I present the report of the Australian parliamentary delegation to South America from 15 to 29 July 2026. I am pleased to inform the House that the Australian parliamentary delegation to South America took place from 15 to 29 July this year. As leader of this delegation, I would first like to thank the other members of the delegation for their contribution to the visit: Senator Andrew McLachlan CSC and the members for Capricornia, Corangamite, Bullwinkel and Macquarie.
The delegation worked very well together and brought a variety of interests and knowledge of issues which proved to be very valuable during our meetings and discussions. The delegation had programs of meetings and activities in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Ecuador. I would like to thank Her Excellency Ms Sarah Roberts, Australian Ambassador to Argentina, and His Excellency Mr Andrew Martin, Australian Ambassador to Chile, as well as their staff, for the valuable briefings and support they provided to the delegation.
The aims of the delegation were to deepen parliamentary engagement with legislators in the countries we visited, exchanging experiences of democratic governance and institutional resilience; to strengthen bilateral relationships in a region of growing economic and multilateral importance; to elevate Australia's profile as a trusted partner for sustainable mining, responsible investment and rules based cooperation; and to advance Australia's economic interests with a focus on critical minerals, mining services, agriculture and clean energy.
The delegation held productive discussions with parliamentarians, senior government officials, business leaders and not-for-profit organisations. We also had the privilege of visiting the parliaments of each country, and I was very pleased to be the first Australian Speaker invited to address a session of the National Assembly of Ecuador. During my address to the parliament, I emphasised the bilateral ties between Australia and Ecuador as neighbours across the Pacific Ocean with rich Indigenous cultures and highlighted the bipartisan delegation's visit as a commitment to strengthening the democratic partnerships between our two nations.
Other highlights for the delegation were visiting the national atomic energy commission nuclear facility and the La Rural international livestock, agriculture and industry exhibition in Buenos Aires; the BHP integrated remote operations centre in Santiago; and the Quito food bank, which Australia supports through our Direct Aid Program.
On behalf of the delegation, I would like to record our appreciation of the work that went into preparing the visit, including the arrangements made by the staff of the International and Parliamentary Relations Office and the material provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. I also thank the delegation secretary and Deputy Clerk, Mr Peter Banson, for his support to the delegation during the visit. I commend this report to the House.
I move:
That further statements on the eighth anniversary of the national apology to victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse be permitted in the Federation Chamber.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That further statements on the passing of the Honourable William Montague Charles Gummow AC be permitted in the Federation Chamber.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I ntroduction
Australia has one of the most comprehensive online safety frameworks in the world.
It protects Australian children from cyberbullying and adults from cyber abuse.
It empowers the eSafety Commissioner to take down seriously harmful material, including image based abuse.
It requires online services to report how they are keeping Australians safe.
And it has 17 industry-drafted codes and standards that were designed by big tech to protect Australians from illegal and restricted content.
This network of protections has helped many Australians.
But an independent statutory review found, in a constantly evolving digital world, we are playing whack-a-mole.
That is why, today, the Albanese government is introducing a digital duty of care.
Australia's digital duty of care will set basic safety standards for the online services we use every day, just like we have in every other industry.
Illegal a nd r estricted m aterial
The core of the digital duty of care is to provide a safe online environment, where all Australians are protected from seriously harmful and illegal content.
It moves the safety net upstream to the people who design the product to stop the harm, before it ever reaches an Australian user.
It is not about controlling adults online—it is about getting illegal and seriously harmful material offline and giving adults choice.
Like when you buy a new appliance—the government sets minimum safety standards, but ultimately what you choose to buy is up to you, as long as it's legal and safe.
The digital duty of care also sets minimum standards for the features and tools that tech companies use.
Online service providers will have to conduct annual risk assessments of the harms the features on their service could cause to Australians—features like algorithmic recommender systems, the ability to livestream incognito from your glasses, or the ability to artificially generate text and pictures.
Then they will need to put systems in place to prevent those risky features from causing harm to Australians, because the architecture matters. The business model matters. The incentives matter.
Platforms are not passive. They decide what is amplified, what captures us, what behaviours get rewarded.
They have been optimised for engagement and for attachment, not for wellbeing, because the longer we stay, the more valuable we are.
And, through My Feed, My Way, social media companies will have to provide user empowerment tools that give people over the age of 16 choice about what they see in their feed.
If someone wants their feed to be filled with friends and creators they follow, the social media platforms must let them do that by default. You shouldn't be thrown into an algorithm filled with people you don't follow or subscribe to if you don't want to.
And, if you're happy to keep getting personally recommended content in your primary feed, you should have choice about the specific kind of content you do and don't want to see.
Today, the Albanese government has released the proposed rules for user empowerment tools.
They contain four principles that address some of the malicious compliance that we have seen in other jurisdictions.
First, we must be able to opt into the algorithm, with social media platforms required to send users a proactive notification about this choice.
Second, the tools must be accessible, easy to use, prominently available, functional, clear and in simple language.
Third, the choice must stick—platforms can't revert back to their default every time you open the app.
Fourth, choosing to opt out of the algorithm must not make your feed harder to navigate. The experience must be similar to those who have chosen to opt in.
M aterial harmful to children
I've heard from parents all over Australia who are so relieved that we have delayed access to social media until the age of 16.
But parents are understandably still worried about how they can protect their kids on other platforms, like online games and AI chatbots.
And that is a rational fear.
Just last week, we heard about a 14-year-old girl from Western Australia who was approached by an adult on Roblox. He told her she was really good at the game and they started chatting. That chat moved to Discord and changed tone.
He asked for pictures, then blackmailed her. He told her to write his name in her blood, to self-harm, to send pornographic images. He asked her to livestream her suicide.
Another is a 13-year-old boy from Victoria who was lonely and struggling to make friends, and when his counsellor looked at his browser history, he had 50 different tabs of AI chatbots open so he could flick between them.
It was a way for him to feel connected—after all, how can you feel lonely if you're connected with 50 different chats?
But some of the chatbots told him he was ugly and would never make friends. Some egged him on towards self-loathing and some egged him towards self harm. That is a report.
Under Australia's digital duty of care, under-18s must be protected from content and features that are harmful to young people: content that promotes or encourages eating disorders; content that glorifies crime or dangerous stunts; pornography or content that promotes hostile ideas about women and gender equality; content that causes serious distress, including abuse and bullying.
We know many kids don't tell parents that they are seeing harmful content on social media, often because they worry parents will 'overreact' and deny access.
Sometimes they don't even recognise what is happening to them is harmful.
But it shouldn't be on the kid to stop or report the harm.
It should be on the companies that create these online environments to make them safe and to stop the harm before it occurs.
Transitional a rrangements
If the digital duty of care passes through parliament and royal assent, a 12-month transitional period will be in place before the digital duty of care comes into effect.
This transitional period will provide time for the making of any necessary rules and regulatory guidance material to ensure industry is able to put in place measures to meet the new compliance requirements in time for the digital duty of care to come into effect.
Online services that are currently complying with the basic online safety expectations and the relevant codes and standards will be well placed to comply with their digital duty of care obligations.
Noting that not all online services share the same level of risk and type of risks, the extent of a service's obligation, including the need to conduct a full risk assessment, and the level of detail required will vary as determined by the eSafety Commissioner.
To be determined 'low risk', an online service provider will need to conduct a self-assessment process to certify that it does not do things such as:
Providers of low-risk services will have minimal obligations under the digital duty of care, including websites and applications run by small businesses, services that predominantly or exclusively share exempt material, as well as information conduit services, like internet service providers.
Providers of low-risk services must continue to monitor any changes to their service or features and reassess the risk profile of their service when/if significant changes are made.
Conclusion
I would like to finish with a letter I received from an eight-year-old boy named Angus, who lives in Yeronga, in Queensland.
Angus wrote to me because he was worried about what Roblox was doing to friends, and what it might do to his little brother.
He said:
I have a friend who used to be a great friend who would play with me on playdates and we would have a great time. He got Roblox when he was about six years old, after he got Roblox he wasn't interested in playing with me anymore, all he wanted to do was play Roblox and it feels like he is addicted to it.
My friends say weird things that they have learnt from the game and I don't like it.
It isn't safe that it is an online game and strangers can play with you, and I worry about my friends being online with strangers who might be dangerous.
There are horror games on Roblox and it can be really scary for kids. When I have asked my friends to stop playing these types of games they don't listen.
I think that Roblox rots kids brains because it has terrible graphics, there is horror and shooting games and they learn very silly things.
If eight-year-old Angus from Yeronga understands why we need to make the internet safer, then I believe 60-year-old Angus from Cooma might be able to as well.
Online safety should not be a political issue.
All sides of parliament need to work together to deliver a digital duty of care.
There is no reason why we can't work together to get this done.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Today I reintroduce the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026.
This important bill will address intergenerational inequity, better target the rebate for private health insurance premiums and, importantly, free up much-needed funds to deliver more aged-care services.
Currently, the government provides a rebate that supports Australians to take up and to hold private health insurance.
Each year, the government invests approximately $8 billion in the rebate to help keep private health insurance more affordable and to take pressure off our public health system.
In the election environment of 2004, with a boom economy driven by global economic activity, the Howard government increased the private health insurance rebate, but only for people aged 65 and above. In order to protect the Commonwealth legally from what was obviously an age discrimination, the Howard government, at the same time, was forced to amend the Age Discrimination Act. In 2026, that is difficult to defend.
The higher rebate for people aged 65 and above means that two households on the same income receive different levels of government rebate based only on their age. This is in addition to older people's health insurance claims already being cross-subsidised by younger policyholders under community rating, meaning that everyone pays the same premium for the same policy, regardless of how much they use their insurance.
Older Australians are more likely to retain private health insurance, and they receive significantly higher benefits on average than younger Australians. This means the inequitable targeting of the rebate simply does not align with its purpose to incentivise take-up.
And the current model is simply not the best way to spend taxpayers' dollars on behalf of older Australians when there is a significant need to expand access to aged-care services.
Therefore, to re-establish intergenerational equity, and to better target and simplify the rebate, this bill will amend the Private Health Insurance Act 2007, removing the higher rebates paid for people aged 65 and over.
The rebate will remain means tested—a change Labor made in 2012—paid at a higher rate for those on lower incomes.
The rebate changes, if passed by the parliament, will take effect on 1 April 2027.
I understand that this will not be a welcome decision for some, but it is the necessary and the right thing to do.
It will mean that two households next door to each other on exactly the same income will receive the same support from government for their health insurance—regardless of age.
It also allows government to invest an additional $3 billion in critical funds to deliver more residential aged-care beds, more Support at Home packages, shorter wait times and better care for older Australians.
This investment will:
The change will impact approximately 3.2 million people aged 65 and over who have a taxable income below the rebate cut-off.
It's expected the average increased premium for those impacted older Australians will be around $250 per year—or around 70c per day. For some older Australians who choose more expensive policies, that increase may be higher.
It's expected that the number of older Australians with health insurance will continue to increase, including people aged 65 and above. It's estimated there will be about 44,000 fewer people aged 65 and over insured by 2028-29 than if the rebate had remained unchanged. That is 0.4 per cent fewer insured people than otherwise expected, in a sector that is growing on average by two per cent per year, or five times that amount. This is a relatively low change in participation compared with the volume of services in hospitals, which means the impact on hospital admissions is expected to be marginal.
The bill will implement the rebate change by amending Part 2-2 of the Private Health Insurance Act 2007 so the rebate calculation applies in the same way for people aged 65 and above as it does for those aged under 65.
The bill will also make a technical amendment to the Age Discrimination Act 2004, removing a reference to an exemption previously required for the discriminatory operation of those higher rebates for older Australians, protecting the Commonwealth, as they did at the time, from legal action from younger Australians based on the obvious discrimination based on age.
While this will remove the current preferential rebate for older Australians, they will continue to be supported through the rebate of up to 24 per cent off their premiums. They'll be supported through community rating and through indexation of the rebate thresholds, which this government reintroduced, of course, after it was frozen under the previous Liberal government. All of this will help keep private health insurance more affordable.
The Australian government has to balance its support for privately insured patients with the funding it provides right across the health, disability and aged-care systems. Savings from this rebate change will provide important support for older people through improvements that are absolutely necessary to aged care. This decision reflects responsible budget management in challenging times. The government will invest the $3 billion in estimated savings from this measure in delivering more aged-care beds, more packages, and better care for older Australians.
This will enable more people to access aged care, address delayed discharge from hospital and provide dignity and care to older Australians towards the end of their lives. Reinvesting the savings from the rebate in aged care capacity will relieve pressure on the public hospital system.
The government is committed to moving ahead with this bill.
Older Australians deserve better aged-care services, and we're determined to do everything we can to deliver those services.
This bill was introduced and referred to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report on 25 June 2026. The Senate committee held four public hearings and received 665 submissions. On 7 October 2026, the Senate committee issued its report recommending the bill be passed noting it is an important part of the government's broader health reforms.
It found that the changes will promote fairness by ensuring policyholders pay the same premium for the same private health insurance policy, regardless of age, while retaining means-tested support for people on lower incomes.
The committee acknowledged concerns about affordability, participation and the potential effects on the health system, particularly in regional areas. However, it noted independent evidence that the existing age-based rebate has a limited effect on participation and that private health insurance participation is projected to continue growing under the reform.
Lower-cost products will remain available, and all Australians will continue to have universal access to treatment as public patients through Medicare.
The committee welcomed the investment of the $3 billion in savings over the four years from 2026-27 in critical aged-care services, including additional residential aged-care beds and Support at Home packages.
It concluded that this investment should help address delayed hospital discharge and relieve pressure on the public hospital system.
The committee also encouraged the department to continue consulting stakeholders and to monitor the reform's effects as it is implemented.
I note the dissenting reports from the Greens and the coalition.
The government is of the view that it is important that the parliament have a proper debate on these matters.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this House:
(1) congratulates the Senate on yesterday discharging the Government's bill to tax seniors for accessing basic health care;
(2) notes that despite broad community and bipartisan opposition to the Government's cruel cuts, the Government has reintroduced yet another attack on senior Australians in the House of Representatives today;
(3) further notes that on 14 September 2026, the Government bizarrely voted to prevent its own members from speaking on its health tax bill; and
(4) calls again on the Government to not proceed with its plan to pick the pockets of older Australians to pay for its wasteful spending.
To translate for those listening to the debate today, what happened in the Senate—
Leave is not granted to move this motion.
I didn't ask for leave. What happened yesterday in the Senate was that the Senate said to the Labor Party, 'Stop your attack on senior Australians and asking them to pay for your wasteful spending.' What the Senate said was, 'Minister for health, older Australians and pensioners shouldn't pay the price for your government's failure to pull in your purse strings.' The Treasurer, who you want to replace so that you can take over and then take over from the Prime Minister, has created a spending problem in this country which sees us spending at a rate the like of which we haven't seen for 40 years. To try and make up for that, what are you doing? You're going to place a fee on older Australians—and not only on older Australians; on 1.2 million pensioners. What are you going to be asking those pensioners to pay? If they are a single, it will be an additional $800 or more a year. If they're a pensioner couple, it will be $1,600. Minister for Health and Ageing and Prime Minister, there is a cost-of-living crisis going on at the moment, and you want to do this to pensioners? But it's not only pensioners; it's self-funded retirees. They're dealing with the cost-of-living crisis, with electricity bills up 40 per cent and more tax, and yet what you want to do is hit them and hit them hard—$800, or $1,600 if you're a couple.
Once again, so people can understand what happened, the minister was saying, 'There was a Senate committee hearing and the Senate committee said, "Yes, this should go ahead."' Well, there was a Labor majority on the committee and there was a dissenting report. What happened was that the dissenters, when it came to a final vote last night, said to the minister for health, 'Go back to the drawing board.' We didn't hear anything about that from the minister for health. All we heard was this very cool, calm and collected 'There's nothing to see here.' Well, I can tell you—and I say it to the Labor Party backbench—you're out in your communities, listening to your constituencies, and they aren't liking what's going on. You're picking the pockets of everyday Australians, in any which way you can, to make up for your wasteful spending. They know that, and you know it, because we're starting to hear it through the backgrounding against the Treasurer and others. The Treasurer has been referred to as a used car salesman by someone on that backbench there, because they know it's the government's spending that is the issue, and they're failing to address it. The minister for health knows it. He's positioning to take over from the Treasurer so he can parachute straight up to the top job when the Prime Minister decides to sail into the sunset—and, given the way the Prime Minister's approval rating is falling through the floor, don't be surprised if he sails into the sunset sooner rather than later.
