need, said she was seeing 40 new families and individuals a month asking for help. While the organisation originally started as a support service to help the local homeless population, the cost-of-living increases have led to a demand which she has not seen before. It's so easy to fall into putting anyone on JobSeeker into the 'other' category, and although I've been on income support at several stages in my life, both as a single parent and on what was then known as Newstart, I don't believe that my own views on this matter are formed just from my own lived experience. I want the discourse on how we discuss income support and other social support services to evolve and lead to better outcomes. I was particularly struck by the words of David Cross, the CEO of the Blueprint Institute. When discussing their report on productivity, he said: Too many in mainstream parties of government have become numb to the existence of a permanent underclass in Australia. While I do accept that there is a portion of society that is not looking to engage in work, this is an incredibly small minority of jobseekers. In my time as the federal member for Bass, 99 per cent of individuals I've engaged with who are unemployed want to work. Like many communities across Australia, we're dealing with a high number of job vacancies but not with suitable people to fill them, demonstrating a clear gap. There are a number of government funded organisations and programs that exist to assist someone to obtain a job, but when we talk about making someone job ready, what does this really mean? For a start, we need to be building up jobseekers, particularly the long-term unemployed, to be ready beyond having the necessary skills to fulfil a job. There must be a commitment to looking at what other barriers may exist that stand in the way of somebody looking for, accepting or staying in a job. As I've said previously, we can't be expected to fix every challenge faced by an individual when they are looking for work. But when the majority of our population who need and want employment are bumping into one or more roadblocks, I believe that as parliamentarians we have a responsibility to work together to address some of the broader issues. Accessibility around transport as well as mobile phone and internet issues are major challenges, as is child care, for parents, in both single and two-parent families. And I will keep pushing for more reform around trauma informed policies to assist jobseekers, particularly where there may be intergenerational unemployment and poverty. Having more Australians engaged in meaningful employment is a long-term win for the future of our country. But it can't be done by continuing the status quo in how governments interact with jobseekers or with disadvantaged individuals or communities. To again quote David Cross, 'equality of opportunity is critical to boosting productivity and is one of the foundations of classic liberalism'. I also wholeheartedly support the proposal to expand the parenting payment to single principal carers whose youngest child is aged under 14 years—up from eight years—a reversal in policy from the Gillard era. While this applies to single parents of any gender, we of course know that statistically single parents are overwhelmingly women, and it is women who are disproportionately represented when we look at poverty statistics, particularly later in life, when single women over 60 are the households that are most likely to live in poverty. I agree with the member for Mayo that there is a need to provide support for women as they look to re-enter the workforce after caring for children. It can be incredibly daunting to look for and gain a job if a woman has spent considerable time out of paid work. So, further work is needed to assist with the transition. I also believe that if governments can meaningfully engage with parents who are interacting with government services from before a child is born there is a greater chance of creating a healthy future for both the child and the parent that will deliver long-term social and economic benefits to society. This is a view shared by Tasmania's Bernadette Black AM, founder of the BRAVE Foundation, a not-for-profit that equips pregnant and parenting young people with resources, referrals and educational opportunities to facilitate happy, healthy and skilled families over time. Bernadette founded the organisation after becoming a mother at 16 years of age and identifying the lack of support available for teenage parents. Just over 30 years later, Bernadette is spearheading a new section of the foundation, the Social Economic Empowerment Division, or SEED. With an initial focus on expecting and parenting young people, SEED is starting with a blueprint for system navigation for young parents in the short term, with an end goal of wider systemic reform for all parents who engage with necessary government services, creating a one-door place-based location that connects parents to support payments, wellbeing and safety and, importantly, their dreams and aspirations. Bernadette says: 'I remain convinced that the opportunity to flourish is a human right, and as a society we shepherd the environment and conditions that make that happen for families. I know our future depends on families flourishing—all families—regardless of background, age, state, demographic or race. We need healthy, thriving families to live in a safe, healthy and free nation if we can truly call ourselves "the lucky country".' It's people like Bernadette and policy ideas like those that are being explored through SEED that I believe will play a role in moving the dial on some of the long-term issues we face with poverty, unemployment and trauma in communities across Australia, including in northern Tasmania. I acknowledge that the government is endeavouring to take steps in the right direction, but there is much more to do. I look forward to further discussions on the role governments can play in creating a true safety net for Australians in need. 17:19 Dr RYAN 297660 Kooyong There are more than 1.1 million people receiving the JobSeeker payment, youth allowance and related payments in this country. I'd like to remind all those in this House that the JobSeeker stipend is only $50 a day. That's about two-thirds of the single rate of the age pension, which has fallen from about 90 per cent of that level in 1999. The youth allowance and Austudy are just $40 a day. We know that 80 per cent of those on JobSeeker will have to rely on that payment for at least 12 months. I challenge any member of this House to tell me how they could propose to live on $40 or $50 a day for 12 months or more. This legislation will provide a $2.85 increase in the support for 90 per cent of those individuals receiving those payments. The remaining 10 per cent of recipients will either be moved on to the parenting payment single, an extra $103 a week, or will receive an extra $46 a week because they're aged between 55 and 60 and have received JobSeeker payment for more than nine months. We have to ask ourselves: are these changes sufficient? This is an area, as the member for Bass has said, of complex policy, but it's also an area and issue of gender equity. More than 60 per cent of those relying on the lowest income support payments—JobSeeker, student or parenting payments—are women, and 95 per cent of those on the single parenting payment are women. Across their lifetimes, women have lower incomes, less job security, lower superannuation balances and a higher likelihood of poverty. This bill addresses only two of the six urgent and targeted recommendations of the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce. Yes, it's a start, but, really, it's only a start. The changes to the single parenting payment will mean an increase of about $176 a fortnight for 57,000 single parents. I remind the House that the Supporting Mother's Benefit was introduced by the Whitlam government in 1973. Coverage of children aged less than 16 was almost universal until 1987. It was means tested after that, and then decreased to the age of eight by Julia Gillard in 2012. We have to ask ourselves: what have we lost in the last 50 years? We are still, even today, behind where we were before. It's important to remember that we have not yet regained the ground lost when that threshold for expiration for the single parents' youngest child was 16 years. As a country, have we become less generous? Do we value our children and our most vulnerable less? While every dollar counts and all of these increases should be passed, how could we, in any conscience, accept anything other than these support recipients deserve more. With the increased support to find in this bill, people receiving the JobSeeker and youth allowance will continue to struggle with the most basic of living costs. The Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee found that lifting the JobSeeker and related payments to 90 per cent of the pension, by $129 a week, would help people return to the workforce because they would be able to pay for internet access, for sufficient food, for adequate clothing and to get to their job interviews. Not supporting people who want to return to the workforce to do so is a false economy. We have a long way to go before our income support system prevents deprivation and poverty. The opposition has argued that increasing the JobSeeker rate might discourage workforce participation. It's important to note though, that if the rate of JobSeeker was increased to 90 per cent of the single rate of the age pension, just to $70 a day, as has been recommended by the EIAC, it would still only be just over half of the minimum wage. It's difficult to sustain an argument that an unemployment benefit at that level could possibly discourage workforce participation. We know that the labour market is as close to full employment as it has been at any point in the last 50 years. The reality is that many of those people on JobSeeker should probably be on different stipends. They need to be offered more, not less, long-term help and support. We should not be condemning people to what Anne Summers called 'policy induced poverty'. Similarly, the 15 per cent increase to the Commonwealth rental assistance does not come close to addressing the significant gap in payments and requirements. A single person paying at least $175 a week or more in rent will receive the maximum increase, but that's only $11 a week. Fewer than 40 per cent of people receiving JobSeeker receive rent assistance. Of those who do, the median rent paid is $230 a week. The vast majority of those people pay more than 30 per cent of their income in rent. That means that they are in housing stress. Fewer than five per cent of recipients will be moved out of housing stress as a result of this increase in Rent Assistance. We know that rentals are becoming more expensive. Vacancies in some centres are as low as one per cent. With interest rates continuing to rise, further hikes in rental prices seem inevitable. At a time when we're all facing increasing cost-of-living stressors, how can we not do our best to alleviate these increased stressors on our most vulnerable? The ability to keep a roof over our heads is important. Dr RYAN 297660 As the member for Gippsland has said, all people in our community need assistance. The ability to keep a roof over our heads is absolutely critical for our mental as well as our physical health, and I'm glad that the member for Gippsland agrees. It is the absolute least that we owe to those most in need of support. I urge the Albanese government to show the generosity that our most vulnerable people deserve and increase income support payments to at least $76 a day. Former secretary of the Department of the Treasury Ken Henry estimated that the cost of following the scientific recommendations of the economic advisory committee on JobSeeker, an amount that he described as 'a rounding in the margin' in the context of a $630 billion budget, was $14 billion. Of course, we need to tend our budget carefully. Of course, we need to find savings where we can. We need tax reform and we need a generational shift in our approach to community housing. But, most of all, we need to work out what matters most to us. Who matters most to us? And we need to prioritise our most vulnerable, for whom relatively minor increases in support would make an absolute world of difference. We should not hesitate to undertake a rounding in the margin for those who are at the margin. We should consider what it really costs to leave those people behind. I commend the bill to the House. 17:26 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston I'd like to, in summing up this debate, thank all of those who have contributed to this debate on what is an important bill that will make a difference to the lives of the most vulnerable in our community. The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Safety Net) Bill 2023 is an important part of delivering our budget. This bill will implement the income support measures that make up part of the government's $14.6 billion cost-of-living plan to provide broad based support to millions of Australians in different settings and circumstances. This bill strengthens our social safety net and furthers the government's commitment to support those who need it the most. This bill will increase the rate of working-age and student payments by $40 per fortnight, including the JobSeeker payment, youth allowance, parenting payment partnered, Austudy, ABSTUDY and other related payments. This increase will flow to around 1.1 million Australians, providing important cost-of-living relief. As a result, the base rate of JobSeeker will increase to $733.10 a fortnight. That is before the regular indexation that will also be applied on 20 September. This bill also extends the eligibility for the highest single rate of JobSeeker payments by reducing the qualifying age from 60 to 55 for those who have been on the payment for nine months or more continuously. This measure means that people who are aged 55 to 59 will be better off by at least $92.10 a fortnight. This change recognises the challenges that many older people can face when they are looking for a job, such as age discrimination and poor health. The government is also extending the eligibility to parenting payment single to the single principal carer where the youngest child is under 14 years of age. Under existing arrangements, when their youngest child turns eight, single parents who remain on income support move to the JobSeeker payment, which is paid at a lower rate than parenting payment single. As a result, the government's decision to extend eligibility for parenting payment single will support around 57,000 single parents on JobSeeker, who will automatically be transferred to the higher payment once the implementation of this bill is done on 20 September, meaning they'll receive an extra $176.90 per fortnight. Of course, this change recognises that the challenge of balancing care and work as a single parent doesn't end when a child turns eight. The new age limit of 14 for the youngest child will deliver more support until the youngest child has settled into high school and typically requires less direct supervision from their parents. As part of this package, the bill will also increase the maximum rates of Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent. We know that people are struggling with the cost of rent, and renters on income support are at particular risk of rental stress and housing insecurity. Around 1.1 million households who are paying high enough rent to receive the maximum rate will be better off by up to $31 per fortnight depending on their household. This includes recipients of JobSeeker payment and other working-age payments such as student payments, age pension, disability support pension, family tax benefit and veterans payments. Together these changes will provide additional support for around two million Australians who are doing it tough. All measures are due to commence on 20 September subject to the passage of the legislation. I know in this debate a number of members, particularly of the crossbench and including the member for North Sydney, have raised being able to see these measures commence as soon as possible, and I appreciate that sentiment. The member for North Sydney has moved a second reading amendment to bring forward the start date. The government is not able to bring forward the start date of these payments. It has designed these measures to take effect as soon as practicable. All changes to the social security payments do require amendments to primary legislation. This means the parliament does need to consider these. In addition, Services Australia also needs time to implement the ICT and system changes required to successfully deliver these measures. Services Australia has advised that the lead time required is until 20 September, assuming the bill passes the parliament, to enable all arrangements to be put in place. I understand this includes ITC system build and changes, service delivery changes, technical and business verification, testing quality assurance, customer communication, and staff training, among other things. Under these measures, nobody will be worse off as a result of the government's measure. This new measure, once legislated and the system is ready to deliver parenting payment single, participants will continue to be administered in accordance with the current provisions. Services Australia will communicate with affected individuals around the change in their circumstances, On 20 September, as a result of the system build, Services Australia will automatically transition single parents who are principle carers with a youngest child under 14 and who are on the JobSeeker payment automatically to parenting payment single. The member for Deakin has moved a second reading amendment calling on the government to scrap the $40 per fortnight increase to working-age payments like JobSeeker and instead provide additional support for those on the lowest payment. This would deny 1.1 million people an increase in their base rate payment. Alternatively, the member for Deakin said, instead of the $40 a week payment, those opposite would double the income-free area to $300. Firstly, we don't know how much it would cost because the opposition has not put forward any costing arrangements whatsoever. But I think it is important to think about the reality of this. This would deny more than 75 per cent of people on JobSeeker payment who are currently reporting no earnings whatsoever. Then there are those who are earning below the current $150 a fortnight threshold who would, if this change was to go through, receive no extra assistance through a base rate increase of JobSeeker. When we are looking at this measure, this is about supporting people with the cost of living. There is no evidence that what those opposite have put forward would in any way increase workforce participation, because we know that those who are relying on JobSeeker have many barriers to getting into work. It may be health barriers or it may be skills barriers—particularly those foundation skills—which stop them from being able to get to work. We want to be supporting them to get those skills and to find meaningful employment. But our $40 increase provides direct assistance to Australians who do rely on the safety net now and who are doing it tough. I encourage the opposition to rethink their opposition to the $40 and to not pursue their second reading amendment. In response to the second reading amendment of the member for Brisbane, the member has called on significant additional funding across all income support payments. We believe that the package that we put forward today is a significant package of $9.5 billion in income support. It is the largest set of permanent increases to Commonwealth income support payments in 14 years, excluding the extraordinary COVID support payment. We believe these are responsible changes that have been carefully calibrated to provide additional support to those on the lowest income support payments, and that don't add to inflation. Of course, this cost-of-living relief has to be seen coupled with the power bill relief, the record investment in Medicare bulk-billing, cheaper medicines and our targeted increases, as outlined in this bill, for income support payments. This will make a real difference for many people. The Albanese government believes in a strong social security safety net. We do not want to demonise people for needing the support, particularly when they find themselves in difficult circumstances. We will always do what we can to support people who are doing it tough and who are in need of assistance. I commend the bills of the House. The SPEAKER 53517 The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Deakin moved an amendment that all words after that be admitted with a view to substituting other words. The honourable member for Brisbane moved an amendment to that amendment that all words after 'second reading' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The honourable member for North Sydney has now moved a third amendment. The question before the House is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for North Sydney be disagreed to.    

The House divided. [17:41]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

 72 AYES Aly, A. Ananda-Rajah, M. Archer, B. K. Bell, A. M. Burke, A. S. Burnell, M. P. Burney, L. J. Burns, J. Butler, M. C. Chester, D. J. Chesters, L. M. Claydon, S. C. Coker, E. A. Collins, J. M. Doyle, M. J. J. Elliot, M. J. Fernando, C. Fletcher, P. W. Garland, C. M. L. Georganas, S. Giles, A. J. Gorman, P. Gosling, L. J. Hill, J. C. Husic, E. N. Kearney, G. M. Keogh, M. J. Khalil, P. King, C. F. Lawrence, T. N. Laxale, J. A. A. Leeser, J. Leigh, A. K. Lim, S. B. C. Mascarenhas, Z. F. A. McBride, E. M. Miller-Frost, L. J. Mitchell, B. K. Mitchell, R. G. Mulino, D. Murphy, P. J. Neumann, S. K. O'Connor, B. P. J. Payne, A. E. Pearce, G. B. Perrett, G. D. Phillips, F. E. Rae, S. T. Reid, G. J. Repacholi, D. P. Rishworth, A. L. Roberts, T. G. Rowland, M. A. Ryan, J. C. Scrymgour, M. R. Sharkie, R. C. C. Sitou, S. Smith, D. P. B. (Teller) Stanley, A. M. (Teller) Sukkar, M. S. Swanson, M. J. Templeman, S. R. Thistlethwaite, M. J. Thwaites, K. L. Vamvakinou, M. Wallace, A. B. Ware, J. L. Watts, T. G. Webster, A. E. Wells, A. S. Wilson, J. H. Zappia, A. 15 NOES Bandt, A. P. Bates, S. J. Chandler-Mather, M. Chaney, K. E. Daniel, Z. Gee, A. R. Haines, H. M. Le, D. Ryan, M. M. (Teller) Scamps, S. A. Spender, A. M. (Teller) Steggall, Z. Tink, K. J. Watson-Brown, E. Wilkie, A. D. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 17:45 The SPEAKER 53517 The question before the House now is on the amendment moved by the member for Brisbane to the amendment moved by the member for Deakin. The question is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Brisbane be disagreed to.    

The House divided. [17:49]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

 77 AYES Aly, A. Ananda-Rajah, M. Archer, B. K. Bell, A. M. Burke, A. S. Burnell, M. P. Burney, L. J. Burns, J. Butler, M. C. Byrnes, A. J. Charlton, A. H. G. Chester, D. J. Chesters, L. M. Claydon, S. C. Coker, E. A. Collins, J. M. Doyle, M. J. J. Elliot, M. J. Fernando, C. Fletcher, P. W. Freelander, M. R. Garland, C. M. L. Georganas, S. Giles, A. J. Gorman, P. Gosling, L. J. Hill, J. C. Husic, E. N. Kearney, G. M. Keogh, M. J. Khalil, P. King, C. F. Lawrence, T. N. Laxale, J. A. A. Leeser, J. Leigh, A. K. Lim, S. B. C. Mascarenhas, Z. F. A. McBain, K. L. McBride, E. M. Miller-Frost, L. J. Mitchell, B. K. Mitchell, R. G. Mulino, D. Murphy, P. J. Neumann, S. K. O'Connor, B. P. J. Payne, A. E. Pearce, G. B. Perrett, G. D. Phillips, F. E. Rae, S. T. Reid, G. J. Repacholi, D. P. Rishworth, A. L. Roberts, T. G. Rowland, M. A. Ryan, J. C. Scrymgour, M. R. Sharkie, R. C. C. Shorten, W. R. Sitou, S. Smith, D. P. B. (Teller) Stanley, A. M. (Teller) Sukkar, M. S. Swanson, M. J. Templeman, S. R. Thistlethwaite, M. J. Thwaites, K. L. Vamvakinou, M. Wallace, A. B. Ware, J. L. Watts, T. G. Webster, A. E. Wells, A. S. Wilson, J. H. Zappia, A. 14 NOES Bandt, A. P. Bates, S. J. (Teller) Chandler-Mather, M. Chaney, K. E. Daniel, Z. Haines, H. M. Le, D. Ryan, M. M. (Teller) Scamps, S. A. Spender, A. M. Steggall, Z. Tink, K. J. Watson-Brown, E. Wilkie, A. D. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

17:52 The SPEAKER 53517 The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Deakin moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question before the House now is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Deakin be disagreed to.    

The House divided. [17:57]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

 90 AYES Albanese, A. N. Aly, A. Ananda-Rajah, M. Archer, B. K. Bandt, A. P. Bates, S. J. Bowen, C. E. Burke, A. S. Burnell, M. P. Burney, L. J. Burns, J. Butler, M. C. Chalmers, J. E. Chandler-Mather, M. Chaney, K. E. Charlton, A. H. G. Chesters, L. M. Clare J. D. Claydon, S. C. Coker, E. A. Collins, J. M. Conroy, P. M. Daniel, Z. Doyle, M. J. J. Dreyfus, M. A. Elliot, M. J. Fernando, C. Garland, C. M. L. Georganas, S. Giles, A. J. Gorman, P. Gosling, L. J. Haines, H. M. Hill, J. C. Husic, E. N. Jones, S. P. Kearney, G. M. Keogh, M. J. Khalil, P. King, C. F. Lawrence, T. N. Laxale, J. A. A. Le, D. Leigh, A. K. Lim, S. B. C. Marles, R. D. Mascarenhas, Z. F. A. McBain, K. L. McBride, E. M. Miller-Frost, L. J. Mitchell, B. K. Mitchell, R. G. Mulino, D. Murphy, P. J. Neumann, S. K. O'Connor, B. P. J. O'Neil, C. E. Payne, A. E. Perrett, G. D. Phillips, F. E. Plibersek, T. J. Rae, S. T. Reid, G. J. Repacholi, D. P. Rishworth, A. L. Roberts, T. G. Rowland, M. A. Ryan, J. C. Ryan, M. M. Scamps, S. A. Scrymgour, M. R. Sharkie, R. C. C. Shorten, W. R. Sitou, S. Smith, D. P. B. (Teller) Spender, A. M. Stanley, A. M. (Teller) Steggall, Z. Swanson, M. J. Templeman, S. R. Thistlethwaite, M. J. Thwaites, K. L. Tink, K. J. Vamvakinou, M. Watson-Brown, E. Watts, T. G. Wells, A. S. Wilkie, A. D. Wilson, J. H. Zappia, A. 49 NOES Andrews, K. L. Bell, A. M. Birrell, S. J. Boyce, C. E. Chester, D. J. Coleman, D. B. Conaghan, P. J. Coulton, M. M. (Teller) Dutton, P. C. Entsch, W. G. Fletcher, P. W. Gillespie, D. A. Hamilton, G. R. Hastie, A. W. Hawke, A. G. Hogan, K. J. Howarth, L. R. Joyce, B. T. G. Landry, M. L. Leeser, J. Ley, S. P. Littleproud, D. Marino, N. B. McCormack, M. F. McIntosh, M. I. McKenzie, Z. A. Morrison, S. J. O'Brien, E. L. O'Brien, L. S. Pasin, A. Pearce, G. B. Pike, H. J. Pitt, K. J. Price, M. L. Ramsey, R. E. (Teller) Stevens, J. Sukkar, M. S. Tehan, D. T. Thompson, P. van Manen, A. J. Vasta, R. X. Violi, A. A. Wallace, A. B. Ware, J. L. Webster, A. E. Willcox, A. J. Wilson, R. J. Wolahan, K. Wood, J. P. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

 Consideration in Detail 86 18:00 Mr BATES 300246 Brisbane I just have some questions to the minister about this bill. Minister, in your second reading speech, you mentioned that the bill includes compassionate and evidence based measures that strengthen Australia's safety net. Minister was the evidence presented in the economic inclusion advisory committee's interim report part of the evidence basis for this bill? The SPEAKER 53517 Before the minister addresses this question, I will give some licence and latitude, particularly to new members. This stage, consideration in detail, really is specifically about clauses of the bill. It is not the time to start a new debate or do open broad questions. I will allow the minister to address the question, but for this part of the debate going forward, if members could read Practice 375 where it states, 'Discussion must relate to clauses of the bill, and it is not in order to make a general second reading speech.' So if you are moving forward with questions, please make sure that they are relevant as clauses of the bill. 18:02 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston I thank the member for the question. I would like to thank the members of the economic advisory committee. They did significant work in preparing a lot of information. One of the key elements was to make an argument to lift the base rate of working-age payments, particularly those on JobSeeker and other payments. In addition, the women's economic advisory committee did their work and made it very clear about the importance of extending the eligibility for the single parent payment. Of course, the women's economic security equality task force, as well as the Productivity Commission, as the economic inclusion committee all spoke about the importance of the potential increase to rent assistance. We drew on a lot of information, a lot of evidence. We had a lot of budgetary measures to consider, along with our energy policy and other measures in other portfolios that went into the budget process. Of course, we considered all of those, as we always said we would when it came to income support payments, particularly JobSeeker, through the budget process. We relied on a significant amount of varied information to make those budgetary decisions. 18:03 Ms TINK 300124 North Sydney I want to ask a question of the minister. On the commencement date that is in schedule 1 in the legislation for changing eligibility for single parent payment, the government has recognised the struggle for single parents, mostly women, facing the rising cost of living. However, the current start date is still 19 weeks away, and 8,145 families will have their payments reduced by $100 a week during this period. Will the minister bring forward the start date or make interim arrangements to ensure that no single parent is left worse off? 18:04 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston As I mentioned in my summing up speech, we certainly have considered a whole range of elements to see how fast we can implement these measures. After consideration of the legislative arrangements, along with the implementation date, 20 September is the fastest that we are able to be confident that we can implement these measures. That's certainly my advice from Services Australia. Of course, as a result of this parliament, increases to social security do require legislative changes. We have looked into this and we are confident that this is the best course going forward to ensure that the build of Services Australia, along with the legislation, can implement what is a number of complex measures. It is not just an increase to the base rate but a change to eligibility. It will allow the build of automatic transfer for those parents. We've looked at the simplest, fastest way to enact all of these on 20 September, so we're not able to bring that back. 18:05 Ms TINK 300124 North Sydney I would like to ask the minister whether or not she's aware that this morning in estimates Services Australia actually said that the changes could be done in weeks, not months and that, indeed, they are already working on the package. Given that circumstance, will the minister undertake to review bringing this implementation date forward? 18:06 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston Our advice from Services Australia was that, to implement all of this package, the date was 20 September. There is a lot of complexity. There are the IT changes, as well as a list of changes that I've mentioned. We are looking to implement this through both the legislative changes and the implementation of this package on 20 September. 18:06 Mr BATES 300246 Brisbane I thank you, Speaker, for your advice as well. My next question refers to section 1068-B1 and the section of the act that contains the rate of JobSeeker. I asked earlier about the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. They recommended a substantial increase to the rate of JobSeeker. My question for the minister is: does $2.85 a day constitute a substantial increase to that rate? 18:07 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston When the government was looking at the cost-of-living package that we have put forward, we looked at a range of measures. We have increased the rate of working-age and student payments by $40 for JobSeeker, youth allowance, parenting payment and a range of other measures. We have extended the eligibility for parenting payment to having a youngest child under 14 years of age. We've increased Commonwealth rent assistance and also, of course, have increased the eligibility for the higher rate of JobSeeker to those who are 55—down from 60. This package is a substantive package. It's a package that is targeted. It has been thought through and does complement our other measures in the budget, which include a bulk-billing incentive, tripling the bulk-billing incentive payments, cheaper medicines and, of course, energy relief. Together, these measures, we believe, provide targeted, important cost-of-living relief to those who are most vulnerable, and that is what we're putting forward in this budget. If there are more questions, I might let people ask them and then I'll respond at the end. Bill agreed to. Third Reading 87 18:09 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. BILLS 87 BILLS Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023 87

Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023

Report from Federation Chamber 87

The House divided. [18:15]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

 31 AYES Ananda-Rajah, M. Archer, B. K. Boyce, C. E. Chaney, K. E. Chesters, L. M. Collins, J. M. Doyle, M. J. J. Elliot, M. J. Fletcher, P. W. Georganas, S. Giles, A. J. Haines, H. M. Keogh, M. J. King, C. F. Leigh, A. K. Miller-Frost, L. J. Mitchell, B. K. Mitchell, R. G. Neumann, S. K. O'Connor, B. P. J. Rae, S. T. Rishworth, A. L. Roberts, T. G. Ryan, J. C. Smith, D. P. B. (Teller) Stanley, A. M. (Teller) Templeman, S. R. Wells, A. S. Wilson, J. H. Wood, J. P. Zappia, A. 13 NOES Bandt, A. P. Bates, S. J. (Teller) Chandler-Mather, M. Daniel, Z. Le, D. Ryan, M. M. Scamps, S. A. Sharkie, R. C. C. Spender, A. M. Steggall, Z. Tink, K. J. Watson-Brown, E. Wilkie, A. D. (Teller) 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 18:26 The SPEAKER 53517 The question now is that the bill be read a second time.    

The House divided. [18:26]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

87 AYES Albanese, A. N. Aly, A. Ananda-Rajah, M. Bandt, A. P. Bates, S. J. Bowen, C. E. Burke, A. S. Burnell, M. P. Burney, L. J. Burns, J. Butler, M. C. Byrnes, A. J. Chalmers, J. E. Chandler-Mather, M. Chaney, K. E. Charlton, A. H. G. Chesters, L. M. Clare J. D. Claydon, S. C. Coker, E. A. Collins, J. M. Conroy, P. M. Daniel, Z. Doyle, M. J. J. Dreyfus, M. A. Elliot, M. J. Fernando, C. Garland, C. M. L. Georganas, S. Giles, A. J. Gorman, P. Gosling, L. J. Haines, H. M. Hill, J. C. Husic, E. N. Jones, S. P. Keogh, M. J. Khalil, P. King, C. F. Lawrence, T. N. Laxale, J. A. A. Le, D. Leigh, A. K. Lim, S. B. C. Marles, R. D. Mascarenhas, Z. F. A. McBain, K. L. McBride, E. M. Miller-Frost, L. J. Mitchell, B. K. Mitchell, R. G. Mulino, D. Murphy, P. J. Neumann, S. K. O'Connor, B. P. J. O'Neil, C. E. Payne, A. E. Perrett, G. D. Phillips, F. E. Plibersek, T. J. Rae, S. T. Repacholi, D. P. Rishworth, A. L. Roberts, T. G. Rowland, M. A. Ryan, J. C. Ryan, M. M. Scamps, S. A. Scrymgour, M. R. Sharkie, R. C. C. Shorten, W. R. Sitou, S. Smith, D. P. B. (Teller) Spender, A. M. Stanley, A. M. (Teller) Swanson, M. J. Templeman, S. R. Thistlethwaite, M. J. Thwaites, K. L. Tink, K. J. Vamvakinou, M. Watson-Brown, E. Watts, T. G. Wells, A. S. Wilkie, A. D. Wilson, J. H. Zappia, A. 51 NOES Andrews, K. L. Archer, B. K. Bell, A. M. Birrell, S. J. Boyce, C. E. Chester, D. J. Coleman, D. B. Conaghan, P. J. Coulton, M. M. (Teller) Dutton, P. C. Entsch, W. G. Fletcher, P. W. Gee, A. R. Gillespie, D. A. Hamilton, G. R. Hastie, A. W. Hawke, A. G. Hogan, K. J. Howarth, L. R. Joyce, B. T. G. Landry, M. L. Ley, S. P. Littleproud, D. Marino, N. B. McCormack, M. F. McIntosh, M. I. McKenzie, Z. A. Morrison, S. J. O'Brien, E. L. O'Brien, L. S. Pasin, A. Pearce, G. B. Pike, H. J. Pitt, K. J. Price, M. L. Ramsey, R. E. (Teller) Stevens, J. Sukkar, M. S. Tehan, D. T. Thompson, P. van Manen, A. J. Vasta, R. X. Violi, A. A. Wallace, A. B. Ware, J. L. Webster, A. E. Willcox, A. J. Wilson, R. J. Wolahan, K. Wood, J. P. Young, T. J. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.

