DOCUMENTS

2023-09-07 2 1 0 Senate 0 1

Thursday, 7 September 2023

The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Sue Lines ) took the chair at 09:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.

DOCUMENTS 1 DOCUMENTS Tabling 1 COMMITTEES 1 COMMITTEES Corporations and Financial Services Joint Committee, Intelligence and Security Joint Committee 1 Meeting 1 09:01 The PRESIDENT 112096 I remind senators that the question may be put on any proposal at the request of any senator. Finance and Public Administration References Committee 1 Reference 1 09:01 The PRESIDENT 112096 I remind senators that there is a deferred vote this morning, which I intend to put now. The deferred vote to be taken is on the motion moved by the Leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, Senator Hanson, to refer a matter regarding Aboriginal Community Services to the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee. The question is that the following matter be referred to the Finance and Public Administration References Committee for inquiry and report by 3 October 2023: The activities of Aboriginal Community Services (ACS), with particular reference to: (a) whether there was fraudulent usage of National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation (NATSIC) vehicles and fraudulent usage of NATSIC fuel cards and credit cards by current and former staff members and directors of ACS; (b) whether any former NATSIC members and/or employees were in receipt of payments from ACS as contractors or employees; (c) whether any of these former NATSIC members and/or employees were receiving WorkCover or other workers' compensation/insurance payments while being paid/employed by ACS; (d) whether third party related member benefits were appropriately approved by membership and reconciled against grant agreements (approved, expended and reconciled in accordance with grant agreement requirements); (e) whether employment of family members was appropriately approved by the membership and in accordance with conflict of interest requirements; (f) whether taxation was avoided through the use of third party related member benefits, or income in the form of payments, incidental costs, including credit cards, and fringe benefits arrangements for staff and directors, and what property has been purchased as a result (for example, housing, vehicles, jewellery etc, subject to Proceeds of Crime legislation); (g) whether unlawfully obtained income or benefits were used in the setup of trust accounts related to ACS or by any staff or directors of ACS; (h) whether investigations, whether related to fraud or otherwise, have been undertaken by the relevant Commonwealth and state departments into the operation of ACS and current and former staff and directors of ACS, including their involvement in suspected fraud relating to other organisations and boards such as the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Executive Board and NATSIC; (i) any third party payments, including any payments made to consultancy firms, including James S Sturgeon Consultancy (ABN 55 592 208 638), Altitude Strategies Pty Ltd, NFP Success and other related entities; (j) whether there are any financial conflicts in the provision of auditing services to ACS; (k) whether the ACS board has complied with legislative governance requirements in regard to financial approvals, processes, reporting and transparency, including membership transparency requirements, for example, notifications to members for annual general meetings and whether ACS has met all requirements for legitimate annual general meetings; (l) whether any current or former ACS staff and directors were unable to obtain appropriate working with vulnerable people and working with children's tickets in any jurisdiction across Australia; (m) whether any current or former ACS board members have been paid in any form by ACS, including through income or by receiving benefits; and (n) any other related matters.

The Senate divided. [09:06]
(The President—Senator Lines)

29 AYES Antic, A. Askew, W. Babet, R. Bragg, A. J. Brockman, W. E. Cadell, R. (Teller) Canavan, M. J. Cash, M. C. Chandler, C. Colbeck, R. M. Davey, P. M. Fawcett, D. J. Hanson, P. L. Hughes, H. A. Hume, J. Kovacic, M. Liddle, K. J. McDonald, S. E. McGrath, J. McKenzie, B. McLachlan, A. L. Nampijinpa Price, J. S. O'Sullivan, M. A. Paterson, J. W. Payne, M. A. Rennick, G. Roberts, M. I. Ruston, A. Smith, D. A. 33 NOES Allman-Payne, P. J. Ayres, T. Brown, C. L. Chisholm, A. Ciccone, R. (Teller) Cox, D. Farrell, D. E. Gallagher, K. R. Green, N. L. Grogan, K. Hanson-Young, S. C. Lines, S. McAllister, J. R. McCarthy, M. McKim, N. J. O'Neill, D. M. Payman, F. Pocock, B. Pocock, D. W. Polley, H. Pratt, L. C. Rice, J. E. Shoebridge, D. Smith, M. F. Steele-John, J. A. Sterle, G. Stewart, J. N. A. Urquhart, A. E. Walsh, J. C. Waters, L. J. Watt, M. P. Whish-Wilson, P. S. White, L. 0 PAIRS

Question negatived.

BILLS 2 BILLS Ending Poverty in Australia (Antipoverty Commission) Bill 2023 2

Ending Poverty in Australia (Antipoverty Commission) Bill 2023

Second Reading 2 09:09 Senator RICE 155410 Victoria The Ending Poverty in Australia (Antipoverty Commission) Bill 2023 is an incredibly important, constructive step towards ending poverty in Australia. If passed, the proposed antipoverty commission would provide parliament with independent and transparent advice on the causes of poverty in Australia and how to reduce it, and would advise on the minimum levels for social security payments, including JobSeeker, the parenting payment, youth allowance, the age pension and the disability support pension. We know the need for this commission. It's because successive governments have used the lack of a national definition of poverty, which this antipoverty commission would create, as an excuse to keep people living on inadequate income support payments. We need a national definition of poverty, one that takes into account different needs and contexts, and one that the government can be held accountable to. By setting up an independent commission which would have that responsibility and which would provide advice to government, we would increase the transparency. It means that we could take real action to know the extent of the problem and what needs to be done about it. But, of course, it's the Greens who are putting forward this bill; that's because we want to have that independence, transparency and integrity in how government decisions are made. This week in parliament we have seen that the Labor government has some major issues when it comes to dealing with transparency in politics. Establishing more truly independent bodies to advise government is an important starting point. This antipoverty commission, if established, would have the same standing as the Productivity Commission or the ACCC. It would be a trusted source of independent advice to government—independent advice that governments would ignore at their peril. I do want to acknowledge that the idea for this commission builds upon the work that has been done by the interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, which was established before the last budget. At the moment this is a temporary committee. It published a report in April which builds upon their work and the advocacy of unemployed advocates, social service organisations and academics. The report contains really important evidence about economic disadvantage in Australia. The report found that, apart from a temporary boost during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the JobSeeker payment has been declining relative to median incomes and other Centrelink payments for decades. It articulated what the Greens, people on income support and many others already knew: the rate of JobSeeker is completely inadequate. The committee put forward a suite of important recommendations for the government to reduce economic inequality in Australia. But as committee member and associate professor at the Australia National University Ben Phillips highlighted, the most pressing concern and the most important for immediate policy action is to substantially increase the JobSeeker payment. The report recommended that the government commit to a substantial increase in the base rates of JobSeeker and related working-age payments as a first priority, and suggested that increasing the rate to 90 per cent of the age pension would improve adequacy. Despite this salient and pressing recommendation by Labor's own Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, in the last budget the Albanese government decided to raise the rate of JobSeeker by just $4 a day. Four dollars a day is not the substantial increase that the committee recommended. Four dollars a day can't even buy a coffee, let alone pay someone's rent, groceries and medical expenses. We know that poverty is a political choice, and right now the Labor government is choosing to keep millions of Australians on income support well below the poverty line. We know that the government is now committed to introducing a permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee before the next budget. If this permanent committee is established then maybe the government would feel the need to pay more attention to its recommendations. What we believe, as Greens, is in setting up a truly independent commission rather than a committee, when the government seems able to just ignore its advice. A truly independent committee is what's needed. The bill that I am putting forward to the parliament today is a template. It's a model. It is what, in fact, we would like to see in the government's permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. We would prefer to see an antipoverty commission, with the true independence that a commission has. I would love to see this bill passed. It probably isn't going to be passed today. Given that and given that we know the government intends to establish a permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee before the next budget—given that we expect to see legislation to do that at some stage before the end of the year—we are, by presenting this bill, offering to the government what we think needs to be included in that permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee legislation, which we understand we will see in the coming months. We need to ensure that if government makes an increase like the tiny increase made to JobSeeker before the last budget—there may be a bigger increase from the work of the permanent committee before the next budget—it's told we need more than that. We need to know that there is actually a really strong, independent body of advice that will be listened to and that the government would then take on board, ensuring that payment rates on income support are adequate so that people aren't living in poverty in the future. We cannot allow the one-off increase we've had this year—we might get a one-off increase again next year—to be an excuse for further decades of inaction. In my roles as the chair of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee's inquiry into the extent and nature of poverty in Australia and chair of our inquiry into the worsening rental crisis in Australia, I have been hearing time and time again about the devastating impact of poverty on individuals and communities. We've heard how poverty prevents people from connecting with their friends and communities, how inadequate income support payments mean people have to leave their studies, and how some people can't afford to eat high-quality food, even though they know they have deficiencies in their diet. Just yesterday, Suicide Prevention Australia released a report saying that more than half of Australian families are reporting higher than normal distress due to the rising cost of living. Suicide Prevention Australia's community tracker found families were twice as likely as others nationally to call the frontline suicide prevention service for help. They also told us that in the last year the rate of suicide has increased by seven per cent. These are the real impacts of poverty. In our hearings into the rental crisis, we've heard that the number of people accessing homelessness surveys has also increased by seven per cent in the last year. This is the real human cost of poverty. As the cost of living continues to soar, we must do everything in our power to ensure that communities are kept out of poverty and out of financial distress. If we do nothing, the consequences are devastating. Many of those consequences won't become apparent for many years. That's because by making a political choice to leave people in poverty now we are not only letting down millions of Australians but also abandoning future generations. There are countless children—one in six—living in poverty. They should be enjoying their studies and playing with their friends; instead, they're worrying about their next meal. Activities like sport and music are out of reach. How can they even consider these luxuries when affording food is a daily struggle? We've heard so many stories of what the impact of poverty on people is. Bonnie, who receives a JobSeeker payment, told me: My life sucks. I pretty much don't go anywhere or do anything as I can't afford to as well as not wanting to because I have been suffering debilitating depression, anxiety, insomnia and a host of other medical issues so only really feel safe at home. I have nothing to look forward to. I find it hard to even communicate with friends as when they ask about what I've been up to, I don't want to lie but I also don't want to tell them about the dumpster fire my life has become. My unit has been sold twice in just over a year (currently for sale) and my rent has gone up twice in the time and will go up again in August (if I am lucky to be living in the same place … I have lived in my unit for just over 12 years and am terrified of what might happen in the next few months. I have no control over anything and the uncertainty leaves me in a constant state of stress, depression and anxiety. I barely sleep; my blood sugar is out of whack, and I am miserable. This is the human cost of poverty. The Greens of course support the concept and the work done by the Interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee; however, we believe that the original framework does not go far enough to address poverty in Australia. The idea of an independent body is to provide clear advice to parliament on the issue of poverty, and it's something the Greens have long been advocating for. Our antipoverty commission has a number of distinct features that we think are critical to establishing an effective, independent body to tackle poverty and inequality in Australia. These include an explicit focus on addressing poverty in its name and framework and a clear requirement for the development of a national poverty line. There would be a requirement for government to publicly respond to recommendations made by the independent commission, a clear requirement for legislated reviews of income support payments and the poverty line, and an independent parliamentary committee that would scrutinise appointments to the commission. We want to ensure that this isn't just another body that the major parties stack with retired ministers and staffers. We need people with skills, expertise and knowledge of poverty to guide policy, and a focus on lived experience that enables people with direct experience of poverty to be commissioners. For far too long governments have used the lack of a nationally accepted measure of poverty to dodge responsibility for the inadequacy of income support payments. This is how the Labor government were able to ignore the explicit recommendations of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee and how they will continue to continue to keep people on income support in poverty. We urgently need a national definition of poverty, one that takes into account a diversity of needs and contexts and one that the government can be held accountable to. Multiple times on committees over the past year I have discussed and asked questions about why we don't have a national definition of poverty. Basically, the answer I get back from government is: 'It's too complex. We can't possibly do it.' That is just not good enough. Yes, it is complex. Yes, it may need to be multifaceted; in fact, it almost certainly will be. But we can do it, and we should do it so we have a benchmark for what the poverty line actually is. Another important part of our bill is the focus on lived experience. Successive governments have implemented policies that fail to take into account the experiences and knowledge of people experiencing poverty. Enabling people with lived experience to be commissioners of the antipoverty commission will ensure that these voices are heard. This bill is a significant benchmark and an important part of the longer work that is needed to end poverty in Australia. Another example of the need was articulated in the ACOSS report, released earlier this week, on the inadequacy of income support. There was a further report earlier in the week. Poverty is a critical issue that our country is facing at the moment. The ACOSS report found that inadequate income support payments push people to cut their food intake, that most people reported taking steps to reduce their energy use, and that 64 per cent went without other essentials, like food and medication, to afford their energy bill. Poverty is a fundamental issue that, as a caring society, we need to deal with. I often think about the time when I was a young adult, in the 1980s, and I went overseas. I went to Europe and, for the first time in my life, saw homeless people on the streets. I remember thinking: 'I'm so glad we haven't got that in Australia. We haven't got people who are homeless and destitute in Australia.' We are a much richer country than we were then, in the eighties, yet the conditions some people are living in are just appalling. When we look at people who are homeless, people who are destitute, people who can't afford to put food on the table, it is a political choice that we're making to have those people there. This bill goes further than the interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. It sets out a clear framework for a robust and independent body to tackle poverty. I urge my colleagues, particularly the government colleagues, to use this bill as a benchmark to assess the legislation for the establishment of the permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, to ensure that we have the best chance of eradicating poverty in Australia. The Greens will certainly be using what's in this bill as a blueprint for our deliberations when we see that legislation over the coming months. 09:24 Senator AYRES 16913 New South Wales I'm very happy to have an opportunity to set out the government's rationale for opposing the bill that is put into this place by the Australian Greens. We heard in Senator Rice's contribution that the Greens party accepts that this is not going to pass the Senate today, and I think that begs the question as to why one would propose the bill, knowing that it will certainly be defeated. What is really reflected in here is an argument between the Greens and Senator David Pocock. The political problem here for the Greens party is that Senator Pocock got there first. There is, in fact, an agreement that the preliminary Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, which was established by agreement with Senator Pocock will be replaced by a permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee that will do all the work that is being proposed to be dealt with by what I think is a duplication and a very cumbersome approach to dealing with the set of information challenges that Senator Rice has outlined. I am grateful, and the government is very grateful, for Senator Pocock coming to the table with a concrete proposal that is capable of providing advice to government. Poverty and financial hardship are challenges that affect the lives of far too many Australians. The government is committed to working across party lines. The government is committed to engaging with experts. The government is committed to working with people, including people who don't agree with the government, in the best interests of Australians who are suffering from the effects of poverty. We are not afraid of disagreement. We are not afraid of expert opinions. We are not afraid of evidence. I think we have demonstrated we are a government that is acting and doing what it can to contribute in this area. The grand title of the bill—Ending Poverty in Australia (Antipoverty Commission) Bill 2023—is not matched by its content. What it does is establish a commission and a committee. The Greens party, after the introduction of the interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, acted very fast—which revealed the political embarrassment they suffer here to set up this proposed private senator's bill to establish this antipoverty commission. It also subsequently established a long-term inquiry into the extent and nature poverty in Australia by the Community Affairs References Committee. The interim report of that committee was handed down in May, ahead of the 2023-24 budget, and hearings continue across Australia. The final report for that committee is due to be handed down at the end of October this year, and the government will respond to that report. The first problem with what is proposed by Senator Rice and the Greens party is the duplication of established government practices. The legislation will shortly be introduced to permanently establish the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. As Senator Rice has correctly pointed out, there will be a gap from time to time between what the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee proposes and what the government does. That's because the government values independent advice. We actually want the challenge to be there for government to act in these areas. We don't want a mouthpiece that simply reflects government policy. We want engagement from experts, we want engagement from community organisations that are active in this area, and we want policy propositions that can be considered over time. The bill that will be introduced will outline the functions of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, including its approaches to boosting economic participation through policy systems, settings and structures in relation to the social security program and, broadly, other relevant programs and policies; the adequacy, effectiveness and sustainability of income support payments, including options to boost economic inclusion and tackle disadvantage; and options to reduce barriers and disincentives to work, including in relation to social security and employment services. It has a very broad remit indeed. It will engage with experts and the sector, as it requires, to develop its recommendations. It will report to the Treasurer and the Minister for Social Services with sufficient time for its advice to be considered ahead of every budget. This is absolutely consistent with what the Prime Minister said during the course of the last three years in opposition, which was that a Labor government would consider, particularly in relation to JobSeeker but also in relation to other payments, what can be done ahead of every budget. The commission as proposed by the Greens is a significant duplication of resources and expenditure to provide the same degree of advice on aligned issues covered under the proposed Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee legislation and the terms of reference of the committee itself. I understand what Senator Rice has said—this is an exercise proposed in this bill in providing a bit of an outline of what the Greens political party believe should be included in the terms of reference. You could have written us a letter. We're all ears for discussion across the parliament about what the terms of reference and the broad structure of it should be. But we're listening carefully during this debate. The Greens bill would establish a new commission and a joint standing committee. What is required, of course, in this area of policy is not another inquiry but action. The only people that the Greens party proposal would lift out of poverty are the four to 12 commissioners that the commission would appoint. The Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee structure provides an efficient, responsive and practical method of researching, advising and recommending options to government. If you don't agree with that, take it up with its proponent. The permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee will comprise 14 members, including a chair, who will be appointed by the Minister for Social Services in consultation with the Treasurer. It will be composed of leading economists, academics, community advocates, union and business representatives, and representatives of the community sector. Members won't be remunerated, although they can be reimbursed for reasonable travel costs. It will be independent of government. It won't rely on additional parliamentary processes, like a joint committee, to conduct or influence its practices. Conversely, the commission proposed in this legislation would include a president and between four and 12 commissioners. The commission would also have a general manager and staff. The commissioners would be remunerated as determined by the Remuneration Tribunal. As I said, it would have the effect of lifting 12 people out of poverty. The proposed commission would be underpinned by a joint parliamentary committee on combating poverty—another committee. Not action—another committee! The existing structure of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee already allows an independent voice to government on matters within its remit without layering complexity and significantly increasing costs. Now, I do accept that Senator Rice, along with former senator Rachel Siewert, have had a long tradition and scope of work in this place that has added to this chamber's and, more broadly, the parliament's consideration of issues around poverty. That is a serious and good contribution in this place. But the truth is this bill is another example of the Greens political party pursuing political points. Senator Rice 155410 Setting the agenda. Senator Steele-John 250156 Setting the agenda. Senator AYRES 16913 The agenda was set by the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. This is a Johnny-come-lately proposal that will have no influence on the government's consideration of these issues. The Greens political body should take a constructive approach. Of course, it's the same approach that the Greens political party takes on housing: blocking legislation that the government has a mandate for. I saw over the course of the weekend, just as a symbol of this, in Redfern small teams—not a lot of them—of Greens doorknockers. What were they doing? Senator Rice 155410 How dare they! Honourable senators interjecting— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 281603 Senator Ayres, resume your seat. The interjections—I have let them go, but they are disorderly. It's difficult for me to follow the minister. Minister Ayres. Senator AYRES 16913 They are about to get more disorderly! The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 281603 Not helpful, Senator Ayres. Senator AYRES 16913 What were these characters doorknocking about in the middle of the Voice campaign? What were they on about? They were doorknocking about Max Chandler-Mather and housing. In the middle of the Voice campaign, what are these characters up to? It's all about the slogan. It's all about the social media post. It's all about column inches in the Jacobin magazine and the Green Left Weekly. It is never about building additional homes. In fact, because of their posturing and their connivance with their friends in the Liberal and National parties, 30,000 fewer homes will be built. It's the ultimate victory of university Trotskyite politics, a long discussion between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in the Greens about what position they can take that will sharpen the class struggle. What is the position they can take that will materially disadvantage working-class Australians in the interests of them having the capacity, as Mr Chandler-Mather set out in his lamentable peace in the Jacobin magazine, to have issues to campaign on rather than substantially change the economic, political and policy landscape in Australia so that real change can be made? Thirty thousand homes or 30,000 fewer homes? Where were they when the government increased Commonwealth Rent Assistance by the largest amount in its history? Nowhere. They were nowhere. They were posting furiously in their hope that they would be able to persuade Australians that memes, slogans, Instagram posts and Facebook nonsense will somehow— Senator Steele-John 250156 They're so dank! Senator AYRES 16913 Dank memes, Senator Steele-John says. Dank memes indeed. I think that's what the old people say! The young people have moved past dank memes. The problem for the Greens political party is that low-income Australians can't feed themselves with a poverty commission or property commissioners. The truth is that Australians who don't have access to a home can't house themselves in a slogan. They can't close the door on a meme. What Australians without homes require is a government that— (Time expired) 09:40 Senator BROCKMAN 30484 Western Australia I'm reluctant to get up! I should just let those on the other side carry this debate. It's very enjoyable. We had more longbows from Senator Ayres than there were at Agincourt! That was a very, very enjoyable contribution, but I'm not sure there was much substance in it. In fact, in the first two contributions we've had on this bill, there's been hardly a mention of what's actually driving pressure on Australian families, particularly Australian families on low and relatively fixed incomes: inflation. There's been hardly a mention of inflation. This is because those on the other side, the alliance partners—Labor and the Greens—have no idea how to tackle poverty. They have no idea how to actually address the issues that are confronting Australian families and the cost-of-living pressures that are bearing down on every Australian family at the moment. There was barely a mention of inflation in both a speech from the Greens and a speech from the Labor Party on poverty. That's extraordinary. The average Australian family has seen their costs increase over the last 12 months of this Labor government by around $20,000 per year. We've seen mortgages skyrocket. We've seen power bills go up massively. We've seen grocery bills go up massively. We've seen fuel prices increase. Meanwhile, real wages are plummeting, thanks to inflation. Inflation is the destroyer of a standard of living. Inflation is the destroyer of people being able to draw themselves out of poverty through attempts to better their lives via things like education, getting a job or starting a small business. Inflation destroys those things. Yet, we've had two speeches on poverty—one from the Greens and one from Labor—with barely a mention of the inflation that is so negatively affecting the overall economy and individual families in this country. Those opposite don't have a clue how to run an economy. They have very little idea of how to manage a household budget or the pressures Australians are under at the moment. They continue to stand up and talk about indexed increases to working-age payments and pensions, which are built into the system. They're claiming credit for large increases, when in actual fact they are driven by the inflation that is forcing so much pressure onto Australian families. They talk about wage increases, which are driven by inflation, which, again, is putting so much pressure on Australian families. Real wages are actually going down under this government. The hypocrisy, the propaganda and the level of misinformation are extreme from those opposite. We need a good government back in place who can actually manage an economy and who understand the family budget. That's what you'll get if you vote for the coalition. (Quorum formed) 09:46 Senator McKIM JKM Tasmania The Ending Poverty in Australia (Antipoverty Commission) Bill 2023 would establish an antipoverty commission, as Senator Rice has said. An antipoverty commission in Australia is critical because it would provide parliament with independent and transparent advice on the causes of poverty in this country and on how to reduce poverty in this country. It would also provide advice on, for example, minimum levels for social security payments including JobSeeker, the parenting payment, the youth allowance, the age pension and disability support pensions. The context for this bill is that last year the government established an interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. The role of the committee is to provide independent advice to government on economic inclusion and disadvantage. The committee released a report in April this year, ahead of the budget, which put forward a suite of recommendations. Critically, the first recommendation was that the government commit to a substantial increase in the base rates of the JobSeeker payment and related working-age payments as a first priority. The committee suggested that increasing the rate to 90 per cent of the age pension would improve adequacy. This was ignored by the Labor Party during the budget, as they only committed to increasing JobSeeker by $4 a day, plus indexation. We need to be very clear here that poverty is a political choice, and the fact that so many Australians—an ever-increasing number of Australians—are living in poverty is a political choice that's being made by the modern-day Labor Party, which prioritises a budget surplus over lifting people out of poverty; which prioritises hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear powered submarines, in an agreement with the US and the UK that will make Australia a less safe place, over lifting people out of poverty; and which prioritises hundreds of billions—over $300 billion—on stage 3 tax cuts for the top end over lifting people out of poverty. Make no mistake: leaving people in poverty is a choice that the Australian Labor Party has made. They cannot cry poor while they are proceeding with Scott Morrison's stage 3 tax cuts and with Mr Morrison's thought bubble around the AUKUS deal with the US and the UK—hundreds of billions of dollars, collectively, on nuclear powered submarines that will make Australia a less safe place to live and on stage 3 tax cuts for the top end. Those are the priorities of the modern Australian Labor Party, which was formed to actually look after people who'd been economically excluded from the wealth of this country. Today, as people are struggling to pay their rents or make their mortgage payments, and more and more people are falling off the cliff into poverty or are at risk of ending up in poverty, the Australian Labor Party is making a political choice to ignore them and to prioritise things like stage 3 tax cuts for the top end. That's where we find ourselves today—an extraordinary circumstance, a circumstance that wouldn't surprise anyone if it were occurring under an LNP government but that ought to surprise and horrify Australians when it's occurring under an ALP government. Ahead of the committee's interim report, the Greens introduced our Ending Poverty in Australia (Antipoverty Commission) Bill as an alternative framework for an independent advisory body on poverty. The features of our bill include an explicit focus on addressing poverty, a clear requirement for the development of a national poverty line, a requirement for the government to publicly respond to recommendations made by the independent commission, a clear requirement for legislated reviews of income support payments and of the poverty line, and an independent parliamentary committee that can scrutinise appointments to the independent body. We want to make sure that it isn't just another body the major parties stack with retired ministers and former staffers. We need people skills, expertise and knowledge on poverty to guide policy, and we need people with lived experience of poverty to help guide policy that responds to poverty. For too long, people who don't have a job or who are living in poverty have been marginalised out of this debate, and we need to centre them in this debate and make sure that the platforms and the frameworks are in place so that people like us can hear from people with lived experience, including contemporary lived experience, about what it's like to live in poverty, because living in poverty is bloody hard—making choices about whether you're going to use your scarce financial resources to pay the rent, put food on the table for your kids, pay your power bills or pay your school levies. Those are difficult choices, and more and more Australians are having to make those choices every day as a result of an economic framework in this country that looks after the wealthy and allows the wealthy and the big corporates to make out like bandits and get away without paying their fair share of tax while more and more Australians are being ground into the dust of poverty. We need to completely change the way that we share the fruits of our economy. Big corporations and the superwealthy should be forced to pay their fair share of tax so that governments can do more to offer cost-of-living relief to ordinary Australians. The Australian Labor Party are making a choice not to significantly increase the corporate tax rates and not to introduce a corporate superprofits tax or a wealth tax in this country, and as a result they say, 'Oh, we can't afford to put dental into Medicare, wipe out student debt or increase income support.' Well, of course they can afford to do those things, because they could, if they wished, put in place a corporate superprofits tax. They could, if they wished, put in place a wealth tax. They could, if they wished, walk away from the stage 3 tax cuts. They could, if they wished, walk away from AUKUS. They could, if they wished, end fossil fuel subsidies, where we are directly and encouraging the burning of fossil fuel using public money in the middle of a climate crisis. These are all choices that the Australian Labor Party is making, and how far they have fallen from their roots. Honestly, the people who formed the Labor Party in this country would be rolling in their graves at what their much-loved party has become, because, of course, Labor is here to deliver for a corporate agenda. Labor is here to deliver for the gas cartel. Labor is here to deliver for the coal industry in Australia. Those are the things that the Labor Party is here to deliver for—to approve five new coal projects in recent times in the middle of a climate crisis. During this debate, colleagues need to understand that the Greens are putting forward a constructive step towards ending poverty in Australia. An independent body to provide advice to government on the issue of poverty is something we have long advocated for. Interestingly, successive governments have used the lack of a national definition of poverty as an excuse to keep people on inadequate income support payments. That is why we need a nationally agreed definition of poverty, one that takes into account different needs and contexts and one, critically, to which the government can be held accountable. This bill does go further than the interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee and deliberately so, and it provides a clear framework for a robust and independent body to tackle poverty. The government is due to establish its permanent advisory committee on economic inclusion ahead of the next budget, and we will be using this bill as a blueprint for our deliberations on this legislation. It is absolutely critical that this parliament take the issue of poverty far more seriously than we collectively have in the past and it is critical that the government comes to the party here. We need to make sure that people with lived experience of poverty and people who are actually living in poverty have their voices heard. It is not good enough for them to be marginalised out of this debate and it is not good enough for this parliament to fail to put in place a framework that would provide them with a platform to have their voices heard. We should be hearing every day about the lived experience of the large and growing number of Australians who are in poverty. We are hearing some of them, for example, through the Senate inquiry process chaired by Senator Rice into the rental crisis in Australia. The stories are just heart-wrenching of people being ground into the dust of poverty by unscrupulous landlords, who see houses as an investment, an asset class, rather than as a home for people to live in. I repeat again: housing minister Julie Collins said the quiet thing out loud on 7.30, when she said Labor regards housing as an asset and investment class. Well, that is what got us into the problem we are in. One of the primary causes of people being ground into poverty in this country is because houses have become an investment and asset class rather than places for people to make a home. That is the problem; that is Labor Party for you in a nutshell. Ms Collins said the quiet thing out loud on 7.30 and I was horrified but not surprised to hear it— Senator Watt 245759 Are you talking about your investment properties? Senator McKIM JKM Senator Watt, because that is exactly the modern-day Labor Party for you, a party that regards housing as an investment and asset class. This is a party that's overseeing a tax framework which says, 'If you go to work and work hard every day, we're going to tax you more through the income tax system than someone who is already wealthy enough to buy an investment property.' This, of course, is because of negative gearing and the capital gains discount. That's the problem we're facing here—it's one of the many problems we're facing here. And when I say 'we' of course I'm really talking about Australians who are being ground into poverty and Australians who are living in poverty every day. They're having to make these awful decisions about what to prioritise in terms of the very scarce financial resources that they have. I'll say to the Labor Party again: you need to stop regarding housing as an investment and asset class. You need to stop being the party of the property speculators, the party of the landlords— Senator Watt 245759 You own four properties! Senator McKIM JKM which is what you are, and start being the party that actually believes houses are all about— Senator Watt 245759 A point of order, Acting Deputy President. Senator McKIM JKM This won't be a point of order; I guarantee you it won't be a point of order! The AC 241710 Excuse me, Senator McKim, if you would just take your seat. The standing order number is what, Senator Watt? Senator Watt 245759 I don't have the exact number, but it's about misleading the chamber. Senator McKim should admit that he owns four investment properties while he's lecturing Labor on asset classes— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 281603 That's a debating point, thank you very much. Take your seat, Senator Watt. Senator Watt 245759 Four! One, two, three, four—you're a hypocrite! The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 281603 Order! Senator Watt! Please allow Senator McKim to make his contribution in silence. I'm sure there will be other opportunities during the course of the day, or on other sitting days, for you to take Senator McKim to task if you think it necessary. Thank you very much, Senator McKim. Senator McKIM JKM I'll look forward to that, because of course the problem that Senator Watt has is that I am here, and the Australian Greens are here, arguing against the capital gains tax discount and arguing against negative gearing. We are arguing against those things, whereas Senator Watt is arguing for those things! It's Senator Watt and the Australian Labor Party here who are the party of the profit— (Time expired) 10:02 Senator MARIELLE SMITH 281603 South Australia Acting Deputy President Smith, thank you for taking the chair early so I could make my contribution—I'm not sure, but you might be regretting it now! But it is appreciated by me. I also rise to speak on Senator Rice's Ending Poverty in Australia (Antipoverty Commission) Bill 2023. At the outset, I will make it clear, as Senator Ayres has done before me, that the government does not intend to support this bill. But that should in no way be taken as an indication of a lack of recognition of the problem that exists for us. We know that poverty is pervasive in Australia and we know that it is devastating. I'm sure that there isn't a single person who sits in this chamber who doesn't think poverty is an issue and who doesn't want to see things done to address it. It's hurting families in my state of South Australia, and it affects families in our remote and regional areas significantly more than those in our metro areas. It's affecting Indigenous Australians, it affects the most vulnerable groups and it can be pervasive, intergenerational, multifaceted and complex. It is impacting children and families, and leaving kids in my state starting school developmentally behind the mark. What doesn't help these challenges or help the picture of poverty in Australia is the idea that the challenges before us can be fixed with quick fixes or simple ideas, committees and commissions. We need complex policy responses to meet complex challenges. Tackling poverty is never going to be a simple fix; it's never going to be solved by motions or debates in this chamber. And, unfortunately, despite what I recognise as the good intent behind this bill, it won't be solved by the proposals it puts forward—proposals which duplicate existing and established government practices and the work underway in the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. That's why we're not supporting it. I don't think it's reasonable to come to this debate with the assumption that we're not supporting it because, for some reason, people on this side of the chamber—or, indeed, my colleagues on the other side of the chamber—don't care about the issues before us. You show you care and you show your respect for dealing with these issues by acknowledging the multifaceted nature of them and by acknowledging the complexity. It's very easy to think that a single word or a three-word slogan can fix the challenges before us, but that doesn't help anyone. It doesn't help anyone if we ignore the complexity. It doesn't help anyone if we ignore the intergenerational nature of some of these challenges. And it certainly doesn't help anyone if we pretend that the federal government can fix everything here. The challenges before us don't affect just one layer of government. They affect every layer of government—local government, state government and federal government. Equally important is that the challenges are about community and the responsibility of communities to address the challenges before us. You don't fix intergenerational challenges—family upon family, year after year—easily. That requires sustained effort. These are issues which go not just to one area, not just to one lever of federal government policy, but to our health system, our education system and law and order and justice. They go to local government. They go to community engagement. They go to church groups. This is how we solve these problems. Pretending they're simple, pretending they're easy or pretending there is one policy measure you can do which will eradicate these challenges is actually not fair to the people living with them, because the challenges are complex. The bill before us seeks to establish a new commission. We know that it duplicates the work already underway of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. This bill was introduced after the announcement of the committee, which exists alongside the committee that I am deputy chair of, the Senate Community Affairs References Committee—I acknowledge the Senator Rice's work on it—which is looking into the extent and nature of poverty in Australia. That inquiry was referred to our committee a year ago. To date we've held eight public hearings across the country, and we are set to have more. We have received over 250 submissions, and over this year we have taken evidence from experts, from advocates and from people with lived experience of poverty from the length and breadth of Australia. Witnesses have shared their expertise and their lived experience to inform our work and our recommendations to date, including on income support payments. I note that we saw an increase in income support come through the budget. It was not what everyone would like to have seen, sure, but we saw that come through. Our work as a committee continues. I will take the opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to the process, who has provided evidence so far, particularly those who have taken the time to share their personal stories with us. It can take a lot out of you to come and present in a public way your private challenges. To present and share your story in a public way to senators behind a table, with broadcasting and Hansard and all of that, is a very difficult thing to do. I thank those people who have shared their stories and informed our work. What has been absolutely clear from our inquiry to date is that poverty is multifaceted. Its causes are multifaceted. It is complex, and the solutions that are needed to address it must acknowledge this complexity. They must be multifaceted too, because you don't fix poverty with one policy. You don't fix poverty from one layer of government. You don't fix poverty without buy-in from a community who says this isn't acceptable in my neighbourhood, in my church, at my school. You don't fix it without the community rising up to that, supported by federal government, state government and local government flexing their levers to make a difference as well. Pretending that you can fix poverty in one way, overnight, and then it's gone helps no-one. It doesn't help children in my state. It doesn't help the more than a quarter of children in my state get who school developmentally behind. What helps them is a change to our early education system. What helps them is access to a good vaccination program. What helps them is the assistance provided to their parents to do the simple things in early learning, such as counting fingers and toes and singing songs. What helps them when they've got parents for whom English is a struggle is programs like HIPPY, which support those parents to engage with their children and with their homework. Those are the sorts of things which affect the developmental delays we see far overrepresented in families in poverty. You can't fix this problem without solutions which look at the complexity, which look at the things that are underpinning issues like intergenerational disadvantage and actually take the effort to fix them. Poverty is complex. Our committee will continue its work, continue to hear from submitters and witnesses. We will hear, as we have so far, that the cause of poverty is not the same in every family, not the same in every city and not the same for every group. Indeed, it is not only people on income support payments who are living in poverty. We will hear, I am sure, about the terrible cost-of-living pressures that are amplifying these problems for families. That is why our government, in looking at cost-of-living relief in our budget, have tried to do things which don't add to that inflationary pressure. That is a genuine concern we, as the Labor Party, hold. We are absolutely committed to addressing disadvantage. It is the thing which drives so many of us and has driven so many of us in the work in our lives. We are committed to doing that. The people who suffer most from a high-inflation environment are those with little to spend—those living in poverty. You can't contribute to an inflationary environment and think you're helping people either. These are complex things which need to be carefully balanced. They exist alongside policy work which is happening across portfolios—in the Health space and in the Education space, including in early education. It is work like reducing the cost of medicines in a way which is not inflationary because you're addressing the cost at the pharmacist where you get your medicines. It is work on the cost of early learning, because we know that, particularly for children in disadvantage, the opportunity to access an early learning service and be exposed to a highly qualified, skilled educator, who will show love and care and go through the developmental milestones, is the sort of thing that breaks the cycle of disadvantage. Early learning provides the opportunity for children to be exposed to the experts and to the support they need when they're in a family which has experienced intergenerational trauma. I spend a lot of time in a community in South Australia called Murray Bridge. It's an absolutely beautiful town with an incredibly strong community, but it's got some really big challenges, too, when it comes to intergenerational disadvantage and intergenerational trauma. In that town the solutions needed require buy-in and engagement from all levels of government and they certainly require the engagement of the community, because you cannot break these cycles with simple measures. You cannot break these cycles with single commissions or reports and you cannot break these cycles with slogans either. You only break these cycles by breaking down the complexity. We see this right across Australia, in particular in remote communities, where that remoteness can be a source of or a contributor to poverty. The solutions needed in those communities to address this issue are also different. Where poverty is compounded by a lack of access to technology or access to the NBN, those communities will need different things to the families and individuals in our metro and urban areas who are experiencing poverty. The simplification of this issue does not help. It does not assist. Through our committee's work we will continue to look at that complexity, we will continue to look at the multifaceted nature of poverty and, indeed, we'll continue to look at things like measuring poverty. Again, we need to take into account complexity, because if you oversimplify your definition of a problem then you limit yourself to a simplified solution, and that will not always work. It might help some people but it will leave a lot of people behind. This work will continue, and it will exist in conjunction with the government's work establishing the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. I look forward to the contribution that the committee continues to make to the policy debate and engagement in this country. It's good to have more voices in this space, it's good to have more work done in this space and it's good to bring in expertise, just as it's good to bring in lived experience. It's also good to bring in a breadth of practitioners working across a range of policy portfolio areas, across layers of government, across our community and across academia. We're not going to solve the problems before us, intergenerational poverty in particular, unless we bring those voices in. I don't at all discount Senator Rice's intent and genuine concern for people doing it tough. I know that because I sit on a committee with Senator Rice and I know it is genuine. But our commitment to this issue should not be discounted, either. I think that is very unfair and very unreasonable. And I think it is unreasonable to do it to the vast majority of people in this chamber, who I do think care about these issues. We may differ in our view on how we address them. We may differ in our view of the complexity versus the simplicity of the problems and the solutions. I believe the proposals put forward in this bill duplicate a process already under way by government. They duplicate resources, and I don't think that's helpful to any of the people that this is trying to help. What is helpful is stepping past— Senator MARIELLE SMITH 281603 Senator Rice, I can take interjections, but I think I have been pretty reasonable in how I have come to this debate. What helps here is looking at the complexity of the issues put before us, looking at the way we can address those complexities in a sincere and meaningful way, looking at the way we can work together and coordinate and cooperate not just within this building but also within other layers of government. Across Australia, there is genuine concern and commitment to ending poverty, to breaking intergenerational cycles of disadvantage, and to making sure that when our children start school they don't experience those developmental delays but that they start school on an even playing field, regardless of the postcode they are growing up in, what their parents do, the language skills of their parents or the work profile of their parents. These are the sorts of things we need to do. It starts in the early years, it continues through the work you do with families and it continues in our communities. It continues, of course, at different levels of government, but pretending this is about one level of government and one policy, and you fix intergenerational poverty and developmental delays and make it perfect is a falsehood which fails the very people I genuinely believe you're trying to help. 10:17 Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE 298839 Queensland Before I start dealing with the Ending Poverty in Australia (Antipoverty Commission) Bill 2023 before us, I acknowledge the work done over a long period by my colleague Senate Siewert and followed on by Senator Rice in relation to poverty in this country. I acknowledge that they have set the agenda in this space and continue to push governments of all persuasions to deal with an issue that really shouldn't be happening in a country as well-off as ours. I heard earlier this morning in some of the other contributions that poverty is complex, and I certainly don't discount that there are aspects of poverty that do require really complex solutions. But we also know that some things are really simple. We had the world's real-time experiment during the COVID pandemic. We doubled the rate of JobSeeker overnight and we heard story after story of how that transformed people's lives. People who couldn't afford to put food on the table suddenly could. We heard stories of people who could afford fresh fruit and vegetables for the first time in a long time instead of subsisting on two-minute noodles. We heard tell us that they could buy new uniforms and shoes for their kids at school when they previously couldn't. They went and got their teeth fixed because previously they couldn't afford to go to the dentist. You can't tell me that you can push that all aside and say, 'This problem is really complex and hard and we can't do the things that we already know will work to transform people's lives quickly.' I also heard in previous contributions that this bill can't be supported because it duplicates things that already exist. I listened to the contribution of my colleague, and I heard Senator Rice say that this is about putting forward concrete ideas for how what is being proposed can be significantly improved. That's not taking the simple approach. That's acknowledging that some parts of this are complex and we need a body that can deal with that in a manner which it deserves. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 241710 The time for the debate has expired. The Senate will now move to the consideration of government business. Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Law Improvement Package No. 1) Bill 2023 12

Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Law Improvement Package No. 1) Bill 2023

Second Reading 12 10:20 Senator SHELDON 168275 New South Wales I have a great deal of pleasure in talking about the Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Law Improvement Package No. 1) Bill 2023 because it has critically important aspects, even though some of them might be quite simple, straightforward variations of the bill for many. This bill has been a matter of discussion for some considerable time. Parts of it come out of the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, which found that the corporations and financial services law needs to be simplified to ensure that its intent is met. There are also reforms coming out of the ALRC review, which go to the point of unfreezing the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 so that the current version of the act applies to the Corporations Act 2001 and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001, the ASIC Act, creating a single glossary of defined terms in section 9 of the Corporations Act; repealing redundant provisions, including definitions that are no longer used and cross-references to repealed provisions; correcting errors; and improving clarity, with a particular focus on terms defined as having more than one meaning and definitions containing substantive obligations. In effect, this bill makes it more straightforward and easier to apply. These are critically important aspects of making sure that we have a more effective and efficient system. I noticed that the discussions yesterday regarding the bill went to some of the efficiencies that could be driven but also the importance of looking at what's happening in the insurance industry. There are a number of very important inquiries relating to the insurance industry going on in other areas—in particular, the parliamentary inquiry into insurers' responses to the 2022 floods, which is being held by the other place, the House. That inquiry also has an important role to play in making sure we have a more efficient system when dealing with insurance. That inquiry will be looking at the February to March 2022 floods in South-East Queensland and New South Wales, which are the costliest natural disasters in terms of insurance. When we say 'natural disasters', we should say 'natural disasters that become humanitarian disasters', because natural events are a regular occurrence, of course, in this country, but a humanitarian disaster is one that we have to make sure we are fit for purpose to deal with. One important aspect of that is insurance costs. Another is the capacity to build back better when those disasters hit. I know that that inquiry was called after the Assistant Treasurer visited communities impacted by floods in South-East Queensland, with Graham Perrett MP, and in the Northern Rivers, with Janelle Saffin, the New South Wales state MP. Following a visit to flood ravaged towns in the Central West of New South Wales last month, Mr Jones announced an inquiry alongside the member for Calare, Andrew Gee MP. Those terms of reference are incredibly important because they go to the issue of how we deal with multifaceted issues that face us with insurance—not only making sure that we have an easier process for dealing with financial matters, including insurance matters, but also looking at the broader insurance questions that are plaguing many within our community with the ongoing challenges from the increasing number of natural hazards that are becoming humanitarian disasters within our community. Also discussed yesterday was the fact that this will drive a series of efficiencies and get rid of some of the cumbersome red tape. Those on the opposite side see red tape often in the sense of when there are protections for workers or protections for various people. That's red tape they want to get rid of. Getting rid of this red tape will actually drive efficiency. Through these amendments it is replaced with a clearer and more purposeful way of dealing with these particular matters in this legislation. I note the number of people who have been killed in the food delivery industry. In the last two years 13 people have lost their lives—and those are just the ones that have been reported. Thirteen young people were working in Australia. Many of them were visa holders. In the food delivery industry they are paid by the job and are paid such a small amount of money. They have to push themselves to get the job done. If they don't get the job done, they find themselves deactivated by an algorithm. I really dislike the terminology 'termination'. It sounds horrific when somebody has just lost their livelihood. It's very blunt language. The language has now turned to something that is even more blunt and even more disconnected. It's a bit like the language of the 1970s that was used to describe lives lost overseas in a war—'collateral damage'. In the food delivery industry where there's no regulation or exceptionally very little regulation—certainly no labour regulation and rights—people are deactivated. They are having their jobs terminated and having their livelihood deactivated by an algorithm. When we talk about the cost of living and more efficiencies to drive the economy to have fewer costs, including the issues talked about in the Australian Law Reform Commission recommendations that go to this treasury laws amendment bill, we have to look at the broad cost-of-living impacts. The cost of living impacts right across the economy and the community. I look again at food delivery workers and the effects of not having regulation, in comparison to the regulation we're getting rid of here. I've heard a number of people on the opposite side over a period of years say that it's incredibly important that we have a more efficient and productive workforce. I don't think anyone here would disagree with that. In actual fact I'd be really disappointed if someone disagreed with that. I'm looking in a certain direction in the room to see whether there is disappointment from everybody in the room here, but I hope certainly all of us here believe that productivity is a positive thing for the economy, community and business—and, importantly, when I say 'community' I mean the workforce and those who live and work in it, because that's really why we're striving to get better outcomes. When we look at productivity we also have to look at the decency of what we deliver as a community. One of the things Australia is so proud of is delivering, by and large, a better society in comparison to many other communities around the world by giving people rights. Giving people rights and working people rights brings not only better outcomes but also more fairness. I describe it this way. Good companies abide by the laws and strive to do the right thing to have a productive company and have a good outcome for their shareholders and their business. Also driving that is having good outcomes for their customers and, incredibly importantly, their entire workforce. When you look at the gig industry those opposite have said that they believe that having workers being paid minimum standards is something that doesn't work for the community. So many people have lost their lives. Their loved ones have seen the devastation on our roads. They have lost loved ones as a result of chasing wages that are as little as $6 an hour. Having to make those deliveries in all sorts of weather, regardless of the consequences of having to rush from point A to point B—those same workers operated and worked during the COVID period, at great risk to themselves, to make sure they were able to put food on their tables and provide medicine for their families and themselves. To say that they don't deserve to have minimum standards and shouldn't have access to things like workers compensation, sick leave or, at least, a minimum hourly wage rate or flexibility arrangements to bring their payments up in line with similar payments, no less than the minimum wage—when they say that it's all too complicated, it reminds me of what they've said before. There's been consistency from those opposite regarding gig workers. I have to give the Liberal and National parties some credit here, because they have been absolutely consistent. They believe that having low wages in the economy is a way to drive the economy forward. When it comes to gig workers, many on the opposite side—I hazard to say it's not all of them, certainly in private—have said that it's too complicated to give gig workers rights. That would be adding red tape, putting more regulation in. Heaven forbid! For someone not getting paid at least the minimum wage, not getting workers compensation and not getting potential access to sick leave, delivering food to the doors of Australians right across the country or picking people up to take them from point A to point B, let alone delivering a parcel with Amazon—to say that those people don't deserve minimum standards and minimum rights is an absolute outrage. When you don't give minimum rights to those people working in those segments of the community and the market, you say to the entire labour market outside those industries that that approach is okay. You then say that this is the way you can run a workforce, so, you have situations with companies like Mable. Many of Mable's workers are paid well below the minimum wage. That company is making profit on the revenue that it receives from the federal government, in comparison with companies where people are employed as employees and they get sick leave, they get training, there is accountability, there are requirements and the aged care royal commission standards are met. Mable don't give workers compensation, don't have training requirements, don't have ongoing obligations, don't meet the standards that need to be met by any decent A-grade company—the good employers—but they do one thing: they are driven by a profit margin. They are driven by an ambition to make more money. For those people that aren't getting paid minimum wages in those sorts of industries, that aren't getting training or getting skilled, it is actually having an affect on some of the most vulnerable people in our community and the chance of those people getting the right services, which they deserve. I'll make this very clear: this is not to say the people working at Mable deserve anything better or less. Those people working at Mable, and many good, well-meaning people working at Mable, deserve to get paid the minimum wage. When they don't get paid the minimum wage and they don't get the minimum standards, not only do the carers and the people they're caring for lose but also those companies and workers that provide a better standard of service lose. When we're looking at what we should be doing about regulation, this is an important bill, because it does start moving an efficiency within regulation, getting rid of red tape. This is an important aspect of how we make things more efficient. It says very clearly that there's a way and means of coming together and doing things in a smarter way. But when we start looking at cost-of-living questions right across the economy, we need to look at all the cost-of-living packages that can help Australian people. 10:34 Sena 263418 Tasmania tor DUNIAM (—) (): I'm delighted to be able to make a contribution to the Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Law Improvement Package No. 1) Bill 2023 second reading debate. I wasn't going to make a contribution, until I saw the quite interesting contribution made by Senator Ayres yesterday on this debate. I thought I might come have my two cents worth too. We are here to legislate and to review, and this is a good opportunity to talk about things that are important to many of us. I'm sure Senator McKim will be interested in some of the things I have to say. I want to kick off my contribution today by talking about something important to the state of Tasmania: the matter a GST and our fair share to ensure that our state gets its fair share of what we need to run our small jurisdiction under our great federation. I love being a Tasmanian. To be one of the 12 senators representing that small state is quite the privilege, I must say. Each of us that comes here has a very important job to do: to protect our state and what we deserve. We are grateful for other states' contributions to our economy, but we worry about, of course, decisions made by governments that are not in the interests of the state of Tasmania. There is something that I've spoken about a number of times in the past, and that is the matter of the stadium in Tasmania. A deal is being done, and funding has been committed by the Australian government to the tune of $240 million to build a stadium on Hobart's waterfront. We saw a great front page of the newspaper in Hobart, the Mercury, talking about an economic report, entitled Economic benefits to Tasmania from the introduction of a Tasmanian AFL team and a new stadium in Hobart at Macquarie Point, authored by Mr Russell Hanson. I have had the time to read it, and I think Senator McKim would know Mr Hanson, who is also the former CEO of the national body of the Wilderness Society. From looking at that report, it was very interesting to see his analysis of the benefits or otherwise of having a team in building a stadium and that contribution from the Australian government, but he also makes the point of—and this is something every Tasmanian member of this parliament should be worried about—whether that $240 million that has been allocated by the Labor government to fund the waterfront stadium is exempt from GST calculations. In the past we've been able to do things like fund the Mersey Community Hospital back in 2017. That is an important piece of health infrastructure in our state, and we were able to secure in excess of $700 million to continue operating that hospital in the interests of north-west-coast Tasmanians. That $700 million would have been subject to the calculations of the Commonwealth Grants Commission and impacted on our share of GST funding, but we requested, as federal Liberals as part of the then Turnbull government, that that funding be exempt from those calculations. We were successful. We've asked for this government, the Albanese Labor government, to exempt that funding—that $240 million—from GST calculations. Do you think we've had an answer yet? I can tell you we haven't. The Prime Minister was asked when he was in Hobart last week whether, four months after having announced the funding, he had made his mind up about whether the money was going to be exempt from GST. We were given word salad in response. He could not guarantee that that funding would be exempt. It is a yes-or-no question, and the answer should be very straightforward. Sadly, though, it's not, and I'll tell you why I think we won't get an answer on that. It is because they intend to rip it out of the GST allocation Tasmania gets. I don't think they have our state's best interests at heart. They certainly want to keep their powder dry for as long as possible, until the last moment, when the decision is made that we are not getting our GST. Every Labor member of this chamber—Senator Urquhart, Senator Brown, Senator Bilyk, Senator Polley—has a job to do on behalf of the Tasmanian people, who sent them here, and that is to ensure that the government they are a part of actually does the right thing by our state. Exempt that funding allocation from GST calculations so we can pay for health, education and roads—essential services. The Prime Minister knows it, the Treasurer knows it and the Tasmanian Labor Senate team know it, but have I heard boo out of them on this issue? Not once. They need to do their jobs properly to ensure that the people they represent get what they deserve. Mr Hanson even points to this. The worst-case scenario analysis in his report included that the Labor government was dudding Tasmanians by not honouring our GST share—in effect, ripping that money out of health and education. So we're keeping a close eye on that. We're going to make sure that Labor senators in this place from Tasmania, and Mr Mitchell and Ms Collins from the other place—Labor members from the state of Tasmania—are held to account for whether or not they deliver on this. We're going to make sure of this, and I'm sure Senator McKim will join with me in making sure—as I'm sure will Senator Lambie and Senator Tyrell as well—that we get what we deserve and that the people of Tasmania are not dudded by this. In terms of productivity: there are a lot of elements of what's going on in Tasmania that concern me with regard to federal government decisions. We heard from Senator Sheldon that everyone in this place supports productivity. But government decisions often have an impact on productivity. Senator Sheldon touched on industrial relations legislation and framed up the government's proposals in that space—noting that is a separate piece of legislation yet to come to this chamber. It was all about protecting workers and he dismissed as irrelevant any claims around what that might do to productivity and what extra costs might be imposed on businesses. That concerns me. It's similarly so with decisions around infrastructure projects. For example: we have this government reviewing a range of infrastructure projects which are vital for the continued successful growth of our economy. The Australian government's review into infrastructure projects has put many, many projects in jeopardy, and if we're talking about productivity then funding for these projects should be guaranteed. Again, this is something where Mr Brian Mitchell, the member for Lyons, and Ms Julie Collins, the cabinet minister from Tasmania—the minister for housing, I think; she has a big job ahead of her—and the four Tasmanian Labor senators should stand up and ensure we aren't dudded on. The projects that are under review at the moment amount to a significant amount of taxpayers' money—$720 million worth of taxpayer money is going to these projects. It isn't wasted and these aren't just flights of fancy; they're projects that we need to keep growing our economy. There's the Hobart to Sorell Corridor and the Midway Point Causeway—it's the fastest-growing municipality in Tasmania and we need proper roads to get commuters to and from there. And we have the Old Surrey Road and Massy-Greene Drive upgrades; the Rokeby to South Arm Highway upgrade; and the Bridport Road freight efficiency and safety upgrades. These are not small projects with no purpose; they will save lives. The last speaker, Senator Sheldon, is a supporter of workers' rights and of course of ensuring that people who work on our roads, and any other user of our infrastructure, are provided with safe conditions to be able to do what they do. Well, fund these projects! Stop the uncertainty! Don't dud Tasmanians! To my Labor Tasmanian Senate colleagues: I look forward to you saying something in order to save these projects. But, again, I've heard nothing today. Down in Tasmania there are a couple of projects where of course I suspect I'm going to disagree with my friend over here Senator McKim on. That includes the proposal to construct a new tailings dam near Rosebery to extend the life of the MMG mine, which has been in operation for more than a century—and successfully so. It's an important economic contributor to the Tasmanian west coast, with hundreds of jobs directly at the mine and many more indirectly. The Labor government, under Ms Tanya Plibersek from the other place, is assessing whether or not to grant the approvals required to proceed and build this tailings dam. Without the tailings dam the mine shuts down. I've been asking the minister to hurry up and make a decision; it has been a very long time since the proposal was brought into question. I respect that there are many views on this, but a decision needs to be made so that there's certainty. Where are the Labor senators from Tasmania on this issue? It's a bit like, 'Where's the Tasmanian Labor opposition?' Nowhere to be seen! I know where Dr Woodruff and Mr Bayley from the Tasmanian Greens are on this. I know where my colleagues, Mr Rockliffe, the Premier of Tasmania, and Deputy Premier, Mr Ferguson, are on this issue but I have no idea where Tasmanian Labor are on this or the GST issue. They are not standing up for our state at all. They are pussyfooting around on all of these issues and allowing bad decisions to be made up here. They are allowing funding to be ripped out of our state. The only people standing up for their respective views are parties that are not the Labor Party. I will conclude my remarks there. I just want to put on record again my great disappointment in this government and its Tasmanian representatives for not doing anything on issues I have raised. I look forward to asking my Tasmanian Labor colleagues where they are on the GST issue, where they are at on the MMG tailings dam, where they are at on the question about the future of salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour. Where do they stand on these issues? Or is it not their problem anymore because they are in government? They should be taking a stand and I hope they do soon. 10:46 Senator O'SULLIVAN 283585 Western Australia I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Law Improvement Package No. 1) Bill 2023. The expenditure of this government is always in question. Their priorities should always be subject to analysis and we should be looking at what they are doing. One of the things I am very concerned about is in my home state of Western Australia. In an area that I know you know particularly well, Acting Deputy President Smith, the Canning Vale area, there is a significant project committed to by the former government. It was the Garden Street flyover bridge. Sadly, that project is subject to the 90-day review. It has been about 130 days and counting since that review was commenced and we still don't have an answer. This is a considerable concern to local residents in that area because this is a key project that really should go ahead. The RAC, the Royal Automotive Club, in Western Australia has identified this as one of the top accident hot spot intersections in all of the metropolitan area. Significant accidents, significant injuries occur there every year. Those local to the area know that when you drive through there it is heavily congested, particularly in peak-hour period. It is currently a roundabout with a huge amount of traffic going through it. You really do have to run the gauntlet when you pull up to that intersection. My parents live down the road from that area and there is no break in the traffic in either direction; the four roads intersect. It is very, very dangerous. There needs to be a flyover bridge built. It was identified as the solution for that intersection. Sadly, it is subject to this review, too much time has lapsed and no decision has been made. Further to that, we have learnt this government has done nothing in planning for this particular project. This was a project committed to some 18 months ago under the former government yet nothing has happened. There has been no progress whatsoever. I know this because I met with the City of Gosnells last week to discuss this particular project and there has been no forward planning, no engineering and no design has been done. So it does beg the question: What is the priority of the government and will they bring it forward? This is a critical project. The member for Tangney, Mr Lim, says this project will go ahead but we haven't seen any evidence that in fact it will. Why is the government not coming out and saying what projects will be included, what projects will go ahead? It's not acceptable, because every day and month that goes by is further time during which accidents can happen and congestion can continue in this vital area. This is on the edge of Canning Vale, in the industrial area, which is a significant industrial area in Perth. We have huge industry there. There are trucks that come through there. Significant amounts of freight flow through that area, and it's incredibly unsafe. The other thing that's happening is that there is a new train station that's being built there as part of the Metronet project, the linking of Thornlie to Cockburn, and when that train station is finally built it will obviously drive—excuse the pun—significant traffic through that intersection, even more than there already is, because it will be literally right in the vicinity of the entrance of the car park to that train station. They're building a car park with many thousands of bays at this train station. It's going to be a major pedestrian and vehicle ingress and egress area, and of course this project is vital to ensuring the safety of people going through that area. A week or so ago I took down the shadow minister for infrastructure, Bridget McKenzie. We personally went there. She was good enough to come out and visit the location, and she joined me in calling for the government to just get on with this project. The fact is that there's been an absolute silence from the government. Admittedly the member for Tangney has said that he's committed to it, but what is the government doing about this? This is a critical project that must go ahead. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 241710 Excuse me, Senator O'Sullivan. Senator Pratt? Senator Pratt I0T Point of order, Chair. I would just seek to have you draw the relevant bill to the attention of the senator who is speaking. The infrastructure bill is in fact the next bill. There are some tangential links to some of the issues in the Treasury bill in relation to ASIC, corporations et cetera, but I just wanted to make sure that he's speaking on the right bill. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 241710 Senator Paterson? Senator Paterson 144138 Mr Acting Deputy President, just on Senator Pratt's point of order, I'm not sure if she had the benefit of being in the chamber earlier when her colleague Senator Sheldon was delivering a speech about the industrial relations bills, which the government has not yet even introduced to this chamber, at some length, and we allowed him to do so, even given the tangential connection to this bill. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 241710 Thank you, Senator Paterson. I have every confidence that Senator O'Sullivan will have heard the remarks of Senator Pratt, so I'm sure Senator O'Sullivan will oblige. Senator O'SULLIVAN 283585 Indeed I have. Of course, this is about the priorities of this government and its expenditure and the things that it is committing to as part of its budget and its program. What we're seeing, unfortunately, is an unwillingness to be upfront with the Australian people about what the government's priorities are in terms of key infrastructure projects that are occurring around the state. So I would urge the government to just get on with it. You said you commissioned a 90-day review. It is well past that 90 days. Key projects have been put on ice. All of them are subject to cancellation. This is a project that must not be cancelled, and it ought not to be delayed any further. It should be done. It should be completed as part of the overall roadworks program in that area. It would make sense. The feedback I've had from people to the campaign that I've been running on this is that it must go ahead but it should happen in conjunction with the roadworks program that's already ongoing in the area, because the last thing that locals want, of course, is protracted roadworks. Sadly, we're seeing under the state Labor government in Western Australia that it is taking an extraordinarily long time to deliver projects. They don't deliver them on budget, and they certainly don't deliver them on time. The impact, of course, is on the budget, but it's also on people and their time. Any time that people are spending on the road, in their commute to and from work, school, the shops or wherever they have to go, is time that they are not with their families. They are not able to enjoy that time restfully being at home with their families. Of course, it's a serious issue. I really do call on the government to hurry up and announce what you intend to do with this program. I have serious doubts about it now, given that it's been well over 90 days and given that this government is not progressing with this and not coming forward with any concrete answer about what it is going to do. It's disappointing for the local residents. It's an important project that must go ahead, as I said, for safety. It will also drive efficiency in and out of that area, particularly into the Canning Vale area, where there are significant, major businesses operating. There's a defence precinct in that area that will play a key role in AUKUS and other programs essential for our nation's future. This particular project not going ahead in a timely way will seriously impact the delivery of those programs. I question the government's priorities when it comes to their management of budget and expenditure, because it's clear that there will be a productivity dividend if this project is delivered. It will drive efficiency through our economy, and further delay of these projects means you will add additional cost. If it is done at the same time as the other major roadworks occurring in the area, that will bring financial and, as I said, timing efficiencies for road users that go through the area. The government's priorities seem to be askew, and I would urge the government to get on and move ahead with these important projects. 10:57 Senator McC 122087 Northern Territory ARTHY (—) (): Firstly, I would like to thank those senators who have contributed to this debate. The Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Law Improvement Package No. 1) Bill 2023 contains measures designed to maintain and improve Treasury portfolio legislation to ensure it remains current and fit for purpose. It forms part of the government's regulatory stewardship role, the work of which is ongoing. Schedules 1, 2 and 3 to the bill make amendments to implement some of the recommendations made by the Australian Law Reform Commission in Interim report A and Interim report B of its review of the legislative frameworks for corporations and financial services regulation. The amendments improve the navigability and clarity of the law within existing policy parameters by unfreezing the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 so that the current version applies to the Corporations Act 2001 and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001. The schedules will create a single glossary of defined terms in the Corporations Act, repeal redundant provisions, correct errors and make other amendments to improve clarity. Schedule 4 to the bill makes amendments to the enabling acts of certain legislative instruments regulating the insurance industry that are due to sunset on 1 October 2023. The amendments will help to ensure that the sunsetting insurance instruments being remade will be up to date and fit for purpose. Schedule 5 to the bill transfers longstanding and accepted matters contained in ASIC instruments into the Corporations Act and the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009. The amendments will improve the clarity of the law, provide certainty and make it simpler for regulated entities and consumers to understand their rights and obligations. The minor and technical amendments in schedule 6 to the bill will amend various laws in the Treasury portfolio to ensure those laws operate in accordance with policy intent, will make minor policy changes to improve administrative outcomes and will remedy unintended consequences, as well as correcting technical and drafting defects. I commend the bill to the Senate. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Third Reading 18 10:59 The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 241710 No amendments have been circulated, but does any senator require a committee stage? If not, I shall call the minister to move the third reading. 10:59 Senator McCARTHY 122087 Northern Territory I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023 18

Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023

Second Reading 18 11:00 Senator SCARR 282997 Queensland I'm delighted to have the opportunity to rise to speak in relation to the Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023. At the outset, we should all remember that Infrastructure Australia was a creation of the now Prime Minister when he was, under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. When he was in that capacity, the now Prime Minister was the one who put into legislation the creation of Infrastructure Australia. So what we're seeing now is a proposed amendment of the Prime Minister's own construction. The first point I want to raise is that what is not in the bill is just as important as what is in the bill. There are a number of material concerns with respect to what is not in the bill. A number of the recommendations made by the Independent Review of Infrastructure Australia, which was announced on 22 July 2022, have not made their way into this bill, and that is a great shame. The first I wish to speak about is the independent review's recommendation that Infrastructure Australia's mandate be expanded beyond advising on nationally significant transport, energy, communications and water infrastructure to also be the government's independent—that word is vitally important—adviser on nationally significant social and economic infrastructure. It is a great shame that the government has not pursued or seen fit to incorporate that recommendation in this bill. Another area where there is a hole in the bill and where the bill doesn't reflect the recommendations of that independent review, which was commissioned back in July 2022, is transparency and governance. There was a recommendation that Infrastructure Australia provide two new annual statements to the government, which would be publicly tabled, to inform budget processes and report on the performance outcomes being achieved by the Infrastructure Investment Program. Secondly, there was a recommendation that the Australian government must formally and publicly respond to Infrastructure Australia's advice, findings and recommendations within six months. Let's look at the importance of each of those two recommendations. Time and time again—and this goes across party lines—there have been infrastructure projects in this country which have not necessarily represented the best investment of taxpayer money. One of the ways to address that is to introduce concepts of transparency and accountability to the processes. So the recommendation that Infrastructure Australia provide two new annual statements to the government was a key recommendation—an important recommendation—so that the parliament, as an institution, and broader civic society could assess the performance outcomes of key infrastructure investments. It's absolutely crucial that we have processes in place to enable that to be done. That's a recommendation that was not taken up by the government, and it's a great shame. And then the second part of that recommendation, in terms of accountability, was a recommendation that the Australian government 'must formally and publicly respond to Infrastructure Australia's advice, findings and recommendations within six months'. That's another key recommendation in terms of closing the accountability loop. I fear that without those recommendations being implemented the power of Infrastructure Australia to influence, assist and guide in a transparent and accountable way is going to be lost. The recommendation with respect to the expansion of Infrastructure Australia's remit to include social infrastructure is not being included. Secondly, transparency, annual reporting and government response protocols are not being implemented. The third recommendation not being implemented is the formation of an infrastructure bodies council to enable better collaboration and coordination between Infrastructure Australia and the states and territories. It is absolutely key that there be closer cooperation and collaboration between states and the Commonwealth government. I've only been in this role for four years, but one of the first things I discerned when coming into this role was the need for better collaboration and cooperation between state and federal governments. The fourth area I will touch on is the composition of the board of Infrastructure Australia. What is proposed in this bill is a movement away from the 12-member Infrastructure Australia body with three commissioners to a body where there will be only three commissioners, with the chief executive officer being responsible for the day-to-day running of the organisation. With respect to such an important body making such important assessments for the benefit of Australian taxpayers, why are we going from a 12-member Infrastructure Australia board that, by its very nature, is able to tap into a diverse range of skill sets and a diverse range of experience, including experience in rural and regional Australia? Why are we jettisoning that model to go to a three-member body where each of the three members is appointed by the minister? It makes no sense to me whatsoever, especially as a member of this place, the states' house, where all of us have an interest in making sure that our respective states are represented on a board of this significance. Arithmetically, you cannot do it if you're moving from a 12-member board to a three-commissioner model. You simply can't achieve that. There will be states in Australia which, upon adoption of this model, if it is adopted, will cease to be represented on this board. Their voices will no longer be heard. This board and its deliberations will no longer be informed by those experiences which can only be provided through geographic diversity, and that is a great shame. It should also be noted that this bill is being considered in the context of massive budget cuts to Australia's infrastructure projects. At the very time we need more infrastructure in this country to deal with population growth, this government has cut infrastructure projects. Senator O'Sullivan, speaking in the context of a different bill, spoke about the government's so-called 90-day review of key infrastructure projects, saying that we still haven't had the outcomes of the 90-day review. We're well past the 90 days, at least the way my calendar works. The 90 days is well and truly passed. If the evidence given by departmental officials at estimates still applies, we will not know and, more importantly, the Australian people will not know for six months. The Australian people who are depending on those infrastructure projects subject to the 90-day review are not going to know the outcomes for six months. How does that work? So the people most affected by the so-called 90-day review, including potential contractors, potential suppliers and, perhaps most importantly, the local communities who were looking to those infrastructure projects to address issues such as congestion on their roads and to provide better public transport opportunities—important infrastructure in their communities—won't know the results for 180 days. Why call it a 90-day review if you're not going to let the communities most impacted by the review know for 180 days? It doesn't make any sense at all. What happened there? That well and truly went off the rails obviously. It obviously went off the rails in that context. My home state of Queensland has been impacted as much as any other state, if not more, in terms of the infrastructure projects that have been subject to this review or which have been reprofiled—to use the quaint terminology in the budget. As I've said in this place before, if the infrastructure project that your community is relying on is reprofiled, that is not a good thing. If your infrastructure project has been reprofiled, it means it has been pushed into the never-never of the future. In that context my home state of Queensland has been seriously impacted by the infrastructure decisions of this government. That includes the cancellation of Hells Gate Dam. That includes the deferral of the Emu Swamp Dam. That includes the deferral of the Hughenden Irrigation Scheme. Those three key water projects have all been either cancelled or deferred. Then of course we also have the $2.6 billion of cuts and delays to rail and road projects in my home state of Queensland, including the $200 million cut to the Sunshine Coast rail project, which is desperately needed to address congestion in the south-east corner of Queensland. Those projects have all been cancelled, deferred, reprofiled, put on the never-never or lost somewhere in the 90-day review process, which is just continuing inexorably. At the same time if we look at New South Wales we see that $2.2 billion could be found for Dan Andrews's $35 billion Suburban Rail Loop project, which didn't even have a supporting business case. So infrastructure projects in my home state of Queensland have been brutally cut. Water projects, rail projects and road projects—the projects that my constituents in my home state of Queensland need—have been brutally cut by this Labor government. At the same time they could find $2.2 billion for the $35 billion Suburban Rail Loop project. If that doesn't raise eyebrows, I don't know what will. I say to the taxpayers of Victoria, 'Good luck.' I know a lot of you are moving to Queensland. No wonder when there's the $35 billion Suburban Rail Loop project that doesn't even have a supporting business case—good luck. So $2.2 billion of this federal Labor government's money is being directed to that rail loop project without even a business case when there are infrastructure projects that have business cases, which have strong social licence to operate and which are needed by my Queensland community. They were either cut, deferred or put on the never-never by this Labor federal government. It's absolutely disgraceful. That's the context in which this Infrastructure Australia bill is being considered. I want to go back to the first point I made in terms of the composition of the Infrastructure Australia board. How is it a good thing that we're going to cut the board of Infrastructure Australia from 12 members to three commissioners personally selected by the Labor minister? How is that going to represent the best interests of Australians across this whole country—from my home state of Queensland to Tasmania and Western Australia? How can a three-commissioner board in Infrastructure Australia represent the interests of all people across this country? How can it represent all of their interests? It can't. It will not have the experience. It will not have the skill set. It will not have the connections. Perhaps most importantly, under this model being put forward by the Labor government this board of commissioners will not have connections with communities across the whole width and breadth of this country. It simply cannot have, because you're taking it down from a 12-member board to a three-member board. Geographically it simply can't represent all of Australia, let alone the different parts of Australia—be it our inner cities, our outer suburban areas or our remote and regional areas. A three-member board handpicked by the minister will not represent the diversity of views, experiences, needs and wants of the whole of Australia. It is deeply concerning. This Infrastructure Australia bill has all the hallmarks of an increasingly centralised decision-making process that doesn't represent the needs of all of Australia, a lack of accountability, a lack of transparency, and government arrangements which, to be frank, are not fit for purpose for such an important body. I call on the government to reconsider what it is proposing to do in relation to this extremely important body at a time when the people of Queensland are crying out for additional infrastructure. Debate interrupted. NOTICES 20 NOTICES Presentation 20 COMMITTEES 21 COMMITTEES Selection of Bills Committee 21 Report 21 11:15 Senator URQUHART 231199 Tasmania I present the 10th report of 2023 of the Selection of Bills Committee. I seek leave to have the report incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The report read as follows— SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE REPORT NO. 10 OF 2023 7 September 2023 MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE Senator Anne Urquhart (Government Whip, Chair) Senator Wendy Askew (Opposition Whip) Senator Ross Cadell (The Nationals Whip) Senator Pauline Hanson (Pauline Hanson's One Nation Whip) Senator Nick McKim (Australian Greens Whip) Senator Ralph Babet Senator the Hon. Anthony Chisholm Senator the Hon. Katy Gallagher Senator Matt O'Sullivan Senator David Pocock Senator Paul Scarr Senator Lidia Thorpe Senator Tammy Tyrrell Secretary: Tim Bryant 02 6277 3020 SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE REPORT NO. 10 OF 2023 1. The committee met in private session on Wednesday, 6 September 2023 at 6.38 pm. 2. The committee recommends that— (a) the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Fairer Contracts and Grants) Bill 2023 be referred immediately to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 4 March 2024 (see appendix 1 for a statement of reasons for referral); (b) the provisions of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023 be referred immediately to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee but was unable to reach agreement on a reporting date (see appendix 2 for a statement of reasons for referral); (c) contingent upon introduction in the House of Representatives, the provisions of the Statutory Declarations Amendment Bill 2023 be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 18 October 2023 (see appendix 3 for a statement of reasons for referral); and (d) the provisions of the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 be referred immediately to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee but was unable to reach agreement on a reporting date (see appendix 4 for a statement of reasons for referral). 3. The committee recommends that the following bills not be referred to committees: Counter-Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023 Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Australia's Engagement in the Pacific) Bill 2023. 4. The committee deferred consideration of the following bills to its next meeting: Broadcasting Services Amendment (Ban on Gambling Advertisements During Live Sport) Bill 2023 Criminal Code Amendment (Inciting Illegal Disruptive Activities) Bill 2023 Electoral Legislation Amendment (Lowering the Voting Age) Bill 2023 Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Regional Forest Agreements) Bill 2020 Fair Work Amendment (Right to Disconnect) Bill 2023 [No. 2] Freeze on Rent and Rate Increases Bill 2023 Legalising Cannabis Bill 2023 Members of Parliament (Staff) Amendment Bill 2023 Migration Amendment (Overseas Organ Transplant Disclosure and Other Measures) Bill 2023 Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Domestic Reserve) Bill 2023 Parliamentary Workplace Support Service Bill 2023 Parliamentary Workplace Support Service (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023 Productivity Commission Amendment (Electricity Reporting) Bill 2023 Protecting the Spirit of Sea Country Bill 2023 Royal Commissions Amendment (Private Sessions) Bill 2023 Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023. (Anne Urquhart) Chair 7 September 2023 Appendix 1 SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE Proposal to refer a bill to a committee Name of bill: Electoral Legislation Amendment (Fairer Contracts and Grants) Bill 2023 Reasons for referra1/principal issues for consideration: in the public interest ahead of the next Federal Election. Possible submissions or evidence from: Australian Democracy Network Centre for Public Integrity Transparency International Human Rights Law Centre AEC Committee to which bill is to be referred: Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee Possible hearing date(s): 12 February 2024 Possible reporting date: 4 March 2024 (signed) Nick McKim Whip/ Selection of Bills Committee member Appendix 2 SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE Proposal to refer a bill to a committee Name of bill: Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023 Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Complex issue needing wide ranging consultation Possible submissions or evidence from: Multiple stakeholders Committee to which bill is to be referred: Education and Employment Legislation Committee Possible hearing date(s): September—November Possible reporting date: 27 November 2023 (signed) Wendy Askew SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE Proposal to refer a bill to a committee Name of bill: Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023 Reasons for referra1/princi pal issues for consideration: Significant reforms to workplace relations that need further interrogation. Possible submissions or evidence from: unions, employer groups Committee to which bill is to be referred: Education and Employment Possible hearing date(s): Possible reporting date: 1 Nov 2023 (signed) Nick McKim Whip/ Selection of Bills Committee member SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE Proposal to refer a bill to a commjttee Name of bill: Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023 Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Legislation implements a number of key workplace relations policies. Possible submi ssions or evidence from: Business groups, trade unions, academics, Law Council Committee to which bill is to be referred: Education and Employment Possible hearing date(s): To be settled with committee chair Possible reporting date: 1 November 2023 (signed) A Urquhart Appendix 3 SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE Proposal to refer a bill to a committee Name of bill: Statutory Declarations Amendment Bill 2023 Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Complex issue needing wide ranging consultation Possible submissions or evidence from: Multiple stakeholders Committee to which bill is to be referred: Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee Possible hearing date(s): September—October Possible reporting date: 18 October 2023 (signed) Wendy Askew SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE Proposal to refer a bill to a commjttee Name of bill: Statutory Declarations Amendment Bill 2023 Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Provide stakeholders an opportunity to speak to the measures in the Bill enabling electronic and digital execution of statutory declarations. Possible submissions or evidence from: Governance Institute of Australia Business Council of Australia Australian Banking Association Law Council of Australia Australian Lawyers Alliance Docusign Adobe Committee to which bill is to be referred: Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee Possible hearing date(s): TBC Possible reporting date: 18 October 2023 (signed) A Urquhart Appendix 4 SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE Proposal to refer a bill to a committee Name of bill: Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Complex issue needing wide ranging consultation Possible submissions or evidence from: Multiple stakeholders Committee to which bill is to be referred: Environment and Communications Legislation Committee Possible hearing date(s): September—November Possible reporting d ate: 14 November 2023 (signed) Wendy Askew SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE Proposal to refer a bill to a committee Name of bill: Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Matter of public concern and environmental significance. Possible submissions or evidence from: Environmental, industry and government bodies. Committee to which bill is to be referred: Environment and Communications Committee Possible hearing date(s): Mid-Late September. Possible reporting date: 27 October 2023 A Urquhart SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE Proposal to refer a bill to a committee Name of bill: Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 Reasons for referra1/principal issues for consideration: To enable consultation with community members and experts Possible submissions or evidence from: Environmental organisations, community members, academics and other relevant stakeholders Committee to which bill is to be referred: Environment and Communications Possible hearing date(s): TBC Possible reporting date: 14 November 2023 (signed) Nick McKim Whip/ Selection of Bills Committee member Senator URQUHART 231199 I move: That the report be adopted. 11:15 Senator CASH I0M Western Australia I move an amendment to the motions as circulated in the chamber in my name: At the end of the motion, add: "and, in respect of the provisions of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, the Education and Employment Legislation Committee report by 1 February 2024". What we are debating here today is fundamental to our democracy. It is also fundamental to the role of each and every one of us, we 76 people privileged in Australia to stand in the Australian Senate and have the ability to discharge our roles as senators. The Constitution places the Senate as the second chamber. We have extensive powers to review. We have extensive powers to approve or even to reject legislation as well as to judge and hold others—in particular, the government—to account. Now, part of the role that we have as senators—and, quite frankly, it's why we came to this place—is to be involved in the committee process. That is how we as senators get to interrogate the legislation that a government, whether it is a Labor government or a Liberal-National government, presents to the Australian Senate. We go through the committee process and we get an opportunity to interrogate. You would think that Mr Albanese, the Prime Minister, who before the election told the Australian people that his government would be the most transparent government this nation had ever seen, would actually do the decent thing by the employers of this nation, in particular the small businesses who rely on us to do the right thing by them so they can keep their employees employed, in particular at a time when we have a cost-of-living crisis, and would not be rushing through this parliament almost 800 pages of the most complex legislation this nation has ever seen. And what is worse: there is no reason for this to be done. Why do I say that? It is because the bulk of the legislation commences on 1 July next year. For the government—the government who stood there prior to the election and told the Australian people, 'Transparency: that's you'll get from us,' to actually today, shamefully, be saying not just to the Australian people—because, believe you me, this will impact the Australian people—but to the businesses out there, the people who employ employees. This government says it's the party of the workers, but they forget an employee needs an employer. If you don't have an employer, guess what. You're not an employee. And you are saying to the employers of this nation: 'We don't care. Cost? About $9 billion. We're happy for you to actually absorb that.' Complexity—it is almost 800 pages. I ask anyone in the gallery: if you were given 800 pages of complex legislation that was going to affect your business, would you not ask the government to actually give this chamber the opportunity to properly scrutinise it on your behalf? Quite frankly, it's going to affect you, ultimately. If your kids are casuals, guess what. It's going to affect your kids. If your kids work for a labour-hire company, it's going to affect your kids. If your kids value being independent contractors because they like being their own bosses—they don't actually want to work for an employer, and that's why they chose to be independent contractors—well, guess what: it's also going to affect them. Our fantastic small businesses in this country are currently saying to this government, 'Please.' I know the legislation will ultimately go through this place. I know that. The last lot of legislation did. But it doesn't start till 1 July. So please give an opportunity to this Senate, to the small businesses of this nation and to the employers who actually wake up every day and provide the employees with their jobs. If your kid doesn't have an employer, guess what: your kid doesn't have a job. That's what small businesses are saying: 'Yes, we're going to get more cost. Yes, we're going to get more complexity. Boy, are we confused. But can you at least give the Australian Senate the opportunity to ask questions on our behalf?' I would implore the Senate: please agree to the amendment and give us the time to properly understand and interrogate this legislation. 11:21 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory I move an amendment to Senator Cash's amendment to the motion for adoption of the Selection of Bills Committee report: At the end of the motion, add: "and, in respect of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, the Education and Employment Legislation Committee report on 23 November 2023". People in this place who have watched Senator Cash and the Liberal Party's position on these matters might not be shocked to know that I don't imagine that even by February there would be a material change to the views that those opposite have on this bill. We will make sure that there are officials available. We will make sure that briefings are available. We will make sure that we answer the questions— The PRESIDENT 112096 Minister Gallagher, please resume your seat. Senator Cash, I have just ensured that the Senate listened in silence to your contribution, and Senator Gallagher is entitled to the same respect. Senator GALLAGHER ING We will be very helpful in supporting senators and their interest in this bill, including through briefings that can be provided and, of course, the important work that the legislation committee will do. We believe this is enough time for people to get across the detail, particularly when they will be supported by the work of the Public Service and briefings that can be provided, to allow for debate to occur in the final weeks of this year. So the government respectfully puts that a 23 November reporting date is appropriate. We don't believe there is a need to delay this to February, which is what the coalition are seeking to do, because they oppose the bill. Fundamentally they don't want this bill to be debated in this place. This allows for a reasonable amount of time for it to come back and be considered by this chamber. 11:23 Senator O'SULLIVAN 283585 Western Australia This is unacceptable. Even with that small concession that's been made, there is not enough time. What we're talking about is nearly 530 pages, through the explanatory memorandum and then the legislation. How can employers possibly get their heads around all of this? Senator Gallagher said that it's not possible that we would change our minds. Well, that's not the point. We're trying to change your minds. We're trying to capture the minds and the intent of businesses across this country so that you can actually understand the impact this bill is going to have and make the appropriate decisions in relation to this bill, because we are hearing from employers right across this country that this bill is going to have a chilling effect on employment and on our economy. Productivity is going to drop. It is critical that we allow for proper consideration of this bill. Let me just bring the senators' minds back to the previous term of government, when we had legislation in relation to industrial relations that went through. We allowed 3½ months for consideration of various legislation in regard to industrial relations. We held a proper inquiry that went across the country and allowed time for us to engage with stakeholders right across the country. We heard from employers, from the trade unions and from other stakeholders who had an interest in and an understanding of the legislation. With the proper time, you get the ability to engage with stakeholders. I am already about 130 pages through this. It is not about how long it takes me to read a bill; it's about the stakeholders we have got to engage with. They then need to be able to go back to their members, survey their members, understand their members. We're talking about employers here. We're particularly talking about small businesses, who don't have time to go through the complexities of this, so they need the time and ability to engage with their various peak bodies to be able to understand the complexity of this bill so they can put forward their views so it can be considered by this place. For the government to not allow the proper consideration of this bill by this Senate and by the stakeholders that intersect with it is absolutely shameful. I call on my crossbench senators to not pass this amendment to a very sensible proposal by Senator Cash here to allow for this inquiry to go ahead and conclude by February next year. It's simple. As Senator Cash said, the full implementation of this bill doesn't occur until July, so there's plenty of time for any implementation of whatever is eventually passed by this Senate, by this parliament, to occur before its introduction into practice in the industrial relations system. I mean, we're not actually asking for much. That extra time allows us to have all of the hearings concluded by Christmas and then allowing that period for the report to be presented. We give time for the secretariat to do their job. The last bill, the Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill you put forward, you only allowed 21 days. In fact, the committee was having hearings while submitters were still putting their submissions in. The secretariat had less than 24 hours to turn around a report. That was obviously ridiculous. While the late-November report won't allow for that sort of ridiculous time frame, it is still nonetheless not satisfactory that the proper time and consideration are given for this very important legislation. I want to finish on this point: this inquiry must go to Western Australia. The hearings must be held in Western Australia because we know, and we're hearing it from the resource industry, that this bill has a disproportionate impact on Western Australian businesses, in particular in the resource sector. It has a disproportionate impact on them, particularly the fact that we're bringing in labour hire and also services companies. There's no definition on what 'labour hire' actually means. It means any business, any person providing a service into a workplace. It's unacceptable. It must go to Perth. The time to take us through to February allows us to be able to do that, to get across the country and make sure that stakeholders are able to— (Time expired) 11:28 Senator ROBERTS 266524 Queensland I thank through you, President, Senator Birmingham. For four years, I have been raising the issue of the exploitation of the permanent-casual rort in central Queensland miners and Hunter Valley miners—four years! I have written twice to the previous member for Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon. I have written once and hand delivered to Daniel Repacholi's office a letter asking them to get involved. They both have not replied. They never replied. They stood up and spoke in this chamber about closing the loophole. There is no loophole. We know what the cause of this is. There is no loophole; it is people not doing their jobs. Four years and Labor has not done a thing. They put the crow bar through the spokes to stop me. This is an insult to miners. We need an inquiry that is going to have hearings in Central Queensland and in the Hunter because these miners need to be heard. We'll she you where the loophole is. There's a huge loophole but it's not the loophole the Labor Party is talking about. This bill has an explanatory memorandum 520-something pages long because it's a cover-up bill. The bill itself is up to 240 pages. I've spoken in this chamber on many occasions about how the Fair Work Act is already complex, intricate and designed for the IR club, not for workers—and not for small business. This will make it far worse. We need to have a complete and thorough inquiry of it, and extensive scrutiny. I will not be supporting the government's amendment of the coalition's amendment. Miners need to be heard and small business, in particular, need to be heard because they're the two losers from the Fair Work Act, due to its complexity and its prescriptiveness. So I won't be supporting the government's amendment of the coalition amendment. I will support the coalition amendment. 11:30 Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X South Australia The Albanese Labor government is facing a growing crisis of transparency. This is a government that has spent the last few weeks giving answer after an answer about its Qatar Airways decision. They keep changing and they never stack up. There's an inability to actually give a clear-cut and transparent response about how on earth they came to make a decision such as that, with consequential impacts for so many Australian jobs, so many Australian families and the prices they pay. It's a government that has decided, with no consultation with the opposition or elsewhere, to dramatically overhaul the process for how it reports ministers' use of special purpose aircraft, and it's sitting behind a veil and veneer of security concerns in relation to how they're doing that. It's a government that now wants substantial legislation through, but has drafted this legislation in secret. It has amazing nondisclosure agreements, where those who wanted to be consulted have to sign nondisclosure agreements just to be consulted about the drafting of the legislation that's being debated as part of this Selection of Bills Committee report. We're now asking for a transparent process, which stands in stark contrast to the way in which this legislation has been developed and to the way in which the Albanese Labor government is conducting its business and affairs—a transparent process where the Senate does its job, where senators get to do their jobs and where the Australian public and people, who will be affected dramatically by this legislation, will get to have their say. They should get to have a fair say, a fair dinkum say, about the impact and implications of this legislation. Let's understand that this bill—the so-called 'closing the loopholes' bill, which should really be called the 'opening the doors to greater union influence bill'—which was developed in secret, is nearly 800 pages long. And those near-800 pages have required an explanatory memorandum of about 500 pages to try to explain the near-800 pages! The opposition is firmly of the view that there are fundamental problems with this bill. Fundamental problems where, yes, as Senator Gallagher indicated, there are large things we could not, would not and will never support. We're very clear-cut about that. But when we have nearly 800 pages of proposed legislative changes, the devil will also be in detail. We have in this Senate an active crossbench, a diverse crossbench, and their votes will determine a number of key issues in this bill. As that detail is explored, that could be the fate upon which some crucial elements hinge. That's why it needs to be explored properly and thoroughly. It's also, clearly, why the government wants to avoid this scrutiny. They want to avoid this scrutiny because they're afraid of the detail being exposed. They're afraid of there being enough time for Australian employers and, most importantly, Australian employees—those just doing work, day-to-day, in their lives—to have time to understand the full consequences of this; to understand the detail and to have the opportunity to make a submission or to appear before an inquiry. And that inquiry should have hearings in Perth and hearings in other parts of Australia that will be dramatically impacted as well. Why does this matter so much? It matters for two key reasons. One is that it goes to the jobs and opportunities that Australians have—the individual jobs that Australians have and the choices that they get to make, as Senator Cash touched on. But it also goes to the overall management of our economy. We face an increasing economic problem in this country. Yesterday's national accounts show we have a per capita recession under way. The economy grew only because the Australian population grew. Productivity has been nosediving under this government, down some two per cent in the last quarter. We have serious economic problems, and what does a bill like this do? It hurts business productivity. It hurts business competitiveness. It will drive up prices for Australians at a time when they cannot afford to pay more and it will limit the ability for jobs to be created at a time when Australians need the opportunity of those jobs evermore. That's why it needs scrutiny. That's why it needs the longer timeframe as proposed by my colleague Senator Cash. The PRESIDENT 112096 The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Gallagher, standing in the name of Senator Chisholm, be agreed to.

The Senate divided. [11:39]
(The President—Senator Lines)

32 AYES Allman-Payne, P. J. Ayres, T. Brown, C. L. Chisholm, A. Ciccone, R. Cox, D. Farrell, D. E. Gallagher, K. R. Green, N. L. Grogan, K. Hanson-Young, S. C. Lines, S. McAllister, J. R. McKim, N. J. O'Neill, D. M. Payman, F. Pocock, B. Polley, H. Pratt, L. C. Rice, J. E. Sheldon, A. V. Shoebridge, D. Smith, M. F. Steele-John, J. A. Sterle, G. Stewart, J. N. A. Urquhart, A. E. (Teller) Walsh, J. C. Waters, L. J. Watt, M. P. Whish-Wilson, P. S. White, L. 33 NOES Antic, A. Askew, W. (Teller) Babet, R. Birmingham, S. J. Bragg, A. J. Brockman, W. E. Canavan, M. J. Cash, M. C. Chandler, C. Colbeck, R. M. Davey, P. M. Duniam, J. R. Fawcett, D. J. Hume, J. Kovacic, M. Lambie, J. Liddle, K. J. McDonald, S. E. McGrath, J. McKenzie, B. McLachlan, A. L. Nampijinpa Price, J. S. O'Sullivan, M. A. Paterson, J. W. Payne, M. A. Pocock, D. W. Rennick, G. Reynolds, L. K. Roberts, M. I. Ruston, A. Scarr, P. M. Smith, D. A. Tyrrell, T. M. 0 PAIRS

Question negatived.

11:43 The PRESIDENT 112096 The question now is that the amendment moved by Senator Cash be agreed to.

The Senate divided. [11:43]
(The President—Senator Lines)

33 AYES Antic, A. Askew, W. (Teller) Babet, R. Birmingham, S. J. Bragg, A. J. Brockman, W. E. Canavan, M. J. Cash, M. C. Chandler, C. Colbeck, R. M. Davey, P. M. Duniam, J. R. Fawcett, D. J. Hume, J. Kovacic, M. Lambie, J. Liddle, K. J. McDonald, S. E. McGrath, J. McKenzie, B. McLachlan, A. L. Nampijinpa Price, J. S. O'Sullivan, M. A. Paterson, J. W. Payne, M. A. Pocock, D. W. Rennick, G. Reynolds, L. K. Roberts, M. I. Ruston, A. Scarr, P. M. Smith, D. A. Tyrrell, T. M. 32 NOES Allman-Payne, P. J. Ayres, T. Brown, C. L. Chisholm, A. Ciccone, R. Cox, D. Farrell, D. E. Gallagher, K. R. Green, N. L. Grogan, K. Hanson-Young, S. C. Lines, S. McAllister, J. R. McKim, N. J. O'Neill, D. M. Payman, F. Pocock, B. Polley, H. Pratt, L. C. Rice, J. E. Sheldon, A. V. Shoebridge, D. Smith, M. F. Steele-John, J. A. Sterle, G. Stewart, J. N. A. Urquhart, A. E. (Teller) Walsh, J. C. Waters, L. J. Watt, M. P. Whish-Wilson, P. S. White, L. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

11:45 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory I move: At the end of the motion, add: "and, in respect of the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023, the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee report on 8 November 2023." 11:45 Se 243273 South Australia nator RUSTON (—) (): I move an amendment to Senator Gallagher's amendment, as follows: At the end of the motion, add: "and, in respect of the provisions of the Water Amendment (Restoring our Rivers) Bill 2023, the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee report by 14 November 2023". 11:46 Senator DAVEY 281697 New South Wales I want to support Senator Ruston's— The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Davey, the time for the debate has now expired. The question is that the amendment to Senator Gallagher's amendment, as moved by Senator Ruston, be agreed to. Is a division required? Ring the bells for four minutes. Senator Urquhart? Senator Urquhart 231199 Under standing order 101(3), I request that one-minute bells be rung for this division because we're all in the chamber. The pairs have not changed. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senators, you will observe that I have at all times sought from the whips the length of time that they require to sort the pairs. If one whip wants one minute and the other whip wants four minutes, I have consistently gone with four minutes. Ring the bells for four minutes. The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Ruston to Senator Gallagher's amendment be agreed to.

The Senate divided. [11:51]
(The President—Senator Lines)

32 AYES Antic, A. Askew, W. (Teller) Babet, R. Bragg, A. J. Brockman, W. E. Cadell, R. Canavan, M. J. Cash, M. C. Chandler, C. Colbeck, R. M. Davey, P. M. Duniam, J. R. Fawcett, D. J. Hume, J. Kovacic, M. Lambie, J. Liddle, K. J. McDonald, S. E. McGrath, J. McKenzie, B. McLachlan, A. L. Nampijinpa Price, J. S. O'Sullivan, M. A. Paterson, J. W. Payne, M. A. Rennick, G. Reynolds, L. K. Roberts, M. I. Ruston, A. Scarr, P. M. Smith, D. A. Tyrrell, T. M. 32 NOES Allman-Payne, P. J. Ayres, T. Brown, C. L. Chisholm, A. Ciccone, R. Cox, D. Farrell, D. E. Gallagher, K. R. Green, N. L. Grogan, K. Hanson-Young, S. C. Lines, S. McAllister, J. R. McKim, N. J. O'Neill, D. M. Payman, F. Pocock, B. Pocock, D. W. Polley, H. Pratt, L. C. Rice, J. E. Shoebridge, D. Smith, M. F. Steele-John, J. A. Sterle, G. Stewart, J. N. A. Urquhart, A. E. (Teller) Walsh, J. C. Waters, L. J. Watt, M. P. Whish-Wilson, P. S. White, L. 0 PAIRS

Question negatived.

11:54 The PRESIDENT 112096 The question is that the amendment as moved by Senator Gallagher be agreed to.

The Senate divided. [11:54]
(The President—Senator Lines)

34 AYES Allman-Payne, P. J. Ayres, T. Brown, C. L. Chisholm, A. Ciccone, R. Cox, D. Farrell, D. E. Gallagher, K. R. Green, N. L. Grogan, K. Hanson-Young, S. C. Lambie, J. Lines, S. McAllister, J. R. McKim, N. J. O'Neill, D. M. Payman, F. Pocock, B. Pocock, D. W. Polley, H. Pratt, L. C. Rice, J. E. Shoebridge, D. Smith, M. F. Steele-John, J. A. Sterle, G. Stewart, J. N. A. Tyrrell, T. M. Urquhart, A. E. (Teller) Walsh, J. C. Waters, L. J. Watt, M. P. Whish-Wilson, P. S. White, L. 30 NOES Antic, A. Askew, W. (Teller) Babet, R. Bragg, A. J. Brockman, W. E. Cadell, R. Canavan, M. J. Cash, M. C. Chandler, C. Colbeck, R. M. Davey, P. M. Duniam, J. R. Fawcett, D. J. Hume, J. Kovacic, M. Liddle, K. J. McDonald, S. E. McGrath, J. McKenzie, B. McLachlan, A. L. Nampijinpa Price, J. S. O'Sullivan, M. A. Paterson, J. W. Payne, M. A. Rennick, G. Reynolds, L. K. Roberts, M. I. Ruston, A. Scarr, P. M. Smith, D. A. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

11:58 The PRESIDENT 112096 The question now is that the adoption of the amended Selection of Bills Committee report be agreed to.

The Senate divided. [11:58]
(The President—Senator Lines)

Question agreed to.
Report adopted.

BUSINESS 33 BUSINESS Leave Of Absence 33 11:59 Senator McKIM JKM Tasmania by leave—I move: That leave of absence be granted to Senator Faruqi for today for personal reasons. Question agreed to. Rearrangement 33 12:00 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory I move: That general business notice of motion No. 320 be considered during general business today. Question agreed to. COMMITTEES 33 COMMITTEES Reporting Date 33 DOCUMENTS 33 DOCUMENTS Government Appointments 33 Order for the Production of Documents 33 12:00 Senator LAMBIE 250026 Tasmania I move: That the order of the Senate of 24 June 2008 for the production of documents relating to departmental and agency appointments and vacancies, as amended on 12 May 2009, be further amended as follows: At the end of paragraph (1), add: (c) for the purposes of paragraph (a) the list is to also include: (i) details of the appointed individual, including their name, relevant experience, qualifications and suitability for the role, (ii) details of when, and the manner in which, the position was advertised, and (iii) the nature of any real or potential conflicts of interest the appointed individual has in relation to the position, including relationships between the Minister or others involved in the application process, and how any real or potential conflicts of interest were or are to be managed. 12:01 Senator DUNIAM 263418 Tasmania I seek leave to make a short statement. The PRESIDENT 112096 Leave is granted for one minute. Senator DUNIAM 263418 The opposition will not be supporting this motion. Continuing order 15 requires each Senate minister to table a list of all appointments made by the government to statutory authorities, executive agencies, advisory boards, government business enterprises and all other Commonwealth bodies, including the term of the appointment and remuneration for the position and the place of permanent residence by state or territory of the appointee, and a list of existing vacancies. While the opposition is sympathetic to the intent behind the motion, we believe the existing order provides sufficient detail to enable further scrutiny of appointments through other Senate processes where warranted. Senator DUNIAM 263418 Thank you for that, Senator Shoebridge. The PRESIDENT 112096 The question is that general business notice of motion No. 313 standing in the name of Senator Lambie be agreed to.

The Senate divided. [12:06]
(The President—Senator Lines)

15 AYES Allman-Payne, P. J. Babet, R. Cox, D. Hanson-Young, S. C. Lambie, J. McKim, N. J. (Teller) Pocock, B. Pocock, D. W. Rice, J. E. Roberts, M. I. Shoebridge, D. Steele-John, J. A. Tyrrell, T. M. Waters, L. J. Whish-Wilson, P. S. 35 NOES Antic, A. Askew, W. (Teller) Brockman, W. E. Brown, C. L. Canavan, M. J. Cash, M. C. Chandler, C. Chisholm, A. Ciccone, R. Colbeck, R. M. Davey, P. M. Duniam, J. R. Farrell, D. E. Gallagher, K. R. Grogan, K. Henderson, S. M. Liddle, K. J. Lines, S. McAllister, J. R. McCarthy, M. McDonald, S. E. Nampijinpa Price, J. S. O'Neill, D. M. O'Sullivan, M. A. Payman, F. Payne, M. A. Polley, H. Pratt, L. C. Reynolds, L. K. Ruston, A. Smith, D. A. Stewart, J. N. A. Urquhart, A. E. Watt, M. P. White, L. 0 PAIRS

Question negatived.

COMMITTEES 34 COMMITTEES Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements 34 Appointment 34 12:08 Senator FARRELL I0N South Australia I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 322 before seeking to have the motion taken as a formal motion. Leave not granted. Senator FARRELL I0N At the request of the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Wong, and pursuant to contingent notice, I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me amending the motion. The PRESIDENT 112096 The question is that the motion to suspend, moved by Senator Farrell, be agreed to.

The Senate divided. [12:14]
(The President—Senator Lines)

31 AYES Allman-Payne, P. J. Ayres, T. Brown, C. L. Chisholm, A. Ciccone, R. Cox, D. Farrell, D. E. Gallagher, K. R. Green, N. L. Grogan, K. Hanson-Young, S. C. Lines, S. McAllister, J. R. McCarthy, M. McKim, N. J. O'Neill, D. M. Payman, F. Pocock, B. Polley, H. Pratt, L. C. Rice, J. E. Sheldon, A. V. Shoebridge, D. Steele-John, J. A. Sterle, G. Stewart, J. N. A. Urquhart, A. E. (Teller) Waters, L. J. Watt, M. P. Whish-Wilson, P. S. White, L. 31 NOES Antic, A. Askew, W. (Teller) Babet, R. Bragg, A. J. Brockman, W. E. Cadell, R. Canavan, M. J. Cash, M. C. Chandler, C. Colbeck, R. M. Davey, P. M. Duniam, J. R. Henderson, S. M. Hume, J. Kovacic, M. Lambie, J. Liddle, K. J. McDonald, S. E. McGrath, J. McKenzie, B. Nampijinpa Price, J. S. O'Sullivan, M. A. Payne, M. A. Pocock, D. W. Rennick, G. Reynolds, L. K. Roberts, M. I. Ruston, A. Scarr, P. M. Smith, D. A. Tyrrell, T. M. 0 PAIRS

Question negatived.