That's why all this Machiavellian manoeuvring is taking place within the Labor Party. It's going to be fascinating to see, with the Treasurer away, who's going to be up there today, trying to make sure—'Look at me! Look at me! I might be the one who should replace the Treasurer!' Well, I can tell you, older Australians shouldn't pay the price for your manipulating and for the Treasurer's failures. They should not. What I don't understand is how you haven't listened. The Senate last night said that this is a stupid idea, a dumb idea. Why go after older Australians? Why go after 1.2 million pensioners? These people have worked their backsides off, and they've gone into retirement after planning for that retirement and want to know that they can do so while affording private health insurance. You have just taken that away from them—absolutely taken that away from them. Why? It's not their fault. They've planned. They've saved. They've wanted to prepare for their futures. It's not their fault. It's your fault, because you can't control your spending, so you're making them pay for it.
I ask anyone from this backbench to stand up—and it's funny: when this bill was debated they didn't speak; I wonder why—and say, 'Yes, we want 1.2 million pensioners in this country to pay $800 more for their private health insurance,' which is what the bill does. I would love for you to stand up and say that. So let's hear you stand up and say—
Manager of Opposition Business, direct your comments through the chair, please.
Thanks, Deputy Speaker, I will. This is a complete and utter dog's breakfast. The government is turning into a complete and utter dog's breakfast. This is completely and utterly humiliating. The Senate has said no, but this government is so out of touch that, the morning after the bill was voted on and rejected, they're back here putting it bill straight back in—I mean, arrogance; out of touch; not listening. Our backbench has done surveys, spoken to people, done a lot of work—listening, and petitions—and it's been made been made very clear: 'We don't want this.' They don't want this. That's what they say. And they've got a message for the minister for health: you can spend your time doing puff pieces for magazines and trying to position, but there are people out there doing it hard, doing it tough. There's a cost-of-living crisis on. So while you're doing all that, get out instead and listen to your communities. If you did that, you would know that this is a stupid idea.
The last point I'll make on this is that the states are awake to it as well. They know in the end what you're doing is cost shifting. You're cost shifting onto the public health systems at the state and territory levels, and what does that mean? They are already in serious pain. The wait times are blowing out. Ambulance ramping is still occurring, and you want to put more costs on them to make up for your wasteful spending. It is an absolute disgrace. We won't stand for it and, on behalf of all older Australians, we will oppose this bill. We will keep opposing this bill. It is terrible legislation, and we will go to the next election opposing it because, older Australians, we are on your side. The Minister for Health and Ageing mightn't be on your side, but we are and we will fight this to the death.
Is there a seconder for the motion?
There sure is. I second this motion. Nobody likes a double dipper, and the minister has come in here and double dipped in the most atrocious way on a bad bill that no Australian likes. I don't know if the government gets out in their electorates, but there's not a single older person in my community that supports this bill, and there's a distinct feeling of deja vu. Yesterday the government was embarrassed in the Senate, with the coalition and the entire crossbench voting to strike Labor's private health insurance tax grab on older Australians from the parliamentary agenda. Whilst we haven't yet had time to digest the detail, we pretty much think that the minister has just reintroduced—as I said, double dipping—a bad bill. It feels a bit like Marty McFly from Back to the Future, when he shouts at the TV, 'Hey, I've seen this one,' to which the minister replies: 'What do you mean you've seen this? There's nothing to see here. It's brand new.' But, sadly, for every single older Australian and this parliament, this is not a classic.
After yesterday's embarrassing but righteous defeat you would think the government would see sense and abandon this absolutely cruel—it's not only cruel; it's dumb—policy, but no. Today the Minister for Health and Ageing spat the dummy and reintroduced his bill. He said that it's going to be introduced on 1 April 2027—an April Fool's joke for older Australians. The date says it all. It is not a joke; it is absolutely serious. He labelled the decision to strike down this proposal a travesty. What is a travesty is that the government is once again trying to impose an $11 billion hit on older Australians, with half that money coming off the back of the pensioners and older people in our community that come to you, Minister, and ask for help. And you say: 'We're not going to help you. We're going to impose more fees on you.' With the government going back to the future, the coalition will follow suit. The coalition still opposes this absolutely horrible bill. It will continue to oppose any cuts to the private health insurance rebate for older Australians.
On the government's own numbers, this was the biggest rise in private health costs for older Australians on record. Older Australians were going to be forced to pay more, wait longer and get less. But the minister came in here and said: 'It's not too much. It's only 3.2 million older Australians and 1.2 million pensioners. They're only paying, I don't know, $250 more a year. That's nothing for an older Australian.' But it's $800 more a year and $1,600 if you're a couple. He's saying: 'It's only 70c a day. Older Australians can afford that 70c. It's fine. Not many people are impacted at all. There's nothing to see here.' That is rubbish. That is an atrocious way to treat older Australians who have worked so hard for this country, and, in their older age, the minister is saying: 'You can afford that 70c a day. You can afford $800 more in this cost-of-living crisis. Don't worry about putting the heating on this year. You can put up with the cold. Don't worry about putting the air conditioning on. You can put up with the heat. Just pay more.'
Older Australians have given us so much. It is an absolutely disgusting way to treat older Australians. The government didn't even bother to work out how many of them are pensioners until stakeholders forced them to. Now we know that 1.2 million older Australians—that is not a number to be flicked away or to be dismissed. The government keeps claiming this is about fairness. They claim to be fixing generational inequity. The rebate is already based on income though. Higher earners already receive less. Keeping older Australians in private cover is exactly what takes the pressure off the system.
In Western Sydney, our public hospitals are bursting at the seams. Private health insurance helps our public hospitals. Now we're going to put more pressure them, and the health minister is absolutely happy to do that—happy to charge older Australians more, happy to put more pressure on our public hospitals, happy to extend the waitlist for surgeries, happy to put this pressure on older Australians. Right now, our system recognises something simple and fair: older Australians use more health care, and, as a country, we want to keep them under private cover, not push them into an overstretched public system. But under this government we'll pay more. Premiums are going to be jacked up simply because they're over 65—punishing them for living longer, punishing great older Australians for achieving so much in their lives. We're going to punish them for living longer.
Let's be clear about where the coalition stands. We believe in a strong private health system working alongside a strong public one. We support genuine reform. We support real transparency, so patients know what they will pay before they walk through the door. The coalition will not stand for this proposed change. We will stand up for older Australians. We reject this government's false choice between funding aged care and supporting older Australians with private health cover, because we care about older Australians.
We don't support this motion. It's another political stunt from the opposition, echoing the political stunt we saw in the other place yesterday afternoon which essentially signalled the return of the 'no-alition'—
Political stunt!
Order! Member for Fisher, it is highly disorderly to interject, even from your own seat, and, as a former speaker, you should know that.
It's the return under the new leader of the Greens, Senator Shoebridge, of a determination by the opposition and the Greens party to team up and thwart every sensible measure this government seeks to bring before this parliament at such difficult times. The Manager of Opposition Business talks about arrogance. There wasn't even a debate in this parliament. There wasn't even a debate in the other place about the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026. No attempt was made by senators to make the argument that at least the Manager of Opposition Business and the member for Lindsay have made this morning about some very serious issues presented by this proposition: issues of intergenerational equity, cost of living and aged-care services, which the Manager of Opposition Business describes in his motion as 'wasteful spending'.
No argument has been made about the equity issues that are rightly raised by this question. As I said in my introduction to this bill, the Howard government, extraordinarily, had to amend the Age Discrimination Act to protect itself against legal action by Australians under the age of 65 over around what was clearly a discriminatory application of government policy—
Every consecutive government has supported it!
The member for Fisher, would you like to leave the room? I am asking you to behave and listen to advice. Sorry, Minister. Member for Fisher, I've asked you so many times to not interject, and you have completely disregarded me. Are you going to continue to do that, or can you sit there and participate in the debate as everybody else? Are you going to continue defy my asking of you to stop interjecting? Is that your intention?
It was my intention.
Well, then, under 94(a) I'll ask you to leave the chamber.
The member for Fisher then left the chamber.
No reasoned argument about equity. The member for Lindsay just said, 'Oh, it does apply equitably because it's means tested.' Yes, but a 64-year-old living next door to a 65-year-old receives an entirely different private health insurance subsidy, even if they're on exactly the same income.
And the 64-year-old has to turn 65 to get the benefit of it!
Well, make the argument! You didn't make that argument, Manager of Opposition Business!
Manager of Opposition Business, you had 10 minutes.
The opposition get up and use industry talking points time and time again about the implications of this measure, just as they did 13 years ago, when the industry said that 1.6 million people would leave private health insurance if it was means tested, and 850,000 additional people would present to hospitals if the rebate was means-tested. None of it happened. None of it happened, just as 880 pharmacies didn't close when we introduced 60-day dispensing. The opposition is addicted to parroting industry talking points instead of using its own brain and analysing measures on their merits.
What we also haven't heard from the opposition is an alternative fiscal management strategy. What I still haven't heard from the opposition is: are you proposing that we not introduce the additional beds and the additional packages, which are described by the Manager of Opposition Business as 'wasteful spending' in his motion? Or is the opposition proposing an alternative funding stream to find another $3 billion, or $11 billion over the medium term? If so, what is it? Over the months of this debate, the opposition has refused to confirm whether it intends to cut aged-care services back or to find some alternative funding mechanism.
Importantly, what this parliament needs to understand is that we should never listen to the opposition about aged care, because we all remember what that government did over nine years to aged-care services. We remember the cuts to aged care in 2015, 2016 and 2017—cuts that were returned to consolidated revenue and, unsurprisingly, pushed the aged-care sector into crisis. It was a crisis writ large in the Four Corners report that we all remember and then, over months and months of the royal commission, it was titled with one word: neglect. The stories we heard from that royal commission about the implications of that government's inability to manage aged-care services and its cruel cuts to the aged-care budget are I think exactly why the Manager of Opposition Business stands up and moves the motion that describes our additional investment in aged-care services as 'wasteful spending'. We're not going to take any lectures from the opposition about how to manage an aged-care sector that they drove into crisis through budget cuts and a total inability—
Order! Manager of Opposition Business, you have 10 minutes of your own. Just quieten it down.
to come to grips with the very serious reform challenges facing a sector confronted with an unprecedented boom in demand caused by the ageing of the baby boomer population. They did worse than nothing.
What we've had to do over the last five years is to clean up their mess, to implement the royal commission recommendations, which they failed to do, and then to find a way to expand aged-care services at an unprecedented rate. We have tripled the number of Support at Home packages. I've acknowledged publicly, and in this place, that we are still struggling to keep up with demand, at a time when the oldest baby boomers, who were born in 1946, 1947 and 1948, are hitting their 80s and reaching that period of their life where they need more aged-care services. Instead of having a reasoned debate either here or in the Senate about how we can do that and how we find the funds to do that in a responsible, fiscal way, they team up with the Greens again, just like they did in the last term. They resurrect the no-alition. How they convinced the Greens party to do that after what it meant for the Greens' House of Representatives members at the election in 2025 is still a marvel to me. But congratulations to the Manager of Opposition Business and his equivalents in the Senate for leading the Greens off the plank again to decide to team up and do the political bidding of a coalition that is determined to take an irresponsible approach to aged-care services and to fiscal management.
They stand up here, question time after question time, and pretend to be the guardians of strong fiscal management, a government that delivered its last budget with not a single dollar in savings—not a single dollar in savings in the 2022 budget—by the prodigal son, Josh Frydenberg, who has now admitted he spent too much money, a position echoed by the Leader of the Opposition. If only he were in a position to do something about it. He was not willing to stand at this dispatch box and take hard decisions and make hard choices in a budget to recognise the need for the expansion of aged-care services. No, instead he was willing to put it all on the credit card. That was the approach of Josh Frydenberg, and at the time I didn't hear a whisper from the Manager of Opposition Business to say, 'Maybe we should be a little bit more careful about the government's budget.' No, they haven't learned.
The Greens party in the other place haven't learned. They're determined to thwart every serious policy measure we bring to this parliament at a time when the country has some serious challenges. There is no more serious challenge, I don't think, than the challenge of supporting the needs of a growing group of Australians aged over 80. They have built this country. They have worked so hard to build this country, and they deserve aged-care services that are high quality, that are staffed well and that are expanding at a rate that reflects that demographic expansion. And the opposition has had nothing to say about that, absolutely nothing. They are too focused on the politics. They are not focused on serious policy. They're paying lip service to sound fiscal management. We see this yet again in the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business.
I'd like to ask the health minister if, given his position that older Australians shouldn't receive different health cover than younger Australians and that everyone should receive the same access to the same supports, his position is that older Australians aged over 65 should get access to the NDIS. (Time expired).
The question is that the motion be agreed to.
On behalf of the Standing Committee on Industry, Innovation and Science, I present the committee's report entitled When the rubber hits the road: inquiry into the Australian tyre industry, together with minutes of proceedings.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—Tyres are an essential part of modern life.
They support the movement of people and goods across Australia, underpinning economic activity and connecting communities across our vast nation.
Yet, when tyres reach the end of their service life, they present a very complex challenge.
Each year, hundreds and thousands of tonnes of tyres become waste, and how Australia manages these materials has significant implications for our environment, our economy and our communities.
Throughout this inquiry, the committee heard compelling evidence that end-of-life tyres should be viewed not simply as a waste problem but as a valuable resource.
Witnesses and submitters pointed to significant opportunities to recover materials, develop domestic manufacturing capability and advance Australia's transition into a circular economy.
These opportunities align with the Australian government's national circular economy framework, which sets out pathways to maximise resource value, reduce waste and strengthen Australia's economic resilience.
The inquiry also received evidence about persistent challenges, including stockpiling and illegal dumping, limited recycling markets, inconsistencies in regulation and barriers to higher value uses of recovered tyre material.
The report contains 12 recommendations aimed at strengthening resource recovery outcomes and supporting a more sustainable and resilient tyre industry, including:
The committee believes these reforms will help Australia turn waste into value, strengthen domestic markets for tyre derived products and build a stronger circular economy for the future.
I want to thank all the individuals and the organisations who contributed to the inquiry through submissions, public hearings and site visits.
Their expertise greatly assisted our committee in its consideration of these issues. I also extend my thanks to all the committee members for their collegial and bipartisan approach throughout this inquiry, and I want to thank the deputy chairs for their valued contribution to the committee's work during the inquiry.
And thank you always—the most important part, of course—is our hardworking secretariat: Jeff Norris; Shennia Spillane; inquiry secretaries Kate Morris and Miona Ikeda; researcher Grace, who we really gave a hard time to—she worked very hard throughout this, keeping us all in line and keeping us straight; and, of course, Tanya Pratt. Without the secretariat these things don't work properly, and I think we can never be thankful enough as committee chairs for the work that they do and the advice they give and the support they do throughout the entire inquiry.
With that, I commend this report to the House.
On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I present the committee's Report 236: Vuvale union; Ocean of Peace Alliance; USA space agreement; Canada CMAA agreement.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—Today I rise to make a statement on the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties report 236. This report includes the committee's consideration of four treaties. We've been incredibly busy. They are:
The Vuvale union and Ocean of Peace Alliance provide a framework for enhanced cooperation between Australia and Fiji, developing and deepening our longstanding bilateral relationship through both a comprehensive treaty and a new mutual defence alliance.
The Vuvale union draws its name from the Fijian word for family—vuvale—reflecting Australia and Fiji's longstanding bilateral relationship. The union deepens this relationship through its commitments across three key pillars: economic development, people-to-people relationships, and a broad, Pacific focused understanding of peace and security. It also creates consultation mechanisms—the Vuvale union and the Vuvale Bukmak—which will strengthen the implementation and institutional connections between Australia, Fiji, and domestic stakeholders.
The Ocean of Peace Alliance unites Australia and Fiji in a mutual defence partnership. Under the alliance, our two countries will work closely together to strengthen capability, to consult on security developments and to respond collectively if either nation faces an armed attack. While the alliance is currently between Australia and Fiji, what the committee learnt is that it also includes provisions that would allow other Pacific countries to join in the future, should all members agree.
The committee paid close attention to the defence and security provisions in both the Ocean of Peace Alliance and the Vuvale union. Evidence received during the inquiry indicated that the Ocean of Peace Alliance grew out of the Vuvale union negotiations and that both agreements are underpinned by a common commitment to regional stability, peace and security. Although the alliance establishes substantial mutual defence commitments, the committee was informed that any Australian response would still remain consistent with Australia's domestic processes, capabilities and national requirements and ultimately our government.
