2023-09-14 2 1 0 House of Reps 0 1

Thursday, 14 September 2023

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

 

BILLS 1 BILLS Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2023 1

Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2023

First Reading 1 Second Reading 1 09:01 Mr MARLES HWQ Corio I move: That this bill be now read a second time. I am pleased to present the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2023. Late last year, the Albanese government directed Defence to examine the adequacy of the policies and procedures for preventing former defence personnel from transferring sensitive defence information to foreign militaries with interests inimical to Australia's. The examination recommended strengthening Australia's already robust legislation. This bill is in response to that recommendation. This bill also reflects Australia's commitment to enhance our security standards to safeguard sensitive technology and information, particularly as we embark on work through our AUKUS partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom. Elements of this bill are modelled on similar provisions that exist in United States domestic law. While this bill does not represent the entirety of our legislative ambition in this respect, it is an important step towards establishing more seamless technological transfers with our AUKUS partners. Australia already has a range of robust legislative measures and policies in place to deter and respond to the risk of foreign collection of our defence secrets. The Criminal Code, for instance, contains general secrecy offences that apply to current and former Commonwealth officers, including ADF personnel, who harm the national interest by disclosing information entrusted with them. The code specifically prohibits the provision of military-style training involving a foreign government principal. This bill extends Australia's already robust legislation and policies further. This bill adopts a proactive approach by establishing an authorisation framework to regulate the performance of work and specified training to a foreign military, foreign government or foreign government entity. The bill requires certain former defence staff members to obtain authorisation if they intend to perform work for a particular foreign military, foreign government or foreign government entity. A former defence staff member includes former members of the Australian Defence Force, former Australian public servants of the Department of Defence and the Australian Submarine Agency, and former members of the reserves who rendered continuous full-time service. The bill also requires any Australian citizen or permanent resident to obtain authorisation if they intend to provide training in relation to certain export controlled items or military tactics, techniques or procedures, to a foreign military, foreign government or foreign government entity. The penalty for performing work for or specified training with a relevant foreign country without authorisation is 20 years imprisonment. An individual will not commit an offence if they have been granted an authorisation for the work or training. There are also other exceptions to the offences created by this bill. They include if an individual's work or training is in relation to providing aid of a humanitarian nature or if the individual performs an official duty for the United Nations, an agency of the United Nations or for the International Committee of the Red Cross. An exemption also covers work or training in the course of an individual's employment or engagement by the Commonwealth. This bill will enable the Minister for Defence to determine, by legislative instrument, which countries are not to be regarded as relevant foreign countries under this framework. This means that if an individual intends to work or provide training to a foreign country listed on the instrument, the individual would not be required to apply for an authorisation. This bill will also enable the Minister for Defence to determine, by legislative instrument, a class of former defence staff members who are not required to apply for an authorisation. The class may be determined by the type of work previously performed by the defence staff member and the period of time that has elapsed since the performance of that work. This authorisation framework is not intended to prevent Australians from working overseas or with all foreign governments or militaries. Rather, our legislative intent is to prevent individuals with knowledge of sensitive defence information from training or working for certain foreign militaries or governments where that activity would put Australia's national security at risk. This bill will ensure individuals in possession of sensitive defence information who want to undertake these activities first seek authorisation to do so. This is to ensure their activities are not damaging Australia's national interests. This bill will enable the Minister for Defence, or their delegate, to consider each request for authorisation on a case-by-case basis. Authorisations may be granted subject to conditions and may be cancelled, suspended or varied in certain circumstances. An authorisation will be refused if the minister, or their delegate, reasonably believes that the performance of the work or training by the individual would prejudice the security, defence or international relations of Australia. The bill provides individuals the ability to seek internal or external merits review of certain decisions made under this authorisation framework. The measures in this bill are serious and, in some aspects, complex. To this end, I intend to refer the bill to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security for inquiry and report. The government looks forward to a thorough inquiry into this bill by the committee, including any recommendations on whether sensible amendments can be made to ensure the bill is fit for purpose. I encourage all interested stakeholders to participate in the important work of the committee, and the parliament, in scrutinising—and potentially improving—this bill. The importance of protecting our nation's secrets and sensitive information cannot be overstated. The protection of our nation's secrets and sensitive information is central to preserving Australia's national security and to keeping Australians safe. I commend the bill to the House. Debate adjourned. BILLS 2 BILLS Disability Services and Inclusion Bill 2023 2

Disability Services and Inclusion Bill 2023

First Reading 2 Second Reading 2 09:10 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston I move: That this bill be now read a second time. Today I am introducing the Disability Services and Inclusion Bill 2023,and immediately after this I will also introduce the Disability Services and Inclusion (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023. This bill, along with the consequential and transitional bill, will help deliver on the Albanese Labor government's commitment to enable people with disability to fully participate in our community and exercise agency over their lives. This gives me a good opportunity to remind the parliament that supports and services for people with disability go beyond the NDIS—extending to the 4.4 million Australians with disability in Australia. Many of these services complement those provided under the NDIS and others are standalone as the only services people with disability receive. Disability supports and services have changed significantly since 1986. The Disability Services Act, now more than three decades old, is outdated and too restrictive to accommodate the changing landscape of disability policy. This includes a shift towards creating a more inclusive society and the nature of services and supports required to complement the NDIS. The Disability Services Act predates many of the important milestones in the evolution of arrangements that support people with disability in Australia. This includes: Australia's adoption of the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2008, followed by Optional Protocol to the CRPD in 2009 The introduction of the National Disability Strategy 2010-2020, which was followed by the development and implementation of Australia's Disability Strategy 2021-2031 (ADS), providing a national framework and commitment from leadership towards greater inclusion of people with disability across all areas of public policy, and The establishment of the NDIS in 2013 through the NDIS Act 2013, which currently supports over 610,000 people with disability. These evolutions have also seen the Australian government move from solely providing direct block funded service provision to embracing other models, including person centred market models of service delivery and support, both within and outside the NDIS. In response to this changed landscape and taking into account comprehensive feedback from people with disability and the disability sector, the bill and the consequential amendments and transitional provisions bill establish a contemporary, inclusive framework to fund Commonwealth programs targeted for the benefit of people with disability, their families and carers—because this protection, safeguarding and inclusion should apply outside, not just within the NDIS. The bill has been designed and drafted in consultation with the disability community. It supports the inclusion of people with disability by broadening the supports and services that can be funded under the bill and seeks to avoid placing unnecessary restrictions on who can receive supports and services. It is imperative that the outdated and restrictive Disability Services Act is repealed and replaced with legislation more aligned with this transformed service delivery landscape in order to affirm the rights of people with disability to full inclusion in Australian society. The bill is an enabling piece of legislation, providing a single-source statutory framework and a clear basis for the Commonwealth to fund certain disability supports and services outside of the NDIS that are not covered by state and territory obligations under Australia's Disability Strategy 2021-2031. It contributes to reducing the significant administrative delays in implementing important programs that have resulted from disaggregated legislative frameworks for disability services and supports. The bill establishes clear authority to continue funding existing programs, and at the same time, provides a flexible basis from which to fund non-NDIS supports and services to respond to emerging needs and changing circumstances both now and into the future. The bill improves quality and safeguarding arrangements by introducing a mandatory code, which will mirror the NDIS Code of Conduct. This code will set a minimum standard for all service providers and workers, and will show people with disability, their families and carers what they should expect from providers funded under this legislation. This will support the provision of consistent, high-quality supports and services and ensure people with disability are safe when accessing them. This bill, and the consequential and transitional arrangements, will also enable the government's timely response to findings and recommendations arising from the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability and non-NDIS initiatives arising from the NDIS review. The bill represents significant legislative reform and demonstrates the government's continued commitment to breaking down barriers for people with disability and enabling participation by providing a broad and flexible legislative basis for government to fund services and supports. Key changes More than one in six people in Australia live with disability. Australia's Disability Strategy 2021-2031 demonstrates national recognition that all levels of government are responsible for supporting people with disability to reach their full potential as equal members of the community—not only through providing support, but creating an inclusive society. It is therefore essential to establish a complementary, modern act that facilitates funding for Commonwealth supports and services for people with disability. It is also essential that such an act be informed by people with lived and direct experience of disability. This is why the proposed bill, including the objectives and principles, has been subject to two rounds of public consultation with a focus on consulting within the disability community. This process highlighted the importance of inclusive, accessible, safe supports and services to people with disability, their families and carers and the broader disability sector. The importance of inclusive, accessible and safe services and supports has been extensively highlighted by the disability royal commission over the last 4½ years. To support an inclusive focus, the bill uses modern language to establish a contemporary framework for disability supports and services that complies with a human rights approach. One of the objectives of the bill is to give effect to the CRPD, in conjunction with other key Commonwealth legislation such as the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, and the NDIS Act 2013, and the Social Security Act 1991, as well as the state and territory disability legislation. Just this year in June, I led an Australian delegation, which included a group of Australians with diverse experience with disability, to attend the 16th Session of the United Nations Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. At the conference, the Australian government reaffirmed its commitment to the rights of people with disability at the United Nations. This bill supports the realisation of the CRPD by focusing on capacity, experience, empowerment, potential and goals for people with disability. Accordingly, the bill has been drafted to promote consistency, coordination and accessibility of supports and services for people with disability and to provide a clear basis for the Commonwealth to continue funding disability supports and services alongside the NDIS and alongside state and territory services. Furthermore, the bill embeds its objects and guiding principles in primary legislation, whereas under the Disability Services Act the objects and guiding principles are prescribed via legislative instrument. This change fosters greater transparency, more certainty, clear articulation of aims and objectives, and provides clearer guidance for actions taken under this legislation. The bill's contemporary framework is intended to make clear that it is for the benefit and inclusion of all people with disability. In line with the majority of feedback received from the disability sector, the bill does not provide a definition of disability. This ensures that access to supports and services is not unnecessarily restricted, and allows the bill to be adaptable and responsive. Under the proposed legislation, individual programs will continue to define target groups, ensuring that they can be tailored to provide the specific supports and services needed. In addition to expanding the population who can benefit from funding authorised by this bill, it also broadens funding options. While the current act only allows for funding through grants, the proposed legislation will allow other forms of financial arrangements, such as contracts and procurement. Complementary to this, the bill expands the types of supports and services that may be able to receive such funding. The new bill expands service categories to cover accessibility, accommodation, advocacy, capacity building, carers, community inclusion, counselling, education, employment, independent living, information, recreation, research and evaluation, and respite care. The bill defines these service categories broadly to allow for flexibility in the future design of supports and services, allowing the government of the day to respond to emerging needs and changing circumstances for non-NDIS supports as required. It also provides for the minister to define additional service categories, ensuring that the bill can adapt to meet future needs. The government has followed closely the hearings and reporting from the disability royal commission. The broad and flexible nature of this bill is also intended to ensure that the government has appropriate power to respond effectively and efficiently to findings and recommendations. Of course, this could also include further amendment to the bill, if required. The government is committed to ensuring people with disability are safe from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation. That is why this bill will improve quality and safeguarding arrangements by enabling greater consistency and alignment between regulatory schemes. Disability programs currently use a range of service delivery models that were not foreseen when the Disability Services Act was first established. These programs are delivered through alternative financial arrangements, with legislative authority generally provided under the Financial Framework (Supplementary Powers) Regulations 1997. This has caused administrative delays in program implementation and has meant some programs are not subject to any form of regulatory oversight beyond the requirements in funding agreements. Quality and safeguarding under this bill are addressed through two key mechanisms—a mandatory code of conduct for all providers, and certificates of compliance for providers of certain eligible activities. The code of conduct will be provided for by legislative instrument. The code of conduct will mirror the NDIS Code of Conduct to create greater consistency, ensure ease of adoption by providers, and most importantly allow people with disability, their families and carers to understand exactly what they should expect from service providers. The bill authorises the Secretary of the Department of Social Services to make a legislative instrument to prescribe the kinds of eligible activities to be regulated. This will be based on a risk based assessment of service provision to ensure the rights and safety of people with disability are protected. A provider delivering regulated activities is required to obtain and hold a certificate of compliance. The standards under the current act, the National Standards for Disability Services, will be remade under the bill, providing minimal disruption to providers who hold current certificates of compliance. The key difference is that these standards can now be applied to activities that were previously not regulated, where it is appropriate to do so. To improve consistency and reduce duplication across the sector, the bill also includes a power to recognise alternative quality standards, at the determination of the secretary. This will allow the regulatory burden to be reduced for providers who work across multiple sectors and are subject to multiple quality standards, provided that the standards are recognised as appropriate and comparable—for example, the NDIS Practice Standards. To ensure people with disability and their families and carers can make complaints about the supports and services they receive, a complaints management instrument will also be made to establish consistent complaints management requirements for providers funded under the bill. Where it is established there are breaches of the code of conduct, standards or terms and conditions of funding arrangements, the bill provides for the department to make a decision to vary or revoke the arrangement with the Commonwealth. This consistent approach to all funding under the bill is a key benefit of establishing a single source of authority for the funding of Commonwealth disability services and supports for people with disability outside of the NDIS. The bill also provides for information sharing and recognition of NDIS banning orders. This will ensure that awareness of wrongdoing in the NDIS can be considered in the context of other Commonwealth disability programs and services—contributing to our commitment to ensure safe and quality services for all people with disability. Supports and services currently funded under the Financial Framework (Supplementary Powers) Regulations 1997will have their funding authorisation transition to the bill as current agreements expire, ensuring appropriate regulatory oversight. All new funding agreements will be made under the bill. The code of conduct will apply to all existing programs and services following the passing of the bill. Conclusion In summary, the government is repealing the Disability Services Act and replacing it with a modern, inclusive act that, in conjunction with other laws, gives effect to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and other international obligations and enables funding of a broader range of disability programs to benefit people with disability using services outside the NDIS. By introducing a code of conduct, and including the power to recognise other standards, the bill contributes to improving and aligning quality and safeguarding provisions for disability services. Supports and services will continue to be subject to quality and safeguard checks to make sure they are appropriately delivered and are person-centred. Consistent national standards will ensure the rights and safety of people with disability accessing supports and services. The Disability Services and Inclusion Billrepresents a significant step forward in providing inclusive supports and services to all people with disability. Our focus and our objectives as a government remain clear—to support people to participate in society, ensure safe and quality services and protect their rights. I commend the bill to the House. Debate adjourned. Disability Services and Inclusion (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023 6

Disability Services and Inclusion (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023

First Reading 6 Second Reading 6 09:29 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The Disability Services and Inclusion (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023 (the consequential and transitional bill) makes consequential amendments and provides transitional arrangements to support the proposed Disability Services and Inclusion Bill 2023. This is in line with this government's commitment to enable people with disability to participate fully in society and exercise full choice and control over their lives. The bill provides for the repeal of the Disability Services Act 1986 (the Disability Services Act) (in schedule 1) and facilitates the continued provision of disability supports and services funded under that act in accordance with the proposed new enabling legislation, the Disability Services and Inclusion Bill 2023. This will ensure the continuity of services and supports and prevent disruption of funding to disability providers. Schedule 2 outlines the consequential amendments necessary to ensure the ongoing functioning of a range of current legislation as a result of the repeal of the Disability Services Act. Schedule 3 of the bill clarifies that the Disability Services and Inclusion Bill 2023 will apply to any new funding arrangements and grants of financial assistance made from the day of commencement of that bill. However, to ensure consistency and continuity in the provision of disability supports and services, schedule 3 further clarifies that the repealed Disability Services Act will continue to apply to grants of financial assistance (including transitional grants) entered into under part II of that act prior to its repeal, for the duration of that agreement. It clarifies that the same is true of grants of financial assistance made under the repealed act—they can continue to be administered under that act until the end of their agreement. This will also apply to any principles, objectives, guidelines and standards, accreditations, certificates of compliance and delegations that were made under the former act. In order to ensure the continued safety of people with disability, their families and carers who access the supports and services authorised under the former act, the consequential and transitional bill specifies that any disability standards review panel for a state or territory established under the repealed act before the proposed bill commences will continue to exist for the term of its agreement. Together with the Disability Services and Inclusion Bill 2023, the consequential and transitional bill will deliver much needed support to Australia's disability services sector and contribute to creating a more inclusive society. It ensures a seamless transition in funding arrangements to existing Commonwealth-funded disability supports and services outside of the NDIS, demonstrating this government's commitment to the inclusion of all people with disability in Australian society and complementing existing legislation to fulfil our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I commend the bill to the House. Debate adjourned. COMMITTEES 7 COMMITTEES Public Works Joint Committee 7 Approval of Work 7 09:33 Dr LEIGH BU8 Fenner I move: That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: Department of Defence: Fishermans Bend Redevelopment Project. The Department of Defence proposes to deliver new and upgraded engineering services infrastructure at Defence Science and Technology Group, Fishermans Bend, Victoria. The proposed works also include the delivery of an upgraded entry precinct to address safety and security requirements. The estimated cost of the works is $160.9 million, excluding GST. The works were referred to the public works committee on 20 June 2023. Following its inquiry, the committee has recommended that the House of Representatives resolve, pursuant to section 18(7) of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, that it is expedient to carry out the works. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction is expected to commence in 2024 for completion by 2026. On behalf of the government, I'd like to thank the committee, ably led by the member for Moreton, for undertaking a timely inquiry. I commend the motion to the House. Question agreed to. Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Joint Committee 7 Report 7 09:34 Mr HILL 86256 Bruce On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, I present the committee's report entitled Inquiry into the Department of Defence annual report 2021-22. Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e). Mr HILL 86256 by leave—There are about five discrete topics in this report. I will make remarks on two of them and try and just summarise the others. The first one I want to outline is a serious matter. You could frame it as the long shadow of Afghanistan. Concerns were raised through the inquiry regarding Defence's response to date to the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force's Afghanistan inquiry, including difficulties and delays in accessing and making redress to Afghan victims and their families. Defence's assurances in public hearings and private briefings are welcome, and the subcommittee will continue to monitor these issues. While in Western Australia, the subcommittee was privileged to spend time at Campbell Barracks with the Special Air Service Regiment. Formal and informal discussions make clear the scale of the regiment's transformation in light of the inspector-general's recommendations and the strategic circumstances that Australia faces. Australians have every right to expect our public institutions to confront wrongdoing, for individuals to be held to account and for leaders to take responsibility to lead the required change. As is appropriate, there is a clear and unequivocal acknowledgement by senior leaders in our armed forces of an institutional failure over a decade ago, in Afghanistan, in upholding international law and the standards expected. Detailed briefings make clear to the committee the deep strategic alignment and cultural alignment work that has occurred. Past failures, of course, in any human endeavour must be kept in perspective and need not define an institution or every individual, provided that change has occurred. Public discourse and some media reporting in relation to these events has implicitly and wrongly conflated the past and the present. The events of concern occurred well over a decade ago. The rightful acceptance of institutional and collective responsibility for cultural failings and the process of holding individuals to account, including those alleged to have committed war crimes, must not be allowed to tar the reputations of the majority of those who served then and who serve today. Overwhelmingly, Australians who served in Afghanistan did so with distinction. The SAS Regiment has a proud history, has accepted responsibility for the failings of a few and has been transformed as it continues to self-reflect and learn. The SAS have risked, and continue to risk, their lives in the service of our country, including on missions past and present that cannot and can never be publicly disclosed. It is notable that more SAS members have lost their lives in training than in operational service, such is the dangerous nature of what they are asked and required to do. The subcommittee concluded that, frankly speaking, it is time to draw a line in the sand and rebalance our national conversation about this period. Most Australians who served in Afghanistan did so with distinction. The Special Air Service Regiment has a proud history, has accepted responsibility, sought to learn from past cultural failings and transformed. As a society, Australia risks repeating the experiences of Vietnam and callously increasing veteran suicide if we lose perspective and balance. Individual and institutional failures over a decade ago do not define all those who served, and security classifications mean the majority of their good work to keep our country safe may never be known. Hence, parliamentarians, along with reputable media outlets, bear the responsibility to highlight the importance of their service. I want to touch on another theme in the inquiry, and that's the impact of Defence's support in natural disasters and crises. Over 50 per cent of Defence members have been assigned to domestic disaster relief tasks in the last few years. The near persistent requirement for Defence to respond to domestic crises is unsustainable and creates an unacceptable concurrency pressure that will soon degrade the ADF's war-fighting capabilities. Given our nation's strategic circumstances, the words and the conclusions in this section should not be taken lightly by any Australian or indeed any parliamentarian. Plain-speaking conclusions may be confronting to some, but the risks to Australia are genuine and profound. The climate is changing, and state and territory governments need to lift their collective game in building resilience and resourcing natural disaster responses. The ADF cannot continue to be seen as some kind of shadow workforce, especially in circumstances where certain states and territories have not adequately resourced and increased their own capabilities in community resilience and responses. The ADF must be a force of last resort to aid the civilian community in natural disasters and be called on only to provide truly unique capabilities or essential surge capabilities when state and territory responses are genuinely overwhelmed. From a national security point of view, these concurrency pressures are also creating new opportunities for potential adversaries and malign actors to exploit the vulnerabilities via information operations and hybrid warfare. Put plainly again, if the civilian community across the country in the states and territories continue to be too over-reliant on the ADF to provide responses to the now predictable natural disasters that occur annually in Australia and our near region, then this provides an easy opportunity for hostile actors to deploy cyber, kinetic or hybrid actions which then coerce Australian governments into making truly impossible choices about where to assign the ADF. The committee supports the work by the federal emergency management minister to develop options for resilience. A final couple of topics: we did invest four days touring most of the remote RAAF bases and defence facilities in Western Australia and then into the Northern Territory, and we acknowledge the inspiring professionalism displayed by all of the ADF and Department of Defence personnel. We saw firsthand how critical infrastructure upgrades at strategically remote important air bases and bare bases have been neglected. There were investments proposed there in the 2010-12 cycle, but they never occurred, so it's welcome that we're now seeing investment in RAAF Tindal and that planning is well underway at RAAF Curtin and RAAF Learmonth in the context of the DSR. The subcommittee doesn't seek to become a roving complaints shop. I'm sure the Department of Defence and the ADF are very happy about that, but members were seriously disturbed to visit to pier supporting the diesel refuelling Harold E Holt naval station, and the committee is seeking advice as to how Defence allowed it to get into such a state of disrepair. The old adage 'prevention is better than cure' seems to have been ignored, and urgent action is required within the next few months before Christmas, as this is a critical capability for Australian and the United States submarine operations. Further information has also been sought on a range of matters. There are serious issues in the defence workforce in recruiting and retention. Instead of the net growth in the order of 1,000 people in uniform per year, the Australian Defence Force actually went backwards by about 900. We're now over five per cent below funded guidance from the last financial year, with 42 workforce categories now in critical skill-shortage areas, including many in STEM fields. Plainly speaking, the overriding issue is the strength of the Australian economy and labour market, because defence recruits well in a recession and badly in a boom. It's difficult to address in the current strong labour market, but the sliding numbers cannot be allowed to continue. Defence recognises the challenges. They're doing a whole bunch of worthy stuff, but, if more needs to be done, then more must be done. Finally, there's a section in the report which I commend to members regarding Australia's space commanding capability. There are opportunities to strengthen the alignment with industry, to build more sovereign capability. There's an urgent need for the government to work out who's taking the lead on space traffic management internationally in terms of space traffic governance. I commend the report to the House and I move: That the House take note of the report. Debate adjourned. Reference to Federation Chamber 8 09:43 Mr HILL 86256 Bruce I move: That the order of the day be referred to the Federation Chamber for debate. Question agreed to. COMMITTEES 9 COMMITTEES Public Accounts and Audit Joint Committee 9 Reference to Federation Chamber 9 09:43 Mr HILL 86256 Bruce I'm going to ask leave of the House to move a motion. By way of context, yesterday when I tabled a Public Accounts and Audit Committee report there was some confusion about whether the committee had resolved to seek to refer the report to the Federation Chamber for debate. I didn't believe they had and I'm chair of the committee, so I thought I'd take advice before doing that. We checked during this morning's meeting, and the committee had resolved and it is the committee's wish to do so—it is highly unusual because it's only an interim report—and I'll fulfill the obligation to the committee by seeking leave of the House to move a motion to refer Report 500: Inquiry into procurement at Services Australia and the NDIA: Interim report to the Federation Chamber for debate. The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D Is leave granted? Mr Tehan 210911 No. As it's an interim report, that would be unusual, so leave isn't granted. MOTIONS 9 MOTIONS Climate Change: Threat and Risk Assessment 9 09:45 Ms STEGGALL 175696 Warringah I seek leave to move the following motion: That this House: (1) notes that: (a) the Australian Government received its first climate and security risk assessment, carried out by the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) in late 2022; (b) if similar to risk assessments undertaken by other nations including Australia's allies, the ONI climate risk assessment is likely to have concluded that: (i) the world is dangerously off track to meet the Paris Agreement goals, that security risks are compounding and that the impacts will be devastating in the coming decades; and (ii) in the Asia-Pacific region, states will fail and climate impacts will drive political instability, greater national insecurity and forced migration fuelling regional conflict; and (c) despite numerous requests, the Government has refused to release a declassified version of the ONI report or indicate any policy changes based on the risks identified in the report; (d) climate change is rapidly accelerating, leading to intensifying extreme weather events and human catastrophes around the world, including humanitarian crises in Hawaii, Greece and now Libya; (e) Australia's allies including the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands in conjunction with the European Union have all released declassified versions of climate national security risk assessments; and (f) this week retired defence chiefs briefed Members of Parliament on the national security risks emerging from climate change, outlining what strategies and actions are needed to protect the nation; and (2) calls on the Government to: (a) urgently release a declassified version of the ONI climate security risk assessment report; and (b) outline the specific climate related security threats to Australia and the specific responses the Government proposes to undertake in response to each of those threats. Leave not granted. Ms STEGGALL 175696 I move: That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Warringah moving the following motion— That this House: (1) notes that: (a) the Australian Government received its first climate and security risk assessment, carried out by the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) in late 2022; (b) if similar to risk assessments undertaken by other nations including Australia's allies, the ONI climate risk assessment is likely to have concluded that: (i) the world is dangerously off track to meet the Paris Agreement goals, that security risks are compounding and that the impacts will be devastating in the coming decades; and (ii) in the Asia-Pacific region, states will fail and climate impacts will drive political instability, greater national insecurity and forced migration fuelling regional conflict; and (c) despite numerous requests, the Government has refused to release a declassified version of the ONI report or indicate any policy changes based on the risks identified in the report; (d) climate change is rapidly accelerating, leading to intensifying extreme weather events and human catastrophes around the world, including humanitarian crises in Hawaii, Greece and now Libya; (e) Australia's allies including the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands in conjunction with the European Union have all released declassified versions of climate national security risk assessments; and (f) this week retired defence chiefs briefed Members of Parliament on the national security risks emerging from climate change, outlining what strategies and actions are needed to protect the nation; and (2) calls on the Government to: (a) urgently release a declassified version of the ONI climate security risk assessment report; and (b) outline the specific climate related security threats to Australia and the specific responses the Government proposes to undertake in response to each of those threats. I move to suspend standing orders to urgently debate this motion, because this goes to the heart of Australia's national security. This motion calls on the government to urgently release a declassified version of the Office of National Intelligence report addressing Australia's climate threat and risk assessment. The government has had this report on its desk for 10 months now. Australians are entitled to know the threats and risks they face and whether their government is developing a strategy to address those risks. This is an urgent issue that should, in fact, be debated with urgency—in particular, in the terms set out in the motion. The recent disasters in other nations highlight the level of threat and risk that is now being caused by worsening and accelerating global heating. A humanitarian crisis is currently unfolding in Libya. More than 5,300 people have been killed and at least 10,000 are missing, after unprecedented rainfall caused two major dams to collapse, resulting in entire communities being washed away, with many bodies swept out to sea. After Storm Daniel triggered catastrophic flooding in Greece, Turkiye and Bulgaria last week, Libya's national centre of meteorology reported that that storm had dropped a record 414 millimetres of rain, which is more than 16 inches, in just 24 hours. The catastrophe in Libya is just the latest in a seemingly never-ending series of fossil-fuelled, unnatural disasters that have wrought havoc on cities and towns around the world over the past three months. These disasters, now occurring almost daily, have been driven by the unprecedented, record sea and air temperatures that have left scientists around the world shocked. And yet, in Australia, the government continues with business as usual, approving coal and gas projects, refusing to acknowledge the urgency and severity of the situation and to increase their action. This is not about mitigation. I appreciate that efforts are being made on that front, but, sadly, there is now so much warming and emissions baked into the system that we are now seeing an escalation of consequences and risks. Australians remember all too well the events of 2019—the bushfires, then the floods. As we see from events around the world, these safety risks and threats are increasing. That is why it's urgent to debate this motion and why I've moved to suspend standing orders, since leave is not granted to deal with the situation. It's urgent that Australia understands the level of threat and risk it faces from cascading and compounding national security threats that are now emerging from accelerating global heating or, as the UN describes it, 'global boiling'. National security is a core responsibility of every government, and effectively identifying threats is fundamental to a government's ability to ensure the security of its citizens. I appreciate the presence of the Minister for Climate Change and Energy here, but, respectfully, that is on the question of mitigation and the preparation for domestic disasters. The key question is: how prepared are we in national security and defence? I think the failure of the Minister for Defence to be here to address this motion shows the government still does not recognise the national security threat posed by accelerating global warming. There is a gaping hole in Australia's national security, and that has been clearly identified by our allies, but it has been kept secret from the Australian public. The Defence strategic review, released in April 2023, contained only a brief reference to climate change threats, acknowledging climate change as a national security issue, noting that it will increase the challenges for Australia and its defence, in particular noting that accelerating climate events risk overwhelming the government's capacity and the ADF's capacity to respond effectively and defend Australia. But this is only a reference in relation to the use of ADF personnel in responding to catastrophes. There is no mention of the internationally accepted findings that the impacts of climate change will drive regional instability and conflict in our region, with mass population displacement, food and water insecurity and major catastrophes impacting Australia's safety. With respect, AUKUS submarines will not protect Australians from these threats, and there appears to be very little focus or strategy to respond to a threat in this respect. In late 2022 the government received a risk assessment from the Office of National Intelligence focused on national security threats emerging from now rapidly accelerating global warming. Australia's allies, including the US, the UK, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, in conjunction with the EU, have all released declassified versions of climate security risk assessment, yet the Australian government has repeatedly rejected calls from former Australian Defence chiefs and members of the crossbench to publicly release a declassified version of the climate security risk assessment. If the ONI report makes similar conclusions to climate risk assessments completed by other nations, including Australia's allies, it likely includes findings that the world is dangerously off track to meet the Paris Agreement goals. It would also likely draw the conclusion that security risks emerging from climate change are compounding and will have devastating impacts in the coming decades. A similar risk assessment conducted by the UK government funded security think tank Chatham House in 2021 concluded that cascading climate impacts will drive political instability and greater national insecurity and fuel regional and international conflict. The now two-year-old risk assessment found that global crop yields will likely drop by 30 per cent by 2050 at the same time that food demand is set to increase by 50 per cent. Earlier this year the Turning the tide report found that the world will face the prospect of a 40 per cent shortfall in our freshwater supply by as soon as 2030. While food and water shortages may not immediately impact Australia, the indirect impacts resulting from geopolitical instability and mass migration in our region should be of immense concern to all members of parliament. In its own publicly released risk assessment, the US National Intelligence Council identified our region of South-East Asia as one of two regions of great concern. It identifies Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and a number of Pacific Island nations as highly vulnerable to climate change. The US report singles out India, Pakistan and Burma as countries of particular concern as they are at extreme risk of experiencing regional conflict over shared water resources, from the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau. This effectively puts hundreds of millions of people in our region at risk of severe food and water shortages in the near term. The resulting humanitarian crisis would be at a scale never before seen in the world and would result in unprecedented waves of mass migration, geopolitical instability and conflict in our region. How can Australia possibly secure its borders in the face of that kind of mass migration and that level of climate refugees in South-East Asia? Former Australian Defence chiefs note we would simply be overwhelmed by such events. That is why it is crucial that Australia develop a strategy for how to mitigate these risks in our national security. Ensuring food and water security in our region could be our greatest weapon in defending Australia against such threats. The World Economic Forum places failure to mitigate climate change as the No. 1 global risk over the next decade. Second is failure of climate change adaptation, followed by natural disasters and extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. The risk of traditional military conflict through geoeconomic confrontation is much lower; it is listed at No. 9. This week crossbenchers were briefed by former Defence chief retired Admiral Chris Barrie and retired Air Vice-Marshal John Blackburn, who clearly stated that climate disruption is the greatest threat to the future security of Australians and to the global relationship between states. They have made it their mission for the past four years to highlight the now undeniable truth that climate change is by far the biggest security threat facing Australia. Why is the Australian government keeping secret from the Australian people what it knows about the magnitude of this threat? Why have the other political parties and relevant committees of the Senate and House of Representatives not been briefed on the contents of the ONI report? How can members of parliament effectively discharge their duties and oversee policymaking and departmental performance in the defence, climate, immigration, intelligence and foreign affairs portfolios when crucial information pertaining to climate risk has not been available to them? Elected officials cannot do their jobs in making and reviewing climate policy when they are kept in the dark by the government about the true scale of the security risks. So I call for this to be released and I call on the members of the opposition who pride themselves on being focused on security and safety to address this risk. This is the greatest threat to Australia's safety and security and must be addressed. The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D Is the motion seconded? 09:55 Ms CHANEY 300006 Curtin I second the motion to suspend so much of standing and sessional orders as would prevent the member for Warringah from moving a motion relating to the release of the ONI climate and security risk report. This should be dealt with by the House immediately, for three reasons. Firstly, the Office of National Intelligence report is likely to show that the security risks of climate change are very significant. Secondly, the public has a right to know what they are. And, thirdly, we can't proceed with a vital integrated national plan without a full picture of these risks. I remind the members of the House that their support, or lack of it, for this motion will be on the record, and our children and our grandchildren, and the children that I see in the chamber, will be looking back on the decisions that we make today. They will be thinking one of two things: either that the 47th Parliament showed courage—we looked at all the facts, created a shared vision of the world we were creating and started to restructure our economy and how we live on this planet—or that the 47th Parliament denied the urgency of climate change, hid the extent of the challenge and fiddled around the edges. Releasing the ONI report won't fix everything, but it will allow us to form an informed view of where we are now and where we're heading. We're off track for our 2030 targets, the clock is ticking towards an unlivable planet, 1.5 degrees is unlikely and even two degrees looks uncertain. European experts, and Australian companies behind closed doors, are now talking about 2½ degrees as a likely outcome. This ONI report is likely to contain some sobering information which puts decisions into context. I accept that it can't all be released, but we should see a lot more than we can see at the moment. Other countries, including our allies, have released their equivalent reports. The US, the UK and others have released these with some redacting, and our government is being more secret than our allies. So what's likely to be in it? Chatham House is the pre-eminent security think tank in the United Kingdom, and the Chatham House 2021 climate risk assessment said that cascading moment impacts would 'drive political instability and greater national insecurity, and fuel regional and international conflict'. These cascading systemic risks include three types of risks. Firstly, there's migration and displacement of people. This happens inside and beyond national borders, and it's likely to cause a refugee crisis, forced or unsafe migration, and trapped populations. Secondly, there's armed conflict. The US National Intelligence Council has disclosed that all the countries north of Australia are highly vulnerable to the physical effects of climate change and a lack of capacity to adapt. It's likely we will see regional conflicts requiring military intervention, conflict between people and states, and civil wars. Thirdly, there's the destabilisation of markets, commodity price spikes, fall in asset prices, large-scale asset sell-offs, failing stock markets and potentially financial market collapses. We have a right to know about these risks. If the ONI report includes these risks, we have a right to know. If our government is not basing its decisions on these types of risks recognised in international reports, we have a right to know why they have come to different conclusions. Building a common national knowledge base on these types of issues is essential. These are security risks; they require us to look holistically at how we'll resource the challenges ahead. I commend the members of the ADF who've responded to the emerging domestic impacts of climate. We just heard that 50 per cent of Defence members have been allocated to national disaster response in the last year, and I thank the ADF members for their service, including those at Karrakatta and Campbell Barracks in my electorate of Curtin. But, without a more holistic approach informed by an understanding of these domestic and international security risks, we will continue to take a piecemeal approach. As the member for Bruce said, the ADF cannot be treated as a shadow workforce for domestic issues. We are going to need to make some difficult decisions and investments in the future on mitigation and on adaptation. We will need to take the community on this journey. Once we have a common view of the risks we face, we as parliamentarians can do our jobs and develop a coordinated national plan. This needs to involve rebuilding the Public Service so we have these abilities in house. It needs to cover mitigation and adaptation. So I urge all members of the House to think about how they vote on this and how their children and grandchildren will judge them. We must see this report. We must at least see the findings so we know what information government is using to make these vital decisions. (Time expired) 10:00 Ms TINK 300124 North Sydney I rise in support of this motion today because I can't help but concur with both my esteemed colleagues from Warringah and Curtin that, without a doubt, this is the most single most pressing issue that our 47th Parliament should be leaning into. The reality is that, when it comes to our climate debates, climate discussions and the development of strategy in the area, the only number that matters is 1.5 degrees. We can sit in this chamber and argue about 43 per cent emission reduction. We can sit in this chamber and argue about net zero by 2050. But, if we go over 1½ degrees, which it looks more than likely we are going to, it all becomes about the magnitude by which we go past that number. A report into the first global stocktake for our climate position at the moment has experts predicting that we will likely hit 2½ Celsius, and that will be the focus of discussions at COP 28. We as Australians have to answer the question: what is our role in climate justice not just for our region but for our planet? Our Pacific nation neighbours are looking to us to help them navigate what the future looks like and, more importantly, to stop contributing to the problems they are facing. I recently had the privilege of meeting with a delegation from Fiji, and those people spoke to me with such emotion about their villages literally disappearing underwater, of sea walls that used to last decades not even lasting five years anymore and of 40 villages in the islands of Fiji that now need to be relocated. As a nation we cannot stick our heads in the sand any longer. To the member for Warringah's comments, one of the biggest risks to us here in Australia is the sheer magnitude of the population movement that will take place as societies crumble. Let's be really clear. At the moment here in Australia we are fortunate to have three people living per square kilometre. We have heaps of room for lots of people. On the flipside, in Bangladesh, they have 1,250 people living in every square kilometre, while in Jakarta in Indonesia there are 19,000 people living in every square kilometre. It probably goes without saying that Jakarta is disappearing underwater, and Indonesia is seeking to move its capital by 2025. There are three things we as Australians need from our government right now. We need transparency around the scale of the risk to our nation. We need an office of climate threat, and we need them to have access to the intelligence that is provided by the Office of National Intelligence. We need to rebuild climate science and risk analysis in both the Public Service and the CSIRO. As both the previous speakers have discussed, the thing that is perhaps most distressing and should be most distressing for all Australians is that our allies have no fear in sharing what they know with their countries and their citizens, and they are doing that because they are facing what is required of them as leaders. They are speaking with their residents about what must be done as nations to survive, yet our government continues to leave us in the dark. What I would like to know from our government—and I agree it should be the defence minister in here today—is: are the findings of the Office of National Intelligence report consistent with the Chatham House findings from the UK? If they are, why is that information not being shared with Australians? What specifically does this government propose to do to prepare us for the challenges we are about to face? 10:04 Mr BOWEN DZS McMahon The government won't be supporting this motion. This motion calls for the release of a national assessment by the Office of National Intelligence. No such assessment by the Office of National Intelligence has ever been released publicly—none ever—and that is a precedent this government intends to honour. When the Office of National Intelligence prepare a document for the Prime Minister, that is the Prime Minister's document and it goes to him, and it is important they know that that precedent will be acknowledged and respected by the government of the day. This government has commissioned the assessment report and has received it, as honourable members know and as I've indicated and acknowledged. The report has been discussed by the National Security Committee of the cabinet, of which I am a member. I believe I am the first Minister for Climate Change and Energy to serve on the National Security Committee of the cabinet, which is a reflection of this government's and this Prime Minister's view that climate change is a national security challenge, as well as an economic opportunity, a moral obligation, an environmental threat and everything that it is. It is of course a national security challenge for this country and this region. Honourable members opposite referred to the Pacific: quite right. I was just in the Pacific the week before the last sitting week at the Pacific climate ministers meeting, where there was very strong engagement and interaction between this government, through me, and the climate ministers of the Pacific. Yes, it is a national security threat to them. It's also a national security threat in South-East Asia, where, in the world's largest archipelago, Indonesia, there are hundreds of millions of people living in low-lying areas. This is known. What is also known is this government is acting. I have to disagree with the honourable member for Warringah, who said it's business as usual. It could not be further from business as usual. This government has engaged in a wholesale reform process in the last 16 months which has elevated climate policy as a signature measure of this government. After 10 years of denial and delay—which is something that the honourable members on the crossbench and this government would, I'm sure, agree on—we have increased our nationally determined target by 50 per cent and enshrined it in law, with the support of the crossbench, which we have always acknowledged and appreciated. We have engaged in a process of lifting renewable energy from 33 per cent to 82 per cent, which commentators have pointed out is the most ambitious transformation to renewable energy in the world. It is ambitious. It's also achievable. It's fashionable at the moment to say it can't be achieved. It can and will be achieved, but it is highly ambitious, as it should be. It should be both ambitious and achievable. This is the biggest economic transformation our country has undertaken since 1788. Of course there are challenges to be overcome. This government is dealing with those challenges. My friend the New Zealand Climate Change Minister recently said publicly that the Albanese government has done as much on climate change in its first year as the Ardern government did in its first five years. That's what the New Zealand minister said, who happens also to be the leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. He pointed out that the Albanese government has done as much on climate change in its first year as the Ardern government did in its first five years. We have done a lot, but there's an enormous amount left to do. I'm pleased with what we've done in our first year, but I'm not yet satisfied, because the task is so big and the stakes are so high. In dealing with this, yes, this government will always indicate that we acknowledge and respect the precedent that national assessments by the Office of National Intelligence have never been released and will not be released. But I will say this when it comes to transparency. As honourable members know, we passed the Climate Change Act, which had many things in it. One of the things it had in it was an obligation on me, or the minister of the day, to report annually to parliament and to release the advice from the Climate Change Authority as to progress, obstacles and the impact of government policies. I've done that once, and I'll do it again before the end of the year. There's a national security section. I can indicate to the House that the national security section, which is unclassified, will be material and significant in this upcoming annual statement. I will provide that unclassified information to the House and the public. That's as it should be. That's a much more appropriate way of dealing with this matter. A much more appropriate way is for the government of the day to report in an open and transparent manner to parliament on progress on obstacles, including national security implications, and to do so in a way which doesn't endanger the precedent, the very clear precedent, that assessments by the Office of National Intelligence are not and will not be released—to respect that precedent but to nevertheless engage with the parliament in an open and respectful way for the annual statement to parliament, which I can indicate to the House it is certainly my intention to do. The SPEAKER 53517 The question before the House is that the motion moved by the honourable member for Warringah be agreed to.  

The House divided. [10:14]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

 13 AYES Bandt, A. P. Bates, S. J. Chandler-Mather, M. Chaney, K. E. Daniel, Z. Haines, H. M. Ryan, M. M. Scamps, S. A. Spender, A. M. Steggall, Z. Tink, K. J. (Teller) Watson-Brown, E. Wilkie, A. D. (Teller) 75 NOES Aly, A. Ananda-Rajah, M. Bowen, C. E. Burke, A. S. Burnell, M. P. Burney, L. J. Burns, J. Butler, M. C. Byrnes, A. J. Chalmers, J. E. Charlton, A. H. G. Chesters, L. M. Clare, J. D. Claydon, S. C. Coker, E. A. Collins, J. M. Conroy, P. M. 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. Hill, J. C. Katter, R. C. Kearney, G. M. Keogh, M. J. Khalil, P. King, C. F. King, M. M. H. Lawrence, T. N. Laxale, J. A. A. Leigh, A. K. Lim, S. B. C. Marino, N. B. Marles, R. D. Mascarenhas, Z. F. A. McBain, K. L. McBride, E. M. Miller-Frost, L. J. Mitchell, B. K. Mulino, D. Neumann, S. K. O'Connor, B. P. J. O'Neil, C. E. Payne, A. E. 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. Scrymgour, M. R. Shorten, W. R. Sitou, S. Smith, D. P. B. (Teller) Stanley, A. M. (Teller) Swanson, M. J. Templeman, S. R. Thistlethwaite, M. J. Thwaites, K. L. Vamvakinou, M. van Manen, A. J. Vasta, R. X. Watts, T. G. Wells, A. S. Wilson, J. H. Zappia, A. 0 PAIRS

Question negatived.