 Third Reading 89 18:34 Ms 00AMR Ballarat CATHERINE KING (—) (): by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Creative Australia Bill 2023 90

Creative Australia Bill 2023

Report from Federation Chamber 90 Creative Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023 90

Creative Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023

Report from Federation Chamber 90 Creative Australia Bill 2023, Creative Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023 90

Creative Australia Bill 2023

Creative Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023

Second Reading 90 18:36 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie With this legislation, we will take a major stride in the implementation of Australia's new National Cultural Policy—Revive. The modernisation, strengthening, and expansion of the Australia Council for the Arts is the centrepiece of Revive. For more than five decades, the Australia Council has supported creativity across the continent. It's funded the creation of countless works of music, visual arts, dance, theatre, literature and other art forms. It's shared Australian creativity with the world. It's nurtured the careers of generations of artists and arts workers. It's given Australians access to cultural experiences that have moved us, entertained us and changed how we see the world and how the world sees us. It is the federal government's principal channel of support for creative endeavour. It's crucial to the health of the arts ecology that we have an Australia Council that is fit for the future, properly funded and given the mandate that it needs to effectively serve the arts. The Creative Australia Bill 2023 and other legislation are the second piece to implement the government's National Cultural Policy and transform the Australia Council for the Arts into Creative Australia. Through the legislation, two important new bodies, Music Australia and Creative Workplaces, will be established, and they will be accountable to Creative Australia. Legislation to establish the First Nations body will be introduced next year and legislation for Writers Australia the following year. Through these reforms, public, philanthropic and commercial support for the arts will be brought within the one agency for the first time. The reforms set out in this legislation are complemented by a significant new investment of $199 million in Creative Australia over four years. Those opposite have said that this investment will do little to support artists, Creative Australia will ensure that the vast majority of this investment will go to support artists. Its track record on this speaks for itself. Last financial year, the Australia Council invested 95 per cent of its budget in the sector, with just the remainder spent on overheads and operational costs. The objectives of the National Cultural Policy that were delivered in January of this year arose from the arts community itself. The policy was not imposed by the government. It's based on extensive consultation with the arts community. The calls to establish the new bodies defined in this legislation came through powerfully in the consultations and submissions in the development of the National Cultural Policy, and I was very privileged to support the Minister for the Arts by conducting many of these consultations throughout the country. This legislation also builds on many of the things I learned back in previous parliaments, in the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts inquiries into the sustainability of the music industry and the film and television industry. I've learnt them from my highly creative constituents in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, not to mention the lived experience of having children and many of their friends working in the arts sector. Let's talk about Music Australia. The sector told us that there was a need for a single body responsible for supporting, promoting and developing markets for Australian contemporary music. They told us that the sector needs a single table to meet around for representatives to share ideas, concerns and aspirations. They told us that the sector needs targeted support to provide industry professionals, bands and artists with more opportunities to learn and to develop their skills. This is what Music Australia will do. Its work will be backed by a significant new investment of $69 million over four years. Music Australia will implement a number of the initiatives specified in Revive. It will develop new co-investment agreements with states, territories and industry to develop national sectorwide priorities. It will support industry professionals to learn business and management skills. It will provide ongoing support for Sounds Australia, Australia's export music market development initiative. It will deliver songwriting and recording initiatives in schools. It will be responsible for ensuring research and data collection around key issues, including festivals and venues. It will provide central coordination around access to live music venues for bands and artists, and it will create community music hubs in high-density living areas. The council of Music Australia will draw on the broadest possible range of experience and skills. It will reflect the diversity of this sector. Council members will serve for four years at a time to ensure continuity of strategic leadership. However, it's important to note that Music Australia does not mark a return to the old 'Artform boards' of past years. The council of Music Australia will provide leadership and advice, but it will not make individual funding decisions. These will continue to be made by the continually refreshed assessment panels made up of musicians and music workers. Music Australia has been created in response to the sector's call. Its form has been shaped by the input of hundreds of individual musicians, music producers and industry organisations across the country. Thank you to every individual and organisation whose contribution has brought us to this point. The other body is Creative Workplaces. This was another message that came through really clearly in the consultations for the national cultural policy. The message was that action must be taken on problems with workplace culture in many parts of the arts sector. For far too long, artists and arts workers have faced conditions that threaten their wellbeing and financial security. The Raising their voices report released in September 2022 shone a light on the sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination that has been rife within some parts of the sector for decades. Perpetrators have gone unpunished and victims have been silenced. Underpayment and exploitation of artists have been all too common. We will not allow this toxicity to become normalised. Arts jobs are real jobs. Artists are workers. They deserve to feel safe at work. They deserve good working conditions and fair pay. Creative Workplaces will help set a higher standard. Its mission will be to instil a greater level of respect and decency for those in the creative workforce. We know that action is long overdue. We recognise that it will take time to bring about the kind of cultural change that we seek to make. But what's crucial is that we take these first steps and that we begin as we mean to continue. Creative Workplaces will provide advice on issues such as pay, safety and welfare in the arts and entertainment sector. It will refer matters to the relevant authorities such as Safe Work Australia, the Fair Work Commission and the Australian Human Rights Commission. It will hear complaints, and it will provide confidential advice to those who need it. It will develop codes of conduct and resources for the sector. It will make it a condition of funding that grant recipients adhere to the workplace standards required of them, and it will monitor their compliance with those standards. It will provide funding to Support Act, to provide mental health services for those working in the music industry. Those opposite have dismissed the creation of Creative Workplaces as unnecessary spending on bureaucracy that will do little to improve the lives of Australian artists. Well, I wonder if the 1,600 music industry workers who contributed to the Raising their Voices report would agree with that. Seventy-four per cent of female respondents reported sexual harassment or sexual harm during their career in the music industry. Ninety-one per cent of women had experienced sexism. Seventy-six per cent of respondents had experienced bullying. I wonder just how many of these music industry workers would say that intervention is a waste of time and resources. Australia's artists cannot produce their best work while working in unsafe and unfair conditions. We can't expect artists to enrich our lives while their own are governed by fear, insecurity and exploitation. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam once said: 'A society in which the arts flourish is a society in which every human value can flourish. A society where democracy is secure is a society where the arts are secure.' He was right, as he was about many things. Freedom of creative expression in the arts is one of the distinguishing characteristics of a democratic society. Indeed, freedom of creative expression is one of the preconditions of a healthy democracy. The arts must be free of political interference. Since the Australia Council's establishment by the Whitlam government in 1975, part of its mission has been to uphold and promote freedom of expression in the arts. That principle will always be at its heart and that principle is enshrined in this legislation. Over the past decade, the Australia Council has faced relentless undermining, sidelining and underfunding by the previous government, but through it all it has maintained the faith of the arts community because they see themselves reflected in the agency and they respect the integrity of its processes. It's important that Creative Australia is informed and guided by the expertise of the arts community and that it reflects their diversity. Across six decades, the great strength of the Australia Council has been that it is just as much part of the arts community as it is of government. That will continue to be its strength well into the future. Independence is also key, and we believe that the role of the government is to support and empower Australia's artists, not to direct them. This government understands that the people best placed to make decisions on artistic merit are not ministers or government officials, but artists. Arm's-length decision-making and peer assessment of artistic merit should be the foundations for arts funding in a democratic society. These will continue to be the foundational principles for Creative Australia. For all its rhetoric, the previous government failed to uphold these principles. In 2015, arts minister George Brandis raided the Australia Council's budget to set up a fund to be spent according to his own preferences. When this happened, Australia's arts community were understandably horrified. Their concern was about more than just funding cuts; they understood what was at stake. The minister had broken the decades-long consensus that arts funding decisions should be made at arm's length from government. The editors of the literary journal Kill Your Darlings wrote that they had a great concern about: The alarming cuts to the Australia Council for the Arts and the political erosion of arms-length funding … a healthy, wealthy democracy such as ours must support the arts community through apolitical funding bodies. Politics always has a place in the arts and artistic expression, but political mandates should never have a place in arts administration. They were wise words. When the previous government set-up the RISE Fund, funding decisions were not made independently of government. They were not made using the trusted peer-assessment method. They were not made with any guiding strategy. Our government has returned to the principles of arm's-length decision-making and peer assessment. After a decade without strategic leadership, we've introduced a national cultural policy and we've begun legislating the reforms that it prescribes. Above the doors of the Art Gallery of New South Wales are inscribed the Latin words 'Ars Victrix', which means 'the arts victorious'. They're derived from the lines of a poem by Henry Austin Dobson: All passes. Art alone Enduring stays to us … It's a reminder that art is not just how we communicate with each other; it's how we communicate with generations yet to be born, generations who will judge and seek to understand us by the art we leave behind. The arts are too important to be treated like a personal fiefdom or a political plaything. They're too important to be abandoned to a policy vacuum. They're too important to be starved of the support that they need. We believe that these reforms and new investments will close one chapter and open a new one. A modernised, expanded and properly funded Australia Council will be better equipped to serve Australia's artists and allow them to make the contribution that we and future generations will value so profoundly. I commend the bill to the House. 18:50 Mr S 176304 Sturt TEVENS () (): It is an exciting evening here in the House of Representatives as we debate a bill to change the name of a government agency, the Creative Australia Bill 2023. It's not the first time that we've done this. I think the last one was Jobs and Skills Australia. That was equally thrilling, to spend the time of the House of Representatives debating legislation that effectively changes the name of a government department. It's a busy government that can be focused on such important things as converting the name of an agency from the Australia Council to Creative Australia! That is radical, but, for those that are frightened about the pace of change here, don't worry, because the board is helpfully not changing its name. The agency will become Creative Australia, but, so that we don't move too quickly and frighten people, the new board of Creative Australia will still be called the Australia Council Board. That is a great relief. For a moment there, I was worried about whether or not the great bureaucracy, the arts department of government, was going to be able to handle such a revolution. But the government have helpfully not gone too far and are only changing the agency's name, not the name of the board that oversees that agency. We're not standing in the way of this historic moment, one that I will talk to my grandchildren about: 'I was here when we did it.' I won't be able to explain the full significance of the moment, but I'll do my best as I reflect on it for many decades to come as being one of the great things we did in my time here in the House of Representatives. This, of course, was an attempt for the then opposition to say they had an arts policy a couple of days before the last election. The now minister gave a speech, I can't remember where, saying that they were going to bring back Creative Australia. That was probably when someone said, 'We'd better have an arts policy before election day, because there will be people in the arts community that say, "What's the Labor Party's arts policy?"' So the Labor Party announced they were going to establish Creative Australia—which, it turns out, is just changing the name of an existing department to 'Creative Australia', hence the legislation we're debating now. For good measure, passing this legislation does mean that the existing board that won't be changing its name, the Australia Council Board, will be recreated, which is an opportunity to reappoint the existing board or consider appointing new members to a new board that will be larger than the current board. It will be very interesting to see those appointments made if indeed this legislation passes, as I expect it will, through this chamber and the Senate. That will be an opportunity for us to see whether or not there are any other motivations in this dramatic name-change-of-an-agency bill that indeed gives an opportunity for certain people to be appointed to this new board—a larger board, too, I might mention. There will be 14 people able to be rewarded by being appointed to a new board with the same name as the old board. We will watch very intently as to who the government appoints to that board. That might give us a window into one of the reasons why it's necessary to dedicate the time of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, the 13th-largest economy on the planet, to debating legislation to change the name of an agency and wipe the appointment of existing board members so that new ones, in a larger number, can be given some kind of reward from a new government, perhaps. Nonetheless, I take the opportunity to talk about my own electorate when it comes to the opportunities that this new agency, Creative Australia, will provide. Particularly, I have the South Australian Film Corporation, located in my electorate of Sturt. I'm sure everyone has seen many films that were either filmed there or in some way had production associated with that facility in Glenside. Certainly in my time as the member I've had the opportunity to very regularly go there and see not only the great work that they're doing at the Film Corporation but also the great ecosystem that is there for the many different creative agencies across all the different disciplines of film and content creation. I look forward to Creative Australia being as effective as the Australia Council for the Arts had been in supporting the sector. Of course, I also pay tribute to Screen Australia, who have had a lot to do, at the Commonwealth level, with supporting production there. Obviously rebates et cetera that have been in place over many years have also helped with attracting production and postproduction, which is a sector in film, screen and content that people shouldn't underestimate. It's very significant. There are some great companies in my electorate and in Adelaide more generally that are working on projects across the world, and particularly in Hollywood. Adelaide is very lucky from a time zone point of view. You can effectively have a business operating in Los Angeles, a business operating in Adelaide and a business operating in London, and they effectively, helpfully, overlap time zones. You can basically collaborate 24 hours a day across those three time zones. With cloud computing and all those great elements of modern technology, some of the most sophisticated elements of special effects can be worked on through the day in Adelaide and then handed over to a team that night in London that hands it over to Los Angeles and then back again to Adelaide. I've had the opportunity to engage with businesses that do exactly that in my electorate. They're very impressive and are working not only on very significant Hollywood productions but also, most importantly, on productions that are happening domestically right there at the film studio in Glenside. That is one sector, when we talk about the creative arts, that I'm very passionate about. From a community level right up to an elite level across all the various elements of art and artistic expression, like any local member, I've got a wide variety in my electorate. It is very important that, at the Commonwealth level, we are providing appropriate support to give those various sectors the best chance to achieve their full potential. That's one of the fundamental differences between us and the government: we do like to see a focus of taxpayer funds going to the coalface of these sectors and not being consumed within bureaucracies. This legislation adds complexity to bureaucracy. They're not just getting a new logo, a new creativeaustralia.gov.au and whatever else they'll be spending on the rebrand. There are some other levels of bureaucracy being created, with additional boards and this and that that'll be consuming the funding that goes into this portfolio. Of course, every dollar going towards that is a dollar that can't be given directly to frontline support towards artists and those involved in the vast variety of creative industries, who I would think would much prefer whatever investment is being made at a federal level going directly to them rather than being soaked up by unnecessary bureaucracy. I commend the contribution of our lead speaker to the extent that we do differentiate ourselves from the government, in that we like to see taxpayer funds going directly to the people it's designed for and not used up in additional, unnecessary bureaucracy. Nonetheless, we're not standing in the way of this bill. I think we've outlined that maybe this is not the most significant way in which we could be assisting this sector or spending the time of the House of Representatives, but, if this is the big priority of the government when it comes to supporting those in the creative industries, we will not stand in their way. We will let this great, totemic piece of legislation pass and watch the unbelievable dividend, the return from it, echo and reverberate across the creative industries throughout my electorate and across the nation. I conclude my contribution on this bill to the House. 19:00 Mr BRIAN MITCHELL 129164 Lyons I'm pleased to see the member for Sturt doing his bit for Australian arts with that very poor attempt at stand-up comedy, but of course he is forever Salieri to his predecessor's Mozart in the electorate of Sturt. Mr Rob Mitchell M3E Mozart is in the House tonight! Mr BRIAN MITCHELL 129164 Mozart's in the House! God help us! 'Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.' These are the words of Albert Einstein, the father of relativity; a famous physicist, who understood the importance of arts and culture to our lives. He knew that arts and culture enrich everyday life. Labor governments and cultural policy go hand in hand. Australia's modern cultural policy commenced with Gough Whitlam's announcement of funds, to establish what would become the Australia Council for the Arts, the primary arts funding and advisory body for the country, in 1973. It was the first time that an Australian federal government had formally developed a cultural policy. Then, in 1994, by then Prime Minister Paul Keating developed Creative Nation, and that was born. That report emphasised culture's importance to national identity and defined 'culture' more broadly than earlier conceptions by including film, radio, libraries and more. It also stressed the economic potential of cultural activity and the arts, stating that: This cultural policy is also an economic policy. Culture creates wealth. Broadly defined, our cultural industries generate 13 billion dollars a year. Culture employs. Around 336,000 Australians are employed in culture-related industries. Culture adds value, it makes an essential contribution to innovation, marketing and design. It is a badge of our industry. And then, in 2013, Creative Australia was introduced by Julia Gillard's Labor government. That was designed to modernise our cultural policy and set out pathways to provide a strategic framework for the next 10 years. That policy described the essential role that arts and culture play in the life of every Australian and how creativity is central to Australia's economic and social success—that a creative nation is a productive nation. Described by then Minister for the Arts, Simon Crean, Creative Australia was a 'national cultural policy for the decade', creating excellence in the arts, creating jobs, creating opportunity and creating unique Australian stories, which are all vital to an outward-looking, competitive and confident nation. It was a comprehensive action plan to drive an arts, education, creativity and innovation sector for a decade from 2013—except, in September of that year, the Liberals came to power and scrapped Creative Australia, and replaced it with: nothing; nothing at all. The complete lack of a cultural policy over the following nine years of deliberately neglectful Liberal administration of the arts made the sector susceptible to harm, neglect and policy drift. The arts industry suffered from cuts and political interference under the Liberals, and one of the worst examples was the $100 million cut made to the Australia Council to pay for then arts minister George Brandis's Catalyst program. Catalyst was Senator Brandis's personal plaything, a $100 million lolly bag to be handed out to artists and organisations that won his favour. All that was missing from that scandal was a powdered wig and a pug on his lap as he bestowed his largesse upon the little people. Before COVID arrived, the Australia Council's financing had not fully recovered from these reductions. The Liberals then abandoned Australian musicians and artists completely during the pandemic. I recall the words of the member for Sturt, talking so sincerely, it seemed, about how important it was to have direct funding for artists and musicians. And yet we all remember the COVID years. The Liberals could not even acknowledge that artists are workers, with the COVID wage subsidy for everybody else, deliberately designed to exclude artists and arts workers. While the RISE fund did some good, it was set up as a fund where ministers could personally choose pet projects to fund. Our government respects theatre and respects workers in the arts for the contribution they make both to culture and the economy. Dr Scott East, a lecturer in museum studies and an expert in cultural data, from the University of New South Wales School of Art and Design, is part of a team of academics working on the Australian Cultural Data Engine. The ACDE—unfortunately, we didn't quite get there with AC/DC—is currently examining biographical data on more than 150,000 artists, architects and performers, and studying the rise and fall of arts organisations since 1945. In a recent article in March, he said: We've had a cultural policy vacuum on a national level for over a decade and this new policy picks up on this, as well as addressing post-pandemic discontent in the arts. When they work well, cultural policies can facilitate an important vision—bringing the entire arts sector together to work towards something bold and exciting. Cultural policies can play an important role in shaping and promoting Australian identity. They can also nurture the creativity of domestic talent and help increase access and participation of everyday citizens in cultural activities. That sounds like a hell of a lot more than a name change, as the member for Sturt was alleging. Tasmania has a rich arts and creativity sector. It has a thriving arts scene that draws inspiration from its breathtaking natural landscapes, rich cultural heritage and a strong community spirit. From traditional Aboriginal art to contemporary exhibitions and performances, Tasmania has become a haven for artists seeking to push boundaries and showcase their talents. Festivals known throughout the country, like the winter Mona Foma event, the Festival of Voices and Ten Days on the Island, showcase our talents and bring people from far and wide to celebrate our unique island state and its remarkable and talented artists. I've got to mention MONA down there in Hobart, in the electorate of Clark; what David Walsh has done there has reinvigorated the idea of arts and what role it can play in community life. It is an absolutely breathtaking example of modern art. The Glover Prize and the Bay of Fires winter arts festival are just two of many regional arts groups in my electorate that promote our region on a national level, promoting and celebrating local artists. The Tasmanian Craft Fair and WinterFire are both events out at Deloraine, in the Meander Valley, and they bring people out in droves to see the wonderful creations of our local makers and producers. We are richly imbued with creative people, and our policy, the legislation before the House now, drives a direction for that. On top of all this, TV and film is increasingly being shot in Tasmania. Forget South Australia—it's flat and dry; nothing to see there! Come to Tasmania. We've got forests, seas, coasts. We've got everything—beautiful light, old towns. That's where you need to be showing your film and TV. Come to Tasmania. Unfortunately, there is an overrepresentation of Gothic cannibalism in some of the films that have been made, but, nevertheless, it all showcases the appeal and potential of the arts in Tasmania. On a serious note, our creatives find it difficult to shine with a lack of structure to their work and without the support and funding they need. That's what they're going to get from Creative Australia and Revive. The Albanese Labor government's new national cultural policy, Revive, is a new chapter in Australia's cultural story that sets the course for Australia's arts, entertainment and cultural sector for the next five years. Revive will empower our talented artists and arts organisations to thrive and grow, unlocking new opportunities, reaching new audiences and telling stories in compelling new ways. It will bring drive, direction and vision back to this $17 billion industry which employs an estimated 400,000 Australians, after a lost decade of federal policy drift, funding neglect and, frankly, petty politics. Backed by $286 million in dedicated funding over four years, Revive's centrepiece is the establishment of Creative Australia. Creative Australia will be the government's new principal arts investment and advisory body. The governing body of Creative Australia will continue to be known as the Australia Council. Creative Australia will expand on and modernise the Australia Council's work with additional funding of $200 million over four years, restoring the money cut by the former Liberal and National government. Funding decisions will be made on the basis of artistic merit and at arm's length from government. You can support arts in government without dictating what it has to be. Within Creative Australia four new bodies will be established, including a new, First Nations led body that will give First Nations people autonomy over decisions and investments. It will invest in First Nations languages and develop a First Nations creative workforce strategy. There'll be Music Australia, a dedicated new body to support and invest in the Australian contemporary music industry. It'll create music hubs and develop a workforce plan to identify skill and training needs. It'll deliver songwriting and recording initiatives into schools and pilot a program to support access to art and music therapy. There'll be Writers Australia to support writers and illustrators in creating new works. It'll develop national industry initiatives and international markets to maximise exposure—and I give a quick shout-out to a friend of mine, Jason Chatfield, living in New York. He is a great illustrator, a young bloke who I met many years ago in Fremantle. He is a great example of an Australian doing well overseas. He draws Ginger Meggs. Unfortunately, a lot of the newspapers have stopped running the cartoons now, but still we plug for our illustrators. They do great work. There will be the new Centre for Arts and Entertainment Workplaces to ensure creative workers are paid fairly and have safe workplaces free from harassment and discrimination. That's an important element to all this. We are treating arts workers as workers. Revive is built on five pillars and puts First Nations first, recognising and respecting the crucial place of these stories at the heart of our national arts and culture. That's why, in addition to the Creative Australia First Nations body, Revive commits the government to introducing legislation to protect First Nations knowledge and cultural expressions, including the harm caused by fake art; developing a First Nations creative workforce strategy; funding the establishment of a national Aboriginal art gallery in Alice Springs and an Aboriginal cultural centre in Perth—and I know the member for Fremantle will appreciate that—and providing $11 million to establish a First Nations languages policy partnership between First Nations representatives and Australian governments. Revive also commits the government to regulating Australian content on streaming platforms, improving lending rights and income for Australian writers, increased funding for regional art—very close to my heart—and dozens of other measures. The Creative Australia Bill 2023 is the next tranche of legislation that establishes Creative Australia as a modernised entity with new governance arrangements, including establishing Music Australia and creative workplaces. Since 1975 the Australia Council has been the principal Commonwealth arts investment and advisory body, with a strong profile in the sector. It supports and promotes creative arts practice that is recognised nationally and internationally and it provides research and advocacy on issues affecting the sector. The Albanese Labor government is proud to continue the legacy of supporting arts and culture in Australia through establishing Creative Australia, a restored and expanded federal entity for arts and entertainment—much more than a name change, Member for Sturt. This bill delivers on key elements of Revive, the government's national cultural policy, to establish Creative Australia, return the Brandis cuts and, within the new entity, establish Music Australia and creative workplaces to support and grow the sector. The bill responds directly to calls for change from the sector received through more than 1,200 submissions and input from more than 800 attendees at the 14 town halls held across the country during the consultation on the policy. Music Australia will support the Australian contemporary music industry to grow, including through strategic initiatives and industry partnerships; research, training and skills development; and export promotion. Creative workplaces will work with artists, industry workers and employers to raise and maintain safety standards. It will also set minimum standards and rates of pay for the sector, and organisations seeking government funding will be expected to meet these standards—a very important clause. Timely passage of the bill in the winter sittings will allow the commencement of Creative Australia's new governance arrangements as soon as possible after 1 July 2023, for the benefit of artists and arts organisations. Under Revive, there will be a place for every story and a story for every place. Tasmania wants more freedom to tell its own stories. Our artists are creators and workers. The sector is essential to our culture and our economy. As the sector recovers from years of neglect, followed by the tough pandemic period, Revive will set the arts sector on a new trajectory, with fresh momentum. I commend the bill to the House. 19:15 Mr VIOLI 300147 Casey I rise to speak on the Creative Australia Bill 2023 and the Creative Australia Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023. I believe that arts funding should as much as possible go to support artists, performers and arts workers, and the backstage crews, exhibition facilitators and all the people who work to deliver a great show, a poignant work of art or a piece of music or literature to enrich the soul. Whether it is performing arts, visual arts or literature, getting the money to the front line is a good principle, and a principle seemingly absent from these bills. These two bills are part of the government's legislative agenda to implement decisions announced as part of its national cultural policy, but this government seems very keen on imposing priorities, principles and values upon artistic and cultural activity. Whether they will actually produce better artistic content is, I believe, highly doubtful. A much better approach would be to leave it in the hands of artists and performers, rather than putting our faith in having many more bureaucrats. But these bills give effect to a rather different agenda. So far we have seen legislation passed which changed the name from the Australia Council to Creative Australia. The bill before the House is the next piece of this legislative agenda. The government tells us that the new Creative Australia entity will have expanded functions, responsibility and new governance structures as the Creative Australia body replaces the Australia Council body. The main bill is cognate with the Creative Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023, which will repeal the legislation as it relates to the Australia Council, essentially dissolving the entity of the Australia Council under law, which does raise the rather obvious question: why not just keep calling the whole thing the Australia Council? Mr Birrell 288713 Gough Whitlam called it that. Mr VIOLI 300147 Yes, Gough Whitlam did call it the Australia Council. You would think those opposite would want to honour his legacy, but no. It's important to remember that this is typical of the new Labor government, who love to name existing operations something new, and the reason they need to rename it is that they need to have a media release. If you don't have a media release, what's the point? It's amazing that this government has had five media releases this year about the same announcement: the renaming. They launched the national cultural policy in January this year, 2023, and then they announced Revive, a new national cultural policy—two announcements on the same day about the same thing. A couple of months later, in March, they're talking about how parliament are voting for Creative Australia. They still haven't delivered anything. There's an announcement that we're having a vote. And then there's another press release about how the government is reviving Australian arts and culture. Two weeks later, it's laying the foundation for Creative Australia. 'If we don't have that name change, we can't have all these press releases.' No doubt the minister will have another one coming out tomorrow or the day after that we've voted again and passed another bit of legislation. 'We haven't really achieved anything in 12 months for the arts community, but we've had a lot of press releases and we've got a lot of good coverage,' so 'job done' for the minister. I really find it interesting that there are more media releases about the renaming and the restructure of the existing arts body than about the entire Labor small-business policy platform. As someone who spent 15 years in small business, working with them and for them, it's amazing that we get more press releases about the arts—and I love the arts and I'll continue to talk about them. But this is what this government does: press release after press release. Policies that actually deliver for the community are much more important. As I said, they released their national cultural policy in January and much of the document is simply a re-announcement of what we knew was already happening. Back in March we debated the initial Creative Australia, which has essentially rebranded the Australia Council as Creative Australia. Again, it's a result of this government's decision to transfer the functions of Creative Partnerships Australia to the Australia Council. Creative Partnerships Australia was established 10 years ago with the aim of attracting more philanthropic funding for the arts. A great thing. Any time that governments, private enterprise and philanthropic organisations can work together is a great way to get value for taxpayer dollars, and it's operated successfully ever since then. Yet the first thing Tony Burke did when he came into government was to abolish the agency. There are several aspects of these new arrangements that are troubling. The first is that we have seen a re-weighting of spending towards having more Commonwealth arts officials, and that's at the expense of real frontline arts activities in all of our communities. According to the budget, the average staff level for the Australia Council will increase by 32 per cent, from an estimated 108 in 2022-23 to 143 in 2023-24. Let's be clear, that 108 to 143 increase, every dollar in those salaries, is a dollar that could have been spent in our communities, in the community of Casey, at an amazing organisation like Burrinja, to deliver arts performances to support artists. We hear a big top-line number of the government announcing their funding of $199 million over four years, but how much of that money is going to these staff increases for more bureaucrats in Canberra and is less money for artists and communities on the ground where it actually matters? This has been redirected from a number of places. With the government having cancelled several programs previously funded by the coalition government, including the temporary support fund and the balance of the Location Incentive Program, every dollar that goes to fund bureaucrats is a dollar that cannot go to artists, performers and people in the arts sector who deliver actual arts activities that can entertain and inspire Australians. This re-naming of existing programs and game playing with arts budgets is an increasingly familiar feature of this government. Let's consider the perplexing appearance and subsequent disappearance of Minister Burke's Live Performance Support Fund. We've had five press releases, we've got to remember that. We've got the press releases. But he announced in the October budget as part of a $38.6 million supporting the arts program it was going to deliver funds for plays, concerts and festivals from November 2022 to February 2023. Sounds great. Very exciting. That's great investment into the arts. But, suddenly, we didn't hear any more about it. Mr Birrell 288713 Why not? Mr VIOLI 300147 The reason we didn't hear about it, member for Nicholls, and that's a very good question, is that the recent budget confirmed the demise of the program. I wonder—the member for Nicholls would probably know this—how much dollars of that $38.6 million was spent? Mr Birrell 288713 I would hope all of it. Mr VIOLI 300147 You would hope all of it, member for Nicholls. Mr VIOLI 300147 Member for Banks, you would like some—maybe half would be nice. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, not a dollar was spent. Mr Coleman 241067 What happened to it? Mr VIOLI 300147 It disappeared. It went back into the Treasurer's surplus. But the important thing, member for Banks, is they got their announcement. The minister got to tell everyone that he was spending $38.6 million supporting the arts program. As we heard from the member for Lyons, those opposite will stand up and talk about how much they care about the arts and how much money they invest in the arts. But the reality is they do the press releases. They don't actually deliver it. There's not a word about this. Hopefully, the next speaker might feel free to address the supporting the arts program and why that money wasn't spent. It's a mystery to me. But we got our press release. It's just another example of this government being big on spin and politics without actually delivering. Now, in my electorate of Casey, we value the creative arts, whether literary, visual or musical. The local performing arts scene is a really strong one in Casey, rich with creative talent, including having two Australian Idol finalists in the top eight this year—something I was really proud of. Two extraordinary young people, Josh Hannan and Anya Alchemy, had amazing success on the show, and it was amazing to talk to them through that process and hear their passion for their craft and the success they've achieved chasing their dream. Josh is a local singer and songwriter. He grew up on a rose farm in Mount Evelyn, while Anya is a Selby local, growing up playing gigs in the hills at the Sooki Lounge in Belgrave. My wife and I were lucky enough to attend Anya's homecoming show at the Sooki Lounge. It was a great performance, and the crowd's appreciation for her talents was clear. It is amazing to see young people living their dream. I value and appreciate the coalition's focus on stimulating as many new events, shows, festivals and productions as possible and getting them seen by as many Australians as possible. While those opposite like to claim that for the last 10 years the coalition did nothing, the reality is that under the previous coalition government 541 shows and events all around Australia were funded under our $200 million Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand—RISE—Fund. Burrinja is an example in my electorate that was a beneficiary that project. This brought back an industry that was on the brink of collapse after the COVID-19 pandemic, creating over 213,000 job opportunities as well as providing hope, entertainment and joy to all of us just when we needed it. We even allocated a further $20 million towards this program in the March 2022 budget, but the new minister cancelled it. He didn't talk about that, but he cancelled that $20 million that was making a difference in many communities, including mine in Casey. Labor's focus is on spending money, on more bureaucrats, and this was a missed opportunity to increase the number of concerts, festivals, events and shows and in turn increase the number of jobs for performing artists and participation by Australians in the arts. As the son of an artist and a musician, I know how important the arts industry and culture are to the very essence of social community and wellbeing of human beings. The Yarra Valley and the Dandenong Ranges nurture the most amazing arts communities, from Healesville to Warburton to Sassafras and down to Upwey. We've got amazing organisations like the TarraWarra Gallery, and the Eva and Marc Besen centre is a great example of philanthropic investment in our community. I was lucky enough just last weekend to attend and open the Yarra Ranges Photographic Society Expressions 4 Exhibition display at our Warburton arts centre. It was an amazing display, with so many passionate artists there. As I've mentioned a few times, Burrinja is jewel in the crown of the Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges in Upwey. And there's the Ridges and Rivers project, which was a $30 million investment between the coalition federal government, the state government, the council and private organisations, like Bendigo Bank, driving tourism and arts projects in our community. I had the opportunity to visit one: Peter McIlwain's Lung Trees sonic art in the Dandenongs. It was an amazing display and a great example of investing money into artists in the community. I've got to give a shout-out to the Kapi Art Space Gallery in Kalorama. They just reopened after having to shut down for many months after the site was damaged in a car accident. It's wonderful to see that they've reopened and that many locals and tourists can enjoy the wonderful art displays at the Kapi Art Space. Congratulations on the opening. Although the coalition will not be opposing these bills, as I've outlined, the case has not been made for these changes, as they are not, in the main, things we would choose to do. In fact, during a cost-of-living crisis, it is interesting that the government has prioritised increasing an already large board size to something even larger and to prioritise making name changes over actually delivering. These two bills are a clear change to Labor's very different focus: more Commonwealth arts officials and more bureaucracy. I will always advocate for our Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges artists, musicians, sculptors and exhibitors. Debate interrupted. ADJOURNMENT 98 ADJOURNMENT Artificial Intelligence 98 19:30 Mr JOYCE e5d New England Dr J Robert Oppenheimer was instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb that hastened the end of the Second World War. In the post Cold War period, he was very much perturbed by the fruits of his genius and did not support the development of the hydrogen bomb. He was a chain-smoking theoretical physicist and a genius. After receiving formal approval from President Roosevelt on 28 December 1942, the Manhattan Project developed into a massive undertaking that spread across the United States. With over 30 project sites and over 100,000 workers, the Manhattan Project came to cost approximately $2.2 billion. Even though encompassing such a massive scale, the project largely remained a secret and many people working on the construction of the atomic bomb did not fully know the purpose behind their jobs. On 16 July 1945, Oppenheimer was present at the first explosion of an atomic bomb, the Trinity test. Despite its Christian religious moniker, Oppenheimer quoted another religious text. He quoted Vishnu from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita: Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. Vishnu is the supreme being who creates, protects and transforms the universe, and the development of the atomic bomb did change the future of the planet, but it had guard rails. The development of artificial intelligence does not have these 'impediments'. Computer programs design better computer programs with a greater cognitive capacity and a feigned empathy that the programmer who planted the initial seed would have failed to comprehend. This is today's Oppenheimer dilemma. This week another genius, Geoffrey Hinton, 75, quit to speak freely about the dangers of AI and, in part, regrets his contribution to the field. He was brought on by Google a decade ago to help develop the company's AI technology, and the approach he pioneered led the way for current systems such as ChatGPT. He was concerned about the existential risk of what happens when these things get more intelligent than us. Hinton concluded: I've come to the conclusion that the kind of intelligence we're developing is very different from the intelligence we have. …   …   … So it's as if you had 10,000 people and whenever one person learnt something, everybody automatically knew it. And that's how these chatbots can know so much more than any one person. So am I worried about the Terminator or cyborgs? No. But I do not deny for one second the malicious intent of people with nefarious motives. What I am more immediately concerned about is whether companies will use this technology to replace most of the jobs done by any person working at any keyboard attached to any computer in any field. People much smarter than I could possibly comprehend have this clearly in mind. We have developed a workforce that is based around the technology of the keyboard, and now the person who sits behind it may be old technology. The Trinity test site for AI does not require an isolated site in a desert in New Mexico. You are the test site, and the time is now. Any problems will be corrected and perfected by the same AI. There is just too much money to be made for this precarious scenario of your children's future not to become their reality. I believe that it is fundamental that this parliament really understand some of the challenges that are before us. These should be concerns shared by both sides of the House. It is better that we try to deal with these issues now—although I must admit that I think the cat is already well and truly out of the bag—than to try and manage it at a later stage. We should take as a clarion call how those especially in the United States have raised concerns about this. These are people on all sides of the political fence and they're people who are vastly more exemplary in their understanding of this than I could ever possibly be. If we don't act, if we just sit back and wait for this problem to arrive on us, I think we'd be being really foolish. What's more, I think we could. There's always a chance. Whenever there's a chance, that's the time you do something about it; not when it's an actuality, but when there's a chance. With AI, it has most certainly become apparent that there's a chance of an incredibly dark scenario that could become the fate of all of us if we don't mange this problem right now. Dunkley Electorate: Infrastructure 99 19:35 Ms MURPHY 133646 Dunkley It seems somewhat discordant to go from that speech to talk about local roads, but yet I am going to. Local roads are not necessarily the most exciting subject, people would say, but it is an important subject for people in my community. Every day they drive around, trying to get to work, getting the kids to school, getting to netball and footy. Well-maintained roads and community facilities are absolutely essential components of local infrastructure, and they impact people's lives daily. I am really pleased that the Albanese government has allocated more than $740,000 through phase 4 of the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program to Frankston City Council. The neighbouring shire, Mornington Peninsula Shire, which covers Mount Eliza in my electorate, is also set to receive significant funding across the peninsula. This is a really important delivery from the government for local priorities, reflecting our government's support for local communities to grow and prosper. Councils like Frankston and Mornington Peninsula Shire will be able to undertake vital local road and community infrastructure projects with ongoing federal funding and funding over $740,000 which I have just talked about. Jobs are created and everyone benefits. I know the councils love to get feedback from locals about what should be done for community infrastructure and roads and footpaths, so I urge everyone in Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula: if you have ideas for how that money should be spent to deliver better local infrastructure, get in touch with the Frankston and Mornington Peninsula councils. Let them know. The more we're engaged with the councils, the more they will be able to deliver what our community wants. There is no point complaining afterwards that what they have delivered is not what we want. What is absolutely invaluable to the future of our community is the views of those of us who live there. Input from locals is the best way for councils and state and federal governments to be able to form policies that mean we have a shared vision for growth and prosperity. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how this money is spent for the benefit of the community and for the community's involvement in it. Education is the key to everyone's future. No matter where you come from, what your background is, what language is spoken at home, how much money your parents have, a good education is the way to a better future, and everyone should have access to a great education provided in a great facility. It's why this government is so committed to investing in the infrastructure of schools as well as the curriculum and the teachers. More than 1,300 schools across the nation are about to receive shares of $32 million in grants dedicated to upgrading schools infrastructure and providing new equipment. In my community of Dunkley, four schools have been successful in their applications—four incredibly worthy schools. Aldercourt Primary School in Frankston North, Ballam Park Primary School in Karingal, Elisabeth Murdoch College in Langwarrin, and Mount Eliza Primary School in Mount Eliza are all set to receive funding for crucial projects to enhance the learning environment for students and to enhance their enjoyment of the school facility at all times. The sort of initiatives are outdoor learning spaces, upgrades to outdoor spaces, modification to classrooms, doors and windows to allow better airflow—which we learnt was so important during COVID—and repair and maintenance of local school facilities. The Aldercourt Primary School recently got another grant of $16,000 through the school's upgrade fund. I visited the school recently. While it might seem modest in the scheme of things, the plan that they have for their outdoor classroom is so exciting. You can see that the students are excited. They looked very flash in their blazers, I have to say. The teachers are excited. What a school looks like matters, and I'm really proud to be part of improving it. (Time expired) Reeve, Mr Chris 100 19:40 Mrs MARINO HWP Forrest Recently I caught up with the talented musician Chris Reeve, who was in Bunbury with his dad, Cliff, and Cliff's wife, Lynnee. Now, I want to share Chris's story to inspire, to encourage and to motivate the many young musicians and performers both in my electorate and right around regional, rural and remote parts of Australia. Chris Reeve was actually born in Kalgoorlie in WA, an area defined as outer regional by the ABS; however, for the last eight years he's lived and worked in Las Vegas as a musician. Chris has recently finished a world tour as a drummer for the Canadian superstar Avril Lavigne. He has toured previously with Tom Morello and Filter and done countless shows in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. According to his dad, Chris was always going to be a musician. Primarily, he is on the drums, with some guitar, and keyboards as well, and recently he was even talked into singing. Over the past few months, he has played in Canada, Europe, Japan, USA, South America, England and even Madison Square Garden, and he has played in front of 100,000 people for Rock in Rio. How did he do this? It was just sheer hard work—hours and hours of practice, dedication and determination. So, for the young people who may read or hear this, he started just like you. He always loved music and, while he may have inherited his musical talent from his mum, it was his radio announcer dad who instilled the love and passion of all sorts of music. When he was young and, by then, living in Perth, he was head boy at Duncraig Primary School, and he did well academically at high school. However, after school each day he would race through his homework and whatever else he had to do just so he could spend more and more time playing and learning the drums in his mother's garage—hour after hour after hour. Of course, he was involved in the school music department and went on to represent WA in the best high school drummer in Australia competition. But by then he believed he was just too far away from that big scene, and how right he was! But to get there, as I said, he worked hard, he persisted and he was determined, and, as his dad says, on the drums, Chris is a little different. He's a leftie and his style is as a solid drummer for time, and, while he can flail around, he's a middle point between the understated Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones and Keith Moon from the Who—like him, Chris is able to hit everything in sight. There's a lot of his work on YouTube, with performances from his early days in Perth with the band My So-called Life—the band that included his best mate Anthony Cormican, who also now lives in Las Vegas and plays with Chris and his wife, Ashley, in an eighties party band that packs houses every week. Opportunities came. Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine and the E Street Band personally chose Chris to help him on the Fender Sessions and YouTube, and in 2015 Chris recorded a demo of a song by Filter. The leader of the band saw it and actually asked Chris to join the band, which is where he met his wife, Ashley, who was playing bass in that band. Ashley has since gone on to play in Cher's band. At different times, Chris has toured with Tom Morello, playing in various locations. Next came Avril Lavigne, and who knows what's next? What this says is that Chris's hard work, his persistence and commitment and his determination to be the very best at what he does now sees a boy born in Kalgoorlie performing on the world stage with some of the most famous entertainers. When Chris comes back to WA, his bandmates want him to come and play with them while he's here. One thing he did do recently was visit a couple of schools to meet the music students. He simply wanted to tell them that it doesn't matter if you are, like he was, on the other side of the world; you can do anything you put your mind to. Chris is now back in Las Vegas and, hopefully, Chris and his wife, Ashley, will be visiting Bunbury over Christmas and will sit down for another coffee. I know he wants to swim with dolphins while he's here, and Chris wants to show off our South West. So, to every young musician, wherever you live in Australia, whether you're regional—like in my part of the world—rural or remote, I say: you are not limited by your postcode. You can do whatever you choose to do, just like Chris, and get to play in some of the biggest venues in the world. Just get on with it and do it. Childs, Mr Bruce Kenneth 101 19:44 Ms PLIBERSEK 83M Sydney I rise tonight to speak in memory of former senator Bruce Childs. Bruce was a senator, a mentor, a dear friend and a personal hero of mine. Bruce was a great Labor man who lived a great Labor life, rising from the shop floor to the upper house of this parliament. Bruce was born in Mascot in working-class Sydney in the middle years of the great depression. He was a bright kid with a curious mind but, like his hero Ben Chifley, he left school pretty early as a teenager to earn his living. He was apprenticed as a printer at the age of 17, and he also spent two years doing national service. He wasn't a privileged boy. He wasn't gifted opportunities in life. But he was gifted with intelligence, with kindness and with decency, and his talent was obvious. The printers union spotted it immediately and put him on a path to leadership. Bruce became a union delegate. He joined the Australian Labor Party. He led his first strike at the age of 19. It's a remarkable thing to do, to lead a group of men as a teenager. Those traits that so many of us admired about Bruce were clearly there from the start: that fierce loyalty to working people, mixed with a curious combination of firebrand and conciliator. It was those qualities that helped Bruce become the first left-wing assistant secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party. If there is a tougher place for a left-winger than Sussex Street, I'd like to know what it is! But he persisted. He was a gentle person with immense inner strength. After nine years in that job, he was elected as a senator in 1980. Bruce always said that he was a parliamentarian, not a politician, and he left an enduring mark in the Senate, where he spent 16 years. Bruce was happy to work across factional lines, across party lines, if people shared his values and his objectives. He was an expert committee chair. He literally wrote the book on the topic: 'The Truth About Parliamentary Committees'. He was able to do these things because his word was his bond. When he retired from the Senate, Bruce was honoured across the parliament. I still have the old VHS tape at home. You can see Liberals, Nationals and Democrats—in those days—all speaking in his honour about his dedication, his patience and his skill. Bruce was a conciliator. He was profoundly decent and occasionally quite fierce as well, always in the service of the causes that he believed in. From his earliest days listening to Ben Chifley on the radio, he was for working-class people and their interests. At the height of the Cold War he was for peace and disarmament, and well before it was common he was for feminism and the rights of women. Bruce was a unifying force in Left politics inside and outside the parliament. He was particularly good in his role organising a decade of Palm Sunday peace rallies. You might remember the really enormous ones, with 170,000 people marching through the streets of Sydney for a nuclear-free world. On a personal note, Bruce was a pivotal figure in my own life. I know that everyone who worked with Bruce over the years would feel the same way, and I'm pleased to acknowledge Christine Hawkins, who also worked with Bruce for a number of years, in the gallery tonight. Bruce gave me and many others our start in Labor politics, and for that I owe him a great deal. People often say, 'If you can't see it, you can't be it.' Well, what we saw with Bruce is that you can be a decent human being and work in this sometimes crazy environment without losing your principles and without losing your honour. In my experience, Bruce was defined by his thoughtfulness, his kindness, his strategic brain and his inexhaustible patience. I only heard him raise his voice a couple of times, and it was always for a very good cause. He'd then put the phone down and tell me straight afterwards, 'Sorry—I had to show them I was a bit cross because they wouldn't have taken me seriously otherwise.' That was Bruce Childs: a hero of the peace movement, a unionist, a feminist and the most decent person I've ever known in politics. I'll miss him deeply. The SPEAKER 53517 Beautiful words. Economy 101 19:49 Mr HAWKE HWO Mitchell On a day when we've seen the rate of inflation rise in Australia, I rise to speak again about the concern I have with the policies of the government in relation to managing the economy. The government has a fundamental responsibility in relation to its spending profile, its economic policies and its approach to tackling the most significant economic challenge we've faced in many decades—that is, rising inflation, the cost of living and the household and family budgets that we see breaking. I note in the government's budget this year that the government's budget may well be in surplus, if we are lucky enough to achieve that this year, but everybody's individual and family household budgets are falling into deficit. They're falling into deficit because of rising inflation. If we don't have a plan to tackle inflation—a significant plan, an ongoing plan, a daily plan, a plan that crosses the entire range and breadth of government—we will be left short and without some weapons in our arsenal when inflation continues to hit us, as it is doing. So I'm quite critical of the fact that in this parliament in the last few weeks, particularly in the early budget and the second budget that the government produced, the spending profile of government overall continues to rise. We're spending more, we're taxing more and revenue is up. As a Commonwealth, we continue to spend and tax more, even though inflation remains stubbornly high. That is not my language but the language of international experts about the Australian economy. It would be a wise time to reduce spending, and where the government have done that I pay tribute to them and credit to them for reducing spending where they can, but increasing the structural deficit, as they have done with significant policy measures, adds to the spending profile. Not only is more money going into the economy, whether it be through the welfare or social services portfolios or in many of the measures that they've claimed are making things cheaper, but the government is paying the bill for those services, where people used to pay those services—notably, things like child care for people over certain incomes. When you replace one form of spending with another form there are a lot of things going on. For example, has the government modelled the impact of its childcare changes on an increase in demand for childcare services? If child care is virtually free for more income levels, people will use it more, and I wonder if the modelling is going to be correct. They're starting to realise that the service costs of the provision of child care are increasing because the government is paying the bill, so we have more government spending as a result. While these things may be worthy, and the government says it is now worthy to take that burden off families, the money is simply being replaced by other taxpayers and other borrowing and spending from the government. This is not a reduction in spending. This isn't addressing the inflation challenge, and inflation is the No. 1 enemy of prosperity in our economy. When inflation gets going, as it is, it eats away at the fundamental prosperity of every individual and every family. Everybody can feel it. Every conversation everywhere in the country at the moment revolves around the increasing price of every good and every service. Everybody's budget is under stress. It's almost a daily process. It's a weekly process, it's a monthly process, and it's something that I believe the government is not taking seriously enough. With every measure that we see come before this House, the Prime Minister is fond of saying, and he said it in the campaign, that these industrial relations changes, this increase in the minimum wage at the moment—when we have 475,000 job vacancies and a million people unemployed, at the same thing those two things are true—would be a cup of coffee a day at first. He made a grave error. Then he corrected himself and said it would be a cup of coffee every hour. But the Prime Minister wasn't being really fulsome with the truth. It is a cup of coffee every hour for every single employee that a person employs, which is a cost imposition. If that was just a free thing to do, employers would do it, and they'd pay people more. But they're going to pass those costs on. Everything the government is doing at the moment is adding to inflation, ironically, and its policy profile—spending, taxing, increasing the cost of every good and every service—is adding to the inflationary pressure we have. So I call upon the government, with the shadow treasurer and my other colleagues, and say it is time to get together as a parliament and ensure we are properly tackling spending and taxation in Australia, because it is a huge, significant part of the economy. Inflation is stubbornly high in Australia. That's the polite way to put it. It is hurting every budget and every family, and we need to tackle it urgently. Budget 102 19:54 Ms PAYNE 144732 Canberra I rise tonight to talk about the recent budget and specifically what it means for my community of Canberra and what Canberrans can look forward to thanks to the leadership of the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, ACT senator and finance minister Katy Gallagher, and our whole ministerial team, who have fought for a better future for Australians. The global economy is under significant strain as a result of inflation and rising interest rates caused by the war in Ukraine. This is a budget that recognises these pressures and provides targeted and immediate economic relief, alleviates the burden on Australian households, bolsters our essential services and lays a solid foundation for future growth. Recognising the costs of energy, our government is directly assisting five million households and one million small businesses. This relief will include constituents here in Canberra, with over 56,000 ACT households and 17,000 small businesses qualifying for energy price relief rebates starting from the first of next month. Of course, due to the leadership of the ACT Labor government in ensuring our territory is supplied by 100 per cent renewable energy, Canberrans have already been protected from some of the energy price shocks experienced elsewhere in the country. The budget also invests in the health of Canberrans, and this is a part of the budget I am particularly excited about for my community. The budget invests in our health and reinforces Labor's commitment to affordable and accessible health care. We are the party of Medicare, and we will always stand up for it. In this budget, the Albanese government has invested $5.7 billion to strengthen Medicare, including by tripling the incentive for GPs to bulk-bill. The ACT has the lowest bulk-billing rates of any jurisdiction in the country. This change will mean that many vulnerable Canberrans will no longer have to fork out for their health or, worse, forgo seeing a GP when they really need that health care. This is the most significant investment in bulk-billing in the history of Medicare and will go a long way to fixing the crisis that the coalition have left us with. This budget is also making important changes to the way that Australians get their medicines, building on our changes to the PBS that began on 1 January this year. Through the introduction of 60-day dispensing, nearly 100,000 Canberrans will experience reductions of up to $180 per year when buying the medicines they require. Over the past 10 years, we saw the impact of coalition government cuts on a number of areas, none more than the aged-care sector. For years we watched as aged care fell deeper and deeper into crisis. This budget delivers much-needed relief for aged-care workers in the form of a federal government funded 15 per cent pay increase. I am so pleased for those wonderful workers who work in aged care in Canberra and provide care to our loved ones tirelessly—heroes of the pandemic who have been so overdue for a pay rise. I'm so pleased that this budget will deliver for them. Another major cost for Canberrans is child care. Our cheaper child care will come into effect next month, ensuring that 96 per cent of families using child care are better off. I know this is something that Canberra mums and dads are particularly looking forward to. Also, as our nation's capital, we have the particular privilege of having many of our national institutions right here on our doorstep. This budget also provides much-needed funding certainty for these treasured national collecting institutions. We're investing $535.3 million to ensure their future and start work to repair their bricks and mortar. As all Canberrans will be aware, we've had leaking roofs in the National Gallery. We've had the incredible art collection there put at risk by that. We've seen the disgraceful situation of important national documents perishing before they could afford to be digitised. I'm proud that our government is addressing this. We're investing a further $60 million for property upgrades at the much-loved Questacon, where so many young Australians first develop a passion for science, and another $33 million to ensure the future of Trove, the National Library's digital platform, enabling Australians all over the country to look at their collection. We're also extending and increasing rebates for students from rural and disadvantaged schools to travel to this great city and experience these institutions. Importantly, for the first time, Canberra schools will receive assistance for their students to explore the national collecting institutions. House adjour ned at 20:00 NOTICES 103 NOTICES Presentation 103

