I declare that, unless otherwise ordered, the following bills stand referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration: Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2026-2027 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027, immediately; and Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift) Bill 2026, at the adjournment of the debate on the motion for the second reading of the bill.

I declare that Federation Chamber order of the day No. 4, government business, Treasury Laws Amendment (Delivering an Efficient and Trusted Tax System) Bill 2026, stands returned to the House for further consideration.

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the committee's report entitled Review of the Migration Amendment (Clarifying International Obligations for Removal) Act 2021.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—This review was conducted under paragraph 29 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001, which required the committee to commence a review of the operation, effectiveness and implications of the act within two years of its commencement in May 2021. The legislation amended provisions of the Migration Act relating to protection visas. The amendment aimed to clarify that the Migration Act does not authorise the involuntary removal of a noncitizen to a country where a protection finding has been made in relation to the noncitizen with respect to that country. The amendments also require the minister, in considering a protection visa application, to consider and make a record of whether Australia has any protection obligations in relation to the person.

The committee commenced its review in May 2023 and received 10 submissions from government and civil society stakeholders. This initial review lapsed at the dissolution of the 47th Parliament and the committee reinitiated the review in the current parliament, in November 2025.

Earlier this year the committee received a detailed update from the Department of Home Affairs on its use of the provisions. On review of this information and the information previously provided, the committee was satisfied that the amendments have achieved their purpose of ensuring that the Migration Act is consistent with Australia's non-refoulement obligations.

The committee observes that the Migration Amendment (Clarifying International Obligations for Removal) Act 2021 is not national security legislation. The committee therefore considers that it would have been more appropriately reviewed by a parliamentary committee with direct responsibility and experience relating to the Migration Act and international human rights obligations. The committee has therefore made one recommendation—that, in future, any review of these provisions or any related matters be referred to a parliamentary committee with a relevant mandate in relation to immigration issues.

I want to briefly thank the committee, the committee chair and deputy chair, the secretariat and all of the staff for their assistance throughout the committee's deliberations. I commend the report to the House.

I rise to speak to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift) Bill 2026. As a starting point, the coalition is broadly supportive of this bill. We will not oppose it in the House, so there can be a proper consideration by a Senate inquiry. This bill is obviously going to keep Australia's business registers operating. Business registers are a core piece of economic infrastructure. Businesses, lenders, consumers, journalists and regulators rely on them, as you know, Mr Speaker, every day. We support keeping these systems stable, accurate and usable.

The coalition supports director ID. It was a coalition reform. Director ID improves transparency. It helps tackle phoenixing. It helps regulators track directors across companies, and around three million directors have already obtained one. Linking director IDs to ASIC company records is sensible. On protecting directors, though, when you start to make information public, there are obviously protections that we want to put in place. While we want these transparency things to be in place for directors, there is, as I said, phoenixing. I understand phoenixing is when a director might be involved in a company that implodes—or there might even be some fraudulent, or allegedly fraudulent, activity—and then, when that company goes to the ashes, they literally rise out of the ashes and start a company doing the same thing. We want to keep track of that and have more transparency around that. But our support for director ID does not mean we want to give up on privacy. Company directors deserve proper protections. We do not want home addresses, for example, to be freely available. Directors should not be exposed to identity theft. They should not be exposed to coercion or personal safety risks. The Senate inquiry should test—this is one of the reasons why we support the inquiry—whether the bill gets this balance right or whether more protection is needed.

The bill includes strict liability offences. These apply where information is not provided or updated, and that may be unfair in some cases. A company may take reasonable steps to comply, but a director may fail to provide the required information, and a reasonable steps defence should be considered as part of the Senate inquiry.

On broader concerns about ASIC—just as a little bit of a segue here—while these reforms are important, we also want more direction given to ASIC. ASIC have a big job to do and have many competing priorities. There've been a lot of recent high-profile financial failures—First Guardian, Shield, Lion Property Group and others—and these failures raise serious concerns about consumer protection, enforcement and early intervention. We want the government to give far more clear direction to ASIC.

The Treasurer's been in this job for four years. He has still not issued his statement of expectations for ASIC or the tax office. ASIC is still operating under the statement of expectations issued in 2021 by then treasurer Josh Frydenberg during the COVID recovery period. This needs to be updated. Statements of expectations are meant to give regulators clarity about government objectives and priorities, and we think the Treasurer is failing to set updated and clear expectations for them and for the ATO as well.

In closing, we on this side of the parliament are always looking to be constructive. We will support keeping registries operating. We support director ID and we support practical reform, but we will use the Senate inquiry to test some of the finer details around this, and we'll always look to hold the Treasurer to account if he's not doing his job.

Debate adjourned.

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 and I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that:

To the 761,426 participants and your families: I have heard you. That is why I fought so hard on behalf of the coalition for you to have your say at a Senate inquiry. I hope the government hears your anxiety, worries and concerns too. For Australians living with significant and permanent disability, the NDIS provides not just support but opportunity, and sometimes it is life and death. It is independence, it is dignity and it is the chance to work, to participate in community life, to live with greater freedom and confidence, and to access the support they need without feeling like a burden on the people they love. It is meant to provide hope for the future.

But, right now, too many people in the disability community feel like hope is slipping away. They feel invisible, they feel unheard and they feel like they are being reduced to nothing more than a line item in the Albanese government's budget papers. But behind every number in this debate is a real person, a real family and a real fear about what comes next. I want people in the disability community to know this: I have read your emails. My office and I have read your stories. We have listened to your fears and we have heard your frustrations. Your experiences matter, and I thank you for sharing them.

That is why the coalition has called for a Senate inquiry into this bill. Submissions close this Friday, and I encourage anyone who wishes to make a submission to do so. Public hearings will then be held in the week commencing 8 June. These changes are too significant and the consequences too serious for this parliament to simply wave them through without scrutiny. To every person with disability, every family, every carer and every provider watching this debate unfold: you deserve answers about what these changes mean and how they will affect you.

Australians still do not know exactly how the Albanese Labor government intends to deliver these savings or what the real impact will be on people with disability. Instead, while this government shuffles numbers around Treasury spreadsheets to make a near-trillion-dollar deficit look more manageable, Australians with disability, their families and their carers are left wondering why they are paying the price for Labor's inability to control spending.

There is no denying the NDIS has grown far beyond what was originally expected when it was established 13 years ago. A scheme designed to support around 410,000 Australians is now supporting more than 760,000 people and growing at 10.3 per cent a year. A scheme originally expected to cost $13.6 billion is now approaching $50 billion a year and projected to blow out to around $70 billion by the end of the decade. By the government's own figures, the cost of paid supports continues to surge. This is the NDIS Labor built. If this is what the government calls sustainability, Australians are right to ask whether anyone is truly in control, because the current trajectory of the scheme is simply not sustainable. We need to be honest about that, especially when this is now the Albanese government's third attempt to rein in the growth of the scheme.

In August 2023, the government promised growth would be reduced to eight per cent. They failed. Then in January this year, despite missing that target, they pledged to reduce growth even further to between five and six per cent. They failed again. Now, just four months later and with no achievements under their belt, the 2026-27 budget pledges to reduce growth in the NDIS to just two per cent.

I want to be very clear about this. The coalition's support for the scheme remains unwavering. We believe the scheme must be there for Australians with significant and permanent disability, exactly as it was intended, but the integrity of the scheme is weak, and Australians see this. Day after day we see shocking stories of criminals exploiting the NDIS for hundreds of thousands of dollars and in some cases millions. Just a few weeks ago, a Sydney man appeared before the courts, accused of fraudulently claiming NDIS payments as a registered provider. The man, who authorities allege has links to serious organised crime, is accused of claiming more than $1.5 million for services that were never provided.

But it is not just the theft of taxpayer money that should horrify this parliament. Behind the fraud statistics are vulnerable Australians being exploited, manipulated and abused by people entrusted with their care. Participants allegedly are being trafficked for their support packages, left without the essential care they need and deserve, coerced into approving invoices for services never delivered, having their identities stolen to drain the very funding meant to support their independence and their dignity. The list just goes on and on, and it is utterly horrific and a disgusting abuse of power against some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

The Australian National Audit Office estimated that up to 10 per cent of payments are noncompliant, incorrect or fraudulent. That's 10 per cent. That's up to $5 billion a year on today's expenditure. That's $5 billion of taxpayers' money just walking out the door. That's $5 billion that could otherwise help fund vulnerable people, our hospitals, our schools, our roads and our critical infrastructure. Criminals know it. They continue gaming the system because they know the guardrails are weak and the fences meant to protect are flimsy.

With Australians hearing these stories day in and day out, the NDIS has lost the social licence it once had. In Minister Butler's Press Club speech, he admitted seven in 10 Australians believe the NDIS is too large and struggles with dodgy providers. Worse still, six in 10 Australians think the NDIS is broken. What was once a beacon of pride for our country has become a national disgrace.

But it's not the criminals fleecing the NDIS nor the dodgy providers who are billing for services never delivered who are under attack; it's people with disability and the honest providers trying to do the right thing who are feeling the government's wrath on this. I've received thousands of emails since Minister Butler's speech just a month ago from participants, their families, their carers and providers, all desperately seeking answers about whether they will keep the supports they rely on as the government moves to reassess every participant's plan. We haven't just read those emails; my office has been on the phone speaking directly with participants, families and providers right across our country. Every interaction has been a plea from a person with a disability, their families, their friends, their support workers and providers to fix this, to stop participants being caught in the fallout of a failing system. They are scared and their families are scared, and they are looking to this parliament for certainty.

I've spoken to families who are doing everything right and still being let down by the current system. A mother was waiting for more than eight months for a wheelchair for her 13-year-old son, leaving him unable to safely get to school or to appointments. A woman with Huntington's disease whose condition is deteriorating is now receiving just 13 hours of care a week, but medical experts say that she needs more than five times that. She's at risk of choking, falling or even worse. This is happening across the board. This is the system as it stands today.

I've also met with many of the peak bodies and advocacy groups about the proposed changes. They're scared too. They don't know what these changes mean for them and the people they support. Why? Because the government has yet again made a big announcement that lacks any substantive detail. We've had a month of media stories talking about cuts, cuts and more cuts by this government, which has done nothing but induce and escalate that fear.

This bill is substantial. It proposes introducing an entirely new functional capacity assessment for people applying to the scheme. From 2028, new participants will be assessed against a threshold of significantly reduced functional capacity. But here is the problem: the criteria have not been designed. The details have not been released. Australians are effectively being asked to sign a blank cheque on reforms nobody has seen. This unknown test is set to apply to all new participants from 1 January 2028. It does not stop there. Every existing NDIS participant will also face reassessment between 1 January 2028 and 31 December 2030—reassessment against criteria that remain completely unknown. That uncertainty is terrifying families.

I had one mother recently contact my office at absolute breaking point. Her son relies on a feeding tube to stay alive. Imagine the panic of this mother as she wondered how she will keep her son alive after his plan reassessment was rejected. The family support coordinator was not even informed, and suddenly the family was forced to ration essentials: feeding supplies, continence aids—the basic items their son depends on every single day to survive. Again, this is sometimes about life and death. A feeding pump was approved, but there was no funding to repair or replace it if it failed. Without intervention from my office, the consequences could have been catastrophic. It should never have reached this point.

I want to be able to tell families like this that everything will be okay. I want to tell them that, if their loved one clearly needs NDIS support, they will continue to receive it, but right now I cannot honestly give them that guarantee. In cases like these, I am imploring the government to not burden participants with reassessments and with having to provide new medical evidence. Their condition isn't changing. A lengthy, stressful and traumatic reassessment process is cruel and unnecessary. Media reports have said the number of people on the scheme will be reduced by around 160,000 participants, but that number will be far greater when you combine the number of people who won't enter the scheme with the number of people who'll be exited from the scheme because they won't meet the new functional capacity assessment.

From mid-June, the government has committed to establishing a technical advisory group to develop a new functional capacity assessment. My ask of the Albanese government on this is to please consult with the disability community; it's really important. They have a wealth of knowledge. They have lived experience, and, more than anything, they want the scheme to remain for themselves and generations to come. Please do not exclude them from this process.

The bill will also make changes to plan reassessments. A participant or their support team can ask for a plan reassessment if they believe their needs have changed. In Minister Butler's Press Club speech, he stated:

One in five plans are currently subject to an unscheduled reassessment each year.

You do the maths—760,000 participant plans divided by five equates to roughly 150,000 plan reassessments a year, or around 12,000 reassessments every single month. According to the minister himself, most reassessments are currently resulting in funding increases, not decreases, of around 20 per cent, which is a major driver of the scheme's escalating cost. This bill seeks to tighten that process. Under these changes, only participants, their nominees or their guardians would be able to request an unscheduled review and only where there has been a significant and ongoing change in functional capacity.

But herein lies yet another problem. Providers are already telling me the review process is inconsistent, confusing and difficult to navigate. One provider described the planning process as a lottery, saying, 'Outcomes depend on who receives the report and whether the assessor actually understands the participant's needs and medical evidence.' Another said, 'Reviews are already proceeding without providers present if they're unavailable at the scheduled time, leaving decisions to be made without the full picture of a participant's circumstances and care needs.' That does not inspire confidence, and it raises serious concerns about how these tighter reassessment rules will operate in practice for vulnerable Australians and their families.

The bill also seeks to clarify that NDIS supports will be funded only where the need arises directly from the participant's recognised impairment, with broader health conditions intended to be treated through Medicare and the mainstream health system.

There will be changes to the existing settings for plan renewals. Currently, plans don't have a specified end date and, for ease, have been continued while a participant's plan is reassessed and a new plan is created. In many cases, unspent funds from the previous plans have been carried over. From 1 February 2027, this won't be the case. Plans will have a legislated end date, and any unspent funds will no longer roll over into the new plan period. Let me make this very clear to the government. There can be no gap between the end date of one plan and the commencement of another—not one day, not one hour and certainly not many weeks or months—because, when you are talking about feeding supports, personal care, mobility equipment or essential therapies, even a short administrative delay can have devastating consequences.

The government must get this right administratively. No participant should ever lose access to essential supports because of bureaucratic delays or failures within the system. Consider yourselves on notice, government, because Australians have already seen what happens when delays and backlogs become normalised in other parts of the system. We see it in Centrelink every single day. People are waiting for months for applications to be processed to the point where six-month waits for an age pension barely even make the headlines anymore. The disability community should never be expected to accept that as normal.

The bill will also introduce some additional categories for provider registration. Supported independent living providers will already have mandatory registration requirements applied this year, and this is a good thing. You are caring for and responsible for our most vulnerable people. You must be held to the highest standards. There will be mandatory registration requirements for plan managers. I've heard from many plan managers over the last month who I can tell are genuine, caring and compassionate people. They have the participants' welfare front of mind. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of bad actors who are doing the wrong thing. They are not looking after clients or their packages. They're charging hundreds of dollars for printing documents that were never provided, charging for services never coordinated or inducing people with disability with food, alcohol, cigarettes and iPads to become the new plan manager. This is wrong, it is abhorrent and, unfortunately, the actions of some have meant we need stronger safeguards in place to protect participants.

I was appointed to this portfolio only a few months ago, and one of the very first things I identified was a lack of mandatory requirements for providers managing people's plans or daily supports. If you are entering someone's home and providing any personal care, I believe you should have basic qualifications—first aid certificates, working-with-vulnerable-people checks, criminal history checks. This is not going on right now. The NDIS was established to support and protect people with disability, not expose them to greater harms. These checks and balances are everywhere else in our work. Our healthcare providers have them. Our aged-care workers, childcare workers and teachers—anyone who works with vulnerable people—must have these checks for safety, and the NDIS should not be excluded from that. I recognise that there are some providers who provide services where people may think these aren't necessities, but if we want to provide people with the best service and the best care, these shouldn't be considered barriers.

Perhaps the most jarring change of all for the disability community will be the planned changes and reductions to community supports. Minister Butler said costs for community supports have blown out from $4 billion in 2021 to $12 billion this year. I understand the need for us to review this—and the costs have tripled in just five years—but so far the Albanese government have failed at every turn to explain exactly where these costs have blown out. From the feedback I have received, this change alone is causing the greatest anxiety for participants and their families.

Meanwhile, dodgy operators continue slipping through the cracks while legitimate providers are buried in paperwork, compliance costs and bureaucracy. One provider in my electorate of Lindsay told me participants are having their packages wiped out by fraudulent activity. They said they've lodged six separate fraud reports in just two months, but they don't hear anything back. That is deeply concerning. Providers are also raising serious concerns about the role and the accountability of some support coordinators within the system. One provider told me, 'We work with the clients more than they do.' Another said change-of-circumstances requests are often not lodged in time, leaving participants stuck in limbo while their needs go unmet. Others raise serious concerns about participants being pressured into changing providers or living arrangements against their wishes.

While honest providers are trying to do the right thing, many say the cost of registration and compliance has become prohibitive, with little meaningful incentive to remain registered beyond basic optics and credibility. To put that into perspective, one provider employing 300 staff and supporting more than 800 participants told me they recently paid $35,000 for a single audit on top of existing registration costs. We all want the scheme to be sustainable into the future, to continue supporting Australians with significant and permanent disability for generations to come. When the NDIS was established in 2013, Australians overwhelmingly supported that vision. But the social licence underpinning the scheme can only be rebuilt if this parliament confronts the rampant fraud, dishonesty and abuse occurring within the system today.

Disappointingly, there are very few measures in this bill that directly target that misconduct. A digital payments platform, claim timeframe changes, receipt retention requirements—these are the only real changes the government is making to address fraud. You know it, I know it, Australians know it and participants on the NDIS know it. That is why the coalition has called for a Senate inquiry into this bill. That is why submissions are currently open to participants, families, carers, providers and advocates right across Australia. And that is why these proposed changes must be properly scrutinised before vulnerable Australians are asked to place their trust in reforms that the government still cannot fully explain. People with disability deserve transparency, deserve honesty and deserve certainty about what these changes will mean for their lives going into the future.

Is the amendment seconded?

Yes, it is, and I reserve my right to speak.

I need to start by outlining my sense of disbelief in relation to the sudden concern on the part of the coalition for the future of the NDIS. I have worked alongside people with disability for about 17 years, and I have to say that, for that entire time, I have not felt a deep sense of concern about the NDIS from the opposition—so I found all those words somewhat disingenuous, I have to say.

I rise today to speak in support of this important bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. As I just mentioned, I worked alongside people with disability and their families for many years in various roles before I became a member of parliament. I am therefore particularly passionate about protecting and promoting the rights and interests of people with disability. The job I had immediately before I became a parliamentarian was CEO of the Disability Trust, one of the largest providers of disability services in Australia, where I worked hard to ensure we provided quality services in order to support people to fulfil their aspirations and live their best lives.

Early in my career, I worked as a human rights lawyer for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, where I supported people with disability to have their rights upheld. I later became the CEO of the New South Wales Council for Intellectual Disability, where I advocated for people with intellectual disability and their families to get access to better supports and services. This was back in the mid-2000s, before the NDIS was introduced. At that stage, the idea of individualised funding was largely an untested concept. I saw firsthand how difficult it was to get any attention on the issues affecting people with disability and their families. Funding was inadequate and people did not receive the services they needed. There were waiting lists for critical services like accommodation supports, and people were placed in living arrangements by a panel of decision-makers rather than being able to make their own choices.

After working at the New South Wales Council for Intellectual Disability, I worked for the Community and Disability Services Commissioner at the New South Wales Ombudsman, where we were responsible for the oversight of the closure of large residential centres in New South Wales. These were the centres where people with disability had been housed in previous generations. There was a time in the not-too-distant past where, if you were born with a disability, you would likely be institutionalised. Part of my role at the New South Wales Ombudsman was to provide oversight in relation to the closure of these large residential centres like Stockton, near Newcastle, which, at one time, at its peak, housed over 1,200 people. I met people with disability who had been raised in these institutions. Their emotional suffering was immense, and some had also been physically and psychologically abused.

It was in this context of profound suffering, exclusion and trauma that the movement around the rights of people with disability emerged and flourished. It was a great privilege for me to meet and work alongside incredible self-advocates like Kim Walker and Robert Strike—people with disability who grew up in institutions and then fought relentlessly for them to be closed. Meeting these incredibly strong and determined advocates quite simply changed the course of my life. Kim Walker's book, Forgotten and Found, is a powerful read and is available on the website of the New South Wales Council for Intellectual Disability. The foreword to this book is written by Jim Simpson, a formidable advocate for people with intellectual disability, who I had the great privilege to work alongside at the New South Wales Council for Intellectual Disability. Jim states:

Kim wrote this book because she wanted it be read by politicians, senior bureaucrats and parents of people with disability. She wanted them to hear her story and heartache and make sure that what happened to her never happened to other people with disability.

…   …   …

Kim led an extraordinary and harrowing life. Countless of us have benefited from her friendship. Society is that bit better for her example and relentless advocacy.

As Kim herself said:

When I was less than three years old, I was sent to live in an institution for children with an intellectual disability. This was a time, in the 1950s, when lots of children with a disability were sent away from their families … I grew up without knowing my parents or my brother and sister.

I was forgotten.

I am writing this story about my life now because I want everyone to know what life has been like for people like me. I want people to remember what happened to us, how we were shut away and forgotten, and I want people never to forget this … And I want to make sure that what happened to me will never happen to anyone again.

Back then, people with disability were shut away and forgotten.

Out of the movement to change all this came the green shoots of the NDIS, hard fought for and won by people with disability and their supporters. The motto of the movement for the rights of people with disability is 'nothing about us without us'. It's also in this context that the NDIS and all that it's come to represent has been fiercely defended, and for good reason. I understand people's profound concern that the NDIS will be watered down, cut or lost altogether. I have watched as the NDIS has come under intense scrutiny, and for good reason, as it has design flaws which need urgent correction. But this is a scheme born of a movement, and the movement wants it protected. It should be. It's important also to note that Labor created the NDIS, and Labor will defend it. As an elected member of parliament, I will continue to focus on how we can improve the lives of people with disability, and that includes through my membership of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS.

As I mentioned, the NDIS is a great Labor reform, but it was driven by people with disability themselves. It also reflects the fair mindedness and decency of the Australian people. It has changed many lives and our country for the better, and it's a world-leading scheme. However, the NDIS needs to return to its intended purpose, and, unless we take action to make it sustainable, I fear that it will lose its social licence and will not be here in the future for those Australians who need it the most. The NDIS was originally intended to support around 410,000 people with a disability. Today there are 760,000 people on the scheme. We can't afford for the NDIS to continue to grow at its present rate, but, more importantly, we can't afford for the NDIS to fail.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 addresses two key issues. The first is sustainability. The NDIS is growing at a rate that was unforeseen when it was established in 2013 and, if left unchecked, will put the scheme's future at risk. The second major issue addressed by the bill is fraud. Unbelievably, given who it's designed for, the NDIS has become the target for fraudulent activity, including through organised crime, and this is having a devastating impact on too many participants and their families and the integrity of the NDIS itself.

Importantly, the reforms contained in this bill draw on the Independent Review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme conducted in 2023; the NDIS Provider and Worker Registration Taskforce completed in 2024; the Australian National Audit Office's 2019 report on the scheme's fraud control program; and the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, which ran from 2019 to 2023. It's important to recognise the amount of work that was done by people with disability and their supporters through all of those processes.

Schedule 1 of this bill sets out the key measures that will help put the NDIS back on a sustainable footing both now and into the future. The Independent Review of the NDIS, known as the NDIS review, found that the current approach to accessing the scheme is inconsistent and inequitable and not always targeted to those people with disability who require the most support. This has contributed to participant numbers becoming far greater than was envisaged when the scheme was created to support people with permanent and significant disability. This bill clarifies the meaning of the term 'functional capacity' and provides for the assessment of thresholds of functional capacity, an amendment that is consistent with recommendation 3 of the NDIS review. Further work is needed to identify the appropriate threshold of functional capacity, and it's important to note that the government will establish a technical advisory group to provide expert advice on an appropriate threshold and assessments for substantially reduced functional capacity.

Another amendment in schedule 1 enables the minister to make determinations to reset funding for supports like social, community and civic participation and capacity-building. These supports were intended to act as a framework that opens society up for people with disability and allows genuine community participation. However, while many support workers provide valuable supports—I've seen that firsthand—there is evidence that some providers are not delivering genuine and quality community participation. Not only is this aspect of the scheme not working as it was intended but it is becoming increasingly expensive. Spending on these support streams has tripled from $4 billion per year to $12 billion per year over the past five years, which means it now costs about the same as what we would spend in net terms on the entire Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, and it could reach $20 billion by the end of the decade if nothing is done. Importantly, the government will establish a $200 million fund, the Inclusive Communities Fund, to rebuild capability among community organisations so that NDIS participants have new options to genuinely participate in their local community.

Schedule 2 of the bill will strengthen the ability of the National Disability Insurance Agency to effectively manage the integrity of the NDIS. The Albanese government has made significant investments to tackle fraud and noncompliance under the NDIS. Labor established the Fraud Fusion Taskforce shortly after coming into government, and it identified eight recurring design failures in longstanding government programs that make them susceptible to fraud. It found the NDIS has all eight. The Fraud Fusion Taskforce has also identified seven fundamental building blocks for high-integrity programs, and it noted that the NDIS has none of these. These structural flaws mean that measures we've introduced to control spending are simply not working as we intended. It's important to note as well that governments of both persuasions have been responsible for these issues.

A key area of focus is provider registration. Only one in 16 providers is currently registered, and this needs to change. Not every provider needs to be fully registered, but the bill will expand categories of mandatory registration to include higher risk activities, personal care, daily living supports and supports provided in closed settings. This builds on existing mandatory registration requirements and also on our decision to introduce mandatory registration for supported independent living as well as platform providers from 1 July 2026, and I'm strongly in support of these reforms. Registration requires providers to meet defined quality and safeguarding standards, undergo independent audits and suitability assessments, comply with worker screening and reporting obligations, and maintain ongoing adherence to governance and safety requirements.

This bill also extends the NDIA's monitoring and investigative powers so that it can investigate serious fraud and noncompliance in relation to claims and payments in the scheme. It also inserts a range of new civil penalty provisions to deter providers and individuals from engaging in unlawful non-compliant conduct by imposing significant financial penalties. The bill will require providers, nominees and participants to retain records relating to the provision of supports and/or claiming of NDIS amounts for specified periods of time, and a civil penalty will apply to providers who fail to comply with this requirement. The NDIS review identified a range of issues with the agency's approach, and this change will establish a clearer and more transparent mechanism to set and enforce prices under the scheme. We're making it possible for the minister to be the core decision-maker in relation to pricing, and I'm strongly supportive of that change as well.

I am proud that Labor built the NDIS, and I'm also proud that we are taking responsibility for securing its future. I'm deeply committed to this work, and I will continue to be a passionate advocate for people with disability in this place. This bill is needed to restore the NDIS to its original intent of supporting people with permanent and significant disability, to stabilise the growth of the scheme and make the NDIS available and secure for those who need it most for generations to come. That is why I commend this bill to the House.

I thank the previous speaker, who did a very good job of articulating what the original purpose of the NDIS was and the importance of how we need to undertake the necessary reforms to ensure we get back to that purpose. As we all know in this place, and as we've all been seeing for many years, the sustainability of the scheme is of deep concern. It's not just the growing numbers we see in the budget but also, an important point—it was a point that the minister made in his Press Club speech outlining the reforms which have gone into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026—that there is a decline in the social licence of the scheme. The fact is that the sorts of challenges that we've seen in terms of the runaway growth and also the fraud and the misalignment between what the original purposes were and what we've ended up with are undermining public confidence in the scheme. I think it is important at the very start of this debate to note the positive impact that the scheme has had across so many lives. I know all of us are connected in with our electorates and receive a lot of correspondence from people out there who are beneficiaries of the scheme and their families and also the many providers that are operating in the scheme. I know that a lot of providers get a bad rap and get blamed for a lot of the things that we've seen. Of course, there are bad operators operating within the NDIS ecosystem, but there are so many that are doing the right thing and that are benefiting from this scheme in the right way. So many providers go above and beyond, and I think it's critical that we don't demonise them or the users of this scheme—the participants and their families—as we undertake the process of trying to undertake that commonsense reform.

Unfortunately, this is, I suppose, a bit of a moment of reckoning for the Labor Party on this topic. For many years, they would be in this chamber and outside telling us that there was no problem with the sustainability of the scheme. In fact, Bill Shorten famously said at a conference that 'anyone who told you that there is a sustainability problem with the NDIS is telling a lie'. That's what he said, but here we are. Of course, we're going to have multiple contributions to this debate, and I think everyone on both sides and on the crossbench will be articulating that there is a sustainability issue with the scheme. The problem is that, if you deny the fact that there is a sustainability issue with this scheme and you bury your head in the sand around the challenges with the scheme, you very quickly allow that lack of stewardship to drift unchecked and we reach the point where we are today.

The coalition is very keen to work with the government to ensure that we get these reforms right. But it is clear that poor stewardship has led us here and Labor has allowed the costs of this scheme to drift before resorting to very blunt cuts which are going to see about 21 per cent of participants removed from the scheme. That 160,000 participant number that has been put out there doesn't include those that are going to be added to the scheme over the next few years before we reach that point in 2028 when these reassessments begin. So there's actually a lot more than that who are going to experience—or have at some point experienced—the scheme, have been a participant on it and will be excised from it.

Undoubtedly, there is a huge amount of concern within the community from not just those who are participants but those who are connected with them—family members. They are worried about these reforms and are worried about what it's going to mean. There are a lot of unanswered questions, even in this legislation, about how we're going to go about that process. So if I can encourage the government, as a principle, as we go through this journey—and this journey is going to be a lot longer than just the passage of this bill through this House or in the other place. The journey of reform on the NDIS is going to take years. I'll touch on some of the particular reforms, but we're not going to have these functional capacity reassessments until 2028. This is multiterm reform, and it's important to remember that.

What I would encourage the government to do is ensure that we get the ultimate level of transparency that we possibly can. If we're thinking about multiple options, in terms of how we implement these reforms, let's let people know about it, and let's let people in the disability sector have their say on it. Certainly, they're filling my inbox at the moment with their thoughts on and concerns for the legislation, and I'm very pleased that we're going to have a committee process in the other place to get to the bottom of this; although, it will be a short timeframe. I echo the sentiments of the member for Lindsay: I encourage any stakeholder listening in to make sure that you get your submission in on time and have the opportunity to have your say.

The coalition is very keen to potentially amend this legislation in the other place to make sure that we're getting this completely right, because it is a large bit of legislation. There are many components to it, and it is obviously something that has been pushed onto the sector at very short notice. A lot of the measures that are being proposed had previously been championed by the coalition, but they were, I'll note, strongly opposed by Labor at different points. Functional capacity assessments are effectively a repackaged version of the coalition's independent assessments model, which Labor was opposed to. We've been strongly pushing for stronger registration as well, and I note the comments that people have made about the need for greater registration so we can tackle those quality and fraud issues.

I also note that, really, what we want—and I think I'm speaking on behalf of the government, as well as the opposition—is to ensure that we get to a tiered level of registration. If someone is just providing some bit of equipment, or if they are mowing someone's lawn, obviously we don't need to have that same level of regulation and detail. So we need to get that tiering correct to ensure that we are appropriately applying the rules and the regulations on those that are at the higher-end needs and at the most acute levels of care, but we also need to make sure that those who are more incidentally touching the NDIS aren't adversely affected.

One of the key reforms that is involved in this package and is being instigated, or will be allowed to take place through this legislation, is the introduction of a digital payment system. This is something that the coalition has long championed. It's something that will increase the ability for the government to keep an eye on the transactions and make sure that, where fraud is occurring, we're stepping on that and making sure that we are taking the appropriate action in real time. But it also increases the convenience for both the participants and the providers, and it's something that we had pushed in the final years of the last government to try to get to the point where we were ready to launch a digital payment system. Think of a sort of high-caps model for the NDIS.

Unfortunately, one of the things that we were incredibly frustrated with was, when this government was elected, all that work seemed to go straight in the bin, and now here we are four years later having to reinvent the wheel. So I would strongly encourage the government to take a look at the work that was done on the digital payments system in the final days of the Morrison government. You'll find that it was very much advanced; you'll find that it was almost at the point where it was ready to launch. I'd encourage the government to, rather than spending I think it's $300 million in the budget to try to implement that reform, perhaps we can recycle some of the work that the coalition did. It is, of course, one thing that the stakeholders tell me is absolutely critical to both tackling fraud and reducing costs across the scheme.

One of the points of reform that the government is seeking to do here is to end planned rollovers. It's an interesting concept because they're also tightening the criteria for unscheduled reassessments. It's certainly been my experience—and I'm sure I wouldn't be Robinson Crusoe here—with those who've contacted my office in relation to these reforms and the NDIS changes that we've seen over the course of recent months that people actually aren't putting their heads above the parapet to say that they want to have an unscheduled reassessment. What we've seen is a series of quiet cuts within the NDIS.

I'll give you an example. I had a lovely bloke come and meet with me. He lives not far from me, in the Redlands, and his wife very tragically is enduring early onset dementia. She'd be in her late 50s or early 60s, and she's unfortunately at the point now where she requires around-the-clock care. This is having a massive impact. Her husband's one of the most quietly spoken but just absolutely dedicated men you'll ever meet. He's a tremendous individual. And he's been advocating very hard on her behalf. They needed a little bit of extra support through their package to pay for some extra supports that they needed. When they asked for a reassessment, that triggered a full reassessment of their whole scope, and we ended up with a 43 per cent reduction in her package.

These are the sorts of quiet cuts that we've seen. I don't pretend that these aren't happening across the entire country, but these are the sorts of cuts that I'm seeing in the Redlands and I'm sure many other members are seeing. When we reach the point where the sustainability of the scheme is at crisis point, we see these quiet cuts being made. Unfortunately, they're not being made on the fringes. They're not being made to the back end to reduce red tape or reduce the number of expenses that we're seeing within the scheme. They're being made to those who are the most vulnerable and the least likely to complain.

That is ultimately the reason why we need to ensure that we get these reforms absolutely right. It's those people that the scheme was actually designed to support—most of all those at the highest end of the spectrum, those with the highest needs and those that many of us envisage that the NDIS would be supporting. That certainly hasn't been the experience that I've had in recent months as the government's tried to tackle the runaway costs.

I've touched on the digital payments system, but I also want to raise concerns around the transfer of pricing decision responsibilities to the minister. We've got an issue with pricing within the NDIS. It will take me much longer than the 3½ minutes that I have left for my remarks to touch on, and I might make a further contribution at a later point on that topic. One of the major things that we're hearing from providers is the need for a truly independent pricing process. We're rapidly approaching the end of the financial year. Many of these professions and services haven't had an increase in their pricing capacity for many, many years. Many haven't been able to increase their costs since pre COVID. Despite that, all their overheads are moving, of course, in one direction, and we've seen significant inflation over that period of time.

My fear is that, if we move the powers of pricing within the scheme under greater control of the minister—and this isn't an attack on the current minister; I think this will be the case for any minister who holds this portfolio over the life of the scheme—we're going to see greater political pressure trying to reduce and screw down those prices, and that is not necessary. That may be a good thing for the budget, but it may not necessarily be a good thing for those who are actually receiving that support or providing that support. We will be looking at that further as we consider the inquiry recommendations and the evidence that's seen through the Senate's consideration of this bill, and we will be potentially proposing some amendments in respect of that.

I also want to touch on fraud. Obviously, that's a major concern for many people out there. We've seen some horrific examples and we've seen some prosecutions too in relation to that. There is very little in this bill, I would say, that truly tackles fraud head on. It's lacking in detail. We've already had two packages of legislation that have been through here in the course of this government that have sought to tackle fraud. Unfortunately, despite all the resources, despite all the effort, despite all the legislation, we're actually seeing very little done in terms of prosecutions, and the detection of fraud is still at levels that I don't think would be considered to be appropriate, given the scale of the problem.

We're concerned that the government's proposals will also not achieve their budget cost savings. We know, from the last quarterly report, that the NDIS is growing at 11.3 per cent, up from 10.3 per cent, so it's actually heading in the wrong direction, despite all the efforts that they've made and the NDIA has made to try to bring those costs down. They had a growth target of eight per cent that they missed. They had a growth target of five to six per cent that they missed. They're now telling us that, through these changes, which are more back ended to the end of the decade, we're somehow going to get to two per cent or below two per cent. I'm very concerned that those budget savings were built into the budget long before these reforms were dreamt up.

Can I finish by encouraging all the stakeholders who've got an interest in this space to make sure that they get their submissions in. We will look at those very, very closely and propose amendments in the Senate.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 goes to the very heart of restoring the National Disability Insurance Scheme to what it was always intended to be—a system that supports Australians living with permanent and significant disability—while ensuring that it remains strong, fair and, very importantly, sustainable into the future and for generations to come. The NDIS is one of the most important social reforms in our nation's history. It was a once-in-a-generation change for the disability sector, and it's changed many, many lives. I was here in this House when the NDIS changes were made pre 2013, and I clearly recall sitting in the Speaker's chair, doing my shift on the Speaker's panel—as you are now, Deputy Speaker Chesters—when the bill finally went through. I remember the joy on the faces of Jenny Macklin, Julia Gillard and many others. It was an achievement that was going to change people's lives.

I also recall, way before the NDIS was being discussed, when it was just bits and pieces of ideas from the disability sector for how it could be funded. At the time, in 2005, Bill Shorten was the disability services shadow minister. He had visited my electorate, where we had a disability forum with members of the disability sector, people with disabilities, educators and parents to discuss a whole range of issues and how to better fund better services et cetera for people with disabilities. At that very meeting—it was held in Glenelg, in my old electorate of Hindmarsh, with about 100 people in the room—there was an idea that perhaps a disability insurance scheme should be looked at for the services and requirements of people with disabilities. Mr Shorten, at the time, was engaging with this idea at other forums as well. So I suspect that a bit of a role that I played was to plant the seed that day for the shadow minister, who then went on to become the minister. With Julia Gillard, who then took over, and Jenny Macklin, all of that was brought to fruition.

It was a very, very noble bill. It was a bill, as I said, that changed people's lives. It was there to give people dignity—people who perhaps don't have the same ability that we do to just get up in the morning to get dressed and go to work and who need assistance and help to be able to participate, whether it be at work or in the community, as a full member of our community. That's what the NDIS was designed to do—to give people the opportunities to be able to participate regardless of disabilities.

As I said, it has changed many, many lives. It's transformed lives. It's restored independence, and it's provided dignity, confidence and opportunities to hundreds of thousands of Australians and their families. For many, it represents not just support but also recognition from governments, government agencies and those that make the rules of the importance of offering support to people so they can participate and be fully fledged contributing members of the community. We've seen, as I said, many lives changed. It's also recognition that every Australian, regardless of their circumstances, deserves the opportunity to participate fully in our society.

But, of course, with a scheme of this scale and importance comes an equally significant responsibility—a responsibility to ensure that it works and is working as it was designed to work; a responsibility to ensure that support is being delivered to those who genuinely rely on it, those for whom it makes a difference and turns lives around; and a responsibility to ensure that the NDIS is protected so it can survive well into the future to service future generations of Australians. As I said, it's not just for those who depend on it today but also for those who will rely on it well into the future. If we fail to act at this point of time, when reform is needed, then we risk undermining the very system that Australians depend on.

This bill represents an important step forward in meeting that responsibility. It gives effect to key elements of a broader plan to restore the scheme's integrity, to bring it back to its original intent and to ensure that it continues to deliver meaningful outcomes for those that it was designed to support. When I read those words, it brings back memories of a forum in Glenelg where members of the disability sector were asking the then government to design something to give people support. I think of those people in that room who have turned their lives around since then because of the NDIS and have benefited from it. The bill introduces reforms that focus on the core foundations of the scheme—access, eligibility and planning—ensuring that decisions are clear, consistent and grounded in the needs of participants.

This bill strengthens the governance arrangements, improves transparency around pricing decisions and introduces more structured and effective planning frameworks. Importantly, it provides for the transitional arrangements necessary to support participants as changes are implemented, ensuring that no-one is left uncertain or unsupported through the process.

This bill also addresses a critical issue that has increasingly come to the forefront: the need to protect the scheme from misuse and ensure its long-term integrity. Fraud and noncompliance do not just the affect the system; they affect the lives of people in the system and all of us. They take resources away from those who need them the most. They undermine confidence in the scheme, and they place unnecessary pressure on the sustainability of the scheme. That is why this bill provides the NDIA with stronger powers to improve oversight, strengthen compliance and ensure that the scheme operates in a way that is fair, accountable and responsible. It's about ensuring that the NDIS remains compassionate but also consistent, that it is supportive but also sustainable and that it continues to deliver for those who depend on it most, without compromising its future. The NDIS is more than a program. As I said earlier, it is a promise, and it is our responsibility to ensure that that promise is kept today, tomorrow and, importantly, for many generations to come.

In my federal electorate of Adelaide, I see firsthand how important the NDIS is because my office deals with participants—as your office does, Deputy Speaker Chesters, and many other offices do—and their families every single day. More often than not, they're not coming to us because everything is working well. They usually come to us because they need help either navigating the system or cutting through to the services that they require. They're coming to us because something in the system has not worked the way that it should have, and we hear from constituents who feel overwhelmed navigating that system.

It is a complex system. Those of you who deal with it in your electorate offices see the complexity of it. It's everything from families struggling to understand changes to their plans to, most concerningly, people who feel vulnerable in a system that was meant to protect them. We've seen cases where providers take advantage of those who are most at risk. We've seen the frustration from participants who believe their funding has perhaps been reduced without clear explanation or whose changing circumstances aren't being properly recognised. These are not isolated incidences in the electorate office. They're the real experiences of people in my community, and they highlight something important: while the NDIS has changed lives, it must also be strengthened to work better for the people it serves and for those it was designed to serve. That is why these reforms matter so much.

Securing the NDIS is not about sustainability; it's about fairness. It's about ensuring that participants across Australia and in my electorate and my community can trust the system. It's about making sure that supports are delivered where they're needed. It's about stopping the kind of behaviour that undermines confidence in the scheme. Stronger action on fraud and compliance, clearer eligibility and better planning processes will help restore that balance. There've also been calls for more practical safeguards, including placing limits on what providers can charge. We've seen unscrupulous providers charging exorbitant fees that, outside this system, would be much cheaper. I've seen that firsthand. We need to ensure that those participants are not overburdened and that the funding is used in the way that it was intended: to service people with disabilities.

Ultimately, these reforms are about making the system work better on the ground and not just in theory. They're about protecting people who rely on the scheme, they're about restoring confidence for those people and their families, and they're about ensuring that, when someone turns to the NDIS for the support that they need, they're met with fairness, clarity and care. For the people in my electorate of Adelaide who depend on it, it's not just the policy; it's their daily life. It's their everyday life, and it's core. This bill is about protecting one of the most important social commitments this country has ever made. The NDIS is not just a program; as I said, it's a promise. It's a promise to Australians living with permanent, significant disability that they will be supported, that they will be included and that they will be given the opportunity to live with the dignity and independence that they deserve.

But, for that promise to endure, we need the scheme to be sustainable, and that's what this bill is all about. It must be fair, it must be accountable and it must work as it was always intended to—that is, supporting those who need it the most. That's why these reforms truly matter. Securing the NDIS means more than just managing the costs; it means restoring confidence, strengthening integrity and ensuring the support is delivered where it is genuinely needed. It means tackling the fraud and stopping misuse, clarifying access and eligibility, improving planning and ensuring quality services for participants.

We've already seen the importance of acting responsibly. Growth in the scheme has been unsustainable. Without intervention, it would have continued to place pressure not just on the system but on the very people it is designed to support. Without action, it will collapse. It may go on for a few years, but, without action—such as this bill—it could collapse. That would have been very detrimental. This bill builds on the work strengthening governance, improving safeguards and implementing those reforms that reflect the recommendations of independent reviews that have been done and the voices of the disability community itself. Importantly, this work was not done in isolation. The government remains committed to working with people with disability, their families, their carers and the broader community because the success of the NDIS depends on trust, cooperation, a shared responsibility and sustainability.

Australians expect the NDIS to continue transforming lives, as it should, and they expect it to provide certainty. They expect it to provide dignity, and they expect it to be here not just today but in the years ahead so generations of people can have the facilities and be serviced in a way that provides that dignity. It's more than just reform. It's about responsibility, and that's what this government is doing. It's about protecting one of the most significant social agreements this nation has ever made and ensuring it endures with strength, fairness and integrity.

This is so important because the NDIS is not just the policy; it is a lifeline. It is the difference between isolation and inclusion, between dependence and independence, between uncertainty and dignity. If we get this right, we secure that promise for generations of Australians who will one day rely on it and for those who already rely on it. But, if we fail to act, we risk weakening the very system that so many depend on. This moment, this bill and these reforms truly matter because securing the NDIS is not about— (Time expired)

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. The NDIS is a vital program that people in Indi and across the nation value deeply. Before entering this place, I spent most of my career as a nurse, midwife and rural health researcher in a pre-NDIS healthcare system. From that perspective, I know how far we've come in improving care, support and opportunity for people with a disability.

I regularly hear from constituents in Indi about the independence, the dignified care and the opportunities that the NDIS has given them and their loved ones. Patricia from Benalla wrote to me recently about her adult son, Pete, who has cerebral palsy. Thanks to the NDIS, Pete has been able to access additional therapies that have significantly increased his function, including support from an occupational therapist who helped Pete learn how to feed himself. Patricia said, 'I don't know how we would have learnt this without NDIS support.' The NDIS, as we know right across the chamber, is literally a life-changing program. Stories like this show what is at stake and why we must protect the NDIS for the long term.

I think we can all acknowledge that, for the long-term viability of the NDIS, it does require structural reform. It's simply not sustainable for the scheme to continue to grow at its current rate. It's already supporting close to double the number of participants it was designed for. That's not to say people don't need and deserve support; they absolutely do. But what kind of support? The NDIS was never meant to be everything to everyone, but it's now so large that it's crowded out a lot of other services and programs. For too many people and their families, it doesn't matter if a NDIS plan is really the best option, because, frankly, it's the only option there is. I know of a 23-year-old man who's currently supported by Mansfield Autism Statewide Services. He receives a small amount of funding for help with things like job applications, grocery shopping and attending community events. A small amount of support is all that's needed to make sure this young man doesn't become isolated, underemployed and, indeed, hungry. At the moment, there is really nowhere else to get this kind of support outside of the NDIS, especially in regional towns.

Of course, there are concerns about fraud and rorting. We've all heard about services that go from $30 to $200 as soon as those four letters are mentioned. Dodgy providers are ripping off not just the taxpayer but also Australians with disabilities. Something has to change.

The question is whether the bill before us makes the right kinds of changes and strikes the right kind of balance, and I'm not entirely confident that it does. This bill proposes significant changes to the way the NDIS operates. Schedule 2 of the bill contains measures for fraud and integrity. These include improvements to the NDIS regulatory and information-gathering powers and the minimum record-keeping requirements in relation to payments and receipts. There'll be new civil penalties for things like providing false information to the NDIA. The timeframe to submit a claim will be reduced from two years to 90 days from the date of service.

Schedule 2 also expands mandatory registration requirements for providers delivering personal care. There are more than 275,000 active NDIS providers in Australia, and just six per cent of them are registered. It's staggering. Not only do NDIS providers receive public funding; they regularly interact with some of the most vulnerable people in our community, often in deeply personal settings. It's not unreasonable for there to be an accreditation process. Now, I understand some providers are concerned about the impact of these changes, particularly the financial burden that registration may place on small operators. The registration requirements won't come into effect until 1 July 2027, and I urge the government to engage with providers during this period to minimise these costs where possible.

For the most part, these are sensible, welcome changes that seek to improve quality and accountability under the scheme. Providers in Indi have told me that the streamlined payment system in particular could be game changing, making it easier to upload invoices and be paid promptly for services they deliver. But, as with so much of this bill, the devil may not be in this legislation but in how it is operationalised in reality, especially in thinner regional markets.

Schedule 1 makes radical changes to NDIS access and plans. As I've said, the NDIS is worth radical change if that's what's required, but I have concerns with many of these changes. The bill creates a new power for the minister to reduce funding for certain support types as a whole, not in response to individual circumstances but for every single participant. The government have said this power will only be used in relation to two categories: social and community participation, and certain capacity-building supports. But the power is not limited to those areas. There are no guardrails to prevent it being used in the future to reduce funding for essential personal care, allied health services or equipment. People with disability deserve certainty that funding approved for daily living will not be reduced below what they need, and I intend to move an amendment that prevents this ministerial power from being used to reduce funding for support to complete activities of daily living.

The legislation tightens the meaning of permanence by reducing access where an impairment is otherwise considered treatable. The NDIS was established to support people with permanent and ongoing disability, and, in principle, that's what Australians expect it to do. But the practical effect of this change matters. As drafted, the bill creates an extra barrier for people in rural and regional Australia, because it requires them to have undertaken 'all appropriate treatment'. Aside from the question of who determines whether a treatment is appropriate and on what clinical basis—which we're told will be considered in the future by an expert group that doesn't yet exist—this completely fails to account for whether treatments are genuinely accessible and available. In fact, new subsection 25A(2) explicitly states that a treatment might still be appropriate for someone whose geographical or financial circumstances actually prevent them from accessing it. So, of course, I'll be moving an amendment to reverse this provision and provide clarity that supports may not be appropriate if there are none nearby or if they're completely unaffordable.

The bill clarifies that a person won't be eligible for the NDIS in relation to an impairment for which they have access to an alternative scheme. These include work cover and state and territory motor vehicle compensation schemes, and I've no objection to that. But the bill goes on to enable the minister to prescribe any other alternative. It's not clear what the government has in mind or whether something prescribed would be a genuine alternative to the NDIS. I'll be moving an amendment to require the minister to consider whether an alternative is reasonably available and accessible.

The bill introduces new considerations when assessing reasonable and necessary supports, largely to do with cost comparisons and value for money. However, in relation to whether a support is likely to be effective and beneficial for a participant, the bill establishes a hierarchy of evidence that makes it a statutory requirement to give greater weight to general evidence than to evidence of the participant's own outcomes using that support in the past. In fact, it goes on to enable certain kinds of evidence to be ignored completely. I'll move an amendment to remove these provisions. Where evidence is available, it should be considered and weighed up on its merits.

The bill includes a definition of 'functional capacity', a new concept that will be central to the operation of new eligibility requirements. However, the definition is just a shell. It's subject to rules that may set out any matter whatsoever. There's almost no point in discussing it, because it will mean whatever the government says it means in the rules.

Schedule 3 includes amendments in relation to scheme governance, pricing and automated decision-making. The bill would allow the minister to set the prices that providers charge for NDIS supports, and the bill explicitly provides for pricing to be differentiated based on location and remoteness. While the NDIA must provide pricing advice, there is no requirement for that advice to be made public. The minister may act reasonably on that advice, but without transparency it'll be difficult to build trust in the use of this power. I'll therefore move an amendment to require the NDIA's advice to be tabled in the parliament. I'll also support others' reasonable amendments that expand on what the minister must consider in making a pricing determination, including its impact on thin markets and regional areas.

Schedule 3 also deals with automated decision-making. I'm not opposed to harnessing technology to improve efficiency. There are hundreds of thousands of NDIS claims every single day, and we should be looking for every opportunity to streamline, operationalise and optimise how they're processed. But I'm worried about automated decision-making—not data-matching or calculations but substituting a computer program for a human being making a judgement, exercising a discretion or forming a state of mind. These are described in the bill as 'evaluative actions' and they are categorically allowed to be automated.

To its credit, the bill establishes very clear requirements for the development of standard operating procedures, setting out exactly how this will occur. Decisions can only be automated where the CEO is satisfied the circumstances are sufficiently objective that their existence or non-existence can be ascertained by a computer program. But we don't have an opportunity to see these operating procedures. It's not clear how the CEO might satisfy themselves as to the objectivity of a decision or what safeguards will be in place if the computer gets it wrong. At first, automated decision-making will apply to a limited set of provisions in the act, but that list can be expanded at any time in the legislative instrument.

A striking feature of this bill is how much it doesn't say. There is so much crucial detail that is left to be addressed in rules determined by the minister or considered by the technical advisory group that the government has said it will establish but about which little else is known. The NDIS is incredibly complex, and I accept there is a lot of detail that may not be appropriate to capture in primary legislation. But we are being asked to vote on this bill with only the barest of road maps for how all the blanks will be filled in, and by whom and when.

What's most apparent to me in reading this bill is that it does not address the reality of life with disability in an electorate like mine. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the new definition of 'appropriate supports', which explicitly says that it does not matter if you can't access a support because of where you live or how much money you earn. I'll move an amendment to rectify that particular subsection, but its inclusion speaks volumes about how little thought has been given to regional Australia.

A sustainable NDIS should not be built on the inaccessibility of services. Real sustainability means investing in workforce and service delivery so that participants can access the supports they need. The reality on the ground is already difficult. In Indi, around 5,600 people are on the NDIS. Plan utilisation across most of Indi is below the state average. In Strathbogie, package utilisation is 63 per cent. In Murrindindi, it's 65 per cent. And that's not because demand is low; it's because the workforce is not there to meet people's needs.

I'm not convinced the bill will address these problems for my constituents. While it's clear that the NDIS is too important to fail, it's also so important to get these reforms right. The NDIS has transformed lives in Indi and across the country, and it deserves and needs reforms that strengthen its foundations—and I'd like to the parliament to work collaboratively to achieve that. I encourage the government to consider my amendments to ensure the scheme remains responsive to the needs and dignity of people with disability. I expect there will be a number of reasonable, constructive amendments to the bill, and I very much hope the government will give them serious thought.

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the member will be granted leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed if she requests.

The government's recent response to the Murphy report was long overdue—889 days late. But, when the document was finally tabled, it didn't respond to each recommendation. Instead, it simply announced its own proposals. That doesn't pass the pub test. I met one mother who shared her son's story. He was trying to battle his gambling addiction. He had excused himself from all the pubs and everywhere around the area to stop that gambling addiction, and he felt he was hounded by ads wherever he turned—on his favourite podcasts, radio and TV. He couldn't escape it. Those are the stories behind our cultural crisis that demands decisive and brave leadership.

My community agrees that stronger action is needed. In a recent survey of 320 Wentworth residents, 90 per cent said it was very important to them that the government takes action to limit gambling advertising. When asked about the government's proposed reforms, 78 per cent were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied, and 53 per cent have no confidence at all that these changes will make a difference. When asked to choose their top two priorities when creating reform, 75 per cent identified the same two: protecting vulnerable people and reducing children's exposure. Instead of the opt-out model the government is proposing, 87 per cent of my community would prefer a complete ban. These results are unambiguous—from this survey and from the conversations I'm having in the community. Australians are dumbfounded that decisive action hasn't come sooner. It's time the government showed courage.

It has been just over a year since I was elected to represent the incredible community of Bonner, and in that time the Albanese Labor government has been delivering for my community. In Bonner, people want practical action on health care, housing, the cost of living and opportunity. In just over a year, more than 23,000 people in Bonner have had their student debt cut. More than 3,000 locals have enrolled in fee-free TAFE. Over 515 people have been supported into homeownership through Labor's five per cent deposits. We've doubled bulk-billing clinics in Bonner, delivered cheaper medicines through more than 2.5 million $25 scripts locally and families can now access not one but two Medicare urgent care clinics, at Carina-Carindale and Capalaba. More than 8,000 people have been through those doors since December. We've increased rent assistance by more than 50 per cent for nearly 7,000 locals, protected penalty rates, backed construction apprentices, expanded child care and delivered cheaper energy through more than 3,000 home batteries. This is what delivering for local communities looks like, and I will continue to fight every single day to ensure my community in Bonner gets the investment, opportunity and support they deserve.

There's a saying often attributed to Benjamin Franklin that nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. Thanks to the Albanese government's shameful budget, we now get to experience both those certainties at the same moment. Buried in this budget is a shameful new 30 per cent minimum tax on discretionary testamentary trusts. Let's call it what it is. That is a death tax. It will hit some of the families least able to afford it, including families in my electorate caring for children and grandchildren with profound disabilities who use these structures to provide security and care after they are gone.