 BUSINESS 15 BUSINESS Rearrangement 15 10:20 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin I move: That business intervening before order of the day No. 3, government business, be postponed until a later hour this day. Question agreed to. BILLS 15 BILLS Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023 15

Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023

Consideration of Senate Message 15 10:21 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I move: That the amendment be considered immediately. This is a great victory for Australians who need a place to call home. This is a victory in the people's house that will mean more houses for people. Today is a win for boosting housing supply. It's a win for improving housing affordability across the nation. It's a good day for anyone who wants to see more homes built and more jobs in construction. It is an important day also for our veterans because this fund will build more housing for veterans at risk of homelessness. It's an important day for Indigenous Australians because part of this fund will deliver support to fix up housing in remote communities. It's also an important day for all those who are concerned about women and children escaping domestic violence, because 4,000 of these 30,000 homes will be reserved for women and children escaping domestic violence. Last month our government brought together every state and territory government in the National Cabinet to deliver the most significant set of housing reforms in a generation. We're already seeing that action take place here in the ACT just this week. Next week I'll be with one of the premiers, outlining exactly how this process will occur to improve housing supply and to therefore improve housing affordability, because that is the key to housing affordability and to people getting access to homes. We need more supply; it's as simple as that. And today we have brought together the crossbench to pass the biggest investment in social and affordable housing in more than a decade. I thank the members of the House of Representatives and the members of the Senate who have voted for this reform. I congratulate the Minister for Housing, who has done such an extraordinary job over a long period of time—and has sat in a lot of small meetings!—as well as advocated very strongly and consistently for why this is important. This is an example of government policy arising from hard work in opposition to develop policy to see it then implemented in government. I announced this as part of my second budget reply speech back in 2021. When we did that in 2021, I well remember one of our daily newspapers saying, 'Why is it that the Leader of the Opposition is concentrating on housing? Housing isn't a big issue.' Well, you bet it is, and now that's recognised across the board. I certainly made no apologies back then for putting housing at the centre of my agenda in that speech—child care in the first one, housing in the second, aged care in the third. In amongst all of that, as well, was the Rewiring the Nation program. These are significant policies that we took to the Australian people in an election and received a mandate for. In spite of that mandate and in spite of the broad support from the crossbench in this House and the crossbench in the Senate—we got there eventually—the Liberal and National parties are still saying no. They're saying no to everything, as they always do; there's just one sound. Those opposite did everything they could to stand in the way, and now they are left behind, sidelined as the complete irrelevance to this parliament that they are. They refuse to negotiate. They refuse to ever recognise a mandate. They refuse to have any plan for the future. We know that they don't particularly like people who live in public housing, and now we also know that they don't want more people to live in public housing. Whenever they've been in government, what you see is less social housing at the end of their term than you did at the beginning. That's what we saw in New South Wales over 12 years, with houses in places like Millers Point and other parts of the community sold off, flogged off. They don't want people who aren't really wealthy living with harbour views. An example is the Sirius building in Sydney, which was purpose-built for people with disabilities to age in place. When I've crossed the Sydney Harbour Bridge with international guests over the years, I've pointed towards that building and said, 'That says something about Australia.' It says that we're an egalitarian country, with purpose-built public housing there on the harbour, in the brutalist fashion, as it was. It's not to everyone's liking, that architecture, but I tell you what: I went to school with people who grew up in that housing, and those people enjoyed that quality of life. It gave them dignity and the security of a roof over their head. What this bill will do is provide more roofs over more heads—30,000 of them in the first five years. Importantly, by establishing the Housing Australia Future Fund, just like the future funds that have been established by past governments and just like the reason why individuals invest their superannuation, to provide for their retirement, what this will do is provide some security in perpetuity. By establishing a $10 billion fund, which can be added to in the future, what we're doing is providing that secure certainty of future growth in social housing for year after year after year. Importantly, the agreement that at least $500 million will be spent additionally every year is on top of the funding that's agreed through the Commonwealth State Housing Agreement. We have extended the agreement by $1.7 billion for this current financial year. In addition to that, we've put $2 billion into the Social Housing Accelerator. That is an agreement with the states to increase supply—to look at planning laws to make sure they have more supply—and right across the country the states are responding to that. There's the work that the Malinauskas government is doing in South Australia, the changed planning laws that have been foreshadowed by the new Minns government in New South Wales, the work that Daniel Andrews has done in Victoria, the work that Jeremy Rockliff is doing in Tasmania and the work of the Palaszczuk government in Queensland. Here in the ACT there was the announcement this week about eligibility to have increased density of homes by allowing an additional dwelling to be built in appropriate places where there is infrastructure. The new Cook government in WA is building on the good work of the McGowan government. I've been in electorates like Cowan and Pearce, which are growth areas where they are building the infrastructure and the rail lines as well as the community facilities at the same time as houses are being built in those communities. It's best practice when governments are making sure that community infrastructure keeps up with housing supply. This is an important day. It is a day that completes more of the plans that we took to the election through budget replies, so issues that we campaigned on year after year. We campaigned on cheaper child care, which came in, of course, on 1 July. The Rewiring the Nation program is rolling out, with projects like the Marinus Link between Tasmania and Victoria. Renewable zones are being connected up in New South Wales and Victoria. We made that announcement in the Pilbara, in Western Australia, just a few weeks ago. We campaigned on aged-care reforms, and the minister gave an outstanding response about the practical difference that these reforms are making to older Australians, who deserve to have dignity in their later years as a result of the reforms that we put in place and that we announced. The National Reconstruction Fund will have its first board meeting on Monday. It's a $15 billion fund to support existing industries to transform and support new industries as well. My government is determined to implement the agenda that we took to the election, and that is what we are doing, policy by policy, one by one, and this is another policy that we took to the election that will be legislated before we leave here today. Other governments have said that they would support recognition of Indigenous Australians. John Howard took it to the 2007 election. When the Leader of the Opposition recently re-announced that he wanted a second referendum, he pointed out that they had taken that commitment to previous elections. If only they had won in 2016 and 2019, something might have happened with those commitments. Well, we actually believe that, when you go to an election and say you'll do something, you should do it, and on 14 October we will give Australians the opportunity to vote yes to recognise Indigenous Australians in our founding document, our Constitution. This is a very good day. It is a good day for the parliament. It shows that this parliament is functioning, this parliament is able to get things done, this government is prepared to sit down and negotiate with anyone who is concerned about better policy and delivery. At the end of the day, all of us are here for a relatively short period of time in the history of this nation. It is our responsibility to make a difference each and every day, and our Minister for Housing has certainly done that in a short period of time. I pay tribute as well to the member for Blaxland for the work that he did in developing this policy agenda when in opposition. I commend this amendment that has been brought before the House, and I say it is indeed a very good day. It is a very good day for the parliament, but, most importantly, it is a good day for all those out there who understand that we need to boost housing supply and that people, no matter how difficult their circumstance, deserve a government that is determined to make sure they have the security of a roof over their head. Question agreed to. 10:34 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin I move: That the amendment be agreed to. I said, when I first introduced these bills into parliament, that it marked a turning point for housing policy in this country, ending a wasted decade of a national housing policy in Australia under the former government that failed to address Australia's housing affordability challenges. Today we take another step forward in turning around our housing challenges. Today we move from what could be to what will be: 30,000 new homes through the Housing Australia Future Fund comprising 20,000 homes to provide social housing, 4,000 of which will be allocated to women and children leaving domestic and family violence and to older women on low incomes who are at risk of homelessness, and 10,000 affordable homes for frontline workers, like police, nurses and cleaners, who kept us safe during the pandemic. There is also new funding to deliver the government's commitments to address acute housing needs: $200 million for the repair, maintenance and improvement of housing in Indigenous communities; $100 million for crisis and transitional housing options for women and children impacted by family and domestic violence and older women at risk of homelessness; and $30 million to build housing for veterans who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of homelessness. We will ensure that each state and territory and rural and regional Australia as well as our cities get their fair share of this critical housing. All of this will be in the first five years alone of the fund. The legislation passing the parliament today will also create the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council and Housing Australia. This housing legislation is a critical part of the government's broad and ambitious housing agenda. There will be a $3 billion new homes bonus; $500 million for a housing support program to help meet our National Housing Accord target of 1.2 million well located homes from 1 July 2024; the $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator to deliver thousands of new social homes across Australia; funding for the 10,000 affordable homes over five years from 2024 as part of the National Housing Accord; an increase of 15 per cent in the maximum rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance, the largest increase in more than 30 years; the additional $2 billion in financing for more social and affordable rental housing; new incentives to boost the supply of rental housing by changing arrangements for investments in build-to-rent accommodation; and the $1.7 billion one-year extension to the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement with states and territories, with the states and territories committing to a better deal for renters and supporting the national rollout of the help-to-buy program, which will reduce the cost of buying a home. As I keep saying, this agenda is ambitious because it has to be. I want to thank the members and senators who worked constructively with the government to pass this critical legislation. I also want to thank the housing experts, the community housing organisations and the ordinary members of the community who have supported and backed this legislation. I know our friends in the media can be preoccupied with the back and forth that leads to legislation like this passing the parliament, but today I'm not thinking about what got us to this point. I'm thinking of the people whose lives will be changed because of this bill: the vulnerable Australians who have been left to languish on housing waiting lists for far too long and the key workers, the heroes of the pandemic, who've been locked out of a home in the communities that they were meant to serve. I'm thinking again of Lauree, who I met on the north-west coast of Tasmania. She told me the new home she had meant she could finally go back to school and get the education she always wanted. Today is for Australians like Lauree. This is what drives our government and keeps us working every day for Australians. Today we make good on the promise we made to Australians to establish the Housing Australia Future Fund and we move from promises to action. This is our government's priority: more homes for Australians like Lauree; building, not blocking; delivery, not delays; and practical action, not protests. This is what our government is focused on. From today, the Housing Australia Future Fund becomes a reality, an enduring promise from an Australian government that more Australians should have a safe, affordable place to call home. I commend these bills to the House. 10:39 Mr SUKKAR 242515 Deakin What a humiliating day for this government. They've paid the ransom. We should look over to the Greens, who are contributing the housing minister to this government. This government has absolutely buckled to the Greens in order to get this hopeless policy through. We listened to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Housing speak about their commitment to housing. Why on earth, on every measure of housing, are things going backwards? Since the election of this government, we have seen first home buyers down, new home starts down, new dwelling approvals down and rents up. So we've got an absolute disconnect between the very happy, self-satisfied group over here on the government benches and the people that they represent, because the people they represent are not sitting around grinning, laughing and patting themselves on the back as they are today. You never hear this government mention first home buyers—not once. The Prime Minister didn't speak about first home buyers once. The housing minister didn't speak about first home buyers once. That might be part of the reason why they are down. Every time this housing minister says, 'There was a wasted decade under the coalition,' I think, 'Why are things worse under you since your election?' They have no connection to or focus on the people that they represent. Then we see this faux war with their frenemies in the Greens. The Greens stood in this place and demanded a whole lot of things. I must say that the Greens buckled a fair bit themselves from what they originally demanded. In the end, we see a tawdry deal between the government and the Greens. Why? It's because, in the end, so many of the members on the government benches only got elected because of Greens preferences. So it is a bit of a faux war and a bit of a faux argument because, in the end, they are addicted to Greens preferences. They rely on the Greens to sit in this chamber. So we always knew they would cut a deal in the end. We always knew that they would buckle. For the taxpayers out there, in order to get this through, the government just magically recently found $1 billion behind the cushions on the couch, just a lazy billion dollars that they found at the eleventh hour to get this deal over the line. But that's actually a good outcome for Australians because that last billion dollars, credit to the government, they put into the coalition government's Housing Infrastructure Facility. Our government thoughtfully put in place policies like the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, soon to be renamed Housing Australia. We set that up. I set it up as Assistant Treasurer. This minister is renaming it. That's her legacy—she is renaming an entity that is a proud coalition achievement. We don't see, though, anything else from this government. If this policy delivers, which I have serious reservations about, it will not even be a drop in the bucket. This is 6,000 homes a year over five years at the same time as this government is bringing in 1½ million new migrants. Those people in the gallery watching here today will see a lot of backslapping and people patting each other on the back. But, at best—at its absolute best—it might see 30,000 homes, they claim, being delivered over five years at the same time as there are 1½ million new migrants, with absolutely no idea where those people will live. What do you think that is going to do for rents? What do you think that is going to do for potential first home buyers, people today who are renting and saving for that first home? What else has been on this government's agenda? They took to the election the so-called Help to Buy Scheme, a very small, niche program, not particularly original thinking. It is already nine months later. It was supposed to have started on 1 January. What on earth has this government been doing? Nine months after they proposed this bill, we've got no investment mandate. We've got no investment mandate at all. All this government can do is issue media releases. I fear that we won't see anywhere near these 30,000 homes. I would say with a great deal of confidence today that we will not see close to what is being promised. But, even if they do meet it, it will be inadequate. 10:44 Mr CHANDLER-MATHER 300121 Griffith Nine months ago, when this bill was introduced and the Greens stood up here and refused to just roll over and support it, we faced a torrent of noise and abuse from the Labor members in this House—although, I would say, with the notable exception of the Minister for Housing. It was overwhelming. We stood up here and we said a few things. There was no direct investment in public and community housing. It didn't guarantee a cent in public and affordable housing. We stood up and we fought, and now, today, there is $3 billion of direct investment in public and community housing as a result of the Greens pressure, as a result of the Greens fighting. How many times did Labor members get up in this place and have a go at the Greens for fighting for more? How many times did Labor members get up in this place and say, 'No, that's all that we're going to offer'? How many times did the government shift as a result of the Greens pressure: when we got the guaranteed $500 million, when we got the $2 billion for the Social Housing Accelerator, when we got the extra $1 billion—and every time, every time in the lead-up to that, we were told there was no more. The Greens are happy about getting $3 billion of direct investment in public and community housing, because that is real, direct money going to build public and community homes. There will be tens of thousands of people that will get a home because the Greens stood up and fought. The other thing we talked about is the one-third of this country who rents. We made the point again and again and again: rents are going up at the fastest rate in 35 years. We got up and we said at the start of this the federal government could coordinate freezes and caps on rents. We were told it was impossible. And then all of a sudden things shifted. All of a sudden, for the first time in the history of this country, at least since post World War II, National Cabinet was forced to meet and talk about renters' rights. We went from a situation where the Prime Minister got up and called rent caps 'pixie dust' to a situation where National Cabinet was sitting around the table, every premier and first minister, chaired by the Prime Minister, and was forced into admitting it was in fact possible. And then what did they do, when the Greens had campaigned so hard that 74 per cent of the country now support rent increases? What did they do, while rents were going up at the fastest rate in 35 years? What did they do, as we sat through rental inquiries? In one situation, I remember, we heard a 30-year-old doctor going through Stage IV breast cancer treatment begged her real estate agent not to evict her because her immune system was low and asked for an extra two months on that lease, and the real estate agent issued her an eviction notice in response. What did the government do when we gave them that opportunity to freeze and cap rents, when even 58 per cent of coalition supporters now support a cap on rent increases? They instead locked in unlimited rent increases, and not a single renter in this country should ever forgive them for that. The promise I want to make every renter across the country, watching this at home, is: this fight has just begun. After nine months, there is now a supermajority of people who support caps and freezes on rent increases. We're seeing Germany now contemplating a three-year freeze on rent increases. We've seen Scotland, Spain and countries across the world capping and freezing rent increases. Let me be very clear. There is going to be a time in this place when a Greens member will stand up and celebrate a freeze and cap on rent increases, and it will be the result of the hard work and fight of hundreds of thousands of renters across this country. The message I want to send to you at home is: so often the political and media establishment in this place try to create a separation between what happens here and your lives at home. But the only way, the only reason we have this $3 billion, the only reason we got the $500 million guarantee, is not just the work in this place; it's that thousands of you stood up and fought. Thousands of you stood up and fought. You knocked on doors, you went to rallies—all things, by the way, that the government attacked us for doing, and the reason they attacked us is they are terrified of what happens when ordinary renters find their voice. Let me be very clear: they are just starting to find their voice, and over the next few years and over the next few months you're going to see what happens when one-third of this country stands up and fights back against a system that sees property investors get $39 billion a year in tax concessions while renters basically get nothing. Nine months of Greens pressure got $3 billion. Let's see what happens when we really start to mobilise and the Labor government realise that they can't keep turning their backs on the one-third of this country who rents. We've seen across the world what happens when ordinary people get together and organise. They wield real power and they get real results, and that's exactly what's going to happen in Australia. There's going to be a moment in Australian history when finally renters get to live with dignity. Finally renters will get to live with dignity and basic laws and get to live in this country as first-class citizens, not second-class citizens. That will be a great day indeed. 10:49 Mr PIKE 300120 Bowman I congratulate the member for Griffith for his passion on this issue and his work over recent months to extract the concessions that he has out of the government. Of course, we have very different views as to how we tackle Australia's housing crisis. The member for Griffith talks about a rental freeze. I think that the key is to get more supply. Unfortunately, the amendments to the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill do not go anywhere near what we need to do in this country to actually address the housing crisis we're facing—not just in the rental market, not just in social housing supply, but across the housing continuum. Unfortunately, despite the amendments, which we can't change, this bill is a fundamentally flawed way of delivering more supply. We have seen that increased borrowing will add to inflationary pressures in the economy, which will of course lead to higher interest rates, and the amendments can't paper over the fact that Housing Australia Future Fund will be capitalised by $10 billion of additional Commonwealth government borrowing. It's not a $10 billion fund; it's $10 billion of additional borrowing. We've now seen a guaranteed minimum for what will be invested in social housing, but, unfortunately, these amendments provide no long-term certainty as disbursements from the fund will be wholly reliant on the financial performance of the fund's investments in equity and other financial projects. We're borrowing and we're going to have to bank on the fact that we will beat the market and then that investment will go from there if we're lucky. We know that recent history has been that we haven't been so lucky with those levels of investment. When you look at the numbers directly, if we take the government's best case scenario, we end up with 30,000 additional homes over five years. As the shadow minister, the member for Deakin, pointed out, that's barely going to touch the sides. That's not a lot of homes when you put it over five years, particularly when you consider that we're going to be facing, according to the government's statistics, an extra 1.5 million migrants over that period of time. These amendments cannot guarantee that a single home will be built before the next election, if at all, and we will only see the housing crisis get worse. The legislation will do nothing to help those first homebuyers struggling to get into the property market—it's only looking after one segment of the market—and on every measure this legislation won't even scratch the surface when it comes to Australia's challenging housing crisis. When we look at the broader government objectives around the Housing Accord and the other policies they have in place, there is an ambitious target there of a million homes by 2030. Unfortunately, NHFIC is telling us that we actually need 1.7 million homes to be built by 2030 because that's the number of new households that will be built—and I don't believe that figure included the government's ambitious migrant policies either. When you think about the government's ambitious target, it's not getting anywhere near to the number of new homes that we need to get built and we know that by the end of this decade the crisis will be even worse. We are facing a significant crisis in this country. We're facing a massive rental crisis in my electorate, in Brisbane's bayside, and I know, from talking to my colleagues, that we're facing it across the board as well. It's important to remember that investor interest has never been an obstacle to housing supply in Australia. Supply is currently not being constrained by lack of capital, but by a lack of land, and it's our states and territories that control most of the policy levers that currently restrict supply. The Albanese government's approach does very little to put pressure on the states and territories to actually increase housing supply. And I'm not just talking about social housing here, I'm talking about housing supply across the continuum. We need more supply. The government can't just be offering the carrot; they've got to be offering the stick as well. I'm hoping that now this bill will pass that the government can focus more on those broader planning and tax reforms that are needed to boost housing supply across Australia. The government's approach to housing has so far created multiple strategy documents, multiple new bodies, and we'll end up with multiple new funds and amended financial facilities. And while I think the Commonwealth has a role to play here, it certainly isn't this. The point I always try to make is that more government is not going to be the answer to the challenges facing our nation's housing market. 10:54 Ms CHANEY 300006 Curtin Since I last spoke in the House about this package of legislation, the imperative to address supply and structural challenges in the housing sector has become increasingly urgent. I'm pleased to see that the Australian Greens, parts of the crossbench and the government have come to an agreement in the Senate and that the housing package will pass, along with an additional $3 billion commitment to social housing. This is the first piece of the puzzle. It won't fix the problem, but it's a start. More than 9,000 Western Australians are currently experiencing homelessness on any given night, and more than 4,100 people access specialist homelessness services every day in WA. Social housing makes up 3.8 per cent of homes in Western Australia. In 1983 we approved 14 social houses for every 100 private houses. Now it's only 1.4 per 100. The social housing waiting list numbers in WA have been steadily increasing since 2019, and the average wait time for a social house is 113 weeks. There are currently 39,000 individuals and 19,000 applications on the social housing waiting list in WA, with 4,700 priority applications. Additionally, WA currently faces an unmet need for 19,000 affordable homes. These are big numbers, and it puts the 30,000 homes over the next five years into context. On our current trajectory, the figures that I've quoted will double in the next 15 years, so let's not kid ourselves that we're solving the problem completely with this package. Even if we built all of these 30,000 homes instantly and all in Western Australia, we would still have a shortfall, but the extra $3 billion committed to social housing in negotiations with the Greens will also help. We need to see a sustainable pipeline of investment that represents an annual commitment to tackle more than just 30,000 homes. The HAFF is at least a bigger investment in housing supply than we've seen for a while, and the amendments made in the Senate are improvements. I'm glad to see the guaranteed minimum annual distribution of $500 million, as I called for last time the legislation was before the House. Guaranteeing that $500 million as a minimum will provide greater certainty to the market so investors will know that their returns are protected and will be more willing to invest. The National Housing Accord was initially a shared ambition to build one million homes over five years. It's now updated to 1.2 million. It depends hugely on the states and on private capital, and I fear it might be more aspirational than realistic. I note the government's recent announcement to provide states and territories with a new home bonus of up to $3 billion if they help reach that updated target, and I hope that the WA government will rise to challenge set by the Commonwealth government to address the housing issue in my home state. I welcome the inclusion of social and community housing and disability accommodation expertise on the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council. It will be really important that the members of the council act in the overall interests of the country, rather than defending different parts of the housing industry, and it will also be important that the council retains its full independence. Bringing forward the review date to December 2026 is also welcome. The package's success depends significantly on the response from the states and the market, and settings may need to be adjusted, especially after the National Housing and Homelessness Plan is finalised and the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement is renegotiated. It's worth noting that the current $10 billion commitment pales in comparison to the $290 billion the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation said would be required over the next two decades to meet the current and projected shortfall. I commend the government, the Australian Greens and some of the Senate crossbench for finally coming to an agreement on this housing package so we can start to address this fundamental need. 10:58 Mr FLETCHER L6B Bradfield The opposition will not be supporting these amendments, which make very little difference to the fundamental flaws and weaknesses in this government's approach to the housing policy challenges facing Australia. Of course, one of the fundamental flaws of what is proposed is that the so-called Housing Australia Future Fund will be capitalised with $10 billion of additional Commonwealth government borrowing. It's a highly cynical exercise in being able to quote a large number—$10 billion—but it's not $10 billion that's going to be spent on housing. It's going to be a much more complicated exercise, producing much lower amounts. This also comes at a real cost to the Commonwealth and to taxpayers. With a 10-year government bond at four per cent, it'll cost around $400 million per annum in interest-servicing costs on the debt, and of course that will simply add to inflationary pressures in the economy. Critically, a very serious policy objection to the convoluted and complicated framework this government has devised is that this fund provides no long-term certainty, as disbursements from the fund will be entirely reliant on the financial performance of the fund's investments in equities and other financial products. If the fund had been established in the last financial year, the Commonwealth would have lost approximately $370 million, on top of the $400 million in interest costs that the Commonwealth would have been required to pay. In other words, rather than providing any money at all towards the policy objective of funding additional social and affordable housing, the Commonwealth would have gone backwards by $770 million, and not one house would have been funded. It is for these very good reasons that the International Monetary Fund has rightly been very critical of these kinds of funds and has specifically warned against the proliferation of such funds. And of course, this policy measure will do nothing for renters in the private market. It will do nothing for Australians who want to purchase a home. As has been pointed out by a number of speakers in this debate, with 1.5 million additional people coming to Australia over five years, the quantity of additional housing needed is massively in excess of the outcomes that will be delivered, even if this policy achieves the high expectations that the present government has of it—although, as the shadow minister for housing has rightly pointed out, there's every likelihood that those expectations will not be met at all. The process that we've seen here is yet further evidence that the so-called Housing Australia Future Fund was an ill-thought-through policy, hastily put together by a party, the Labor Party, that was looking for something that would help its members get through television and radio interviews when being asked about housing, but does not go to the substantive issues. The policy does not guarantee that a single home will be built before the next election. And these amendments certainly make no difference to that fundamental flaw. The policy proposal embodied in this legislation, together with the amendments that are put before the House this morning, will do nothing to help those first home buyers struggling to get into the property market. The government cannot say how many homes this fund will build, where those homes will be located or when the fund will first make a return. There's a troubling lack of detail—although, sadly, that is all too common in the approach this government takes on so many policy fronts. The simple fact is that this government's policy framework and policy agenda on housing is in tatters. It's clear from Australian Bureau of Statistics figures that dwelling approvals have hit their lowest point since the days of the Gillard government. They're at their lowest level in over a decade. Detached housing approvals, as at April of this year, were over 15 per cent lower than at the same time last year, and all the evidence suggests that we're going to see a further, continued decline. This Labor government has no idea how to energise and activate the private sector to deliver the housing volumes that Australians need. The reality is: it has always been the private sector that has overwhelmingly constructed the great bulk of homes in which Australians live, and, to address the housing needs of Australians, it is very important that the private sector is supported and encouraged to do its work. Of course this government is putting all kinds of barriers in the way of the private sector, including a new round of very troubling industrial relations changes. This policy and the amendments before the House today are not supported by the coalition. 11:04 Mr McCORMACK 219646 Riverina I'd really like to say that Labor was in a policy vacuum, but unfortunately it is not. The trouble is: the policies being put forward by this government are bad, wrong-headed and short-sighted, and you only need to look at the amendments that have been brought into this House now, under the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023. This is just going to be just another policy that Labor has brought forward that—along with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan which doesn't include Victoria; and along with the truckie tax, which is going to have our farmers paying for international competitors' biosecurity—in every regard, in every way, shape or form is just not properly thought through. The member for Bradfield was right when he asked where and when these situations with the housing are going to occur. I spoke yesterday about the number of companies that have gone to the wall—gone bust. They're not small companies. Clough Group, Probuild, Dyldam Developments, Snowdon Developments, ABG Group and Condev are some of the larger construction companies that have folded. One of the more recent casualties is the Porter Davis Homes Group, rated the 13th-largest builder in Australia. That put 1,700 projects alone in jeopardy across multiple states. I said yesterday and I reiterate today that Labor is proposing to put tens of thousands of new homes—originally it was a million—and new housing constructions into the market. They won't build one. But, if they do it, if they do pull this off somehow, some way, who is going to build these homes? We've got so many housing companies at the moment struggling from the financial hardships brought about by that side of politics. And, then, where are we going to source the materials? It's so, so difficult to find labour in metropolitan areas, let alone in regional areas like the member for Capricornia's electorate or mine. You just cannot find people to build houses. I know those opposite go on about fee-free TAFE. The situation is stark. You can't find sparkies. You can't find carpenters. You can't find plasterers. You can't find labourers to do the jobs that are expected when Labor say they are going to build tens of thousands of homes. It's a nonsense. It's absolute nonsense. It's utopia. Ms Collins HWM On one hand you're saying we're not doing enough and on the other that we shouldn't do anything at all. Mr 219646 I hear the housing minister calling out. This is a dirty deal done not cheap with the Greens. The last time I saw a deal like this was when the Gillard government was in power, and we saw a deal struck with the Greens—Bob Brown was the leader then—and we all remember how that ended up. The situation is this: this is a deal done with the Greens to appease inner-city voters. It's not done to try to get people into homes. It's not done with social housing policy in mind. It's done because they're worried about what the Greens might be doing to their votes in inner-city electorates, and what a shame that is. The UNSW put out a media release on 29 June this year talking about the number of construction companies collapsing—collapsing under the weight of not being able to find labour, collapsing under the weight of just not being able to make ends meet. Then we have a Victorian Labor government which wants to just shut down the timber industry. We've got a Victorian Labor government which doesn't want to have— Ms Collins HWM How is this relevant to the amendment? Mr McCORMACK 219646 It is very relevant to the amendments because you build houses out of wood; you build houses out of timber. It's very relevant. I know you've cut Victoria out of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Maybe cut Victoria out of the amendments to the housing plan too. Maybe Victoria doesn't exist anymore in the minds of those opposite. It very relevant because the fact is that you just won't have the materials and you certainly won't have the labour to build homes. Since this time last year, new home starts are down by 6.6 per cent. It once was the great Australian dream to own your own home—not anymore, because people are burdened down by the weight of the cost-of-living crisis brought about by Labor at the federal level and at every other level that they are in power. 11:09 Mr VIOLI 300147 Casey It is an important discussion that we are having today around housing. There is no doubt it is one of the challenges, if not the biggest challenge, many people in our communities are facing. It's so important that people can own a home if they so choose, because it builds those connections to their community and it gives them that security that is vital for them to be engaged in their community. We all, on all sides of this House, support getting as many people as possible into housing. However, the reality is this is a bad bill that will not deliver housing for Australians. It's all about politics and spin. It's all about the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and those opposite being able to stand here in this House or in front of the media and say, 'We are investing $10 billion in housing.' But they're not. It's a mirage. Its political spin. There is not a dollar of that $10 billion being invested in housing. It is being invested in a future fund, which is completely different. It is bad policy. It is off-budget spending. That means it doesn't count in the budget. So the Treasurer can stand there and talk about his surplus, the Prime Minister can talk about a surplus and have this facade of economic management, but there is $45 billion at least of off-budget spending that this government continues to hide. But it gets worse. This $10 billion is being funded by debt. I will give the government a pass on this. This policy was announced in 2021 and interest rates were at zero. So at that point I could understand it. But, as many say, when the facts change, your opinion should change. Interest rates are now at four per cent at least, which many Australians know. That means that on that $10 billion of debt this fund has to spend $400 million to service that repayment. That's $400 million before a house has been built. That's before we even look at the fees that the future fund will charge to manage that money. We're looking at maybe $500 million. But it gets worse. In their need to capitulate to the Greens, this government has committed to a minimum spend of $500 million a year, which means there is $1 billion each year that this fund has to spend. So the future fund has to generate, from the $10 billion, $1 billion to stop it eating into the capital that is being invested. That's before we even factor in the chance of the future fund losing money, which it did two years ago, over $300 million. So if this fund was put in previously we would be paying $400 million in interest repayments, we would have lost $300 million on the $10 billion and the fund still would have had to invest $500 million in housing. It is bad policy. It is designed purely for this government to pretend that it is solving this problem. The reality is that it is a complex challenge, involving local governments, state governments and the federal government. But this government when in opposition promised Australians it would fix this problem. They campaigned on this issue knowing the challenges. We will hold them to account for that in this House every day, because it is not an easy solution. This $10 billion is a mirage. Supply is crucial. Working with local councils and working with state governments is crucial. Being able to get more into the market will bring prices down. As the member for Riverina so rightly said, the cost of construction is also increasing significantly and we are seeing less timber being used, which is going to drive prices up. This is a government that has no solutions to the problems Australians are facing in housing and with the cost of living, with energy prices going up. We see a consistent theme 16 months into this government. It is all spin. It is all politics. There are no answers to housing. There are no answers to the energy crisis we face. There are no answers to the cost-of-living crisis we face. In fact, we know this government is not even focused on these issues. Once this bill passes and they've got their headline, there will be no more answers from the government. At best, we might get another summit, roundtable or talkfest from this government on housing, but we won't get solutions. (Time expired) 11:14 Mr BOYCE 299498 Flynn I rise to speak on the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023. Housing is no doubt one of the most significant issues across Australia and also in my electorate of Flynn in Central Queensland. However, all this legislation and amendments provide a bandaid solution which over time will only make this problem worse. Let me be clear: this is another desperate, dodgy deal that's been done by the Labor Party with the Greens. The Labor Party and the Greens are working together so much that I wonder when they are going to form a coalition. It should come as no surprise that the actual coalition, the Liberal-National coalition, will not be supporting these amendments. These amendments attempted to paper over the cracks of the Albanese government's crumbling signature housing policy. The amendments can't change the fact that the Housing Australia Future Fund will be capitalised by $10 billion worth of additional Commonwealth borrowing. These amendments can't change that that increasing borrowing will add to inflationary pressures in the economy, leading to higher interest rates overall. Last October the Albanese government announced an aspiration to build one million homes over five years, yet multiple housing industry groups have since confirmed that this building activity is falling off a cliff. This target will not be met. Now the government has plucked another figure out of the sky, 1.2 million homes over five years. This figure is out of thin air too, knowing full well that these homes will not be built. The outcome of August's National Cabinet meeting has cemented the harsh reality that this housing crisis is going to continue and get worse under the Albanese Labor government, who has absolutely no plan on how to deal with this problem. What this bill and the amendments fail to do is provide incentive for private industry and business to build homes. Labor is doing the Oprah Winfrey of politics, saying, 'You'll get a house, you'll get a house, you'll get a house.' Why isn't the Labor government encouraging private businesses to build with more incentives, rather than copying and pasting the Karl Marx manifesto? While I understand that social housing must be provided by governments, where do we stop with this policy? According to Master Builders Australia, the Flynn electorate has almost 4,000 small-size building and construction businesses, the largest number in any electorate across Australia. What we are seeing is business after business go bust with no plan in sight from the government. In a desperate last-ditch attempt to get its troubled housing bill through the parliament, the government was forced yet again to cut another deal with the Greens on 11 September 2023. An agreement by the government to allocate an additional $1 billion towards the coalition's highly successful National Housing Infrastructure Facility just reiterates that investments of this kind should be made directly, not through Labor's convoluted HAFF money-go-round. The NHIF was set up by the former coalition government, and Labor continues to adopt coalition initiatives as its own. Let's be clear: Labor's housing legislation does nothing to ease the supply pressures on first homeowners seeking to buy their first home and get into the property market. It will only see Australia's housing crisis worsened, with the added inflationary pressures on the economy ultimately leading to higher interest rates and more difficulty for those Australians looking to enter the housing market. Despite all of this, Labor is still planning to bring 1.5 million immigrants to Australia over the next five years with no plan on how to house them on top of housing our own growing population. It is clear that Labor's recent deal with the Greens is nothing more than a political stunt, which is typical of a government reliant on Greens preferences in order to be re-elected. More disappointingly, this is a government that is completely out of touch with Australians facing the current real hardships and painful cost-of-living pressures. The housing crisis is an issue that needs cooperation on all three levels of government, local, state and federal. States and councils need to introduce policies that unlock land for development and not make development of new housing stock more expensive. All too often we have seen local governments lock up land and prevent housing development while continuing to adopt policies of ongoing cost. We need to be thinking about policies that support the Australian dream of homeownership. I wish to conclude by saying that I will not be supporting these amendments. 11:19 Mr STEVENS 176304 Sturt In my adult life the orthodoxy of election campaigns has been for the major parties, in particular, to put forward their spending priorities and talk to the Australian people about the policies and plans that they have and that they'll implement if elected, which is why it is particularly curious that we're confronted here with a policy position that the government took to the last election that involved actually committing no money whatsoever towards it. We can understand and reflect on the sorts of meetings and discussions that would have happened between the government and the Greens when the government first sat down with the Greens and said, 'We want to get your support to pass this legislation through the parliament to establish this Housing Australia Future Fund.' I suspect that the first question from the Greens logically would have been, 'How much money will we be spending on housing in exchange for supporting this policy?' No doubt the government then explained what this policy actually was. This policy had no money committed in the forward estimates. This policy involved the government not having to put anything in their costing document at an election. This policy, as it would have become evident to the Greens, was a way for the government to have a policy without having a policy, to have a policy to address housing that would miraculously cost them nothing whatsoever, that would require no sacrifice in their election costings document and that would not require them to increase taxes in any way or cut expenditure from anything else in the budget to make their numbers stack up. I suspect that in some kind of campaign strategy meeting someone said, 'We don't have a policy for housing and we need one.' And someone else, I suspect, said: 'I've got a great idea of having a housing policy that won't cost us anything, and it'll sound really good because it'll be $10 billion. Imagine when we pick up the newspaper the day after we announce that and someone says, "Labor announces $10 billion commitment to housing." It's going to be fantastic because we're not actually putting any money in whatsoever, but we'll be able to trick and hoodwink some people into thinking that we've got a $10 billion housing policy.' When this was all put to the Greens, I suspect they were a bit onto the fraud of this concept and said, 'We're not voting for a policy that will achieve nothing whatsoever when it comes to housing.' I've got a lot of issues with the Greens, but, to be fair, I think in this one they've shown a great deal of integrity in calling out the scam, the lemon of a policy that this is, and demanding that, to vote for this fraud that will deliver nothing, they want actual money spent on housing. As I've said before, I congratulate them on being a party that actually got some money spent on housing through this charade that we're going through of debating this bill. There is evidently $3 billion being spent as part of a deal to get the Greens to vote for a policy that they weren't going to vote for without this $3 billion, because they would have been voting for a policy to spend nothing on housing whatsoever, and they've exposed that through this whole thing. This is a political fix. The government's had to spend $3 billion of actual money to get support for a policy to spend nothing on housing whatsoever. I suppose the outcome's there, but it is a very curious and unorthodox way—which I've never seen in my time in this parliament—of achieving actual expenditure in an area of public policy: the now government having an election policy to spend nothing; trying to get the policy of spending nothing on the topic through the parliament; and, in exchange for getting support to spend nothing on something, actually spending money on it as part of a negotiation with a minor party in the Senate. I wonder what this holds for other government decisions into the future—we're going to find out—because the model's very clear now: for dud government policy, it costs around three billion bucks per bill to be passed through the Senate by the Greens. This is going to get very expensive. The Greens may well continue to get mega spend on their pet projects in exchange for supporting other government legislation. That's how our democracy works, and I wish them well with that quest. But it is a completely ridiculous situation we've got, where we're being asked to support a bill to spend nothing on housing in exchange for a deal with the Greens to spend $3 billion on it. (Time expired) 11:24 Mr HAMILTON 291387 Groom What an outstanding contribution from the member for Sturt. I'm going to change what I was going to say because what he's highlighted is this almost comical situation we find ourselves in. It's like an episode of Seinfeld: this was a policy about nothing. It was a lot of sound and fury, with some things flashing up on the screen, and absolutely nothing happened until the intervention of the Greens. We saw this magnificent kabuki theatre—the Prime Minister snarling at the member for Griffith as he walked out, all the articles and all the hubris and the animosity that's been thrown about—but of course any quarrel can be solved if enough money is thrown at it. It was $3 billion. That's how much it cost the taxpayer to bring this lovers' tiff to an end. But what a great episode of kabuki theatre it was. I've got to give it to the Greens here. This is the greatest political play, and I think it's been undersold. I want to go through just how great this political play by the Greens has been. The issue of housing supply in Australia is due to the deployment of Greens policies at a local government level: their continual refusal to allow developments for housing—for kids, like those sitting up in the gallery here, to grow up and buy one day—their absolute nimbyism and their rejection of anything. This was caught magnificently in the Courier Mail recently. In just the three electorates of our new Greens members in Brisbane, they have fought against the development of—you won't believe this, Member for Deakin—1,900 apartments. Mr Birrell 288713 How many? Mr HAMILTON 291387 Of 1,900 apartments! The very people who come in here now and want to tell you how much they care about the housing crisis, who want to tell you about renters rights, are stopping the development of properties at a time when every CEO of every major bank will tell you the issue is critically low levels of housing supply. This is an amazing play by the Greens, and part of me sits back with admiration, saying, 'How did you pull this off?' This is brilliant. You caused the problem, and then you extracted $3 billion from the government as part of the solution. It's a fantastic play by the Greens. Hats off to them. I mean, it's sinister, it's underhanded and it has hurt the Australian people—it's particularly hurt younger Australians—but it has probably benefited the Greens. This is Labor's attempt, right now, to try and fight back. That's what this is. That's what this housing policy is aimed at: to try and save a few Labor seats in these inner-city suburbs. But we've gone through this before. The amendments do not change the fundamental problem with this bill. In fact, they make it worse. We have $10 billion that is borrowed at an estimated cost of $400 million a year. It will be invested, and, hopefully, returns on that investment will be above the $400 million, so that nothing can happen. You've got to get $400 million return just to get to that Seinfeld episode where nothing happens. That's a fair amount. That's a good day's work to get to Seinfeld. Then, on top of that, the government has made a commitment now—this is the amendment we're speaking to—of $500 million per year to be spent on housing. You get to a certain level with figures, and they sound incredibly impressive. Gee, $500 million sounds like a lot of money. I'm going to go through this again. At an estimated cost—and I'm being generous—of $700,000 a property, that's 714 homes. That's less than half the number of homes that the Greens have blocked just in their three electorates, by the way. This is the signature, the key, the building block, the masterstroke around which Labor's policy is built. It's 714 homes. Once again, Member for Deakin, you'll forgive me for talking about how great Toowoomba is, because without a Housing Australia Future Fund, without $10 billion, without the genius of the entire Labor economics team, we were able to build 830 homes. We just did that because that's what we felt like doing. We just got about our work. We didn't need all of this money. We didn't need all of this exaggeration. We're just one country town, an hour and a half in from Brisbane—the most beautiful place in the entire world—and we managed to beat that. Even with the $3 billion extracted by the Greens to solve the problem they caused, even with the commitment of $500 million, this remains a policy about nothing. All it's going to do is hurt the Australian taxpayer. 11:29 Mr BIRRELL 288713 Nicholls I want to talk today about gambling reform. The shadow minister may say, 'What's this got to do with what we're debating?' The DEPUTY SPEAKER 00AMT You need to speak to the amendment. Mr BIRRELL 288713 I reckon gambling reform is really important, and I think governments have got to learn about gambling. They've got to learn about gambling on the stock market with borrowed money. I reckon that's a really important reform that's got to come in. We've got to make sure that they can be educated about that, that if you do borrow $10 billion at a certain interest rate and whatever the returns you make don't match that interest rate, then you might lose money. This is gambling reform writ large. Losing your own money is a problem. We've all done it. I went to the Melbourne Cup last year. I can't remember which horse I had my 10 bucks—which is all I bet each year—on, but it certainly wasn't a winner. You feel a bit sad about it. But when you're gambling with other people's money you've got to understand how hard people work to earn it, and that's the problem with this Labor government and many Labor governments, with a couple of exceptions, over the past hundred years The Andrews government are a classic example of a government who doesn't understand how hard people work to earn money, and they show that they don't understand that by callously flushing it down the toilet, such as with the Commonwealth Games—classic example. Housing reform's really important. When talking about housing developments and working with my constituents, some of whom are developers, some of whom are builders, I've always found that the problem with building houses isn't the capital—the capital can flow into the housing market. It's not about taxpayers money. It would be one thing if it were taxpayers money from the budget, but this is like, 'Let's borrow something and hope we have a bit of a win so that we've got some money for housing.' The problem is more the red and green tape, the time, the effort and the expense it takes to turn something from a paddock—and there are plenty of paddocks around Shepparton, the city I'm from; Shepparton's expanding—into a development where someone can go and pour a slab and start building. Hopefully a young family can go and buy a house, the great Australian dream that many of us have been lucky enough to participate in, and I hope that many more can. The dream's alive in regional Australia, but I'll tell you what, the way state and local governments approach planning and the time and expense it takes means a lot of development companies just say, 'It's too hard.' We could get more houses built if we focus our reforms there, focusing on the real issues, and not by gambling, not by saying, 'Let's borrow $10 billion and see if we can make a little bit of money out of it.' There are developments outside greater Shepparton. There is a development just outside a place called Tatura which is in my electorate. Tatura's got a really small population, but it's got all these huge industries: Tatura Milk, Unilever and all of the service industries—and I hope Tatura Milk thrives as an industry, but I'm worried about it. They're worried about it because of the callous disregard of those opposite to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, one of the most productivity-destroying pieces of legislation I've ever seen come into this place. Hopefully Tatura Milk can survive, keep going, thrive and provide dairy products not only to Australians but to people all over the world, but what they need is more people. If we need more people to move to Tatura to work in these industries, they need to build more houses. They need to make available the land to build more houses. It's very hard to do that because of what you've got to go through with local government planning schemes and state government planning schemes. I read somewhere—correct me if I'm wrong—that approvals in New Zealand take something like six to 12 months. It can take six to nine years for approvals in Australia. That doesn't help us build houses, that helps us build bureaucracy. We need less bureaucracy and more buildings. We need less taxpayer money wasted. Let's pour some slabs and build some houses. 11:34 Mrs ARCHER 282237 Bass Given I gave my initial speech indicating my support for the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023 back in February, I'm incredibly pleased that the stalemate has ended and I can begin to hold Labor to account for a promise that I and my electorate have put our faith in them to deliver on. I make no apologies for supporting the Housing Australia Future Fund. In the northern Tasmanian region of Bass, we are in the midst of a social and affordable housing crisis. According to data published by Everybody's Home, Bass has the highest proportion of people waiting for social housing in the state, at around 6.2 per cent. And it's not just confined to Launceston and surrounding suburbs. I encounter it in rural areas, from Scottsdale to my home town of George Town and the beautiful but remote Flinders Island. We shouldn't have to see people leaving the towns they grew up in, where they're connected to their families and their communities, because they can't access housing. Many tourism and hospitality businesses in some of our regional and rural hotspots are also struggling to recruit and retain employees, as there is simply nowhere for them to live. As Nick Proud, CEO of PowerHousing Australia, shared with me recently, housing affordability has only deteriorated since the election, particularly as migration has rebounded post COVID, and the fund could help more than 80,000 Australian renters in need. He also noted that the delays in passing the Housing Australia Future Fund legislation have already jeopardised the 8,000 households and up to 25,000 Australians that could have had housing approved by mid-October. The No. 1 constituent issues that come to my office are issues due to a lack of social or affordable housing. Every single day, I am contacted by someone who has been searching for secure accommodation for far too long. While there is strong anecdotal evidence I hear from local organisations—including Strike It Out, City Mission, Shekinah House, St Vinnies and the Salvation Army, who deliver essential services week after week—anyone in the region, and in Launceston particularly, can see it with their own eyes, as tents are now popping up in areas that we would never have seen them even 18 months or two years ago. Shekinah House coordinator Louise Cowan said that demand is ever-increasing. She said: Generally across all the services we provide, we are seeing new people every week who haven't been homeless before and we know of others who are doing their third winter in a tent. Paul Giddins, the wonderful owner of the Green Bean Cafe, provides meals to the homeless and to community members doing it tough. Paul has said that demand has grown to the point that, even though they have increased the number of meals they provide each week, there are still others missing out. CEO of St Vincent de Paul Heather Kent said the issue of supporting the community doing it tough was reaching a critical point, as costs of living continue to rise and housing availability remains low. Heather says: We know that state, local and federal governments are working to stem that supply issue but it can't happen fast enough. We look at the vacancy rates in the major areas across Tasmania and we know that people are waiting weeks if not months to find a safe, appropriate and stable roof over their heads. What I said in my initial speech stands today: how can I, in good conscience, say to them that I commit to doing what I can to help them and then turn around and vote against a policy that, although flawed, may help? Back in February I called the then housing minister, Guy Barnett, to inform him of my decision to support the HAFF. I was pleased to see him speak out a few months later and call on his federal counterparts in the Senate to stop talking and start building. Minister Barnett said: The top three priorities for delivering more homes faster is: supply, supply, supply. …   …   … And we just encourage Canberra get on with the job and give us the funding and the support that's needed to build more homes faster. I will always fight for what's best for my community, no matter who is responsible for putting the legislation in front of me. If it will deliver better outcomes for the region I represent, it will get my vote. I also want to acknowledge the work of Tasmanian senators Tammy Tyrrell and Jacqui Lambie, who in Senate negotiations will ensure that 1,200 new homes will be built in Tasmania over the next five years, double the original amount allocated to our island state. Now the work for the federal government begins. You have my support on this, but I will be watching you closely to ensure that you do deliver what you have promised. There is far too much at stake for my community who are living in their cars, camping in public spaces or a friend's backyard, and for the pregnant women couch surfing, for this to fail. 11:39 Mr SUKKAR 242515 Deakin In summing up the opposition's position on this, I'll say: we won't be supporting these amendments. I think it's useful to reflect on some of the specific amendments that have flowed through as part of the government paying the ransom demanded by the Greens political party. We still have no explanation from the government on the minimum drawdown each year of $500 million, in the instance where the fund does not deliver a return. What I mean by that, for those watching, is that this entire policy is premised on borrowing $10 billion. That will cost about $400 million a year in interest. So they'll borrow that and then hand it over to the Future Fund, who will probably charge the Commonwealth about one per cent to manage that money—so another $100 million to manage that money. That's $500 million, just to establish this fund. And then they hope that the returns in that fund are greater than those costs, and, now, greater than the additional $500 million of minimum drawdown each year. Then take the instance where the fund loses money—and, had this fund been in place last year, it would have lost $370 million, plus the $400 million of interest, plus the $100 million in management fees, so it would have lost close to $900 million. As to the requirement that the Greens have now extracted from the government, of a minimum drawdown of $500 million: does that diminish the corpus of the fund? Therefore, are we now not talking about a perpetual fund but instead about a convoluted money-go-round to get this off the budget bottom line? The member for Sturt was absolutely right: this policy is simply a policy designed to have a big number in a media release that would not hit the budget bottom line before the election when they were releasing their costings. That's all it is; nothing else. Now the government will be held to account on what they have legislated. We have significant doubts that this will deliver anywhere near the numbers claimed, and, even if it does, it's a drop in the bucket. To some extent, while the parliament has been looking at this issue—watching the frenemy-ship between the Labor Party and the Greens, and their fights and the Kabuki theatre that the member for Groom spoke about—it's been somewhat entertaining, of course. But, really, we're talking about a policy that's tiny—tiny! If this thing clears every hurdle and if the future fund has a phenomenal next five years, with huge returns, which is a big if, then, they're saying, they'll build 6,000 homes a year for five years—6,000. Over that time, they are seeking to bring in 1½ million new migrants. Just think about that. The government is saying: 'Our signature policy may build 6,000 homes a year, at the same time that we're bringing in 300,000 people for each of those years—1.5 million people for 30,000 homes.' So the fact that we have spent so much time on this—a very small policy, in the scheme of Australian housing—is quite remarkable. As the member for Sturt rightly outlined, it's a huge humiliation for the government that they've had to pay the ransom of the Greens. My concern is that even the ransom that has been paid will not benefit Australians. The government has handed over $2 billion in the form of a blank cheque to the states and territories—the same people who led us to this disaster; the same people who have seen and presided over public and social waiting lists getting longer by the year. People don't want to see media releases from the Labor government. They want to see action. Sadly, under this government, we've got first home buyers down, we've got new home starts down, we've got new home approvals down and we've got rents up. We will be opposing this bill, because this bill and this fund will do nothing to arrest that disastrous decline under this government. The SPEAKER 53517 The question is that the amendment be agreed to.  