The committee also examined how the Vuvale union will strengthen and formalise the longstanding relationship between Australia and Fiji. The committee heard that regular government-to-government consultation will support the effective implementation of the union and provide a framework for its continued growth as our partnership evolves in the years ahead. The committee learnt about the opportunities for local industry and business as well.
Through the ratification of the Ocean of Peace Alliance and the Vuvale union, Australia will demonstrate its enduring commitment to our Pacific family and to the region in peace, security and prosperity.
The US space agreement establishes an overarching framework to enable cooperation between Australia and the United States on civil space activities. The inquiry on this treaty was enjoyed by many of our committee members. Importantly, the agreement does not create an obligation for Australia to undertake any specific activities with the United States. Instead, it streamlines the process for government agencies to develop and implement collaborative space projects.
During the inquiry process, the committee examined the benefits that the agreement could deliver for Australian industry, research institutions and government agencies. The committee heard evidence of successful existing partnerships, including the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, the construction of the Australian made lunar rover and the Australian National University's support for various missions. The agreement will support Australia's continued participation in innovative civil space projects and provide further opportunities to showcase Australia's expertise and capability on the global stage.
The committee was also assured that all activities undertaken through the US space agreement will be required to adhere to domestic legislation and relevant international guidelines. The committee further heard that measures are in place to protect sensitive technologies and safeguard Australia's national interests. Most importantly, the committee was impressed with the opportunity—because of where Australia is placed geographically—for Australian business, industry and research to be able to participate more broadly in US and Australian mutually agreed opportunities.
By ratifying the US space agreement, Australia will strengthen its longstanding partnership with the United States in civil space activities, ensuring Australia remains well positioned for future collaboration opportunities.
The Canadian CMAA agreement is a bilateral treaty that establishes arrangements for mutual administrative assistance between Australia and Canada for the proper application of customs legislation. Its purpose is to strengthen collaboration between the two countries in preventing, detecting and investigating customs offences whilst helping to secure international trade supply chains. The CMAA agreement formalises procedures for administrative cooperation and the sharing of information between Australia and Canada's customs authorities. For Australia that is the Australian Border Force, and for Canada it is the Canada Border Services Agency. The proposed agreement replaces an existing MOU that has underpinned customs cooperation between the two countries since 1987.
During the inquiry, the committee examined how the agreement will contribute to Australia's national interests through enhanced information exchange and closer cooperation on customs threats. The committee heard how the agreement will strengthen the Australian Border Force's ability to enforce customs legislation and support efforts to prevent harmful goods and individuals from entering Australia.
At the public hearing, the committee learned more about Australia's unique border environment and the significant challenges associated with managing one of the world's most complex border systems. Evidence highlighted the importance of strong international partnerships in addressing these challenges.
The committee also considered how the treaty's effectiveness will be assessed over time and received evidence on the reasons for the delay in transitioning the 1987 memorandum of understanding into the formal treaty arrangement that we are discussing today, as well as the safeguards put in place to protect personal data. Essentially, the decision by the government was that now is the right time.
Having considered all of the evidence, the committee concluded that this treaty was in Australia's national interests. In fact, we believe all the treaties being presented today are in our nation's interests.
The report also contains the committee's consideration of three minor treaty actions:
All three minor treaty actions consist of amendments to multilateral environmental treaties that extend regulation to new products and chemicals. They are each assessed and have limited impact on Australia, as Australia already has equal or stronger regulations for the relevant products and chemicals.
The committee would like to thank the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Defence, the Australian Space Agency, the Australian Border Force and all other departments and agencies that appeared as witnesses. We would also like to thank all the submitters for their engagement throughout the four inquiries and the treaty committee members for their participation and contribution. Can we also thank Hansard and the secretariat for the work that they've done to support our committee throughout this process.
The committee recommends that binding treaty action be taken on all four treaties and all three minor treaty actions examined within this report. On behalf of the committee, I commend the report to the House.
Between 30 and 40 per cent withdraw before the process is complete, with the existing document exchange requirements identified as one factor that can deter parents from proceeding. This bill will make these processes fairer and safer for those involved. Relevant information will still need to be shared so that people have a fair opportunity to respond, but Services Australia will have greater discretion about how that happens. The information needed to make a proper decision can be provided without automatically handing over every personal detail sitting on the original document.
Child support and the family tax benefit are connected, with the family tax benefit taking into account the child support payments that a parent is entitled to receive. But problems can arise when a paying parent has not lodged tax returns on time or across several years. During that period, their child support assessment may have been based on an estimate of their income, but many payments may have been made far short of where they should have been. They now owe more child support that they need to find a way to pay back while continuing to pay their current obligations.
For the parent waiting for that money, however, another obligation calculation can then occur. If they have been collecting child support privately, their family tax benefit can also be retrospectively reassessed. They can end up facing a family-tax-benefit debt based on child support that they were entitled to receive but may never eventually have received. Our government is changing that. For parents using private collection arrangements, collection of certain family-tax-benefit debts will be paused for three months. That gives them time to work through their options and the time to potentially apply for an exemption or a special circumstances waiver, or they can move to agency collect and ask Services Australia to pursue the outstanding child support on their behalf.
The bill will also improve that process where someone moves from private collection to agency collection. If a child support debt has only recently been raised because someone finally lodged old tax returns, Services Australia can be asked to collect it even where the underpayment itself goes much further back. The normal provision applies to debt raised during the previous three months or nine months in exceptional circumstances. That could make a substantial difference to someone who has spent years receiving less child support than they were entitled to. Paying parents will also be able to elect to move into agency collect, giving them a clear pathway to meet their obligations to the shared cost of their child.
Finally, the third schedule deals with parents and children overseas. It will make it easier for parents living in certain overseas jurisdictions to apply directly to Services Australia if they would likely be entitled to receive child support under Australian assessment. Having a child living in another country does not remove an Australian parent's responsibility for that child.
Labor went to the last election promising to close loopholes that allow financial abuse through Commonwealth systems. This bill delivers on that commitment. It is another example of the work our government has been doing to improve the economic security of Australian families. We expanded paid parental leave to 26 weeks and added super on top of the leave payment. A family having a child today can receive almost $30,000 through paid parental leave, more than double what the entitlement was when Labor came to government. We changed parenting payments so eligible sole parents can receive it until their youngest child turns 14 rather than losing access when the child turns eight. When we came to government in 2022, an eligible sole parent with a child aged between eight and 14 could receive $651 per fortnight through JobSeeker. That same parent can now receive $1,087 per fortnight through this arrangement. Around 20,000 single primary carers have benefited from the change since September 2023. We have cut childcare costs for more than one million families, and our government has invested more than $4.4 billion in responding to family, domestic and sexual violence.
For sole parent families especially, facing financial insecurity affects not just the parent but the welfare of the young people they are responsible for. If child support does not arrive, the cost of raising the child does not suddenly reduce to match. It has to come from somewhere, and disproportionately that is felt by women who already face barriers to employment and equal pay. I think again about the people who have sat down with me in Melbourne to talk about their child support assessments. These parents wanted clarity around calculations to understand their obligations and to have someone to listen to their concerns. I will continue to do that. People should be able to understand decisions that affect their finances, and, if assessment is wrong, there needs to be a fair and clear way to address it.
But once we work our way through the assessment, the tax returns, the care percentage and the collection arrangements, we cannot forget that at the end of all these steps there is still a child that must be cared for. These kids are not responsible for the disagreements or separation between their parents, and they should not have to carry the financial consequences when support that is owed to them goes unpaid. Our government is working to make the child support system fairer and improves the way it works. For the one million Australian children who rely on the system, that work must be done, and by this government it will be done. I commend the bill to the House
For too many families, a system designed to support children has been used to control, intimidate and financially punish the parent often caring for them. Government processes can compound that abuse. Child support is a legal responsibility. It is money for children. It pays for food, housing, uniforms, activities and everyday needs. It should never be a bargaining chip or a weapon after separation. Unfortunately, all too often it is. With almost $2 billion in unpaid child support across Australia, reform is long overdue in this sector. Having formerly worked as a barrister in the family law system, I appreciate all too well how this system is often weaponised.
I welcome the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. It must be the first step, but it should be followed by deeper reform. That's why I will be moving a second reading amendment that addresses the gaps in this legislation and outlines the further action needed to close the loopholes within the child support system that are exploited by parents that are not complying. The test of these reforms is simple: are children receiving the money they are owed, the money that they need; and, in circumstances of domestic and family abuse, are victim-survivors safer through the implementation of this legislation?
My Warringah office regularly hears from single parents struggling with rising costs while trying to cover child support. The financial control often continues long after separation. The difficulty for many parents once they are alone in raising their child, if they have the other parent not complying with the provision of child support for the costs of that child, is that it becomes a really incredible struggle. Unfortunately, recovering child support that is due adds to acrimony and tension and is often a dangerous situation.
We know financial control often continues long after separation. Last year, I convened a domestic and family violence roundtable with frontline services in Warringah. They described women facing financial insecurity, housing instability and complex government systems after separation, and that is just not good enough. A Warringah resident wrote to me about this bill. She said: 'For many women who have left a marriage involving some form of abuse, financial or otherwise, any dealing with a former partner is wrapped in fear. It is often easier to do it alone and carry the burden, and men like my ex-husband rely on that, which means they avoid that responsibility they owe to their children.'
Parents are left weighing the risk of retaliation against the need to secure child support. Some are pressured into the Private Collect system, where parents arrange payment directly. Others stop chasing payments altogether, because another confrontation feels too dangerous and threatening. As a former family law barrister, as I've said, I've seen how ongoing financial disputes around child support in particular and often the resentment around having to pay it impact the cost of restarting after a family breakdown. Often, it can also be a toll of juggling different financial priorities and pressures for the payee parent.
But then there's also the pressure on the parent to whom the child support is owed, because they have that greater care of responsibility of the child and they are having to meet those costs in real time. What we have to remember overarchingly in this system—and I urge parents and parties to try and focus on this aspect—is that children need support regardless of the separation and regardless of who they're living with. Their needs don't change. That is the ultimate intent of this system.
At the end of 2025, approximately $1.95 billion was outstanding in the agency collect system alone. Around 83 per cent of recipient parents are women. More than one million children depend on child support, and government figures identify almost 100,000 parents and carers in the scheme who have experienced or are at risk of family and domestic violence. The government's own survey of separated parents found that more than half of the surveyed Private Collect recipients were underpaid by an average of around $2,000 a year. That means children are going without the necessary supports for them to go to school, to learn, to participate in activities, to be healthy, and to be housed and clothed appropriately.
A quarter received no child support during the year at all—that is just unacceptable. Nearly one in five said they agreed to Private Collect to avoid conflict or violence from a former partner. It's clear the Private Collect system really has major flaws, because, whilst it's chosen to avoid conflict, it doesn't result in payment of child support. Nearly one in five said they agreed to Private Collect to avoid conflict or violence from a former partner—that is a telling statistic. In Swinburne University research examining women's experiences of abuse, 80 per cent of respondents to the relevant question reported that their former partner had replaced physical abuse with financial abuse and control through child support.
These are patterns of coercive control. Payments can be withheld, tax returns can be delayed for years, income can be minimised through businesses, and, all of a sudden, everything is a cash economy and not reported. Those that suffer are the children. Repeated objections and disputes through the system can force a victim-survivor back into contact with a perpetrator or a former partner, which consumes time and money but just adds to the stress and the trauma of trying to rebuild a life post a traumatic relationship.
Under Private Collect, family tax benefit can be calculated as though assessed child support has been received, and a parent can lose family assistance from the government on the basis, or the assumption, of money that, on paper, should have been received but has never been paid. And then the Commonwealth—just absolutely appallingly, I think—pursues that parent for that debt that arises to the Commonwealth. I've urged the minister and the government to change the system so that that debt under the family tax benefit is pursued directly against the parent owing the child support, not against the parent that has not received the child support and is now being made to incur a debt, because, too often, it is single mothers that the Commonwealth pursues for that debt. My understanding is it's seen that they are more likely to comply than the parent that is refusing to pay the child support owing.
Single Mother Families Australia has highlighted that the maintenance income test reduced family payments to around 300,000 single-parent families by $810 million in 2021-22. We don't know how much of that reduction was based on child support that was never paid. The Commonwealth Ombudsman, in a June 2025 report titled Weaponising child support: when the system fails families, found that Services Australia lacked the policies, the strategies and the training to proactively identify and respond to financial abuse. It made eight recommendations, and therefore the government has the evidence to act and go even further than this bill.
I've pressed for reform in this sector since 2021 and the family law inquiry, when we raised mounting debt, weak enforcement and children's financial security to the government. In October 2024, I attended the parliamentary launch of the black-box report, alongside women with lived experience and advocates, because the problem with this debt arising to the Commonwealth through the overpayment of the family support payment is that it impacts credit ratings and it impacts single mothers' ability to put a bond down to rent, to have housing, to have a job. The consequences of this system are far reaching. The black-box report documented how the design of the scheme enabled the abuse that they described, and I wrote to the then minister for social services, calling for action. The risks were acknowledged, but change has taken far too long.
I want to recognise Terese Edwards and Single Mother Families Australia, along with Women's Legal Services Australia and the many women who have spoken publicly about this problem, often at considerable personal risk in sharing their stories and experience. Their persistence had finally brought this issue to the parliament and the government for action. The government has now committed $182.6 million over the forward estimates to a safer and more effective child support system. I welcome that investment, but major reform—further reform than this bill—is long overdue.
The bill, in a sense, makes a few practical changes across three schedules. First, it gives the Child Support Registrar greater discretion to refuse harmful applications for assessments or changes of assessments, because we know that repeated applications can be a tactic of harassment and control. Services Australia must recognise and stop that pattern.
Second, it removes mandatory requirements to exchange documents in certain processes, and it allows the registrar to decide what information needs to be shared and how. These decisions need to be informed by clear reasons, fair review pathways and trauma informed training. This is, of course, relevant where you have domestic and family violence and coercive control, where the sharing of personal information adds to the risk and danger.
Third, it improves options for agency collect and for recovering arrears after retrospective reassessments. Government has greater enforcement capacity than a parent facing threats. Government has to be able to step in here.
Fourth, it allows a three-month pause on recovery of certain family tax benefit debts. A pause offers breathing space, but the government must stop pursuing these debts based on money never received. I don't think this is a good enough measure. The fact that you're pausing it does not mean you are transferring the liability to the parent that actually owes the child support, and that's who the government should be pursuing. It can do so through garnishee orders, through the ATO and other means. Fifth, it allows parents in specified overseas jurisdictions to apply directly to Services Australia for child support.
I support these measures, but there are still substantial gaps, and my second reading amendment calls attention to the three immediate priorities. First, the ATO needs stronger monitoring and enforcement of persistent non-lodgement of tax returns with better data matching and information sharing with Services Australia. Failing to lodge a tax return should never become an effective strategy for concealing income and reducing child support owing. Information sharing must also expose deliberately hidden income with appropriate safeguards.
Second, more agency collect cases must be able to use automatic employer withholding so child support is deducted from wages and transferred promptly. Parents should be able to move safely and easily from private collect when payments break down, and the agency should pursue arrears, not the victim-survivors.
Third, the system must recognise the reality of children completing secondary school. Where a young person turns 18 during the break between school years and is continuing full-time secondary education, child support should not fall away because of a calendar cut-off. For a student turning 18 between year 11 and year 12, the cost of their final school year continues regardless of their birthday, so I want the government to examine how care is assessed. Overnight arrangements do not capture every school run, every medical appointment, every day-to-day responsibility. The formula should better recognise actual care giving and costs relating to children.
Finally, the family tax benefit must reflect financial reality. If assessed child support has not been paid, government should not reduce assistance or recover a debt as though it has. We should also examine whether the maintenance income test itself is fair to families relying on these payments. A three-month pause is not a lasting solution.
We will know the consequences of these reforms and whether or not they're working when fewer children are left without financial support, when arrears begin to fall, when abusive applications are stopped and when parents can seek help without exposing themselves to further harm. I call on the government to report publicly on these outcomes, not simply count the number of applications processed or the legislative changes passed. We want to know: How much unpaid child support is actually recovered? How quickly are debts enforced? Are victim-survivors safer? Are family tax benefit debts being avoided? That will be accountability and a measure of success.
I return to the words of the Warringah constituent, a woman, who said to me that it was easier to carry the burden alone than deal with her former partner who frightened her. No parent or child should be left in that situation, so I welcome the bill and support it but I urge the government to finish the job and close the loopholes.