Nobody voted for this. This government went to the election promising Australians that these taxes would not be implemented under their watch. This budget is built on broken promises and punishing aspiration. We've got new taxes on investment, new taxes on enterprise, new taxes on family assets, new taxes on the future—and to what benefit? How does this help young Australians? How is having more debt, higher taxes, less housing, higher rents and less reward for effort going to help them? Australia succeeds when hard work is rewarded, not punished. Australians don't want carve-outs to the Labor Party's toxic taxes. They want to have them axed, and that's exactly what the coalition is going to fight for.

Back in the day of the Hawke government, Labor floated the dollar. The conservatives, following the balladeer John O'Brien, said, 'We'll all be rooned!' Labor introduced Medicare. Again, the coalition screeched, 'It'll be the end of the health system!' Labor introduced superannuation. They screamed, 'Business will never be able to afford it!' And they yelled, 'Superannuation! Isn't it just for rich people?' Now, years later, Labor is fixing housing. We're taking the steps to make housing more affordable for a whole generation of young people. We are fixing capital gains. We are fixing negative gearing. But the coalition—they're at it again.

The opposition leader cries that, if re-elected in Hume, he will reverse the changes. He will cut the tax cuts. He will reinstate the very measures that allowed housing to get out of control, because apparently fixing the system and giving young people a chance is the end of the world. 'We'll all be ruined!' shouts the member for Hume. But the opposition leader knows that we need to fix the system. The shadow Treasurer knows it, and they and their whole congregation should be voting for it. As the Prime Minister said, if you accept that the system isn't working, then you have to fix it. We are doing this. We are delivering housing for young Australians.

Let's talk about men's health, especially in the construction industry, where men are nine times more likely to die from suicide than from a work health and safety accident. Recently, at a construction site in Manly, I went and attended a MATES program. The session was confronting but deeply impactful. Early in the morning I sat with a group of tradies and construction workers onsite to talk about suicide and the challenges they face. The session began with a simple question: put your hand up if you have been impacted by suicide or if you have lost someone to suicide. Every single person in that room raised their hand. It was a stark reminder of just how significant this issue is in their industry.

The pressures of insecure work, tough conditions, stigma around mental health, gambling, substance abuse, alcohol and a culture of just pushing through can have devastating consequences. MATES is changing that culture, and I commend them for that. It is an evidence-based, industry-led program that gives workers the tools to recognise when someone is struggling, start a difficult conversation and connect them with support. At its heart, MATES is about connection. It's about making sure that people know they are not alone and that asking for help is a strength, not a weakness. Programs like this save lives.

I really want to commend them and thank them for including me and having me there to witness it firsthand. I had some really insightful discussions with some of the participants around the challenges of their work and the importance of better services.

This Thursday is the day that those opposite have to put their cards on the table. This Thursday is the day that you've got to come clean. And this Thursday is the day that you've got to level with the Australian people. Will those opposite vote down a tax cut for working Australians again? Will those opposite vote against the interests of young people who want to get into the housing market again? Will they vote against what Australians know needs to happen in this country?

Everywhere I go in my local electorate on Brisbane's south side, people know that the interaction with the housing market and the taxation system is broken, and we on this side of the chamber choose to do something about it. The Albanese Labor government is focused on delivering. It is focused on delivering cost-of-living relief. It is focused on making sure that the young people of this nation can once again have that Australian dream of being able to get into a home.

We know those opposite have form when it comes to diddling the Australian people. Students would've had 20 per cent more debt, apprentices would've been paying fees for TAFE, and millions of Australians would've been paying more taxes. We believe that young people in this country should get a fair crack.

Young Australians are sick of being told this is a budget for them, because they know it is not. This budget is not about helping young Australians get ahead. It is about making life harder for them. For generations, Australians were told: work hard, buy a home, invest wisely, build a future. The Prime Minister had the opportunity in his 20s to buy a home, invest and build wealth. Why would this government deny future Australians the same chance? Labor's own budget papers admit their changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing will mean fewer homes available and higher rents, making the dream of home ownership even harder to reach.

Young Australians trying to build a deposit through investing are also being punished. Nearly half of investors on CommSec are under 40. Young Australians are taking risks, building portfolios and trying to get ahead, yet Labor wants to tax them hard. What message does this send to the next generation of entrepreneurs? Why would a young Australian start a business when government acts like a 47 per cent silent partner from day one? What Labor is saying to young Australians is this: Labor doesn't want you to be ambitious. Labor doesn't want you to invest in your future. Labor says you should expect less. Well, you know what? I'm not having it, and neither is the coalition. We will get rid of these toxic taxes at the first opportunity.

The recent federal budget contained many measures designed to benefit all Australians. One area of benefit is a significant investment the budget makes into the management of fuel supply risks. This is a critical step taken firmly in the interests of the Australian people, and it takes the form of a nearly $12 billion commitment through the National Fuel Security Plan, with the aim of securing Australia's near-term fuel and fertiliser security. This involves the establishment of the Fuel and Fertiliser Security Facility, designed to increase the domestic supply and storage of fuel and fertiliser by providing financial support—including loans, equity guarantees, insurance and price support.

Then we have the establishment of the Australian Fuel Security Reserve, which will reserve approximately one billion litres of fuel to increase long-term diesel and aviation fuel supply and storage, with the minimum stockholding obligation also increasing Australia's critical fuel reserves to 50 days. The focus of this is addressing potential supply constraints for essential users, including in the regions, in anticipation of further probable supply disruptions—which we will inevitably face. The fuel security features of the budget, including the establishment of a domestic gas reservation mechanism, are an efficient and effective step that respond to global challenges at the same time as acting in the immediate and long-term interests of the Australian people.

Young Australians are doing everything right. They're working, they're saving, they're sacrificing and they're trying to get ahead. But, Prime Minister, do you realise what's happening and what you're doing? Australians do. You're pulling up the ladder on an entire generation, and every member opposite is complicit. You're building a system where first home buyers compete against investors, big funds and a government that keeps making homes more expensive to build. Labor's own budget confirms it will build 35,000 fewer homes over the next decade, and it doesn't stop there.

Labor's industrial relations changes, red tape and protection racket for the CFMEU are not free. They show up in the price of every slab, every frame and every new home. These are taxes on builders trying to build, on families, trying to buy and on a generation trying to believe that hard work still means something. And here's the hypocrisy: the Prime Minister has protected his own right, and the right of 20 out of 22 members of his frontbench, to continue to benefit from the very tax rules that he now wants to deny the next generation.

Labor says it wants more homes, but its policies build fewer. Labor says it backs aspiration, but its taxes punish it. Labor says this is about intergenerational fairness, but its budget shows it's about intergenerational fraud. Prime Minister, you can't continue to claim to help first home buyers while building a system that makes them permanent renters.

Right now, in my electorate of Aston and across the country, first home buyers are being locked out of the housing market by property investors that benefit from a tax system that no longer serves the needs of a new generation of Australians. This is why the Albanese Labor government is taking responsible action to change that. Labor is delivering sensible reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions to level the playing field for first home buyers and to restore fairness to our housing market.

The reality is this: too many young Australians have given up on the dream of home ownership. They've worked hard and saved carefully, only to watch the dream of owning their own home slip further away year after year. That is not the kind of place we want Australia to be. Our reforms are about fairness, opportunity and the future of this country. Young Australians deserve a fair chance to buy a home of their own, not to have to struggle with a system that's pitted against them. Yet instead of showing leadership, the opposition leader has once again chosen to burrow further down the One Nation rabbit hole, blaming migrants and punching down on vulnerable communities rather than addressing the real causes of Australia's housing challenges. My message to the opposition leader is simple. If he genuinely supports young Australians achieving homeownership, then he should back these reforms instead of cynically and shamefully exploiting division for his own political gain.

These aren't my words, but the words of Emily, a constituent who wrote to me the day after Labor's budget of betrayal. She began saying:

I have woken up this morning feeling battered, empty and abused. But my abuser is my government.

This is the lived reality of a regional family running a small business who work hard yet are unable to get ahead as Labor's taxes rise and the pressure builds. She described the cycle as:

… a payment plan for last year's tax, a payment plan for next year's tax. It never stops.

To break free, she got a job working 80 hours a week on top of her business. Instead of relief, she was pushed into a higher tax bracket, saying:

If you earn it, they take it.

The strain sent her to hospital, suffering stress related illness and ulcers. Her accountant said that she would have been financially and physically better off, having never taken that work. It says everything about Australia under this government.

What troubled Emily the most, though, was Albanese's, 'tone deaf, insulting, patronising political theatre'. On the $250 carrot, she asked:

What does it buy? Scattering pennies while taking winter stores.

Her question to me was, 'How does this stop?' Well, it stops by axing Labor's tax grab in its budget of betrayal.

I'll just remind members that even if you're quoting it doesn't mean that you don't refer to members by the correct title.

On the weekend in Darwin and in Palmerston, I had plenty of conversations, particularly with young people—we're a very young jurisdiction—about the new rules for negative gearing and about our positive budget for young people's future to create a fairer playing field for those Territorians that have been locked out, that turn up to auctions and get crowded out time after time by property investors who want to do what many property investors have in the past, just like a former member for Solomon, from the other side of course, who had 14 investment properties while some young Territorians struggled to even get their own home. We're taking action to make it a fairer playing field.

But I need to be clear because those on the opposite side of this chamber are pretty happy with the misinformation going around. If you negatively geared a property before budget night, there's no change. You can still continue to do that. No problems. For future investment properties, it'll be for new builds, and that's good. That's good for our tradies, and that's good for people who want to invest in new properties. They can negatively gear those, no problems at all for those new builds. If there's one thing that Australians all agree on, it's that we're a fair country. We want to give young people a fair go, and that's what this budget is delivering.

The government's budget reveals a lack of judgement, a misreading of the times and an absence of practical wisdom. If Labor were to accept some advice, I would offer this. You don't restore trust in government by breaking promises. You don't make the life of individuals better by making government bigger. You don't solve a cost-of-living crisis by raising taxes. You don't solve a housing crisis by increasing rents and building fewer homes. You don't create a more productive economy by penalising those who invest. You don't make young people wealthy by making their parents poorer. You don't aid future generations by denying them the benefits enjoyed by previous generations. You don't support people creating a nest egg for their loved ones by introducing a death tax. You don't create a more dynamic economy by punishing those who take risks. You don't help working families build for their future by driving up income taxes. You don't help small businesses by whacking a big tax on the distribution of their assets. You don't build a nation by tearing down the pioneers and the entrepreneurs.

We on this side of the House believe every Australian should own their own home. It is clear that those opposite don't. Our government is getting on with the job of fixing our housing crisis, including fixing the tax rules that have made it near impossible for working Australians to be able to buy their own home. Since '99, house prices have risen 400 per cent, more than twice as fast as wages. The tax concessions introduced back then were meant to grow supply. They didn't; they grew prices. While the coalition is keen to entrench this, we've accepted the responsibility of doing something about it. We are here to make the system fairer.

This policy doesn't shut the door on young investors; it opens a new one. And here is where the opposition aren't telling you the truth. We are continuing to support property investment—in new builds, because, when taxpayer support is on the table, it should go towards creating a home that didn't exist before. Invest not just in your own wealth but in the wealth of the nation.

Now, those opposite are predictably rolling out the same old scare campaign to keep the broken status quo—a status quo that is locking young people, families and workers in my community out of homeownership. But this government isn't accepting the status quo. We are making sure every single one of them gets a fair shot of getting into their own home.

Australians are fed up with Labor's toxic new taxes, and they do not want carve-outs—they want them gone. In Capricornia, that is not just politics; it is real life. I've heard from a father in Sarina, a hardworking man raising two young children while working and running a beef cattle property with his partner. He told me:

We are not asking for luxuries ... we are simply trying to keep our family afloat and build some sort of future for our children.

Their mortgage repayments have increased. Electricity, fuel, groceries, insurance and farm overheads keep rising. Seven years ago, hard work would have helped them get ahead. Now, he says:

our money goes nowhere ... we are breaking our backs, yet things are not improving.

That is the reality for many families in regional Australia. When Labor talks about budget cuts, families like his do not see relief. They see more confusion, more uncertainty and more pressure. These families are not asking for special treatment. They want the chance to get ahead and policies that ease the burden instead of adding to it. He told me:

we are working hard, just to go backwards.

That should stop every one of us in our tracks. In Capricornia, people are proud to work, produce and provide for their families, but right now they feel squeezed from every direction. The only way to stop these toxic taxes is to vote to axe them.

'Single mother outbids two rivals for $745,000 townhouse', 'We had given up on Yarraville: first home buyers win $955,000 house', 'First home buyer outbids seven others for unit in Mortdale', 'Laid some roots: new home owners celebrate unexpected auction success'—these are very real headlines in very real newspapers talking about the immediate impact of our difficult but very necessary reforms in the budget. A first home buyer buying a house should not be newsworthy, but so broken is our housing market that, yes, this is news—for now.

Like some pimpled adolescent science students at school mixing vinegar and bicarb soda, the Liberals mixed negative gearing with a 50 per cent capital gains tax discount on existing homes in 1999, and that little experiment blew up the housing market. That mistake, which was designed to get more people to invest in shares, backfired. In fact, fewer people invested in shares, and it locked out a generation from owning their first home.

On budget night, it took Labor to fix that mistake. When you partner our reforms with our five per cent home deposit scheme and more supply, we are clearly here to turn things around for young people. The Liberals and Nationals defend the status quo; we want to get more people into homes.

Well, you know it's a bad budget when the government are taking credit for results on the weekend and they haven't even introduced the legislation into parliament. Gosh! And the member for Bennelong did criticise the legislation, because this is a budget that fails all Australians. It's full of broken promises and it's going to make the situation worse. Their own budget papers show that the tax changes are going to increase rents and they're going to decrease supply. It's so bad that unnamed backbenchers have spoken out against the policy. A few brave souls dared criticise the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, including the member for Bennelong, the member for Chifley, Senator Ananda-Rajah and also the member for Parramatta, the Cabinet Secretary, who was very happy to criticise the Treasurer and throw him under the bus. There's a nice little group of Ruddites there building a claim for the member for Parramatta. We can all see it. You know it's that bad when those opposite are prepared to talk out about it.

This budget has exposed this treasurer as big on talking points and low on economic literacy or detail. He's big on taxes, but he does not understand the detail. Now the question is: are the backbench going to blame the Prime Minister, or are they going to blame the Treasurer? We know the member for Parramatta is very much hoping they're going to blame the Treasurer.

I was elected almost 10 years ago. I was 45 and feeling great, but I had no clue what was coming and no clue what perimenopause was. I was like many women. I just put up with how my body was changing—the weight gain, the hot flushes, the sleepless nights, the brain fog, the hip and shoulder pain and looking for the car keys when they were already in my hand. Like our grandmothers and mothers, women of my generation were short on help and long on stigma. Here's what having more women in parliament can do for a country. This government is changing the way we treat menopause.

The Albanese Labor government has launched a new national campaign to make sure women can access clear, trusted and evidence based information about perimenopause and menopause. Frankly, it's about time. It's about helping women recognise what's happening to their bodies, feel confident seeking support and know that they're not alone. It sits alongside broader women's health reforms from our government, including cheaper menopausal hormone therapies, better clinical guidelines and more support through Medicare. Women deserve to be heard, taken seriously and properly supported, and that's exactly what we're doing. We've been more, we've seen more, we've had more and we are more than we've been given credit for. We're hotter, we're sharper and we're in demand. And, yes, that's the menopause talking!

Yesterday in question time, the Prime Minister said it's time to be honest. Let's see in this question time if we're going to get any of that honesty. Is he going to admit that the budget two weeks in is unravelling before his eyes? Is he going to admit that the Treasurer is getting advice now from every Tom, Dick, Harry and Andrew? Is the Prime Minister going to be honest about who he is going to carve out of his small-business tax hit? Is he going to carve out the plumbers, the carpenters, the hairdressers and the farmers, or is he just going to do it to a small select group that he wants to appeal to?

Come on, Prime Minister, you said yesterday it's time to be honest. We know your budget was a budget of broken promises and of large, large tax increases. What we want to know today is: who is going to be hit? It's two weeks into your budget. Who are you carving out? What will be the revenue impacts of carving that out? Will you be upfront and say this budget is collapsing before your eyes, or is it true what people are saying—that you can't lie straight on a yoga mat?

I remind members to direct their remarks through the chair.

I'm proud to be a part of a budget that is building homes for Australians and supporting Australians to buy their own home. In fact, over 2,000 people in my electorate of Macnamara have bought their first home thanks to our five per cent deposit scheme. We've also been going around the country looking at thousands of homes that are being built under the Housing Australia Future Fund. It's quite telling that the Leader of the Opposition had this to say on budget night:

We will scrap Labor's housing bureaucracy—the ineffective Housing Australia Future Fund …

That would leave thousands of Australians without a home and have a devastating impact across our community housing sector. But, of course, Senator Bragg said this:

They shouldn't proceed with this tax … I would increase it. I wouldn't reduce it.

He was talking about the capital gains tax discount. Those opposite want to increase support for investors to buy multiple homes, and they want to take away support for Australians and essential workers who need their first home and a safe place to live. We are builders, and they are blockers. We share opportunity, and they share misinformation. We lay bricks, and they lay blame. We're interested in building homes for Australians, and they spend each and every day trying to compete with One Nation in a race to the gutter. We have a job to do, and we're getting on with it for Australians, who deserve it.

In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.

Sitting on the floor of the parliament today is Uncle John Prince Siddon, a Walmajarri artist living and working in Fitzroy Crossing, a remote Kimberley town east of Broome, Western Australia. As part of National Reconciliation Week, Australian Parliament House will be illuminated with Uncle John's work Numbat Night from 6 pm tomorrow. Welcome, Uncle John.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

My question is to the Prime Minister. There are nearly three million hardworking small and family businesses in Australia. Will the Albanese government carve out the hairdressers, builders, gyms, pharmacies, vets, dentists, landscapers or childcare operators from your broken promises and higher taxes?

Small businesses are already eligible for four different concessions, and none of them have changed. None of them, whatsoever, have changed. That's why, in addition to that, some of them—

Opposition members interjecting—

The member for Casey, order! We're just going to reset. This continual yelling right on my doorstep is well beyond the pale. The Leader of the Opposition was heard in silence. Can everyone just take a breath, reset, listen to the Prime Minister and show some respect.

In addition to that, in the budget we announced $3½ billion in new measures that lower taxes for businesses to encourage investment and innovation. We're making the $20,000 instant asset write-off permanent, which is something that's never been done before. We're introducing a permanent two-year loss carry-back to support resilience, investment and risk-taking. We're introducing loss refundability to help startups grow in their first years. We're expanding tax incentives for venture capital to unlock patient capital for young, expanding firms. In addition to all that, we're better targeting the research and development tax incentive. That's why the Council of Small Business Organisations, for example, said about the instant asset write-off: 'It gives—

Order! The Prime Minister's just going to pause. The question was about the carving out of businesses and the higher taxes, but I'll listen to the Leader of the Opposition on a point of order.

It's on relevance. The question was about broken promises and higher taxes, and he hadn't—

Resume your seat. I'll hear from the Leader of the House.

Two things: obviously, one of them is that that was a clear and deliberate abuse of a point of order; the second is in terms of relevance. The first sentence of that question was this: 'There are nearly three million hardworking small and family businesses in Australia.' The answer being given could not be more relevant.

Honourable members interjecting —

Order, members on my right and the Chief Government Whip. We're going to do this in an orderly way, and we'll hear on the point of order.

On the point of order that the manager of business of the House made, there is a specific question at the end, and that's what we—

Honourable members interjecting—

Yes, at the end. We're allowed to—you can't just have a question mark. You can't just have a question mark. You have to be able to ask the question. It's question time.

I thank the Manager of Opposition Business for that assistance. We'll deal with the Leader of the Opposition's point of order and the Leader of the House's response. Obviously, there was a question in there, but all speakers since the beginning of question time have never confined the answer, because the standing orders require the Prime Minister be—

You've raised the point of order. I'm dealing with your point of order, Leader of the Opposition, so there's no point yelling at me. The standing orders provide for the Prime Minister to be directly relevant. If you would like a yes/no answer or you would like a direct answer, I don't have the powers to direct the Prime Minister to do that. All members, I think, are aware of that. The Prime Minister is talking about exactly what he was asked about, so he is being directly relevant. He has the call.

I was asked about small business and the impact of the budget, and I'm precisely doing that. The worse he's going, the more he interjects, but the fact it—

Order! Leader of the Opposition, take a breath. The Prime Minister can continue.

Order! The Treasurer is not helping the situation.

In the budget, we announced $3½ billion of support for small business, and they don't want to hear about it. They want to write it off, as if it didn't happen, because it doesn't fit the rhetoric of the three right-wing parties and their allies. This is what the council of small business had to say: 'It gives small business the opportunity to plan ahead—to plan their investments and how they are going to grow.'

Yes, which was in the budget.

In the budget! The NFF—just one for the Nats—said:

It's a simple and effective measure that helps farmers reduce costs and increase their productivity.

ACCI said:

Many small business owners will be pleased to see this measure made permanent …

Over and over, the measures that we put forward, right across the sector—

Honourable members interjecting—

The worse they're going, the louder they get. This is a mob who think the future is making Tony Abbott the President of the Liberal Party.

My question is to the Prime Minister. How is the Albanese Labor government's budget helping young Australians who aspire to own a home of their own? Why is this important, and are there any alternative approaches to housing policy?

I thank the member for Canberra for her question. Last week, we were with the member for Canberra and the Treasurer and the housing minister in the home in Kingston of Matt, Mika and Pikelet. The aspiration of homeownership is right at the heart of the budget that we delivered last week. It's something that is the fundamental aspiration that Australians have. They have it not only for themselves; they have it for their kids and their grandkids. And the truth is that over the years, more and more, it's not just young people—

It's got a lot harder.

Yes, it has got harder. That's the point. That's why we're fixing it. That's what we're fixing. I take the interjection from the member for Page. It has got harder over many years, particularly since 1999. Prices have gone up by more than double the level of wages since 1999 for so many young people. But also, parents and grandparents worry that their kids will never get into a home of their own. That is, in part, because a young person going up for an auction is standing at the auction and competing with an investor going for their fifth or their 10th house or what have you, and they have a huge advantage over the first home buyer. That is just the truth.

What we have done is change the system so that, if people want to invest—good on them—they can still do so. But they'll be investing not only in their wealth and their future assets; they'll be investing in the wealth and assets of the nation. This is something that's been called for and acknowledged by some of those opposite, including the shadow Treasurer, of course.

Last night, more Australians were on the 7.30 program talking about their own experiences. A young couple were there. They had bought their first home in an auction in Sydney on Saturday for even less than they had budgeted. That couple didn't come up against property investors with an unfair tax advantage. The young man, Sebastian, said he was shocked and stunned that they had won at all. But that is what the reform is about. It is about making sure that young Australians can have the reality of homeownership—not a dream that can't be fulfilled but a reality—so every Australian, not just some, can aspire to a roof over their head. Aspiration for all, not just for some—that is what we stand for, and that is what our budget delivers.

My question is to the Prime Minister. I ask again: will the Prime Minister just be honest with Australians and tell us which small businesses will be carved out from Labor's broken promises and higher taxes?

We support small business, and that's precisely why we had $3½ billion of investment to assist small business in our budget. That's why, as well, in our budget, we had, of course, tax cuts again, making five lots of tax cuts, helping people who are in small business to go ahead. That is in addition to the tax cut that we have coming in on 1 July and the tax cut next 1 July and the legislation that we'll be bringing into the parliament on Thursday that will include, of course, our instant tax deduction, making an enormous difference going forward.

When it comes to small businesses, it isn't just the ones that I named; the Housing Industry Association have said:

Making the instant asset write off permanent gives housing businesses—

which are a major part of small business—

the confidence to invest, grow and lift productivity.

Business NSW said:

… we welcome the government delivering … stability for small and medium businesses.

Right across the board, we have received support.

The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order?

On relevance, I don't know how much more specific you can be than to ask which small businesses will be carved out from Labor's broken promises and higher taxes?

As we've indicated before, you'd like a list read out to the House, I'm assuming. You would like a—

You said, 'Something relevant.' Great. The Prime Minister is talking about the small businesses that he was asked about. I can't, unfortunately, deliver what you would like. But if he wasn't talking about the small businesses that he was asked about, he wouldn't be directly relevant, so he is being directly relevant. We can keep going down this path, but that is the standing orders. If you wish to change the standing orders, you're entitled to do so. But as they stand now, this is the way that question time has always operated.

What I'm talking about is the lower taxes we're introducing for small business. The lower taxes for small business—sums that those opposite don't seem to acknowledge even exists, whether it's the instant asset write-off, the permanent two-year loss carry back, the loss refundability to help startups, expanding tax incentives for venture capital or better targeting the research and development tax incentive. All of those are aimed very directly at supporting small business, because we do support small business. We do support, as well, the opportunity of young people to get a roof over their head, which is something that those opposite do not support. They support entrenching inequality; we support aspiration for all.

My question is to the Treasurer. How will the Albanese Labor government's tax cuts and tax reforms help Australians, and how does that compare to other approaches?

Thanks to the member for Bennelong for his important question and for all of his work. This government is cutting taxes for workers five times, in three different ways. We cut taxes in our first term, there's another tax cut in July and another one the July after that, and on Thursday we will introduce legislation to cut income taxes a fourth and a fifth time as well. That's because that legislation includes a thousand dollar instant deduction and also the Working Australians Tax Offset. Our tax cuts mean that an average worker could be up to $2,800 better off in the year that these tax cuts are implemented.

The legislation on Thursday includes those new tax cuts, and it includes the changes we are making to negative gearing and capital gains. This legislation is all about making it easier to own a first home, better aligning the tax treatment for workers and asset owners and also funding these tax cuts. The reason these four elements are all together is that the negative gearing and capital gains tax changes fund the tax cuts for workers and for small businesses. The package is broadly revenue neutral over the four years, and that's why these measures are all in together. By passing the core elements of the package quickly, we will give the market some certainty about the major changes while we consult on the implementation details flagged in the budget.

This is not unusual. The Howard government's GST reforms required more than 30 bills, and when it came to the capital gains tax changes in 1999—also around 30 bills. So this legislation on Thursday is a test for the coalition—

Opposition members interjecting—

Member for Maranoa, Member for Goldstein and Member for Gippsland, that yelling is completely unprofessional, but it's also against the standing orders, so you're warned. Member for Goldstein, I assume you want the MPI to proceed. So everyone is clear: if there are more interjections, there won't be an MPI today. Because that yelling is unacceptable. So there won't be an MPI if the member for Goldstein interjects. There are consequences for actions.

This legislation is a test for the coalition, and it's a test that they have failed before. It beggars belief to remember that in the first term the big, two mistakes that they made in the first term because of the genius of the member for Hume were to vote against tax cuts and to block housing for Australians. They are showing all of the signs of repeating the exact same two mistakes that they made in the first term. They haven't learned a thing and they haven't changed a bit since the member for Hume convinced them in the last parliament to vote against the tax cuts that this government was putting in place. He got it badly wrong the first time and it looks like he's going to repeat the mistake.

So let me be very clear. If they vote against this legislation, they are voting for higher income taxes once again. They are voting to make it harder for people to buy their first home. And, when people are crying out for change in the housing market and in the tax system, they would be clinging to and voting for a broken status quo that is locking too many young Australians out of housing. They should vote for the tax cuts that working Australians need and deserve, which this government is determined to give them.

I'm pleased to inform the House that Mr Stefan Lofven, former prime minister of Sweden, is with us today, accompanied by Giacomo Filibeck. There's also Dr Glynn Greensmith, a senior lecturer in journalism at Curtin University, as a guest of the member for Fremantle. Also present in the gallery today is a Maronite youth delegation, as guests of the members for Parramatta and Mitchell and the Leader of the House, accompanied by Bishop Tarabay. Welcome to question time.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

My question is to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. Minister, the Defence and Veterans Workshop, in Hobart, has supported serving and ex-serving personnel since 1980. It's an essential service and is more important than ever if the government is fair dinkum about addressing the findings of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. But, Minister, the workshop will be homeless if Derwent Barracks are sold off. So what will you do about that? Does the government commit to ensuring the workshop remains in situ or is funded to secure a new facility?

I thank the member for Clark for his ongoing support for the veterans workshop and the veterans in his community. Of course, I thank him for his service in the Australian Army as well.

The Defence and Veterans Workshop, which the member mentioned, at Derwent Barracks, has been supporting our current and former serving defence community for decades. It is a great facility that is providing a place for local veterans not just to go and connect but to learn a new skill as well, and we've discussed that before. We as a government are focused on wellbeing support for our veterans at all life stages, and that is something that was emphasised by the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. So I'm pleased to be able to assure the member that our government is fair dinkum about addressing the recommendations of the royal commission. We had already implemented 32 of the recommendations of the commission by the end of last year, and we're on track to, by the end of this year, have implemented two-thirds of those recommendations.

The independent defence estate audit found that many defence properties have no clear or ongoing link to our capability needs for keeping our nation safe, and we need to make sure that our defence estate is fit and proper for our ADF. In making sure we get this right, my good friend the Assistant Minister for Defence has been working his way around the country, consulting with those that are impacted by the defence estate audit. They are not consultations that are about setting or forgetting. He held a town hall in Hobart, and, as a result of the feedback from the local community, the Defence and Veterans Workshop will remain onsite at the Derwent Barracks. I'm pleased that the Prime Minister was able to confirm this when he was in Hobart with Premier Rockliff the weekend before last.

We're working through the divestment of the site and others around the country very carefully. We're going to continue to consult with defence personnel, veterans, reservists, the wider community and of course the families of cadets that may be impacted. It's important that we get this right, and keeping the workshop onsite at Derwent is a key part of doing that.

My question is to the Minister for Housing. How have experts and advocates received the Albanese Labor government's housing reform package to help first home buyers? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches to these reforms?

I thank the member for Jagajaga for her question. I was in her electorate with the Prime Minister just a week ago, visiting some of the 743 social and affordable homes that we are building in great electorate of Jagajaga.

Australians have got a housing system that's stacked against them. We want Australians to get ahead and we want them to particularly do it in a home that they own. But in today's housing market there is nothing but heartbreak for the young people of this country. They are doing all the right things: they are studying longer than ever, they are working harder than ever and they are saving longer than ever. Yet, still, they're turning up to auctions and, more often than not, getting outbid by investors standing next to them who are backed in by the Australian taxpayer.

Our government wants something pretty simple and straightforward for our country, and that is for Australia to be a place where citizens on every income level can aspire to homeownership and realise that dream for themselves and their families. We want to live in a country where housing is fair to Australians. That's all. And that's why we're standing up and changing the housing system of our country.

We're doing that by backing in first home buyers through the five per cent deposit program, and we're levelling the playing field at auctions. Experts, economists and housing advocates are backing in the effect of these reforms. Economist Saul Eslake said the reforms will create more opportunities for aspiring first home buyers. National Shelter said the budget begins to rebalance the system back towards first home buyers, renters and the delivery of new homes. And former New South Wales Liberal minister Rob Stokes, who's now at Faith Housing Australia, said Australia should not be a country where the system makes it easier to accumulate multiple investment properties than for young people to own their first home—finally, a Liberal of this country who gets it. Rob Stokes can see what I can see, what the Prime Minister can see and what everyone behind me can see. That is that the status quo cannot continue. Something had to change, and that's why we're standing up and changing it.

Importantly, we are continuing to support investment in new housing supply. If you are a young person in this country and you want to get ahead, we want to support you to do it. If you want to do it through property, you can still get access to those generous housing concessions. But what we ask is that you do something for the country, and that is build a desperately needed new home.

I'm asked about alternatives. The coalition are the only people I can find in our country today who are continuing to defend the broken status quo. They are the only people who feel no sense of sympathy for the young people of our country who are suffering and the parents and the grandparents who are worried about them. We've got a clear plan to deliver a fairer housing system for the country, and on Thursday we're going to start legislating to make it happen.

Prime Minister, which small businesses will be carved out from your capital gains tax increases?

As I've said before to the Leader of the Opposition's questions, what we're doing is actually decreasing taxes for small businesses through our $3½ billion of measures. That is what we are doing, which is why it's received such substantial support from so many industry sectors, including the Housing Industry Association, the Motor Trades Association, the National Farmers' Federation, the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Business NSW as well as, of course, the Council of Small Business Organisations.

What we are doing through this $3½ billion of tax decreases for small businesses is providing them with incentives moving forward.

The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order?

It goes to relevance. We couldn't ask a tighter question. The Prime Minister said yesterday it was time to be honest with the Australian people—

Resume your seat. I thank the manager. I remind him and the leader that all you need to do is state the issue of relevance, which is fine. You're entitled to do that. You don't need to add extra words. That's an abuse of the standing orders. We're going to continue to listen to the Prime Minister. He needs to make his answer directly relevant to the question he was asked regarding carve-outs for small businesses. As I said, I know you're after a list. I can't compel the Prime Minister to do that. I can compel the Prime Minister to be directly relevant to the question, and that's what he's doing at the moment.

It's precisely what I'm doing. I firstly outlined the reductions in small-business taxation and the measures which are there—$3½ billion of support. We are also changing the capital gains tax regime to go back to 1999. As those opposite know in their hearts, that has different results for some depending upon the circumstances. What we're doing is moving from one lot of discounts to another lot of discounts. We're moving towards the system that was in place before 1999 to tax real gains, not nominal gains. What that does is produce fairer outcomes. What that does is better treat income from assets like income from work.

Before I call the member for Brisbane, I also note that in the gallery today we have former US ambassador and member of this place the Hon. Joe Hockey, accompanied by Mick Mulvaney, the former ambassador and former US congressman. Welcome to question time.

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water. How is the Albanese Labor government helping boost housing supply by fast-tracking environmental approvals? Why is action to boost supply so desperately needed?

I acknowledge the member for Brisbane as somebody who understands all too well the challenges of young people trying to find their home. Most homes don't need an environmental approval at a federal level; most homes have the approval process go through local government and other procedures. But some housing developments do require a federal environmental approval. Unlocking this federal approval process has been one of the critical steps that this government has taken in being able to build more homes.

The latest figures that have been released show the Albanese government is delivering housing approvals and has exceeded the target it had set. Last year, after the Economic Reform Roundtable, this government established a housing strike team within the environment department to speed up housing approvals to help with the building of more homes. It set a target to unlock 26,000 new homes by July this year. Already, we have succeeded in approvals not for 26,000 but for 35½ thousand new homes. Twenty-one of those are metropolitan projects—across those metropolitan projects, 20,000 homes. Thirteen of them are in the regions—across those regional projects, 15,000 homes. That means 3,000 homes for Western Australia, 14,000 homes in New South Wales and—as the member for Brisbane has asked this question—17,000 homes in Queensland unlocked because of this work.

I'm asked why these reforms are desperately needed. At one point under the previous government, in terms of how they were going with environmental approvals, their percentage of approvals that were running on time was six per cent. It got to as low as six per cent of their approvals running on time. Under this government, 93 per cent of approvals are running on time, and it's only happening because of the actions of the Albanese Labor government. We're building more homes and we'll continue to do so because we established the Housing Australia Future Fund, which they voted against. With the housing minister, the Treasurer and the Prime Minister, we established build to rent, which they voted against. We established five per cent deposits, which they voted against. We've modernised our environment laws, which they voted against. And we're making tax changes to help give a chance to first home buyers, which they will vote against.

Before I call the member for Goldstein, the member for Lyne—I counted—interjected 14 times in that answer. She's had a good go; she'll leave the chamber under 94(a). Consistent interjecting during one answer of 14 times is potentially a record.

The member for Lyne then left the chamber .

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister's answer yesterday about Janet's daughter, who has Down syndrome. The Prime Minister claimed Janet's daughter was exempt because she was a vulnerable minor. She is not; she's an adult. Is the Prime Minister slugging Australians with disability with a new 30 per cent death tax?

No.

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. What will today's default market offer mean for power prices? What policies are reducing the cost of power, and what policies would make power more expensive?

I thank my honourable friend for the question. As the honourable member indicates, today is the day where the default market offer final determination is released. It's a matter of law that it must go out today unless the minister intervenes and changes the law—something I have not done but something one of my predecessors has done on previous occasions. But there was no need for that today, because, on that occasion, a minister hid a 20 per cent price rise; today, we have price reductions in every jurisdiction in Australia covered by the default market offer.

For the honourable member for Griffith, in the Energex jurisdiction, there's a 10.7 per cent reduction for residences and a 14 per cent reduction for small business. In rural New South Wales, the area covered by Essential Energy—the members for Eden-Monaro and Richmond are very pleased about this, but I think all honourable members should be—there's a small-business reduction of up to 20.9 per cent in their energy bills.

Now, the member asks me what has led to this. There are, really, three reasons. It's no coincidence that, at the time we've hit 50 per cent renewables in our grid, we are seeing energy prices come down. That's the first thing. Secondly, we're seeing more of that cheap renewable energy during the day stored for night-time, when prices go up, because what we see is coal and gas setting the price at night-time, which drives prices up. Batteries are now setting the price 30 per cent of the time, compared to 18 per cent of the time just 12 months ago. The Energy Regulator said today, for example, the cheaper home battery policy is 'certainly making the system cheaper'. When we get cheaper home batteries in, it reduces the bills for those households and it reduces the bills for everybody. Indeed the Energy Regulator has also said these reductions have 'really been driven by a big surge in batteries and solar into the system, which is displacing the need for more expensive gas fired generation and hydro generation at peak times'. This is what is working. In addition, the Albanese government's reforms to the default market offer to strip out costs from energy companies and not allow them to claim them in the default market offer is making a difference.

The honourable member asked me what makes a difference. Well, what makes a difference is 414,396 cheaper home batteries that have now been installed under the Albanese government. That's 414,000 batteries reducing prices for those households but also reducing prices for everyone. What would not help is 22 failed energy policies. What would not help is sweating unreliable and expensive coal for longer. What would not help is $600 billion on a nuclear fantasy. They are all things that will not help. What is helping is cheaper renewable energy backed by batteries.

My question is to the Prime Minister. Labor's budget of broken promises and higher taxes will cost my constituents Ross and Cynthia hundreds of dollars per year because of changes to private health insurance. Cynthia is recovering from breast cancer. Yesterday the Prime Minister said it was time to be honest. Will the Prime Minister answer Cynthia and Ross's question: why does the Prime Minister want to continue to push us by removing the rebate we desperately need?

No-one is removing the rebate. The premise of the question is completely wrong. What is not appropriate is to come in here and spread this sort of information through the Parliament of Australia. It is very clear we are not removing the rebate.

In addition to that, what we are doing through a range of measures to assist Australians in that situation is reducing the price of medicines to $25 or, if they are a pensioner or recipient, down to $7.70, which we're freezing until 2030. We've increased the bulk-billing rates, so they get access to a GP, up to above 80 per cent, heading towards our target of 90 per cent as well. We have $25 billion in this budget—the largest expenditure—for our new hospitals and health deal. We have put all of these measures in place to assist Australians in the member for Cowper's electorate and right across the board as well.

That was a lie.

The member for Groom will withdraw that.

I withdraw.

I thank the member for Groom.

My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. How is the Albanese Labor government supporting the aviation industry to keep communities connected?

The member for Bowman will leave the chamber under standing order 94(a). You can't simply interject before a minister begins their answer. That is highly disorderly and grossly disrespectful.

The member for Bowman then left the chamber.

I'm asking all members to show some restraint and some respect.

I thank the member for Richmond very much for her question. She well knows the challenges that we all—communities but particularly the aviation industry—face because of the conflict in the Middle East and the importance of the aviation industry in keeping our communities connected. We are working very closely with the aviation industry to ensure that they have the fuel they need to keep communities well connected and Australians are able to do what they love, continue to travel, spend time with families and connect for work.

Last week, the government secured more than a hundred million litres of jet fuel from China, resulting in four additional days of jet fuel being added to our national reserve. This didn't happen by accident or because, some way or another, China suddenly decided that they would supply that jet fuel. It has resulted as part of the government's work to stabilise relations with China. Our prime minister continues to have open and constructive conversations with Premier Li, and it has led to Australia being one of the few countries to secure additional jet fuel supplies—because of the work on the relationship that we have done.

It is these constructive relationships that continue to place Australia in the strongest possible position during times of uncertainty. It builds, of course, on those earlier announcements of securing fuel supplies across South-East Asia and bringing the total additional jet fuel secured to 200 million litres, with 600 million litres of additional diesel. These shipments provide important certainty for the aviation industry. We continue to meet regularly with them to make sure that there is clear and consistent communication about our strategic reserves and that they are put to good use throughout this Middle Eastern conflict.

But we also know that being entirely reliant on overseas jet fuel supplies is simply not sustainable. Right now, Aussie farmers are producing crops like canola and shipping it overseas to be turned into biofuel, only for us to then buy it back. As I've said time and time again, this is, frankly, nuts. We should be producing sustainable aviation fuels here in Australia with Australian canola. That's why our government has made a $1.1 billion investment in developing an onshore sustainable aviation fuel industry.

And it's not just in the fuel space that we're supporting aviation. We worked quickly to ensure Rex could continue to operate through its administration and supported the successful sale. On Sunday, I announced that more than $4.8 million in support is being delivered to local councils and regional and remote airports to ensure that the debts that they were owed by Rex were repaid so that those important local airports could continue to operate for the communities that they support. Keeping Australians connected even in times of international uncertainty is important work that the government is getting on with.

My question is for the Attorney-General. The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion released its interim report last month. The government accepted all 14 of the report's recommendations. Five of these recommendations are classified. Given that there is no way for us to know the nature and the content of these five classified recommendations, how can we—this parliament and its people—hold the government to account in implementing them?

I thank the member for her question. Indeed, the royal commission did deliver its interim report to government on 30 April. The final report will be delivered on 14 December. The first hearing block of witnesses commenced on 4 May, and the second block commenced yesterday. I also want to put on the record again the appreciation of this parliament to members of the Jewish community who've given valuable evidence on their personal lived experiences of antisemitism, and I thank those who have come forward in the now over 12,500 submissions that have been made.

For the benefit of the member and the house, the royal commission has now established a dashboard tracking key elements of its proceedings, and I encourage members to visit that at asc.royalcommission.gov.au. On the issue the member raises of oversight of confidential recommendations in the interim report, the member is correct. Recommendations eight to 12 of the interim report are indeed confidential. The government has accepted all recommendations relevant to the Commonwealth, and we will work with state and territory governments to adopt a national approach to implement all 14 of those recommendations, including those which are confidential.

For the benefit of the house, two versions of the interim report were presented by the royal commission—firstly, a declassified version suitable for public release and a confidential version marked 'Top Secret' with a number of agency codewords and caveats. In addition, Commissioner Bell issued a non-publication direction under section 63 of the Royal Commissions Act for parts of the interim report. The non-publication direction limits communication of security classified information in the confidential report. The direction was considered necessary, such as the sensitivity of the information shared with the royal commission, which includes highly classified national security information and operationally sensitive information including as relevant to active investigations as well as the current prosecution. I know the honourable member will appreciate that it is critical to not disclose any operational information relating to the criminal investigation to avoid risk of prejudicing the prosecution.

I can assure the member that the government takes this direction seriously and we take all the recommendations in the interim report seriously. Our national security agencies have robust oversight, including by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security as well as the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

My question is to the Prime Minister. Why is the government reforming tax policy to assist Australians to own their home? What support has this policy received?

I thank the member for Gellibrand for the question. Indeed, we are reforming the system so that we better allow Australians, all Australians, to have the aspiration to own a home over their own head. This has been something that has been spoken about for some time. The existing housing system is broken, and that is causing enormous frustration for Australians. It has been broken for some time, and that is why our measures in the budget have received such strong support.

Chris Richardson said:

There's a lot to like in this budget.

…   …   …

…what we haven't had is a budget that tackles some of the 'to-do' list that Treasury and the Productivity Commission have had sitting in their top drawers for many years.

CommBank said the big positive was a much more strong, solid, 'credible path back to surplus'. Ross Gittins said:

Much as it pains me to say anything nice about politicians, this is a good budget.

Saul Eslake said the tax reforms announced in the Federal Budget:

represent material improvements to the tax system which we now have: and for that reason are to be welcomed.

In addition to that, people have backed in the tax changes for housing supply. Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, the Chair of the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council, said having negative gearing available for new builds is pro supply. Harry Triguboff, the head of Meriton, of course, identified positive proposed changes. The Property Council said:

In the short term, the carve-out of new housing supply investment … is vital to attracting capital to new projects …

Opposition members interjecting—

I hear some interjections once again from those opposite, and, indeed, we have had support from the shadow treasurer in the past, criticising the existing system. The member for Canning has said that he feels the anger regularly from young Australians who feel locked out of the housing market. But we were confronted with a situation of acknowledging a problem which is there and deciding whether we would act or not.

There's someone else who was a treasurer, who is here today, who had an opportunity to do something about this, and he said this in his valedictory:

We should be wiser and more consistent on tax concessions.

He went on:

In that framework, negative gearing should be skewed towards new housing so that there is an incentive to add to the housing stock rather than an incentive to speculate on existing property.

That was the former member for North Sydney and the former treasurer of Australia in the last speech that he gave on the floor of this chamber. What we don't do is wait until we were going out the door and then decide to do the right thing. We do it up front.

My question is to the Prime Minister. Three times I have asked the Prime Minister which small businesses will be spared from his broken promises and higher taxes. Three times the Prime Minister has refused to be honest. Prime Minister, what happened to 'my word is my bond'?

Once again, I inform the member asking the question that our budget is reducing a range of taxes and costs for small business in the $3½ billion that we have put forward. The changes to capital gains tax will result in different outcomes for different businesses across a range of systems. What we are doing is replacing one discount with another discount—a discount based upon real gains rather than nominal gains going forward. That is what we are doing.

We are consulting, as we said we would on budget night, including with the Council of Small Business. They have had formal meetings with Treasury. We're continuing to consult on those measures. We said we would do that. That is what we are doing. On Thursday, we'll introduce the legislation that provides for the key measures going forward.

Before I call the member for Braddon, I just want to remind the Leader of the Opposition about the language at the end of that question. It was directly reflecting on a member. So I would just remind everyone, to be consistent, that we do not reflect directly on members. It was just the last part of that question.

My question is to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. How is the Albanese Labor government supporting veterans and their families?

I thank the member for Braddon for her important question. It's been great to be able to engage with her in this place, and when she was in the other place, in support of the veterans in her community. I know everybody in this chamber has respect for those who have served and worn the Australian Defence Force uniform, including those who sit here in this place. As a government, we understand the great importance of supporting those who serve our nation—those people who put on our uniform to serve a greater cause who may make the ultimate sacrifice and those who come home with injuries seen and unseen. That is what every government needs to do.

In my term as the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, I've heard from veterans since day 1 that the claims process was a nightmare, that it was taking too long and that it was too complex. That's why our government made the biggest investment in the Department of Veterans' Affairs in three decades so that we could clear the backlog of claims that weren't even being looked at, so that claims are now looked at within 14 days of being received and so that initial liability claims are now processed within a matter of months instead of years. And, as I've moved around the country and engaged with veterans and ex-service organisations and advocates, it's been really great to hear the positive feedback from those engaging with the system that it is indeed improving. But, of course, more is needed, and through the extensive consultation that we undertook over years with the veteran community, we're making the system simpler as well. With the passage of the VETS Act, from 1 July this year, we will have a single legislative scheme that is simpler for people to understand what they're entitled to and quicker for DVA to process claims.

When it comes to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, we acted quickly. We already implemented 32 of the recommendations last year. Two-thirds of the recommendations will be implemented by the end of this year. The Defence and Veterans' Service Commission, a legislated oversight body, is already up and running, and we're taking a broader approach to veteran wellbeing, with proactive engagement with Defence to prevent injury, giving better treatment, so that we can get better wellbeing and lifestyle outcomes. We have a new wellbeing agency that will be established and up and running in the middle of this year, and we've expanded the veterans and families hub network across the country. We've increased GP fees, we've increased report fees for GPs and specialists, and we're increasing the fees that will be paid to allied health professionals to increase access for the veteran community. We're continuing to work on the royal commission recommendations.

We're also doing the necessary work for a review to ensure that federally funded travel for Victoria Cross recipients and their families, like the parents of Cameron Baird VC, continue on a proper basis. We are doing the work that is needed to fulfil our nation's solemn promise to our veterans and families.

My question is to the Prime Minister. ACEREZ, EnergyCo and the New South Wales government have just completely obliterated a Wiradjuri cultural site as they put in transmission lines for the Central West-Orana Renewable Energy Zone. It's a disgrace and an outrage. When I previously raised issues of grievous environmental destruction with the federal minister for the environment and water, investigations did not result in any action being taken. This could have been prevented. What's it going to take to bring these vandals to heel, and where is the accountability here?

Honourable members interjecting—

Whoever is making those disparaging noises, I don't know where you think you are, but they have no place in the federal parliament. For goodness's sake.

The honourable member raises a most serious matter. I completely agree with the points that he has made. What has happened, on the face of it, is utterly unacceptable. I'll discuss the matter with the Minister for Indigenous Australians. I no doubt will discuss the matter with the New South Wales government as well because we all have some responsibilities here, including the Commonwealth. I'm happy to keep the honourable member fully advised of progress in the investigation and action that arises. The point that he makes—that any destruction of First Nations culture is utterly unacceptable—is one that I entirely agree with.

My question is to the Prime Minister. Why is Australia's relationship with India, and the contribution of the Indian community, so important to our nation? How is the Albanese Labor government engaging with our Indian diaspora?

I thank the member for Lalor and Chief Government Whip for her question and for her passionate engagement in her own electorate in what is a dynamic part of Melbourne that has a large and growing Indian diaspora. Yesterday afternoon, I had the great pleasure of attending, along with so many members from the government, the 40th anniversary of the Australia India Business Council. Since it was created by Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Rajiv Gandhi, the AIBC has added focus and momentum to one of Australia's great international relationships. This is one built on friendship, respect and mutual benefit.

India, of course, has the largest population in the world, but it will also grow to be the third largest economy in the world over this decade. That is an extraordinary opportunity for us in our region. We're a Pacific nation, but we are also an Indian Ocean nation as well. Our trading relationship has been enhanced by the economic cooperation and trade agreement, and we're further drawn together through culture, education and, of course, the international language of cricket. One of my great honours has been my two visits—so far—to India as Prime Minister. I first visited India as a backpacker, way back in 1991—a long time ago. I travelled a bit differently in those days. I do want to say, if you want to understand India, get on a video bus or a train. It is a wonderful experience to see firsthand the warmth that is there. Likewise, I'll have the privilege of hosting Prime Minister Modi here soon—a privilege I look forward to repeating for the second time.

Like last time, Prime Minister Modi's visit will be made extraordinary by so many of the million-strong Indian Australian community. It is the largest growing migrant community in Australia. It's a community that has added so much through their love of this country, their spirit of generosity and through generations of hard work and aspiration that have strengthened our economy and enhanced our society. Not least, of course, are all those wonderful small businesses that have benefited from the Indian diaspora. What these great Australians have done in the process has strengthened the important links between this land that is their home and future and the land of their extraordinary heritage. I say to them: we're a better country because of you. My government will always stand up for you and your interests. We will reject any attempt to divide. It is definitely worth noting that we need to celebrate the contribution that Indian migrants have made and will continue to make to this country.

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, in a June 2025 secret meeting, the Minister for Home Affairs committed to find a way to return ISIS sympathisers to Australia. He said, 'The success of the first cohort arriving will be a great help to bring more to Australia.' At 5.30 pm today, another plane-load of ISIS sympathisers will touch down on Australian soil. Will the Prime Minister now admit this was all part of the Labor government's plan?

I just gave a speech about social cohesion. We are—

Honourable members interjecting—

I make three points. Point 1—I have nothing but contempt for anyone who has any sympathy for ISIS. I would hope everyone in this chamber would agree. It should not be an issue of partisanship. Point 2—the government has provided no assistance for these people. Point 3—any breaches of the law will mean that these people will face the full force of the law to the extent available upon the advice of the security agencies.

The Prime Minister has concluded his answer.

I seek to table a document. It's the notes from the Minister for Home Affairs' meeting with Save the Children, which refer to—

Honourable members interjecting—

Order! If the manager is seeking to table a document—

Government members interjecting—

I did. I said I'm seeking to table—because there was so much noise. It's about your notes.

Leave not granted.

A member can table a document, but resume your seat.

Yes, thank you.

That's no problem.

Honourable members interjecting—

If the manager wants to put it on record that he wanted to table—

That's why I said he was seeking to table a document—so it was on the record. But the manager wishes to go through this. He's done—

Government members interjecting—

They turned the microphone off, and there was noise. So I'm allowed to table the document.

Honourable members interjecting—

We'll deal with this. I understand where the manager is coming from. The microphone wasn't turned on because—

Honourable members interjecting—

Order! I understand where he's coming from, and I'm trying to help him out here.

In the first instance, the member has made a reflection on the Speaker in terms of the microphone being turned off. For every member of this House, if you don't have the call, your microphone is not on. If you decide to stand up and speak without having the call, your microphone is not going to be on. That's not a reflection on the Speaker. I would add, second to that, that the Speaker then put directly to the House, 'Is leave granted?'—for the document that you were requesting to be tabled to be tabled—and the answer was no.

The manager wishes to clarify this matter for the benefit of the House.

I wasn't making a reflection on the Speaker. It's not the Speaker who turns the microphone off; it's done by Broadcasting.

Government members interjecting—

No, but Broadcasting—

Order, members on my right! Let's give the manager a fair go.

As you know, Mr Speaker, from years of experience on this side, they shouldn't turn the microphone off until the Speaker has said, 'Resume'—

A government member interjecting

Then they shouldn't turn it off. He'd given me the call.

The member for Chisholm is now warned. Manager, you've made your point. The microphone is now on. You've made that point; it's on the record. You've asked to table a document; leave hasn't been granted. We'll now move on to the next question.

But I didn't get the chance to say what document it is. The document is the notes from Save the Children for their meeting with the Minister for Home Affairs—

You've made your point.

and that's an important aspect—

Resume your seat. For an abundance of clarity, it is up to the Speaker's discretion. It is not Broadcasting's call; it is my call as to when the call is assigned. But we have now dealt with it. The manager has been given a fair go. We will now move on. I just hope everyone understands the process now. It has been a good learning experience for everyone.

Patience is a virtue. My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. What action has the Albanese Labor government taken to help Australian women going through menopause and perimenopause? Why is it important to talk openly about this health issue, Minister?

Thank you to the member for Paterson for her open talk about so many health issues, including this, not just in the Hunter but right across Australia. She joined a large number of women from this side of the House yesterday to launch the first ever menopause and perimenopause information campaign. I wish the Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care could answer this question, under standing orders, because she has done the hard work to lead this campaign, and she led the launch yesterday with a collection of terrific women who, for years, have been campaigning to end the silence and break the taboo around perimenopause and menopause and, frankly, to give Australia's women the information that they need and deserve during this part of their lives.

A Senate inquiry last term found that women, frankly, don't get the support and the information that they need from the health system in this area. Remarkably, it revealed that medical degrees include only a few hours of training on menopause across five or six years of education. That's why we've ramped up training for existing doctors and health professionals. It's why we're updating the clinical guidelines to ensure that Australia's women get the best possible care and support. A new Medicare menopause health assessment item has already been used by more than 105,000 Australian women since it commenced last July.

The inquiry also highlighted the lack of new menopause hormone treatments for more than 20 years on the PBS, in spite of there being several innovative products on the market throughout that period. So, last year, the government finally added three widely used treatments to the PBS for the first time in two decades. These are treatments used by about 150,000 women every single year, and this is saving them up to $580 every year as well.