The House divided. [11:49]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

91 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. 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. Khalil, P. King, C. F. King, M. M. H. 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. Mulino, D. 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. 48 NOES Andrews, K. L. Bell, A. M. Birrell, S. J. Boyce, C. E. Broadbent, R. E. Caldwell, C. M. Chester, D. J. Coleman, D. B. Conaghan, P. J. Coulton, M. M. (Teller) Dutton, P. C. Entsch, W. G. Fletcher, P. W. Goodenough, I. R. Hamilton, G. R. Hastie, A. W. Hawke, A. G. 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. van Manen, A. J. Vasta, R. X. Violi, A. A. Ware, J. L. Webster, A. E. Willcox, A. J. Wilson, R. J. Wolahan, K. Young, T. J. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

National Housing Supply and Affordability Council Bill 2023 29

National Housing Supply and Affordability Council Bill 2023

Consideration of Senate Message 29 11:55 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin I move: That the amendments be agreed to. Question agreed to. Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Measures No. 1) Bill 2023 29

Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Measures No. 1) Bill 2023

Consideration of Senate Message 29 11:55 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin I move: That the amendments be agreed to. 11:55 Mr SUKKAR 242515 Deakin The coalition won't be supporting this amendment. This amendment worryingly diminishes the purpose of the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, a very proud coalition achievement, soon to be known as Housing Australia. Under this amendment, now, with the stroke of a pen, the minister can specifically exclude certain types of liabilities or loans from the application of section 48 of the NHFIC Act. When the coalition established the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, we deliberately established it as an independent body with an independent board that would be responsible itself for determining strategy, defining its risk appetite and making financial decisions—not the minister. With all due respect to the minister, I would trust the board to determine strategy and define risk appetite and make financial decisions a lot more than I would trust the minister. For that reason, we will not be supporting this amendment. Sadly, it's an amendment that partly strips NHFIC of its independence. Worryingly for everyone in the sector who has championed this great coalition achievement, the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, this undermines its long-term viability, sustainability and, importantly, independence and decision-making. For that reason, we will not be supporting this amendment. The SPEAKER 53517 The question is that the amendment be agreed to.  

The House divided. [12:01]
(The Speaker—Hon. Milton Dick)

92 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. 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. 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. 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. 48 NOES Andrews, K. L. Bell, A. M. Birrell, S. J. Boyce, C. E. Broadbent, R. E. Caldwell, C. M. 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. Landry, M. L. Leeser, J. Ley, S. P. 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. van Manen, A. J. Vasta, R. X. Violi, A. A. Ware, J. L. Webster, A. E. Willcox, A. J. Wilson, R. J. Wolahan, K. Young, T. J. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

 12:05 Mr TEHAN 210911 Wannon Mr Speaker, the patting each other on the back and self-congratulations that are going on on the other side when a piece of legislation is passed seems to be a little bit disorderly. Are we going to get this every single time they pass legislation in this House? They're boasting, 'Everything's wonderful,' when people are suffering with the cost of living. It seems disorderly to me, Mr Speaker. The SPEAKER 53517 It's timely that the member for Wannon made this point of order or discussion. I want to remind all members that banging of desks, which happens on both sides of the chamber, clapping and cheering, which happen on both sides of the chamber, as we saw last week when we had protesters in the gallery, is highly disorderly. The SPEAKER 53517 Member for Barker, I don't need your assistance—trust me. I want to remind all members that they are to act in a respectful way without additional noise, commentary or clapping, and I hope that will continue during question time. Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023 31

Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023

Second Reading 31 12:07 Ms ROBERTS 157125 Pearce There is no doubt that casual employment forms a sizeable proportion of the Australian labour market and suits the needs of some employees and employers. However, there are known issues, and we need to address the critical issue of job security and all that entails. As stated previously, almost 19 per cent of workers in Pearce in August 2022 were working in insecure casual work, and although casual employees are generally entitled to receive a loading to compensate for a lack of paid leave entitlements, casual employees generally earn less on average than permanent employees. Importantly, they do not have the same ability to receive benefits such as superannuation. In a modern, progressive, fair society, job security, including paid leave and superannuation benefits, are the minimum we should expect. These are key factors when seeking a mortgage or a loan and for long-term wellbeing. If future generations are looking to live on their superannuation earnings then we need to enable them to accumulate this by providing appropriate employment opportunities. Part 9 of schedule 1 to the bill would change the defence to misrepresenting employment as an independent contracting arrangement known as 'sham contracting' in subsection 357(2) of the Fair Work Act from a test of recklessness to one of reasonableness. The new test would provide that an employer would not contravene the prohibition on sham contracting in subsection 357(1) of the Fair Work Act if the employee reasonably believes that contract was a contract for services. Part 14 of schedule 1 addresses wage theft, a persistent issue that has plagued our workforce for too long. As the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has said: If a worker steals from the till, it's a criminal offence … But in many parts of the country if an employer steals from a worker's pay packet, it's not. This injustice must be brought to an end. I'm sure I do not have to remind colleagues that wage theft is a significant issue throughout Australia, with too many reports of underpayment and exploitation of workers, particularly in industries like hospitality, agriculture and retail. The bill introduces a new criminal offence for wage theft, which applies to intentional conduct. The bill also introduces stricter penalties for employers who intentionally underpay their employees, ensuring that they are held accountable for their actions. Workers deserve to receive their fair wages for their hard work, and this legislation takes a significant step forward in achieving that. Schedule 2 proposes important changes to the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency Act 2013. Promoting industrial hygiene involves taking steps to protect the work environment by reducing workers' exposure to substances that impact upon human health, including where workplace exposure to respirable or crystalline silica results in people developing serious health conditions. The new part 1A and item 15 would provide the agency with functions related to silica safety and coordination and monitoring of jurisdictional efforts to eliminate silica related occupational diseases. Importantly, amendments to the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 are intended to improve the physical and mental health outcomes for first responders covered by the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, by simplifying their right to workers compensation if they are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. It is a timely reminder of the work undertaken by those working in our police force, firefighters, ambulance officers, and emergency services who do such an amazing job protecting and serving our community, often in dangerous circumstances. Schedule 4 to the bill would strengthen the offences and penalties framework in the Work Health and Safety Act 2011. A new offence of industrial manslaughter would be introduced—and not before time. Jobs in both the construction and resource industries are hard and dangerous. Given this, there is an appropriate expectation that employers will provide their workers with a safe workplace, but we need to do more than that. There must be clear consequences for employers that cut corners and whose employees face the ultimate deadly outcome. Too many families have had to endure the heartache of their loved ones never coming home after an industrial accident. A stronger safety culture needs a regime that ensures that those responsible are prosecuted if things go wrong. Furthermore, the bill introduces measures to ensure collective bargaining remains a viable option for workers seeking better wages and working conditions. It enhances protections for union representatives, safeguarding their ability to advocate for their members effectively. As the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations said at the introduction of this bill: If someone thinks it's reasonable that wage theft not be a crime, defend it. …   …   … If someone believes that low-paid workers in the gig economy should have absolutely no minimum standards, they should make that case. If someone's position is that it's fine for certain companies to agree to minimum rates of pay in an enterprise agreement and then use a loophole to completely undercut them then they should defend the loophole and make that case. These are the bizarre positions taken by those opposite. I stand here today proudly representing the hardworking families of Pearce, and I urge support for the bill. This is the legislation that will deliver the job security and wages growth for our families in need. In conclusion, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023 represents a significant milestone in our pursuit of fair and just working environments for all Australians. It addresses crucial issues such as the gig economy, exploitation, wage theft, workplace harassment and collective bargaining rights. By closing these loopholes we are taking a vital step forward in ensuring that every worker in Australia is treated with the dignity, respect and fairness they deserve. I commend this bill to the House. 12:15 Mr LEESER 109556 Berowra This bad bill is bad policy and bad economics and it's bad for our country. It demonstrates that this government is not here for the national interest; it's here for the vested interests of big unions and big super. It's a world away from the ethos of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments, which undertook serious economic reform. Those governments had as their legacy an opened economy, businesses unleashed, increased workforce participation and economic growth. It's a situation that continued and was expanded under the Howard government, where 2.2 million new jobs were created thanks to that government's record of economic reform, particularly around tax reform, cutting red tape, industrial reform and Corporations Law reform. The transformation of Australian business started the transformation of Australia that we saw over the past decades. There was a bipartisan understanding that the engine room of this country is not Canberra, nor is it found in the Public Service or in the parliamentary offices, whether here in this building or dotted around the country. It's found in the productivity of our businesses, and that productivity growth is a quest. John Howard used to describe economic reform as like running a race that has an ever-retreating finish line. In other words, the process of economic reform is never done, and it's such an important process for the future of our country. Productivity has always been the watchword of people on this side of the House. It's productivity that will grow our national pie. It's productivity that is the pathway to a higher wage economy—a higher wage economy that is sustainable. Recently, the Treasury introduced the latest intergenerational report. The report highlighted the challenges of our aging population, with ongoing low fertility rates and the number of Australians aged between 65 and 85 tripling. That's a wonderful thing, but it's a challenge for any modern economy and it's a challenge for our society. It's a challenge that means ongoing increases in funded welfare payments. Also, with the deteriorating global security environment and the very much more complex geostrategic environment in which Australia finds itself, there is now a much greater need for spending on national security and defence, which will put pressures on the budget into the future. As well, Treasury projections are for productivity to slow and GDP growth to slow. The long-term financial prospects are sobering reading. The importance of productivity as a watchword and as a focus of economic policy in order to grow the bigger pie is fundamental. If we have a more productive economy, we have more jobs and we have a greater tax take, which can help pay for all the important services that Australians want, whether it is a stronger Defence Force, whether it is better national security, to keep the challenges that Australia faces at bay, or whether it is the important social services that we need—things like health, education, aged care and, particularly, disability. We can only do this with greater productivity and a more strongly growing economy. Sadly, in this setting, where there are more demands on the federal budget and where productivity is declining, the government has introduced these industrial relations changes. At a time when businesses large and small are lamenting the complexity of the Fair Work system, this legislation makes things worse. This legislation is so complex it needs over 700 pages of explanatory notes. At about 1,000 pages, when you put the bill and the explanatory memorandum together, it's as dry, wordy and inexplicable as some of those monthly essays from Dr Rudd and Dr Chalmers. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations says that this is a modest change. I've heard the word 'modest' elsewhere, on a proposal he and I agree on. That proposal is a 100-word proposed change to the Australian Constitution being voted on next month. One hundred words is modest, but I can't agree that this legislation, which weighs a ton, with roughly 1,000 pages of law and explanatory text, is modest; in fact, it's a PhD in red tape. The only modesty related to this bill is the false modesty of the government in saying that this is a simple bill about closing loopholes. This bill is about more red tape, more costs and more complexity for Australians during a decade in which it is predicted that Australians will need to become so much more competitive. According to the government's own estimates, these challenges will add an extra $9 billion of costs to the economy more broadly. Those costs, as the minister has acknowledged, will feed themselves into the cost structures of goods and services produced and purchased by Australians every day. This is a new pressure on costs at a time when cost-of-living pressures are hitting Australians at their hardest and when people are feeling the squeeze. This bill makes a complex system even more complex. It will increase compliance instead of increasing productivity. It points Australia back to the 1950s, towards centralised wage fixing. It constrains choice and it puts new compliance pressures on businesses right across this country. I believe in the importance of enterprise bargaining. I believe it delivers for businesses and it delivers for their workers. We're living in an era of profound skills shortage and of low unemployment. We're at rates of unemployment now that we used to describe as full employment. This is the best time for enterprise agreement-making. The benefit is flexibility for both parties. Enterprise bargaining grows pay packets, improves job security and creates the right mix of incentives and agility, but this bill walks away from all of that. My first concern is the expansion of the union right-of-entry powers. Most businesses and most workplaces have never seen a union, but this right of entry in any circumstances is a serious legal power which will see unions back again like in the bad old days. This is a power to legally trespass on someone else's property. This bill will enable unions right of entry without notice wherever it relates to wage underpayment. To gain immediate entry, the union only needs to assert to the Fair Work Commission that it suspects a case of underpayment. It needs no evidence, just suspicion. As the National Farmers Federation has said, this is a right to enter farms, which, for many people, are also their homes. We've seen in the past how this power of right of entry can be abused and how regular visits can become a form of bullying. My second concern relates to casual workers, gig economy workers and independent contractors. These are men and women who want to work in their own time on their own terms: a self-funded retiree who does an afternoon of driving to supplement an income, a student who fits their work around their university timetable or a contractor who wants to be their own boss. The minister has called the gig economy a cancer. Uber drivers getting money to get through uni or retirement is a cancer? Really? Amazon delivery drivers are a cancer? Really? What a posh view of the world. Gig workers are not enemies of the economy; they're the people who help grow our economy. They're people who have given us more choice and have filled skills gaps across so many fields. Unions don't like such workers because mostly they don't join unions. They don't join because the value offering just isn't there. Supporting the lifestyles of union bosses from the Health Services Union to the CFMMEU is not on the list of their life priorities. The changes to gig workers and independent contractors will increase costs, and those costs will be passed on to consumers. My third concern comes to the same job, same pay issue. When it comes to that issue, this legislation is cumbersome and clunky and goes further than the government's stated intention. The government's unworkable and open ended concepts, like the same job and the same pay, do not compare like with like, and this bill goes much further than the government's original claim that it will just cover labour hire companies. This legislation goes beyond labour hire companies and covers service contractors as well. Service contractors are often engaged to provide a service, often using their own plant and equipment as well as their own skills in the workforce. This bill captures any business that engages service contractors. Don't believe me on these matters; believe some of the people who are at the coalface. I want to tell you what some of the key stakeholders in this area think. Tania Constable from the Minerals Council of Australia, that great body that represents industries that generate significant wealth for this country, says: The Albanese Government's latest industrial relations legislation changes are some of the most extreme, interventionist workplace changes that have ever been proposed in Australia. The changes will inflict immense harm to the economy, the weight of which will fall on the shoulders of the most vulnerable Australians who will pay more for groceries, housing, and energy. The chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Andrew McKellar, says: The only winners in this are union chiefs. The only loophole this bad legislation is looking to close is that of plummeting union membership. This is a continuation of a radical industrial relations agenda, and we are again bracing ourselves for further risky changes to our workplace system. I am proud, in the electorate of Berowra, to represent over 15,000 small businesses. They are the engine room of our economy—everyone from sole practitioner businesses to local takeaway shops to some of the small industrial plants that are engaged in places like Hornsby, Mount Ku-ring-gai and Dural in the business parks, and in Thornleigh as well. They're represented by the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, whose chair Matthew Addison had this to say about the bill: At a time when small businesses are managing increased costs of supply, of rent, of power, of wages; we don't need changes that detract businesses from their sales and service delivery. Small businesses seek to employ and properly reward their workers. They seek to innovate and adopt new technology. We seek IR changes that enhance productivity and opportunity, not broad impacting confusion about what they are and aren't allowed to do. That's from someone at the coalface of small business, like so many people in my own community of Berowra. And I worry about the job-destroying nature of this bill for many of the families in Berowra. I worry about the effect that this will have on small businesses, with the increased compliance for many of the hardworking small-business people in Berowra, who are just people trying to have a go and who want to do the right thing. But the compliance burden and the idea of unions walking into their business unannounced, on a mere suspicion, frighten the living daylights out of people. This is a terrible, backward-looking bill. I do want to acknowledge one of the aspects of the bill that the opposition does agree with, and that relates to the changes regarding post-traumatic stress disorder in first responders. Police officers, firefighters, ambulance officers, paramedics and emergency services personnel, of which we have so many in our community, should not need to jump through so many hoops to prove the relationship between PTSD and their employment. This change will mean that, unless proved otherwise, it will be presumed that their employment as a first responder is likely to have contributed to the PTSD they suffer. We agree with this change, as it's common sense. As someone with 27 Rural Fire Service brigades, two SES units, the wonderful St John Ambulance, Fire and Rescue New South Wales and New South Wales Ambulance in their electorate, I see this is a reasonable proposition. But, more broadly, we on this side of the House oppose the bill because it's impossibly complex. It creates far too much uncertainty. It adds additional costs to business at a time when we shouldn't be adding costs, and it particularly targets small business. It makes Australians pay more at a time of cost-of-living crisis, when the cost of everything is going up. It does nothing to increase productivity, and, as I said earlier, it is an increase in productivity that will provide this country with the ability to deal with the health, welfare, defence and security challenges that face us in the coming decade. It does nothing to enhance competition. Competition helps drive productivity right across our economy. It risks jobs, and that, I think, is the real fruit of this bill. It only rewards the union paymasters of the Labor Party. The Labor Party is the party that is there not to represent working people but to represent the interests of unions, and that is what this bill is really all about. It institutionalises conflict in our workplaces—conflict where there is none today. It is the government saying it's making concessions for business when it hasn't. This bill weakens our economy and makes a bad situation worse at the very time that our economy needs the hit of important productivity improvements. This is a vital time for Australia. With the cost of living and payments rising, productivity falling and the population ageing, now is not the time to turn back towards the failed approach of the past. This legislation is a 1,000-page dead weight on Australian business. This is not the solution for our times, and that is the reason that we oppose it. 12:29 Mr SHORT 00ATG Maribyrnong EN (—) (): In rising to support the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, I want to have a conversation with the Australian people about why I think this is legislation worth supporting. I'll start with some history, because it's always important to understand where we have been to understand where we're going. Down at the Trades Hall in Victoria, at the top of Lygon Street, just opposite there is a statue with the numbers '888' sitting atop a granite base. These numbers hold up a gilt sphere that represents the globe, the world. On the plinth is a plaque. On the plaque is an inscription: Eight hours to sleep Eight bob a day A fair day's work for a fair day's pay. They're the words from the anthem of the eight-hour movement, which fought for reduced hours for workers as far back as the second half of the 19th century. In the 1850s, the striking stonemasons in Melbourne ignited protests across the colony of Victoria and the other Australian colonies over unreasonable hours. They put three main arguments for an eight-hour day. The first: Australia's harsh climate demanded reduced hours. The second: labourers needed time to develop their social and moral condition through education. The third: workers would be better parents, partners and citizens if they were allowed adequate leisure time. Perspiration, aspiration and inspiration—the catalyst for the first laws to protect working people across the world. With the advent of the eight-hour day, Australia became one of the most progressive labour environments in the world, a new frontier for a new world. Upon fair labour conditions, we established the foundations for a robust middle class. We've done so time and time again with laws that give people a fair go at work: workers' compensation, annual leave, shorter hours, equal pay for women, compulsory superannuation and Medicare which didn't need to be funded out of employers' pockets. But we're losing that edge. The great Australian dream of a large, successful middle class is diminishing into the bleaker reality of a two-speed society of haves and have-nots. Time and time again across the history of this country successive conservative governments have persistently chipped away at the fair go at work. Successive coalition governments did something that was inherently unfair: thwarting wages growth. They even admitted during the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison years that it was a deliberate design feature of their economic management. Well, no more. Productive workplace relations are built on the values of a fair go for all. Coincidentally, these are Labor values too. The Albanese Labor government doesn't believe it is fair that the lowest paid Australians should bear the brunt of the current global economic circumstances. We were elected on a promise to get wages moving. Our next set of workplace relations reform to parliament, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, builds on the secure jobs, better pay bill that passed both houses of parliament last year. It will close loopholes that allow some, a minority of opportunistic businesses, to undermine job security and fair pay in Australian workplaces. The loopholes bill has four elements. Much of this policy is not news. I should know; I took it to two federal elections in 2016 and 2019. The first element is to crack down on the labour hire loophole that's used to undercut pay and conditions. Labour hire has legitimate uses. It can provide much-needed surge and specialist workforces, and that will continue to be the case. But some companies bring in a labour hire workforce that is paid less in order to deliberately undercut existing fair rates of pay which have been negotiated in good faith. The second element of the bill is criminalising wage theft. If an employee steals from the till, it's a criminal offence—fair enough. Stealing is a crime. But why is it not a crime when an employer intentionally steals money from a worker? We want to close that loophole and legislate to criminalise wage theft. To be clear, these laws will only apply to intentional cases of wage theft. Quite often, underpayments are not intentional. Our award system is complex. They can be just an honest mistake. The Fair Work Ombudsman will assist in educating employers on their responsibilities. There are pathways available for employers who self-report and take reasonable steps to repay the correct amount. We are not after the honest mistake. We're looking to stop deliberate, greedy, unethical behaviour. The third element of the bill is aimed at preventing the exploitation of casuals. There are currently people who work permanent, regular hours just like permanent employees but don't get the benefits of job security. They are stuck classified as casuals. Just as there is a gender pay gap, there is a gender security gap. Women make up the majority of casual workers in Australia. Women make up the majority of workers who have been casual for more than two years. Women make up the majority of underemployed casuals. Women make up the majority of people holding multiple jobs. Women will be the major beneficiaries of the fairer workplace that the closing loopholes bill will create. People in insecure work just don't have the same certainty about their hours or their income. Yes, some people choose that lifestyle, but let's not pretend that we live in some sort of conservative utopia where every casual doesn't want to be permanent. That's not true. The bills that pile up on the kitchen table—the rent, the electricity, the internet, the phone, the insurance, the rego—keep coming even if your pay doesn't. We will legislate a fair, objective definition to determine when an employee can be classified as casual so that casual workers with regular work arrangements can get greater access to leave entitlements and more financial security—if that is what they want. We know that many casuals don't seek to take this up, particularly those who don't have the pressure of paying for the family's households expenses, but 40 per cent of casuals over the age of 35 are more likely to want a secure job. Let me be clear: no-one will be forced to convert from casual to permanent. This bill will give people choice. The fourth and final element of the bill is to make sure that gig workers don't get ripped off. We know there is a direct link between low rates of pay and safety in place for the gig economy. We cannot deal with the safety issues until we have minimum rates and minimum standards. The government simply wants to legislate minimum standards of pay and safety. As Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, I'm particularly interested in the proposed changes which will go to the responsibility to maintain minimum standards for disability care and support workers. Adhering to minimum standards not only builds a quality workforce and secure workforces but ultimately delivers higher quality, safer services for people with disability. I hear daily from participants and their families about the need for high-quality services, but participants and families should not have to choose between flexibility on the one hand and quality on the other. Many who choose this type of work value its flexibility. There's no intention of turning gig workers into employees, but just because someone chooses gig work shouldn't mean they end up being paid less than they would as an employee. We don't want to get to the destination other countries have, where workers rely on tips to make ends meet and we subsist on a two-class working system in this country. There's been extensive consultation on the design of these measures. Business groups, unions and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations led two processes where some 160 organisations made more than 220 written submissions. The government's asked for feedback, and the minister's listened. Australians who need support and a fair go right now are not executives wondering if their bonus will be $2 million or $3 million this year. It's the people who wonder if their pay packet will cover their bills this week. The closing loopholes bill will put an estimated $9 billion into the pockets of workers who are currently being underpaid. This $9 billion represents less than one-tenth of one per cent of the national wages budget. It is a small percentage because most businesses do the right thing. They don't use the loopholes as a business model. For those workers being significantly underpaid, getting a fair day's pay for a fair day's work will be life changing. To clarify, the money in additional wages does not come at a cost to the economy. None of this money comes to the government; it will go back to local communities. Low-paid workers tend to spend every dollar they get, which generates economic activity in the high streets of Australia's suburbs and towns. If we don't pass this bill, we will cement in a section of the workforce as a permanent underclass in Australia without any minimum standards—a whole section of Australian workers at the mercy of businesses who use loopholes to intentionally underpay them. That section of the workforce is made up of Australians who are just trying to make ends meet, meaning they're forced to keep working multiple jobs and to take risks with their safety to make that extra delivery. These are people who feel powerless to speak up because they know there's always someone else prepared to take lower pay in a race to the bottom. It's bad for Australians. It's bad for Australian businesses paying fair wages. Why should an Australian business be undercut by another business using an unethical business model? Here is a dose of reality to those who sit in this place and think things can't be that bad for Australians being paid less than their worth. Have you ever had to swallow your pride and ask for an extension on the due date of a power bill? Have you had to go to the Catholic school and say, 'I can't pay the school fees for my kids this month'? Have you ever had to disappoint your children because you don't have that extra money for them to be able to take the camping trip with the school? Have you ever had to call upon the generosity of family and friends to mind your kids just because you cannot afford a babysitter or child care? Have you ever had to think about whether or not this is a pay week or counted down the days in a fortnight to that period of time when you get paid? If this is news to you then speak to someone who has. They're the Australians the Albanese Labor government is focused on with the closing loopholes bill. Make no mistake: a loophole is not innocuous or trivial. My curiosity about the term 'loophole' led to me to understand why it has negative connotations. It comes from describing the narrow slits in the castle walls of medieval Europe through which projectiles can be launched at enemies without fear of similar objects making their way back through the slits. It was considered an unfair advantage unless you owned the castle. Some businesses in Australia are using loopholes in the law to exploit their unfair advantage and unethical approach to business, safe in the knowledge that the workers have no way of fighting back—well, no more. The Labor government has a way to stand up for people who don't have a voice. It's called the closing loopholes bill. Its goal is to ensure that good, hardworking Australians who do a fair day's work will earn a fair day's pay. Finally, I want to address the falsity that somehow paying a low-paid worker a few more cents an hour and giving them some minimum rights so that they avoid being exploited will somehow trigger inflation. The reality is that this country has been experiencing supply-side causes of inflation, be it insufficient investment in energy, supply chain challenges overseas or the criminal and illegal war in Ukraine. But we have also seen some of the big food corporations, like Woolies and Coles, who've used the fog of supply-side inflation to camouflage rent-seeking behaviour. We're legislating for those people who shop in their shops. The strange thing is I hear the opposition always complain about a wage rise for a worker but never about the 'greedflation' of big corporations burdening the lives of all Australians. It perhaps make you realise where some people's priorities are. 12:42 Mr TAYLOR 231027 Hume I rise to speak against the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, this so-called closing loopholes bill, because the only loophole that Labor appears to be closing here is the collapse in union membership. This is a radical reordering of Australian workplace laws, which every business in the country has been pleading with the government not to go ahead with. But they are resolute because there are big bills to be paid, and I'll come back to this point in a moment. Aside from complexity and uncertainty, this is a bill that will hurt our economy and, most importantly, will hurt the real wages of hardworking Australians. After over a year of this Labor government, we see an economy right now that is shuddering to a halt. Of course, we're in a GDP per person recession, real wages are going backwards—I'll outline that a little more in a moment—and Australians are paying a very high price for this government. This bill will only make this difficult situation worse. It will mean additional costs for businesses, especially small businesses. They're the lifeblood of our economy, and those small businesses are suffering extreme pain right now. It will make Australians pay more in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. It will drive down productivity, and there is no surer way to drive down real wages than to do that. It will reduce competition, and we on this side of the chamber are deeply concerned about competition. The last speaker said that we aren't concerned about undue or poor behaviour by corporates. I think we've been pretty clear in the last little while about what we think about airlines and some of the practices that we have seen in recent times, and we think those practices are unacceptable. Competition really matters, and this bill will reduce competition and, worst of all, it will weaken our economy. Everybody pays for that because we'll be making a bad situation worse. What could motivate those opposite to want to proceed with this legislation? They like to talk about debt, but I can tell you that the biggest debt in this country is the debt between the Labor Party and the funding of the Labor Party by the union movement. It's about Labor looking after the most important constituency to them, the one that gets them elected, and that's union officials. It's about the welfare of those union officials, not the welfare of Australians. We won't support reforms that will undermine prosperity and aspiration, which are so central to this country and so central to the economy. We don't need more complexity, more costs and more confusion. This is the last thing we need across Australia right now. It's extremely important to understand the economic context behind our objection to this bill, and why we believe this is absolutely the wrong legislation for the time. As I said, it's a radical industrial agenda at a time when the economy is struggling, at a time when we need a resumption of the great reforms that were pursued across this parliament—by Hawke and Keating and then Howard. There was a very simple insight right at the heart of those reforms: the idea that, if employer and employee can sit down together and work out how to make a business more successful, they can pay workers more and, in the process, everyone is better off. It was a simple idea, a powerful idea, and it worked. It was supported by all sides of this place, and we are now moving away from that. Right now, as I said earlier, we are in the midst of a per capita recession. What's a per capita recession? It means every Australian is being made worse off by the economy, on a person-by-person basis—and that's what the economy is about; it's about people. They are worse off. Productivity in this country is in freefall. We've seen labour productivity collapse by 6.6 per cent in the last five quarters. We have never seen this before. This is a diabolical disaster. Those opposite like to say productivity doesn't matter, but it's uncanny how, when you look through the historical data, productivity and real wages are correlated. Right through history, right across the world, we see the same pattern. Guess what! With a 6.6 reduction in labour productivity in the last five quarters, guess how much real wages have gone down for working Australians over the last year—six per cent. That's how it works, but those opposite just don't seem to understand this. Let's go through those numbers. The member for Parramatta got this all wrong the other day. It's very important to understand this. Over the last 12 months, working Australians have seen a 9.6 per cent increase in their cost of living. The employment living cost index, which is put out by the ABS on a regular basis, shows that working Australians are 9.6 per cent worse off. I have great respect for the member for Parramatta—he's a PhD economist, unlike our 'doctor of spin' Treasurer—but he didn't understand that that's the pain being felt by working Australians. Perhaps he doesn't spend enough time with working Australians to understand this, but a 9.6 per cent increase in the living costs of hardworking Australians is monumental. Those opposite like to crow about a nominal wages increase of 3.6 per cent. I'm sorry, but that's buying six per cent less in a year. They're worse off under those circumstances. This is at the heart of the economy. Real wages are going backwards, and they're not just going backwards a little bit; they're going backwards at a ferocious rate. The truth of the matter is that hardworking Australians are now in a position where they are struggling to pay for the groceries. They're struggling to pay energy bills, which they were promised would go down by $275, though we've seen them go in exactly the opposite direction. Hardworking Australians are paying 15 per cent more in income tax than they were just over a year ago. Labor loves that! More tax is always a good thing for a Labor government. People are paying 15 per cent more in tax and monumental increases in their mortgages, with 11 interest rate increases under this government. A typical Australian family will pay a couple of thousand dollars more in mortgage costs each month—each month! That is the crisis that we have in our economy right now. The solution to that crisis is simple. It is: let's work together, collaboratively, between employers and employees, to make our workplaces more productive. This is not about working harder; this is about getting more from the same number of hours. Or, indeed, getting the same amount for fewer hours. That's what productivity is. If I said to any Australian: 'Look, we can do something here. We can make some changes here that mean we get more per hour, and you get paid more as a result. Or, indeed, you can work fewer hours a week and we'll be able to produce the same amount because of the changes we're making in the workplace,' that sounds like a pretty good deal for everybody, including the workers. They should be paid more for that, and they will be paid more for that. That's how the system under a proper enterprise bargaining regime works, but we are moving sharply away from that under this government. There is no shortage of those out there who are prepared to say that this is absolutely the wrong direction for our industrial relations system. Robert Gottliebsen put it well when he said: But if anything like the complexity of the proposed legislation passes the Parliament it will dramatically lower productivity in Australia. And that lower productivity will start at the base of household contract services and extend through transport, IT, banking and manufacturing to mining. Nothing will escape the clutches of those 784 pages of complex legislation and memorandums. Business groups and employers have also pointed out these changes will smash productivity. I thought the ACCI chief executive, Andrew McKellar, put it well. He's concerned, as he should be, about consumers struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. He said: "The only winners in this are union chiefs. The only loophole this bad legislation is looking to close is that of plummeting union membership …    … … … "The government has not made a case for these changes. It has not been able to outline how this legislation will enhance productivity, lift wages, or make it easier to generate more jobs. Jennifer Westacott, chief executive of the BCA, has said: "We need a system that drives productivity, not stifles it, because that will stifle wages growth. We know this. If you stifle the ability of employers and employees to sit down together collaboratively, work together to work out how to make the workplace a more productive place, then what happens? Real wages cannot go up—and it's real wages that count. It's what your money, your wage can buy that counts. The Treasurer doesn't seem to understand this. That shouldn't surprise us. He's a doctor of spin, the walking talking point. He focuses on the talking points, not the substance of the issues—the spin, not the substance. But the truth is the only thing that matters to an Australian worker is what their wages can buy, and right now that is going backwards fast. They are all paying a very high price for this government. I do want to make a final comment about competition. We heard from the member for Maribyrnong a moment ago. I said earlier he thinks that we're not concerned about competition, that we're not concerned to make sure that businesses are in a position where they are competing. They have to compete and they should compete. That's the way we ensure that those productivity gains are passed through to wages. That's the way we make sure that Australians are better off, that they can buy more with the money they earn. The thing about competition is that it doesn't work if you're listening to vested interests, if you're supporting pork-barrelling. We still have absolutely no explanation from those opposite as to why they blocked extra flights to Australia. Mr TAYLOR 231027 I will take the interjection from the member opposite. He has not explained, nor have any of his colleagues, why Australians should pay more for their airfares. He can't explain it. We've heard all sorts of bizarre explanations, and those opposite crow and carry on about how business needs to be disciplined. I'll tell you what: the greatest discipline of all for business is competition. There is no greater regulator of any business than a customer. Put the customer in charge—that's not the thing that those opposite will ever do; they'll put the union officials in charge—and you will get a good deal out of businesses every single time. They are happy to see airfares up to 50 per cent higher than they were, and they have given no explanation that even begins to get to the heart of why they blocked these flights. Who knows how much of this kind of corporatist stuff we're going to from Labor? Big unions working with big government and big business—this is the Labor way. We had a period back in the eighties when they realised the error of their ways, in letting this get out of control, but not now. They're back to their usual practice of the bad old days. This bill, with its 284 pages and 520-page explanatory memorandum, will make things harder, not easier, for businesses and all Australians. It will do nothing to improve the freefall we've seen in labour productivity in this country; indeed, it will push it in the wrong direction. It will drive up prices. It will undermine the prosperity of Australians, which is what we all care about. It will undermine the centrepiece of our economy we on this side of this place all want to see, which is aspiration, the ability for Australians to get ahead. That's what we stand for and what we'll always stand for. That's not what this bill is about. The coalition will not be supporting this bill. (Time expired) 12:57 Ms BYRNES 299145 Cunningham I rise today to make a contribution to the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023. At the last election I, like all of my Labor colleagues, made a promise to the Australian community to end the decades of stagnation under the coalition and to get wages moving. To do this, we need to close the loopholes that are undermining wages and conditions in our employment system. That's what this set of workplace relations reform is all about. I have listened to the contributions of those opposite, and, despite the rhetoric we have heard, the bill before us is not making radical changes. All we are doing is making the current system work more effectively. Australia already has a strong workplace relations framework, but by closing the loopholes we are making it stronger and better. As many speakers before me have outlined, the bill contains four main elements: cracking down on the labour hire loopholes that are used to undercut pay and conditions, criminalising wage theft, properly defining casual work so casuals aren't being exploited and making sure gig workers aren't being ripped off. This approach should not come as a surprise to anyone, as we announced all four of these policies while in opposition, more than two years ago. And I talked about them with my community in the lead-up to the 2022 election. The government has undertaken extensive consultation on the precise design of these measures, including with business groups. This has included written submissions, consultation papers and numerous consultation meetings with a range of stakeholders, including business groups, employers, small-business representatives, unions, academics, state and territory governments, and the rest of our society and community. Given all of this, I am quite surprised by the comments that have come from those opposite, but I'm not sure the members have actually understood the scale and the impact of the problem that this bill is seeking to address. I can speak to the scale and impact of the problem that we face and the impact that it has had on my local community in the Illawarra. We heard from those opposite last week that this bill will see the cost of living rise. I can say to those opposite that people in casual and insecure work in my community know all too well the impact that these employment arrangements are having on their ability to make ends meet. Rent isn't casual; electricity bills aren't casual; school fees aren't casual—they're all a certainty. But these people in insecure work do not have the same certainty about their hours or their income. Like those in many parts of Australia, workers in my community have struggled with casualisation and wage theft and with businesses who have chosen not to play by the rules. Thankfully for my region, we have the support of the South Coast Labour Council. The labour council is the peak union body on the South Coast of New South Wales and covers the area from Helensburgh in the north of my electorate all the way to the Victorian border and across to the Southern Highlands and adjoining tablelands in the west. The council represents 25 affiliates across all industries and sectors, and a unionised membership of almost 50,000 workers. Advocating for working people and their rights at work is a principal role of the council. I must make a special mention of the labour council's President, Tina Smith, and hard-working secretary, Arthur Rorris. Under their leadership, the labour council has been leading the fight against wage theft and worker exploitation in this country. While some of those opposite might find the anecdotes and stories of worker exploitation a shocking revelation, for Tina and Arthur this has been their daily life for decades. They have supported workers who, unfortunately, have been exploited in our community and have not had the know-how or funds to seek justice. Both Arthur and Tina are in this for the long haul. They will not give up until exploited workers get back what is rightfully theirs. In June this year, the Federal Court made a final decision on costs for Wollongong restaurant workers Midhun Basi and Syed Haider, who, with the support of the labour council, took their former employer to court, after what the judge later found to be a series of egregious and flagrant contraventions of the Fair Work Act. In awarding total costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Justice Halley said that the calculation went beyond the facts of this case. The Illawarra Mercury reported on 22 June that Justice Halley said: 'I am satisfied that, in light of the factors considered below, it is necessary for substantial penalties to be imposed in order to deter the respondents and other employers, particularly in the restaurant industry, from engaging in similar conduct in the future.' This conduct included seeking payments from the employees to cover the business's tax obligations and to cover visa sponsorship costs; and cashback arrangements, for what the employer said were loans but which were never substantiated in legal proceedings. The labour council said at the time said that this was the biggest case of wage theft relating to individual workers in our history. It has raised profoundly disturbing issues about the employment of international visa based workers and how that power imbalance can have shocking outcomes. This is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident in my community. I want to take a moment to briefly introduce to the chamber the experience of Ashleigh Mounser. Ashleigh was an enrolled student at the University of Wollongong, and, like many students, she was struggling to balance paying the bills and making the most of her studies while working in hospitality businesses. Fed up with the unreliable conditions and with being paid only $10 an hour, Ashleigh posted about her experience on a university chat group, and the response from her fellow students with similar experiences was overwhelming. Armed with this information, Ashleigh decided to compile a list of employers in Wollongong, with the firsthand accounts and contact details of their employees, their hourly rates of pay and cash-in-hand payments. It read like a yellow pages of exploitation. With this census of underpayment, Ashleigh and her fellow students felt it was time to tell their story, with Fairfax media publishing their experiences in 2016. Now, it might come as a shock to those opposite that these students were not members of a union and that they were not being advised or coached. They knew something was wrong, they knew that they were being taken advantage of, and they knew that there were only a limited number of options open to them to expose this power imbalance and this exploitation of young Australians who only wanted to study, work safely and be paid fairly. Ashley's yellow pages of exploitation made for some horror reading, with 60 businesses reported by workers, 45 of which are located within a two-kilometre strip of the Wollongong CBD. The mean age of workers was 21; the range was 18 to 32. The average hourly rate of pay was $12.50; the range was $7.50 to $20, and the most common rate of pay was $10 an hour. At least 50 businesses on the list either have been reported or are strongly suspected as paying cash in hand, with a lack of payslips and group certificates being a key indicator. These numbers are simply unacceptable. No Australian worker should leave home every day seeking to earn a living and instead have their labour not only short-changed but exploited. Nor should businesses who follow the law be forced to compete with businesses who choose to flout it. I think those opposite need to explain to these workers in my community why we should not reform this system, close the loopholes and seek to do all we can to prevent the exploitation that has happened to them also happening to other young people. Those opposite might also want to think of their response to the estimated 236,900 workers in my home state of New South Wales who are stuck as casuals when they actually work permanent, regular hours or to the estimated 231,700 digital platform workers in New South Wales who are expected to be eligible for minimum standards and increased access to dispute resolution for independent contractors. When it comes to independent contractors, this bill supports more than workers in the gig economy. Of the 3,500 workers in the South Coast coal industry, almost half are labour hire contractors, who are commonly paid tens of thousands of dollars less than permanent employees doing the same job. The legislation in the form that we see it today is because of the hard work and advocacy of unions and unionists, like Mining and Energy Union south-western district secretary Andy Davey, who has for years campaigned for mineworkers in my community for provisions to stop the widespread misuse of labour hire in the coal industry to cut wages. He said: The Closing Loopholes Bill is a light at the end of the tunnel for mineworkers who have been battling this unfair employment model for years. The Illawarra is an industrial region, and the workers of the Illawarra understand all too well industrial workplace hazards that need to be managed and eliminated in our industrial processes. We can and must do more to reduce the number of workers developing silicosis and other diseases caused by the inhalation of silica dust. This bill includes provisions for the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency to report annually to relevant work health and safety, health and environment ministers on the progress of the Asbestos National Strategic Plan and Silica National Strategic Plan. It will also expand the membership of the agency's council to include appropriate representation of employees and employers and an expert in asbestos or silica related matters. I have also engaged closely with transport workers in my community and their union, the Transport Workers Union, and its local leadership under Robert Pirc. In this speech, Rob wanted me to reiterate just how much consultation has gone into this legislation. Rob said: A year ago, a roundtable convened by Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke comprised of supply chain clients Coles and Woolworths, major transport operators Toll, Team Global Express, Linfox, gig companies Uber and DoorDash, employer associations, workers and academics provided a shared set of principles on reform to set fair, safe and sustainable standards in transport. He goes on to say: The Road Transport industry is united in its support of the 'Closing the Loopholes' legislation and particularly, those live-saving reforms which will ensure a safe, sustainable and viable road transport industry. Every Australian deserves to go home from work healthy and unharmed. This can only be achieved when we have employers, workers and industry experts working in collaboration. Before concluding, I must acknowledge the many businesses across Australia and in my community who pay their workers well and comply with the Fair Work Act. They are businesses that understand that, if you want to boost productivity, you need to do this by investing in your people and technology, not by making people work harder and longer for less. Unfortunately, not all businesses have chosen to follow the rules, so we need an employment framework that acts as a safety net for everyone and doesn't have loopholes or backdoors to sneak out of. As legislators we must protect the most vulnerable workers in our society. These laws will strengthen the current workplace relations framework and provide certainty, fairness and a level playing field for both businesses and workers. Debate adjourned. COMMITTEES 41 COMMITTEES Intelligence and Security Joint Committee 41 Membership 41 13:10 The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 The Speaker has received advice from the honourable Prime Minister nominating members to be members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. 13:11 Mr THISTLETHWAITE 182468 Kingsford Smith by leave—I move: That in accordance with the provisions of the Intelligence Services Act 2001, Mr Gosling and Ms McKenzie be appointed members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Question agreed to. Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Joint Committee 42 Membership 42 13:11 The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 The Speaker has received advice from the Chief Government Whip that she has nominated Ms Swanson to be a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade in place of Mr Gosling. 13:11 Mr THISTLETHWAITE 182468 Kingsford Smith by leave—I move: That Mr Gosling be discharged from the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and that, in his place, Ms Swanson be appointed a member of the committee. Question agreed to. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Joint Committee 42 Membership 42 13:12 The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 The Speaker has received advice from the Chief Government Whip nominating a member to be a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs. 13:13 Mr THISTLETHWAITE 182468 Kingsford Smith by leave—I move: That Mr Burnell be appointed a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs. Question agreed to. BILLS 42 BILLS Members of Parliament (Staff) Amendment Bill 2023 42