I move the second reading amendment as circulated in my name:
That all words after "House" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
(a) there is almost $2 billion of unpaid child support in Australia; and
(b) just over 100,000 parents and carers in the child support system are recorded as having experienced or being at risk of experiencing family and domestic violence; and
(2) notes that:
(a) the bill is the single biggest reform to the child support system focused on safety, preventing harm through the system, and ensuring children receive the money they are entitled to; and
(b) further action is needed to close loopholes that are exploited by perpetrators, including by:
(i) improving the Australian Taxation Office's surveillance and enforcement regarding non-lodgement of tax returns by perpetrators;
(ii) increasing the number of agency collect agreements that can access the automatic garnishment of wages to make more timely deductions and transfers; and
(iii) extending a child support assessment for a young person undertaking full-time secondary education where their 18th birthday falls before 1 January between school years".
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
I rise today in support of the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. Whatever the circumstances, the breakdown of a family can be deeply challenging for parents and children alike. For families that have experienced domestic, family and sexual violence, it is also one of the most dangerous moments, and the trauma being experienced does not simply stop because the relationship has ended. As a government, we have a responsibility to ensure that our systems which are set up to help and support both parents and children cannot be used for insidious purposes. We have a responsibility to ensure that a government service cannot be used as a new tool for a domestic abuser to inflict pain and suffering on their victims. Even when violence may not have been part of the relationship, we have heard far too many stories that demonstrate the ability for some parents to weaponise the child support system. It is abhorrent, and this bill takes important steps to stop it.
The child support system is there to help both parents navigate this new dynamic, regardless of whether the relationship is amicable or not, and to ensure that both parties are given fair and reasonable treatment that is in the best interest of the child. At the end of the day, child support is there to ensure that children are not left financially worse off. It ensures that parents take financial responsibility and helps give their children a decent quality of life regardless of which parent they live with. The system supports about one million Australian children and it is absolutely vital for their security, for their financial stability and for their future. It helps families meet the costs of education, health, housing and food, which reduces poverty and financial hardship. According to the Australian Council of Social Service and UNSW's poverty in Australia report, 34 per cent of people in sole parent families and 39 per cent of children in those families were living below the poverty line in 2019-20. That's a devastating figure. So, when we hear that there is $2 billion in unpaid child support in this country, it is clear that the system is not working as it should.
Before I get into the changes that the bill will make, I want to share some local stories which demonstrate why we are making these changes. Given the sensitive nature of these cases, I have chosen not to provide the names or any identifying information of those impacted, but each case is one that has come through my office in this year alone.
One mum told me that she left her former partner 10 years ago, when her child was an infant, due to violence and drug use. Because her former partner was a sole trader, the agency would generally assign him a provisional income estimate. According to her, at the end of the financial year, he would report that he had earned no income, and his payments owed would be zeroed. As a result, she said she received little to no child support over that decade despite her former partner appearing to have significant business assets and maintain a comfortable lifestyle. She has repeatedly been asked to provide the agency with her former partner's contact details, which is information she does not possess, because of court orders aimed at protecting her and her child. She has also been asked to prove that the income he is notifying the agency of is incorrect, which is an onus that should not belong on victims.
She lives in constant fear of her ex-partner finding her address and her contact details, and the stress of her situation has a significant impact on her life and her mental health. When raising this with the Minister for Social Services, the minister agreed that the agency's reported reliance on the information she provided about her former partner was unacceptable, and I was really pleased that, after raising this particular case with the minister, payments were restarted. Dishearteningly, the payments ceased again only two months later, and she was forced to start all over again. In her words, she said to me, 'I feel this system fails young single parents with abusive or criminal tendencies in their ex-partners.' Sadly, this is not an isolated case.
Another mum contacted me about an abusive former partner who owes more than $5,300 in child support and pays less than half of the monthly child support assessed. This particular parent, I have been advised, is more than three years overdue in providing his tax returns, and because he has multiple children in the system the debts being recovered have to be split between multiple parents based on the size of the debt owed to each child. Hers happens to be the smaller of the two debts. She said: 'While he owns a house, a car, a boat and many other luxuries, my daughter solely relies on me financially and emotionally. In the current cost-of-living crisis, the task is onerous and it is draining.' She called the practice of withholding child support a 'form of neglect'.
Reading these sorts of emails from vulnerable people in my community is simply heartbreaking. Another advocate reached out to me about multiple women whom they are supporting who are survivors of domestic violence struggling with little to no child support as their former partners have not submitted tax returns. One mum was surviving on only $50.
Clearly, this is a systemic issue, and I want to stress that it is not only women who are impacted. I was recently contacted by a father who raised concerns about the way a parent's earning capacity is assessed, as well as concerns about business structures that allow a person's taxable income to be considerably less than their financial capability. He called for improvements to the fairness and efficiency of the scheme. These are just a handful of examples. It is a problem that we must fix. The child support system cannot be allowed to be used as a weapon against children. It cannot be allowed to be yet another tool that domestic abusers use to hurt their victims.
Reviews by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, the parliamentary joint committees, the Inspector-General of Taxation and key advisory bodies recommended changes to strengthen the system and improve outcomes for families. This legislation is the first step in responding to those recommendations, and I want to acknowledge the incredible work by the Minister for Social Services on this really important legislation. I know she is passionate about this issue and about addressing domestic violence more broadly, and I want to thank her for making these changes here today.
At the last election, the Albanese Labor government made a $183 million commitment to fix every part of the child support system. It's part of our government's more than $4.4 billion investment to address family, domestic and sexual violence by strengthening protections against economic abuse, improving the collection of child support and enhancing the financial safety and wellbeing of children and separated families. We want to make the system safer—in particular, for women and children experiencing domestic violence.
As with the first case I mentioned, many women fear their former partner finding their information, such as where they live or work and their phone number. Right now, a parent seeking a change of assessment may have to provide bank details and home and work addresses. The law currently requires complete copies of these documents to be provided to the other parent. If you're terrified of being found, having to do this might just stop you from asking for the change. Abusers know this and they use it as a weapon. We're closing that loophole and we're replacing it with a new alternative information exchange model that gives Services Australia decision-makers discretion over how to exchange relevant information. This might include redacting documents or providing written or verbal summaries.
At the same time, we're giving Services Australia discretionary powers to refuse to accept certain applications if they are satisfied that proceeding would cause harm. They can also dismiss an objection without involving the other parent where they are satisfied that the objection has little or no prospect of success or would have no more than a marginal impact on the child support case. This will put a stop to vexatious applications which require significant engagement with the other parent to resolve so that they can't be used as a tool to harass or intimidate someone. That's good news for victims, protecting them from unnecessary harm while also ensuring that agency resources aren't routinely tied up in vexatious complaints. This is done by disincentivising them.
Schedule 2 of the bill deals with the interplay of child support and the family tax benefit. At the moment, a parent can end up with a family tax benefit debt because their former partner has not lodged an accurate tax return. Without a tax return, child support and family tax benefit are calculated using an estimated income. If the former partner later lodges tax returns showing a higher income, both amounts are recalculated retrospectively. This can leave the receiving parent with a significant family tax benefit debt through no fault of their own. If Services Australia collects the child support, the family tax benefit debt can be offset against the backdated child support owed.
But under a private collection arrangement, the government may not know whether that backdated child support has been paid. This can leave the receiving parent with a debt owed to the government when they may not have actually received the additional child support needed to cover it. This can create significant financial stress and an unfair administrative burden through no fault of their own, and this bill makes a number of changes to address situations like that. Parents who remain in a private payment arrangement will have collection of family tax benefit debts paused for three months. This gives them time to receive the backdated child support and time to decide whether to ask Services Australia to collect it on their behalf. They will also have the opportunity to apply for an exemption or special circumstances waiver for the family tax benefit debt. We'll ensure that parents are fully informed of the benefits and the protections of agency collect at the time that they enter the system. Parents who move from private collection to agency collect will be able to ask Services Australia to recover child support debts raised in the previous three months, even if those debts relate to an earlier period. At the same time, it will allow paying parents to choose to move their child support case from a private arrangement to agency collect.
Finally, schedule 3 will help children living overseas in certain jurisdictions to receive child support from an Australian parent. This will help prevent Australian parents from using the system to avoid their responsibilities simply because their child lives overseas.
I'll also flag that there are further changes to the child support scheme coming. These changes will mandate employer withholding in suitable circumstances and implement automatic overseas travel bans for paying parents with $10,000 in unpaid child support—two very important and necessary changes. We'll also give the ATO more resources to prosecute more people who refuse to lodge their tax returns to avoid paying child support and improve data sharing between Services Australia and the ATO to catch people who underreport. And we'll ensure that Services Australia staff working on child support cases are more experienced, including more staff with family and domestic violence training.
While these changes respond to recommendations from several reviews, I want to point out that the bill has also been shaped by the very personal stories of real people, like the ones I shared earlier. These are not bureaucratic changes. They are changes with a human face, with real people who are being hurt by a system that can be weaponised against them. I want to thank each and every person who has shared their individual story with me and with other local members across the country. It is your voices that we have listened to, and it is your voices that have driven change. We hear you and we see you and we will keep doing everything we can to end violence against women and to end the loopholes which enable financial abuse and coercion in Commonwealth systems. These changes make the child support system safer and fairer. They protect children and their families, and they work to ensure that children in our communities are receiving the support they deserve.
I rise to support the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026 and to second the amendment move by the member for Warringah. The idea behind child support is pretty simple. When parents separate, they both keep paying towards the cost of raising their kids. Nearly a million Australian children are in the child support scheme, which is close to one in five kids in the country.
When it works, it does a lot to keep children out of poverty. Research cited by Single Mother Families Australia found poverty in single mother families could fall by about a fifth if child support was paid in full and on time. But too often it isn't. Parents can choose agency collect, where the agency, Services Australia, collects the money from the paying parent and passes it on. Or they can choose private collect, where they sort out payment between themselves. Around $2 billion is owed through agency collect and almost 230,000 paying parents are behind. We really don't know what's owed in private collect, which is about half the scheme, because nobody tracks it. When the Department of Social Services surveyed receiving parents in private collect, only one in three said they got their child support in full and on time every time.
For people who've left a violent relationship, child support can become another way for the abuse to continue. The scheme keeps separated parents financially tied to each other for years, and a former partner who wants to keep control has plenty of ways to do so. They can stop lodging tax returns so their income can't be properly assessed. They can underestimate their income or pay late or not at all, or lodge application after application so the other parent is always having to respond. Swinburne university surveyed single mothers and found that 80 per cent of those who'd experienced family violence saw child support as a continuation of that violence. So I'm glad this bill has 'financial abuse' in its title. It's taken a long time to get here. Victims, advocates and researchers have spent years building the evidence. The Commonwealth Ombudsman's 2025 report Weaponising child support showed where the law was failing families. And many women have told their stories over and over to get this on the agenda, and today I want to acknowledge their courage and their persistence.
This bill gives the Child Support Registrar power to refuse applications that could cause harm and to dismiss objections that have little chance of success or wouldn't actually change anything. It also ends the rule that parents must swap documents once one of them applies for a change of assessment. At the moment, a mother's application and supporting papers go straight to her former partner. The minister says that 30 to 40 per cent of applicants pull out, and it's partly because of this. The bill makes it easier to move into agency collect and harder to be pushed back out of it. It also fixes the problem with the family tax benefit. Right now, when child support in private collect is reassessed upwards for a past year, the system assumes that the money was actually paid. Often it wasn't, and the receiving parent ends up with a debt for money they never got. The bill removes that assumption. The bill also allows parents living in some overseas jurisdictions to make child support applications directly to Services Australia instead of going through an authority in their own country.
The groups that have so far made submissions to the Senate inquiry that is currently underway broadly support this bill. One common theme is that how these reforms are implemented will determine whether they're effective, and also that there is so much more to do.
The amendment moved by the member for Warringah, which I'm seconding, identifies priority issues for the government to action. Just over 100,000 parents and carers in the system are recorded as having experienced or being at risk of family and domestic violence. For them, it's important that the remaining loopholes are addressed. The amendment points to two loopholes that perpetrators exploit and one gap that affects families more broadly. The first is tax returns. Child support is based on income, so a parent who doesn't lodge a tax return can keep their real income hidden for years. Single Mother Families Australia reports that more than 80,000 paying parents have failed to lodge tax returns in recent years. When those returns are finally lodged, the receiving parent can be hit with a recalculation going back years. The Australian Taxation Office needs to do more to detect nonlodgement and enforce lodgement.
The second loophole is collection. When child support comes straight out of a paying parent's wages, it's much harder to withhold. More agency-collect cases should have access to automatic deduction from wages so the money is taken out and passed on promptly. The minister has said that the next bill will do this, and I urge the government to bring it on as soon as possible. There's also a gap for young people finishing school. Child support can end when a young person turns 18, even if they're still in year 12. The amendment calls for the assessment to continue for young people in full-time secondary school whose 18th birthday falls before the end of the school year. No family should be losing support halfway through a child's final year.
Closing these loopholes would make it much harder for one parent to use the system to keep wearing the other one down. But there's a second way people are being worn down, and neither this bill nor the amendment addresses it. It's the system itself. Decisions arrive in piles of letters that are impossible to understand. People wait an hour on hold, and no-one can explain the calculations. I've been contacted regularly by both mothers and fathers in my electorate who are battling the system.
After I spoke in this place last about systems abuse, a woman in my electorate wrote to me. She works full time and has full-time care of her two children. She said she was exhausted having to fight the system to obtain a reasonable amount of child support, but her reason for writing was the paperwork. This year she's received 24 letters from the agency, and 16 of those arrived in a rush at the end of the financial year and came to more than 60 pages in total. Two of them told her there were debts. Her former partner owed more than $5,000, and she owed more than $2,000. But nowhere in those 60 pages did it clearly explain why or which of those 16 letters went with which decision. If she contacts the agency, she generally spends up to an hour on hold just to speak to someone. The last time she called, she was cut off after half an hour of waiting. This is ridiculous.
Another woman living in Curtin received 49 letters from the agency in a fortnight. Each one covered a different period and a different amount. Some seemed to use her income from two years ago and her ex-husband's current estimate, which was much lower. None of it matched what she saw when she logged into the system, and no-one from the agency was able to explain it to her. How incredibly infuriating would that be?
A teacher in my electorate asked the agency to collect her child support for her. Her former partner was told to stop paying her directly, and the money started coming out of his pay, but the agency didn't pass it on. Six weeks later, she still hadn't received a cent. Each time she called the agency, it took over an hour, and calls could only be made between 8.30 and 4.45, which is pretty hard when you're in front of a classroom. The agency couldn't tell her whether it had the money. It said that even if it did, it would take 28 days to process. If it didn't have the money, it would investigate, and that would take at least another 28 days. Add on the time for her former partner's employer to send the money through, and she was looking at four months without any child support. Again, this is ridiculous.
One father told me that he'd raised concerns about his former partner's income with the agencies again and again, by phone and by email over several years. He never saw any meaningful outcome and, in the end, he didn't know where else to turn.
A mother who cares full-time for her son, who has additional needs, spoke to me. She lives on the minimum wage. Her former partner earns more than $200,000 a year. She was told she'd been overpaid $236 in child support. She agreed to pay it back at $5 a month, and the agency confirmed the plan in writing. Then, without warning, the system took the full $236 from her next payment. When she rang, she was told the system recovers money as fast as it can, and the decision couldn't be reversed. That month, she couldn't pay her bills. She put it to me that it seems insane that the person who has almost full care of a child has to be the one jumping through hoops constantly.
For most people, this is frustrating and exhausting. For someone who has left a controlling relationship, it's worse because the two kinds of wearing down feed each other. The other parent often doesn't actually have to do much; the process does the rest. The letters, phone calls and deadlines all land on the parent who's already doing most of the caring.
One woman told me she'd left a violent relationship with her two boys after police and support workers told her to get out fast. Since then, her former partner has moved between jobs, and his child support has gone up and down. After his last change of assessment, it dropped to $44 a month. It took her two full days to put her own change of assessment application together. She was then told she needed yet more documents and later advised to withdraw her application altogether because her former partner didn't have a job. That's how people end up among the 30 to 40 per cent who withdraw their change of assessment applications.
Another mother has full care of her son and works full time. Her English isn't strong enough to understand the complicated information the agency sends her. Her former partner claimed he was caring for their son when he wasn't, so she lodged an objection. She later found out her objection only covered one decision, each decision covered a different period and each needed its own objection within 28 days.