Yesterday, as I said, we responded to yet another recommendation from that terrific Senate inquiry to launch this national information campaign in order to break that silence and to help women entering perimenopause in particular recognise the symptoms and know where they can go for help and further information. Shelly Horton and Amanda Smyth were two of the terrific women who joined us yesterday and bravely told their stories to the media—stories of entering perimenopause and frankly not really knowing what was happening in their body and in their mind or where to get help. I want to thank them and all the other campaigners who were behind this campaign, because it will ensure that women—like Shelly, Amanda and so many like them—will finally get the information and the support that they deserve as soon as they need it.

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.

Documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.

I move:

That leave of absence until 2 July 2026 be given to the honourable member for Longman for personal reasons.

Question agreed to.

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Goldstein proposing—the Leader of the House, on a point of order?

Under the standing orders it's quite specific that, for a matter of public importance, a member of parliament can only nominate one matter. The member for Goldstein, today, has submitted two letters. In the first letter, he suggests that the debate on the issue he wants actually not be held today but be held in November of last year. That was a sitting day. It would appear, on the face of it, given that the standing order says that a member can only put forward a matter of public importance, if we are to agree with what the member for Goldstein wants, then, effectively, in the true tradition of them at the moment in looking back into the past, the issue he wants to discuss should be debated on 26 November 2025. That's what he's written.

Order, the member for Herbert! I will clear this up for the House. The Leader of the House is correct. There were two letters by the member for Goldstein. There was an incorrect date for the House, and in the interest of transparency the member for Goldstein issued another letter, and I have approved that. It was an innocent mistake. This does occur from time to time. I make mistakes all the time and I always own up to them. So the leader is correct, but we found a way forward.

It's my policy to try and allow debate to occur in the House, namely that I have received a letter from the honourable member for Goldstein proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Albanese government's bad faith 2026/2027 budget of broken promises, higher taxes and fewer homes that pulls the ladder of aspiration from Australians.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Let's talk about not understanding a budget. Let's talk about this prime minister, who during question time has dismissed the impact of his new taxes on young Australians. We have raised in this chamber the impact of the new taxes that this government is putting forward on Janet and her daughter with Down syndrome. On Monday, the Prime Minister turned around and said it didn't really apply to Janet or her daughter. Today, we asked a further question on the impact on Janet and her daughter of the government's new taxes, and he has again dismissed and denied this case. The reality is there is no-one who is going to be spared from the new taxes that this Albanese government is applying to Australian households, small businesses and those who are getting ahead. There's a simple reason: this whole budget is built on the basis of the betrayal of the Australian community.

When I'm saying that the government has betrayed the Australian community, when we say the Labor Party has lied to the Australian community, there should be an uproar—

No, Member for Goldstein, we're not having the—I'm not going to repeat your offence against the standing orders, but it's been the subject of long debate, and you will withdraw.

I'll withdraw and say there has been a deceit, a dishonesty, an untruthfulness, a misleading—

Thank you.

a deception of the Australian community. You would think there would be some sort of outrage from the Labor members in this chamber at the mere suggestion, but they know what happened 50 times over before the last election. They know, 50 times over, with red hot rage, what the Prime Minister insisted would never happen. And now they have introduced a budget, and they are all going to vote for it and become complicit in the deception, the untruthfulness, the deceit of the Australian community.

Think about it. Right now, so many Australian households are doing it tough. Australians have had their real wages fall backwards by three per cent under the Albanese government. An average couple with an average mortgage is $32,000 further behind under the Albanese government. There are small businesses that are desperately struggling. We have record small-business insolvencies in this nation. Eight go out of business every business hour of the day. We have a collapse in confidence, under the ANZ, Westpac and NAB surveys, and what Australian small businesses and Australians are looking for right now is a gasp of hope. But instead the Albanese government has given them a budget that they do not understand.

I talked about how they are taxing trusts on people with a disability. We know that the Treasurer has already called his own budget a confection, a misleading document. In his budget, he claims that, in the future years, the rate of inflation is going to be 2.5 per cent, but we know that he's released—

I know! We all question whether this is believable; I accept that. But that's okay; don't worry, Member for Nicholls: not even the Treasurer believes his own budget documents, because he's since released modelling assuming the impact of his capital gains taxes will be three per cent. We've seen consistent errors and failures on the part of this government because they don't understand the economy and they do not understand how Australians get ahead.

Just look at their own budget papers and what they show. Their own budget papers show—and they're sold on this deception—that it will help young Australians get ahead. Well, their own budget papers say that rents are going to increase under this budget. Think about that. I don't know about you, but, the last time I looked, most young Australians tend to rent before they go on to buy their first home. Those opposite are going to kneecap young Australians by increasing their rents. When they then go on and save for a deposit to buy their first home, those opposite will undermine and kneecap young Australians again by increasing the taxes that apply to capital gains. Then, if they dare do something as outrageous as work for sweat equity to get ahead—if they're going through employee share ownership schemes so they can advance their interests, accrue wealth and achieve that sense of aspiration that can only be achieved through work—the Albanese government has an answer. They're going to kneecap young Australians that are working to get ahead by taking up shares as part of their employment.

This morning, the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow minister for employment and industrial relations and I held a roundtable with people setting up startups and small businesses. They talked in particular about the role that share ownership schemes have in attracting the best talent to Australia to make sure that they can get the people they need to work in their businesses so that those businesses can grow and they can create the businesses that will not just be small businesses or startups today but grow into medium-sized enterprises and take on the world. But the Albanese government's answer to that is: let's take away the incentives for young Australians to get ahead. And that's before we even get to the great centrepiece of this budget.

The great centrepiece of this budget is housing. It's allegedly a budget that is focused on how it helps young Australians buy their first home. As I think I just heard the member for Fisher point out, what a joke! What a joke, because the reality is that the government's own budget papers themselves say that 35,000 fewer homes are going to be built. We can make a point about whether they tell the truth or not, but we know they certainly weren't deceiving the Australian people when they said they would lead to the building of fewer homes, and this is a problem. No matter how many new taxes they impose on Australians, whether it's a tax on aspiration, a tax on families, a tax on homes, a tax on rentals or a tax—and 'a tax' does sound an awful lot like 'attacks'; you could probably use them interchangeably—and an attack on the aspiration of the next generation of Australians, this government has no concern for the impact that its budget has on the future of the Australian economy.

What we saw revealed all of a sudden after the budget was finally handed down—because there are hundreds of pages of detail we needed to go through bit by bit—was this kernel or, as they call it in the video game industry, an Easter egg. An Easter egg is something that's designed to be hidden, but you can find it if you look hard enough. It's a common popular culture term. Well, there was an Easter egg of a 30 per cent death tax for those who have testamentary trusts. We've used examples in question time. We know the Prime Minister doesn't want to hear them. He doesn't want to see them. He wants to pretend they don't exist. But they exist to help families manage their estates and make sure that people can get ahead. Often, it's the most vulnerable whom they're designed to protect. I've used the example in question time and in this speech earlier already of Janet and her daughter with Down syndrome. What's the Prime Minister's solution? It is to pretend it doesn't exist?

The reality is that we know the Albanese government is seeking to kneecap the next generation of Australians to get ahead. So many Australians now have written to me identifying their concerns through our notthetax.com.au website, submitting their stories, including couples that have lost big chunks of their businesses. A couple in their late 50s wrote to me. They talked about how they've never claimed a single government payment—not one. They hold private health insurance and they paid $35,000 out of pocket for the wife's reconstructive breast cancer surgery because Medicare was grossly inefficient. They own one investment property, which is their financial security. They haven't increased the rent, but now they're going to get whacked with more and more taxes.

We have a constant stream of stories of Australians who are just trying to do the right thing and aspire to something greater for themselves and aspire to something greater for their children. But they're the ones who are targeted under this Labor government's budget. We all know the history: when Labor runs out of money, they come after yours. And that's the problem. The government has now fully revealed its character to the Australian community. They have fully revealed to the Australian community their priority, and it is not the Australian community. It is not a pathway where the next generation of Australians can get ahead. It is not a pathway where young Australians will look to the horizon with hope and dream big dreams, because all they can see on the horizon is more taxes from the Albanese government. It is a government that's not just not on their side; it's actively using the budget to kneecap their ambition, their aspiration and their future.

What we just heard then was a diatribe by a dying tribe—a diatribe by a dying tribe that went to the last election promising to raise income taxes on all Australians and to spend taxpayer dollars on long lunches for bosses. But the fact is that the Liberal Party has always been the party that has opposed significant reform in Australia.

Indeed, when we go back to 1942, when the Curtin government put in place uniform income taxes, the coalition were against it. Arthur Fadden said:

… taxpayers under 1,000 pounds pay too little tax and those over 1,000 pounds pay, relatively speaking, too much tax.

Even back then we had the coalition parties saying that low-income workers should pay more so high-income earners could pay less.

Then in 1986 we've got the fringe benefits tax put in place by the Hawke government, and we had Jim Carlton standing in the House of Representatives saying:

We are totally opposed to this new business tax, this new payroll tax, which will destroy investment and destroy employment.

And we had Albert Adermann, another coalition member, in 1986 saying:

… these inequitable taxation propositions must be reversed and abolished.

The party of long, taxpayer funded lunches for bosses has always had its snout in the public trough.

When the capital gains tax was introduced for the very first time and the debate came to this House in 1986, Jim Carlton said:

This is a day of infamy for this Government … We are opposed to this capital gains tax. We will vote against it here and in the Senate, and should the legislation pass we will repeal it on our return to office. Make no mistake: After our Bicentenary in Australia there will be no capital gains tax.

It's one of the fundamental pillars of revenue raising in this country, and the coalition were against it when it came in. David Hawker said of it in 1986:

… this tax is plain stupid …

Then when Labor, under the Keating government, put in place universal superannuation—superannuation not just for those who came from money but from those who aspired to money—Richard Alston said in 1992:

… we are still fundamentally opposed to the whole concept of compulsory superannuation.

And Noel Crichton-Browne said:

This legislation will impose an added cost, an added burden, on the employers of Australia, significantly reduce employment and, naturally, increase unemployment.

The fact is that they were dead wrong on all of those things. Uniform income tax, fringe benefits tax, capital gains tax and universal super are now fundamental pillars of the Australian taxation system. The coalition has long been on the wrong side of history. They are, after all, the party that opposed Medicare, native title and the Sex Discrimination Act.

What we are doing in this budget is reducing the tax burden for over 13 million workers, supporting 75,000 more homeowners into the housing market and delivering a productivity package which will boost growth in this country. That productivity package is absolutely fundamental to ensuring that dynamic businesses can thrive. The national competition policy reforms are estimated to add around $13 billion to the economy every year, which is an average benefit of $1,200 for every household every year. That involves cutting financial sector paperwork, reducing duplicative data requests, streamlining foreign investment and ensuring skilled workers don't need separate licences and fees to work across state borders.

Just to take one example which is so important to this government's housing supply agenda, before this budget, it was necessary for Australian builders to pay to access the construction rules to which they had to comply. This budget makes access to all standards referenced in Australian legislation free. That means that a builder can read the rule book without paying for the privilege. That'll save small trade businesses up to $1,600 a year in access fees.

We've seen productivity in the housing construction sector fall 12 per cent over the past three decades, even adjusting for the fact that modern houses are bigger and better quality. The Productivity Commission has estimated that new regulation can add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of new homes. This budget speeds up approvals and encourages the better use of modern construction methods. A new report out today by Danika Adams and Jonathon Mahon from CEDA on modern methods of construction finds that they can make houses that are 20 per cent cheaper and produced up to 50 per cent quicker. This budget will help the uptake of modern construction methods.

The budget will also cut the time it takes migrant trade workers to enter the workforce by up to six months. We've got a shortage out there of electricians, plumbers and carpenters. Faster recognition means more people earning and more homes being built. This is all part of the government's housing supply agenda.

Many small businesses will benefit from the $20,000 instant asset write-off being made permanent, which gives them more certainty when deciding whether to buy the ute, the coffee machine, the laptop or a new piece of machinery.

We are investing in the institutions that shape Australia. We're investing in individuals through free TAFE, better skills recognition, reforms to occupational licensing and the huge power of work the education minister is doing from early childhood right up to university. We're investing in infrastructure, building more homes, improving digital systems and supporting the transport and energy networks that connect people to opportunity.

Our changes to capital gains will ensure that the system is fairer, taking it back to the way in which it taxed real gains from 1985 through to 1999. For some asset classes, this is going to be better for investors than the current arrangement. If your gain is less than twice the inflation rate, you'll be better off as a result of Labor's approach of taxing real gains. We're taking away a distortion that arose from the combination of the 1936 change that introduced negative gearing and the 1999 change that put in place a distorting capital gains tax discount. That led to the housing market blowing up, pushing the price of homes outside the reach of regular Australians.

Those opposite are fighting for investors' fourth homes; we on this side of the House are fighting for first home buyers getting their first home and getting into the housing market. The coalition used to support this, back in the days of Menzies, when the coalition oversaw an increase in the homeownership rate in Australia. But, over the last couple of decades, we've seen a fall in the homeownership rate, and under the previous government they went years without even having a housing minister.

This budget invests $2 billion in enabling infrastructure, speeding up housing approvals and cutting red tape. It was a pleasure for me to join the Treasurer and the housing minister at Belconnen at a new development in my electorate just near the Belconnen owl that will see 315 new units, some of them social and affordable homes, improving housing affordability.

Our budget has been praised by many outside experts. Chris Richardson says:

There's a lot to like in this budget.

… what we haven't had is a budget that tackles some of the 'to-do' list that Treasury and the Productivity Commission have had sitting in their top drawers for many years.

This does that.

Aruna Sathanapally, the CEO of the Grattan Institute, says:

… the government delivered a broad and ambitious budget. It is meaningfully working its way through the to-do list for making Australia's economy more dynamic and thereby more resilient.

Ken Henry says:

Finally, a budget of economic reform.

… Jim Chalmers' budget takes a very big step. And it is a step in the right direction.

The CEO of Chartered Accountants ANZ, Ainslie van Onselen, says:

There are genuine positives in tonight's Budget, and we acknowledge the government's willingness to address some long-standing imbalances.

Luci Ellis, chief economist at Westpac and former assistant governor at the RBA, says:

I think the tax changes on negative gearing and capital gains are really significant. These are changes that everybody thought was politically impossible. … Suddenly a government has actually dealt with that. It's an intergenerational issue that they're addressing.

We on this side of the House are addressing longstanding tax reform and boosting housing supply. Those on that side of the House are continuing their tradition of opposing every significant reform in Australian history. They will go down again on the wrong side of history.

Breaking a promise can have dire consequences. When veterans around the country learnt that this Labor government had gone back on its commitment to provide allied health support and to provide psychosocial support, they were rightly concerned and angry. Since yesterday, I have been contacted by thousands and thousands of veterans who are worried. They're worried about what will happen when they fall over, they need a hand up and that hand is no longer there. If you need to see a psychologist and you have a shoulder injury, a knee injury or any other injury on top of that, then your $5,000 cap that this Labor government has put on will be capped out, and you won't be able to get the support you need.

The minister has said: 'You've just got to ring up. You've just got to go to the Department of Veterans' Affairs and put a request in, and you may be able to get some extra help and support.' A person at DVA told me that that could take several months. If you're in a dark place and the only bit of light that you can see is the treatment that you're getting and if that gets taken away, what happens next? You go into a worse place; you self-medicate. And some people may not be able to pull themselves out. This is the reality.

The member for McEwen can interject as much as he wants, but I've sat in that dark place, and we couldn't get pulled out of that place.

Member for McEwen and Member for Herbert, I'd appreciate it if you both stopped the interactions across the table.

Through the chair, Deputy Speaker Claydon, the member for McEwen has continually interjected about—

Excuse me, Member for Herbert. I have dealt with the issue. You do not need to school me on the standing orders.

I'm not. I'm going through the chair.

I have asked the member for McEwen to stop. I ask you to stop talking to him directly, which also encourages this.

Sure—encourages it. Okay. Thank you, Deputy Speaker—

Now don't—

I said 'okay'.

Well, just continue calmly in your speech. Members opposite will have times to respond to this. You are getting an opportunity to put your viewpoints now. I'd like it done respectfully on both sides.

It does not surprise me at all that members of the Labor Party, of the Labor government, would interject when I'm talking about veterans mental health and how bad it is out there, would try to defend capping veterans mental health support and allied health support and would get so angry about having it called out.

We saw it in here yesterday. We saw the Prime Minister get upset when he was called out on this issue, and we saw the Minister for Veterans' Affairs too. But, in the community, veterans are upset—and rightly so. When those in here go home after being a member of parliament, tonight or when back in their electorate they'll sleep easy; everything's fine. In the veteran community, we're taking phone calls from people that are doing it tough. We're taking phone calls from spouses and loved ones who can't find their loved one, their veteran, who's gone missing because they're having a bad time. We're the ones who are on the phone, not those members of parliament that sit across and want to interject, those who want to defend price capping for our veterans and who won't allow them to get the support they need. I think it's a disgrace. I think it's disgraceful.

Those members who think that the veterans affairs situation now is fine, with these price caps that are going to see people in a worse place, and who want to yell out and interject should be taking these phone calls from veterans who are in a dark place. You're not there. You're not on the ground. You're not doing it for real. The number of people that are continually ringing me and other veterans around the country and complaining about this disgraceful act from this Labor government—it is not just a broken promise. It's not just deceitful. It is a life-changing, life-altering disgrace.

I am so ashamed that we've had a minister for veterans affairs try to defend price capping by saying it was in the royal commission report. It wasn't. It should not be there. They should redo it, because veterans deserve better than this Labor government.

I want to also thank our very hardworking Broadcasting staff here in the House of Representatives. I find it quite unfortunate that someone who does seek to become Treasurer of this country and who brought this motion to the House today is seemingly promoting misinformation and appears quite ignorant of the history of his own party. I want to thank the assistant minister for providing some really important historical context for this debate today. If anyone is operating in bad faith when it comes to aspiration, it is those opposite right now. Our budget is all about helping with the cost of living, strengthening Medicare and giving Australians a fair go at buying their own home. We are encouraging aspiration and opportunity.

Under those opposite, Australians suffered three terms of government without a housing minister, and, over nine years, less than 400 social and affordable homes were built—only 373, to be precise. Governments are not elected to protect broken systems. Governments are elected to respond to the challenges that are in front of them, and Australians know the housing market is not working fairly. Young Australians know it, renters know it, families trying to save for a deposit know it, my community knows it, and this side of the House knows it. Right now, first home buyers are being priced out of the market. They're being priced out by those who are backed by tax breaks, and the current combination of negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount has been giving investors an advantage over Australians who are really trying very hard to buy a home to live in for themselves and their families—to build a good life.

Our government, with the Minister for Housing, is acting responsibly and trying to help Australians put a roof over their heads—to have a dream for themselves and their families for the future. We're limiting negative gearing for future investments so that it can only be used for new builds that add to housing supply. We're hearing a lot of misinformation, frankly, from those opposite. We are actually trying to make the system fairer, to put more homes into our communities so that people can live near their families, near their loved ones and near their jobs; can start small businesses; and can dream of a future. Investors will still be able to access concessions by investing in new housing, adding supply to the market. We know that will mean more houses will be built, there will be more supply in the market, and, again, there will be more opportunity for younger Australians to finally get a fair opportunity at homeownership.

We're not interested in protecting a system that hasn't been working for people. Aspiration in this country should belong to everybody. It should belong to a teacher, it should belong to a nurse, it should belong to an apprentice, and it should belong to a small-business owner. We're already delivering five per cent deposits for first home buyers, and we're building 100,000 homes set aside specifically for them. We have 415 Australians in my community of Chisholm who've bought a house under this scheme, and I congratulate them on buying their first home. I do wonder what those opposite—what the member for Goldstein—would have to say to those people who've been able to use our government's policies to set themselves and their families up for the future.

We're also undertaking Australia's biggest ever housing build—1.2 million homes, including 55,000 social and affordable homes. We're getting those homes built faster by funding the essential infrastructure people need while training more tradies through free TAFE and supporting apprentices with a $10,000 incentive. We are not pulling away the ladder of aspiration like those opposite seek to do. We're extending aspiration to more people. We're delivering real relief for working Australians right now, including with more tax cuts from 1 July this year for every single Australian taxpayer.

We're strengthening Medicare; we're making free urgent care clinics a permanent part of Medicare. When we were elected, we said we wanted to build a better future to ensure that no-one was held back or left behind, and, through this budget, we are continuing that important work.

Before I start highlighting the litany of promises broken by the Albanese Labor government, I would like to offer my big thanks to the member for Herbert, Phillip Thompson, for standing up for the veterans. This budget would be the cruellest budget that I've ever seen. Those opposite want to cap veterans allied health at $5,000. It's an absolute disgrace. These fine men and women have put their bodies on the line. They put their lives on the line. They put their minds on the line for this country so we can enjoy the fantastic life that we have. These freedoms and liberties, they've been hard-fought for by our Defence Force personnel. The very least that those opposite can do is support these veterans when they come home. I'm concerned. I'm very concerned that, if some of these veterans have got to make a choice between physiotherapy, podiatry and potentially psychology—I don't want to see one more veteran suicide. That would be an absolute disgrace.

When I first got elected in 2022, one of my election commitments was to get a wellness centre, an RSL in Mackay. Mackay is home to about 4,000 people, and they do not have one. Fortunately, the Labor government got elected, and that was quashed. To make it worse, The Oasis in Townsville, another place in my electorate that was looking after veterans, has had their funding cut.

But let's just look at the promises. 'No new taxes' was taken to the election. But this Labor government's budget has just brought down a list of broken promises. This budget is a high taxing, high spending budget only a Labor government could be proud of. The broken promises include the promise was no change to negative gearing, capital gains tax and trusts, but here we are. When the government, when Mr Albanese himself, our prime minister, the Prime Minister of this great country, was asked are there going to be any changes, he said, 'How hard is it' 50 times. Well, I can tell you, it is very hard and people are doing it tough.

The whole budget is anti-aspiration. It's an assault on young people. For negative gearing, when changes are made, an investor can't then claim the interest as a tax deduction. They've got to get their money somewhere else, so they'll put their rent up. That is going to make it harder for the young people then to afford, once they pay their rent, the deposit. It's ridiculous. The capital gains tax discount again—younger people who can't get into the housing market and who are trying to save for a house deposit are buying shares and other investment streams. Now the capital gains tax discount is going to be taken away from them. It's going to be harder for them. That's just the cold reality of investing and how it is. The Albanese Labor government is taking away all the wealth creation tools that are being used by my generation. It's an assault on the youth.

And in this budget, mining investment falls to zero by 2028. Mining is our biggest export. Iron ore!

The things we sell overseas.

Coal! Those thingies. That's right. We heard that from the Treasurer. That's our biggest export, iron ore. Then we've got coal and gas, and what about critical minerals that we hear the minister quite often talking about? We need the critical minerals. In my electorate, we need mining. In Australia, we need mining. Without mining, who's going to pay for all the hospitals and schools?

Who's going to keep the lights on?

Who's going to keep the lights on? Exactly right, member for Riverina. Let's also look at the death tax. Don't forget the death duty by stealth. Oh, that's right. In this budget, buried deep down, it's called an inheritance tax. Well done to those opposite. While we're looking at broken promises what about the famous 275? Remember that promise in 2022? If you vote Labor, you will end up $275 better off on your power bill. What we need here is for the Prime Minister to come into this chamber, look the Australian public in the eye and say, 'I told an untruth.'

I think we've just had a confirmation of the coalition's long-distance relationship with reality. If they are seriously pretending that the old settings were producing broadly fair and sustainable outcomes for the young people of Australia, they're living in la-la land and, once again, proving themselves to be the group serving nothing and serving no-one as a coalition. It's no wonder their political future is increasingly in the abyss, when their only vision for tomorrow is tax distortions that have, for 25 years, made it harder for the next generation to get a home of their own. It plainly ignores the fact that, for my generation and those who are younger, getting into a house has been a whole lot harder than it was for our parents' and grandparents' generations.

It's not that the investors have done anything wrong. This was by bad design. In 1999, the Howard government came in and said, 'Let's introduce new CGT settings. That'll help increase the number of shareholders.' Well, it didn't. What it did was create, with negative gearing settings, a magic combination that made investing capital in existing housing simply irresistible. So, of course, people made the rational decision to invest in equal housing. But what we saw was a huge injection of capital into the existing housing market, producing no productivity whatsoever, increasing debt and making the dream of a home to live in all but impossible for working Australians everywhere across the country. Now we've got Sydney as the second-least affordable city in the world—second only to Hong Kong. We've got housing in Adelaide approaching levels of affordability that are greater than those of Paris, London and New York. That's where we're at. These are distortionary; we know they're distortionary.

The member for Goldstein's motion talks about bad faith. That is when you hold one position but secretly believe another. Of course, the member for Goldstein's not-so-best-selling book reveals he understands the reality that those systems have been screwing the next generation and have been distorting the tax system to make it harder and harder for people to actually achieve the aspiration of a home to live in.

When I go out to Deakin and I speak to young people about their aspirations, they don't talk about discretionary trusts, they don't talk about getting into their fourth investment property, they don't talk about the niche issues they're trying to use as an excuse for the preservation of a distorted tax system they know not to be working for young Australians. To suggest that young Australians have been the big winners out of the current tax system is beyond absurd. If they're so out of touch as to actually believe that, they should consider early retirement as soon as possible. While the Nationals have been calling for an immediate election as a referendum, I suspect their Liberal colleagues would not be calling for the same, otherwise it would be 'so long, farewell' to the Liberal Party, because their identity crisis is yet to culminate in any sense of who they are or what they stand for.

This Labor government is about making the aspiration of homeownership actually achievable for the next generation—people who have done everything right. They went to university, got a good job, got on a good wicket, but still, despite doing everything right, they have no chance of successfully bidding in an auction because they're competing against investors who are effectively subsidised by their own tax dollars. They've got the taxpayer behind them because they know that, if interest rates go up, half of that's going to be deductible. So we even see monetary policy blunted by the fact that a whole lot of interest on mortgages charged to investors is not creating the same amount of pressure as interest charged to those who are owner-occupiers, who cop the full whack of every single interest rate increase—not true, because of the current settings of negative gearing for investors.

We've seen the distortion of our entire tax system over a number of years, and what is the Liberal Party's plan? They say, 'I know what we'll do. We'll go back. We'll ignore every reality of this tax system and decide that it was good enough for young people. They're happy.' They'll find a couple of examples of some angry people. It's the idea that, if some people don't benefit from the removal of a tax concession, the whole tax concession must be preserved at all times and that all tax reform is impossible. What utter nonsense! We have got a generational opportunity to actually make the dream of homeownership possible again for the next generation, and we are committed to achieving just that. Things have to change. It is not the young people of Australia who have been benefiting from these negative gearing and CGT settings, and the frankly absurd sideshow that we're seeing from the coalition shows that they simply don't get it.

But, of course, in a lot of these speeches, they haven't even been talking about housing. They were outraged about it for the first couple of days after the budget. Then they realised young people weren't falling for it. They could send all the AI messages in the world, but young people know they have been screwed. We have spent most of our adolescence, our 20s and our early 30s knowing that we were being screwed. We went to auctions with our friends and saw them outbid time and time again by investors. The system simply isn't fair. We're privileging some forms of income over others.

This is a simple budget. It says: a buck is a buck is a buck and we're going to have closer-to-equal taxation, whether you make your income from owning things or from working. It is entirely fair. We're maintaining an adaptation of CGT to ensure that it reflects inflation so that, essentially, you are tax based on actual profit, not on any distortions from inflation.

This budget reveals the true nature of this government. It is a budget of broken promises, lower living standards and fewer homes built. It is in their own budget papers. But, more than that, it is an ideological budget. It is frighteningly socialist. These numbers speak for themselves. Because Labor can't manage money, we face a decade of deficits worth $150 billion. We are looking at debt of $1.25 trillion. That's $1,250 billion of debt. Every Australian will pay this. The yearly interest bill alone will hit $42 billion. That is $80,000 every single minute. Instead of fixing the problem, Labor is trying to balance the books by burdening the economy with $77 billion of extra taxes. Government spending is now at its highest level in 40 years.

Crippling inflation is destroying regional households. It is forecast to hit five per cent. That is higher than in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. Under Labor, energy is up 40 per cent and rent is up 23 per cent. Food, health insurance—they're all surging. Australians with a typical mortgage are $32,000 a year worse off. Real wages are down three per cent. Things are spiralling. If you feel poorer, it is because you are poorer. For people in rural and remote Australia, this means less money for groceries that are already overpriced compared to cities and towns. It means less money for school fees, sports supplies, school uniforms and school sports. It means less money for fuel, making trips to the doctor or dentist in town all the more difficult. It is an unfair burden.

To make matters worse, it is now abundantly clear that Labor has lost control of immigration. By the end of their first two terms, they will have brought in two million migrants, overshooting their own targets while failing to build the homes we need to keep pace with this population growth. Their own budget confirms that their new housing taxes will mean 35,000 fewer homes over the next decade. It is really baffling reading. One of the most disturbing parts of this budget is its demographic and age based welfare. They are pulling the ladder up on younger Australians and small business owners who are simply trying to get ahead and taxing older generations who have worked hard and saved.

They can't manage money, so they are blaming boomers and taking money from the business people who are our regional economies. That is not reform; it is an assault on aspiration. It is a tax on savings. It is a tax on getting ahead. It is a broken promise. Labor is shutting the door on young people who are already locked out of the housing market and acting like they're Robin Hood. We oppose the housing tax. We oppose the tax on family savings. We oppose the tax on trusts, which will smash—

There's not much trust in this budget.

There's not much trust in this budget at all. It will smash small-business owners. You do not fix bad policy with tweaks; you fix bad policy with an axe. We will axe the tax.

Labor mistruths, Labor porkies, Labor broken promises or Labor incompetence—call it what you like. The Australian people have lost trust in this Labor government. The people I speak with are hoping that these taxes, these rising costs and these attacks on small businesses are merely incompetence, because, if it's not incompetence, it truly is evil. In a video circulating online, the Prime Minister said to a young couple:

Don't let the little details worry you, freak you out.

Well, Prime Minister, consider Australians pretty freaked out. The goalposts keep changing. The economy is a bin fire. Stop the war on aspiration. Axe the taxes, and stop the lies.

Withdraw that comment.

I withdraw.

I'm not going to continue to tell members of the opposition to withdraw. I will be removing you from the chamber the next time it happens in this debate. Member for Fisher, if you're coming up next, listen to that.

If you stand still, you don't move forward. Things stay where they are, and opportunity passes you by. If you never step out of your comfort zone, never take a risk, never seek to challenge, then things will stay the same. Taking risks and managing risks is all about navigating uncertainty. It goes beyond just avoiding the risk, to balance what could go wrong, the downside, with what could go right, the upside. What has been lost in the chaos of unbalanced reporting, scare campaigns and dedicated social media crusades deliberately designed to spread misinformation is that this budget contains many positives for Australian individuals and businesses. There are many things that could go right, but, if you don't take the risk, if you don't look for these opportunities, you will never know what could go right. In not knowing this, you can't move forward.

This government is prepared to take risks in order to move forward. The status quo, particularly with certain tax settings and housing, is not working. Doing nothing, keeping things the same, will mean that nothing will change. So the government asked, 'What could go right if we undertake reform and take some political heat in the name of trying to move forward?' So what could go right with this budget? Well, 75,000 first home owners could be in their own home within the decade. What else? Businesses could benefit from loss-carry-back provisions, the $20,000 instant asset write-off, regulatory reforms resulting in a reduction in compliance costs, and tax incentives for investment by venture capital. Businesses will also continue to benefit from the existing four capital gains tax exemptions.

And right now, across Australia, genuine and meaningful consultation is taking place—as it should—with the business community about some of the more controversial features of the proposed capital gains tax reform so we can understand the required settings for things to go right. We understand and we want to create an environment which acknowledges and rewards risk taking, particularly by small business, who so often provide meaningful employment to people—who then pay income tax—and who provide the products and services our community needs and demands. That is why genuine, meaningful consultation is happening, and I would like to thank the 20 or so businesses who joined me at my Sturt small-business forum last Thursday to do just that. The discussion was productive, honest and professional, and it resulted in meaningful feedback. Conversations of this nature are going on around the country.

Now, let's talk about promises. When we came to government, we promised to cut income taxes. That promise has been delivered, with more delivery to come. We promised to make medicines cheaper. That has been delivered, with PBS scripts now costing just $25—or $7.70, frozen until the end of the decade, for concession card holders. We promised to increase bulk-billing rates. This has been delivered in spades, including in my electorate of Sturt, where the number of fully bulk-billed practices has doubled this year to 22. We promised to reduce student debt, and this has been delivered, with thousands of students receiving a 20 per cent cut to the cost of their education. We promised more urgent care clinics across the country and we have delivered them, including one on the Norwood parade in Sturt, which is now a permanent feature of the healthcare system. We promised free TAFE and we have delivered free TAFE, with thousands of Australians answering the call to obtain a qualification in critical industries, such as nursing, early childhood education, and building and construction. We promised paid prac and we have delivered $300 a week to students out on unpaid, lengthy teaching, nursing and social work placements. We promised to make it easier to buy a home, we have delivered and we will continue to deliver, with thousands of young Australians taking the keys to their first home, including just under 500 in my electorate. We're talking about promises; this government made them and has kept them.

Bold reform means taking risks and asking what could go right as well as examining what the downside might be. That's important. We'll continue to take risks to deliver for the Australian people because we want and need to move forward, and that is the difference between the progressive and conservative sides of politics.

():  I'll be on my best behaviour—I promise, Madam Deputy Speaker!

Over the last four years of this government, we have seen the sharpest decline of living standards across the OECD and we've seen the highest rate of government expenditure in 40 years, outside the pandemic. I don't need to stand here and tell this to members on both sides of the House, because we're all hearing it. When we get out into our electorates, we're all hearing how much our constituents are doing it tough.

But, since the budget was released a couple of weeks ago, small businesses have been coming to me and telling me how fearful they are about the changes that are being made by this government. This government has effectively brought in these changes to increase tax when they had no mandate to do so. At least Bill Shorten, as the Leader of the Opposition at the 2019 election, had the courage to take these changes to the people. He was beaten because the Australian public said: 'Thanks, but no thanks. We're not interested.' But the Labor Party realised that, if they took these policy changes to the election, then the same thing would happen to them, so they didn't do it. These are tax changes by stealth. This is surreptitiousness. There's no other way to describe it.

The Prime Minister and the Treasurer had been asked time and time again whether there were going to be any changes to the tax of capital gains, negative gearing or trusts, and they said, 'No, that's not part of our policy.' We know that it was part of the Labor Party's policy. It has been part of their policy, since the 1980s, to make these changes. But with this thumping majority that Australians have given this government, with 94 seats, this government wasn't going to waste it.

To those members opposite who are sitting on wafer-thin margins—a little Monty Python joke there—you should be very worried about your seats because you know that Australians in your electorates are coming after you because they are very, very angry. They are angry because this government is driving up the cost of everything—rents, mortgages. We've seen 15 interest rate rises under this government. The average Australian mortgage holder is now paying $29,000 a year more on their mortgage than they were under the coalition, and that's after tax. Just think about that—$29,000 more.

Those members opposite talk about consultation and how this is all very usual and normal for a government to bring out a budget and then consult afterwards. Why didn't they consult before? Why didn't this government go out and speak to stakeholders about these changes before the budget was announced? I'll tell you why. It's because those members opposite lack courage. They lack the courage of Bill Shorten, because they knew that, if they took these changes to the Australian people, the Australian people would say, 'Thanks, but no thanks.' So they didn't.

As the father of a child who lives with disabilities, I can tell you one of my fears, and one of the fears of just about every parent who has a child who lives with disabilities, is: What's going to happen to my adult child—hopefully—after I go? How are they going to be looked after? That is one part of the importance of trusts, and now this government is going to change the way that those trusts are dealt with.

One thing that seems to have escaped the net here is the pre-CGT assets. Prior to 19 September 1985, any assets you owned were pre CGT. Now, as a result of this budget, from 1 July 2027 those assets, even if they were purchased pre 19 September 1985, are going to be taxed at a marginal rate. This is a breach of trust. It's a breach of faith, and this government will pay— (Time expired)

The 2026-27 budget, delivered by the Treasurer a fortnight ago, was focused on reform and resilience across our economy and our society. There has been plenty of commentary since budget night, and this MPI by the shadow Treasurer today is a perfect example of the commentary that is distorting the reality of the budget handed down by this government.

Contrary to what the topic of this MPI would have you believe, this government is delivering a package of tax cuts that will benefit all Australian workers, including in my great electorate of Banks. These measures include income tax cuts for every taxpayer—some of which have been delivered already—with a further cut that will come into effect in just 36 days and another one on 1 July 2027. The $1,000 instant tax deduction has been delivered as promised and will make tax time simpler and taxes lower for 6.2 million Australian taxpayers from the 2027-28 financial year, enabling more Australians to keep more of what they earn. It is remarkable that, despite the combined benefit for an average Australian earner being up to $2,816 as a result of these changes, those opposite still try and spin that this budget is increasing the tax burden. I guess we will have to wait and see if those opposite will vote against tax cuts for Australians yet again later this week.

The author of the MPI would also have you believe that the budget delivers fewer homes—a demonstration that they have failed to read the budget papers in any detail. In fact, those opposite have been talking about what is in the budget papers in just about every single MPI and member statement since the budget while omitting key components. They never seem to mention the 65,000 new homes supported under the new Local Infrastructure Fund. They also never seem to mention the $47 billion going into the Homes for Australia Plan. And they don't mention the 660,000 homes built since this Labor government came in, nor the fact that commencements are up 26 per cent compared to this time last year. It could not be much clearer: this is a government that is committed to building more homes for Australians and getting on with the job of rectifying the shocking absence of investment by the former Liberal government.

There is plenty more in this budget. We're building on our record investment in Medicare, keeping our promise to make medicines cheaper, delivering record hospital funding and making urgent care clinics that so many of us are benefiting from across this country a permanent part of our healthcare system. We are also investing in public schools, with an extra $20 billion over the next 10 years to deliver on our Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, and our reforms to help students catch up and keep up at every school in this country.

We've heard a lot about aspiration and broken promises from those opposite. This rings incredibly hollow from a party that made a whole raft of promises about budget management and surpluses and reducing debt, but then broke all of them. I've spoken to many of my constituents about the budget directly at train stations, while doorknocking and on the phone in response to correspondence since the budget, and I'll keep doing so, because this is a transformational budget. It is a budget that fixes the system that even the shadow treasurer has admitted in the past is broken and stacked against first home buyers. This budget is supporting aspiration. It is making sure that first home owners are given every chance to succeed.

The time for this discussion has now concluded.

In 2023, the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability delivered its final report after four years of hearings. More than 8,000 people gave evidence to the commission. What it documented was not a story of a compassionate nation falling short in isolated cases; it was a systemic account of how Australians with disability had been, in the commission's own words, too often treated as though their lives mattered less. It heard from people who had been restrained, secluded and medicated into compliance. It heard from families who had fought year after year for basic supports that should never have been in question. It heard from people with disability who said with striking consistency that the NDIS, for all its imperfections, had been the first time the system that had looked at them and said, 'Your life has value and your needs are worth meeting.' That testimony is the foundation on which this bill rests. That foundation is the voices of people with disability who told a royal commission what it means to have a scheme that works and what it costs in human terms when it does not.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 is built on Labor values of fairness, sustainability and an unshakeable belief that Australians with permanent and significant disability deserve more than good intentions and motherhood statements. They deserve a scheme that will be there for them in 10, 20 or even 30 years time.

The truth of what the coalition left behind explains everything about why this bill is needed and is before the House today. For nearly a decade, the coalition presided over an NDIS in crisis—a crisis that was manufactured by them. They were handed one of the most significant social reforms in Australia's history, and then they ran it into the ground. The Gillard Labor government built the NDIS on a simple moral conviction that disability should not determine destiny. The coalition inherited that conviction and treated it as an inconvenience.

Under those opposite, NDIS annual growth cost reached 22 per cent—not 22 per cent over a decade, but 22 per cent per year—with no coherent plan to slow it, with no serious action on fraud, with no credible workforce strategy and, crucially, no accountability for the billions of dollars flowing to a largely unregistered, largely unregulated provider market. That uncontrolled growth meant the scheme was increasingly captured by bad actors—providers charging for services not delivered and support workers with no qualifications and no checks. It gave rise to complex financial arrangements designed to extract money from vulnerable people rather than support them. The fraud was not at the margins. According to the National Disability Insurance Agency's own assessments, billions of dollars were lost to rorting and waste.

Yet—this is the part that should shame every member opposite—the coalition did almost nothing. They commissioned reviews that they did not implement. They announced crackdowns that they did not enforce. They stood in this chamber and spoke of their commitment to people with disability while the scheme they were responsible for was being looted in broad daylight. Meanwhile, participants, people in my community, were stuck in planning processes that took months. They were fighting decisions that defied reason and receiving supports that often fell far short of what they needed.

The coalition talked about the NDIS. Labor built it. And now, with this bill, Labor is securing it for every Australian who will need it in the decades to come. When we came to government in May 2022, we made an immediate commitment that we would fix the NDIS—not dismantle it, not hollow it out, but fix it—because it is too important and the Australians who depend on it are too important to do anything less.

We established the independent review into the NDIS, led by Bruce Bonyhady and Lisa Paul. We commissioned it not as a stalling exercise but as a genuine reckoning, an honest look at what had gone wrong and what needed to change. The review consulted with thousands of people with disability and their families, carers, providers and advocates. Its findings were sobering, but its recommendations were clear. At the time the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability delivered its final report, a devastating account of systemic failures that had gone unaddressed for far too long, we committed to acting on its recommendations, and we are.

We have already brought NDIS cost growth down from 22 per cent to 10 per cent. This is the result of serious, deliberate work, cracking down on fraud, improving processes, strengthening compliance and beginning the hard work of building a better regulated market. At the January 2026 National Cabinet meeting, all governments agreed to work together to bring growth down further to between five and six per cent or lower. This is an historic commitment because it means the states and territories, for the first time ever, are genuinely invested partners in the NDIS's long-term success.

We have done all of this while simultaneously delivering the largest investment in foundational disability supports in Australia's history. It's because we understand that the NDIS works best when it sits within a broader ecosystem of community services and early intervention. We are building that ecosystem. The coalition never bothered to try.

I want to dwell on something that sometimes gets lost in the technical debate about the scheme's sustainability: securing the NDIS is cost-of-living relief. It is also good for our economy. When the NDIS works as it should, as it is intended, it does not just support the person with a disability. It means a mum can return to work because her child support is funded. It means a carer does not have to choose between their own health and their parent's dignity. It means a family does not spend their savings, their superannuation or their retirement on care costs that should be covered by the scheme that they have paid taxes into their entire working lives.

The cost pressures Australian families are facing right now are tough. We know this, and that is why our government has been relentless in delivering real cost-of-living relief, like cheaper medicines, more bulk-billing and tax cuts for every Australian taxpayer. The NDIS is part of that broader relief package. A scheme that works for the people who rely on it, that is funded sustainably for its long-term future and that delivers quality, tailored support is cost-of-living relief for tens of thousands of families across this country who are holding things together because the NDIS is there for them. But a scheme that collapses under unsustainable growth or, worse, a scheme that is gutted by future governments because the politics of fiscal repair demand it would be a catastrophe not just for people with disability but for every family that depends on it. That is why this bill matters. It is our responsibility to ensure the future of the NDIS is one grounded in care and support and one that is sustainable.

This bill is the next major step in our plan to secure the NDIS for future generations. It has been carefully constructed and is evidence based. It has been developed in close consultation with people with disability and the disability community because Labor understands that nothing about the NDIS should be done without consulting those who rely on it.

The bill addresses five key areas. The first is access and eligibility. The bill clarifies the criteria by which Australians can access the NDIS, restoring the scheme to its original purpose: supporting people with permanent and significant disability. This is not about restricting the scheme; it is about ensuring that the people who need it most can always access it, and that the scheme is not drawn into areas better served by other parts of our health and social services system. Clearer eligibility means fairer outcomes.

The second is tackling fraud and rorting. The bill strengthens provider registration requirements, increases compliance powers and establishes stronger accountability frameworks across the market. We are sending a clear message here: if you are in the NDIS to exploit vulnerable people and extract public money, this government will find you, and you will face the consequences. The fraud and rorting that flourished under those opposite ends here.

The third is planning. The bill introduces new framework planning arrangements that put participants at the centre of their own plans—plans that are more responsive and more focused on outcomes. Planning should not be an ordeal; it should be a genuine conversation about what a person needs to live a good life. My office has heard from people in my community on the NDIS that often contact us because the red tape is just too much to juggle along with caring arrangements, and, for many, they just reach their limit. This bill seeks to make their lives easier.

The fourth is governance and pricing. The bill improves the governance arrangements around pricing decisions within the scheme, ensuring that pricing is transparent, fair and drives quality. Providers who deliver excellent support should be rewarded; providers who deliver poor support at inflated prices should not be.

The fifth is transitional arrangements. The bill includes careful provisions to manage the transition to a new framework, protecting existing participants and ensuring no-one falls through the cracks as reforms are implemented. Despite what others have said, we are not pulling the rug out from under anyone. We are building a stronger floor.

I want to return to where I began—to the royal commission, to more than 8,000 people who gave their testimony, often at great personal cost, because they wanted to make a difference. That commission found systemic failures across governance, across institutions and across decades, but it also found something else: Australians with disability are not asking for sympathy, they are simply asking for a system that works, one that is there when they need it, with support that is real, not promised, and a future that they can plan for.

Labor built the NDIS. We built it because we believe in a country where the circumstances of your birth, including the presence of disability, should not determine or limit your life. We built it because we believe in an Australia that is grounded in fairness and kindness, and we are reforming the NDIS now, with this bill, because that belief carries with it responsibility not just to build something good but also to protect it, to make sure it lasts, to make sure it is still there, stronger, better and fairer for the next generation of Australians who will need it. The coalition had their chance to be stewards of this scheme. They squandered it. This government will not make the same mistake. We are making the tough decisions that the moment demands and with the care that Australians with disability deserve. I commend the bill to the House.

I rise to speak on this bill to reform the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The NDIS is not just another government program. It is critical social infrastructure. It keeps vulnerable Australians safe, enables community participation and strengthens our social fabric. It is also one of the issues that I hear most about from my constituents—families, carers and participants in my electorate rely on the NDIS every single day. Unfortunately, many of them are struggling to navigate it. Yet, despite these challenges, Australians overwhelmingly value the NDIS. It reflects something fundamental, I think, about who we are—that Australia does not leave people behind.

Some reform is absolutely justified. The scheme is not operating as it was originally intended. It's designed to support people with significant and permanent disabilities. Over time, it has expanded beyond that remit. If we do nothing, we do risk undermining the financial sustainability and the social licence of the scheme, and that would be a bad outcome for current participants and for future generations who will depend on it. So the government is right to act to place the NDIS on a more sustainable footing and to refocus it on those with the greatest and most enduring needs. But acknowledging the need for reform does not mean we accept every aspect of how these reforms are being designed or implemented. It does not mean the government should sacrifice what makes the NDIS so valuable in the first place in the name of the cost savings.

The question for this parliament is how to reform the NDIS fairly, transparently and without causing harm. Along with my colleagues on the crossbench, I share significant concerns about some of the specific reforms proposed in the bill. We're proposing a number of amendments to this bill, derived through consultation with NDIS participants, experts and disability organisations. The member for Kooyong, Dr Monique Ryan, has demonstrated particular leadership on this issue, and I commend her for her work. I urge the government to work constructively to implement these changes.

One of the central concerns with this bill is that it risks shifting costs rather than addressing them. Reducing the number of people on the NDIS does not reduce the level of disability in Australia. It does not remove people's needs. It simply transfers those needs elsewhere—onto families, onto the health system and onto the state and territory governments. We're told that about 160,000 people may be removed from the scheme, but those individuals don't simply disappear because of changes to NDIS eligibility rules. They still require support. Now, it may well be appropriate for some people to receive that support through other less costly and more efficient systems. But these systems, these foundational supports, must actually exist, and there are real doubts about whether that is currently the case.

Over the past decade, many state based disability services were scaled back or dismantled after being replaced by the NDIS. Now we are asking those same systems to absorb thousands of people once again. Stakeholders including peak body People with Disability Australia have raised serious concerns that states and territories are not equipped to do this. There has been an announcement of joint funding from state and federal governments to help rebuild this capacity, but there's still very little detail about how it will operate, whether it's sufficient or how responsibilities will be formally shared. We cannot simply handball people from one system to another and hope for the best. These are not administrative units. These are Australians with complex needs deserving dignity and with lives which will be directly affected by the decisions that we make in this place. The government needs to ensure that the foundational supports and the services outside of the NDIS are fully designed, fully funded and operational before people are transitioned out of the scheme. In other words, it must ensure that no-one falls through the cracks.

Another concern is the level of transparency around the reforms. For such significant changes to a scheme of this scale, there has to be adequate engagement with the disability community and sufficient detail provided to stakeholders. Disability representative organisations have reported difficulty securing briefings, and there are reports of confusion and strain within the department itself.

At the same time, the pace of change is ambitious. Reforming a system as complex as the NDIS is not simply a matter of legislation. It requires careful design, coordination across jurisdictions and substantial administrative capacity. The government is attempting to do this, but it must not go too fast and risk sacrificing on these important considerations. The chaotic announcement and the continual delays in relation to the Thriving Kids program show just how difficult it is to hear and consider the range of experiences and perspectives that could help better shape a future system. For these reasons, I'm proposing an amendment to improve and ensure consultation on proposed legislative reforms to uphold the foundational mantra 'nothing about us without us'.

The bill leaves critical matters, including eligibility criteria, functional capacity assessments, assessment methodology and funding rules, to the future National Disability Insurance Scheme rules. Those rules will determine who can access the scheme and what supports they receive, yet the bill imposes no minimum consultation requirements before they are made—while simultaneously granting the minister significant new authority to control scheme costs, restructure participant planning and define support eligibility. This gap exists despite the independent NDIS Review calling for deep public consultation on the proposed reforms. My amendment fills that gap by requiring that the minister publish exposure drafts, consult with people in the disability community and representative organisations over a minimum of 28 days and publish both a summary of the feedback received and a disability impact statement before making rules of this kind. I sincerely hope the government will respond constructively and implement this amendment.

Beyond questions of funding and eligibility, we must also address the everyday experience of participants in the scheme, and this is where I hear the most frustration from my constituents. The NDIS has developed into a bureaucracy that's too rigid, that's too complex and that too often lacks common sense. People encounter administrative errors, such as incorrect plans, missing supports and simple clerical mistakes. These should be solved simply, but the system does not provide a straightforward way to fix them. Instead people are pushed into lengthy, costly and very stressful review processes. In too many cases, participants are forced to take matters to the Administrative Review Tribunal simply to correct what should have been basic administrative issues.

This includes one particularly egregious case, where a constituent's plan was issued without a requisite planning meeting and therefore no reference to goal setting or the latest medical evidence. Despite tens of emails, attempted phone calls, the lodging of complaints and advocacy by my office, it was somehow not possible to restart that process and have a planning meeting. Instead, after the internal review rubberstamped that initial plan, my constituent is now before the tribunal simply to get her statutory right and have a planning meeting. Sadly, cases like these are not isolated. Of the more than 100 NDIS related cases that my office has been asked to assist with, 20 have been in relation to errors or requests that should have been dealt with by commonsense review and 11 have ended up in front of the tribunal.

This is an expensive process. In the 2024-25 year, over $60 million was spent by the federal government, by taxpayers, on external law firms to fight participants at the tribunal, and yet the tribunal finds in favour of participants in around 73 per cent of cases. That tells us something important: people with disabilities are overwhelmingly trying to do the right thing and it's the system that's not working for them. The government is now proposing to restrict people's ability to have their plans reassessed, but it's unclear what the government will be doing to increase people's ability to fix clerical errors without being pushed into reassessment.

There are also concerns about the increasing use of automated decision-making within the NDIS. Technology can play an important role in improving efficiencies, but automated systems can entrench errors and create decisions that are difficult to challenge or undo. And, without proper oversight, they can harm the very people that they're meant to serve. We've seen this before. Need I remind everybody—robodebt showed us what happens when automation is deployed without adequate human safeguards. More recent experiences with automated aged-care assessments are similarly disturbing. If automation is to be a part of the NDIS, it must be accompanied by strong human oversight, clinical judgement, discretion and accessible review processes.

I ask the government to provide more information on what safeguards will exist to ensure automated decision-making and standardised assessments accurately reflect individual circumstances, including environmental factors, and on what human oversight will exist. Many NDIS participants have incredibly complex needs. The system currently uses some 18 different assessment methodologies, and no information has been provided as to how these will be streamlined and automated. We need a human eye for every critical decision.

If these reforms are to succeed, several things must happen. First, there must be a genuine partnership with the states and territories, backed by adequate funding and clear accountability. Second, there must be transparency. Stakeholders, including people with disabilities, must be meaningfully involved in the design and the implementation of these reforms. Third, we must address the administrative failings of the scheme itself by introducing more flexibility, faster resolution of errors and stronger feedback loops, including recommendations from tribunal cases to facilitate institutional learnings and prevent the same mistakes from reoccurring. Fourth, any move towards automated decision-making must include robust human oversight and clear avenues for review. Finally, above all, we must ensure that no-one is left behind without support during this transition.

The NDIS is supposed to support people. This is its primary goal; it's an admirable one. The government must not lose sight of that in its efforts to reform this system. Reform is absolutely necessary, but I will struggle to support this bill in its current form. Therefore, I urge the government to implement the amendments proposed by the crossbench.

Pensions, paid parental leave, superannuation, Medicare, the National Broadband Network, the National Disability Insurance Scheme—it is Labor that makes the major economic and social reforms in this country. I want to pay tribute to former prime minister Julia Gillard and former ministers Jenny Macklin and Bill Shorten for the work they've done and to the many advocates who pushed for that Productivity Commission report which recommended a national disability insurance scheme in this country.

The initial cost was supposed to be $13.6 billion, roughly $20 billion in today's terms. In the 2013 budget, about $14.3 billion was allocated for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We've now seen an almost 50 per cent increase in the number of people we anticipated initially, which was 300,000 to 400,000. We're looking at almost 50 per cent more than that. Indeed, in terms of the cost, it's nearly four times as much as we initially anticipated.

Reasonable and necessary supports for people with significant and permanent disabilities—these words are in our lexicon. They're in our nomenclature. We use them day in and day out as federal MPs. Hundreds of thousands of people in the scheme use them as well, as do the plan providers, the reviewers and the people working in the NDIA. We created this scheme, and we need to fix this scheme, ensuring that we have the capacity to convince the Australian people that this scheme is worthy of continuing. The NDIS is projected to grow to $70 billion per annum by 2030. We're reducing the projection to $55 billion. That's what we need to do. We need to take the necessary steps to ensure that the costs do not blow out even further.

So we're going to limit NDIS costs in the short term and put a stop to the fraud in the scheme, which is so rampant and so evident. As federal MPs, we see the fraudsters, the shonks and the crooks. The vast majority of providers deliver quality services, act with the best of intentions and do good work. But there are crooks in the scheme. It has been rorted by many people.

We're going to continue working with the states and territories, the disability community and the NDIS workers, who need to be involved in the next stage of reforms. But, of course, when the NDIS came in, the states and territories opted out, and the only game there was indeed the NDIS. I saw a number of organisations locally who went to the wall because that ongoing grant funding from the states dried up. In the past 13 years, the NDIS has become entrenched and, really, a national institution—a great reform. But various reviews have found that it is in major need of reform and a major overhaul. There are unfair outcomes. There are higher numbers in the scheme, as I said, than we anticipated originally. It has changed lives and changed our country for the good, but the costs continue to rise rapidly. Participants don't often get quality supports and often have to undertake reviews again and again. As the previous speaker said, in my experience as a federal MP, they often are successful on reviews, so what's the problem initially? It also became target for shonks and fraudsters.

There's a major problem with respect to plan reassessments. One in five of these reassessments is unscheduled. The average increase as a result of this unscheduled reassessment is 20 per cent higher than the old, so the changes are being foisted on people. People are being encouraged to apply in those circumstances. It's going to be limited, henceforth, to significant and ongoing changes to functional capacity. I think that's the right thing to do.