Members of Parliament (Staff) Amendment Bill 2023

Returned from Senate 42 Parliamentary Workplace Support Service Bill 2023 42

Parliamentary Workplace Support Service Bill 2023

Consideration of Senate Message 42 13:14 Mr GORMAN 74519 Perth I move: That the amendments be agreed to. These amendments will clarify that it's the Special Minister of State who is the identified minister where the bill references the minister. They will clarify the roles of the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives in tabling certain reports. I commend the amendments to the House. Question agreed to. Parliamentary Workplace Support Service (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023 43

Parliamentary Workplace Support Service (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023

Consideration of Senate Message 43 13:16 Mr GORMAN 74519 Perth I move: That the amendments be agreed to. These amendments provide for a sunset clause for one part of the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service Act 2023 from commencement. Question agreed to. Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 43

Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023

Second Reading 43 13:16 Ms SHARKIE 265980 Mayo Many years ago, a wise lecturer said, in my criminology and sentencing class, that he believed that future wars would be fought over water. At the time, I thought that that sounded a little far-fetched, but, listening to the debate in here over this piece of legislation, the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023, I can now see his argument. Indeed, our nation has fought over how to equitably share the river system since Federation. It has been a contested space. Between 1884 and 1887, individual colonies conducted their own royal commissions on how to manage the waters of the Murray. Reading through the 1898 Australasian Federation Convention debates, I see the South Australian delegates had much to say about the river. Their concerns were much the same as the concerns raised by many South Australians today who live at the end of the river. South Australian MP at the time Sir John Hannah Gordon, in giving his contribution to the debate, discussed the principles of equity: When a river rises within the bounds of one state and empties into the sea in another, the inhabitants of the lower state have a moral coequal claim to its use. That is our case. This great river system has its rise in other colonies; but it flows through Victoria and South Australia, and Victoria and South Australia for that reason have a moral co-equal claim to the use of the water, and that use should be controlled in the interest of all … Is … The nation lower down the stream. to be crippled in its resources and made to depend upon another's caprice for a great part of that which makes nations fulfil their vocations in the world? Is Victoria relatively to New South Wales, and South Australia relatively to New South Wales and to Victoria, to be placed at their mercy or caprice for the enjoyment of that which was designed by Providence for the benefit of the whole continent? Can it be seriously contended as a matter of principle that New South Wales and Victoria can deduct so much water from these rivers as will leave them absolutely and only at a navigable point, and will allow South Australia to take nothing for the irrigation and fertilization of her land? Despite the pleadings of South Australian representatives in 1898, in 1901 the states gave the Commonwealth power over navigation of the river systems but left the states with the powers with respect to extraction of the river for irrigation purposes. It's from there, I think, that we have the crux of the conflict of river politics and the expansion of irrigation with little consideration for the environmental health of the river or the impact on communities downstream. Since that time, we've seen quite a few royal commissions. The first was conducted in 1902, conducted by three states who were in drought—there was a massive drought at the turn of the century. In 1914 the first River Murray Waters Agreement attempted to set out how we share water in our nation. In 1917 the River Murray Commission was established, and, if we fast-forward, in 2004 the National Water Initiative, which committed to a national approach for the management of our water trade, was established. There are some universal truths about the Murray-Darling Basin system. Truth No. 1 is that the Murray-Darling Basin is overallocated. Too much water is taken out of the river for it to be a healthy river for future generations. The water has been overallocated and overextracted. This has been exacerbated over the decades as more water licences have been issued by individual states. River water has spread across lands where natural rainfall would normal preclude the successful growing of some crops without the mass extraction of water, much of which is still stored in open channels and worse, large storage dams, where evaporation ensures that so much water is wasted. Cotton grows in outback New South Wales towns like Walgett, and towns like Dirranbandi and St George in inland Queensland—a crop that takes an enormous amount of water to grow. It is grown in areas where the average rainfall is low, like in St George, where annual rainfall is just 436 millimetres a year, or just over 17 inches. I like road trips. You really know you're in Australia when you're travelling across our nation by car. I remember road trips back in the nineties. Back then, Hay was all sheep country. In fact, it's still today home to the Shearers Hall of Fame. That makes sense; it's got an average rainfall of around 14½ inches. It's good sheep country. But you'd be hard pressed to find lambs now. Now you find kilometre upon kilometre of open-channel massive storage dams, which I think should be called evaporation pans, and cotton blowing across the highway. I'm not against cotton, rice or almonds per se, but they are all incredibly thirsty crops, and we need to have a sober conversation about what we can sustainably grow where. How can it be that the plan in place, with the commitment of all the states, to return water to the system is at the same time that we have seen a mass expansion of the growing of almonds and permanent plantings in places like Tooleybuc and across the Mallee. Almond crops require, according to the Horticulture Industry Network, between 1,200 millimetres and 1,500 millimetres of water in a season, and yet most of these crops are grown in areas where we have rainfalls of between 300 and 350 millimetres annually. What a failed policy space it is when we look to grow high-water-use plants in areas of low rainfall. It ensures that those crops will only survive by burdening the river and taking water out of it, in many cases from many kilometres away, with little thought of the impact of that extraction on the river. Some of the challenges we today come from the fact that we separated water from land. What we have created is a water speculation market which, I would argue, does not serve the national interest; speculative markets never do. Let's be realistic. What we are doing when we are planting such permanent crops is setting investors up to fail when we have more droughts, and now we're going into an El Nino period. What we're doing is setting the environment up to fail by putting more and more pressure on the fragile river system. Truth No. 2 is that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been thwarted since 2013. I've been in this chamber for much of it. What I've seen with my own eyes is an expansion of irrigation—$13 billion effectively being spent, with very little in return. With respect to the 450 gigalitres, we know that just two gigalitres have been returned to South Australia in that time. It's because we had legislation that stymied water buybacks. I can't understand that, because water buybacks from willing sellers is the ultimate free market. If you have people wanting to sell their product, why would we stop that from happening? I remember when, a few years ago, South Australian MPs were so concerned that we came together with respect to the 450 gigalitres. It has always been part of the plan. It is not a 'nice to have'. It's absolutely integral to the plan. I expect those South Australian members that stood together when we were concerned about the 450 gigalitres being taken off the table to again stand together to support this legislation. I remember when former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull needed to provide surety that his government was committed to the plan after the then water minister free-ranged on the issue. Despite such assurances, in June 2021 just two gigalitres of water out of 450 gigalitres had been returned. We have seen in the last year that go from two gigalitres to 26 gigalitres, which is somewhat of a miracle really. But we won't get the full 450 gigalitres returned to the environment without this legislation passing. Truth No. 3 is that South Australia uses the river for agriculture too. At times in this place I have been heckled by people saying that in South Australia and particularly my part of South Australia, Mayo, we only use the river to float our yachts. That is not true. We use the river for irrigation. We farm too. But we recognise it's a finite resource and allocations are tightly managed because of this realisation. You will not find open channels and flood irrigation in my electorate. Water is just too precious for that. You cannot have productive agricultural land without a productive and well-cared-for environment. Truth No. 4 is that the river dies from the mouth up. Mayo is home to the Coorong, a Ramsar listed site of environmental significance. In total, there are 240 bird species, including nesting colonies of cormorants, plovers and globally endangered species such as the orange-bellied parrot. Low flows into the Coorong over many, many years has led to hypersalinity and is seeing huge damage to the area. This bill has six schedules in it, and I will just go to a couple of those. It postpones the requirement for the minister to conduct a review into the Water Act until the end of 2027. It broadens the purpose of how moneys in the Water for the Environment Special Account is to be used. It requires a third independent review of that account to be conducted and removes the cap on water purchase entitlements by the Commonwealth. It requires the basin states to report on actions specified in an action plan with a long-term annual diversion limit for the water resources of a water resource plan area. I will be introducing some amendments to this. I would like the minister of the day to come into the parliament and express exactly how much has been returned and where the plan is up to. I think we need that for transparency. I would urge the government to support that amendment. I hope the government will support that amendment. I would ask all South Australian members and senators to support the legislation. If you vote against this, you can never say that you truly care about South Australia or that you care about the River Murray. The only way, I think, we can get that 450 gigalitres back into the river for the environment is to support this legislation. As the member who represents the community at the very end of the river, the most vulnerable part of the river, I say: let us learn from what was raised more than a century ago and let us ensure that we think of the national interest and not vested interest with respect to this river and with respect to our nation, the environment and future generations. Let us put them first. I commend this bill to the House. 13:28 Ms CHESTERS 249710 Bendigo I have been listening to some of the contributions in this debate on the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 saying that people on our side of politics don't understand the Murray, aren't part of the Murray and have never been to the Murray. I am a Labor member of parliament, I am a Victorian and two of my local government areas are part of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. I also am here to say that I really hope my Labor colleagues in the Victorian government are listening and get on board with the plan. The reason I say that is there is a lot of opportunity for us to actually work together. The fact is that we need more time to deliver the plan. We need more options on how we can return the water required to the Murray. There is more funding on the table. This is where I strongly urge the Victorian government to pick up the phone and start working with us. In my part of the world, we still have channelling, as the previous speaker spoke about. We still have open channels in Greater Bendigo, Mount Alexander and the Macedon Ranges. People still order their water by ringing up Coliban Water and saying, 'We'd like some water, please,' and they literally flush it down their channels. About 60 per cent of that water is lost in evaporation, so there is still lots of opportunity to modernise the water infrastructure in my own electorate. My electorate is about 30 minutes— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 74046 Order! It being 1:30 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with the standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS 46 STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS Infrastructure 46 13:30 Mr PASIN 240756 Barker Labor's 90-day infrastructure review has now been underway for—wait for it—136 days, and, while we wait for those opposite to make funding decisions on the $120 billion pipeline of national building infrastructure projects, the productivity of our nation is being held back and road safety issues are not being addressed. The former coalition government set us on a trajectory of increased investment into nationbuilding infrastructure. The Labor government has delivered billions of dollars in funding cuts and delays. This infrastructure review is one we didn't need and, in fact, one we can't afford. The road toll is unacceptably high, with the latest statistics from the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics figures showing that in July there was a 20 per cent increase on a five-year monthly average. And while we wait for those opposite to count 90 days off their calendar and well past 130, infrastructure projects are blowing out. It is this kind of delay that is causing South Australians to lose millions upon millions of dollars, day by day, on the major infrastructure projects in South Australia's north-south corridor. In my own electorate, the critical Truro bypass has the axe held by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Catherine King, hanging over it. Let's get on with it; let's stop the delay. Human Rights: Iran 46 13:31 Mr KHALIL 101351 Wills Saturday marks one year since the brutal death of Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa 'Jina' Amini in custody. She was killed at the hands of the so-called 'morality police 'of the Iranian theocratic regime, who arrested her for improper veiling. This week a young man, Hamed Bagheri, was killed by gunfire while chanting anti-regime slogans to commemorate the anniversary of Mahsa's death. One year has passed since these uprisings, where over 500 people have been killed and 22,000 have been imprisoned. People have been fighting and dying for their freedom, for their human rights and for democracy, principles that we often take for granted. The brave Iranian people resist against a regime who commits egregious acts of violence and gender based sexual violence. The Albanese government has condemned the regime's abhorrent human right violations. We are committed to protecting our own Iranian Australian community from attempts of foreign interference by the regime here in Australia. We have already imposed four packages of sanctions, including sanctions on 27 individuals with links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and 21 entities with links to the IRGC. Yesterday the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, added new financial sanctions and travel bans on individuals who continue to oppress the people. In solidarity with the Iranian Australian community, I say that we stand with the people of Iran in their plight and their fight because we stand for democracy. Braddon Electorate: Infrastructure 46 13:33 Mr PEARCE 282306 Braddon The $120 billion 10-year infrastructure pipeline adopted by the former coalition government included many worthwhile land transport projects in the state of Tasmania. They were identified in partnership with the state and territory governments, local councils, freight industry stakeholders and communities alike. Braddon is the engine room of our state's economy—with its mining, agriculture, advanced manufacturing, ports, and the list goes on—so it is no surprise that our region is a major beneficiary of the infrastructure investment pipeline. We have investments such as the $7.5 million towards the Ironcliffe Road upgrade in Penguin, $14.4 million towards the Melba Line Bulk Minerals Rail Hub, $16 million towards the Old Surrey Road Massy-Greene Drive upgrade, $22 million towards our state's road safety program, $14.4 million towards the Tasmanian Freight Rail Revitalisation tranche 4, $40 million towards targeted upgrades to the Bass Highway between Deloraine and Devonport, and $80 million towards the Tasmanian road package Bass Highway safety freight efficiency upgrades package and future priorities. It's alarming and completely unjustified to have these projects critical to our state's ongoing prosperity caught up in Labor's 90-day strategic review. It demonstrates Labor's complete lack of understanding— (Time expired) Workplace Relations: Qantas 46 13:35 Ms COKER 263547 Corangamite Yesterday the High Court brought down its decision that Qantas had illegally sacked 1,700 employees. This decision exonerates all those Qantas workers, the baggage handlers and cleaners, who worked tirelessly during the pandemic only to be sacked, stripped of their legal rights and replaced by labour hire staff with fewer conditions and lower rates of pay. This disgraceful act serves to highlight the long-overdue need for the closure of loopholes in our industrial relations system—loopholes that enabled the callous exploitation of hardworking Australians. Qantas has a lot to answer for. It abandoned its workers, while receiving more than $2 billion in taxpayer funded handouts. I congratulate the TWU on this historic win, and all those workers who fought for justice. May this decision serve to deter any such heartless action from taking place in the future. Australians do believe in a fair go for all, and this behaviour by Qantas, backed in by the former coalition government, was not fair. It was disrespectful, it was callous and it wasn't the behaviour of a company that values its workers. It's time for change. It's time for all in this House to support our closing the loopholes bill. Housing 47 13:36 Ms WATSON-BROWN 300127 Ryan I want to take a moment to talk about the housing bill that has just passed this House. The Greens have now secured $3 billion in extra funding for public and community housing through our negotiations. But I've got to ask: has Labor become the party of the big banks, property developers and speculators? From our negotiations with them over the last nine months, I'd have to say yes. We had to fight tooth and nail for nine months to get this $3 billion. We mobilised, going door to door, talking to thousands of people, putting all the pressure on Labor that we could, and we got $3 billion and we're proud of that. That's thousands more Australians with a secure, affordable place to live. But you have to wonder, because Labor resisted putting this money into social housing every step of the way, but they seem perfectly content to hand $313 billion to the very wealthy in the stage 3 tax cuts. There is still nothing for renters. There is no freeze or caps on rents, little ongoing funding for social housing and no relief for mortgage holders. Why? Because Labor's policies simply do not address the fundamental inequities of a system in which housing is a wealth-building tool for speculators and bankers at the expense of those desperately in need. National Child Protection Week 47 13:37 Mr NEUMANN HVO Blair Last Friday, during National Child Protection Week, I attended the Ipswich and West Moreton Region Child Protection Week Awards night in my electorate of Blair. I thank the incredible professionals in this sector, who help some of the most vulnerable children in our community, and the committee who decided the award winners. I want to acknowledge Judyann Roberts, who won the Troy Salton Memorial Award for her tireless work in establishing the playgroup at the CWA Hall Esk, in the Somerset region. Well done, Judyann. Queerswich won the Community Volunteer Award, and Rainbow Chaos won the LGBTIQ+ Award. The Kokoda Foundation won the Youth Engagement Award. Brooke Staff from Mission Australia's Intensive Family Support service won the Non-Government Organisation Award. Indigenous health organisation Kambu Health took out the Cultural Award for its Family Participation Program. These awards raise awareness and highlight the importance of child protection in our communities across the country. They also recognise the efforts and achievements of people and organisations who work tirelessly. Too many children are not growing up safe and supported, and this must change. There are many opportunities to change the trajectory for these children by working together to make sure 'Every child in every community has a fair go'. That was the key message of the week. I congratulate the National Child Protection Week award winners, and I acknowledge the important work that they do. Housing 47 13:39 Ms SPENDER 286042 Wentworth I'm rising to share my concern about the lack of specialist disability accommodation, SDA, in Wentworth. There are only 11 existing buildings in Sydney's eastern suburbs, compared with 36 in North Sydney and 107 in Parramatta, to support people living with disabilities. Worse than that, we're only expecting one new build, compared to 166 new builds in Parramatta. The Prime Minister's own backyard has the next lowest number of specialist disability accommodation, with only 19 existing SDAs. This is not because there are fewer people living with a disability in the eastern suburbs or indeed the inner west. It's because high land values mean that the policy that is designed to do this just doesn't work for our community. Since these are long-term residences, having just a couple of people on the waiting list could mean a decades-long wait for accommodation. For parents of young people with disability like Karen, Ivan, Chana and Francesca, this is heartbreaking. It forces people to move outside their local area, away from friends, family and support. One of my local constituents, Nick, who is sick of the wait for his daughter, has started raising funds to build an SDA. While I think Nick is great to show this leadership, we need a systematic national solution. The current policy works for some communities but not for others. It's time for the government to make sure families across the country are supported, and I'll be strongly advocating that for Wentworth. Nas Recovery Centre 48 13:40 Ms FERNANDO 299964 Holt I had the pleasure of visiting Nas Recovery Centre in Cranbourne West last week. The vicious circle of substance abuse issues often makes a person feel isolated and ashamed, making it even harder to ask for help. It's no secret that the pathway to recovery can be particularly daunting for young people from a CALD background, who are confronted with the unique challenges of their cultural identity. Nas Recovery Centre, a community based alcohol and other drug and mental health treatment service, focuses tirelessly on breaking this vicious circle among African communities. Its mission is to create a safe space for people of African backgrounds, by reducing sociocultural barriers to accessing treatment and providing evidence based and culturally informed support. NRC's signature eight-week intensive Path2home program offers a range of therapeutic cultural and social events to assist consumers to reintegrate with their community in healthy ways. I would like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to the dedicated team at Nas Recovery Centre for their commitment to empowering African-origin youth in my community. Thanks to my high-school friend Managing Director Nyachan Nyak for inviting me to visit their premises and putting on a delicious afternoon tea. Infrastructure 48 13:42 Mr STEVENS 176304 Sturt I join with my colleagues in condemning the situation that we have with this atrocious pause on committing to infrastructure projects that the government is undertaking. In particular, I commend the project that the member for Barker mentioned earlier, the Truro Bypass. If that has the sword of Damocles hanging over its head and is chopped by this government, then that will have a spectacular impact on the productive economic activity of all of South Australia, and, in my seat of Sturt, we will lose the opportunity to invest in the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass. I commend the member for Mayo, who is here in the chamber now, on a question she asked about this last week, which of course got no answer from the government. The point I would add is that we are facing a situation in South Australia effectively of a valley of death of construction jobs in infrastructure because these decisions are not being made. It has now been more than six months since any new contracts have been entered into. If you're not entering into contracts now, that means in a year or two's time you won't have the boots on the ground on the kinds of jobs that are a very important part of the South Australian economy, as they are of any economy. It's tough times in South Australia, and this infrastructure spending pause is unfortunately going to make the economic situation even worse. I call on the government to get on with it and commit to these projects, but particularly the ones in South Australia that are worthy and should be invested in. Tangney Electorate: Community Engagement 48 13:43 Mr LIM 300130 Tangney Community engagement is so important in my electorate of Tangney. If I'm not doorknocking my constituents and speaking about the issues of the day, I will be at local activities, celebrations and events in my seat. As I have said before, one very popular activity has been my constituent coffee catch-ups. I was most recently joined by the federal Minister for Trade and Tourism and the WA state member for Bateman, alongside the local business community, for a coffee catch-up at Nic & Kolo in Applecross. It was so wonderful to share this experience with the minister and give our constituents time to speak to the minister about the issues and matters concerning them the most. I want to thank the minister for listening to my constituents' thoughts, feedback and ideas for our local businesses and community. To everyone that has come to my constituent coffee catch-ups: thank you. Your advice, feedback and sharing of experiences has made me a better representative for you. If you have not had the chance to come to my coffee catch-ups, you're always welcome to one. I have one more coming this Saturday. There are many more opportunities across my electorate to catch up, before or after work—even on weekends. I look forward to seeing you all soon. Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program 48 13:45 Ms PRICE 249308 Durack If you needed evidence of this government's total lack of regard for regional Australia, you need look no further than their decision to end the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program. The LRCI Program was an injection of hope for so many regional communities around Australia, when COVID threatened them with grinding to a halt. This coalition lifeline allowed local governments to commit to those shovel-ready projects that had been on their agenda for years but for which they simply didn't have the funds. One excellent example of that is the Shire of Exmouth's decision to use LRCI funding to upgrade the town beach precinct. This precinct is now a much-loved, much-improved and wonderfully vibrant space that was a real drawcard during the recent eclipse experience. There are over 40 LGAs in my electorate and, whenever I speak to them, they remind me of how much they appreciated the LRCI Program and how disappointed they are that this lack-of-heart government—that's the way that they put it—has determined to cancel the LRCI Program. And guess what? The economic conditions are worse today, under this government, than they were during the time of the pandemic. Regional communities are literally on their knees. So it is time that this poor-performing minister got her head out of the sand and made a commitment to regional Australia. And she could start by making sure that we have, once again, the LRCI Program. (Time expired) Australian Constitution: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice 49 13:46 Ms MASCARENHAS 298800 Swan Australia is one of the best countries of the world. I'm grateful for the opportunities that Australia has given me, as the child of migrants. But we know that not all Australians are getting the same opportunities—particularly our First Australians. If I'd been born an Aboriginal woman, my child would be more likely to die during childbirth, my son would be more likely to go to prison than to university, and my life expectancy would be eight years less. The current system is not working, because Australia has been making assumptions about what Indigenous Australians need, and doing things to them, not with them. That's why Indigenous Australians asked for a Voice, and that's why my Swan community has stepped up and is volunteering for the 'yes' campaign. Many Australians are still unsure on how they will vote, but I know that Australians care about a fair go and step up in crises. So, when Australians find out the facts, I am confident that they will vote 'yes'. But it's the conversations that will matter. Every conversation with a family member, friend or colleague, every phone call and every doorknock will make a difference. This is why I'm asking everyone here to step up and volunteer at yes23.com.au. We need this because we need to cut through the disinformation and misinformation of the 'no' campaign. In the same way that those in WA saw through Clive Palmer's scare campaign, I'm confident that they will see through the disinformation. But we need conversations to do this. (Time expired) Regional Australia: Infrastructure 49 13:48 Dr WEBSTER 281688 Mallee On 1 May, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Catherine King, announced a review of the government 's 10-year infrastructure pipeline. What are we up to now—137 days or more? We're still counting. Meanwhile, Mallee communities are still waiting to hear whether their key projects will be axed by this Albanese government—projects like the $60 million Swan Hill Bridge, which has been in the works for more than 15 years, through a comprehensive planning process and extensive community consultation conducted by the New South Wales and Victorian governments; or the $360 million duplication of the Western Highway between Ararat and Stawell—a major throughway from Melbourne to Adelaide; all our transport goes this way—including a comprehensive planning process that has been completed. The people of Horsham are waiting to hear if the axe will fall on their new roundabout, which they've been crying out for, to provide a safe intersection for noisy and dangerous heavy vehicles—the same ones that are going from Melbourne to Adelaide. Even worse, this Labor government will not fund any regional community infrastructure grants at all for more than two years, between February 2022 and April 2024. It is a disgrace. Boothby Electorate: Seniors Forum 49 13:49 Ms MILLER-FROST 296272 Boothby It was a very cold and stormy day in Adelaide on Friday. But, despite hail 30 minutes before my seniors forum started, I had over 230 local Boothby residents come out to have a chat and have a lamington from our local Kytons bakery. We also had really interesting speakers. We had Debra from Aged Rights Advocacy Service, who talked to them about their rights, choosing nursing homes, the five-star rating that they can look at and what they can actually do if they feel that they need some assistance. We had Gemma and Teneille from Hearing Australia who not only talked about a wide range of hearing aids and the sorts of things you can do to keep your hearing healthy but also did hearing tests there. That information will help people going forward, and it will be provided to their GP. Hopefully we've helped some people there. I had a chat about the previous scams forum that we had with Stephen Jones, the Assistant Treasurer, and talked to people about the importance of, when they get those scam messages, not clicking on the blue link—never a better time to have that conversation than now, with some of the scam messages that we've seen associated with the referendum. We also talked about some of the cost-of-living measures that are relevant to our older citizens. We'll be having some more seniors forums, and I encourage people to contact— (Time expired) Forde Electorate: Infrastructure 49 13:51 Mr VAN MANEN 188315 Forde The population of South-East Queensland is expected to grow by up to 2.2 million people by 2046, and yet we see this government putting critical infrastructure in our region on the backburner. The coalition understands how vital infrastructure is in supporting the growth of our communities. It's why, in the 2022 election, the coalition committed $55 million to the upgrade of exit 38 on the M1 at Yatala. The member for Fadden sitting next to me would well know how important that is. Disappointingly federal Labor failed to see the importance of this project and refused to match the funding for it. I've since written to the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, highlighting the need to continue to fund these vital projects for our growing communities. The 90-day review is at day 130 plus, somewhere in the minister 's office, and we're at risk of losing upgrades to Chambers Flat Road between Park Ridge Road and Derby Road, to High Road and Easterly Street at Waterford, and to the Beaudesert Beenleigh Road to Milne Street section—just to name a few. They're now uncertain. I'm calling on the government to make clear their plans for the future infrastructure projects in our rapidly growing communities, to put our communities at ease and deliver the infrastructure they so desperately need. Housing 50 13:53 Mr LAXALE 299174 Bennelong I'm so pleased to stand today to single out the Minister for Housing for her hard work to get the Housing Australia Future Fund to pass parliament today. The Housing Australia Future Fund is set to become the single biggest investment in social and affordable housing in over a decade. This is landmark legislation that will have a profound and lasting impact on the lives of countless Australians and represents the most significant housing reform in a generation. This progressive policy will help renters, veterans, those fleeing domestic violence and those who are doing it tough. It will deliver 30,000 homes in the next five years, and it is progressive policy that is good for Australia. On behalf of Bennelong I'd like to thank the minister, but I'd also like to thank the crossbench, particularly the member for Melbourne, for their support. It's been clear over the last few weeks that the member for Melbourne has been a little bit more involved with this legislation to secure its passage through parliament. He has an admirable pragmatism in this parliament that many others could learn from, because blocking progressive policy doesn't deliver progressive policy. We learnt that blocking climate policy led to over a decade of climate chaos. We saw that blocking progressive housing policy didn't deliver any more housing. Likes and retweets don't reduce emissions or put roofs over people's heads; it's progressive policy that does. And in this place it's Labor governments that deliver progressive policy. We were elected to take action on climate change, address the housing crisis and help with the cost of living, and we're doing just that. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 I'd like to hear the member for Lindsay, Member for Gippsland, if you could be quiet. Lindsay Electorate: Infrastructure 50 13:54 Mrs McINTOSH 281513 Lindsay Western Sydney is getting left behind by this government. If the $5 billion of infrastructure projects that are on the chopping block get ripped away, we will have been abandoned by this infrastructure minister. Opposition members: Shame! Mrs McINTOSH 281513 It is shameful. One of the largest projects includes a rail link to Western Sydney international airport. Imagine that. The rail link that has been years in the development, years in the planning, that the coalition government invested in, could be ripped away. It's a pity that the minister fumbled through her answer in question time yesterday to the member for Fowler about this particular project. She didn't even get halfway through her time. This is the contempt that has been shown to the people of western Sydney, to the non-Labor members in this House from Western Sydney. It is unbelievable that it is not just one project in my community of Lindsay that adds up to $5 billion and could potentially be ripped away; it is a number of projects: two Mulgoa Road updates that our community has been desperate for for many years; two commuter car parks at St Marys and Kingswood; and funding for roads surrounding the new airport. My community needs better from this government. We need answers. We don't need things dragged out. The minister needs to respond. National Leadership Forum 50 13:56 Mr GOSLING 245392 Solomon It is my great pleasure to co-host the National Leadership Forum alongside the member for Berowra, former shadow minister for Indigenous Australians and former shadow attorney-general Julian Leeser. Since 1997, the National Leadership Forum has been held in Canberra, hosted by MPs and senators for a group of nominated young leaders from across Australia. They are here in the chamber with us today. Each year, the forum has been addressed by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, as it will be this year after question time. The purpose of the forum is to counter the cynicism young people often feel towards the political system and to grow their understanding of their own leadership foundations. It seeks to promote a model of servant leadership. We all come to this place from different positions, different philosophical starting points, but more often than not we do work together in a bipartisan way in this place, even though it doesn't get recognised that often in the media. I want to recognise the talented Territorians—yep, from the north—that are here and taking part in this year's forum: Liam Bushell, Cam Adams, Sian Howell, Ira Racines, Stuart Boyd, Ben Staunton and Alicia Boyd. I thank all parliamentarians from all sides of the House for taking groups into their offices this afternoon. Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development 51 13:57 Mr CH IPZ Gippsland ESTER () (): If you see a grader, a bulldozer or a crane at work on a major public project anywhere in Australia today, you can be sure of one thing: the current Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development had absolutely nothing to do with it. On major road projects, bridges, airports and community facilities, Australians are out there hard at work, all funded by the previous government and approved by the previous government—works started by the previous government. The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development turns up for the ribbon cutting. She turns up for the photo opportunity. And then she issues a press release full of praise. Then, in the greatest moment of chutzpah I have seen in my whole time in this parliament, she waltzes into this place and claims the previous government did nothing in 10 years. We have our own King of spin, our own King of excuses, the King of deception. Our own King of spin doesn't actually build anything but takes credit for the work from the previous government at every opportunity. This is the same minister who has hit the ground reviewing. It's now 137 days since she announced her 90-day razor gang review. She can't even deliver a review on time. This is serious. Delays caused by the review of the infrastructure pipeline will see increased prices, less roadwork and people's lives put at risk, right now. Australian Constitution: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice 51 13:59 Dr ANANDA-RAJAH 290544 Higgins 'It is better to die for an idea that will live than to live for an idea that will die,' said South African activist Steve Biko. We'll take it: the repetitive questions, the relentless negativity, the spin, the outright lies. Why? Because we are fighting for an idea whose time has come! If the Uluru Statement from the Heart was in invitation, then the referendum is a call to arms. It is time to raise our voice for those without a voice. The fiction of equality means precious little to Indigenous mothers have lost their kids too young, to communities without clean water, to teens robbed of hope. I care. So do the people of Higgins, of Kooyong, of Goldstein—communities those opposite have abandoned! The low road leads to a dead-end town called 'More of the same'. The low road does not lead to Higgins, but the high road does. A great leader said: This is our moment. … to … reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, yes, yes, we will. The SPEAKER 53517 Order. In accordance with standing order 43, the time for member statements has concluded. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 51 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice 51 14:01 Mr DUTTON 00AKI Dickson My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister's political game playing is costing Australian families and businesses. Electricity prices, groceries, mortgages and rents are all surging. Despite this, the Prime Minister's priority is to pursue a divisive Canberra-based Voice proposal while refusing to directly condemn comments that Australians are either racist or stupid. When will the Prime Minister admit his incompetence and mishandling of issues that are hurting Australians and dividing our country? The SPEAKER 53517 The member for Macnamara is warned. There will be no interjecting before any minister answers a question. I give the call to the Prime Minister. 14:01 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler Thanks, Mr Speaker. I await their points of order about sledging from this dispatch box after that question. I await it as I draw everyone's attention to the nature of that question. It says a lot about the character of this opposition. It is negative. It is angry. It is hostile. It seeks to divide. It never seeks to bring people together. And this comes at a time when— Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Members on my left will cease interjecting. Mr ALBANESE R36 Today we have figures showing that employment has increased by 64,900 and labour participation is up to 67 per cent—a record. More than two-thirds of Australians are participating in the labour market, with the unemployment rate in August remaining at 3.7 per cent. That is the envy of the world, and now more than 550,000 jobs have been created on our watch since we came to office. What we have opposite, just like we had with the Housing Australian Future Fund legislation earlier, is an obsession with voting 'no' to everything, an obsession with just being negative. This is including an obsession with being negative about the referendum that Australians will get to vote in on 14 October. Yesterday, as part of my job as Prime Minister, I chaired the National Science and Technology Council meeting. And yesterday, along with the science minister, we had a terrific meeting. The NSTC brings together the Chief Scientist and all of the best scientific brains in this country. Yesterday we heard from Mikaela Jade, a Dharug woman who has done research about science and the impact of First Nations science. She spoke about how, when Europeans came to south-west Sydney, they named Cabramatta after the Indigenous Australians eating the cohbra grub. The reason they were eating the cohbra grub, they found out many years later, was because it provided an antidote to smallpox. And now in the United States they have found that it is an antidote to superbugs. It's an example of where, if we're just prepared to listen, prepared to embrace and prepared to be positive, this can be a win for Indigenous Australians but also a win for our nation. Housing 52 14:05 Mr KHALIL 101351 Wills My question is to the Minister for Housing and Minister for Homelessness. What does the passage of the Housing Australia Future Fund mean for Australians needing a safe and affordable place to call home? 14:05 Ms COLLINS HWM Franklin I want to thank the member for Wills for that question. I know that the member for Wills, like the Prime Minister and I, spent some of his early childhood in public housing. He knows how important public and social housing is. I know he fully appreciates just how momentous this is. Today is a day that will change housing in Australia. The Housing Australia Future Fund has now passed the parliament. The government has now delivered on its promise to the Australian people—a $10 billion fund to create a secure, ongoing pipeline of funding for social and affordable housing into the future. The SPEAKER 53517 Order, Member for Deakin! Ms COLLINS HWM It is the single biggest investment in affordable and social housing in more than a decade. It means more homes in every corner of this country—our cities, our regions, our towns; more homes for women and children impacted by family and domestic violence; more homes for older women at risk of homelessness; more homes for our veterans, who need a safe space to spend the night; and more homes for Australians needing an affordable place to call home. This is our government working for Australians, and we're going to keep working—working with our state and territory colleagues, working with the construction sector, working with the community housing providers and working with institutional investors to deliver on these homes. We know the largest community housing provider in New South Wales, St George Community Housing, have, for example, over 470 social and affordable homes lined up ready to go today, and they are not alone. Across the country, providers and states already have in place plans so that, when this fund actually passed the parliament, they could get on with building. We're ready to build more homes. Thanks to the Housing Australia Future Fund, there'll be funding for new social and affordable homes in perpetuity. I'm proud that we've delivered on one part of our ambitious housing agenda. We also, of course, have our new national target to build 1.2 million homes across the country, with our $3 billion New Homes Bonus, our $500 million Housing Support Program, our $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator, our National Housing Accord, our boost to Commonwealth rent assistance, the additional $2 billion in financing for social and affordable housing, new incentives to boost the supply of rental housing, the $1.7 billion extension to the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, leadership on renters' rights, changes to the Home Guarantee Scheme and the introduction of the Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee. We've got a lot of work to do, we've done a lot and we're going to keep working hard every day so that more Australians have a safe, affordable place to call home. DISTINGUISHED VISITORS 53 DISTINGUISHED VISITORS National Leadership Forum, Marlinja Traditional Owners, Mataranka Traditional Owners, Peris, Ms Nova, OAM 53 14:08 The SPEAKER 53517 I'm pleased to inform the House that present in the gallery today is a delegation of 250 young leaders from across Australia taking part in the 22nd National Leadership Forum. I'm also pleased to inform the House that present in the gallery today are traditional owners from the Marlinja and Mataranka regions of the Northern Territory, and I see former senator Nova Peris in the gallery. A warm welcome to you all. Honourable members: Hear, hear! QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 53 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Voice 53 14:08 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer My question is to the Prime Minister. In July this year, Voice architect and member of the government's Referendum Working Group Professor Marcia Langton said, '22 per cent of the Australian population are deeply racist.' Does the Prime Minister agree with this statement? 14:09 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I agree that Australians are generous people—that's what I think. I think Australians are fundamentally decent. Regardless of what way they vote in a democratic referendum, I respect Australians—each and every one of them—and I call upon everyone in this debate to be respectful and to carry themselves like my friend Michael Long, who joins us in the gallery. I joined Michael Long today. Michael has walked from Melbourne to Parliament House, just as he did in 2004. He did so then because so many of his friends, family and other people he knew were dying. He was sick of attending funerals. Now, almost 20 years later, the gap has not closed. Michael Long has walked a long way. He is asking Australians to walk just a short way or, to quote the Uluru statement, 'to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future'. That's what we are being asked to do—to show the generosity and character of the Australian people. The Indigenous people of 65,000 years particularly since 1788 have suffered a lot. We have an eight-year life expectancy gap. We have a greater chance of an Indigenous young male going to jail than going to university. We cannot do things the same way and expect different outcomes. Michael Long has come to parliament today. Now it is now up to us to carry his message of love, hope and reconciliation away from the parliament and back to the people in our electorates. In the next four weeks, Australians can take the next step to a better future by writing 'yes'. That is all we are being asked to do—to write 'yes'. To walk those few steps is what we are being asked to do. That step will give our nation the opportunity to take a giant stride— The SPEAKER 53517 The member for Deakin is warned. Mr ALBANESE R36 towards recognition, reconciliation and closing the gap. This is about recognition of First Nations people in our Constitution. It is an advisory group whose only power will be the power of its ideas. It will have no right of veto. It will have no capacity to direct the government or to direct the parliament. The primacy of parliament is there. Opposition members interjecting— Mr ALBANESE R36 I think it is a pity that these interjections occur consistent with, as Michael said this morning in his letter, our former prime minister Howard asking Australians to 'maintain the rage'. This is about love, reconciliation and bringing people together. That is what Michael Long is about. (Time expired) Housing 53 14:12 Dr ANANDA-RAJAH 290544 Higgins My question is to the Treasurer. Why is progress on housing policy such an important part of the government's broader economic plan, and how is it delivering more affordable homes after a wasted decade of inaction? 14:12 Dr CHALMERS 37998 Rankin I thank the member for Higgins for her advocacy for renters in her community in particular and also for the question. Today we passed the biggest single investment in social and affordable housing in more than a decade. I pay tribute to this Prime Minister and this housing minister. I thank the crossbenchers for their support as well. Not everybody in this parliament voted for the Housing Australian Future Fund, and the Hansard will record forever that the Liberals and the Nationals voted for fewer homes, more homelessness and higher rent. The parliament did something really important today and we have every right to be really proud of it, because the progress that we made today means that more people will have roofs over their heads. The $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund— The SPEAKER 53517 The Treasurer will pause. Resume your seat for a moment. I've warned you, Member for Deakin, about continual interjecting. I've given you a warning. Throughout this answer, you have been interjecting and giving commentary. You will leave the chamber under 94(a). If anyone else gets warned, use that as an example. You simply cannot interject once you have been warned. The Treasurer has the call. The member for Deakin then left the chamber— Dr CHALMERS 37998 The $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund is an important part of our housing policy, but it is not the only part of our housing policy. It comes hand in hand with another $8 billion of investment over two budgets in social and affordable housing. It also comes with the biggest increase in Commonwealth rent assistance in three decades, which is an example of how we are taking some of the edge off the cost-of-living pressures in our economy without adding to inflation. It's an important part of our fight against inflation and it is also part of our broader economic plan. That plan and this government are working for Australia. In difficult times we are making welcome progress. Inflation is too high, but it's moderating. We are rolling out billions of dollars in cost-of-living help. We got the first surplus in 15 years, and the labour market is proving to be especially resilient. We saw that today: 64,900 jobs created in one month. I want the House to remember these numbers. Since monthly records were kept, there have been only 18 times in our history that unemployment has had a '3' in front of it. Fifteen of those 18 times have been under this Prime Minister and this government—15 out of 18 times. That's the longest run of unemployment this low on record. This is a stunning outcome for the people of Australia and for our economy. It demonstrates something important, as well: this government and this country are capable of making progress together on the cost of living, on jobs and wages, on housing and, yes, on the Voice as well. In every respect, the contrast couldn't be clearer, with the wasted decade of economic mismanagement, division and disappointment, which defined the decade of the Liberals and Nationals in office. Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order! There is far too much noise, particularly from the members for Riverina, Barker and Hume. I'm just saying, 'Cease interjecting.' It's a pre-warning to a warning. Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme: Tecartus 54 14:16 Ms TINK 300124 North Sydney My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. My constituent Paul Whitman has mantle cell lymphoma, but the therapy he needs, CAR T-cell therapy, is not funded for his condition. The therapy is already accessed by Australians with other conditions, and it was recommended by the Medical Services Advisory Committee for treatment of mantle cell lymphoma two years ago. Consequently, we have a system that delivers inequitable access to life-saving treatments. Why is this therapy being withheld from patients like Paul? 14:17 Mr BUTLER HWK Hindmarsh I thank the member for that question, and I extend my best wishes to Mr Whitman and his family in a difficult battle against mantle cell lymphoma, a relatively rare form of blood cancer. I want to say a couple of things about this type of therapy before I come to the particular therapy that the member for North Sydney has asked about. This is a relatively new therapy. It's a cutting-edge therapy that, extraordinarily, extracts a patient's T cells, sends them off somewhere to be modified to equip them to fight a particular cancer, and then reinjects them into the patient. This therapy is proving very successful in battling—at this stage, at least—a number of types of blood cancer. Until now, T-cell therapy has required the T cells to be sent either to Europe or to America and then sent back to Australia to be reinjected into the patient, but I'm delighted to say that, a few weeks ago, I opened the first manufacturing site in the Southern Hemisphere, at the well-renowned Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, down in Parkville in Melbourne. From now on, we'll be able to do our own modification, here in Australia, in sufficient numbers to cover the entire Australian market and also provide some export capability to the region. CAR T-cell therapy, it's important to say, is delivered in public hospitals by state governments. It's co-funded on a 50-50 cost-sharing basis as part of our Hospital Funding Agreement, so state government agreement is required to implement the therapy. That can only be done after a recommendation from the Medicare Services Advisory Council, MSAC, which, as you know, balances the clinical and cost effectiveness of the therapy. This question raises a few important points that are missed in the question about Tecartus, which is the particular therapy that the member has asked about. The drug company that makes Tecartus, Gilead, made an application to MSAC for approval back in 2020 and 2021, and they wanted a particular price for the therapy. MSAC approved the therapy as clinically effective but recommended a much lower price, and Gilead refused to act on that recommendation. A few months ago my department approached Gilead to ask them to resubmit their proposal at a lower price, which they did. MSAC then, out of session, approved that price and sent that recommendation to me. I accepted the recommendation and only a few weeks ago wrote to the state governments asking them to agree for us to act jointly on that. I'm still waiting for a response. That letter only went to them a few weeks ago. They deliver the therapy, and—I must really stress this—they have to agree to it. I'm hoping for urgent action on this, and I will keep the member informed as to progress about this particular therapy. (Time expired) Housing Australia Future Fund 55 14:20 Ms THWAITES 282212 Jagajaga My question is to the Prime Minister. How will the Housing Australia Future Fund help build a better future and make sure there are more homes for more Australians? 14:20 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I thank the member for Jagajaga for her question and for her support and engagement on this issue. We know that this is a big victory for Australians who need a home. It's a victory. It will mean more houses for more people. This is a commitment that arose from my second budget reply and that we took to the election: a fund worth $10 billion that will provide at least $500 million each and every year for social and affordable housing: social housing for people who need it to bring down those waiting lists and affordable housing for essential workers. In addition to that, of the 30,000 homes, 4,000 will be reserved for women and children escaping domestic violence. We know each and every night too many women and their kids have to search for somewhere to stay. They stay on someone's lounge, or they stay in a park, or they stay in their car, because there simply isn't enough emergency housing around. That will be important. In addition to that, $100 million of the funding will go to emergency housing to provide that support. In addition to that, we'll provide funding for remote Indigenous housing. We know that much of it is dilapidated and in a condition that is completely unacceptable. This will provide funding for that. In addition to that, it will have a Housing Supply and Affordability Council, bringing together Commonwealth, state and local government and the private sector on how we drive that supply through so that we achieve the objective of the 1.2 million homes that we need. In addition to that, we have gotten together with state and territory governments for the most significant set of housing reforms in a generation—that new national target, with the incentive of $3 billion for states and territories to reform their planning laws so that we can get more homes built in more locations in our cities and in our regions. This is absolutely critical going forward. It's an example of a policy that we developed in opposition, took into government and are making sure is delivered. I thank all of the crossbenchers in both the House and the Senate for their support for this. As usual, the opposition decided to say no, as they always do to everything. They are the blockers; we on this side of the chamber are the builders. They are the great wreckers of Australian politics, who exclude themselves from participation because they just say no. They just say no to everything that comes before this House. We have a positive plan that we're implementing. (Time expired) Australian Constitution: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice 55 14:23 Ms BELL 282981 Moncrieff My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, what areas of government policy do not affect Indigenous Australians? The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The Minister for Home Affairs is warned. 14:23 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I thank the member for her question, which goes to the referendum that is before the Australian people and the three clauses that are there that Australians will have the opportunity to vote for on October 14. They will vote for, firstly, recognition. That says— Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The Prime Minister will pause. I'm going to ask the member for Barker and the member for Hume to cease interjecting for the remainder of this question—preferably the rest of question time, but I'll take one at a time. The member for Moncrieff was heard in silence. She was given that courtesy. I'm just asking the same courtesy be given to the Prime Minister. Mr ALBANESE R36 The referendum question is quite clear. It says: In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia … There's the recognition. Then it says how. It says: i. There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice— The SPEAKER 53517 The Prime Minister will pause. The member for Moncrieff is seeking the call. The Prime Minister is less than one minute into— The SPEAKER 53517 You will get the call. Before I call the member for Moncrieff, the Prime Minister is less than one minute into the answer. Under the standing orders, you are entitled to raise a point of order under relevance. I want to say, once the relevance point is made right now, you will not be able to raise that point again. I will give you the call. Ms Bell 282981 My point of order is on relevance. The Prime Minister has been asked a very tight question. Areas of government that do not affect Indigenous— The SPEAKER 53517 Resume your seat. The member for Moncrieff knows that all ministers and prime ministers are entitled to a preamble. I don't know what's coming for the remainder of the answer, but the point— The 53517 Order, Leader of the Opposition! The point of order on relevance has now been made. I want to be clear on that. It has been ruled on. The Prime Minister has the call. Mr ALBANESE R36 Then the question that's before the Australian people goes through three points: i. there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice; ii. the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples … That goes to the question that has been asked. The third bit is connected to the second bit, funnily enough. It follows—point 3 follows point 2. The third point says: iii. the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures. Mr Joyce e5d 'The word 'referendum' wasn't in there. Neither was 'sneaky'. You're cooked, mate! Mr ALBANESE R36 Can I ask that that be withdrawn? The SPEAKER 53517 I'm just going to ask the member for New England to assist the House and withdraw so we can continue. It will assist the House to withdraw. Mr Joyce e5d I withdraw. The SPEAKER 53517 I thank the member for New England. Opposition members interjecting— Mr ALBANESE R36 Twice you made him Deputy PM. The SPEAKER 53517 The Prime Minister will return to the question. Opposition members interjecting— Mr ALBANESE R36 It's fair enough. The member for Riverina was against him. That is true. The SPEAKER 53517 The Prime Minister will not take the interjections. He has the call. Mr R36 The point of the Voice is that it is an advisory group that very clearly doesn't have the right of veto. It doesn't have the power to direct parliament or to direct the government. It just has the power of its ideas. Just like the Business Council of Australia can make representations over whether Melbourne or the Roosters are going to win this Saturday, it's not relevant— The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The member for Fairfax will cease interjecting or be warned. Mr ALBAN R36 If you go and talk to the Michael Longs of this world about what their priorities are for Indigenous Australians, the idea that their priority is about parking tickets or anything else is complete nonsense. Mr ALBANES R36 You're the ones that have raised it, mate. The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The Prime Minister will direct his remarks to the chair. Mr ALBANESE R36 It is advisory only. It only has the power of its ideas. (Time expired) The 53517 Order! The member for Bowman will leave the chamber under 94(a). The member for Bowman then left the chamber— Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 When the House comes to order, we'll hear from the member for Macquarie. Housing Australia Future Fund, Domestic and Family Violence 57 14:29 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie My question is to the Minister for Social Services. How will the Housing Australia Future Fund help deliver the Albanese government's commitment to support women and children experiencing family and domestic violence to have a safe and affordable place to call home? 14:30 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston I'd like to thank the member for Macquarie for that question. Of course, today's passage of the Housing Australia Future Fund is an important step to ensuring that women and children experiencing family and domestic violence have a safe and affordable place to call home. Now, our government recognises that having a safe place to live is essential if we're going to end gender based violence in one generation. Of course, escaping domestic and family violence is a significant driver for women and children leaving their homes in Australia. Around 40 per cent of people seeking homelessness services in Australia are women and children who have experienced family and domestic violence. We also know that too many victim-survivors are forced to choose between returning to a violent relationship or becoming homeless. Indeed, it's estimated that, in any one year, as a result of unaffordable, inadequate and insecure housing, over 7,000 women are returning to violent homes because they have no place to live. Now, the passage of the Housing Australia Future Fund will unlock $100 million over the first five years, for crisis and transitional housing options for women and children fleeing violence and for older women at risk of homelessness. In addition to this investment in crisis and transitional housing, the HAFF will also facilitate 4,000 new long-term homes for those impacted by family and domestic violence and for older women. This government elevated the importance of housing in our National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children, including the importance of access to short-term, medium-term and long-term housing for women and children. The HAFF will complement our efforts, already underway, to ensure that these different housing options, all along that continuum, are able to be delivered, including through our Safe Places program. These investments make a real difference, and I saw this firsthand when I visited, with the member for Macquarie, a short-term women's crisis accommodation project in South Windsor. This is making a difference on the ground. Building more housing for women and children is part of our broader plan, which also includes a range of other initiatives that we've funded in our last two budgets. But I would like to remind everyone listening today who may be experiencing violence that help is available. So, please, if you need help, reach out: 1800RESPECT is there for you 24 hours a day. This government is working hard to improve access to safe and affordable housing for women and children experiencing violence, and we will keep working for all Australians to ensure that they have a place to call home. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice 57 14:33 Mrs McINTOSH 281513 Lindsay My question is to the Minister for Indigenous Australians. On Tuesday, the minister was asked about gender parity on the Voice. The minister responded by outlining principles in relation to this matter. Can the minister now inform the House exactly how gender parity on the Voice will be achieved? Government members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 Order. Order. Members on my right will cease interjecting. The member for Lindsay was heard in silence and so will the Minister for Indigenous Australians, because she has the call. 14:33 Ms BURNEY 8GH Barton Can I thank the member for Lindsay for her question. It's very similar to a question that I received earlier in the week. What I can say very clearly is that the principles of the Voice are agreed to and they outline clearly the way in which the Voice will have gender parity. In fact, it's not a new idea and didn't come about in the last 12 months. It was something that was very heavily suggested in the Julian Leeser/Patrick Dodson inquiry some years ago. It is important that we have gender parity, and it is not difficult to achieve. The most important thing about this Voice is that, as the Prime Minister has said, it is an advisory body to the parliament. And, as the third part of the amendment also says, you—everyone in this chamber, in this House—will have a role in determining the scope and the function and how the Voice will operate. This is an important point. I will just reiterate that the Voice is advisory, it will not deliver programs and it has no veto power. Employment, Workplace Relations 58 14:35 Mr BURNELL 300129 Spence My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. What do today's job figures reveal about the government's approach to employment? Why is it important to ensure businesses don't avoid their obligations to their employees? 14:36 Mr BURKE DYW Watson I thank the member for Spence and I'm pleased to let him know that, for his state of South Australia, the unemployment figure reported today has never been lower in the state of South Australia. We've had more than half a million jobs created. But, under this government, female employment has never been higher and female full-time employment has never been higher—female full-time employment is up by nearly 200,000 jobs—and, in today's labour force figures, the number of Australians in work has never been higher. The participation rate has never been higher. Youth employment has never been higher. The other fear campaign I remember last year was that our legislation would be a disaster for jobs, and then we were also told it would be a problem for industrial action. Let's remember, in the last quarter under those opposite, the number of days lost to industrial action. The figure was 128,000. In the quarter we've just had, it's not 128,000 days lost to industrial action; it's 10,200. So their fear campaign hasn't landed all that well. I noticed on the front page of the Australian today that there's a new thing we're meant to be afraid of. I've got to say I never saw this one coming. There is some anger from one of the business groups that the anti-evasion provisions that are in the closing loopholes bill start from the date of the introduction of the bill. The argument from the business group is this: The government indicated business would have more than 12 months to get ready for the changes in the bill. Now, I just have to explain. That was 12 months to get ready to comply with the bill, not 12 months to find a new way of evading the bill. And this is something that's not uncommon at all in tax legislation. Those opposite might be unfamiliar with this, but their own tax legislation—bills in 2015, in 2019, in 2018, in 2017, in 2020—all use the same principle. And why? Because, if you're bringing in a new provision of compliance, the intention is that business complies and you start your anti-evasion provisions from the date of introduction. That's to make sure that we do have strong laws that stamp out wage theft. It's to make sure that we do close the labour loophole. It's to make sure that we do give rights to casuals. It's to make sure that gig workers who currently have no minimum standards get minimum standards for the first time. Those opposite and the campaign against this bill are all about trying to trade one loophole for the next loophole. We're determined to make sure that minimum standards are real in this country. (Time expired) Aviation Industry 58 14:39 Mr LITTLEPROUD 265585 Maranoa My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. I refer to a discussion the minister had with Qantas executive Vanessa Hudson regarding the Qatar application for extra flights, prior to the minister's decision being made. What was the content of that discussion? 14:39 Ms CATHERINE KING 00AMR Ballarat I haven't had any discussions with Vanessa Hudson about the Qatar decision at all. Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Voice 58 14:39 Ms COKER 263547 Corangamite My question is to the Prime Minister. The Voice referendum is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Australians to come together to recognise and listen to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. What message did AFL great Michael Long share with the Prime Minister this morning about the referendum, and how will it bring our country together? 14:40 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I thank the member for Corangamite for her question and for her passionate advocacy for the rights of Indigenous people in her electorate and beyond. Michael Long is, I believe, a great Australian. He is someone who is passionate about uplifting opportunity for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and, indeed, his relatives, including a very young boy, walked with us this morning across the bridge to Parliament House. It was a historic moment and it followed on from his historic trek back in 2004. He is very passionate about making a difference, and he understands very firmly that giving Indigenous Australians a voice will make a difference because, when you listen to people who are directly affected, you have a much greater opportunity to actually make decisions with Indigenous peoples, rather than for them or, in worst-case scenario, to them, which is what has occurred. For 122 years there has been a voice. It has been a voice from Canberra to Indigenous communities. This is about getting a voice to Canberra from Indigenous communities, a voice that will have no power over this parliament or over government, but it will have the power of its ideas being put forward in a respectful way. I thank Michael along with Pat Farmer, who I had the honour of trying to keep up with on his run for the Voice in Sydney just a few weeks ago. Pat Farmer is a former distinguished member of this place, the former Liberal member for Macarthur. This morning I was reminded of another event where Indigenous Australians walked to this parliament, and that was Jimmy Clements back in 1927, when this parliament was opened by the Duke of York on 9 May. Jimmy Clements walked from Tumut. He was a Wiradjuri man, and our minister is a Wiradjuri woman. He walked along with John Noble. They were the only two Indigenous people here. The police tried to move Clements on because he was barefoot because he had walked for days and days to get here. But the people outside rose up and said, 'No, he has got a right to be here.' People came together in what must have been one of the first acts of reconciliation and generosity. On 14 October, just as Indigenous Australians have walked those distances, we are being asked to walk just a few steps with a hand outreached, as I did with Michael this morning, to just join in. That's what Australians do. That is what Australians do, they move forward together. (Time expired) Gambling Advertising 59 14:43 Ms SHARKIE 265980 Mayo My question is to the Minister for Communications. Recommendation 16 of the Youwin some, you lose more report into online gambling recommended that the Australian government prohibit all online gambling inducements and inducement advertising and that it do so without delay. Minister, when will this recommendation be implemented? 