BILLS 35 BILLS Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023 35

Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023

Second Reading 35 12:17 Senator RICE 155410 Victoria I rise to speak to the Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023. The Greens will be supporting this bill. However, there are improvements that we would like to see made to it, so I foreshadow that I will move some amendments during the committee stage. We support the proposals that the government have put forward to improve scrutiny and planning for infrastructure projects, but there is still more to be done. I remember when Infrastructure Australia was first set up, in 2008. It was the end of my six years on council, when I was very focused on transport and infrastructure projects. It was during the Rudd government years. Sadly, Infrastructure Australia has never lived up to its claims to be a truly independent, truly transparent and truly evidence-led in its analysis of transport projects, which is what we need in an oversight body like Infrastructure Australia. Infrastructure Australia says that its mission is to 'advise governments, industry and community on the investments and reforms needed to deliver better infrastructure for all Australians'. Critical to doing that is to have a real focus on integrity and a real focus on transparency and to make sure that processes and analysis are evidence led so we can work out where we will get the best value for money with our infrastructure. We haven't got billions of dollars to just throw around at infrastructure projects that don't stack up. It's important in doing the analysis of what infrastructure projects we should be investing in that the process is transparent, that we make sure that the community know clearly the criteria that projects are being assessed against and that the recommendations being made by our infrastructure body address the outcomes that we want to see in our infrastructure. What makes better infrastructure is infrastructure that optimises the ecological, social and economic value to address the issues that we currently face. In particular, that means that the infrastructure we establish, that we put our investment into, has to address inequality, climate and the ecological issues that we face. Getting the measures right, getting the governance right, and making sure that the processes that a body like Infrastructure Australia does are completely transparent, completely accountable and, critically, that the decisions and the recommendations are evidence led, is so crucial. Sadly, this hasn't been the case over the years that I've been here in this Senate. In the last parliament I was a participating member of the Finance and Public Administration References Committee's inquiry when it scrutinised the car park rorts under the last government. They were an incredibly significant bit of infrastructure—but what a disgrace! We had infrastructure planning that was a complete rabble, basically. We saw members of parliament announcing car parks with no consultation or planning. We saw car parks that should never have been built. We saw delays of years and years, as councils were suddenly lumped with announcements that they had no engagement on or capacity to deliver. Most of all, we saw far too little investment in public transport projects, which—the evidence is clear—are the investment we need in our cities to deal with congestion. The whole claim of the car parks, that they were congestion busting, was based on no evidence. There was no evidence whatsoever that that was the case. We know that we have to have much more investment in public transport. If you do the analysis, if you have evidence led assessment of infrastructure projects, public transport projects that are well planned for appropriate public transport win out every time. They will be what makes a real difference to people's lives. Transport funding is about improving the lives of voters, constituents and community members across the country. It's about shortening commutes through better planning, so that people can get home to their families sooner rather than spending hours waiting for a bus that never arrives or being stuck in the rain at a train station. It's about making our roads safer for cyclists and everyone else. I've heard and I've shared far too many accounts of cyclists killed, sadly. We know that some of those lives could have been saved, some of those deaths prevented— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT DYU Senator Rice, please resume your seat. Senators, I remind you that the chamber is not the place to be holding private meetings. Senator Pocock and Senator Gallagher, this is not the place for meetings. If you're not participating in the debate, please leave the chamber. Senator RICE 155410 Thank you, Acting Deputy President. As I was saying, some of those deaths of cyclists who have been killed on our roads could have been prevented. Some of those lives could have been saved through better planning and infrastructure. Again, if you're making recommendations as to what infrastructure we should be investing in and you have an evidence base, and you have transparent and accountable decisions, then investments in transport infrastructure—investments that make walking and cycling safer and more accessible for more people—stack up every time as being better for people, better for our environment and better for our economy. It matters. Where we invest our money, and what our governance arrangements are for our infrastructure planning, matters. It's much more important than just a set of glossy announcements for MPs and others to make, taking pictures while wearing hard hats and then re-announcing the same project multiple times whenever they need a social media hit or a reason for a travel claim. That's why we need to get it right. I want to speak particularly about the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop in that regard. The Greens amendments I will be moving today create a requirement for reviews of projects that might otherwise not have been captured. I've spent far too long at estimates grilling officials over the Liberal Party's election commitments to think that the Labor Party should get a free pass on this issue. There's really concerning reporting that the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop was cooked up by a team of PwC consultants behind closed doors. That's not appropriate infrastructure planning, and it's important that projects like that are scrutinised. If you're going to be spending tens of billions of dollars on an infrastructure project, that should be captured by our governance and arrangements, which Infrastructure Australia are meant to deliver. With regard to the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop, let's be clear. As Greens, we welcome investment in infrastructure, particularly public transport infrastructure, but it needs to be the right investment. A good way to ensure that is to make sure that Infrastructure Australia have to run the ruler over it. So the amendments that I'm going to be moving would ensure Infrastructure Australia undertakes a review of the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop and that we get clear, independent analysis. Voters deserve nothing less. This should be about good transport policy, not about who has the slickest videos on Facebook. These amendments that I will be moving are consistent with the changes being proposed by the government: redefining Infrastructure Australia's principal purpose, establishing Infrastructure Australia as the Australian government's independent adviser on nationally significant infrastructure, and redefining Infrastructure Australia's functions as: conducting audits or assessments of nationally significant infrastructure to determine adequacy and needs; conducting or endorsing evaluations of infrastructure projects; developing targeted infrastructure lists and plans; and providing advice on nationally significant infrastructure matters. The first of our amendments will require Infrastructure Australia to evaluate infrastructure projects receiving Commonwealth funding of more than $200 million that would not have already been subject to their evaluation. This would capture the Brisbane arena and the Tasmanian stadium commitments as well as the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop, among many others. This would mean that we would get some transparency on the government's election commitments. We're in the middle of our cost-of-living crisis. As I said, we haven't got billions of dollars to throw around. Already this morning I have given a speech about the government's choices to not invest to lift people out of poverty. So where the money gets spent is important, and people need and deserve to have greater scrutiny over government spending, particularly big, splashy infrastructure projects. It's only fair that Labor's pre-election announcements such as the Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop are reviewed by Infrastructure Australia. The other amendment I'm going to be moving would prevent those who are current and past directors of fossil fuel companies from taking up roles as commissioners of Infrastructure Australia. As my colleague Ms Watson-Brown noted in the House of Representatives, we have seen far too many of those people who have spent years worsening the climate crisis taking up roles in Infrastructure Australia. As I said, if you think about what the criteria should be for where our billions of dollars are going on infrastructure projects, there are a range of criteria that they should meet, and doing things that are going to help us tackle the climate crisis and certainly aren't going to make it worse is a really important criterion to be up there as one of the things that Infrastructure Australia should be doing. So it's important we have people at the helm who have that commitment to reduce our carbon pollution and actually tackle the climate crisis, not people who have spent, in some cases, decades of their lives leading projects that are making the climate crisis worse. Infrastructure Australia is too important a body, and our response to the climate crisis is too important, to let fossil fuel company executives determine the response from inside this building. Over the past decade, we've witnessed multiple key people on the board of Infrastructure Australia who have had or currently have senior roles in big fossil fuel corporations. One example of this that Ms Watson-Brown brought to the House of Representatives' attention is Samantha Hogg, who was a member of the Infrastructure Australia board between March 2019 and November 2021 and had previously held several director positions with BHP Billiton. Another example is John Ellice-Flint, who was on the board of IA from 2014 to 2019. He's had approximately 20 former roles in fossil fuel companies, including Bonaparte Gas & Oil and Santos, and he held some of those roles while being on the boards. He currently is a director and the secretary of Smart Gas Pty Ltd. There are countless other examples of board members of Infrastructure Australia who have former or current involvement in a huge coal, gas and oil corporations. These people have brought enormous bias and potentially an enormous conflict of interest when advising on Australia's infrastructure projects if you believe, as we as Greens certainly do, that our infrastructure projects should be tackling the climate crisis, not making it worse. No-one advising the government should stand to benefit from particular infrastructure being built, especially not fossil fuel companies. We need sustainable infrastructure that benefits everyday people, and to have this we need people advising the government who put the interests of the Australian community first, not those of dirty coal and gas corporations. So the Greens' amendments to the bill seek to keep fossil fuel companies out of infrastructure, to increase transparency and to put infrastructure that benefits our communities at its centre. 12:30 Senator STERLE e68 Western Australia I rise to speak to the Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023. This bill seeks to amend the Infrastructure Australia Act to implement a number of recommendations from the independent review into Infrastructure Australia undertaken in 2022, which was a Labor election commitment. Labor did commit to a review of Infrastructure Australia because, under the former government, the organisation suffered from a series of political board appointments and a lack of direction. I think it's important for people to hear this. We know about it in here but the more Australians to hear about it, the better. Major recommendations from the review that this bill will implement are: introducing a new object to the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008 that identifies IA's mandate as the Commonwealth government's independent advisor on nationally significant infrastructure investment planning and project prioritisation; and reforming IA's functions and product suite to be more focused, including developing a smaller, more targeted, infrastructure priority list that prioritises nationally significant infrastructure proposals for consideration by the Australian government. The bill will help to reduce duplication with the states and territories by requiring IA to develop a nationally consistent framework for evaluating infrastructure proposals enabling IA to endorse project evaluations conducted by state and territory governments. The bill also makes changes to the governance arrangements of IA. Instead of a board, which we saw with the previous government, IA will be governed by three commissioners, including a chief commissioner and a chief executive officer, the CEO. Senator Scarr 282997 Three? Senator STERLE e68 Yes, three—for you, Senator Scarr. The commissioners will be the accountable authority and will be appointed by the relevant minister based on their expertise, skills, experience, knowledge, gender and geographical representation. The bill will ensure that IA is empowered to carry out its role as an independent and expert advisor to the Australian government on nationally significant infrastructure needs and priorities including investment in transport, water, communications and energy. It will refocus IA to provide important and strategic advice to the Australian government. The new governance model will ensure IA has the eminence, authority and standing to be a national leader and coordinator among infrastructure advisory bodies. Now let's go back a government or two. Previous minister Mr Barnaby Joyce stacked the board of Infrastructure Australia. The chair at the time described himself as 'a fairly solid Barnaby supporter'. Another board member was a former Brisbane City councillor and a vice president of the Queensland LNP. An opposition senator: Outstanding individual! Senator STERLE e68 Am I touching a nerve over there? A third appointment was an LNP candidate at the 2011 and 2015 Queensland state elections—don't hear much—and a fourth appointment was a former Liberal branch president. When Infrastructure Australia was established by the now Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, it was created—and I remember because I was here—as an apolitical, expert board. Infrastructure Australia was created to take the politics out of major projects and create a clear guide to what government and industry need to invest in and when those investments should be made. The former Labor government listened to Infrastructure Australia and invested in every one of its priority projects. All of this changed under the Liberal and National parties. They destroyed Infrastructure Australia as a major economic body and, instead, used it as a vehicle to give jobs to their mates, the red wine club. They ignored Infrastructure Australia's priority list and, instead, invested in imaginary car parks rather than major projects that would lay the foundation for our nation's future economic growth. One has only to look at the Inland Rail project to see how bad the Liberals and Nationals were at managing the infrastructure portfolio. The Liberals and Nationals left Inland Rail in a mess. After a decade in office—10 years—they let the cost blow out—are you ready for this? I know because I was chairing the committee looking into this mess. They let the cost blow out from $4.7 billion to over $31 billion. They left it behind schedule and had no plan for where it would start or finish. Let me share this with those that are listening too. It was at one of the inquiries I was having into it, and I was ably backed up by Senator Susan McDonald over there, from the Nats in Queensland. It was an absolute shock when we asked the simple question. I asked the ARTC: 'You're talking about 1.2-kilometre-long trains coming into Brisbane every hour or so with hundreds and hundreds of containers, one after another, to unload in Brisbane. Where in Brisbane?' I'm from Perth; I'm not from Brisbane, but I trucked from Perth to Brisbane on a number of occasions. The ARTC said Acacia Ridge. My backside nearly fell out. To those who aren't Brisbanites or Queenslanders: Acacia Ridge is right in the heart of suburban Brisbane. My depot when I was with Ansett, where I used to run into, was in Acacia Ridge. It was hard enough getting a single semitrailer through Acacia Ridge in the eighties, let alone the thousands of containers that are going to be coming in over a 24-hour period. I still remember the fear of getting caught at Coopers Plains with the railway light on and off all the time, pulling up the traffic and the trucks. This was the stupidity of it. There was another shock to us from this mob over here, who were running around the nation, espousing the Inland Rail. Don't get me wrong. We need Inland Rail. We need to build an inland rail to move freight efficiently through this nation and we need to move people through this nation efficiently. We can't continue to do it on trucks. We're getting too much transport task. I said to the Australian Rail Track Corporation, 'Where in Melbourne is this train going to leave from?' They had no idea. They thought it might be somewhere in the trucking and rail area in Truganina—I'm talking Suburban Melbourne—or it might be another one I can't think of the name of. It was about an hour's drive out of Melbourne. I said, 'How does this other place out of Melbourne sound?' They said, 'Well, currently we'd probably have to double the amount of trucks on the roads to run the freight out to wherever else they think it's going to go.' What a complete and utter shambles. The Liberals and the Nationals even ignored a request from the chair of the ARTC to ensure its board directors had appropriate skills and experience. How dare we want to have people with skills and experience! Why would we want to do that? Infrastructure Australia didn't have it, so why would the ARTC get it? They left it to the Albanese government to rescue the project. The Albanese Labor government commissioned an independent review of the delivery of the project to gain a clear understanding of all its problems and a way forward. The government has accepted all of Dr Schott's review recommendations in full or in principle. We are staging the remainder of Inland Rail, firstly prioritising delivery of the section from Beveridge, down in Melbourne, to Parkes, in New South Wales. Beveridge is the other place I was thinking of. The government also supported Dr Schott's recommendation to establish a subsidiary company of ARTC to deliver the Inland Rail. When it comes to mismanagement, I've touched on and could keep going all day on infrastructure spending, but let's look a little bit closer at the Urban Congestion Fund, as it was called, including the infamous Commuter Car Park Fund, up there with the worst of the worst. This was the $4.8 billion program that allocated 83 per cent of its funding to—you ready for it—Liberal-held seats. It was meant to target 'pinch points' and congestion in cities across this great country, but 136 of the announced projects were in Liberal-held areas. Only 26 projects went to seats held by Labor. If we look at these figures, it would seem that Australia's most congested roads were located almost entirely in Liberal-held seats! Where Australians live or who Australians vote for does not matter: they deserve their fair share of infrastructure investment and they all deserve the jobs, productivity and liveability improvements that come with it. The Urban Congestion Fund was nothing more than a mammoth slush fund, ready to be pulled out at election time to buttress the campaigns of Liberal MPs. That isn't what infrastructure is meant for; infrastructure is meant to deliver a better life to all Australians. That's why our government has been working so hard to strip the waste and rorts out of the Infrastructure Investment Program. The previous government rorted the infrastructure investment pipeline, and Australians won't forget it. I'll also say this: it was easy to run around in the 10th year of the decaying, toxic Morrison government, which was the environment we had here in Australia, and to think, 'Let's just go out and announce in every electorate in Australia—every seat in Australia—that we're going to spend billions of dollars on all of these fantasy projects if you just vote for us.' But do you know what? I think most Australians got this: you actually have to have a budget. Yes, you have to have a bit of dough in the bank and you actually have to have some good business cases. Every time my very dear friend and colleague Senator Scarr speaks he reminds me of economics 101. I do listen to that, and this is basic economics 101: you can't spend more than what you've got. Or, at least, you have to have a damn good plan or PPPs to start paying it off. I just had to say that! I was brought up in working-class Langford in Perth's eastern suburbs. I learned very early in my life that you can only spend what you've got, boy, and if you want to spend more then put your boots on, get out there and work harder. Work more hours, work on weekends and don't whinge to your mother! Let's just say it as it is! And I'm so glad that I was brought up that way. The Australian government has committed to a $120 billion land transport infrastructure pipeline. That's no mean feat: $120 billion. This 10-year investment pipeline is delivering nationally significant nation-shaping projects. Our investment is building projects that will have a lasting benefit for Australia, will enhance our economic and social productivity, and will support our prosperity. We have prioritised projects which will benefit all Australians generally. They're economically sustainable and are resilient to climate change. And the Australian government is working in genuine partnership with state and territory governments to plan, fund and deliver the highest-priority infrastructure projects across the nation. For communities, these investments mean shorter and safer travel, and more liveable cities, suburbs and regions. As a government, we're committed to ensuring that freight keeps moving, that people can get home from work safely and that the connections between our cities and our regions are strong. Our investment is delivering critical nation-shaping projects all across the country. This includes projects that are building regional Australia by supporting regional communities and businesses. In the 2023-24 budget, the government committed more than $25 billion to 425 major transport infrastructure projects in regional Australia, with a further 49 that will benefit both regional and urban communities. Working with every state and territory, the focus of the Infrastructure Investment Program is to improve road safety, to better connect our regions, to bust congestion and to meet our national freight challenge. And, may I say, we're told that the freight challenge is going to double every 15 years—and it does. The government is continuing to partner with state and territory governments to roll out life-saving road safety treatments under the Road Safety Program—something dear to my heart—with the delivery of total nationwide funding of $2.96 billion continuing through to mid-2025. We're also delivering $4.4 billion over 10 years for the Roads of Strategic Importance initiative, supporting more efficient supply chains and helping connect regional businesses to local and international markets. The government is spending $1.5 billion on the National Freight Highway Upgrade Program to seal the Tanami Road in that magnificent state of Western Australia through to the Northern Territory, as well as upgrading our nationally significant freight routes, including the Dukes, Stewart and Augusta highways in South Australia, and the Central Arnhem Road in the Northern Territory. The Tanami and Central Arnhem roads' share of this $1.5 billion investment is $740 million. I could continue with announcement after announcement of great initiatives, but time is against me, so I commend this bill to the Senate. (Time expired) 12:45 Senator GREEN 259819 Queensland It's a pleasure to follow on from my Western Australian colleague, who I know has very long experience of advocating for infrastructure for his state but also with being a part of the Rural and Regional Affairs committee, which has looked at many of these infrastructure projects over many years and has a long experience particularly with Inland Rail and the woes of that project over the last couple of years that we saw under the previous government. When it comes to delivering infrastructure that Australians need and that communities want, we are listening to Australians. With the Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023 we are ensuring that the days off rorts and money for mates are over. We are making sure that, when it comes to infrastructure, we return independence and merit based decision-making to delivering what Australians need. This bill seeks to amend the Infrastructure Australia Act, and it's really important to talk to Australians about why we're taking these important steps. We want to make sure that a number of recommendations of the Independent Review into Infrastructure Australia, which was undertaken in 2022 and was something that we took to the election and committed to, are delivered. We committed to that review because under the former government Infrastructure Australia had suffered from a series of political appointments to the board —I think it's fair to say—and it wasn't being listened to when it came to what the future plan was for infrastructure across the country. We expect senators to come into this place and advocate for their state and members of the House of Representatives to advocate for their local communities. That is perfectly reasonable, and it's something I think all Queenslanders expect me to do when I come here. But we do need a national approach, a national plan and an independent assessment which delivers infrastructure to the places that need it the most, to the infrastructure projects that will deliver the most benefit to Australians, and we need to make sure those decisions are made in an independent way. That's why we wanted to review Infrastructure Australia, and that's what this bill is all about today. The major recommendations from the review that this bill will implement include, as my colleagues have mentioned, introducing a new object to the Infrastructure Australia Act that identifies Infrastructure Australia's mandate as the Commonwealth government's independent adviser on nationally significant infrastructure planning and project prioritisation. We're also reforming the functions of Infrastructure Australia to be more focused, including developing a smaller and more targeted infrastructure priority list that prioritises nationally significant infrastructure proposals, as I said before, for consideration by Australian governments. This is really important because sometimes infrastructure goes across state lines, and we need to make sure that we are investing in the infrastructure that our nation needs, even if it crosses from one state into another, and sometimes across three states. The bill will also help to reduce duplication with states and territories by requiring Infrastructure Australia to develop a nationally consistent framework for evaluating infrastructure proposals and by enabling Infrastructure Australia to endorse project evaluations conducted by states and territories. This is the part of the bill that I think is really crucial for productivity and development, creating jobs and getting infrastructure built in our country, because what we saw under the former government was a real reluctance to work with states and territories when it came to investing in infrastructure. In fact, when it came to infrastructure in Queensland, it was combative and driven by a desire from the former government to create conflict rather than build roads. What we saw was that projects that were favoured by Queenslanders and Queensland communities were overlooked by the former government. What we saw—and Cross River Rail is a really good example of this—was that something that was desperately needed by Queenslanders missed out time and time again on funding from the infrastructure portfolio of the previous government, just because they had some ideological difference with the Queensland government about how important it was. The Queensland government had to go it alone, had to find the funds to invest in that important project, and they're delivering Cross River Rail now. What's really key is that when we work together with states and territories, as our government has sought to do, whether that's with a Liberal or Labor premier—it doesn't matter to us what state is represented by what party—we work together closely. We want to work really closely in particular with the Queensland government to deliver infrastructure priorities that Queenslanders need. We're also making changes to governance arrangements, which can be best described as making sure that the board is fit for purpose and accountable. That's a really simple concept that eluded the previous government: making sure that the Infrastructure Australia board could actually make decisions and have the right expertise, skills, knowledge and geographical representation to make really good decisions. That's what we would expect, just as people in Queensland would expect their views to be represented and would expect the right people with the right skills to be on the board. We're also making sure that the bill will empower Infrastructure Australia to carry out its role as an independent and expert adviser to the Australian government on nationally significant infrastructure needs, including in transport; in water, which we know is important; in communications, which are ever increasingly important in this period of our lives, when we spend a lot of time in front of screens and when a lot of services are delivered by digital communications; and in energy, delivering projects that deliver energy to our grid. We are seeking to do these things by introducing a new governance model to ensure that Infrastructure Australia has the eminence, authority and standing to be a national leader and coordinator among infrastructure advisory bodies. We're taking these really important steps because we know how important it is to get this right. For a decade under the previous government we saw the stacking of the board of Infrastructure Australia, particularly by former minister Joyce when he was the minister for infrastructure. A board member of Infrastructure Australia at the time was a former Brisbane City councillor and vice-president of the Queensland Liberal National Party, yet they still couldn't agree to fund projects in Queensland. A third appointment to that board was an LNP candidate at the 2011 and 2015 Queensland state elections. They were pretty close mates with the minister at the time. It's really disappointing that we got to a point where not even the board of Infrastructure Australia—something so important for our country to get right—was safe from the former government's jobs for mates. What is also incredibly disappointing for all Australians is that Infrastructure Australia was established with a board that was apolitical and expert but over time that was degraded and eroded. We saw the former government ignore infrastructure priority lists and instead invest in rort programs. 'Car park rorts' was one, as my colleague Senator Sterle was speaking about a moment ago. They also made announcements for projects but never actually provided the funding, or the funding was in the budget but there was no agreement with the state or territory government to deliver that project, so there was no pipeline for the project. That happened quite often in Queensland. What was really disappointing was you would see a press release, a big announcement, about big spending on a road and then you would never hear about the project again because it wouldn't get built under the former government. We are really seeking to move away from this type of policy-making. We want to make sure that we can't have another car park rorts. Australians said to us at the election that they didn't want to see another car park rorts, another regional jobs investment program, or ARJIP, as we have heard it referred to, where a bunch of people get together and decide to give money to organisations or companies that they have associations with; that is not what we want to see. What I am really proud of is that in the short time since we have come to government we are investing in Queensland infrastructure, particularly in infrastructure in Far North Queensland. The projects we have identified and we are investing in provide a shared community benefit, not just to one group of people or to someone who is a friend of the minister. What we're seeking to do is identify projects that have long-term, job-creating benefits to community, and there is no better example of that than the Cairns common user facility, a $300 million project that is going to invest in marine manufacturing in Cairns. I know many people have had the opportunity to visit the shipyards there. I'm proud of the work we have done to put the project on the map. That is the type of project we want to see independently assessed and supported because we know that a common user facility would actually provide the benefit to the community, not just in the short-term but for the long-term, to provide strong, secure, local manufacturing jobs. That is a project not supported by the former government. It is a project that would never be built if it wasn't for a Labor government. That $300 million and the thousands of manufacturing jobs wouldn't have happened if it weren't for a Labor government. We are also funding Cairns water security with $105 million from the federal government, another project that, when it is built, will continue to deliver for many years to come. Something I'm really proud of is that we are investing $45 million in infrastructure in the Torres Strait because—I think it is safe to say—for decades this part of the world, being represented by the Liberal National Party in this place, refused to provide any funding to fix a single jetty or to fix any of the infrastructure needed to get really important supplies through to people living in the most remote parts of our country. In the Torres Strait, schoolchildren had to wade through crocodile-infested waters to get to the boat to take them to school—that is, from Prince of Wales Island to Thursday Island. I mean, that has been the state of play for decades yet nothing had ever come across the desk of the Liberal National Party that would make them want to fund it, so we are funding that project in conjunction with the state government because we know when we work together with state governments that we can deliver good infrastructure that not only creates jobs when it is being built but can also deliver long-term benefits to the community. Finally, the last project I want to mention is the Captain Cook Highway in Far North Queensland because this is an upgrade of a really important road. It is the road I use to drive to get to work every single day when I am home in Far North Queensland. In 2019, the member for Leichhardt, a member of the former government, announced they would bust conjunction on the Captain Cook Highway. Under the former government, not a single piece of dirt was moved. Nothing was built under the former government. But under the Labor government getting to work, sitting down and working with the Queensland government, we are finally delivering upgrades to the Captain Cook Highway and to Smithfield. It will link up to the Smithfield bypass. Finally, all of those people that were promised this years ago and saw nothing happen under the former government will finally see this infrastructure delivered. That's the difference when you get down and you work with people, and you make sure that you are working with states and territories, providing independent infrastructure that communities need. That's what this bill is about and I commend the bill to the Senate. 13:00 Senator RENNICK 283596 Queensland I'm glad to speak to the Infrastructure Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023 today because it is an absolute disgrace that we are trying to downgrade the importance of infrastructure in this country. All good governments know that you should be building infrastructure, and yet on that side of the chamber we've got a Labor government under Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister of Australia, that doesn't want to prioritise building infrastructure. That's what we have come to expect from these people who would rather tear the building and the infrastructure in this country down than build it up. That's the modus operandi of our Marxists across the chamber here—it's always 'tear everything down'. If they're not tearing down our institutions and our customs and our values, they want to tear down the infrastructure and let it rot it away. While they're doing this, they are overcharging. They're pumping up immigration—we have 400,000 people coming in this year, and half of them are going to university, so they are not adding to the actual supply side of labour. Even Ben Chifley knew, when he brought in immigrants and he built the Snowy Hydro scheme back after World War II—we don't have that here anymore. The big problem is not just the fact that students spend four years here consuming goods and services and adding to the demand side of the economy but also that university don't pay taxes. We have extra demand on our infrastructure but the universities who are milking the system aren't paying any tax on these students coming in. Labor have got their priorities all wrong. Rather than building dodgy renewables that are unreliable and expensive and driving up the cost of energy, which is driving whatever manufacturing was left after the 1985 button plan—which destroyed manufacturing—offshore, they now want to de-prioritise Infrastructure Australia. I have to say I am shocked that some of the speeches on the other side of the chamber have been mocking what the former coalition government had scheduled to get built. I'll just outline what Labor have cut from their funding pipeline in their first budget when they got into government last year. They are pulling $7 billion out of the following projects—and these matter: the Hells Gate dam, the Dungowan dam and the Emu Swamp dam. With the Emu Swamp dam, the amount of effort that is taken to build what is not a large dam and was never an expensive dam—all the farmers in Warwick and the good people of Warwick, in the Southern Downs at the headwaters of the mighty Condamine River, was a dam for their community and a reliable source of water. Let's not forget that this funding is because the state Labor government, under Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Queensland Premier, has not been funding infrastructure. It's not like when I was a boy and you would wake up every morning and there'd be a new dam built somewhere, like the Burdekin and the Wivenhoe, and you'd have new infrastructure like the Captain Cook Bridge and the freeway running through Brisbane. We haven't got any of that. If we didn't have the Palaszczuk government trying to stop the construction of dams—and who can remember the disaster with Rookwood Weir dam in Rockhampton? The federal government had to fund all of that as well because the Labor Premier at the time, Annastacia Palaszczuk, wouldn't build any infrastructure in the regions. This matters, because when you build infrastructure you start to generate recurring revenue. As a young man growing up in Chinchilla, I got the benefits of that because our premier at the time, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, opened up those coalmines and the Weipa bauxite deposits. We had recurring revenue coming from the trainlines. We had recurring revenue coming from the royalties from the coal and the bauxite. We had recurring revenue coming from the ports—merge charges and things like that. We had all those jobs and all the associated jobs. What that recurring revenue did was pay for recurring costs in schools and hospitals. That's why when I grew up my town of Chinchilla had a maternity ward, but we don't have that anymore. This is the importance of infrastructure: infrastructure builds a nation. It's about time that the state Labor premiers and the federal Labor government worked together. We've heard the people on the other side blame the federal government. It's not the role of the federal government to be building dams and suchlike infrastructure. That's actually the role of the state government. The last federal coalition government actually went into bat for these incompetent state premiers who are more interested in spreading fear and loathing about climate change, COVID and whatever else they seek to control people's minds with than actually seeking to fund this stuff. What happens when Labor come into power? They cut funding. I'll continue with these dams. The Hughenden irrigation scheme has been deferred. Hughenden is in North Queensland, just west of the Great Dividing Range west of Cairns. You have black soil there in an area larger than the size of Tasmania. All you have to do is add water. If you want to talk about renewable energy, I'll tell you what renewable energy is. It's the stuff that comes out of the sky—it's the rain and the sunlight. If you mix that with the beautiful black soil around Hughenden and add toil, as the words of our national anthem say, you will create wealth. With that wealth you'll get an increase in land values, an increase in land taxes, an increase in company taxes and an increase in payroll taxes. All of that wealth creation starts to generate recurring taxes for the state governments that then pay for the schools and hospitals. That's how we manage to make ends meet in this country. It is wealth for toil. If you don't build the infrastructure that produces the goods and services, our country cannot move forward. I just want to touch on another couple of things. They were talking about the car park rorts that occurred under the coalition government. Nothing could be further from the truth there. Those car parks actually mattered a lot. I'm going to call out the hypocrisy of the other side here. The member for Lilley, where my electorate office sits, actually came out in the 2019 federal campaign and announced funding for car parks—announced $7 million for Northgate and announced $4 million for Geebung. Park and ride is a great idea. If we can encourage people to drive to their closest train station so that they catch the train to work rather than cause congestion in the middle of the city, isn't that a good thing? Isn't that a much smarter way of protecting our environment and keeping our atmosphere clean and green and keeping out of the atmosphere carbon monoxide—not dioxide—nitrogen, sulphide and all the stuff that comes out of the car exhaust? Isn't that a much smarter idea? This is the catastrophising by the other side. They are so good at doing this. Let's not forget that these guys weaponised the rape allegation and they weaponised those car parks. They somehow turned those into a rort when we needed people to be able to park and ride. Bill Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, was the opposition leader during the 2019 federal election. He was out with the former member for Lilley, Wayne Swan, and Anika Wells actually announcing these park and rides. So the hypocrisy from the other side of the chamber is absolutely breathtaking. Now I want to talk about my good friend Llew O'Brien, the member for Wide Bay, and all the effort he put in to getting the highway north of Gympie to be built as a dual-lane highway. I don't need to tell you the importance of safety on our roads. I went to my primary school's centenary a couple of weeks ago. It was good to go back. I was looking through the scrapbooks from the years when I was there. An eight-year-old boy was killed in a car accident. It was one of Chinchilla's worst car accidents. His mother; his younger brother, who was five; his mother's friend; and two people from Bulimba had an accident at Chinchilla golf course. I must admit that that shocked me a lot. It still shocks me because the Friday before the Saturday he was killed I spent detention with him. I know more than anyone that every year I went to school someone from my home town was killed on our highways. We need to spend money on our roads. I know that the federal government only does the federal highways, but the Bruce Highway—I grew up on the Warrego Highway—needs spending. My good friend Llew O'Brien, the member for Wide Bay, fought tooth and nail to make sure that that road infrastructure north of Gympie wasn't going to be built. That's because the transport minister of Queensland, Mark Bailey, would only fund a one-lane highway north of Gympie. The Wide Bay area in Queensland is one of the fastest growing regions in Australia, and yet we had a state Labor government that would not actually put the money in to build a dual-lane highway. Given the royalties and all of the production that comes out of Bundaberg—which is an extremely productive area, with fruit and things like that as well as tourism, and which has enormous population grown—if you were going to upgrade the road, why on earth would you only do it as a single lane? Of course, they did it as a single lane because the Queensland government are broke, and they are broke because they sold all the infrastructure. Former Queensland premiers Peter Beattie and Anna Bligh sold all of the Queensland infrastructure when they were in government. They sold the Port of Brisbane for a measly six times its earnings. Why would you sell a monopoly for six times its earnings? They sold the Queensland forestry plantations, which contained a reasonable amount of freehold, for five times their earnings. They sold ports. The very things that the great Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen built in his time as Premier—the various ports, Abbot Point and stuff like that—were all sold by Queensland Labor. This is the thing about the Labor government: they hate to build things. Their modus operandi is to tear things down. They love to use fearmongering. They love to tear down our cultures. This is the great culture of Australia. When I do my stump speech and go around to various communities, I often talk about what a great country Australia is because of the pioneering spirit of those who came to this country. They built things. If you got washed up on a desert island, would you either (a) go and hold a meeting where you'd come up with ideas to scare our children witless or (b) say, 'We're going to start building things'? That's the difference between this side of the chamber and that side of the chamber: we believe in construction, because with construction comes productivity and with productivity comes wealth. Do you want to know why we've got a productivity crisis in this country, Madam Acting Deputy President? It's because of that side of the chamber. Don't forget that it was that side of the chamber that in 1985 decided to rationalise manufacturing under the Button plan. Well, you did a great job of that. You rationalised manufacturing offshore. Congratulations! And what did they replace it with? In 1990, John Dawkins, the former education minister, came up with the great idea that we would send all of our children to university. That was a fantastic idea! It meant that, before they'd even started a job, they came out of university brainwashed and broke. They got some degree that told them how to shuffle paper in a superannuation fund. After the great Dawkins plan, we then had Paul Keating come up with the great idea of taking 12 per cent of workers' wages, like the wages of all those workers in regional Queensland. They said: 'We're going to take 12 per cent of your income and give it to someone you've never met in one of the ivory palaces of Sydney and Melbourne, and you're not going to get it back till you're 67.' That's if you get it back at all—if they haven't gambled it away. They're now looking at investing in cryptocurrency, heaven forbid. What next—a market for fairies and unicorns? We talk about why we've got a productivity crisis in this country. We need to go back to producing goods and services, not buying and selling, playing games with cryptocurrency and the stock market or shuffling money through superannuation funds. We need to build! We know that superannuation costs us $30 billion a year because we've got a whole bunch of financial engineers shuffling paper and gambling with other people's money. Then we've got the education sector. As I've pointed out before, they now import students. They don't pay taxes on those students. The battlers out there getting out of bed every day and putting their noses to the grindstone have to pay more taxes for the infrastructure that isn't being built. The only infrastructure that's being built at the moment is for renewable energy that keeps on falling over or driving up energy prices, which is only going to send more manufacturing offshore. That matters because, if you want to mix concrete to build the roads or make steel, it's too expensive to make it here, so we have to import it from overseas. We need to build. I'll finish this off by saying that we need an infrastructure bank. We should not go offshore and borrow another country's currency to fund the construction of infrastructure. I've talked about this before. The sovereign seven are power stations, dams, roads, rail, ports, airports and telecommunications. They are sovereign wealth if you build that asset—debit, asset, credit, equity. We are a sovereign country. We have title over that untapped wealth that those assets will create. We do not need to swap title for a mortgage because they're too silly to borrow money from a privately owned federal reserve. I'll leave it at that. 13:15 Senator ROBERTS 266524 Queensland As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I speak to the Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023—supposedly independent! This bill proposes to review any previous government infrastructure project that has not yet had spades in the ground, to stop previous government commitments. This bill guts the Infrastructure Australia board, reducing the number from 12 people who know about infrastructure and business to three people for whom there is no requirement to know anything about infrastructure—nothing. I expect the government to appoint three bureaucrats who appreciate that advancement in the Public Service is based on giving the government whatever it wants to hear. To call that an impartial board is a joke. This bill requires Infrastructure Australia to take account of government policy. Where there is expertise, it will no doubt be in solar, wind and battery backup, because this is the point of the bill: more taxpayers' money sacrificed on a pointless quest to save the world from cyclical, natural climate variation—natural warming and cooling cycles. This bill will facilitate the destruction of native Australian forests and replace them with industrial wind and solar landscapes. These are parasitic misinvestments forcing up energy prices and, as a result of energy scarcity, destroying employment in small and medium businesses and contributing to a massive transfer of wealth from everyday Australians to billionaire climate carpetbaggers. An amendment from Senator David Pocock will force this exact outcome. The bill ensures every project must have a sponsor, meaning Infrastructure Australia can't advance its own projects. Good ideas aren't always commercial or may be so large that a project sponsor risks bankruptcy to do the homework to advance the project to the funding stage. In this case, Infrastructure Australia should be allowed to step in and develop an initial business case with the expectation that, should the project proceed, their investment would be recouped using private Australian capital. It's fair to say that the Future Fund needs to contribute much more towards growing our national infrastructure. Snowy 2.0 is a salutary warning about what happens when the government takes a project through to the decision stage first and does the maths later and then rubs out the maths. The process behind Snowy 2.0 should never happen again, and both sides of parliament have been culpable. The bill requires Infrastructure Australia to take account of government policy. It's interesting to note some excellent amendments moved in the other place, the House of Representatives, designed to put commercial expertise into the bill while excluding conflicts of interest. Those amendments all failed. I have circulated a committee-stage amendment that Independent MP Dai Le originally moved to require the disclosure of conflicts of interest. Why wouldn't anyone want that? How can a government do a bill like this, which may spend $100 billion over 10 years, and not be worried about conflicts of interest? I've spoken in the last few days about the negative influence of foreign investment funds on government policy. I can see nothing in this bill that would stop these predatory billionaire funds using this bill for their own interests. Other amendments that were not and still would not be supported are as follows. The first is an amendment to introduce a cost-benefit analysis for any project over $100 million. Apparently, the government doesn't want cost-benefit analysis on investment projects, no doubt because there isn't a solar, wind or big battery project in the country that would pass the cost-benefit analysis—not one. David Littleproud MP asked for one of the commissioners to have substantial experience in rural and regional Australia. The Albanese government stopped that amendment from passing. The same happened to amendments improving transparency and reporting to parliament. They don't want transparency and reporting to parliament. I know every opposition will talk about transparency before they get elected and then, upon election, make transparency worse, which is exactly what this government is doing. The Albanese government seems worse than most at breaking their election promises and killing transparency. Senator Rice proposed an amendment to make infrastructure more social since we are all going to be stuck in our 15-minute cities—or 'prisons' to use a more accurate term. Not if One Nation can help it! I do thank Senator Rice for her amendment around continuity of existing projects. In this regard, the legislation is poorly worded. It's true that some of the Infrastructure Australia projects which hold so much promise are lagging. Many Queensland projects, like the Urannah dam, have not advanced since April 2022. There's no doubt that this is to prepare these projects for abolition. And rather than Minister King being blamed, the independent Infrastructure Australia will be blamed for implementing government policy—as this bill requires. Infrastructure minister King has terminated the Hells Gates dam north of Charters Towers and the Saego dam at Hughenden. This is yet another clear indication of the Albanese government hollowing out the bush and delivering our best farmland to foreign multinational superannuation funds and merchant banks for the benefit of foreign interests and to the exclusion of everyday Australians. Minister Plibersek's water policy changes introduced this week prove just how much this government hates the bush. The proposed measures will destroy rural communities. Country towns have a critical mass for population and services, below which a town is not viable. This government will wipe many Australian towns off the map and return that land to Gaia. The major banks know this already and they're acting like rats leaving a sinking ship with their branch closures. In effect, this Labor government is hollowing out the bush and using that money to line the pockets of climate carpetbaggers in order to buy votes off the Teals and the Greens—city votes. The east-west railway and multifunction corridor with associated steel parks have been progressed to the next stage at Infrastructure Australia following One Nation initiating a Senate inquiry. I look forward to the new board continuing those projects. Real infrastructure—dams, railroads, baseload power stations and ports—will never be built outside the capital cities because the government wants to hollow out the bush. It is hollowing out the bush. That's why real infrastructure will not be built outside the capital cities. The only infrastructure the bush will get is unwanted infrastructure: wind turbines, solar panels and a spider's web of high-voltage power lines growing like a cancer across rural Australia. And, like a cancer, these infernal things kill productive farmland, destroy native forest and destroy the native fauna that used to live there. They're killing pristine creeks. No-one in the bush wants these kamikaze, parasitic misinvestments. There's support from city folks who are eager to feel like worthy climate warriors while driving their petrol cars and living in freestanding houses, taking overseas holidays and dialling their air-conditioning up to the max. It's all justified because they support the campaign 'saving the planet' with solar and wind power—as long as they're built in someone else's backyard. Infrastructure is supposed to make life easier, not harder. Infrastructure is designed to add to our productive capacity and to grow the pie for all Australians. We hear so often that workers don't deserve pay rises because they've stopped working hard and productivity has declined. Let me ask: what happened to the government working harder? What happened to infrastructure that makes the internet faster, freight-forwarding faster, electricity cheaper and products like timber, cement and steel readily available and accessible? This is what makes workers more productive: better tools and better supplies. Make no mistake: under this Albanese government the lives of everyday Australians will be harder, pay packets will not go as far and opportunities for advancement will become harder and harder to find. One Nation's Queensland infrastructure program includes building the east-west railroad across the Top End, from Western Australia to North Queensland, to provide market access for the extraction and grazing industries. But that's not all it will do. These industries frequently have Aboriginal owners or employ a high proportion of Aboriginal staff. And there's tourism. One Nation will build a multipurpose corridor in the same footprint as that railway line to bring power, water, the internet and local train travel to Aboriginal and rural communities. We would build the steel parks and take more of the $2 trillion steel market for Australians, growing our economy with breadwinner jobs and solid foreign exchange earnings. We would build the Great Dividing Range project: a dam, hydro and irrigation project to deliver environmentally-friendly economic growth to North Queensland—G power will unleash North Queensland! One Nation will build the Emu Swamp Dam, the Urannah irrigation project, the Big Rocks Weir and the Hughenden Irrigation Project. One Nation will run the inland rail from Five Star into Queensland, along the Moonie Highway alignment and then across to Miles, then through Wandoan to Banana, to terminate at the port of Gladstone. We will connect the port of Gladstone to the east-west rail line to create a national rail route that will take hundreds of thousands of heavy truck movements of the roads while improving transit times. We will not build the Pioneer pumped hydro project, as this not only destroys the environment of the Pioneer Valley but is also a complete fraud on the part of Premier Palaszczuk. This project is a fake big idea to win votes in the city in the next election and take attention off the Mackay Base Hospital's many problems that the government has caused. It will also waste millions in feasibility studies that will ultimately showed this is a really stupid idea—a dishonest idea. To guarantee Australia's power supply, we need only to build coal-fired power stations using new technology. This new technology shows the public the hypocrisy of their renewable lobby. They criticise coal as being dirty so that industry develops the technology that captures the carbon dioxide and turns it into useful projects—fertiliser, fuel and hydrogen. This new technology allows clean energy to meet our net zero targets providing reliable baseload power at a fraction of the cost of solar and wind, I don't give a damn about UN net-zero targets, but if you want to meet them, here is a way of doing it productively. This should be supported across this parliament, yet these net zero vandals will not admit the transition is a disaster harming everyday Australians and will never deliver cheap, reliable energy. Why are you doing it? Why? What's your agenda? I suggest it is to orchestrate a power shortage in transport and production in order to usher in a new era of Soviet-style control. You have already shown it—the complete subjugation of Australia, as has been occurring since the signing of the UN's Lima declaration in 1975 by Prime Minister Whitlam under Labor, ratified the following year by Liberal Prime Minister Fraser. Labor destroys; One Nation will build. One Nation will build so that people can build. Human progress and economic prosperity depend on human initiative, and that needs opportunity and support. Opportunity and support flourish on freedom and on infrastructure for businesses to grow. Small businesses rely on infrastructure and start growing. There are eight keys to human progress in my belief. The first is freedom—the freedom to come up with ideas, exchange ideas, implement ideas. The second is rule of law—we have seen that smashed in the last three years. The third is stable, solid, sustainable, continuing governance—a Constitution. We have that. We have one of the world's best Constitutions. Number four is securing of property rights, which were stolen by the Howard-Anderson Liberal and National Party government from 1996 through to 2007. They stole farmers' property rights, the key to human progress. The fifth thing is strong families—they are being destroyed by policies put in place by the United Nations since 1975 with the Family Law Act—the slaughterhouse of the nation. Cheap energy is fundamental and the most significant factor for human progress—affordable, accessible, reliable, dependable, secure and stable. A taxation system that is efficient—not inefficient as the current system is. Lastly is honest money—we need to return to a people's bank in this country. The Commonwealth Bank, when it was the people's bank early last century, was responsible for human progress in this country—dramatic progress. We had only five million people, but the Commonwealth Bank took care of building our country into a big country. Australia 120 and 110 years ago had the highest per capita income in the world. To build a nation, people need infrastructure. People build a nation. People need infrastructure to build a nation. Australia has done this—we rose to number one in the world. That is instead of what Labor is doing now, which is a complete subjugation of Australia. Labor destroys; One Nation will build. The people of Australia have already proven we can build, and they have done it many times. STATEMENTS BY SENATORS 46 STATEMENTS BY SENATORS Health Care: Genetic Testing 46 13:29 Senator ASKEW 281558 Tasmania I rise today to speak about genetic discrimination, an issue that has potentially dire consequences for Australians impacted by hereditary diseases. In its current form, the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act 1992 includes an exemption that allows the insurance industry to use genetic testing results to discriminate against Australians wishing to take out life insurance policies. Genetics counsellor and lawyer Dr Jane Tiller found Australians who had acted proactively by undergoing genetic testing has been financially disadvantaged by insurance companies. How is it that undertaking a test to help inform future health decisions can lead to an exclusion on life insurance, increased premiums or even being denied life insurance cover altogether? Arguably, by being proactive and undertaking such genetic testing, these people are most likely to use that information to reduce their risk through altering their diet, regular screening or even preventive surgery. If they lived in other countries, these Australians will not be financially penalised simply for knowing their genetic make-up. We should be celebrating those taking up genetic testing, not penalising them. We don't want people to stop being tested in case it impacts their life insurance. Put simply, the information they find out could save their life, yet that knowledge becomes a double-edged sword. They should be able to access the same life insurance policies as other Australians. The 2017 Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services inquiry into the life insurance industry recommended a moratorium on the use of predictive genetic information. Additionally, the committee recommended the government monitor developments in this space to determine if reform was needed to ban or limit the life insurance industry's use of predictive genetic information. I believe that we now have reached the time where the Disability Discrimination Act needs to be amended to prevent further discrimination for those who take that initiative. Threatened Species Day 47 13:32 Senator DAVID POCOCK 256136 Australian Capital Territory Today is Threatened Species Day, a day to remember that we live on the most incredible continent, a megadiverse country with unique flora and fauna—that is not doing well. We are a world leader when it comes to mammal extinctions. We have environmental laws that are broken, that do not work, and we have a chronic underfunding of environmental programs and threatened species programs. Today we saw an event held here in Parliament House with some of those threatened species. Rightly, we saw dozens of members of the Senate and the House go take their photos with these animals, but a photo is not going to save them. We can't escape the fact that parliament for decades has failed our environment, has failed threatened species. Consecutive governments have overseen the destruction of their habitat and have not updated our environmental laws to actually look after the environment. Consecutive governments have certainly not funded threatened species to the point where there actually are no longer threatened. We've seen things just go from endangered to critically endangered at an alarming rate. I call on the Albanese government to step up when it comes to environmental law reform and to step up when it comes to funding for threatened species so that we don't see more extinctions in this country. Brindley, Mr Fraser Charles 47 13:34 Senator McKIM JKM Tasmania I want to pay tribute to my dear friend and adviser Fraser Brindley, who died on 9 August, exactly one month before his 50th birthday. Fraser was one of a kind, an immense intellect combined with a warm and generous nature that many people in this building, from political and parliamentary staff to MPs right across the spectrum, have warmly acknowledged these past few weeks. He leaves behind his mother, Helen, and children Via, Isabel, Ursula and Arthur. I want to acknowledge Helen and Via, who are here with us in the chamber today. Fraser was an active participant in the Victorian Greens from the very start. He actually nominated Adam Bandt when Adam first put up his hand for public office. Fraser served for the Greens on both Melbourne City and Moreland councils, where he honed his exceptional political skills. He had a commanding understanding of both policy and politics. He could build bridges, and he frequently did, but he could also find the political fracture points that cracked issues open and mercilessly apply pressure, and he did that too. His various plans and schemes achieved far too many outcomes for me to list in this short tribute. The Greens and the movements that we represent have lost a great friend and an incredible mind. We will carry his insights and the lessons we learnt from him with us, not just in this parliament but in all the parliaments to follow. We will continue his incredible legacy with the same courageous determination that he brought with him into this building every single day. We love you, Fraser, and we'll miss you. Farewell, my friend. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 252157 On behalf of the Senate, I extend condolences to Fraser's family members who are here today. Brindley, Mr Fraser Charles 47 13:36 Senator BARBARA POCOCK BFQ South Australia I too acknowledge Fraser's mum, Helen, and daughter Via. I thank you for lending us Fraser for so many years. Fraser was loved and appreciated by so many of us in this place, including me. In this contribution I would like to share words about Fraser on behalf of my policy advisor Emma Ball. Emma says: I was lucky to know Fraser for about a year, as a mentor and then friend. In that short time he changed my life. Fraser was kind and generous with his time. He'd do the legwork—like drafting a brief—but sign it off with my name. He'd plan ideas and give me the means to achieve them, but make sure I was the one doing the doing. He'd celebrate my wins with excitement and put my losses into perspective. Fraser was a brilliant and unconventional thinker. The way he spoke about economics was particularly refreshing. His insights gave me a new lens to view the world's problems and solutions. When I said I wanted to learn more, he took me to the library and we borrowed as many books as we could carry. He believed I had the capacity to teach myself. He'd often come to me with an idea, and I'd inevitably respond with: "you want me to do what? That's ridiculous?!" But Fraser's conviction and enthusiasm was contagious. We'd go down a rabbit hole, come out the other side with a plan, and usually manage to pull it off. Going forward, we will find ourselves asking "what would Fraser do?" In fact, we already said that this week. He'd be resolute that we need to stand our ground, question the status quo, build alliances, fight smarter and always work with humour. Right now, it feels hard to continue this work without you, Fraser. But deep down I know you've given me all the tools I need. Maybe I'll even find that elusive fourth sector for you. Rest in Serenity, Fraser. I couldn't have asked for a better friend. Workplace Relations 48 13:38 Senator SHELDON 168275 New South Wales The Leader of the Opposition should stop being sneaky when he talks about Qantas and Alan Joyce. It's really incredible how deceptive the opposition leader is. On the one hand he's lobbying on behalf of the Qatari government and accusing the government of being too close to Qantas while at the same time he's acting as Alan Joyce's mouthpiece when it comes to defending Joyce's labour hire loophole. Yesterday Mr Dutton said that our bill to close Joyce's labour hire loophole would 'deny employers the choice to use labour hire workers'. Can you believe the hypocrisy? The Liberals and Nationals are campaigning to protect Joyce's labour hire loophole. Mr Dutton is protecting the loophole that Mr Joyce created to split Qantas's workforce across 38 separate companies. That's your real evidence of how Qantas influences policy in this country. For 10 years the Liberals and Nationals happily defended Mr Joyce while he tore Qantas's workforce apart. The Liberals and Nationals were there when Joyce illegally sacked 1,700 people. As soon as we got into government Minister Burke took Joyce on in the High Court. That's the difference between us and them. We stood up for Qantas workers against Mr Joyce. Those opposite helped Mr Joyce destroy their livelihoods and their lives. The Liberals and Nationals will always be for low pay. In fact, when it comes to gig work, the Liberals and the Nationals are for no pay. They are for no minimum standards. They are for gig workers getting hit by trucks while they slave away for as little as $6 an hour. Over here, we're on the side of working Australians and good Australian employers, who deserve a fair shake. Aviation Industry 48 13:40 Senator LAMBIE 250026 Tasmania When I was asked by the media on Monday what I thought about the government knocking back Qatar Airways' request for more flights in Australia, I said I wasn't sure. I said that I was worried about the potential impacts on regional areas. I said I needed to consult with smaller airlines. That's what I do. It's my job to consult with industry and organisations that might be impacted by a government decision that's being made. So that's what I did on Monday. I jumped on the phone and I talked to the other airlines, who all thanked me for consulting with them, because—guess what?—the transport minister didn't do any consulting except, apparently, with Qantas. Catherine King is the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. A total of $225 billion has been allocated by this government for infrastructure. So are you seriously telling me that the minister responsible for dishing out billions of dollars of taxpayer money isn't consulting with industry? You have to be kidding me today! Once again, we have a transparency issue. What's new in here? The minister says the unacceptable strip searching of women was one factor, but we still do not know today what the other factors were. Seriously! The minister says she made the decision in the national interest. Really? She's now had four days and she still can't tell us what those national interests were. I would have thought that it was in the national interest to do your due diligence and consult. That would have been in the national interest. Get out there and do your job. If I can do it then you can do it. We crossbenchers don't have the luxury of having just one portfolio, I can assure you. We have to be across everything, with just two advisers, and the minister has four whole departments to back her up. Figure it out, Catherine, and do your job! Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program 48 13:42 Senator COLBECK 00AOL Tasmania I've previously participated in the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program, which offers members of parliament the opportunity to visit Australian Defence Force units. We reciprocate each year, and this week I have hosted Squadron Leader Kirk Cartwright from the Royal Australian Air Force, who is in the advisers box today. Before his return to duty, I'd like to share some of his reflections from his time with us: It would be career limiting not to first express my gratitude to the Vice Chief of the Defence Force for selecting me for this program. It's been an eye-opening experience, giving me valuable insights into how government operates—an area I knew little about. I am truly grateful to Senator Colbeck, his support staff, and the Parliament House team, for your commitment to enriching this experience. Meeting some of you has been a highlight, and I am inspired by the dedication to your work. The days here are long, and witnessing question time, often thankless. What occurs behind the scenes, however, leaves me with a newfound respect for the effort it takes to exercise our democracy. Tomorrow, I return to my duties with a better appreciation for our system of government and its leaders. The devotion of the parliamentarians and support staff would be evident to anyone given the opportunity to observe you at work. I hope this program continues to grow, offering more of my colleagues the chance to participate and, in-kind, host you at our operational units. I thank Squadron Leader Cartwright for his time. It's been a delight to have him in the office and to learn about what he does. Perhaps it's a bit ironic to have an air crash investigator working in a senator's office, but it has been a good week, and I wish him the best as he continues to progress through his career. Melville Island: MV-22B Osprey Crash 49 13:44 Senator McCARTHY 122087 Northern Territory On 27 August an Osprey helicopter crashed on Melville Island during military training, Exercise Predators Run. Twenty-three US Marines were onboard when it crashed, and three US Marines lost their lives. Captain Eleanor V LeBeau, Corporal Spencer R Collart and Major Tobin J Lewis were the lives lost. Captain LeBeau was piloting the aircraft and has been commended for managing to land the helicopter in such a way that the 20 other personnel on board survived. I would also like to commend the first responders in the Northern Territory, who acted so quickly to attend the scene. The defence members, the Northern Territory police, CareFlight, Royal Darwin Hospital, the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre and the Northern Territory government worked together to secure the scene, provide initial care to the survivors and retrieve the bodies of those lost in order to repatriate them back to the United States, where they will be reunited with their families. I also commend the Tiwi families and all involved with the smoking ceremony that took place afterwards, to send off their spirits, as it is in the Tiwis' way and in First Nations people's way to respectfully farewell them. I would like to take this time to pass on my condolences to the families, colleagues and friends of the three US Marines. On behalf of the Australian Senate and Australian parliament, we recognise the importance of the relationship in Australia with the US, in particular in the Northern Territory. We know what it is to see such lives lost, especially when we have had our own loss in Queensland recently. We acknowledge the work of all in the Defence Force, and we pay our respects. BAE Systems 49 13:46 Senator SHOEBRIDGE 169119 New South Wales Last week, on behalf of the Greens, I referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission the $45 billion procurement of Hunter class frigates from the United Kingdom arms dealer BAE Systems. Let me tell you why. When Defence in 2016 decided it needed new frigates it made a new short list. Despite there being better options and despite them being extremely risky, BAE somehow made that shortlist. Do you want to know why? So do we. Unfortunately, then defence secretary Richardson and the legion of minute-takers at Defence forgot to jot down the reasons. You may want to know why, despite there being much better options, BAE was later picked up as the preferred tenderer after having sneaked onto the shortlist in the first place. The new defence secretary, Mr Moriarty, also forgot to take notes on the decisions. These defence secretaries are very, very forgetful. So forgetful are they that Defence also missed including any value-for-money assessment, the core requirement in the Commonwealth procurement laws. Luckily though, the whole process was overseen by an expert advisory panel, and with half of the people on the panel having previously worked for BAE, you can bet they were experts. If that's concerning you too, don't worry, because there was an independent review panel of this process, 50 per cent of which was former BAE staff. We could have saved a lot of money because it was predetermined who was going to get the contract. It was always going to be BAE. I don't know what to call this other than corruption—not individual corruption, not suitcases of money. No, it is something much more insidious—a corrupted system. Goyder, Mr Richard 50 13:48 Senator STERLE e68 Western Australia There have been some stinging contributions in the Financial Review over the last week exposing Qantas chairman Richard Goyder for his involvement in Qantas's woeful performance and overall poor management; his questionable history at the AFL due to the messy response to the Hawthorn Indigenous players' scandal, the drawn-out search for a new CEO, a lack of football knowledge on his board and the failure to fill vacancies; and the time he massively overpaid for the supermarket giant Coles, when he was chair of Wesfarmers. Wesfarmers' return on equity over the cycle never recovered, while he walked out after 10 years with over $90 million in his pocket. Joe Aston wrote: The highlight of Goyder's stewardship of Coles was its Queensland pubs allowing children in its poker machine rooms and luring punters to those pokies with advertising for their free kids' clubs. In 2009, anti-pokies campaigner Paul Bendat took out a full-page ad in the Post, the community newspaper in Goyder's leafy suburb of Peppermint Grove, with a photo of Goyder and the headline "Have you seen this man?" Coles overhauled its practices within days. This is from Joe Aston: ' Bendat understood what is most important to Richard Goyder … And for those listening out there, it's not the workers who he steals from to give himself his pay packet, it's not the customers he's slugging with the price of airfares going through the roof and phantom flights and it's certainly not football players in the AFL. As Joe Aston writes and as Paul Bendat concluded, what is most important to Richard Goyder is the myth of Richard Goyder as a professional good bloke—spew. But who is he really? Aston writes, 'He is every man to everybody, whoever you want him to be. He's usually unflappable, but his feathers are plainly ruffled now that he's spruiking his turnaround bona fides,' in order to divert much-earnt criticism following the woeful behaviour and management at Qantas. He cannot keep getting away with this. Today I call for his resignation and his whole crooked board at Qantas. Special Purpose Flights 50 13:50 Senator HENDERSON ZN4 Victoria I rise to raise my profound concerns about the use of special purpose aircraft by the Deputy Prime Minister and member for Corio. Mr Marles needs to come clean. As each day passes, this government is looking more and more secretive and tricky. The Senate has made clear its expectations of greater transparency from the Albanese Labor government on the use of SPA flights. As a result of a motion moved by the coalition and the Greens, the Albanese Labor government has been ordered: to table information relating to SPA flights to the extent such information can be provided, consistent with advice from security agencies; to table all current and previous versions of the SPA guidelines provided to officials around the use of SPA flights; and to provide in confidence to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security any related advice that informed the changes to the SPA guidelines. The coalition's motion means there will be careful assessment without breaching or risking security considerations of the security advice that led to the changes to the SPA guidelines. The member for Corio represents some of the most disadvantaged suburbs in the country. Many of his constituents are struggling just to put food on table or to turn on the heater. The fact that it appears Mr Marles has been commuting between Avalon Airport close to his home and Canberra on VIP flights rather than catching commercial flights to and from Tullamarine requires a full explanation. The people of Corio deserve a local representative who puts them first. If Mr Marles has been using VIP aircraft as a taxi service, as it appears, this is untenable. For a prime minister who promised a more accountable and transparent government, this chain of events continues to demonstrate this Labor government's rank hypocrisy. Climate Change 50 13:52 Senator ROBERTS 266524 Queensland As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I asked the question: Can you feel the winds of change? Leading climate alarmists are deserting their ship. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demonstrates just how out of touch climate carpetbaggers really are. The only thing boiling dry is Antonio Guterres's credibility. Nobel science prize winner John Clauser last week publicly stated, 'I can confidently say there is no real climate crisis and that climate change does not cause extreme weather events.' After saying that, the IMF cancelled his scheduled tour. Silencing scientists won't save the great global warming scam. An excellent article in The Australian reveals two of America's top climate scientists have correctly rubbished claims July was the hottest month on record, deploring a 'stunning amount of exaggeration and hype'. Cliff Mass, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington said the public was being quite 'misinformed on a massive scale, with a massive amount of exaggeration. He goes on, 'In Houston, for example, in the city centre it is between six and nine degrees centigrade higher than in the surrounding countryside.' That isn't global warming; that is the urban heat island effect, which, by the way, is easily countered—plant trees. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Alabama Huntsville, said heatwaves in the first half of the 20th century were at least as intense as those recent heatwaves. This is the university that runs the official NASA satellite temperature record, the umpire of datasets, which shows an increase in temperatures since 1978 of only 0.3 degrees centigrade, on trend with temperature trends since the mini ice age 200 years ago. Even the warmer-in-chief, Jim Skea at the head of the UN's climate body says, '1.5 degrees temperature rise is not an existential threat to humanity. we will not die out.' Defence Force Parliamentary Program 51 13:54 Senator O'SULLIVAN 283585 Western Australia The Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program exchange is an excellent initiative with profound benefits in broadening the horizons of both Defence Force members and parliamentarians. The innovative program fosters a deeper understanding and appreciation of each other's roles resulting in a more cohesive and informed government. For ADF members, the program offers a unique opportunity to gain firsthand insights into the intricacies of parliamentary duties and the policymaking processes that can potentially impact upon their operations. By engaging with us as parliamentarians, they develop a comprehensive understanding of the political landscape, enhancing their knowledge of the broader political context. This week I had the immense privilege of hosting Corporal Nima Nikfarjam. Nima joins me in the chamber here today, and I'm sure all colleagues join me in welcoming him here. Nima has embraced Australia as his home for the past 16 years, since he moved here from Iran. His deep appreciation for our nation's way of life is truly inspiring. As an electronic technician, Nima and his team in No. 453 Squadron Williamtown Flight provide maintenance support, ensuring safe air traffic control operation for military and civilian flights at Newcastle Airport. In his 10 years of service, Nima has exemplified both Australian and Defence values. Notably, his invaluable role as a translator during the 2021 Afghanistan evacuation showcased his unwavering commitment to our country. Nima's story embodies the spirit of diversity and unity that defines modern Australia. This program equips both Defence members and parliamentarians with the knowledge and the perspectives that they need to excel in their respective roles, ultimately benefiting the Australian people. I certainly thank the corporal for joining me this week and I wish him the very best. Coxhead, Mr Ian and Mrs Liz 51 13:56 Senator CADELL 300134 New South Wales This weekend, members of my party, the National Party of Australia's New South Wales branch, will be coming from all corners down to Canberra for the federal conference of the National Party. Senator Sterle e68 Oh, you poor devil! Senator CADELL 300134 One of those days—all preselectors. Some are coming in for tours tomorrow and having a look around at committees. I was in the chamber listening to Senator Ayres, who was giving a great reflection on some members of the Labor Party and unions who have passed away over time, when I received a text regarding Ian Coxhead. Ian Coxhead is one of the Tamworth parents who were here for my maiden speech. He and his wife put me up in Tamworth when I campaign in New England and I spend a lot of time with them. Every time I go there I bring a serious injury for one of them. The first day I was there, Ian was attacked by a dog that got off someone else's car and bit through to the bone and took his tendons out. He ended up in Tamworth Hospital. The second time I went up there for a campaign, Mrs Coxhead—Liz—had a back injury and spent the time I was there in hospital getting her back redone. So I was really disappointed to hear that—when I wasn't even there—Ian had a heart attack yesterday, whilst I was in the chamber. But he survived. It makes us go back. All of us are here because of people like the Coxheads, right throughout our memberships and our supporters in unions, in parties and in small businesses. They do so much for us and they also do so much for people in the community. They take a stand. Ian is a fodder farmer, with dryland and wetland. During the drought, when he was out of water and out of stock himself, he was buying from other sources and giving to his regular customers, sometimes at a loss, so he could help them out, because he wasn't suffering as much as other people. He and Liz are the king and queen of Nemingha, with their flagpole proudly on their front lawn. Ian, I'm thinking of you. I know you are going in to have a stent put in on Monday. Thank you for all you do for your community, thank you for all you do for the party and thank you for all you have done for me. South Australia: Women's Reproductive Health 52 13:58 Senator MARIELLE SMITH 281603 South Australia Bringing a healthy baby into our world is a life-changing, miraculous experience, but, as anyone who's done it or held the hand of someone who's done it knows, it can be bloody tough too. The need for care and support doesn't stop when you leave the delivery suite. It can follow you for weeks and months afterwards. Especially for women who've experienced loss, trauma or mental and physical health impacts, those needs can be acute, and the right support is essential for a healthy mother and child. But too often, in our regional areas, those supports aren't there or they're too hard to access. That's why I held a roundtable recently with Assistant Minister Kearney to discuss women's health in South Australia and what we can do to make a meaningful difference, particularly in communities in my state of South Australia, where birth services have closed after being established for a period of time or aren't provided at all. We know that, when this is the case in regional communities, it means that women are forced to travel far away from their support networks, their families, their dependent children and those supports in their lives that they need to have a safe and healthy delivery. Midwifery continuity-of-care practices have the potential to be a complete game changer when it comes to maternal health in regional South Australia. I want to acknowledge the work of Elizabeth Bennett, the maternity unit manager of Yorke and Northern LHN's midwifery group, where midwifery continuity-of-care programs are running and providing outstanding care to women in these communities. Reforming the maternal health landscape in regional Australia is going to need innovative solutions. Midwifery continuity of care is one of those solutions which can ensure that women in our regional areas aren't let down in their birthing journey and are offered the supports they need to bring a baby into the world safely. The PRESIDENT 112096 Before we move to question time, I have a statement to make. STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT 52 STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT Questions Without Notice 52 13:59 The PRESIDENT 112096 Towards the end of question time on Tuesday I called Senator Henderson to order. I remind senators that Senate question time on Tuesday was particularly disorderly. This is evidenced on the record, as I called the Senate to order over 50 times. I called Senator Henderson to order a number of times and, on the last call, Senator Henderson informed me that she had not interjected. I have reviewed the tape and, as many of you know, the tape doesn't show all interjections and the interjections are also not audible. I have taken Senator Henderson's assertion on face value, and I apologise for indicating that it was her voice. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 52 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Aviation Industry 52 14:00 Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X South Australia My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister and the Minister the Foreign Affairs, Senator Farrell. Does the Albanese government believe there are specific risks to the safety of Australians that result from travelling through Doha airport? 14:01 Senator FARRELL I0N South Australia I thank Senator Birmingham for his question. I have just travelled through Doha airport on my way back from a holiday a few weeks ago, and I personally don't see any risks. I think the issue that the senator is referring to was an event that occurred some time ago where, at the same time that an Australian flight was due to fly out of Doha, there was a terrible incident that occurred where a newborn baby was left in a bin in the airport and, for whatever reason, a decision was made by the Qatar authorities to take some action against a number of Australian women who were on the plane flying back to Australia. This morning, the transport minister made reference to this issue when she was releasing her green paper on the aviation industry at Canberra Airport. That was one of the issues that she has raised. (Time expired) The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Birmingham, your first supplementary question. 14:03 Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X South Australia Noting that the statements by the minister for transport that the minister has referred to about the incident at Hamad International Airport were, 'obviously a context for the decision that I made,' and given the seriousness with which the minister for transport must view that issue and the consequences on her current decision-making about future travel and future flights, has the government changed or updated the travel advice for Australians who are travelling through Doha? 14:03 Senator FARRELL I0N South Australia I thank Senator Birmingham for that question. I'm a bit unclear about the time line he's talking about. If he's indicating, 'Has the government made any changes to its advice since the minister made her statement this morning,' I don't know the answer to that question. But I'm very happy to make some inquiries to find out whether or not there has been any change. I'm not aware of any change that has been made. But in light of the fact that he has asked me this question I will follow that up and see whether any changes have been made to this or any other advice that we might give Australian travellers. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Birmingham, second supplementary. 14:04 Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X South Australia If the issues cited by the minister for transport are of such concern as to have informed and driven her rejection of the Qatar Airways application, why are Albanese government ministers, including you, Minister Farrell, publicly encouraging Qatar to put more flights into secondary airports and more seats on in its existing landing slots? Is safety a real concern or just a smokescreen? Do you want more people flying through Doha or less people flying through Doha? 14:05 Senator FARRELL I0N South Australia I thank Senator Birmingham for his question. I don't think there are any inconsistencies here. I am advised that the travel advice remains to exercise normal travel precautions. To the best of my knowledge, in answer to your earlier question, we have not changed the advice other than to say to exercise normal travel precautions. My response, particularly to the issue of Qatar, was to say that if they want additional flights into Australia then there are opportunities for them to use existing rights. One of those rights, as you well know, Senator Birmingham, is to fly into airports like Adelaide Airport, like Canberra Airport, like Broome, like Cairns, like Avalon— (Time expired) Trade with China 53 14:06 Senator STERLE e68 Western Australia My question is to the Minister for Trade and Tourism, Senator Farrell. Last month the Australian government announced that China would remove the 80.5% anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Australian barley. It has been reported that the Chinese duties on Australian barley effectively blocked exports to that market worth nearly $1 billion prior to the duties being imposed. This outcome has been welcomed by Australian grain producers and exporters, as China has historically been a very important export market for malting barley over many decades. Could the minister outline what action the Albanese government has taken to pave the way for the re-entry of Australian barley to the Chinese market? 14:07 Senator FARRELL I0N South Australia I thank Senator Sterle. He's a great Western Australian senator with a great interest in this issue for his constituents in Western Australia. The lifting of the 80.5% tariff on Australian barley exports last month by Chinese authorities has highlighted the benefits of the Albanese Labor government's approach to engaging in mature dialogue to stabilise the relationship with our largest trading partner. This year I've had three meetings with the Chinese commerce minister, Minister Wang Wentao, including travelling to Beijing in May to co-chair the first meeting between Australian and Chinese trade ministers since 2019. In that meeting we agreed to set up a dialogue under our existing free-trade agreement and other platforms to resolve outstanding trade issues. Bilateral engagement at all levels is intensifying, including this week, with the seventh Australia-China High Level Dialogue taking place. Last week, I, along with Minister Watt and Minister King, was pleased to witness the first Western Australian barley shipment to China in three years, departing from the Kwinana grain terminal— Senator Watt 245759 Delivering for agriculture again. Senator FARRELL I0N Yes, Senator Watt, delivering for agriculture in the great state of Western Australia— An honourable member interjecting— Senator FARRELL I0N I know you don't like it. I know you don't like them getting their barley back into China, but, under the Albanese Labor government's stewardship, Australian barley exporters now have an opportunity to re-enter the market much earlier than if we'd continued to prosecute our case through the World Trade Organization. This government is delivering positive outcomes for all of our farmers and regional Australia, especially Western Australia. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Sterle, first supplementary. 14:09 Senator STERLE e68 Western Australia The removal of Chinese import duties on Australian barley is a welcome development, but trade impediments imposed by China are affecting the export of other Australia products, including wine, lobster and red meat. What is the government doing to address these remaining trade impediments, Minister? 14:09 Senator FARRELL I0N South Australia I thank Senator Sterle for his first supplementary question. Progress is being made, but there's still some way to go until we see normal trade resume across the board with China. The Albanese government is working hard to remove remaining trade impediments, including those affecting wine, lobster, red meat and hay. On wine, I've been very clear, when engaging with my Chinese counterpart, that we expect a process similar to the process for barley to be followed to remove tariffs on wine. On lobster, red meat and hay, the government has been actively engaging, including at a technical level, to resolve impediments blocking Australian exports. So far, dialogue rather than bluster has proven effective. We believe that it's in both Australia's and China's interests for all trade impediments to be removed. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Sterle, second supplementary? 14:10 Senator STERLE e68 Western Australia In addition to barley, there have been several positive trade developments this year with China, including the resumption of Australian exports of coal, cotton, copper ores and concentrates and the lifting of quarantine restrictions on timber logs. While these developments are welcome, can the government detail what work is being undertaken to support market diversification for all exporters? 14:11 Senator FARRELL I0N South Australia I thank Senator Sterle for his second supplementary question. A priority of the Albanese government has been to work to stabilise our relationship with China, by far our largest trading partner. But recent experience demonstrates that overreliance on any single trading partner comes with risks. The Albanese government has been encouraging Australian business to continue with their diversification plans and to take advantage of new and emerging markets. A key element of the government's trade diversification agenda is entering into new and comprehensive free trade agreements. The United Kingdom and Indian markets— Opposition senators interjecting— Senator FARRELL I0N Well, you never got them through. You might have got the agreements, but you never got them through the parliament, and we did, and I know you hate that. But we now offer opportunities for Australian producers and traders, and we are in tough negotiations to— (Time expired) Workplace Relations 54 14:12 Sen I0M Western Australia ator CASH (—) (): My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Workplace Relations, Senator Watt. In an interview this week with Andrew Clennell on Sky News, when asked whether service contractors were excluded from the labour hire provisions of Labor's IR bill, Minister Burke said: 'Completely, completely. Service contractors have been deliberately excluded.' Can the minister guarantee that there are no circumstances under which service contractors could be subject to a regulated labour hire arrangement and that they are, as the minister has stated, completely, completely, deliberately excluded? 14:13 Senator WATT 245759 Queensland It's always good to get a question about workplace relations from the minister who was in charge of these portfolios when a police raid on union offices was leaked from a minister's office. It's always good to get a question about workplace relations— The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Watt! Senator WATT 245759 Straight to the history, straight to the record. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Watt, order! Senator Watt, when I call you to order I expect you to sit. Senator Scarr? Senator Scarr 282997 President, personal reflection. I've previously taken exactly this point of order when Senator Watt has raised this matter. It is contrary to what the Federal Court found, and Senator Watt should withdraw, as he has previously. The PRESIDENT 112096 Minister Gallagher? Senator Gallagher ING On the point of order, I've listened to Senator Scarr, but I think that is an established fact that's been clear and on the public record. Senator Gallagher ING I'm pretty sure it is. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Scarr, order! Senator Scarr, I heard your point of order. I advised Senator Watt not to be disorderly. I then invited Minister Gallagher, and there was disorder. That is inappropriate and it's disrespectful. I will seek some advice on your point of order. Senator Watt, I was going to call you to order, prior to Senator Scarr jumping to his point of order, to remind you to get to the question. I am not fully aware of the matters Senator Scarr has raised. I invite you to withdraw those comments and get to the point of your response. Senator WATT 245759 I'm happy to withdraw, Madam President. The direct answer to the question from Senator Cash is that, as Minister Burke has made clear on many occasions, the government accepts that there are legitimate uses for labour hire in the workforce, particularly in areas such as surge, temporary replacement or specialised workforces. But, as I was saying the other day, when Senator Cash asked me a question about this, if an employer has an enterprise agreement and agrees to certain minimum rates of pay then that employer should not be able to use loopholes within our industrial relations laws to undercut the wages they have agreed to. That's what this is about. The PRESIDENT 112096 Minister Watt, please resume your seat. Senator Cash. Senator Cash I0M A point of order in relation to direct relevance: I quoted the minister and I asked Senator Watt, quite clearly: are there any circumstances under which service contractors could be subjected to a labour hire arrangement?' If the minister is telling the truth, the answer is— The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Cash, there is no need to continue on. I will rule on your point and I will remind— Senator Pratt I0T If you know the answer, why ask it? The PRESIDENT 112096 Order on my right! I will remind the minister of your question. Senator WATT 245759 Thanks, President. The next point I was going to make—until Senator Cash interrupted—was that if the arrangement is to provide a service other than labour then that would be completely different and the Fair Work Commission would be able to exclude them. So there will be circumstances where, because of specialised arrangements and specialised labour, the Fair Work Commission will have the ability to exclude those forms of— Senator Birmingham H6X So it's discretionary. Senator WATT 245759 If you knew anything about industrial relations—I'll take the interjection from Senator Birmingham. If you knew the slightest thing about industrial relations law, you would know that the Fair Work Commission has discretion to decide many, many things— Senator Cash I0M We know a lot about Labor and lying. Senator WATT 245759 and Senator Cash should know that, as a former industrial relations practitioner. Opposition senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT 112096 Order! The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Cash, your leader is on his feet. Senator Birmingham. Senator Birmingham H6X President, a point of order on direct relevance: Senator Cash asked a question seeking a specific response to a very specific quote from Minister Burke about whether service providers were completely, completely, deliberately excluded. In terms of the minister being directly relevant—and this was particularly relevant to the exchange just had between the minister and I across the chamber—it sounds like he is watering down the minister's statement that they are not completely, completely, deliberately excluded— The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Birmingham, you have now moved on to a debating point. Senator Birmingham H6X and I would invite the minister to be crystal clear on that— The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Birmingham, please resume your seat. Senator Birmingham H6X before he gives condescending lectures across the chamber. Honourable senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT 112096 Order across the chamber! As all senators in this place are aware, if there are interjections the minister may take those interjections. He took your interjection, Senator Birmingham— The PRESIDENT 112096 and he had started to be directly relevant to the question. Senator Cash, you were very close then to me asking you to withdraw. You used the word 'lies'. I'm just asking people to be mindful of their language. Opposition senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT 112096 I am asking all senators to be mindful of their language. Minister Watt, please continue. Senator WATT 245759 Thank you. So—to make it even more clear for Senator Birmingham and Senator Cash—the closing loopholes bill gives service contractors a clear pathway for demonstrating that their arrangements are not those the government aims to address with this measure. But let's be clear about what this is about. We have a coalition who cannot get over the fact that low wages are not the deliberate design feature of the economic policy of an Australian government. Opposition senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT 112096 Order on my left! Senator Ruston and Senator Cash! Senator Cash, a first supplementary question? 14:19 Senator CASH I0M Western Australia Minister, proposed section 306G of the bill provides a clear exemption from the regulated labour hire arrangement for training and short-term arrangements. Given Minister Burke's statement that service contractors have been deliberately excluded, can the minister please advise the Senate what section of the bill provides the specific exclusion for service contractors that Minister Burke has referred to? 14:20 Senator WATT 245759 Queensland Senator Cash, I don't have the bill in front of me, but the 'closing loopholes' bill gives service contractors a clear pathway for demonstrating that their arrangements are not those that the government aims to address with this measure. I've already indicated what the intention is here, but the intention of the opposition in this debate is to keep the loopholes wide open— The PRESIDENT 112096 Minister, please resume your seat. Senator Cash? Senator Cash I0M A point of order on direct relevance. I asked the Minister a simple and very clear question: what section of the bill provides the specific exclusion for service contractors? If the minister does not know, I am more than happy for him to take it on notice. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Cash, you also talked about short-term contracts. I believe the minister is being relevant, but I will continue to listen, particularly to your point of order on direct relevance. Senator WATT 245759 What this is really about is a coalition that still haven't gotten over the fact that they lost the last election. They can't get over the fact that there is a government that wants to close the loopholes. I mentioned earlier in the week that Senator Cash was saying that IR changes would take us back to the Dark Ages, but why stop there? Why not say that it's going to take us back to the Ice Age? That's right—you did that by freezing wages for 10 years. We had frozen wages in your ice age. Why not go back even further to the Jurassic age, because there are certainly a lot of dinosaurs opposite when it comes to workplace relations policy! The Dark Ages, the Ice Age, the Jurassic age—take your pick! What we know is that you are the people who want to keep those loopholes open, who want to keep workers being exploited and who want to support employers who are undercutting their competitors. The PRES 112096 Senator McGrath, that was incredibly disorderly to continue to shout out. Senator Cash, a second supplementary question? 14:21 Senator CASH I0M Western Australia Why has Minister Burke given himself up to 32 clauses in the government's new IR bill which give him extraordinarily broad ministerial powers to change the laws with the stroke of a pen, including powers to rope in even more businesses if he doesn't like a decision that has been made by the Fair Work Commission to exclude those businesses? 14:22 Senator WATT 245759 Queensland It wouldn't be a Thursday afternoon in the Senate without a new scare campaign from Senator Cash, would it? 'Extraordinary stroke of a pen! Dark Ages!' Seriously, this nonsense that you pull out every time we want to do something about fixing wages is laughable. In answer to your previous question, take a look at section 306AAB— Opposition senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT 112096 Order! Senator McGrath! Senator Cash! Senator McKenzie? Senator McKenzie 207825 On a point of order, the minister needs to direct his comments to Senator Cash through the chair. The PRESIDENT 112096 Thank you, Senator McKenzie, I will remind the minister of that, but I would particularly like to remind the chamber that you all need to be respectful and orderly, and not shout out. Senator WATT 245759 Senator Cash has a track record of coming into this chamber or going into the newsrooms and making stuff up when it comes to industrial relations reforms. We've had the dark ages, we were going to have supermarket shelves that were empty, we were going to be closing down the economy— Opposition senators in terjecting— The PRESIDENT 112096 Order! Minister Watt, please resume your seat. Senator Cash, again—those constant interjections are disrespectful and they're disorderly. I would ask you to listen in respectful silence. Senator WATT 245759 Next week I predict Senator Cash will be in here saying this will end the weekend—oh, that's right! You've already done that one! After that it will end the backyard barbecue—oh, that's right! You've already done that one! Every scare campaign you have ever made up about industrial relations changes is wrong because wages are getting moving again under the Albanese government and we want that to continue. Opposition senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT 112096 Order! Senator McKenzie, we are moving on. Defence Procurement: Submarines 57 14:24 Senator SHOEBRIDGE 169119 New South Wales My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Defence. With opposition growing in the US Congress to passing any legislation that allows Australia even one Virginia-class nuclear submarine because of an entrenched lack of capability in the US industry to build enough submarines for their use, what is the Albanese government's Plan B for when no subs are approved and the first pillar of AUKUS sinks? 14:24 Senator FARRELL I0N South Australia I thank Senator Shoebridge for his question. It's interesting that Senator Hanson-Young or Senator Pocock hasn't asked that question, because, of course, the prospect of Australia building those submarines in South Australia is going to be a wonderful opportunity. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Shoebridge? Senator Shoebridge 169119 This is not about the submarines— The PRESI 112096 Senator Shoebridge, why are you on your feet? Senator Shoebridge 169119 It's relevance. I ask you to bring the minister— The PRESIDENT 112096 You're rising on a point of order. Senator Shoebridge 169119 Correct. The PRESIDENT 112096 Then you need to stand and indicate it's a point of order. Senator Shoebridge 169119 Point of order. The PRESIDENT 112096 Thank you. Senator Shoebridge 169119 The minister is not being relevant. The question is not about boats that might be built from 2040 in South Australia, which he seems fixated on. It's the boats that you're not going to get out of the United States from 2030, built in the US. The PRESIDENT 112096 You are now getting into a debating point, Senator Shoebridge. I'll remind Minister Farrell of your question. Se I0N I simply don't agree with the fundamental premise of your question, Senator Shoebridge. Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom have reached an agreement on a program to increase our defence capabilities in a more dangerous world. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but a small country like Ukraine has just been invaded, illegally and immorally, by— Senator Shoebridge 169119 On a point of order, the question at no point referenced the Ukraine but is about congressional approval for Virginia-class submarines being made available to Australia. Could you please direct the minister to the question. The PRESIDENT 112096 The minister is answering your question. You may not like the answer, but he nevertheless has answered the question. Minister Farrell, please continue. Senator FARRELL I0N Can I say this: we've got a fantastic ambassador in the United States in former prime minister Rudd— Honourable senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT 112096 Order! Senator Canavan! And Senator McKenzie! Senator FARRELL I0N and I know that our ambassador in the United States has ensured that AUKUS has strong bipartisan and bicameral support right across congress. During the AUSMIN discussions, Secretary Austin and Secretary Blinken were confident there would continue to be strong bipartisan support for this initiative. So your assumptions— (Time expired) The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Shoebridge, your first supplementary? 14:28 Senator SHOEBRIDGE 169119 New South Wales Minister, with the US Congress now calling for Australia to pour even more money into US manufacturing and jobs, on top of the $3 billion Australia has already committed to US shipbuilding, is that what Prime Minister Albanese is taking to Washington—billions more Australian dollars for US jobs? 14:28 Senator FARRELL I0N South Australia I thank Senator Shoebridge for his first supplementary question. What Prime Minister Albanese will be taking to the United States is goodwill between Australia and our most important military ally, the United States—an arrangement, I might say, which was formed in the darkest days of World War II between John Curtin and President Roosevelt. In the world in which we live, Senator Shoebridge, we need allies, and— Senator Shoebridge 169119 Point of order on relevance. This isn't a history lesson from Don's childhood. This is about whether the Prime Minister is taking billions more dollars of Australian taxpayers' money to bail out the US shipbuilding industry. The PRESIDENT 112096 I will remind the minister of your questions and I will remind you that you refer to people in this place by their correct titles. Minister Farrell. Senator FARRELL I0N Senator Shoebridge, even I am not that old! But I do understand Australian history. I like reading Australian— (Time expired) The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Shoebridge, second supplementary? 14:30 Senator SHOEBRIDGE 169119 New South Wales Thank you, Minister, for that scintillating response. The US Congressional Research Service has also proposed a division-of-labour plan in which Australia never receives a Virginia class submarine. Instead the US would station their nuclear submarines in Australia under their control and we would pay the US for them to use us as a parking lot. Is that Prime Minister Albanese's plan B? 14:30 Senator FARRELL I0N South Australia I thank Senator Shoebridge his second supplementary question. No. Aviation Industry 58 14:31 Senator GREEN 259819 Queensland My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Senator Watt. I refer to the Albanese Labor government's commitment to reform Australia's aviation sector so it delivers for the Australian economy, workers and consumers. How is the Albanese Labor government delivering on this commitment to a more competitive aviation sector while at the same time securing Australian jobs? 14:31 Senator WATT 245759 Queensland Thank you very much, Senator Green. I know that, being based in Cairns, you understand the importance of a competitive aviation sector that delivers to tourists, to workers and to local economies, and finally we have a federal government prepared to deliver. I know that Senator Green, like so many on this side of the chamber, understands the importance of Australia's aviation sector to the economic prosperity of our nation and to the lives of all Australians who rely on this critical service. But, as we all know and as all of you over there in the opposition know, the previous government left the aviation policy space in tatters. They've had a lot to say about aviation this week, but let's not forget it was the coalition government that gave billions of taxpayer dollars to Qantas for nothing in return. It was the coalition government that stood by as Virgin collapsed into administration only for it to be snatched up by foreign private equity. It was the coalition government that over 10 years oversaw the mass outsourcing of jobs and a labour-hire mess that drove down wages and conditions across the aviation sector. Opposition senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT 112096 Minister Watt, please resume your seat. Order on my left! Minister Watt, please continue. Senator WATT 245759 But the list goes on. It was also the coalition government that commissioned the Harris review into Sydney Airport only to spend almost two years sitting on it, leaving it to us to sort out. And it was the coalition government that cut JobKeeper from dnata workers, as some of our senators know very well, and left those families in the lurch. So today is a very important day because today the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Catherine King, released the aviation green paper. This is the first step in reforming and cleaning up the mess left by those opposite in our aviation sector. The aviation green paper is an important step in developing a white paper which will set the policy direction of the sector out to 2050. The government is seeking outcomes that deliver a more competitive aviation sector while at the same time securing Australian jobs. We're also looking at stronger consumer protections, improvements to complaint-handling processes and improved accessibility for consumers living with disability. (Time expired) The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Green, first supplementary? 14:34 Senator GREEN 259819 Queensland Thank you, Minister, for that answer. I note that the Albanese Labor government is committed to an aviation sector with strong consumer protections in place. How is the Albanese Labor government looking to enhance the experience of customers in Australia's aviation sector? 14:34 Senator WATT 245759 Queensland Thank you, Senator Green. Unlike 10 years of coalition government, the Albanese government wants an aviation sector that maintains Australia's world-leading safety and security standards and provides secure jobs now and into the future. A sector needs to be reliable, competitive and affordable, supported by a robust consumer rights framework. That's why the aviation green paper—something the last coalition government never bothered to get around to—looks to stronger consumer protections, improvements to complaint-handling processes and improved accessibility for consumers living with disability. Not one of those things did the coalition deal with in its 10 years in government, for all of their road-to-Damascus conversion on matters of aviation. Through this process we're also seeking to understand whether options pursued in other jurisdictions, such as a customer rights centre, a charter or a stronger ombudsman model, would deliver benefits to Australia's aviation sector. Every Australian travelling by plane here in Australia or overseas deserves to be safe and respected, and that's why we're taking this issue seriously. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Green, a second supplementary. 14:35 Senator GREEN 259819 Queensland Minister, as you and I both know, Australians living in remote and regional Australia rely heavily on a strong aviation sector to support strong regional communities. Why is reform to Australia's aviation sector so important, particularly to regional communities? Senator McKenzie 207825 Make a decision on the Harris review! The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator McKenzie! I'm not calling you to answer the question! Senator Watt. 14:36 Senator WATT 245759 Queensland It's ironic that Senator McKenzie should be asking where the Harris review is, because it actually sat with the coalition for two years without any action being taken whatsoever! But you're right, Senator Green. Some of us over here actually understand that access to affordable air services is a key contributor to the liveability of regional Australia, and it is essential that regional services remain viable. Aviation plays an important role in that, servicing the needs of regional and remote communities. This includes access to a range of essential services, such as health care and education. The Albanese government also recognises that now, and over the coming years, it will be critical to leverage the economic shifts underway across the world for the benefit of Australia's regions. A strong regional aviation sector is critical to achieving that vision. Through this green paper process we very much want to hear directly from those Australians in regional, remote and rural communities who rely on aviation. So I would encourage all who have an interest to share their perspectives via the department's website. Tertiary Education 59 14:37 Senator TYRRELL 300639 Tasmania My question is for the Minister representing the Minister for Education, Senator Watt. Mandatory unpaid student placements are placing severe financial stress on students. We are seeing to prospective nurses and teachers being told that unless they can live with no income for a few months then they can't do the job. Many students who are working part-time during their studies have to take leave from their paid work to do this unpaid work. That's up to 25 weeks where they're prevented from earning any money to pay the bills. Does the minister agree that the work students do on unpaid placements is valued and should be recognised? 14:37 Senator WATT 245759 Queensland Thank you very much for that, Senator Tyrrell. I've just been advised that this is an issue you've taken an active interest in, and I appreciate the opportunity to provide a little bit more information to you. I don't know whether you've had the opportunity to discuss these matters directly with Minister Clare, the education minister? I'm sure that he and his office would be very happy to provide you with a briefing about it. What I can say is that I know this is an issue he's working on. He shares your concern about the current arrangements in this field and, therefore, he has some policy work underway to deal with that. I also understand that this is something which is being considered in the context of the government's employment white paper. That is being led by the Treasurer, but there are a range of portfolios, including mine, for that matter, which have had some input into that employment white paper. It will be looking at a whole range of issues to do with the future employment of Australians and the employment arrangements which should sit around that. The issues that you have raised will also be considered in that context. So the government has a couple of different pieces of work underway to examine these issues. We're not at a point yet where we have a solution to them, but I'm sure, as I said, that the relevant ministers would be more than happy to involve you in that process and to get your perspectives. If there are local students, workers or businesses who are affected by this then I'd certainly encourage you to put their views forward to those ministers as well so that we can take those views into account in coming up with those policy solutions. I think that the Treasurer is on the record as having said that the employment white paper will be delivered in this calendar year. I imagine that means that there won't be too much longer to wait before there's some concrete information out there. I don't have a time frame for the work that Minister Clare has underway, but I'm sure that it's something he's attending to as a priority as well. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Tyrrell, first supplementary? 14:39 Senator TYRRELL 300639 Tasmania Tasmania currently has a shortfall of approximately 100 teachers. Many of the degrees that require placements, like nursing, teaching and social work, are areas with critical workforce shortages right now. We know that students are dropping out of these degrees because they can't afford to do the required placements. Do you agree that mandatory unpaid placements are contributing to these workforce shortages? 14:40 Senator WATT 245759 Queensland Senator Tyrrell, you've named, I think, some of the sectors where this has been an issue, and, from talking with my colleagues now, there are other sectors as well—I think the aged-care sector and a range of health professions and education sectors. This has been an issue. I guess I'm not really in a position to give you my personal opinion on this, because these are issues that are currently being examined within government, but I think you can take it as an assurance that the fact that these are being looked at by the government indicates that we do recognise there are some problems here. So, as I say, over the coming months, through the couple of different policy processes I've talked about, we do hope to come up with some answers to these problems and, as I said before, I would certainly encourage you to become involved in these processes if you're not already. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Tyrrell, second supplementary? 14:41 Senator TYRRELL 300639 Tasmania I've just got a text; I'm having a meeting with him next week. Students are also required to take on a HELP debt for the cost of their unpaid placement. Basically, the student isn't being paid and their training provider isn't being paid, but the university is being paid. Does the minister believe it's fair that universities get paid a full unit's fee for a course they don't have to actually deliver? 14:41 Senator WATT 245759 Queensland Thanks, Senator Tyrrell. I'm not personally aware of that, not being the relevant minister, but I'm sure Minister Clare is well and truly on top of those issues. Again, the issues that you're talking about are very much issues not just in the sectors that use university education as their education source but also in the VET sector. I know that that's something that you've taken an interest in before as well—the importance of the VET sector to Tasmania. Again, all I can really say is that this is something that crosses different sectors. It clearly crosses different portfolios. I'm pleased to hear that you've got that meeting with Minister Clare next week. That's prompt service for you, isn't it? I'm hopeful that you'll be able to have a constructive discussion with him. Aviation Industry 60 14:42 Senator McKENZIE 207825 Victoria My question is to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Gallagher. In defending the government's policy of protecting a certain carrier and slugging travellers with high-cost airfares, the Prime Minister has repeatedly claimed, 'In Australia we have the most open aviation market in the world, bar none.' He said that on ABC radio on 31 August. Again, on Sky News, he said, 'It, in fact, is the most competitive market in the world.' The government's two-month-late Aviation green paper, released by the minister for transport today, says on page 26: Australia's domestic aviation sector is highly concentrated, with few market participants … Combined, the two groups control 95.1 per cent of the Australian domestic market. Minister, who is correct: the Prime Minister or Minister Catherine King's Aviation green paper? 14:43 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory I thank Senator McKenzie for the question, and I don't see any inconsistency in those statements at all. But I am happy to talk about the issue of aviation and competition and the fact that we are cleaning up a mess that we've inherited, yet again. Let's think of all of the areas that we are actually having to deal with after a decade of failure. I don't even know what you were all doing when you came to work, but it obviously was not very much, because we inherited an energy crisis, we had pressures in health, we had pressures in infrastructure and we had pressures in aviation. The 10000 Minister Gallagher, please resume your seat. Senator Birmingham? Senator Birmingham H6X President, I think this is a very clear case of direct relevance and I'm sure—I could almost feel it in your body language—that, if I hadn't stood when I did, you were about to draw the minister to the question. In the first 30 seconds, she decided to pivot purely to a commentary on the previous government, having been asked a question that solely covered statements of the Prime Minister about the aviation market and a quote from the Aviation green paper and sought clarification of the consistency between those statements. The question was entirely, exclusively about the aviation market and its competitiveness or its concentration. The PRESIDENT 112096 Thank you, Senator Birmingham. Senator Watt on a point of order? Senator Watt 245759 I have a point of order, President. You may well be aware of this, but anyone listening to Senator Gallagher's answer would realise that she answered it in the first three or four seconds. She is obviously entitled to carry on her answer as she chooses after that. Honourable senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT 112096 Order! Interjections across the chamber— The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Watt! I have the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate on his feet. Senator Birmingham. Senator Birmingham H6X To Senator Watt's point: it is not in order for a minister if they have answered the question to then speak about any other topic of zero relevance to the question they were asked. An answer to a question in its entirety needs to be directly relevant. Context, as previous Presidents have ruled, can be provided, but the minister was very plainly not providing context to a question specifically about the aviation market and its competitiveness. The PRESIDENT 112096 Thank you, Senator Birmingham. I seek the advice of the Clerk. I am advised that the minister did answer the question in the first few seconds of her response, but she has strayed. I remind her of your point of order. Minister Gallagher. Senator GALLAGHER ING Thank you for that direction, President. I will come back to the aviation green paper, which was referenced in Senator McKenzie's question. It has been released today. It is the next step in setting up the sector's long-term future. It is part of cleaning up the mess, as I said, that we inherited from those opposite, who clearly did nothing in the last decade. We want a more competitive sector, one with stronger protections and better accessibility for those with a disability. We want to keep our world-leading safety record in an industry— The PRESIDENT 112096 Minister Gallagher, please resume your seat. Senator McKenzie? Senator McKenzie 207825 I have a point of order, Madam President. The answer that the minister gave was that she saw no inconsistency between the Prime Minister's comments and the green paper's comments, between being the most competitive in the world and being one of the most concentrated— The PRESIDENT 112096 I think you're getting onto a debating point. Senator McKenzie 207825 She has literally just proved the inconsistency between the two comments. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator McKenzie, that's an indulgence. It's a debating point. Minister Gallagher, please continue. Senator GALLAGHER ING As I said, this aviation green paper is to essentially look at how we create and deliver the best aviation sector that we can both internationally and domestically. It's because of the failure of the former government that we are starting this work now, because it hasn't been done and it wasn't done in their term. It is right that we have the green paper, we go out and have further consultations, and then there will be a white paper to ensure that we get the best outcomes across the board. That's for the aviation industry itself. It's for consumers. It's to ensure that we are ensuring competition and promoting competition where we can in a complex industry that operates— (Time expired) The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator McKenzie, first supplementary? 14:48 Senator 207825 Victoria McKENZIE (—) (): The former Treasurer disagrees. When asked about airline competition at the National Press Club on 29 August 2023 the assistant minister for competition, Dr Leigh, said: 'I look to Europe with its range of low-cost carriers and see what looks like an even more competitive ecosystem. So moving us towards that I think is a long-term goal.' Minister, who is correct? Is the Prime Minister right when he says that Australia has the most competitive market in the world or is the competition assistant minister correct? 14:48 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory Again both of those statements are correct. Senator McKenzie 207825 They can't be. Senator GALLAGHER ING Well, they are. I know you can just put them together and put your spin on it. We are looking at ways to improve competition. That's why we've got the work that the Treasurer and the Assistant Treasurer are doing in the Treasury. It's why we're looking at the green paper and then the white paper. There are clearly and obviously areas where everyone in the aviation industry wants to see if there's room to improve. This government will actually talk to people. We will negotiate, we will consult and we will deliver a plan—unlike those opposite, who for two years sat on reports and reviews that they inherited, did nothing and provided no direction. That is not the position this government takes. We're doing the work. We're talking with all of those involved. And we will deliver the best aviation system that this country deserves and expects. (Time expired) The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator McKenzie, a second supplementary? 14:50 Senator McKENZIE 207825 Victoria I'd like to thank the minister for giving some context that she actually backs the green-paper commentary—that there is room for improvement, that we are a concentrated aviation market and that we do need to get more competitive—in direct contrast to the Prime Minister's public statements. Minister, why is the Albanese government protecting a major airline whilst punishing Australian travellers with high-cost airfares in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis? 14:50 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory We're doing no such thing. I think you allude to the decision by the transport minister that she made around Qatar's request for extra flights. I would point out—I know it's convenient to ignore it, and we've gone through it in this place and we've gone through it in the House—that we have numbers of flights being increased by a number of international carriers. We have had over 1,800 international flights coming in and out of Australia in the last week. Flights are increasing, capacity on those flights is increasing and we have existing international carriers that are adding flights and adding capacity on those flights. So I completely reject the assertion in Senator McKenzie's question. The aviation industry is recovering post-COVID. More flights are coming, more seats are available and we will see prices come down. Health Care 62 14:51 Senator BABET 300706 Victoria My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Health, Senator Gallagher. Minister, are you aware of the status of the WHO's article 59 International Health Regulations amendments and the three other substantive pandemic preparedness documents, the UN's pandemic preparedness and response political zero declaration draft, the WHO's proposed 307 International Health Regulations amendments and the WHO CA+? 14:52 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory I thank Senator Babet for the question and for the advance warning of his question. I appreciate that. I am aware of those documents. The government is committed to strengthening international cooperation on pandemic preparedness and reflecting the lessons learned from the global response to ensure that we are well placed to deal with challenges that come in the future. We are actively engaged in three separate but linked negotiations on an international instrument on pandemic prevention preparedness and response, amendments to the International Health Regulations 2005 and the Political Declaration of the United Nations General Assembly's High-level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response. The negotiations on the pandemic instrument and amendment to the International Health Regulations are currently underway and are due to conclude in May next year. It is anticipated that a final version of the political declaration will be adopted by member states at a high-level meeting on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response in New York later in September. These processes are part of an overall package intending to strengthen international cooperation to minimise the risk that international health threats such as COVID-19 can pose to Australia. We know that global health threats are most likely to arise overseas, and having a strong global health system will help ensure Australia and the world are better prepared for the future. Let me be clear that the proposed treaty will not undermine Australia's sovereignty in respect to health policy and will not operate to prevail over Australian law. The WHO and UN have no legal authority to force Australians to take any action, and any negotiated commitments would need to be reflected in Australian laws passed by this parliament for them to become legally binding. The government commenced an online public consultation on 7 August 2023 to allow interested Australians the ability to contribute their views on the proposed agreements. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Babet, a first supplementary? 14:54 Senator BABET 300706 Victoria Thank you, Minister. I think I know what you're going to say next. Are you aware of article 59 item 3 of 2005 IHRs, which is repeated unamended in the article 59 International Health Regulations amendments? Do you agree that this subarticle places a positive requirement on Australia to amend our domestic legislation in accordance with any future IHR amendments if those amendments are not rejected by Australia? 14:54 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory I thank the senator for the question. The impact of amendments to article 59 are procedural in nature. They reduce the period of time for entry into force for any future amendments to the IHR. They do not change Australia's treaty-making or domestic legal processes. Australia does not and will not support any amendments to the IHR that are against our national interest. Countries retain sovereignty over all their health policies including public health and safety measures such as broader measures, use of masks and vaccines. Any negotiated commitments that need to be reflected in Australian laws have to be passed by this parliament for them to become legally binding, and article 59 does not alter this. The first chapter of the revised draft treaty circulated to member states on 22 May reinforces the principle that each country retains responsibility and control of its own health policies. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Babet, a second supplementary? 14:55 Senator BABET 300706 Victoria Can you please clarify article 10 of the WHO CA+ and whether it is requiring a member country or state to indemnify vaccine manufacturers and establish compensation schemes for the injured to be paid for by the government? 14:55 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory Thank you, Senator Babet, for the supplementary. This is one of the many proposals set out in the current draft text of the WHO CA+. None of the articles in the text have been agreed to by member states and remain under negotiation. Article 10 of the draft WHO CA+ proposes management liability risk management frameworks for medical countermeasures including vaccines. The text, as currently drafted, proposes the establishment of regional and/or international vaccine injury compensation schemes. It also encourages member states to include time-bound indemnity clauses in contracts for the supply or purchase of vaccines specifically developed for the pandemic response. In line with my previous answers, we will continue to consider these issues as part of our overall negotiating position. I'm sure the minister for health would be happy to engage with you, Senator Babet, on these issues. Health Care: Urgent Care Clinics 63 14:56 Senator POLLEY e5x Tasmania My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing, Senator Gallagher. Can the minister provide an update on how the Albanese government is delivering on its commitment to introduce Medicare urgent care clinics across Australia? How are these clinics helping Australians access affordable health care when they need it? And how are they helping to alleviate pressure on hospital emergency departments? 14:57 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory It is so great to get a question about the health system from you, Senator Polley. I appreciate it and all the work that you do, particularly on the community affairs committee and others—we have spent a lot of time together in recent years—and for your interest in health, the Tasmanian health system in particular. At the last election we promised to establish Medicare urgent care clinics and we are delivering on that promise. The first of 58 Medicare urgent care clinics across Australia are opening their doors and already helping Australians get timely and affordable access to the health care they need. We have committed funding over five years to establish these Medicare urgent care clinics. It is a new approach to providing care for people who require medical treatment urgently but do not need an ambulance or hospital stay. The urgent care clinics provide another option for people to seek the medical care that they need. They are open extended hours, seven days a week, and many of these clinics are being established in existing general practice and community health centres to make best use of existing facilities and leveraging the existing workforce. All of the services provided by Medicare urgent care clinics are bulk-billed. Senator Henderson ZN4 A complete failure in Geelong. Senator GALLAGHER ING I can hear Senator Henderson. She does not like urgent care clinics, does not like people being able to access health care. I know I should not respond to interjections but Senator Henderson is such a serial offender. These are highly popular models of care. Highly trained doctors and nurses provide care at the Medicare urgent care clinics with no need for an appointment—again, very convenient for busy families on the go. Urgent care clinics deliver service from the time people walk in right through to addressing the health issues so they can leave without putting pressure on the emergency departments. Last week in Tasmania, the Prime Minister officially open the Medicare urgent care clinic at Your Hobart Doctor on Bathurst Street. In its first two weeks, Senator Polley, it has seen 400 patients. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Polly, a first supplementary? 14:59 Senator POLLEY e5x Tasmania Can the minister outline how local health needs are being incorporated into the planning and delivery of the new model of care? How are the Medicare urgent care clinics being integrated with existing health and hospital services, including general practice and hospital emergency departments? 14:59 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory Thank you, Senator Polley. It's really important that the Medicare urgent care clinics are integrated with services provided by both GPs and hospital emergency departments. By working closely with states and territories, we are ensuring that the services provided by these clinics are responsive to the needs of local communities, and we're working with GPs and PHNs to ensure the urgent care clinics are set up to deliver the end-to-end care that they need from these clinics. By working to ensure the quality of services provided by urgent care clinics, we will help ease the pressure on hospital emergency departments, and we know that we need to relieve this pressure—it's what the states and territories are telling us, and it's what anyone who has tried to use an emergency department will know. In New South Wales, for instance, it's estimated that almost half of emergency presentations to New South Wales hospital EDs are for semi-urgent or non-urgent conditions that are better off treated in these urgent care clinics. We look forward to seeing them develop in the next few months. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Polley, your second supplementary? 15:00 Senator POLLEY e5x Tasmania How do the Medicare urgent care clinics complement other actions that the Albanese government is taking to strengthen Medicare and improve Australia's primary healthcare system? Why are these actions vital to ensuring Australians continue to have access to affordable, high-quality health services? 15:01 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory Thank you very much, Senator Polley, again for your interest in health care, because we know those opposite weren't interested when they were in government, and they're certainly not interested now. The government is determined to strengthen Australia's health system after a decade of neglect, and this government has been pursuing priorities through National Cabinet by working with states and territories. Remember that the former government never really were able to work with states and territories but liked to pick fights with them? We're working with states and territories to make sure that these urgent care clinics can be delivered in a seamless way, that they're integrated, that they support general practice, that they work with the hospital system and, most importantly, that people who need to access health care out of hours—on the weekend, when their kids get sick or break their arm and there aren't any other options available—can do so. This government is backing you by funding urgent care clinics to make sure that they are available to meet your health needs. Senator Farrell I0N As that's the last question for the week, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: ADDITIONAL ANSWERS 64 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: ADDITIONAL ANSWERS Native Title 64 15:02 Senator WATT 245759 Queensland In question time yesterday, Minister Gallagher took elements of a question asked by Senator Hanson on notice. I have written to Senator Hanson to provide a complete answer, because the matters stretched into a portfolio that I represent, and I now table that answer for the information of the Senate. STATEMENTS 64 STATEMENTS Death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II: First Anniversary 64 15:03 The DEPUTY PRESIDENT 287062 Senators, I acknowledge that 8 September marks the first anniversary of the death of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. With concurrence of the Senate, I invite senators who wish to do so to make statements to acknowledge the occasion. 15:03 Senator DEAN SMITH 241710 Western Australia Today, we find ourselves at a poignant intersection of history as we commemorate the first anniversary of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, an anniversary that also marks the ascension of King Charles III. The late Queen's death, the ascension of a new king and his subsequent coronation all provided an opportunity for reflection, remembrance and renewal. One year ago, we mourned the loss of a monarch whose dedication to service knew no bounds. Queen Elizabeth II's reign was characterised by unwavering devotion to duty, a steadfast commitment to her people and a grace that resonated across generations. Her legacy endures in the hearts of all those who were touched by her long reign. As we remember her with deep affection, let us honour her memory by embracing this new chapter that lies before us. Today, we not only pay homage to the past but embrace the future. With the ascension and coronation of King Charles III, we witnessed the continuation of a centuries-old tradition, a seamless transition of authority and a reaffirmation of our enduring constitutional monarchy. King Charles III ascended to the throne during a time of unprecedented global challenges. His reign begins with a profound responsibility to lead the Commonwealth of Nations through these changing and uncertain times. To our new King, we offer our support and goodwill, as we have done for generations past. As we commemorate the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's passing and the ascension of King Charles III, we are reminded that change is an inherent part of life. It is through change that we grow, adapt and progress as a society. While we cherish the past, we must also look to the future with hope, determination and resilience. May Queen Elizabeth II's legacy continue to inspire us to look forward to the future with all its hope and optimism. COMMITTEES 65 COMMITTEES Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements 65 Membership 65 15:05 The DEPUTY PRESIDENT 287062 The President has received letters nominating senators to be members of a committee. 15:06 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory by leave—I move: That Senators Allman-Payne and Babet be appointed as members of the Select Committee on Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements and Senator Van be appointed as a participating member. Question agreed to. Appointment 65 15:06 Senator FARRELL I0N South Australia I seek leave to move a motion relating to the Select Committee on Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements. Leave not granted. Senator FARRELL I0N Pursuant to contingent notice, I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to allow a motion concerning the Select Committee on Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements to be moved immediately and determined without amendment or debate. And I move: That the question be now put. A division having been called and the bells being rung— The PRESIDENT 112096 The question is that the question be now put on the motion to suspend standing orders. The ayes shall move to the right of the chair, the noes to the left. I appoint Senator Urquhart as teller for the ayes and Senator Scarr as teller for the noes. This is the fourth time today that I've had to remind senators that once tellers are called you should be in your seats, otherwise you can be disqualified. Senator Birmingham and Senator Pocock, you need to be in your seats. I will assume that you are not voting on this, Senator Pocock. I've directed you to be in your seat. Are you seeking to raise a point of order? Senator David Pocock 256136 I am just seeking to understand exactly what we're voting on here. The PRESIDENT 112096 Thank you. Please resume your seat. I remind you, Senator Pocock, that I had to tell you twice to go to your seat. The standing orders and conventions in this place are very clear: once the tellers are appointed, every senator who's intending to vote on the matter ought to be in their seat. The question is that the question be now put on the motion to suspend standing orders. A division has been called, and it's my intention now to ask the tellers to commence that count. Honourable senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT 112096 Order! I am advised that senators are not supposed to move once tellers have been appointed, but with the concurrence of the Senate, to save time, we can allow that—Senator Askew, a point of order? Senator Askew 281558 We haven't got consent of the Senate for anything. Could we, perhaps, recommence this division and start the bells again? The PRESIDENT 112096 I think that's a very good suggestion, Senator Askew. Senator Lambie 250026 Don't you have some legislation to get ready? No wonder we're angry; we've had enough with people not keeping up! The 10000 Senator Lambie! The question is that the question be now put on the motion moved by Senator Farrell to suspend standing orders.