Wednesday, 31 May 2023

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Payne) took the chair at 10:15, a division having been called in the House of Representatives.

CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS 104 CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS Climate Change 104 10:15 Ms STEGGALL 175696 Warringah I rise to thank the people of Warringah for coming out in great numbers to support the launch of my new campaign to push for 75 per cent emissions reductions by 2035. On 18 May 2023, the fourth anniversary of my election as an Independent for Warringah, constituents filled the Taronga Zoo auditorium to hear from scientists, the finance sector, the energy sector and innovators about why we need to accelerate emissions reductions to address climate change. Constituents engaged enthusiastically with panellists and had many fascinating questions for the experts during the event. So many are frustrated at this place and at the pace of our transition in the face of dire warnings that the world will tip over 1.5 degrees of warming as early as 2027. We have the technology and the road maps. It's time to pull all levers available—from policy, regulations, investment and incentives to, ultimately, long-term targets. It was also exciting to relaunch the Climate Act Now campaign. Nearly 98,000 people have signed on, calling for greater climate ambition. People from every electorate in Australia have signed up to push for greater action on emissions reductions and climate change. Whilst this government is on the starting line, it is still not doing nearly enough to slow down warming and keep Australia safe. The government urgently needs to move beyond the limited goal it took to the 2022 election. The world has moved on and set new benchmarks. The US passed the Inflation Reduction Bill, which provides tax incentives to businesses and households to electrify, incentivises domestic green hydrogen production and injects up to $1 trillion into the green economy. The EU responded by passing the Net Zero Industry Bill, which boosts diversification of supply chains for net zero technologies and requires the public sector to consider sustainability and drive upskilling of the net zero workforce through net zero industry academies. It's imperative that we capitalise on our natural advantage and increase investment in renewable technologies. We need to urgently assist households to get off gas, to get rooftop solar and batteries, and to electrify their cars, their water, their home heating and in particular their cooking, because that has huge health benefits. We need to set a 2035 target that actually puts Australia in the race to develop green hydrogen and be a renewable energy superpower. That means getting brave and getting ambitious. We need a floor of 75 per cent by 2035 to even be in the race. I thank my constituents for being so dedicated on this and Professor Lesley Hughes, Tim Buckley, Anna Freeman and Saul Griffith for the knowledge and insights they brought to the panel—there are so many. We need to continue with this. I commend the government to get more ambitious. Rigby, Mrs Lynette Lorraine, Lyons Electorate: Australia's Biggest Morning Tea 104 10:18 Mr BRIAN MITCHELL 129164 Lyons I rise to speak in memory of Mrs Lyn Rigby, who died at the age of 78 earlier this month. Lyn was a giant of her community but small in stature. She wore her heart on her sleeve and worked with a constant smile on her face. Lyn was a prolific volunteer. She ran the kiosk at the Evandale Football Club for 40 years. She was also the president of the Launceston General Hospital kiosk auxiliary, where she also volunteered for many years. Lyn's support for her community knew no bounds. Along with all the other things she packed into her busy schedule, she was a support volunteer for palliative care and the vice-president of the organisation. Lyn was volunteering until the day she died. She often drove cancer patients much older than her to and from appointments to ensure they received the care and support they needed. Lyn was one-of-a-kind. I am proud that I knew her. There will never be another like her. Her family and community are heartbroken that she is no longer with us, but they take solace in the knowledge that she is now reunited with her loving husband, Jim, who passed away in 2000. Lyn is survived by her loving sons, Grant, Graham, Michael and Scott; their partners; and her 10 grandchildren. I offer my heartfelt condolences to Lyn's family and the Evandale Football Club community, of which I'm a proud patron. Lyn, may you rest in peace. Last week Australians brought out their cakes and sandwiches to commemorate the Cancer Council's Biggest Morning Tea. Across my electorate of Lyons Tasmanians got together for a cuppa to raise much-needed funds in the fight across my electorate. While I was in parliament for the day, my staff enjoyed a trip out to Deloraine to join Harcourts Meander Valley and their directors, Donna, Darryl and Kate, who put on a fantastic morning tea. John Hay of Kempton is also running two morning teas, one on 21 June in Kempton and another on 26 June in Oatlands, in conjunction with community radio station 7MID, the voice of the Midlands. John is raising funds in memory of his late wife, Sandra, who died from breast cancer in 2020. I'm sad I won't be able to join John for his morning teas, due to parliamentary commitments, but I will certainly be assisting him to reach his fundraising goal of $1,000. I wish him all the very best—indeed, I wish all volunteers for the Cancer Council, who do such incredible work across the community, all the very best. Wannon Electorate: Hamilton Car Crash 105 10:21 Mr TEHAN 210911 Wannon In the early hours of Saturday morning there was a tragic accident just outside of Hamilton, the community where I live, in the electorate of Wannon. Four young people lost their lives. Sadly, a fifth is fighting for their life in a critical but stable condition. It followed, on Friday, a funeral for a young man who also lost his life driving in Queensland. The community is obviously in absolute shock following these two terrible accidents but is rallying together. Support services have been provided, obviously, for the first responders and the police. Can I thank them once again for the job that they do in the most trying of circumstances. Obviously for schools in the community of Hamilton, where these young people went to school, the principles and the staff at those schools have acted to make sure that there has been counselling provided to the students. Headspace has acted, and can I thank the national CEO of headspace for making sure that the resources that have been needed have been there for the young people during this very trying time. The Western Victoria Primary Health Network has provided counselling and grief support for those adults who have been impacted by this tragedy. My thoughts and prayers, and those of all community members, go out to the families and friends of those who have lost their life and to the young girl who is still fighting for her life. One of the things that the community is going to need is ongoing support and ongoing mental health support, especially for the young people in the community, those students. One of the things that I will continue to do is talk to the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler; and the assistant minister, Emma McBride. I thank Emma for her engagement so far, but we are going to have to ensure that those ongoing mental health supports are there for the young people in the community going forward. What we need more than anything else is to see that the headspace that has been planned and proposed for Hamilton gets up and running as quickly as it possibly can. If ever a community needed an up and running headspace, it is at this time. I look forward to working with the government to see that come about as quickly as possible. Energy 105 10:24 Mr JONES A9B Whitlam Twelve months since the election of the Labor government, we are busy with the job of repairing the budget, dealing with the structural deficit that we inherited, supporting wage growth and providing cost-of-living relief, particularly in the area of energy. Stable policy in the area of energy and climate change is delivering great benefits to my electorate, and I want to outline six things that we're doing which are providing concrete economic benefits to the people of the Illawarra and Southern Highlands. Last week we were able to announce the delivery of our election promise to provide community batteries—one in Dapto and one in Warrawong, with my colleague the member for Cunningham. It is a fantastic initiative, part of a $200 million national commitment that will benefit hundreds and hundreds of families in the community. I've also had the benefit of visiting Sicona Battery Technologies. With world-leading technology, using silicon as the base fuel, they are developing plans for battery manufacture and provision in the Illawarra. Multinational companies are interested in their technology and in them as a supplier of this critical material. They are doing a fantastic job and are looking at starting a new factory up in my electorate. The third thing I want to talk about is Green Gravity. The Illawarra is well known for coalmining, and when there's coalmining there are mine shafts. When the mine is closed down and no longer in operation, traditionally it fills up with water and it's not used. But Green Gravity are piloting new, innovative technologies to use the battery available through dropping weights into the mine shaft as a means of storing and generating electricity. It is really innovative stuff, and I am very proud of what they're doing. For skills critical to the transition, $10 million has been invested in the University of Wollongong's establishment of the Energy Futures Skill Centre—absolutely magnificent stuff—together with $2.5 million in grants from the Commonwealth government to upgrade TAFE equipment and teaching aids for renewable energy and training. None of the stuff we're talking about reaches its full potential unless we've got the workforce to work with industry on the transition, so this is really great stuff for the local area. BOC at Cringila in my electorate are establishing the largest hydrogen production facility in Australia. It'll be core to providing hydrogen as a fuel to heavy industry, particularly heavy transport. This is exciting stuff, boosting our capacity as a region. I've got to say the $2 billion that has been set aside in the hydrogen boost initiative in the budget will really turbocharge this initiative. Aviation Industry 106 10:27 Mr VASTA E0D Bonner Planes! We need planes. Planes allow families to be connected and they transport our food, medication and much-needed supplies. Planes bring in jobs, trade and tourism, injecting money into our local, state and national economy. In my electorate of Bonner, over 1,200 people are directly employed by the Brisbane Airport. That means the people of Bonner make up around 7.5 per cent of the Brisbane Airport workforce, and one in 70 jobs in Queensland is enabled due to the Brisbane Airport. From these points alone, it cannot be disputed that we need planes to keep our economy and lives going. But that does not mean that we should compromise our quality of life for people who live in and have moved into areas where flight paths did not exist, especially if other flight path options are available. Deputy Speaker, the proposed flight path changes by Airservices Australia for an early turn option over Wynnum and the Bayside are not wanted by our local community. Talking with locals and listening to their feedback, I hear that many people have moved into Wynnum and Manly from areas like Bulimba, Morningside, Camp Hill and Balmoral to avoid living under a flight path. At the time of this speech, in fact, over 1,700 Wynnum and Bayside locals have signed my petition to stop these proposed flight changes, and I will be presenting this petition to Minister Catherine King and Airservices Australia, highlighting the community's overwhelming opposition to the early turn flight path option. Whilst it is clear that these new flight path changes are not wanted, I also want to make it clear that caps and curfews are not an option. They simply won't fix the problem. They will just cause economic problems. Caps and curfews would increase ticket prices and increase the costs of everyday household items, putting more pressure on families during a cost-of-living crisis. Caps and curfews would mean around 30,000 hardworking Queenslanders, including people in Bonner, would lose their jobs, and the cost would be $2.8 billion by 2032, That's a massive cost, and it's just madness to allow it to happen. It would mean the number of flights, especially to regional and remote areas, would be cut which would be catastrophic for many of these struggling communities. And here is something that we don't often think about. Many passengers in planes carry life-saving medicines in the cargo section for people and children who need treatment for things like cancer. If we implement caps and curfews, we will simply be putting these lives at risk. I will continue to fight for my community of Bonner. I've heard them loud and clear: no early-turn option over the Wynnum and Bayside areas. Cooper Electorate: Dardi Munwurro 106 10:30 Ms KEARNEY LTU Cooper This week is Reconciliation Week, and my electorate of Cooper comes together like no-one else, I reckon, to acknowledge and celebrate the importance of Reconciliation Week. I'm really proud to share today the achievements of one of our wonderful local First Nations organisations. I'm honoured to represent my electorate of Cooper. It's home to many First Nations people and First Nations organisations. Dardi Munwurro is a local organisation established in 2000 to provide group leadership training programs tailored to Aboriginal men and youth. Dardi Munwurro, which means 'strong spirit', is a specialist Aboriginal service. They aim to empower and inspire individuals by delivering a range of family violence programs to break the cycle of harm in First Nations families and communities. Under the leadership of Alan Thorpe and John Byrne, Dardi Munwurro helps young Aboriginal men to become leaders within their community. The organisation creates safe spaces for self-reflection and learning, hosting men's gatherings and camps where they can bring important issues affecting the local community to the fore. I'm so grateful for the incredible support of many local leaders who lend a helping hand to Alan and his team, including the Collingwood Magpies and the Melbourne Storm. A good yarn goes a long way. Having a trusted person on the end of a call for help is so valuable. The Brother to Brother 24-hour crisis line, staffed by Aboriginal men with lived experience, provides support for callers in relation to relationships, family violence, parenting or drug and alcohol challenges. I can't thank enough the local Aboriginal men and elders who take these calls and provide a local connection point for their community. Cooper has a strong First Nations community, whether it's on the AFL field, in the First Nations owned businesses on the local high street, coming together to support the Voice to Parliament or standing up and supporting each other in their times of crisis. National Reconciliation Week is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures and achievements. This year, the theme of 'Be a voice for generations' is an important opportunity to reflect. I look forward to Cooper coming together later this year to vote in the referendum. Any referendum is a significant moment, but this referendum will be history making. A voice to parliament enshrined in our Constitution will indeed be a voice for generations. Hume Electorate: Volunteer Grants 107 10:33 Mr TAYLOR 231027 Hume During my time as a local member, I have seen extraordinary contributions from volunteers right across my electorate on many occasions. Volunteers' dedication, selflessness and commitment to community is absolutely commendable. Of course, they never get the attribution for the hard work they do, thanks for the hard work they do or gratitude for the hard work they do, but which they deserve. They deserve much in the way of thanks. The Volunteer Grants program, which was an initiative of the former coalition government, recognises the valuable work of Australia's volunteers. It is a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge and appreciate the immense impact that volunteers have in our suburbs, our towns and our regional communities, and they have had that impact in recent years during particularly challenging times. The grants are of between $1,000 and $5,000 and can be used by groups for anything that helps with costs that are incurred by their volunteers, such as first-aid training, background security checking or transport for volunteers who may have a disability. A community group can also purchase much-needed equipment like an iPad, or they can keep pace with technology. In Hume, under this round of the program, we had 23 successful projects share funding of just over $66,000. The Camden Tigers Football Club will be using their grant of $3,840 to go towards the purchase of a portable PA system for the club. The Crookwell Services Club will receive $2,000 to purchase garden equipment to assist volunteers to maintain the grounds around the club and with the magnificent work they do in that club to support their local community. St John's Ambulance in Goulburn will purchase equipment to assist in first aid training of volunteers. They provide that first aid support for so many different sports and events around our community. The Penrose Community Association will purchase a commercial dishwasher for their new hall. This area was badly impacted by the 2019-20 bushfires, and it's great to see that community association so strong again after such a tough time. These are just a few of the incredible groups in my electorate that will benefit from the program. This also highlights the extraordinary range of community organisations that rely on the support of volunteers to continue their good work in our communities. In this era of big government, we forget the role that these local community groups play and how important it is that they get the appropriate support— A g overnment member interjecting— Mr TAYLOR 231027 I'm talking about local community and local community organisations here, and those opposite should perhaps respect those community organisations. From sports clubs to community centres, these groups have a vital role in fostering social connection, providing essential services and enhancing the quality of life for all of us who live in the regions. Early Childhood Education 107 10:35 Mr KEOGH 249147 Burt Since I came to this place in 2016, I've been working with my local community to change the story of the life you are expected to live when you've grown up in an outer suburban lower socioeconomic area. Across the country, 41 per cent of Australia's most disadvantaged 0-to-5-year-olds live in the top 20 per cent of the most disadvantaged suburbs. Children from socially and economically disadvantaged areas typically have poorer physical health, less access to learning materials and are less likely to access materials and support that they need. We on this side of the House believe that you're entitled to have a good education and access to good health care no matter the postcode in which you grow up. In recent years, there have been pilot programs come and go from our community, in schools and local groups, hosted by state and federal governments, philanthropic organisations and social services. They've each had different KPIs, different projects and different theories, but each have come to the same conclusion: the first five years of a child's life are absolutely critical for positive life outcomes. By supporting families in health and education in the early years, you can change the story for children and indeed for their families and the entire community around them. I'm so proud to be working with my good friend and colleague the Minister for Early Childhood Education to change the story for my community now that we're in government. The Early Years Partnership aims to improve the wellbeing and school readiness of children before they turn four. The WA state government, the Minderoo Foundation, the Telethon Kids Institute and our local community, including organisations like the Champion Centre in Armadale, are officially working together now in that partnership, with the support of the federal government through the Connected Beginnings program in Armadale. Connected Beginnings is an Australian government grants program aimed at giving First Nations children the best start to life. The program specifically draws upon the strengths and knowledge of First Nations communities to increase children's and families' engagement with health and early childhood education and care. The program seeks to enable local communities to identify problems and manage solutions themselves at the community level. It's the same principle as the Voice to Parliament—that listening to communities on the matters that affect them leads to better policies and better outcomes. In achieving a voice to parliament, we will be laying a stronger foundation for a better future for the families in local communities like mine across the country. Pharmacies 108 10:38 Mr VAN MANEN 188315 Forde Last Friday I had the pleasure of meeting with a number of my pharmacies from across my electorate and with Senator Anne Ruston to discuss the issues and impacts of the government's proposed sixty-day dispensing policy. Can I say that the impacts will be broad and many. The massive impacts on their revenue, along with their ability to provide services and continue to employ the staff they do, were well articulated by my pharmacists and are a consequence of the $3.5 billion that will be taken from community pharmacies. It will ultimately directly impact the services they provide to their clients and to the patients that come through their doors. Some pharmacies conceded they may even be forced to close their doors completely, with the average pharmacy expected to experience a nearly 44 per cent hit to their profits. Smaller pharmacies will no longer be able to afford overheads to continue in business. And a time when we know business operational costs are going up and up, pharmacies in small communities will simply be unsustainable. They will have to close, leaving patients with zero access to pharmacy services. Many will be forced to scale back their opening hours, particularly those offering after-hours services. Those pharmacies also often act as a triage services, so sadly, as a result, these patients will have no option but to go to the emergency department of local hospitals. One of the worst parts of this is that this Labor government has failed to consult and to listen to the concerns of these pharmacies, many of which are small businesses who employ multiple staff, often women. Under these changes, many of these women will be made redundant and lose their employment. It is up to the government to engage with the pharmacy industry to sort out the issues that are going to affect our local pharmacies and, by extension, our local communities as a result of these proposed changes. The risk of pharmacies closing their doors, putting people out of work, providing fewer services to those in need in our community are a direct result of Labor's policy. The government should be held accountable for it and should actually do the work. They spend a lot of time in this place talking about listening. Well, how about the government listen to our local small-business pharmacy community to not proceed with this drastic policy change that will only hurt our communities. Superannuation 108 10:41 Ms LAWRENCE 299150 Hasluck The Albanese Labor government is making an important change to superannuation to ensure that every Australian worker, including those in my electorate of Hasluck, receive the super they've earned on time every time. From 1 July 2026, employers will be required to pay super with every pay packet. I know, as a small-business owner, that managing cash flow has to be done on a day-to-day basis. Moving to fortnightly payments of super will smooth those spikes and dips of outgoing expenses that small businesses have to experience. By amending the practice of paying superannuation quarterly, we will drastically reduce those instances where employers are avoiding their superannuation obligations—putting more money into the accounts of workers, where it belongs. And while most employers do the right thing, we know that an estimated $29 billion of super has gone unpaid in the last six years. That's money that workers have earned and that should be working for them in their super accounts. Paying super on payday makes it easier for workers to keep track of what they're owed, and it makes it easier to recognise when payment issues arise. These changes will benefit lower paid and casual workers the most as they're the ones who miss out when super is paid less frequently. It's estimated that a 25-year-old medium-income earner today could be around $6,000 better off at retirement because of the Albanese Labor government's change to payday super. I know that for many in Hasluck who work in retail, hospitality, warehousing and construction labouring this change will be a relief. The workers in these professions are the beating heart of our economy and our communities and they deserve to keep every dollar of the super that they earn. Payday super is also an important step to addressing the superannuation gap that affects women. Women typically retire with 30 per cent less super than their male counterparts, and one-third of women currently retire with no super at all. According to Industry Super Australia, women employed in typically female dominated industries, often on casual or insecure work contracts, can suffer super underpayments that will cost them $40,000 by the time they retire. With women in their middle-aged and retired years more likely to suffer from economic disadvantage, poverty and homelessness than their male counterparts, addressing this disparity in super payments has never been more important than it is right now. A dignified retirement is one of the promises of this great nation, something we all deserve to look forward to. Workers deserve more than empty promises and empty super accounts; they deserve to be paid in full and on time on payday. I'm proud to be part of this government, which is committed to making it easier for small business but also ensuring that every Australian worker gets every single dollar of super they have earned and not one dollar less. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 144732 In accordance with standing order 193 the time for members' constituency statements has concluded. BILLS 109 BILLS Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023 109

Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023

Second Reading 109 10:45 Ms CLAYDON 248181 Newcastle Animal welfare is an issue of great significance and importance to most Australians. This is most certainly the case for the people of Newcastle. The former Liberal government failed to regulate the live animal export industry, and we saw the result play out in horrific scenes on board ships leaving Australia. Back then I promised my constituents that I would hold the Liberal government to account—and I did, rising in this House on multiple occasions to speak against animal cruelty and to call for increased oversight and accountability. I remember when, in 2020, the Liberal government backflipped on its own live export summer moratorium and allowed the Al Kuwait live export ship, a last-minute exemption, to set sail. That decision meant that 33,000 sheep took the very dangerous journey from Western Australia to Kuwait at the height of that Middle Eastern summer. That was against the strong advice from the RSPCA and the Australian Veterinary Association, and, indeed, the department's own initial decision. It was right to instigate the summertime moratorium, to stop sheep overheating and dying on board ships during the Middle Eastern summer. But the backflip from the former Liberal government was the latest in a long string of catastrophic failures by the then federal government, and Novocastrians were not happy. I received hundreds of calls, emails and letters from my constituents, utterly dismayed, despairing and outraged at this gross act of animal cruelty. So I am very pleased to stand in the Chamber today to reassure my constituents that Australia now has a government which supports strong animal welfare standards and believes that all animals should be treated humanely. We want Australia to lead the world in animal welfare practices. The Albanese Labor government does not tolerate cruelty towards animals and will not compromise on animal welfare standards. In the October budget just last year we committed $4 million over four years to establish the independent Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports. That funding was just the first step in delivering on our commitment to the Australian people at the 2022 federal election. Today, this legislation is the next step. The Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023 expands the role of the existing inspector-general to include additional animal welfare related objectives. Those additional functions will help increase oversight, accountability and, importantly, transparency for animal welfare in exported livestock. I know this is welcome news for Novocastrians. For too long there has been an absence of leadership on animal welfare at the federal level, and the Australian community expects robust oversight, accountability and transparency of animal welfare in livestock exports. That message has been heard loud and clear by this government, and this bill is a very sensible step in ensuring that Australia meets these expectations. There are some who will be critical of the scope of the role and will call for it to be broadened beyond live export, but this could impinge on the powers of states and territories. Let me be clear: Australia's state and territory governments have primary responsibility for animal welfare and laws to prevent cruelty. The Commonwealth is constitutionally empowered to regulate animal welfare as it relates to exports, and that is why there is a very specific focus in this bill today. Public consultation on this issue was open on the department's website between 2 February and 9 March this year. Feedback was sought on additional animal welfare related objectives, functions and expertise that could form the new expanded role. A total of 24 submissions were received from industry groups, animal welfare organisations and other interested parties via the website as well as by direct mail. During the public consultation, stakeholders were most interested in the scope of the inspector general, the nature and the level of animal welfare reporting requirements, the need for relevant expertise and qualifications in the role and the need for independence. The current act says that the inspector-general must consider the welfare of animals in Australia's livestock exports. The proposed amendments to the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Act expand the role of the existing Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports to include these additional animal welfare issues. The additional objectives allow for that independent inspector-general to monitor, investigate and report on the implementation of animal welfare and live animal export legislation and standards as well as the outcomes of such implementation. The functions of the inspector-general will also be expanded to include conducting reviews into the effectiveness of the Commonwealth systems for the administration of livestock exports, including reviewing the effectiveness of the Australian standards for the export of livestock. During the public consultation, stakeholders were consistent in their call for the importance of independence and transparency. They could not have been clearer in their expectations for both of those measures to be satisfied. This bill provides for independence of the inspector-general and provides a legislative basis for the inspector-general to operate independently, impartially and transparently. On top of the $4 million in the October budget last year, the Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports will be complemented by $5 million in funding from the 2023-24 budget to renew the Australian animal welfare strategy. A renewed strategy will cement a national approach to animal welfare, providing a vision for the welfare of all animals in Australia, and together this will increase accountability for and transparency of the development and implementation of relevant legislation and standards. This legislation signals the Albanese Labor government's commitment to a modern, sustainable and science based approach to animal welfare, and it forms part of a suite of measures our government is implementing to prioritise animal welfare. The Albanese Labor government is committed to phasing out live sheep exports by sea, and we are getting on with it in a very smart and orderly manner. In March this year, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Murray Watt, announced consultation to inform how and when to phase out the live sheep exports. An independent panel is leading the consultation process, chaired by the former chief executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and a very senior public servant, Phillip Glyde. The panel also includes Western Australian agriculture expert Ms Sue Middleton, former federal minister and member for Lingiari the Hon. Warren Snowdon and former RSPCA CEO Ms Heather Neil. This strong and diverse mix of skills, expertise and experiences will help facilitate meaningful consultation with all of the interested stakeholders. It will allow the phase-out to happen in an orderly way with proper planning. I commend my colleague Senator Watt for his approach to this complex issue. It shows that along with the new Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports, just how serious the Albanese Labor government is in delivering on our election commitment to strengthen animal welfare in Australia. Taking proactive steps to prioritise animal welfare just makes sense. Industry acknowledged it, the community knows it and the trading partners expect it. I am proud to be part of a government that takes animal welfare seriously, and I am very proud to support this bill today. 10:55 Mr RICK WILSON 198084 O'Connor I rise today to oppose the government's bill, the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023, not because the coalition don't absolutely support animal welfare but because this is a case of overreach which may have a perverse outcome of seeing state governments withdraw from the animal welfare space. We have seen that in housing and many other areas; where the Commonwealth government gets involved, the state governments tend to use that as an excuse to withdraw their resources. So the coalition will be opposing this bill, and I certainly support that stand. I want to use the opportunity today to talk more broadly about live exports and certainly the importance of those live exports to my electorate of O'Connor, where probably 70-plus per cent of the sheep originate from, and also to touch on the phase-out panel which the government has put in place, which the member for Newcastle, speaking previously, touched on. Firstly, about live exports in O'Connor, around 70 per cent of the animals that are exported from Western Australia come out of O'Connor; it's essentially a Western Australian industry. The importance of that industry to my constituents and up to 120 towns—many of them small towns, small communities, where the school might only have 20 or 30 kids and two or three teachers, and the education department are constantly looking for an excuse to close those schools down. Many of the local pubs, which are the heart and soul of the community, are struggling to remain viable, particularly with labour shortages and other issues. They are relying on the people that work in this trade. They are the people who drive the trucks, the shearers who shear the sheep, the livestock agents who are the brokers between the farmers and the exporters. They are critical to my communities, and their livelihoods are under threat, as are those many, many small communities across the electorate of O'Connor. As the member for Newcastle said, the government has instigated a panel to phase out the live export industry out of Western Australia. They are effectively inviting members of those communities and the people who work in the industry to come along to a session to debate how they should phase themselves out of a job, phase themselves out of existence. When I say 'invited', I say that reservedly, because initially the phase-out panel headed by Mr Phillip Glyde tried to sneak into WA and meet with some hand-picked groups that they thought might give them the sort of answer that they wanted—that yes, the industry is ready to roll over for 40 pieces of silver, a bit of compensation money, and everybody will get on with life and things will be rosy. That plan came off the rails; it didn't last 24 hours. When word got out in the Moora district, in the northern part of the Wheatbelt, in the member for Durack's electorate, that the panel was coming to Moora but would only be speaking to hand-picked guests, the outrage was palpable and the panel backflipped very quickly. With less than 24 hours notice, 80 people turned up in the Moora town hall, and the panel got a taste of what was about to unfold. I wasn't at that particular meeting, but I believe that 80 very angry farmers and local business people and community members told the panel in no uncertain terms, firstly, that they resented the fact that they had tried to sideline them in this process; and, secondly, just how important the industry was and is to those communities. The panel then travelled to York; Narrogin in my electorate; and Katanning, which is my home town, the home of the largest sheep-selling centre in the Southern Hemisphere and a large abattoir owned by the Western Australian Meat Marketing Co-operative, a cooperative of growers. That was the first meeting that I attended. There were over 200 people there. Once again, I couldn't have been prouder of my constituents, my people, my friends and my neighbours who turned up to that meeting. They were respectful while being very passionate, and they left the committee in no doubt that this industry is critical to their future prosperity and the future of the community and their businesses. There are some very sound reasons for that. As a lifelong farmer in that particular district, I can certainly relate to the arguments that they put forward. The first and most important one that most people don't understand is that the live sheep export industry is the outlet for the merino wethers. I'm glad the member for Fremantle has arrived in the chamber, because he's been to Katanning and the saleyards. I'm about to give him some insight into just how important this particular industry is. The merino wether is a by-product of the self-replacing merino flock, which produces wool and is the backbone of the rural economy across the Wheatbelt of Western Australia. As I say, it's a by-product. It is not a fat sheep. It's not bred to grow a round carcass, which is the lamb chop or the lamb roast that people would buy—if they can afford to nowadays—at the supermarket. The merino wether is a lean animal. It is bred to grow wool. But it just so happens that our customers in the Middle East have a strong demand for that type of animal. The local processors don't want that animal. Yes, they will process that animal if it's put into a feedlot and, at great expense, is fattened to within an inch of its life—then it becomes an attractive animal for the processor. But there's no profit in that for the farmer. By the time he feeds that animal up to the extent where it's ready for the processing market, there is no profit. But the live export trade, which has been going for nearly 70 years now, has a strong demand for the merino shipping wether. If you take that fundamental economic pillar out of the self-replacing merino flock, the merino flock itself, which underpins the rural economy across my electorate, is effectively unviable. The impact is not just on people that might sell their surplus wethers to the live export trade; the impact goes much further than that. This is what the panel heard loud and clear, that the impact on those communities when you lose your shearing teams, when the school closes down, when the truckie goes out of business—those communities have a very dark future under this current government's policy. To move on from that, I want to update the House on the current situation in Western Australia in relation to animal welfare. This might be of interest to the member for Fremantle. I want to put some context around this. When I first finished university and went back to the farm, in late 1989, the wool industry was at its peak. There were 190 million sheep in Australia at that time, producing five million bales of wool. It was still one of the nation's largest export earners. With the collapse of the Wool Reserve Price Scheme, sheep became valueless overnight. One of the first jobs that I did when I left university, under the then Labor government's national flock reduction scheme, was to destroy hundreds if not thousands of sheep because they were valueless. What's happening in Western Australia at the moment is shaping up, unfortunately, into a similar situation. We've had a very poor start to the season in terms of rainfall, although there are good rains forecast today. Just about every farmer across my electorate will be doing what I'm doing, checking the radar every five minutes. We'd had 5.8 mils of rain at Katanning a few minutes before I stood up to speak. The forecast is for a bit more, hopefully. But the season has begun very poorly. The processing sector—in Western Australia, there are two main abattoirs that process sheep—can't find enough people to work in the plants. They are so far behind in their processing schedule that farmers can't get a booking until October. It was weeks ago when I heard that, so I don't know what it is today. Without the outlet of getting sheep away to the processor—if they are that type of sheep—and without being able to get the sheep away to the live export trade, farmers are confronted with a very, very dark situation. They either have to try and buy feed in to keep those sheep alive for at least six months, going then into a very tough summer, in the hope that at some point they will be able to get rid of those sheep to a market somewhere; or they go to the local gun shop and stock up on a lot of bullets. That's the situation that we're currently facing in Western Australia. Hopefully, that will be alleviated with some good rains in the next few days—as I say, it is forecast, and I'm watching that radar with great interest. I am praying and hoping that that will relieve the pressure on the farming businesses across my electorate, but, if not, it's the most heartbreaking thing you'll ever do, to have to destroy sheep. Fortunately, at this point in time, come the middle of September, the live exporters will be back in the market. At least a farmer in my electorate today knows that, if he can keep those sheep alive for three months, if he can keep them in condition score 2 or 3—which is a good, healthy condition but nowhere near fat enough for the processors to contemplate, even if they were looking for sheep; even if they weren't booked out for months ahead, those sheep would still be unattractive to the local processors—at this point in time, come September, the live exporters will be back. I've spoken to them, and there is great prospect for reopening the Saudi market. They're talking about having two ships on the run—we're down to one ship at the moment—getting rid of 100,000 sheep every two weeks. That's the outlet. That's the safety valve that we have today. But who knows how long that safety valve is going to be there? There's talk about, 'Oh, but we'll process them locally.' Find me the people that are going to work in the processing plants to do that. Deputy Speaker Stevens, I know you come from the wool industry yourself. You would understand better than most other people in this chamber the sort of situation that my farmers are confronting at the moment. Yes, we'll get through this period, because there are good rains forecast over the next week, and that will get the season going. We will get through to September, possibly at great cost in terms of hand feeding, but we'll get rid of those sheep in September to the live export trade, and we'll have the opportunity for the spring feed to get away so that we've got some feed in the paddocks to carry those sheep through the summer—the ewes, the lambs and the hoggets that we're retaining for next year's breeding program. But we'll do it because we have the live export trade there. A lot of farmers in Western Australia, as we speak, are going: 'This is all too hard. I can sell my sheep. I've got a tractor, I've got a big air seeder bar, I can put some extra crop in. I don't need the shearing team. I'll get rid of the workmen and the stock manager that looks after the sheep. I don't need to get the truckie in to cart the sheep.' What we'll probably have is a town where the school will close, the pub will close and the local footy team will shut down. That's what confronts my community simply because this government made a promise to win some votes in some inner-city eastern state seats. Yes, we have the member for Fremantle here. He would have worked out that it would have played well in his seat as well. It is going to destroy livelihoods and communities and, perversely, it could have some absolutely devastating animal welfare outcomes. 11:10 Mr JOSH WILSON 265970 Fremantle I'm glad to make some remarks in support of the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023. It is a welcome reform. It's another case of the Albanese government delivering on the commitments it made to the Australian community. I respect the contribution the member for O'Connor made. He speaks from the heart for the interests of his community. I have travelled with him in Western Australia, including in the south-west in the O'Connor electorate and to the Katanning sheep yards. I will address in a minute some of the things the member for O'Connor said. This bill essentially expands the scope and resources of a role which shall be known as the Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports. There are lots of good reasons for the role to exist. It is very hard to understand how it is that the coalition have reached the point of saying that they won't support it. It doesn't really relate to most of the things that the member for O'Connor was just saying. I can't understand how the coalition can get to the point of not being prepared to support something that unquestionably will improve animal welfare outcomes across the board, particularly in the areas that the Commonwealth is responsible for, which is the export of live animals, noting that broader animal welfare responsibility is generally handled by the states and territories. It's good that this reform is occurring because of that Commonwealth responsibility and because we know that there has always been an inherent conflict to some degree as far as the departmental responsibility in this space is concerned. The department obviously has an interest in supporting agricultural production and the economic outcomes that come from that. There are lots of instances you can look at when it comes to large-scale agricultural production where the push to make it bigger, better and more profitable does put animal welfare at risk. So having a department that is entirely responsible for both of those things is not ideal. Having an independent role that looks at those things is a much better arrangement. That's one of the reasons the government is taking that step. It is also the case in the interests of our farmers, Australia's agricultural production sector, that high animal welfare standards are part and parcel of who we are, of our character, of the way we relate to the world and of the way we promote our products, sell them and export them overseas. Our agricultural sector and our farmers, quite rightly, have an absolutely excellent reputation abroad. They have that reputation because they care for animals, because we apply high animal welfare standards in keeping with community expectations, because of the quality of the produce that results and because of a range of other areas that I guess go under the banner of sustainability that the farming sector is embracing. While the government makes this reform specifically in the area of animal welfare, of course it's also doing things to make sure that the work that farmers do to reduce carbon emissions is recognised, supported and rewarded and that the work that farmers do to improve country, restore the environment and provide greater protection for biodiversity is recognised and rewarded. It's certainly the case that live animal export brings with it some particular risks. It's appropriate that we have the proper oversight mechanisms and regulatory arrangements to guard against those risks. We haven't always been prepared to acknowledge that fact. Unfortunately, those opposite have almost always preferred to be in denial of the reality of the live animal export trade and sometimes indulged in a form of wilful blindness and in some cases been apologists for things for which there should be no apology. That is despite all the evidence of the risks and despite those risks being manifested in a litany—an endless parade, frankly—of terrible animal welfare atrocities, and it's despite all the expert assessments of those risks. That is not something that we have woken up to in Australia in the last five years. As long ago as 1985, the Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare held an inquiry that concluded: … if a decision were to be made on the future of the trade purely on animal welfare grounds, there is enough evidence to stop the trade. The trade is, in many respects, inimical to good animal welfare, and it is not in the interests of the animal to be transported to the Middle East for slaughter. That was in 1985, 38 years ago. More recently, following the case of the Awassi Express—just one of many very extreme animal welfare disasters that occurred through the live sheep export trade, almost all of which goes through Fremantle, my seat—the Moss review back in 2018 stated: By its nature, live animal exports present a high risk to animal health and welfare. There have been instances of non-compliance with animal welfare standards and instances of animal cruelty that have not been anticipated by the regulatory framework or evoked an appropriate regulatory response. That was the conclusion of the Moss review, which the former government had to commission after the Awassi Express once again showed the reality of the live sheep export trade. Frankly, on that basis I was quite surprised to see the shadow minister for agriculture, the Leader of the Nationals, get up and say that the coalition will not be supporting this sensible change to improve animal welfare protections, but maybe I shouldn't have been. Maybe I have too much optimism about the potential for people to learn and change. I guess what surprised me is that the member for Maranoa—the Leader of the Nationals and the shadow minister for agriculture—has every reason to understand the depth of animal welfare regulatory failures that existed in the past, under his watch, and every reason to understand why making some changes to those arrangements is absolutely required. The former Labor government saw that pretty clearly and took steps to put an independent Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports in place towards the end of that government. It was one of the first things that the former coalition government decided to junk when they came to power, and then, of course—five or six years later and a few more disasters later and a few more tens of thousands of mistreated sheep and hundreds of terrible voyages later—after the Moss review and various other things, they had to put an Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports back in place. But it was a relatively underresourced and weak form of that office, and that's what this bill seeks to correct. What was interesting in what the shadow minister for agriculture, the member for Maranoa, had to say—and I guess it goes back to the point I was making about denial and wilful blindness—was that he was talking about mortality rates and how they had improved as a result of the summer moratorium, the reduction in stocking densities and a few of the other changes that had been made when the industry was belatedly dragged to do some half-sensible things, including improving ships that had been barely maintained to modern maritime standards over the course of 20 years. He kept pointing to mortality rates when he knows full well that one of the things that happened when he was the minister was that we recognised that mortality rates are not the measure by which we should judge animal welfare. It shouldn't be hard for people in the community to understand that whether animals are being properly cared for is not just a matter of whether they die. You can starve an animal close to death. An animal could be subject to extreme heat or extreme cold or various other kinds of mistreatment and still live. That doesn't make that treatment acceptable. The reality is that the assessment we now use is a heat stress measure, and there is lots and lots of evidence that almost every voyage to the Middle East involving live sheep that occurs involves unacceptable heat stress. It's certainly the case that, for all of the decades in which those ships travelled to the hottest part of the world at the hottest time of the year, every single one of those voyages would have involved subjecting animals to unacceptable heat stress, in sealed, close-confined decks below the waterline, for weeks and weeks at a time. That is not acceptable to the Australian people. It shouldn't be acceptable to anyone, anywhere. It is inhumane. It is wrong for us for economic purposes to subject animals to that kind of treatment. It's cruel. It's a kind of torture that's being inflicted on animals, and the Australian community won't have that anymore. The member for Maranoa and people on that side, I suspect, including the member for O'Connor, know that that problem of subjecting animals to heat stress for days and days and sometimes weeks at a time continues now. They know that, despite the changes that have been made, the industry still doesn't manage to have independent observers on every voyage as they say that they're prepared to do. They know that the former government massaged the heat measurement parameters, knowing that if they didn't do that the moratorium would have needed to be longer. So they didn't follow the initial departmental advice on what the heat parameter should be; they massaged those parameters to make it more acceptable than it otherwise would have been. They know that the heat measurements are not taken on the decks where the animals are kept; they are taken up on the top of the ship where the humans are, where the wet bulb temperature is significantly less than what the sheep experience. The member for Maranoa knows that, and, I dare say, the member for O'Connor knows that. Certainly the departmental people, and anyone with some time and experience in veterinary expertise in this area know all of those things. That is the case with the industry today. I'll turn to some of the things that the member for O'Connor was saying. He said that there are very dark days ahead, that there's a very dark future ahead, that there are going to be catastrophic impacts if the live sheep trade should come to an end. I understand that as an expression of concern from the member for O'Connor and, perhaps, the member for Maranoa about the communities they represent, but it's the kind of catastrophising we see too often from those opposite—rather than a preparedness to look the reality in the face and take responsibility for a transition that has been underway for some time. It's very hard for someone to make an argument that the shift from what is currently 500,000 animals a year to zero will be a catastrophic shift when the live sheep export trade has already declined from seven million animals to fewer than 500,000. It's declined by 92 per cent. It's less than one-thirteenth of what it was 20 years ago. And all of the things that the member for O'Connor talks about have just not happened. People talk about how the sheep flock will be dramatically reduced. In 2010-11 the Western Australian sheep flock was 13.7 million animals. At that stage, we were exporting more than three million live sheep annually. Get to 2019-20, virtually a decade later, and the live sheep export trade, which had halved between the turn of the century and 2010, had more than halved again. So we're talking fewer than a million live sheep. And what was the WA sheep flock a decade later? 13.7 million animals—exactly the same number of animals. Wool production out of WA in 2010 was 67 million kilos. Last year, in 2022, at a point when the live sheep export trade had declined by a factor of seven, wool production out of WA was 67 million kilos—exactly the same. We keep being told that schools will close, pubs will close and, God knows what, the sky will fall in. This is an industry that's declined 92 per cent in the last 20 years and that has not occurred. We're constantly told that 3½ thousand jobs will be lost when the trade has declined to one-thirteenth of what it was at the turn of the century. Where is the evidence that those jobs have been lost? In fact, the member for Maranoa received departmental advice, when he was the minister for agriculture in 2019, that said quite clearly that when we finally make the last part of the transition out of the live sheep trade more Australian jobs will be produced. Yes, it is a challenge. Yes, there are adjustments that need to be made. The points that the member for O'Connor put forward, about the need to increase labour to ensure that the abattoir capacities are there, are things that are challenges, but they're challenges that can be addressed. The question of how you feed animals to the correct weight is something farmers have always wrestled with. Some of the catastrophising the member for O'Connor was doing about what might need to happen on farms involving sheep, guns and various other dark and terrible prospects—he was talking about this year. The live sheep trade still exists. Those are challenges that farmers have always had to deal with. That's the nature of the trade in Western Australia. He referred to your circumstances, Deputy Speaker Stevens. There's hardly any live sheep trade that comes out of South Australia. There's no live sheep trade that comes out of all the other parts of Western Australia that are involved in sheep production. New Zealand has got out of the live sheep trade altogether. The proposition that we cannot get out of the very last skerrick of the live sheep trade has no basis whatsoever. This government is improving welfare for Australian animals, and we are taking on the responsible task of managing the transition out of the live sheep trade. 11:25 Mr WILKIE C2T Clark Historically, the federal parliament has been largely inactive on animal welfare, and that has been, frankly, deeply distressing to millions of Australians. It's very telling that when I speak up in the parliament about animal welfare, as I do from time to time, the response to my electorate office and to me personally is multiples of the response when I speak up on just about any other issue. The matter of animal welfare is very important to a great many Australians—and it cuts right across the political spectrum, from far-left to far-right. I think the Australian parliament should be more alert to that, and I think Australian governments need to be more alert to that. Mind you, occasionally the silence and inaction is punctuated by some significant turns of events. I applaud, again, the Gillard federal Labor government, who brought in a three-month ban on the export of beef cattle to Indonesia. Yes, it was very controversial and, yes, there have been matters dealt with in the courts since then, but that three-month ban was very popular and very strongly supported by millions of Australians. Hence it's pleasing today to see some small further reform being moved by the current Labor government. I suggest that, as far as it goes, this bill, the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023, is welcome. I think it is a good thing that the office of the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports has its resources and powers expanded, and it's commendable that it is being directed to have a stronger focus on animal welfare in particular. But, within the narrow scope of the bill, there are still deficiencies. We'll talk about the broader issue of animal welfare in a moment, but within the bill there are obvious deficiencies. I noticed that the minister, in her second reading speech, used the word 'independent' repeatedly; time and time again, she slipped in the word 'independent'. But that's quite misleading because the inspector-general will remain embedded within the agriculture department. There is a fundamental tension by leaving the regulator within the agriculture department because the department's job is to promote agriculture, promote the growth of agriculture and promote the export of our agricultural products, and there is surely a fundamental tension between that role of the department and the role of the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports, who now has this much stronger focus on animal welfare. The bill, and the role of the inspector-general, fails completely to try and address the widespread animal cruelty in this country more broadly. We all know that animal welfare generally is within the jurisdiction of the state and territory governments. We know that it's been the state and territory governments that have let us down in so many ways when it comes to the domestic production of cattle and sheep, aquaculture, poultry, pigs and the breeding of dogs and cats, and it's been the state and territory governments that have let us down terribly when it comes to the interaction between gambling and horseracing, steeplechasing, harness racing and greyhound racing. But it's not good enough to just simply say, 'It is what it is, and it will ever be thus.' The fact is we have an animal welfare crisis in this country—that is surely beyond dispute—and we should be taking a leadership role in the federal parliament, particularly in areas where state and territory governments have let us down. We should be looking at ways to take a leadership role and to improve things across the whole country. Why on earth the inspector-general within the agriculture department can't be empowered and resourced to take that leadership role more broadly beggars belief. Surely the federal regulator could be given the remit to develop policy, to work with state and territory governments, to work with state and territory agencies, to work with industry bodies and to shepherd them, so to speak, towards more effective regulations and laws around animal welfare. I think that would be very handy. We could think even more broadly and say, 'Okay, what levers does the federal government have to be more involved in animal welfare in areas where, historically, it's been the job of the state and territory governments?' I brushed up against this firsthand in my first term, in the 43rd Parliament, when the then federal government was working with me and looking at how it might intervene in the states and territories with poker machine reform. Very quickly we came to realise that laws like the Corporations Act and powers like the taxation power do in fact give the federal government means to intervene, at least when it comes to corporations or to farms that are paying tax and so on. All that's lacking is the vision for the federal government to think, 'How can we, at our level, be more engaged in animal welfare across the whole country?' Frankly, it's simply not good enough to say: 'All we can focus on is the live animal export industry. That's the beginning and the end of our responsibilities.' That's not good enough, and it's also abrogating our responsibilities. Back to this specific issue of the live animal export industry. Yes, to be fair to the new federal Labor government, it is consulting with the sheep industry about a ban on the live export of sheep in, hopefully, five years or so. I do applaud the current government for starting that process. That is ambitious and it will meet with a lot of resistance. It already is meeting with a lot of resistance from the industry. But I tell you what, it's darn sight more than any government has done since Federation in 1901, so I hope it goes well. We can't allow the consultation to be the end in itself. The consultation must be an effective stepping stone to a ban in a timely manner. When I talk about a timely manner, I note that the industry, when they are prepared to entertain some sort of ban, they're talking 10 years or more. I note that the government is talking maybe five years. But I also note that animal welfare bodies and scientists who are mixed up with them are talking about three years. That would seem to be a much more effective and much more humane time line. Now, I take the point from the member for O'Connor that there are issues with the breeds, the make-up of the flock, the fact there there's such a preponderance currently of merino wethers. I think that's what the member for O'Connor referred to. And, yes, it will take time to change the breed, to change the nature of the flock, perhaps to even change the mix of farming activities on individual farms and to grow into new roles. That will take time, so I do support there being a transition period. But I make the point again: it needs to be a sensible transition period and not just kicking the can down the road into the never-never like the industry would have us do. We have to not stop at sheep. Sheep have had much publicity in recent years, and the member for Fremantle quite rightly referred to the Awassi Express a number of times, and the expose about the shocking cruelty being endured by the sheep that survived—but many, of course, died on the Awassi Express. There were images of the terrible heat, images of the panting mouths, images of newborn lambs—which is illegal; they shouldn't have let pregnant sheep on the ship in the first place—literally drowning in the filth and the faeces and the urine on the decks of that ship. But while there has been so much focus on the live sheep export industry, we've taken our eye off beef cattle. There are still problems with the export of beef cattle, often into South-East Asia and North Asia. Just recently there were exposes about terrible misconduct—again in Indonesian abattoirs and slaughterhouses. So if this country is fair dinkum about animal welfare, we should be talking about a ban on the export of beef cattle and sheep in a timely manner—that's what we should be doing; other countries have done it; New Zealand did it—and putting our agricultural sector on a pathway to replacement activities on the farm. To do so would have enormous public support. When I look at polling around the country, there is clearly majority public support for winding up the live export industry. The public know that the trade is systemically cruel and, in fact, the only way to and the cruelty is to end the trade. You can change your density levels on the ships, you can do this, you can do that, you can improve ventilation, you can have inspectors go into Indonesia and other countries, but we are tinkering around the edges. The fact is that the only way to end the cruelty is to end the trade. The only way to be genuinely rebuilding Australian manufacturing and industry is to be processing those sheep and cattle in Australia. I know we have a shortage of workers in abattoirs, but that has been in part created by ourselves running down the processed meat industry as the country over decades has ramped up live animal export. Surely, with a bit of nous, we can resurrect the domestic red meat processing industry and have processing jobs on shore, adding value, employing Australians and creating profits for Australian companies. Of course, the industry will trot out all the usual reasons why we can't do this. We heard some from the member for O'Connor. It's said that people in the Middle East won't buy chilled or frozen mutton or lamb, but of course they will; they already do currently. In fact, the value of the sheep meat we currently send to the Middle East is much more than the value of the live sheep we send to the Middle East. It's a desirable product, and people in the Middle East and other countries want to buy it. So why we aren't sending them more chilled and frozen meat is unfathomable. I have covered a bit of ground here, and I want to flag at this stage that I am moving an amendment to the bill. It has been circulated in my name, and it's not too long, so I will read it out. 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 (1) notes that: (a) Australia continues to be responsible for an animal welfare crisis; (b) while much of this crisis is historically and constitutionally the responsibility of the state and territory governments, it can be seen in many industries including but not limited to: cattle; sheep; aquaculture; poultry; pigs; the breeding of dogs and cats; and where the gambling industry intersects with thoroughbred horseracing, steeplechasing, harness racing and greyhound racing; (c) the systemic cruelty in the live animal export trade continues, with the export of sheep to the Middle East and beef cattle worldwide exemplifying the worst of animal abuse; and (2) calls on the Government to: (a) establish a genuinely independent office of animal welfare which, by working with state and territory governments and their agencies, will take a policy development and leadership role to ensure that all animals are treated humanely and with dignity; (b) develop a much-improved legal framework to ensure that beef cattle and sheep are treated ethically during all stages of the live export process, so long as the live export industry exists; and (c) commit to legislating within six months a ban on all live sheep and beef cattle exports by sea with the ban fully implemented within three years. I will say that last part again because it really is the bottom line. If we are an ethical country, if we have integrity, if we want to set an example to the community of nations when it comes to animal welfare and take a leadership role globally, if we want to treat our animals as they should be treated and to recognise their inherent value, then it all comes down to this: (c) commit to legislating within six months a ban on all live sheep and beef cattle exports by sea with the ban fully implemented within three years. I'm pleased to say that the member for Warringah has agreed to second that amendment, so thank you to the member for Warringah. I make the point again that this bill is good as far as it goes, and I applaud the government for bringing this bill to the parliament. It's a rare thing to see anything to do with animal welfare come into this parliament, but I would urge the government to consider again where the inspector-general sits. If it is to be genuinely independent, then take it out of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Have it as a standalone and genuinely independent body and give it the remit and resources to work with the state and territory governments and their agencies and with industry bodies to take a leadership role to develop policy, to try to lift the standard around the country markedly and to try to harmonise the standards around the country. That would put us on a pathway to the federal government being more involved with animal welfare nationally and putting the weights on the state and territory governments, who frankly have let us down terribly when it has come to so many aspects of animal welfare. It's not just about the welfare of sheep and cattle in the live export trade. The DEPUTY SPE 176304 Is the amendment seconded? Ms Steggall 175696 I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak. 11:41 Mr PERRETT HVP Moreton Before addressing the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill, I will position myself to head off any charge of having a conflict of interest. I am not a vegetarian, even though I do represent many, especially in the Buddhist community. These are the facts. My grandfather was a butcher, my father was a butcher, my uncle was a butcher, my mother once owned a butcher shop, two of my brothers were butchers, another brother worked in an abattoir and my brother-in-law imports and exports meat. For full disclosure, when I was a kid I also worked in my father's butcher shop and then abattoir. When I was a uni student and a school teacher in the eighties and nineties, I spent quite a bit of time mustering for my father when he moved on to running sheep and cattle. For completion, my personal preference would be for all Australian livestock to be slaughtered here under our animal welfare rules by our workers, thus value-adding to the food chain. I believe the majority of Australians want to see the highest level of animal welfare in this country—in fact, the shadow minister for agriculture, the member for Maranoa, said so on behalf of the coalition in response to the introduction of this Albanese government legislation—whether it's making sure that household pets are being well looked after in homes in every town and city in Australia or that produce animals on farms and stations are being treated humanely, and everywhere in between those. At the last election, the Labor Party under Anthony Albanese committed to investing $4 million in establishing an independent inspector-general of animal welfare. Why? Because Labor believes in having strong animal welfare standards and in being a government that is true to the promises it made when in opposition. I know the Prime Minister very well, and if he makes a promise, he keeps that promise. This investment does not just have the support of Australians but also complies with expectations of our trading partners. In the October budget, the Treasurer delivered on that election commitment with $4 million over four years to establish the independent Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports. The Albanese government put the money in the budget, exactly as we said we would do. I note that this is something the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments often overlooked. Their focus was on the announceables instead of the deliverables—puffery before carry-through. The Albanese government underpromises and overdelivers. This commitment of $4 million in funding is the first step in delivering to the Australian people what we promised to do at last year's federal election. The legislation we are debating right now is the next step in delivering on our promise. The proposed amendments to the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Act expand the role of the existing Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports to include additional animal-welfare related objectives. These additional functions review the effectiveness of the activities of livestock export officials under animal welfare and live animal export legislation and standards; Commonwealth systems for the administration of live exports under such legislation and standards; the Australian standards for the export of livestock as part of such systems; and Commonwealth reporting relating to animal welfare and livestock export matters. Why are these changes needed? The additional objects and functions proposed in this bill will help to increase the oversight, accountability and transparency of animal welfare in exported livestock. Importantly, it delivers on the government commitment to strengthen animal welfare. These reforms form part of a suite of measures that the Albanese government is implementing to respond to the growing expectations from Australians and our trading partners in terms of prioritising animal welfare. The Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports will be complemented by $5 million in funding from the recent budget to renew the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy. For too long there's been an absence of leadership on animal welfare at the federal level. The Commonwealth, sadly, has been missing in action for nearly nine years. I note the member for Clark talked about the 43rd Parliament and the endeavours there by a former Labor government. No-one should be really surprised at the fact that things have been quiet for nine years, as the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments lacked leadership when it came to courageous reform. Sadly, few things have changed for the opposition, and their go-to happy place seems to be saying no to everything. They have become defined by what they are not. They have no vision, and, as the proverb says, where there is no vision, the people perish. However, that is a problem for the current Leader of the Opposition. We'll get on with the job of sensible government. Therefore, the Albanese Labor government is delivering this renewed strategy that cements a national approach to animal welfare. It will provide a vision for the welfare of all animals in Australia. The establishment of the inspector-general will signal our commitment to a modern, sustainable and science based approach to animal welfare. Taking proactive steps to prioritise animal welfare just makes sense. Industry acknowledges it, the community knows it, our farmers know it and our trading partners expect it more and more. No-one wants to see those distressing videos that we all sat through back in 2011, when Four Corners exposed the treatment of some of the animals shipped from our shores to overseas abattoirs—well, except maybe the former member for Boothby, Nicolle Flint, who attacked the ABC for a lack of balance in its reporting on the issue in a column back in 2013. At the time, the former member for Boothby's argument boiled down to this: 'Well, if it isn't Australian animals being mistreated, it will just be other animals. You know these animals are being used for food, and it doesn't matter if they are mistreated, because they are just going to be eaten anyway'—not coming from a butchering family, obviously. The Liberals and Nationals love to attack the ABC when it just does its job. Unlike the former member for Boothby and the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments, the Albanese Labor government and Minister Watt will address these challenges. We committed to this before the last election, and we are seeing that commitment through. This bill is a sensible step to guarantee the regulator is playing its part in ensuring that Australia meets these expectations. I commend the legislation to the House. 