14:44 Ms ROWLAND 159771 Greenway I thank the member for Mayo for her question. She has been a longstanding advocate for reform in this area, and we acknowledge the work that she does in her community and more broadly as well. The Albanese government is committed to ensuring that online gambling takes place within a robust legislative framework with strong consumer protections, and that's why we welcome the report of the committee, ably chaired by the member for Dunkley, which was handed down recently. The report included the experiences of many Australians, harm reduction advocates and industry groups who participated in this process. As the member rightly points out, there are a number of recommendations that go to matters that include both advertising and inducements. There are two parts to the answer that I give to the member for Mayo. The first is that the government is considering all the recommendations of this report in a holistic and comprehensive manner. We need to ensure that they are capable of implementation, that they become effective and also that they have the desired outcome above all else of achieving the principle of harm minimisation. We know that some of these recommendations involve the states and territories, which is the second part of this answer. Some of these matters go to issues that are within the purview of the states and territories and require a degree of cooperation. They also require a degree of cooperation across portfolios including in conjunction, in particular, with the Minister for Social Services, who has responsibility for the national consumer protection framework. As the member will be well aware, the national consumer protection framework steps have now concluded. We achieved that only a couple of weeks ago under this government by activating BetStop, the one-touch mechanism for self-exclusion from all forms of online gambling. We're working through those recommendations now. We know that some of these aspects, as the member rightly points out, will require the cooperation of states and territories. I can assure the member and all members of this House that this government believes that the status quo is unsustainable. We need to ensure that there is effective change in this area, again in accordance with those principles of harm minimisation. We are currently working on all of those recommendations and appreciate the member's involvement. We will continue to liaise with the member and all interested members of the parliament as we take this policy forward. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice 59 14:46 Ms F2S Lingiari SCRYMGOUR () (): My question is to the Attorney-General. Why is it important to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through a voice? 14:47 Mr DREYFUS HWG Isaacs I thank the member for Lingiari for her question. In 2015, a Liberal prime minister and a Labor opposition leader asked the question: how do Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people want to be recognised in the Constitution? The answer to that question did not come from politicians. It could not have come from politicians. Only Indigenous Australians could answer that question, and in 2017 they did. In 2017 over 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates gathered at Uluru and issued the Uluru Statement from the Heart, calling for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice. This was and is how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people— Mr Pasin interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 The member will pause. The member for Barker has had a really good go today. He'll leave the chamber under standing order 94(a). The member for Barker then left the chamber. The SPEAKER 53517 It is simply not acceptable for people to be continually interjecting. The Attorney-General has the call. Mr DREYFUS HWG Thank you, Mr Speaker. This was and is how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people want to be recognised in our Constitution. After years of failed programs and failed policies, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people told us that they were not seeking a purely symbolic form of recognition. They told us symbolic language would not do anything to improve unacceptable outcomes for Indigenous Australians. They told us that more of the same is not good enough. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people called for a practical form of constitutional recognition, one that will improve the way that we develop laws and policies relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people so that we get better results in areas like health, education and housing. That's what the Voice is about: listening to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people so we get better outcomes. We cannot risk more of the same. But, as the Leader of the Opposition demonstrates every time he talks about the upcoming referendum, more of the same is all that the 'no' campaign has to offer. The 'no' campaign is offering no solutions for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Voting yes can do only good. Voting yes at this referendum means voting yes for a better future for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and for all Australians. Uluru Statement from the Heart: Treaty 60 14:50 Mr TAYLOR 231027 Hume My question is to the Minister for Indigenous Australians. In July 2019, speaking about the matters that a federal treaty could cover, the minister said, 'It could be about fiscal arrangements.' Does the minister now stand by that statement? Government mem bers interjecting— Mr Albanese R36 What a joke! The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The House will come to order so I can hear the Minister for Indigenous Australians. 14:50 Ms BURNEY 8GH Barton I thank the member for Hume for his question. Let us be extraordinarily clear: the Voice will be a committee of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that will give advice. As the Prime Minister says, it is about the validity and the power of those ideas. The Voice will also include Indigenous Australians from every state and territory and the Torres Strait Islands, and representatives from the regions and remote communities. Members of the Voice will be chosen by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our local area and serve for a fixed period. The SPEAKER 53517 The minister will pause. The member for Hume on a point of order. Mr Taylor 231027 On relevance, it was a very specific question about fiscal arrangements in a treaty and a statement that was made by the minister. The SPEAKER 53517 Order! The minister for regional development will cease interjecting. The minister is a minute in. I'm going to ask her to return to the question and to make sure she's being directly relevant. Ms BURNEY 8GH The Voice referendum is on 14 October, and I invite you to get onboard. Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Voice 60 14:52 Dr REID 300126 Robertson My question is to the Treasurer. Why is it important to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through a voice, how will it benefit both Australian society and the economy, and what approaches have been rejected? 14:52 Dr CHALMERS 37998 Rankin I acknowledge the dedication that the member for Robertson brings to this place, and I thank him for the question. I also want to acknowledge, as the PM has, Michael Long, Nova Peris and everyone who's been engaged in this long walk of Michael's. You are an inspiration to all of us, Michael, Nova and everyone associated with this great cause. As you know, in 30 days time Australians will have a generational opportunity to listen better and to get better outcomes for First Nations people. When you strip away all of the conspiracy theories and all the mistruths and you look through the fog of misinformation and manipulation, this opportunity is really clear and really important to our country and to all of its people. I know that over the next 30 days there will be a number of Australians who will make up their mind—and they might not have decided yet—and I say to them: this is our chance to do things differently and to do things better, and that's what this Voice is all about at its core. We need to turn all of the goodwill and all of the taxpayer investment into better results and more progress because the status quo isn't working as well as it needs to. As Minister Burney has said, we need to go beyond making policy for First Nations people and make policy with them instead. We need to bring together our people, our principles and our pragmatism, and do something that we can be proud of. It will cost us nothing, but it will gain so much not only for the first of us but also for all of us. I was asked about what approaches we've rejected. We reject the bizarre policy of the opposition leader, who wants to have two referendums here, not one. The Leader of the Opposition wants two referendums because he wants to drag this out. He sees this not as an opportunity for unity but as an excuse for division. He wants Australians stuck in a cul-de-sac of confusion and conflict. That's what's going on here. He wants to leave this to our kids and their kids to sort out at some point down the track. We don't need two referendums. We can get this done in one. We can move forward together. We can listen better and we can get better outcomes for our people. We can rise above the nasty and negative and angry and divisive and dishonest politics that we've seen from those opposite and we can make history together. In 30 days time, we have a chance to grasp this generous and gracious invitation to walk together. This is our big chance as a country, and we cannot afford to waste it. New South Wales: Floods 61 14:55 Mr GEE 261393 Calare To the Prime Minister: it's 10 months to the day since horrific torrents of water hit Eugowra, Cudal, Molong, Canowindra, Manildra and Wellington. The failure to deliver our region the same level of support that other disaster-hit areas of the state have received is a disgrace and an outrage. What is your government doing to get this vital assistance moving? With the anniversary of the disaster fast approaching, will you again visit Eugowra and our region and invite the New South Wales Premier along too? 14:56 Mr R36 Grayndler ALBANESE (—) (): I thank the member for Calare for his question, and I pay tribute to his strong advocacy for his local community. I visited Eugowra with him and the then-Premier of New South Wales, Dominic Perrottet, to see firsthand and to talk with the community there. They were devastating scenes. The power of water was on display for all to see. Some homes had been lifted up, literally, and taken a kilometre down the road. A steel construction bridge that had been moved and was nowhere near the river was a frightening concept. I pay tribute as well to all of the emergency service workers, to the brave men and women of the Australian Defence Force who took us there on that day and who did such extraordinary work assisting the local community and also to the resilience of that community. I certainly will continue to work closely with the New South Wales state government to deliver the disaster recovery support that has been committed. We have delivered every single dollar of the funding from our behalf, as a Commonwealth government, but I know that at a time like this it is very difficult. Last month we announced a community recovery officer in Forbes, to work with community groups and disaster management and recovery stakeholders. A community recovery officer is already operating in the Cabonne Shire. I noted the member for Riverina at that time as well. I visited flood areas as well. Recovery grants are available for primary producers, of up to $75,000; for small businesses and not-for-profit organisations, of $50,000. There are rural landholder grants of up to $10,000; medium business support grants to support the re-establishment of medium-sized businesses or not-for-profits; back home grants of up to $20,000 to help pay for restoring housing to a habitable condition or replacing essential household items; and rental support grants to contribute to the cost of 16 weeks rent. If there is more that can be done, I'm certainly always up for doing what is necessary for communities that have suffered so much. I've visited Lismore with the member for Page. I've visited Riverina. I've visited Calare. I certainly will take up the invitation of the member for Calare to visit the community. I'll invite the New South Wales Premier as well, because I'm sure at times like this what we need is for the whole community and different levels of government—federal, state and local—to work together. Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Voice 61 14:59 Ms RYAN 249224 Lalor My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. How will constitutional recognition through a voice help to deliver improved health outcomes for First Nations peoples in Australia? 14:59 Mr BUTLER HWK Hindmarsh I thank the member for Lalor for her question. As badges in the House indicate, today is R U OK? Day, a campaign that was started by Gav Larkin about 14 years ago, who had lost his dad to suicide many years before that. I had the privilege of knowing Gav very well, as many in this House did, and his powerful message reminds us all of our own individual capacity to help someone in trouble, with a simple question, reaching out to them and asking, 'Are you okay?' We lost Gav, tragically young, to cancer more than a decade ago, but his campaign, as we all see today, is living long through his family. Today there'll be millions of conversations around Australia reflecting his original vision. R U OK? is a message for us to keep front of mind over the next 30 days, through this referendum campaign. As health minister, I'm already receiving reports of really serious spikes in levels of distress among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Lifeline, which operates 13YARN, a crisis support line for Indigenous Australians, is reporting record levels of requests for help and for support, as are other services in the area. It's an echo of Minister Burney's injunction earlier this week for us to treat each other with respect, no matter what our view about the question that the parliament has put before the Australian people for October 14. A good doctor listens carefully to their patients because a good doctor knows that that leads to better outcomes. A wise parliament should listen carefully to a group in our community who have lived with such poor outcomes and opportunities decade after decade. I can't think of an area of policy where an advisory voice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would be of more value than in health. Year after year, this chamber receives the annual Closing the gap report, which lays out in awful detail the yawning gap in health outcomes and life expectancy between Indigenous Australians and the rest of the country. With the best of intentions and substantial investment, things are not changing. Indeed, in some areas they are getting worse. The approach we've followed year after year is simply not working. On this day in particular we should reflect on the fact that young First Nations Australians are twice as likely to take their own life as the rest of the country. Those data aren't shifting, and the causes are complex. The consequences are shatteringly tragic. They extend well beyond the health discipline or the health portfolio. Listening to community representatives through a voice will help us respond to challenges like that. As the PM said this morning: if the advice is good, we'll follow it; if it's not good, we won't. It's a pretty simple concept, really, but potentially just so powerful. (Time expired) 15:02 Mrs McINTOSH 281513 Lindsay on indulgence—I rise to associate the opposition with the minister's comments about R U OK? Day—only—and the importance of R U OK? Day to every Australian. As I go across the country in this role, it is more important than ever that we stay connected as communities. Whether it's in the workplace, whether it's in schools or whether it is in this parliament, we should be looking after each other, today and on all days, particularly young people. Young people have gone through so much—through COVID, through disaster—and they are also experiencing the cost-of-living pressures through their parents, who are coming home and expressing those stresses with mortgages, rents and energy. So today on R U OK? Day I encourage every Australian to reach out to each other and ask, 'Are you okay?' It is a very important question that leads to a very important conversation. The SPEAKER 53517 Just for the member for Lindsay, I'll be writing to her later today about the use of indulgence. Minister for Indigenous Australians 62 15:04 Mr HOGAN 218019 Page My question is to the Minister for Indigenous Australians. Does the minister recall making the following statement in July 2019 when speaking about a federal treaty: 'It could be about fiscal arrangements.' Government members interjecting— The SPEAKER 53517 I'm going to ask the member to state that question again because I didn't hear the end part. There was too much noise on my right. Mr HOGAN 218019 The question is to the Minister for Indigenous Australians. Does the minister recall making the following statement in July 2019 when speaking about a federal treaty: 'It could be about fiscal arrangements.' The SPEAKER 53517 The minister for skills is warned! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition, on a point of order? Ms Ley 00AMN Mr Speaker, I seek your ruling. Last week you indicated that, if members interjected and were warned, and subsequently interjected, they should be removed under standing order 94(a). Those standing orders, respectfully, Mr Speaker, do need to be applied equally. The Minister for Home Affairs is in this question time a serial offender, and you have warned her— The SPEAKER 53517 Resume your seat. I thank the deputy leader for raising that matter, because she is correct. When questions have been asked and before the answer of the minister or the Prime Minister or where the question is directed is not the time to interject. I've made that crystal clear. The Minister for Home Affairs was warned. The person at fault this time was the minister for skills, and I warned him. I can give the deputy leader an assurance. If the Minister for Home Affairs interjects one more time, she will leave—as will the minister for skills. 15:06 Ms BURNEY 8GH Barton I thank the member for his question. The Voice is about advice. And, in the words of the South Australian Premier, 'When we cast our votes, allow us to summon the courage to be motivated by faith, hope and love; motivated by the pursuit of a better future over an unsatisfactory status quo.' Education Standards 63 15:07 Mr BRIAN MITCHELL 129164 Lyons My question is to the Minister for Education. What do the latest NAPLAN results say about education outcomes for Indigenous Australians, and how could these outcomes be improved? 15:07 Mr CLARE HWL Blaxland I thank the legendary member for Lyons for his question. This year's NAPLAN results make it blisteringly clear that serious reform is needed. They show that one in 10 students across the country are below the minimum standard. That's not a surprise. As I told the House in February this year, we have raised the minimum standard that students are now required to meet. But what these results also show is that one in three children from poor families and one in three children from the bush are below that minimum standard—and so are one in three Indigenous children. If you look at NAPLAN results over the last 10 years, you'll find that many of the children who fall behind never catch up. Only one in five children who were below the minimum standard in 3rd grade are above that standard by the time they're in year 9—only one in five. I want the House and I want Australians in the gallery, watching on TV and listening to think about this: of all those Indigenous children who are behind the minimum standard when they're in 3rd grade, it's not one in five who catch up by year 9; it's one in 17. Indigenous students are three times more likely to fall behind and three times more likely to stay there—to be stuck there. Think about that. Think about the waste of potential. I'm asked how you fix it. The National School Reform Agreement that we'll strike next year is about fixing funding and fixing things like this—tying funding to the sorts of things that are going to help a child who falls behind to catch up, to keep up and to finish school. One of those things is catch-up tutoring. Where a child falls behind, they're taken out of the regular classroom and given extra help, with one teacher to a couple of kids, for 50 minutes a day, four days a week. In the course of 18 weeks, they can learn as much as you would ordinarily learn in 12 months. They catch up. But that doesn't mean that a Voice isn't needed. As I've said before, we've got to do more than just change what we do. We've got to change the way we do things, because it's not just what happens in the classroom that counts. Everything from health to housing to employment can have an impact on how your child goes at school, or whether they go at all. The Voice can help bring all of that together, so that it's not only one in 17 Indigenous children that catch up—so more Indigenous kids reach their potential. And they're not my words; they're the words of Johnathan Thurston, the Rugby League great, who says, 'The Voice will mean more of our kids reach their potential.' And if that's not a reason to vote 'yes', I don't know what is. (Time expired) The SPEAKER 53517 Order. The member for Groom will resume his seat. Mr Albanese R36 I'm surprised you're still here! Honourable members interjecting— The 53517 Order. The Prime Minister has the call. Order. Mr Albanese R36 He's still having his lunch! I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper, Mr Speaker. DOCUMENTS 63 DOCUMENTS Presentation 63 15:11 Mr BURKE DYW Watson These documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings. BUSINESS 63 BUSINESS Leave of Absence 63 15:11 Mr BURKE DYW Watson I move: That leave of absence be given to every Member of the House of Representatives from the determination of this sitting of the House to the date of its next sitting. Question agreed to. Days and Hours of Meeting 64 15:11 Mr BURKE DYW Watson I present the revised program of sittings for 2023. Copies of the program are being placed on the table. Can we get those on the table, please—the extra copies. The SPEAKER 53517 The Leader of the House, they're available to circulate. Mr BURKE DYW Thank you. That's happening. I move: That the revised program of sittings be agreed to. In summary, in the week of Senate budget estimates, we won't be sitting. On the final day of Senate only, which is 7 December: realistically, we were probably going to be brought back anyway, so we've listed that as a formal sitting day with a question time. I'd advise members that, as often happens in the final day of the year, it is often the case that that Senate sitting goes very late, so, even though it's the seventh that is scheduled as a sitting day, I would advise members it's worthwhile staying in Canberra and being here for at least the morning of the eighth. 15:13 Mr FLETCHER L6B Bradfield I do need to make the point, on behalf of the opposition, that this is a government that came to power promising transparency and accountability, and they've been systematically finding opportunities to reduce the number of parliamentary sitting days on a repeated number of occasions, and they're doing it again. This is a reduction of four days of question time, to be replaced with just one. This is entirely inconsistent with what this government promised the Australian people—what the Labor Party promised the Australian people when they came to this place—and it's part of a dismal pattern of trying to avoid accountability, avoid scrutiny and, frankly, avoid turning up to work when they should be here. The SPEAKER 53517 The Minister for Resources will cease interjecting. Question agreed to. MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE 64 MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE Albanese Government 64 15:14 The SPEAKER 53517 I have received a letter from the honourable the Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: This Government's incompetence and mishandling of the issues facing Australia. 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— 15:14 Mr DUTTON 00AKI Dickson Well, for the entire Australian population today, we've seen this government, this Prime Minister, on display, for all to get a better understanding of what this government, what this Prime Minister, is about. It is a lack of transparency, as the Manager of Opposition Business just pointed out. It is an incompetence that is now creeping into many portfolios and is becoming more obvious to all Australians. It's not just in relation to Indigenous affairs that you can point to a gross level of incompetence on the front bench of the Labor Party. I'll go through some other areas where at the moment that is having a consequential negative impact on the Australian public, none of which was spoken about before the last election. The Prime Minister of this country, when he was Leader of the Opposition, went to the Australian people with a promise to reduce power prices by $275. It wasn't an off-the-cuff remark. It wasn't some passing comment that was picked up by a microphone. He promised it on 97 occasions. Was there any sincerity to it? Well, the Australian public believed there was at the time. People thought that they were listening to a man of integrity and of his word and that he would follow through on what he had promised them, on the undertaking he'd given. The government have now presided over two budgets. They have taken economic decisions in those two budgets through legislation that they've introduced into this chamber. In all of that debate, in all of the public contributions from the Prime Minister in this place and around the country, bearing in mind that he mentioned it 97 times before he was elected, how many times do you think he's mentioned that figure of $275 since then? An opposition member: At least 97! Mr DUTTON 00AKI Someone is saying, 'At least 97'; no, it's less than 97, I can say. Mr Taylor 231027 Could it be 75? Mr DUTTON 00AKI 'Seventy-five,' one of my generous colleagues says, but it's much less than 75. Mr Taylor 231027 Was it 50? Mr DUTTON 00AKI No, it's lower than 50. An opposition member: Twenty-five? Mr DUTTON 00AKI The generosity continues! It's less than 25. Mr Sukkar 242515 Ten? It can't be less than 10! Mr DUTTON 00AKI It's not 10 either, I regret to inform my colleagues. Mr Joyce e5d One! Mr DUTTON 00AKI 'One,' my colleague the member for New England says. You're a generous man, because it is none. None, Deputy Speaker—not once. I don't believe that the Prime Minister has amnesia. I don't believe that the Prime Minister has forgotten his commitments. I don't believe that the Prime Minister doesn't recall looking into the barrel of the camera, repeatedly making a commitment to the Australian public. I don't believe that he's forgotten about that, but I do believe that he's made decisions that have resulted in Australians paying more for their electricity bills, not less, and if he had the decency that Australians thought in May 2022 he might have, he'd apologise to the Australian public. I think he'd say, 'Look, I thought that I could deliver this for you. I thought that I could make decisions that could reduce your electricity and gas bills not just by $275 once off but by $275 a year,' but he's made no mention of that. He hasn't provided any apology. The incompetence continues to this very day. We've seen it in relation to a number of areas. On child care, one of the key commitments this Prime Minister made to the Australian public is that the Labor Party would reduce the cost of child care in this country. The fact is that the cost of child care is now up 9½ per cent on the last 12 months. Families with young children in child care would have voted for the Prime Minister based on that promise alone. Instead, now, after the Prime Minister has been in government for just over 15 months, they're paying almost 10 per cent more for child care every day when they drop their kids off. This government made a huge promise around increasing real wages. There are millions of workers across the country that listened to the rhetoric of the Prime Minister and the now Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. But do we have real wage growth in this country? We certainly do not. The minister is up here trumpeting the fact that people have a pay rise that doesn't keep up with the cost-of-living pressures created by this government. This government is spending an extra $185 billion. What does that do to inflation in our country? It drives it up. If inflation goes up, people pay more for their mortgages. And it's not just their mortgages: small businesses are now paying double-digit interest rates for their overdrafts. If you speak to people around the country, as we do, in cafes, in restaurants, in other small businesses employing Australians—maybe one or two or five or 25 Australians—there's a common theme across the country: they are completely and utterly disillusioned with this Prime Minister. They thought they could take him at his word. They thought that the management that the coalition provided when we were in government to manage the economy through good times and bad would continue. But under this government it is clear they have not, and families are suffering, small businesses are suffering, and this government predicts that unemployment will go up over the course of the next 12 months—that is, that tens or hundreds of thousands of Australians will lose their jobs as a result of decisions taken by this Prime Minister. The Prime Minister made no mention of that before he was elected. The one thing he did say, though—and I'll give him credit for this—the one thing he did commit to on the night of the election in May 2022 was that he would deliver a Canberra based voice to the Australian people. He nominated it as his highest priority. He said to the Australian public that he would dedicate himself, which he's done over the course of the last 15 months or so, to his proposal around the Canberra Voice. I think it's been, as many Australians now understand, to the disadvantage of the vast majority of Australians because the Prime Minister and his cabinet have been focused on this issue of the Voice. They've been completely and utterly distracted from the core business of managing the economy, and Australians are picking up that bill. Have we had a coherent plan from the Prime Minister? They've had 15 months to formulate the plan in relation to the Voice. You saw on display again today, and countless question times have demonstrated this, the Minister for Indigenous Australians could not answer a single question in relation to the Voice. When asked to recall a detail about a publicly reported comment she made in 2019, she read from a pre-prepared script—yet again. It had no relevance to the question being asked, and somehow the Australian public is being prepared for 14 October, when you will be asked to place your faith blindly in that minister and this Prime Minister, but there is no transparency. There is deliberately no detail. When we say to the Prime Minister or to the Minister for Indigenous Australians, as we asked yesterday: 'When you say that the Voice is going to be restricted to only Indigenous health or Indigenous education, how can you say that? On what legal basis can you say that?' We asked the question: what policies don't apply to Indigenous Australians? The wording that's before the Australian public is so broad that it will give rise to an opportunity for a voice made up of people of the quality of Marcia Langton and of people like Mr Mayo, a committed communist. These will be the people with the loudest voice in the country. It will divide our country. That's what the Prime Minister is proposing. In his own words, he has said that he will preside over a voice, and he will be afraid to reject their advice to him. He said it would be a very brave Prime Minister to reject the advice of the Voice. Somehow on one day, in one part of the country, the Prime Minister is saying to Australians that this is just a meek and mild opportunity to say yes—and we saw it repeated here today—but instead this is the most significant change proposed to our nation's rule book in our country's history. And it's without precedent. No leader in our country's history, Liberal or Labor, has ever gone to a referendum seeking to mislead the Australian people, seeking to deceive them, seeking to starve them of the opportunity to have their own minds made up by reading what it is the government's proposing. I think it is a shocking act from a prime minister who should be about uniting this country. He should be about providing the practical outcomes for Indigenous Australians, instead of investing a significant amount of power in people like Marcia Langton, who suggests that a quarter of the country is somehow racist or stupid. There are millions of Australians who will vote no. Good on them, because they're standing up to a very weak prime minister. 15:24 Dr LEIGH BU8 Fenner Yesterday morning I had the privilege of welcoming in to Canberra Michael Long, as part of his second long walk from Melbourne to Canberra. We met at Mulligans Flat, in Forde, where traditional owners told us some of the local Ngunnawal stories. We were joined by the member for Solomon; the Chief Minister of the ACT, Andrew Barr; and Sally McManus, Secretary of the ACTU. Australians know Michael Long through his 190 games for Essendon, his two premierships, his Norm Smith Medal. But I want to remind the House about what an extraordinary man Michael Long is. In his biography of Michael Long, The Short Long Book, Martin Flanagan tells the story of Michael's dad, Jack Long, who once fought off a crocodile. He tells the story of Michael Long's mother, Agnes, who was taken away from her mother as an infant and who had never seen the sea. She was put on a boat and shipped from Darwin to the Catholic mission on Melville Island. Agnes Long was given the name Agnes Brock because she was taken from her mother beside Brock Creek. As Martin Flanagan writes of Michael Long: 'Longie had a jiggling, bounding run like he'd briefly tapped into some special energy source. All his parts were loose and there was no way of knowing what each limb was going to do next.' He helped to shape the AFL's code of conduct on race in 1995. And then, having gone to one too many Aboriginal funerals, he decided, on 21 November 2004, to start walking from Melbourne to Canberra. Somewhere around Albury, then Prime Minister John Howard agreed to meet him. That's how the first walk happened. Today Michael Long walked with the Prime Minister the final steps to Parliament House on his second Long Walk. Michael Long is an extraordinary Indigenous Australian, one of many Indigenous Australians who have helped to shape Australia's reconciliation journey—a journey that goes back to the Indigenous cricket team that toured England in 1868 up to Cathy Freeman's extraordinary 400-metre run in the Sydney Olympics, Johnathan Thurston captaining the Cowboys to their first NRL premiership and Ash Barty winning Wimbledon. Evonne Goolagong Cawley swelled Australians hearts. And Adam Goodes showing his extraordinary sense of grace. In that moment when a spectator called him an ape, he said he had never been more hurt. But then when the 13-year-old girl who had racially abused him phoned to apologise, he was gracious. These words still make me choke. He said: "She's 13 years old, still so innocent, I don't put any blame on her … Unfortunately it's what she hears and the environment that she's grown up in has made her think that it's OK to call people names." Adam Goodes showed us how lucky we are to share this nation with a peoples whose history goes back 65,000 years, to a period well before ancient Greece and ancient Rome. For my own part, sportspeople like Charlie Maher have inspired me to run as a supporter of the Indigenous Marathon Foundation in dozens of marathons, ultramarathons and triathlons. Every time I put on that singlet I feel how fortunate I am to be a supporter of First Nations people. The Leader of the Opposition referred disparagingly to the Minister for Indigenous Australians. It is important that the House realises what an extraordinary person the Minister for Indigenous Australians is. She doesn't much tell her own story, but it's a remarkable one. She was born in 1957 and raised not by her birth parents, but by her great aunt and uncle—a spinster brother and sister who were born in the 1890s. I don't think there's anyone else in the House raised by people born before Federation. She lived in a house with people who had experienced the Depression, in which they made their own soap and milked a cow. She is somebody who has suffered a great deal through her life. The Minister for Indigenous Australians suffered domestic violence at the hands of her first partner, the father of her children. In 2006 she lost Rick Farley, who she described as the love of her life. Rick Farley was an extraordinary Australian, the head of the National Farmers Federation, who brought farmers along with him through the passage of the native title legislation. The Minister for Indigenous Australians has said, 'He was a complex, wonderful man that I miss every single day.' In 2017, she lost her son. She has every reason to be angry, but instead she epitomises grace. Instead, she epitomises courage. She epitomises the philosophy that all of us on this side of the House carry when we advocate a 'yes' vote. The Minister for Indigenous Australians was the first Indigenous graduate of Mitchell CAE, the first Indigenous person to serve in the New South Wales parliament and the first Indigenous woman in the House of Representatives. She helped to spearhead the reconciliation walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 2000. She deserves the respect of every Australian, including the Leader of the Opposition. Other extraordinary Indigenous leaders have argued for a First Nations Voice to Parliament. Noel Pearson has made the case that the work of recognition involves the recognition of first languages, and he has emphasised the need for schools teaching First Australians to incorporate language into what they do. In my own case, I've benefited from speaking with Ngunnawal man Tyronne Bell, who's shown me the Indigenous stories in the Canberra bush and given me the honour of teaching me to speak an Indigenous acknowledgement of country. We often refer to the 65,000 years of Indigenous history in Australia, but it's important to recognise how many souls that represents. According to demographer Len Smith, there are around a billion First Nations people who have walked on these soils, compared to 40 million non-Indigenous Australians. While non-Indigenous Australians outnumber First Nations people by 33 to 1 right now, if we look at the broad sweep of history, if we look at all those who've ever walked on these lands, 25 out of 26 are First Nations people. GK Chesterton once said, 'Tradition means giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.' Traditionalists should understand that recognition of First Nations people is recognition of the billion First Nations people who have walked on these lands. It is not only a matter of recognition; it is also a matter of consultation. Consultation has a practical benefit. It produces better policies. Good governments consult. Right now, Treasury is consulting with economists and businesses on a legislated definition of superannuation, unfair trading practices, the Consumer Data Right and the Franchising Code of Conduct. The Department of Health and Aged Care is consulting on trans fats in processed food and pandemic preparedness. The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is consulting on gender equity in the workplace, and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources is consulting on expanding the RNA sector. By listening, we produce better policies. It's extraordinary to me that those opposite aren't arguing we should stop consulting with business. They aren't arguing that we should stop consultation on workplace relations, clean energy or business support. They seem to think consultation is a good thing everywhere except if it's enshrined in the Constitution that we will consult with First Nations people. Aunty Violet Sheridan was also with us to meet Michael Long. She's somebody who walked across the Harbour Bridge in 2000. She said: And I started to cry because it made me so happy that black and white were coming together and walking into the future for reconciliation. This campaign is a campaign for yes which will meet hate and disinformation with love and confidence. It will meet attempts to blur with clarity, hope and a passion for a better future, epitomised by Michael Long, Charlie Maher and Linda Burney. 15:34 Mr LIT 265585 Maranoa TLEPROUD (—) (): In just 15 months, all the Albanese government has managed to do is drive up everyone's cost of living and divide this country. The proposition in managing the Voice is not a new one. It's a proposition we've had before in this country. We've had a representative body; it was called ATSIC. For those that live in rural and remote Australia we live with the scars of that today. The Nationals took a very principled decision in November last year—that repeating the mistakes of the past would not help in closing the gap. The Nationals are committed to a proper process around constitutional recognition, not just where one cohort of the population get to go to Uluru and decide about what the make-up of our Constitution should look like but where there is proper process of a constitutional convention where every Australian should have a say about the intent, the change of the Constitution and the question that is put to the Australian people. That's been denied by them, this government, in ignorantly listening to Australians about their concerns about how this should be done in uniting our country through constitutional recognition instead of conflating it with the Voice. But their mishandling has gone well beyond that. If you go to regional and rural Australia, we bear those scars today. It took them literally less than a month after the Jobs and Skills Summit to scrap the ag visa, a summit that the Nationals took a pragmatic stance on and went to, to be constructive, and where the government were told, apparently, after listening to those that went, by the NFF and COSBOA that they were 172,000 workers short to get food from a paddock to a plate. Yet the only thing they could do was scrap an ag visa and rely on a PALM scheme that we'd already put in place and that, at best, could bring in 42,000 workers. Since that Jobs and Skills Summit a year ago, nearly to the day, they've only brought in 16,000 workers, less than 10 per cent, and they have changed the PALM scheme to make it unviable for our horticulturalists to be able to use in any meaningful way. The cost-of-living pressures that you are feeling at the moment across this country are a direct result of the unions riding high up in the stirrups, running this government and making sure that they have the direction of this government, and you are paying that bill. That goes to your energy bill as well—a reckless race to 82 per cent renewables by 2030 that demonises the firming power that's required to drive down energy costs. Inflation remains high because of fixed costs. Discretionary spend has already reduced. The Treasurer talks about inflation dropping, and that's because Australians are hurting and their discretionary spend has dropped. But what is still there is their fixed cost, and their fixed cost is their energy bill and their food bill. Our food processors are paying sometimes three or four times what they were 12 months ago because we are taking away supply, and when you take away supply you lift prices, and that is what they've done with their reckless energy policy. But it gets worse for regional Australia, with one of the most callous and nasty pieces of legislation: to reopen the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. In 2012, we sat here—well, I didn't, but those that were here, in a bipartisan way, supported a Murray-Darling Basin Plan to recover 2,750 gigalitres to put back to the environment. Regional communities have bore that pain of over 2,100 gigalitres already recovered. That's 2,100 of the 2,750 recovered; they bore that and they accepted that. We put in place practical measures to ensure that we got away from the blunt instrument of buybacks because recovering water through buybacks doesn't hurt farmers; it hurts the small communities that are left behind: the machinery dealer, the irrigation shop—right down to the cafe owner and the hairdresser. They take away the tools of farmers to produce your food and fibre, they take away jobs and they diminish regional communities. And what is the most callous and nastiest piece of legislation that they are going to amend? Their piece of legislation, for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, has now asked for another 450 gigalitres to be taken away from agriculture, without any protection for the economic viability of these communities—a mechanism that they put in place themselves. What sort of government does that to their fellow Australians? Every Australian will feel the price of that at the checkout because if you don't give the farmers the tools they need to produce your food and fibre—they have borne the price of giving water back to the environment, and now the government are asking for more—then that means you pay more. This is about ideology not meeting the practical reality of what is being bled out of Australians' wallets every day. This government is out of touch with reality and out of touch with Australia. 15:39 Ms TEMPLEMAN 181810 Macquarie It is an absolute privilege to have an opportunity to speak about the competency of this government—those of us who sit on this side of the House and do the things we said we'd do. It's been not much more than a year, and in that time the Albanese government has delivered on so many of the things we committed to. I'm not going to be able to touch on all of them during this short speech, but I just want those opposite to think about how different the world is, how different Australia is and how different the opportunity is for people because we've been able to competently deliver things like fee-free TAFE places. We set a target of 180,000 places. We've already exceeded that target, and 214,000 enrolments have taken place. That's 214,000 people who have an opportunity for a totally different career and life. We've created opportunities. We've delivered more university places along with more TAFE places. We've also made life easier for a whole group of people who have chronic illnesses. We've delivered cheaper medicines in multiple tranches, including the most recent where people can get two lots of their script in one go. That might not seem a lot for those opposite, but, for people who have a long-term ongoing chronic illness and require sometimes multiple medications, that's a huge saving. We've also delivered funds to support GPs. In my electorate, there are 14 GPs who have received additional support to be able to expand and build up their practices, but I'll have more to say about that in coming days. Really significantly, we have delivered action on climate change. Have we fixed it? Well, no. The sorts of things those opposite want to see are instant fixes. They were too scared to even try. They had no belief in the need for transition. We know that the journey is not necessarily going to be smooth every step of the way, but we are acting and starting to deliver those changes. I think the action that we're taking on climate change has given many people a huge sense of relief that Australia is not back in the Dark Ages but part of a world that recognises how urgent and necessary action on climate change is. We've also delivered aged-care reforms that were recommended to the previous government, which they failed to even contemplate. They were the incompetent ones, the ones unable to look at an issue, determine the problems and move forward with solutions. But we've been able to deliver a whole raft of aged-care changes, like 24/7 nurses, which are operating in almost every aged-care facility now; extra minutes of care for each resident of aged care; and a pay rise for aged-care workers. There's an incredible difference between before we were elected and now, a bit more than a year on. Today, of course, we delivered on a commitment to more housing. The legislation that we passed through this place today will have a tangible benefit to Macquarie, where there will be more accommodation for women fleeing domestic violence. At a local level, we're a government that's delivering on improvements to mental health, like the headspace and the Head to Health that will open in my electorate before the end of the year. It took those opposite nine years to do what? Absolutely nothing to improve mental health access for people in the Hawkesbury. We've also made improvements to and delivered on disaster assistance and preparation. I'm very proud to say that, at the start of what could be a very challenging fire season, I go into that knowing that, at a federal level, we have listened and we have taken action to be better prepared. I want finish by talking about why we hope that on 14 October we will see the Australian people support recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Constitution and a voice to parliament. It's because what no parliament has done is deliver on closing the gap—not effectively. The gaps are still too wide. There are too many people experiencing disadvantage, shorter life expectancy and poorer educational outcomes. What 14 October gives us is an opportunity to change that trajectory. It's an opportunity to say yes. 15:44 Mr HOGAN 218019 Page I rise to speak about the mishandling by the government of a few issues. I want to start with the mishandling they've done of the Voice. I get up very humbly to speak about this. I don't get up to yell about this. I don't get up to be overly loud about this. I'm happy to explain in a little while why I am voting no. I have some very real concerns about the constitutional impacts of the Voice being recognised in the Constitution, and I'll get to that in a minute. But what I'm really sad about is—and I really don't see how the minister or anyone opposite can argue against this—that we are going to be, for the next four weeks, and on the morning of the result of the Voice referendum, a divided nation. We are being divided on an issue that we didn't have to be divided on. The referendum question didn't have to be worded like this. It has been ill worded and it has been ill conceived. I think we can all talk from personal experience of conversations that we've had with colleagues, friends and family members, and it has divided us. I think that is an exceptionally sad place for us to be. I think it's dividing us, too, on an issue that is really unfortunate, as we continue our story of reconciliation and we continue our story of closing the gap. It's been a great mishandling by the Prime Minister. He's had a tin ear about the thing the whole way. I will just touch on what my concerns are. I'm not going to yell them in a derogatory way. I have real concerns that the power of the Voice will be decided by the High Court, not the parliament. I have real concerns about that. Mr Perrett HVP That's rubbish, absolute rubbish! Mr HOGAN 218019 You can disagree with that, and I understand that the member opposite disagrees with that, and I respect that, but that is my concern. Mr Perrett HVP Talk to Julian Leeser! Mr HOGAN 218019 I've spoken to people who share that concern who are very learned as well. Even when I'm trying to say this in a very considered way, people can't see that some people might have that real concern. That's where we are. We're certainly divided here. Families are divided over this. Friendships have been broken over this. This is a very sad place that the Prime Minister has put us in. I will go now to the issue that is of major consequence to the families in Australia, the major issue that people talk to me about. In the past, if I went to people and said, 'What has been your major issue?' it was usually not health, education or anything else—it was always local roads actually, in any survey I did. But about four or five months ago, for the first time, it changed, and the major concern for families and people in Australia now is cost of living. The Leader of the Opposition got up earlier and spoke about power prices, so I won't repeat that, but I will reiterate that the now Prime Minister said before the election that it was the most modelled policy that an opposition had ever done in the history of Federation. So it was the most modelled one, and he hasn't mentioned it since the election. We've spoken about power prices, but we know that there are also increasing interest rates—10 or 11 interest rate increases by the RBA—grocery prices and the whole supply chain being fuelled by the truckie tax that this government has put on and other things. Now we're seeing some industrial relations legislation being brought in too. I can tell you right now what that will mean. The unions are back in town. The factions don't always agree, but what we can all agree on is: they've all been funded and they're all here because of a union. The unions are back in town. What is that going to mean for cost of living? Government members interjecting— Mr HOGAN 218019 That gets them going. They're a bit sensitive about that one. What does that mean? That means, with the new industrial relations legislation, the one thing you can bet on is that the cost of living for Australian families is going up, thank you to the union members over there. The last one I want to mention is the whole infrastructure debacle by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. When they were in opposition, they'd say we were pork-barrellers, giving money where it was not warranted. Now they're in government they say we didn't do anything. There is not quite a connection there. But the minister's handling of infrastructure and the Qatar decision by this government, and its damage to the tourism industry and exporters, is atrocious handling by a very incompetent government. 15:49 Ms LAWRENCE 299150 Hasluck I thank the member for Dickson for raising this matter and I will speak against his motion. The member raises the question of the issues that concern Australians. What are the issues that concern Australians? Perhaps they include the cost of living, the Voice to Parliament, closing the gap, robodebt, the needs of veterans and their families, aged care and housing. Moreover, the issue that I believe concerns Australians more than any other, which was severely lacking under the previous government and which we are now delivering, is serious leadership. On the issue of cost-of-living challenges that face Australians today partly due to global issues and partly due to nine years of Liberal and National torpor, this government has acted. We are making child care and medicines cheaper. We created over half-a-million new jobs in our first 13 months and have more than 224,000 people enrolled in TAFE training. We are strengthening the Medicare system, making it more affordable for the young and the old to see a GP. We are strengthening the social safety net, increasing JobSeeker and rent assistance and providing energy bill relief on top of capping gas prices to reel in the cost-of-living challenges that started to run away under the former government. The government's actions, as has been recognised, have been effectual in starting to bring inflation down. We are also getting wages moving, supporting the Fair Work Commission's minimum wage rise, fixing a broken bargaining system and closing the loopholes used by unscrupulous employers that undermine and undercut wages and conditions. The Liberal and National parties voted against cheaper child care, cheaper medicines, cheaper energy and more housing. They even opposed pay rises. They voted against all of these things. If the opposition leader wants to know who is failing to deal with the issues facing Australians, he can look to his left and to his right and over his shoulder, which he should start doing more often, and then he can go and find a mirror. On the issue of the referendum, perhaps the Voice to Parliament means little else to some of those opposite than a way to divide, but for many people around this country, including many people with a real interest in closing the gap and making a real difference across health, education and justice for Indigenous Australians, the invitation of the Uluru statement is a real chance to make a difference. I look forward to voting 'yes' on 14 October, and I will be proud if Western Australia also votes 'yes'. On the issue of government treating ordinary Australians with respect, the report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme is an indictment of the former government. Perhaps 'indictment' is a too strong a word, but perhaps it isn't. On the issue of the needs of veterans and their families, our changes mean that finally they can access the services and support that they deserve in a timely way. On the many issues we inherited from the previous government in aged care, this government has been implementing the recommendations of the aged-care royal commission and has supported aged-care workers with significant pay increases. On the issue of housing, today every member can be proud that the government's program and common sense has at last prevailed under the steady hand of the Minister for Housing with the passing of the legislation for the Housing Australia Future Fund, which I believe will become a legacy program. But the issue that Australians care about above all others is simply leadership. We now have a stable government led by a respected Prime Minister. We once again are a serious country that is taken seriously around the world. There is hardly any issue, portfolio or area of government where the performance of the Albanese government over the short span of less than 18 months has not already eclipsed that of the coalition over its many unfulfilled years. The issue of climate change, for example, for some of those opposite is one to avoided, to be ducked around, to be met with nothing but mealy-mouthed words and a nod and a wink to other climate deniers. I'm sorry to those opposite who can read science news and do accept it, but they know the problem they have over there. The Australian public are simply unable to depend on climate action from those opposite and there are decades of evidence of that, lost decades that we can't get back. This strange, indefinite motion sits firmly in the shade cast by the ministers of this worthy government whose work I have reflected on here and very much in the shade of this Prime Minister. I thank the opposition leader for the chance to reflect on many of the achievements of the Albanese government. I oppose this tragic motion. 15:54 Mr WOLAHAN 235654 Menzies When I first came into this parliament, I asked, 'Well, what's the purpose of the matters of public performance, MPIs?' It was put to me that question time is a chance for government to come in and tell the nation how great they are, and MPIs are a chance for the opposition and crossbench to say, 'Not so fast, not so fast.' This MPI is about competence, and it is about competence in a wide variety of areas. I would like to focus on the next four weeks, and I have a plea for the Prime Minister to show competence in one of the most important areas he is responsible for, which is keeping our nation together. I see here in the chamber my good friend the member for Robertson. I know that you have been on the receiving end of some awful things that have been said to you, and that should not happen. I know that recently Senator Jacinta Price received death threats, and that should never happen. People shared her personal private number. That may be funny to some because of the way that the campaign is being conducted, but we only need to look to what happened in other democracies, in the United States and in England, to know that this is really serious stuff. People who've been here much longer than me have all said they have never seen passion so heightened on either side than they have on this issue. We do this for a living. It is a calling, a profession and a great honour, and we come in here and know there is some theatre to it. But when we go out of this building, people don't see that we politicians play sport together, we laugh together, we have dinner together. That is what we do, but that is not obvious to everyone in this debate because we are not practised in referendums. More than half of this nation have never had one before. And so when we stoke the fires on either side of the debate, there are consequences to that. Passionate, decent, good people of good character can disagree on this question, and they can still be passionate, good, decent people and come together. That includes people within families, within sporting groups, within businesses and within our electorates. You all would have received communications showing great passions from both sides, all of you. There are things we can agree on—even if you have a view on 'yes' or 'no', there are a few things we can agree on. Decent, reasonable people can agree that we have great pride in our ancient Indigenous heritage, that we acknowledge gaps in poverty, education and health, and that we acknowledge historical and present-day injustices. But we must also all agree that in four weeks—today is 14 September, but on 14 October we must all agree—that the Australian people will get it right. On 14 October there will be wall-to-wall coverage on every channel and there will be panels trying to dissect what this referendum means for the leaders. But we must all agree that the Australian people got it right. We have seen examples of other nations where that doesn't occur, including our great friend the United States. We saw what happens when doesn't occur; it damages democracy. It is not just on the night of 14 October that this is relevant, not just on that night. It is also relevant to how we conduct ourselves in the next four weeks. The Prime Minister is a passionate advocate for 'yes'—that is clear, and I understand that. But there are ways you can delegitimise the vote. Too many have used the words 'misinformation' and 'disinformation' like it is a cute line. It is another way of saying fake news or propaganda, another way of saying, 'I'm not listening,' another way of saying, 'Talk to the hand.' But the effect of that is to delegitimise the vote. You are doing it in advance, and we can't do that. We can't fix that on election night. If you have set the conditions up for Australian people to vote 'no'—and we will see what they do—and if you have said that that is the bar on misinformation or disinformation, you have undermined our democracy. I caution against that in the next four weeks. When the Prime Minister passionately says a hand has been outreached, what will he say if the majority of Australians vote 'no'? Have they hit that hand away? That is a terrible thing to say about the majority of Australian people, a terrible thing. We should never say things like that. It's a serious constitutional amendment, a new chapter with real powers. It wasn't a modest proposal; it has real powers. That's the question. It's not about manners. It should never be put in that way. So, in the next four weeks, I plead with the Prime Minister to set the conditions for us all to agree on referendum night that the Australian people got it right, whatever that view is. We can and should all agree on that. 15:59 Dr REID 300126 Robertson Before I begin, I thank the member for Menzies for his kind words just a little bit earlier. Debate is high at the moment. It is high throughout the community. It's definitely high in this chamber, and we must remain respectful, but we must remain informed when we have that debate. The issue of competence was brought up. It was brought up by the member for Menzies and a few others just prior. Competence is about delivering and about doing what you say you will do. On election night, the now Prime Minister, Prime Minister Albanese, said that we would implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart and progress a referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this country's Constitution through a voice, and that is what we are doing. We are putting a referendum to the Australian people on 14 October. What I would encourage people to do—in my home electorate of Robertson, throughout the country and, in particular, in this chamber—is to make sure that they are informed and that they are educating themselves about what this referendum means and what this referendum is asking. That is, and I say it again, to constitutionally recognise our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters right across this country through the establishment of a voice, an independent advisory body that will be able to make representations to government and executive government about the issues that affect us—a seat at the table. As has been said many times, as an Aboriginal adult male you are more likely to go to jail than you are to go to university. Your grandson or your granddaughter is more likely to be caused harm or to die during birth, and your daughter is more likely to die during childbirth. We see rampant rates of cardiovascular disease—like rheumatic heart disease, affecting the valves of the heart—affecting our Indigenous youth, our First Nations youth. One day, they are there, living their lives; the next, it is silence. So we need to really, really understand what this is asking. Some of the comments today from the opposition—some of the comments—have been not just disappointing but quite myopic. There have been short-sighted. All the questions that have been asked and all the comments that have been made in this chamber have really firmed up my position that, first, the opposition have not read the Uluru Statement from the Heart—that one-page document, that gracious offering that has been extended to all Australians and will be extended to all Australians on 14 October. Second, I don't believe the opposition understand the difference between constitutional change and legislative change, which leads me to my third point, which is that they haven't read the new chapter that would be inserted into the Constitution and, to be specific, the third part of that chapter. It says: the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to … to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including— and this is the important part— its composition, functions, powers and procedures. The primacy of the parliament is preserved. The Constitution is there to guide legislation, as it always has been, and the parliament then forms the legislation. To talk very briefly on the power of listening—and I've said this before and as the health minister has said during question time—listening to our patients and listening to people is so powerful because not only can it reduce harm but it also can save a life. That's the power of listening to one person at one moment. Imagine what we can do if we listen to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters on 14 October. 16:05 Mr STEVENS 176304 Sturt The next time that we come together as a parliament, this referendum will have been held, and we will have the results and the message from the people of Australia as to their view on this proposal that the Labor government are putting to them. We won't just have the results of the national vote or the results from the states; we'll have the results from every electorate, from every booth, and we will know exactly what our communities' view is—whether our electorates have voted for this or against it. I quite genuinely commend members of the government who are in here right now absolutely doubling down on the fact that this is the most important thing that the government that they are a member of is doing or will do, and that the fortunes of their government and a judgement about their government will be made by the people of this country on 14 October. When we're back here, we can have another discussion about the view of the communities, the view of the electorates of everyone here—what our electorates have said to us about this proposal—and whether or not our electorates support the position that we've taken or the position that other people have taken. A year ago, when we started talking about moving towards holding this referendum, I was hopeful that something could occur that would see some unity around recognition of Indigenous people in the Constitution. Regrettably, I came to form the view, through all of my observations of the behaviour of those opposite from the Prime Minister down, that the Prime Minister wanted two things: to have the referendum that we're now having and to divide and destroy the opposition in the process. He wanted to put us in a position where he would put something through to us that we could never possibly support. Indeed, he followed through on that. I suspect his judgement at the time was that he was going to win this referendum and split the coalition, and achieve two famous victories in one fell swoop. That is obviously completely out the window now. Government members interjecting— Mr STEVENS 176304 You'll hear from your community in four weeks time. Your communities will tell you what they think of your proposal. You'll find out, and when we're back together I look forward to talking about what your communities have said to you and what my community has said to me about this proposal. I'm not frightened of the people of this country. I hold no fear of the voters of my electorate, and you should take the message from the voters of your electorate—what they've got to say about the proposition that you're putting forward. You're going to find out, and I look forward to being back here and talking about that. We could have made this a moment of national unity. Regardless of the result—and the result is looking pretty clear—what we are going to have is a divided nation because of this debate that the Prime Minister has put to the Australian people. That is on the Prime Minister's head. The people that will hold him to account for that will not be just the people in this chamber. It will the people of this country, because they will send a very clear message, and we will all get that message. It will be unambiguous and unequivocal. That message will need to be reflected on very deeply by the Prime Minister. When David Cameron put a vote to the people of the United Kingdom about leaving the European Union, he went out and campaigned on it, and said, 'We need to stay in the European Union.' He put his judgement and his view to the people of the United Kingdom. When they rejected it, he resigned the next morning. That was something of dignity—to put such a totemic proposition forward. It would be an act of absolute cowardice for the Prime Minister to put such a divisive proposition to the people of this country, to divide us like never before, have that proposition rejected and continue on as Prime Minister of the nation, with the people having given him that verdict. He should reflect on that. It wouldn't be good for the interests of the referendum to put the Prime Minister's future on the line, because that will only increase the 'no' vote. But he should reflect very carefully on what he does. If he has taken his proposal, his model and his timing to the people—and made sure that it was a divisive question—and if the people don't support his position but reject it, he should do the honourable and dignified thing and resign as Prime Minister of Australia. 16:10 Mr GEORGANAS DZY Adelaide If those across from me wish to discuss incompetence and mishandling, we can certainly have that discussion. The title of the matter of public importance is: This Government's incompetence and mishandling of the issues facing Australia. But I'm going to talk about what took place in this place over the last nine or 10 years. Let's not forget that, firstly, the former Prime Minister secretly assumed five different ministries, including Treasury and Home Affairs. How can you forget that? This was done without any public knowledge or even the acknowledgement of his own members of parliament; his own cabinet had no idea. If you want to talk about incompetence, that gets the big tick for incompetence. But it's not just that. Those on the other side are experts at mishandling. It's not that long ago that we were talking in this place about 435,000 Australians—you want to talk about incompetence—that were forced to pay a debt that they never had. They on the other side denied it. If you want to talk about incompetence, that is incompetence: making innocent people pay a debt they didn't have, an unjust burden totalling $1.8 billion through the robodebt scheme. That was an ordeal that no Australian should have endured. How do you strip them of the sense of security, of the very support they've earned through years of contributing themselves? Well, those across there did that, and that was incompetence. They did it with ease because they were quite capable and happy to be incompetent. Their skill at mishandling doesn't stop there. They've perfected the art of saying no, to the detriment of this nation. They've said no to free TAFE, no to the Energy Price Relief Plan, no to a permanent pathway for temporary protection visa holders and no to startup loans and better paid jobs. They even said no to the Housing Australia Future Fund, a policy that was passed here today, which we're all proud of, and that will provide housing and a roof over the head of those that can least afford it. Meanwhile, we've upped the minimum wage, and it's no surprise that they also disagreed with that. And we funded an historic pay rise for aged care workers. Again, they didn't agree. Let everyone be reminded that, whilst they were in power, they neglected the health of Australians. They drained a substantial $50 billion from our public health system in the time that they were in government, which is proof that they're incompetent because that was to the detriment of the Australian public. We've voted in this place to build a better Australia to ensure we have healthcare systems. But if you're incompetent you'll bring down the healthcare system, and that's what they've done. That is what they've left us with: a health system that they ran to the ground. They ran it into the ground because they were incompetent and incapable of running a system. They drained, as I said, $50 billion from the public health system whilst they were in government. Of course, they wanted to jack up the cost of medicines by $5 per script, and now they constantly oppose measures that would make medicines more affordable for Australians. They've ignored the rising cost of living. They ignored it and ignored it. They ignored environmental concerns and the pressing housing crisis. We have created—it was announced today—half a million new jobs in just 13 months, and in my state they've had the lowest figure for unemployment that they've ever had, setting a record pace for any new government. We on this side are committed to the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, the most substantial investment in social and affordable housing in over a decade, and those on the other side continue to reject these initiatives. When they question our spending priorities, particularly in housing, you have to wonder: how can ensuring every Australian has a roof over their head ever be wrong? How can that ever be wrong? What about a couple of weeks ago? We had legislation in this place—and I'm glad the Assistant Treasurer is here, because he'll recall it—to bring more transparency to offshore multinational accounts, giving us better ways of dealing with people who set up shelf companies offshore, and they opposed it. They absolutely opposed it, yet they were denying that robodebt existed. On one hand, they were quite happy to support their buddies and their friends with millions of dollars, but, on the other hand, when the poorest of the poor were being targeted with debts, they didn't want to know about it. That gives you an idea of where they are and what they are. Our government is a good government, and we continue to be a good government. (Time expired) The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 The time for the discussion has now concluded. COMMITTEES 74 COMMITTEES Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Joint Committee 74 Membership 74 16:15 The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 The Speaker has received a message from the Senate acquainting the House that Senator Cox has been appointed as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs. BILLS 74 BILLS Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023, Royal Commissions Amendment (Private Sessions) Bill 2023, Health Insurance Amendment (Professional Services Review Scheme) Bill 2023 74

Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023

Royal Commissions Amendment (Private Sessions) Bill 2023

Health Insurance Amendment (Professional Services Review Scheme) Bill 2023

Returned from Senate 74 Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 74

Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023

Second Reading 74 16:16 Ms CHESTERS 249710 Bendigo As I was saying right before we went to members' statements, the very north of my electorate of Bendigo is just over 30 minutes away from the Murray, so we are very much in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Lake Eppalock, which is a storage for the Murray, is in my electorate. I'll say this to those opposite: improving infrastructure is a matter of urgency, not just because we need to be smarter with the water that we have—and I'll get to what's happening in our area in a moment and the worry about the next few months and years—but also because of those times when we have too much water, which is what we have experienced more recently and in the last 12 months. We need to be smarter with this precious resource that we have. A very learned friend of mine in my electorate said, 'Lisa, the drought started seven weeks ago; it's already started to dry.' I take this person and their word incredibly seriously because they are the chair of Coliban Water. They understand water and how the systems work in our area. That news makes me nervous because we still haven't upgraded the infrastructure in my part of the world, in the rural areas of Greater Bendigo and Mount Alexander. As I was saying, we still have a lot of channelling in our part of the world, where they literally run the water down open channels and it is evaporated away. That is just inefficient. It's not environmentally sound and it doesn't deliver a good outcome for all involved. Because it is so close to where I am, I have also visited a number of the different stakeholder groups—the businesses, organisations and farmers—to the north of me to speak about this very impact and this issue of water. What I will say is: when it comes to buybacks, they're voluntary. I can remember meeting farmers who were saying, 'I do plan to sell that entitlement; that's my super,' and that's what the system allows. But what I'll also say to those opposite is: we can't keep doing what we've been doing. There is a problem with the water market. If you want to go back to those really high prices, when we had an inefficient Murray-Darling Basin scheme, we will simply go back there. When it starts to dry and there's less water around, like there is today, we will see those prices go up. It is in their interests that we invest in and improve the water infrastructure, for economic reasons. Now let's talk about the environmental reasons. I can also remember being up around the Murray and speaking to a couple of old farmers. To their credit, they were genuinely concerned because they just didn't understand. The politics around the Murray has become quite ugly, and there is a lot of misinformation. I can remember this lovely old guy saying to me, 'In my lifetime that area, those wetlands, have never flooded.' In your lifetime it hasn't, sure. But have you asked your First Nations community what used to happen in that area before the farms were built, before the dams were built, before the water was channelled off? Have you actually spoken to First Nations people about what happened to the water in their area? That's what is also critical about this plan: we have to learn from First Nations people a better way to manage our water. We need to act, and we need to act now. That is why this reform that is before us is so sensible. It is about having more time to deliver the remaining water based upon expert advice. It's based upon the science. We have to listen to the science when it comes to the Murray-Darling. We are drying sooner and drying quicker. Right now it doesn't feel that way because right now in Central Victoria it's still quite wet. But it's going to get dry sooner and quicker and those prices will go through the roof, and we won't have enough water to get us through the next drought if we don't act now. This plan includes more time to deliver the 450 gigalitres of water to the environment. This is what we need. To give a demonstration of the kinds of projects that are being looked at, one of the projects in my area has Coliban Water doing a business case for it. It will return about six gigalitres of water. Just one project in my electorate is returning three times as much water as what the previous government did in their entire nine years. It's a project that will be welcomed by so many because it isn't just about returning water to the environment and First Nations people, it is also about improving efficiency and giving people on that pipeline water security. If you're somebody waiting for the water to be flushed down the channel to get to you and it evaporates along the way, you would far better back a pipeline that has been constructed effectively for a water-intense system that works for you than this old, archaic way that has existed for 100 years. That is what we're still facing in parts of rural and regional Australia. We still have water infrastructure that goes back a century. We can do better. We can put the infrastructure in that will really help these areas be more efficient, more sustainable and, most importantly, return water to our environment. This legislation will also give us more options to return the remaining water. I've mentioned voluntary water buybacks. Talk to the farmers in those areas. Some of them want to tap into that. Some of them resent the fact they missed out on that opportunity. It will also help support more communities and better infrastructure projects. And these next rounds of infrastructure projects are expensive. We've got the low-hanging fruit. We now need to go for the more expensive projects, but they are worth it because of what they will deliver. We need more funding, and this is where I call upon the Victorian government again to come to the table. Let's work together on this because there is money and there's an opportunity to help regions like my region get more. The other part to this bill which is so fundamental is more accountability. We need the Murray-Darling Basin governments and the federal government to work together to achieve the targets. This plan is a start, but, as I said, because of the impact of climate change, because we are going to dry sooner, it is in the best interests of all of the Murray-Darling Basin communities and their representatives to back in this plan. We can't go back to the conditions of the millennial drought. We just cannot do that. But if we don't do anything now that's exactly where we're going, and that will be a disaster for our agriculture and farming communities, it will be a disaster for the environment, it will be a disaster for First Nations people that are just starting to get management of their land back and it will be a disaster for our communities. We'll have those opposite saying, 'Why didn't you do anything about it?' Well this is how we do something about it that helps everybody. 16:24 Mr BANDT M3C Melbourne I thank the member for Bendigo for giving me the opportunity to contribute shortly before the 4.30 pm cut-off, so I'll keep my remarks brief. We'll make further contributions in the Senate, but I want to give an indication of the Greens' position. I move: That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that: (1) after more than a decade, the Murray Darling Basin Plan has failed to deliver the 450GL promised for the environment and South Australia; and (2) a guarantee is required to ensure delivery of the 450GL from the Southern Basin in full and on time." The Greens are willing to work with the government to improve this bill, but, as it stands, the bill provides no guarantees that water will be delivered for South Australia and for the environment. As such, although the Greens will support the passage of the bill here, we can't support the bill in its current form and reserve our final position in the Senate. I spent a fair chunk of time as a kid in the areas around the Murray Mouth. As people know, it's an amazing part of this country, and it breaks the hearts of people who live there and people who know that area to hear tales of the increasing salinity, to see the effect of drought, to hear people talking about going and playing cricket on areas of the riverbed where there should be water, to look around the rest of the country and see the fish kills that are happening and to understand that this is happening because the river doesn't have enough water. We also know that the river dies from the mouth. We had too many warning signs about the effect of not giving the Murray enough water, in particular the effect on South Australia. We were staunch critics of the previous government's approach, including to water buybacks when the member for New England, Barnaby Joyce, came into this place and boasted about not putting enough water in to ensure environmental flows. That was a badge of honour for him, but it is something that contributes to the slow death of the Murray. The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists released a report last week that found that the Murray is missing out on key environmental flows and, since the plan came into effect, only 26 per cent of all environmental flow requirements assessed were achieved and only two of the eight Ramsar wetlands received the flows required to stay healthy. As the New South Wales DPI found, those 2023 fish kills that I spoke about are a symptom of the broader degradation of the river's ecosystem health. To protect our wildlife and our ecosystems, to ensure that there's enough drinking water for all the communities that rely on it and to ensure, in particular, that the Lower Lakes in those areas in South Australia get the water they need, we must ensure that water is delivered. Of course, we're talking about 450 gigalitres which hasn't been delivered. Remember that the scientists originally said that, for a fully healthy Murray, you would need 4,000—you'd need 10 times the amount—so we're talking about a 10th of what is actually required, and even that's not being delivered. You will find no stronger advocates than the Greens, saying this needs to be delivered, and we've been saying this for years. The problem is that this bill extends a deadline but doesn't provide any guarantee that it's going to be delivered. As such there is a real risk that it is just kicking the can further down the road and prolonging the pain. So we are prepared to work with the government, but there needs to be a guarantee that the water is going to come and that South Australia, in particular, is going to see it. I'll say one other thing to the government and to the environment minister, who's bringing the bill to this place: if the environment minister truly cared about the fate of the Murray, then the minister would stop approving new coal and gas projects because we know that climate change is likely to reduce the basin's flow by as much as 30 per cent by 2050 according to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, potentially even more according to other research, and we know that coal and gas are driving the climate crisis. So we've got a minister, who, on the one hand, says we need to take action to protect the river and, on the other hand, directly threatens it by approving new coal and gas projects. The Greens are willing to work on this bill with the government, but we need a guarantee. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 248181 Is the amendment seconded? 16:29 Ms WATSON-BROWN 300127 Ryan I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak. Debate interrupted. ADJOURNMENT 76 ADJOURNMENT Parliamentary Standards 76 16:29 Ms TINK 300124 North Sydney This parliamentary sitting fortnight has been both empowering and burdensome. One week ago today I stood up in parliament to call out unacceptable behaviour and to challenge all of us in this place to do better on that day and every day to come. Then, four days ago, I moved a private member's motion calling on the Attorney-General to stop the prosecutions of David McBride and Richard Boyle. To do anything less is to continue to send a message to those who would speak truth to power that they should not as, rather than stand with them, power will work to shut them down. Two days ago, with the parliamentary friends of youth mental health group, I hosted a youth mental health showcase in parliament to hear from those working in the sector. It was an inspiring morning, yet the needs among young people have never been greater and we have a responsibility to do more. On the same day, the Parliamentary Friends of Hazaras hosted a community vigil to mark the two-year anniversary of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. The situation in Afghanistan remains volatile and the ongoing fight for freedoms and human rights deserves our respect and support. Closer to home, in response to the news that one woman is dying of violence every five days in Australia, yesterday I and other parliamentary colleagues had the privilege of hosting a women's safety roundtable. With our federal and state women's safety commissioners, our nation's leading advocates for women's safety and a room full of frontline workers, legal bodies, social and economic support services, health representatives and government representatives, we discussed the legal, economic and government response needed to achieve the goal of ending violence within a generation. In the end, we all agreed that for too long discussions have been siloed and it is time for us to unite across sector and function to address this systemic crisis. It was at this same roundtable that a women's safety crisis centre spoke out about the masculine cultural and attitudinal shifts needed to better protect women in this country and the role the behaviour in this place plays in slowing change. They said: It terrifies us to see the behaviour of male leaders in parliament towards fellow female parliamentarians. We find it distressing these are the same leaders in charge of the National Plan to end Violence against Women and Children. Then, as we all witnessed the unbearable news of the Libyan floods, with 10,000 people missing or dead, I attended briefings with the Climate Council, the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action and the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group. Through these I learned that climate change has altered our landscape so significantly the type and severity of bushfires being forecast will no longer be able to be fought by firefighters on the ground and that global forecasts indicate the world is dangerously off track to meet the Paris Agreement goals and that, while the only number that should matter is 1.5 Celsius, current conservative projections have the planet warming by 2.5 degrees. As a consequence, our world will see state failures, political instability, greater national insecurity, forced migration and fuel conflict, and yet climate action progresses slowly and average Australians remain in the dark as to any risks that may have been identified in the recent Office of National Intelligence report that has now been with the PM for 10 months. Then, just yesterday, closer to home, I listened to those from the Northern Territory communities who are most affected by shale gas fracking in the Beetaloo basin. Their message was simple: We know this fracking goes ahead we may not be able to live on country like we have for thousands and thousands of years. We need your help to keep our culture, water, our climate and our children's future safe. So I find myself reflecting on everything I've seen, heard, and learned this sitting fortnight and I am struck by a common gaping hole, with that ultimately being the fundamental lack of respect that seems to be pervading our society. 'Respect' is such a simple word, yet living it, giving it and standing up for it would appear to be something we all need to fight harder for—respect for country, climate and culture, respect for women and youth, respect for health, respect for whistleblowers and respect for our communities, both here in Australia and globally. As I return home to my electorate of North Sydney this week, I will hold this reflection close and do everything I can to ensure that experiencing respect becomes the norm within our community as only then will it be possible for us to listen deeply and learn together to determine how to best respond to the level of need we are all currently confronted by. India 77 16:34 Dr I8M Parramatta CHARLTON () (): Over the weekend, India held the G20 leaders summit. For India, its leadership of the G20 has been a year-long opportunity to showcase India as an influential diplomatic and economic power and to drive investment and trade flows into the world's most populous country. The meeting in India went well. Much was achieved. New Delhi should take justifiable pride in its achievements over the course of and the lead-up to the summit. Prime Minister Albanese's visit to India last week was his second visit to India in one year. He becomes the first Australian Prime Minister to visit India twice in a single year. Prime Minister Modi's visit to Australia earlier this year made him the first Indian Prime Minister ever to visit Australia twice in their term. In addition, no less than 12 Australian ministers have travelled to India in this year—already a record, and it's only September. This unprecedented level of activity is not an accident. It reflects the fact that India's role in the world and its importance to Australia are accelerating, perhaps more rapidly than any other country. I want to pay tribute to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister, and to our diplomats, including High Commissioners Manpreet Vohra and Philip Green, and former High Commissioner Barry O'Farrell, who've worked so hard to build this relationship. The blossoming of Australia's friendship with India is important to both nations. This year, India became the largest nation in the world by population. The last time that title changed hands was after the fall of the Roman Empire. India is growing so quickly that, by 2070, its population will rival those of China, the United States and the European Union combined. India also has the fastest economic growth of any major nation. It has the second-largest armed forces and the fastest-growing military capability in the world. Projecting this forward, it's hard to overstate the influence of India on our world in the coming decades. Just as the 20th century was dominated by the United States and the 19th century was ruled by the British Empire, we may well end the 21st century with India on top. India's inexorable superpower trajectory isn't just evident in the numbers. It's also palpable in the streets: driving, running, selling, begging, cooking, shouting and sitting—there is a sense of anticipation amongst the people of India. In every city and every village, you can feel the fast-dawning realisation that what happens here will change the world. And this is not all distant geopolitics. India's rise is also changing Australia at home. Migration from India has massively accelerated in the last three decades. Indian Australians are by far the fastest-growing ethnic group, and they recently overtook Chinese-born Australians and New Zealand-born Australians, and are on track to take over the number of Australians born in the United Kingdom, to become Australia's largest group of first-generation migrants. Already the Indian diaspora has blossomed into an extraordinary community, numbering more than one million Australians, which means that nearly one in 25 Australians has Indian heritage. In my electorate of Parramatta, we're home to one of the largest Indian diasporas in Australia, with places like Little India that showcase subcontinental culture and have become a tourist destination for people from all over Australia and all over the world. Shortly after his appointment as Australia's High Commissioner to India in 1965, Arthur Tange sent a slightly agitated note to foreign minister Paul Hasluck. Arriving to find a listless diplomatic relationship, Tange wrote to his boss that, while there was fertile ground between the two countries, 'No-one seems to know what seed to plant.' Well, we finally know what seed to plant in the Australia-India relationship. That seed is the diaspora, the more than a million people with Indian heritage who call Australia home—people who are making an enormous contribution to Australia's economic, cultural, social and community life. Indian migrants to Australia are fabulously well-qualified. They have very high rates of educational attainment. They make huge contributions to our economy, to our business community, to our education community, and to our society in culture and the arts. Water 78 16:39 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer Over my time in this place, I've been proud to rise and speak on behalf of my farming and irrigation communities many, many times. These are good and decent people, and they have several priorities in their lives: (1) like most who live in this great country, they want to provide for and look after their family, (2) they want to care for their land and the environment and (3) they are proud to grow food and fibre for this nation, whether that is citrus, grapes, apples, pears, rice, irrigated wheat and cereals, sustainable cotton, almonds, nuts, dairy or so many more, and the value-add that comes with that. Whatever it is, they work their land and make things which sustain our country and nations across the world. What we saw last Wednesday, when the Minister for the Environment and Water introduced a bill that is before the House now, can only be described as a dog of an act. The saddest part? While there was anger across my electorate and basin towns, there were no real surprises; it was expected. Why? My communities knew, as soon as the Labor government were returned to the seat of power, that they would be after us—not because they don't care about eating or wearing Australian products but because they just don't understand. They don't understand that, when you head into the local supermarket or variety store to pick up a can of pears, a packet of rice, a dozen apples or some beautiful cheese, all with 'Aussie made' logos, these products actually have to be made here. Even though the minister made various assertions that she would consult with irrigation communities, asking them to provide creative ways to reduce water consumption, we had our doubts. Still, many in my community did participate in this feedback. They worked earnestly to provide methods which would avoid purchasing more water from the consumptive pool. We did this despite, in our heart of hearts, knowing that Labor could not be serious. Surely they were not seriously trying to work hand in hand with our producers! And guess what? We were right. As soon as the minister was clear of her sham consultation period, there was the member for Sydney, standing up in this place, dumping on regional Australia from a very great height. Let me be very clear for those opposite. Taking water away from farmers takes away their ability to produce goods. When you take away products at the market, you increase their costs, at a time when all Australians are struggling with the cost of living. Why on earth would you want to increase some of those costs even further? We've looked at this legislation very closely, and there are parts of the bill we can support, but the part which takes away the law that buybacks will only happen under a strict socioeconomic test—that part is not up for sale. It makes compulsory an extra 450 gigalitres of water recovery for South Australia, for the environment, so they say. Well, at least the South Australians thought so, but apparently even that part is in doubt. What do more buybacks actually mean? And why do they want to hurt every one of us? By purchasing water entitlements at market prices, buybacks are often the simplest and least expensive method of recovering water for the environment. But buybacks reduce the supply of water available for irrigated agriculture and our farmers and bump up water allocation prices. In drier conditions, this makes water incredibly expensive, and it removes the incentive for farmers to plant crops. When they don't grow food, the farm needs to diversify or it simply shrinks, and the growers walk away. This impacts on their neighbours, the local produce store, the local communities. Every type of farming irrigation community, in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland or even South Australia, is saying that buybacks hurt their community and hurt our ability to grow food. The water minister says the government will provide significant transitional assistance 'if these voluntary water purchases have secondary impacts on communities'. This is Labor-Greens code for saying, 'We're happy to shut down your town.' It ignores the 2012 bipartisan agreement to protect the social and economic fabric of irrigation communities. It effectively says, 'We're getting this 450 gigalitres from anywhere in the basin, at any cost.' The other side screams that there needs to be more water for the environment. Well, that's right too. We do need to do something, and we are, and we have been. Since the Basin Plan was introduced, farmers and irrigators have been striving to use their precious resources better and smarter and help the environment in the process, always doing more with less, in a bid to balance the use of water for food and water for the environment. And we're nearly there, but this government has once again put its politics before its people, in this base political act. My people are not happy, and we intend to fight back. We intend to fight this legislation every step of the way. National Leadership Forum, Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Voice 79 16:44 Mr GOSLING 245392 Solomon As we meet here, the National Leadership Forum is meeting in Parliament House. It's my great pleasure to co-host the forum alongside the member for Berowra, Julian Leeser. Every year since 1997 the National Leadership Forum has been held in Canberra, hosted by MPs and senators. The forum is made up of a group of nominated young leaders from across Australia. I thank the Prime Minister for his time and generous words of advice for our future leaders this afternoon, and I thank parliamentarians from all sides of the House for hosting groups this year. The purpose of the forum is to counter the cynicism of young people. They often tend to feel cynical towards the political system because pretty much all they see about parliament is question time and partisan fights, which are a very small part of the work we do here. The forum seeks to promote a greater understanding of our democratic system and a greater understanding of the leadership foundations and leadership aspirations of the delegates. We all come to this place for different reasons and from varied philosophical starting points, but in this place we work closely together, mostly in a bipartisan way, across many issues that are not captured by the media. It is a shame the bipartisan work in this place is not given more credence by the media, and it is a reason why initiatives like the forum are so important. The forum shows our young leaders that our democracy is not only defined by what they might see in the media—the scandals or the gladiatorial contests during question time. Just this week the parliament has shown cross-party leadership on housing, where the government joined with members of the crossbench to get that historic legislation through the parliament. The forum offers a good program, and I urge anyone who is eligible to apply to be a forum delegate next year. I encourage all members and senators to nominate a young person from your electorate or your jurisdiction to be part of the program if you have not already done so. Good leaders listen before they speak, and outstanding leaders do the right thing, even if it is hard. That's why I acknowledge my co-host, Julian Leeser, for taking a principled stand and showing some leadership, which has sadly been missing from some in this place. Speaking about leadership, Essendon legend Michael Long is one of the greatest I have met. Just this morning I was privileged to walk up to Parliament House with the Prime Minister and hundreds of others as Michael Long arrived here in Canberra on his new long walk. This walk is an early celebration of the 20th anniversary of his original walk. It was my great privilege to join him on his walk from Melbourne to Canberra in 2004, and I learnt a great deal from that experience of walking with Michael and other First Nations leaders. When you walk there is a lot of time to talk, and I gained a very different perspective on the history of Australia from the perspective of those First Nations leaders. It was obvious in some towns that in 2004 Aboriginal people were marginalised and that racism was alive and well. Racism wasn't shown by the majority by any stretch, but it was definitely there. I distinctly remember in 2004 making the symbolic walk up Commonwealth Avenue to this place, so it was a special moment this morning to do that again with Michael. The questions Michael was asking in 2004 remain the same, and we continue to ask them. Where is the love for First Nations people? Where is the Voice for First Nations people? Where is the vision for First Nations people? We are asking the same questions today, and they can be answered with a simple word: yes. Mental Health, Cost of Living 79 16:49 Mrs McINTOSH 281513 Lindsay I want to take this opportunity to talk about the core issues my Lindsay community is reaching out to me about right now. First and foremost, the dual cost-of-living and mental health crisis is causing severe distress right across my community, from young people to seniors. There are so many examples of how the increasing financial challenges are impacting Western Sydney youth and families and, as I said, our seniors. These cost-of-living pressures are impacting the mental health of Australians. Mortgage increases are having a big effect on families in my community. The rise in rental prices is hitting young families and many seniors very hard. The rapid, successive interest rate rises have meant local families have sold their dream homes, some mums and dads are now working multiple jobs, and lifestyle changes are having to occur. Kids are now missing out on weekend footy, soccer and netball because the cost of petrol, registration, uniforms and equipment is not in the price range many Western Sydney families can afford. This could lead to mental and physical health problems now and in the long term for these kids who aren't playing with their mates, running around and building a love for sport and activity and team fun. I told the House last week about a horrific incident in which a local dad was not able to receive the acute mental health treatment he needed in a timely manner. It was a reminder that local small-business people are struggling with the inflationary challenges on products, contracts and much more. A Suicide Prevention Australia report last week noted for the first time a majority of Australians are feeling distressed by the soaring cost of living. The same report noted a negative reaction to the Albanese Labor government's budget, particularly its financial support. The Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday that Mental Health Australia chair Matt Berriman said: With one in five of us impacted by a mental health condition each year, why is mental health not a national priority and getting the attention of our prime minister? This is backed by an Ipsos poll commissioned by Mental Health Australia, which shows 59 per cent of Australians say the cost of living is having a major impact on their mental health. What is the government doing to support those suffering this cost-of-living and mental health crisis? The government hasn't delivered the $275 commitment to lower power prices, which is one prime example of the inaction on the cost of living that is impacting families. On mental health, the Minister for Health and Aged Care slashed the Better Access psychology sessions in half. Families have reached out to me with horrible stories about how the halving of 20 Medicare subsidised psychology sessions to 10 has meant that the mental health treatment their children need is harder to access and they simply cannot afford it. On R U OK? Day, it is vital to reach out to friends, families and colleagues and ask: 'Are you okay?' I know so many people in Lindsay are not doing okay right now. The cumulative impacts of multiple natural disasters, from fires to floods, in my local community have caused trauma. We know it takes a few years post a dramatic event for the total toll of the mental health impacts to be revealed in a community, and I know many are still struggling with this, particularly those that live in the semi-rural communities in the north and south of my electorate. COVID-19 compounded the rising levels of mental ill health across Western Sydney. Our communities faced some of the longest lockdowns in Australia. Our kids suffered from social isolation. The alarmingly increasing rate of anxiety diagnoses during the post-lockdown period shows this has been felt by our young people. I have met with some fantastic advocates in the mental health space, particularly over the last couple of years, and they're continuing their call for better mental health support for kids, teens and young adults in schools, universities, TAFEs, colleges and worksites. We need real action to reduce the cost-of-living pressures and a plan to bolster mental health support services across the nation to quell this dual crisis. The Lindsay community is distressed. Western Sydney is distressed. The country is distressed. But, as Australians, we will fight on. I want my community and others to know that support is available to those who need it. If you're not feeling okay today, please call Lifeline on 131114. But as Australians we will fight on, and I want my community and others to know that support is available to those who need it. If you're not feeling okay today, please call Lifeline on 131114. Australian Constitution: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice 80 16:55 Ms RYAN 249224 Lalor I want to share with the House about an event that I attended last Friday night with former prime minister Julia Gillard. It was for the EMILY's List internship report—a great program where extremely talented young women across Australia apply to become an intern. We heard from this year's intern about her research into social change. She had travelled to Ireland to study the impacts of the referendum on marriage equality there, and she summarised for us some of the things that she found from her research. One of the things that she found in this research and that the Irish attested to across the country when she interviewed them was that the referendum campaign had been incredibly painful for the LGBTQI community in Ireland. She found that, when we get to these moments of social change, there's generally a minority that has battled to get us to that point of acknowledgement, and they have really suffered. Their mental health had suffered. Of course, it was a positive result in Ireland. The 'yes' got up. But that doesn't mean there wasn't damage in the process. She told us about the impact on the mental health of the LGBTQI community in Ireland during the campaign leading up to the referendum. There were some other interesting findings. She also talked about the fact that, often at these points of great social change around a referendum—or a plebiscite, as we had in Australia—women come to the fore, engage in social change and become campaigners, and that is a historical fact. You can't help but reflect on where we are right now, because in my community there are lots of women who are out there campaigning for a 'yes' to this referendum. You can't help but reflect on the impact that this campaign may be having on First Australians across this country. It is with a swollen heart that I hope that, after six decades on this planet, I'll be celebrating on 14 October that I've been part of the social change that I have looked for for decades. But I am not a First Australian. I do, however, have two nieces who are First Australians. I sat in this chamber today during question time and I reflected on how what is said in this place reverberates around this country, and that they were hearing things that I would wish them not to hear. I have told them all their lives, as has their mother and as has their community, that they are equal and they are worthy and that they deserve every chance in this country. But history tells them that that's not the case. History tells them that they are not worthy. Their family history tells them that they need to be ashamed of being First Australians. They're not the only First Australians in this country who will be reading what was said and done in this chamber this week. I rise during this adjournment debate to put on the record my disappointment that the respect that has been called for has not been shown in this chamber. It has not been shown by the 'no' campaign across this country. Mr Speaker, 14 October can be a great day of celebration, a great day that brings us together and a great day of affirmation for us as a nation, for us to live up to our values and for us to demonstrate that we are the country of the fair go, and that we can say sorry and then embrace First Australians in a moment and move forward with them. House adjourned at 17:00 NOTICES 81 NOTICES Presentation 81

Thursday, 14 September 2023

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Payne ) took the chair at 09:30.

CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS 82 CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS McMahon Electorate: Western Sydney University 82 09:30 Mr BOWEN DZS McMahon I want to share some very good news with the House. I was recently able to announce, alongside the education minister, Minister Clare, that Western Sydney University will be having a presence in Fairfield. This is excellent news—something I've been hoping for and working for for years—and this is really important. Western Sydney University does a great job—they have been the home to many who are the first in their families to go to university—but I have long thought it was a problem that Western Sydney University is well represented in other parts of Western Sydney but has no presence in my electorate. The fact that Western Sydney University will open in Fairfield means that young people in Fairfield will have a daily reminder that they too can go to university. In my electorate we actually do very well on year 12 attainment. In fact, students in my electorate finish year 12 at five per cent higher than the average but 10 per cent under the average on going to university. Our results in McMahon mean that young people who are clearly qualified to go to university and follow their dreams just simply aren't going. Of course, there's nothing wrong with not going to university, and we are expanding TAFE, having free TAFE places and doing everything necessary to give people pathways to TAFE, but university has a very important role to play. In fact, if my electorate had the same university completion rates as the rest of the country, our country would have 17,000 more university graduates, skills to call on and things to harness for our country. This means not only that people in my electorate have been missing out but also that the country has been missing out on the skills of the people in my electorate. The presence in Fairfield will be a high-profile thing. It'll be in the Fairfield Central Shopping Centre, right on the corner of several of our main streets. So it's not just about ease of access and travel for those young people going to university. Spending more than an hour on the train to get to the University of Sydney or even longer to try and get to the University of New South Wales or Macquarie University is difficult from my electorate. Indeed, some of the campuses of Western Sydney University are hard to get to. Having a presence in Fairfield would make it easier, but, more importantly than that, those kids—I'm thinking of 5-, 6- or 7-year-olds and 10- or 11-year-olds—going shopping with their mum and dad and seeing Western Sydney University be so high profile will mean that they will be reminded that there is a pathway to university for them should they choose to go down that road. You can't be what you can't see. Kids in Western Sydney will now be able to more clearly see a pathway to university. I want to thank the chancellor, Jennifer Westacott, and the vice-chancellor, Barney Glover, for their engagement. I want to thank Minister Clare. I want to thank the state member, David Saliba, and Mayor Frank Carbone for their support. It's a really great day for Fairfield. Renewable Energy 82 09:33 Dr SCAMPS 299623 Mackellar There has been a lot of talk over recent years about Australia's unique opportunity to become a renewable energy superpower, but the reality is Australia is lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to grasping this once-off opportunity, this transitional moment in history. The United States passed its Inflation Reduction Act last year. It is the largest piece of federal legislation to ever address climate change, and already it is changing the world—changing it in a positive way and at pace. The Inflation Reduction Act is, among other things, an investment by the US government in domestic clean energy production and use. It is their plan to guarantee their nation's energy security into the future and to remain the world's largest and most prosperous economy. It is all carrot and no stick. In other words, it provides tax credits and incentives for things like electric vehicles, the electrification of homes, energy efficiency upgrades and advanced manufacturing in clean energy technology. Within less than a year of its operation, the success of the act is clear. Government rebates and production linked incentives worth US$370 billion have already mobilised an estimated US$1.2 trillion in additional private sector capital. This is a mammoth investment in new technologies that will transform energy systems and decarbonise our future. But it also means that startups from all around the world are being lured to the US, where they will be supported financially to commercialise and to grow at scale. As Britain's finance minister, Jeremy Hunt, said earlier this year, the act represents a 'very real competitive threat'. The risk is so great that many of our major trading partners have already responded with their own investment plans. The EU's green deal represents an investment of over US$1 trillion in public and private funds. Canada, the UK, Japan and South Korea have already responded. Australia is yet to respond. If Australia does not act urgently with our own investment plan we will lose workers, ideas, companies and investment capital overseas. Every week that passes in this country without a comprehensive plan for the whole-of-economy transformation that needs to take place is not only catastrophic for the climate but is throwing away the unrivalled economic opportunities that we have on our doorstep. Climate and energy finance expert Tim Buckley quite rightly says that Australia's response to the US act should be commensurate to our opportunities, that with our natural advantages our opportunities are limitless and that we have the opportunity to change the world. I urge the Albanese government to not waste it. Australian National Flag Day 83 09:36 Ms DOYLE 299962 Aston In celebration of National Flag Day, I've had the pleasure of visiting schools around the electorate of Aston and presenting them with new flags. I visited Wattle View Primary School, Fairhills Primary School and Waverley Christian College over the past few weeks, presenting them with flags and learning about some of the bright, young leaders excelling in these wonderful local schools. I would like to give a big shout out to Kaya from Fairhills Primary School for his budding enthusiasm about everything flag related. Kaya takes such pride in this pursuit. It was a great pleasure to present him with his own set of flags and a book about Australian flags. Kaya and his mum were absolutely rapt with this gift. It shows how lucky they are to have a school community so committed to ensuring that they have their flags unfurled at the start of each day and taken down at the end of the school day. Kaya took on the role of flag hoister on his own initiative, which is so commendable. His keen interest is lovely to see in such a youngster. The year 5/6 class at Fairhills Primary School had many questions on my role here at Parliament House and about the nation's flag. Some of their questions I was able to answer, but others, particularly to do with the huge flag on top of Parliament House, I had to take on notice. I would also like to thank Waverley Christian College for inviting me to come to their assembly to present the college with flags for their new flag poles, which now proudly display the Australian Flag, the Aboriginal Flag, the Torres Strait Islander Flag and my office was able to help facilitate a Victorian state flag from the state member. I was taken on a tour of Waverley Christian College where I made a stop at the college's cafe. It was being operated by the year 11 and 12 VET class, who made a lovely coffee for me and a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, which I must say was delicious and just the thing for a busy federal MP out and about. I would also like to thank Waverley Christian College for recently sending through a wonderful picture of the student leaders proudly standing in front of the newly erected flag poles. I hope that more of the future leaders take pride in being knowledgeable and keen to learn more about our national history and the history of our flags and continue further on their education pathways. Lastly, I had a wonderful visit with The Knox School, hosted by Principal Nikki Kirkup. Principal Kirkup explained that it is the students at The Knox School who lead the conversation for change. Focusing on the development of students' personal skills through communication, critical thinking, creativity and collaboration, the school's vision is to grow and promote the learning and wellbeing of each student so they can thrive and contribute in a complex and changing world. I look forward to visiting these schools again and other schools in the electorate of Aston. Barker Electorate: Murray Bridge Regional Stadium 83 09:39 Mr PASIN 240756 Barker I pride myself on delivering funding for important infrastructure upgrades across Barker, including upgrades to sporting facilities, because I strongly believe that participation in sport is a great thing, particularly in regional communities. Sport builds ties, keeps communities physically and mentally healthy, adds to the attractiveness of a community for those considering moving there to fill workforce shortages, and increases the tourism offering. A great example of a project I've been strongly supportive of is the Murray Bridge Regional Stadium, a proposal of the rural city of Murray Bridge and the Murray Bridge Basketball Association to maximise the opportunity for growing basketball. Basketball is one of the most popular sports in the Murraylands. The association has over 500 playing members. This number is expected to grow with the region, but the current stadium doesn't comply with Basketball SA standards for hosting high-level events, and it doesn't have appropriate facilities to encourage female participation. A recent feasibility study for the project showed that an additional 660 sports visitors to Murray Bridge each month could be expected through investment in a regional facility, injecting $1.4 million into the local economy. A staged approach to the development of the Murray Bridge Regional Stadium had been adopted to establish four new courts. The Building Better Regions Fund, a former coalition government initiative that has delivered competitive grants to the benefit of hundreds of local regional communities across the country over five rounds, was slated to provide $1.9 million to this project in stage 1. The council, with strong encouragement from me, had applied for further funding under the BBRF program, this time under round 6, to fund stage 2. Then Labor entered government and, after months of uncertainty—well, we know what happened—they canned the program altogether. To make things worse, the rural city of Murray Bridge, in the grips of a flood, requested to rescope and sought an extension of time to deliver stage 1, in accordance with BBRF funding requirements, but Labor denied this request. The council now has no other option but to dissolve the agreement with the Commonwealth and not proceed with the project at all. Let's be clear: Minister King has denied a flood-ravaged council of an extension of time to spend $1.9 million on stage 1, and in so doing has taken the rug from under them by not continuing the Building Better Regions Fund. This is a huge blow to the basketball association, both current members and future generations. Needless to say, it's incredibly disappointing for the players and employers desperate to attract permanent workers to the small businesses that were looking forward to the increase in tourism numbers. This Labor government is not building better regions. They don't care about regions at all. Higgins Electorate: Avalon Centre 84 09:42 Dr ANANDA-RAJAH 290544 Higgins A hot cup of tea, a snack, a warm jacket against the winter chill or some company is what the Avalon Centre, in Malvern East, provides to vulnerable people in our community on a walk-in basis. It has a homey feel about it because the Avalon Centre is a home belonging to Deborah Holmes. Deb is a force of nature who founded the Avalon Centre 37 years ago. On the day I visited, an army of volunteers were busy sorting and folding clothes and loading them into a van for distribution, while Deb buzzed about between her home office, the kitchen and a lounge room filled with boxes for sorting. The Avalon Centre is more than for drop-ins. Ahead of its time, it has funded social housing in Melbourne, modelled on Finland's Housing First strategy. Deb's own fact-finding mission to Finland years ago became a reality. It reverses the conventional thinking that expects people to first get a job and free themselves of their associated health problems before they then find a house. Instead, Housing First assumes that you provide a house with no preconditions and that then helps to stabilise people. In fact, that is indeed what has happened. This strategy has allowed people to settle down, making it easier to then secure work or take care of their physical and mental health. How were these homes bought without government support? By crowdfunding. So trusted is Deb in the community, and held in such high regard, that people with deep and not-so-deep pockets have purchased up to 10 homes for people on the margins. Their vision is to meet the unmet needs of our society and provide support for those who have been forgotten, overlooked or left behind. So impressed was I at this quiet community collaboration, that Deb provided her perspective directly to our Minister for Housing, Julie Collins, at my recent Higgins Housing Roundtable. People like Deb are the doers, the innovators and the never say diers, who roll up their sleeves when the going gets tough. Rather than turning away, they turn up. It is fitting, then, that I pay tribute to Deb and her supporters on a truly historic day for our nation. Passage of the Housing Australia Future Fund is a nod to Deb and her crew, to our community and to our country, as an enduring commitment to invest in the things that matter. Deputy Speaker Payne, I also draw your attention and the community's attention to the work we're doing around vaping. Vaping has become a scourge in our community. It has undermined all the gains we made as a Labor government many decades ago around tobacco control. Just yesterday we announced tougher legislation that is coming to stamp out this behaviour. Tasmania: Forestry Industry 84 09:45 Mr PEARCE 282306 Braddon Forestry is an industry that's great for the economy, for jobs and for our habitat. But this vital industry is under imminent threat. The recent decision by the Victorian government to accelerate the cessation of selective and sustainable native forest harvesting is making the broader industry extremely nervous, and the motivation appears to be nothing more than waving the white flag to militant environmentalists. There is no doubt the forestry industry challenges are complex but they will not be solved if we have a max exodus of our forestry management specialists with their experience, knowledge and equipment. Ongoing effective management of our forestry is crucial. A coordinated national plan is urgently required. Stopping native forestry in one state only to import it from another isn't a plan. Our dependence on imported product is growing while our sovereign capability simultaneously shrinks. Adding significantly to our $5.5 billion of imports coming predominantly from developing nations with lesser environmental standards is simply not a solution. This will neither preserve Australian forests nor halt the global deforestation issue. It is easy to become entrapped in the emotional rhetoric of militant environmentalists. Older Tasmanians will remember the devastation of the Labor-Green Tasmania forest agreement called 'the peace deal'. This deal that they cut saw two out of three forestry jobs lost and saw regional towns decimated. These are the facts of the Tasmanian world-class forestry. Tasmania has a total land mass of approximately 6.81 million hectares. Nearly half of that—3.35 million hectares—is 49 per cent forested. Native forestry makes up 91 per cent of this, and plantations just nine per cent. Fifty-three per cent of all Tasmanian forests and 58.2 per cent of Tasmanian native forests are in protected reserves. This includes 87 per cent of Tasmania's old-growth forests. They are diverse in their nature. They provide habitat and plants for animals. They offer recreation spaces, produce essential forestry products and provide employment opportunities that sustain regional communities. Tasmania has one of the highest percentages of protected forests of any jurisdiction of its size in the world. Ninety-nine per cent of Tasmania's high-quality wilderness areas on public land are protected. Eighty-five per cent of our old-growth forests are protected. Native forestry in Tasmania is sustainable. It provides timber to build our houses—we talked about it earlier—and fibre for plastic free furniture, and is the lifeblood of local communities. Chisholm Electorate: Community Events 85 09:48 Dr GARLAND 295588 Chisholm There have been a number of exciting events involving my wonderful constituents in Chisholm over the last few weeks. It is my great pleasure to inform the House of some of these activities. Last week I had the enormous pleasure of meeting with the Minister for Education, Jason Clare, and a brilliant young woman from my electorate, Jaya Bladthorn, in the parliament. Jaya is currently studying nursing at Monash University in Chisholm, and she visited parliament along with a delegation from the university that included acting provost and senior vice-president Sharon Pickering and Aunty Carolyn Briggs. This meeting was quite remarkable. Jaya beautifully shared her personal story of growing up in Swan Hill, coming from disadvantage and ultimately being able to access a scholarship, allowing her to move to Melbourne to pursue her studies. Monash University's enriched scholarship program, Kummargi Yulendj, empowers Indigenous and economically disadvantaged students, including those from regional and remote areas, to reach their full potential through a holistic experience that extends well beyond the classroom and includes the financial support required to not just get to university but stay in university. I want to commend Monash University for this significant investment in our communities and the next generation of leaders. It has been such a wonderful time in my electorate. I recently had a very fun time seeing the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Victoria's performance of the Pirates of Penzance. This is a group that's based in my electorate, and the production was at the lovely Alexander Theatre at Monash University. It's wonderful to be able to support such exciting arts groups in the community. I want to extend my congratulations to all involved. Congratulations are also due to the Surrey Park Football Club under 19.5s team, who won the 2023 premiership. What an amazing achievement! It's been more than a week since the victory, but, by all reports, the teams are still celebrating. I want to add my voice to the many voices in my electorate congratulating the team. This sort of success hard-game success isn't limited only to the players on the ground. We all know that about our sporting clubs in our communities. It takes terrific administration, staff, volunteers, supporters, family and friends to get teams in a winning position and, of course, to help clubs thrive. To the whole Panther community: congratulations! Next time we're in parliament, I look forward to again updating the House on my wonderful community in Chisholm. National Disability Insurance Scheme 85 09:51 Mr PIKE 300120 Bowman I recently hosted an NDIS stakeholders roundtable in my electorate with the member for Deakin, our shadow minister for the NDIS. It was a fantastic discussion reviewing the complexities of the NDIS and the issues that many families and businesses are dealing with. The coalition has supported the NDIS since its inception. It is a critically important initiative for the most vulnerable in our society. The member for Deakin and I were pleased to hear from local NDIS advocates, behaviour support practitioners, educators and care providers. Among many other areas discussed was the current lack of flexibility for NDIS participants to choose effective, less expensive services, such as educational therapy, to meet their needs, and the failure of state government to honour their commitments for non-NDIS disability support across health, education and housing. A key theme was the areas of failure where the responsibilities of the NDIS don't marry up with the responsibilities of other areas of state or federal government. We discussed the challenging intersection of the NDIS and early childhood education. Similarly, participants are often falling between the cracks of the NDIS and the state health and education systems. Following advocacy from local parents, I wrote to the minister earlier this year to seek advice on how the government can create more flexibility within the NDIS framework to empower participants to utilise services that best meet their needs, recognising that educational support is critical to the functioning of younger Australians. Within my electorate, child-focused educational therapy is having a very positive impact on the lives of NDIS participants, including many autistic spectrum disorders, sensory processing disorders, intellectual impairment and a range of other developmental conditions. While I recognise the NDIS is not designed to directly cover education, families of NDIS participants are advising me that one of their top priorities is to access support that will enable success in an educational setting. Many participants in my electorate are getting strong outcomes from services that fall within the other therapies category; however, the quality auditors that assess these services are becoming increasingly reluctant to sign off on any service that is remotely related to educational learning. Families of participants are advising me that they need more flexibility to enable therapists other than speech pathology and occupational therapy professionals to conduct these interventions through the NDIS. It is important to make the point that I'm not asking for more funding but more opportunity for participants to spend their existing funding as they see fit. I've argued that increased access to educational supports would, in fact, result in long-term reductions in the cost of the NDIS. NDIS participants, parents and stakeholders in the Redlands are holding out hope that the independent review panel's final report, due next month, will effectively address these concerns. RU OK? Day 86 09:54 Mr BURNELL 300129 Spence Today is RU OK Day. It is not only a day with a memorable tagline but also with a substantive underlying message. Checking in with people who are isolated and who are struggling can make all the difference in getting them through to tomorrow. This is why, over the course of the sitting fortnight, Parliament House has hosted a number of key events centred around mental health. These aren't possible without the support of parliamentary friendship groups that operate in or around the mental health head space. Groups such as the Parliamentary Friends of Mental Health, the Parliamentary Friends of Youth Mental Health, the Parliamentary Friends of Child & Adolescent Health & Mental Health and the Parliamentary Friends of Suicide Prevention, which is chaired by the member for Macquarie and the member for Berowra. This sitting fortnight was sandwiched between RU OK? Day and World Suicide Prevention Day, which took place on 10 September—the Sunday just past. To keep to this theme, the Parliamentary Friends of Veterans partnered with Suicide Prevention Australia to host the three commissioners of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide at a reception on the evening of Monday 11 September. All three commissioners attended: Nick Kaldas APM, the Hon. James Douglas KC and Dr Peggy Brown AO. The Parliamentary Friends of Veterans facilitating an event such as this is not just germane to the proximity of World Suicide Prevention Day; it is also a pivotal time for the royal commission. From today, there are now fewer than 30 days remaining in which someone can make a submission to those assisting the commission, with the time necessary to prepare its findings so that its final report can be provided to our government by June 2024. The royal commission has thus far received over 4,000 submissions. It has held 491 private sessions and had over 300 witnesses appear before it over the course of its many hearings. The only regret I have in regard to the event of that night is that we hadn't endeavoured to host an event like this much sooner. I of course would like to once again thank Nieves Murray and her team at Suicide Prevention Australia for partnering with the Parliamentary Friends of Veterans. I'd like to thank the veterans groups and the support groups who were also represented in the audience that night. The ADF were well represented, noting that in attendance were Chief of Army Lieutenant General Simon Stuart AO, DSC; the Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond AM; and the Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Robert Chipman AM, CSC. I would truly like to thank the veterans, ADF members, reservists and their families who have engaged with the royal commission process but who were unable to attend our event this week. But, for those who were in committee room 2R1 on Monday night, thank you for sharing with us your stories of lived experience and for showing us where we can do better—namely, conveying the human cost when we fail to act with this in front of our minds. Troiani, Mr Enio 86 09:57 Mr PITT 148150 Hinkler Today I rise to acknowledge the passing of Enio Troiani. Enio passed away unexpectedly on 19 August at the age of 64. He was the beloved husband of Marianne and the dearly loved father and father-in-law of Natalie and Tyson, Pia and Chris, and Gabriella and Andrew. Enio was a former workmate, colleague and friend, better known to me—and pretty much everyone in the sugar industry—as ET, for obvious reasons! At his funeral, I learned some things about Enio that I didn't know before. With a name like Enio Troiani, he was obviously an Italian migrant, and, where I come from in Bundaberg, there are a lot of people with that sort of heritage. I never knew this, but Enio arrived in Australia at the age of three with his parents after a four-week boat trip. They were trying to find a better life, and they immediately moved out to a farm. In his eulogy, one of his children discussed Enio's first day at school at the Welcome Creek State School, which, I have to say, even by standards then, was very, very small. Enio didn't speak a single word of English. He went off to school, and, when the bell rang for lunch, he went home because he didn't know any different, and he thought it was over. Enio went on to become an individual who, in grade 10, told his parents that he was going to be an engineer, to which their response was, 'We can't afford that, and you need to work on the farm.' He said, 'I'll get a scholarship,' and he did. Enio went through the University of Queensland and, throughout the sugar industry, he was known for his skills and knowledge. He will be sorely missed. In fact, I spoke to one of my good friends and colleagues, Kelly Ryan, who is now the chief engineer at the Isis sugar mill and he said that ET was one of those engineers that, when you picked up the phone, you could talk to him about any sort of technical issue you had, and he could give you an answer. He didn't have to wait to design it and put it on CAD and send it in an email and confirm it through the lawyers. He'd say, 'No, make that plate thicker,' or 'Put this on here,' or 'Do this type of weld,' and he would get things running. It's an industry in which production matters and how much downtime you have matters, and what matters to every individual who works in that industry is that safety relies on the design of these facilities. Too many times we have seen incidents from explosions, boilers and steam loss—things that just shouldn't happen—and it was designers like ET, who ended up as the general manager of the Bundaberg Walkers engineering at the end of his career, who ensured these things didn't happen as often as they might. He is a great loss and, as Kelly said, he's one of these guys who was a joy to be around. He was a genuine individual, and I have to say I never gave a thought to the fact he was an Italian immigrant. He was just our mate who knew his stuff and whom we liked to work with. He is a great loss to his family, and I know that they will miss him dearly. His passing was incredibly unexpected. So to all of them, to all of his workmates and to the sugar industry as a whole, I say: this is a great loss. Vale ET, Enio Troiani. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 282237 In accordance with standing order 193 the time for members' constituency statements has concluded. MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS 87 MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS Vocational Education and Training 87 10:00 Ms BYRNES 299145 Cunningham I rise to speak to the revitalising national planning and vocational education and training statement that was made in the House yesterday by the Minister for Skills and Training. After a decade of inaction, it has fallen to the Albanese Labor government to rebuild Australia's vocational education and training system, a system that is so vital to our collective effort of remaining a skilled, developed, innovative, prosperous and productive nation—a system, I must point out, that should not have to be rebuilt and should never have been savaged in the first place. As the minister highlighted in his statement, Australia is facing one of its biggest economic challenges in decades as a result of the shortage of skilled workers across the economy. The shortages are acutely felt an industrial cities such as mine in the Illawarra. OECD data has identified Australia as having the second-highest labour shortage amongst OECD countries, and the Skills Priority List shows that occupations in shortage areas nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022, jumping from 153 to 286. The minister's statement notes that in March 2020 the former National Skills Commission predicted that, over the next five years, nine out of 10 new jobs would require postschool qualifications, with four out of 10 requiring vocational training. Jobs and Skills Australia's quarterly report, released on Tuesday, found that, over the year to May 2023, 91 per cent of total employment growth was in occupations that require postschool qualifications, and this is before we even start preparing for the new skills that we will need in the coming years in industries like renewables. Labor's skills and training agenda is not only about repairing; it is also about preparing. A great example of this is in Jobs and Skills Australia's clean energy capacity study. The capacity study will provide critical evidence and insights to support workforce planning, policy development and program design, all key elements that are needed to build a strong and vibrant clean energy sector and contribute to the government's Powering Australia plan. The study, which is expected to be released next month, will outline the employment, upskilling and reskilling opportunities that our transforming to a net-zero economy will create. This is important for my community, particularly following Minister Bowen commencing community consultations last month for the Illawarra offshore wind zone. The proposed zone is close to 1,500 square kilometres in size, with the potential to produce 4.2 gigawatts of electricity. On a side note, I encourage all of my community to get out and have their say before consultations close on 16 October. Some public consultation sessions will kick off next Monday and go through to Thursday. I encourage everyone to visit the department's website and have a look at when those sessions are, to come along and ask all the questions you need to ask to get the information and the facts firsthand, and to have your say and contribute. To succeed in building our workforce—and we must—in this endeavour we are going to need a skilled and agile workforce. It is estimated that, in the Illawarra, offshore wind zones will be able to deliver up to 2,500 jobs in construction and 1,250 jobs ongoing. Nationally, the job opportunities of an offshore wind industry in Australia range from 3,000 to 8,000 jobs annually. I have not wasted a second in preparing the groundwork for these new jobs, securing a $10 million investment to establish an Energy Futures Skills Centre at the University of Wollongong so we have the skilled workforce to build the grid of the future. I have also secured a $2.5 million investment for a Renewable Energy Training facility at Wollongong TAFE, which will include upgrades to equipment and teaching aids. The Energy Futures Skills Centre will deliver the education, training and engagement needs for the workforce of the future in partnership with local industry, community and global partners. The centre will aim to utilise our university's broad range of innovative materials and system research to provide a real-world example of how new energy solutions can be adopted and implemented from a workforce and industry perspective, as well as engaging with communities on their energy transformation. We must make sure that we understand the training needs of these new and emerging industries so that we have workers ready to go when we need them. Two weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be able to visit the Maersk Training centre in Esbjerg, Denmark. The training centre provides training focused on basic safety and technical skills for operational employees in the wind industry. The centre provides specific technical know-how and advanced qualifications for workers. The centre includes a survival pool, a fire ground, a working-at-height tower, helicopter underwater-escape training and escape-chute training. I actually wanted to sign up for the helicopter underwater-escape training, myself. It looked really great. This is a facility that is located close to the port of Esbjerg, which is a leading port in Europe for the handling and shipping out of wind power. It has transformed from a major oil and gas port. One of our local journalists, Connor Pearce, from the Illawarra Mercury, travelled over to Denmark with us and told a great story of a local worker, Jakob Lykke, who has been in the fishing industry, the oil and gas industry and is now working in offshore wind. He has seen his port and his community, and the jobs they have there, transformed three times over his lifetime. It is now one of the major epicentres for offshore wind in Europe. The port has specialised facilities for transporting, pre-assembling, shipping out and servicing wind turbines. Port Esbjerg ships out 80 per cent of Europe's offshore wind capacity. In my discussion with Maersk, they outlined that they work on the calculation that for every megawatt in an offshore wind project you will need one technician requiring specialised training to work on and around the turbines. On this basis, we are going to need ongoing training for thousands of technicians. Maersk, as a training provider, work in a collaborative manner with other industry players, equipment manufacturers, unions, schools and the Danish equivalent of TAFE to be able to meet the workforce need of their own renewable projects. This is the exact approach that this government has tasked the JSA to undertake when it comes to our own skills and training framework, including 10 new jobs and skills councils, which have been created to provide Australian industry sectors with a stronger and more strategic capacity to ensure that training is relevant to their needs. Both Jobs and Skills Australia and the jobs and skills councils feature tripartism in their design. Tripartism in the governance of Jobs and Skills Australia and jobs and skills councils is a key ingredient to their success. I note the member for Farrer took issue with this approach in her comments to the House, ridiculing it and making an unfair characterisation that this approach was only about seats at the table for union mates. Over my years working in this building, I have had the absolute pleasure of working with union representatives with years and years of experience in training our workers—people like Pat Forward, Angelo Gavrietalos, Andrew Dettmer, Ian Curry, Mark Burgess, Rob Long, Maxine Sharkey, Arthur Rorris and many other passionate campaigners for the rights of workers to a comprehensive and robust training system that provides workers with portable skills that they can build into lifelong careers, and training that is robust enough to make workers able to go through transitions like Jakob Lykke did in Esbjerg. At the outset, I want to refute this assertion, as tripartism, at its core, is about bringing industry, business and unions together to get education and training outcomes for workers. Our unions are a vital part of these discussions. Do you know why? It's because they have the interests of workers at heart: the electrician who installs electricity—your lights, your air conditioners, your hot water—the builder who builds your house, and the maritime worker who transports ships in and out of our ports safely and gets goods in and out of the country. Unions work hard to make sure that workers get paid properly and get home safely, and this is especially vital in areas like mine, where we have mining and heavy industry. Unions also work hard to build productivity and prosperity. A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 10:10 to 10:22 10:22 Mr DAVID SMITH 276714 Bean Thank you to the member for Cunningham, my friend Alison Byrnes MP, for her contribution. I know Alison is helping drive a skills revitalisation in her home of Wollongong, getting the training needed for the jobs of the future. Alison follows a great member in the former member for Cunningham, Sharon Bird MP, a former minister for vocational education and one of the great champions of TAFE. In Canberra, the heart of that VET skills reorganisation will be in my electorate of Bean, both in Philip at our new TAFE precinct and in some of the industrial areas where some of the more interesting and innovative organisations are developing here in the Austrian Capital Territory. As the minister noted in his statement to the House, we face challenges as a nation. OECD data identifies Australia as having the second highest labour shortage amongst OECD countries. And the Skills Priority List shows that occupation shortages nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022, jumping from 153 to 286 occupations. In March 2022, a former national skills commission predicted that over the next five years, nine out of 10 new jobs would require post-school qualifications, with four out of 10 requiring vocational training. This is the legacy we inherited. With that challenge outlined, I speak in support of the ministerial statement on revitalising national planning in vocational education and training—with some experience working with some of the most experienced technical workers in this country. Before I came to this place, I worked for Professionals Australia and represented and engaged with technicians, scientists and engineers in both the public and private sectors. I worked closely with the Electrical Trades Union and the AMWU, two of the giant technical unions in this country. I understand quite well their commitment to skills development as well as everything else in the world of work. My organisation, Professionals Australia, was responsible for developing the first MBA program in Australia. Investment in supporting undergraduate qualifications but also understanding the need to buttress that with additional training, both in the workplace and through institutions, both VET and universities, has always been central to the Professionals Australia ethos. One of the standouts for me was that quality skills or VET training drove quality in the workplace, and that, in turn, was good for their organisations. But what I saw over a decade was a drop-off in investment in qualifications in engineering and science, and, at the same time, I witnessed the almost complete loss of technical skills in and across workplaces, particularly in government departments. Rebuilding this capability is critical. The Albanese government get this. If we are to meet the challenges of the future—clean energy, defence industry, software and application programming, a greener transport fleet, natural disaster mitigation, agricultural production, high-skilled manufacturing and making the utmost of our critical mineral reserves—then we must have a skilled workforce in place, and a workforce that combines both technical and professional skills. We were given a mandate to drive improvements in the VET sector, and Minister O'Connor has done a power of work laying down the foundation for that reform—reform that will ensure that national planning for the skills our economy needs is timely, high quality, evidence based and tested for veracity against the first-hand knowledge of industry and all the key industry players. The establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia and the creation of 10 Jobs and Skills Councils are significant milestones in the skills and training portfolio. These are strategically linked to provide effective, structured, national and sector based planning frameworks and the modern, timely skills development that is needed for Australia to be a more productive and prosperous nation. Jobs and Skills Australia and the Jobs and Skills Councils have industries and experts at the core of their governance and work programs. Jobs and Skills Australia replaced the National Skills Commission. The commission provided an important body of work, but it was limited to a narrow mandate and was not structured or resourced for deeper engagement with industries and state and territory governments. A critical element that is central and baked into the design of Jobs and Skills Australia is ensuring that impacted industries and knowledgeable stakeholders have a seat at the table. As I said before, ten tripartite Jobs and Skills Councils have now been established: energy, gas and renewables; agribusiness; early educators, health and human services; arts, personal services, retail, tourism and hospitality; public safety and government; manufacturing; finance, technology and business; mining and automotive; building, construction and property; and transport and logistics. These councils will work hand in glove with Jobs and Skills Australia, providing on-the-ground industry perspectives of the real economy. Jobs and Skills Australia data and analysis will be integrated with the experiences of those running businesses, who are often the first to identify emerging trends. The councils will then lead workforce planning for their industries to identify immediate skills needs, as well as those needed in the future. They'll both work directly with industry sectors on the planning and training required to address immediate medium- and long-term skill needs. But right at the heart of this is tripartism—employers, unions and governments working in cooperation. As I said before, my experience in these sectors is that the unions put intense work into skills development, whether it be through licensing or encouraging apprenticeships. As I said, my old organisation had the first MBA program in Australia. We've always been at the heart of the skills challenge. Creating improvements to address national skills requires more than the Commonwealth government working in isolation or with a few select and favoured partners. We all need to work together. It's worth mentioning, in support of this ministerial statement, that this government has already been delivering on other areas in the skills challenge. We've taken a focus on increasing participation at both the school and the tertiary level. We're rebuilding a sector wilfully neglected by the previous government because we understand that a strong VET sector is critical to nearly all of our key policy challenges. That's why the Albanese government is investing over $400 million to reform foundation skills programs through the redesigned Skills for Education and Employment program. We also know that the skills challenge is even more acute for our First Nations Australians, with about 40 per cent of adult Indigenous people having minimal English literacy. This figure can rise to as high as 70 per cent in remote communities. For this reason we've emphasised co-design and First Nations led delivery in the government's plan for the future of foundation skills programs. By working in genuine partnership with our state and territory counterparts, our fee-free TAFE program is helping support key industries experiencing skills shortages. It's focused on areas of emerging growth while providing access to priority cohorts, including the most vulnerable in our communities. The numbers have already spoken for themselves. In the first six months we exceeded our target of 180,000 enrolments, with almost 215,000 Australians enrolling in fee-free courses. That's 215,000 people accessing high-quality training in areas where we need skilled workers. Demographic data shows that this approach is making inroads in supporting disadvantaged and in-need Australians, with enrolments including more than 50,000 jobseekers, more than 15,000 people with disability and more than 6,000 First Nations Australians. We're not stopping there. We're providing funding for a further 300,000 fee-free TAFE places starting next year. Put simply, the opportunities of fee-free study can change lives. But, at the same time, it will change our economy and help us address the key critical policy challenges that we face. Every member of our government knows the importance of skills and training for jobs of the future. I thank the minister again for the hard work of his team and, of course, the hard work of his department. 