The Senate divided. [15:15]
(The President—Senator Lines)

33 AYES Allman-Payne, P. J. Ayres, T. Brown, C. L. Chisholm, A. Ciccone, R. Cox, D. Farrell, D. E. Gallagher, K. R. Green, N. L. Grogan, K. Hanson-Young, S. C. Lines, S. McAllister, J. R. McKim, N. J. O'Neill, D. M. Payman, F. Pocock, B. Pocock, D. W. Polley, H. Pratt, L. C. Rice, J. E. Sheldon, A. V. Shoebridge, D. Smith, M. F. Steele-John, J. A. Sterle, G. Stewart, J. N. A. Urquhart, A. E. (Teller) Walsh, J. C. Waters, L. J. Watt, M. P. Whish-Wilson, P. S. White, L. 31 NOES Antic, A. Askew, W. Babet, R. Birmingham, S. J. Bragg, A. J. Cadell, R. Canavan, M. J. Cash, M. C. Chandler, C. Colbeck, R. M. Davey, P. M. Duniam, J. R. Fawcett, D. J. Henderson, S. M. Hume, J. Kovacic, M. Lambie, J. Liddle, K. J. McDonald, S. E. McKenzie, B. McLachlan, A. L. Nampijinpa Price, J. S. Paterson, J. W. Payne, M. A. Rennick, G. Reynolds, L. K. Roberts, M. I. Ruston, A. Scarr, P. M. (Teller) Smith, D. A. Tyrrell, T. M. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

15:19 The PRESIDENT 112096 Given that question was agreed to, I'll now move to the second question, that the motion to suspend standing orders be agreed to.

The Senate divided. [15:19]
(The President—Senator Lines)

Question agreed to.