This bill will help some of these women. Removing the document swap should mean fewer people give up on a change of assessment. But none of them will get fewer letters, shorter waits or clearer explanations because of it. The system is designed to serve the system, not to support the people who need it. So, alongside this legislation, I'd ask the government to fix the way the system treats people. Start by measuring the load we put on parents as well as the outstanding debts. That means how many letters they get, how long they wait on the phone, how long it takes for a first payment to arrive and how many people withdraw applications and why. Publish it so that we can see whether things are improving. One decision should come with one letter that explains what changed and what you can do about it. If a payment plan is going to be overridden, people should be told before the money is deducted. Parents with jobs need to be able to get through to Services Australia. Callbacks would help, and so would some contact hours outside the working day. Where family violence has been flagged, there should be one contact person at Services Australia so that parents don't have to explain everything from the start each time.
This is a good bill. It accepts that a government system can be used to hurt people, and it closes some of the gaps. But there are still loopholes to close, and the way the system treats people needs to be fixed alongside them. The next tranche of reforms needs to come quickly. Families can't afford to wait. I commend the amendment and the bill to the House.
I rise to speak in support of the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. At its heart, this bill is about something very simple: when parents separate, their children should be supported. Children should have what they need to grow up safely, to learn, to participate in their community and to have the opportunities every child deserves. Where a parent has a responsibility to financially support their children, that responsibility should not disappear because a relationship has ended.
The Child Support Scheme supports around one million Australian children, yet there is almost $2 billion in unpaid child support across Australia. Just over 100,000 parents and carers in the system are recorded as having experienced or being at risk of experiencing family and domestic violence. Behind those numbers are families trying to make ends meet. There are groceries to buy, rents to pay, school uniforms to purchase and medical appointments to attend. Child support is not simply an administrative process. It is part of the economic security of separated families. When payments arrive on time and in full, they help children access the essentials they need. When payments do not arrive, somebody still has to cover those costs, and too often that responsibility falls entirely on the parent who is already doing the day-to-day work of raising the children.
I have heard this directly from people in my electorate of Aston. One constituent—let's call her Sarah—contacted me about her experience of trying to recover child support owed for her children. In mid-2025, Sarah discovered that her husband had not paid child support for some time. The unpaid amount had already grown to more than $4,000. Sarah had to contact child support services herself before the issue was properly addressed. Even then, it took several months and multiple phone calls before payments were reinstated. Because her husband was unemployed, the payments that followed were intermittent and very small, around $60 at a time. The debt continued to grow, eventually exceeding $5,000.
Then, tragically, Sarah's husband died suddenly in May this year. Child support services attempted to recover the outstanding debt from his estate, but there were no funds available. After several attempts, the matter was closed. The debt remained, but there was effectively no way to recover it. Sarah and her husband had been separated, although they had never divorced. Following his death, his superannuation fund did not recognise her as entitled to his death benefit. There was also no Centrelink payment or other mechanism to replace the child support her children would otherwise have received. As Sarah explained to me, she had gone from trying to recover money already owed to her children to having no prospect of recovering that debt and no future child support. She was left carrying the entire financial responsibility for raising their two children.
I recognise that recovering a debt where a person has died and left no assets is complicated. There is no simple solution to every circumstance a family might face, but Sarah's experience highlights something important. A child support debt is not just a number on a government record. It represents money intended to support a child. It represents food, clothing, housing, education and the ordinary costs of growing up. When that money does not arrive, the costs do not disappear; they fall on somebody else. Sarah's story reminds us why an effective child support system matters. Calculating what a parent owes is only part of the job. Children need to receive the support they're entitled to. It also reminds us that families can find themselves in circumstances where the existing system does not provide all the answers they need. We must keep listening to those experiences as we continue to improve the support available to families.
This bill is an important part of that work. The government has committed an additional $182.6 million in the 2026-27 budget to make the child support system safer and more effective and to help more children receive the support they are owed. The reforms address vulnerabilities in the system, including situations where processes can be used to harass a former partner or where a parent can be left with a debt despite not receiving the child support that was supposedly paid.
The bill contains three schedules. Schedule 1 addresses the harmful use of child support processes. Currently, a parent can make repeated applications or objections that require their former partner to respond, even when similar applications have previously failed. For someone acting in good faith, this might be frustrating. For someone who has experienced family violence, it can be much more serious. Repeated applications can mean repeated contact, repeated requests for personal information and repeated disruption to a person's life. Where the process is deliberately misused, it can become a form of harassment.
This bill gives Services Australia discretion to refuse certain applications where proceeding would cause harm to a person. It will also allow certain objections to be dismissed where they have little or no prospect of success or would have no more than a marginal impact on the child support case. These changes recognise that safety must be considered when government systems operate.
The bill also changes the way information is exchanged during certain child support processes. Under the current rules, entire copies of documents provided by one parent may have to be shared with the other parent. These documents can contain contact details, employment information and financial records. For someone who has experienced family violence, disclosing that information can create genuine safety concerns. A parent may need to seek a reassessment of child support because they believe the amount being paid is incorrect, but they may hesitate because they fear that information about their workplace, finances or whereabouts could be disclosed. That can leave a parent and their children without the support they are entitled to. The bill replaces the mandatory approach with a more flexible model. Services Australia decision-makers will be able to redact documents or provide written or verbal summaries of relevant information. The aim is straightforward: parents must have a fair opportunity to respond to information relevant to their case, but they should not have to disclose irrelevant personal details that could put them at risk.
Schedule 2 strengthens protections for parents dealing with Family Tax Benefit debts arising from child support reassessments. Under current arrangements, when a paying parent lodges overdue tax returns, their child support liability may be recalculated retrospectively. This can create an additional child support debt for previous years. At the same time, the receiving parent's Family Tax Benefit may be reassessed, leaving them with a debt of their own. The problem is that the receiving parent may not have actually received the additional child support. For parents using agency collect, the system can account for the child support actually paid. Where parents have private arrangements, however, Services Australia does not have the same visibility over whether the additional money has been received.
This bill provides important new protections. For parents who remain in private arrangements, collection of a resulting Family Tax Benefit debt will be paused for three months. This gives them time to consider their options, including pursuing the outstanding child support, moving to agency collect or seeking an appropriate exemption or waiver. The bill also allows parents moving from private arrangements to agency collect to request collection of certain outstanding child support debts raised in the previous three months, even if the debt relates to an earlier period. This matters because a debt may have accumulated over several years but only become apparent when overdue tax returns are lodged. The bill also allows paying parents to move their cases to agency collect. That is important because direct financial contact between separated parents is not always appropriate or safe. Around a quarter of child support parents with a family and domestic violence indicator are paying parents. The reforms recognise that both receiving and paying parents may need protection from unwanted contact and that having Services Australia manage payments can provide an additional layer of separation.
Schedule 3 improves access to child support for eligible parents living overseas. Under these changes, parents in certain overseas jurisdictions will be able to apply directly to the Australian child support system. A child's entitlement to financial support should not disappear because they live overseas. Where an Australian parent has a child overseas and refuses to meet their financial responsibilities, the Australian system should not inadvertently make it easier for that parent to avoid those responsibilities. The measure will be accompanied by a grant to a non-government organisation to assist sole mothers in the Philippines whose children's Australian fathers have refused to provide support. Again, the purpose is practical. It is about helping children receive the financial support they are entitled to.
These reforms sit within the government's broader commitment to supporting families and responding to family and domestic violence. Since 2022, this government has expanded paid parental leave to 26 weeks and introduced superannuation on those payments. It has extended single parenting payments to eligible parents whose youngest child is under 14, expanded childcare support and invested more than $4.4 billion in responding to family, domestic and sexual violence. These policies address different challenges, but they share an important principle: government systems should help families achieve greater security not make difficult circumstances harder.
There is more work to do to improve child support collection and compliance. This bill is the first stage of a broader reform program, and further measures will seek to ensure payments are made more reliably. That matters because the costs of raising children do not wait while a dispute is resolved. The grocery bill still arrives. The rent still has to be paid. Children still need school supplies, health care and opportunities to participate in their community. Sarah's experience in Aston brings that reality home. Her children still had all the ordinary costs of growing up, even as the child support debt grew and the prospect of recovering it disappeared.
No single reform can prevent every hardship a family might face. But we have a responsibility to identify where systems are failing and make practical improvements. That means listening to the people who use those systems, the organisations supporting them and the independent bodies that identify weaknesses. It means recognising that financial abuse can continue after a relationship ends and that government processes must not provide another avenue for coercion or harassment. It means remembering that the purpose of the child support system is not simply to calculate a payment; it is to help ensure children receive the financial support that they need. When parents separate their circumstances change, but their children's needs do not disappear. Children still need a safe home, food, healthcare, education and the chance to participate in community life. The child support system cannot resolve every difficulty that comes with separation, but it must be fair, effective and safe, and it must do what it can to ensure parents meet their financial responsibilities.
As a local member of parliament, I know that people do not expect government systems to be 100 per cent perfect. They do expect us, though, to listen, to take problems seriously and to act when we can make things a bit better. For families who rely on child support, these are not abstract policy questions. They are questions about whether there is enough money at the end of the week, whether children can participate in school activities and whether a parent can navigate a government system without putting themselves at risk.
This bill takes practical steps towards a child support system that is safer, fairer and more effective. It addresses known vulnerabilities and provides greater protection around sensitive information. It introduces new safeguards for parents facing family tax benefit debts and it improves access to child support for eligible families overseas. Most importantly, it keeps the focus where it belongs: on the children. For these reasons, I support this bill.
I rise to speak in support of the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. For too long, our child support system has allowed money owed to children to slip through the cracks, and too often that has been by design rather than by accident. This bill is an excellent step in addressing the systems abuse that I know is experienced by many victim-survivors of domestic and family violence across the country.
In my time representing Wentworth I've met with countless parents who are at their wits' ends—parents, mostly mothers, who feel powerless against a system that seems rigged against them, whether through the Family Court or through the weaponisation of child support. These parents, more often than not, recognise this as systems abuse. It is often a continuation of the abuse experienced within a relationship or family long past the point of separation or divorce. I don't want to share these stories publicly here today, out of respect for the individuals and their children, but I know they reflect the findings of countless inquiries, studies and reports that the child support system is one of many used to facilitate such systems based abuse.
In a 2023 Swinburne University study of 540 separated mothers, 80 per cent said that their former partner had used the child support program to commit financial abuse, with the main tactics being deliberately not paying child support, at 81 per cent, and minimising how much needed to be paid, at 80 per cent. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services found that the child support program is being widely manipulated and weaponised by perpetrators to carry out financial abuse, and the main victims are often women. Finally, the Commonwealth Ombudsman's data from June 2025 reflects the same story. Of 279 complaints received about the child support program between November 2024 and February 2025, 32 per cent said they were affected by the weaponisation of child support, and 73 per cent of these were separated mothers—nearly all of them the receiving parent. The Ombudsman further found that the agency's approach allowed some paying parents to manipulate the system to avoid their financial responsibility, and this bill is important work in stopping this.
I commend the government for its intent in this bill and for its dedication in examining the ways that systems, from taxation to super and child support, can be manipulated and abused. I acknowledge that the bill has been referred to a Senate inquiry, with a public hearing due this week and the report due in November. I do hope that the bill will not pass the House until that report has been received, and I wish, frankly, that the House wasn't being asked to debate the bill while we are still awaiting those hearings and recommendations.
Regardless, it is time to turn to what the bill will do. It closes longstanding loopholes in the child support scheme. It is aimed especially at improving debt recovery, thereby minimising the exposure of parents and children to ongoing domestic and family violence. We know that debt recovery is one of the most significant issues facing child support in Australia. Unpaid debt totals roughly $2 billion owed by more than 150,000 parents. That is $2 billion spread out into families who need this money now, particularly in times of high inflation, and cannot get it.
Schedule 1 recognises the way in which the child support scheme can be used by perpetrators of systems abuse to continue to harass victim-survivors. It gives the registrar discretionary powers to refuse applications for a new child support assessment where the application could cause harm to the payee and where the registrar is satisfied that the payee does not want the application to proceed. I note that, in its submission, the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission pointed to the absence of a definition of 'harm'. I understand the intention is to rely on the definitions commonly used in family law settings, but I urge the minister and committee to consider whether a specific definition of 'harm' is needed. It should adequately capture the forms of domestic and family violence, as well as systems abuse, that could be assessed incorrectly by someone unfamiliar with the tactics that perpetrators commonly use.
Schedule 1 also makes another important change. It removes the current mandatory requirement for documents to be exchanged between parties in change-of-assessment and objection processes. This was a recommendation of the Commonwealth Ombudsman in its 2025 report. As that report noted last year, and as the ABC coverage that followed made clear, procedures at Services Australia can unintentionally disclose sensitive information to ex-partners.
As the Ombudsman, Iain Anderson, noted, the fear of sharing information like a home address or workplace can lead people pursuing unpaid child support to withdraw from the process altogether. A case featured in the Gold Coast Bulletin in 2021 showed this clearly. A mother was told that she would have to hand over all of her bank statements to her ex-partner if she wanted to challenge the payments, and she was worried that this might reveal her location. When she raised this fear with Services Australia, she was sent a letter referring her to domestic violence helplines. That is not helpful.
The Law Council goes one step further in its recommendation to the committee: it recommends that a party should be able to redact any details that would disclose their location from material provided to the registrar, whether through these processes or otherwise. This seems sensible. We should be taking every step to ensure that victim-survivors who are still required to interact with their ex-partners through the Child Support Scheme have minimal contact and, most importantly, minimal risk of being identified and located.
Schedules 2 and 3 close further loopholes. Schedule 2 closes a gap that has left many parents out of pocket after a period of private collect, and follows another recommendation from the Ombudsman. Sometimes a child support assessment is retrospectively increased for a period when the payee was collecting privately—that is, directly rather than through the agency. In those cases, the payee will have a greater ability to ask the registrar to collect the additional child support or debt. This includes debts that fall outside the usual three-month timeframe—or nine months in exceptional circumstances. It also allows the recovery of certain Family Tax Benefit debts to be paused for three months where the debt was caused by increased child support for a past private collect period. That way, parents aren't hit with an FTB debt before they've received the child support themselves. Schedule 3 amends the act so that parents living overseas in reciprocating jurisdictions can apply directly to Services Australia to collect child support for their children, rather than going through the authority in their own country.
These are sensible, targeted changes. They recognise that child support is not a private bargaining chip, nor is it another tool for those who seek to systematically abuse a co-parent through protracted contact or refusal to pay what is owed to their child. It is money that belongs to children, and the system should make sure they receive it. There is much more in this space, as the member for Warringah's second reading amendment notes, and I look forward to further reform. But I do commend this bill to the House.
I just want to note that, when speaking to people who have come to my office about this issue, I was incredulous that there are people in our community who are owed money by their former partners for looking after their children but who just can't get it and that the system has not been able to delivery a fix for that. It seems like a basic right, but we have $2 billion worth of outstanding child support that is not going to the children who need it. That is a problem. The bill I commend goes some way to addressing this, but we need to continue to pursue this issue, because, until children and families are receiving the child support they need, this is just being used as a way to shirk responsibilities and abuse partners and families in a continual way.
I rise to make my contribution to the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. Raising a child is not easy. Any parent will tell you about the daily cost of raising children. Food, housing, health care, education, school uniforms, after-school activities—all these everyday essentials have a cost. And these are just the financial costs. There is also the time, the energy, the worry, the stress—and, of course, the love, kindness and care—that come with being a parent. In situations where there is a parental separation, the Child Support Scheme is intended to make sure that children continue to receive financial support. When child support is paid in full and on time, it helps with the cost of raising a child, and it makes a big difference to a child's life. It helps to reduce poverty and financial hardship for families and children.
But, for too many families, this support is not being paid in full and on time. When that happens, it can have a big negative impact on the children. The reforms in this bill work to ensure that children receive the support they deserve. The reforms respond to calls for changes to the child support system from the Commonwealth Ombudsman, parliamentary joint committees, the Inspector-General of Taxation and key advisory bodies. My constituents in Tangney have asked for changes to the system so that we can have improved outcomes for their families. I have had constituents speak to me about problems with the system and share their personal experiences as to how they are affected.
A few months ago I had a Tangney constituent reach out to seek assistance after her former partner and the father of her child owed more than $50,000 in unpaid child support. This is a significant amount of money, and it has been causing strain on the family. In addition to all the daily life essentials, their child has additional needs. In this situation, there's often additional stress and costs, and this family is no different. The mother is maintaining her full-time employment while also providing full-time care to their young child, who often requires increased care structures and support.