The Fraud Fusion Taskforce has been operating in Australia since 2022 across many portfolios at the federal level. The multi-agency task force comprises 24 agencies, and it's co-led by the NDIA and Services Australia, and a number of other people, including the AFP, are involved. It found that there are serious criminal activities inside the NDIS. There are flaws in its design and increased susceptibility to fraud and crime.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 contains effective measures which I think address that, including the registration of providers. It's quite inexplicable that one in 16 of the current deliverers of services aren't registered. If you're registered, it means quality of service and safety standards. It means reporting and auditing. It means employees having screening. These are all parts of registration. So it's critical that we lift the registration level. We're changing the definition of NDIS provider accordingly. Retailers and suppliers will be outside the definition. I think it's critical also that we provide deterrence and punishment. We're introducing a new civil penalty provision which will act in terms of deterrence but also provide financial penalties to those people who do the wrong thing.

As I said, spending in the NDIS has blown out. Those opposite, the Liberal and National parties, didn't do anything about this, really. We constantly saw media inquiries about it, and we constantly saw whinging and whining and carping and moaning from those opposite, but they didn't take the necessary steps that this Labor government is undertaking. NDIS growth was 22 per cent under the coalition, with no moderation in sight over nearly 10 years of government. We brought it down to 10 per cent. In January this year the National Cabinet agreed to work together to bring down cost growth to five to six per cent or even lower.

One of the things that's so obvious to everyone is the tripling of the funding in the last five years for social and community and civic participation. It's gone up from $4 billion to $12 billion. That is a massive challenge. I'm not going to insult people by giving the examples many of my constituents have told me about the rorts and the fraudsters involved in this, and the failures across this space where people have not got the social, civic and community involvement they deserve. We're all paying taxes for it, and the Australian public is as well.

We need to manage this scheme more tightly, and there needs to be more rigour in the whole scheme. Without these reforms, the NDIS is going to cost more than Medicare and the PBS combined. It will fast catch up to the age pension. That's why we need to take the steps we need to do to restore it to its original intent. We need to support people who've got permanent and significant disability. We need to secure the scheme for the future. What we're going to do rests on a number of pillars.

One is delivering quality services and support to participants. I think the $200 million Inclusive Communities Fund is good. I'm looking forward to seeing how that will rebuild community organisation capacity to host genuine participation activities. One of the organisations that went to the wall in my community was known as CATS, Community Access Transition Service. They did a mighty job in providing assistance to people leaving places like the Ipswich Special School and other schools and getting people involved in civic life. I've met numerous people over the years who've got jobs and participated in community life because of the work that CATS did. They went to the wall when the state government funding was withdrawn because, of course, states and territories opted out. There are important things that we need to undertake, and I think that's a very, very important part of the reforms.

We're making eligibility requirements clearer with standardised, evidence based assessments of someone's functional capacity. I think the need for independence is so critical in that assessment. We need to fight fraud and stop rorts so participants and their families have better quality services and experience less exploitation and harm. I've seen it. I'm sure everyone in this chamber at times has seen the undue influence and the levels of abuse. People have controlled individuals who are vulnerable because they're members of the scheme. They see this as an opportunity where there are packages of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. They see this as an opportunity to rip people off, and that's why we've seen these criminal activities involved.

We've already invested $550 million in tackling fraud and noncompliance and recently passed the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill of 2025, but there's more that needs to be done to protect participants and increase the quality of support services. That's why we're introducing legislation as a result of this particular budget. The changes we're making will reduce the growth and ensure that we can continue to support people. There are some changes that I think are really important. As I mentioned before, the tighter criteria for unscheduled reassessments and measures will reduce plan-cost growth. We never anticipated we'd see such growth in the costs of the plans.

We're resetting participant budgets for social and community participation. As I said, it's grown completely out of control. We're introducing standardised, evidence based assessments, and we're looking to improve the quality of plan managers and support coordinators. We've seen such variability in this space, I can tell you. Most people do the right thing, but, by golly, I've seen some really shonky ones in my time in this place. We're expanding categories of mandatory provider registration and enrolling providers in a digital payment scheme so we've got some accountability of where the taxpayers' money goes. Changes to eligibility can only happen with the agreement of the states and territories, and I'm urging the states and territories to do the right thing.

Importantly, $6 billion is being allocated by all governments to rebuild those local community supports for people with lower support needs. Not everyone living with a disability will be or should be eligible for the NDIS, but there should be other forms of support for them. In addition, a test of permanency is already required under the NDIS scheme, but we're tightening that definition to make sure it focuses on people with significant and permanent disability. This scheme was never, ever intended to replace health, rehabilitation and treatment services, but that's the mentality of so many people I've seen. That is important to get those health services, rehabilitation services et cetera going on.

I practiced as a litigation lawyer, and I practiced for a long time in personal injury law. We couldn't—and we shouldn't—settle cases in terms of work cover or indeed personal injuries involving motor vehicle accidents until someone's injuries settled and we knew their levels of permanent disability. That's because they would be underdone in terms of the damages paid—whether it was general damages or economic loss—unless we knew the permanency of their injuries. It's the same thing when it comes to the NDIS. We need to know people's permanent conditions and what they're going to live with permanently on a long-term basis before we know.

It's not a case of the federal government providing the NDIS for people who may have been injured or may have been suffering from an illness. All of us are one illness or injury away from any form of disability, but not everyone can and should be covered—and certainly not before it's significant and permanent. An assessment of a person's functional capacity is absolutely critical, and that will be done in consultation with the community with the support of a technical advisory group. This is absolutely vital. This will include disability reform organisations, the NDIS Reform Advisory Committee co-chairs and the Chair of Australia's Disability Strategy Advisory Council.

In terms of timeframes, we expect some of these changes to start later this year. When it comes to who will access the NDIS and who gets other support—many of these changes won't happen until 2028. We're giving the minister new powers, and I think this is absolutely vital to managing the scheme's growth on an ongoing basis. However, these powers will be used on the very clear advice of the National Disability Insurance Agency, and I think that's also important. The 2026-27 budget handed down on 12 May builds on our first term, providing significant investments in critical reforms. As part of this budget, we're working with the states and territories to establish the Thriving Kids foundational supports program to complement and take some pressure off the NDIS.

This is where the states and territories need to come in. It's a $4 billion scheme over five years. We want the states and territories back in the game. We want them back in the area of disability and disability support, in particular, with respect to children. That $2 billion we're providing is important for national information advice on child development and autism, because that is an issue. It cannot be the case that about one in six boys who are in year 2 are living with autism and are in the scheme. It cannot be the case; that is not sustainable. We need to provide additional supports for children with autism and their families—but often outside of the scheme. Not every child living with autism should be in the scheme.

Medicare Healthy Kids Check is a Medicare subsidised health assessment for GPs to assess the health and development of a child at three years of age, which is important, and refer them to appropriate supports, including this Thriving Kids support. A new national digital child health record makes it easier for families and health professionals to track a child's development and share information. There are important things that we need to do, and I call on the Crisafulli government in my home state of Queensland to do the right thing and engage properly and maturely with the Albanese government in the interest of people with disability living in Queensland.

The NDIS is a statement of our national values and a measure of our national character. It's up to us as parliamentarians—there are 150 in this chamber, as well as those in the Senate—to provide the necessary leadership in this space. That means coming together to pass this legislation. We need to protect the future of the NDIS. We need to strengthen the tough laws the government has passed and send a very clear message: the NDIS is critical, and you should not steal from people with disability, or we'll find you and we'll throw the book at you. It's absolutely crucial. We want to support people to do the right thing and support people living on the NDIS.

A local NDIS provider shared:

I got spat on by a dad the other day.

You can imagine that took me by surprise. The provider then shared that the distressed father yelled:

If my child is pushed onto Thriving Kids, is the government saying that my child no longer has autism? … it doesn't magically go away … What does this even mean for us?

That is the level of fear and confusion we are dealing with. Parents are terrified of losing support, and they're begging professionals to explain whether a change in program means their child's autism simply stops counting in the eyes of the system.

We all know that the NDIS reform is long overdue. The rorting of the NDIS has been real, it has been documented, and it has been deeply unfair. It's been unfair to the taxpayers who fund it and deeply unfair to those with genuine permanent disabilities who depend on it. For years, bad actors have exploited this scheme by inflating invoices, delivering little to no service and draining resources that should have gone to the people who needed them the most. The government is right to rein it in. I support that. I welcome the fraud and integrity measures in schedule 2. Strengthening the agency's powers to investigate and act is necessary and overdue, but those measures cannot come at the cost of fairness for the communities I represent, and I would go further: they cannot come at the cost of fairness for any Australian family navigating this system.

My concern with this bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, is simple: will the most vulnerable be worse off? I want to address something directly because I know it will be said. Some will argue that the answer is simple: people should just speak English and navigating a government system should not be that hard. Let me be clear. The accessibility features of the NDIS are not confined to people from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Everyday Australian families who were born here, were raised here and have English as their first and only language tell me they're overwhelmed by this system. They describe application forms that read like legal documents, assessment processes that feel adversarial, appeals they cannot afford to pursue and bureaucratic language so dense that even the most educated families struggle to understand what their loved one is entitled to.

This is not a migrant problem; this is a system design problem. The NDIS was built around an assumption that participants and their families have the time, the resources, the confidence and the literacy—in every sense of that word—to advocate effectively for themselves within a complex administrative framework. For too many Australians, that assumption has always been wrong. If you're from a multicultural background, if English is not your first language, if you're still finding your footing in this country, if cultural norms around disability mean your family has been reluctant to even seek a diagnosis, those barriers do not disappear. They compound. They stack. The result is that some of the most disadvantaged Australians are the least likely to be receiving the support they're actually entitled to.

We are a multicultural nation. Australia's diversity is not an edge case to be managed; it is the reality of who we are, and any policy that fails to account for that reality will fail a significant proportion of the people it is meant to serve. Over 63 per cent of constituents in Fowler speak a language other than English at home. Many are navigating not only the complexities of disability but language barriers, cultural differences and the deep challenges that come with building a life in a new country. I believe these communities are already underrepresented in the NDIS, not because disability does not exist in Fowler—it absolutely does—but because the system as it stands was not built with them in mind. Families have fallen through the cracks not because they lacked need but because the system lacked the cultural responsiveness to meet them where they are. This bill, in its current form, asks us to make that system harder to access. That is not reform, that is retreat.

One of the most concerning changes is the shift in how a person's functional capacity will be assessed. The bill requires the agency to focus on a person's intrinsic capacity while disregarding environmental and personal circumstances. I understand the policy intent, but in practice this creates a rigid, standardised measure that will misrepresent the lived reality of a significant number of Australians, not just those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds but anyone whose circumstances, geography or life experience means they cannot demonstrate their needs within a narrow framework. In Fowler, a language barrier is not just a personal circumstance; it is a systematic wall. By legislating for the agency to disregard these factors, we risk assessing participants as having a higher functional capacity than they actually have. We risk locking people out not because their disability has changed but because the measuring tool was never calibrated to see them clearly.

The minister has indicated that hospitals, schools, GPs and the broader health system could bear greater responsibility for those with permanent or significant disabilities before they are referred to the NDIS. I understand the intention. In principle, a properly funded and coordinated care system should be the first point of response. But the reality on the ground looks very different. Our hospital system is under enormous pressure. Emergency departments across Western Sydney are already stretched beyond capacity dealing with everyday presentations. The idea that these hospitals can absorb additional complex, ongoing care for people with significant disabilities without new funding, new infrastructure and new workforce is not a plan; it is a hope, and vulnerable Australians cannot be asked to wait to on hope.

Our GP workforce is in crisis. Western Sydney has a well-documented shortage of general practitioners. The doctors who remain are managing unsustainable patient loads. They are doing extraordinary work under extraordinary pressure. Asking them to co-ordinate complex disability care on top of that is not a solution. I agree with the principle that the NDIS should not be the first and only resort, but you cannot redirect people to systems that are already at breaking point and call it reform. Before this bill passes, the government must demonstrate that the alternative pathways in health, in schools, in community care are funded, staffed and genuinely ready.

I'm also deeply concerned about the new powers given to the minister to reduce funding across entire categories of supports—reductions of 25 per cent or more are applied across the board and not subject to Administrative Review Tribunal oversight. In a high-wealth postcode, a percentage based cut may be a budget inconvenience; in Fowler, it is a service cliff. My constituents do not have the private capital to top up their supports when the government resets the bottom line.

Based on the government's own impact analysis, participants not in supported living arrangements currently receive an average of nearly $33,000 a year for social, civic and community participation supports. Under these reforms, that would reset to approximately $26,000, an average reduction of around $7,000 per plan, with some families facing cuts up to about $15,000. The government says $200 million is being redirected to a new Inclusive Communities Fund, but guaranteed individual funding is being replaced with a general pool. We have no information on how much of that will reach communities like mine, whether it will go to the small, trusted local providers my constituents rely on or be absorbed by large national organisations without the cultural connection to serve them.

Families in my electorate are being told that Thriving Kids will be the alternative for children who no longer qualify for the NDIS. But what does that really look like in practice for a parent in Cabramatta, Liverpool or Fairfield? Will information be available in their language? Will services be culturally appropriate and locally delivered? The program is expected to roll out from October 2026, but the service model is still evolving. Parents are being asked to trust a system that has been announced but not yet built. If children are moved from NDIS before these services are visible and accessible, families will not receive alternative support. They will receive less support, and, in communities like mine where trust in government systems is hard won, a failed roll out could mean families disengage entirely. I had a parent who messaged me, saying: 'My youngest son is non-verbal and has no way of communicating. So how will he exist in society without support?'

I support reining in the rorting. I support a sustainable NDIS, and I understand the intent behind redirecting some responsibilities to the broader care system. But good intentions are not enough when the execution risks leaving the most vulnerable behind. We are a multicultural Australia. That is not a complication. It is who we are, and we have an obligation to make our public systems work for all of us—for families who have been here for generations and for families still finding their footing, for those whose first language is English and for those for whom it is not, and for everyone who needs support and does not have the private resources to go without.

The government must prove it can replace what it removes. It must fund the alternative pathways. It must provide clear, accessible, in-language information before changes take place. It must legislate genuine safeguards, including a mandate for consultation with culturally and linguistically diverse communities in the design of assessment tools.

With those requests in mind and without declining to give this bill a second reading, I commend this bill to the House, and I move:

That all words after "House" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"(1) notes that:

(a) culturally and linguistically diverse communities experience additional barriers in accessing and engaging with the NDIS; and

(b) a lack of consultation with culturally and linguistically diverse participants and service providers may result in further barriers and inequity; and

(2) calls on the Government to ensure the implementation of the reforms does not inadvertently impose additional burdens on, or further disadvantage culturally and linguistically diverse NDIS participants".

Is the amendment seconded?

I second the amendment, and I reserve my right to speak.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme transforms lives. It has given hundreds of thousands of Australians with disability greater independence, greater dignity and greater opportunity. It has supported families, strengthened communities and changed our nation for the better. But the success of the NDIS also means we have a profound responsibility to safeguard it, to protect it from non-compliance, fraud and exploitation, to ensure it remains focused on supporting Australians with permanent and significant disability and to ensure it remains sustainable, providing quality support for future generations. That's what the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 and the measures included in the Albanese government's budget are all about.

The bill introduces stricter eligibility, funding controls and new functional capacity assessments to ensure the scheme's sustainability, and there will be further consultation with the disability community and the states and territories to ensure support in the scheme and beyond the scheme. They are fit for purpose and are of high quality.

This bill reflects extensive work undertaken over many years. It draws on recommendations from the independent review into the NDIS, delivered in 2023; the disability royal commission; and the NDIS Provider and Worker Registration Taskforce, chaired by Natalie Wade. The bill also reflects the concerns that participants, carers, advocates and providers themselves have consistently raised about integrity, sustainability and participant safety.

These issues are at the centre of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS's current inquiry into the integrity of the scheme. Since the inquiry commenced, we've heard evidence from researchers, disability representative organisations, legal experts, providers and participants from across the nation. We've held hearings in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne, and what we have heard has reinforced the importance of getting these reforms right. We have heard about the devastating impact that fraud and noncompliance can have on participants and their families. We have heard about vulnerable people being manipulated, exploited and financially abused. We've heard from providers who are doing the right thing but are frustrated by a system that allows dishonest operators to flourish. And we have heard a clear message that safeguarding participants and safeguarding the scheme must go hand in hand.

When fraud exists in the NDIS, it is participants who suffer first. Every dollar diverted through sharp practices is a dollar taken away from someone who genuinely needs support. Where there is weak oversight and poor integrity, there is often greater risk of abuse, neglect and exploitation. This is why this bill matters, and it's why the Albanese government has backed these reforms with substantial investment in the budget.

Our government is a reforming government. We're not sitting on our hands like the former coalition government. Under the coalition there was a clear lack of oversight, giving fraudsters the opportunity to infiltrate the provider market and steal from the NDIS and, as a result, from people with disability. Under the coalition NDIS claims were barely checked for compliance. In 2020 there were fewer than 30 employees within the NDIA directly working on fraud and integrity activities. The system had serious blind spots. Claims submitted between 4.30 and 6 pm on a weekday couldn't be reviewed before they were paid, nor could claims made every second weekend. This is outrageous. But now we've fixed it. As a direct result of the Albanese government's actions, all claims are now visible in the system and can be analysed prior to payment. And we've established the Fraud Fusion Taskforce to tackle noncompliance and enable prosecutions. That's meaningful action. And with this bill and the measures in our budget, we're going even further.

The budget includes more than $1.35 billion in measures to combat fraud, improve integrity and strengthen the administration of the scheme. This includes more than $358 million over five years to establish a new enrolment and digital payment system that will further improve payment integrity and reduce fraudulent and noncompliant claims. It includes $280.1 million to continue the Fraud Fusion Taskforce and strengthen the NDIA's ability to detect and respond to fraud. It includes $182.6 million to introduce mandatory registration for high-risk providers. There's also the $200 million Inclusive Communities Fund, to rebuild community organisation capability to host genuine participation activities. And it includes additional investment in reform plan management and support coordination services to improve quality and reduce integrity risks. These are serious reforms because the challenges facing the scheme are serious, but we know there's much more to do.

The NDIS now administers more than $50 billion in public funding each year. The Fraud Fusion Taskforce has identified significant vulnerabilities within the scheme, and this cannot be ignored. Schedule 2 of this bill directly addresses these integrity concerns. It strengthens the NDIA's monitoring, investigative and enforcement powers by enabling provisions of the regulatory powers act 2014 to apply to the agency, it introduces new civil penalties to deter unlawful conduct and strengthen compliance, it improves information-gathering powers and introduces stronger record-retention obligations and it ensures claims must be made within 90 days of supports being delivered. These changes are practical, necessary and long overdue.

This bill also reforms provider registration. Currently, only a small proportion of providers are formally registered, despite the scale of public funding flowing through the scheme. The current definition of 'NDIS provider' is broad and can create confusion. The bill clarifies this while strengthening registration for higher risk providers. Importantly, these reforms will not only improve integrity but also improve participant safety and service quality.

The legislation also addresses longstanding concerns within the plan management and support coordination markets. Over recent years, multiple reviews have identified inconsistent standards, conflicts of interest and poor oversight in parts of these sectors. Frankly, participants deserve better. This bill enables the establishment of approved panels of plan managers and the commissioning of preferred quality support coordination services. These reforms will strengthen governance, reduce conflicts of interest and ensure participants receive high-quality, trustworthy support.

Schedule 1 of the bill addresses broader issues relating to access, eligibility and plan management. The reforms contained in this bill seek to restore greater clarity and consistency. The legislation clarifies the meaning of functional capacity and establishes the basis for more transparent and evidence based assessments of eligibility. Importantly, the bill recognises that further consultation and expert advice are required before thresholds are determined. That work will involve technical experts, the disability community and state and territory governments, who have to play a stronger role in providing supports for people with disability.

The bill also addresses unscheduled plan reassessments, which have become a major driver of expenditure growth. Currently, about one in five participant plans undergoes an unscheduled reassessment every year. Many of these reassessments result in substantial increases in plan value. In some cases, reassessment requests are initiated by intermediaries without the participant's knowledge or understanding. The reforms ensure unscheduled reassessments occur where there has been a significant and ongoing change in a participant's circumstances or support needs. This is about ensuring reassessments are participant driven, transparent and appropriately targeted.

The bill also strengthens the connection between funded supports and the impairments that meet eligibility criteria under the scheme. This is intended to ensure NDIS funding remains focused on disability related supports that are consistent with the scheme's purpose.

Another important reform relates to plan renewals. At present, many plans are repeatedly rolled over, with unspent funds carried forward year after year. Over time, this can inflate plan values well beyond what was originally considered reasonable and necessary. Under this legislation, all participant plans will have a defined end date. Renewed plans will continue to provide ongoing support while ensuring funding remains aligned with current circumstances and needs.

The bill also clarifies the concept of reasonable and necessary supports. This principle sits at the heart of the NDIS, but over time interpretations have broadened significantly, contributing to cost pressures and inconsistencies across the scheme. These reforms seek to provide greater clarity around what is reasonable for the NDIS to fund, while considering sustainability, value for money and consistency across government support systems. The legislation also clarifies the meaning of permanence. This bill makes clear that appropriate treatment options should be pursued before any impairment is considered permanent for the purpose of scheme access. These are sensitive reforms. They affect people's lives and they must be implemented carefully and compassionately. But we cannot ignore the challenges facing the scheme. If the scheme becomes unsustainable, it's participants who will suffer the most.

This legislation includes governance reforms in schedule 3. The bill enables a clearer and more transparent pricing framework by making the minister the decision-maker on pricing, following advice from the agency's annual pricing review. It also strengthens protections against overcharging and introduces safeguards around administrative decision-making. Schedules 4 and 5 deal with operational and transitional matters to support implementation of the reforms.

The NDIS is one of Australia's great social achievements and one of Labor's great social achievements. It was built through decades of advocacy from Australians with disability and their families and carers, and so much of that advocacy came from the disability community in my region. I remember standing alongside former prime minister Julia Gillard and Bill Shorten, in 2013, when she announced that Geelong would become the national headquarters of DisabilityCare Australia, now the National Disability Insurance Agency. It was an enormously significant moment for our region. I still remember the excitement in the room when Prime Minister Gillard told our community, 'You deserve it.' The decision recognised not only the capacity of our region but also the values of a community that has always understood the importance of fairness, opportunity and looking after one another.

The establishment of the NDIA headquarters in Geelong brought hundreds of skilled jobs to our region, but, more than that, it embedded the NDIS into the identity of our broader community. Across Geelong, the Surf Coast and the Bellarine, people understand what the NDIS represents because they have seen firsthand the difference it makes to people's lives. They've seen families finally receive support after years of struggle. They have seen carers receive support that allows them to participate fully in work and community life. They have seen a major national institution be built in regional Victoria, creating secure jobs and attracting expertise that continue to strengthen the region today. This is why a discussion about the future of the NDIS is never abstract for communities like mine. People understand both the human importance of the scheme and the responsibility we have to protect it. It does transform lives, and Australians rightly expect it to endure and to be embedded in our health system, just like Medicare is. But enduring institutions require stewardship, and that was absent under the former coalition government.

This bill is about ensuring the NDIS remains strong, sustainable and participant focused into the future. We know participants want a scheme that is fair. They want a scheme that is safe. They want a scheme that delivers quality supports, and they want a scheme that will still be there for future generations. This is exactly what this legislation seeks to secure. (Time expired)

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. The NDIS is one of Australia's most important social reforms. At its best it changes lives. It enables people with disability to live with dignity and independence and to be genuinely included in their communities. It allows carers to participate in work and public life.

The economic and social cases for a well-functioning NDIS are not in dispute, and I want to say that clearly at the outset because this is a contested bill and I do not want the contention to be mistaken for opposition to the scheme itself. The people who engaged with me most intensely in preparing for this debate—participants, carers, clinicians, advocates—are not opponents of a sustainable NDIS; they are its most passionate defenders. But they're frightened of what this bill might do to the scheme on which they rely.

I support the need for reform. The NDIS has grown faster than projected. Some of that growth reflects genuine unmet need that was always going to emerge as the scheme matured, but some growth reflects poor initial planning decisions, provider overcharging and inadequate fraud prevention. Reform directed at those drivers is necessary and overdue. The question this bill must answer is not whether to reform; it's whether this reform, as designed, will make the scheme more sustainable without removing genuine support from people who need it to live full lives.

I do not believe the bill as currently drafted passes that test. I'll explain why, drawing on the extensive community engagement I've conducted since these changes were announced on 22 April. Following the government's announcement, I heard immediately from Curtin constituents who were worried—parents of children with disability, adults managing complex permanent conditions, carers who've built their lives around a support system that for the first time recognised their family member as a full citizen with the right to genuine support.

I wanted to listen properly, so I convened a community workshop on 4 May attended by 70 people—NDIS participants and their families, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, physiotherapists, plan managers, support coordinators, providers and independent advocates. Many had been navigating this scheme for years. They came prepared with detailed knowledge and specific practical concerns. I followed that with an online survey, which received more than 90 responses, and an invitation for written submissions. Many of those who wrote did so at length, providing carefully argued accounts of how these proposed changes might affect their lives. Across all channels. I've considered almost 200 responses from my community.

What I heard was not a rejection of reform. Almost everyone accepted that the NDIS must be financially sustainable. What they're asking for with urgency and consistency is that reform be carefully co-designed with people who have lived experience and directed at the real drivers of cost growth—fraud, poor initial planning and provider overcharging—rather than at participants themselves.

Three themes were consistent across virtually every piece of feedback I received. The first is that sustainability must be pursued through efficiency, not exclusion. The people I heard from do not accept that a sustainable NDIS requires removing people who genuinely need support. Savings should come from eliminating fraud, reducing bureaucratic overheads, improving the quality of initial planning decisions and addressing provider overcharging.

The second is that reform must not cost shift to other systems that are not prepared to bear additional responsibility. Clinicians with direct experience in the justice, health and education systems stressed that reducing NDIS supports does not eliminate need. It transfers costs to hospitals, schools, mental health services, aged care and the justice system, often at far greater public expense.

The third is that the critical details, including the thresholds that will determine eligibility under the new functional assessment framework, are yet to be set by subordinate legislation that does not yet exist. Community engagement will happen after the legislative architecture is already in place, and that seems to be in the wrong order.

I will go through the key concerns schedule by schedule. First is the functional capacity assessment. Of all the elements of this bill, the new functional capacity assessment framework generated the most concern and the most detailed feedback from my community. I want to convey the depth and sophistication of what I heard, because it goes well beyond 'we don't want change'. My constituents raised serious, well-grounded concerns about whether a standardised assessment tool can adequately capture the full diversity and complexity of disability, including episodic and fluctuating conditions where a snapshot assessment may not reflect genuine support needs; including masking, particularly for autistic individuals who appear more capable in an assessment setting than they are in daily life; including rare and complex conditions where assessors may lack the specialised knowledge to correctly identify need; and including children, where different tools and developmental frameworks are required.

Allied health professionals raised specific concerns about assessor training. Occupational therapists complete four years of professional training. Underqualified assessment risks systematically underidentifying need, with potentially serious consequences for some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

The concern I heard about most consistently, raised with explicit historical justification, was around the new opportunities for automated decision-making proposed in this bill. Alan, a disability advocate, told me he'd already seen in robodebt what happens when inadequate human oversight of algorithmically driven processes is in place, and he's worried we're about to see a repeat in disability. The community has specific, recent, evidence based reasons to be alarmed, and I'll address this directly in my second reading amendment.

Second, I will look at social and community participation funding. The proposed ministerial determination to reduce social, civic and community participation funding generated a strong response from my constituents. This funding is not discretionary spending in any meaningful sense. For many participants, it's what makes the difference between a full life and an isolated one. It funds the sporting activities, outdoor experiences and community engagement that allow people with disability to be members of their community, to build skills and independence and to experience the ordinary dignity of participation in public life. The $200 million Inclusive Communities Fund, proposed as a partial replacement, was widely viewed as a step backwards towards the segregated, group based models that the NDIS was specifically designed to move beyond. A constituent, Bianca, told me she's worried the proposed inclusive communities program will result in corralling disabled people together into groups where they can only mix amongst themselves.

My constituents have also noted with alarm the sequencing. Cuts are scheduled from October 2026, while foundational supports are not yet operational, not yet funded in many jurisdictions and not yet demonstrated to deliver genuine community inclusion. That's not a transition plan. That's a gap.

On fraud and integrity, my community strongly supports action on fraud. There was no ambiguity on this point. The frustration I heard was not with the goal of fraud prevention but with whether the measures are appropriately targeted. Allied health professionals are already regulated through APRA. Additional NDIS registration can cost upwards of $10,000 and may drive small, high-quality independent providers out of the scheme entirely, leaving participants with only large corporate providers. My community supports a risk tiered approach: higher requirements for closed, high-risk settings, and proportionate, lighter requirements for professionals already subject to rigorous professional regulation.

The next concerns were around plan management and pricing. The proposal to commission a panel of plan management providers, replacing the current open market of over 1,400 plan managers, was contested. I received feedback that the panel model risks eliminating choice and control, consolidating the market in favour of large providers and removing the small, specialist plan managers most valued by participants with complex needs.

I've submitted the detailed feedback I received from my community, together with 22 formal recommendations for improving this bill, to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry, and I urge that committee to consider these asks carefully.

I now move the amendment circulated in my name:

That all words after "notes that" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"(a) the bill enables the use of automated decision-making in determining a wide range of matters affecting NDIS participants;

(b) it is reported that neither human decision-makers nor the Administrative Review Tribunal will be authorised to modify or override the automated decisions made about the support needs of NDIS participants;

(c) when used well, automated decision-making can deliver faster, more consistent and more efficient government services, and that agencies like the NDIA need digital tools to operate at the scale required;

(d) the Government has failed to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, handed down in July 2023, which called for the introduction of a consistent legal framework and oversight for automated decision-making in government services;

(e) the consequences of poorly implemented automation for high-risk decisions are already being seen in widespread concern around automated aged care assessments and the unlawful cancellation of income supports for Australians under the Targeted Compliance Framework; and

(2) calls on the Government to bring forward a legislative and mandatory framework for automated decision-making in government services, incorporating transparency requirements, decision-level safeguards, human accountability and oversight for high-risk decisions, meaningful review rights, and independent oversight, in order to prevent a repeat of the failures of the Robodebt scheme".

This amendment addresses the specific concerns raised by my community about the risks of automated decision-making proposed in this bill. Schedule 3 gives the NDIA CEO explicit legal authority to automate a wide range of administrative decisions about what goes into a participant's plan, whether a claim gets paid and whether the payment falls within the pricing limit. The bill allows the minister to extend the scope of automation further through legislative instrument. In other words, this bill gives the government the power to automate almost any administrative NDIS decision, including, as the explanatory memorandum tells us, the new framework planning process, which will determine every participant's total support budget.

The bill does include some transparency measures. Standard operating procedure instruments must be published on the federal register, and the CEO must disclose which provisions have been automated and report annually on cases where automated decisions were overridden. These are steps in the right direction, but the safeguards are not adequate to the risk. We've been told that NDIA staff will have no authority to modify a computer generated budget, even where they identify an error, and, if a participant appeals to the Administrative Review Tribunal, the tribunal cannot remake the decision. It can only return the participant to the same automated system that got it wrong in the first place. This is not a hypothetical risk. The Commonwealth Ombudsman found last year that automated processes in the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations illegally cancelled the income support of nearly a thousand Australians. In aged care, automated assessment tools are generating incorrect support outcomes, and the lack of transparency about how those tools operate is making it nearly impossible to identify and fix systemic errors.

This is a government that's expanding automated decision-making across portfolios—the NDIS, aged care, social security, environmental approvals—without having implemented the consistent legislative framework that its own royal commission said was necessary. In July 2023, the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme recommended that the government legislate a consistent legal framework and oversight mechanism for automated decision-making in government services. The government accepted those recommendations. Consultation followed. Nothing has been legislated. Meanwhile, the use of automation expands.

Robodebt was unlawful. It harmed hundreds of thousands of Australians, and it persisted because there was no independent body with the power and resources to identify and stop it. My amendment calls on the government to legislate that framework with transparency requirements, decision-level safeguards, genuine human oversight for high-risk decisions, meaningful review rights and an empowered independent watchdog. Automated decision-making done well can make government faster and more consistent, but it needs guardrails. Right now, the government is expanding automation across the lives of some of Australia's most vulnerable people without them. Australians with disability deserve decisions made with care, not decisions made by algorithms with no-one accountable for the outcome.

In consideration in detail, I'll be supporting a number of amendments from members of the crossbench that relate directly to other concerns raised by my community. The amendment requiring functional capacity assessments to have regard to environmental, social and personal circumstances restores the contextual dimension to the bill that current drafting would remove, directly addressing concerns about masking episodic conditions and the limits of standardised tools. The amendment requiring ministerial reporting on foundational supports readiness before the relevant parts commence addresses my recommendation that cuts not proceed before replacement services are demonstrably operational. The amendments making support determinations reviewable decisions, requiring parliamentary approval for material funding reductions and strengthening safeguards in section 34A, address my community's concerns about accountability and appeal rights. The amendment requiring genuine consultation before significant NDIS rules commence and an independent statutory review after 12 months reflect my recommendations on co-design and governance. Taken together, these amendments represent what responsible crossbench engagement looks like—not blocking a reform this scheme needs but insisting it be done in a way that does not harm the people it is meant to serve.

The people from my community will be watching—the woman in Churchlands in her late 60s who is caring for her non-verbal son alongside a husband with cancer, who told me that, without his funding for community outings, he would simply sit at home becoming agitated and distressed; the mother in Wembley Downs whose son masks exceptionally well, appearing articulate and compliant but dysregulated at home; and the parent of a non-verbal son with complex behaviours. I urge the government to engage seriously with the 22 detailed recommendations put forward in my community submission to the Senate committee. They come directly from the people this legislation will affect and are practical, considered and offered in good faith.

Is the amendment seconded?

Yes, I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Before I speak to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, I first want to acknowledge the incredible organisations in the community of Dunkley for the work they do supporting people with disabilities. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the Brotherhood of St Lawrence and also Grace Professional Services and Sandi Grace, who is the CEO, who has worked tirelessly over the last few years to deliver services to those with a disability. Dunkley has a range of organisations that provide a range of services, so these reforms are really important to me and to the community.

Before I speak about the legislation, budgets or policy settings, I want to begin by saying this issue is also deeply personal to me. My husband works in the disability sector, and I've worked in the sector. Every day he sees the dedication of support workers, therapists, carers and providers who are doing everything they can to support Australians with a disability to live full, independent and dignified lives. I also have a family member who relies heavily on the NDIS, so these reforms are deeply personal to her as well. So, when I talk about this scheme, I don't see figures on a balance sheet; I see people—families trying to navigate complex systems while caring for loved ones and parents lying awake at night worrying about whether the supports their child relies upon will continue. I hear about participants in the office trying to maintain their independence and their dignity through the packages that they receive, and I meet with workers and providers who care deeply about the people they support and desperately want and need this scheme to continue and to succeed. That is why this conversation matters to me.

The NDIS is one of Australia's proudest achievements. It's been transforming lives for quite some years and has given Australians with disability greater choice, greater independence and greater opportunity than ever before. It is a scheme Australians should be very proud of. But, if we genuinely care about protecting the NDIS for future generations, then we must also be honest about the problems that have emerged within the system.

Over the past few years, I've heard those concerns loud and clear from people throughout my community. I've spoken to participants who feel exhausted by endless bureaucracy and delays as well as to families who feel overwhelmed trying to navigate processes that are often confusing and inconsistent. I've heard from support coordinators and providers who say they are spending more time battling administrative systems than supporting participants.

One of the biggest issues repeatedly raised with my office has been the failures within some of the systems. Providers have described spending hours every single day manually tracking reporting obligations because the system continues to generate tasks even after a participant has changed provider, received a new plan or tragically passed away. I've heard from organisations forced to create separate spreadsheets just to manage compliance failures within the portal. Workers are uploading explanation letters repeatedly because they cannot properly close out reports they are no longer responsible for. Providers cannot end support coordination relationships properly within the system. All of this creates enormous administrative burden, and much of that work remains unfunded. These are not minor frustrations. They're inefficiencies that take time, resources and energy away from participants themselves. They reduce the capacity of providers to focus on care and support.

I've also heard serious concerns about the growing imbalance between registered and unregistered providers. Many registered providers in my community are deeply worried about whether they can survive under the current system. These are organisations that invest heavily in compliance, staff training, participant safety and quality governance. They are trying to do the right thing, yet they are forced to compete against unregistered operators who face far lower costs and significantly less oversight.

Providers have told me about unregistered operators enticing vulnerable participants with gifts, cash incentives and promises that simply should not exist in a properly regulated care market. Meanwhile, compliant providers are struggling under rising operational costs, carrying the burden of meeting proper standards and obligations. This is creating a race to the bottom, and, ultimately, participants are the ones put at risk. These are real and practical market realities that cannot simply be ignored.

I've also heard from constituents frustrated by lengthy review and appeals processes. Families have told my office that they have struggled to access supports while waiting for Administrative Review Tribunal matters to be resolved. Others have raised concerns about internal reviews occurring without meaningful consultation or preparation. These stories matter. This information matters. The voices of the people that come and talk to me matter because they remind us, and me, why we are here. Behind every policy discussion is a person trying to live their life with dignity and security. This is why we need reform.

The Albanese Labor government understands that securing the future of the NDIS means confronting the problems that threaten its sustainability, integrity and public confidence. The reality is that, under the previous government, NDIS growth reached 22 per cent annually with no moderation in sight. Costs were escalating rapidly, fraud and exploitation were increasing, oversight was inadequate and confidence in the long-term sustainability of the scheme was being eroded. We cannot protect the NDIS by pretending these issues do not exist. We protect it by fixing them. That is what this bill seeks to do. These reforms are about restoring the scheme to its original purpose, supporting Australians with permanent and significant disability with reasonable and necessary supports while ensuring the scheme remains sustainable for future generations.

The government's reforms are focused on tackling fraud, slowing unsustainable cost growth, improving quality and safety, strengthening provider integrity, clarifying eligibility and ensuring supports are directed where they are most needed. These are necessary reforms. Australians rightly expect vulnerable people to receive safe and high-quality care. Good providers who pay staff properly, who maintain strong governance and who take participants' safety seriously should not be forced to compete against operators who are simply trying to make a quick buck. That is why strengthening provider registration requirements for high-risk services is so important. These changes will ensure that the overwhelming majority of funding flowing through the scheme goes to registered providers who meet proper standards of safety and accountability. That means stronger oversight, improved quality and better protections for participants and their families.

The government is also improving plan management arrangements and strengthening payment oversight so the NDIA has greater visibility over where money is going across the scheme. These are important reforms because the NDIS became a soft target for fraud and exploitation under arrangements that lacked sufficient safeguards and guardrails. Australians expect taxpayer money to support participants, not fraudsters.

The reforms also address a difficult but necessary issue: defining more clearly what the NDIS is designed to fund. When the NDIS was created, it was never intended to replace mainstream systems like schools, hospitals, child care or aged care. It was intended to provide reasonable and necessary disability supports for people with permanent and significant disabilities. That distinction matters because, if every gap across every government system is shifted onto the NDIS, the scheme will eventually become completely unsustainable. If the scheme becomes unsustainable, the people who rely on it the most are the ones who are going to suffer.

That is why clear eligibility requirements and planning frameworks are necessary not to unfairly exclude people but to restore clarity, consistency and confidence in how the scheme operates. Importantly, the government has committed to consulting with the disability community as these reforms are being implemented. That consultation matters because reforms done with the community will always be better than reforms done to the community.

The reality is that urgent financial controls are needed to secure the future of the scheme. The government has already brought growth down significantly from the unsustainable levels inherited from the previous government, and National Cabinet has agreed to work together to bring growth to more sustainable levels over time. This is not about dismantling the NDIS; it is about ensuring it survives, because no scheme can continue growing indefinitely without risking its long-term future.

While these reforms are necessary, I also want to acknowledge something very important: any change leads to fear, uncertainty and confusion about what these reforms mean. There is misinformation circulating online and within communities that is creating enormous distress for participants and families. Some people feel they will lose all supports. Families worry they will be abandoned. Providers fear instability and uncertainty about future arrangements. Many people simply do not know who or what to believe. We must acknowledge those fears respectfully and seriously, because for many families the NDIS is not just another government program; it is the difference between independence and crisis and between inclusion and isolation.

That is why communication from government is critical as these reforms are implemented. People need clear information. They need transparency. They need proper consultation and accessible explanations about what is changing and why. Communication cannot be treated as an afterthought. The government must engage directly with participants, carers, providers and advocacy organisations. It must ensure misinformation is corrected quickly and clearly. It must listen carefully when legitimate concerns are raised by the community. Trust will determine whether these reforms succeed.

Many of the concerns being raised by providers and participants are not arguments against reform; they are arguments for getting reform right. When providers ask for stronger registration requirements they are asking for participant safety, when they raise concerns about unregistered operators they are asking for integrity and fairness, when they raise concerns about the failures of the pay system they are asking for efficiency and accountability, and when participants ask for better communication and fairer review processes they are asking to be treated with dignity and respect. These are reasonable expectations.

The NDIS remains one of the most important social reforms in Australian history. Labor created it because we believe Australians with disability deserve opportunity, dignity and inclusion, and Labor are reforming it because we believe future generations deserve that same promise. Securing the NDIS means making difficult decisions now to ensure the scheme remains strong into the future. It means tackling fraud, improving quality and safeguards and restoring sustainability. This bill ensures support continues to go to Australians with permanent and significant disability—as originally intended.

We must never lose sight of the people at the centre of this system: the participant striving for independence, the parent fighting for their child, the support worker dedicating themselves to caring for others, and the families who simply want reassurance that the supports that they rely on will be there well into the future. There are things that remain unclear as we work through the process of the reforms, but I say to the people in my community: I will continue to advocate for your voices as we go about this reform. Understand that I am listening.

It's always a pleasure to follow my colleague the member for Dunkley. In approaching my broader remarks on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, I want to say some things upfront about carers and, particularly, unpaid carers. I've had a number of conversations recently with unpaid carers, who are, in my view, the unsung heroes of our community. I think it's worth reflecting on the fact that one in nine Australians is an unpaid carer. They're often sons, daughters, parents, grandparents or siblings. There are 400,000 children and young people in Australia who are unpaid carers, often caring for a parent or a grandparent.

I also want to recognise the around 21,000 carers in my electorate of Monash, many of whom I speak to regularly. They include grandparents in their 80s, caring for grandchildren with a disability, and parents in their 80s, caring for adult children with significant disabilities. They put all of themselves into that role. They do it because they love their family, and they deserve more thanks, more recognition and more support than I think society and our broader community give them. So I want to place on record my sincere acknowledgement of what they do, day in and day out.

The coalition remains steadfast in our support for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and for Australians who rely on it every day. I think it's a fundamental principle that Australians living with a significant and permanent disability, wherever they are and whatever their postcode, should have access to the support that they need to live with dignity, with independence and with opportunity. The NDIS is one of the most significant social reforms this nation has ever undertaken. For many Australians, including many Australians in my electorate of Monash, it has transformed their life. It has provided support where, previously, there was uncertainty, crisis and barriers. It has offered many families hope and confidence about their future. It has offered independence for many who, previously, could not see a path through. For carers, it's often provided relief from an overwhelming burden. For parents, it's offered reassurance that their children can access support and opportunities. For participants, it's meant greater choice and greater independence over how they choose to live their lives. Because of that, all of us in this place should approach discussions about changes to the NDIS with deep care.

Supporting the NDIS does not mean simply defending the scheme as it exists today; it means ensuring that it stays strong and sustainable for generations yet to come. If we want the scheme to be able to continue supporting Australians well into the future, we also have a responsibility to ensure it remains fit for purpose. The reality is that the scheme has grown substantially since its establishment. Originally, the NDIS was expected to support around 410,000 participants. Today, it supports more than 760,000 Australians. Annual expenditure has grown from original projections of approximately $13.6 billion to around $50 billion, and that is projected to continue increasing significantly in the years ahead. That growth presents real challenges.

However, while the need for reform may be broadly accepted, the question before us now is not whether reform is necessary in itself. The question before us is whether reform is being undertaken in a way that gives all Australians confidence. For Australians living with a disability and for the families and carers who support them, these discussions should not be viewed through the lens of legislation or budget papers alone. They need to be viewed through the lens of everyday life. They are about whether support will continue, whether therapies remain available, whether routines can be maintained and whether families can continue managing the extraordinary responsibilities they already carry.

In a region like mine, the great Gippsland region—we're not a CBD region like Ballarat, Bendigo or Geelong, where you've got one central area of population; we have many smaller towns and many smaller communities. Forty per cent of our region is towns with under a couple of thousand people. That lack of market density sometimes makes accessing allied health professionals and therapists in very small or more remote communities quite difficult. I've had some things to say previously on the revised travel allowance component of the NDIS to ensure that your postcode doesn't determine your potential in respect of the NDIS and that if you live in a small remote community and you need the NDIS and you need to access an allied health professional, you can continue to do so.

One of the stronger actions required is around fraud and integrity within the scheme. Australians rightly expect taxpayer dollars intended for participants to support participants—not criminal networks, dishonest providers or individuals exploiting weaknesses in the scheme. Every dollar lost through fraud is a dollar unavailable to Australians with disability who genuinely rely on support. When reports are made to the NDIS and evidence provided, far too often there appears to be no response, no follow up and no visible action. In one case, a detailed report regarding a fraudulent operator was submitted with supporting evidence. It took two years for a response. That is simply not good enough. Australians with disability deserve better, and providers acting in good faith deserve better as well. Systems designed to protect vulnerable Australians must be capable of responding swiftly and decisively.

Families also regularly raise concerns about dramatically different pricing for identical services once providers become aware funding is being accessed through the NDIS—the same service, the same work but a dramatically different price. That is unacceptable. Participants deserve protection, taxpayers deserve accountability and the scheme itself deserves integrity—and that will ensure its long-term sustainability.

I can say with confidence that people across my electorate of Monash are paying very close attention to these proposed reforms. Monash is a large and diverse regional community, and regional communities often experience disability support systems differently. Distance matters, access matters, availability matters and workforce shortages have an impact. When local specialists are unavailable, families need to travel. When therapy providers reach capacity, families wait. When support workers cannot be found, parents and carers fill the gap. I've spoken to the parents of a teenager in Moe, in the Latrobe Valley, who having trouble accessing physical therapy. I've spoken to the parents of another young person for whom speech therapy every week makes the difference between being able to communicate how he's feeling—Does he feels safe? Is he in pain?—and whether he's not able to do those things. These things matter. They matter in regional communities, and regional communities matter.

One thing that's become abundantly clear through the work I've done across my community is just how many families in the Monash electorate are seeking help to navigate disability supports and the NDIS. It is not an easy system; it is a complex, cumbersome system for too many people, and unnecessarily so. Almost 30 per cent of constituents who contact my office seeking assistance raise issues connected to the NDIS, disability support or a related service. I've now been in my role for 12 months and have helped over a thousand constituents, and the NDIS makes up a really significant proportion of that. Nearly one in every three people contacting my office is doing so because they are trying to navigate assessments, funding arrangements and increasingly complex support systems. I've spoken to too many people with a disability and too many parents of someone with a disability in my electorate who are in tears, who are distraught, who are in a very emotionally fragile state because they're worried about losing their plan, or being assessed at a lower, different rate that is not sufficient to meet their needs or their disability. That is really wearing on the emotional and mental reserves of many people in my electorate right now who genuinely, absolutely need to rely on a strong and secure and available NDIS.

Before these reforms commence, many families are already navigating systems that feel overwhelming and difficult to understand. For many families, managing support has become almost a full-time responsibility in itself. These are the stories that I hear and my office hears. They may be powerful, but they're not unique. I've heard recently from parents in towns like Warragul and Drouin trying to secure early intervention supports while waiting months for specialist appointments. I hear from families in South Gippsland travelling long distances just to access therapies because local options either don't exist or waiting lists stretch for months. I've had constituents in Venus Bay tell me that they just cannot get providers to their community—full stop. I also hear from carers on Phillip Island attempting to co-ordinate support workers, appointments and transport while balancing work and family responsibilities. I've heard from families in Wonthaggi overwhelmed by paperwork, red-tape requirements and the uncertainty of future arrangements. This is not fair and it's not right.

Increasingly, parents tell me they feel less like parents and more like coordinators, advocates and administrators. These are regular conversations occurring right across regional Australia. Too often discussions in Canberra become focused on fiscal projections and growth trajectories. But for families in my electorate of Monash, this debate is not just about balance sheets; it's about whether the supports they rely on today will still be there tomorrow.

One of the most significant elements of this bill is the proposed change to eligibility and access arrangements. Historically, eligibility has centred largely around diagnosis and established assessment criteria. The government now proposes moving towards a model based around reduced functional capacity. This represents a significant shift and understandably has generated concern because many details on how these assessments will operate still remain unclear. Families are seeking reassurance. Participants are seeking certainty. Communities are seeking confidence that Australians with genuine need will continue receiving the support they require.

There is also understandable concern regarding the proposed reassessment of existing participants. With more than 760,000 participants potentially being reassessed over the coming years, this represents an enormous undertaking for a government department. Communities are quite rightly asking a very reasonable question: if they lose access to supports under the NDIS, where do they go next? There is no answer for them. There is no adequate response, because our broader healthcare systems are already under significant pressure.

In my electorate, in West Gippsland, we've got the West Gippsland Hospital, which predates World War I. Yet Warragul and Drouin are among the fastest growing towns in regional Australia—in fact, in any part of Australia. That infrastructure has not kept pace with the population growth of my West Gippsland community, and that is why I'm fighting for a new West Gippsland hospital. That's why it's important. It's important to local families; it's important to people with a disability. We cannot put additional unnecessary burden on local health services. In the Bass Coast community in my electorate, they're continuing to wait for stages 2 and 3 of the Wonthaggi Hospital redevelopment, because the population there has grown as well.

Australians deserve better. Regional Australians deserve better. People in my electorate of Monash deserve better. That is why I will always stand up for local families. I will speak up for people with a disability who need strong representation in this place, and they deserve nothing less.

After 13 years, Australia's universal health and support system would be inconceivable now without the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The scheme has become an important part of Australian life. It's part of our national identity, it's part of our national story and it's one of the greatest social achievements. It is part of what makes Australia the envy of the world.

The scheme is the fruit of years of hard work by people with a disability, disability advocates and carers who recognised that Australia was falling short of its human rights obligations to protect and care for some of the more vulnerable people in our community. It was a Labor government who answered that call—their call that people with disability should be given choice and control in the matter of their own care. Labor is the party that does the big innovations that make life better for Australians—Medicare, the superannuation guarantee, paid parental leave, the NBN—and it was a Labor government that conceived of the NDIS. The Albanese Labor government is committed to maintaining this promise. We are committed to seeing the NDIS succeed well into the future.

But, after 13 years, the NDIS risks running afoul of its original charter. After a decade of poor implementation and management under those opposite, the NDIS ballooned beyond all recognisable proportions in terms of costs and numbers of participants. While most providers are doing the right thing for the right reasons, we know that there are also fraudsters, grifters and rorters in the system taking advantage of those whom the system is there to ostensibly protect. Sadly, whenever there is a bucket of government funding, the sharks circle. Hence, the quality of care and support has also been compromised.

These issues are perhaps not entirely unexpected. When the NDIS was established by a Labor government in 2013, it was the coalition that oversaw the initial period of its implementation. In 2022, the Albanese Labor government inherited from the coalition an NDIS that was growing at 22 per cent year on year—unsustainable. Since coming into government, we have sought to make the NDIS better, more reliable and fit for purpose in the long-term—sustainable. We have sought to make it safe, effective and ethical. Labor has brought down the growth rate to 10 per cent, but, unfortunately, this is still well in excess of what was originally contemplated when the NDIS was set up and is still too high if we want the NDIS to remain viable.

Under the changes that are proposed, the NDIS will continue to grow. But, rather than costing taxpayers more than Medicare and the PBS combined and rather than a total expenditure of more than $70 billion and participant numbers of 900,000 by 2030, compared to the Productivity Commission's recommended 550,000 benchmark, the NDIS funding will be $55 billion in 2030 and will provide for 600,000 people by 2030, bringing it back to its original purpose of providing services for people with enduring and significant disability.

Many Australians rely on the NDIS for their care needs and know that they can rely on the NDIS for their care. I hear from so many Boothby constituents about the life-changing experiences with NDIS, but I also hear stories about where it isn't working, and these can be catastrophic. The social guarantee risks being jeopardised if the shortcomings in the system aren't urgently and comprehensively addressed, and we are determined to make sure that the NDIS does not fail. We want it to be sustainable and to last for future generations. To this end, reform is not negotiable.

The reality is that many Australians have lost confidence in the NDIS. Increasingly, Australians believe it has become unwieldy, providers are untrustworthy and that changes therefore need to be made. Activists, advocates, carers, people with disability themselves—everyone wants to see the NDIS doing better, because the reality is that the NDIS cannot survive if it loses the confidence of the Australian taxpayer.

It was a Labor government that proudly established the NDIS, and it will be a Labor government that takes responsibility for ensuring that the NDIS truly works for Australians with disability. Be in no doubt: people with disability are not the problem and they will be the centre of these changes. Their voices cannot be divorced from this process of reform. The problem lies with the system that has long failed people with disability and will continue to fail them if changes are not made.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 will restore the NDIS to its original intent, supporting people with permanent and significant disability. To this end, it will make access and eligibility requirements fairer, clearer and more consistent. Assessments will be standardised and evidence-based, and this means that a person's eligibility for NDIS will depend on an assessment of functional capacity. What do they actually need in terms of support? Under the old assessment model, eligibility was determined on the basis of a diagnosis alone. It did not require a judgement of functional capacity. In the early days of NDIS, these diagnoses or access lists were intended to be provisional, and it facilitated faster access to the NDIS. But it was always meant to eventually make way for an objective assessment tool.

The new assessment tool will be developed through co-design with people with disability and the sector. The diagnosis gateway has put people on the NDIS who don't need to be because this was the only option for service provision for them, and so the government is developing the Thriving Kids program which children under eight with developmental delay or autism with low to moderate support needs will be able to access appropriate services in the future. Importantly, they'll be able to access the supports they need even while they are trying to find a diagnosis which can be difficult with young children. This enables them to access early intervention, which can make all the difference. The government will also invest $6 billion in foundational supports for people who require less significant support. I hear from people with disability and carers the fear that these services don't exist, and they're correct. They don't. They do not currently exist, but they will, and, again, they will be made with co-design.

This bill also introduces planning measures and safeguards. It ensures that supports provided are relevant to the eligible impairments. It will provide clearer guidance and legislation on what reasonable and necessary support means. It will make changes to the circumstances for requesting unscheduled plan assessments by imposing stricter criteria. Currently, one in five plans are subject to unscheduled reassessments. These are often instigated by plan managers who seek to exploit the process for their own personal financial gain because reassessments can result in an average increase of 20 per cent in plan value.

This bill will reset the total costs for social and community participation and capacity building daily activities to where they were last year. These programs are languishing and underperforming in their objectives. While many support workers do a fantastic job, many others are not meeting the basic expectations—expectations of creating connection, encouraging participation, fostering inclusion and treating participants' time with respect and dignity. The cost invested does not justify participants' current experiences of these programs. Four years ago, this stream of the NDIS was worth $4 billion. Today it is more than $12 billion, the same in net terms that we spend on the PBS. And it will be $20 billion at the end of the decade if not addressed. These are sums we simply cannot justify. Instead, the government will establish a $200 million Inclusive Communities Fund, facilitating mainstream disability services and organisations that will rebuild capacity and provide genuine options for participation in the community.