11:47 Ms SPENDER 286042 Wentworth My community cares deeply about the welfare of our animals. From the kids I meet here in Parliament House and the parents I see outside the school gates to the couples, grandmas and grandpas that I talk to on Bondi Beach, they all want to see a kind and caring society which demonstrates decency in its treatment of animals and the natural environment. Historically, we have fallen short of this endeavour, and that is why we must urgently modernise our animal welfare laws. Chief among Wentworth's concerns is the systemic cruelty in the live animal export trade, particularly in the export of sheep to the Middle East. Research by the Alliance for Animals highlights the appalling conditions that sheep are subject to on those voyages, including 24-hour lighting, 90 decibels of noise, faeces for bedding and inadequate dietary provisions. Given these appalling conditions, it was disappointing that the government last year partially rolled back the ban on exporting sheep to the Middle East during the hottest months of the year, ignoring advice on animal welfare impacts. The live sheep export trade needs to be phased out so that we can alleviate the unnecessary suffering of millions of animals and restore Australia's damaged animal welfare reputation. The need to restore this reputation brings me to the bill before the House, the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023. Whilst I'm pleased to see the progress on the establishment of the inspector-general of animal welfare, the model outlined in the bill falls short of the community's expectations and the government's manifesto commitments. The proposed role and objectives of the new Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports add little that is new to the role and objectives of the current Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports. It's certainly not the new statutory body that many had hoped for. Reviewing and reporting on the department's approval of regulated entities, detecting noncompliance, conducting investigations, interacting with state and territory enforcement agencies and reporting on animal welfare breaches are all topics where the current inspector-general has power to review. The primary difference made by this bill appears to be a change in the name. I therefore strongly encourage the government to expand the functions of the new inspector-general so that it has a broader scope of responsibility over all relevant fields of Commonwealth jurisdiction, including the welfare of animals at export abattoirs and the international trade in wildlife. This would bring into scope activities like kangaroo shooting and crocodile farming. We need the IGAW to play a policy development and leadership roles so that all animals are treated humanely and with dignity. We also need the government to legislate a ban on live sheep exports within the next six months and to fully implement the ban within three years. 11:50 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie I rise to support the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023. As many speakers have said, desire by community members to see an end to this trade has been running very strong for many years. In my community of Macquarie, in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, there are people of all ages, all political views and all parts of my 4,000-square-kilometre electorate who want to see an end to live trade. Many of them recognise that this is something that needs to be done in an orderly way. The commitment that we have taken to the electorate—not just in the previous election but in the one before as well, so we've taken this to the electorate twice—our policy to phase out the live sheep export trade, is a position that's very well supported in my community. That brings us to what this bit is in that journey. And it is a journey. Right now, another part of the journey is underway, and that is the consultation on how you work with industry to phase out the sheep trade. I note that submissions to that close at 10 o'clock tonight. It's very timely that this other part of the legislation is being debated today. We have committed to phasing out live sheep exports from Australia by sea, but the phase-out will not take place during this time of the Australian parliament, because we want to allow time for individuals and businesses to adapt and prepare for the transition away from those sea exports. I think it's right. Having come from a business background, it's very appropriate to look at the logistics of it. It's appropriate to look and seek input on how we should phase it out, what the time frame for implementation should be and how the phase-out will impact exporters, farmers and other businesses across the supply chain. It's appropriate to take the time to look at how we support and provide adjustment options for those who are impacted by the phase-out. And it's appropriate to look at what the opportunities are that this opens up in terms of expanding domestic processing and increasing sheepmeat exports overall. When we come to this part of it, one of our commitments around it was to lift the standards that exist, particularly in this interim period, right across the board on animal welfare and to have an independently established Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports that has real powers that meet the standards people expect. That's what this particular step is about. In the October budget we committed $4 million over four years to establish this independent Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports. That was the first step, and this legislation is the next step. The proposed amendments to the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Act expand the role of the existing Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports to include additional animal welfare related objectives. One of the first things that will happen is to review the effectiveness of the activities of livestock export officials under animal welfare and live animal export legislation and standards. You do really need to thoroughly review what we have and look at what the gaps are. The additional functions will allow the review of Commonwealth systems for the administration of livestock exports. They will allow for a review of the effectiveness of the Australian standards that we have and the Commonwealth reporting relating to animal welfare and livestock export matters. These additional objects and functions will simply help increase oversight, accountability and transparency for animal welfare among exported livestock, and this is delivering on our commitment to strengthen animal welfare. As I said, these reforms are part of a suite of measures and really need to be seen in that context. They are responding to growing expectations from the community, and also from our trading partners, to prioritise animal welfare. The inspector-general will be complemented by $5 million in funding from the 2023-24 budget to renew the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy. For too long there's simply been an absence of leadership on these matters—a total absence of leadership. I cannot imagine that those who sat on the other side of the parliament from me in the last two terms of parliament, those who were in government, weren't receiving similar emails from constituents who, whether they supported an export trade or not, wanted to see higher standards of animal welfare, but nothing was done to improve it. The renewed strategy will cement a national approach to animal welfare, providing a vision for the welfare of all animals in Australia, while the establishment of the inspector-general signals Australia's commitment to a modern, sustainable and science based approach to animal welfare. Taking proactive steps so that we're prioritising animal welfare just makes sense. The industry acknowledge it, the community knows it and our trading partners expect it. I think this has been the real gap between community expectations and what the parliament's legislation has demanded of the industry. The industry has really, I have seen, been caught in the middle. This bill is a very sensible step to guarantee that the regulator is playing its part in ensuring that Australia meets those expectation. I want to address one of the issues that have come up, about whether this inspector-general is independent, and say very clearly: yes, this bill makes clear that the inspector-general may operate independently and impartially and would not be subject to direction on how the inspector-general carries out their role under the act or any outcome the inspector-general may reach in the performance of their functions. That's the sort of transparency, independence and accountability that is required. So I'm very pleased to see this as a next step in the work that we are doing and will continue to do, because this is something that will take some time to get to the point that the community wants, and that is a policy to end the export of live sheep. It is a very significant step along the way, which will have benefits in improving welfare for animals right across Australia. I commend the bill to the House. 11:58 Mrs MARINO HWP Forrest As we've heard, the federal coalition opposes the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023, which is before the House here. The bill is part of federal Labor's broader animal welfare and activist agenda, aimed at actually getting rid of more production animals in Australia. Unfortunately for our farmers, this was a cynical political decision. For you, the farmers out there, it's your families, your communities and the countless small businesses and workers who rely on you for their living who will be affected and who like you, are the collateral damage of Labor's decision, because, as we've just heard, it's not just about live export animals; it's about all animals in Australia. This is the federal Labor government and its Canberra appointed bureaucrats coming onto our farms and saleyards and overseeing the loading and carting of live animals, and I have no doubt that there's a broader agenda. I believe it's the Trojan horse Labor will use to once again shut down live cattle exports, as they did in 2011, either directly or indirectly by their actions. We've also seen the reports that buyers, customers, in the Middle East—one of the largest markets for WA rangeland cattle and sheep—are saying they will no longer take cattle from Australia if they cannot also buy sheep. As I said, by direct or indirect means, the federal Labor government is well into the process of shutting down the live sheep export industry, which is worth between $85 to $92 million and employs more than 3,000 Western Australians through the supply chain. The total value of livestock exported from Australia in 2021-22 was around $1.3 billion, at the same time that mortality rates are at record lows. I want to talk about what impact this decision to end live exports has on the farmers themselves and the communities and businesses that rely on them, the personal cost. And it's a great one ignored by those opposite. I've lived through—and tried my best to help my dairy farmers through—dairy deregulation. That was profound. The effect on the families is extreme, and the stress is appalling—the individuals and families that fall apart, the relationships that are ruined, the businesses that are gone, the mental health problems and intense stress this is creating right now. You heard the member for O'Connor talking about this earlier. It is there right now. But there has been no concern and no care for these people from the Labor government. The bigger issue is the absolute disrespect for us as farmers and the disrespect for rural and regional people. We know that the majority of the impact of this ban falls on WA, because the majority of sheep shipped from Australia last year were from WA—97 per cent of them. So here we have a Labor government directly attacking a WA industry. It's an industry that's done so much along the whole production, stock handling, supply, delivery and overseas abattoirs chain management, and with the most robust export supply chain assurance scheme in the world. These are standards that continue to be raised and improve global standards as well. We have a minister and a government with no idea about rural and regional Australia and certainly no idea about the live export industry. We've even seen, through Senate estimates, the government admitting it had no idea that ending live export sheep could also cause the collapse of livestock export corporation LiveCorp. That is sheer incompetence, at best. Both the minister and the government have a responsibility to know exactly what the impacts of the closure of the industry will be. What's worse, the Labor government simply does not care about agriculture, our farmers, our small and family businesses and our communities in regional and more remote parts of Australia that are so dependent on this industry. It isn't just farmers who will be affected, it is the whole community. It's the grain sector. I've read that Australia's merino sheep flock will diminish significantly as well. The western wool industry will shrink by up to 15 per cent. It's the livestock transporters, truck drivers, small-business owners, vets, local mechanics, fuel suppliers, feed providers, local businesses and community service organisations, the sporting groups and others supported by both the farmers and those local businesses who rely on that live sheep industry. They're all in the firing line here. But I also believe that the Labor government is very cleverly working to get rid of many of us farmers and graziers and primary and agricultural producers as they can, and our livestock, whether it's by natural attrition or more directly. This will service their No. 1 policy agenda of reducing emissions. So what's next? I'm waiting for the Labor government's methane tax on production animals to follow this. We've even recently seen this pressure building, from Labor branches, to halve emissions from agriculture and the transport sector as well. That's a methane tax. This is on top of the Labor government's truckies tax. Both of these disproportionately affect regional and rural Australians. Perhaps those of us living in the regions shouldn't be so worried, because, apparently, according to Labor's budget papers, we will simply be the hosts for renewable energy—not the producers of some of the highest quality food and fibre in the world, feeding millions of people, Australians and people overseas. This is just the beginning of what the Labor government is planning with this bill. As I said, I'm warning every farmer: federal Labor is coming to your farm. It's not just the activists harassing our farmers that we will see—we're seeing them now—coming to your local saleyards, your local piggery, and any and every animal production, transport and processing facility and business. I suspect that the Labor government also wants to exercise these new animal welfare powers in the thoroughbred breeding industry and horse racing and trotting, which is the practical effect, as the previous member said. This involves all animals. This is not the last attack on farmers, on production animals and on regional and rural communities by the Labor government. I suspect that Labor will weaponise the role being created by this bill to attack farmers and livestock transporters in all forms and all ways, whether it's those raising animals on their farms or cattle or sheep properties, or those carting live animals by truck, by horse float, or those transporting live animals by sea or air. This role, as we have heard, will focus on all forms of animal welfare. Now, the federal coalition has been and is committed to upholding and preserving the highest standards of animal health and welfare while supporting a lawful and sustainable live export trade. Well, so are our farmers. These animals are our livelihoods. We raise them from birth. If you're a dairy farmer like me, you often know them by name. In the early years on our farm, we had cows with wonderful names like Long-wheel Base, Bonnie and Brindle, and our neighbours, the Mannings, knew every cow had a name. They are precious to us, and that's not the impression given by those opposite. Now not only will we have to put up with the activists patrolling our roads, putting those drones up over our properties and harassing our local farmers both on their farms and at the local abattoir saleyards; like we heard from the pork producers recently in Senate estimates, we will have representatives from the federal government as well. So will the road transport industry and the livestock transporters who do such an amazing job right around Australia. This bill and the government's actions come in spite of the now minister for agriculture saying in 2020: … the live export industry continues to be a world leader with regard to animal welfare and continues to operate on a sustainable basis. They are the words of the current minister. We do take animal welfare seriously, as do our farmers and the whole of the livestock transport sector in all its forms. We also understand its importance as an issue within the Australian community but also the broader agricultural industry and the vital role that animal welfare has for our international reputation. Under Australia's current constitutional arrangements, state and territory governments are actually responsible for animal protection and welfare laws and their enforcement, but it seems that the federal government does not trust or have confidence in states or territories, the overwhelming majority of which are Labor states, to effectively and efficiently manage animal welfare as defined by constitutional arrangements. I wonder if it's the plan to duplicate each state and territory law or rule or regulation as well as what we see in live export. We have a live export system that operates very well. It's underpinned by the highest standards of animal welfare and record low mortality rates. Australia is the only country in the world with an existing federal framework for animal health and welfare conditions: the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System, ESCAS, combined with the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock. No other country has this level of compliance. This system has seen extended animal welfare measures actually adopted by our training partners already. They are lifting their standards in response to what we're doing here in Australia. I am proud of how the federal coalition, when in government, worked so constructively in partnership and collaboration with the sector to deliver the improvements in animal welfare outcomes. The bill also seeks to expand the objects of the act to enable monitoring and investigation and reporting in relation to live exports, but it's already happening. A review of monitoring and reporting during livestock export voyages is already on the current work program of the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports. Also the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock, ASEL, currently undertakes extensive monitoring and reporting requirements. It's regularly updated, and every six months the minister for agriculture must table in the parliament a report that includes livestock mortalities on every sea voyage. Given Australia's animal welfare, ASEL and ESCAS conditions, when the Labor government shuts the live sheep trade our international trading partners will not stop importing live sheep. They will simply source them from other countries that do not have Australia's animal welfare standards. Is that really what the government wants to achieve in relation to animal welfare outcomes? I wouldn't have thought so. This bill will significantly increase the role of the inspector-general into the animal welfare responsibility of state and federal governments. So what does concern me? As we saw with the NDIS, once the federal government became involved in that space, states and territories actually reduced and removed funding and resources from those various sectors. That's what I'm concerned about here: how will the states react to this and what will their response be? The bill will add more red tape to the office of the inspector-general and could well end up duplicating or replacing existing animal welfare efforts and initiatives that we currently see across governments and the live export industry. They are the reasons why I oppose these measures in this bill. 12:11 Mr GEORGANAS DZY Adelaide I stand here today to strongly support this particular bill, the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023. As I've said in this place many times over the years, we've all seen the cruel footage on TV—on A Current Affair, on Four Corners, on a whole range of programs—of animals suffering on these voyages. Animal welfare is very important to Australia. It's important to the Australian community, industry and all our trading partners. This government supports strong animal welfare standards, and we believe all animals should be treated humanely. That's why we've also said that we will support the phase-out of live sheep exports as well. Yet when we hear the arguments from the other side, it's basically an argument that says this industry will be shut down. That's not the case. All you have to do is go back a few years—just north of my electorate we had the Gepps Cross meatworks, which employed thousands and thousands of people. Those industries were decimated in the nineties. One of the smart ways of doing business when we're exporting is to do the work here in Australia, value-add to the product, and then sell overseas. One of the fairly horrendous things I saw a few years ago was that we exported live animals or live sheep to Kuwait, who set up one of the biggest slaughterhouses in the world. They box their meat and then send it off to other parts of the Middle East. When you think about it, it's not rocket science. There had been the phase-out of live animal sheep exports—a good policy, in that period, was to ensure that we have an Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports that can keep check and balance what's happening on board these ships when live trade's being exported. And, as I said, this Albanese Labor government supports strong animal welfare standards, and believes all animals should be treated humanely. In the October 2022 budget, we committed $4 million over four years to establish this independent Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports and animal welfare. The funding in that budget was the first step in delivering on our commitments to the Australian people who expect better of us when it comes to the treatment of animals. Legislation is the next step that is a part of this welfare standard that we've been talking about. The Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports will have additional functions. The additional functions are to review the effectiveness of: the activities of livestock export officials under the animal welfare and live animal export legislation and the standards that currently exist; Commonwealth systems for the administration of livestock exports under such legislation and standards; the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock, as part of such systems; and Commonwealth reporting relating to various matters relating to animal welfare and livestock exports. That is the least the Australian public can expect from us. Some of the additional objects and functions proposed in this bill will help to increase the oversight, accountability and transparency of animal welfare in exported livestock. And it delivers on the government's commitment, as I said, to strengthen animal welfare. There is no doubt of that. The Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports will be complemented by an extra $5 million in funding from the 2023-24 budget to renew the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy. Within that strategy is the Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports, which will be complemented, as I said, by that $5 million of funding. For too long there has been an absence of leadership on animal welfare at this federal level. Again I remind members of this House of the footage we saw on TV of horrendous treatment of animals. I think that is unacceptable not only to the Australian public but to everyone involved in the export of animals. We heard the previous member, the member for Forrest, speak about farmers. Farmers don't want to see their animals treated that way. I don't think a single farmer in Australia would want to see animals treated that way. The whole idea is to have the Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports oversee the treatment of these animals when they're being transported. Also dovetailed into this is the policy to phase out live sheep exports. We won't be the first country doing this. New Zealand is already phasing out live animal exports. Other countries as well are talking about it. Already in Argentina there's a move to ban live exports as well. As I said earlier, we can value-add in this industry. We can value-add by creating jobs here, by creating meatworks industries. In South Australia we have Thomas meatworks in Murray Bridge. It is going gangbusters at the moment processing meat for export overseas and for the local market. In fact, they employ about 800 to 900 people in Murray Bridge, and they are continuously growing. There is no reason why we can't phase out live animal exports and move to boxing the meat here and looking at markets overseas to export to. As I said, a few years ago we did one of the stupidest things we could ever have done. We saw this meat work take place in Kuwait, which now slaughters meat and exports it to the rest of the world. There is a market there. There is a way of doing things better. There is a way of ensuring that our animals are protected. There is a way to ensure that the welfare of animals is taken care of. We've had the argument that this industry will be decimated et cetera. People still need to eat, whether the meat is boxed or live. The markets will always be there—overseas and domestically. Animal welfare is important to the Australian community. People want to see us act on this. The Australian community expect robust oversight, accountability and transparency of animal welfare in livestock exports. Expanding the office of the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports will support this and will deliver on the Australian government's commitment to strengthening animal welfare. Therefore, I'm supporting this bill. I'm also a strong supporter of phasing out live animal exports and ensuring that we have the Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports to oversee the welfare of Australia's animals. 12:19 Ms SHARKIE 265980 Mayo I support this bill, the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023. This bill will amend the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Act. It will expand the office of the inspector-general to provide a focus for animal welfare. I commend the government on practical measures that will improve the welfare of animals subjected to the cruelty of live animal exports. However—and there is a very big however to this—the government did commit before the election to ban live sheep exports. That's what they did; they committed to that, over a year ago now, and we haven't seen any action. I think it is really important to say that there would have been many people who, because of their election commitment to that, would have moved their vote over to the government. As far as I'm concerned, not acting on this and bringing this bill to the parliament is somewhat of a broken promise. I think we expected more, and we expect to see some legislation that would phase out live animal exports of sheep. It's critical that we do this. If we don't do it now, when are we going to do it? It was five years ago when we had journalists expose the abject cruelty of this practice. In 2018 I supported a bill by the member for Farrer—those of us who have been here a long time, or some of us, have pretty good memories; I remember that bill—to prohibit the export of live sheep on long-haul routes. That bill was introduced after the shocking 60 Minutes report highlighting the atrocities those sheep experienced, where they were effectively up to their legs in their own waste. They had nowhere to move. They were dying the most cruel of deaths. The bill was a moderate approach to phase out the practice over five years. That would have meant it would have been phased out this year. And what do we have, five years later? We still don't have a ban, and we still don't have a plan. In 2019 I introduced my own bill, which mirrored the member for Farrer's bill with the exception of reducing the long-haul exports over the summer months from four months to three. Aside from the animal welfare aspect of this, value-adding in our own country makes good sense. With respect to these animals, we know their whole life experience. If we are processing those animals here, we have far more control over the animal welfare effect of those animals. While I support this bill, and it does take some steps to improve the welfare of animals—and you could argue it is progressive—I think the government need to do better here. They made an election commitment that they would do better with respect to animal welfare and long-haul live sheep exports. I don't think it's right for us to just assume that people will forget those images, that people will move on from this. I still receive emails on it. Back in the day, back in 2019, I received hundreds of emails from people—many of them farmers—who said we need to do better. It's smart, it's a good economic decision, it's a good environmental decision and it's a good ethical decision. I urge the government: do better in this respect. Don't go to the Australian people at an election and say you're going to ban live sheep exports, and then, a year later, do nothing with respect to banning live sheep exports. 12:24 Mr KHALIL 101351 Wills Mahatma Gandhi once said: The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. I think that's a pretty good measure of any nation, not just Australia, but of Australia particularly as a historically agricultural producing nation. Since I've been elected to this place, there's been a lot of work done, largely in opposition, around exploring the policies necessary for the phase-out of live sheep exports. Like many of my constituents but also like many here, we have been appalled by the footage we have seen of the live sheep export trade over the years. It's a truism to say that animal welfare is a vital and important aspect of our community. It's equally important for our industry and for our trade partners. That is why the Albanese government supports strong animal welfare standards. I have been—as have many of my colleagues across the aisles, in my party and others—very vocal about live sheep exports in the party, in the parliament and in this place. I've argued for the banning of live sheep exports over the northern summer months because of the cruelty that we've seen. Even as the overall review of the trade was conducted by the former government, we were calling for those steps to be taken and, in the longer term, as we're discussing here, for the phase-out of all live sheep export within a timely manner. As a government, we believe all animals should be treated humanely. That is the responsibility of governments at the state and federal level, and that is why the Albanese government is committed to phasing out live sheep exports. As a government, we also acknowledge that the live sheep export trade is in decline. Our plan is to work with industry and work with the Western Australian government to address this decline. This is important because in the live sheep trade we've seen time and time again the horrible and appalling footage and the breaches of those standards that we here all talk about supporting. This government knows we need to do more to ensure animals are treated humanely. In the budget last October, the first budget, the Albanese government committed $4 million over four years to establish an independent inspector-general of animal welfare and live animal exports. This increases accountability and transparency for reporting of animal welfare breaches. While this is a significant change, the legislation being proposed today, the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023, will be the next important step to ensure the government can deliver on its commitment to strengthening animal welfare. The proposed amendments to the act seek to expand the office of the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports, which will ensure animal welfare is at the centre of livestock exports. The additional functions will enable a review of the effectiveness of the activities of livestock export officials under animal welfare and live animal export legislation and standards, Commonwealth systems for the administration of livestock exports under such legislation standards, the Australian standards for the export of livestock as part of such systems, and Commonwealth reporting related to animal welfare and livestock matters. These additional functions will help increase oversight, transparency and accountability in relation to animal welfare in exported livestock. This also ensures the independency of the inspector-general and enables a legislative basis for them to operate independently, impartially and transparently. It allows our government to commit to strengthening animal welfare in a substantive way. This is but one part of the various measures the Albanese government has committed to. In response to the community expectations and the expectations from our trading partners, to ensure animal welfare is at the forefront of what we do, the Albanese government has also committed $5 million in funding from 2023-24 in the budget to renew the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy. The government has already started implementing its policy to phase out live sheep exports by sea, which was referred to earlier. An independent panel comprising Mr Philip Glyde, Chair; the Hon. Warren Snowdon, former member of this place; Ms Sue Middleton; and Ms Heather Neil has been formed to lead consultations and ensure that government can be provided with advice to inform our policy. The panel will engage all relevant stakeholders, including exporters, farmers, supply chain participants, trading partners, communities, animal welfare organisations, Indigenous Australians, state and territory governments, academics and other relevant parties. The government's decision to phase out live sheep exports by sea is an election commitment, which we are meeting. Many people voted for us on the basis of that commitment, and it was endorsed by the Australian people at the ballot box. There remain significant concerns from parts of the Australian public around animal welfare and the welfare of sheep being exported, particularly by sea. This government is making commitments to prioritising animal welfare. That's clear. It's clear in what I've discussed already today. We haven't had, frankly, any leadership on animal welfare for a very long time, and these amendments will enable this country, our community, our industries and our trading partners to take the necessary steps to ensure animal welfare is at the forefront of what we do as a country, as a government and as a nation and to ensure all animals are treated humanely. This bill is an important step in ensuring we can monitor, investigate and report on the implementation of animal welfare and live animal export legislation and standards related to the exports of livestock. All of the oversight, all of the accountability and all of the transparency that will flow through will finally give us a more modern, sustainable and science based approach to animal welfare. A renewed strategy and the establishment of the inspector-general is a no-nonsense approach to helping Australia work towards its goal of strengthening animal welfare. It helps us as a nation get to that place that Mahatma Gandhi talked about, where we are a nation that is enlightened and is, to use the older term, civilised in the way that we treat animals, and that is a reflection on our character to as a people. I'm proud to be part of a government that is taking these steps and making these changes on live export and on phasing out the industry. 12:30 Ms WATSON-BROWN 300127 Ryan This bill, the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill, amends the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Act 2019 to give the inspecting office of the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports expanded objectives and functions in relation to animal welfare in live exports. The inspector-general will be required to report any misconduct by a livestock export official and to publish a report on each review, a work plan for each financial year and an annual report—good. This is a welcome step, but unfortunately it doesn't go far enough to achieve what is actually needed to eliminate animal cruelty in the live export industry or more broadly across Australia. The cruelty cannot be regulated out. I believe that the only thing that would actually stop that cruelty is ending that industry entirely. The Greens will move amendments in the Senate to strengthen this bill in relation to animal welfare. My colleague Senator Faruqi, who has been a tireless advocate in this area, will speak to those amendments in the other place. What I am speaking to today in this place—what I want to say—is that fundamentally this bill is a missed opportunity to properly deal with the cultural cancer of institutionalised animal cruelty in our country. The expanded powers in this amended bill apply to live exports only, when we know that there are so many other areas of animal cruelty that the Labor government appears to have no plans to address. This bill doesn't cover the export of non-livestock animals, the welfare of kangaroos killed for commercial purposes, the trade of animal products or native wildlife management. This bill does nothing to stop public money being funnelled into the cruel and inhumane horse and greyhound racing industries. In fact, the Queensland Labor government is about to give $40 million of public money—our money; your money—to fund a new greyhound-racing track in Ipswich, not far from my electorate. That is $40 million of public money that could instead be spent on schools or hospitals or any other public good. Every time a dog races in Queensland it has about a three per cent chance of being killed. The state government has no idea about what happens to retired greyhounds and does nothing to stop them being euthanised instead of being adopted by a loving family. It is absolutely appalling, I believe, that this industry continues to be propped up by the Queensland Labor government and by every other state government in this country. It's not just greyhound racing, either. The horseracing industry also receives huge amounts of government funding. Of course, both of these industries also exploit vulnerable people, draining their purses through addictive gambling practices. Public money should be nowhere near these appalling and destructive industries. It is public money that could be going to schools and hospitals, as I said. It's no wonder that state and federal Labor governments are so incredibly keen to pour money into these industries and not effectively regulate them to stop animal cruelty. It's well documented that the gambling and agriculture industries donate millions to both major parties, and it's not just cash donations. MPs, including the Minister for Communications, the member for Greenway, who is largely responsible for the regulation of the gambling industry at a federal level, have taken free event tickets from gambling company Tabcorp, including to the Melbourne Cup. Labor needs to do so much better on animal welfare at both the state and federal levels. It needs to shut down these industries and provide a real plan for workers to retrain and transition to other sectors. Until it does, the blood of animal cruelty is on the hands of the federal and state Labor governments. 12:34 Dr ANANDA-RAJAH 290544 Higgins I'm no expert on animal husbandry, but, like my colleagues and my constituents, I am highly exercised on the topic of animal welfare. Far from being an activist agenda, the people who approach me in my community on this topic are ordinary Australians. They are studying or working. They may be raising children or, indeed, paying their taxes. All of these people are highly concerned about animal cruelty and animal welfare because they want to ensure that the animal products that they source are humanely delivered. They are also concerned around the social licence for the live animal export trade industry. I cannot lie that I, too, am fairly queasy about this industry. I have been a long-time supporter of Animals Australia. I want to ensure that this industry continues to operate because it is commercially important for Australia. It amounts to $1.3 billion in trade, and that's nothing to be sniffed at. It certainly supports the lives of many people in the regions in particular. But I think it's really important that as a government and as a parliament we safeguard this industry with adequate controls. This was sorely tested back in 2018 around the AwassiExpress disaster, when that came to light. It was absolutely horrific. All of us have been touched by that. Certainly those images are seared onto our national psyche. I'm proud to be part of a government that has committed to phasing out the live sheep export trade. I know there are many members of this parliament and in the community who want to see us go further. However, I think this is a really positive first step. This trade has been on the decline. It amounts to around $82 million of a much larger export trade. In March this year the government committed to installing an independent panel of experts to consult with industry and other stakeholders as to how this phase-out will occur, but we have indeed committed to that. The amendments put forward are also welcome because they expand on our agenda on how to ensure the viability of this industry going forward by strengthening safeguards around animal welfare. Initially it's emphasised by the change of the name, with the insertion of the words 'animal welfare'. We go from calling it the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports to calling it the Inspector General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports. There is an explicit name change with the insertion of 'animal welfare'. I think that's really important because language matters; it directs how we operate. There are also additional objectives that are focused on animal welfare in the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023 which are designed to monitor, investigate and report on how the Commonwealth implements improvements to animal welfare in the live export trade. We want to see and promote a culture of continuous improvement in the practice and performance of the live export trade and provide an additional layer of accountability over the regulation of the live export trade. We want to ensure that animal welfare is explicitly taken into account by live export officials. All of these amendments are incorporated in this bill. For the first time, the inspector-general will provide independent oversight specific to animal welfare. The focus will be on strengthening activities, systems, standards and reporting to help us achieve positive animal welfare outcomes. The bill requires the inspector-general to prepare and publish an annual work plan for each financial year including the details and the timing of the review's priorities and outcomes relating to this program of work. This work will be published on the website for all to see, so there is a degree of transparency there. It will also enable industry and stakeholders to plan ahead. The independence of the inspector-general will be put beyond doubt with this bill. Certainly the inspector-general will be operating at arms length from the government and the minister of the day. The minister can, however, direct the inspector-general to focus on particular areas of concern, and that will continue. I'm pleased to see that we are advancing the agenda around strengthening safeguards around animal cruelty because, ultimately, this speaks to our core values as Australians. We are nature lovers and we care deeply about not only each other but also the natural world and the animals encompassed in that world, but we want to ensure that the viability of this industry is protected going forward. It's important that this industry meets community expectations, because it's those community expectations that provide the social licence for this industry to operate. It is important that we maintain our clean, green agricultural credentials going forward because this is, in addition, a huge value-add to our nation. I commend this bill to the House. 12:40 Dr GIL 72184 Lyne LESPIE () (): The Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023 represents a significant change in the role of the federal Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports. It was established under the last coalition administration as a response to the Moss report. What is proposed in this legislation is not bracket creep; it's huge constitutional creep. It's taking over or inserting the Commonwealth regulator that looks after export of live animals into the animal welfare row that states already do. Many of the initiatives that this bill purports to expand are already being done. Enabling monitoring; investigating and reporting on the implementation of animal welfare: these are already occurring. The Australian Standards for Export of Livestock currently includes monitoring and reporting requirements, as is promoting improvements in the development of that standard, the ASEL. They are already reviewed and updated regularly by the regulator. It also says it's going to expand the effectiveness of Commonwealth administrative systems and the effectiveness of reporting relating to animal welfare and exports. The current inspector-general role does this already. Providing the office is independent and has complete discretion—hello, it is set up as a statutory body, independent from the government, already—and so on and so forth. It also expands the review powers and responsibilities of the Inspector-General into animal welfare obligations of state and territory governments. I wouldn't be surprised if the states appeal this legislation because the constitutional head of powers rests with the states. I'm very concerned about a few other things. Some of the previous speakers talked about the live export trade as animal cruelty, as an existential problem. Australia has the best animal export industry in the world, second to none. We are feeding protein to nations, to the Middle East and to Asia, that can't grow enough animals to feed their nations. It would be a tragedy if this industry was to shut down by being regulated to extinction. Some of the earlier speakers are against the racehorse industry, the greyhound industry, and they claim they want to shut down these industries. My goodness! The facts of the matter are that we have a very well-regulated system, from the yards through to the export abattoirs and on to the live export ships. They have vets on board. They're monitored. Live exports have the lowest mortality rates ever. In 2021, live cattle exports had a mortality rate of 0.08 per cent. If you're running a big grazing herd, you will probably have that same mortality in the paddock, for goodness sake. And it's even lower—in 2020, it was 0.006 per cent of animals sent to export had concerns raised about their welfare. If you look at a couple of thousand sheep on a sheep farm, you will have much more than that. Natural damage, roaming the paddocks out in 40-degree heat or in minus 10-degree winters—these things happen in the paddock. I don't know any other country, like those in Africa that export up to the Middle East, that put a vet on board the boat, that have temperature control on the boat because of the expose of all the stuff that happened about five or six years ago. On constitutional grounds, this is total overreach. We have a good regulatory system. There is obviously so much more to the agenda in trying to shut down a legitimate trade which our trade neighbours rely on for their food and which provides income and industry for Australians—farmers and graziers—who look after their animals well. The reality of life is, if you're going to have lamb chops, there has to be an abattoir to put down animals. It has been since civilisation that man has relied on sheep and cattle meat for our survival and for food. If people don't want to eat it, no-one is making them, but it is a genuine thing. It's history repeating itself. This will have a huge knock-on effect on the sheep industry across Australia if the live export trade is shut down by overregulation, because all those thousands of sheep that go to export will then flood the market—hey presto—which is exactly what happened in 2011. It is salt in the wounds of the National Farmers Federation and the people that claimed compensation for shutting down the live cattle trade back in 2011 to see it happen all over again in slow motion. Many people's businesses will be ruined because the price they receive for their stock will drop precipitously. In Senate estimates last week, it was revealed that the government offered $250 million to the whole industry, which had billions wiped out just by administrative edict back in 2011. Now they've been given less than one month to accept the small—much lower than what they claimed—settlement of only $215 million, when the industry lost billions and people in the eastern states and the southern states had the price of their cattle drop precipitously. It is really important that people realise you're dealing with the animals—we have a safe system—but you're also dealing with people's lives, industries and incomes. So I cannot support this bill. 12:47 Ms CATHERINE KING 00AMR Ballarat I thank all the members who have made contributions on this bill. I know they come from a place of goodwill, generally, and in terms of the experiences that you have in your own electorates. Obviously, we're disappointed in the decision of the opposition not to support the bill, but we will proceed nevertheless. The Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023 expands the current office of the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports to provide enhanced focus on animal welfare in exported livestock. The bill amends the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Act 2019 to include additional animal welfare related objects and functions. The additional objects and functions will help to increase oversight, accountability and transparency for animal welfare in exported livestock. The bill also provides for independence of the inspector-general and provides a legislative basis for the inspector-general to operate independently, impartially and transparently. The bill provides that the inspector-general will be directly focused on the Commonwealth's regulation of live stock exports, not industry. It will also not have any impact on state and territory regulation or domestic animal welfare. There is no interaction with state or territory animal welfare laws in this bill. Together, the expanded role will increase accountability for and transparency of animal welfare in exported livestock. The bill complements other measures that this government is taking to strengthen animal welfare, including our commitment to provide $5 million to develop a renewed Australian Animal Welfare Strategy to deliver on the government's election commitment to update and enhance our national approach to animal welfare. The measures in the bill will deliver one important part of the Australian government's commitment to strengthening animal welfare. I commend the bill to the chamber. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 201906 The immediate question is that the amendment be disagreed to. Question unresolved. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 201906 As it is necessary to resolve this question to enable further questions to be considered in relation to this bill, in accordance with standing order 195 the bill will be returned to the House for further consideration. BUSINESS 127 BUSINESS Consideration of Legislation 127 12:49 Ms 181810 Macquarie TEMPLEMAN () (): by leave—I move: That further proceedings on the Creative Australia Bill 2023 and Creative Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023 be conducted in the House. Question agreed to. Sitting suspended from 12:50 to 16:00 BILLS 127 BILLS Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2023-2024, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2023-2024, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2023-2024 127