In this constituent's case, child support payments only happened occasionally and the amount was minimal. Repayments would typically follow enforcement from the agency or be made when it suited the father—for example, if he wanted to travel. This pattern means that the debt persists with very little reduction. My constituent is frustrated and stressed by this lack of action. The child support debt has a big impact on this family. This mother's experience is part of the almost $2 billion of unpaid child support in Australia. Around 100,000 parents and carers in the child support system are recorded as having experienced, or being at risk of experiencing, family and domestic violence.
In the most recent budget, the government announced an additional $182.6 million investment into the child support system to make it safer and to help more children get the support they are owed. Our government is committed to preventing the weaponisation of the child support system and to protecting parents and children from financial abuse. We are delivering on this commitment through reforms to improve every element of the system, from the initial assessment through to payment and compliance. The reforms include measures to help parents navigate the system more easily, keep parents and children safer and help ensure payments are made on time and in full. These reforms deliver on the government's 2025 election commitment to addressing financial abuse in the Commonwealth system, to closing loopholes which enable financial abuse and coercion.
In my time, both as a police officer and now as the member of parliament for Tangney, I have unfortunately seen the human impact of financial abuse and coercion—threats, using the system against another parent, using the child support system to delay, not pay or underpay child support. I have had constituents talk to me about the very difficult situation parents are put in financially upon separation and being caught up in a system that needs to be improved.
The bill is the first stage of the reform program towards a more modern child support system. This bill does several things. Some parents use the processes within the Child Support Scheme to harass the other parent by, for example, lodging applications that are not done and objections to annoy and abuse the process rather than resolve a genuine issue. These amendments provide discretionary powers for Services Australia to refuse to accept certain applications if they are satisfied that proceeding would cause harm to a person. They can also dismiss an objection without involving the other parent if the objection has little to no prospect of success or if it would have no more than a marginal impact on the child support case.
Currently, when a parent lodges a change-of-assessment application, both parents need to submit their personal information, including their contact details. This information is then exchanged with the other parent. Personal and sensitive information may be shared. This deters some parents from seeking a change. At worst, this can also create a physical safety risk. This requirement will be replaced with a new model. Services Australia decision-makers will have discretion on how to exchange relevant information. This could mean redacting documents or providing written or verbal summaries of information.
These amendments also address the link between child support and the family tax benefit, which can be weaponised by one parent. Currently, when a parent can receive child support from their former partner for the benefit of their child, they apply for that support and then their family tax benefit is adjusted to account for this income. When a paying parent does not submit tax returns for an extended period of time, their child support liability must be based on income estimates. If that parent then submits multiple years of tax returns, their child support liability will be retrospectively recalculated. This often results in the parent owing more child support than they actually paid. The receiving parent's family tax benefit entitlement may then also be retrospectively reassessed, resulting in a family tax benefit debt for the receiving parent. When this happens, it is especially challenging for parents in private arrangements, because the government does not have visibility of when additional child support is paid to the receiving parent, nor can it deduct the resulting family tax benefit debts from that amount.
These reforms help create processes to ensure that parents entering the system are provided more information about private arrangements and the protections that are available against family tax benefit debts when it is the agency that collects the child support. For those choosing to remain in a private arrangement, other relevant measures include pausing the collection of family tax benefit debts for three months after those debts are raised. This gives parents the opportunity to consider their options and take action. Paying parents can also choose to move their child support case to agency collect.
The proposed changes also address some of the issues around child support for overseas payees. Parents in certain overseas jurisdictions will be allowed to make direct applications through the Australian child support system, making child support assessment easier to access for people outside of Australia. There are many children born overseas to an Australian parent. The government will not facilitate an Australian parent escaping their responsibility to a child born overseas. This measure is accompanied by a grant to a non-government organisation to assist sole mothers in the Philippines who have a child with an Australian who has refused to support their child. The reform in this bill built on the government's $4.4 billion investment to tackle family, domestic and sexual violence by strengthening protection against economic abuse, improving the collection of child support, and enhancing the financial safety and wellbeing of children and separated families.
The reforms in this package have been intentionally chosen and carefully designed to address known problems in the system. Child support makes a difference to children every day, and these reforms help make the system safer, fairer and more effective.
We cannot support the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026 in its current form. Its stated purpose is to prevent financial abuse within the child support system. We support that purpose, but the legislation before us gives the registrar broad discretion to refuse application, weakens guaranteed access to source documents and leaves important details to regulation and rules that we have not seen. Those are substantial concerns. They go to whether a parent can obtain a fair assessment, challenge false information and understand why decisions have been made against them.
Children deserve financial support. They also deserve the opportunity to have a safe and loving relationship with both parents. This bill must protect both. Parents are more than willing to pay child support and take responsibility for their children. They want to contribute financially but they also want to attend the school concerts, help with homework and have a relationship with their children. They want to be a parent, a mother, a father. Where there is no justified reason or safety concern, one parent should not be reduced to a source of financial support while being deliberately excluded from their child's life. Their obligation to support their child remains, and so does the importance of protecting that child's relationship with their parent.
Where a parent deliberately prevents another parent from exercising agreed parenting time for control or financial gain, that conduct must be recognised as harmful. The child loses a relationship. The parent loses time they cannot recover. They may then face increased child support liability because the actual care has been reduced alongside the expense of trying to restore that care. The same standard must apply where a parent engages in that conduct against another parent. This bill does not create the existing link between care percentages and child support but it risks making manipulation of those arrangements harder to expose and challenge. The reform intended to prevent the weaponisation of child support must address abuse by receiving parents, as well as by paying parents.
One of our central objections is the proposed discretionary powers to refuse application. The proposed section 98FA would allow the registrar to refuse to proceed with a change of assessment application where the registrar reasonably believes that proceedings would cause harm to the party, the child or any other person. 'Harm' is not defined in the bill. The reasonable belief requirement matters, but it does not answer the practical questions: What evidence will be required? How will competing accounts be assessed? How will a genuine attempt to correct an inaccurate assessment be distinguished from an abusive application? And why does the bill not expressly require the registrar to consider whether the application could proceed safely through redaction, protected communications or another less-restrictive process?
A parent seeking to expose hidden income, incomplete financial information or an adjust assessment should not have a legitimate application stopped without clear findings and adequate reasoning. Refusing to examine an application can leave an inaccurate assessment in place. That can cause harm too. Proposed section 30C also creates a power to refuse certain initial assessment applications where the prospective recipient does not want the assessment and the statutory harm conditions are met. That power has a particular protective purpose. Nevertheless, both refusal powers require clear safeguards on an evidentiary basis and meaningful review. We cannot support board discretion without sufficient accountability.
Our second objection concerns access to evidence. The bill removes mandatory exchange of source documents in relevant change-of-assessment and objection processes. The information may instead be communicated through oral summaries, written summaries or selected redacted documents. Protecting confidential addresses and sensitive personal details is appropriate, but parents must still be able to examine and answer the substance of a case against them. Consider a mother who provides selected messages suggesting that the father failed to collect his child while leaving out the messaging that she cancelled the arrangement. Consider an account of a missed parenting time that omits the father's repeated requests to see his children, or consider financial information that presents selected transactions while leaving out records that would materially change the assessment.
Information can be misleading because of what has been omitted. If one parent receives only a summary, they may have no way of identifying the missing context. The agency may not know what is missing. The other parent may know, but he cannot properly challenge it, because he has not seen the evidence being relied upon. This creates an obvious risk for unfair decisions. Relevant source documents or sufficient redacted—extracted must be available where necessary to resolve disputed facts. Materially disputed evidence must be checked. Both parents must have a meaningful opportunity to respond.
Our third objection concerns the dismissal of objections. Proposed section 84A allows objections to be dismissed where they have little or no prospect of success or would have no more than a marginal impact. A matter that appears marginal to an administrator may have consequences for future assessments, care thresholds or family assistance payments. The legislation must require that those consequences be considered. It especially requires reasons for summary dismissals, yet it also says that failing to provide those reasons does not invalidate the dismissal. That in itself is an inadequate safeguard. A parent should not have to pursue a review simply to obtain a proper explanation of why their objection was rejected.
Our fourth objection is that important details remain outside the bill. Regulations may prescribe kinds of information excluded from disclosure. We do not have those proposed exclusions before us. Proposed section 39AE also leaves substantial details of the retrospective recovery scheme to a legislative instrument including criteria calculations affecting arrears and recoverable overpayments. These provisions affect what parents owe, what they can recover and what evidence they can challenge. Parliament should see those proposed regulations and rules before being asked to approve this scheme. Core protections belong within the act.
Finally, the legislation needs to express safeguards addressing the deliberate obstruction of a child's safe relationship with a parent. Where there is no credible evidence of family violence, abuse or other legitimate reason to restrict contact, control and financial gain must never justify that obstruction. Genuine safety concerns must be taken seriously. Protections must not depend on a criminal conviction, but disputed allegations must be assessed through fair process, with evidence, reason and timely review. The Family Law Act recognises the benefit of a child's relationships with their parents where safe. Child support reform should also support that principle.
In closing, this bill needs substantial further work. We need clear limits on the refusal power. We need proper written reasons, access to relevant evidence, safeguards against materially misleading omissions and scrutiny of the proposed record regulations. We also need recognition that abuse of the system can be committed by either parent. Until those deficiencies are addressed, we cannot support this bill in its current form. Children deserve a system that protects their financial wellbeing, their safety and their relationship. Parents should insist on legislation that does all three.
Many Australians navigate co-parenting arrangements. My own household is one of them. Listening to the contribution from the member for Farrer today, it seems he would suggest that my situation is the common Australian situation and the situation for all Australians. My husband and I are raising our boys alongside their father and his wonderful partner. We share costs, decision-making and care. It is a true partnership: four adults prioritising the youngest people in our family. I must say, not a day goes by when I am not thankful and incredibly conscious of what a privileged, fortunate position my boys and I are in. Co-parenting is hard, even when all adults involved put the children at the very centre of decision-making.
But we know that my situation is not the situation for many people living in Australia who are raising children. For many in our community who rely on formalised child support arrangements, raising children can become an absolute nightmare if one parent chooses to weaponise a system created to support our littlest Australians. The member for Farrer hasn't been in his seat very long, and I'm sure as his time goes on he will experience exactly what those of us on this side have experienced, which is that I can't think of a fortnight that goes by in my office in Griffith without a local constituent coming in for assistance with navigating the complexities of the child support system.
Some have been suffering in silence for years, trying with all their might to fight for themselves and their children while their ex-partner weaponises the very systems we have in place to help them. I've spoken with single mums who are at the end of their tether trying to keep their children fed, healthy, happy and housed, all on their own. It's hard enough for single parents to keep the bills paid and food on the table, let alone paying for uniforms, sport, health care and so much more. My electorate office team and I have seen constituents whose ex-partners have gamed the system to harm and harass, have used the system to access personal information about them and have not been held accountable, while the single parent is left to raise a child on their own with no support.
Single parents deserve assistance with supporting their children and deserve support and guidance from the system in place to assure this. The Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026 does this by delivering further measures to improve on-time payments, strengthen debt collection, and address weaponised and financial abuse in the system. These are some of the most difficult conversations I have in my work as a local member. Parents arrive at my office carrying folders of correspondence, records of missed payments and years of decisions that they have struggled to understand. They have spent countless hours on the phone trying to explain what has happened, trying to get someone to listen and trying to get the support their children deserve. Some are frightened that taking the next step will provoke another round of harassment. Others are simply exhausted from having to prove over and over again that they are telling the truth.
For these families, child support is far more than an administrative process. It is about financial security, dignity and the ability to provide their children with the opportunities every parent wants for them. That is why I welcome this bill, which is the beginning of a much broader reform.
The child support scheme was established by the Hawke Labor government in 1988. Its purpose was straightforward: children should continue to benefit from the financial resources of both parents, regardless of whether their parents live together. Nearly four decades later, that principle remains just as important. Today, the scheme supports about one million Australian children, with approximately $4.3 billion in child support liabilities assessed each year. For most families, the system works as intended, but for too many others, the process designed to support children has become another way for an abusive former partner to exercise control. There is a staggering amount of money that children are missing out on. Whilst I hear the member for Farrer saying that parents want to do the right thing, the reality is and the facts show that that is not always the case. More than $2 billion in unpaid child support has accumulated across Australia. There are more than 100,000 parents and carers in the scheme recorded as experiencing or being at risk of experiencing family and domestic violence. These figures expose the need for change. They tell us we need a child support system that does more than calculate what a parent owes. We need a system that makes sure the money reaches children, protects families from abuse and holds those who deliberately avoid their responsibilities accountable. That is what the Albanese Labor government is committed to delivering.
In the latest budget, our government announced an additional $182.6 million for a safer and more effective child support scheme. This bill forms part of that commitment and represents one of the most significant reform programs since the child support scheme was established in 1988, and there is reason for that. For the first time in many years, we are undertaking a comprehensive program of reforms across the system, from the initial assessment of child support through to its collection, payment and enforcement. We are looking at the processes that can be misused to cause harm. We are looking at how assessments are calculated and how payments are collected. We are looking at barriers that prevent parents from recovering unpaid debts. We are examining how Commonwealth agencies can better identify and respond to financial abuse. This bill represents the first tranche of legislative reforms in a much larger program. It addresses some of the most immediate opportunities for financial abuse and coercive control, with further legislation to follow. The reforms have been informed by the experiences of separated parents, the work of advocates and recommendations from the Commonwealth Ombudsman and Tax Ombudsman.
Financial abuse can take many forms. It can involve deliberately withholding child support payments, hiding income or failing to lodge tax returns. It can involve repeatedly lodging applications and objections, forcing a former partner to respond to the same claims again and again. It can involve exploiting government processes to gain access to someone's personal information, even putting their physical safety at risk. These behaviours can continue long after a relationship has ended. A parent might have escaped an abusive relationship years earlier yet still find themselves being harassed through the child support system. In June last year, the Commonwealth Ombudsman published a report on the weaponisation of child support. The report found serious shortcomings in the way Services Australia identified and responded to this form of abuse. These findings reinforced what advocates, legal services and parents have been telling us for years. I want to acknowledge Terese Edwards, chief executive of Single Mother Families Australia, for her longstanding advocacy on these issues. I want to acknowledge the many community legal centres and family violence services that work with parents navigating the child support system. Women's Legal Services Australia welcomed the government's budget commitment, saying:
This is a landmark commitment, and we congratulate the Albanese government for acting on the evidence.
The organisation has raised the need for further investment in specialist legal services, and that is an important part of the ongoing conversation. National Legal Aid welcomed the investment too, stating:
These reforms are an important part of keeping families safe in Australia.
I thank these organisations for their work and their willingness to share their experiences and the experiences of families they support.
The first schedule of this bill addresses is the deliberate misuse of child support processes. At present, a parent can repeatedly lodge applications to change an assessment or to object to decisions. Even in cases where there is a clear pattern of harassment, Services Australia has limited powers to stop those processes from continuing. Each new application can force the other parent to gather evidence, respond to claims and revisit painful circumstances. This bill gives Services Australia new discretionary powers to intervene, allowing Services Australia to refuse certain applications where proceeding would cause harm. These powers recognise that harm extends beyond physical violence. It can include psychological harm, intimidation, mental distress and conduct that affects a parent's ability to care for their children. The safeguards are important too. Parents will retain rights to challenge relevant decisions, including access to independent review through the ART. The intention is to protect people from deliberate harassment without preventing genuine applications or removing procedural fairness.
The bill makes another important change to the sharing of personal information. Currently, parents involved in certain assessment and objection processes can be required to exchange entire documents. These can include bank statements, employment information and other sensitive personal details. Imagine a parent who believes her former partner is understating their income. She wants a reassessment so her children receive the child support they are owed, but pursuing that reassessment could require her to disclose information about her workplace, financial transactions or daily activities. For someone escaping family violence, that information could place them at risk. No parent should have to choose between seeking a fair child support assessment and protecting their personal safety.
Under this bill, Services Australia will be able to share relevant information in safer ways. Decision-makers will be able to redact unnecessary personal details or provide written and verbal summaries. The other parent will still receive the information needed to respond fairly to the case, but they will no longer have an automatic entitlement to every document regardless of its relevance or the risks involved. This is a practical change with the potential to make an enormous difference to the families that need it.