The government will also fight the fraudsters, the grifters and the rorters who maliciously and unashamedly take advantage of not just the system but people with disability. They use scams, cons, fraud and sometimes violence and threats to get their way. They game the system in order to make a quick buck at the taxpayer's expense and at the expense of their clients. There are no words to describe this activity other than criminal. The government has already committed $550 million to tackle these fraudsters in the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025. We now review more claims every day than those opposite did in an entire year. They just let the fraudsters rip.

This bill builds on our existing regulations and safeguards. The bill introduces additional categories of mandatory registration to include higher risk activities, such as personal care, daily living supports and supports in closed settings. Higher risk provider registration improves oversight, maintains safety and protects participants from exploitation, violence, abuse and neglect, and it will reassure participants of the quality of the service delivery. The bill will require providers to enrol in a digital payment system so that they are paid directly with a nominated and validated bank account, undermining criminal cash kickbacks, large cash withdrawals, asset purchases and fraudulent financial transactions on NDIS funds.

The NDIS will also be able to monitor all evidence associated with the claim. Currently, the NDIS has no access whatsoever to 90 per cent of claims made by plan managers and providers directly. Around 600,000 claims are made every day without supporting evidence. This will change that. In addition, the NDIS will now have new powers to investigate criminal activity, including more information-gathering capabilities. Providers, nominees and participants will be obligated to retain records regarding service provision or claims for specified periods of time at the risk of incurring a civil penalty.

The bill also seeks to improve the quality of service provided by plan managers and support coordinators. There are currently 1,400 plan management providers of variable quality—some excellent, some not so. Plan management providers will now need to be members of our commission panel. The panel will set strict quality regulation and monitoring standards for its members, resulting in higher quality services. We will also reduce third-party service providers, who are often not qualified to provide disability services and are much more interested in financial returns. Third parties are much more interested in hoarding as many plans as possible and much less interested in providing the quality of service that participants need and deserve.

The participants will no longer need to pay their support coordinator from the NDIS plan budgets. The government will commission providers to give support coordination from a list of quality and accountable providers funded directly by the government. The proposition is simple: more oversight will mean higher quality services. The return to sensible management will mean the NDIS is projected to grow by two per cent year on year and by five per cent from 2030 onwards. Importantly, it secures the future of the NDIS. The NDIS is sinking under its own weight. The system has outgrown the number of participants it was created to service, and costs have correspondingly become unsustainable. The question of delaying real and substantial change is not one we have the luxury of entertaining—certainly not if we want to preserve the NDIS for future generations.

This bill is not necessarily about participants. They're not the ones at fault here, but they are the centre of what we're trying to achieve. I know that the uncertainty of change is keeping people awake at night. This is not even necessarily about providers, the majority of whom do good work and go about their work with integrity. It is about creating a fair, safe and sustainable system that serves the interests of its participants, a system that is fit for purpose and will remain fit for purpose for the foreseeable future. The bill reclaims the narrative that first inspired the creation of the NDIS: giving a hand to our vulnerable Australians who need it the most. I commend the bill to the House.

I rise today to speak to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. I wish to acknowledge and thank the extraordinary individuals across our country, across our great land, who dedicate their lives to supporting people living with disability, including those across my community on the Gold Coast. To the carers, support workers, allied health professionals, educators, therapists, medical specialists and the families and informal carers who show up every single day, thank you. You are helping our community's most vulnerable to live with dignity, independence and opportunity. We are a better nation because of you.

This debate matters because behind every policy, every budget paper, every legislative amendment and every statistic are real Australians and real families—people who rely on this scheme not as a luxury but as a lifeline. The coalition has always supported the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We support the principle that Australians with significant and permanent disability should have access to the supports they need to live fuller, more independent lives. That principle has not changed. There should always be a national disability insurance scheme for those who need it, and that scheme must also be financially responsible and operationally sound for the decades ahead, because sustainability and compassion are not competing objectives; they depend on one another. If the scheme is not sustainable, it cannot continue delivering for the people who rely on it most.

Today, the NDIS supports more than 760,000 Australians. When it was originally designed, the expectation was approximately 410,000 participants. The scheme was initially estimated to cost $13.6 billion. Today, that figure sits at around $50 billion annually, and it is projected to reach approximately $70 billion by the end of the decade. That trajectory is not sustainable, and that reality cannot simply be ignored. But what concerns us is that this legislation represents the government's latest attempt to manage growth in the scheme after repeated failures to meet its own targets. In April 2023, the Albanese government committed to reducing annual growth in the scheme to eight per cent. That target was missed. Then the minister announced the government would seek to reduce growth to between five and six per cent over the medium term. Again, that target was not achieved. Growth is now sitting above those ambitions.

So this bill becomes another attempt to control a system the government has struggled to manage. It's out of control, just like the government's loss of control when it comes to our economy and the budget. While we support reforms where they improve integrity and strengthen protections, our concern is simple: Australians with disability cannot become collateral damage in a race to repair the government's budget position. That is why scrutiny matters, and that is why implementation matters. Scrutiny matters and implementation matters, and they, of course, are the two biggest weaknesses of this government, because the success or failure of these reforms will ultimately be judged not by the press releases but by the experience of the participants.

In my magnificent electorate of Moncrieff I've seen firsthand the difference the NDIS can indeed make. Earlier this month I had the privilege of spending time with 18-year-old Tilly. Tilly lives with disability. She uses a wheelchair and requires full-time medical care. But Tilly is far more than her diagnosis. She's a young woman with ambition. Tilly's as bright as a button. She's building friendships. She has dreams for her future. She's living her life to the full. Earlier this month, Tilly attended our IMPACT Gold Coast Youth Summit, alongside her carer. Now in its fourth year, the summit brings together young people from across the Gold Coast to encourage leadership, aspiration and connection. Tilly has contributed multiple times to the event, because she's part of the rich diversity that makes our community that much stronger. Tilly and her very special family receive NDIS support, and that is indeed entirely appropriate for Tilly's needs. The NDIS is enabling Tilly and the 4,000-plus other participants in Moncrieff to live dignified lives and contribute to our community, and our community is better for it.

People are understandably anxious about some of the changes that are proposed in this bill. One of the most significant changes is the establishment of a new framework to assess eligibility for support. Historically, access has largely been linked to diagnosis. Under these reforms, greater emphasis will be placed on functional capacity. Now, there may be merit in moving towards assessments that better reflect a person's actual support needs. The problem is that the legislation establishes the mechanism but the government has not yet developed the actual assessment model. As usual, they put the cart before the horse.

People are being asked to trust a process that does not yet exist, and families are asking, rightly: 'Will my child still qualify? Will my loved one lose supports? What evidence will be required? Will people need expensive reports? Will reassessments become endless exercises in bureaucracy?' And today there are not enough answers. Changes of this magnitude must be consulted on properly. Participants deserve certainty. Providers deserve certainty. Families deserve certainty. The government says implementation will not occur until 1 January 2028. If that's the case, then I say to the government use that time properly to consult, test, refine, listen. Use the time wisely, because Australia cannot take any more broken promises and rushed implementation from this government. There have been a plethora of broken promises from this government, and Australians have now had a taste of what that actually looks like and how it hurts their back pocket.

The bill also proposes reassessment of existing participants over several years, and that means hundreds of thousands of Australians potentially entering the reassessment process. We must ask: What happens if people lose access? Where do those people go? State health systems are already under immense pressure. Hospital waitlists continue to grow. Specialist access remains difficult. GP availability remains stretched. We cannot simply move pressure from one system into another and pretend that that constitutes reform. The states simply cannot accommodate that and are certainly not ready for it.

We are hopeful that participants with permanent and significant disabilities are not forced to repeatedly prove conditions that are already permanent. People should not have to relive trauma or spend thousands obtaining reports to establish facts that are already known. The government must apply common sense—the very thing, I'm afraid to tell Australians, it lacks.

Let me be clear. There are other elements of this bill that the coalition support. We support stronger safeguards. We support improving integrity. We support measures that better protect participants because fraud in the NDIS is not victimless. Every dollar lost to fraud is a dollar not available to support someone like my friend Tilly. This bill includes measures around provider registration, stronger record-keeping requirements and shorter claim periods. These are indeed sensible reforms. Currently, providers and participants may claim over lengthy periods. Moving towards stronger record retention and shorter claim windows can support integrity, but integrity reform must go further.

Public confidence in the NDIS matters. Australians expect that taxpayer money reaches participants, not opportunists, and right now there remain significant concerns about fraud, exploitation and inappropriate claims across parts of the NDIS. We continue hearing stories of providers charging inflated prices simply because services are being paid through the NDIS. Families tell us they seek quotes for everyday supports and watch prices increase dramatically once the words 'NDIS funded' are mentioned. I have had many families come to my office in Surfers Paradise to speak to me about these difficulties, and those issues are indeed unacceptable. Participants should never be treated as funding streams, and taxpayers should not be treated as unlimited sources of revenue.

But integrity also means making sure good providers are supported, because not every provider is doing the wrong thing—far from it. In Moncrieff, organisations like LGO Therapy Group have worked tirelessly to provide evidence based, person centred support to young people and adults living with disability. Their focus is not on gaming the system. Their focus is on helping people live better lives—hats off to them.

I've heard directly from allied health professionals and providers concerned about workforce sustainability, funding settings and administrative burdens. Concerns have been raised that pricing decisions, travel arrangements and funding structures risk reducing access to services, particularly to capacity-building supports designed to help participants become more independent over time. There are also distributors who are NDIS providers who are charging a premium once they import some of the equipment and then add their margin to it—their overly bloated margin. These concerns deserve to be heard because reform cannot simply reduce costs in the short term while creating bigger problems down the road. Providers delivering essential services should not be left carrying unsustainable financial risk while trying to do the right thing by participants.

At every stage, the government must remember that the goal is not simply to reduce growth. The goal is to build a stronger scheme, a fairer scheme and a more sustainable scheme that protects participants while supporting innovation and choice. That means getting the balance right: stop the exploitation, support our legitimate providers and, most importantly, protect participants.

The coalition will support this bill because we recognise that change is necessary. The findings of the NDIS review and the royal commission make clear that reforms cannot be ignored. There must be stronger oversight, there must be stronger protections and there must be greater accountability—all weaknesses of this Albanese Labor government. But our support comes with an expectation that implementation is transparent, that consultation is genuine and that Australians with disability remain at the centre of every decision. The NDIS is one of Australia's most important social reforms. Its future matters, its integrity matters and, most importantly, the people who rely on it matter.

I once again thank every Australian who quietly dedicates themselves to caring for other Australians living with a disability. Your work matters, your compassion matters and Australia is stronger and better because of you.

When the Gillard Labor government established the NDIS in 2013, then prime minister Julia Gillard told the House:

Disability can affect any of us and therefore it affects all of us.

She told the House:

The risk of disability is universal, so our response must be universal.

As we make some of the most significant reforms to the NDIS since it was introduced, I carry these words with me because this was the basis of the introduction of our National Disability Insurance Scheme—a once-in-a-generation reform, a reform which has reshaped the lives and futures of all Australians living with disability, of their families and of their carers by introducing one of Australia's most important social programs.

Through this bill here today, we are securing this foundational support for future generations. While the NDIS remains one of our country's most important social programs, it's growing faster than any other similar program, reaching unsustainable levels. It's riddled with fraud, rorts and unclear eligibility requirements. Through fighting fraud and stopping rorts, slowing rapid cost increases, providing clearer eligibility requirements and delivering quality services and support to participants, we are returning the NDIS to its original intent—providing lifetime support for Australians with permanent and significant disability—and ensuring that the NDIS remains a functioning and viable support system. This is so the next generation of Aussie families, carers and people living with permanent and significant disability can count on its promise for decades to come. For that reason, I'm proud to rise in support of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

We know Australians expect the NDIS to keep supporting people with a disability and their families and to transform lives. But there is a need for change. There has been unsustainable growth that has gone unchecked for too long. Under the Liberals, NDIS growth was at 22 per cent, with no moderation in sight. We've brought growth down to 10 per cent, and in January this year National Cabinet agreed to work together to bring cost growth down to five to six per cent or lower. So here we are, bringing costs down to improve the quality of supports and the operation of the scheme for participants.

The first changes set out in this bill are changes to access and eligibility to the NDIS. The NDIS review found the approach we've been using for participants to access the scheme is inconsistent, inequitable and not always targeted to those with disability who require the most support. So, where definitions for who is actually an eligible participant are murky and unclear, we're clarifying them. We're defining and providing the assessment of thresholds for functional capacity. This bill will also clarify permanence in eligibility requirements where someone is or could be accessing supports from other service systems. These changes to eligibility will return the NDIS to its original purpose in supporting Australians with permanent and significant disability and support a more sustainable scheme moving forwards.

These changes aren't random. All these access changes were recommendations of the independent review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme, conducted in 2023. Considerable research has been conducted ahead of each and every one of those changes using an evidence based approach to determine what's best. At the moment, one in five plans are subject to an unscheduled reassessment every year, and the average result of these reassessments is a 20 per cent increase in plan value. It's these kinds of practices which drive inconsistency and unpredictability in funding decisions, which is why we're seeing such rapid growth in NDIS spending.

That's why this bill is also limiting unscheduled planned reassessments. Some requests for these reassessments are made by intermediaries like support coordinators and plan managers, sometimes without the knowledge of the participant. Our changes will make sure that only participants, their plan nominee or guardian will be able to request an unscheduled plan reassessment. These unscheduled reassessments will only be possible when there have been significant and ongoing changes to a participant's support needs which have arisen from changes in their functional capacity or if there's been an unanticipated, significant and ongoing change in the participant's living, education, work or informal support arrangements. This is about creating more predictability and equity in funding decisions and, of course, securing the NDIS so it remains viable for future generations.

Closer to home, a number of constituents in my electorate of Gorton receive life-changing support from the NDIS. For people with high needs, like a constituent of mine who suffers from motor neurone disease, the NDIS provides high-intensity supports like nursing and hospital equipment that is absolutely essential for her survival. For others, like my young constituent from Caroline Springs, the NDIS helps to fund supports like therapeutic swimming lessons and day care, which are indispensable to her quality of life. This is why making sure that the NDIS is sustainable for future generations is so incredibly important. I want to acknowledge that, for many families in my community and around Australia, it's an anxious time to experience changes around NDIS supports.

Our Thriving Kids initiative is intended to address the missing middle—children age 8 and under with developmental delay, disability and low to moderate support needs. These were not the participants with a profound disability who the NDIS was originally designed for. Nonetheless, they need adequate supports. One in five young children experience developmental delay or autism, mostly at mild to moderate levels. A school in my electorate told me that one in four of their students are NDIS participants, most of which are with developmental delay or autism at mild to moderate levels.

If you speak to families in my electorate or families facing similar challenges across the country, they'll tell you the current system isn't working for them. They're waiting years for specialist appointments. They say that the system is confusing and hard to navigate, and the supports they're receiving from the NDIS just aren't targeted enough. The harsh reality is that these children are falling through the cracks. Intervention is simply not happening early enough.

I'm proud to have been involved in the parliamentary inquiry report into the proposed Thriving Kids program as part of my role on the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability. We heard from experts, peak bodies, parents, families, providers, participants and those with lived experience, and I'd like to thank every single organisation and person who took the time and care to put in a submission to our report. This report has a specific recommendation about transitions, to help children transition into early education, from early education into primary education or from primary education into higher education, as appropriate. By increasing funding and resources to already existing organisations who can deliver through a hub-and-spoke system, these supports can be made more readily available and therefore can improve equitable access for these children and their families, thereby ensuring that cost and distance are not a barrier. This is a model that is better suited to children with mild to moderate developmental delay and intends to provide more appropriate supports than the lengthy and individualised NDIS model. It's about giving our kids the best possible start in life without forcing families to navigate the exhausting NDIS-or-nothing battle we see too often.

We have service providers in my electorate of Gorton as well as right across the country working hard to support NDIS participants and doing the right thing. But we also know there are service providers out there who are behaving fraudulently and that there are breaches of the code of conduct in the system. Where we see fraud, too often we also see violence, abuse and neglect. The bill makes practical changes to crack down on fraud and misconduct by dodgy NDIS providers. This bill will tackle fraud and compliance issues within the NDIS by providing the NDIA with the necessary powers to provide stronger safeguards for participants and improve integrity of the scheme. Provider registration is also an important element of our government's changes. This bill expands categories of mandatory registration to include the higher-risk activities. That means that personal care, daily living supports and supports provided in closed settings will be required to register as a provider. It's more oversight and more enforcement. For NDIS participants, it's about safety; for providers, it's about accountability.

Our changes are also ensuring that providers who do the wrong thing will face harsher penalties. We're introducing new offences, stronger civil and criminal penalties for misconduct and giving the NDIS commissioner more powers to punish providers, because NDIS participants and their loved ones deserve quality care. This is about justice—justice for participants who have been taken advantage of—and we are sending a clear message to fraudulent service providers: dodgy behaviour will not be tolerated. Breaches to the NDIS Code of Conduct may include providers failing to safeguard a participant from harm or breaching a participant's privacy, and punishments for providers whose breach often involves a significant failure or involves a systemic pattern of conduct will be increased. The code of conduct is central to ensuring that participants can access the quality of care they deserve, so we are strengthening it. This comes after reports of dodgy NDIS providers intimidating participants to change service providers and reports of providers trying to attract participants with offers of alcohol, tobacco or cash. The providers then allegedly drained the participants' plans while not providing the standard of care that was expected. This conduct should outrage us all. For vulnerable Australians to be taken advantage of in this way is absolutely disgusting.

Amendments provided in this bill will also provide the NDIA with new functions to allow it to investigate criminal activity and amend certain information-gathering powers. This is to make sure that information obtained by the NDIA CEO from participants and prospective participants can be used as part of those investigations, and it will require providers, nominees and participants to retain records relating to the provision of supports. Providers who don't comply with this will be met with a civil penalty.

All of these amendments have one thing in common: securing the NDIS for future generations. This bill is about tackling fraud and rorts, slowing rapid cost increases, providing clearer eligibility requirements and delivering quality services and support for participants, all so that we can return the NDIS to its original intent.

The NDIS is a lifeline for Australians with permanent and significant disability, and, if we want it to continue to be one for future generations, these changes are necessary. Let me be clear: these reforms being debated today are because of a Labor government that is addressing these issues and putting these changes forward. Under the previous coalition government, these sorts of behaviours went unchecked. When Labor came to government in 2022, we inherited a system that was not ready to meet the challenges of the future. We inherited a total mess. The NDIS lacked basic prevention controls for fraud and noncompliance. We acted fast, investing $550 million into tackling fraud and noncompliance and passing the 'getting the NDIS back on track' act.

While those opposite put reform in the too-hard basket, we're doing the real work to secure the future of the NDIS. We're making sure the scheme works for the participants it is designed for, not against them. Here we're continuing our work to crack down on fraud and noncompliance by dodgy providers. It'll mean better outcomes for people with disabilities and their families. When Labor introduced the National Disability Insurance Scheme, it wasn't about providers taking advantage of vulnerable people; the NDIS is about dignity, and that's what this bill is here to protect. This bill is, in essence, about dignity, which is why I'm so proud to commend it to the House.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is one of the most important social policies in this nation. Equally, I think it's fair to say, it's also been the public policy problem child for successive governments since its introduction by the Gillard government. The NDIS was created with the best of intentions. Prior to the scheme, support for people living with disability was managed by individual states. Services were largely block-funded and subject to the vagaries of state budget cycles, and access to service depended largely upon your postcode.

In 2011, the Productivity Commission estimated that a national scheme would cost $13.5 billion per annum. A national system providing tailored support for people living with disability was certainly visionary. But what has eventuated has been a policy disaster of epic proportions, overwhelmed by fraud and inequity. The Productivity Commission's estimate has quadrupled, and when talking to people in my community many say the scheme has not materially improved their lives. Big differences can be seen in the level of supports provided, often due to the quality of supports participants can afford, and many people with disabilities—and their loved ones and carers—are fatigued, gripped with fear that their plan will be cut or cease with the changes that are before us. This fear is compounded by the knowledge that outside of the NDIS there are very few supports.

This scheme is absolutely plagued by fraud. In the 2025 September quarter, more than 7½ thousand fraud tip-offs were reported to the National Disability Insurance Agency. Reports of organised crime and inappropriate, mischievous or fraudulent claims are estimated to cost up to a tenth of its budget, or around $5 billion annually—and I believe that that's quite conservative. Realistically, that figure is likely underreported, given Minister Butler states the NDIA has no visibility of 90 per cent of invoices. In the February 2026 Senate estimates, John Dardo, the head of the NDIS Fraud Fusion Taskforce, reported that just 53 individuals were referred for prosecution and that there were just 16 matters before the court. Troublingly, Mr Dardo stated that in 2024 there was not 'sufficient judiciary to process the cases we have in the pipeline in the country'. Imagine that—not enough lawyers! Whoever would say that!

The recent declaration by Minister Butler that NDIS spending needed curtailment was expected, and it is indeed necessary. However, the message largely dominated by the announcement was that 160,000 people would be removed from the scheme. That not only leaves many people fearful; I believe it completely misses the mark on how to properly deliver a sustainable national disability program. The minister said that the goal is for most providers to be registered in the future. However, it is impossible for any government to have proper oversight when there are 320,000 providers, and that's from the December 2025 NDIS Explore data report, which said 320,778 providers existed. Now, the NDIA report to ministers says it's 276,000, and the library tells us it's somewhere in between. That is an extraordinary number of providers in the system. That's approximately two participants per provider across Australia, and 96 per cent of them are not registered.

In the Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island parts of my electorate, 94 per cent are unregistered and only six per cent of providers are registered. In my electorate, we actually have more providers than we have participants, and of those who are registered, a minuscule number are actually certified as being accredited. It's just unbelievable that we would allow a system that is full of unregistered, unaccredited providers delivering services to our most vulnerable people. We don't know what qualifications they have. It's no wonder there is fraud rampant and it's no wonder we have organised crime and every man and his dog—320,000 of them—becoming NDIS providers. It's no wonder they all have stickers saying 'I love the NDIS'.

For context, Support at Home, the government's new national aged-care program that assists over 300,000 older Australians, has around 900 providers. Workforce Australia, the national program that assists over 600,000 Australians into employment, has around 1½ thousand providers. Each one of those, with respect to employment providers, had to apply through competitive tender, and they needed to demonstrate governance and expertise, and each one's audited annually. But with NDIS, we don't have that at all. Basically, put up a sign saying you deliver NDIS services and away you go.

And we are dealing with people. This is supposed to be providing services to our most vulnerable Australians. Investigative reporters have found that many padlocked shops are empty, yet the invoices to the NDIS continue. I've even heard from reputable sources of overseas-based support coordinators submitting invoices. This system is an unmitigated disaster, and that is what the government should be focusing on, not putting more fear into people who are trying to get by, supporting, in many cases, their children on a plan.

The optimist in me says that it's not too late and that we can address this. If I was the government, instead of looking to cut those 160,000 people, I would formally be putting to tender, region by region, services to deliver so that you had a group of services—organisations that were reputable and had qualified staff in them—and you still had choice for participants within that region. It seems insane; you're never going to get to the bottom of the problem of fraud when you have over 300,000 providers.

When we're looking at the challenges around the NDIS, what does this bill do? There are some parts of it that I do support in relation to integrity and responding to fraud, but there is much more that the government can do. This bill takes some positive steps towards better managing fraud, with plan managers to be the gatekeepers for other providers by setting up a provisioning model for the plan manager cohort. I do wonder, though, whether we are putting all of the burden on plan managers and not enough of the burden on the government department to actually curtail the number of providers that we have in Australia.

The government advises that providers of the high-risk services will be the first required to be registered. How they were not already registered just beggars belief. I would prefer to see all providers not just registered; they must be qualified and appropriate service delivery organisations and they must be accredited, because people who are living with disability, I believe, deserve the very best of supports. This should be our focus.

The legislation sets out a new definition for 'functional capacity' as a threshold to access the scheme. That is going to render many applicants and participants ineligible for the NDIS. I understand why the government's doing this, but there is a real fear in the community that there aren't alternative foundational supports. I was listening to the previous speaker, and she was saying how the Labor government is the first to try and curtail this scheme. That is not true. I was here when the previous government was attempting to legislate for independent assessments, and, I've got to say, the then Labor opposition fought so hard against that. We actually wouldn't be in the mess that we're in now if we'd had more bipartisanship in trying to address this behemoth of a scheme for the last decade.

I have much more to say about this, but I will say this: the government needs to focus on ensuring that we address the fraud, the rorting and the organised crime that is costing this nation billions of dollars and on providing and ensuring that there are the best quality supports for people who are living with disability. That is where the focus needs to be. I'm continuing to review this legislation. I'm continuing to hear from my community. My hope is that that will be the focus of the government in amendments to the Senate.

I take this opportunity to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is indeed a very important scheme, but, unfortunately, it is not operating as it was originally intended to. Only people with a serious, lifelong disability—and quite often their immediate family members—would truly understand the living burden of disability. I can recall that, before this scheme was even put into place, the then member for Maribyrnong, Bill Shorten, was the Parliamentary Secretary for Disability. We held a forum in my electorate at Tyndale Christian School, and I believe it was the very first forum that the Parliamentary Secretary held to hear from families of people with disability about how they were coping. It was a real eye-opener.

One of the stories I have never forgotten was from a teenage girl who came up to myself and Bill—we were there together—and said: 'I cannot go to school, because I will not leave my mother, who has a serious disability, alone at home during the day. I have to care for her, and that comes at the expense of me being able to go to school.' I know that Bill was very moved by that story. From there, the whole notion of setting up a scheme or doing something to help those kinds of families gained real momentum. And, today, we do have a scheme. We have a scheme that was put in place by a Labor government, and it was indeed one of the great social reforms that the Gillard government brought in when it was brought in. It's another one of the real social reforms that Labor can take credit for.

I believe the scheme was truly well intentioned. But, regrettably, it's been very badly administered. It was a reform that was not only long overdue but also badly needed. Whilst Labor introduced the scheme, Labor, unfortunately, lost office in 2013 at the time that the scheme was about to be rolled out. The scheme was rolled out under the administration of the coalition government. In my view, for the next nine years, it was badly administered. Yes, it was a new scheme, and I suspect that it wouldn't matter which government was in place. There would have been a need to review the guidelines and so on. But it was badly administered for almost nine years.

In that period, I personally came across case after case whereby it was my view that there was something not right about the way it was being administered. I would say to myself and others, 'How is it that the National Disability Insurance Agency cannot see and is not aware of these problems?' Nevertheless, they continued until Labor was re-elected back in 2022, and when we were we knew that we had to get the scheme back on track to where it should be.

At the time that we were looking at setting the scheme up under the Gillard government, the projections were that the scheme would support something in the order of 400,000 to 450,000 Australians. Today, there are over 730,000 Australians that are on the scheme—almost double their original predicted numbers. Again, it highlights not so much that there are people with need out there but rather how the scheme has perhaps been used in a way that it was never intended to be used. With those additional people—that is, the 730,000 people that are now on the scheme—it obviously incurs additional costs which were never budgeted for.

I heard the member for Mayo, who quite rightly made the point about the number of providers out there. To use her figures, because I haven't checked them, it's over 300,000 providers that are now providing services across Australia. That figure staggers me just as much as it staggers the member for Mayo. It's the same with the fact that—I think she used this figure—some 96 per cent of them are not even registered. Again, those sorts of issues have to be sorted out.

What really concerns me with the whole scheme is really this: people for whom the scheme was not intended are now on the scheme—there should be other services that those people should be getting access to—and they're on the scheme with substantial packages. That's come about because, in my view, there are operators out there who are not doing the right thing. Let me qualify my comments about that by simply saying this. There are a lot of very good operators out there—and I support them and I will continue to support them—but there are also a lot of shonky operators out there, and it is those operators that I will not support. They, in turn, seem to find ways of bringing people onto the scheme simply so that they can then case manage their package and, in doing so, ensure that they get most of the funds that are allocated to the package. I've seen that time and time again. I have also come across operators who have said to families, 'Allow me to manage your family member's package, and I will give you some money back in return.' That's the kind of shonky operator that is currently out there. Not only, I believe, is this review absolutely necessary; the changes to the legislation that we are debating in this place right now are absolutely necessary because we need to stop that kind of rorting and that kind of practice.

There's another issue that concerns me. This applies to a whole range of government services, and we see it time and time again when there is the government involved. As soon as you provide a package to someone—and this includes, perhaps, an aged-care package as well—and you have a selected group of people that are able to provide the services, they immediately increase their costs. Whether it's a product cost or it's simply a service they provide, you'll find that the costs immediately go up to sometimes two or three times what other people are paying simply because it is part of a government service that is being provided and it will be paid for by the government. Again, this sort of thing needs to stop.

We've also seen that there are people that are now running what I call enterprises based on total malpractice. I was in here when the minister gave his second reading speech, and I was pleased to see that he is going to tackle each of the issues, as part of this legislation, very clearly and very deliberately. There are a lot of issues to address. It is not something to which you can simply say, 'Look, we'll bring in some legislation and do a couple of things and that'll fix it all up.' We have to address each of the problems that have been identified with the scheme. Ultimately, it's about ensuring that the scheme is much better managed, ensuring that the rorting is stopped, ensuring that the scheme is financially sustainable and ensuring that clients get the support that they need and that the NDIA has the investigative powers that it needs to ensure that the scheme is being administered the way it was intended to and that the packages are being spent the way they were intended to as well.

As part of that review—others have touched on this, and there's some concern about this from some of the comments that I've heard. The changes will much more clearly define who is eligible for NDIS support and define functional capacity. At the end of the day, that is critical to determining who should be eligible to get a package and who shouldn't be eligible. At the moment, it seems to me that there is a lot of uncertainty, or what we'd refer to as grey areas, about who should and shouldn't be eligible. Quite often it might come down to an assessment carried out by someone somewhere, and someone else with a very similar disability who has their assessment carried out by a different person doesn't get a package. There has to be some consistency with all of that. We also need to ensure that those people that are providing services are registered in some way—at least those people who are delivering support to participants who are most at risk of abuse or exploitation.

That's what this particular legislation will hopefully do. It will ensure that the people that are providing services and managing the cases for the individual recipients are registered and know what they're doing. The registration process alone, I believe, will weed out a lot of the bad operators. I'm hoping it will, but I've got no doubt that it will. One of the things that is contained within this legislation, which I also very strongly support, is the ability for the National Disability Insurance Agency to have much stronger investigative powers. It seems to me that right now the powers they have do not allow them to go in and perhaps review cases, get the information they need and then determine whether there is any malpractice going on. We need to give them those powers. That will happen with the information-gathering powers that we're giving them, as well as the civil penalties that they will be allowed to apply as part of their enforcement procedure.

The minister will also, I understand, have additional powers with respect to this legislation, and it will certainly be with respect to the setting of the fees. That in itself is something that needs to happen as well. We cannot have a scheme whereby there are what I would refer to as too many uncertainties. We cannot have a scheme where the rules and obligations of everyone involved are unclear, and it seems to me that that has been very much the case over the last decade or more since the scheme came into effect, I think, in 2013. We need to make the scheme much clearer in terms of who is eligible for it; what kinds of disabilities will be supported; and, for the people that are going to be supported, what kinds of disabilities they have. We need to ensure that those who could otherwise be given support through other services are not necessarily put on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, as many of them have been.

I know that there are concerns out there in the community from some people who have a package right now and who believe that their package may be cut or amended, or that they might even be taken off the scheme altogether. I've spoken to some of those people in my own office, and I'm aware of the concerns that they have. The intention here is not to take a package away from people that are on the scheme if they are deserving of being on the package. The intention with this legislation is very clearly to ensure that those people that should be on a package are on a package, that the people administering the package are not exploiting or rorting either them or the government and that the scheme itself delivers on the intent that was originally spelt out in the legislation when the scheme was introduced and nothing more. To try and achieve all that requires the changes that are in this legislation. These changes came about not only because of reviews but also because of information that has been collected by the agency, by the minister and by others over the years that the scheme has been in operation.

Yes, the scheme will continue, and, yes, the scheme is indeed a scheme that I believe serves this country well, but it cannot continue in the way that it has been administered for the last 12 or 13 years. It needs to be brought back in line. Once it is, everyone, whether they are clients—the people with a disability—family members, case managers or service providers, will know and have a clear understanding of what they need to do, what their obligations are and what the scheme provides for them. It is only when you get all of the rules made absolutely clear to everyone that we can have a scheme that everyone understands and everyone will benefit from and that will continue to remain financially sustainable into the future.

I rise to speak to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. There are 5,505 people in my electorate of Parkes who are participating in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Let me introduce you to one of them. His name is Joe Barnes. Joe, from Dubbo, is 26—a fun, busy and social guy, I'm told, who has his own microbusiness, Barnsey's Bakes. He is studying hospitality at TAFE and works in a kitchen of a hotel and at a local forklift business. Joe has Down syndrome. Joe's mother, Maree, says he is 'happier, healthier and more independent' since the NDIS changed his life. He lives independently through supported independent living.

Unfortunately, Joe is likely to be one of the people whose lives could be about to change through the cuts to the NDIS. Reduced funding would mean Joe could no longer work and would spend a lot of his time alone, leading him back down the path of isolation. Joe's mum says:

By radically reducing people's social and community participation funding, we will end up with a cookie-cutter approach and more day care centres for people with disability because that will be the only way to make people's reduced funding last.

The concept of choice and control will go out the window and we'll go back to the bad old days!

Maree Barnes is also concerned about decisions about vulnerable people being made by machines, rather than by people. Computers can't replace human understanding, human compassion and good old common sense.

I have raised this issue before on behalf of Katherine McDowell of Dubbo, who presented a petition to this parliament called 'Harley's Law: National Safeguards for Terminal, Degenerative and High-Complexity Disabilities'. Katherine's son, Harley, has juvenile Huntington's disease, and she well understands the human cost of anonymous decision-making. Her petition sought a ban on automated tool-reducing support without human sign-off. It sought transparency for any automated tool used in disability assessment and enforceable rights for people and families to choose home, community or residential care. It called for the creation of an independent dignity-in-care commission. The petition had more than 2,000 signatures, and Katherine has yet to receive a well overdue formal response from this government.

In September last year, I spoke about a 16-year-old girl who asked to be known as Maddie and was facing the consequences of the last changes to the NDIS made by this Labor government. The changes to section 33 of the NDIS Act that came in last year meant funding could no longer be used as needed and had to be staggered equally across the year. Obviously, life doesn't work that way. We all know that all of your bills, and sometimes your troubles, come at once. For Maddie from Dubbo, who has cerebral palsy, this meant she was not able to get the support she needed to transition to her new school. She could not access half of her sessions until she'd started, with no timely training for support staff.

I've heard from providers who were devastated that they could no longer offer services to remote clients, because their travel allowance had been cut. Again, these changes hurt our most vulnerable community members, people in remote areas living with a disability. These cuts will add to the minefield of changes that service providers are already negotiating.

The Elephant in the Room service has been helping children and families in the Parkes electorate for more than 10 years. It employs allied health professionals such as behaviour support practitioners, support coordinators and early intervention workers in Coonamble, Coonabarabran, Gilgandra, Dubbo, Wee Waa and Walgett. But this service is fighting a battle on a number of fronts, including the eligibility criteria for the New South Wales government's Thriving Kids program. The service says this structure will mean no services for Coonamble, Coonabarabran, Gilgandra, Walgett and Wee Waa. It means the entire service may no longer be viable after operating for more than 10 years. It's another example of a flawed NDIS arrangement and another massive hurdle that service providers have to overcome. It is yet more evidence of just how difficult a Labor government can make living in regional areas.

I repeat that there are 5,505 people on the NDIS in the Parkes electorate. I've spoken about the stories of just three of those people. There are 5,502 other stories, many of which are likely to be impacted by the cuts to NDIS funding. There will be people who can't get medical appointments, who will no longer be able to see friends or family or who will go without services that make their lives so much easier. This, of course, includes parents who will have to see their children living with a disability, who already have so many challenges, lose even more.

The NDIS plays a huge role in helping Australians with significant and permanent disabilities to live with dignity, independence and greater choice. That's what it was established for. I fully support this scheme and have seen so much evidence of the good it does when I'm at work, driving around my electorate. When it works well, it helps with medical attention and allows human contacts that are important to all of us. It has the capacity to greatly improve lives. It is part of our responsibility as human beings to care for each other, to assist those who are in need, to share the good fortune we have and to make all our lives richer for it. The NDIS can do that, but, yes, the need is far greater than anyone could foresee.

The scheme has grown to 760,000 participants at a cost of almost $50 billion. Labor has failed to meet the commitment to reduce the annual growth rate of the scheme to eight per cent. Something does need to be done to ensure the NDIS is sustainable. The costs continue to rise, and we must make sure that the scheme is around for a long time to come to support people with disabilities, but I am deeply concerned about the way in which this is being done. Instead of targeting scammers, these changes will impact people like Joe from Dubbo or a child in Walgett, who will no longer get the support that they need. Instead of shutting down shonky operators, these changes will mean people with a disability in remote areas will not be able to access services. Instead of becoming more efficient, the NDIS services will just be cut, hurting some of the most vulnerable people in my electorate of Parkes and across Australia. For people who are suddenly not eligible, who are told that their challenges are not big enough, what options will there be?

We will always support measures that improve the integrity of the NDIS. We will always support measures that ensure there are safeguards in place to protect participants, and we will always support ways to prevent fraud and rorting, which, of course, do take place. Every day, there are reports of fraud and misuse. We know it happens and we know it's a problem, but neither this Labor government nor the National Disability Insurance Agency has been able to get a handle on it.

The Australian National Audit Office reports that six to 10 per cent of claims might be incorrect, fraudulent or non-compliant. The General Manager of the Fraud Fusion Taskforce and Integrity Capability told a Senate inquiry that every day they identify about 50,000 claims that might be risky. The most rotten cogs in the wheels are shonky providers who are not doing the right thing. Some providers are taking advantage of participants with their pricing. Some are doing substandard jobs or not doing the job at all. It is the scammers and the reporters who need to be targeted, not the people who depend on these services, not Joe in Dubbo.

There are many people in Australia right now who are deeply worried that the help they so desperately need will be taken away. There is confusion about the lack of detail in these changes. How will people be assessed? Where will they go to be assessed when our health system is already buckling under the pressure? Are their families, who will be waiting so patiently for support, going to be forced to go right back to the beginning again, waiting for specialists, waiting for diagnosis, waiting for assessment? And when all of this is navigated, will the service be there to support them? What will help here is consultation. What will help here is talking to the people whose lives this will impact, and what will make a difference is listening. When the consultation has been completed and when families and services who will be affected have been heard, communication of the end result is desperately needed. The families who have struggled through this system and these changes need to know exactly how it will affect them and what they can do about it. They have suffered enough uncertainty and weathered enough storms.

There is no capacity to get this wrong, and we need to ensure the structure is there for all of the health professionals who make the big difference in our regions in order for them to continue. The quality services and the caring people need to stay. We need solutions that support the people who need it when they need it. That is absolutely crucial for both participants and for providers. As Joe's mum Maree puts it, the NDIS is about people doing their best to live their lives as all of us should have the opportunity to do.

I rise in support of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. In doing so, I commend the work of not only the Minister for the NDIS, Senator McAllister, but also the caucus and the Labor Party, which has worked for many years not only before the inception of the NDIS but also in the inception of the plan to try and get it back on track. What we have seen in the history of the NDIS is that the Labor Party introduced it but the Liberal Party maladministered it.

I make a big point in this place of reminding people that I've worked for a living in farming and in construction, but I say that as a preface because, from about 2018, I was working for Senator Murray Watt. As the NDIS scheme grew, all of the problems that were evident there at the time grew with the scheme. Unfortunately, they had an opportunity there from 2018 to deal with the problems. They could have actually solved the problems that we are now left to deal with. That's why this bill is so important. That's why the work the Labor Party has done to try and get the NDIS back on track is so important.

There are so many people in the electorate of Forde that rely on the NDIS. There's probably somewhere around 8,000 people on the NDIS. That's double what it is in other electorates. That's 60 per cent more than what's in the electorate of Parkes. I know the NDIS really inside out and I know the communities that rely on it. I know the people that rely on it. I know the absolute torture that people go through to access the NDIS and the fight to get the services that their kids and their family members so desperately need. I know that, basically, what we have now is really akin to systems abuse—what we put people through to access those services. And so—

Debate interrupted.

Every quarter, the government is now obliged to report on the state of its new aged-care system. This was supposed to happen on 28 April. Instead, the government withheld that report for two weeks, dropping it while journalists and the crossbench were in the budget lock-up. The government stealthily and sneakily, I would say, released a report which showed that Australians are now waiting an average of 12 months to access aged care—12 months for a place in a residential home and 12 months for support at home. More than 48,000 older Australians are waiting to even get on the waiting list in addition to more than 230,000 waiting for an assessment or a Support at Home package. Budget estimates will likely reveal that these waiting lists have now blown out even more.

Older people are going without the support that they need. Some are dying while they wait. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety described this failure as cruel and discriminatory. The same royal commission recommended that home support waitlists should be cleared immediately by increasing the number of packages available and that packages should be allocated to new entrants within one month of assessment. This has not happened. Around 3,300 older Australians are now stranded in public hospitals—a 35 per cent increase in six months—because there are no aged-care places or Support at Home packages available to them.

There are issues with residential care as well. In January last year, the government raised the market price cap on aged-care beds from $550,000 to $750,000 without increasing the accommodation supplement. The result was that low-means residents became financially unviable for providers. Providers are warning and telling us that the system is becoming unsustainable, not because they don't want to care for disadvantaged Australians but because they can't afford to. The federal budget's $1.1 billion restructure of the accommodation supplement is a step forward, but it still falls short of the indexed market price cap for many residents. The industry already estimates that we have a shortfall of about 10,000 beds. For older Australians waiting today, having money stuck in the contingency reserve provides no surety.

Then there's the integrated assessment tool, the algorithm that the government uses to determine what care people receive under Support at Home. From November last year to March of this year, there have been 834 requests for review, many of which are a result of decisions by that algorithm. The previous financial year saw just 170 requests for review. I'm hearing from constituents with progressive conditions, constituents with dementia or motor neurone disease, that they're being assessed as needing less care by this algorithm. Thankfully, the Human Rights Commission has endorsed a Commonwealth Ombudsman review of the tool. It's absolutely critical that automated decision-making remains reviewable by a person, not just by an algorithm.

Just six months after the Support at Home program commenced, the government was forced to abandon co-payments for showering, dressing and continence care after some recipients had to forego aspects of basic hygiene and care. The sector has welcomed the backflip, but that should never have been necessary. The basics of ageing with dignity should have been protected from the outset. The episode reflects reform that was not adequately tested against the lived reality of the people who it was meant to serve.

The people waiting in our aged care system built this country. They paid taxes for decades on the understanding that when they need care, it would be there for them. We are not holding up our end of the bargain. So I ask the government to take action on immediate fixes in aged care by doing the following: firstly, by setting a binding date for price caps on aged-care services; secondly, by committing to indexation so that Support at Home packages keep pace with the real cost of care; and, thirdly, by ensuring genuine human oversight of the integrated assessment tool.

Two weeks ago, almost to the minute, I sat in this chamber for my first budget as the member for Bass. I remember sitting here thinking about the people back home in Northern Tasmania and what this budget would mean for them—the young family trying to save for a first home, the apprentice wondering what opportunities might be there when they finish training, the person who may have been putting off a trip to the doctor in regional Tasmania because money is tight, perhaps a small-business owner trying to attract workers while dealing with housing shortages and rising costs in our remote communities. Budgets are full of numbers, but those numbers only matter if they make a difference to people's lives. This budget is about doing exactly that.

Housing is one of the biggest challenges facing Northern Tasmania; I hear it constantly. People are working hard and saving carefully, and many are still wondering whether they'll ever be able to buy a house in the community they grew up in—the community where their family is, where their friends are. That matters because housing is more important than bricks and mortar. It's security. It's stability. It's putting down roots and building a future, and having the confidence that you can plan for a family in that place. This budget takes practical steps to make that easier for them. It continues support for first home buyers through the five per cent deposit scheme, it invests in the roads, water and infrastructure that allows more homes to be built and it continues work to increase supply—because if we want housing to become more affordable we must have more homes.

Housing is also an economic issue. The businesses across Dorset continuously tell me that they struggle to attract and retain workers. The Flinders Council can't find people because they have nowhere to put them; there is nowhere to house them because people simply cannot find somewhere affordable to live. When people cannot live where they work, the whole community is impacted by it.

Health care is another area where this budget makes important investments. People in Northern Tasmania deserve access to quality health care close to home. We know that too many Tasmanians have had to travel interstate for treatment, spending time away from their families—or they might sit on waiting lists, wondering when help will come. That's why these investments in Medicare that we continue to make are important for Tasmania. It's why continuing to strengthen bulk-billing matters. We had three bulk-billing clinics across Bass when I first started; now, we have 13. That is changing lives. That's why these investments in our local health care matter. Our Launceston urgent care clinic is the busiest in the country. It's seen over 60,000 people. Half of those 60,000 people have identified that they would have gone to the emergency department if their urgent care clinic hadn't been there. They've walked through those doors and they've received exceptional and free care, and they've done that without adding pressure to our emergency departments—which, in Tasmania, are really struggling.

The budget continues to support projects like the Northern Heart Centre. For families in Tasmania it will mean better access to specialist care closer to home. They will not have to travel to the mainland; that is huge. It will provide less stress, better health outcomes and mental health support for those people. Mental health is something that remains equally important to us. Access to support should not depend on your postcode, and we know that this is key particularly in regional communities.

We'll also continue investment in skills and training through programs like free TAFE, because we know that our communities need skilled workers. Skilled workers create stronger communities. We're investing in local facilities and community infrastructure, too. It's those places where families meet and children can play sport, make friends and grow together. Strong communities don't happen by accident; they're built over time.

Bass is a region with enormous potential. We have resilient communities, we have skilled workers, we have strong industries and we have people who care deeply about where they live. This budget backs that potential. It provides cost-of-living relief, strengthens health care and gives more young people a fair chance of homeownership. It invests in the future of Northern Tasmania. More importantly, it recognises something that I believe in strongly: regional communities cannot be left behind. They must be supported, strengthened and given every opportunity to thrive.

Patrick Voon was a towering figure of the Chinese Australian community. His involvement with the Chinese Australian Forum spanned two decades. He was an accountant born in Malaysia. He loved Australia and wanted the Chinese community to take its rightful place in it. When Patrick became CAF president, he took on radio broadcasters who made racist comments about Chinese Australians. He preserved the Chinese market garden in La Perouse from being redeveloped. He was particularly concerned at various times about the position of Chinese students on university campuses and the ongoing racism directed to Chinese Australians. He led a campaign to retain sections 18C and 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act, and I was at common cause with Patrick about those sections and remain convinced that we did the right thing. Because of our work on multiculturalism, Patrick and I became close friends. He regularly helped me on election days, through good times and hard times. His friendship meant a great deal to me. His untimely death from pancreatic cancer is a cause of great sadness to so many across our community. To Patrick's family; his wife, Patricia; and daughter, Alison: I honour a lion of the Australian Chinese community. May his memory be a blessing.

Community is built through sport—through training together, the joy of competition and the friendships that develop when people commit to something bigger than themselves. I recently had the pleasure of joining the Hawkesbury River Dragons at Parsley Bay to help celebrate the club's 15th anniversary. Founded in 2011, the dragons are a volunteer driven club that bring people together through a shared love of dragon boating in one of the most beautiful waterways in Australia. They've been successful in competitions but even more successful in building community. Fifteen years of any volunteer organisation is a genuine achievement. It doesn't happen without people who give their time and take on the unglamorous work of administration and logistics. I want to thank club president Steph Hague and all the members of the club for their service. I've been proud to advocate for the club to get better facilities, and I'll continue to do so.

I want to acknowledge one of Berowra's outstanding obstetricians, Dr Meera Mani. Recently, one of my favourite constituents wrote to me following the birth of her first child, a son, about Dr Mani's care, and I was so impressed I wanted to put what she wrote on the public record. She wrote:

Dr Mani immigrated from India and has established herself at the Hornsby Kuring-Gai Hospital and the SAN as a consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician for over 15 years.

Personally, for me, this lady is the sole reason my son exists. And the sole reason I can, live a life fulfilling my potential.

She first met me 10 years ago—I was 19 and kept presenting over and over again to Hornsby ER with pelvic pain. Despite many naysayers writing me off as a perfectionistic academic overachiever who must 'just be stressed' or 'anxious about grades'—she insisted on doing the surgery which diagnosed my endometriosis. This alone, was life-changing and life-enabling. It allowed me a career.

Dr Mani is a shining light for so many women and girls in Berowra. She's fierce when it comes to ensuring women aren't dismissed or their symptoms delegitimised—and has carried that torch loyally and steadfastly for me for the past decade.

If I hadn't had her guide me through the past 10 years female health wise, our son would … not exist.

Time and time again, she fought for my son's existence, and my quality of life, just as tenaciously as me. Searching for answers, consulting doctors far and wide, imparting her expert knowledge—there's nothing … Dr Mani would not do for her patients.

She answers emails at all hours of the day/night/weekend. Often, she waives the cost of appointments, just because she's that empathetic. You're in hospital on a weekend? So is she, sitting at your bedside, ensuring you're getting the best care possible.

What an extraordinary story. Thank you, Dr Mani, for all you do for the women of Berowra.

Over the course of my career, I've spoken about New Line Road many times, and I will not stop talking about New Line Road until it's upgraded. I'm the first parliamentarian, state or federal, to ever secure funding for the upgrade of the road. When in government, we secured $10 million for the full planning of the road. The Perrottet government put aside $70 million for the upgrade between Purchase Road and Hastings Road in the last budget, but Labor continues to dishonour that pledge. I'll keep fighting until Labor honours the commitment to my electorate to widen New Line Road so that families have more time together and less time in the traffic.

Parking at Epping remains a problem. Just last week I was driving around for half an hour trying to find a car park near Coles before giving up and parking on the other side of Epping. You just can't keep increasing the density of Epping while providing inadequate car parking. Local residents and people who do business in Epping are signing my petition because we need change. Epping's a great part of the electorate, but it needs more parking. You can't have that much development and not put the parking in place to meet it. It's bad for businesses. It's bad for residents. It's bad for our community. I'll keep fighting until we've got the parking Epping deserves.

I rise tonight to speak about something Australians care deeply about: making things here, creating good jobs here and ensuring Australia remains a nation that builds, innovates and manufactures for our future. At the last election, the Albanese Labor government made a clear promise to Australians that we would focus on building Australia's future, not just talking about the future but actually building it—building the industries that will power the next generation of jobs, building the skills and manufacturing capability we need here in Australia and building an economy that is stronger, more resilient and better prepared for the future. And that's exactly what we've been delivering, especially in my seat of Paterson, but more broadly across our Hunter region, New South Wales and the country.

In recent months, two outstanding local businesses, MGA Thermal in Tomago and VeraSys in Medowie, have received support through government programs that are helping innovate Australian companies, which is helping them grow and succeed. MGA Thermal has received support through ARENA, and the funding is going to lead to incredible thermal energy storage technology that is being developed in the Hunter—technology with the potential to transform how we store and use renewable energy. Meanwhile, VeraSys is delivering advanced systems and engineering solutions that are helping Australian agriculture, and it's such an interesting piece of technology. It's a drone that has AI capabilities that is going to be able to fly over crops, identify weeds, do weed mapping and then create solutions for our ag sector to use less diesel and less herbicide. But, most importantly, it will save time. These things are changing the way we modernise and they are increasing productivity, particularly of our ag sector. I can't wait to hear more about VeraSys and those young people, many of whom have come out of the University of Newcastle and are doing really great work.

Of course, we can't talk about manufacturing and industry in our region without recognising the enormous contribution of Tomago Aluminium. For decades, Tomago has been one of the Hunter's major employers. It is the largest aluminium smelter in the country. It supports thousands of direct and indirect jobs across our region and plays a critical role in developing Australia's sovereign manufacturing operations, and we know we are going to need more aluminium, not less, in the future. If there's one thing that the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz has shown us, it is that being able to manufacture things here really is still so important.

While we're talking about manufacturing, I can't go past the magnificent M1. I've stood in this place many a time and spoken about it being the last choke point between Sydney and Brisbane. We are fixing that, and I want to give a big shout-out to those people who have been building that road, the workers for John Holland Gamuda, who are doing the 10 kays south, and the Seymour Whyte employees, who have done an incredible job. Not only has this project come in on budget; it's going to be over 12 months early. That is a remarkable piece of infrastructure building.

We talk about being made in Australia. When that 15 kays of magnificent roadway gets opened, there'll be nothing like it in our region. And it really will be testament to Hunter workers and those people who have joined that construction. It is being made in Australia. Businesses like MGA Thermal, VeraSys, Tomago Aluminium, John Holland Gamuda and Seymour Whyte are not only innovating, adapting and helping shape Australia's industrial future; they're building it right now for us before our eyes. They're exactly the kinds of businesses we should be backing—businesses that are investing locally, employing locally, training locally and helping position Australia as a leader in innovation and advanced manufacturing.

Fittingly, last week we celebrated Australian Made Week. It is a chance to recognise and support the incredible products, businesses and industries that are made and produced right here in Australia. I want to thank those businesses for getting up early and for backing Australian workers. When they put their head on the pillow at night, they're thinking about their profit and loss, and I want them to know that they've got a partner in this government that's thinking with them.

Today I want to recognise four examples of care, courage and service in the seat of Cook. The Cancer Care Rehabilitation Foundation in Miranda helps local cancer patients access specialised care and exercise rehabilitation and removes the financial barrier to care. Cancer treatment can be physically and emotionally exhausting. Patients can face fatigue, weakness, pain, loss of confidence and the feeling that their own body is changing beneath them. Recovery is not just about surviving treatment; it's about rebuilding strength, restoring independence and helping people return to the life they want to live. I particularly want to acknowledge Sharyn Wappett, a specialist oncology physiotherapist, and Megan McMinn, an oncology exercise physiologist, for their dedicated work supporting patients through treatment and recovery. By making this care available locally, the foundation is ensuring people in the shire are not having to face the physical challenges of cancer treatment alone.

I also recognise Cronulla's Elly Taylor, Founder of Becoming Us, for her work supporting new parents and families. So much preparation goes into the birth of a baby: parents go to classes, read books, attend appointments and learn what to expect. During the birth itself, there's a whole team around them, but then when the baby comes suddenly everything changes at home. There are new stresses and sleepless nights, there is confusion and pressure, and there's often tension between partners, who are both trying to do their best but are feeling overwhelmed. My wife and I have unfortunately experienced that firsthand. It can be one of the most joyful times in life, but it can also be one of the most testing times. Elly has identified something incredibly important: we prepare people for birth, but too often we don't prepare them for the transition into parenthood as a couple and as a family. Becoming Us helps mums and dads understand this transition, communicate better, manage stress and work together as a team. These programs, including those available through the St George and Sutherland hospitals, are making a real difference to families not only across the electorate but also across Sydney. Elly's message is simple but powerful: you don't have to figure it out all alone, and these classes are out there for you to get support.

I also acknowledge Hannah Dence, who is a trainer based in Cronulla and Founder of Mighty Mums. Hannah helps mothers exercise safely during pregnancy, after birth and through the many stages of motherhood. That support matters because mums are often so focused on caring for everyone else, and their own health and their own recovery can be pushed to the side. Through Mighty Mums, Hannah is giving local women practical guidance, community and encouragement. I've been down there to experience firsthand the classes and see it change lives. Her sessions help mothers rebuild strength, move safely, improve confidence, support their physical and mental wellbeing and create social cohesion, and the babies get there and join in too. At South Cronulla Beach each week the work is happening at a local, grassroots level. It's preventative health in action and helps women stay active, connected and supported before small changes become bigger ones. I thank Hannah for her leadership, for her advocacy and for her commitment to supporting mums and families right across our community.