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2023-2024

Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2023-2024

Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2023-2024

Second Reading 127 16:00 Ms TINK 300124 North Sydney Australians, including in my electorate of North Sydney, are struggling. In the lead up to the 2022-23 federal budget, many spoke to me about their struggles to find a place to live or having to choose between groceries or paying bills. At first glance this budget indicates the government recognises these struggles. It was reassuring to see some positive movements in areas where my community advocated for reform, with single parents and families with children under 16 now able to access additional support, and others benefiting from cheaper energy as we push to electrification. But look more deeply and there is little in this budget to be inspired by. We need long-term structural economic reform which focuses on driving activity, productivity and managing cost, and we need a vision, neither of which were clear in this budget. When I asked the people of North Sydney what they would have delivered if they were Treasurer, they were clear. They wanted increased support for vulnerable Australians. They wanted adequately resourced climate action. They wanted to drive tax and revenue reform. And they wanted to address intergenerational inequity. At the centre of this government's budget, however, was investment in our healthcare system, one that is overburdened, underfunded and under-resourced. I welcome the boost to Medicare, offering the opportunity for more children under 16, pensioners and concession card holders to see a doctor. But I call on Minister for Health and Aged Care to ensure these measures increase the number of GP clinics bulk-billing, as in North Sydney currently just 14 of 44 do. The greater investment in health protection and prevention measures, including the investment in the Australian Centre for Disease Control, is also good news. National prevention and infectious disease management rely on national coordination, and I look forward to seeing this centre develop. Much was made of the six million Australians with chronic conditions being able to access their medication at a lower cost under the 60-day dispensing changes, and a number of chronically ill North Sydney residents have told me they believe this will help them. But this policy cuts two ways, and both sides must be acknowledged. Pharmacists in North Sydney have left me in no doubt that they believe the impacts are far more complex than the government is acknowledging, and many of their concerns are shared by those in general practice. While the government has indicated they will reinvest the money into community pharmacy, pharmacists in North Sydney are concerned this will not compensate them for the direct losses faced as a small business. I asked the government to listen closely to community pharmacists and work to get more than the headline right when delivering a policy change like this. Separately, the lack of investment in mental health support or services was disappointing. At a time when three out of five young Australians have experienced a mental health distress in the last 12 months, the lack of funding to address this shadow pandemic is frustrating. An increased focus on elevating lived experience, funding digital tools and investment in workforce training is welcome but amounts to fiddling around the edges. Support for the most vulnerable was addressed via moderate, focused cost-of-living relief measures, but, at a time when households are doing it tough, we were hoping for more than just snappy headlines. In a post-budget survey across North Sydney, almost 60 per cent of people said these measures would make no difference to them. And then this is the missing middle: those who, through their work efforts, continue to prop up our economy but see little reprieve in sight. Cost-of-living struggles are compounded by housing unavailability and unaffordability. And while a 15 per cent increase in rest assistance for the most vulnerable is welcome, it will barely touch the sides. Median rent in Sydney has increased by 24 per cent in the last 12 months. Homes in my electorate are renting for more than $1,000 a week, whilst units rent for more than $650. The build-to-rent incentives may eventually reduce pressure. However, they will not help people who are currently homeless and need immediate relief, and they will not ultimately get people into their own homes, as there is no support for rent to own. For low-income earners and those reliant on government income support the struggle to cope with inadequate income is ironic, given this government's focus on fair pay for all. There are currently 3.3 million Australians living in poverty, and that number is growing. This is particularly true for single parents, the majority of whom are women. The extension of parenting payment single until a child is 14 is better than the current cut-off at eight, but there will be those who struggle through the transition. I call on the government to account for how it will support these families in the short term so as to minimise financial distress. There were also welcome announcements for families and women's safety, but the funding allocated is well short of the billion dollars needed to fully address women's safety in Australia. With crisis shelters overflowing, women and children have never been more vulnerable. Ultimately, parenting payments, JobSeeker and youth allowance payments simply are far from adequate. The JobSeeker increase of $20 a week and expansion of eligibility to those over 55, down from 60, provided fodder for headlines but is far below what is required to lift Australians out of poverty. Ultimately, the focus on reducing the cost of living through electrification is a win in this budget, and the community of North Sydney can take pride in the role we have played in advocating for it. With cheaper renewable energy solutions becoming more reliable and efficient, we are seeing the beginning of much of what North Sydney has called for. Ultimately, however, the $1.3 billion in the government budget falls well short of the $12 billion needed to finance electrification for all suitable households, and it pales into insignificance when you look at the subsidies for fossil fuels, which sit at $41 billion over the next four years. Climate and finance experts say the measures in this budget do not meet the scale of the climate emergency we are facing. We must move faster to secure our energy independence and leverage our opportunity for global leadership in zero emissions trade and investment. The establishment of the Net Zero Authority is good news, as is the scale-up of green hydrogen production, and I was pleased to see the modest investment in fuel efficiency standards, but there's no funding for the more immediate fix the minister could have pursued, which would have been to clean up our dirty petrol. When looking at revenue, I believe the Treasurer's decision to pay down debt was responsible, but we need to address the fact that much was made of a surplus which was built on the back of individual income tax. It accounted for 48 per cent of total revenue. This overreliance on personal income tax is unsustainable, especially as the number of workers per retiree is rapidly decreasing. I call on the government to lead us through a process of comprehensive tax reform, to reduce reliance on personal active income and to review opportunities that are fairer to future generations by looking at how significant passive income is taxed. While I welcome the 15 per cent minimum tax for multinationals, it's time for us to get serious about rapidly implementing country-level accounting. The attempt to sell us on the modest changes to the petroleum resource rent tax has left us all extremely disappointed. The government has made no effort to wind back fossil fuel subsidies like the fuel tax credit, which will cost us over $41 billion over the next four years. Subsidies for dying industries only forestall their eventual demise. When it comes to support for small business, the government is offering a sugar hit but no long-term reprieve. Another year of instant asset write-off won't drive long-term productivity. Almost all the respondents in my post-budget survey said the government should consider structural long-term reform for our economy. They suggested closing loopholes for multinational tax avoidance, higher taxes on oil and gas, scrapping fossil fuel subsidies and introducing windfall profits taxes on booming industries. Through it all, they acknowledged that most often it's actually young Australians who feel financial distress most acutely. Ultimately, there was very little in this budget for those who have finished studying and started paying their taxes. There was no relief from rising university debts, little support for those struggling with their mental health and underwhelming action to meet the challenge of climate change. Tackling intergenerational inequity requires a whole-of-system approach, addressing activity, productivity and wages, and will require the government to do some heavy lifting. Instead we've been given a budget that has done little to offend but even less to drive a future-focused economy through reform. In closing, I can't help but think one North Sydney resident summed it up perfectly: 'While this budget has set out in the right direction, I believe structural reform is needed for long-term prosperity. This budget is underwhelming and should be much more ambitious.' 16:10 Ms 265990 Werriwa STANLEY (—) (): The history of DNA is complex. It's a discovery that can be traced back to the Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher in 1869. Come forward almost a century: Francis Crick and James Watson started working together at the Cavendish Laboratory within the University of Cambridge. This work led to the famous scene at the Eagle pub on 28 February 1953 when Crick interrupted lunchtime activities and announced to all assembled that he and Watson had discovered the secret of life. One can only imagine the reaction from the assembled group. Budgets are much like DNA. If DNA tells us the secrets of life then budgets tell us about the heart and soul of a government. Indeed, budgets reveal more than almost anything else about a government's priorities, hopes and aspirations. They are direction-setting documents, and they matter. The DNA of the previous Liberal government was clear to see. Who could forget the image, in 2014, of the then Treasurer and finance minister smoking a cigar in the lead-up to that year's horror budget; or, in 2020, the quick disappearance of the infamous $35 'back in black' mugs when it became obvious that a budget surplus was nothing more than a pipe dream; or the blatant pork-barrelling of hundreds of millions of dollars in sports rorts, regional jobs, investment rorts, road funding rorts and pool rorts? It would take days to detail them all. I'm proud to state that this year's budget is very much built on the Labor Party's DNA. And what is the Labor Party's DNA? Qualities such as fairness, equity and justice. Colloquially, you might say that Labor's DNA stands for a fair go to all, a helping hand for those who need it, and no-one left behind. It is for those reasons and values that I joined the ALP all those years ago, and it's for the very same reasons that I'm proud to speak about this year's budget, for, in every way, this year's statement by the Treasurer is a truly Labor budget—unmistakably so and proudly so—grounded in helping the lives of Australians who need help the most and dealing with the global economic headwinds—and they are significant headwinds. The after-effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine are being felt with high inflation and weak global economic growth. But Labor governments don't make excuses. Labor governments have guided Australia through uncertain times, from world wars to global financial crises. It's in our DNA. The Albanese government recognises the challenges ahead of us, and this budget continues the recalibration of our national priorities that began with the October budget last year. The budget recognises the pressure Australians are under, and that's why it delivers fair and targeted relief. What can be fairer than helping millions of Australians pay their electricity bills? That's exactly what this budget does: six million households and one million small businesses getting a direct reduction in their power bills. Those opposite would like to pretend that they are all for reducing the pressure on family budgets, claiming to support this measure, yet they voted against the measure last year. Those opposite can't help themselves. They are continuing to say no—so much so that they're beginning to oppose themselves. They can't have it both ways. The Australian people can see the contradiction between their rhetoric and their actions. In one breath, those opposite claim to support cost-of-living measures in the budget, yet they have not guaranteed support for the increase in social security payments, and the Australian people will judge them for it. What can be fairer than helping millions of Australians pay for their medicines? Earlier this year, the Albanese government reduced the maximum co-pay Australians pay for PBS medications, and this budget will continue to reduce the cost of medicines. Six million Australians will be eligible to receive two months supply of eligible medications at once, saving them up to $180 a year per script. What can be fairer than strengthening Medicare, especially bulk-billing? For years Australians have been telling this parliament our healthcare system is in need of significant investment. The previous government not only did nothing; they froze the Medicare rebate, ripping billions of dollars out of the healthcare system. I'm proud that this budget invests a historic $5.7 billion into Medicare—and this will include a tripling of the bulk-billing incentive, helping GPs provide bulk-billed consultations to up to a million Australians. That means more than 100,000 people in Werriwa will benefit. The importance of this investment to our communities cannot be understated, and it comes as a huge relief to doctors and patients. The Albanese government is also supporting our small businesses because we understand how important they are to our economy and our local communities. The measure will be in the energy bill relief that may apply to approximately 322,000 small businesses in New South Wales who will automatically get up to $650 off their power bill from 1 July. Additionally, there will be a temporary increase in the instant asset write-off to $20,000 for up to 1.18 million small businesses in New South Wales. The government is also supporting small and medium businesses to electrify, improve their energy efficiency and reduce emissions, with a 20 per cent tax deduction for eligible investments. That's how a good government can support small businesses—reducing power bills and then reducing our emissions. The budget delivers $1.6 billion for energy saving upgrades to homes, businesses and social housing, helping people with older homes and appliances. The list of measures in this budget goes on. There's help for single parents, help for renters, help for aged-care workers by delivering a 15 per cent pay rise, help for veterans, and help for supporting quality training and addressing skill needs. This budget ensures that government services will continue to be adequately funded. The previous government left the budget filled with underfunded and unfunded programs and services. It made the budget bottom line look better while hurting Australians that rely on critical government services. In this budget, $7.5 billion of spending was needed to ensure these services were working. Whilst we provide funding for government services, we are continuing to invest in growing our economy for the benefit of all Australians. There will be 300,000 fee-free TAFE places made available to help Australians train in critical sectors of our economy, helping to fix the skills shortage and upskill our workforce for secure and well-paying jobs. The global economy is experiencing a rapid energy transition, and Australia is at risk of losing out on these huge opportunities. Australia should not miss out on these opportunities, and the Albanese Labor government is determined to ensure this doesn't happen. Additional funding in this budget will bring the government's total investment in making Australia a renewable energy superpower to $40 billion. The world is moving, and we shouldn't be following; we should be the ones leading. If this budget is grounded in the Labor DNA of fairness and equity, it's also grounded in the Labor DNA of sustainability. This budget delivers lower deficits and debts and forecasts a surplus in 2022-23. It produces better-quality spending and a fairer tax and super system, and it builds a sustainable aged-care system. More than anything else, this is a responsible budget. It delivers to see Australians through this difficult and challenging time as well as setting our country up for lasting success. I'm only too aware of the cost-of-living pressures my constituents are facing. Times are tough. Inflation has been and is a challenge. Prices everywhere are rising. While there are no quick fixes and certainly no slogans on coffee mugs that will do the trick, I am equally aware that in these challenging times thousands in my electorate will directly benefit because of this year's budget. It will help them pay their bills, it will help them keep their heater on in winter, it will help keep them healthy and it will help them and their families manage and plan for the future—real solutions, real assistance for real Australians doing it tough. It is a budget that delivers, a budget that keeps faith with Labor's DNA and election commitments of 12 months ago. It seems that every week new discoveries are being made in the world of DNA. These incremental discoveries are helping improve the quality of millions of lives. Discoveries are leading to wonderful innovations. Watson and Crick would be proud and amazed. Similarly, this budget improves the lives of millions of Australians, not in a way that the DNA discoveries do but in a way that allows Australians to live their lives to the maximum. For the elderly, those who are unwell and those who for whatever reason find themselves in need of a helping hand it is helping, assisting, affording dignity, lending a hand and building for the future. It is helping the elderly, the sick, single parents, small business people and so on. No-one is left behind, and ever may it be the case. This is the Albanese Labor government's way. This is why I'm a proud member of this party. This is why the people of Australia voted overwhelmingly for a change last year. I'm proud of this budget, but I know that there is more to do. We will continue working with the Australian people to make sure that they are better for it. I commend the budget and appropriation bills to the House. 16:20 Mrs ARCHER 282237 Bass Since the last budget was handed down a little over seven months ago we've seen interest rates continue to rise and have had cost-of-living pressures we have not experienced in recent memory. While inflation may have seen a small drop over the last month, it's still a volatile situation and nowhere near what we need it to be. The government has a very fine line to walk between supporting the needs of Australians, particularly as we face unprecedented cost-of-living challenges, and addressing inflation. While there may be a modest surplus, it is expected that the economy will begin to slow down at a rate not seen since the height of the pandemic, driven by consumers tightening their spending. We know that the cost of living is being driven by a range of factors, including supply shocks and adverse weather events. Domestic policy is also a significant factor. I am acutely aware of the struggles facing many in our community. It is something I witness first-hand through the sheer number of visits or calls to my office from far too many who are struggling to make ends meet or, worse, to find a suitable place to live. When I talk about the housing crisis, it is not hyperbole. I've had far too many conversations than I can count with parents who are living with their children in cars. I welcome the increase in rent assistance of $31 a fortnight, but I'm cautious, as I do hope that this does not then lead to another increase for those who can least afford it, making the increase negligible. It's for this reason that I supported Labor's recent housing policy. Although I may have views on how the policy will be funded, I simply cannot stand in the way of delivering more housing to our state, which I know so desperately needs it. Over the April break from parliament I caught up with several local charity organisations that are witnessing unprecedented demand for their services, particularly from households where one or even both parents are working and still struggling to keep up with rising costs. This of course has a flow-on effect. As demand for charitable services increases we also see a parallel downturn in the ability of these organisations to meet the demand due to increased overheads and lower levels of charitable giving. Of course, we must look at JobSeeker. As co-chair of the bipartisan Parliamentary Friends of Ending Poverty with the Labor member for Canberra, I've been continuing my lobbying to increase the rate of JobSeeker, as I did when the coalition was in government. Whilst noting that the government must get the budget balance right, it's hugely disappointing that they have committed to raising the rate of the allowance by just $40 a fortnight. This is less than the rate raised by the coalition in 2021 and it still falls chronically below the poverty line. I do question whether they are living their own values. When you have a Labor government that has talked about putting people first and went to an election saying that nobody will be left behind, this is not yet hitting the mark. Lifting our communities out of poverty should be beyond political lines, as it benefits all of us in the long run. Just a few weeks ago I was speaking to a young man who said, 'How do you realise aspiration if you never get an opportunity?' Equality of opportunity is critical to boosting productivity and more must be done to equal the playing field. I'm pleased that as we head into winter there will be support for pensioners and people on other income support payments. They will receive up to $500 off their electricity bills this year. I'm also supportive of the government reversing its own cuts to single parenting support that it implemented back in 2009, with the cut-off age for receiving support for children raised from eight years of age to 14 years of age I acknowledge the government for providing temporary electricity bill relief and for partly tackling the bulk billing issue, where GPs will see an increased incentive to bulk bill pensioners, concession card holders and children on top of their rebate. However, this doesn't go far enough to address the retention and recruitment of doctors in our local practices. This is an ongoing conversation that I am continuing to have with health professionals in my community. Also cheaper child care is welcomed, but more reform is needed to ensure that places are available when and where they are needed for working parents. Cost means little if you can't access the service. But it's where the government has chosen not to put its money that has me puzzled. Cutting the successful Entrepreneurship Facilitator Program is just one. The intent of the program is to promote and encourage self-employment and entrepreneurship, and it has been running in my region for a number of years, with Taz Devadass as one of the key facilitators of the program since its inception in 2017. In my electorate of Bass, several successful local businesses have started through the support of the program, including Method Plus Action, the Tasmanian Hazara Market in Launceston, Launceston Snake Catcher, Launceston Paint the Town Red and HYPE Disability disco just to name a few. As of July last year, the program in northern Tasmania has been facilitated by Taz and Em Rigby from Futures Isle. In just the past nine months they have impacted over 1,500 people directly through the service, with the overwhelming majority of their participants engaging with the service on multiple occasions. They have led collaborative ecosystem building activities and events with a focus on collaboration and stakeholder engagement, holding more than 300 stakeholder meetings and discussions. In fact, they have held 332 stakeholder meetings and discussions. They have collaborated with the City of Launceston on a series of events promoting small-business pathways for people living in our northern suburbs, with over 77 people attending those events alone. They have hosted 78 varied events and workshops covering topics as vast as time management, financial literacy and social media strategy. They have made 266 formal referrals to other service providers such as Workforce Australia, accounting specialists, mental health professionals and relevant state based business supports. In a region like northern Tasmania, whose economy is built on the back of small businesses and entrepreneurs, programs like this fill a gap in services available to assist those who want to have a go at creating their own future. It's a proven program that costs very, very little, and to cut the program without any warning or consultation, and with a few years left on the local contract, is unconscionable. 'We were devastated to hear of the scrapping of this program, because of the significant community value we see for this service in our region,' Taz and Em told me in the days following the budget. Then there is support to veterans provided through the independent not-for-profit organisation Soldier On, which delivers holistic support for veterans, from health and wellbeing programs to employment support and learning and education assistance, enabling current and former ADF personnel and their families to lead meaningful civilian lives. For the past few years I have supported a local group of veterans as they've raised money for suicide prevention programs for Soldier On by walking 96 kilometres, the length of the Kokoda Trail, in less than 24 hours. This year I joined the team on their walk, completing just under 50 kilometres, and I am committed to joining them for the full distance next year. From my discussions on the walk and my involvement with the team over the past few years, I have seen how committed they are to the organisation and to raising funds for suicide prevention programs. This year they raised over $20,000. To see a $1½ million funding cut to this veterans' organisation at a time when we know veterans need more assistance makes me again question whether Labor is truly living their own values. It is when I look at where infrastructure development is heading that leaves me with the most cause for concern. For councils, the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program has provided the opportunity to deliver priority local road and community infrastructure projects in their region, creating jobs and long-lasting benefits for communities. Across my electorate, this has delivered a new skate park for youth in Bridport, new roads in Grindelwald and an all-access beach ramp at East Beach in my local area of George Town, just to name a few. The phasing out of this program that is delivering demonstrably better outcomes for communities, particularly in rural and regional areas, is concerning. It's the future of the Launceston City Deal which has me particularly concerned. The city deal was first launched in 2017, with the goal of bringing the three levels of government—federal government, state government and the local City of Launceston council—together to work collaboratively on a number of projects to position Launceston as one of the most livable and innovative regional cities. The coalition's investment of just over $250 million has paved the way to ensuring much-needed and long-awaited projects could get off the ground, creating a future for our city that is creative, vibrant and livable and will attract further investment in the region. Some of the highlights of the city deal include $130 million for the relocation of the University of Tasmania's Launceston campus from Newnham to Inveresk, closer to the CBD; $49 million to improve the health of the Tamar Estuary through infrastructure upgrades and catchment management actions; $30 million to develop a defence and maritime innovation and design precinct at the University of Tasmania's Australian Maritime College; $15 million to support the development of a purpose-built community hub in the northern suburbs of Launceston, which will help to address some of the dire sports court shortages that our region is currently experiencing; $10 million to contribute towards the Albert Hall renewal project; $7½ million to rejuvenate Launceston CBD through the Launceston City Heart Project; and $4½ million through the Smart Cities and Suburbs Program. This deal is delivering on the objectives set out in the deal, and to see Labor let it die a slow death without any funding certainty beyond 2025, and no commitment to implementing something in its place, is concerning to me when you weigh up the investment and deliverables from the Launceston City Deal and compare it to the $240 million the federal government has thrown at developing a third stadium in Hobart. I'm not anti progress, anti AFL or anti development in the south, and I think it's absolutely terrific that Tasmania will have its own team. I also welcome the $65 million announced for UTAS Stadium not because it's in the north but because it is a step towards redeveloping a facility that already exists. I come at this from the point of view of there being more pressing needs in our community where these funds could be effective, particularly from the perspective of supporting grassroots sport. We have netball, basketball, soccer and hockey in the north bursting at the seams and unable to meet the demand of growth in all of these sports, while also battling with current infrastructure that's not fit for purpose. If we want to talk about sport at the elite level, we need to provide our communities with the facilities that create the pathways towards competing at a high level. By doing that, we can attract the national and international tournaments that would be a boon for our region. Also, again bringing it back to housing, homelessness and general cost-of-living pressures, funding a third stadium is just way off the mark—no pun intended. I do acknowledge that the stadium is part of a longer term vision for our state and that the argument shouldn't be distilled to an either/or situation, but currently we're not seeing any evidence of that. There is an expectation in our community that, if money can be found to support a stadium, there must be money made available for the 'or', so to speak, and I haven't seen a whole lot of evidence of that in the recent budget. As someone who has worked closely with key community stakeholders over the past few years to advocate for their worthy projects, I'm also keen to see Labor begin to deliver on their key election promises—the George Town aquatic centre, the relocation of the medical research innovation facility and the establishment of a standalone palliative care facility—to meet the needs and the expectations of my Northern Tasmanian community. 16:33 Dr LEIGH BU8 Fenner No budget in the past decade has done more to reduce inequality than the 2023 budget. In that budget we brought down initiatives that make medicines cheaper for Australians with long-term health conditions. We funded a pay rise for aged-care workers. We are delivering nearly 500,000 fee-free TAFE places and 20,000 new university places directed primarily at those who are the first in their family to attend university. We have established 10 days family and domestic violence leave. And we have extended eligibility for the parenting payment single to a single principal carer with a youngest child aged under 14. In the last budget we increased the rates of JobSeeker, youth allowance, parenting payment partnered, Austudy, Abstudy, the youth disability support pension and special benefit. We've extended eligibility for JobSeeker to single recipients aged 55 and over. And we've increased Commonwealth rental assistance by the largest amount in the last 30 years. These changes to payments will help around 580,000 women, 318,000 young people, 150,000 First Nations Australians and 245,000 mature-age Australians. The budget will also provide additional support for people currently in supported employment with greater employment stability. It includes funding for pilots to develop evidence based approaches for early intervention for infants with early signs of autism and includes an exciting new initiative, partnering with philanthropy on an investment dialogue for Australia's children, a whole-of-government framework to address community disadvantage. One of the main reasons why I got into politics was to make a difference on issues of inequality, and the Albanese government and our latest budget are delivering on that. I'd like to acknowledge too the Swaminarayan Sanstha organisation, BAPS, the Hindu sociospiritual organisation affiliated in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. BAPS strives to care for the world by caring for societies, families and individuals. BAPS has millions of followers around the world. During his visit to Australia in 2018, the current spiritual leader of BAPS, Mahant Swami Maharaj, shared his vision that, as he put it, 'The capital of Australia will put up a temple to match the capital.' BAPS is now in the process of building a Hindu mandir, a temple, and community centre in the ACT, in Taylor, in my electorate. Construction for the temple began in April 2022 and is set to be completed in August this year. I was pleased to visit the construction of the temple last week and to see the important work that is being done. The aspiration of the community is to create not just a place of worship but also a place for Canberrans to come together and celebrate Canberra's diversity. Ours is a city where the National Multicultural Festival is our largest festival and where Canberrans acknowledge the benefits of ethnic and religious diversity. The former spiritual leader of BAPS, Pramukh Swami Maharaj, lived by the ethos 'In the joy of others lies our own'. Taking his inspiration, BAPS volunteers engage in regular blood donation drives, raising funds for charitable organisations like the Canberra Hospital Foundation, providing hot meals and food packs through the COVID-19 crisis, especially to international students, and participating in clean-up days and tree plantation drives. They've also been involved in promoting peace and harmony through an interfaith forum for the Royal Canberra Show and Gungahlin community event, holding weekly assemblies and celebrating Hindu festivals at various locations. They're now in the Ngunnawal Primary School, for when their new temple opens they will be moving there. The principle of volunteering is important to BAPS volunteers and, indeed, the kids who attend the temple have been given a goal to raise $26,000, including by selling cookies, making handmade craft items and through tin collections. I want to thank, in particular, those who showed me around the temple site: Vivek Brahmbhatt, Kunai Patel, Harshita Kakkad, Drashti Patel and Parag Shah. I really appreciated their generosity and the time that they took to tell me about the temple and the role that they hope it will play. The Community Council for Australia provides an important platform for Australia's charities and not-for-profits. It aims to promote the values of the sector, to improve the way people invest in the sector, to build collaboration in sector efficiency and to educate organisations. As its chair, Tim Costello, puts it: Imagine an Australia where your postcode or cultural identity does not define your chance of getting an education or a job or living a long life? Imagine an Australia where creativity drives real innovation and achievement, not just in our arts, but in the schools and local communities? Imagine a humane and sustainable Australia, where people are more connected and engaged in the communities they live and work in, and where this involvement is reflected in the ways we form policies and laws? Imagine a generous and kind Australia where we take pride in supporting the less fortunate in their own communities, in our region and beyond? … Imagine the Australia we want. I want to thank the important role the Community Council for Australia has played, particularly under the leadership of Tim Costello and David Crosbie. They met, to hold their annual general meeting, here in Parliament House last week. I was pleased to welcome to the building Carol Bennett and Kate Seselja from the Alliance for Gambling Reform; Nicola Stokes from the AMP Foundation; Marc Purcell from the Australian Council for International Development; Susan Pascoe from ACFID; Chris Kwong from the Australian Red Cross; Deirdre Cheers from Barnardos Australia; Alison Brook from Carers Australia; Jon Bisset from the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia; David Crosbie, Deborah Smith and Nick Nguyen from the Community Council for Australia; Caterina Georgio from FARE; Claire Robbs from Life Without Barriers; Ben Gathercole from Menslink; Anne-Marie Baker from Mission Australia; Anna Draffin from the Public Interest Journalism Initiative; Richard Mussell from RSPCA Australia; Paul Porteous from the Social Leadership Foundation; Suzie Riddell from Social Ventures Australia; Dane Moores from Settlement Services International; Amanda Power from St John Ambulance Australia; and Louise Baxter from the Starlight Foundation. I've held the charities portfolio for my party since 2013 and have benefited greatly from the wisdom and insights of the Community Council for Australia. I want to acknowledge Rob Eakin, an extraordinary Australian who passed away earlier this month. Rob died the day after the budget, which is significant because he was an extraordinary Labor stalwart. Rob and his wife Robin were two of the people who were among my earliest supporters when I first got into politics. I always felt that whatever I did, they would have my back. They were the best of volunteers: hardworking, altruistic, generous and funny. They were a real delight to be around, and every conversation with Rob and Robin left me feeling better about the world. Rob was kind towards others, but always willing to show others how to do things a little better. His techniques of ensuring that our roadside signs stayed on their stakes are second to none! We knew that if Rob put a roadside sign up, then the only way it was going to come down was if some naughty conservative was to drive over the top of it. Sadly, that happened to not a small number of Rob's signs. They hit the ground not because of any deficit in Rob's hard work, but because of shenanigans. But Rob taught us so much more. He was there at volunteer barbecues; he was there at budget reply drinks. As his daughter Jane wrote to me: dad … was a man who had a generous spirit. He would share the bounty from his garden with anyone. He was happy to support people and let them achieve greatness, without ego. He turned his skills to repairing musical instruments, and did it with love—for the joy it brought others, not for profit. And he knew the value of listening. Hearing people out and adding his view with quiet humour. Jane reminded me and the other elected members who were at Rob's memorial service—Tara Cheyne, Alicia Payne, former MLA Gordon Ramsay—that to be a part of the Labor Party is to be a part of a movement—a movement that is enriched by our extraordinary volunteers. We are a party that has been inspired and bettered by Rob Eakin. My condolences to his widow, Robin, and to his children. May he rest in peace. 16:43 Mr YOUNG 201906 Longman I rise today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2023-2024. It gives me a chance to reflect on the contributions to the Longman community of the previous coalition government, and to highlight the lack of contribution that the current government is making to the people of Longman and to the people of Australia generally. There are many misleading, untrue statements and downright lies said in this place, and I would like to correct the record on one that has been bandied around—that is, the untruthful statement of $1 trillion of coalition debt. The facts are these. Fact 1: the debt, as at April 2022, just before the federal election, was $885.5 billion, which is not $1 trillion, so by saying this Labor are simply lying. Fact 2: almost two-thirds of the debt was baked in from the previous Labor government before the coalition assumed office in 2013. Fact 3: before the pandemic, the debt was $534.4 billion in March 2019, and the pandemic measures increased the debt to $885.5 billion by April 2022, which, again, is not $1 trillion. On this point, I want to point out that every person I speak to in the street agrees that money had to be spent over and above the normal during the pandemic. We can debate how much that should have been and how it was spent, but the bottom line is that extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures, and the Australians I speak to understand and accept that fact. Let me point out as well that Labor supported all these measures and in fact wanted additional measures and spending that would have added an extra $81 billion to the deficit. It smacks of absolute hypocrisy to criticise the debt after you supported it in opposition and in fact said it didn't go far enough. But what else would you expect? Longman is one of Australia's fastest growing communities, with just over 25,000 people having moved to the area since I was first elected to the seat just over four years ago. The projection is that Longman will grow by at least 100,000 people in the next 15 to 20 years. The coalition government recognised this, and we proudly invested in the infrastructure that the community so desperately needs now and will need in the future. That's infrastructure like the $150 million overpass at New Settlement Road, Narangba; the $660 million upgrade to the Bruce Highway, where a third lane is being added between the Bribie Island Road exit and Steve Irwin Way; $30 million for Bribie Island Road; and $15.2 million for the D'Aguilar Highway. That's as well as numerous upgrades to local roads in partnership with the Moreton Bay Regional Council, including $320,000 for William Berry Drive in Caboolture South; $915,000 for upgrades around Gympie Road, starting at Alma Road and Marsden Road in Dakabin; and $2 million for McKean Street in Caboolture, just to mention a few. I was also proud that, through advocating with ministers and regular meetings with telcos, thanks to the previous coalition government, the people of Longman have an additional eight mobile towers now operational, plus three more underway, under the Peri-Urban Mobile Program. This is in contrast to the zero delivered for the Longman community under the previous Labor government. One of the highlights for me was being involved in the development of the Peri-Urban Mobile Program, which allowed partial funding by the Commonwealth of mobile phone towers in those communities around the country, like Longman, where the city meets the bush and the population density is too low for telcos to invest in infrastructure but too high to receive regional black spot funding. Under this program, Longman received funding for three towers, located in Bellmere and Caboolture South. Sadly, the contracts were not prepared by the department before we entered caretaker mode before the last election, and my information tells me that at this moment, over 12 months since the election, the sign-off from the minister is still yet to occur. This has delayed these much-needed towers for at least another 12 months, which is simply not good enough. The previous government also partnered with the local council, community groups, sporting clubs and the like for smaller but just as important projects under such programs as the Stronger Communities grants program, the Capital Grants Program, the Bushfire Recovery for Wildlife and Habitat Community Grants Program, the MUSTER grants program, Volunteer Grants, Powering Communities, the Building Better Regions Fund, the Safer Communities Fund, the Roads to Recovery fund, the Community Development Grants Program and the Regionalisation Fund program, which delivered practical items—everything from new carpets for sporting clubs to solar panels for community halls and petrol vouchers for volunteers. They funded programs for youth at risk and so much more. In all, the community of Longman received over $23 million for 238 projects. Sadly, this government has made the decision to scrap the Community Development Grants Program and Regionalisation Fund program, which means that these organisations that rely on government support will no longer receive that support, in tough times when these groups so desperately need it. I waited with anticipation on budget night and in the ensuing days to find out when the commitments that Labor made during the election would be delivered for the Longman community. There were promises of $3 million for a new clubhouse for the Caboolture Snakes rugby league club; $3 million for the new clubhouse at the Narangba Eagles Football Club; $3 million for the water park at Centenary Lakes; $300,000 for lights at the Narangba Demons Baseball Clubs; and road projects totalling $589 million, which included increasing the Bruce Highway from six to eight lanes between Anzac Avenue and Uhlmann Road. There was not a mention of these things in the budget. They were just another broken Labor promise to go along with the other broken promises, including the promise of a $275 reduction in power prices, the promise of cheaper mortgages under a Labor government—yet there have been 10 interest rate rises in just the first 12 months—the promise that, under Labor, families would be better off and there would be a lift in real wages—not gross wages but real wages, the measure that actually matters—the promise that there would be a 24/7 nurse in every aged-care facility—all lies; it never happens—and the promise that there would be no changes to super—a broken promise again. The list goes on and on. How can Australians ever trust this Labor government? They promise a lot and they deliver nothing. They can't even keep their election promises. 