The second schedule tackles another problem that has caused considerable hardship: the interaction between child support and the family tax benefit. This is an issue that can be difficult to explain, but its consequences for families are very real. Under the current arrangements, a parent who privately collects child support can be treated as having received the full assessed amount, even if the other parent has not paid it. Now imagine a parent who has failed to lodge their tax returns for several years. Their child support assessment has been based on provisional income figures. Years later, they finally lodge those returns. Services Australia recalculates their income and determines that they should have paid thousands of dollars more in child support. That money has never reached the parent who is raising the children, yet the reassessment can create a family tax benefit debt for that parent that's calculated on the assumption that the additional child support was received. Let me repeat that. A parent can end up owing the government money based on child support they never actually received, and this can happen through no fault of their own. That is simply not fair.
This bill creates a 13-week pause in the recovery, which gives parents time to understand what has happened, seek advice and decide how to respond. They can pursue the outstanding child support privately, seek an exemption or waiver or move to agency collect and ask Services Australia to recover the child support owed to them. This will allow the family tax benefit debt to be recalculated to zero, and future adjustments will reflect the additional child support actually received. This is a much fairer way to treat parents who have already been left financially disadvantaged by someone else's failure to pay.
The third schedule addresses access to child support for children living overseas. Australia currently has reciprocal child support arrangements with 99 overseas jurisdictions, but parents in some of these countries face unnecessary barriers when seeking an Australian child support assessment. They may need to apply through an overseas authority, even when dealing directly with Services Australia would be simpler. These arrangements can cause delay and confusion. This bill will allow eligible parents in specified overseas jurisdictions to apply directly to Services Australia. Existing eligibility requirements will remain in place, and safeguards will prevent overlapping child support liabilities.
I want to finish by thanking my electorate office staff and, in particular, Ash, who regularly helps families work through child support matters that are complicated, painful and deeply personal. I am grateful to the constituents who have trusted us with their experiences and trusted us to act to support them. Many constituents have spent years trying to get the support their children deserve. They have persevered through missed payments, repeated applications and processes that have sometimes left them feeling powerless. Their stories deserve to be heard, and they deserve a serious response.
After nearly four decades, we have an opportunity to make substantial changes to the child support scheme. This bill is the first legislative step in one of the most significant reform programs since the scheme began in 1988. And, with further reforms to come, we are working towards a system that better protects families and holds parents accountable for their responsibilities. I want every parent who comes to my office seeking help to know that their government is listening. I want them to have the confidence that the system will protect their safety, treat them fairly and help them secure the support they and their children deserve. Above all, I want every child to have the financial support they are entitled to receive. Child support exists for children. It should never become another means of controlling or punishing the parent who cares for them.
I rise today to speak in support of the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. It is indeed a privilege to contribute following the member for Griffith, who explained why this legislation is before the House of Representatives with such empathy and kindness. In Australia, child support exists to ensure both parents make a fair contribution to their child or children's financial needs. It may be required to be paid to a biological parent or to a non-parent caregiver, such as a grandparent or other family member or legal guardian if they're taking on caregiving roles to support the child, as so many people do. Everyone—married, divorced, separated, de facto, single or share house—understands the value of financial stability in the home. Then, when it comes to children, when essential expenses are covered, caregivers can better focus on supporting and raising a child.
This is why the government mandates that both parents cover child-rearing costs after a divorce or separation, with the aim that the child's basic needs be met and that they experience a balanced living standard in both households. The principle that underlies this, regardless of the change to a relationship status between parents, is that both parents still have a financial responsibility to their children. The government mandates this because governments have a duty to set legal and ethical boundaries. Governments work to create laws that minimise or prevent things like exploitation, discrimination, abuse, modern slavery, bribery and corruption, and they work to create laws that minimise harm and protect the rights and freedoms of Australians, including children.
Typically, child support is made by one parent to another, although this can change over time according to the individual financial position of each parent and the number of hours that they spend as primary caregiver. In some cases, the primary caregiver will not be a biological parent but will be a non-parent caregiver, like a legal guardian or a family member, like a grandparent who assumes full-time responsibilities for the child. What does child support cover? When you hear the list, it's astonishing that people elect not to pay it. Child support covers financial support for things like food; housing; rent or mortgage payments; utilities and maintenance; clothing and footwear; education, including school fees and supplies like uniform and stationery; and then routine medical costs, including basic dental care, prescription medications, vaccinations and necessary medical treatments.
It does seem to me that contributions of this nature should be second nature. Divorced or separated, whatever the situation is, if you have children, you should provide for them, and you should want to provide for them. You should want to make sure your child doesn't suffer financially, miss out on health care, on education or on opportunities. You may not be on good terms with your former partner. It happens. But you should want to support whoever the primary caregiver is or the eligible recipient of child support for the good of your children. You should want to ensure that your children live in an environment of economic security and stability, where they're not wondering how the next meal is going to be paid for, not wondering whether they can go to the dentist or get a run-of-the-mill script for antibiotics. You should understand that one million children in Australia depend on child support and that children in single-parent households face a much higher risk of falling into poverty and that single-parent households are most likely to be headed up by women. You should easily be able to understand and comprehend that when child support is paid and paid in full and paid on time, your children get essential items like food, housing, education, healthcare and participation in community activities. You should understand that child support makes a real difference to your children.
Many people do. They pay, they pay in full and they pay on time because they are decent human beings. Despite the things that have happened in their lives, to their family, to their relationships, the children are not at fault and the children deserve to have their basic needs met. This seems like an uncontroversial thing, but it's not. Loopholes exist in the child support system, and people take advantage of them. Former partners are harassed. Debts are run up—sometimes huge debts—in the name of former partners. Personal information is taken, wrongly, and then weaponised. Income is deliberately hidden so that payment determinations are lower. Sometimes payments are just not made.
The figures are shocking. They're actually quite sad and they're unacceptable. Other speakers on this bill have referred to them, but you cannot refer to them too many times, because the problem needs to be highlighted again and again and again so it's understood and so there's collective support to take meaningful and prompt action. Currently, the backlog of unpaid child support is $2 billion. There are 200 individual child support debts of over $150,000. One parent's debt to their children is more than $2 million. So the claim by the member for Farrer that parents are willing to pay child support is not always true. That is why we are bringing this legislation to this place. The child support system needs to change to ensure that all parents who are required to pay pay. The system needs to change in a way that reflects the feedback of those with lived experience, who work in the child support sector, who have been affected by the weaponisation of the system and who have been left in a desperate situation because of the failure of a former partner to pay.
There are three key objectives in this bill. Firstly, it addresses processes in the system that people have been able to use to cause harm and suffering to former partners and to their children. Secondly, it expands access to the Australian child support scheme for children overseas with one parent in Australia. Thirdly, importantly, it creates new protections for child support recipients against family payment debts that are racked up by former partners.
This third objective is particularly critical and is covered by schedule 2. Child support payments and the family tax benefit are linked to ensure that, where a parent is able to receive child support from their former partner for the benefit of their child and it is safe to do so, they seek that child support, and any government income support is adjusted to account for that income. This link can be and has been weaponised. When a paying parent does not submit tax returns for an extended period, the child support liability must be based on provisional income. If that parent then submits multiple years of tax returns, the child support liability may be retrospectively recalculated, and this often results in the parent owing more child support than they actually paid. In these cases, the receiving parent's family tax benefit entitlement may then also be retrospectively assessed, resulting in a family tax benefit debt for the receiving parent through no fault of their own.
For parents in private arrangements, of which there are many, the government has no visibility of when that additional child support is paid to the receiving parent, meaning the family tax benefit debt against the receiving parent remains whether or not the paying parent actually pays the additional child support they owe. This means a receiving parent in private arrangements may be punished by having a family tax benefit debt raised, but with no extra child support actually paid. By virtue of this bill, the government will implement new processes that ensure parents entering the system are given more information about the advantages and risks of choosing private arrangements as opposed to agency collection arrangements, including the protections that are available against family tax benefit debts if they choose the latter option. The changes proposed by the bill prescribe that those parents who are owed money can choose to pursue the extra child support debt from the paying parent themselves.
Importantly, for parents who continue to choose private arrangements, this bill pauses the collection of family tax benefit debts for three months after those debts are raised, giving parents the opportunity to consider their options and take appropriate action. This could include pursuing the extra support from the paying parent or applying for an exemption or special circumstances debt waiver, which would extinguish the family tax benefit debt. The receiving parent could also elect to transition to an agency collection service and to ask to have the outstanding child support recovered by the government. If they were to do this, it would cause the family tax benefit debt to be reassessed against the child support arrears that had been received—assumed to be zero—which would also extinguish the family tax benefit debt.
Now, really critically, the onus is shifting, pursuant to this bill, with respect to circumstances in which parents elect to move from private arrangements to agency collection arrangements. Currently, the government assumes that the extra child support that was due was paid. This assumption will be reversed by this bill, in that the government will assume that the extra child support that is due has not been paid, such that the family tax benefit debt will be recalculated as zero.
In 2025, the Commonwealth Ombudsman released a report called Weaponising child support: when the system fails families. This report, alongside the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services inquiry into financial abuse, and the Taxation Ombudsman's report Identification and management of financial abuse within the tax system, identified an urgent need to address the weaponisation of child support to protect parents at risk of family and domestic violence and financial abuse.
In response, this bill introduces measures to make the Child Support Scheme safer and to reduce the ability of people to weaponise the system. It provides the registrar with the discretion to refuse applications and dismiss objections. It allows the registrar the discretion to determine how relevant information should be shared, including by written or verbal summary or the exchange of documents, which may be redacted. It provides for the enforcement of arrears and overpayment amounts that were the result of a retrospective variation to the registrable maintenance liability during a period of private collection. It allows paying parents to choose agency collection arrangements, and it allows parents living in prescribed reciprocating jurisdictions to make child support applications directly to Services Australia. In short, it closes the loopholes.
These measures address matters that were raised by people with lived experience of the child support system. They will address issues arising from family and domestic violence, including addressing concerns about financial abuse—just so commonly crystallised. It will reduce opportunities for the weaponisation of the Child Support Scheme, ensure that the scheme operates in a manner that is consistent with administrative practice and policy intention, and provide better pathways for family assistance and child support to complement each other and work more efficiently. Most importantly, it closes loopholes that have allowed people required to pay child support to get away with not paying or paying less. How disappointing that we must legislate for this—but we must.
To those who participated in the consultation: we hear you and we will take steps to protect you. To those who are required to pay child support but who selfishly and cruelly seek to get out of it by exploiting loopholes: stop it. Stop causing harm. Stop causing suffering. Just pay what you owe. Be a decent human being and support your children. I commend the bill to the House.
I rise today to speak in support of the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. This is the next step in our government's ongoing fight to end the scourge of family violence. We know and I think everybody in this parliament knows that family violence is all too common in Australia. We know the statistics. A woman is killed every 11 days by an intimate partner, and a man is killed every 26 days by an intimate partner. These are not acceptable numbers. These are most serious consequences of the family and domestic violence epidemic. It's just the tip of the iceberg. We know that there's far more violence that occurs in a home that might not result in a fatality but could result still in serious injury and lifelong trauma. We know too that children exposed to family violence can have issues throughout their lives and are more likely to enter into a relationship where they might suffer family violence. It causes intergenerational trauma. We know as well that physical violence is not the only form of family violence. There's also coercive control and financial abuse and systems abuse, and that's what this bill seeks to address.
The Prime Minister has shown leadership in this area and has shown a deep commitment to addressing family violence and systems abuse and financial abuse. The Minister for Social Services and the Assistant Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence have also led this really important work. It's shared by every member of this government, and I know it's shared by almost every member of this parliament, knowing, as we do, that in our electorate offices we and our staff deal regularly with people who are suffering family violence and a range of issues that that raises. They are issues that our offices and that our staff work really hard to help them overcome—legal issues, issues with their property, financial issues and issues with government services. This bill would ensure that we're closing some of the loopholes. My friend the member for Sturt put it so eloquently. We're closing some of those loopholes that are exploited by abusers and also exploited by people who seek to avoid their responsibility towards their children.
Financial abuse is controlling or limiting access to household money. It can be your own or it can be somebody else's money, but it is making sure that, perhaps, your partner isn't able to access their bank account to do the weekly shopping or to get things that they need for themselves or for the kids. It's more controlling behaviour and, we know, part of that pattern of coercive control that can be an indicator for more serious forms of family violence. It is also, in and of itself, a form of family violence. It doesn't require that somebody is financially dependent on their partner. It can also be a risk if you're financially independent. For example, you can force or coerce someone to take out loans in your name or to form a business in your name. In the case of formal relationships, it can also take the form of refusing to pay child support.
The systems abuse aspect is the manipulation of government services or legal systems to exert control and to threaten or harass a partner. It could be using the courts. I've worked in the courts and have seen regularly that abusers might make multiple appeals against, say, family violence orders to make sure that their partners are continually dragged back into the legal system and that they're able to exert control over them in that way. They're able to continue to cause them stress and they're able to continue to cause them pain by forcing them to go through vexatious legal proceedings. It can also be through the abuse of Centrelink, and it can be through the abuse of the child support system. That is what this bill seeks to address.
The child support system exists to ensure that both parents contribute appropriate levels of financial support to raising their own child. It's like an independent facilitator. When a relationship has broken down, or perhaps when a relationship didn't exist in the first place, both parents still have a responsibility to their child. It supports around one million Australian children and it ensures that the significant cost of raising a child is shared appropriately by both parents. As the members for Sturt and Griffith have covered, it's essentials like food and clothes, school uniforms, school costs, health care—things that no parent should deny their child.
The child support system should make sure that any disagreement or animosity between separated parents doesn't mean that their children miss out, and the child support system should also be never used to perpetrate systems abuse. Nonetheless, we know from the hearings and the inquiries that have been held that this is happening. We thank those that have contributed to those inquiries so that we can move this bill today and end the loophole in these laws.
Evidence provided to the financial abuse inquiry, to the Commonwealth Ombudsman and to a range of family organisations has highlighted the circumstances where the Child Support Scheme has been manipulated to cause harm. As I said, this is something that people in our office hear about regularly. People contact us about child support debts that have been raised, about Centrelink debts that have been raised, and our staff very skilfully, very kindly and very empathically help them.
We know that there is almost $2 billion in unpaid child support across Australia, and that more than 100,000 parents and carers in the child support system are recorded as having experienced or are at risk of experiencing family and domestic violence. That is why we are acting. In the 2026 2027 budget, our government announced a $182.6 million investment to make sure the child support system is safer, fairer and more effective. This bill represents the first stage of these reforms. It delivers on our election commitments to address financial abuse in Commonwealth systems, because child support should never be weaponised. It should be used as support and never to facilitate harm.
In the 2020 627 budget, the government announced the most significant reforms in the Child Support Scheme in many decades. The bill contains three measures: the first will better protect parents in the systems from harm; the second will remove harms that can arise from the link between child support and the family tax benefit; and the third is to improve support for children overseas born to an Australian parent.
The first schedule of this bill reduces the harmful use of the Child Support Scheme. One of the more concerning findings from the recent reviews is that some individuals are using processes within the scheme to harass or intimidate an intimate partner. It might occur when one partner uses repeated or vexatious applications or objections which the other partner is forced to respond to, making them go through more stressful bureaucratic processes. Imagine you've left a violent relationship, you've broken off contact with your partner or you're limiting contact with your partner, and they use the child support system to send you repeated messages and drag you through repeated bureaucratic processes just to continue to exert control upon you. This bill provides Services Australia with the power to refuse an application where there's evidence that it's being abused. Where an objection has no or little reasonable prospect of success or would only have a marginal impact on the outcome of a case, it may be dismissed without unnecessarily involving the other parent.
This schedule also addresses concerns about the sharing of sensitive information. Currently, parents, when they are seeking a change of assessment, require that detailed personal documents like financial records—Imagine your bank records, which would show all of your transactions, personal information or contact details—must be exchanged between the parties. For some individuals, particularly victim-survivors of family violence, I'm sure you can understand that those personal contact details can create real safety concerns. Under this bill, Services Australia will be able to redact or summarise documents to prevent that sensitive information being released. Disclosure can occur in ways that not only protect privacy but also maintain procedural fairness.
The second schedule strengthens child support collection arrangements. It addresses a problem that many Australians would consider to be fundamentally unfair. Under current arrangements, when a paying parent fails to lodge tax returns for multiple years and subsequently lodges them all at once, child support liabilities can be recalculated retrospectively. This might reveal significant underpayments in child support, but it also means that family tax benefit entitlements can be reassessed. As a result, a receiving parent might accumulate a family tax benefit debt not through any fault of their own but because their former partner or the parent of their child has failed to lodge their tax returns in a timely way. For families under financial pressure, having a debt arise suddenly can be devastating. So this bill introduces a three-month pause on the recovery of certain family tax benefit debts that arise in these circumstances and gives families time to consider their options and pursue outstanding supports in a manner of their choosing.