I recognise Ryan Webber from Paragon Fit and the Cronulla community for coming together for the walk for stroke survivors. This walk marked the three-year anniversary of Ryan's own stroke. It was a moment that not only changed his life but also became the beginning of a powerful story of resilience, recovery and service to others. Congratulations, Ryan. You're a legend. Stroke can affect anyone at any age, and recovery is physical, emotional and deeply personal. The walk also raised funds for the Stroke Foundation, which helps support its work in education, prevention, research and assistance for survivors and families. I congratulate Ryan, Paragon Fit and everyone involved in organising and participating in the walk. What Ryan has done is a wonderful example of a local community turning personal adversity into action and using that experience to help others. His courage, determination and generosity are an inspiration. I wish him and all the stroke survivors continued strength in their recovery. I also give a quick shout-out to Brooke Bagnall, who is also doing amazing recovering from a stroke and has acted as my own personal trainer.

These stories show the best of our community—people stepping forward with compassion, expertise and practical help when they're facing some of life's hardest moments. Congratulations to you all.

Like many electorates, Werriwa in south-west Sydney is an amalgam of every nation, religion and culture. I would argue that it is this diversity that makes the place I call home so special. It really has been this way in Australia since the First Fleet. Since 1788, wave after wave of immigrants have made their way to these shores, establishing themselves and their families and making their way ahead. My attendance at thousands of civic events over the last 20 years, both as a councillor and as a local MP, has demonstrated that no two journeys to these shores are the same. Some people leave their home under the most difficult of circumstances, with the scars of war, displacement or natural disaster, and they leave their home with nothing more than a handful of possessions, if that. Others have a more orderly and planned migration to Australia. They've planned their arrival for years, have established contacts and have an education pathway, a job and a house to go to. And then there are those that are somewhere in the middle.

Regardless of how people arrive in this country, they all come with the same hope—for a better future for themselves and for their children. They know that Australia is a genuine land of opportunity where democracy flourishes and where hard work and ambition are rewarded. They know it's a safe place to raise their children. And this promise, this hope, has been available to all, to the exclusion of none. That was until the opposition leader's budget reply speech.

In the budget reply speech, the proposed policy was laid out and indicated that only citizens should receive government support, excluding permanent residents. Let's be clear. Permanent residents pay taxes. They're here legally. They contribute. They have families. They fill vital roles which make our nation more prosperous, more complete, and they add to our community, not detract from it. In the defence of this policy, the opposition leader said, 'When you commit to this country, we'll commit to you.' It's clear from this statement that the Leader of the Opposition has not met a single permanent resident that lives in my community. If he had, he would know they are committed to this country. But, more than that, they're committed to growing and improving the communities in which they live. They are working towards citizenship. I cannot imagine my electorate without the thousands of immigrants, many of whom are permanent residents, who each in their own way make a unique contribution. Permanent residents are choosing our values and our democracy and our way of life by coming to Australia and working so hard. They are the healthcare workers. They are the aged-care workers. They're the childcare workers. Seventy-one per cent of the workers in the care economy in Werriwa speak a language other than English at home. They are also the doctors in our communities and in our hospitals. These can't be the people that should not migrate here. They are the small-business owners, the entrepreneurs, the tradies that we need to build our houses. And they are the restaurant owners. Surely, these people cannot be the people that are being referred to in this policy direction.

I've also attended hundreds of citizenship ceremonies in my time in public life. Each is special. My attendance at these ceremonies also shows me that, while there are no two identical journeys of migration, there are also no identical journeys to citizenship. Regardless, all have to wait a time, paying their taxes, while they meet the citizenship residency requirements. I wish I had a dollar for every permanent resident who has approached my office to expedite their actual citizenship ceremony at Liverpool City Council, which has been inexplicably delayed. Our nation and my community rely on people coming to Australia to work, raise families and become Australians. This nation's success is at least in part because of the people that have come from over the seas to make their homes here, because of migration, including permanent residents. To treat them as second-class, as the leader of the opposition has suggested, is nothing short of disgraceful.

House adjourned at 19:59

We've had yet another tragedy—a shark taking a human being. I've said in this House before and I'm going to say again that there was a very nice, very popular young doctor with his wife and his two kids having a good time as tourists in North Queensland and the doctor's wife and his two children watched in horror as a crocodile chewed him in half. Every single person in this place who voted for the protection of crocodiles can take that on their conscience. Because I'm a Christian, you can explain it to Jesus Christ when you get up to heaven that you voted that that could happen again and again. Don't quote to me the figures of how many people are taken by crocodiles, because that's how many you see taken by crocodiles. They don't usually take them when other people are around. So you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what you're doing. There's incredible damage behind the fascist-like arrogance of the wokies and the various other greenie classes that come into this place. They don't know the damage that they are doing to my homeland.

I will have on my conscience the vanishing of the cassowaries in North Queensland. That will be on my conscience. I love the cassowaries. They're part of our homeland. It is actually, according to most of the local authority, a question of arms. They will not be there because they banned the shooters from going into national parks. Half of the area of North Queensland has national parks, and they say that we can't go in there with rifles. Well, who is going to go in there and shoot the massive explosion of pigs in that area? They've got nothing to eat in the jungle except cassowary eggs. So goodbye cassowaries. They've got nothing to eat except turtle eggs on the beach. So goodbye turtles. That's because of your criminal stupidity and ignorance. You've got shoes that have never set foot off a concrete pavement and you're telling people that have lived up there for 40,000 years what they can and can't do. I'll tell you what: they're pretty hostile towards you. I don't recommend that you go up there, because the hostility levels now are getting very, very bad.

The cassowary is doomed. It's going to be on my watch. To my fury and rage, it'll be on my watch that that beautiful bird and part of our nature wonderland will vanish because of your criminal stupidity. Unless the boys are allowed in and licensed—I absolutely believe they should be licensed with their guns and their big dogs—you will never eradicate those pigs. I'm told that a pig mother has 12 babies a year. You can imagine what the population of Canberra would be if every woman here had 12 babies a year.

I want to move away from the fascist-like arrogance and fairytale land of the greenies and the wokies, and the Liberals and Labor, that go down the same pathway. I want to go sideways for a moment. There would not be a person in this House who hasn't eaten fish and chips, right? So you're responsible for the destruction of sea life. I'll tell you what: if you take the chooks away and the seafood away and the beef away, then you're going to starve to bloody death, like a lot of people on this planet.

A thousand million people go to bed every night hungry. I'll tell you a way to cure that. It's to increase the amount of food coming out of Australia. Well, I've got news for you. It's decreasing. We had 371 million sheep; we've now got three million sheep. The sheep are gone. Cattle numbers were 25 to 30 million back in the seventies and eighties—they're still 25! What's going on out there? Nothing! You have a responsibility to nobody! A thousand million people go to bed hungry every night and you have no responsibility to feed them. Well, I'll tell you what. We had that attitude—we Australians—250 years ago. It was such a bad attitude that, except for the Christian missionaries, we would have been annihilated. My mob, the black fellas of Australia, would have been annihilated—none of us would be here if it weren't for the Christian missionaries. Because we had an attitude, we didn't have to have an army, we didn't have to have a population, we didn't have to have development, we didn't have to interface with the rest of the world—yes, well, we nearly vanished off the face of the earth. God bless the Christian missionaries. They protected us.

There is survival of the species. Obviously no-one in here has read Charles Darwin on survival of the species. But those countries that will operate and have sensible attitudes will survive, and the moronic fairytale land which is being imposed upon us by a fascist mentality—and I use that word with a forethought; as a published author, I am allowed to use that with a forethought—and the fascist arrogance and fairytale land of this place is going to take away our cassowaries. They're going to take away our North Queensland turtles. You, whose shoe leather has never set foot off a concrete pavement, are telling us how nature should operate in North Queensland!

Now I sit in my office and have a picture facing me. Other people can't see it, but I can. It's a picture of the cassowary overpass—$42 million was spent building a cassowary overpass. The mountain and jungle come down here, and then there's the highway there, and then there's an 80-foot fall down the slope. The mountain doesn't just stop on the highway; it keeps going down. So they built the cassowary walkway on top of the highway, and it goes straight down. So if the cassowary walked on the cassowary highway, it would plunge 80 feet to its death, because no-one told them in Brisbane and Canberra, those fascist morons, that a cassowary has no wings. It can't fly! So, if it ever uses your $42 million bridge, then it will die. The law is done. It's guaranteed that the cassowary is going to get killed. It's a wonderful metaphor for what is taking place here.

To live with nature, you really need to know what you are doing. The shark attack this week shows again that you don't know what you are doing. If you had fish and chips in your lifetime, chances are that part of that fish would be shark meat. You think it's a good idea that sharks can eat us, but you don't think it's a good idea that we can eat them? I mean, it's rather a quaint notion that you have. But I have loved my North Queensland. I love water skiing. I can't do that anymore because the crocodile danger now is such that no-one can water ski in our rivers in North Queensland. You've taken our fun away from us.

I went scuba diving in my youth, and it was one of the most enjoyable things that I've ever done. But now, for reasons I don't fully understand—we're working on that now—there has been an explosion in shark numbers. Then, in any event, I carried a spear gun with me, and, if a shark came near me, I could protect myself. Now, if I did that, I'd be breaking the law in Queensland. It is one of the very few places on earth where killing a shark is illegal.

Those people who run Queensland live in Brisbane. So they're 3,000 kilometres away, effectively, from the heart of North Queensland, and they're running things for us. They're running things so dreadfully that we're going to lose the cassowaries. There's the explosion in crocodile numbers. People tell me that the groper are gone, because the crocodiles are eating the gropers, and the gropers ate the crown-of-thorns starfish which are now exploding on the Barrier Reef and destroying the Barrier Reef.

When you start messing around with nature, you don't know what you're doing. You brought in a beetle to solve some sort of disease that got into sugar cane, and the beetle exploded and caused enormous problems. Then you brought the toads in to get rid of the beetles. Now we have no dingoes and we have no goannas, because they've eaten the toads and they've died out. So the destruction that your ignorance and fascist arrogance has imposed upon us is appalling, and you will pay for it—if not in this life, then most certainly in the next. I'm a Christian.

Thank you. The member for Deakin.

Last week was Australian Made Week, and local manufacturing is an incredibly important part of my local community. Our businesses are innovating and making high quality Australian product and creating fantastic employment pathways for young people, and I'm incredibly proud to be a part of a government that is once again focused on backing local manufacturing.

Just last week I visited DentaLife, which is a leading provider of dental equipment and healthcare sanitisation equipment in our country. They began in a garage, back in 1999, and they have become a real success story—leading the way in the dentistry industry, providing key supplies to dentists around the country. They also have a presence in Asia as well.

They have also been working on medical equipment wipes—the only organisation in Australia that is able to make accredited and standard-fulfilling wipes for medical equipment. Yet they find themselves in a frustrating position. They are at the leading edge of creating technology that is suitable in the healthcare profession, yet they find themselves unable to sell their product. They have some of the best products in the world, but, due to inertia, sometimes, in supply chains, we're seeing circumstances in the healthcare and other professions where they're just not turning their minds to the importance of backing Australian manufacturing—not when it's a crisis, not when the other supply chains shut down, but as a matter of course, to ensure our resilience.

They are a reminder to me that good Australian-made products must be supported, whenever possible. In this case, it even makes sense, because DentaLife has been able to make a product that is better in quality and competitive on price.

On any reading of any environmental or social responsibility, or any corporate social responsibility policy, it would be completely remiss to not have a focus on protecting Australian manufacturing, particularly in key areas—particularly in medical hygiene. It is a key tier-1 area in my mind.

Now, obviously, when it comes to resilience, we've got those things that we can simply not live without during a period of crisis. Then we've got other ones where we can, with secure and multiple supply chains, maintain adequate supply of what we need and those nice-to-haves. But medical hygiene is a key one—and we saw it during COVID. We need to be able to produce our own hygiene products in the medical profession.

We've got a product, here in Australia, proudly made in my electorate, and we have the tragedy that hospitals continue to import these wipes. To me, that is a great lost opportunity to secure our resilience and ensure that we have what we need when times get tough. And let's face it: the world, as it is now, is telling us that we are going to have tough times; we are going to have supply-chain disruptions. So maintaining that resilience in critical industries is essential, and this is just one small example. It might sound a little petty of me to be going on about medical equipment wipes, but it is an example of how we have to be thoughtful about every single decision we make and of where the procurement officer in a large business actually has an incredibly important job—not just in the moment, and not just for economic efficiency, but as part of a strategic pivot to ensuring that we maintain a secure and resilient supply chain for these essential products. I would encourage all hospitals and every veterinary clinic to consider investing in DentaLife wipes because it is a small decision you can make that can make an enormous difference to maintaining our sovereign capability in this very, very important area.

We've seen, particularly in recent months, the importance of being very clear minded as to what is absolutely essential when times are tough. I look in the regions and I see the concern about urea. I see that as another example of where we've really got to learn the lessons of this moment. We know that we can make urea. It's a fairly simple chemical. We can produce it through gas. We can produce green urea as well, through making ammonia. There are lots of options.

It is absolutely important that we have the systems in place to ensure that these dependencies are taken care of in moments of difficulty. It is essential to our security as a country that we be very clear eyed as to what we need when times get tough, when things get unpredictable. That means thinking about what our rural sector needs. It means thinking about what our healthcare professionals need and what our economy needs to continue when times get tough, as they inevitably will once again.

I draw this as one example of very important work not only that we, as the government, have to do but that the private sector have to do in thinking about every decision we make in terms of procurement. How are we supporting local manufacturing as an essential part of our procurement responsibilities and of our resilience? The old neo-con idea of just going for the cheapest price all the time has proven to be incredibly short-sighted. There are some things we need to be able to make and produce whenever necessary. The only way we can protect that supply is to ensure that those manufacturing businesses are alive and well when times are good, that we make those decisions all the time and that we don't just buy from overseas and then suddenly, when things go wrong, come crawling to our local manufacturers and say, 'Please, please, please can you make it?' They need to invest in their technology. They need to invest in R&D.

In the case of DentaLife, they have full-time R&D staff looking at ways to innovate in everything they do. They were looking at new ways to improve dental equipment going forward when I was visiting them only a few days ago. They are so detail oriented—and here is an example—that, during COVID, when there were those wipes at Woolies with which we were wiping the trolleys, they developed a specially designed wipe so they could fit as many as possible into rollers so they could distribute wipes that were the perfect size to clean trolleys. These are thoughtful, intelligent people—problem solvers.

We have them all around Australia. Many businesses in my electorate have that engineering mindset of problem solving all the time. But, in order for them to be successful, they need to be supported when times are good and when times are bad. That is part of a strategy to ensure resilience when things aren't going as they normally would.

In my own personal view, even when the prices are a little bit different, it's still worth investing in Australian made. But in this case the economics stack up. It's actually cheaper. You use fewer wipes. They don't cost as much. They're of really high quality. To my mind, it only seems to be inertia that's driving us to continue with the status quo. But we do need to be self-critical. We need to be conscious about every single decision we make. Australian made isn't just a nice to have. It's not just a platitude. It's not just something we put on a poster. It's something in which we all have a role to play. Every choice we make, we've got to be thinking, 'What does this do to set us up as a country?' Maybe one decision alone might not do much, but, cumulatively, these decisions are essential. They help us maintain our strength and sovereignty when we really need it.

It has been a bit of a bugbear of mine, and I have written to the relevant people about this. But I think it's really important that we do get animated about the importance of supporting our essential industries, our rural and regional industries, our healthcare industries and our manufacturing across sectors. There is no element of Australian manufacturing that I'm not going to back in my area. We do amazing work. But, obviously, there are some particularly critical goods that we need to make sure we have a constant and ready supply of.

We know that resilience has value, we know that sovereign capability has value and we know that trusted local supply has value. We need to match our words with actions. That is why I'm so proud of the Albanese Labor government's Buy Australian Plan. We're leading from the front. Government is strategically making the decision to support not only local manufacturing but small and medium-sized businesses in our country to help them invest, scale up and continue to do what they do so incredibly well.

It really is about backing themselves not only in selling their goods and making a profit but in reinvesting in more research, more development and more problem solving. We've seen amazing things happen. I can think of a number of examples in my own electorate. We've got precision electronic technologies that continue to make all sorts of fantastic electronic goods. It's a really niche, high-level market. We've got pop-up recycling that has systems where you can recycle milk bottles and regenerate them through some fantastic machine work. We've got another business in our electorate that is getting an internal combustion engine and getting them running on hydrogen. We're really looking at scenarios where fuel supply chains might be unpredictable and how we can provide sustainable and emissions-free power when times get difficult not only in Australia but also in our Pacific family. There is a lot of good work being done in my wonderful area of Deakin, and I know fantastic work is being done by businesses around the country. I would urge not only government but also business, society, all of us to get on board and make a strategic decision to back Australian manufacturing whenever we get the chance.

In addition to meeting many fantastic manufacturers in our area, there have been a lot of great events in my electorate of Deakin, and I want to quickly mention one. There's a Cancer Council fundraiser in my area that has been going on for 29 years and has raised thousands and thousands of dollars. I pay tribute to Jenny Hall, who has been fundraising for the Cancer Council for 21 years. She has been an absolute force in attending those lunches, which are getting more and more people every year. It makes you really proud to be part of a community that really backs one another in. I'm always pleased to make whatever small contribution I can to those events, and I know that this really is a collective community effort, but we need those driving forces like Jenny in our communities. We all have them—people who lead from the front, who bring people together and who have that can-do mindset. Congratulations, Jenny.

I rise to speak in this grievance debate. There is a bit of grievance in regional and rural Australia at the moment, and it's something I continue to hear across my electorate of Nicholls. For those of you who aren't aware, it's the food bowl of Australia. It's northern Victoria. It's a place where so many people have come for so many years to set up amazing businesses using the natural assets that we have. Those natural assets are irrigation water thanks to the Murray Goulburn-Murray Irrigation District scheme, the incredible fertile soils of the floodplains and, perhaps more than anything, the new entrepreneurial spirit that has arrived in the Goulburn and Murray valleys over many years, as well as to the south in places such as Seymour and Kilmore.

What concerns a lot of people across my electorate and, indeed, across regional and rural Australia, is that policy that's made here in Canberra is increasingly detached from realities on the ground in the regions. The downsides of those policies are being felt hardest in those communities, and those communities are saying they just don't understand us in Canberra. That is a function of the way that the Albanese government has been running this country for the past four years. What looks like a neat policy decision on paper here in Canberra can be very different in a place like Shepparton, in a place like Kilmore, in a town like Cobram up on the Murray River, in Yarrawonga and in Echuca. It's not only in my electorate; it's also in Gippsland, and my good friend the member for Monash is here.

The lived reality is that all of these people moved to the regions—some many generations ago—because they wanted to set up, primarily, agricultural businesses. Those agricultural businesses lead to these other businesses, because, particularly many years ago, it was impossible with the logistics that they had to get fresh product—fresh fruit, fresh milk—everywhere across Australia. We set up preserving industries where we can make fresh produce into non-perishable produce. There is no better example than the SPC fruit cannery, set up more than 100 years ago, where peaches, apricots and pears were put into cans. Now they're put into snack packs, and those products have gone around Australia and around the world.

At this point, I commend the speech I heard from the member for Deakin about Australian procurement. I agree with a lot of what he said, but I would advise him to go and talk to the Jacinta Allan Labor government in Victoria and ask her why the Victorian health procurement agencies insist that people in Victorian hospitals should be eating Chinese-preserved fruit when we're growing so much of it and producing so much of it in Shepparton. I'll leave that with him but I agree with a lot of the points he was making about procurement. Procurement, particularly state government procurement, can lift industries in regional Australia.

Another industry that was very strong was the dairy industry. We started with a butter factory in every town, milk going to different places, but now we have an incredible industry that value adds and makes cheese, makes infant formula and sends them across South East Asia and beyond. If you're putting Perfect Italiano on a pizza or a lasagne, it was made in Stanhope in my electorate. It was the toil of those incredible dairy farmers who get up very early in the morning, milk cows, go back and do it again at about 3.30 in the afternoon, and all of the people associated. So when those farmers tell me that policy decisions in Canberra make it harder to run their businesses, I've got to come up here and talk about that.

When Murray-Darling Basin Plan policies made by Labor take irrigation water out of the consumptive pool, it means that everyone who's left using irrigation water has to pay more for it. They have to pay more to keep the system alive, to keep the system going, and they have to pay more when they're buying temporary water because there is simply less of it there. They have to pay more because fertiliser has gone up. Fertiliser could be made in Australia and it will be made in Australia, in north-western Australia, with the permanent facility using north shelf gas. But that was a project that was supported and funded by the previous coalition government. It's incredible, the amount of credit that this current Albanese government is trying to take for that project. But it was set up and signed off in the NAIF back in the previous coalition government. That's a good step. But I don't see anything else that the Albanese government is instigating to make life easier for farmers and the people in these regional industries.

People in regional Australia have great grievance because these farms are all small businesses. A lot of the processing facilities are actually small businesses in the scheme of things. They are telling me that there are more government agencies wanting to clip the ticket on the way through. They say it's become worse in the last four years, indeed, under the reign of the Victorian government, which will hopefully soon to come to an end; we need a change of government in that state desperately.

The input costs for a dairy farmer include getting his or her herd, building the dairy, buying irrigation water, paying wages, buying fuel, buying urea—all of these things. But government compliance is going up as a proportion of the cost of their businesses. Now, when government compliance is saying, 'Well, you need to fill this out. You need to produce that form. You need to do this report', it is basically making sure that a bureaucrat gets to clip the ticket of this hard work on the way through, not to mention some of the changes to capital gains tax. When these people finally sell this asset that they've spent their life building up, the government wants to take more money out of that hard work. I seriously hope there's a backflip to that because there needs to be. The commodity prices are going up, government compliance is going up, and that is not sustainable if we want strong, dynamic private industry in this country. That is what I am hearing across regional Australia. It's a pattern of taking it out on the regions, and people are getting mighty sick of it, I can tell you.

During the previous coalition government, I wasn't in parliament. I was a community member of the Greater Shepparton community. There used to be regional infrastructure funding that would provide these wonderful places, whether regional cities like Shepparton or smaller places like Kilmore, like Seymour, like Echuca, like Yarrawonga, like Cobram, assistance from the federal government to develop the infrastructure that they need. Regional communities need that because we don't have the density of population. The councils don't have the rate base, so they need that federal government support. The previous coalition government understood that, and there were some incredible pieces of infrastructure built.

The Echuca-Moama Bridge has changed the lives of the people who live in those two communities that straddle the Murray River. There was one narrow bridge for a huge amount of traffic to get across. It made being there pretty unliveable because you couldn't go and see anyone. You'd get in a traffic jam to get over one side of the river. Even more importantly, there's so much industry that exists on either side of the river. There are farms in New South Wales; the processor is in Echuca in Victoria. There are farms in Echuca. There might be something that they need. The trucks couldn't get across. The coalition government came together, worked with the state government, which was then a coalition government, and funded the Echuca-Moama Bridge. It has changed the lives of people who live there and the economy. I don't see the big regional infrastructure projects being funded the way they used to be under the previous government, and that's productivity-enhancing infrastructure. We want great industry and great businesses in the regions because the tax that that earns helps the rest of Australians. We want the city people to be able to benefit from the productivity and the dynamism that we have in the regions, but the government has got to assist by funding infrastructure and, in many cases, just getting out of the way and letting hardworking Australians who have got an appetite for entrepreneurialism and risk run their businesses.

Unfortunately, I have to report that the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party, or the CLP, is failing to deliver for Territorians. Have a think about this number: 376 million. That's a lot of money for a jurisdiction like ours, and that is how much the CLP Northern Territory government underspent on its own capital investment budget in 2025-26. They budgeted $2.1 billion. They only got $1.7 billion out the door. That's roads not built, businesses not supported, and health services not delivered. The Territory cannot afford this and cannot afford to stand still.

I've read the 2026-27 NT budget papers so the Territorians didn't have to. The story they tell is appalling. Over their own forward estimates, the CLP government plans to invest even less in the Territory, with capital investment declining to a low of just $1.4 billion in financial year 29-30. This is a government with no vision for how to build our Territory, and it's plain as day in their own budget papers. Here's the context that makes that failure even more indefensible: 72 per cent of the CLP government's funding in the financial year 26-27 comes from the Commonwealth. Around 47 per cent of that funding is untied, meaning that they can spend it however they choose, and they are choosing not to invest it in the Territory's future. Contractors, tradies, suppliers and local employers all across the Northern Territory are asking the same questions: Where is the pipeline of work? Where is the plan? This is taxpayers' money—your money and Territory families' money—and the CLP government is sitting on its hands while the Territory needs to be laying the groundwork for growth.

Unfortunately, this CLP government seems to be disorganised, disunited, inept and not able to understand the principles of ethical leadership, the drivers of economic growth or how to maximise our natural and human resources, which are abundant. Give Territorians a break, and get on with delivering.

Our federal government, the Albanese federal government, is getting on with delivering for the Northern Territory. Have a look at what our Albanese Labor government is doing for the Territory and the contrast with the CLP. The difference could not be more stark. This federal budget delivers record investment into Territory health care. We are committing an additional $741 million for NT public hospitals under the National Health Reform Agreement 2026-27 out to 2030-31. Total Commonwealth hospital funding reaches $3.5 billion over five years, and this funding will improve hospital waiting times, reduce ED crowding and free up hospital beds. This builds on the unprecedented 30 per cent increase in NT hospital funding we've delivered in this current 2025-26 financial year, which is a $560 million boost.

No Commonwealth government in history has invested at this level into Territory health, but this budget delivers more: $95.5 million for remote primary healthcare services in the NT, because we believe that the geography of the NT mustn't determine the health outcomes of Territorians, and $66 million in 2026-27 as a one-time fixed funding amount to address the challenges that smaller jurisdictions like ours in the Northern Territory face in delivering health services.

There is $2.7 billion committed to NT infrastructure. That is the whole infrastructure budget of the NT from the Commonwealth, including $200 million for Stuart Highway upgrades and flood resilience works; $24 million for the Bagot Road intersections, to upgrade safety on some of Darwin's most dangerous roads; and $1.8 billion nationally to make Medicare urgent care clinics permanent. This week the Darwin Medicare Urgent Care Clinic opened. We're providing long-term certainty for all urgent care clinics in the Northern Territory.

More than 116,000 bulk-billed visits have been delivered through the NT's Medicare urgent care clinics since 2023, with the Palmerston clinic in my electorate alone seeing over 37,000 visits. That's free health care in Palmerston and in Darwin right now. Our bulk-billing reforms are working. There are now 23 fully bulk-billed GP practices in the electorate of Solomon—that's Darwin and Palmerston. That is up by 15 due to our changes to bulk-billing and Medicare. Across the Territory, 87 practices are registered as fully bulk-billing, and that is helping Territorians with the cost of living, by ensuring that they can get access to free health care when they need it.

There have been more than 1.4 million cheaper scripts delivered in Solomon—in Darwin and Palmerston—and around two million across the Northern Territory. You don't have to pay to go to the doctor if you can't afford it, and you've got access to cheap PBS scripts.

As a member of the federal government, I'm very proud to say that bulk-billing has increased in every state and territory, but, as a Territorian, I'm very proud that the NT has had the biggest increase in bulk-billing rates, which are now up to 90 per cent. That is the highest in the country. That is our federal government's record in helping Territorians with the cost of living, and that is an example of what it looks like to have a government that actually governs in the interests of its constituents—in the interests of Territorians and in the interests of Australians across the board. That's what a high performing federal government like ours, the Australian Labor government, does: we are governing and delivering.

If you have a look at the CLP NT government, they are dropping the ball left, right and centre, including on the delivery of maternity health services—and this needs some focus in my time remaining. The timeline of the NT government's mismanagement on the maternity ward for the private hospital speaks volumes about the government's ineptitude. In September 2024—yes, quite a way back now—the CLP NT government were told that the Darwin Private Hospital maternity service would be closed; Healthscope was going to close it. In February 2025, Healthscope made that public, and the CLP had to admit that they had known for months. In June 2025, the private maternity ward closed.

In May, June, September and October of last year, 2025, there were ministerial correspondences between the NT government and the Commonwealth with one request from us every time: give us an appropriate, detailed, costed proposal. New South Wales did it, when the private maternity health services closed there, and the Commonwealth funded them. Tasmania did it—provided an appropriate and well-costed proposal: funded! These are competent governments—and, in Tasmania, that is a conservative government, I'm happy to say. These competent governments provided the information required when it was needed: funded, in collaboration with the Commonwealth. In February 2026, as the federal budget is being finalised, the CLP finally puts in an appropriate proposal, landing on the desk of the health minister.

Let me set the record straight for Territorians. The Commonwealth is going to assist the NT government to upgrade Royal Darwin Hospital maternity services—the health minister, Mark Butler, has confirmed it to me personally—in the MYEFO, if not before that time. But, meanwhile, it fell to me to bring up the fact that, on the Darwin Private Hospital maternity services, the NT government had gone totally quiet. They hadn't said a word about them. They had dropped the ball completely on seeing that the Darwin Private Hospital returned private maternity services. I had to bring it up on Mix FM and get the focus back on that. Where was the plan from the NT government to restore full maternity services at Darwin Private Hospital? Territory women and families paying private health insurance were getting nothing for it in terms of maternity services. The NT government couldn't see the urgency, so I raised it again.

I tell you: Territory women and families want to see some answers. Let's see a focus from this NT government on actually delivering, for Territorians, for Territory families and for Territory health care.

I do feel the need to rebuke the member for Solomon for his assertions about the Northern Territory government. I would extend my great support to the Chief Minister, Lia Finocchiaro, on the great job that her team is doing for Northern Territorians, including in the electorate of Solomon. We send our best wishes to Northern Territorians, from the coalition and from the CLP in the Northern Territory.

I rise today to speak on behalf of my community and to call out this government's budget for what it actually is: the Albanese Labor government's war on aspiration. It's a war! This budget reveals something much bigger than a line item in Treasury papers; it reveals a government that increasingly sees aspiration, innovation, investment and risk not as something to encourage but as something to tax—something that creates a revenue stream to pay for their travel rorts, for example.

At a time when Australians are already under enormous pressure from the rising cost of living, Labor's response is not to help Australians get ahead. This is a desperate government that is trying to make life harder for all Australians. This government's changes to capital gains tax send a clear message to Australians: work harder, save wisely, build something for your family, and the government will move the goalposts and take it all away. That's the message that this government is sending to Australians. Nowhere is that message felt more strongly than amongst our small-business owners on the Gold Coast, who are rightly seething and angry, outraged by this government's tax backflip. Local business owner Mark says:

The Labor Party don't have a business brain in their heads.

I've never seen so much doom and gloom coming from entrepreneurs.

Every time Labor comes to power, I have to lay off staff and my business goes backwards.

On the Gold Coast we have literally tens of thousands of local businesses. They're not run by big corporate boards turning huge profits. They are risk-takers. They are entrepreneurs. They are mums and dads who own small and family businesses. They are tradies. They've put everything on the line, and often their business is tied to a mortgage for their house as well. Many go years without paying their own wages or super. It's a bit of a small-business joke that the Albanese government probably doesn't get, but most business owners get paid $2.50 an hour, when they break down their profit by how many hours they actually work.

This Labor government want to take nearly half of their profit. Many Gold Coast businesses structure their affairs through trusts—not as some loophole but as a legitimate and longstanding way to manage risk, to manage their succession and to manage, of course, their investments for their future and for their children's future. For the local builder who invested profits back into equipment under the coalition, that would be a $50,000 instant asset write-off. Under this government, it's only $20,000 instant asset write-off. They are taking away from business wherever they can, make no mistake. There are tradies who are working weekends and sacrificing their holidays to build something of their own just to have it taken away by this government. These changes are destroying confidence across our small and family business community. They are the engine of the Gold Coast, the absolute engine of our economy, and I thank them for the work they do every single day.

Every additional tax signal tells Australians that taking risks may no longer be worth it. That is the message that this government is now sending to the business community across our country. That matters because aspiration is not something we should punish. It's called reward for your effort. That is what it is called, and the Albanese Labor government is killing it. It's killing your reward for all of your efforts.

That's why the coalition has pledged, as I said, to increase the instant asset write-off to $50,000 and make it permanent, because we have to back small and family business. Aspirational Australians are not the problem. They are the solution to so many problems. These are outstanding Australians employing locals, sponsoring community groups and creating opportunity. When the government makes it harder to build wealth, invest and grow, eventually fewer people try.

The Prime Minister has spoken a lot about intergenerational equity in this budget, but what he actually means is socialism, where the outcome is the same for everybody. How is it equity when he's denying today's Australians the very opportunities that past generations were fortunate to benefit from and which helped them get ahead? He's shut the gate. He's dropped the guillotine. He's broken his promises. Young Australians today already face housing unaffordability, rising rents, higher living costs and increasing barriers to getting ahead. For previous generations there was a clear social contract: work hard, save hard and invest in yourself, in your business and in your community and you'll get ahead and have a better life. The Gold Coast was built by families on this premise and this promise. But the Prime Minister has now changed his mind. Young Australians and young Gold Coasters deserve that same opportunity. But, instead, the government continues to chip away at the very settings that helped Australians build their financial security. Our nation is rightly asking: if investing and building wealth is becoming harder, what incentive remains?

At the same time as the Prime Minister's taxing Australians to breaking point, government spending continues to expand. Why? Because this government continues to believe every challenge can be solved with more spending. They're addicted to spending. They have a spending problem. But spending does not grow the economy. Spending does not boost productivity. We know that. This Treasurer is simply just redistributing the economic pie. He even said so himself on a recent episode of Insiders. He said:

… over the course of the forward estimates our tax reform package is broadly neutral. We are returning what we're raising …

But they are redistributing it to different people. With the national debt set to hit $1 trillion any day now, this government continues spending for today and leaving the consequences for future generations. The national debt—hello!—is getting to $1 trillion, and it's going to cost future generations $80,000 a minute. How is that equitable? This government continues to prove that fiscal discipline is something only the coalition can restore.

As this government's poor decisions continue driving up cost of living, this budget completely ignores another consequence of these pressures, and that's participation in sport. Families are now having to choose between sending their kids to sporting events and not because they're under so much financial pressure. They're making these difficult choices. Parents are having to decide whether they can still afford football rego, netball fees, dance lessons or swimming. That's no small thing. Sport is not just recreation. It's about resilience. It's about friendships. It's about discipline. It's about teamwork. It delivers opportunities for young people and for families. When children miss out, communities lose too.

At the elite level, there are broader concerns at hand. Professional athletes often have uniquely short earning windows. We know that. They get hurt. They carry pain after they've been hurt. They carry injuries, and therefore their careers are cut short. And, unlike many careers, elite sport does not continue into someone's 60s. Athletes often rely on careful financial planning and investment to provide security after competition ends, and tax settings matter because they shape incentives to save and prepare for their life after their sport. At a time when Australians are under pressure, this budget does nothing to make participation more affordable or strengthen pathways for grassroots to elite sport.

And then there's the arts sector. Well, what is the arts sector? Oh—it's small businesses. The arts sector is full of small businesses. Australia's cultural sector depends not only on creativity but on investment, philanthropy and community support. Artists, galleries, organisations and cultural institutions rely heavily on donors and patrons who choose to invest in Australia's creative future. When taxes increase and investment incentives weaken, philanthropy will be affected. It will disappear because philanthropy is not an optional extra in arts and culture; it's often what keeps programs running, exhibitions open and opportunities—the great Aussie opportunity—going, especially under this government. The same applies across sport and community organisation.

When families and investors have less capacity to contribute, communities feel it. Government cannot simply assume public spending replaces private generosity. Strong societies need both. This budget discourages aspiration. It creates uncertainty. It risks leaving the next generation with fewer opportunities than the generations before them. Australians deserve better than a government that sees every challenge through the lens of higher taxes and higher spending. Labor have lost control.

Today I rise to speak about Lung Health Awareness Month. May being Lung Health Awareness Month and as chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Lung Health in this place, it's quite appropriate for me to stand up and let everyone know that this month we're celebrating Lung Health Awareness Month, a time to stop to reflect and to bring real attention to an issue that quietly affects millions of Australians each and every day. Breathing is something that we rarely think about. It happens naturally, effortlessly, constantly—until it doesn't. Healthy lungs are fundamental to life from the moment we take our first breath, through childhood, through adulthood, right through. Our lungs carry us through every experience, every conversation, every step. And yet, despite how essential they are, lung health is often overlooked, taken for granted until it is compromised.

I've been a long-time advocate for Lung Foundation Australia, and I'm proud to serve, as I said earlier, as the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Lung Health. Through this work over the many years, we've seen how widespread and serious lung disease is in this country. Conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, better known as COPD; lung cancer; asthma; bronchitis; lung disease and many others do not just affect the lungs. They affect the lives of everyday people, their families and everyone connected to them. They shape how people live day to day, whether they can walk to the shops, whether they can play with their grandkids or their kids, whether they can work and whether they can sleep. They affect families, they affect carers and they place real and growing pressure on our healthcare system.

In the community in my electorate, the federal electorate of Adelaide, these impacts are not distant or theoretical. They are deeply real. Between 2018 and 2022, more than 1,900 people in my community lost their lives to COPD. In just one year, more than 3,000 hospitalisations were considered potentially preventable. COPD is now one of the leading causes of preventable hospital admissions. But behind every number there's a person—a life saved, a family affected, a future changed. For me, this is not just something I speak about as a representative; it's something I experience as well, having previously been, it's embarrassing to say, a smoker. I smoked all my life from the age of 16 right through, gave it up and started again. I'm quite pleased that, at the moment, I am not smoking and haven't for a number of years, but it affected my lungs. You could say, 'You're stupid for smoking.' Yes, certainly I was. But I grew up in an era where everyone smoked, where everyone turned a blind eye to it. It was just part of everyday life. Because of that I've developed asthma and that's what got me involved with the Lung Foundation.

There are many thousands of Australians who have developed lung cancer who have never smoked in their entire lives, so it shouldn't be a stigma for those people who have. Many people develop COPD and they've never smoked in their entire lives. But there is a stigma still attached to lung disease that 'he or she must have been a smoker'. It's also about recognition of people who, through no fault of their own—in my case it was my own fault. I'm doing quite well. I use my puffer occasionally and so far, so good.

Recognising lung health is also about recognising that you can turn it around. There are things we can do with medication, with a bit of exercise, with the ability to see your doctor on a regular basis and being monitored as to where your lungs are actually at. For those who do have lung diseases or COPD or asthma, it affects everyone around them—their partner, their children, their friends, their carers. Lung disease does not happen in isolation; it becomes part of the life of the whole family.

As I said, this month really matters because it's about awareness. Awareness is not just about information; it's about intervention. Too often the early signs of lung disease go unnoticed: a cough that lingers, shortness of breath, a sense of fatigue—these symptoms are brushed aside. People tell themselves they're just getting older or 'I'm not fit enough' or they're just a little out of shape—just something temporary. By the time the diagnosis comes, the condition has already progressed.

But we know something really important that should be a guide for everything we do in this space, and that is early detection. When lung disease is detected early, outcomes improve dramatically. People receive the right care sooner, they remain healthier for longer, they maintain independence and they avoid unnecessary hospitalisations. Every diagnosis opens a door to real intervention, whether it is smoking cessation support, pulmonary rehabilitation, vaccination or stronger primary care—these are not small changes; they are changes that can extend life and improve its quality. This is why the work of Lung Foundation Australia is so vital. They provide more than information; they provide guidance, support and advocacy. They stand alongside Australians navigating diagnosis and treatment. They give people a pathway through the uncertainty. And they continue to advocate for a health system that responds earlier, more effectively and more compassionately.

Lung disease is not rare. It will affect one in three Australians over their lifetime. That's not a small cohort of numbers. It's not a niche issue. The reality is that it touches almost every Australian or a family member at some point in their life in one way or another. Lung Health Awareness Month is more than a moment of recognition. It's a call to act. It's a call for all of us, as members of this place, as members of our community and as a nation, to take lung health seriously, to understand the warning signs, to speak openly about the symptoms, to encourage early conversations with GPs and to support better systems for prevention, diagnosis and care.

Ultimately, this is about something deeply human. It's about dignity, it's about the ability to live life fully and it's about ensuring that Australians are not defined or limited by a condition that too often goes unnoticed and untreated until it's too late. Early diagnosis is key, even if it's a small cough or a sniffle or a bit of breathing that just doesn't sound right. We can't afford to wait until lung health becomes a crisis. We must act earlier, as governments we must invest smarter and we must ensure that awareness, support and care are accessible for every Australian who needs them.

Today I acknowledge every Australian living with lung disease, every carer who stands beside them, every health professional providing support and every organisation working to improve outcomes. The Parliamentary Friends of Lung Health have very informative regular events up here with the Lung Foundation. We have doctors, professionals and people who are living with the symptoms of lung disease come in and talk to us. We've heard of some cases where people let it go too long; they could have been diagnosed earlier and could have had their lives turned around. We've had some great speakers. Next time you get an email that says 'friends of lung health', please come along.

I'll leave this House with this thought. Breathing is the most fundamental part of life. When something so essential is at risk, it becomes our responsibility to act because every breath matters and every Australian deserves the chance to take each one with strength, dignity and hope.

There being no further grievances, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Sitting suspended from 13:31 to 16:00

I rise today to share some words from the next generation of leaders in the Central West. Last year, as part of Regional Development Australia's Central West TEN4TEN Leadership Dialogue, I had the privilege of mentoring Milo Majes, an outstanding young man from Kinross Wolaroi School in Orange. As part of his leadership journey, I gave Milo a challenge: to write a parliamentary speech about any local figure or organisation he believed was worthy of honouring. It's more important than ever that we listen to our young people. I promised Milo that I would deliver his written tribute, ensuring his words were formally recorded in the Hansard of our parliament. The following are the words of Milo:

I address you today in commendation of the unsung efforts of an outstanding Orange City councillor. Undeniably, the incredible contributions of recently elected Councillor Marea Ruddy have actively created meaningful change and bettered the lives of those who call Orange home.

Councillor Ruddy, as a mother, community-orientated leader, founder of Access Life Support Services and a public volunteer, has always strived to benefit the Orange community. This includes initiatives in gender equality, affordable housing, enhancing community safety, liveability, sustainability, inclusivity, and improved infrastructure.

Last year, Cr Ruddy created previously non-existent menstrual equity initiatives, was instrumental in ensuring the success of Rainbow Fest and continues to advocate for the installation of much-needed indoor play spaces for infants.

Last June, Cr Ruddy pioneered Orange's vital "She Matters" mural, which highlights the countless tragedies of domestic violence within Australia. In raising crucial awareness of this unfortunately prevalent issue within our communities, Cr Ruddy hosted several events, campaigning against domestic violence, including her "Am I Next?" initiative, and helped stage a powerful 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence, two years in a row.

It's such ardent persistence in serving the people of Orange honestly, and transparently, that proves Cr Ruddy's dedication to representing and supporting the perspectives of locals, undoubtedly making Orange a better and more inclusive place for all.

As a testament to Councillor Ruddy's unwavering, selfless service and many achievements, she was voted "Community Hero of the Year", an award recognised by hundreds of locals in the Central West.

Councillor Marea Ruddy remains an exceptional role model for the next generation of young leaders in Orange and an influential community figure within the Central West. I look forward to her future contributions to the City of Orange.

Those are the words and observations of Milo. It's inspiring to see our local community through the eyes of a passionate year 12 student. It gives me great confidence in the future of our region. Thank you for that tribute, Milo. Thank you, Councillor Ruddy, and thank you to Regional Development Australia Central West for investing in the next generation of regional leaders just like Milo.

Access to affordable health care for locals in my community in north-west Sydney is not a nice-to-have; it's essential. That's why our government has worked tirelessly to strengthen Medicare and ensure that more Australians can access reliable and affordable health care with their Medicare card, not their credit card.

I'm proud to say that the latest quarterly data released just yesterday shows that, through our historic investment in Medicare, the national bulk-billing rate soared to 81.9 per cent. This is up 4.6 per cent on the same period last year. In New South Wales alone, bulk-billing has increased to over 85 per cent. Importantly, there are now over 3,800 Medicare bulk-billing practices. Of those, more than 1,400 were previously mixed billing clinics.

This includes the Medicare urgent care clinic I was proud to open at Rouse Hill Town Centre late last year. For close to six months, highly trained doctors and nurses at the Rouse Hill Medicare Urgent Care Clinic have been supporting my community to access treatment for a range of conditions and injuries that need urgent attention but aren't life threatening—including cuts, viral infections or sprained ankles. The Albanese government is strengthening Medicare and delivering the critical services that north-west Sydney deserves.

One of the things I hear most often from women in my community is how confusing and overwhelming the health system can feel. That's why I'm hosting a women's health forum with my most excellent colleague, the Assistant Minister for Women and Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care, Rebecca White MP. The forum, which will be hosted online, is designed to inform and empower my community on key women's health issues, including the support our government is providing for Australian women.

The Albanese government is delivering better health care for women, particularly through our landmark $792 million women's health package that's offering more choice, lowering costs and providing better care for Australian women. Since announcing our women's health package, more than 800,000 women have accessed more than three million cheaper scripts for new treatments listed on the PBS. This adds to our government's delivery of 33 endo and pelvic pain clinics, including at Rouse Hill Town Medical and Dental Centre, which is supporting women and girls in my community.

This government will always back Australian women and girls. I encourage all locals in my community to head to michellerowland.com.au and click 'events' to register for my women's health forum.

I support the full Federal Court's recent landmark ruling affirming that the Sex Discrimination Act protects against unlawful discrimination based on gender identity. That protection exists for good reason. Transgender Australians face disproportionate rates of discrimination, harassment and harm. I've heard from a number of constituents that, in 2026, trans people in our community feel increasingly vulnerable, fearful and saddened by the current rhetoric around trans rights rhetoric, which is sadly worsened by some of our colleagues.

I'll read out part of an email that I recently received from a constituent in Kooyong:

Every morning I wake up to see our rights rolled back across the world or a headline about a trans person being killed and it's scary.

It is a frightening time for people in their LGBTQIA+ community. Another constituent told me that they feel 'increasingly vulnerable within the current political climate'. The transgender community want to live their lives peacefully without fear for their safety or their dignity, whether they are trying to access health care or just trying to be in public spaces. These are people, not political talking points. Like every Australian, they seek equal rights and protections under the law.

Many transgender people in my community want us to protect the Sex Discrimination Act, which is why it's concerning that the Leader of the Opposition has vowed that he would lead a coalition government which would seek to amend the Sex Discrimination Act and to insert a definition of biological sex—in other words, a definition of male and female. The opposition leader has said that this wouldn't remove a single protection from anyone, but inserting a binary biological definition of sex into the act would fundamentally alter how protections are interpreted and applied.

As a doctor, I know that gender identity is a complex area of medicine. Sex and gender exist on a spectrum. They're informed by genetics, hormones, anatomy and lived experience. Legally, it is also complex. Protections built up carefully over decades through legislation and case law should not be and cannot be unwound without real human cost. We should be guided by evidence, not by a political reaction to a single court ruling.

The Australian Human Rights Commission welcomed the Federal Court's decision and said that it provided important clarity. I stand with that clarity and I stand with every transgender Australian, who deserve to live free from discrimination.

South-west Sydney is home to every culture and religion. This year is the 80th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Australia and the Philippines. In Werriwa, one of the most active and involved cultural groups are Filipino Australians. Over 3,000 residents were born in the Philippines, and Tagalog is spoken by more than 2,500 of my constituents. Few countries enjoy such a close relationship as the Philippines does with Australia. Our economic, defence and development ties are indicative of the significant mutual respect and trust. It is a partnership in every sense.

Last weekend, I attended the marking of the Santacruzan and Flores de Mayo celebrations with our local Filipino community. Marked by mass officiated by Father Paul Monkerud at All Saints Liverpool, the event showcased our wonderful volunteer Philippine community. Locally, it was my pleasure to deliver an election commitment by securing a $10,000 grant to support the Philippine Australian Global Alliance for Service and Advocacy, the Visayan Association of Australia and the Philippine-Australian Community Foundation. The Albanese government is supporting the hardworking volunteers to run events throughout the year for members of the Philippine and wider Australian community in south-west Sydney. Thank you again to Juan Salazar and all of the volunteers for their work. They ensure that the friendship between our two nations continues to grow and flourish.

Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport is a transformational project for all of Sydney, building our economic resilience and boosting capacity for freight and tourism. The airport—named after female aviation icon Nancy-Bird Walton, founder of the Australian Women Pilots' Association and a trailblazing aviator—is about to open. In May my staff and I had the privilege of a guided tour of the new airport, hosted by executives who have delivered WSI on budget and on time. The welcoming interior and modern amenities show that this is truly a 21st century project and ranks amongst the most modern and innovative airports in the world. It will open to passengers later in the year.

The airport has already strongly supported the local economy, using Australian sourced and locally fabricated steel, and sandstone from the Central Coast, cut in Western Sydney, and contracting local IT and technology companies right here in Sydney. Even before operations have begun, the economic benefits to the local economy are strong. With the opening of the final link of the M7 to the M12 flyover, the airport is ready to open later this year and deliver the jobs and the economic dividends for our local communities.

Last Friday night, more than 150 people gathered at a community forum I convened in the northern Barossa about the proposed ElectraNet Northern Transmission Project, known as NTx, and the message from that meeting was crystal clear. Regional communities feel blindsided. They feel intimidated. They're unsure. They feel like they're being railroaded, and they're deeply concerned about what this project means for productive farming land, family businesses and regional communities.

Many people are only now discovering the scale and scope of what's proposed: massive transmission towers across productive agricultural land in the vicinity of homes, facilitating industrial-scale wind and solar developments being rolled out across regional South Australia. Now Australians are asked to pay twice: first through billions of dollars in subsidies to prop up these renewable projects, and then again through the supply charge on their electricity bills—a charge that covers, amongst other things, poles and wires. This is the same infrastructure, by the way, that's required to bring coal fired energy to South Australia to stabilise the grid. Go figure! We heard from farmers facing scenarios including 30 or more transmission towers on their properties. These aren't empty paddocks; they're family farms. They were built over generations through hard work, sacrifice and stewardship of the land. Regional Australians are entitled to ask a simple question: why, oh why, are country communities always expected to carry the burden?

One of the strongest concerns raised with me was the lack of proper community consultation. We heard repeated claims that ElectraNet is only consulting directly with landholders whose properties fall inside the proposed corridors. What about the homeowner who lives across the road? What about the neighbours, the visual impacts, the construction disruption, the biosecurity risks? They matter too. Consultation shouldn't be about pitting one farmer against another, property by property, or one region against another. If ElectraNet genuinely believe in transparency, they should have no hesitation about open public forums along corridor 5. At the conclusion of Friday's meeting, there were two resolutions. One was to call on ElectraNet to have those open consultations in community. The other was for the establishment of a working party.

Now, regional communities must stand together, and regional Australians must continue to make their voices heard—respectfully and constructively, but firmly—because, if regional Australians don't stand up for themselves, no-one else will. I don't know about you, but I'll stand up for regional Australians, because regional Australia is worth fighting for—just like I'll stand up for Australia, because Australia is worth fighting for, too.

Today I'd like to recognise the extraordinary work of the Port Stephens Family History Society and to celebrate the launch of something truly special for our community—the Henry F Halloran Sound Trail at Tanilba Bay. Now, I have to say: this may be one of the few projects where people were actively encouraged to walk away while the speeches were on and the storytelling was beginning!

This innovative GPS-activated sound trail allows locals and visitors alike to walk, ride and drive through Tanilba Bay while hearing the remarkable story of Henry Ferdinand Halloran, one of the great visionaries connected to the history of Port Stephens. He truly was a remarkable Australian. What makes this achievement even more impressive is that it's the very first GPS sound trail not only in Port Stephens but across the Hunter and Newcastle regions—a true first.

Projects like this don't happen by accident, though; they happen because passionate local people care deeply about preserving history and making it come to life today. In particular, I want to acknowledge the incredible dedication of Robyn Cragg, whose hard work, research, persistence and countless volunteer hours helped bring this product to life. Community history can be, sometimes, a labour of love, and in this case it has truly been a labour of endurance, vision and commitment. Thanks to Robyn and the history society, history is no longer simply sitting quietly in books and archives; it now walks beside us, speaks to us and guides us through the very streets and landmarks that have shaped the community. It's right in our headphones or on the speaker in our car.

And what a fascinating history it is. Henry F Halloran was a surveyor, and he was a developer and a planner, with enormous ambition for regional New South Wales. In the 1920s, he purchased the Tanilba estate and began transforming it into an incredible area, and today we see the gardens, the stone gateways, the tree-lined streets and the community spaces. In fact, he was closely connected with Sir Walter Burley Griffin, who designed Canberra. In fact, Griffin had earlier prepared plans for Port Stephens, which Henry Halloran then brought to life. It was a true collaborative experience, and I'm so pleased that we've got a touch of Canberra in Tanilba Bay. But Canberra was shaped by some of the ideas of Halloran as well.

Thankfully, unlike some developers today, Halloran saw more than blocks of land. He saw beauty. He saw green spaces. He saw community. And he saw opportunity.

Get on to the sound trail at Tanilba Bay. I'm sure you'll be amazed.

A serious accident occurred on Friday 15 May along the Pacific Highway at the Bucketts Way intersection in my electorate. Sadly, this crash is not the first at this intersection, and, unless something changes, it will not be the last.

For years, both the Australian and New South Wales governments have known this intersection requires major work: a grade-separated interchange—the real safety solution. Funding for planning has sat on the books for years, repeatedly re-announced at election time, yet still no work has begun. I appreciate that planning and approvals take time. But this process has dragged on for far too long, while local families continue to risk their lives every single day on this road.

Last year I wrote to both the federal infrastructure minister and the New South Wales roads minister, seeking an update. The response I eventually received was deeply disappointing. I was told that Transport for NSW was 'preparing project proposals to release funds to begin work on a business case'.

Regional communities are sick of endless process, paperwork and delay. They want action. How many more proposals do we need? How many more reviews? How many more near-misses, serious accidents and tragedies, before governments finally move? I've sought a meeting with the New South Wales roads minister to discuss this intersection, and a number of other dangerous locations across our region, and I appreciate her willingness to meet. But we need less talk and more action. People are dying on regional roads while bureaucratic processes move at a snail's pace. King Creek Road, just near where I live, is another example, with design sitting idle since 2024 while communities wait for progress. Ministers, cut the red tape, cut the delays and get on with the job.

The Ronald McDonald retreat in Forster is an incredible home away from home for families with sick children, a place of comfort, hope and compassion during some of life's hardest moments. That same compassion was on display recently at a fundraiser for the retreat held by the Taree Craft Cottage. Under the extraordinary stewardship of Elaine Arneil, the cottage has raised more than $150,000 for local charities over four years, with this high tea marking her final fundraising event. I thank Elaine most sincerely for her remarkable contribution to our community. The cottage was filled with big hearts enjoying a beautiful high tea served on Elaine's own personal tea sets. Through raffles, a dutch auction and generous donations, including my own purchase of this quilted jacket, the event raised more than $10,000 for the Ronald McDonald retreat. Thank you to Lance Fletcher for doing a wonderful job as MC and to the dedicated volunteers who made everyone feel so welcome. The Taree Craft Cottage is known for showcasing the talents of local craftspeople, but on that Saturday it showcased something even more special: the generosity, kindness and community spirit of the people of the Manning.

Last week, Minister Keogh assisted in officially opening the Launceston VeteranHub. This was far more than just officially opening a building. It marked an important step for a space that's already supporting veterans and their families across northern Tasmania. For many veterans, navigating support services can be difficult. Whether it's accessing compensation, finding housing, seeking employment support, improving their wellbeing or simply needing someone who understands what they're going through, support should be easy to find and even easier to access, and that is exactly what this VeteranHub does. What struck me most about the project is that it was not simply built for veterans; it was predominantly built by veterans. Veterans and volunteers gave their time, rolled up their sleeves and got to work, choosing to do much of the work themselves so more funding could be better allocated to supporting veterans and their families rather than to contractors. They renovated rooms, painted walls and created beautiful artwork to design a space that already feels welcoming and safe. They saw a need in their community and they came together to meet it. We know that the strongest communities are built when people step forward to support one another, and veterans have once again stepped forward to support their communities. And now it's our turn to stand beside them. Tasmania has more veterans per capita than anywhere else in Australia, and supporting veterans is not simply important here; it's part of who we are.