10:32 Ms RYAN 249224 Lalor I rise today to speak in response to the ministerial statement by the Minister for Skills and Training, the Hon. Brendan O'Connor MP, the member for Gorton, who, for a long time, was a neighbour to the seat of Lalor. For many years we shared similar constituencies with similar concerns. The statement made by the minister is about revitalising national planning of vocational education and training. It's an important statement because it outlines to the House the direction that this government is taking. That direction is being driven, in the first instance, by the skills shortage that we've inherited, which is global. Unfortunately, Australia has been identified as having the second-highest skills shortage in the OECD. It's not something that we should be proud of. That is driving this new direction, as is as our critical understanding that we are in a transformational economy and we need to shift, be agile and plan carefully. We need to ensure that what we do is evidence based, that we're not clutching at straws. We need to ensure that the plans we have and the training we provide our young people in this country will lead them into a future, into a career path and into work where they can progress over time and where their lifelong learning has a good foundation. The outlining yesterday of this new direction was critically important. The minister outlined for us that Jobs and Skills Australia has replaced the National Skills Commission. He outlined two fundamental reforms implemented by the government in skills and training. As I've said, that current situation around the skills shortage is quite dire. We have a skills priority list that nearly doubled in 2021-22, and the occupations where the shortages were went from 153 identified occupations to 286. So in coming to government we were on the back foot from the outset before you look at the transformation that we are planning in cleaner energy, before you look at the way the economy must transform to meet our climate targets but also to remain a leader and to keep our pace as the globe changes and as other economies shift and change. This skills shortage was highlighted March 2022 by the former National Skills Commission, which predicted in their report that nine of 10 new jobs would require postschool qualifications and, of those, four of the ten would be requiring vocational education and training. The report released on Tuesday highlighted that, in the year to May, 91 per cent of total employment growth was in occupations that require postschool qualifications and over half of them require vocational education and training. So the need is critical. I'd like to congratulate and commend the minister on the planning that's gone into the new direction. We've got a huge challenge, and it's critical we ensure that we've got a framework to not only cope but to thrive. We've got to ensure that younger Australians, like the young people I represent, are given the opportunity to thrive. That planning for our skills and for our economy needs to be timely. It needs to be high-quality, it needs to be evidence-based and it needs to be tested for veracity against firsthand knowledge in the industries where those shortages exist. The response is the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia and the establishment of 10 Jobs and Skills Councils. These are strategically linked to ensure that what we provide is effective, structured, national and sector based, and that the planning frameworks are modern, timely and targeting the skills development that's needed. Both the Jobs and Skills Australia and Jobs and Skills Councils have been developed after extensive national consultation, and they've got support—most importantly—from the stakeholders. Changing direction and meeting the demand and the challenge that we've got before us means that we need all of these stakeholders onboard. We need employees, we need employers, we need our unions, we need the peak bodies, we need state and territory governments, we need vocational education providers and we need universities. All of those stakeholders have been involved in the consultations around this new direction. Both the JSA and JSCs will have a tripartite approach. That is, there'll be extras at the core of the governance and their programs who are working directly with industry. Employers, unions and governments will be the three arms working together, because we—and I as a former educator—have seen in the past and mourned a lack of direction. There seemed to be a scatter-gun approach of: 'Oh, there's a shortage here. Quick, everybody rush over and try and fix the shortage,' but who is at the table to make the decisions about how we would fix those things? Sitting in committees since coming to government, and in the nine years prior, we've been listening to young apprentices come and tell us that they're doing their apprenticeship and they're fixed in the modules they have to do. But, where government was assuming there were options and they could choose parts of their apprenticeship, we found that actually that wasn't happening on the ground. So we've got electrical apprentices who are still learning what we needed 20 years ago and who are blocked from what we need them to have for this new economy and for this transformation. So it's critical that we get the right people in the room and that they're at the table. This includes people from those industries that are going to be leading this transformation. It's imperative that we ask the right questions of the right people so that we get this right the first time, and every time, so that what we implement is evidence based and so that we know that the courses we're providing will lead to employment and build the basis for lifelong learning so that people can shift and change across the course of their lives to continue to be employed, for all of the reasons that we want people to be employed: so that they're productive, so that they have purpose and so that life has dignity. This will also ensure that we're building the right kind of economy and that we've got the right people in the right places. We want to avoid error and waste. We need government to be asking the right questions of the right people, and we need government to be listening deeply to the experiences of those who have been on the ground. I want to pause there and commend the minister for this approach, because it is very easy in government—and it's very easy as a local MP—to have someone come to you with an anecdote and, from that anecdote, to generalise and have a single anecdote inform policy, rather than do the deep dive and actually ask people on the ground: 'So, this course that has been running, is it working?' I want to add that I have absolute faith that this minister understands electorates like mine—most importantly, upfront. He understands the people who live in my electorate. More importantly, he has lived experienced of the vocational education and training sector in electorates like mine. He knows how quickly a TAFE campus can be closed—rather than shifted, modernised or changed in its direction—and how things can be taken away from the western suburbs of Melbourne, requiring our young people to travel further and further. He understands that they can then pop up again because there's an individual need, but not be built with the longevity that we need and not be built with the capacity to shift and change. The direction that this minister has set for jobs, skills and training in this country is most welcome, and I look forward to working with him. I look forward to being part of the feedback process as we roll this out, and I look forward to having the comfort of knowing that we have industry, unions, employers, employees and state and territory governments, as well as vocational education and training providers, at the table to make the decisions we need to ensure that we have timely movement and informed decision-making at the heart of this. 10:42 Dr ANANDA-RAJAH 290544 Higgins It gives me great pleasure to talk about one of my favourite topics, which is, of course, education. Education is the most powerful weapon we have against disadvantage. It is what confers the skills that enable people, particularly young people, to achieve social mobility, and economic and financial security. Skills are the bedrock on which we build our lives. They are what make us useful to others and to our community. Skills are foundational to a competitive economy. We, on this side of the house, understand that. We are acutely aware of it because, when we came to government, we discovered we had inherited a chasm when it came to skills—a void. Australia was languishing at the bottom of the OECD league table with the second-lowest skills shortages, just ahead of Canada. In addition to this, we found yawning gaps in our skills mix, with 85,000 fewer vocational training places in 2021 compared to 2013. Why? It was because successive Liberal governments failed to invest in our most important asset: our people. We also found that the Skills Priority List for occupation shortage had nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022, from 153 listed to 286. All of this was evident in shopping strips, in hospitals, in schools and in businesses right across our economy. We didn't need any of this data to tell us what we already knew—that is, there are trailing shortages right across the economy, particularly in child care, aged care, health care, IT and construction. Everywhere you go, you will still find shortages due to the long tail of a lack of investment over a long period of time. This was evident at the Jobs and Skills Summit we convened in September last year. It was one of the first things we did, and it was a very public demonstration of our commitment to kickstarting our economy on a much stronger footing by bringing together diverse voices. I had the opportunity to attend one of those days, and it was striking to see a room full not only of the captains of industry but of young people, of neurodiverse people, of people with disability and lived experience, of all our government ministers—the frontbench were there, the Prime Minister was there—and of my colleagues from right across the country and across the chamber. We had several representatives from the crossbench, but, sadly, I don't recall any Liberal members attending, even though they were invited—which, again, speaks volumes. The Jobs and Skills Summit provided a blueprint for a better way. The work from that is now feeding into related portfolios that are working on overhauling our broken migration system, and there will be a migration review that will land towards the end of this year. There is our employment white paper and the Intergenerational report, which came out a few weeks ago and clearly shows that as we age we are going to need more and more skilled workers in the care and support economy as well as future focused industries—particularly renewable energy, manufacturing, IT and just about everything else. In order to create that better future, we need to invest in our people—our most valuable asset. We've been really busy. We came to government with an election promise of fee-free TAFE. We had 180,000 places in our first allocation. This has been a roaring success. It has been oversubscribed and exhausted in its first six months. We have had 215,000 people, both young and old, who have jumped on board. The priority sectors we identified included agriculture, the care sector, construction, defence, early childhood education, hospitality and tourism, sovereign capability, technology and digital. We have found that 51,000 of these places have been allocated to the care economy and nearly 17,000 to IT, and there have been 21,000 enrolments in the construction sector. That is absolute music to my ears. In the chamber right now, the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill has been returned from the Senate. It has passed the Senate and we are basically tying off loose ends now. This is a historic day for our nation. The Housing Australia Future Fund is an investment vehicle—and, yes, in the next five years it will deliver 30,000 social and affordable homes. But the key here is that this investment vehicle will stand in perpetuity and will accrue over time. It will allow successive governments, whether Labor or Liberal, to tip money into this fund going forward so that homes can be built forever; it will never be retired. We chose this model, which was introduced by the Howard government many years ago—in 2006, I believe—because it is basically bulletproof. The future fund model is managed by the Future Fund Board of Guardians, and they have returned into the fund 9.1 per cent per year over the last decade. The returns have been strong, despite fluctuations in economic headwinds over that period of time. The real success story of our investment in skills is in the detail. The devil is always in the detail. The detail clearly shows that, of that cohort of 215,000 people who jumped on board and adopted these spots, 51,000 were jobseekers, 15,000 were people with a disability and 7,000 were First Nations Australians. That screams out that creating a pathway is so much better than giving a hand out. Indeed, when you remove the cost barriers to skills acquisition, this is exactly what happens—people are eager to improve their lives. That speaks deeply to aspiration. They do so by looking through a suite of programs that are available, and, without those cost barriers, they find their passion. It is absolutely fantastic to see this many jobseekers doing that. They can see that we have a tight labour market and businesses and industries desperate for workers. They can also see what is coming down the pipeline. We are investing in our energy transformation. A country that has been a climate laggard is now moving to become a climate leader, and we seize that opportunity with two hands. In just over a year, Australia has already got the runs on the board. We've gone from 33 per cent renewable energy last year to 40 per cent this year as we push hard towards 82 per cent by 2030. In order to achieve that goal, we need people with the right skills to build those offshore windfarms, to rewire our nation with the $20 billion we've allocated to modernise the grid down the east coast and to invest in green hydrogen, where there will be multiple jobs in that sector. We've also pumped millions into solar thermal and geothermal. To get to that better future, we need Australians to stop privileging universities above TAFE and vocational training. As far as I am concerned, and as far as our government is concerned, we see these as equivalent. At the end of the day, it is important to acquire a skill, to find your passion and to get some hands-on, practical experience so that you can go on to become employable and contribute to society. Not only is it incredibly worthwhile to the individual; our country will be eternally grateful to our young people and older people looking for new career options. 10:52 Ms FER 299964 Holt NANDO () (): As a former TAFE student, I am proud vocational education and training has been at the forefront of the Albanese government's priorities since day 1. Yesterday, the Minister for Skills and Training, the Hon. Brendan O'Connor MP, shed a light on two fundamental reforms within the skills and training portfolio. These reforms are pivotal to ensuring that our national planning for the skills our economy need remains timely, evidence based and informed by industry experts. Creating Jobs and Skills Australia and establishing 10 Jobs and Skills councils is the bedrock of transformation within our skills and training portfolio. These two initiatives are strategically intertwined to provide structure and sector based planning specifically to nurture the skills essential for a modern economy. The design and scope for both JSA and JSCs have been shaped with extensive consultation and support from a broader spectrum of stakeholders across Australia. This includes employers, trade unions, peak bodies, state and territory governments, vocational educational providers and universities. The coordination between Jobs and Skills Australia and the new Jobs and Skills councils will be instrumental in planning and guiding training and education priorities. This coordination is the key to ensuring that our workforce possesses the right skills for securing employment and career advancement. It also ensures that our nation has the skilled workforce needed to meet the demands of current and emerging jobs. Australia currently faces one of the most significant economic challenges in decades, driven by a serious shortage of skilled workers across various sectors of our economy. Since being elected, the government has been clear about the extent and urgency of these challenges for Australian industries. The OECD data has singled out Australia as having the second-highest labour shortage among the OECD countries. The Skills Priority List paints a concerning picture, showing that occupations in shortage nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022, rising from 153 to 286. Furthermore, predictions made in March 2022 by the former National Skills Commission suggest that, over the next five years, nine out of every 10 jobs will require postschool qualifications, with half of them having vocational training. The latest quarterly report from Jobs and Skills Australia, released earlier this week, underscores the gravity of the situation. It reveals that, over the year leading to May 2023, 91 per cent of total employment growth occurred in occupations requiring postschool qualifications. More than half of this growth is concentrated in vocations that demand vocational education and training pathways. In response to these pressing challenges, I am pleased the Albanese Labor government is ushering in a new era of industry engagement within the Skills and Training portfolio. Australian industry must be equipped with the best possible skills planning framework to address the evolving skills landscape. The primary focus of the JSA and the 10 JSCs will be to work directly with industry sectors to plan and execute the necessary training to address immediate medium- and long-term skills needs. Central to this approach is the principle of tripartism, with employers, unions and governments collaborating closely to tackle our skills challenges. The government's commitment to consultation and inclusion stems from an understanding that diverse perspectives lead to better solutions. Whether it's with employers, unions, educators or state and territory governments, this government is intent on building relationships and creating the architecture for inclusive tripartite governance. Jobs and Skills Australia has taken the place of the National Skills Commission, which provided important work but whose mandate and resources needed to be expanded for broader engagement. A crucial change central to the design of the JSA is the assurance that relevant industries and knowledgeable stakeholders have a seat at the table. The JSA is required under legislation to maintain a governance structure that is both tripartite and expert. In the coming months the minister will appoint a ministerial advisory board from across a range of stakeholders to guide JSA's work priorities, strategies and governance. JSA has already emerged as a significant driver of policy development, providing independent advice to the government on current and emerging workforce needs. Informed by the signature tripartite and inclusive approach of this government, JSA is set to deliver a national clean energy capacity study next month. The study will outline the employment, upskilling and reskilling opportunities arising from our transformation to a net-zero economy. The government has made it a legislative requirement that JSA consult and publish an annual work plan. I am excited about the upcoming release of the 2023-2024 work plan, which will focus on core challenges, including the shift to a net-zero economy, growth in the care and support sector, and digital skills. Jobs and Skills Australia will expand its data based capabilities to provide deeper industrial engagement and qualitative analysis. This will enhance its independent evidence based analysis, which is crucial for national skills planning and support for skilled migration programs. Another key priority for the Albanese Labor government and the JSA is to improve education and employment outcomes for historically marginalised individuals. This includes those affected by age, health, gender and disability and those who are of diverse cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic backgrounds. JSA's economywide perspective, informed by tripartism and data informed decision-making, is the approach needed to solve the challenges we face today. The 10 tripartite, industry led jobs and skills councils that have been established will work collaboratively with JSA. These councils will provide on-the-ground industry perspectives, complementing JSA's data and analysis with their real-world experiences. JSCs will lead workforce planning for their respective industries, identifying both immediate and future skills needs. The first major task of each jobs and skills council will be to consult extensively across their industry sectors to develop workforce plans that address existing and emerging skills needs. They will leverage their industry based knowledge and understanding of trends to provide valuable insights. JSCs will also collaborate closely with educators and training providers to develop world-leading qualifications for workers and employers. By drawing upon industry knowledge and the expertise of educators, JSCs will play a crucial role in delivering the skills our workforce and economy require. The 10 councils will encompass various sectors, including energy, gas and renewables; agribusiness; early educators, health, and human services; arts, personal services, retail, tourism and hospitality; public safety and government; manufacturing; finance, technology and business, mining and automotive; building construction and property; and transport and logistics. The roles of the JSCs and the JSA are complementary and interrelated. While JSA has macroeconomic focus, JSCs possess a deeper knowledge and connection to specific industries. JSA excels in data and analytic capabilities, while JSCs boost deeper connections to the real economy. I am proud that the government is continuing to work extremely hard to make sure that Australia is ahead when it comes to jobs and skills. Debate adjourned. DOCUMENTS 94 DOCUMENTS National Mental Health Commission 94 Presentation 94 11:03 Mr BUTLER HWK Hindmarsh I table the report of the Independent investigation into the National Mental Health Commission by Adjunct Professor Debora Picone AO and Adjunct Professor Karen Crawshaw PSM and the final report of the functional efficiency review entitled National Mental Health Commission functional and efficiency review: observations and findings. I seek leave to make a statement in relation to the documents. Leave granted. Mr BUTLER HWK I rise to speak to a matter of public interest on the National Mental Health Commission. Established back in 2012, the commission is a vital public institution. It has provided federal government with unapologetic, independent advice on the state of the nation's mental health and wellbeing over the last decade. The last few years, with unprecedented natural disasters, the COVID pandemic and increasing cost-of-living pressures, have further highlighted the importance of mental health and wellbeing across Australia. For this reason, there has never been a more important time in our history to have a national mental health commission that is delivering for all Australians. In early April this year, I initiated an independent investigation into the National Mental Health Commission in response to allegations made public through the media. The allegations were of a serious and significant nature and canvassed a broad range of organisational and staff wellbeing matters. The investigation was lead by Adjunct Professor Debora Picone AO in collaboration with Adjunct Professor Karen Crawshaw PSM, and its intent was to consider whether matters raised in the media could be substantiated; to conduct a culture and capability review; to ensure the commission provides a safe work environment and has the capability to perform its role; and to conduct a full functional and efficiency review to ensure the commission can be financially sustainable moving forward. I want to thank the Adjunct Professors Picone and Crawshaw for their work in conducting the investigation, and particularly their care in working with the staff of the commission. I also want to thank the many staff who participated in the process and acknowledge their ongoing contribution to the work of the commission. I received the report from the reviewers on 31 July this year. Having taken some time to consider the report in detail, I am today tabling the final report in full as well as the associated functional and efficiency review final report conducted by EY. Maintaining confidence in the work of the commission is critical for its future. Over its 88 pages, the report explores the commission's current operating environment and takes into consideration accounts from staff and stakeholders. In summary, the investigation determined that the commission's workforce, inclusive of its leadership, has been dedicated to the commission's work and mission. There was no substantiated evidence of maladministration or evidence of conduct that would substantiate a finding of bullying. The most significant findings impeding the functioning of the commission related to what the reviewers termed a 'very poor workplace culture', significant budget operating losses and a staffing profile operating above the agency's currently funded average staffing levels. Significantly, the reviewers found an organisation that had 'outgrown its existing systems, practices and capabilities'. The report provides an important platform for reform of the commission, and outlines key areas requiring further consideration and action. Over the coming months, I will work with government colleagues, the commission and key stakeholders to further consider the recommendations and bring advice to government on resetting the commission's role and strengthening it. I have tasked the Department of Health and Aged Care to oversee this work. My immediate priority is ensuring we position the commission for the future, providing staff with stability and a clear path forward. The department will work with the commission to develop a plan for addressing the recommendations in the report and to support the wellbeing of staff. I have also asked Dr Ruth Vine to provide advice to me as a special adviser on the development of reforms, continuing to work with the sector. On 8 September 2023, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Mental Health Commission, Ms Christine Morgan, wrote to me offering her resignation, advising that she considers it is in the best interests of the commission for a new CEO to undertake the work identified by the report. I have accepted Ms Morgan's resignation, and I want to thank her for her service as CEO of the commission. I also thank Dr Ruth Vine for her stewardship of the commission during the investigation process. I am committed to ensuring the commission delivers on its important role in transparency, accountability and monitoring of government investment and the impact on mental health and suicide prevention. The Australian government is committed to a National Mental Health Commission that is focused on improving the mental health and suicide prevention system, so all Australians have confidence in the services that they choose and use. ADJOURNMENT 95 ADJOURNMENT Hunter Valley Legends Awards 95 11:09 Mr REPACHOLI 298840 Hunter I recently had the pleasure of attending the 16th annual Hunter Valley Legends Awards at Rydges Resort Hunter Valley. The gala night brought together over 380 industry professionals and guests from the Hunter Valley wine and tourism industries. The event serves as a tribute to the region's rich heritage, honouring the enduring influence of the Hunter Valley and its dedicated wine growers, winemakers and tourism operators. Four living legends were inducted on the night, taking the total number of Hunter Valley Legends to 33. John Davis, Graham Doran and Dr Harry Tullock were inducted as the 2023 Wine Industry Living Legends and John Stevens was inducted as the 2023 Tourism Living Legend. John Davis, owner and managing director of Pepper Tree Wines, Briar Ridge Vineyard, Tallavera Grove and Carillion Wines, has forged a reputation as an astute viticulturist with a skill in matching soil types with the most suited grape varieties. As the first to plant emerging varieties in the Hunter Valley, John has championed innovation in his vineyards and, more broadly, through his investment into soil mapping across the Hunter region. Throughout his more than 50 years in viticulture, Graham Doran has worked with some of the Hunter Valley's most iconic vineyards. His work for Mount Dangar Vineyard and Mount Pleasant led to outstanding outcomes with countless trophies and medals awarded. Graham led numerous viticultural trials unique to the Hunter Valley and documented his knowledge for future generations in the recently published Beginners Guide to Viticulture in the Hunter Valley. Dr Harry Tulloch has been a true pioneer through his immense innovative viticultural research which led to the selection of premium quality semillon and shiraz clones. Shiraz clone 1654 is still in circulation today and has become one of the most widely planted in Australia. Throughout his career, Harry has championed new styles of wines and was the first in the Hunter to incorporate verdelho into blends of semillon. John Stevens was inducted as the 2023 Tourism Industry Living Legend in honour of his 35-year commitment to tourism development in the Central Coast, Newcastle and the Hunter Valley. The Vintage development is one of the regions most significant and ambitious integrated tourism developments, which has delivered significant infrastructure improvements for the Pokolbin area. The night also recognised the depth of talent currently contributing to the success of the Hunter Valley. Jenna Vaughan, the sales and marketing manager of de Iuliis Wines, was named Riedel 2023 Young Achiever of the Year. Her communications and marketing background has helped her excel in multiple roles in the Hunter Valley in the field of brand development and marketing. The First Creek Winemaking Services 2023 Winemaker of the Year was awarded to Andrew Thomas. Andrew's 37th consecutive Hunter Valley vintage speaks of his continuous engagement and passion for the region. His contribution includes investing in the modernising and revitalising of his vineyards, replanting vines with preservation of genetic purity, promoting quality and diversity of the signature Hunter Valley varieties, semillon and shiraz, along with the application of innovative techniques in the winery. Nick Looby from Margan Wines & Restaurant was named Jurds 2023 Viticulturist of the Year. Nick manages a team of six full-time vineyard staff at Margan Wines, promoting sustainability and regenerative methods and approaches to viticulture. The Margan Ceres Hill vineyard has recently been selected to be part of the National EcoVineyards Program. Winmark Wines were crowned Wine Selectors 2023 Cellar Door of the Year. Karin Adcock, owner of Winmark Wines in Broke Fordwich, has transformed the property over the last six years to now feature a cellar door, a sculpture garden, an art gallery, a gift shop and four guest properties. Accommodation Operator of the Year was awarded for the second consecutive year to Spicers Guesthouse, one of the Hunter Valley's leading luxury retreats. Stay n' Sip was announced as Tourism Operator of the Year. After only 18 months in business, Pierre Toumanoff and Mercedes Mendoza take their private wine experiences directly to guests at their accommodation and venues. The 2023 Outstanding Contribution of Individual was awarded to Liz Riley, a renowned viticulturist, consultant and adviser. Liz worked on behalf of the region to coordinate an emergency response for aerial pest and disease application. She's recognised throughout the national wine industry for her work and collaborative approach. (Time expired) Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Voice 96 11:14 Mr HILL 86256 Bruce The last two weeks in parliament have been really disturbing. The ugly, divisive tone the opposition leader has deliberately chosen to take on the referendum is a disgrace. It's no accident; it's part of the deliberate strategy—it's been there for months; we've seen it week after week when parliament sits—to create a partisan frame around this, to somehow perpetuate the lie, the fiction, the untruth that this is Labor's referendum. It's not; it's been talked about in our country for 25 years under every prime minister since John Howard. It's what the Indigenous people, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, of this country came up with and asked for six years ago, after a decade of discussion. This division, fear and negativity is a deliberate strategy. Of course Australians can have their say. Everyone has the absolute democratic right to vote yes or no, absolutely. People are entitled to their own opinions in this country, absolutely. But political leaders and every one of us are not entitled to our own facts. It is a sad day for the country when the Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the alternative government—the alternative Prime Minister, so he likes to claim—turns into some kind of disinformation troll, literally. If you look at his Facebook page or his Instagram, there is stuff up there today which is blatantly untrue—but on he goes. In my electorate, the most multicultural part of Australia, there are people from 154 different countries. I've got more than 10,000 people living in my electorate who were born in Afghanistan. They fled that country, fighting, dying, sacrificing their families and working with the Australian defence forces for 20 years to fight for the simple right to choose their government and choose their own constitution. We're donating billions of dollars of military equipment to Ukraine, to the Ukrainian people, to fight for that same right—to vote and choose their constitution and choose their government. The least the Leader of the Opposition could do would be to show some respect for our democratic system and show some honesty, and distance himself from what are obviously blatant tactics that have been revealed through the media to spread lies—that is, the 'no' campaign's lie. It doesn't mean that everyone who votes 'no' is lying; that's fine, that's their view. But at least base the debate on facts and honesty. It's a big moment for our country. It's the first time in 26 years we've had a referendum. People get to have their say on what the Constitution of our country should be. As I said, it's a big lie that it's Labor's referendum. It's not; it has come from the Indigenous people of this country. Everyone knows this was always going to be hard. Every referendum is hard. Eight out of 44 referenda in Australia's history have succeeded. But this is not about feeling guilty or ashamed; it should be about feeling proud of our country, proud of the fact that people can come together and vote to do two big things. One is to right a historic wrong. This is in part about symbolism. When you open our nation's birth certificate, the core law of the land, in the Constitution, it simply recognises the fact that there were people here before European settlement, before our system of government. Our legal system has been founded for 200 years on a fundamental lie, terra nullius, that there was no-one here before us. Surely it's time we simply fix that. That's a good thing; we should be proud of that. It's also about making a practical difference. I'm proud of our country, but no Australian can be proud of Indigenous disadvantage in this country; it's a disgrace. They are the most incarcerated people on the planet. They will die, on average, 10 years before any other Australian. On employment statistics, education and health: frankly, we have tried everything else for over 100 years. We've spent tens of billions of dollars, and it doesn't seem to have worked. This is what they've asked for, and no-one loses from this proposal; that's the thing. The parliament retains full control over the Voice in perpetuity. We should give it a go. I shudder to think how Indigenous Australians will feel if Australians say 'no'—and what would our neighbours think? How would we look to the world? Above all else, over the next four weeks let's cherish the fact we get this right to vote 'yes' or 'no'. I think 'yes' will bring the country together and do good things. But if 'no' wins, it won't be the government that loses; Australia will lose and Indigenous Australia will lose. The Leader of the Opposition is already a diminished man. He's worse than Scott Morrison; I didn't think that was possible! I encourage Australians: look at the facts, look into your hearts and make up your own minds. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice 97 11:19 Ms LAWRENCE 299150 Hasluck In 2017, Indigenous leaders gathered at Uluru, inviting Australia to take the next step on the path to reconciliation through the Uluru Statement from the Heart. In part, the statement says: When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country. We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution. In parliament, I was proud to speak and vote in favour of constitutional change, and to work on the electoral matters committee which reviewed the referendum legislation. In Hasluck, I've been busy talking to people on the doors and hosting events to support a successful 'yes' vote in the referendum. Back in June, we kicked off the campaign with a kitchen table meeting at Koya Aboriginal Corporation, who do so much great work in Midland and surrounds, followed by community meetings with Jeremiah Riley at the Crooked Spire cafe, and later that evening we gathered together a group of interested citizens at the Midlands Art Centre to discuss the campaign. On 24 August, I co-hosted a community forum on the Voice with the Church of the Ascension in Midland. Two hundred people packed the pews. Reverend Stuart Fenner and his community have been advocates and dedicated supporters of the Voice. I was left awed as Narelle Henry, general manager of Ember Connect, moved us all with the story of her grandmother's struggle for equality and access to education. Wanita Bartholomeusz spoke passionately about her work within the Western Australian Police Force and the lifesaving changes that the Voice will bring for her family and community. Reverend Tim Costello shared his wisdom in a simple and accessible way. People asked questions respectfully and left better informed. For those who missed out on that occasion, I just want to draw on a few thoughts that Wanita shared in the forum and in other mediums, and to refer to a few of her comments. Her view are: Give us the Voice and the opportunity to be accountable for the management of issues that affect Aboriginal people. Should we fail at that then fair call critiques can come loud and fast and deservedly so. But at this point Aboriginal people have been at the periphery of decision making about their own communities. However when one colonises a country and the people in it. Unless they exterminate them all which was tried but did not succeed then governments in a modern 1st world country must manage and care for ALL its citizens. The over representation of Aboriginal people in a number of areas including infant mortality, highest suicide rates in the Western World, 1 in 3 living below the poverty line. Incarceration rates the highest per capita in the western world. Lower levels of year 12 completion per capita, homelessness, unemployment and highest rates of dying or illness from preventable diseases. These are nots statistics that any country and their citizens regardless of one's political persuasion can be proud off. But these are not just statistics, these are humans lives. Australian lives. When the issues prevail the country as a whole suffers. On 29 August, I was joined in Hasluck by Minister Mark Butler and former member and former minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, and we visited Moorditj Koort Aboriginal Corporation to discuss the ways in which a success referendum outcome would directly assist the work of organisations at the coalface of disadvantage, addressing the disadvantage that Wanita so succinctly described. These are just some of the events, but every week we are out on the doors, happily speaking with locals about the generational opportunity before us. We are fortified by the overwhelmingly positive response received. The Yes23 campaign are phenomenal. They continue to be busy in the electorate. Over 2,000 doors having already been knocked and called by volunteers. Motivated Hasluck residents like Lee Roberts, Chris Elder, Pauline Savage, Peter Banks, Colleen Strider, Rebecca Robinson and Lise Sorenson are moved by the invitation of the Uluru statement and have given up their time to promote the Voice to Parliament. Locals Mary Yarran and Clayton Anderson have been out on Guildford Road waving corflutes and getting great feedback and honks from those passing by. Our next event is on 21 September in Ellenbrook, and I'm excited to advise that Wanita will be joining that forum again, for those who missed hearing from her and Narelle. Jessica Shaw, our local member, will be fronting that, speaking as a leader of our community, to share the views and answer questions, to create the change and opportunity presented by the invitation from the Uluru Statement from the Heart. I encourage everyone to engage in respectful debate and move us forward. Migration 98 11:24 Ms SHARKIE 265980 Mayo Many people in this place have spoken about the housing crisis that's affecting our nation. Compounding this issue—which we need to have a very sober conversation about—is the net record migration we have. We have record highs. In the first seven months of this year, 320,000 new permanent long-term arrivals have entered this country. That will be 400,000 people by the end of the year. This is 70 per cent above the long-term average, which equates to approximately one-third of greater metropolitan Adelaide. Westpac reported that the monthly gain is just a smidge under 40,000 per month, up from 23,000 new permanent migrants per month in the decade before the pandemic. Between 2007 and 2020, the average net gain was 226,000 people per year. This year, we've blitzed that number already—and we're not yet at the end of this year. I raise this not because I'm opposed to migration. I support a migration strategy, but it needs to be thoughtful. I also support an increase in our refugee intake. Our housing shortage unequivocally demonstrates that we do not have sufficient capacity in our current population, let alone what could only be called migration on steroids. This isn't just a problem in the cities; it's a problem in our regions. We know that many people living in the inner cities really struggled during COVID and wanted to move out to the regions. So there's that added pressure there. In some sense, it's a welcome thing. But we need to recognise whether, with a vacancy rate of less than one per cent, we're being responsible when we say we're going to have net migration—record migration—of around 400,000 in one year alone. Our entire economic system is based on a positive GDP through migration. I think that's lazy. It lacks vision and places increasing stress on our resources. I actually think it's like a Ponzi scheme. We keep bringing more and more people in to say, 'We've got growth; we've got growth; we've got growth.' All it does is put more and more pressure on the finite resources we have. We have nowhere to house people now. I had never seen people living in tents in my electorate, and there are people permanently living in tents at the moment. Then we're going to add fuel to that fire by bringing in another 400,000 people in one year. As I said, we have record highs. The critical issues facing our country are not being addressed. We have a housing shortage, an energy cost shortage, a looming energy supply crisis and a cost-of-living crisis. This constant push for a big Australia is exacerbating each one of those crises. Again, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have migration. I'm a migrant. I'm very fortunate to have come to Australia as a little baby. But we need to make sure that we do this carefully. This wholesale opening of the floodgates and bringing in 400,000 permanent migrants, I think, is a very dangerous thing to do, particularly when we don't have anywhere to house them. That is a great concern. No-one has been able to tell how they're going to fix that. No-one I've spoken to has said, 'We're talking about building 30,000 homes, and we're all going ra-ra-ra.' Where are we going to put these people? We need to be very careful. We need to have a very sober conversation about this, as a nation. This has been raised with me by so many constituents. They are deeply concerned about this. They look at the simple maths of this and say, 'How do we do this?' As I said, I do support migration. I particularly support having an open and welcoming country for people fleeing war-torn countries and seeking asylum, but we need to be very, very careful. We are in an unprecedented housing crisis, infrastructure is falling short everywhere, and there's huge pressure on resources such as energy supply and access to water. There is much that we need to do. I urge the government to be honest with the Australian people about why you are doing this because I have yet to hear any answers. Dawson Electorate: Roads 98 11:29 Mr WILLCOX 286535 Dawson I rise today to speak about the black spot funding program, which has been axed under this government. I'm sure that the Labor government realises the impact—well, I'm not actually sure that they realise the impact of this decision to cut funding for road safety, and the effect that it has on my people in the electorate of Dawson. So I'm here to help educate them. It's plain and simple, really. Labor's decisions are endangering the lives of the people in my electorate of Dawson, and others who live in rural and regional Australia. I wouldn't be doing my job if I just sat back and let that happen. It is my duty to be their voice and to stand up and fight for their rights and safety. You might think, 'Hang on a second; surely the government wouldn't be putting the Australian public in danger.' Let me put it to you this way: so far this year, according to the latest Queensland road crash weekly report, Queensland has lost 190 lives on its roads. Statistically speaking, two-thirds of all of those road fatalities have occurred in regional areas. An article published just over a week ago in Mackay's local newspaper detailed 13 fatalities on the region's roads; that's since the start of the year alone. Eight of those have occurred in the last eight weeks, and that is just one section of my electorate. For the past 27 years, every side of government has backed this crucial funding to black spot projects nationwide, yet, for some reason, the Albanese Labor government has made the decision to strip away $69 million worth of funding, with nearly $10 million of that being removed from vital projects in Queensland. To add to this insanity, the Albanese Labor government announced these funding cuts in the same week a report identified rural and regional areas as a major cause of fatalities. 'So what are they going to do with this money instead,' I hear you ask. It's going towards funding projects like the upgrade to the Gabba, a sporting facility. Once again, the Albanese Labor government has its priorities totally in the wrong areas. According to reports, motor vehicle accidents are the No. 1 factor causing death and injury in the workplace. In a time of a Labor-created cost-of-living crisis, when families in rural and regional areas are struggling to make ends meet and every dollar counts, the Labor government is now making something as simple as driving to and from work, or driving for work, a potential death trap. For the people of Dawson, our roads aren't a wish-list item; they are a necessity. They are the arteries to the heart. We don't have trams or trains like the big cities. For most people, our roads are the only way to work, the only way to see their family and the only way to access essential services like health. There are currently eight black spot projects that are yet to be completed in Dawson; not one has been completed under the current Labor government. Anyone who's been to North Queensland would know the state of the Bruce Highway. Under the previous coalition government there was funding allocated towards improvement repairs, but this funding has been sat on by the Queensland Labor government and now the Albanese Labor government are intent on leaving identified black spot funding and hazards behind for the foreseeable future. My job is to fight for the rights of the people of Dawson, and let me tell you: the people in rural and regional areas have the right to be safe on their roads, just like everybody in the big cities. By investing fewer funds in our regional areas, especially in areas that are heavily impacted by natural disasters, the standard only falls further behind. This is unacceptable. On this issue, I am pleading with the Albanese Labor government to seriously reconsider their decision. I ask that they do the right thing and reinstate the funding so our local councils in rural and regional areas can carry out the upgrades to our roads, so that identified black spots can be addressed and fixed, and no longer be a constant threat to people's lives. Please reconsider the risks you are putting on people in rural and regional areas, like my people in the electorate of Dawson. Page Electorate: Grafton High School, Page Electorate: Lions Road 99 11:34 Mr HOGAN 218019 Page I want to commend Grafton High School for its performance in the New South Wales Combined High Schools Sports Association hockey finals in Sydney this week. Both the girls and boys sides made it to the top 10 teams in the state, which is an amazing result. I want to acknowledge the girls team, led by the captain, Martina Williams, and the vice captain, Jess Sear; the goalkeepers, Jordan Skimming and Annabel Dungey; and Jessica Marsh, Julia Hennessy, Mikayla Chambers-Ward, Sophie Hinterholtz, Maia Adamson, Shanae Crispin, Shani Firth, Shelera and Shaniqua Williams—twins—Milla Stephenson and Mia Hayne. Injured players were Mackenna Ensby and Eliza Berrick, who are both NSW representatives. The coaches were Brenda Baker and Alana Keats The boys team are also top 10 in the state. They were playing yesterday and are playing again today. Congratulations to the squad: Myles Adamson, Thomas Beohm, Jack Cheney, Darby Rouse, Zayden Third, Elijah Waite, Max Oxenbridge, Cooper Stephenson, Tyler Gooley, Eli Jones, Kade Simpson, Jackson Duroux, Zac Maginnity, Harry Oxenbridge, Joseph Nilon and their coach, Scott Smith. This is an amazing achievement for Grafton High School, for both the boys and the girls team to make the top 10 in the state. They compete against schools that are far bigger and better resourced. Well done. I was cheering you both on yesterday and today. On 23 September, in a few weeks time, the Lions Road near Kyogle will celebrate its 50th anniversary. This is one truly amazing community story. The Kyogle Lions Club were the force behind the Lions Road—and they named it after themselves, as they should. They funded it, dug its pathway through the ranges, laid bitumen, built bridges, and cooked meals for the people who volunteered to help them do it. The NSW government in 1969 rejected the proposal to build the road, but that didn't stop Kyogle. I could mention literally hundreds of individuals who were involved, but I will just touch on a couple. Firstly, Jack Hurley was a great community contributor and the driving force behind it, as was Alan Brown. They were both foundation members of the Kyogle Lions Club. Lots of farmers donated tractors, including Murphy Stanfield, who donated the biggest tractor at the time, his D8 Caterpillar tractor, and supervised the road's construction. Mel Hogan and Athel Matheson donated tractors and did a lot of work, as, indeed, did all the members of the Kyogle Lions Club. The current president of the Kyogle Lions Club, Bob Scarborough, is the only active member of the club who worked on the road, but there are still lots of people in the community who contributed to it. The current Lions Road committee—Col Garred, Col Griffiths, Norm Rogers and Francis O'Reilly—volunteer their time. There is a donation box as you go to use that road where you can donate, because it's maintained by the club itself. They liaise with the council on road maintenance. The Lions Club will present Kyogle Council with a $25,000 donation and the Scenic Rim Regional Council with a $15,000 donation—all proceeds from the road's donation box. The road has a very special place within Kyogle and the wider region community because it's a really great story about Kyogle's can-do attitude. Happy birthday to the Lions Road. Question agreed to. Federation Chamber adjourned at 11:38