16:50 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie I know that, when it comes to housing, the kids are not okay. My kids and their friends are facing huge struggles to find and afford a rental property right across Greater Sydney, and it isn't just our adult children. It's not only students, single mums and older women. We're also talking about full-time working Australians: teachers, aged-care workers, early educators, and ambos and others in emergency services, like police officers. When I look at so many of the properties people queue up to see—the crumbling walls, the mould, collapsing ceilings, the light fittings barely hanging on, rarely a flyscreen in sight and draughts from gaps in doors and windows, let alone any decent heating or cooling—it really is a crisis. Then you look at what people are asked to pay for these places, and it's a scandal. The data backs the lived experience, and these are some of the things that in this budget we're taking steps to start to tackle. In Sydney and Melbourne, rental markets are extremely tight, with the number of available properties falling rapidly over the past year, driving advertised rents increasingly high. Almost 95 per cent of new tenants who signed leases in February 2023 were charged more rent than the previous tenant at the same property had paid, with close to 70 per cent of new tenants copping more than a 10 per cent rent increase. About 70 per cent of existing tenants whose leases came up for renewal in February were hit with a rent rise, up from just 14 per cent a couple of years before. Many who are struggling to hang on in the rental market are the people who kept us going during the pandemic and who worked so hard for us day in and day out. I know from my local food charities that the numbers are increasing, that increases in both mortgages and rent have stretched budgets to breaking point and that, if you want to keep the payments going, you need to be able to access cheap food from somewhere. More than ever we need places full of volunteers like Junction 142, Hawkesbury's Helping Hands, the Salvos and the many, many church and community groups. So we do know things are not okay, and that's why this budget is doing things to tackle them. Unlike previous governments, we're not going to gaslight people and pretend that everything is fine. We're going to talk about these issues. We take seriously the circumstances we've inherited and the consequences of decisions made over many years to ignore the issue of housing. I remember that in 2013, before he was elected Prime Minister, the then opposition leader, Tony Abbott, made no mention of homelessness or housing affordability as an issue, nor did he have a housing and homelessness minister, nor did his successor. It wasn't until 2019 that the Liberals even bothered to appoint a minister to the housing portfolio. Back in 2013, the then Minister for Housing, Brendan O'Connor, now the Minister for Skills and Training, highlighted the investment Labor had made in its two terms in office: $20 billion in housing affordability and homelessness services and programs, and a direct financial contribution to one in every 20 homes built, including 21,000 social housing homes and 11,000 affordable rental homes, with another 30,000 in the pipeline when we left office. Why is that relevant? Well, what it shows is Labor's long-term commitment to housing and home affordability, whether it's renting or buying. It shows this is not an issue we ignore when we're in government. It's not a problem we leave until it's a crisis. It's not something we choose to sweep under the carpet. As we did in previous governments, we are taking it seriously now and pulling all the levers in our power to bring change to something that was a crisis some time ago. Let's look at the whole suite of things our most recent budget contains to tackle the multiple elements of what people are facing. For a start, we want to see more homes built. One way we will do this is the Housing Australia Future Fund. That's being held up in the Senate right now. It's a $10 billion fund which is the single-biggest investment in social and affordable housing by a federal government in more than a decade, and it will build 30,000 new rental homes in the first five years. But it is dependent on support, and the opposition won't support it and, to date, there is not enough support in the Senate to pass that bill. But that is just one of a number of big initiatives that are included in the recent budget. There is $2 billion for more affordable rental housing through the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, which provides low-cost, longer-term loans to registered community housing providers to support the provision of more social and affordable housing. It offers concessional loans, grants and equity funding for housing development. That adds to the $575 million of funding that we took last year, that was just sitting unused by the former government. That means there are now projects under construction because of that funding. These are homes that will be owned in perpetuity by state governments or registered community providers and will be provided to key workers and people who need them most, at concessional rates. That is in addition to the negotiation of a new housing accord, which is allocated $350 million to deliver an additional 10,000 affordable rental homes over five years from 2024, and the increase to the Affordable Housing Bond Aggregator, which will support another 7,000 homes. If you add the housing fund to this, it is twice as much as was delivered between 2011 and 2021 from all tiers of government combined. We have big ambitions for this, and the work is already starting to happen on the ground, but we know there is so much more to do. That's why these funds and the work we do with them is so important. We also have tax incentives to increase the supply of rental housing by improving the taxation arrangements for investments in build-to-rent housing. Increasing the depreciation rate from 2.5 per cent to four per cent per year for eligible new build-to-rent projects where construction commences after 9 May 2023 might not be the most exciting thing for people to hear, but if you're looking at the numbers that's an increased incentive to be part of build-to-rent investment—as is reducing the withholding tax for eligible fund payments from managed investment trusts to foreign residents on income from newly constructed residential build-to-rent properties, which will kick in after 1 July 2024, from 30 per cent to 15 per cent subject to further consultation—and there will be an eligibility criteria to it. Those things are not going to make headlines; they're not going to be on the front page of the Daily Telegraph. But they are really practical steps to incentivise private investment into this market so that we're building long-term sustainable housing from a variety of sources. We know that housing isn't something we do alone at the federal level. The minister has brought the states and territories together to agree to expedite zoning, planning and land release for social and affordable housing. Local governments have agreed to deliver planning reforms and free up land holdings. Institutional investors have agreed to leverage investment, and the construction sector peak bodies have discussed agreeing to support high-energy efficiency rating construction, the training of more apprentices under an extended Australian Skills Guarantee and working to make housing more responsive to demand. We are leading the push for reforms to support renters' rights, with states and territories committing to work to strengthen renters' rights. We're also helping those who need it most desperately with the largest increase in rent assistance in more than 30 years, with an extra $67 million to states and territories to help tackle homelessness as part of the $1.6 billion that is the one new extension of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement. Of course, we want to see people buy their own homes, and so far, in the 12 months since the election, we've helped more than 50,000 Australians into homeownership. This includes more than 6,000 through the Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee since it was launched in October, three months ahead of schedule. Places are still available under the Home Guarantee Scheme before the end of the financial year. The budget expands eligibility for the scheme from 1 July to allow friends or siblings and other family members to make joint applications. The criteria for the Family Home Guarantee are being expanded to recognise single legal guardians of children, such as aunts, uncles and grandparents, and that means that from 1 July more people will have the opportunity to own a home sooner. So they're the key things that we've done—the decisions and actions we've taken—in the first 12 months of being in government. We know there is more to do, and we will continue doing it. I want to turn to another key initiative in the budget: fee-free TAFE. More than 65,000 students in New South Wales have enrolled in fee-free TAFE so far this year. The joint Commonwealth-state initiative is encouraging a wide range of applicants, especially women, who make up up to 60 per cent of all enrolments. Some are studying in traditionally male dominated fields. Enrollees also include young people, jobseekers, people living with disabilities and First Nations people. Almost a third of enrolments have been in courses related to the care sector: child care, aged care, nursing and disability support care—all areas of high priority. But we're also seeing cybersecurity and construction being taken up in large numbers. This uptake is part of the 180,000 fee-free places we delivered for 2023, recognising last year the urgency of the skills crisis that we'd been left with, and we'll keep doing it, to broaden access to education and to fix skills shortages. There are another 300,000 fee-free TAFE and VET places available in high-skill-needs areas from next year, and I would really urge young people and people who want to retrain to go and look at what is available. We have incredible TAFEs in Wentworth Falls and Katoomba in the Blue Mountains and in Richmond in the Hawkesbury. Between them, they offer a wide range of courses, but we're also close to so many of the other TAFE campuses. TAFE is an area that is fundamental to developing the skill set that we need in our future workers. It's a very different way of studying from what I know kids experience at school, and I really commend my local schools, who work hard to encourage students to investigate TAFE. For some people in my community, it's an easy step to take. They have family members who've been to TAFE and done VET studies. For others, it's something different for their families. But what I see when I look at what's available, whether it's on our campuses or on neighbouring campuses, is a whole range of professional qualifications that put you in really good stead for the jobs of the future, and that's the sort of focus that this government has. We want to look at people accessing that fee-free TAFE. We also want people to think about the university courses where we've identified that there are opportunities. One of the things I'm working hard to see is greater collaboration between the Western Sydney University campus we have locally and the TAFE students. A perfect example of where the skills provided by both are needed is the agribusiness tech hub that we are building there. This was one of my election commitments. It's being delivered in the budget. The funding is in the budget. What it means is that we need people—some with science qualifications, as well as engineers and the people who can construct these big glasshouses to be able to do incredible work. So bringing together the range of skills we have is going to be the key to moving forward, and certainly, on the Hawkesbury campuses of Western Sydney University and the TAFE, we're very well placed to do that. I commend the budget to the House. 17:04 Mr WILLCOX 286535 Dawson I rise today to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2023-2024 and related bills. On 9 May 2023, when the Treasurer delivered his budget speech, it was clear it would do little to address the issues in my electorate of Dawson. When analysing the budget, it's important to listen to not what is said but what is missing. The Treasurer never mentioned the word 'infrastructure', nor 'roads', and could not even muster the word 'coal'. The Treasurer referred to commodities as 'things'. This is unbelievable given the fact that iron ore, coal, gas and agricultural exports are the only reason there is a surplus. The Dawson electorate contributes so much to our nation's wealth through our resources industry, our agricultural industry, our METS industry and our engineering industry. It's estimated that Dawson contributes $1.8 billion to GDP through our resources industry alone—yes, $1.8 billion. So it's extremely disappointing to see the Treasurer bypass our region when it comes to much-needed infrastructure—the very same region that has contributed a significant portion to the budget. As I mentioned before, the Treasurer was delighted to tell Australia of the budget surplus, but that surplus hasn't come from work or solid decisions by the Labor government. No, no, no, no, no. It was our hard-working coal, gas, iron ore, sugar and beef industries that contributed to the profits in the budget. The Albanese Labor government has once again forgotten regional, rural and remote Australians. This is the demographic that creates the wealth for Australia, growing our food and fibre, but not only have they ripped billions of dollars out of infrastructure but they have raised our taxes, all the while in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. As I travel around my electorate, I constantly hear how the cost of living is affecting our families. While the Albanese Labor government did try to address cost-of-living pressures by increasing rent assistance and the JobSeeker allowance, extending the single parenting payment and tripling the Medicare rebate, it only reaches a minority of Australians and it falls short of the mark. Rising interest rates are putting pressure not only on mortgage holders but also on renters. This pressure on homeowners naturally pushes up rents, and it actively pushes people out of accommodation and onto the streets. Rising fuel and grocery costs are an area of great concern in my electorate, but the government hasn't listened to these concerns; they have created a truckie tax and a fresh food tax. Adding these extra costs to our agriculture industry just does not make sense. Farmers are already under pressure with labour shortages, and this creates uncertainty as to whether or not the farmers are going to plant crops and how much to plant for fear of not having enough workers to be able to harvest these crops. How does this affect the people of Australia? It adds to the total cost of groceries and fruits and vegetables. It adds to their bill at the checkout. There are other numerous taxes announced in this budget. Oil and gas companies will be taxed $2.4 billion over four years. Cigarettes will be taxed at five per cent more over the next three years. The superannuation tax will increase from 15 to 30 per cent for people with accounts over $3 million. The low- and middle-income tax offset has been scrapped. The safeguard mechanism, which is pretty much a carbon tax 2.0, will hit our resources industry and affect investment and jobs. These increased taxes will affect all of us in some way and will add to the cost-of-living crisis which is almost at breaking point for some people. This budget proves that Labor cannot manage their money. And when they can't manage their money, they come after yours. And all this to pay for 10,000 new bureaucrats in Canberra. As I mentioned earlier, I was disappointed to see that infrastructure funding for Dawson was non-existent in the Treasurer's budget. We all know that the regions struggled with a lack of essential services that those in the city take as luxuries and for granted, such as mobile phone service and functional roads. Both are needed. These are a necessity to keep our families safe and sound. We've seen water funding infrastructure cut by $872½ million. Investing in water infrastructure is so important. Australia is a dry continent, and water security is a real issue. It needs to be addressed and planned for. Any cuts to water infrastructure are simply outrageous. The already committed funding for Mackay Ring Road stage 2 has been put on hold, and our regional veterans have been turned away again. In Mackay the RSL and Kinchant Dam wellness centre funding was nowhere to be seen. It was good to see eight other veterans wellness facilities funded but extremely disappointing that all eight facilities are being constructed in Labor held seats, and that the one furthest north is in Brisbane. $17.9 million was also cut from the veterans studying program, and this affected veterans in my electorate. I had a veteran, John, contact my office who has six months to go before he graduates with a law degree. His course was subsidised through the veterans studying program. Unfortunately, he's now left in a situation where he cannot financially afford to complete his degree. As a sufferer of PTSD, this degree was giving John a sense of purpose and hope, something to look forward to, a personal achievement to be proud of. Now John is left devastated and is reeling in disbelief from the actions of this Labor government. Veteran support services and funding should not be meddled with, and I'm truly appalled by this particular funding cut from the budget. I've said it many times and I will continue to say it: if our service men and women are willing to put their bodies on the line and put their lives on the line for our country then surely they should be provided support when they come back to our shores. Labor's election promise of $586.4 million towards Queensland's highway, the Bruce, is now being delayed until after the next federal election, in 2025—unbelievable! Local projects identified as needed by the coalition government which should have been started, like the $176 Goorganga Plains flood upgrade and the $38.4 million Burdekin deviation, are now up in the air and are now under review. The new Haughton River Bridge and flood mitigation, part of the Bruce Highway in the Dawson electorate, was delivered under the coalition government and upon completion was opened by the state Labor government. My invite to this opening, as the federal member for the region and a member of the coalition, which contributed 80 per cent of the funding, must have got lost in the mail, or maybe it couldn't reach my online inbox, due to the mobile black spot funding being cut—yes, you guessed it: by the Albanese Labor government. We all know the Labor government is rethinking and reviewing Commonwealth infrastructure projects right across the country in its 90-day review, leaving programs like the road safety Black Spot Program and the Roads to Recovery Program up in the air. Effectively, the Albanese Labor government has the residents of Dawson's lives and safety on hold and under review. In this budget we see no new infrastructure for Dawson and existing funding cut. In fact, this budget has seen $5.5 billion—yes, you heard that right—cut from infrastructure investment across the country. The Labor government also coldly slashed community grant programs. These programs boost our community organisations, making life easier for our volunteers and enhancing facilities for our community users. Now, at the hands of the Treasurer, they are all gone. The stronger communities grants program—a coalition initiative which for eight years funded upgrades for local community and sporting organisations—is no longer continuing under the Labor government. Funding to our local councils for things like upgrading our local roads, parks and services has been, disappointingly, cut. Small business completely missed out in this budget. On budget night the Treasurer was proud to showcase his so-called 'fiscal responsibility' and 'budget restraint'. However, this smelt like a Labor excuse to rip funding out of what's needed where it's needed the most—in the regions—because in the same breath the Treasurer had no problem splurging $240 million for a brand-new stadium in Tasmania and $2½ billion for the Gabba redevelopment. Funding to improve regional mental health services, closing the gap between metro and regional health or creating an urgent plan for the housing crisis would be much better ways to spend our taxpayers' dollars. A good budget is all about priorities, but this government has the priorities all wrong. Community pharmacies are set to be $3½ billion out of pocket with the Albanese Labor government's new changes to the PBS that allow 60-day dispensing instead of 30-day dispensing. This change will affect rural medicine supplies and result in a reduction in services and opening hours for small, rural and remote pharmacies. These are our small businesses. Sixty-day dispensing has been portrayed as freeing up the healthcare system and time needed to be spent with a GP, but this will not be the case. It will only add to the pressure, as pharmacists will no longer be in a position where they can support their patients with free service offerings. The dispensing fee helps cover services like consultation time, home delivery, medications support and even taking a patient's blood pressure. As each month goes by under the leadership of the Albanese Labor government we are all losing confidence. We are seeing reckless policy changes, unnecessary taxes driving up the cost of living, more broken promises than you can poke a stick at and even more backflipping. We can see that this government has no plan, has no vision and is not using any common sense. We all know that this country needs a strong economy with lower taxes, but the Albanese Labor government seem to have no understanding of what the people need. They rob Peter to pay Paul—or should I say they rob the regions to prop up the cities? This budget proves that all Australians are always worse off under Labor. 17:19 Mr LAXALE 299174 Bennelong The Albanese Labor government has handed down a budget that not only is responsible but addresses the pressing concerns of everyday Australians, providing support and assistance whilst also alleviating the burdens of the cost-of-living crisis we're in at the moment. This budget focuses on supporting all Australians as they navigate through strain on their household budgets, while delivering on the things that are important to our nation. It's a budget that delivers on the environment, a budget that delivers on health and, yes, a budget that delivers on small-business relief while also having a heart, showing social support, but also having economic forethought and responsibility. It's a responsible budget. This budget reflects our commitment to driving down energy costs, making homes and businesses more efficient and positioning Australia as a global leader in renewable energy. We understand that rising energy prices have burdened households across the nation, and businesses as well. That's why this government is taking decisive action to alleviate pressure and make homes and businesses cheaper to run. By investing more than $1.6 billion in energy-saving upgrades for homes, including social housing, and businesses, we're empowering individuals and communities to reduce their energy bills and contribute to an emissions-free future. Furthermore, we're establishing a Household Energy Upgrades Fund, which will help finance options for energy upgrades, ensuring that no Australian is left behind. Through our Household Energy Upgrades Fund, with a budget of $1.3 billion, we're providing financial resources for households to embrace energy efficiency. This fund will support upgrades such as solar panels, batteries and heat pumps for hot water systems, enabling homes to become more sustainable and reducing bills. In New South Wales alone, 1.6 million households will benefit from a $500 rebate to lower their energy bills, with both the Commonwealth and New South Wales governments contributing to this measure. On top of that, we're investing $36.7 million to expand and upgrade the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme to apply to existing homes. Many older homes in Australia do not meet modern energy efficiency standards, and it's essential for Australians to have access to information about their homes' energy efficiency. This investment ensures that Australians can make informed choices regarding energy upgrades when renting or purchasing homes, enabling them to save money on energy bills and also reduce their carbon footprint. Our commitment to renewable energy and its opportunity is unwavering. We believe Australia has the potential to become a renewable energy superpower. That's why we've allocated $2 billion to the Hydrogen Headstart program. We're scaling up the development of Australia's renewable hydrogen industry. This critical investment positions us as a global leader in green hydrogen, attracting clean energy investments from around the world. Our government recognises that the transition to net zero is the most significant change and opportunity since the Industrial Revolution, and, after years of policy inaction, we're investing billions of dollars to make sure that Australia becomes that renewable energy superpower, because we know that, by reducing energy costs, promoting energy efficiency and investing in renewable energy, we're securing a brighter and more sustainable future for generations to come. Not only will this government make Australia a leader in environmental protection, but we are further strengthening our support of Medicare. Australia has long been recognised as a global leader in healthcare outcomes and equity, surpassing other OECD nations for decades. This budget reflects our unwavering commitment to providing accessible and high-quality healthcare services to every individual, regardless of their postcode or financial circumstances. For far too long, Medicare has endured years of neglect and budget cuts by the Liberals, but Labor built Medicare, and the Albanese government will deliver historic investments to health care in our nation, ensuring that Australians can access doctors and support with their Medicare card, not their credit card. This budget signifies the single largest increase in bulk-billing incentives in the history of Medicare. We're committed to strengthening the very heart of Medicare, bulk-billing, by investing $3½ billion and providing immediate support to patients and general practice alike. These substantial incentives will triple benefits for the most common consultations, specifically targeting children under 16, pensioners and other Commonwealth concession card holders. These represent about 60 per cent of all presentations to general practice. This means cheaper doctor appointments for about 66,000 individuals in my community of Bennelong. We're breaking down barriers to healthcare access and making it easier for our communities to seek the medical attention they require not only at the doctor's but also in purchasing their medications. We are making over 300 common medicines more affordable for all Australians. By allowing individuals to purchase two months worth of medicine for the price of one single subscription we're, effectively, halving the cost of up to 300 medicines. It will empower 36,000 members of the public, in Bennelong, to purchase two months worth of medicine for the price of a single subscription. This will save patients up to $180 annually, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, but it will also decrease the number of visitors needed to doctors, which will also present a saving. These savings to the public amount to an astounding $1.6 billion across the nation, enabling Australians to prioritise their health without breaking the bank. The savings to the Commonwealth of around $1.2 billion will be reinvested into community pharmacies, supporting them to enhance the range of services they provide, further benefiting communities, ensuring accessible healthcare services for all. We believe that health care is a fundamental right, and we're all determined to break down the barriers, strengthen outcomes and strengthen access. Small business is an area close to my heart. I've been running a small business almost my entire life, and I'm proud to be part of a government that sees the potential that small business can bring to our economy. They play a crucial role in driving growth, creating jobs and fostering innovation, and that's why we're so happy to support small business through this budget. We are committed to providing targeted and responsible support to small business, improving the overall business operating environment, whilst also alleviating pressures on energy prices, because we understand the challenges faced by small business. We're taking decisive action to empower them and enable their success. To stimulate investment and support small business across the country, the government is temporarily increasing the instant asset write-off threshold to $20,000. This will mean that 1.18 million small businesses with a turnover of up to $10 million will be able to instantly write off eligible assets that are first used or installed, ready for use, between 1 July 2023 and 30 June 2024. This measure will provide a much-needed boost to small businesses, allowing them to invest in essential equipment and infrastructure to drive growth and productivity. About 322,000 small businesses in New South Wales will receive an automatic $650 bill rebate from 1 July, alleviating the burden of energy prices and providing much-needed financial relief to small businesses. In addition to reducing energy costs, we are committed to supporting small and medium businesses in electrifying their operations. It will help improve energy efficiency, it will lower their power bills and, of course, it will reduce emissions. The Small Business Energy Incentive is a temporary, but, importantly, a bonus, 20 per cent tax deduction for eligible investments for small businesses. Businesses will be able to make meaningful savings on their power bills by investing in things like heat pumps, batteries and solar panels, spending up to $100,000 and getting that $20,000 bonus reduction as a maximum. This budget is not only supporting small businesses, it's not only responsible, but it's a budget with a heart and it's a budget that is providing support to those who need it most. That's why we're increasing working-age and student payments as well as Commonwealth rent assistance. We're increasing rates of JobSeeker payment, youth allowance, parenting payment, Austudy, Abstudy and youth disability support pension, and, a special benefit, these measures will all receive a fortnightly increase. This much-needed boost will provide individuals with the means to meet their basic needs and navigate the challenges of daily life more comfortably. In our commitment to fostering a more inclusive society, the Albanese government is dedicated to helping low-income households facing rising rental costs. The 15 per cent boost to maximum rates of Commonwealth rent assistance will support 5,925 households in Bennelong and a total of 1.1 million low-income households nationwide. The eligibility for the higher existing rate of JobSeeker will be extended to single Australians aged 55 to 59, ensuring that they receive the support they need for their job search as they transition into new opportunities. To tackle entrenched disadvantage, we'll partner with philanthropists and empower communities. This budget allocates nearly $200 million to this ambitious package, which will bring meaningful and significant reforms in addressing inequality and promoting social mobility. We will also deliver the biggest expansion to paid parental leave since its introduction in 2011, with a half-a-billion-dollar investment over four years and $619 million annually thereafter. We are progressively scaling up the scheme so parents will receive six months of paid parental leave by 2026. The budget that was handed down just a few weeks ago is testament to this government's commitment to building a fairer and stronger country and economy. It's a budget that focuses on the fundamental pillars of our society while showing economic restraint and responsibility. This budget is not just a financial document; it's a reflection of Labor values and aspirations, and a commitment to a better future. It's a budget that places the wellbeing of our people, the protection of our environment and the strength of our economy at the forefront. With these measures, we are forging a path towards a more inclusive, sustainable and prosperous Australia. 17:30 Mr FLETCHER L6B Bradfield I rise to speak on the appropriation bills. I want to particularly address the portfolio areas for which I hold shadow responsibility—the arts, science, the digital economy and government services. This is a budget which fails to meet the needs of Australians and Australia in macroeconomic terms, in failing to address the inflation challenge we face—indeed, on the contrary, making the inflation challenge worse. It also fails to meet the needs of the nation across individual portfolios, including those for which I have responsibility. I turn, firstly, to the Arts portfolio. Certainly all who believe that the Australian arts sector needs more Commonwealth arts officials and more Commonwealth bureaucrats will greet this budget with delight. But that's not something the coalition thinks is a wonderful idea. We believe a good principle when it comes to arts funding is getting as much of the money as possible to the front line, where shows are delivered, where audiences get to see performers. That principle is, sadly, very largely absent from this budget when it comes to arts funding. We welcome continued funding support for the national collecting institutions, but this very much continues the work of the previous coalition government. On top of business-as-usual funding, we delivered $22 million for the new gallery at Bundanon in 2019; $20 million to the National Gallery for lighting upgrades in 2020; and $28.6 million for capital works at the National Gallery in May 2021. At the National Library we delivered nearly $30 million for Trove between 2016 and 2023, and in 2021 we delivered $47 million for digitising and the preservation of works held across eight national collecting institutions. Similarly, the continuing support for attracting global screen productions, belatedly announced in this budget after Labor equivocated for quite some time, builds on the coalition's work. The Morrison government committed $540 million towards the location incentive program, which delivered an effective 30 per cent level of support to production budgets, matching globally competitive levels. This budget, predictably, saw the Albanese government congratulating itself on its support for the arts, with the word 'record' being thrown around a lot. Actually, the fact is that annual Commonwealth arts funding reached a record level of $1 billion in 2021-22, under a coalition government. Nothing announced in Labor's budget changes that fact. We also saw the provision of funding for the new Creative Australia. It is what used to be known as the Australia Council, which has been abolished and replaced by Creative Australia, although its board will be called the Australia Council board—crystal clear! What's also crystal clear is $199 million of funding over four years for more Commonwealth arts officials; we know that around Australia that is what people are crying out for! This funding has been redirected from a number of places, with the government having cancelled several programs funded under the previous coalition government—including the temporary support fund, which supported Australian made and scripted movies and television productions, and the balance of the location incentive program. Again, we see this fundamental approach—cut money going to frontline delivery of arts activity and shift money to add more bureaucrats in Canberra. Every dollar which goes to fund more bureaucrats is a dollar that cannot go to artists, performers and people in the arts sector who deliver actual arts activities. Let me turn to the Science portfolio, where, again, there has been a lamentable lack of focus from this government. There's not much new money for science in this budget. There's a fair bit of repackaging and rebadging. For example, the measure for enhanced support of small and medium-sized businesses and startups in Budget Paper No. 2 on page 163 predominantly repurposes and expands funding that was previously supporting small and medium enterprises through the entrepreneurs program. It's additionally offset by redirecting funding from within the Industry, Science and Resources portfolio. The measure for growing Australia's critical technologies industries in Budget Paper No. 2 on page 164 will be fully offset by redirecting funding from within the Industry, Science and Resources portfolio. We did see the release of the National Quantum Strategy, but there was no new funding associated with the announcement and no detail of how those words on the page will be translated into deliverable action. There was no new funding for artificial intelligence in this budget; instead there was roughly $20 million per year over five years to be funded by 'redirecting funding' from within the industry portfolio. It is perhaps no great surprise that the reaction from stakeholders has been less than overwhelming. The CEO of Sapia.ai, Barb Hyman, said: This is a massive missed opportunity from the Federal Government to surge ahead in what is fast becoming the race to not only pioneer but leverage new AI technologies. …   …   … … this innovation is time-sensitive. By the time it's a focus globally, it will be too late. In the space sector, we have also seen a troubling lack of commitment from the Albanese government. In the October 2022 budget, there was $181 million dollars over the four-year forward estimates under the program for growing Australia's space industry. In this budget, nearly $70 million of that has simply been cut. In Budget Paper No. 2, page 166, under the measure for refocusing support for the Australian space industry, there has been $34.4 million removed from 2022-23, $9 million removed from 2023-24 and $8 million removed from 2024-25, with the savings being partially redirected to fund other government priorities. There it is in black and white: space is not a priority for this government. A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 17 : 37 to 18 : 05 Mr FLETCHER L6B The Australian space association fears for the future of the Moon to Mars initiative. Tenders were expected to have been opened by now, but by the time of the budget there had been no movement on the National Space Mission for Earth Observation. The previous government, the coalition, allocated $1.2 billion from 2021-22, with $38.5 million per year ongoing for this project. That would have seen Australia design, build and operate four new satellites. We also invested $48.9 million in the 2018-19 and the 2021-22 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlooks over five years in the Australian Space Agency. By contrast, Labor has committed just $34.2 million over three years from 2023-24. This comes at a time when developing sovereign space capability and sovereign satellite capability is key not only to business opportunities but also to strengthening our national security at a time when space is increasingly highly contested. It seems that the Prime Minister is happy to turn up at a photo opportunity at the remarkable Australian company Gilmour Space Technologies, but when it comes to maintaining the previous coalition government's substantial long-term funding commitments to growing Australia's space industry, the Prime Minister is nowhere to be seen. In the digital economy sector, there is still no minister for the digital economy. The coalition government had such a minister. Leading nations around the world have such a minister. The United Kingdom, for example, has a Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy, and Singapore does too. The coalition has a shadow minister for the digital economy, but curiously, this Labor government refuses to have such a portfolio, and neither has it produced a digital economy strategy. On the contrary, we have seen funding being cut in this area. The previous coalition government allocated more than $620 million over seven years to support a digital identity system, and we had developed draft legislation, with an exposure draft of the Trusted Digital Identity Bill being released in October 2021. In our 2022 election commitments we said we would expand the digital identity system; the Australian Labor Party did not announce a policy position on this issue. Labor does not appear to be progressing this legislation—certainly nothing has happened to date—and it has greatly reduced funding in this area. There was a mere $26.9 million allocated in this budget for the 2023-24 year to 'sustain and develop the next stage of the digital ID program'. Under the previous coalition government some $60 million was invested in a Cyber Hubs program designed to deliver cybersecurity capability to Commonwealth entities. In the October budget, this government provided continued funding of $31.3 million. However, in the most recent budget, the decision has been taken to end the program. This budget allocates just $12.2 million to sustain cyber resilience of Commonwealth entities currently serviced by the Cyber Hubs pilot program. That means they're bringing this program to an end. At a time when the digital economy is of such critical importance, our advancement in the world and our national increase in productivity depend crucially on how we embrace technology and the digital economy. This government's lack of interest is a missed opportunity for Australia. I turn now to the government services sector. The fact is that this government's failure to address the cost-of-living crisis means that more Australians are reaching for support from government. If ever there was a time to invest sensibly in ensuring the seamless, simple and safe delivery of government services it would be now, but this current government seems determined to miss the opportunity. This budget reveals a lamentable lack of vision for government services, particularly for the data and digital systems that today make up the backbone of Services Australia. Under this budget, the minister has again failed to deliver a single new digital service delivery budget measure. The online government services portal, myGov, which connects Australians to Centrelink and Medicare, amongst other federal and state services, has received only a single year of funding under Labor's 2023-24 budget. Just think about that for a second, a single year's funding. Yet we have seen minister after minister, before this most recent budget, wheel out their standard talking points that it was somehow outrageous that the former coalition government had not locked in continued multiyear funding for every program in every portfolio across government. Apparently if you were to fund a program for only a year, that was a huge problem. And what is it that Labor have done with myGov? They've funded it for only a year. Disturbingly, there has been no additional investment made to continue the transformation of myGov. Rather, the government says that its money is simply to 'sustain' the platform. That's code for funding that's designed to do no more than keep the lights on. A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 18 : 11 to 18 : 37 Mr FLETCHER L6B This is code for funding that is designed to do no more than keep the lights on, rather than enhance or improve myGov in any meaningful way. Labor's funding decision falls far short of the initial $138 million the independent, expert-led myGov user audit recommended. That user audit, led by respected former Telstra CEO David Thodey, made this recommendation following the thorough review of the myGov platform which reported earlier this year. By contrast, the coalition when in government delivered sustainment funding alongside additional investments to upgrade the platform. In 2021-22 under our Digital Economy Strategy we delivered a $200.1 million myGov investment to deliver a simpler and more tailored experience for Australians. The coalition's investment in myGov was recently assessed by the user audit as being 'well crafted' and putting in place 'much-needed building blocks for a better myGov'. But the coalition didn't just stop with myGov. For example, we also invested over $1.5 billion on the Welfare Payment Infrastructure Transformation project, upgrading vital IT infrastructure that underpins the payment system. Unfortunately, upgrading myGov and other digital systems will be more difficult in the future because under Labor over 1,200 specialist IT jobs at Services Australia have been cut, as this Labor government dances to the tune of its union masters and in this case the Community and Public Sector Union. There were many good ideas raised in the recent myGov user audit—a standardised, open-source national digital and data design standard; a digital and data investment fund, modelled on the successful New South Wales government's Digital Restart Fund; and deeper cooperation with state, territory and local governments on key joint initiatives, such as the digital identity system. All of these were highlights of the recent myGov user audit. These recommendations, you would think, would be taken up by this government, but, sadly, there is nothing to be found in the budget papers demonstrating any commitment towards delivery of these important objectives. This is bad news for Australians who expect and deserve modern digital-led service delivery. I conclude with the observation that this budget has left middle Australia behind with broken promises on energy prices and putting more pressure on inflation. It has also left behind important opportunities in the arts, in science, in space, for the digital economy and in government services. This has been an underwhelming budget and Australians will suffer on many fronts as a result. 