I want to acknowledge RSL Tasmania; the Launceston RSL; and the staff, volunteers and advocates who helped make this hub a reality, because this hub is a reminder that service does not end when a uniform comes off. Sometimes it simply changes shape, and in Launceston veterans have once again stepped forward to serve their community.

For generations, Legacy has quietly done extraordinary work within our communities, supporting the families, partners, children and loved ones of veterans, making sure that people are not left to carry hardship alone. Their work is practical, but it's also deeply human. To every volunteer support worker, every single person who has ever been involved with Legacy, particularly at Launceston Legacy—Sonya, Terry and Brian—thank you so much for everything that you do to support our community. Thank you for standing beside families when they need it most, and thank you for continuing that tradition of service.

It's always been the great promise of Australia that anyone could build a better life through hard work and sacrifice. That was never something to apologise for; it was something to aspire to. But increasingly this government seems to view aspiration itself as something it needs to curb. Throughout this month's budget, the changes that will hit Redlanders who have worked hard, built businesses and invested their money responsibly. I've heard directly from local small-business owners who are feeling let down and cheated by these changes. Vijay, a local business owner in Victoria Point, told me that the proposed changes to capital gains tax and trust arrangements are creating real uncertainty, which is reducing his ability to reinvest, delaying expansion and making him more cautious about hiring. He made it clear that, for small businesses, profits are not just income; they are what funds growth, job creation and long-term stability.

Another small-business owner in my electorate, Mark, who has been building his business for over a decade, says he's always focused on working hard, employing locals and contributing, but now feels small businesses like his are being treated as a convenient revenue stream by the government. Mark says, and I quote, 'From my side, the impact of these types of changes isn't just theoretical; it directly affects decisions around hiring, expansion and how much we're willing to reinvest back into the business.' His message is simple: when the risk and effort no longer match the reward, the incentive to grow disappears and hesitation becomes the enemy of investment.

An individual who owns a manufacturing business in my electorate has contacted me in relation to the CGT changes as well. He says his accountant has advised him that he needs to have his business revalued at 30 June next year, at an estimated cost of approximately $20,000. It's the immediate impact of these changes. This is wasted money that he says could be better used in his business for development or wage increases for his great staff. He says he was considering investing in his business operations to install new equipment and employ additional staff, but has now cancelled those plans. This individual says: 'To put it bluntly, this budget has us seriously considering selling or even closing the business before June next year, as there is no longer any reward for ingenuity, hard work or effort. The result of this will be 12 locals being made redundant and the loss of another local business due to the decisions made by this government, which refuses to control its spending agenda.'

These are ordinary Australians. These are people who've worked hard, saved, built businesses, paid taxes and tried to do the responsible thing. They're not asking for special treatment; they are asking for a policy environment that supports their efforts rather than undermines them. Australia succeeds when that hard work is rewarded, not resented. The coalition believes there is a better path—a fairer, freer and stronger Australia, where hard work is rewarded, small businesses are backed and the next generation has a genuine chance to get ahead.

It is my pleasure to rise and acknowledge some of the community organisations and events that I have been able to attend and support over the last few weeks in my electorate of Banks. The students at Lugarno Public School, Picnic Point High School and Panania Public School each held services to mark Anzac Day, which I had the privilege of attending, while many more schools were represented at RSL ceremonies across the community, across the electorate, on the day. Anzac commemorations are one of the most solemn occasions on our national calendar, and the students and schools treated the commemorations with the deep reverence and reflection that the day and ceremonies commanded. It is always heartening to see local students participating in one of our most important national traditions.

On 1 May, I was able to drop in to the St George Men's Shed at Carss Park and catch up during their monthly barbecue. Organisations like the St George Men's Shed provide an excellent avenue for men from the community to come together, talk, and put their skills to great causes. The St George Men's Shed is in a particularly beautiful location next to Carss Bush Park, overlooking the sporting fields across to the Georges River. It was great to speak with members about what they've been up to and the types of support they need. Thank you to all the members for having me, especially to the president, Phil, and the secretary, Bernie, for organising my visit.

Finally, in late April, it was my pleasure to join the minister for infrastructure, Catherine King, and the mayor of the Canterbury-Bankstown Council, Bilal El-Hayek, for the opening of the new Lambeth Reserve Playground. When I speak to families in my electorate of Banks, quality outdoor spaces and playgrounds are the most common things I hear about, and the delivery of such facilities like this is so important to communities across the country. I'm pleased to say the pirate playground in Lambeth Reserve is a smash hit amongst families across the area, and they look forward to further playgrounds coming up.

This pirate ship playground was made possible by federal government funding through the Thriving Suburbs Program, contributing $9.5 million to a series of projects across the Canterbury-Bankstown LGA in conjunction with the council. And I very much look forward to the opening of another one of these projects, the whale playground at the Deepwater Park Play Space in Milperra, very soon. In particular, I look forward to bringing my little girl, Dorothy, as well as my nieces Eleanor and Abigail to make sure they can enjoy the excellent amenities that our local area is providing with the support of the federal government.

I rise today to condemn the Albanese Labor government and its continued attack on older regional Western Australians. At a time when Australians are already struggling with rising grocery prices, soaring power bills and higher fuel costs, Labor is now forcing Australians over 65 to pay hundreds of dollars more each year for private health insurance. This is not a minor inconvenience. For many older Australians living on fixed incomes, it is a serious financial burden.

Recently, I heard from a constituent. We'll call her Jan. Jan and her husband have been paying for private health insurance since 1974. They are self-funded retirees now in their 70s, living about 800 kilometres north of Perth. Jan is a breast cancer survivor and told me she was fortunate to receive surgery quickly and in a timely manner because she had private health cover. I hope the Prime Minister is listening. Jan said:

I personally feel we are being let down and PERHAPS we would have been better off spending our money so we could get the pension card that provides everything FREE instead of working hard and saving for a so-called 'stress free' retirement!

Now that we are no longer a majority of the private health fund insured OR voting cohort, this Government does yet another cash grab from the vulnerable. This decision is absolutely discriminatory and needs to be reversed.

That is the frustration and disappointment older Australians are feeling right now. In my electorate of Durack, nearly a quarter of residents will be directly affected by these changes, and, in regional Western Australia, private health insurance is not simply an optional extra. For many people, it is an absolute necessity.

Regional Australians already face fewer healthcare services, long waits to see specialists and limited treatment options, yet this government has chosen to impose increases of up to 21 per cent on private health cover for older Australians. Labor has ignored a basic reality: older Australians rely on health care more often and at a stage of life when affordable access matters most. Sadly, Labor doesn't care about our seniors. They have calculated that this easy tax grab has no political outcome, and that is what is so wicked and despicable about this change. They don't think this demographic votes for them anyway, so therefore there is no political outcome. They actually don't care. I really hope that senior Australians are picking up on this, because the response to me has been overwhelming. We launched a survey asking constituents whether they could afford any increase, and, not surprisingly, we had an unbelievable, overwhelming response. This survey is still available on my website www.melissapricemp.com.au.

It's pretty special to see community members come out in ever-growing numbers, as they did at Emu Plains on Anzac Day for the community run service. Along with the member for Penrith, Karen McKeowen, and her office, my team and I were grateful to be supporting the newly formed Anzac Day committee so locals could pay their respects at the Emu Plains War Memorial. With well over a thousand people in attendance, I want to put on record my thanks to those who came and to the many people who made the day possible.

Volunteers who served on the community committee included members of Penrith RSL sub-Branch, with Peter Ward stepping up as a co-chair alongside local resident Kim Martin. Nepean District Historical Society, Lions Club of Emu Plains, Emu Plains Girl Guides, Penrith City NASHOS and Anglican Church representatives and many other individuals were all involved in the meetings and on the day. Local businesses generously provided financial support for this service, including Dukes Estate Agents, PAAL Kit Homes, Epoc Enviro and Leonay Golf Club, and Penrith RSL and Paul Wallace at Property Central donated to ensure that the Lions Club barbecue was well stocked, which was much appreciated by the crowd after the service. There were endless in-kind supports and offers, like the historical display and morning tea by the historical society inside Melrose Hall; Penrith City Council, who waived the fee for the park and hall hire—thanks Mayor Todd Carney—the wonderful Emu Plains Girl Guides who allowed us to use their hall for committee meetings free of charge; and all the donors of Rosemary.

The service itself was led by Nepean Creative and Performing Arts High School leaders Emma Hobson and Alex McDonald-Tickner, with Adam Hurford on drums, Ashleigh Long and Charisse Bell singing the national anthems, and former student Tyler Watson was our bugler. Emu Heights Public School, Emu Plains Public School, Leonay Public School and Our Lady of the Way Primary School all participated in the march and service in one or more ways, as did Reverand Roger Cunningham, Legacy, Lesley Ayres from the Women's Veteran Network, Emu Plains Little Athletics and Nepean Rovers.

A special thank you to No. 37 Squadron RAAF Base Richmond, who provided a catafalque party led by Flight Lieutenant Nathan Peters. This was a first for the service in recent years and so appreciated by the community. Pilot Officer Lewis Jackson delivered a beautiful commemorative address, while Sergeant Shane Trigg laid a wreath on behalf of the squadron. People valued hearing stories of the service and sacrifice of local families, including those named on the plaques of the Emu Plains cenotaph from Chris Bryett, the sub-branch veterans' advocate. It was a beautiful example of a community that really cares.

When a government runs out of money, it quickly tells you who it thinks should foot the bill for its wasteful spending, and, under this Labor government, the answer is becoming very clear—older Australians. Labor has fired the gun on intergenerational warfare. This is a government that speaks the language of fairness while practising the politics of division. It says one thing before an election and does the opposite after. It promised Australians relief and, instead, it's delivered pressure. It promised lower costs and, instead, it's delivered higher taxes, higher health bills and higher anxiety for people who have worked their whole lives to stand on their own two feet.

Older Australians are not asking for special treatment. They're simply asking for the government to stop changing the rules after they've structured their retirement on them. First, Labor's coming after their private health insurance. Australians over 65 who did the responsible thing, who planned ahead, took pressure off the public system by maintaining private cover, are now being told that they should pay more. More than 1.4 million Australians will be hit with premium increases of up to $640 a year. In my own electorate, more than 1,400 older Australians have contacted me to tell me that they may be forced to cancel their cover altogether. That will not just hurt them; it'll push more people into an already stretched public hospital system.

Then Labor's coming after aged care by expanding the GST to include aged-care living fees. These so-called optional fees are not optional for the people who rely on them. Providers will pass on the costs, and older Australians will pay more at one of the most vulnerable stages of their life.

Labor promised no changes to the GST before the election. Now, older Australians are finding out what that promise was worth. Now we see the introduction of a death tax by stealth. After a lifetime of work saving, sacrifice and contribution, Labor's reaching beyond retirement and into what Australians had hoped to leave behind for their families. Let's call this for what it is: this is Labor punishing older Australians because they don't vote for them. This is not reform. It's not fairness; it's a tax raid dressed up as policy. Australians don't want carve outs to Labor's toxic taxes; they want them axed.

Older Australians built this country. They raised families, paid taxes, started businesses, volunteered in our communities and carried the responsibilities that made Australia strong. They do not deserve to be treated like a source of endless revenue. They deserve respect, they deserve certainty and they deserve a government that remembers this one simple truth: you do not strengthen Australia by punishing the people who built it.

The Idle Off Campaign is an initiative to improve air quality for kids around schools and childcare centres by asking parents to switch off their engines whilst they're waiting in line to pick their kids up from school. It's a campaign that's a partnership between Parents for Climate and Doctors for the Environment that was initiated in my electorate. We know that every day cars sit with their engines running while parked and that idling sends exhaust fumes straight into the air that our children breathe in. Kids' lungs are still developing and, because they breathe more air relative to their body size than adults, they're more vulnerable to traffic pollution. Short-term exposure can trigger asthma and respiratory irritation. Repeated exposure can affect lung, heart and brain development. Leaving an engine running near a child can be the equivalent of smoking a cigarette around them.

Idle Off is a campaign of prevention, not blame. Turning off the engine when parked for more than a few seconds reduces harmful pollution immediately and improves air quality. I want to acknowledge Dr Anthony Hull and Dr Fiona Foo from my area for their leadership of the Idle Off project. They're working to help reduce exposure to invisible air pollution. A small change can have a big effect on our kids' health.

I also want to report on the reopening of the Only About Children childcare centre in Maroubra. This reopening reminds me, once again, of the strength and resilience of our community. On 21 January 2025, the childcare centre was firebombed and antisemitic graffiti was written on the walls of the childcare centre, which is next door to the Maroubra Synagogue. It attempted to leave the community frightened, divided and silenced. But, from the number of people who joined us at the reopening, it was clear that the attempt failed. Our community chose a different path. Our response to that shocking event was to work together, to choose unity over division and to focus on solving challenges, rather than taking potshots at one another. We embrace the spirit represented by the mural on the outside wall that I commissioned many years ago to combat antisemitism in our community and that of the students who created it. The theme is: harmony, respect and unity.

This centre thrives not only because of its facilities and programs but because of the people who bring it to life, the children whose curiosity fills each room and the educators who guide and nurture them. The childcare centre is actually on the site of the old Maroubra Junction infant school, where I went to school as a kid. On that site is a massive oak tree that we used to play on as kids. There were plenty of falls out of that tree in my time! But it's wonderful to see that that oak tree is still there in the playground of the childcare centre, a great example of the resilience and determination of our community to fight antisemitism and racism.

Men are often not good at speaking up when they need help. Too many boys and men suffer in silence, trying to push through hardship on their own. But, in Australia, there is already something screaming out that men and boys need help, and that's the alarming statistics showing Australian males dying prematurely and from preventable causes. The life expectancy gap between men and women, with men living around five per cent fewer years on average, tells only part of the story. A clearer picture comes from looking at the potential years of life lost, which measures the years lost through premature death. In 2023, Australia lost more than 913,000 potential years of life from premature death, with the male rate at a staggering 64 per cent higher than the female rate. One of the big drivers of this burden is suicide. Of the 3,307 Australians who died by suicide in 2024, 2,529 were males, more than 75 per cent. Last year, the number of men and boys who took their own lives was almost double the national road toll. Yet the recently released National Suicide Prevention Strategy, while acknowledging these terrible statistics for Australian men, does not contain a broader male population response. The minister's foreword does not even mention male suicide.

The same pattern exists beyond suicide. Men have higher rates of lung cancer, liver disease and heart disease, yet receive comparatively little targeted attention in the health policy. The 2025 budget rightly included a significant $792 million investment in women's health. Since 2022, the Albanese government has allocated over $1.4 billion towards women's and men's health initiatives. However, according to the Australian Men's Health Forum, less than two per cent of that funding went specifically to men's health.

The imbalance is also reflected in medical research, with the National Health and Medical Research Council showing expenditure on women's health research in 2025 more than six times higher than that on men's health research. Australia rightly measures gender gaps to address poor outcomes and disadvantage, making much-needed and welcome improvements for women. But, when men are dying younger, making up over 75 per cent of suicides and carrying a greater burden of preventable diseases, is it not time we treated the gender life gap with the serious national attention that it also deserves?

Today I am acknowledging an extraordinary member of our community, Eddie Hebbard. Eddie is a volunteer at the Sycamore Tree Cafe in Heidelberg. He is a previous winner of a Jagajaga community volunteer award.

Eddie was diagnosed with autism at the age of three, and throughout his life Eddie has shown incredible determination, resilience and strength of character. His story is really one of perseverance and of community. Eddie is surrounded by a wonderful support network of family, advocates and medical professionals who really work with him to ensure he lives a life of dignity, of inclusion and of connection—in particular, his mother, Heather, who I know is so proud of Eddie, and who has just launched her book Educating Eddie.

In this book, Heather shares her experience of advocating for Eddie's education, for his inclusion and for his place in the wider community. The book was cowritten with Meryka Alexander, who has also been part of the Hebbard family for more than 25 years as Eddie's teacher, advocate, adviser and trusted supporter. Together they paint a moving and an honest picture of a family and a community who are absolutely committed to Eddie's wellbeing. The book explores the realities of navigating Eddie's safety needs, his routines, his obsessions and his phobias, all while really celebrating the love that Heather, his family and his community have brought to shape Eddie's life.

I was so proud, some years ago, to present Eddie with a Jagajaga volunteer award, and that's a moment that is also captured in this book as part of his story. I really want to congratulate Eddie. I want to especially congratulate Heather for the success of Educating Eddie and for the effort they have made to share his story. I wish them all the very best for the future.

Recently I had the pleasure of joining my state colleague Vicki Ward, the Nillumbik mayor Naomi Joiner and local residents to mark the opening of upgraded community facilities at Eltham Lower Park. This is a great area. It's used for recreation and used for sport. In particular, we were marking the upgrade of the pavilion there, which the cricket club and the lacrosse club both use. I was really pleased to see the $2 million that we, as a government, have contributed deliver some important upgrades, delivering more modern facilities that will better support these community clubs.

We have also provided for a new off-leash dog park in the area, meaning the sporting fields can be used for sport while there's a dedicated space for dog walkers. I am really excited also to have seen landscaping works protecting the natural environment in the area, and recognising the contributions from the Friends of Eltham Lower Park and the Friends of Diamond Creek in the area. It's wonderful to be able to support our local community sporting clubs and our local community more broadly with investments like this.

A week ago I was doing my listening post run. I was in a small town called Derrinallum, a lovely rural little community full of wonderful volunteers who gel and bring the community together for various things. This lovely old lady came up to me and said, 'I'd like to raise an issue with you.' I said, 'Yes?' She said, 'Well, me and my husband—I'm on a pension, he was on the pension, but we've always had private health insurance.' She said: 'Sadly, my husband died not so long ago of cancer, and I've got serious health issues myself. Obviously, I want to make sure I can keep my private health insurance, but the government, as I understand it, has made changes to the way the rebate works for those over 65. Can you tell me what the cost impact of those changes to the rebate will be? I'm deeply concerned now—with the cost of living and how much I'm paying at the supermarket, my gas bill, my electricity bill—whether I'm going to be able to afford my private health insurance going forward. It's something that I know I need because I've got to get medical treatment the whole time. Does the government and the Prime Minister really understand how hard it is for someone on a pension, who's facing serious illness, to be able to keep their private health insurance? As you know, living in the country, it's not always easy to access the types of services for the disease that I'm dealing with. Do you think that they understand that and that you often have to travel? With what's happened with the cost of fuel going up and the cost of having to travel to see a doctor, do you think there's any real understanding of the pressures they're putting on someone like me? If we didn't have private health insurance, we would never have been able to care for my husband in the way that we did. I want to make sure that I can care for myself and look after myself, and I want to be able to get the best medical treatment that I can, to deal with the illness that I'm dealing with.'

I say to the Prime Minister: would you please think about the impact that your changes to private health are having on people? When you stand up in the parliament and you're asked a question about this, do not deny to people that you are actually changing private health insurance.

Last week I met with Maree and Jason, the husband-and-wife team behind RTV Training, a local machinery and safety training organisation in the electorate of Braddon. They've successfully secured $250,000 in funding through the Albanese Labor government's local jobs, local people grants under the Local Jobs Program. The funding will allow RTV to run their new program, Entering the Construction and Energy Transition Industries. The program will support around 40 participants and will build on their skills and abilities to secure nationally accredited training and employment opportunities. It's focused on the construction and future energy transition industries, which are growth sectors for Braddon.

Maree and Jason were kind enough to show me around their fantastic training facilities in Ridgley, and even got me into an excavator! Maree and Jason are passionate about getting the best out of their clients, regularly providing support over and above what's required for their training and short courses. They've even purpose-built a mini roof for their working-at-heights training so the course can be conducted safely and practically. Maree and Jason told me they were very excited to start this new program, given the job opportunities that currently are available in these growth sectors.

As an RTO, RTV provide courses for businesses and individuals, including short courses for first aid, confined spaces, white card, chainsaw and many more. They have a huge range of machinery to teach people how to operate loaders, telehandlers, graders, dozers and a whole range of others. The machinery is located onsite to give participants real-time experience in practical training scenarios. They also offer qualifications in agriculture, horticulture, civil construction, mining and quarrying. These qualifications are all directly relevant to many work opportunities right across the electorate of Braddon, so it's fantastic to have access to quality and comprehensive training close to where people live so they don't have to travel that far to get there—in their words, 'If we can train quality workers in Braddon, we can keep them here and everyone benefits.'

The Albanese Labor government is funding projects that support the workforce needs of our region, helping jobseekers move into work while supporting local employers to get the workforce that they need. This funding for RTV benefits jobseekers, employers and local businesses by delivering practical, community led solutions that respond directly to local workforce requirements and also to what's coming up in the future. I want to congratulate Maree and Jason on securing this funding. I'm proud to support increased access to training, both for jobseekers and for those looking to upskill right across those industries that are going to be so important to us in the future, not only for existing workers to transition into but for new workers coming in.

When young Australians put on the uniform and commit to defending this nation, we make them a promise: that their sacrifice will be honoured. The Defence Home Ownership Assistance Scheme is one of the ways we keep that promise, by helping ADF members into homes. But, right now, that promise is being broken. I have been informed by those in the industry that the closed three-lender DHOAS panel charges veterans up to 80 basis points above market, costing around $130,000 over the life of a typical loan. In many cases, the panel rate swallows the subsidy entirely, and some personnel are locked out altogether because they don't fit any of the three lenders' credit policies. I put this to the parliament back in 2022, yet nothing has changed. The royal commission identified housing stability as critical to Defence Force retention. This government is now locking this broken panel in for another seven years. First home buyers choose from 33 lenders under the Commonwealth scheme. Our veterans get three. We need to do right by those who serve.

This budget is a fraud on the Australian people. Labor promised Australians cheaper power bills; instead, families are paying hundreds more. They promised cost-of-living relief; instead, Australians are skipping meals, draining savings and falling behind on mortgages. They promised economic responsibility, yet small businesses are collapsing at record rates under the crushing weight of Labor's inflation, energy costs and red tape. Across this country, family businesses that survived floods, fire and COVID are now shutting their doors because of this government. Tradies, cafes, retailers and manufacturers are being driven into the ground while Labor pats itself on the back in Canberra. And while Australians struggle, Labor is cutting defence capability and failing our veterans.

Veteran families of our war heroes are fighting for basic support while ministers and their spouses rack up taxpayer funded travel bills without hesitation. Australians are sick of the double standard. This government is selling off defence land and strategic assets while our region becomes more unstable and dangerous. At the exact time Australia should be strengthening its national security, Labor is weakening it. And what are the government's priorities? There always seems to be money available to bring back and support these ISIS members, but everyday Australians are being told there is nothing for them. The Prime Minister should be ashamed. This government is eroding the Australian way of life, punishing aspiration, abandoning small business, weakening defence and threatening hardworking Australians.

The Albanese government's recent budget is all about making it easier for young people in Melbourne's west to buy their first home. I want young Australians in my community to know that, while making big changes sometimes triggers a lot of predictable noise from those opposite, online and in the media, we are fighting for you.

In the recent federal budget, we committed to a series of tax changes that will even the playing field between first home buyers and investors at auctions across the country, tax changes that will cut income taxes for all Australian workers five times in three different ways, and tax changes that will even the playing field between people trying to buy their first home to live in and investors buying second, third, fourth, fifth or 10th home to profit from. Today, negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts give property investors an unfair advantage at auctions over people wanting to buy their first homes. We're going to change that. Plenty of Australians, particularly young Australians, feel like the system just isn't working for them at the moment—that, no matter how hard they work, the system won't let them get ahead. If people don't think the system is working for them, they'll give up on it. They'll give up on the political parties that won't fight for them, and then they'll give up on our democratic system altogether.

We're seeing the consequences of this in democracies around the world. Housing is ground zero for this kind of frustration and anger in Australia. Every Australian should be able to aspire to own their own home. Our tax system shouldn't crush the aspiration of first home buyers by turbocharging the buying power of investors buying their second, third, fourth or 10th home. For too long in Australia, people who earn a wage for a living, the vast majority of working Australians, have been treated more harshly by our tax system than people who can afford expensive accountants. Housing is too important to our society for the tax system to be rigged against first home buyers. So instead of sitting on our hands, we're doing something about it, just like we took action in last year's budget through our five per cent deposit policy, which has already helped over 250,000 Australians buy their first home, including more than 2,700 in our community in Melbourne's west.

We still understand, though, that the major cause of Australia's housing challenge is that for decades our country hasn't built enough homes. So we'll ensure that, if you're adding to the nation's housing stock by building a new home, you'll still be able to negatively gear it.

In addition, we're continuing with the biggest, boldest, most ambitious Commonwealth housing agenda we've seen in 70 years: a $47 billion commitment to building more houses in Australia. In this year's budget, we've committed an extra $2 billion to fund enabling infrastructure for housing construction: the pipes, paths and power that communities need for more housing. Even better, we're delivering this funding in a way that incentivises state governments to fix their planning processes and accelerate construction. That brings the total we've committed to housing infrastructure to a record $6.3 billion.

Change is hard in the current political and social media environment. The people who benefit from the status quo make a lot of noise. But we know, when the system's not working, it's up to governments to act, and that's exactly what we're doing.

In accordance with standing order 103, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.

One of the responsibilities that comes with government is inheriting the consequences of decisions you didn't make. Sometimes that means fixing what was broken before you arrived, and that is what this bill is seeking to do. It is the result of this government choosing to get on with the job of identifying areas that need fixing and then moving forward with reforms that make them better. That is what the Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift) Bill 2026 represents, and I'm proud to make a contribution to this debate.

To appreciate why we are making these changes, I think it's worth understanding what came before. In 2020, the former coalition government launched what it called the Modernising Business Registers Program. The ambition to consolidate 30 of Australia's business registers into one was, in principle, a sensible idea. However, the execution was anything but. Year after year, the costs ballooned while deadlines were consistently missed. In what has become a defining legacy of the former coalition government, promises were made to businesses and regulators that amounted to nothing.

By the time the independent Rees review examined the program in 2023, the findings were damning. The costs had escalated so dramatically that they would far outweigh the benefits that any program might deliver. In the end, the review recommended cessation. The program was a complete failure. In August 2023, this government made the difficult but responsible decision to pull the plug. We cancelled the Modernising Business Registers Program and committed to a new, pragmatic and better managed approach, one led by ASIC and focused on delivering actual outcomes for Australian businesses. I make this point because it explains the reasoning for what we are talking about today.

The former government did not just waste money; it left a legislative time bomb. Unless this parliament acts before 30 June 2026, provisions from that failed program will automatically commence on 1 July 2026. Those provisions would transfer legal responsibility for Australia's business registers away from ASIC and hand it to a different body entirely: a registrar established for a program that no longer exists. That would be a bureaucratic and operational disaster, and this bill prevents that from happening.

Before working through what this bill does, it is worth also stepping back and understanding why we need these registers. Australian business registers are, in many respects, critical to our commercial economy. When Australians look up a company to check whether it's legitimate, they're using a business register. When a bank assesses a loan application or when a regulator investigates misconduct or even when a small business checks whether its supplier actually exists, they are using a business register. They are established under statute, administered by independent regulators and, unlike many other data sources, carry legal weight. They are an authoritative source of truth and generate around $1.2 billion in annual revenue for the Commonwealth, underpinning our business tax collection system. These registers are critical national economic infrastructure, and, for too long, they have been running on technology that is decades out of date and increasingly at risk. That is why our government is fixing that.

Since December 2023, we have committed $527.2 million to stabilise and uplift the registers under ASIC's leadership. That program, known as RegistryConnect, is on time and on budget. In fact, it's already delivering results, but, to keep it on track, we need this legislation.

The bill has three schedules. Schedule 3 is the most urgent. It repeals provisions left over from the failed Modernising Business Registers program that are set to automatically commence on 1 July 2026. As I mentioned earlier, without this repeal, those provisions would make Australian Business Registry Services, a body created for a cancelled program, responsible for registers. ASIC would lose the authority it needs to continue the important work it has been doing. The RegistryConnect program would be thrown into disarray, causing costs to blow out and key deliverables to be delayed. Schedule 3 simply ensures that that doesn't happen. It confirms what the government decided in 2023: ASIC is responsible for these registers and ASIC will continue to administer and uplift them.

Schedule 2 is the part of the bill that gives ASIC the powers it needs to do its job properly in the modern era. First, it allows directors to use an alternative address for service rather than their home addresses when their details are listed on the register. This is a privacy and safety measure. Right now, the home addresses of company directors are publicly visible on the register. For most directors, this is probably a minor inconvenience, but, for some, including those facing domestic violence situations, those who've received threats and those in sensitive professions, it is a genuine safety risk. This change gives those individuals meaningful protection without reducing the transparency and accountability that the register provides.

Second, the bill expands ASIC's capacity to interact with businesses and individuals electronically. In 2026 there is no reason why routine interactions with a government regulator should require paper forms and postal mail. These changes will make it simpler and more efficient for companies and individuals to deal with ASIC, again reducing red tape in a way that actually brings about meaningful change.

Third, the bill gives ASIC appropriate powers to correct errors on registers, disclose information in the public interest and, in limited but important circumstances, deregister companies where false or misleading information has been provided. In an environment where fraud and misuse of corporate structures is a genuine growing concern, that last power is particularly significant.

But schedule 1 is perhaps the most significant part of the bill. It is the part that I think will deliver the greatest long-term benefit for businesses, for consumers and for the integrity of our corporate system. Since November 2021, directors of Australian companies have been required to hold a director ID. That is a unique, lifelong identifier used by Australian Business Registry Services and administered by the tax office. Three million directors now hold one. The director ID regime was designed to address a specific and serious problem: the ability of bad actors to use false identities to set up companies, strip assets and disappear. But a director ID only works if it is visible. Right now, the information sits with the tax office and is not linked to the ASIC companies register. Despite this being the register that businesses and the public actually use when they want to check who is running a company, the two systems do not talk to each other, and that gap is where fraudsters hide.

Schedule 1 closes that gap. It requires companies to report director ID information to ASIC for all of their directors at the point of registration, through the annual review process and whenever director details change. That information will then be linked to and published on the company's register so that anyone, whether that be a prospective business partner, a consumer, a journalist or a regulator, can verify who is actually behind a company and trace their connections across corporate entities. This is a genuine structural reform to how corporate transparency works in Australia. Next time a business is considering a major contract with a new supplier, they'll be able to check whether the directors of that supplier have a history of failed companies. If the consumer is worried about whether a company is legitimate, they will have more information to make that judgement. In the situation where ASIC is investigating potential misconduct, they will have better tools to follow the money and identify the people responsible.

This bill also includes integrity measures to ensure that directors are aware of and consented to their appointment at the point of linking. This directly addresses a real problem. There are too many instances where individuals have found themselves listed as directors of companies without their knowledge. This is a gateway to identity theft and fraud. These measures slam shut that loophole.

As a responsible government, this bill did not emerge from nothing. The Treasury conducted public consultation on the draft legislation from December 2025 through to February this year. The feedback was overwhelmingly supportive. Stakeholders across business, the legal profession and civil society recognised the value of what this legislation does. There was particular and strong support for the director ID-linking provisions, as many submissions highlighted the importance of these changes for cybersecurity and antifraud efforts. That broad support reflects that fact that, unlike the failed program it replaces, this legislation has been developed through genuine engagement with the people it affects.

This bill sits alongside a broader set of reforms that the Albanese Labor government has made since coming into office, and it is the foundation on which the next phase of work will be built. With this legislation in place, ASIC will deliver new company search services later this year. In 2027, new company registration services will launch, and the director ID regime will be formally linked to the company's register by 1 July 2027. Looking further ahead, the stabilised register will also be the platform on which this government delivers beneficial ownership reforms that will shine a light on who truly owns and controls Australian companies, rather than just who appears to on the paperwork. That work can only proceed once the registers are stabilised and modernised. This bill makes it possible.

This is a bill about getting the basics right. It is about making sure Australia's core economic infrastructure is fit for purpose and reflects the modern society it operates in. This bill also makes sure the systems that businesses and consumers rely on to verify who they're dealing with are accurate, secure, modern and, above all else, trustworthy. It fixes a legislative hangover from a failed expensive program that the former coalition government left behind. It gives ASIC the tools it needs to do its job, while delivering meaningful reform that makes it harder for bad-faith actors to defraud and exploit honest businesses and working people. That is worthy thing for this parliament to do, and I'm proud that this government is getting on and doing it. I commend the bill to the House.

Strong economies? They're built on trust—trust that institutions are accountable and should be accountable, trust that markets operate fairly and should operate fairly and trust that rules are applied consistently and should be applied consistently. Confidence and trust are absolutely critical for economies to function effectively. When Australians have confidence in institutions, businesses and markets, they are more willing to invest. They're more willing to innovate, to employ workers and to make long-term decisions with confidence. This is what this bill delivers.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift) Bill 2026 strengthens Australia's business registries so that they are more secure, more transparent, more reliable and more useful for the Australians who rely on them every single day. It's true that business registries may not often make the headlines, but they are critical economic infrastructure. Before a supplier extends credit, a landlord enters a commercial lease, an investor undertakes due diligence or a regulator investigates suspicious conduct, decisions are being made based on the reliability of corporate information. Australia's business registries, because of that, are critical economic infrastructure. They provide trusted information about companies, directors and corporate structures that supports transparency, accountability and indeed confidence across the entire economy in this nation. Efficient markets depend on that reliable information and trusted systems. When information is accurate, accessible and reliable, businesses can invest with better confidence, markets operate more effectively and regulators are better equipped to maintain integrity across the corporate framework. That is why Australia's business registries matter and why they must evolve with the expectations of a modern economy.

Many of the systems underpinning Australia's business registries rely on ageing legacy technology that requires modernisation. The Albanese Labor government recognised that these systems required practical reform and so, following an independent review in 2023, this government made the decision to cease the former coalition government's Modernising Business Registers Program after significant cost escalation without delivering on the intended outcomes. Rather than continuing to invest in a program that was not delivering and was not working, Labor took a very practical approach—stabilising Australia's business registries, fixing what wasn't working and focusing on reforms that could be delivered.

That is why the Albanese Labor government established RegistryConnect, a measured and achievable program focused on strengthening registry integrity, modernising digital services and delivering practical improvements for business and the whole community at large. Since 2023, the Albanese Labor government has committed more than $527 million to stabilise and modernise Australia's business registries. Importantly, RegistryConnect is on time, on budget and already delivering those practical improvements. That includes a new professional register search function, a streamlined Australian Financial Services licence registration portal and a redesigned ASIC website that consolidates company and business registration information. This bill supports the continuation of that process, that progress and that work that we as a government have already done.

A major component of this bill strengthens the current director identification number regime and integrates it more effectively into Australia's business registry scheme. Director IDs are an important integrity measure within Australia's corporate regulatory framework. They provide a unique identifier that remains with an individual director over time, making it much easier to trace directorships across corporate entities, distinguish between individuals with very similar names and strengthen the reliability of information held on ASIC's business registers. The director ID regime has operated since 2021 and, since its induction, around three million directors have obtained a director ID. Accurate and reliable registry information strengthens confidence in Australia's corporate framework and supports stronger regulatory oversight. It helps regulators monitor patterns of activity, strengthens the integrity of corporate information and makes it harder for individuals to obscure their involvement across multiple entities.

However, there is an important gap in that current framework. At present, director IDs sit separately from ASIC's companies register, limiting the transparency and integrity benefits the regime was designed to support. This legislation will enable director ID information to be linked to ASIC's companies register, strengthening the quality, usability and reliability of information across Australia's business registry system. Importantly, this reform does not create a new standalone reporting regime or unnecessary red tape for business. Instead, companies will provide director ID information through existing registration and reporting processes, including annual reviews and updates to director details. That means stronger transparency and accountability delivered through systems that businesses already use in their day-to-day. Linking director IDs to company records will make it easier for regulators to trace those relationships across multiple corporate entities, improve the accuracy of that registry information that so many businesses rely on and support stronger regulatory oversight. It will also provide greater confidence in the integrity of company information—relied upon by businesses, relied upon by investors and, indeed, relied upon by the broader community to give them the confidence that this is a system that is accurate and that this is a system that they can have faith in.

These reforms will strengthen efforts to combat fraud and illegal phoenix activity. Illegal phoenix activity occurs when a company is deliberately liquidated or abandoned—in order to avoid debts, employee entitlements, tax liabilities or obligations to suppliers—before effectively continuing operations through a different corporate entity. Workers can be deprived of wages and entitlements that they have earned. Suppliers and creditors can be left carrying unpaid debts.

If you've ever seen a company phoenix itself, you'll know that it's not just its workers who lie in the wake of that kind of devastation, because families are left broken when workers' entitlements are not paid—when what workers are owed for what they have worked is not paid. And that often takes many, many years to recover from. We should not, in any way, be rewarding those unscrupulous companies who shut down and start up again at the expense of everyday working people.

Businesses doing the right thing can find themselves competing against operators willing to avoid obligations and undermine fair competition, and public revenue can be diminished through unpaid tax liabilities. Labor believes that businesses doing the right thing should not be placed at a disadvantage by those seeking to exploit loopholes, avoid obligations or obscure accountability through complex corporate structures. By strengthening the transparency and traceability of directorships, this bill supports a fairer and more accountable marketplace, strengthens regulatory oversight and reinforces confidence in the integrity of Australia's corporate system overall.

The integrity of Australia's business registries depends not only on accuracy and transparency but also on strong privacy and safety protections. Australians rightly expect that personal and sensitive information is safeguarded, particularly in an increasingly digital economy, and this bill balances that transparency with privacy protections. It strengthens ASIC's capacity to manage access to registry information, including the ability to redact or restrict sensitive information where privacy or safety risks outweigh public benefit. It allows for alternative service addresses in circumstances where personal details should remain protected. Accountability and privacy are not mutually exclusive. You can have both, and that's what this bill focuses on. The Albanese Labor government is delivering reforms that ensure registries are both transparent and safe, giving businesses, regulators and communities confidence in that system.

Another critical feature of this bill is the modernisation of how ASIC administers Australia's business registers. The existing legislative framework was designed for a completely different era. It doesn't reflect the expectations of our contemporary digital economy. And when the way in which we work changes, we have to change with it. This bill expands ASIC's ability to engage digitally and electronically with users, reducing reliance on paper based processes and improving operational efficiency. The result is a simpler, faster and more streamlined experience for businesses and individuals interacting with those registers. By removing unnecessary friction and reducing administrative complexity, the bill allows businesses to spend more time investing, growing and creating jobs, and supporting a more productive and resilient economy.

Another important function of this bill is ensuring continuity and certainty in the administration of Australia's business registries. Urgent legislative action is required before 30 June this year. Without these amendments, legacy provisions associated with the former Modernising Business Registers program would automatically commence on 1 July, transferring responsibility for registry administration away from ASIC and into a framework designed for a program that was stopped back in 2023. That outcome would create unnecessary disruption, undermine reforms that are already on the way and delay practical improvements currently being delivered through RegistryConnect. This bill prevents that disruption. It ensures responsibility for Australia's business registries remains with ASIC, maintains continuity across registry operations and supports the next phase of practical improvements already being delivered through RegistryConnect.

Businesses rely on trusted registry information to assess risk, to make investment decisions and to operate, as I've said before, with confidence. Regulators rely on stable systems to uphold integrity across the corporate framework, and Australians rightly expect those systems underpinning economic activity to operate effectively, reliably and fairly. The Albanese Labor government made a deliberate decision to stabilise and uplift Australia's business registries after the former coalition government's Modernising Business Registers program experienced that substantial cost escalation without delivering what it was supposed to in the first place. RegistryConnect is already delivering those practical outcomes, and it's working. Effective markets depend on trusted systems and reliable information, and the Albanese Labor government is continuing to invest in those practical forms that strengthen confidence, that improve productivity, that support a more transparent and overall resilient economy.

At its heart, this bill is about strengthening trust, integrity and confidence in Australia's economic infrastructure. It modernises those systems that underpin Australia's business registries and it ensures that they are more reliable, more secure and better equipped for the modern digital economy. It strengthens transparency and accountability through director ID integration. It improves privacy and safety protections. It supports action against fraud, identity misuse and illegal phoenix activity, and it modernises how ASIC administers registry services, reducing unnecessary friction and improving efficiency for businesses and for our whole community. The Albanese Labor government is delivering practical reforms that strengthen market integrity, because stronger institutions support stronger markets, and stronger markets support a stronger economy.

I rise in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift) Bill 2026. In doing so, I'd like to congratulate the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury not only for the work that he has done in this bill but the work that he has done for many, many years in the lead-up to this bill.

What really lies at the heart of this legislation is the insidious practice of phoenixing, which is spread across all industries, of course, but is particularly prevalent in the construction industry. I know that the now assistant minister really led the Labor Party's policies to combat that awful soul-destroying, business-destroying practice of phoenixing. We are now starting to see or hear, at least anecdotally, in the construction industry that phoenixing, while it still exists, is nowhere near as bad as it was before these reforms were introduced.

As anyone who has sat through one of my speeches before knows, I like to remind people that I did have experience in the real world. I did plenty of jobs, one of which was running a construction company. I joke every now and then when I tell people that because, really, I'm only 26. This is what construction will do to you. There is nothing like construction. It is hard to get the work, it is hard to do the work and it's hard to get paid. It reminds me of that maxim for products and services: there are three features—quality, cheap, fast—and you can't have all three at one time. It can be fast and quality but it won't be cheap, or it can be cheap and fast but it won't be quality. But construction, I think, is the one industry in which it has to be all three. It has to be on time, it has to be on budget and it has to work. There is really no industry like construction. As I say, it's hard to get the work, it's hard to do the work and it's hard to get paid, but that last feature should not be an inherent feature of the construction industry. The fact that it is hard to get paid is a failure of governments to regulate to give protection to those businesses, which are quite often sole traders or mum-and-dad businesses.

The assistant minister will have missed the very kind things that I said about him, but I remember standing in a high-rise sometime in 2018, as he was announcing the then Labor opposition's policy to combat illegal phoenixing, at the heart of which director identification numbers sat. I'm glad that he's here, because the assistant minister has done a lot of work over a long period of time. One of the reasons that I do remind people that I had a real job is that I did also work for Senator Murray Watt, and it was during that employment, from about 2018, that I stood with the now assistant minister to announce the Labor government's policy.

There's also somebody else who I met while working for Senator Watt and who I really would like to give a particular shout-out, because his story sits at the heart of this legislation and this approach to combatting illegal phoenixing. That is somebody called Les Williams, who the assistant minister may well remember. He formed the Subcontractors Alliance, and I will quote extensively from a Senate submission that he made in about 2015. I won't quote him verbatim, because I'm going to into intersperse it with some of my own commentary. But I think Les's story, and the way Les puts it, really sums up what this legislation is designed to defeat.

He began:

The Subcontractors' Alliance … was formed in Queensland following the "collapse" of the Walton Construction Companies in early October 2013.

This is a notoriously famous case, where a reputable company collapsed and left plenty of people in the lurch, but many people may not know the story. I couldn't actually find media reporting. It was only when I had a chance to talk to Les this afternoon, to catch up and let him know that I intended to bring this up today, that he told me that this story actually has a bit of a happy ending, believe it or not. But back in 2015 it was not a happy story.

Les gave some background here:

In Australia subcontractors—

this is back in 2015, so things would've changed a little bit—

are responsible for between 80% and 85% of all construction work, the highest involvement of subcontracting in the world.

What that means is that you've got mums and dads and sole traders essentially providing the infrastructure, the machinery and the labour but also the credit to do the jobs that we need to build our country. He went on:

It follows then, that subcontractors are extremely diverse small businesses ranging from Mum and Dad operators to quite sophisticated businesses. We construct, manufacture, pre-fabricate, transport, fabricate and retail—

In Forde, if you look at sole traders in construction, you've got about 2½ thousand subbies working in the construction industry who are sole traders. You've got another 1,300 or so companies based in Forde who employ between one and four employees. That's a total of 4,000 companies, from sole traders to four employees, who according to this statistic provide something like 80 per cent or so of all of the construction work that happens in this country. Nationally—this is back in 2015, remember—small business subbies employed about 800,000 people. In Queensland then, that was about 85,000 subbies employing about 250,000 people statewide.

Les said:

Insolvency in the building and construction industry—

back in 2015—

is valued at $3.4 billion annually and the debt is borne predominately by subcontractors. …

Not reported in any statistics is the value of wrongful withholding of money by main contractors due to last payment bargaining, conjured disputes and bogus defect deductions.

Anybody who has been in the construction industry knows that that is a regular practice. Les said:

It is commonplace for large construction companies or construction companies employing subcontractors to divert income from one project to another to service the others debt, make short term investments or divert cash to family trusts, all aided and abetted by their corporate advisors.

It is commonplace also for construction companies to "target" individual subcontractors. This is the insidious practice of not paying a specific vulnerable subcontractor—

as a strategy—

usually at subcontract's end, with the clear intent of forcing the subcontractor into liquidation.

That's the truly evil, awful stuff that they do behind the scenes. The stuff that they do in the open is really just as bad.

When you look at payment terms, I've worked for companies where there was something like 90-day payment terms, but 30-day payment terms are common. That means that you work for 30 days, you submit an invoice and then you wait another 30 days to be paid. Basically, you're carrying the debt. You're giving credit to your head contractor for 60 days or so, leaving you particularly vulnerable at the end of the contract, which is when most construction insolvencies happen. They happen at the end of the month, when payments to subbies fall due. Les said:

Construction companies with hold a total of 5% of the subcontract value as security [retention] usually in cash—

which they then use to fund jobs or use it as they will without any permission of the actual subcontractor that they're withholding it from. And, when a strategy of driving that subbie into the ground pays off and they go bust, they pocket that whole retention payment.

So here it was that Deloitte did a report into Walton Construction. According to Les, it said:

The Construction arm of the business is classified as Tier Two builder. In Construction terms this refers to a company with a turnover of between $150m and $500m and with the ability to operate multiple jobs with contract values exceeding $50m at any one time. The contracts are predominately associated with health care, government and large scale residential.

This was not a small, two-bit player. Walton had an advisory board, so they got into trouble. The report indicated that they had about $337 million of work. They had about $240 million or so that was owed to subbies. There was a lot going on there, and it was later identified that by about July 2012 they were trading insolvent.

Les said:

In July 2012, Walton restructured his companies. Walton's construction companies at this time inserted a "novation clause" in their subcontracts. This gave Walton the ability to transfer subcontracts without subcontractors consent when he chose to "phoenix" or "transfer assets".

… NAB—

who should be ashamed of themselves because of what they did in this case—

concerned about their financial exposure, refused to issue Walton any more bank guarantees—

and forced them into a corporate restructuring, which effectively took place in 2013. NAB essentially helped them exit the industry. Walton set up two new companies and placed the company into liquidation, but NAB managed to preserve their debt in one of the companies that continued to operate. Les said:

The report to creditors indicated 1350 subcontractors owed $70 million and over 100 of his staff owed approximately $1.5 million in wages and entitlements that were ultimately paid by design by the taxpayer

There is evidence of NAB's overview of the phoenix companies until those entities entered administration. It was also evident that NAB acted with callous disregard for subcontractors and, along with Walton and his advisers, acted out of self-interest and to the detriment of subbies. In June 2013, prior to them entering administration, they moved money around. It is a sorry tale, with a human face.

Les had three examples. In Townsville, Mark Stevens, the owner of a successful scaffolding business, lost his equipment valued in excess of $1 million. He lost his house, his land and his work depot, valued at $1½ million. He endured a marriage breakdown and lived in his car for some time. He had his equipment impounded onsite for quite some time without payment, and his equipment was ultimately damaged by others.

On the Sunshine Coast, the owner of a landscaping business subcontracted by Walton lost his house, his life savings, his car, his business and his wife and two kids. The majority of his subcontract took place in the months of July, August and September 2013, when Walton and NAB were well aware of their insolvency and their intentions to avoid their liabilities. In Melbourne, one manufacturing subcontractor invested in factory extensions based on the value of the work he subcontracted with Walton after being given assurances, and he ultimately lost over $500,000 in revenue and his factory. That's one of many stories. That is one of the things that I know provided impetus back in 2015 to the now assistant minister's work in this area with individuals like Les, who didn't give up.

The end of this story is a good news story for Les. He ended up taking NAB to a class action and, only a couple of months ago, won $20 million. That's not all of it, but it is some of it. If there is a story of David taking on Goliath, it is that story—and that story hasn't quite been told publicly yet. To Les Williams, to the assistant minister and to everybody who has helped with this legislation, to see what is at least anecdotally having an impact, all power to you and all power to this legislation. And for the sake of the mums and dads and sole traders who live in Forde, I commend the bill to the House.

I'd like to thank the members who have contributed to the debate, the members for Page, Maribyrnong and Moreton. I'd particularly like to thank the member for Forde for his generous words about me and for his wise words about phoenixing and for telling us the story of Les. There is no bigger champion of the working class in parliament than the member for Forde, and we're lucky to serve alongside him.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift) Bill is about strengthening the integrity of Australia's business registers as critical economic infrastructure. These registers underpin confidence in our corporate system by providing reliable information that supports informed decision-making by businesses, regulators and the public. The government's targeted registry stabilisation and uplift program is already delivering improvements following the cessation of the former Modernising Business Registers program, which was paused after it blew out to five times its projected cost. This bill is necessary to ensure that work can continue without disruption and that the significant investment already made delivers lasting benefits.

Schedule 1 strengthens the director identification number regime by embedding it more effectively into existing company registration and reporting processes. While directors are already required to hold a director ID, linking this information to the companies register ensures it can be used as intended—to strengthen transparency, improve the traceability of directors and reduce opportunities for misuse of corporate structures, including illegal phoenix activity. The schedule also includes appropriate safeguards, including notification and consent measures, and provides sensible transition arrangements.

Schedule 2 equips ASIC with a new and targeted set of registry powers, so it can administer the registers effectively in a contemporary digital environment and respond to external risks such as fraud and misuse. These powers support more efficient digital interactions, improve data quality and strengthen ASIC's ability to respond where registry information is inaccurate, misleading or being misused, while balancing transparency with privacy and safety.

Schedule 3 addresses a critical legislative issue by removing legacy provisions that would otherwise automatically commence and which would disrupt registry operations if they did so. The changes in this bill provide certainty and continuity, including ensuring ASIC remains responsible for the registers and the current uplift program can proceed as planned.

Taken together, the measures in this bill are practical, proportionate and necessary. They improve the integrity and usefulness of registry information, support transparency and market confidence, and ensure stability in the administration of Australia's business registers.

Finally, I acknowledge the Treasury officials who worked on this bill: Percy Bell, Michael Fitzgerald, George Kelleher, Michael Joost, Harry Braddick, Anne Nguyen, Mana Addepalli, David Haines, Angelina Kosev, Nelson Mendonca and Zoe Winston-Gregson. This bill ensures these important reforms remain on track and that Australia's business registers continue to be trusted, resilient and fit for purpose. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.

Regional Australia has done the heavy lifting to line the pockets of this Treasury. Yet where has that record revenue gone? It has vanished, into the insatiable appetite of the Labor government's coffers. It has been spent on absolutely nothing that helps the ordinary family survive this crisis. Instead of using this windfall to structurally repair our economy, pay down our massive national debt or build wealth-generating infrastructure in the regions, the Treasurer has locked in an aggregate deficit of a staggering $150.5 billion over the forward estimates for the period 2029 to 2030. The underlying cash deficit for this immediate period starts at a staggering $28.3 billion and climbs even higher over the forward estimates. This government has pulled off a disastrous double. It is spending record amounts of public money, while leaving our economy weaker than ever.

Does this government simply not understand that people are hurting? People are facing genuine, raw desperation. They are angry. They are frustrated. And they feel completely abandoned by the Prime Minister, who promised them a $275 reduction in their electricity bills, a promise repeated 97 times, which—surprise, surprise!—was an untruth.

Broken promises have been the theme of this budget, because, in the Labor playbook, every single time a promise is broken, the taxpayer is the one who picks up the tab. Labor's only solution to the widespread desperation of the people of this great nation is to tax them even more and introduce sweeping changes to capital gains tax, negative gearing and the taxation of trusts that will penalise investment and drive a knife through the heart of domestic productivity.

Don't take my word for it. Some of the most respected independent economic minds in the country are looking at this budget with absolute contempt. They see a Labor government who's completely abandoned fiscal discipline. In a sobering post-budget analysis, the economic team at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia said that this budget represents a massive missed opportunity in the fight against inflation. At the exact moment inflation is peaking, Labor is still printing and spending more money, throwing debt fuel on a fire that is already burning through family budgets. The Reserve Bank of Australia itself has dropped diplomatic subtlety in an assessment of this fiscal recklessness. The Reserve Bank's own board minutes show that they are deeply worried that the government's spending is sabotaging the fight against inflation. The writing is on the wall, and the RBA have warned that, if this reckless spending doesn't stop, high inflation will be locked into the economy.

Financial models are now forecasting a further cash rate increase in the upcoming September quarter of 2026, a move that will automatically push repayments even higher for families who are already at their absolute breaking point. Across the country, business leaders have reacted with equal fury to this tax-heavy agenda. They have blown the whistle, warning that this budget drops an absolute tax bomb on small business. They are pointing out that the changing tax rules overnight will completely destroy local confidence, especially when our small-business operators are already battling a brutal surge in their everyday running costs.

You cannot tax a nation into prosperity, and you cannot stabilise an economy by dropping a tax bomb on the very people who take the risks and create local jobs. The most cynical, damaging aspect of the budget is the way it systematically snuffs the light out on aspirational young Australians. Think about a young worker in Dawson today. They aren't doing it tough; they are trapped on an economic treadmill they cannot outrun. They face skyrocketing utility bills and they face the constant looming threat of endless rent rises thanks to soaring inflation. They are taking on second jobs only to watch their hard earned cash get cannibalised by bracket creep. The game is completely rigged against them.

No-one is safe from the Albanese agenda to increase taxes on the people of this country. When a worker puts in overtime, this government treats them like a target to be plundered. When will this government learn? When you penalise effort, you simply get less of it. This budget completely crushes the ambition of youth, trapping them in a permanent rental cycle and telling them having a go is no longer worth the struggle. The Albanese Labor government is taking the tools that make wealth away from our youth. If you want to see where our national wealth is being completely wasted, look no further than the multibillion-dollar black hole of Labor's net zero obsession. Billions of taxpayers funds are being funnelled to green corporate welfare, while giant wind and solar projects destroy our regional forests, lock up our farmland and fracture our communities.

Let us examine the complete economic failure of this energy transition. The government has spent billions of dollars on transmission lines, foreign engineered wind turbines and overseas made solar panels and batteries, yet power bills for ordinary families have jumped by around 40 per cent. It is an extraordinary display of financial incompetence. This Labor government has managed to spend record amounts of public money to make electricity more expensive and less reliable. Without cheap, reliable, continuous baseload energy an industrial economy simply cannot function. Labor's green energy spending is a multibillion-dollar monument to waste, a policy that locks regional Australia into structural disadvantage, while everyday Australians pay the price through sky-high electricity prices.

This brings me straight to the total hypocrisy of this government's big slogan: Future Made in Australia. The hard reality on the ground is that, in heavy industrial hubs like Paget, this policy is an absolute sham. You cannot build, maintain or expand a sovereign manufacturing sector if you do not have access to cheap, reliable, continuous power. It is a physical and economical impossibility. Heavy engineering, advanced steel fabrication, automated assembly and mineral processing require massive amounts of energy. When a government deliberately drives up the cost of that energy through ideological inventions, it makes Australian manufacturing completely unproductive. We are seeing iconic regional smelters, processing plants and chemical facilities across this nation pushed to the absolute edge of operational survival, requiring emergency government interventions and bailouts just to survive.