15:21 Senator FARRELL I0N South Australia I move the motion as circulated: That a motion relating to the Select Committee on Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements may be moved immediately and determined without amendment or debate. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Birmingham? 15:21 Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X South Australia President, the minister just moved a motion 'as circulated', yet I don't have a copy of the motion. I've been sitting in the chamber now for close to an hour and a half and it hasn't been circulated. I don't have a copy of it. President, I would like the minister or, now that he's spoken in moving his motion, somebody else to provide a copy of whatever the motion is that the chamber is being asked to consider, for the benefit of the chamber. The PRESIDENT 112096 Thank you, Senator Birmingham. Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X I'm speaking to the minister's motion, President. I haven't— A government member interjecting— Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X He sat down. The PRESIDENT 112096 Minister Farrell, you do need to resume your seat. Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X Thank you, President. I thank you for the clarity there in relation to what is happening. I'm keen to understand, because once again, as has happened time and time again on a Thursday afternoon, the government, in trying to clean up something they haven't liked during the week, have come in here and tried to pursue a suspension of standing orders. They've tried to wrestle around the numbers. We see frustration and confusion occurring on the crossbench, quite understandably, in terms of what the division is, what people are voting on. This is a government, in terms of transparency— Senator White IWK It's in the Notice Paper! Senator Grogan 296331 Does someone want to give him his copy? The PRESIDENT 112096 Order on my right! Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X I see a good senator from South Australia— Senator White IWK It was circulated. It's in the Notice Paper. Keep up! Read it! Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X I see a couple of senators waving around the Notice Paper. Guess what, senators? Your leader didn't mention that. He didn't mention that. I haven't seen any indication from Senator Farrell in the motions he's moved, the statements he's made or the lack of anything being circulated as to what it is that this Senate has been asked to vote on. We had the situation before, in terms of the procedure being applied, where quite understandably Senator Pocock arrived in the chamber needing to have clarity provided and a division recommitted. Do you know the reason these problems are occurring? It's of course the lack of transparency from those opposite—the lack of transparency, the failure of those opposite to want to commit to reasonable, fair processes either in the way they manage this chamber or, indeed, in the way they manage the country overall. What I suspect, from senators waving around their various Notice Papers and the interjections from across the chamber, is that the motion Senator Farrell wants the Senate to consider is a motion that relates to changing in some way or other the terms of the select committee that this Senate agreed to set up into the government's decision around Qatar Airways. The government wouldn't be in this mess if only they could be transparent about that very decision. So a lack of transparency around the decision has been piled upon with a lack of transparency or confidence in the management of this chamber to create the mess that we see here before us right now. We've had Minister Catherine King go through at least seven different explanations for why she took this decision. We've had various explanations and accounts. Then we had an attempt by the government during the course of this week, in having to answer questions in this chamber and in the other place, to circle the wagons and all say, 'Well, the decision was made in the national interest, and we won't say anything other than that it was made in national interest.' So it's: 'national interest, national interest, national interest'. When challenged in this place about the national interest grounds upon which the decision was made, we saw complete inability from those opposite to actually outline what those grounds were. The government wouldn't be in this mess if they had been able to define and clearly state what the grounds for the decision were. This select committee has earned the thoughtful support of those on the crossbench, and I thank those on the crossbench who considered this issue carefully. Let's be honest: they haven't provided many wins for the opposition in the life of this Senate, so I want to acknowledge those on the crossbench who clearly, on this occasion, considered the issue carefully, after much advocacy by my colleague Senator McKenzie and others, and concluded that the lack of transparency from the government on this decision warranted proper scrutiny. That is why a select committee—and it's an extraordinary proposition for a select committee to happen—was set up to examine this. Senator McKenzie, quite rightly, made sure that, because this was a very specific decision of government, there were very specific terms of reference for the select committee. It's a short, sharp, focused inquiry on this decision of government so that we can try to get to the bottom of who influenced the government to make this decision. What influence peddlers or others were involved? What role did the Prime Minister or other ministers play in relation to the making of this decision? What role did the Prime Minister's office or other ministerial offices play in relation to the making of this decision? There are a number of issues there. Critically, what analysis was undertaken in relation to the making of this decision? What was the input from other departments? The acting Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Farrell, is Minister for Trade and Tourism. I trust that he was consulted in the making of this decision, because surely it would be a serious abrogation of proper process and duty for the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government not to have consulted the Minister for Trade and Tourism about a decision with such consequential impact for the tourism industry and for trade in our country. We've seen numerous examples, given by senators during the course of this week, of the consequences of this decision. Senator Brockman asked a very important question yesterday in relation to how this decision, for example, is linked to the government's policy to ban the live sheep export trade, quite rightly highlighting that the government has said, 'In banning the live sheep export trade we want to instead encourage Australia's sheep farmers to send more chilled meat, particularly to the market of the Middle East.' Well, for chilled meat to get to the Middle East, it needs planes, it needs flights, and it needs them to be going from Perth to Middle Eastern capitals. So was Minister King's decision in the national interest? If you're a sheep grazier in Western Australia who's looking to build alternative markets for your product, no, Minister King's decision was demonstrably not in the national interest for you as a sheep grazier. Was Minister King's decision in the national interest for Senator Farrell's stakeholders in the tourism industry? Have a listen to the words of Graham Turner, the chief executive of Flight Centre. He called this one of the most ridiculous decisions he's ever seen made by a government. It's very clear from tourism and travel industry operators—from the big businesses such as Mr Turner's right down to the small businesses who rely upon seeing more tourists come through the doors of Australia—that, for each and every one of them, Minister King's decision was not in the national interest. Is it in the national interest in relation to the competitiveness of our aviation sector? What do we mean when we talk about competitiveness? We mean the prices Australians pay and the availability of good, cheap reliable airfares and opportunities around the country. On that test maybe the jury's out, because it depends who you believe. It depends whether you believe the Prime Minister, who says, 'in Australia we have the most open aviation market in the world, bar none.' That's what the Prime Minister has said this year. He's also described it as the most competitive market in the world. That's the Prime Minister talking about Australia's aviation market. Yet, just today the government released its aviation green paper, which says, 'Australia's domestic aviation sector is highly concentrated, with few market participants.' Let's compare and contrast the Prime Minister's statement, that ours is the most open aviation market in the world, with the aviation green paper's statement, that it is the most highly concentrated with the fewest participants. Credit to Minister Gallagher—somehow, she came in here and, when questioned about the obvious inconsistencies in the Prime Minister's statement, she said with a straight face that they're not inconsistent statements. Credit to Senator Gallagher. She's up for an Oscar! The Oscar goes to Senator Gallagher for her performance in terms of being able to deny that with a straight face. Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X I do hear the interjections from Senator McAllister, who seems to be of the view that there is no connectivity between international aviation and domestic aviation— Senator Payne M56 Interesting concept. Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X It is a very interesting concept, Senator Payne, because competition within the domestic sector is absolutely impacted by partner agreements between airlines and, critically, by the number of flights coming into this country and the pressure that creates for additional competition across the aviation sector. That is why Qantas's competitors are so particularly concerned. Rest assured—it's not like Rex or Virgin are worried about competition on their flights to Qatar and Doha. They're not worried about that, because they don't fly to Qatar. They don't fly into Doha. They're worried about the feeder airlines that come in and give them business that creates more competition for them in terms of business with Qantas. That's why they're worried. It's the connectivity between the domestic and international markets. They are not completely discrete, separate markets. To pretend that they are is simply erroneous. Most recently we've had Minister King, clutching at straws in desperation to try to explain how her decision is in the national interest, go back to the concerning incident that occurred at Hamad International Airport a couple of years ago. Senator Farrell outlined the details of the concerning incident that occurred, with some passengers—reprehensibly—being searched by authorities there. That was a very concerning and troubling incident. Representations were made by Australia at the time of that incident, by Senator Payne, the then minister for foreign affairs, and Australia made clear our concerns at the time. I also note that, subsequent to making clear those concerns, the Australian department of foreign affairs, jointly with its Qatari counterpart, issued Qatar's apology to the affected individuals. The wrong was recognised by Qatar. We should all hope and trust that, in recognising that wrong, proper procedures have been put in place to make sure that never happens again. But, as I sought to highlight in my question to Senator Farrell today, there is a serious inconsistency in the logic that the government is attempting to apply, when Minister King says that that incident in Doha a couple of years ago was a factor that was considered in the context of the decision she made. Minister King says it was considered in the context of the decision she made, and she decided not to grant Qatar Airways the extra flights. If she was so concerned by that incident from a couple of years ago as to not grant Qatar Airways the extra flights, you have to ask, then: why is it that ministers such as Minister Gallagher, Minister Farrell and Minister Wong have said in this place and, I know, in others that Qatar Airways can and should—they've encouraged Qatar Airways—put on more flights into the secondary airport markets where they don't face any restrictions? They've said that in relation to Perth, for example, they should put on bigger planes with extra seats. Senator BIRMINGHAM H6X Indeed, Senator Scarr. It makes no sense at all. If Minister King made her decision because she's concerned about people flying on Qatar Airways or through Doha, in particular, why on earth are the government then on the other hand arguing that they want more flights and more seats but just not into the airports that Qatar Airways had applied for? Well, all the inconsistencies, of course, exist because the government are just covering up their own decision-making. They're unwilling and/or unable to actually be transparent and tell the truth in relation to this decision-making. That's the outrage of this situation. The Albanese Labor government have made a decision that they claim is in the national interest, but they are completely incapable of saying what those national interest grounds are. They have made a decision where they claim not to have been unduly influenced by other stakeholders, but they won't be remotely transparent about who those influences and stakeholders were. They claim that they're standing up for competition, but at the same time they're acting in ways that shut down competition. They claim they're supporting the resurgence and recovery of our tourism industry, but then they make it harder for tourists to get to Australia. They claim they're helping to transition sheep graziers, but they limit cargo capacity for sheep graziers. None of this stacks up as being in the national interest. Maybe there's something we don't know or understand, but that's why we need the proper inquiry. It's a mystery as to why this government has fought tooth and nail against this inquiry, unless it's got something to hide. The PRESIDENT 112096 I'm giving Minister Gallagher the call, but I just want to alert senators to some housekeeping matters. Senator Tyrrell, if you wish to make calls on your mobile phone, they're done out of the chamber. And I'm not sure whose adviser it is from the Jacqui Lambie Network, but you are to remain in the seated area and not wander onto the floor. 15:37 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory Just to clarify, this is so that the motion relating to the Select Committee on Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements may be moved immediately and determined without amendment or debate. I move: That the question be now put. Senator McKenzie 207825 I seek leave to make a very short statement before the question is put. Leave not granted. Senator Birmingham H6X President, can I at least just ask for clarity, because the minister stated that very quickly, precisely what the motion before the Senate is? Senator McGrath 217241 It's not clear! The PRESIDENT 112096 Thank you, Senator McGrath. Senator Lambie? Senator Lambie 250026 Thank you, Madam President. This is how it's going to go down in the next few minutes. You're either removing No. 4 or you're not getting our vote. That's how it's working right now. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Lambie, the minister has moved that the question be put. The question is that the motion as moved by Senator Gallagher—that the question on the procedural motion be put—be agreed to. The PRESIDENT 112096 The minister stood up and asked that the question be put immediately. I allowed some leniency from you as a leader and from Senator McKenzie— Senator Lambie 250026 With all due respect, you're telling me one thing and they're telling me another. The PRESIDENT 112096 Senator Lambie, you don't have the call. Please resume your seat. Minister Gallagher, I'm going to invite you to put the motion again. Senator GALLAGHER ING I've moved that the question be now put. Senator McGrath 217241 You're saying the question be put. On what motion is the question being put? That's what we're trying to find out here. We are trying to help you. The PRESIDENT 112096 I am informed that it is on the procedural motion, and that is that a motion relating to the Select Committee on Commonwealth Bilateral Airservices Agreements may be moved immediately and determined without amendment or debate. The minister has moved, as I understand it, that that motion be put. The question is that the question now be put on the procedural motion moved by the minister.

The Senate divided. [15:45]
(The President—Senator Lines)

33 AYES Allman-Payne, P. J. Brown, C. L. Chisholm, A. Ciccone, R. Cox, D. Farrell, D. E. Gallagher, K. R. Green, N. L. Grogan, K. Hanson-Young, S. C. Lines, S. McAllister, J. R. McCarthy, M. McKim, N. J. O'Neill, D. M. Payman, F. Pocock, B. Pocock, D. W. Polley, H. Pratt, L. C. Rice, J. E. Sheldon, A. V. Shoebridge, D. Smith, M. F. Steele-John, J. A. Sterle, G. Stewart, J. N. A. Urquhart, A. E. (Teller) Walsh, J. C. Waters, L. J. Watt, M. P. Whish-Wilson, P. S. White, L. 31 NOES Antic, A. Askew, W. Birmingham, S. J. Bragg, A. J. Brockman, W. E. Cadell, R. Canavan, M. J. Cash, M. C. Chandler, C. Colbeck, R. M. Davey, P. M. Duniam, J. R. Henderson, S. M. Hume, J. Kovacic, M. Lambie, J. Liddle, K. J. McDonald, S. E. McGrath, J. McKenzie, B. McLachlan, A. L. Nampijinpa Price, J. S. O'Sullivan, M. A. Payne, M. A. Rennick, G. Reynolds, L. K. Roberts, M. I. Ruston, A. Scarr, P. M. (Teller) Smith, D. A. Tyrrell, T. M. 0 PAIRS

Question agreed to.