18:40 Ms CLAYDON 248181 Newcastle I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2023-2024 and Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2023-2024, both of which clearly map out this government's and, indeed, this nation's priorities for the coming financial years. After nearly a decade of waste and neglect, the Albanese Labor government is working hard to deliver that better future that Australians voted for on 21 May last year. This 2023-24 budget is responsible and practical and aimed very squarely at providing targeted relief to those most vulnerable Australians, whilst also easing pressure on families. In my electorate of Newcastle, there are many measures within the budget that will help Novocastrians who are under pressure while also building for that longer term future. Let me just step through some of those benefits that this budget will be bringing to the people of Newcastle. Firstly, you would be very hard pressed to find a family anywhere in Newcastle that hasn't used the GP Access After Hours service. For more than 20 years, the hardworking GPs of the Newcastle region have worked after hours to ensure that Novocastrians have access to high-quality, bulk-billed primary health care. This was until Christmas Eve in 2021, when cuts to health care by the former Liberal government forced the after-hours service at the Calvary Mater hospital to close its doors permanently. Operating hours of the clinics at the John Hunter Hospital, the Maitland Hospital, the Belmont Hospital and the Toronto Polyclinic were also significantly reduced. This was a devastating blow to our community. It was met with outrage, which quickly turned into action as more than 11,000 people in my electorate mobilised to sign a petition and to have those after-hours services restored. I made a commitment to the people of Newcastle then that, if we were to win government, a Labor Albanese government would restore the GP Access After Hours service at the Calvary Mater and, indeed, reinstate the full operating hours at the four remaining clinics. Thanks to a record $28.7 million over six years from the Albanese Labor government, and the hard work of the local health practitioners, that promise is now coming to fruition. Indeed, $5.5 million from the government has ensured the after-hours clinic at the Calvary Mater hospital opened its doors on Monday this week. This news has been warmly welcomed by my community, with a number of people emailing me, phoning my office, and sending me notes and messages expressing their gratitude that this vital primary healthcare service has been reopened. And when fully operational across the five clinics, the after-hours service will deliver 55,000 appointments per year. The call centre is taking between 70,000 and 80,000 calls every year, and this means fewer presentations to emergency departments and less pressure on our hospital system. It's a great outcome for patients, it's a great outcome for GPs, who get to share the burden of that after-hours work, and it's a great outcome for our community as a whole. Let me go now to the matter of bulk-billing. The Albanese Labor government is ensuring that the quality of health care depends on your Medicare card, not your credit card. I've just talked about the GP Access After Hours service. For many people they are now the only bulk-billing service in Newcastle. We are delivering in this budget the largest investment in the history of Medicare. We are tripling the bulk-billing incentives, which will see immediate benefits for more than 11 million Australians. In my electorate this measure benefits 70,982 Novocastrians, particularly pensioners, concession card holders and children under 16. Furthermore, the government is making hundreds of common medicines cheaper by allowing Australians to buy two months worth of medicines at the price of a single prescription. From 1 September, general patients will be able to save up to $180 a year, if their medicine is able to be prescribed for 60 days, and concession card holders will save up to $43.80 a year per medicine. Once fully implemented, the 60-day prescribing policy will provide doctors with the option to prescribe a two-month supply of more than 320 medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to Australians who have stable but ongoing health conditions. The current dispensing limit is for one month's supply only. Hundreds of medicines for conditions like heart disease, cholesterol, arthritis, Crohn's disease and hypertension will be so much cheaper. The change will benefit more than 40,000 Novocastrians, and it will bring Australia into line with New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France and Canada, where patients already have access to multiple-month medications on a single prescription. Labor's investment in primary health care has received resounding support from the local primary health network and GPs in my region. Richard Nankervis, Chief Executive Officer of the Hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network, said: The Labor Government's substantial investment into primary care is a win for people residing in the Hunter, New England and Central Coast regions. He said: I thank the Government for recognising the significant challenges being faced in primary care and providing the necessary funding to ensure that we can begin addressing these concerns. When it comes to aged-care workers, this budget delivers the single largest increase to aged-care pay in history. It is a record $11.3 billion going into the pay packets of aged-care workers. This is a historic 15 per cent pay increase to the minimum wage for aged-care workers, and it's going to support that incredible workforce in Newcastle, who worked tirelessly keeping older Novocastrians safe during COVID but are also now ensuring that people in aged care are provided with the dignity they so richly deserve in the latter part of their life. This is something that will help enormously with reducing the gender pay gap, because we know it is predominantly women who occupy those low-paid aged-care jobs. Let's look at the single-parent payment. The Albanese government is committed to helping single parents balance their work and family responsibilities. The federal budget will expand access to financial support by raising the age cut off for parenting payment single of the youngest child from eight years to 14 years. Many single parents, overwhelmingly women, face difficulty balancing caring responsibilities and work, and these difficulties do not end when the child turns eight. We also know that many single mothers have experienced violence from a previous partner and are at greater risk of financial hardship. They need and deserve our support. From 20 September this year, subject to the passage of legislation, single parents will no longer have to transfer to JobSeeker, the lower pay rate, when their youngest child turns eight. These parents will continue to receive the higher level of support with the current base rate of $922.10 per fortnight until their youngest child turns 14. For my community, that means 1,290 single parents in Newcastle will no longer have to transfer to the JobSeeker payment when their child turns eight, and will now continue to receive that high level of payment until their youngest child turns 14. That puts an extra $176.90 in your pocket every fortnight. The Albanese Labor government also believes very much in a strong social safety net—a strong safety net in which people can transition into work. We want to make sure that people can access income support when they need it, and that's why we've increased the base rate for JobSeeker by $40 a fortnight along with allowing people who are aged 55 and over a higher rate of JobSeeker. From September there will be 7,665 Novocastrians who will receive a $40 increase in their fortnightly payment, and 480 jobseekers aged 55 to 59 who will have their payments increased by $92.10 per fortnight. Also in this budget, we're delivering the largest increase in rent assistance for more than 30 years. The budget includes $2.7 billion to increase the maximum rates of Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent. There will be 6,300 renters in Newcastle who will benefit from that 15 per cent boost to their income support. The Albanese Labor government recognises the importance of supporting young people in our community, and we are proud to announce that we will be providing $600,000 to headspace in Newcastle. This funding will enable our Newcastle headspace to continue their youth suicide, self-harm and waitlist management strategy, which has already proven to be an invaluable resource for young people. Through this initiative, we aim to further improve the ability of headspace to provide the care and support that our young people need, allowing them to receive the help they deserve. Access to quality, affordable child care and early education is great for kids, great for parents and great for our economy, and that's why the Albanese Labor government has a cheaper-childcare policy. We will be delivering relief to 7,300 families in Newcastle who will end up being better off under our cheaper-childcare policy. For a family with a combined income of $80,000 or less, the childcare subsidy rates will lift to 90 per cent. The number of hours of subsidised care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children will also rise to a minimum of 36 hours per fortnight from July, benefiting around 6,600 families and encouraging more to use care. The Albanese Labor government is also getting the NDIS back on track, improving outcomes and ensuring every dollar goes to benefit participants. The budget delivers $910 million over four years, with $73.4 million earmarked to better support participants to manage their plan within the budget so that they can access the support in a flexible way to better achieve their goals. This will help around 5,133 NDIS participants in Newcastle. We are also simplifying Australia's superannuation system by requiring employers to pay super on pay day, which will mean 17,900 Novocastrians will be, on average, $2,000 better off at retirement. This is great news. When we go to the NBN, we've got more than 39,000 premises in Newcastle who will now have access to higher internet speeds under the Albanese Labor government's $2.4 billion investment in the National Broadband Network. Households and businesses in Wallsend, Stockton, Shortland, North Lambton, New Lambton, Merewether, Maryland, Lambton, Kotara, Islington, Hamilton, Glendale, Elermore Vale, Cooks Hill, Cardiff, Broadmeadow, Adamstown Heights and Adamstown will be able to upgrade to a full fibre broadband connection as part of our better plan for the NBN. There's $328.1 million to support more than 340,000 veterans and dependants, including 4,792 veterans in Newcastle. And of course, there's electricity bill relief. Newcastle households will be eligible for a rebate of up to $500 and small business for rebates up to $650. We know that people need energy price relief, and this will help enormously. Australians are doing it tough at the moment. The number of calls and emails to my office raising concerns about access to bulk-billing, Medicare and the cost of living proves this. I want to reassure the people of Newcastle that the Albanese-Labor government has listened and we are now delivering. 18:55 Ms SPENDER 286042 Wentworth I rise today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2023-2024 and to reflect on this government's first full-year budget. The budget had strengths. It put real resources into dealing with the challenges Australia is facing today and for which there is strong community support for change, and this is a credit to the government. This was true in the health portfolio. One of the issues my community of Wentworth have raised with me is access to bulk-billing appointments with local GPs about prices rising and clinics closing. So I was pleased to see the government triple the bulk-billing incentives for GPs. I think that's absolutely critical. This will go a long way to ensuring that there are more bulk-billed appointments available and that we don't lose more GPs from our area. The aged-care changes are important too. The pay rise for aged-care workers will firm up the workforce and provide more and better care for older Australians, which is a really important issue and of concern to my community. I was particularly pleased to see that the budget included significant funding for households that are managing the energy price shocks of recent years. I have been calling for more support for household electrification since I was elected, and I was so pleased that the government decided to heed those calls. Providing $1 billion in low-interest loans for solar panels, electric hot water systems and energy efficiency will have a real impact on our emissions. Importantly, it will have a real impact on household power bills and inflation. I hope this turns out to be a cornerstone investment in electrification, one that is built on in future budgets and by future governments. The budget also featured a commitment to fiscal management by insuring a significant portion of surplus was put towards budget repair. All this was welcome, and I acknowledge the hard work of the Treasurer and finance minister in making it happen. But this budget was also not without disappointment. So much of the budget was about dealing with the challenges facing us today, rather than intergenerational issues that we face today and will face in the years to come. These include housing, tax, productivity and climate and environment. These are issues we are failing to address or are not addressing significantly enough. These are issues that produce and perpetuate inequality and unfairness from one generation to the next. These are issues that we all ought to be working on to resolve once and for all. I am sure there's not an issue that causes Australians more worry than housing affordability right now. People worry whether they'll be able to afford a home, particularly one close to their families, their communities and their work. The median Sydney home now costs more than 13 years of household income. It is the second most expensive housing market in the world. That is not a list we want to be at the top of, the second most expensive housing market in the world. With dwelling approvals falling to their lowest level in a decade, housing will become even less affordable. There are lots of changes that could make a difference, but the problem is ultimately one of supply. We can ration our housing stock by other means than price, but we cannot overcome a shortage without a supply. If the government has a target of one million new homes in the next five years, this sounds impressive but it's only 20,000 more homes than we built in the last five years. We need to be more ambitious if we are going to ensure that the next generation is able to access affordable housing. If Australia had as many homes per person as the OECD average, we would have an additional 1.5 million homes right now. If we factor in population growth, we would be aiming to deliver two million homes by 2030. This is a big target. I'm not saying this has to be the target, but we need greater ambition. Greater ambition will require effort from every level of government. It will require the industry to grow, to innovate and to invest. I believe it is achievable, and, more than achievable, it is necessary. The budget didn't have enough in terms of driving housing supply. There could have been an opportunity for the government to use their significant budget heft to incentivise zoning in states and local governments in building more supply. That is what I hope to see in future budgets. I think that was the missed opportunity in this budget. We need to solve the problem of housing affordability before we lock an entire generation out of the housing market. The second thing that I think was missing from the budget was significant tax reform. There are long-term challenges with our tax system. It is unfair, unstable, uncertain and doesn't drive business investment and innovation. More of our tax burden is falling on skilled workers, and this will rise in the coming years as more of our population age out of the workforce and become consumers of government services rather than funders of them. Forty years ago there were 6.5 workers per older Australian, today there are four and in 40 years time there will be 2.5. Without reform, the burden on workers will rise substantially. We must act today to rebalance our tax system to provide fairness, certainty and sustainability. Sadly, I wasn't expecting major tax reform in the budget, but I hoped preparatory work would get underway. The fact that it wasn't included tells us that we won't get tax reform this year, the next year or probably during this parliament. Like housing supply, tax reform is a problem that is being kicked down the road. This means it has to be solved by a later parliament or a later government. But the longer you put it off the harder it gets to deal with. Tax reform isn't easier today than it was when Ken Henry wrapped up the last major tax review. It won't suddenly become an easy problem to solve. We may as well get on and do the work. The third thing that was missing from the budget was a strong enough productivity agenda. Productivity has been languishing in Australia for many years, and we see the consequences of it in stagnant wage and economic growth. There are no silver bullets to restore productivity growth, but that doesn't mean there are no answers. The government has made some positive steps, such as skilled migration and their focus on skills and apprenticeships. I applaud the government for those actions, but it's not enough to raise productivity to where it needs to be. One thing the government should do is respond to the Productivity Commission's five-year review published in March. They won't do everything the Productivity Commission has recommended, but they could tell us what's in, what's out and their reasons for it and lay out a productivity reform agenda. There's no reason why the government can't do this, other than a lack of desire to do so, so it is disappointing to see the government not take this up. Productivity growth sounds dry, but it is what leads us to better opportunities and more prosperous lives. Productivity growth raises incomes and lowers prices. It improves lives, which is exactly what parliament should be focused on. Finally, I'd like to talk about climate and the environment. There were positive aspects in climate action in this budget. I applaud the government for starting key action on climate change. It is absolutely a critical issue that Australia is facing. As I said earlier, I support the work that the government has done on household electrification, a key area for us. But the budget was significantly lacking in terms of ambition on the environment in particular. I think that where the community was really expecting investment we were really sorely disappointed. At the same time, the government could have gone much further on issues such as household electrification to further drive our climate action as well as ensuring that we are providing the right investment environment for the clean energy revolution that we absolutely need. We need to raise our ambition in terms of climate action. While the budget was relatively positive on climate, it was not pushing us further than 43 per cent by 2030, and certainly the science shows that we need to go further, and certainly the economy shows that we need to go further, too. To sum up: I welcome most of the changes announced by the government in this year's budget, but I was disappointed that there wasn't enough progress on solving some of those significant challenges facing Australia, particularly on the difference that this budget will make to future generations. The future generations, the ones that come after us, don't necessarily vote. They're still finding their political strength—even the ones who can vote now. But it is our job in parliament not just to look after the current generation but to look after the future generations. On housing, on tax, on productivity and on climate and the environment, this budget was not ambitious enough. We need to go further. These challenges will continue to be with us, parliament after parliament, unless we face them head-on and truly address them and have greater ambition in terms of what we are going to achieve. I think it is time for concerted government action, and I hope we see the start of that action before the year is out. 19:05 Mr REPACHOLI 298840 Hunter I rise today to contribute to the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2023-2024, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2023-2024 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2023-2024. Budget week is just past, and what a great budget it was for those in my electorate in the Hunter Valley. We are delivering serious reforms and delivering real relief to those who need it. We know that people are doing it tough, but make no mistake: this budget will make a real impact for the better for real people. We are a government that cares about people, and I am proud of the investment in this budget for workers and the protection of workers' entitlements. Coming into this place, I did not have the same background as a typical politician. I was a blue-collar worker, a miner. My whole life I've been a blue-collar worker, just like many members of my family and many of my mates. I am very proud to represent an electorate full of workers who all do their bit to keep our country running and, more importantly, to put food on the table for their families. So it's fair to say that my priorities and my motivations in this place have the protection of workers at the very core, and that's exactly what this government is doing in this budget: protecting workers by protecting their entitlements. We have already passed some incredible legislation which will help workers all around Australia, including in my electorate in the Hunter. We made sure the first thing we did when we came to this place, a year ago now, was to fight for an increase to the wages of the workers and to fix our paid parental leave system to bring it in line with what will work for parents in 2023. Having a child is one of the most amazing times of someone's life, but it can also come with added pressures. Families in the Hunter and around Australia deserve to have the financial support that they need in place so they can focus on what's important: providing the best possible start in life to the newest member of their family. We are continuing the work that we have already well and truly started, making sure that, after 10 years, workers in this country finally have a government that works for them and fights for their rights at work and for their lives as a whole to be better. Strong working conditions are vital for a strong economy. Among the workers that we need to protect are the migrant workers. We know that migrant workers are important for our economy. We saw the toll on the economy when we had limited migrant workers due to the pandemic. These workers deserve the same rights and conditions as any other worker in the economy, and we are delivering reforms that will mean that temporary migrant workers' status as employees or workers who are under the Fair Work Act and are entitled to its protections remains valid, even if they are working in breach of the Migration Act framework. As I mentioned earlier, this government has done amazing work in reforming and modernising the paid parental leave system, but we also need to address unpaid parental leave. These changes will allow families greater choice and flexibility to share the work and caring responsibilities in the first 24 months after their child's birth or placement for adoption. As a father of two girls and a husband to my beautiful wife, Alex, I know how important this is, and I know much-increased flexibility will help parents. We have been creating flexibility for parents in two ways. Firstly, we have increased the portion of unpaid parental leave that can be taken flexibly to 20 weeks, bringing this in line with the changes we made through our reforms to the Paid Parental Leave scheme. Secondly, we have removed restrictions which currently make it hard for families to access unpaid parental leave. That means parents will not be limited in how much unpaid leave they can take at the same time, and, if they request an extension of their leave, it won't be reduced by the amount of leave their other partner has taken. I know how those opposite think that businesses are more important than families and that businesses should be prioritised over workers, but let me tell you that not only are these changes good for families; they are good for business. Flexibility means that experienced employees can gradually recommence work sooner. It also means employers only need to fill partial vacancies instead of full ones. Superannuation is a proud legacy of the Labor Party. It would only be a Labor Party who introduced it, and it will only be a Labor Party who protects it. We are hoping to provide a new entitlement to superannuation contributions in the National Employment Standards. This will introduce a requirement for employers to make contribution to a superannuation fund for the benefit of an employee, which is what superannuation should always be for—benefiting those who work hard to make their money and supporting them when they hit their well-earned retirement. This budget continues to deliver for workers. We have also announced steps to address employee authorised deductions. We have introduced measures that will allow employees to authorise their employers to make ongoing deductions from their pay for amounts that vary from time to time without requiring a written authorisation for each change. These variable deductions will only be allowed where they are for the employee's benefit. If there are any direct or indirect benefits to an employer arising from the arrangements, variable deductions will not be permitted. Another key issue we are addressing in protecting workers entitlements in this budget is the action of underpayment of wages, which is unfortunately a widespread problem in Australia, with many workers being paid less than the minimum wage or having their entitlements withheld. Our reforms will provide greater protection for workers and ensure that they are able to claim their entitlements. I've heard plenty of stories from apprentices, boilermakers, fitters, childcare workers and hospitality workers who have had wages and entitlements withheld. I'm really pleased that we're addressing these very substandard practices. We have expanded the definition of an entitlement to include not only wages but also other employee benefits, such as superannuation, redundancy pay and annual leave. We will ensure workers are protected and have a legal right to claim these entitlements and that they cannot be denied. I have stood in this place many times now to speak of how proud I am to represent an electorate home to many of the largest coalmining workforces in this country. When I first stood in parliament, I committed myself to fighting for the miners in my electorate, and I am very happy to say that this government is continuing to deliver for miners in the Hunter electorate. One key element of this is protecting long service leave for those in the coalmining industry. Coalminers work hard hours in tough conditions. They deserve their long service leave. I know this as well as anyone, because I was one. But unfortunately, at the moment, there is a plague in the coalmining industry which is leaving some miners without the benefits of long service leave just because they're casual workers. They work just as long and just as hard as their mates who are alongside them as permanent workers do, but, because their employment is labelled as 'casual', they don't get the benefits of long service leave, while those whose employment is labelled as 'permanent' do. This is a disgrace, and it must end. We have also made reforms to the coalmining long service leave scheme. This will help to ensure that casual employees working in the coalmining industry are treated no less favourably than permanent employees in the accrual, reporting and payment of their long service leave entitlements within the scheme. We have created a fairer way of calculating long service leave entitlements for casual employees, making sure that employees' accrual of their entitlements is not disadvantaged by roster cycles, which has been an ongoing issue in the industry. We're also making it very clear that the levy imposed on casual employees' wages within the scheme and the payment of their long service leave entitlements are included in casual loading. This will give certainty to employers and ensure that casual employees continue to receive their usual take-home pay when accessing their entitlements. Every coalminer should receive the long service leave that they deserve. There should be no miner paid less at the end of the week because they received the long service leave they should have always been receiving. This government stood up for those in the mining industry when we committed to implementing recommendation 4 in Enhancing certainty and fairness: Independent review of the Coalmining Industry (Long Service Leave Funding) Scheme, which was published in February 2022. I had the honour of welcoming the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, the member for Watson, to my electorate recently. On that visit, we visited my old workplace, Mount Thorley Warkworth, and spoke to coalminers there. Every miner we spoke to was excited to hear about our plans and changes to benefit workers. Thank you, Minister, for your visit. It was really appreciated. I hope you enjoyed the mighty Hunter and the burger we got to sneak in as well. To the miners in my electorate: I would like to remind you once again that I have your back and the Labor government has your back. We always have, and we always will. I'm excited that the same job, same pay legislation is very close to being introduced into parliament. This will ensure that workers not just in the mining sector but across many industries are paid the same. We need jobs that are well paid and secure and aren't dominated by dodgy labour-hire arrangements. Put simply, whenever you're at work, if you're doing the same job as the person next to you, you should be paid the same. It's simple—same job, same pay. Mining is one of the few industries where casuals are paid less than permanent workers. We will close the loopholes that allow this and ensure workers are paid appropriately. This budget also provides a much-needed pay rise for the group of workers who deserve it the most—aged-care workers. Aged-care workers are the best among us, and their patient, loving care for some of the most vulnerable Australians is nothing short of incredible. However, their work has been made more difficult owing to the sector's insufficient funding and the inadequate pay rates across the sector. For too long, those working in aged care have been asked to work harder or longer without adequate awards, but this budget changes that. It allocates $11.3 billion to fund the Fair Work Commission's interim decision for a 15 per cent increase to the minimum wage for many aged-care workers. This will benefit award aged-care workers in the Hunter electorate, who will earn between $129.20 and $341.24 more per week, if they are working more than 38 hours a week. It represents fairer pay for their hard and important work and creates more opportunities for those working in our care economy. How good is it to have a government that cares about Australia, a government that cares about Australians and our future? Australia is the best country in the world, but the pandemic was a wake-up call. It showed us and the world that we aren't perfect. It showed us that our supply chains are vulnerable. It also showed us that when push comes to shove we can pull through. But we need to make sure that we are more self-sufficient more consistently. Along with the Buy Australia Plan and the Future Made in Australia Office, the National Reconstruction Fund is a part of this government's plan for Australia to be a strong and self-sufficient nation, and this fund will help our country to have a renewed basis to sell to the world. The National Reconstruction Fund is about bringing Australia back to our glory days. I remember the days when Australia used to make things and make things that were of high quality. Our $15 billion fund will bring back Australian industry, and it will mean that we are a country that makes things again, and I can't wait to see what opportunities this will bring for the Hunter. There is so much in this budget that I could speak about. We are supporting everyday people and businesses right across Australia, across the Hunter electorate and everywhere else we can talk about. Our budget is taking the pressure off families. It is making it easier to see a bulk-billing doctor. It is providing a much-needed pay rise for those who deserve it most. Most importantly, it is a responsible budget that understands how tough it is right now for people. That's why we are ensuring we are delivering a better future for everyone in this country. 19:20 Mr COULTON HWN Parkes I rise tonight to speak on the appropriation bills. I'm not sure if this is the 15th or 16th appropriation speech that I have made in this place. I always like to start on a positive, so I commend the government on the bulk-billing increase for GPs. I think that was a positive thing to do. That's the positive bit out of the way. I've heard other contributors in their speeches on these appropriation bills talk about the changes to the distribution priority areas. Members who live in periurban and areas close to capital cities were saying how good it is now that they have doctors because of the change to the distribution priority areas. Well, good on them—except I know where they came from. They came from regional Australia. I know that the week that that policy was announced Western Health lost six doctors out of towns in western New South Wales. The issue we confront is a lack of understanding around regional Australia. We hear a lot about support for the Voice and our Aboriginal brothers and sisters, but at the same time we have policies that are taking away the services in those towns. It is good news that there is more money for parents with kids in child care—and it is good luck if you have a place—but in Mungindi there's no facility and no ability to get funds to build a facility so that the younger families that have moved back to make their life in the rural town of Mungindi actually have somewhere to send their kids. One thing the pandemic has shown us is that you can work remotely. We're seeing in particularly some of the farm families one partner, or both of them, running a business from the farm and working remotely, but they have to have somewhere that looks after the kids. While the extra money for parents for child care looks goods on the surface, if you haven't got a place to put that child that's a problem. I have a staff member in Broken Hill who wants to come back from maternity leave but can't find a place for her child to go, so that's an issue. One of the concerns I have with the budget is that, because the minister has called for a review of major infrastructure projects, they have largely been pulled out of the picture, so it's very hard to get a clear picture of what's happening with infrastructure projects. With programs like Roads to Recovery, Roads of Strategic Importance, and Local Roads and Community Infrastructure—all these programs that are building roads to help the productivity of this nation—there is now a degree of uncertainty. Roads of Strategic Importance has been a great program. The road that connects Coonamble and Tooraweenah provides access for people and produce. Produce can go to markets in the Hunter. Tourists can go through Warrumbungle and Coonamble up to Lightning Ridge and into Queensland without having to travel on a dangerous dirt road. The Roads of Strategic Importance is terrific for that. The County Boundary Road up near Croppa Creek connects high-producing grain farms. A safe all-weather road for high mass vehicles will increase productivity. One of the things that concern me most in infrastructure is Inland Rail. Most of the funding for Inland Rail is off budget, okay, but some associated things were in the budget. A great example of that is the money that was there for grade separations. So where the railway line's coming through, a grade separation provides a safe interface between busy roads and the rail. Generally, you would have an overpass—sometimes it's rail over road, but it's mostly road over rail. Now that funding has been pushed off budget, has been pushed forward into future years. Has that been pushed forward onto the never-never because the project is in jeopardy? There is a lack of understanding of what this project is. Basically, the Inland Rail is to provide an efficient connection between Melbourne and Brisbane for intermodal freight. A B-double goes up the Newell Highway, through Dubbo, every 70 seconds at the moment. That's increasing exponentially year on year on year, and it's not sustainable. The Inland Rail would take a lot of that freight off the highway. For those who are concerned about reducing our emissions, one train takes 150 trucks off the road. This reduces carbon emissions by millions of tonnes a year. And that's just the basic part of it. As well as that, grain producers, cotton producers et cetera along the way will have a more efficient and cheaper access to ports. More importantly, it will be a catalyst for other industries to grow. While the uncertainty is there, you have to understand it's not just the rail project. In Moree we've got the special activation precinct where the New South Wales government has already put $300 million into the project. Local businesses are planning how to take advantage of that. Horticulture is looking to come and take advantage. Once again, with an Indigenous population of about 22 per cent, Moree getting permanent, well-paid jobs in those areas is empowering people, is giving them a future. When a family has a job, a lot of the other issues that they deal with fall away. A lot of the social issues fall away. This is the double standard we see when on the one hand we withdraw projects that employ local Aboriginal people while on the other hand we're espousing virtue of care. If you go right down the rail line, there's the inland port at Narrabri with the potential to be connected to gas from the Pilliga gas field—the possibilities for what can be manufactured are endless. Our cities are now choked up and there's difficulty getting large-mass vehicles into those industrial areas of the city, and there is competition between industrial land and residential areas. It makes perfect sense to move a lot of that industry out into regional areas, grow those communities with the efficient connection of rail not only to the port, but to every capital city in Australia. The Inland Rail, for the first time in the history of this country, would have every capital city connected by a standard gauge railway. So to have the minister talk about this as a National Party 'vanity project', to talk about it as 'pork-barrelling'—this is the greatest piece of nation-building infrastructure we've seen in this country for the last 100 years. This is like the Harbour Bridge for regional Australia, and it has been treated as a political pawn. What do you say to the younger person who's gone to the finance company, bought a truck and a couple of side tipping trailers to go on behind because they believed there was a project that was going to go on for the next four or five years? They were told that. They were told that by me, as a matter of fact, so you can imagine where we sit on that. What are they going to tell their finance company? They'll say, 'Well, the project's under a cloud at the moment. We're parked up. We thought we were going to go from one to the other to the other, and now we're parked up. What do we do?' What about the 40 or 50 Aboriginal people in Moree who had their first job for a long time who are now back on Newstart? What are you going to tell them? They thought that they had a career building railway lines that was going to last for some time. It is now under a cloud. I'm certainly hoping that it will continue. I am saying to Minister King: please come out with some positive messaging about this project. If she's going to knock it on the head, do it today, because the uncertainty is causing an enormous amount of grief in my part of the world. We've got to look at regional Australia as servicing. We need to service the area that's actually carrying this country economically. We came through the pandemic because of our exports in minerals, gas and agricultural produce. All those things come from the Parkes electorate, as do the raw materials that are being developed for the cleaner, newer economy. Cobalt, lithium, rare earths—all of those things are there, but they need the infrastructure to actually be developed. Regional Australia isn't a place to be pitied. It's not a place to be ignored. It's not a place to be derided. It's the future of this country. It's the powerhouse that pays the bills. And this budget has, quite frankly, ignored regional Australia. We've had the pharmacists in today, and the Prime Minister clearly had been speaking to them at his own pharmacy. The pharmacists in Rozelle are probably not at risk compared to the pharmacists at Bourke, Warialda or Brewarrina. In many cases, because of the transient nature of the doctors coming through, the pharmacist is the constant. The pharmacist at Bourke was telling me that some of the Aboriginal folk out there would come to him and ask them what their script meant, because the pharmacist was the person that had been there all the time and they could trust them and have that relationship with them. Forget the politicking. I know the campaign has upset members of the government, but we can't afford to lose our pharmacists. I heard the previous member talk about aged care. I think the money going to paying aged-care workers is a good thing. I think they deserve it. They are unsung heroes, and I have got the greatest respect. But, once again, you've got to think things through. Saying you are going to have a registered nurse 24/7 when there is no-one there to do that on 1 July—we've got aged-care facilities in my electorate that are terrified they will be noncompliant, and they don't know what that will mean. They haven't been told what it means if they can't get an exemption. Some of the smaller towns can get an exemption, but I know it's a real concern to Southern Cross Care out at Broken Hill, because they are really struggling to get that certainty of having staff there. I am happy to work with the government. Minister King has asked me to go on a bipartisan committee to help with regional funding, and I will do that. I think it's important that we try and work together as best we can. But I've got to say I can't hide my disappointment in the way that regional Australia has been treated by this budget. Debate adjourned. F ederation Chamber adjourned at 19 : 34