The fundamental failure of these appropriations is the complete and total lack of basic human empathy. This government simply does not understand the depth of the pain its policies are causing. People are facing genuine, terrifying desperation. The people of regional Australia are angry, and they have every right to be angry. They are deeply frustrated because they feel completely invisible to the Prime Minister, who promised them a better future and delivered nothing but broken words and shattered trust. They were promised a better life. Instead, they've been hit by consecutive interest rate rises that have stripped hundreds of dollars out of their disposable income every single month.

And what is this government's response to the widespread regional suffering? The answer is always the same from Labor: tax them even more. The Albanese Labor government is increasing the tax burden via bracket creep. They're hitting our small business with an investor tax bomb, they're targeting our primary producers with unfair biosecurity levies and they're swinging a green hammer down on our heavy industries. Labor hold some sort of misguided belief that every single economic problem can be solved by seizing more money from the pockets of working Australians and spending it on vanity pet projects. It's an absolute insult to the intelligence of our people. This government has spent billions of dollars on consultants, billions on international climate frameworks, billions on expanding the Public Service, while the hardworking people who keep the wheels of the nation turning are left to drown in their bills.

This cannot continue. A nation that systematically penalises effort, crushes the aspirations of its youth and abandons all semblance of physical discipline is a nation that is actively engineered to its own economic decline. We need an immediate, unconditional return to economic common sense. Labor must stop the reckless public spending that is actively fuelling this inflationary firestorm. We must dismantle the green bureaucracy that is strangling manufacturing, and we must start backing the aspirational Australians who are trying to build a secure life for their children.

The world we live in today is not the same as it was 30 years ago. It's not the same as it was a couple of years ago. Once-in-a-generation events are now more and more commonplace and no longer do we have the global stability previous generations grew accustomed to. In much of the commentary out there and in most of the correspondence in my inbox there's been a pretty clear message. It's what I get in my inbox and what I get out on the streets when I engage with locals in my home of Bennelong. It's clear to me and to them that things need to change and change for the better.

People who approach me, identify an injustice that working people are bearing the load of our nation's tax take, which is why people are demanding action. The bare necessities are now a struggle for so many people, and many hardworking Australians are scraping by. In no sector is this more profound and debilitating than housing. If you want to own your own home, housing prices are now eight times higher than the average salary. Rents have gone up across the country. My message is that the government hears you. While we have thrown record amounts of funding at housing supply—$47 billion to date—we have the understanding to acknowledge that there's more to do. That's why at this budget we have done more. Instead of just talking about reform, we're trying to deliver it.

It's not okay for a government that hears from people directly just to kick the can down the road. It's not fair on young people who have been locked out of the housing market for a generation or who are trying to get their start buying their first home. I want to talk about what we've done, what we are doing and what we will do in this and future budgets. From Medicare to housing, tax cuts and support for small business, we want to attack this cost-of-living crisis head on from every angle possible. This budget is another way we're helping Australians in these challenging and tumultuous times.

It'd be no surprise to you, Deputy Speaker, that Labor is committed to strengthening Medicare, and that's exactly what's happened in Bennelong and across the country. In Bennelong, we've recently officially opened the Top Ryde Medicare mental health centre, which provides an important walk-in service for our community, with no appointments needed. We've locked in the local Ryde and Chatswood Medicare urgent care clinics, now making them a permanent feature of our primary healthcare system with $1.8 billion worth of funding in this budget over the forward estimates. They are part of a national network of 135 clinics that are open, with two more to come. By the time those two more open, four out of five Australians will live within a 20-minute drive of an urgent care clinic, providing bulk-billing, urgent care and taking pressure off our hospital emergency departments.

Our record investment in GP practices and increasing bulk-billing is working. From 1 November, Bennelong has increased from nine bulk-billing practices to 23 as at March. In New South Wales, bulk-billing is up, as it is across the board. This is on top of making medicines cheaper, ensuring you pay $25 per script. Had we not made those changes for cheaper medicines, we'd probably be hitting $50 out of pocket per script now. But, when we came to government, we reduced it and we reduced it again down to $25 whilst also capping those who have concession cards to $7.70 until 2029-30.

We've also delivered tax cuts. We recognise that the tax burden on working Australians in particular is too high. So in four years in government we've delivered five tax cuts in four different ways. Firstly, we made the stage 3 tax cuts fairer, diverting more relief to low- and middle-income earners who would have missed out under Scott Morrison's plan. We've got more tax cuts coming in from 1 July this year and another round of tax cuts coming in from 1 July 2027. A huge reform being introduced in the parliament this Thursday is the $1,000 instant tax deduction for those with simple tax affairs. They'll be able to lodge their tax return in six clicks, I think, and they'll be able to claim that $1,000 tax deduction, which will save people between $200 and $300 on their tax bill every year. And we're introducing a new and targeted way to deliver tax relief to working Australians. That's through the working Australian tax offset—$250 coming off your tax bill, which will be fantastic. All up, that's around $2,800 for the average worker, delivered by Labor and specifically designed to ease the burden on income earned through labour, to help people keep more of what they earn.

But what we're seeing here in Australia is pretty common around the world. In the US, the UK, Canada, Europe, people are calling for change, calling for reform. They say here in Australia and across the world that the status quo isn't working. That's why we've taken the really tough decisions to put through these progressive reforms in this budget. Predictably, there have been scare campaigns about this. I mean, some of the stuff we're addressing has been talked about for 40 years. The Asprey review in 1975 recommended some of the tax changes we're seeking to address at this budget. The same people that have always opposed this reform are continuing to oppose this reform, and I'm not surprised. But, as a government, we need to take on those scare campaigns because we can't defend the status quo any more. We can't.

It would have been very easy to look at everything that's going on in the world and say: 'You know what? We're just going to leave things as they are.' That's essentially what the opposition are arguing for here. They don't have any other options to address the housing crisis, to help first home owners get into their home or to deliver costed, funded tax relief for working Australians. They're just there trying to tear this reform down and defend the status quo. What we're seeking to do is bring in a fairer system that allows more Australians to have the same opportunities that I did, that my parents did and that those before them did.

Intergenerational equity was at the heart of this budget and something that was identified by leaders of business, by unions and by experts at the productivity roundtable late last year. Firstly, we're going to reform negative gearing for residential property investments and target this reform to new builds only. This could have been done long ago and probably should have been done long ago, because it will still encourage investment in housing—and that's a good thing—but it will target that investment into the construction of new homes, not just bid up the prices of existing ones. New homes have a substantial benefit to our country through more jobs on the tools and more homes to go into the market to help with rental affordability and housing affordability. Naturally, the changes we're bringing in are grandfathered so that, if you currently own a negatively geared home as an investor, you can continue to do so.

We're fixing the errors of the Liberal government when they introduce the capital gains tax discount with their blunt measure in 1999, which only ended up completely distorting the housing market and locking people out for a whole generation. This policy was a mistake. It was originally designed to encourage investment into the share market. Well, that failed. Investment in shares did not grow as intended. Instead people invested in housing, and that's what has led to the complete distortion of the housing market that young people face today.

But it's not just in tax reform that we're addressing housing. On top of our $47 billion we've now got an additional $2 billion in funding for critical infrastructure like roads and sewerage through another round of the Housing Support Program. All these things are meaningful and ongoing action to help with the housing crisis.

On small business there's $3½ billion worth of new measures alone. There's been a lot of noise around the impact of this budget on small business but not much acknowledgement that this budget goes a long way to helping small businesses invest and maintain growth. The instant asset write-off will be made permanent from 1 July 2026. This is a great Labor reform, first brought in by the Rudd government. That instant asset write-off gives small businesses the incentive to purchase equipment valued at up to $20,000, and have that instant asset write-off. What has happened since it was introduced is that every year it has needed to be reconfirmed. This didn't give small businesses certainty. Even in the last parliament, the legislation would only pass right at the last minute. Cautious small businesses wouldn't go out and invest throughout the year, probably on sound advice from their accountant, until that legislation went through. 'Wait until the law goes through before you spend this money.' It being made permanent means that small businesses can go and invest up to $20,000 and get that instant asset tax deduction.

We're delivering a permanent two-year loss carry-back for all companies with up to $1 billion worth of turnover, which can offset future profits. We are introducing loss refundability to support startup businesses invest and grow in their first two years of operation. This is a huge reform for small startups. It means they can get cash flow relief if they have loss refundability in their first two years of operation. We're expanding tax incentives for venture capital to help unlock capital for young and expanding businesses. And we're reforming the R&D tax incentive, targeting that a lot more to allow young businesses greater access to the refundable tax offset as they grow.

And don't forget that our reforms and tax cuts in the PAYG system, in the marginal tax rates, also benefit sole traders. The working Australians tax offset will go to 1½ million sole traders. A lot of them are tradies, a lot of them are hairdressers—they will have access to that $250 tax offset as well.

Predictably, those opposite oppose these changes. That's despite both the current shadow Treasurer and former Treasurer Joe Hockey who, we heard today, during his last speech to this parliament, said: 'Do you know what? We really should target negative gearing towards new supply.' Never mind that he could have done that for—how long was he in parliament for? Ten years or something? He could have advocated for it when he was actually the Treasurer. He could have done that, but no. Instead of doing it on the way out, we're going to do it while we're in government. It's a good reform. These reforms are necessary because the status quo isn't working. We can't continue to ignore the facts out there, and the facts are that the status quo isn't working.

Those opposite have voted against every cost-of-living measure we've brought to this place, and they went to the last election promising to increase taxes for working Australians. We'll see what they do on Thursday, whether or not they will once again vote against tax cuts brought forward by this government.

And then, of course, there was the opposition leader's budget reply. It was one long dog whistle, seeking to blame migrants and permanent residents—building on his policy announcements from before—and calling them a drain on Australia. That's not the Australia I grew up in, and it's certainly not an Australia that I want to continue. The Liberal Party's budget response is just trying to emulate One Nation. It's more about what's happening on the Right of politics than what's the best for our country.

We need to build a better Australia for young people, to give them the opportunity to own their first home, to give them a foothold. Already these policies are working. Every weekend, we're seeing news reports of first home buyers getting into their first home. They're shocked, surprised that they are no longer competing against investors for existing stock. This is a good thing. We need people to have the aspiration to own their first home, just like I was able to and just like many people in previous generations were able to. These are tough reforms, but we are doing them for the right reasons and at the right time. I commend these bills to the House.

At no time in the last 10 years have I received so many emails and handwritten mail about a budget. And I have to tell you, very little of that was positive—very, very little. Whether it be private health insurance changes for older Australians, around limiting veterans' access to support, changes to trusts or capital gains tax or, indeed, negative gearing, overwhelmingly, people in my community have said to me that they feel betrayed by the government. In fact, the government went to the election just a year ago promising that they weren't going to change negative gearing and capital gains tax in particular. They didn't even mention trusts, discretionary trusts and testamentary discretionary trusts. A year in, they have completely changed their position.

My community overwhelmingly feels that, if the government are confident in their decision-making, they should take those proposals to an election, just as John Howard did when he was Prime Minister, with respect to the GST. He had the courage of his convictions to do that. We've seen the Prime Minister himself saying that he had said over 50 times he wasn't going to make the changes. A year in, the changes are made. Having been a member for 10 years now, I know that the wheels of government move very slowly. I wonder when the government actually went to the Treasury and asked for modelling with respect to capital gains tax and negative gearing, because I can't believe that it was just a recent aberration that happened in the last couple of months.

I'd like to read comments from my community to you on these issues. With respect to private health insurance changes, Geoff from Strathalbyn said:

I am disgusted with Labor's treatment of aged pensioners who have sacrificed much to pay private health insurance. At the age of 80, when health insurance is critical, I'm having to think about scrapping it to be able to afford power, water and food.

Andy from Craigburn Farm said:

This harsh and unfair policy will probably result in more senior Australians dropping their private health cover. Australians at the most vulnerable period of their lives, don't deserve this.

Jonathon said:

As someone who has had private health cover since my mid 20s, I now need to decide what else I can cut back should I wish to keep it. I urge you to press the Government on the unfairness of this cruel and short-sighted decision.

With respect to veterans health, my inbox is overflowing with correspondence from veterans, veterans' family members and, indeed, some of our RSLs about the changes. Macclesfield RSL wrote to me and said:

Immediate concern for many veterans in your electorate is the capping of Allied Health Care. This will result in many veterans' foregoing treatment with regards to Physio, Psychology, Occupational Therapy, and Exercise Physiology as examples. The new $5000 cap will mean that some veterans will have to decide between mental health and physical health, unless they go through another administration process to seek approval to get the treatment they need and deserve. As the Government spin doctors are hard at work trying to dress up the budget as a win for veterans.

What I think really went to the nub of Macclesfield RSL's communication with me is this:

If the same impediments were placed before other demographics of our community, there would be an uprising, but for those who wrote a blank cheque for their country for and up to the sacrificing of their life, we look away.

With respect to trust in the budget, I've received a huge amount of correspondence. Ryan said to me:

With respect to the proposed changes on trusts, I see this as an attempt to further tax a sector of people who are productive, hardworking and financially responsible. This Government appears to want to punish those who work hard, are economically productive and plan for their future under the guise of some kind of "Robin Hood" ethics.

Alan said:

I left school at 16. I am now 77 and a fully self-funded retiree. No handouts. Full health insurance. Now I'm the target to fund Labor's massive debt. Please voice our concern as to the mess this … Treasurer and Prime Minister are leaving us in.

Andrew said:

I am a 28-year-old. Rather than encouraging aspiration economic opportunity and personal freedom, I believe this budget further entrenches Government control while weakening intergenerational equity and the ability of younger Australians to build prosperous futures for themselves.

Ben, an estate lawyer, wrote to me and said:

My concern is that testamentary trusts are being caught up in a broader policy conversation about discretionary trusts, without sufficient recognition of their unique role in estate planning. The primary purpose of a testamentary discretionary trust is to protect an inheritance for children, widows, widowers, disabled beneficiaries and vulnerable adults after a person's death.

Jacqui said: 'It seems obvious to me that the government is making tax changes that favour younger voters at the expense of older voters. It's a blatant attempt to garner stronger support from a younger voter base.'

Let's go to capital gains tax, which we remember that the Prime Minister said he had no plans and he wasn't going to do it 'for the 50th time'. Andrew wrote to me and said:

I've never written to my local MP before—

I've got to say I've received so many emails starting with that—

I feel like this budget is a direct attack on me and my family. We made decisions and voted based on the promises made by Labor at the last election. These promises have been completely flipped and so has my family's ability to succeed. To make matters worse I have always hoped to be able to leave my kids with some kind of wealth once my wife and I pass. Now the Labor Government wants to get their hands on that as well.

Sally wrote:

I never write emails to politicians, but I'm scared. I'm trying so hard to save enough for retirement and pay off my mortgage, and it all seems impossible now. I'm a 57-year-old woman living in a single income household, doing my best to accumulate enough money to self-fund my retirement by the age of 65. The proposed CGT changes mean I won't be able to gradually sell down shares to fund my own retirement and will likely end up on the pension.

Scott said:

The package is presented as addressing the housing-investor tax bias and intergenerational unfairness. On the actual mechanics, it does close to the opposite—it tightens tax treatment for productive equity investment, while preserving, and in places concentrating, the structural advantages of leveraged residential property.

Paul said:

I'm saving for a house. Your budget just added years to my timeline.

Ari said:

I'm a 24-year-old middle-income earner and I don't own a home. I'm exactly the kind of person this policy is supposedly designed to help. I'm trying to build wealth through shares and Exchange Traded Funds because I can't access the housing ladder. The CGT reform hits people like me hardest. It raises the cost of the one wealth building option still available to me.

Hans said:

My son has been saving diligently with bitcoin for five years and has just recently accumulated enough for a deposit to buy a house. This is no longer the case with this CGT increase which now sets back the time for a deposit by at least another two years.

Honestly, they're maybe just two per cent of the emails I've received on this. This is the first time as a member of parliament I just cannot support a budget that's been handed down by the government, and that's because it's not built on promises and trust. It's the complete opposite.

Let's look at housing. I have three adult children. I want to see them get a house, just like I was able to get a house in my 20s. If we genuinely want to reduce the demand on housing, here are some policies that the government may decide to consider that would reduce demand without taxing Australians. Canada has actively reduced their immigration. They've paused short-term population growth, and they have alleviated pressure on housing and their public services. Their federal government has significantly slashed both permanent and temporary resident targets. Canada is a nation of 41 million people. They slashed their permanent resident targets by 20 per cent. It's capped non-permanent residents to five per cent of their total population—1.5 million. They've targeted in that international students, with strict caps on international student enrolments, and they've tightened the eligibility rules for foreign workers. This has seen a significant decline in their house prices. That's why they did the shift. They did that because they wanted to put their people first. And Justin Trudeau, he's hardly a right winger, is he? I mean, he was a left-wing Prime Minister who said, 'We didn't get the balance quite right,' and that's why they pivoted towards reducing migration. Why are we not doing this here? We're a population of 28 million. We had a net permanent migration in 2024-25 of over 300,000 people. Canada has 1.5 million temporary migrants. We have three million temporary migrants on our soil in Australia. Student visa holders make up around two 720,000 of those. Each of those need to live in a home. Now, if we go back to our student visa numbers, in 2016-17, the year I started, we had 343,000 temporary student visa holders. We now offer 720,000 and we wonder why we have a housing crisis.

When we look at permanent migration, if we go back to the numbers again—let's look at the year 2016—we had 206,000 people who came here as permanent migrants in 2016. If we go back to 2004, before Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister, when we saw the mass increase in house prices along with a mass increase in population, we had under 100,000 people coming to Australia.

I understand the Canadian government has reduced the capacity for people who are either temporary migrants or are overseas investors to purchase established dwellings—we have a temporary ban on that—but they can still purchase vacant land or new dwellings. If we want to reduce demand, why don't we do that? Why don't we say: in order to buy land or a new home or indeed an established home in Australia, you need to be a permanent resident or an Australian citizen. Why is it that, when the government introduced their five per cent deposit scheme, they didn't cap that just to Australian citizens? That's madness. We do that with HECS. We say you need to be an Australian citizen to access HECS—or a refugee. You can't be a permanent migrant to do that. So now the Australian taxpayer is actually on the hook for people who are not Australian citizens to get into the housing market with just a five per cent deposit. If they default, Australian taxpayers are landed with the mess; it's just insane. And by the way, 50,000 people who are not Australian citizens have entered that scheme.

If we genuinely want to make sure that our next generation is able to own a home, we need to be looking after ourselves first and we're not doing that. This budget doesn't do that. In fact, this budget punishes Australians for the benefit of everyone else. I would urge the government, if you genuinely believe that the capital gains tax and the changes to negative gearing—which you're applying to shares but you're somehow saying that it relates to housing affordability—then take it to an election. Just take it to an election. Do the honourable thing. Do what John Howard did. He had the courage of his conviction and he did it.

I can't tell you how many emails I've received but I think that the government needs to do better on this. For the first time in a decade, I just cannot support this budget bill.

After a year in this place and after my first budget, it's time to reflect on the philosophy of this government, which, after four years, has become clear. The Prime Minister sums it up when he says his core philosophy is no-one left behind and no-one held back. He really summed up his approach the other day, acknowledging that this is a tough decision. He knows that this is well and truly contested in the community. But he said that if you see something wrong—he said it a bit more eloquently than I'm quoting him—do you just throw your hands in the air and say, 'I can't do anything about it? I'm only the Prime Minister'?

Fundamentally, what has become clear to me—and this is something which I have been keenly urging the government on, and the Labor Party, frankly, for many years—is that this is a government which is challenging the status quo. There was an interjection today—forgive me for not remembering the member's electorate. The Prime Minister said, 'It's hard to buy a house,' and the coalition member yelled out, 'And it's getting harder!' The Prime Minister seized on that and said, yes, it is getting harder. This is a government which doesn't shy away from the fact that the status quo is not delivering for the Australian people and the Australian community. He doesn't shy away from the fact that people are doing it tough and that in many ways people feel like it's getting even harder, and not just in housing. There are two ways to tackle that. You can throw your hands up in the air and say, 'I'm only the Prime Minister. I'm not going to do anything about,' or you can tackle it head on—be courageous, have the courage of your convictions and make the changes which you believe are going to have an impact.

So let's have a look at what that status quo is. The reason why I'm so energised by what the government is doing in this budget is that we have now had decades of an agenda of privatisation, economic rationalism and unfettered free trade, which has seen the working class communities that I represent decimated in many ways. Whole industries have been decimated. The textile and clothing industry is gone, after decades of unfettered free trade. The manufacturing industry is on the ropes. Having taken an approach—and just remember that the coalition were in government for 20 of the last 30 years—where you leave housing to the private sector and don't invest in public housing, having taken an approach where you leave energy creation to the private sector and don't invested in public energy, it is unsurprising that you end up, 30 years later, with a housing crisis and an energy crisis.

I like the way the members opposite are having a little bit of a smirk at me. Is Labor really the enemy at the moment? I think that's what the opposition members need to ask themselves. As they pander to the supporters of One Nation, are they really getting any benefit by attacking us? It's not us coming for you in your seats at the moment. It's not us that are focused on ourselves, like the three parties of the right are. I don't know that they really should be smirking at the moment, but they are. I guess that's the sort of attitude that's landed them in the position they're in. It's sad, in a way, to be here in the parliament to watch the demise of the once great Liberal Party, but there it is. Ultimately, it is this status quo that they have implemented over the years, with their ideology of privatisation, economic rationalism and unfettered free trade.

This government is tackling the areas of housing, health, mental health, child care, skills, industry, energy, aged care, NDIS and tax. Over four years, this government's agenda has become clear. It is an agenda of sticking up for working class people again, ensuring the services that we all pay for. We dig the stuff out of the ground. We farm the fields. We work in the factories. We work in the aged-care centres. We work as teachers. Working class people build this nation and working class people should have a share in the wealth that's created by this nation. When John Howard became Prime Minister, Australia was one of the most egalitarian countries in the world, yet, 30 years later, we have become one of the most unequal countries in the world. That's why they shouldn't be smirking, because the backlash is going to be severe in their electorates.

I think the government acknowledges that tax is the most contested area in this budget, despite the fact that we're about to see the opposition yet again vote against another tax cut. The changes around CGT and negative gearing have created a lot of conversation in the community. I've only sat here through the member for Mayo's speech, but I'm sure there's been the same half-truths and misinformation supported and trotted out as in question time.

I had a conversation with somebody called Mark last night. He said to me, 'I can't support this budget because I've had a strategy to retire'—he's probably a little bit younger than me, in his 40s—'and that's all gone out the window now.' I said: 'I like to listen; I don't really like to argue and persuade, but can I just try this one out on you? You know the capital gains tax exemption discounts are still going to be there. They're going to be indexed.' He went: 'No. What does that mean?' I said it means that you're going to be able to deduct inflation off the actual capital growth. I explained it to him because he didn't know it was going to be there—because it is in the interest of those on the other side to maintain these mistruths.

As the Treasurer said, when you actually look at the impact that this change to indexation will have on shares, if you extrapolate that over the last 20 years, there will be either no change or, in some cases, people will be better off. They would have been better off had there been a system of indexation over the previous 20 years. When I sit down and crunch the numbers with the people that are sending me emails, as I do, there are many scenarios where people who have bought a house or an apartment are going to be better off under indexation.

Ultimately, when you do crunch those numbers, what you're trying to see is government moderating capital growth in housing. To put it in investment terms, this is about trying to get that wild capital growth that we saw of sometimes eight, nine or 10 per cent a year. That's when house prices doubled almost every seven years over the last couple of decades. What we're trying to do is moderate that capital growth and actually bring it back more in line with inflation. Isn't that the whole point? Shouldn't wages and house prices be coupled together? Isn't there something broken in the system when those two things break apart?

Let's take the example of five per cent capital growth and three per cent inflation—we wish! Take that example and apply that to marginal rates of tax. In that example, it's pretty easy to see that some people will actually be substantially better off. But I'm sure those opposite aren't spending any time talking through the facts with the people that email them.

Again, I don't want to single out the member for Mayo, because I know that this is the line that's being trotted out by the opposition—and it is a line. In some of the emails I've got, there has been this concern that they have been using shares to save up their deposit because they, frankly, are not able to get themselves into a leveraged property. The only way to take $10,000 and make it grow is to invest in shares, with a dream, perhaps, of one day buying a house. I totally get that. But there is an extraordinary irony in the statement that you can't get your foot on the first rung of the housing ladder and so therefore you need to invest in shares. Shouldn't the solution be about bringing that ladder back down so that people can get their foot on the first rung? Really, it is an injustice, and it is an injustice to working class people, particularly. In 2000, when these capital gains tax arrangements were introduced, for somebody on a median income the price of a house was something like four to five times their median income; now, the multiple is eight to 10 times. How is it that house prices have become so completely decoupled from wages? It is people in the electorates that we, especially, in the Labor Party, represent—working-class electorates—that are doing it the toughest.

When there was investment in public housing, and when there was a tax system that was designed not to reward housing investment as an investment, you saw, at the high point, that homeownership was had by something like 72 or 73 per cent of the population. That has now fallen to about 66 per cent. And, when you look at that 25 to 45 age group, homeownership has completely fallen off a cliff.

So, yes, this is contested. Yes, this is a tough decision. But do you just throw your hands up and say, 'We're only the government'? Do you just throw your hands up, or just sit there and nod, when you're talking to a 65-year-old woman whose lease is about to run out in three months' time and who is not going to be able to afford to find somewhere for her and her 13-year-old dog to live? Do you just throw your hands up when you come across a 55-year-old woman with a severe disability whose home is going to be sold by the owner, and she's not going to be able to find somewhere to rent, because how do you rent on a disability support pension? Do you just throw your hands up when you talk to working-class trades men and women who are living in two-income households, earning good money, who can't afford to buy a house? Do you just throw your hands up and say: 'We can't do anything about it, I'm sorry; you're just going to have to put up with it as it is'?

I tell you what: out there in the electorate—this is something everybody in this room has in common—they are not going to put up with the status quo. The electorate has had enough—that is a message to all of us. But it is only the Labor Party that has taken that message on. It is only the Labor Party that recognises the problem that exists and is determined to do something about it, whether that be in housing, whether that be in health care, whether that be in mental health, whether that be in child care, whether that be in skills, or whether it be in industry policy.

For the first time in so many years, we've got an industry policy. Do you know what free trade meant for working-class people in the communities we represented? I'm reminded of an example—of, I think, the Mitsubishi plant in Lonsdale, in South Australia. When that car plant closed down, they actually did a study of the workers and tracked them over the next few years. Thirty per cent of those workers went and got a good job; 30 per cent of those workers went and found precarious employment—casual employment, on reduced hours; and 30 per cent of those employees never worked again.

So this government's not going to accept the status quo. We're going to do something about it.

Unbelievably, we are already seeing results. We are seeing first home buyers, over just two weekends in, who are able to compete against investors, as they aren't using the money that they were getting from taxpayers to prop up their bids. Already we're seeing results. It might have taken us 40 years to get into this mess, but we don't have 40 years to fix it. And so I commend the bill to this House, as part of the government's strategy to fix things up for— (Time expired)

I must say, I look forward to the member for Forde speaking out against the EU free trade agreement that his government just signed, given that he is such an advocate against free trade! It's also interesting that the member for Forde talked about the challenges that have been there for 40 years for the Australian people. It is staggering. Where was this passion from those opposite, 12 months ago, when they went to the election, committing to not changing negative gearing or capital gains tax? Their commitment wasn't there, the passion wasn't there, 12 months ago.

And then there's this other confusion. On the one hand, you get the Minister for Housing standing up in question time today and this week telling everyone how great this government is and how they're fixing housing for the Australian people, and then, in exactly the same question time, you've got the government saying: 'Housing is a disaster. We failed. That's why we've had to break our word to the Australian people.' They can't have it each way. Either the minister is doing a good job and they're fixing housing or the minister is failing and they cannot deliver.

I understand that the member for Forde wants to be out of order and interject on the way out, because I, too, would be embarrassed to sit there and be a nodding head as their own leaders contradict each other in question time. But I'll look forward to him speaking out against the EU free trade agreement. I'll also look forward to him talking to the minister for energy and telling the minister for energy that he's wrong in supporting the energy system as it is and that he wants to nationalise it. I thought that was an interesting contribution from the member for Forde.

But this is really about this budget. There are lots of failures in this budget. It is important that we talk about it because the Australian people are struggling on so many fronts. They're worried about their future, their children's future and the state of the country. Disappointingly, Labor's budget only makes those worries worse. It does not help Australians today. This budget provides zero cost-of-living relief for the Australian people today. When I'm out listening to locals in my community, many express that they don't feel this government has their backs and that this government doesn't understand the challenges they have.

The reality is that it's getting harder and harder to get ahead. It's getting harder to pay the mortgage, to pay the rent, to keep the lights on and to put food on the table. For example, Australians with an average mortgage are $32,000 a year worse off under Labor. When interest rates go up, mortgage holders and renters will be worse off. Rent goes up as the cost to the landlord goes up. Australians have seen their living standards erode under this government.

Inflation in Australia is at 4.6 per cent. It's forecast to hit five per cent—and that's greater than France, Japan, Italy, Canada, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom. The Treasurer and the Prime Minister will try to spin the inflation crisis by blaming the Middle East. And the Middle East has absolutely had an impact on inflation, but let's be clear—and every Australian knows this—interest rates increased before the conflict in the Middle East and before the Strait of Hormuz was closed. As the Governor of the Reserve Bank herself said, 'This government is spending.' So they made an already tough situation with issues in the Middle East even worse for the Australian people, with no economic buffer for the government, for the RBA governor or for the Australian people at home.

This budget centres around three key themes for this government: broken promises and lies, higher taxes and rising debt. It's a budget that does what Labor promised they wouldn't do. It shows the true colours of this government, which is comfortable breaking promises to the Australian people who put them in this place. The Prime Minister said this would be a budget about Labor values. Well, I guess it's a budget about Labor values in tribute to Julia Gillard and 'No carbon tax under my government.' It is in their DNA to lie to the Australian people.

The papers also show that we are dealing with the highest taxing government in our nation's history. We all know—and you feel it at home—that this government can't manage the budget and can't manage money. We're facing a decade of deficits, and the Australian taxpayers will foot the bill for Labor's decisions to increase taxes. The budget sees our economy burdened with $50 billion in higher taxes, and that includes $15 billion in higher personal income taxes. Put simply, Labor is taking more of what you earn, and every time you get a pay rise and every time you work that overtime shift and earn more, Labor takes more—through their little secret called bracket creep. Labor talk about being for workers, but they don't talk to the Australian worker about bracket creep and how, when you work that extra overtime, you pay more tax.

If they really wanted to support the Australian people, they would support the Liberal Party's tax-back guarantee, because the coalition's tax-back guarantee will index tax thresholds to inflation. By indexing the bottom two income tax thresholds to inflation, we will fully protect 85 per cent of income earners, year on year. It will start with relief of around $250 in year 1, and it will grow to more than $1,000 a year in year 4 and continue to grow, year on year. By 2031-32, we will index the top two tax thresholds as well, and this will fully protect all income earners from inflation. This is generational tax reform that will put more money back into the pockets of the hardworking Australians who earn it.

Labor will try—and we already saw it with the member for Forde—and run class warfare about working people and those that own businesses. The reality is that this supports every Australian that earns a wage and every Australian that risks it all to start a small business. What this government doesn't understand is that it is not a competition. It is not a competition between those that own businesses and those that work in those businesses and earn a salary. It's about business owners and workers working together to help those businesses grow and share more of what they earn, growing the pie. That's what the coalition is doing—supporting workers and supporting business owners. When business owners are doing well and business is strong, the workers are strong as well and our community is strong.

Labor promised that this budget was about intergenerational reform. Instead, they've handed down a budget of intergenerational fraud. The government is pulling up the ladder on every young Australian who is trying to get ahead. Labor's toxic new taxes make it even harder to get ahead in this country—to save, to invest and to buy a home. Not one Labor member, from the Prime Minister down, has been able to explain to the Australian people how taxing shares, stock options and ETFs will help reduce housing prices for the Australian people. The reality is that it's actually not about helping people with housing. That's a cover for increased taxes from this Prime Minister and this Treasurer.

We do know that getting in the housing market is one of the biggest challenges that's raised with all of us by young people. They expect their government to make it easier. But, as I said, these changes will not. They're going to make it harder. These tax changes will reduce supply in housing. Twelve months ago, this Treasurer was defending the current negative gearing and capital gains tax system because he said it wouldn't help supply. Suddenly, today, he won't talk about his own budget papers that show supply will be reduced by 35,000 houses because of their changes. He won't talk about how rents will go up for the Australian people because of his changes. The reality is that, despite the spin from this government, it's not about housing; it's about taxing you more. If you're trying to save for a deposit and build your future by investing in shares, ETFs, crypto and other assets, as so many young people and so many other Australians are, Labor want to take a bigger share of your gain.

To make it worse, older Australians have had the benefit of a capital gains discount while they build their wealth, including the Prime Minister and 20 of 23 cabinet ministers. But younger Australians are now being whacked from every angle and not given the same opportunities by this government. This isn't reform; it's an assault on aspiration. It's shutting the door on young Australians, who have already been locked out of too much opportunity.

This is why the Liberals have said we will repeal these taxes and put in our tax-back guarantee. We will support all Australians. We will support you to build a future for you and your family. We will support wage earners. We will support business owners because we know that they are stronger together.

But not only does this budget destroy hope and aspiration for young Australians; it's an attack on every older Australian that is over 65. This government have ripped out private health insurance support for three million older Australians, costing singles up to $800 a year and couples over $1,600 a year. This will not only impact those Australians that will have this cut on them; it will put more pressure on public housing. I've been inundated with older Australians on fixed incomes who cannot absorb this cost and who will have to remove their private health insurance at a time that they need it more than ever. They will go to the public health system, putting more pressure on the public health system and impacting every Australian.

But we know in Victoria and the seat of Casey that these governments, whether it's the Albanese Labor government or the Allan Labor government, don't care about the Australian people and that they are all about spin and announcements. That is epitomised locally by the Maroondah Hospital. Twice the Allan Labor government have promised to upgrade Maroondah Hospital but failed to include the money in the budget. This is the closest hospital for many in my community. Reefton, Warburton, Healesville, Lilydale, Chirnside Park—so many rely on this hospital, and this Labor government federally and this Labor government in Victoria led by Jacinta Allan continue to mislead my community by talking about announcements and failing to deliver.

When we're talking about failure to deliver and broken promises, my community remembers the broken promise from this prime minister when it comes to dirt roads. The coalition committed in 2019 to seal 150 kilometres of dirt roads in my community, because we are a periurban community and we have natural disasters. It keeps residents safe. It allows emergency services to get in. Prime Minister Albanese, when he was the shadow infrastructure minister, committed to that 10-year program. He gave his word to my community that he would fund it. Like so many things that he does, he broke his word and ripped that funding from my community. But I'll keep fighting because my community deserves safe roads. They deserve promises being met.

When we're talking about roads, we need to talk about Maroondah Highway and Killara Road, another example of failure by Labor governments. In 2019 the coalition committed $20 million to upgrade the Maroondah Highway-Killara Road intersection. The money was given to the Labor state government in 2019. In 2024 I wrote to the minister, and they committed to starting the works and having it delivered in 2025. Here we are in 2026, and nothing has started. I genuinely struggle to find one thing that this prime minister has done to keep his word. The real thing is, as my mum used to say to me, watch out because, if they lie about the little things, they'll lie about the big things.

In looking back at the Prime Minister who didn't fall off the stage, despite the video footage, and then denied it, that was an insight into this prime minister. The Prime Minister had the gall to look at the Australian people and say, 'My word is my bond.' He made that commitment to the Australian people and then, time and time again, this prime minister has broken his word. He's forced every member of this government to break their word with the Australian community. I feel a little bit sorry for the first termers. It is fewer than 12 months into their careers, and they have broken faith and broken their word with their community. Now, they don't really have a choice, because you're not allowed to speak out in the Labor Party ,or you get kicked out. But that broken promise will haunt them. Every time they speak to a community member, they'll have to know that they've broken faith with their community. (Time expired)

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027 and other appropriation bills for 2026-2027. Our Treasurer delivered the 2026 budget two weeks ago, and it is a budget for every Australian. It is a budget for workers, for first home buyers, for families struggling with cost-of-living pressures and for future generations. It is an ambitious budget in a challenging global environment. It is a budget full of tough decisions to build resilience and bolster our economy, while also finally addressing intergenerational inequality. It is a budget that delivers more cost-of-living relief, more funding for Medicare, housing, aged care and much-needed tax reform. It also delivers for my home state of Queensland. This is a budget about resilience and security, getting Australians through the global oil shock while building a fair economy that works for more people. I am incredibly proud of it.

Global conflict has meant rising inflation and cost-of-living pressures. My electorate of Dickson is not immune. People are under stress. We recognise that and we are doing something about it. Helping with the cost of living has defined the Albanese Labor government over the past four years, and it is at the very heart of this budget. We are delivering a new round of tax cuts for working Australians. Our new permanent working Australians tax offset, worth $6.4 billion, will deliver a $250 tax credit every single year to 13.3 million working Australians from 2028. This is on top of our $1,000 instant tax deduction, which workers can claim without sorting through a shoebox full of receipts at tax time. Together with the tax cuts we have already legislated, landing again on 1 July this year and again next year, workers will save about $2,800 a year. That's $54 back into the pockets of average workers every single week. These are tax cuts that the coalition opposed. In fact, they went to the last election promising higher taxes. The coalition will kick and scream about changes to make our tax system fairer, but, when it came down to delivering tax cuts for the lowest earners, they said a big fat no.

This budget continues to strengthen Medicare. Medicare is Labor's heart, and it is mine too. I started my journey to this place to specifically reduce the cost of health care. In the year since I arrived, we have delivered 135 Medicare urgent care clinics right across the country. We have delivered cheaper medicines at just $25 a script, more fully bulk-billed GP clinics, 55 free walk-in Medicare mental health centres, an awesome women's health package and 33 endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics across the country. By July, these clinics will also deliver perimenopause and menopause services.

I got an email this week from Susan, who lives in Dickson, who told me that, since we moved menopause medications onto the PBS, she will save $1,200 a year. This is real, responsible cost-of-living relief, and it is targeted at the people who need it most. By July, four in five Australians will live within a 20-minute drive of an urgent care clinic, reducing pressure on our hospitals and delivering fully bulk-billed care. This budget includes permanent funding for each and every one of them, with $1.8 billion to ensure our UCCs are a permanent part of our healthcare system and our communities.

In Dickson, our much loved Murrumba Downs urgent care clinic has now treated over 33,000 locals, saving many, many hours waiting in A&E, and all they needed was their Medicare card. Our walk-in Medicare mental health centre at Strathpine is helping people get the mental health support they need with no waiting and no fees. This budget continues to make medicines cheaper with $5.9 billion to list new and amended treatments on the PBS for cystic fibrosis, chronic kidney disease and a range of cancers. Importantly, this budget delivers an additional $25 billion over five years to strengthen our public hospitals, which includes over $11 billion specifically for Queensland hospitals.

Queensland is a real winner in this budget. Queensland was allocated more infrastructure funding than any other state or territory, even when Olympics infrastructure funding is excluded. We won the infrastructure State of Origin with $24 billion for major road and rail projects and $2.5 billion for local roads and Black Spot programs. This includes an extra $812.5 million for stage 2 of the Dohles Rocks Road to Anzac Avenue, Bruce Highway upgrade—building on our $758 million investment in stage 1, which will connect everybody in my electorate in Moreton Bay to the Sunshine Coast; $2.5 billion for local road project upgrades and Black Spot programs; over $11 billion for our hospitals over five years. Queensland will get $8.2 billion in education and skills funding, increasing to $8.9 billion by 2029-30. That includes a new TAFE centre of excellence at the University of the Sunshine Coast Moreton Bay campus in my electorate of Dickson.

And we've done a new deal with the state government to build 51,000 new homes for Queenslanders, including 20,000 exclusively for first homebuyers. Everyone in this place knows that buying a home is out of reach for most first homebuyers. We know a shortage of housing and tax incentives for investors has created a housing market that has been appreciating faster than salaries, ambitions or our will to live. We also know that the coalition sat on its hands for nearly a decade without a housing minister, building a measly 373 social and affordable homes over nine years, while sitting on a 40-year housing supply crisis with no plans to fix it.

The median house price in Brisbane is now over $900,000. Since 1999, house prices have risen over 400 per cent, more than twice as fast as average incomes. We are the first federal government since the postwar period to focus on actually building homes. We have a $45 billion plan to build 1.2 million homes, including homes specifically for first homebuyers, and 55,000 social and affordable homes. We've already built more than 5,000 social and affordable homes. In this budget we invest another $2 billion in the power, roads and drains that we need for new housing developments, which will help add another 65,000 homes over the next decade.

Dickson is one of the fastest-growing areas in the country. Young families priced out of Brisbane and Moreton Bay tell me they just want a fair shot at a home of their own. This budget gives them that shot. We are making changes to negative gearing, to even the playing field for young people trying to get into the market. For too long, homebuyers have been losing out to investors at auctions. For too long, incentives for investors have driven up house prices beyond what an average wage earner can afford. For too long, we have treated a roof over our head as an investment portfolio. Housing has become a wealth strategy, excluding people who actually need a permanent home. We have forgotten that a home should be a place to belong, not a place to profit and build more wealth. And despite some of the misinformation online, we are not getting rid of negative gearing. We are limiting it to new residential properties from July next year. This will incentivise new house building, which is exactly what this country needs.

These changes are prospective. If you currently negatively gear an investment property, nothing changes for you. Your arrangements are grandfathered, meaning you can keep doing exactly what you are doing now and, going forward, you can still negatively gear a brand new property. In a fast-growing region like Moreton Bay, there's going to be a lot more new homes where this is going to be possible. Before these changes, young people wanting to buy a home in the area they grew up in would be lining up against 10 or 15 investors for the very same home. Under these changes, they will be competing with people who actually want to live there. That is the difference. That is fairness.

That's not the only thing we are doing to make our tax system fairer. Let's talk about changes to capital gains tax. I've seen the misleading AI generated memes of the Prime Minister laying concrete slabs and cutting hair. I've even seen him doing some stretches on a Pilates reformer. But let me be clear: the only thing being stretched here is the truth. Nobody is suddenly paying 47 per cent tax, nor is the government taking a 47 per cent stake in your business.

Unlike the stuff doing the rounds on social media, let's talk about facts. We're replacing the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount with inflation adjusted indexation to restore the taxation of real gains. We are doing this to even the playing field so that those who earn income from assets like shares and trusts are paying tax like those who work a 40-hour week. Why should our nurses, teachers, cleaners and aged-care workers pay more tax than those who earn income from shares and trusts?

These changes will also be prospective. So, if you are talking about CGT on a property, the gains you made prior to the budget will still get a 50 per cent discount. If you buy a new build, you can also claim the 50 per cent. Plus, for any small businesses turning over less than $2 million per year, you can still claim the 50 per cent if you've owned that business for 15 years and you're selling on retirement. This budget also makes the $20,000 instant asset write-off permanent, and it's delivering $3.5 billion in new tax relief measures for businesses.

This is a responsible budget that builds resilience and responds to the global oil shock, including investment to strengthen supply chains and for a permanent fuel security reserve. In this budget, we are delivering a $14.8 billion package to strengthen Australia's fuel resilience, securing more fuel and fertiliser now and building reserves and supply chains so that we are better prepared for global economic uncertainty. Ten billion dollars will go to immediate fuel and fertiliser security and a permanent government owned Australian fuel security reserve, extending our reserves to at least 50 days.

We are also reserving 20 per cent of gas exports for Aussie users so there's more supply at lower rates. Our landmark domestic gas reservation policy will require east coast LNG exporters to reserve 20 per cent of production for the domestic market from July 2027. This will shield Aussies from global price volatility and supply shortfalls. Strengthening our fuel resilience is a literal no-brainer, yet, for some reason, the coalition opposes our domestic gas reservation policy. I'll say this to the coalition: if we wanted to hear the gas lobby's opinion, we'd just talked to the gas lobby ourselves.

This budget is for everyday Aussies. It is for the worker, enabling them to keep more of what they earn. It is for the young couple in Dickson who can finally see a path to a home of their own. It is for people who work a 40-hour week. It is for the family filling up at the tank. It's for the local who can walk into an urgent care clinic with nothing more than their Medicare card.

There are tough decisions in this budget. We know there's an easier road. We could pretend that homes are affordable for first home buyers. We could ignore the fact that the average nurse pays more in tax on every dollar she earns than many investors do. We could pretend that there's no inequality in our tax system: 'Nothing to see here; just move on.' But then we would be the Liberal Party; we would be the coalition and we would be robbing future generations. That's not what I came to this place to do. This budget lays a strong foundation for the future of Australia.

This is a bad Labor budget built on broken promises funded by a tax assault on aspiration, designed to punish the very Australians who invest, build businesses and plan for the future. Last week, I launched a survey of my electorate. So far, nearly 2,000 people responded, from every suburb and town across the electorate. Their verdict was unambiguous, and I want this parliament to hear it: 68 per cent of respondents believe Labor's budget tax changes will worsen Australia's economy; 75 per cent of small business owner respondents said the budget would worsen the economy; 70 per cent said the CGT and negative gearing changes will make it harder for Australians to invest, save and build for the future; 75 per cent of small business owners oppose the trust tax; and 64 per cent of respondents agreed that trust changes amount to a death tax by stealth. Unprompted, more than 100 respondents mentioned broken promises or dishonesty, and that tells you something.

From 1 July 2028, discretionary trusts will face a minimum 30 per cent tax on distributions with no grandfathering. Businesses structured legally over decades on professional advice will find the rules change beneath them. There's been no transition period, no compensation and no acknowledgement from this government that the people affected by these changes did nothing wrong. They followed the law, planned carefully and took risks, and now the rules have been rewritten around them. Throughout both the 2022 and 2025 election campaigns, the Prime Minister made specific, repeated promises not to change taxes on small businesses, on farmers, on negative gearing or on capital gains, and he's broken every one of those promises. More than 100 survey respondents used words like 'broken promise', 'lied' or 'betrayed' in their written comments, unprompted, in response to a question about tax policy.

Kath from Berowra Waters put it plainly: Labor didn't run on these changes, and they've not been adequately explained. When you change taxes, taxpayers have a right to know what is happening first, and Labor hasn't done that. Alan from Galston started his business with his wife 36 years ago. He always planned to sell it and retire on the proceeds. That was the deal. It was the unspoken contract between the government and the people who take the risk of building businesses. This budget has torn up that contract. Nathan from North Epping has effectively paid himself next to nothing for the past 10 years to build his business, with a sale as the prospect of growing wealth for the future. Now that prospect comes with a tax liability he never planned for. Jeff from Epping has invested a seven-figure sum in a dairy manufacturing business in regional Victoria, currently employing 32 people and expecting to employ over 100 within 12 months. He told me that the proposed changes will make him substantially worse off on any exit.

Estimates suggest that there are around 642,000 discretionary trusts in Australia, and well over 300,000 will be affected. This isn't a tax on the wealthy; it's a tax on the people of Berowra. It's a tax on the tradesman who incorporated, the pharmacist who structured her practice and the couple who built something together over 30 years and hoped to pass it on.

The trust tax is also a tax on families, on what parents spend a lifetime building to pass onto their children. Sixty-four per cent of survey respondents agreed it mounts to a death tax by stealth. Hannah from Berowra has a testamentary trust in her will, not to minimise tax but to ensure that if both parents die her children's inheritance cannot be spent by a guardian before those children reach adulthood. Under this budget, the government takes 30 per cent before those children see a dollar. Helen from Waitara, raising a child with a significant disability, spent nearly $4,000 in legal fees this year to establish a testamentary trust to protect that child's future. These aren't tax avoiders; they're parents, and this government proposes to tax what they leave behind. The cruelty of this measure is not abstract. These are people who sat down with their solicitor, thought about what would happen to their children if they were gone and took legal steps to protect them. This budget penalises that foresight. It punishes responsible planning, and it does so without warning, without mandate and without compensation.

From 1 July 2027, negative gearing on established residential properties purchased after budget night will be abolished. The 50 per cent capital gains tax discount is replaced with a minimum 30 per cent rate. The government's own Treasury modelling concedes that these changes will result in around 35,000 fewer new homes over the next decade. Independent economists forecast upward pressure on rents. That doesn't help renters. It punishes them. Michael from Arcadia withdrew superannuation and bought an investment property that houses two people. Following this budget, he says that the CGT changes will make that investment unviable. He plans to terminate the lease and sell. Two people will be evicted and need to find somewhere to live. Multiply that decision across hundreds of thousands of small landlords running the same numbers, and you understand why housing economists are forecasting rental pressure and why the government's claim to be helping renters is so dishonest. Toni from Pennant Hills made decisions based on this government's guarantees. Those guarantees have been broken. Andrew from Mount Colah spent his entire working life planning carefully for self-funded retirement through superannuation and shares. He retired last month at 65. The month he got there, the goalposts moved. His careful planning to provide a cash pension for himself has been scuttled at the finish line by this federal budget.

The rentvesting pathway—renting near work while investing elsewhere to build equity—has also been destroyed. Nathan from North Epping named this explicitly. The CGT changes have made rentvesting virtually impossible. Young people who couldn't afford to buy near where they work now have lost that stepping stone too. This wasn't a loophole. It was a legitimate and widely used strategy that allowed ordinary Australians to enter the property market on their own terms. The government has slammed that door without offering any alternative.

The reduction in the private health insurance rebate for Australians over 65 has not received the attention it deserves. Peter from Westleigh and his wife are on full age pensions and are desperately trying to maintain health cover that costs them $5,000 a year. Helen from Hornsby, a self-funded retiree, faces an additional $3,000 a year and told me she'll be forced onto the age pension sooner as a result. Pamela from Berowra has been a private health member since she was 17. She's now 84 years old and wonders whether she can continue to afford $600 a month. Rowena, a retiree from Normanhurst, wrote something that should trouble every single member of this parliament. Labor says we can earn more and keep more of what we earn, but she can't earn more and now she has to spend more of what she's already earned. She has to choose between her health cover and being able to afford to hire someone to help her take a shower. Norm from Westleigh called it a slap in the face for the people who've paid their taxes all their working lives, and he's right.

The consequences are entirely foreseeable. People will drop private health cover and enter the public hospital system at the moment their healthcare needs are the greatest. The cost of that shift won't disappear. It'll simply be transferred from private insurers to the public purse and to every Australian who waits longer in a public hospital queue because the system is absorbing many more patients than it planned for.

No account of this budget's impact on small business is complete without addressing energy costs, because the budget does nothing in a structural way to address them. Angus Taylor has made this case consistently. Labor's ideological commitment to an all-renewables grid, the closure of baseload power and the failure to develop more gas supply have driven electricity prices higher for every small business in Australia. The cafe, the gym, the print shop and the medical practice in Berowra are all paying more for power than they should. Every dollar spent on electricity is a dollar not spent on wages or investment. John from Normanhurst works in the building industry and he was blunt: nothing in this budget will improve the housing supply or stimulate development, and the energy policy settings embedded in construction requirements add significant cost to every new build. The coalition will pursue a technology-neutral energy policy that prioritises affordability and reliability, not a $150 quarterly rebate that runs out in December. That rebate is a bandaid on a wound that requires surgery. It doesn't lower wholesale prices, it doesn't improve grid reliability and it disappears before the summer is over.

When a government changes fundamental rules without warning, without mandate and without grandfathering, it creates sovereign risk. It causes investment to stop and it causes planning to become impossible. Ross, a Hornsby resident, drew the sharpest historical comparison. When John Howard changed his position on the GST, he took it to the election and won a mandate. This government campaigned for these exact changes in 2019 and were defeated. They promised not to implement them in 2025, won the election and then implemented them. His conclusion was absolutely right. This is a government that cannot tell the truth.

Philip, a Dural resident, said the most fundamental concern, even beyond the toxic nature of these changes, was the utter dishonesty of a government that refuses even to acknowledge that it has broken promises. Craig from Westleigh is approaching retirement, having structured his finances around a discretionary trust in good faith. He told me simply: I trusted this was something that wouldn't change.

Sovereign risk isn't just an abstract concept for economists; it's what happens when a small-business owner in Galston realises that planning for his future is futile because the government can change the rules after the fact, with no consequences. It erodes confidence and it erodes trust, and once that trust is gone it takes years to rebuild.

This government has made young Australians the stated justification for this budget, and I want to test that claim against what the young people of Berowra have told me. Of the 2,000 responses, more than 10 per cent were under 45. Fifty-nine per cent of those under 45 said the budget would worsen the economy and 52 per cent opposed the trust tax. Mark from Berowra is a young Australian who invests in shares and property and works hard. He told me this budget has struck a hard nerve with him and his fellow young Australians. He asked: 'What's the point of getting an education? What's the point of working hard and innovating if 47 per cent just goes to the government?'

Shane from Cherrybrook identified a critical design failure—for younger Australians who can't afford property, non-property investment—shares, ETFs and managed funds—has been one of the few remaining ways to build the wealth needed to eventually buy a home. The CGT changes don't distinguish between a landlord with five investment properties and a 28-year-old putting aside $200 a month into an index fund. They are hit the same.

Nicholas from Beecroft made the point with precision that the minimum 30 per cent tax on capital gains literally punishes the lowest of low-income earners, including young people who need to sell shares to produce a home deposit. The government tells young Australians it's opening the door to homeownership, and yet it's blocked that door with a tax collector.

Anton from West Pennant Hills invested in small ASX listed biotech companies that do research and development, exactly the kind of productive investment that creates jobs of the future. Under the new CGT rules, the after-tax return no longer justifies the risk. He may as well invest in stable dividend companies. That's not good for Australian innovation.

Jonathan from Hornsby made the supply point plainly, saying that young people invest in shares to build capital for a deposit and now they'll be taxed too heavily on those gains. Labor's measures won't result in more first home buyers getting into a house when the real issue is supply. The government's own modelling indicates that there will be 35,000 fewer homes built as a result of this. That's not a housing solution; that's a housing problem. The answer is to build more through planning reform, reduced red tape and energy policies that don't inflate the cost of every new home. This budget offers none of that.

The contrast with our approach in the coalition is clear. We will fight these trust tax changes and, if they pass, we will repeal them. We will not destroy the negative gearing and CGT settings that mum-and-dad investors and first-time rentvesters depend on. We will work on supply, planning reform, construction capacity and energy affordability because that is what will actually help young people buy a home.

Let me discuss the tax that this budget ignores entirely, and that is bracket creep. When wages rise just to keep up with inflation, workers are no longer better off in real terms. If that rise pushes them into the next bracket, the government takes more. It's a stealth raid, and it happens every year. This budget does nothing about it. Think about what this means for the workers of Berowra—a teacher at Normanhurst Boys or Pennant Hills High, a nurse at Hornsby hospital, a police officer at Castle Hill or Hornsby or a paramedic or a firefighter stationed across the electorate. All of them work hard. They earn their pay rises through years of service. Every time inflation pushes their salary up, the government quietly takes a larger share. They're not richer. The government is just extracting more from the wages they've worked for. Darren from Mount Colah named it directly, saying that Labor kept the 37 per cent bracket when it was meant to be abolished. That's another broken promise making it harder for ordinary Australians to get ahead. It's not a dramatic headline. It doesn't appear in the Treasurer's budget speech as a line item. But it compounds, year after year, quietly eroding the purchasing power of working families who thought they were getting ahead.

The coalition's tax-back guarantee is our answer. From 2028-29, we will index the bottom two income tax thresholds to inflation, protecting 85 per cent of income earners, including every teacher, nurse, paramedic and police officer in Berowra, with relief of $250 in year 1, growing to more than $1,000 a year by year 4. From 2031-32, all thresholds will be indexed. When a nurse gets a pay rise at Hornsby hospital, she, not the taxman, will actually keep it. That's what fairness really looks like.

We oppose this budget and its tax increases. I can't support a budget that taxes and disadvantages my community as much as this budget does. This is a bad Labor budget. It deserves to be opposed. We will fight these toxic taxes every step of the way. If they get through, we will repeal them.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:30