15:46 The PRESIDENT 112096 As that was agreed to, the question now is that the procedural motion moved by the minister be agreed to. Senator Birmingham H6X President, it's the opposition's intention to vote separately on parts— The PRESIDENT 112096 We're just doing the second part of the procedural motion. We haven't got to the substantive motion. I will put the question again so that there's clarity in the chamber. As that previous motion was moved, the question now is that the procedural motion moved by the minister be agreed to. Question agreed to. 15:48 Senator GALLAGHER ING Australian Capital Territory I seek leave to amend the motion to vary the appointment of the Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements Select Committee by omitting paragraph 4, as circulated. Leave granted. Senator GALLAGHER ING I move the motion as amended: That the resolution of appointment of the Select Committee on Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements be amended as follows: (1) Paragraph (1), omit "received in the past 12 months", substitute "since 2016". (2) Paragraph (1), omit "Australia's major airports", substitute "Australia's airports". (3) After paragraph (1)(a), insert: (aa) the impacts experienced in other countries associated with such decisions; (4) Omit paragraph (5). 15:48 Senator McKENZIE 207825 Victoria I seek leave to make a short statement. The PRESIDENT 112096 Leave is granted for one minute. Senator McKENZIE 207825 Thank you. Here we are, late on a Thursday with the Labor Party keeping us back yet again to try to stop appropriate scrutiny of their decision on the Qatar decision and their lack of due diligence in ensuring Australians have lower airfares. Government senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT 112096 Order on my right! Senator McKENZIE 207825 I am very glad that the government has realised that the Liberal Party, the National Party and the crossbench are not going to put up with them trying to put a blanket over looking at this. By agreeing to the original terms of reference, with 9 October night as the reporting date, we think that we're actually going to do that. We're not afraid to actually look at past decisions and at the whole aviation industry, asking what a major airport is and what isn't; the Slot review; and the ACCC and competition inquiries. Those will all be part of this committee, and I look forward to working with Senator Sheldon to that end. The PRESIDENT 112096 Thank you, Senator McKenzie. I will now put the question. The procedural motion just agreed to requires that the substantive motion be put without amendment or debate. I remind senators that Senator Gallagher was granted leave and has withdrawn paragraph (4), so I now intend to put the question. The question is that the motion be agreed to. Question agreed to. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS 72 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS Answers to Questions 72 15:51 Senator ANTIC 269375 South Australia I move: That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by opposition senators today. Eighteen months ago, on this side of the chamber, we told the Australian people that, to coin a phrase, it wasn't going to be easy under then opposition leader Albanese, but, as it turns out, that was gravely underestimating how things played out. In fact, it's more than not easy now. With cost-of-living pressures and high energy prices, life in this country has, frankly, become an absolute cost-of-living nightmare for the Australian people under the now prime minister, Anthony Albanese. And the shambles doesn't end just at those two items. There is now, of course, and new fissure line in this flimsy excuse for a government, which is, of course, the state of the aviation industry in this country. This government's policy of protecting a carrier and slugging Australian travellers with the high cost of airfares is yet another impost on Australia and the Australian people. This opposition wants to see, as do all Australians, an affordable, reliable and safe aviation industry where our airlines are prosperous, are functioning properly and are providing well-paying jobs around the country, but that is simply not what we're seeing. Don't take it from me; take it from Professor Rico Merkert, who is a professor of transport and supply chain management at, I think, the University of Sydney. Professor Merkert says that the government's decision to deny Qatar Airways the right to fly an extra 21 flights per week into Australia's three biggest cities is, in actual fact, more than likely returning Australia to the old days when we protected a national carrier at the expense of Australians and their hip pockets. In fact, he has calculated not only that it does not end there but that this may in fact be a billion-dollar-a-year impost on Australians, in terms of economic damage. By conservative estimates, the decisions may actually cost the economy that figure per year in lost income from things like tourism, visiting friends and relatives, business travel, freight and all sorts of other things. What we're seeing at the moment in the airline space, I think, is things getting significantly worse before they even getting anything like close to better. Cancellations and delays are on the rise month by month. The Albanese government is making decisions that are actually stifling competition and keeping airfares high, and this is all happening right in the middle of an already crippling cost-of-living crisis. Australian travellers and tourists have been paying up to 50 per cent more for airfares since the COVID outbreak of three years ago. Minister King's decision to reject the proposal from Qatar Airways really is now shown to be nothing more than another economic disaster, and a tourism disaster as well, for this government. This Qatar proposal was to increase passenger and freight capacity by a further 28 flights per week, which would have doubled the existing capacity. In simple terms, that is one extra flight per day to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. The criticism doesn't stop just at Professor Merkert. Former ACCC chairman Rob Sims said if there was ever a time to allow new entrants into the market with these cost-of-living pressures and a return from the COVID times then this surely would be it. The Prime Minister and Minister King claimed to be protecting the markets but the executives of every major airline except Qantas actually support a review of this decision. Even former Labor Treasurer Wayne Swan has joined the call for these matters to be reviewed. The cost of airfares is now a crippling matter for Australians. International airfares are now 50 per cent higher and seat capacity is 25 per cent lower today compared to prior to the COVID outbreak, according to the latest bureau data. We know that more seats on more flights means more competition. This is what we on the side of the chamber know: it is how you use the market properly, how you use the deflationary pressure on airline fees and on airfares. Industry research suggests this decision by the Albanese Labor government could actually have brought the economy an additional $788 million a year in economic activity. 15:56 Senator GREEN 259819 Queensland I am very pleased to speak to the motion moved by the opposition to take note of all answers to questions that they asked in question time because it gives me an opportunity to address the answer given by Minister Watt to Senator Cash's question about our closing the loopholes policy. It is not unusual to hear those opposite criticise any attempt by this government to cut loopholes, to make sure people are not undercutting the wages of Australians, and to increase wages, because we know that under their government it was policy to keep wages low. They wanted to keep wages low as their economic policy. We want to get wages moving, and that is exactly what our cut the loopholes legislation is all about. Because when you cut the loopholes that exist in the industrial relations system, we know that people have better access to better pay. The example Senator Cash asked about and the information that Minister Watt was able to give to her relates directly to one of the biggest loopholes, one of the biggest rip-offs in our industrial relations system—that is, when a group of employees agree fairly and bargain fairly with their employer to a set of wages and then that same employer uses a labour hire company to undercut that agreement. It is not just bad economics, it is not just dodgy but it is un-Australian to make an agreement and then turn your back on it. That is what is happening in legislation at the moment because our industrial relations system has a loophole that allows this to happen. On this side of the chamber we want to cut the loophole. We want to make sure there is no loophole that allows workers' wages to be undercut, or for businesses to be undercut that are paying fair wages. We want to get that loophole out of the system. Those opposite want to keep those loopholes in the system. They are pro loophole; we are anti loophole. We are pro worker; they are anti worker. They always have been. It is no surprise. We are having a cost-of-living debate in this country. Those opposite are coming in here and asking the government to take action on cost-of-living, to do more things on cost-of-living, to make sure we are taking care of people and that they have money in their pockets. Why at the same time would they be opposed to measures and policies that would lift the wages of everyday Australians? The mind boggles. The other thing we know and I know very well is that in regional communities this labour hire rort is rife. It is a huge problem in the mining industry, a huge problem in regional Queensland. People have been telling governments for years and they told the previous government for a decade that this was a problem that needed to be fixed. What happens when those workers are underpaid, sometimes by $30,000 or $40,000 a year? What happens when they can't take a holiday? What happens when they can't buy a house? What happens when they have to work on Christmas Day for a different rate of pay? What happens is that regional communities lose out because workers are not spending money in the local shops, they're not buying houses in the local community and they can't tell their kids that they can go to school in that regional school next year. The footy clubs lose out. That's what happens in regional Queensland when these loopholes exist. That you can come in here and defend these loopholes is in complete opposition to any idea of standing up for regional communities and regional workers, but that's what we're going to see from Senator Cash and the others opposite in the months to come. They will find every reason under the sun to try to prevent workers from getting a pay rise. They always have and they always will. Those opposite have an opportunity to consider this legislation and the loopholes that exist in our industrial relations system. I hope that over the next couple of months Australians get the chance to hear from brokers like Ron and Simon from Moranbah and Brody from Rockhampton, who I had the pleasure of meeting a few months ago. When you listen to their stories and the impact that this has on their lives, there is no possible way that you would want to keep these loopholes in the industrial relations system. I hope those opposite listen to people like Brody, who's been on a labour hire agreement for years. He deserves better. Rockhampton deserves better. Regional Queensland deserves better. But they won't get better from those opposite. Only a Labor government will deliver legislation that cuts the loopholes. 16:01 Senator CHANDLER 264449 Tasmania I also rise to take note of answers provided by government ministers to coalition questions today. Calling the responses given by ministers 'answers', particularly in relation to questions regarding Qatar Airways is, frankly, a bit of a stretch. This government has been desperately doing all it can to deflect legitimate criticism, reject accountability and obscure the truth about its dealings with Qantas and the former CEO Alan Joyce and the Qatar Airways proposal. Australians are rightly fed up with Qantas, particularly over the last 18 months. It is a company that was once held in such high regard by the Australian public, but Australians are even more fed up with this government. Over the past week and in the chamber today the arrogance of this government has been on full display for us to see here and for all Australians to see across the country. We can't get straight answers out of them, and the answers they do provide are retracted or are changed a few days later. Australians watching at home are left to come to no other conclusion than to suspect that this government is running a protection racket, but it is so caught up in its own spin that it can't even remember from day to day whether that protection racket is for the Prime Minister, for the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government or for protecting Qantas's profits. It appears that Labor are making things up as they go along. They have chopped and changed their story on the Qatar Airways proposal to try and wriggle out of a problematic situation and avoid being held accountable. In an article that I was reading this week, published on the Sydney Morning Herald website, Latika Bourke wrote: Federal Transport Minister Catherine King says the detention and forced examinations of Australian women at Doha airport during the pandemic was not behind the decision to deny Qatar Airways' request to double its Australian flights. That was written on 26 July this year. It is the complete opposite of what Minister King said this week, when she claimed that one of the reasons she rejected the proposal from Qatar Airways to increase passenger and freight capacity was because of those searchers. Which one is it? What is the truth? What are the other reasons for rejecting this proposal that the minister alluded to but has refused to elaborate on? There is no doubt that the forced strip-searches of Australian women were degrading and humiliating and an incredibly inappropriate invasive breach of privacy, and it is absolutely appropriate that the Minister for Foreign Affairs has raised our strong objections with the Qatari government. Why then, is the transport minister implying today that this was part of her reason for knocking back Qatar Airways when she is on the record previously as saying that it wasn't. Just over a week ago, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, when asked at a doorstop interview about the Qatar proposal, said: Qatar can fly into Adelaide as many planes as they like as big as they like. They can fly in other planes, which are bigger and bring in more people. Again, if the strip searches of Australian women were at least part of the reason that the minister knocked back the Qatar Airways proposal, why would the Prime Minister last week have been urging Qatar Airways to fly more Australians here into existing ports? Something, frankly, doesn't stack up, and this government is under pressure because the public can see it and they are rightfully angry. The transport minister, the Prime Minister and this government cannot provide straight answers to very basic questions. Even in this chamber today, with members of the opposition asking questions about this, we are no closer to uncovering the real reason the minister rejected the Qatar Airways proposal. This lack of transparency and accountability is, frankly, becoming a hallmark of this government. This whole saga has sent Labor ministers scrambling to hastily backtrack on their own previous statements. Just this morning, Assistant Minister Thistlethwaite said that he had been very critical of Qantas when grilled by Sky News' First Edition host, Peter Stefanovic. But Minister Thistlethwaite seemed to have conveniently forgotten posing in a Qantas marketing photo just over three weeks ago, when he stood alongside Alan Joyce, the Prime Minister, Minister Burney and the other 'yes' campaigners. Mr Thistlethwaite was all smiles for that photo opportunity, and so was Mr Joyce, because he'd got what he wanted when the government blocked Qatar Airways flights, and so was the Prime Minister, because he'd got what he wanted: another picture spruiking the Voice. In the absence of the government doing the right thing, the Senate has agreed to establish an inquiry into this matter. I'm very glad that that has happened, because maybe soon Australians will finally find out what's going on. 16:07 Senator SHELDON 168275 New South Wales I thank the Senate for its indulgence. We've heard about closing loopholes today, with questions about closing loopholes. Isn't it just amazing that we've seen that the opposition—the Nationals and the Liberal Party—who we know are for low wages, are also for no wages? I'm going to explain that: they're for low wages to make sure that aviation workers and miners don't get an increase in pay, and they're for no wages because they want to make sure that gig workers don't get a decent go. What we've seen is that they've voted to delay minimum standards that will save the lives of gig workers; they've voted to trap permanent casuals in insecure work for longer; they've voted to delay the criminalisation of wage theft; and they've voted to delay the introduction, ultimately, of a road haulage proposition. These sorts of delays are going to affect some of the most disadvantaged people in our community, including people who are literally dying on our roads. Solutions and propositions have been put by Peter Anderson, the National Secretary of the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation. You would have thought they'd back him. He says: 'Our unity shows how critical it is for the federal parliament to pass reform into law to give all industry participants a fighting chance.' Warren Clark, the CEO of the National Road Transport Association, says: 'We need change that bolsters our viability, builds productivity and enhances safety for everyone.' Rod Hannifey, from the National Road Freighters Association, said: 'We need to make sure drivers can come home safely at the end of every trip.' That's why we need all the Senate recommendations enacted without delay, going to the issues and the recommendations that have come into legislation for the future here. What's clear is that we've got people dying on our roads, we've got people dying on our streets and we've got food delivery workers losing their lives. We've got people not receiving at least some minimum standards where they have the capacity to get a reasonable income and a flexible income—because that's what the propositions are for: people on employee-like arrangements. Unlike those opposite, I have actually worked, and I'm very proud to say I've worked, for the largest small-business organisation in the country. They won't like hearing this, but it's actually the Transport Workers Union of Australia. I've represented tens of thousands of owner-drivers—single operators. In fact, if I brought all the small-business organisations together, the businesses they represent, which usually aren't that small, wouldn't come up to the number of small businesses that I've had the privilege of representing in the years of my previous life as a union official. What they're saying, and what the industry's saying, is that they want to make sure that there are standards for people who are out on our roads, that there's fairness and that there's not a B team, an A team, a D team or a Z team. They're saying there should be standards for everybody; that everybody not meeting those standards is culpable; and that good employers should be able to operate in a competitive market which means you don't have to kill people or see people losing their lives because of the systems that are put in place by powerful organisations above them or because of the pressure of markets where there is no regulation. To come here and yet again delay the opportunity for us to make sure that we can rectify the horrific consequences that are happening in that industry is absently appalling. Then we go to the delay in criminalising wage theft. There's not a loophole that those people opposite don't want to keep open. They want gig workers to get nothing. They want road haulage to be in an industry position just like the position for gig workers. Companies have come together and said that gig workers should have a fair say. Even gig companies are signing up. But those across the way can't. The opposition—the Nats and the Libs—just can't sign up to it, because they are fundamentally ideologically opposed to any concept that good people can come together, whether they be businesses, unions, workers or owner-drivers—who are small businesses—and say there is a solution for working people. When you get a solution for working people, you get productivity boosts, you get fair competition and it means you don't have to rip your own employees off or make a decision to leave the industry. The decisions that have been made here and these delays will have direct and fundamental impacts on people's lives. 16:12 Senator DEAN SMITH 241710 Western Australia For a man who spends so much time in the air, whether it's travelling internationally to grace the world stage or whether it's coming to Western Australia for his very short visits to get his photo opportunities on all the things that don't really matter to Western Australians, you would think that Prime Minister Albanese would know more about the Australian aviation industry than he does. The Prime Minister has been called out this afternoon in question time. He has been held to account for his comment on ABC radio when he said, 'In Australia, we have the most open aviation market in the world, bar none.' The Prime Minister said on Sky News, 'In fact, it's the most competitive market in the world.' I don't know what the Prime Minister of our country is doing when he is flying around, but he clearly is not thinking about the state of Australian aviation, because the ACCC's 12th and final airline-monitoring report made the state of airline competition in Australia very, very clear. At page 2—the Prime Minister does not even need to read very far into the report—the ACCC report said: After showing signs of improvements earlier in the year, the latest rates of flight cancellations and delays have gotten worse and remain poor compared to long-term industry averages. That statement from the ACCC is not one that backs in the Prime Minister's views about the state of airline competition. The report goes on to say: The duopoly market structure of the domestic airline industry has made it one of the most highly concentrated industries in Australia, other than natural monopolies. Here is a prime minister leading our country, spending a lot of time on an aircraft, and making the wrong call and saying the wrong thing about the state of airline competition. Senator Watt, representing the minister for transport, came into question time today quite proud of the government because they have announced their aviation green paper. We heard Senator Watt say the aviation green paper was going to do a variety of things. Guess what? It looks like and it sounds like the aviation green paper is plagiarising the sorts of things that have already been said and the sorts of recommendations that have already been made by the ACCC's monitoring regime. That monitoring regime, in its conclusions, has already said, 'Duopoly market structure has led to minimal competition between airlines' in our country. It has said, 'Outcomes limited by the domestic airline industry have been underwhelming.' That's the ACCC's word—'underwhelming'. Its third recommendation was that the arrival of Rex and Bonza would need to grow if Australia is to have more effective, competitive airline industry. Its fourth and final point in its 12th and last report was, 'Legislative and policy changes could encourage further airline competition and improve outcomes for consumers.' It specifically referenced policies that would better protect airline customers. Guess what? That is exactly the same sort of thing that Senator Watt proudly came to the Senate in question time today and said the aviation green paper is looking at. Why is the government choosing to reinvent the wheel when it comes to driving better aviation policy in Australia? Why? After all of the noise we have heard about flight cancellations, rising airfares and poor customer service, the government is still sitting on its hands on the one meaningful thing it can do—arm legislators like me and other senators in this place, arm consumers and others interested in watching over the airline industry, and reinstate the ACCC airline industry monitoring report. It's not a hard decision for the government to make. I wouldn't be surprised if the recommendation from the ACCC is already on Minister Leigh's desk or even the Treasurer's desk. Why do I say that? Because the very last statement in the ACCC report is an invitation from the ACCC to the government to extend the monitoring program. Question agreed to. Defence Procurement: Submarines 76 16:17 Senator SHOEBRIDGE 169119 New South Wales I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Special Minister of State (Senator Farrell) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the Virginia class submarines. Rarely do you see a special minister of state with so little knowledge about a core matter of public debate. When asked about the growing opposition in the United States Congress to any legislation that would allow Australia to get even one Virginia class submarine—and remember the AUKUS pillar 1, not 2 or 3, is that the US will start supplying hand over to Australia—no doubt for billions of dollars—Virginia class submarines from 2030. That is how the AUKUS plan fills the capability gap when the Collins class submarines go out of service and we transition to this mythical, UK-built AUKUS nuclear powered submarine. Critical to that is Australia getting access to three, and possibly five, Virginia class nuclear attack submarines. The problem with that is that Australia might have a neat little agreement with President Biden but there is no agreement with Congress. And the US, somewhat unlike Australia, gives an important role to their parliament in defence matters. One of those critical roles is approving any export of critical US defence technology such as the Virginia class submarines. The Special Minister of State seemed to be ignorant of the requirement to get congressional approval, saying: 'But we've got an agreement with Joe Biden. We signed it. It should all be sweet. We've given them $3 billion to build their industrial base! It should all be sweet. We've got $368 billion that we're stripping out of climate action, schools and hospitals. It should all be sweet.' He's failing to understand the most basic fact that it's not sweet. The United States Congress has to approve it, and congress hasn't approved it, and—get this—there has been a growing insurrection in the congress about giving us any. What did one of those US senators say in the last week? US Senator Bill Hagerty said: 'The Biden administration still hasn't put forward a credible, long-term plan to ensure that our navy'—meaning the US Navy—'meets its requirements to have 66 attack subs in a reasonable time frame.' To directly quote Senator Bill Hagerty: 'Ladies and gentlemen, that's a problem.' A colleague of his, Senator Roger Wicker, said this about the proposal to hand over AUKUS submarines to Australia: 'It makes sense to be sure that we'—meaning the US—'have enough submarines for our own security needs before we endorse that pillar of the agreement.' Of course, that's pillar 1 of the AUKUS agreement that the Albanese government and the Special Minister for State think is all sorted. Senator Wicker is on the US Senate Committee on Armed Services—I think he's the ranking member of the committee—and he then said, 'The president needs to submit a supplemental request to give us an adequate number of submarines.' He couldn't say how much money was needed, but he said the $3 billion that's already been shelled out by Australian taxpayers to build the US industrial base—not a single dollar of that is going to Australian jobs. The $3 billion dollars is already promised to the US administration to create US jobs in their shipbuilding industry to expand their submarine construction capacity. Senator Wicker said that he doesn't know how much more money is required to sort the problem out, but he does know that the $3 billion Australia has given is nowhere near enough. Senator Wicker went on to say: 'We need a concrete plan that includes not only the authorisation and money for an adequate number of attack submarines, but a plan for the industrial base to actually get there.' There is no plan. Why is it that the US are so anxious about giving Australia any of these Virginia class submarines on the 2030s? It's because they're going to hit a capability valley just then—in the 2030s. That's when a bunch of their earlier Virginia class submarines are going to be coming out of service. A bunch of them were built with substandard steel, and they've got a shorter time of life. It was a problem. That's when a bunch of the Virginia class submarines are going to be coming out of service, but it's also when the production limits are going to be hit. There's no plan, no solution and billions spent. Question agreed to. BUDGET 76 BUDGET Consideration By Estimates Committees 76 16:23 Senator URQUHART 231199 Tasmania On behalf of the respective chairs, I present additional information received by legislation committees, relating to estimates: Budget estimates 2022-23 (October and November)— Environment and Communications Legislation Committee—Additional information received between 21 November and 23 May 2023— Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water portfolio. Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts portfolio. Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee—Additional information— Attorney-General's portfolio. Home Affairs portfolio. Budget estimates 2022-23 (Supplementary)— Environment and Communications Legislation Committee—Hansard record of proceedings, documents presented to the committee and additional information. Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee—Hansard record of proceedings, documents presented to the committee and additional information. Budget estimates 2023-24—Environment and Communications Legislation Committee—Hansard record of proceedings, documents presented to the committee and additional information. COMMITTEES 77 COMMITTEES Human Rights Joint Committee 77 Report 77 16:23 Senator URQUHART 231199 Tasmania On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I present Human rights scrutiny report No. 9 of 2023. Treaties Joint Committee 77 Report 77 16:23 Senator URQUHART 231199 Tasmania On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I present the 211th report of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties. Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements 77 Membership 77 16:24 The DEPUTY PRESIDENT 287062 The President has received a letter nominating a senator to be a member of Select Committee on Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements. 16:24 Senator CHISHOLM 39801 Queensland by leave—I move: That Senator David Pocock be appointed as a participating member of the Select Committee on Commonwealth Bilateral Air Service Agreements. Question agreed to. DOCUMENTS 77 DOCUMENTS Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency 77 16:26 Senator SHOEBRIDGE 169119 New South Wales I move: That the Senate take note of the document. This is the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency quarterly report for the period of 1 January to 31 March 2023, and it's an interesting read. The report highlights just some of the work that ARPANSA is conducting around Australia. Part of ARPANSA's work is ensuring that there's effective regulation of nuclear waste and monitoring of radioactive material. With the work of ARPANSA and other Public Service agencies like the CSIRO, you have to wonder why it is that Defence has contracted out the framework for creating a new nuclear regulatory body to a private consultancy. In fact, you have to wonder why it is that there's a proposed new nuclear regulatory body being established just for Defence that is within the Defence cluster and responsible to the defence minister. International minimum standards for nuclear safety regulation require not just structural but also practical separation between the regulator and the operator. But the Albanese government's proposal for nuclear submarines, cheered in by the coalition, has both the operator of nuclear submarines—Defence—and the proposed new regulator responsible to the same minister, in breach of the basic minimum standards for effective nuclear regulation set by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But it actually gets worse than that. Having established that as the basic structure, the Albanese government has then said, 'Well, who do we get to write the rules for the new regulator?' Do they get ARPANSA, which has been doing it effectively as a public agency? Do they get someone from CSIRO to do it? No. Who do they get? They choose from a list of pre-approved tenderers. They don't go out to a public tender; they choose EY consultants to do it. In just the last few months, they have signed a fresh contact with EY, an $8.4 million contract, to design Defence's nuclear submarine regulator for the AUKUS nuclear submarines. That's the same EY that has deep ties to the nuclear industry and is repeatedly advocating for an expanded nuclear industry and working with major nuclear power companies, including NuScale Power corporation and the China General Nuclear Power corporation. There's nobody on the planet EY won't get into bed with for nuclear power if there's a dollar in it for them. They're the guys that the Albanese government said they want—'Yes, they're the ones we want.' That's the same EY that was TEPCO's long-term auditor. Who's TEPCO? It's the Tokyo Electric Power Company, who did what nuclear reactor? The Fukushima nuclear reactor—the one that more than a decade later is tipping nuclear waste into the middle of the Pacific. Who was their long-term auditor? EY. Who's designing our nuclear regulator? EY. You can't make this stuff up. EY is already under investigation in Australia for undisclosed conflicts of interest with the New South Wales government, who are already investigating how EY was working both sides of the record in New South Wales—on the one hand it was developing the Future of gas statement with the New South Wales government while on the other it was getting a nice little side deal with Santos, who of course were desperately trying to frack First Nations land for their own private profit. EY are already working both sides of the record in Australia and are under investigation by the New South Wales government. Does that stop the Albanese government and Defence giving them an $8.4 million contract? No. What about working for a company that had a major nuclear disaster like Fukushima? No. How can it be that Defence is allowed to handpick a pro-nuclear consultant to design a regulatory body within Defence that will report to the defence minister? As I said, international nuclear energy standards require separation. What we've got here is the fox watching the radioactive henhouse. That's what we've got. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission 78 16:32 Senator SHOEBRIDGE 169119 New South Wales This is the account takeover warrants report for 2022-23 under the Crimes Act 1914. Cast your mind back to December 2020. Minister Dutton was sitting in Home Affairs and running a scare campaign that Australia's crime agencies desperately and urgently needed more powers to reach into the darkest recesses of the online world. These were powers that the parliament had to grant agencies like ASIO and the Australian Federal Police. They had to do it rapidly. They were needed to allow surveillance organisations to identify and disrupt wrongdoers. Part of that was a fresh power called a takeover warrant, which allowed the AFP or ASIO to get a warrant and literally take over the computer of a wrongdoer. This power was desperately needed. The warrants were meant to be used in relation to any offence that has a maximum term of imprisonment of three years or more. Most people would suggest that that's a fairly low threshold for such invasive powers, but none of that troubled the then Morrison government, none of that troubled Minister Dutton and of course none of that troubled the then Labor opposition either. Many civil society groups were very critical of the rapid passage of those laws and said that they would put in place oppressive powers that were absolutely not needed. They said that the case had not been made to create these powers and that if they were going to be put in then there would have to be a whole lot of additional checks and balances on the use of them. That's because they had basically set up a secret procedure with secret approvals for secret powers. Those groups, though, were told by the then Morrison government, cheered on by the Labor opposition, that these powers were critical; they were absolutely essential and we needed them now—and that we needed to rush them through in December in the dying days of 2020. Senator Steele-John probably remembers the debate. Senator Steele-John 250156 Yes. Senator SHOEBRIDGE 169119 How many times have they been used since then? Is it a dozen? Is it two dozen? Is it 100? I would be troubled if these urgent, essential, absolutely-have-to-be-passed powers had been used that many times! Well, I'll let you know that they've been used exactly nought times. Not once, these urgent, super, must-be-passed powers! And that's what we find in this report. When will the sort of rush to legislate every time we get told there's a new scare campaign end? In December 2020 it was, 'These are urgent, these are essential, the roof in the Senate will collapse with terrorism and evildoing if we don't pass the powers.' Rapidly pass the powers, say how essential they are—but they've been used not once, not once, since they were passed. We need to look past these scare campaigns. We need to think about the fundamentals of our basic rights and privileges before we fall for the next scare campaign coming out of Home Affairs or coming out of the A-G's department. If you want a case in point, read the report. I seek leave to continue my remarks. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Consideration 79 COMMITTEES 80 COMMITTEES Consideration 80 AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORTS 80 AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORTS Report No. 1 of 2023-24 80 16:40 Senator NAMPIJINPA PRICE 263528 Northern Territory I rise today to speak on Auditor-General's report No. 1 of 2023-24, Governance of the Northern Land Council. This audit is part of a series on the Northern Territory's land councils and is the outstanding piece of this puzzling picture of governance and accountability. This report was returned later than expected, and it is another ANAO report containing alarming recommendations to a land council. This should give this parliament all it needs to shake these organisations upside down. There will be people nervous about what I'm going to say in this place today. There are always people who are nervous whenever I speak on this topic. These organisations have been able to avoid scrutiny that would exist in other sectors. In a broad observation of the group, the Auditor-General notes: In the absence of provisions for Freedom of Information under existing Commonwealth legislation, and of appeal and review mechanisms under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, the Northern Territory (NT) Land Councils should ensure that adequate means exist to provide transparency over operations, so that trust is maintained among constituents and external stakeholders. Why does the ANAO have to make such observations? Because confidence and trust in these land councils has eroded. I'm always told, 'If you see something then say something.' Well, let me quote from the report on the Northern Land Council, on their fraud and corruption policy: The NLC is not fully implementing its Fraud and Corruption Policy … it is not clear if reporting channels are confidential, and the NLC does not have a formal mechanism for recording incidents of fraud or suspected fraud. Why would you report them if your confidence can't be assured? Finally a report that mirrors back what traditional owners have been telling me! But of course it doesn't stop there. The report goes on: The NLC's fraud control arrangements fall short of the minimum requirements established in the fraud rule … The Fraud and Corruption Policy is not clearly tied to identified fraud risks and fraud risks are not assessed as frequently as specified in the Policy. There is no confidential reporting channel and no mechanism to record and report incidents of fraud or suspected fraud … … … … A Conflict of Interest Policy and mandatory online declaration mechanism were established for staff declarations. Use of the online declaration system by staff is monitored and an online declaration under the policy was made by all sampled senior managers in 2022, except by the CEO. Improvements are required to the completeness of declarations by senior management and the rate of completion of declaration forms by other staff. It also says: … Council members who are also employed elsewhere must apply to their employer for leave without pay when attending Council meetings. … … … In July 2023 the NLC Chair declared one paid and two unpaid part-time positions. It is not clear to the ANAO that the Chair holding a paid position in another organisation is consistent with the Remuneration Tribunal Act 1973. The ANAO did not examine whether the Chair's performance of duties for other entities impacts on his capacity to complete his duties for the Council as a full-time remunerated public office holder. The role and functions of a land council are quite clear. They are there to represent the interests of traditional owners and act on their behalf through various means, yet I'm told far too frequently by communities that they are not receiving the help that they're supposed to get. We need an inquiry because we need to get to the bottom of all these problems. This is why we've called for an inquiry into land councils and other organisations. We have called not once but twice, and both times we haven't had the support from politicians across the spectrum. At other times we have had Senator Thorpe, another Aboriginal woman who has joined these calls, but not people like Senator Pocock. Debate adjourned. Consideration 81 COMMITTEES 81 COMMITTEES Treaties Joint Committee 81 Report 81 16:45 Senator AYRES 16913 New South Wales I wanted to make some comments in relation to the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties on the Protocol Amending the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT DYU That was at item 17, which we have technically passed. You can seek leave. That is common practice for people to go back. Are you seeking leave? S 16913 I am in the hands of all my colleagues. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT DYU Are you seeking leave to make remarks? Senator AYRES 16913 Yes. Leave granted. Senator AYRES 16913 I'm grateful for leave being granted. I move: That the Senate take note of the report. This Joint Standing Committee on Treaties report recommends that Australia ratifies the World Trade Organization agreement on fishery subsidies. It is actually a matter that is important for our national interest and for the countries in our region. It is a historic agreement that strikes the right balance between curbing distortionary fishery subsidies while at the same time supporting food security. It is the first agreement struck at the World Trade Organization to focus on environmental issues. It aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on sustainable fishing and it is a real win for the Pacific states. We have known for some time that fish stocks are at risk of collapsing in many parts of the world due to over exploitation. Figures from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations confirm this. More than one-third of global stock is overfished today compared to only 10 per cent in 1974. Other estimates suggest up to half of all assessed stock is overfished. In theory, increasing pressure on fish stocks globally should mean fishing takes more time and costs more money but that is not what we're seeing in reality. The injection of subsidies estimated at US$35 billion per year globally distorts the market and allows many fishing fleets to operate for longer and further out at sea. A big chunk of these subsidies are indeed distortionary. A 2019 peer-commissioned study estimated $22 billion of the $35 billion in subsidies were harmful, directed into industrial fleets and used to accelerate overfishing. Meanwhile, the 260 million people who depend on marine fisheries to keep families, households and businesses afloat, many in the Pacific, are left stranded. That is why this agreement was needed, to prohibit and discipline harmful subsidies. After 20 years of negotiation at the World Trade Organization, a deal was finally secured at the most recent ministerial conference in June of last year. It was a marathon five-day negotiation. Led by trade minister, Don Farrell, Australia played a critical role in getting the deal over the line, working through the night and in lockstep with like-minded partners including Fiji, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and all of the Pacific Island states who were indeed magnificent in the way that they stood up. I am very grateful for the effort that was put on by everybody, including Australia's permanent representative ambassador, George Mina, as a key part of the negotiating team. It is notoriously difficult to find agreement at the World Trade Organization, comprised of 164 members, all with differing national and regional interests. It requires complete consensus from countries with different interests, at different development levels and pursuing competing agendas. But it was Australia's leadership at the WTO 12th ministerial conference and our stalwart commitment to backing our Pacific neighbours that was the driving force behind delivering the agreement. It was also the persistence and consensus-building approach that the WTO Director-General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is known for. The WTO is fundamental to maintaining the global and regional rules-based trading system. When Dr Okonjo-Iweala visited Australia last year, the Albanese government announced $2 million to assist developing countries, particularly in our region, to implement the landmark WTO agreement on fishery subsidies. The agreement will enter into force once two-thirds of members formally accept the protocol and the agreement on fishery subsidies by depositing an instrument of acceptance. Australia's treaty process is well underway, and the tabling of this report is the final step before it's provided to the executive council in our ratification process. As preparations for the WTO ministerial conference in Abu Dhabi next February continue at the official and ministerial levels, this agreement reinforces Australia's credentials as a trusted partner in the Pacific, determined to fight for our shared interest to secure a peaceful and prosperous region. But the work isn't done. There's more to do to wean the world off harmful agricultural subsidies, which the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates could rise to $2.5 trillion by 2030. These subsidies act to distort agricultural products all around the world, undermining food security and efforts to reduce emissions from the agricultural sector, as well as making high-quality, efficient and unsubsidised Australian agricultural products less competitive in global markets. Of course, each country has its own interests, its own regional influences and its own domestic politics to contend with. This is why we must be bold and take Australia's traditional leadership approach, as the leader of the Cairns Group of Fair Trading Nations, to find opportunities for common ground and build consensus for reform in the multilateral trading system with the WTO, in time. Debate adjourned. Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Joint Committee 83 Government Response to Report 83 16:53 Senator STEELE-JOHN 250156 Western Australia by leave—I rise to take note of the government response to the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade entitled Inquiry into international armed conflict decision-making. Here we are, two years after the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, a conflict that saw over 100,000 people killed, millions displaced and billions spent. We are 20 years from the illegal invasion of Iraq and 50 years on from the Australian withdrawal from the Vietnam War. That's half a century of catastrophic decision-making by reckless politicians, half a century of death and destruction, and, apparently—if you look at the contents of this report—not a single lesson has been learned. The Australian community knows clearly that this nation's process for going to war is broken. It is undemocratic. It lacks any accountability or transparency. The Australian community knows this, and that is why 80 per cent of them support a parliamentary vote prior to the deployment of troops overseas. Every—I almost said 'every Australian Labor Party MP'; I wish it were so. Even many Labor Party MPs know that this is the case, and that is why they went to an election committed to an inquiry into this process. Yet, instead of an actual review into the system, we got a facade, a process that was broken from the beginning when the foreign minister and the defence minister told every person who would listen, during the inquiry period, that they did not support reform and that, therefore, there would be no reform, regardless of the findings of the report. Lo and behold, within the contents of this report, what do we find but empty, toothless recommendations that leave the largest hole in our system of going to war completely unaddressed. It is an outright refusal for reform to a system that has hurt so many people and caused so much suffering from Canberra to Kabul and everywhere in between. The outcome of this report is that Australia will retain its reputation as one of the world's most secretive democracies. Make no mistake—there can be no parliamentary protection stopping us from entering another illegal war if the two parties in this place refuse to learn the lessons of history. The outcome of this report, of the government's inaction, is that we have wasted yet another opportunity to put the democratic protections in place that would prevent the next Iraq and Afghanistan from occurring. That is what the Labor Party and the Liberal Party have passed up in this report. You had your chance to place a check on executive power. You had your chance to ensure that, if Peter Dutton ever gets the keys to the Lodge, it is not within his power— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT DYU Order! Senator Steele-John, you know you need to use the correct titles. Senator 250156 If the Leader of the Opposition in the other place is ever referred to as the Prime Minister of Australia, you in the Labor Party had the chance to make sure that he is never able to unilaterally take Australia into war alongside the United States, and you passed it up. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT DYU Senator Steele-John, I remind you to address your remarks through the chair. Senator STEELE-JOHN 250156 Through you, Chair. This government has signed Australia up to a new alliance with America and the United Kingdom, two countries infamous for disastrous foreign policy decision-making, which has then become our problem as a nation because you have taken us to war along with them, and you have been able to do it because of the absence of a parliamentary vote required before the deployment of troops. You had an opportunity to fix it and you failed. You failed. You have put us, once again, at risk. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. NOTICES 83 NOTICES Withdrawal 83 16:59 Senator PRATT I0T Western Australia At the request of Senator White, I withdraw general business notice of motion No. 322 standing in her name. MOTIONS 84 MOTIONS Aviation Industry 84 17:00 Senator McKENZIE 207825 Victoria I move: That the Senate expresses its concern at the Albanese Labor Government's rank hypocrisy when it comes to its promises of being a more accountable and transparent government, as demonstrated by its failure to be honest with Australians about why it rejected the application by Qatar Airways to have more international flights, and its failure to be transparent about the use of Special Purpose Aircraft flights. This motion is relating to the Albanese government. It's relating to how hopeless the Albanese government has been in providing an affordable, reliable and safe aviation industry for Australian travellers. Today is a win for the Australian travelling public. Australians want to be able to purchase a plane ticket to a destination of their choice. They want to make sure that their plane takes off on time and lands on time and that, when they get to their destinations, their bag actually arrives with them and they've got some money left in their pocket to have a good time. It is the job of the government, as the regulator, to ensure that that is achieved. We are one of the most successful multicultural nations in the world, and right now there are a lot of Australians who can't see their families overseas simply because they cannot afford the exorbitant international plane ticket prices, which are 50 per cent higher than they were pre COVID. The government had a decision to make that would have put downward pressure on those prices, by allowing Qatar Airways another 28 flights into capital cities in this country—one a day in four capital cities. But they didn't want to do that. They don't want to tell us why they made that decision. The more the government refuse to answer basic questions, the more the public have reason to think they are hiding something. If the public didn't think the government were trying to hide something because ministers refuse to answer questions on this topic in question time or from the media, they would think so after what we saw here in the Senate. I know we are a little cabal unto ourselves and not many people peek through the curtain of the mysteries of the Senate, but here we saw, day after day, this government seek to shut down a select committee into that decision and other matters surrounding the competitiveness of our domestic and international aviation sector. Day after day, they sought to shut it down, trying every parliamentary trick in the book till four o'clock this afternoon, a Thursday afternoon—quite incredible. But they did not succeed. I'm the proud chair of that committee. I'm committed to working with all senators in that committee to achieve recommendations that will be of benefit to Australian travellers and our nation as a whole. Submissions are due by the 18th. We'll be out for public hearings shortly. As I said, the coalition wants to see an affordable, reliable and safe aviation industry where our airlines are profitable, because they do employ tens of thousands of Australians right across the country. But we don't want them ripping people off. There's a difference between being a profitable company that provides great, well-paid, safe jobs and ripping off your customers. What we've seen in evidence extracted from senior officials of some of these companies and through the good work of our competition watchdog is that something is definitely wrong in the state of Denmark, and it stinks. It looks like this stinky fish head is right at the top of the Albanese government. Is it the cosy personal relationship between the Prime Minister and the former CEO of Qantas, or is it the ideological bent of those on the far left who seek to renationalise Qantas? The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT DYU Senator McKenzie, order! Can I just caution you about personal reflections on the members in the other house? You have the call. Senator McKENZIE 207825 Thank you for that very pertinent and timely reminder, Mr Acting Deputy President. Is it other sections of the government who realise that this close political and personal relationship between Prime Minister Albanese and former CEO Alan Joyce and, indeed, Qantas more broadly is a dampener on their political and electoral success? That's because it isn't just the Australian public that's had enough of Qantas and the lack of competition in our aviation industry; it's a state Labor premier, Roger Cook; a state Labor deputy premier, Steven Miles; a state Labor president, former treasurer Wayne Swan; and others who are calling this out for the hoax it is. It's the reason why this government is running as fast as it can from providing an actual answer to the questions. As she released a green paper which says we've got one of the least competitive aviation sectors, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government has once again today directly contradicted the Prime Minister's public commentary about having the most competitive aviation sector in the world. Former ACCC chairman Rod Sims said, 'If there was a time to allow new entrants in, this is it.' The transport minister has claimed that the decision was made in the national interest. However, we now know that the Prime Minister wasn't aware of the decision and only yesterday discovered that the minister made the decision on 10 July. This raises a lot of questions. This was a decision that University of Sydney academics say is going to cost our country $1 billion. I have to tell you, you have to go to the Expenditure Review Committee if you're a cabinet minister wanting $100 million to spend on a program to benefit the Australian people. This minister made a decision that's going to cost our country $1 billion and apparently can't tell us who she consulted with. I would have hoped she'd have consulted with the Minister for Trade and Tourism to understand those implications—the opportunities or otherwise—of providing more freight capacity. I would have thought she'd have consulted with the Treasurer about the modelling that this additional capacity would bring—the benefits to our tourism industry and the productivity gains that would be made. When we talk about having a zero in front of our productivity growth, what is the productivity of having cancellations and delays going in the wrong direction in this country? Businesses and travellers are building into their travel plans the fact that they will probably have to stay overnight. You'd better take enough cash in your pockets to buy some clean jocks, a toothbrush and a clean suit for tomorrow because—heaven knows!—your bag won't end up with you. That is all a drag on productivity. Fifty flights out of Canberra are cancelled each and every month. It just beggars belief. The Prime Minister didn't know when the decision was made, and the minister seems to be either misleading the parliament or being very remiss with her memory, to the point where she didn't think to consult either the Prime Minister or the former shadow minister on such a significant issue. I thank the crossbench in particular for the setting up of the select committee today under absolute duress from the Labor Party over the last four days. They've been absolutely strongarming, but the crossbench held true to transparency and accountability to get to the bottom of this, to make sure we air all the issues and we can develop some great recommendations about not just this poor decision by the government but, indeed, by the aviation industry more broadly. I've already gone to the various reasons given for this decision. I saw Catherine King fumbling this morning at Canberra Airport around the human rights aspect of her decision. I wonder if she consulted with the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I wonder whether she told the Qatari government or Qatar Airways that she'd decided to cancel or reject their application before she'd told others. When you're running a government, you can't just make decisions in a silo, because you're representing all of us on the international stage. It has significant implications for our diplomatic relations if you get it wrong, which I suggest the government might have. It was human rights. She was going to decarbonise aviation by not allowing those extra 28 flights in. Wow! Well done with that, Minister. You're decarbonising aviation by not allowing 28 flights, at the same time that the government have been arguing they're welcoming more flights. They think these flights might have more carbon emissions than all the other flights from the Middle East. It's not in the national interest, but she can't tell you what is. She can't tell you the criteria she used. Then we had our fabulous assistant minister for competition and our fabulous Assistant Minister Jones talking about the need to protect Qantas's profits in the same eye-watering week where Qantas announces excessive profits and a remuneration to their CEO which was eye-watering. What a cosy little set-up the former CEO had with the board about being able to roll forward his share options in the bad years and take them in the good years. Gee, wouldn't we all like that kind of bonus remuneration? There are significant positive impacts of the Qatar Airways proposal, including an extra million seats a year to Europe and the Middle East. That would put immediate downward pressure on airfares. In excess of thousands of dollars would be saved by the travelling public through a million extra seats, and yet the government wanted to stand up and say, 'Well, no, that would not actually have been the result.' Blind Freddy knows that would be the result. I come from a country community. When we only have one team in town, prices are through the roof. Add another and prices go down. If I get three carriers or, bonus, if I get four, prices drop to the floor and communities can actually travel not just for business or health specialists but to visit family and friends and to participate more fully in the economy. Thousands of primary producers, manufacturers and other businesses are supported by expanding freight capacity and therefore lowering the cost to shift the goods in a timely manner. This government should be doing everything possible to attract and retain more airlines and build their confidence that Australia is a reliable place to do business and that we have demand. Australians are paying a high price as well as experiencing almost double the rate of flight cancellations and a 70 per cent increase in delayed flights compared to the long-term average. Things are not okay, and this government thinks they can push out the aviation white paper looking at competition in the aviation industry. Thank goodness for that backflip last week. 'We're not going to think about actually making decisions around slots into Sydney and that flexibility that was recommended in the Harris review. We're not going to make that decision until after the white paper is delivered.' That's after the next election. People are dealing with these problems right now. The solutions are right now on that minister's desk, and she seems incapable of or refusing to do her job. It's tough being a minister; I've been there. You've got to make decisions in the national interest and you've got to be able to explain them. Labor made a mistake in the budget by not extending the direction to the ACCC to continue its monitoring of airlines in Australia. We call once again on the Treasurer to reinstate that monitoring so that we get timely data. I wrote to the Treasurer over two weeks ago requesting that direction, and I know my colleague Mr Smith, shadow minister for competition, has absolutely been calling for more oversight in that area. Rex's deputy chairman, John Sharp—and thank you for flying into the regions like Qantas and Virgin do—has said about the imbalance of competition in domestic aviation: Rex's relationship with a company like Qantas is a bit like an ant dancing with an elephant. You've only got to make one misstep, and you're squashed. And isn't that the truth? We're talking about an aviation market where two players have more than 95 per cent of the market. Even with our supermarkets, for which we complain about Coles and Woolworths a lot, particularly in the National Party about the fair deal that they give or don't give our farmers, it's about 75 to 80 per cent. So this market is even more concentrated than the supermarkets, and yet I've seen minister after minister in the Senate stand up and say, 'It's not a problem; it's competitive.' It isn't, and the data says so. That is why I'm so glad that the Senate and the public will have the opportunity to hear the evidence, hear the data through the select committee that we have fought to set up, that you have fought to silence. The actual evidence will be out there for everyone to see. This isn't actually about political pointscoring. I know the government's made a big deal of it. 'Oh, you guys had to make this decision. You did this. You did that.' It is time now, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis with productivity at nearly zero and no plans from this government to improve it, with every single little decision they make sending things in the wrong direction not the right direction. The cumulative impact is significant. I believe that if we can get right the recommendations of this select committee and report back to the Senate on 9 October the government should do the right thing, adopt those recommendations and put downward pressure on airfares so that Australians get a fair go. 17:15 Senator AYRES 16913 New South Wales I'm sure that when academics write stories about oppositions and how they deal with election losses somebody will grab hold of the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief. For the information of those not familiar with it, that framework says that a person goes through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and then acceptance. What is required in a system where, essentially, there are two parties of government to get an opposition party match fit, to be up to it? I think there are six stages—denial, overreach, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This week we are in the overreach stage. Long may it continue, because the longer it goes on, the longer it's going to take Mr Morrison's leftovers over there to get themselves into shape to deal with the real issues for Australian people. We are clearly, 16 months in, seeing an opposition that don't understand the decision that the Australian people made, that haven't reflected upon the gravity of the errors that they made in government, because they are reaching too early for the little things and trying to make them big things. That's what this week has been all about. Now, the decision that Minister Catherine King took in relation to Qatar Airways was done in the normal course of events. In fact, it was a decision that one of her predecessors, Mr McCormack, had made in exactly the same way with no controversy at all, with no complaint. In fact, applications for alterations to bilateral arrangements for access to Australian airports by countries and airlines happen all the time. The truth is, as Minister Wong said here earlier this week, it is not a free-for-all. Competition is not a free-for-all. There are a wide sweep of issues that must be considered when balancing the competitive issues with the safety and security issues and with the other series of national interest questions. Minister King has made it completely clear that the decision she made was in the national interest, in the normal course of events, as Australians would expect. I see that Senator McKenzie, while unwisely including a reference to special-purpose aircraft in her motion, wisely decided not to spend any time on it in her speech in this debate. I'll just say that, if you want to spend some time on that, it's going to be a pretty wild old ride if we spend time on special aircraft flights, coming from the party that formed government when the Morrison government refused to release any details of special-purpose aircraft flights taken in the last 16 months of that sorry period of government. Their current leader, Mr Dutton, released absolutely no information about the use of special-purpose aircraft during his sorry tenure as the Minister for Defence. Unlike those opposite, we have restarted publishing information. We are publishing the information that we have been advised to publish and that reflects the very clear advice of our security agencies. That's not unimportant, and a disregard for that is another illustration of why those opposite are unfit to be making a claim on being the alternative government of Australia. Senator McKenzie wanted to talk about productivity. It's like Idi Amin expressing a sudden interest in human rights! When the other side were in government, they had 10 years of the worst productivity growth on record—in Australian history. And 15 months later, they hope that everybody has forgotten. The business community hasn't forgotten. The trade union movement hasn't forgotten. None of the economic institutions have forgotten. It can't be washed away that easily by carrying on about it. She said that the decision that Minister King had made would apparently cause $1 billion of difference for our Gross Domestic Product. That is the most un-mathematical, silly claim. Why not say $1 trillion? What's after a trillion? Why not just make up numbers that make no sense? What you have to do—for those of you listening at home—is take the three airports, multiply them by seven days, multiply them by the number of the weeks and figure it out. How many dollars does she think that every flight—there you go, some of the team over they are doing it—impacts on the national accounts? It is the silliest proposition. There was a declaration from Senator McKenzie that the Minister should reveal the contents of her discussions with a foreign power and outline all of the national interest reasons that she had engaged in, in order to make a set of decisions in the Australian national interest. This is coming from the outfit that in the last sorry term of government, when there was a disagreement with the government of France, the then prime minister of Australia released the text messages to a newspaper. I haven't seen anything in my short period here that has done more damage to the credibility of Australian political leadership on the international stage than that vainglorious, silly, shortsighted, self-interested piece of work from Mr Morrison. We're not going to take any lectures from this outfit on the appropriate conduct of international relations. Then I come to the motion itself. It includes Senator McKenzie's name, it references transparency and accountability, and then it goes on to use phrase 'rank hypocrisy'. The gravitational force of those phrases all arriving into the same sentence would suck in solar systems. It is inconceivable that a person who had a moment's self-reflection could hop out, get into the office, write that in an e-mail and send it off. This is the same Senator McKenzie—or maybe I'm wrong—who was responsible for the sports rorts saga, isn't it? By all means, come in here and lecture people about transparency and accountability—that's leading with your chin. But then to say it's 'rank hypocrisy', it can't be allowed to stand. It is the wildest proposition, and it underscores how silly this whole week has been from the coalition parties, the apparent alternative parties of government. Senator McKenzie was out there before the general business notice of motion. What have I done, Senator Smith? The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 217241 Senator Smith is on his feet. Senator Smith? Senator Dean Smith 241710 Acting Deputy President, Senator Ayres has spoken a lot but not said very much about the substantive matter of Senator McKenzie's motion, which is aviation competition and the performance of the minister for transport, Catherine King, and I'm just wondering if you might bring him back to the substantive matter. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 217241 Thank you, Senator Smith. It is a wide-ranging debate, but I will remind Senator Ayres of the words of the motion, which he's well aware of. Senator AYRES 16913 I could almost hear 'wide-ranging debate' before you just said it, Acting Deputy President. I'm grateful for both your ruling and Senator Smith's injunction there. This is the same Senator McKenzie whose approach to transparency and accountability was providing colour coded spreadsheets to the Prime Minister's office and who lost her ministerial job when it was revealed that she was spending public money as if it were LNP money, awarding grants to marginal or target seats in the 2019 election campaign. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 217241 Senator Ayres, Senator Scarr is on his feet. Senator Scarr? Senator Scarr 282997 Mr Acting Deputy President: reflections. I do note that in this particular case, as I understand it, Senator McKenzie resigned in relation to a disclosure about a membership of a sporting club, so I think Senator Ayres needs to be very careful in how he's presenting the historical record. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 217241 Thank you, Senator Scarr. I'll give the call back to Senator Ayres, but I will remind Senator Ayres of the wording of the motion, and perhaps he could— Senator AYRES 16913 Well, it's Thursday afternoon. I want to point out that it is very hard to get to the policy substance, whatever it is, that sits in this incoherent, inchoate piece of general business that's been served up to us this afternoon. It could have been about the cost of living. It could have been about a whole range of serious national interest and strategic questions that sit in front of the government. But it's this. It's the silly stuff from an outfit whose Prime Minister swore himself into multiple ministries secretly and is still hanging around over there. But you want to talk about transparency, accountability and hypocrisy. We remember the approach to transparency and accountability by the previous Prime Minister and the current Leader of the Opposition, don't we? While we're on the subject of Mr Dutton, I remember his previous approach when he felt a bit challenged about some of the positions that our national airline took. When he didn't like what they said, he told them, in a phrase reeking of misogyny, to stick to their knitting. That's what he said to the leadership of our national airline. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 217241 Senator Ayres, Senator Scarr is on his feet. Senator Scarr? Senator Scarr 282997 Relevance, Mr Acting Deputy President. If Senator Ayres could actually stick to the motion, we'd all appreciate that, I think. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 217241 Thank you, Senator Scarr. It has been a wide-ranging debate. I'll give the call back to Senator Ayres. Senator AYRES 16913 I would just say, in the 50 seconds that remain to me, that the problem with the motion that's in front of us is that it invites us to talk about rank hypocrisy, and that's what I've been doing. I understand that I'm likely to get cut short as we hit the 5.30 hard marker, and you'll be denied, I think, a minute and 36 seconds of further outlining of how silly this is. But I understand why it is that Australians are disappointed in the performance of the national airline in terms of its relationship with its customers and employees. The airline needs to do much better over the coming weeks and months— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT 217241 Thank you, Senator Ayres. The debate is interrupted and you will be in continuation when the debate resumes. ADJOURNMENT 88 ADJOURNMENT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice 88 17:30 Senator SCARR 282997 Queensland I rise to make some comments this evening in relation to a very disturbing article that appeared in the Australian today, 7 September 2023, in which there was debate as to whether or not a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament and executive government would actually enable dissenting views to be put. One of the concerns I've had in relation to the proposed referendum is that it refers to 'the' Voice as if the First Nations people—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—in this country all had the same view with respect to the very difficult and, in some cases, intractable issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote and regional communities especially. One of the concerns I have with the Voice is whether or not, and how, it could reflect the divergence of opinion, perspectives and lived experience amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across this whole country. In this chamber, over the last four and a bit years, I have sat and listened very carefully to the contributions made in debate by Senator McCarthy, Senator Dodson, Senator Stewart, Senator Cox, Senator Thorpe, Senator Lambie, Senator Nampijinpa Price and Senator Liddle. Those contributions bring different things to the debate and to the arguments. They don't all present the same view, the same perspective or the same consideration in relation to the issues which are considered; they are different perspectives. And why wouldn't they be different perspectives? One of the issues I have had with what's proposed in terms of 'the' Voice is that very point: it talks about 'the' Voice when there are hundreds of thousands of voices. This begs the question of how those disparate voices will be considered through the process. So I was very disturbed to read this Australian article, where it was put: Constitutional experts George Williams and Greg Craven say the influence of the advisory body could be undermined if it presented various views on the same issue. That's what these constitutional experts, George Williams and Greg Craven, said. And Professor Williams, the University of New South Wales deputy vice-chancellor, said: It is better that the voice speak collectively on behalf of its membership even if, as expected, there are differences of opinion. To me, that says not that we have the detail, so you wouldn't be able to find the answer to the question, but it deeply disturbs me that you have one of this country's leading constitutional experts and a strong proponent for a constitutionally entrenched voice to parliament and executive government arguing that, in his own words, it is better that the Voice speak collectively. Professor Williams went on: The effectiveness and influence of representations by the voice may be compromised if the voice represents multiple positions at once. How can't it represent multiple positions and reflect a divergence of opinion? Senator McCarthy has her views. If we go around the chamber, Senator Cox has her views, Senator Thorpe has her views, and Senator Liddle and Senator Nampijinpa Price have extremely different views from their own philosophical perspective and from their own political perspective—and that's the way it should be. So how are those disparate views—those different views and perspectives—going to be reflected in 'the' Voice, especially when you have constitutional experts saying that it is better that the Voice speak collectively on behalf of its members? What does that mean in terms of minority opinions or different perspectives? How are they going to be heard through this constitutional body, the voice? That is one of my fundamental concerns with respect to the constitutional referendum. It's an example of the detail that is completely lacking in the proposition which is being put forward to the Australian people. Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Bill 2023, Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2023 89 17:35 S 266524 Queensland enator ROBERTS () (): As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I draw the Senate's attention to the New South Wales parliament, where independent MP Alex Greenwich introduced two bills, the Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Bill 2023 and the Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2023. Both bills are anti-women and anti-children. The proposed changes include, firstly, introduction of sex self-ID, allowing anyone to change their legal sex on official documents such as driver's licence and birth certificate. These documents will no longer represent physical reality; they will show mental self-image. Men will be able to legally identify as women and access female-only spaces including bathrooms, changing rooms, refuges and prisons, undermining the rights and safety of women and girls. Women and children escaping domestic violence will be forced to share emergency accommodation with men. Imagine the additional trauma this will create. A recent Victorian event in Dame Phyllis Frost Correctional Centre shows the danger of these laws. A biological man convicted of violent assaults against women was transferred into a female prison. Female prisoners unsuccessfully petitioned to remove him. A wider public campaign raged for weeks before the transfer was eventually reversed. Many women in jail have suffered abuse from men that lowers women's self-esteem and then they go on to drug abuse, crime and illegal behaviour. To TIGA+ campaigners, the mental and physical effect on female inmates from having men in with women seems irrelevant. It appears that many in the TIQA+ community believe women are only to have rights that do not compromise men's rights. Secondly, fully deregulated prostitution will remove protections for prostituted persons, mostly women, as well as the wider community. While many may enter this line of work willingly, prostitution is the world's oldest form of slavery and exploitation. To remove penalty based regulation is an insane idea that will remove the rights of exploited women to enjoy the protection of law. This is despite the global movement to combat, not foster, this abhorrent form of sexual exploitation, violently making women's bodies commodities. Thirdly, removing bans on commercial surrogacy if it takes place outside New South Wales, legalising the actions of New South Wales residents using foreign baby farms. This bill will encourage the exploitation and commodification of vulnerable women who will be reduced to the status of a womb for rent, and children reduced to products for sale. This is a modern-day form of human trafficking that's broadly opposed among human rights defenders. I understand that the homosexual community want to parent a child, and the research on this issue is generally supportive. Yet allowing poor women in Third World countries to be exploited for the benefit of gay couples in the West is an outrage. Women are more than just uterus owners and chest feeders. Women have the right to be protected from exploitation, not to have exploitation enshrined in law. Fourthly, this bill removes religious protections in current antidiscrimination laws. It will be illegal for religious schools to discriminate against an LGBTIQA+ person, allowing an openly trans person to apply for employment and to prevent discrimination against their employment. Religious belief will no longer be an acceptable employment criteria for religious schools. It seems that people responsible for society's moral decay see Christianity as resisting that moral decay and therefore they want to destroy Christianity. Turning to the second bill, the Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2023, this bill criminalises medical professionals and parents trying to help those suffering with gender dysphoria in a way that doesn't simply affirm a person's gender identity. As one constituent, a qualified psychologist, said to me recently, 'If a child presents to me believing they are a giraffe, I must treat them as though they are a giraffe.' In the TIQA+ world, this masquerades at health care. This bill ignores mounting medical evidence that the affirmation-only approach is causing gender dysphoria, harming children through irreversible medical transitioning leading to shattered lives filled with regret, regrets the 7NEWS Spotlight show brought to mainstream Australia last Sunday. Women's Forum Australia has launched a campaign to protect women, children and our community from these harmful measures. One Nation supports that campaign. Every person deserves respect, equality and care under our laws. Alex Greenwich's measures are counterproductive to these principles. In 2023, women are becoming invisible handmaidens, servants, with their identity as women being taken from them. One Nation stands opposed to this antihuman agenda. (Time expired) Jones, Mr Jeremy, AM 89 17:40 Senator O'NEILL 140651 New South Wales Filip Muller, a sonderkommando in Auschwitz whose enslavement task was to carry the bodies of murdered men, women and children from the gas chambers to the crematoria, bore witness to one of the remarkable moments of the holocaust. As a group of Czech Jews was marched to the gas chambers, a voice suddenly began to sing, with others joining. Soon a mighty choir swelled. First, the Czechoslovakian national anthem and then a Hebrew song named 'Hatikvah' were chanted. Enraged SS officers attempted to halt the act, which represented both defiance and despair, savagely beating and murdering those Czech Jews as they continued to sing but did not yield. Filip was so moved that he attempted march into the chamber with them, only for a woman to stop him, convincing him to survive not for his sake but for theirs. He was instructed to bear witness to the atrocities taking place. This was his burden to carry. 'Hatikvah', which translates to 'the hope', later became the anthem for the state of Israel. Its lyrics speak to the desire for self-determination that comforted a nation even in its darkest moments. The state of Israel is a miracle. This memory and desire were embodied in the spirit of Jeremy Jones AM, a righteous man who was a faithful servant to his Jewish community here in Australia for more than four decades and a lifelong friend of Israel. Sadly, he passed away on Wednesday night this week, after a battle with cancer. Jones was the director of international and community affairs at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, AIJAC, and a former president and life member of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. He dedicated much of his work to promoting interfaith dialogue and was a renowned expert on antisemitism. In 2002 he won a landmark case against Fredrick Toben, proving that holocaust denial is a form of antisemitism, which resulted in a world-first order from the High Court that the content on Tobin's website must be taken down. Toben was later imprisoned for contempt. Jones was a firm believer in establishing dialogue and affairs between individuals and groups of different faiths. He was the first Australian to serve on the board of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, an organisation that represents world Jewry in dialogue with the Vatican, the World Council of Churches and the Muslim World League. Jeremy also brought to all his affairs a deep sense of humility, virtue and the inalienable rights of people. He was known to make a habit of wearing kippot and ties decorated with Indigenous artwork, demonstrating his solidarity with the First Nations people of Australia while also pointing to how his Judaism enlightened his compassion towards humanity. This advocacy did not go unnoticed, with Jeremy being awarded the Australian Human Rights Medal in 2007 and the prestigious Stepan Kerkyasharian AO Medal for Community Harmony in 2016. In my role as chair of the parliamentary friends of Israel group, I personally interacted with Jeremy in my visits to Israel. I found him to be a kind, incredibly thoughtful, and gentle man who was a proud member of his community. I'd like to share a few words from Peter Wertheim of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, who said, for more than four decades: Jeremy was a faithful servant of the Australian Jewish community and a consummate professional. There is hardly any area of Jewish communal life that did not benefit in some way from his expertise and dedication, and he worked in a range of key communal organisations. To the Jones family, I say, in the Jewish tradition: I wish you a long life. We have lost a titan of the community. Jeremy Jones will be sorely missed. May his memory be a blessing. Senate adjourned at 17:45