The third schedule improves access to child support across international borders. It recognises that families can span countries and continents, especially in our increasingly multicultural society where people can be from different countries and where relationships can be across borders. Parents who live in Australia might have a child overseas or might have had a relationship break down where the parents are from different countries of origin, or maybe they've had a holiday romance or another situation arise where there's a child as a result of that. This ensures that that Australian parent is meeting their responsibilities to provide child support and to provide for essentials a child needs, like food and clothing and medical care. These reforms will also be supported through practical assistance for vulnerable families, including single mothers in the Philippines who are seeking child support from Australian fathers who have failed to meet their responsibilities.
These are just part of wider actions taken by the Albanese Labor government on family violence. We've invested more than $4.4 billion in addressing this. We know that there's still more to do, but it demonstrates our real commitment to ending the scourge of family and domestic violence and ending harm against women and children within a generation. One of our first acts in government was legislating 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave for every worker, including casuals. People shouldn't have to choose between having to give up their job or annual leave—especially for single-parent families, where they might have to do things like cover school holidays—and escaping a violent relationship or seeking a better, safer situation for their families. We've also got the $5,000 leaving violence payment. That's been made permanent, and it means that people will receive that assistance to set up a new household and that there are not going to be financial barriers stopping somebody from leaving a violent situation with their children. We also know that the biggest reason that women and children may stay in a violent relationship or stay in a violent home is that they have nowhere safe to go. That's why we've also invested $100 million in crisis and transitional accommodation, funding 42 projects across the country, including in my community in Menzies. There are also a further $1 billion through the National Housing Infrastructure Facility and $300 million announced to expand the Housing Australia Future Fund to make sure that people who want to leave a violent relationship have somewhere to go.
I'd like to acknowledge some of the workers in the family and domestic violence space. As the Minister for Social Services has said, they're some of the best people in our society. We had a delegation from the Australian Services Union visit my office recently, through their 'Skilled, Respected, Equal' campaign. We know that people who work in the social and community sector are often on the front line of the family violence epidemic. We spoke with financial counsellors and people who worked at community legal centres and disability support workers. We know that they love their jobs. They're passionate about their jobs, but the pay they receive doesn't always reflect the complexity or the difficulty of the work that they do. So we're supporting them with an investment of $630 million to deliver a fairer pay, and we will continue to work with them to make sure that they get fairer pay.
When a relationship ends, caring for a child does not. A child still needs breakfast before school. They still need shoes that fit. They need a secure roof over their head. Those needs don't disappear just because a relationship ends, and a child should never become the bargaining chip in an argument between adults. That's the principle behind child support, and that's why we have introduced this important legislation.
The purpose of the bill is pretty straightforward. It makes it harder to use the child support system to control another person and, importantly, it helps children receive the support that they need. Financial security gives families choices. It lets a parent plan for next week's groceries, keep the car running, buy that textbook that's needed and make decisions without having to seek the advice of an ex-partner. And for somebody rebuilding their life after an abusive relationship, those ordinary choices can mean freedom.
When we discuss domestic violence, we must understand that leaving a relationship doesn't necessarily end the abuse. Control can continue through money, and it can continue through threats to withhold payments, demands for contact or deliberate creation of uncertainty. A separated parent knows the rent's due on Friday and child support is due on Wednesday, but the payment doesn't arrive. They send a message. There's no answer. They send another message. This time there is, but there are conditions attached. Perhaps they have to agree to something completely unrelated to the childcare payment. Perhaps they're insulted. Perhaps they're reminded that another person still has the power to make their week fall apart. The amount involved might seem modest to someone on a comfortable income, but, to that household, it could determine whether there is enough money for food and for rent.
When someone deliberately uses that vulnerability to exert control, we should recognise that behaviour for what it is and, as a government, we should not allow rules in our system to give that behaviour room to operate. Labor's response is to examine those rules and to change them. The government reported almost $2 billion in unpaid child support and almost 100,000 parents and carers within the same scheme who have experienced or are experiencing family and domestic violence. Those figures demand attention. Behind them are people and families and households.
There are people like Naomi, who made a decision to divorce her partner due to coercive control. She didn't have the energy or funds to fight it all in the courts to keep the house that they bought together. She's now forced to live in an unstable rental market while trying to provide for her two children. Her ex-partner uses the current system to avoid paying child support by only working six months in the year and moving his money around to reduce his overall yearly income. These are cruel tactics, and they are often used to punish women and children who are just trying to make it through—and ultimately it does punish the children. We owe those families a system that can take their circumstances seriously. The tactic of wage withholding has been identified and will be considered in further planned legislation, but this example highlights that individuals are using the child support system to control another person.
One of the bill's most significant measures addresses the misuse of administrative processes. It would allow Services Australia to refuse certain harmful assessment applications and dismiss objections with little prospect of success or no material effect on the case. Refusal decisions would be reviewable. And that matters, because paperwork carries a human cost. Imagine another situation: a parent repeatedly facing unsupported claims that their circumstances have changed. Every new claim means another letter. It means another deadline. It means searching for documents, time away from work and time spent in the evening gathering documents together and not helping with homework. There's also the anxiety of wondering what will come next. A process that seems routine from an office can feel relentless to the person at the other end. Of course, parents must be able to change an incorrect assessment. People lose jobs, incomes change, care arrangements change and decisions, of course, can be wrong. A fair system must respond to those realities. The challenge is to exercise these new powers carefully, with evidence, clear reasons and meaningful review. We should expect that standard from any government. Supporting this bill means supporting both its protective purposes and proper accountability in how it operates.
A second important measure concerns personal information. The bill will replace the current mandatory document exchange in assessment-change and objection processes with something a little safer. This will allow relevant information to be shared through redacted documents or summaries. The principle here deserves broad support. An assessment might require information about income. It doesn't follow that the former partner needs every personal detail contained in the supporting paperwork. For someone who's experienced, say, stalking or intimidation, information about their workplace, their daily routine and where they go may carry serious consequences.
Think about the effort involved in rebuilding safety. A person may have moved house, changed their job and established new routines while maybe even carefully limiting those who know who they are et cetera. Seeking the financial support their child needs should not undermine that work. We should be able to design an assessment process that gives each party a fair opportunity to respond while protecting information that is unnecessary to the decision. It's a practical responsibility of government. Privacy in this setting is about a person's ability to go to work, to collect their children and live without fear of unwanted intrusion, and it's about confidence. If people believe that seeking a fair assessment could expose them to harm, then some will feel that they have little real choice. A right that someone is afraid to exercise is a right that requires stronger protection.
The bill also addresses a particularly troubling interconnection between child support and the family tax benefit. In private collection arrangements, late tax returns can retrospectively increase a payer's child support liability and trigger a family tax benefit debt for the receiving parent, even where that extra child support may not have been received. Let's stop and consider how that would feel. You've got a couple of kids, you're on your own and you've arranged your household around the money available to you, then a decision about your former partner's past income changes at calculation, and suddenly you're facing a government debt that's connected to money that never reached your account. A parent in that position could reasonably ask, 'How am I supposed to repay money I never had?' Technical rules make sense when applied to real lives.
The bill proposes a three-month pause and recovery of these debts and pathways to address them, including moving to agency collect. It would also expand recovery of newly raised child support arrears when parents make that move. These provisions may sound administrative, but their significance really is deeply practical. They recognise that a receiving parent should not simply be expected to absorb the consequences of another person's delayed reporting. They also recognise that a family may need government assistance to pursue money owed to them. We should judge these changes by whether parents can understand and use those pathways. A letter full of unfamiliar terms really doesn't cut it. People need clear explanations, timely assistance and decisions they can follow. The burden of navigating the remedy must not become another obstacle for the family already carrying the problem.
Another reform would allow a paying parent as well as a receiving parent to request agency collect arrangements, and the bill would also enable direct applications from parents in reciprocating overseas jurisdictions, which would be subject to the usual eligibility rules. Both changes reflect principles that should guide this debate. First, we must assess safety by looking at conduct and circumstances, and we should never assume that the person making payments cannot also experience abuse. Government collection can provide a useful boundary where direct financial dealings create opportunities for pressure or unwanted contact. Second, responsibility to a child should not evaporate at an international border, and geography should not become an excuse for abandoning responsibility.
That brings me to the Labor values underlying this reform. Labor believes public institutions should help people live with dignity, and that requires more than establishing a scheme and assuming that its existence guarantees fairness. We have to look at how it works, who can navigate it, who feels safe using it, who bears the consequences when another person exploits it and what happens when the rules produce an outcome that ordinary Australians would recognise as unjust and unfair. Those questions belong at the centre of government.
We also need an honest discussion about payment difficulties. Some parents do face genuine hardship. Someone may become seriously ill, lose employment and have an unexpected reduction in income. An effective child support system needs accurate assessments, accessible processes and a reasonable response to genuine changes in personal circumstances. But it also needs to distinguish those situations from deliberate evasion or coercion. That distinction matters to families, and it matters to parents who meet their responsibilities despite difficult circumstances. A parent who pays reliably is contributing to their child's security, and that contribution deserves recognition. And a parent managing the daily costs deserves to receive what is owed without having to navigate or negotiate away their dignity or safety.
We should also be precise about what this legislation can achieve. A bill with the words 'ending financial abuse' in its title cannot by itself eliminate every form of financial abuse. But it can close particular opportunities for harm. It can create stronger protections. Those are worthwhile advances, but they must be followed by competent administration. Staff need training and time to recognise patterns of coercion, information handling needs care, parents need accessible services, complaints need proper investigation, and debts that can lawfully be recovered need sustained attention.
The government has described this bill as the first stage of a broader reform package, and the minister has identified further planned legislation concerning wage withholding and automatic travel restrictions for certain child support debts. A child support system cannot repair every hurt caused by a separation. It cannot restore trust between adults. But it can establish dependable boundaries. It can say that a child's needs can continue. It can say that financial obligations carry weight. It can say that seeking support should not expose a parent to unnecessary danger or harm. And it can ensure that government processes do not become convenient instruments of coercive control.
That's why this reform is so important. A parent should be able to seek assistance and find a system that listens, explains, acts and helps. A child should be able to grow up with greater stability without adult conflict determining whether their basic needs are met. And a person leaving abuse should have a fair chance to rebuild their lives. Our task is to turn those principles into rules that work and then ensure that those rules deliver. I support this bill as a meaningful step towards that goal—for safer processes, for fairer treatment, for responsibility that continues after separation and, above all, for the children whose needs deserve to come first.
Picture a parent sitting at a kitchen table after the kids have gone to bed. There are school expenses to pay, groceries to buy and another electricity bill on the way. Then they open an email: another objection, another demand for paperwork, another round of explaining themselves. For some separated parents, the relationship has ended, but the pressure hasn't. And a government system that was meant to help their children has become another way for an ex-partner to make life harder. That should concern every person in this chamber. Child support should help pay for school shoes and put food on the table. It should never be used as a weapon to punish an ex.
That's why the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026 matters so much. Across the Hunter, people work hard to look after their kids. Plenty of separated parents are doing the right thing. They pay what they owe, share the responsibility and make arrangements work, sometimes under very difficult circumstances. Separation is rarely easy. Most parents understand that children still need both adults to act responsibly. Unfortunately, some people use the system to punish the other parent. They withhold money, drag out disputes and use paperwork to keep a fight going long after the relationship has ended. The person left dealing with it has bills to pay and kids to look after. They can't put the weekly groceries on hold while someone decides whether they meet their responsibilities. That's why this legislation is needed.
At the last election, the government committed to closing loopholes that enable financial abuse within Commonwealth systems. In this year's budget, we announced an additional $182.6 million to make the child support system safer and more effective. This bill delivers the first stage of that reform. It tackles harmful applications and objections, improves protection of personal information, strengthens collection arrangements and improves access for families in certain overseas jurisdictions. These might sound like administrative changes. For someone living with abuse or relentless conflict, they can make a real difference in their lives.
I want to spend some time on an issue men have raised with me both as the member for Hunter and as the Special Envoy for Men's Health. Blokes have spoken to me about feeling worn down. They believe repeated claims, constant objections and processes are being used to cause them harm. Some describe spending more time answering paperwork than getting their lives back on track. They talk about the pressures on their finances, their work and their mental health. They talk about feeling that nobody is listening because they are men. To those blokes I want to say clearly: you are being heard. I can't determine the facts of someone's case from a conversation or an email, but I can listen, take their concerns seriously and support changes that address genuine misuse of the system.
There are men out there who are behaving badly. There are women out there who are behaving badly as well. There are also good mums and good dads doing their best in very difficult situations. We know women experience a disproportionate share of family and domestic violence, and protecting women and children must remain a priority. We also need to listen to men who experience abuse, take their concerns seriously and make sure they can get the help they need. Everybody deserves to be safe. We can recognise the serious harm experienced by women and children while also recognising that men can experience abuse. Listening to one doesn't require us to shut the other out. That is the approach I want to see in practice—people treated fairly, concerns properly assessed and children kept at the centre.
We also need to be clear about what a vexatious application means. A claim isn't vexatious simply because the other parent disagrees with it. An unsuccessful claim isn't automatically a dishonest claim. People must be able to raise genuine concerns and challenge an assessment they believe is wrong. Someone experiencing abuse must be able to seek help without the fear that speaking up will be used against them. But a legitimate process can be misused. Repeated applications and objections can become a way to harass someone, force ongoing contact and keep them tied up in responding to matters with little substance.
Schedule 1 gives Services Australia greater discretion to deal with the harmful use of the scheme. It allows certain applications to be refused where proceeding would cause harm. It also allows objections to be dismissed without involving the other parent where they have little or no prospect of success or would have no more than a marginal impact on the case. These powers need sound judgement. Decisions should be based on the circumstances and evidence, with proper attention to fairness and safety. A person raising a genuine issue deserves a fair hearing. These provisions concern child support applications and objections. They don't settle every disputed allegation in a separation or replace the role for courts in parenting matters, but they are a start. They're a first step on problems that have been left unresolved under previous governments. We're listening and taking action. To the blokes who've raised this with me: this doesn't answer every concern, but your experiences matter, and this is a process.
Schedule 1 also changes how personal information is shared. Currently, parents can be required to exchange entire copies of documents provided during relevant processes. These documents may contain sensitive personal and financial information. For someone trying to rebuild their life safely, this can be very frightening. People shouldn't have to choose between seeking a fair assessment and exposing information that could put them at risk. The bill allows a more careful approach, including redacting documents or providing written or verbal summaries of relevant information. Decision-makers can provide what's needed to address the matter while protecting sensitive details. That's a sensible change right there. Fairness requires access to relevant information. It also requires thought about the harm that unnecessary disclosure could cause that person. This is also why we have a Special Envoy for Men's Health. The role is about listening to blokes, including those who feel they've been overlooked, and bringing their concerns into the decisions we make.
Men's health reaches beyond the doctor's surgery. It includes the pressures that people face every single day in life and whether they feel anyone is listening. Separation, financial pressures and ongoing conflict can take a serious toll. A bloke may still turn up to work, still coach the kids' footy team and still tell his mate he's fine while struggling badly underneath. Sometimes the first sign is that he stops answering his messages. Sometimes he pulls away from people. Sometimes he tells himself that asking for help will make him look weak. We need to keep challenging this. Talking to a mate, seeing a GP or getting professional support is a sensible thing to do when life is getting on top of you. You don't wait until the engine has seized before checking what's wrong with the ute, do you? We need to give our own wellbeing a little bit of attention too. But we can't tell people to seek help and then ignore avoidable pressures being created by government systems.
Better support also means making those systems work fairly and safely. A fairer child support system can reduce conflict and uncertainty. It can give parents more room to focus on their children and their own wellbeing. Supporting a man's mental health also means being straight with him about what his responsibilities are. Being angry with the next partner doesn't make it acceptable to withhold support from your child. The same applies to every single parent. Your relationship may have ended, but your responsibility to your child or children hasn't.
Schedule 2 tackles another serious problem: the way child support and the family tax benefit interact. Consider a parent who has a private collection arrangement. They're budgeting around the child support that they actually receive and the family assistance available to them. The paying parent hasn't lodged tax returns for several years. When those returns are finally lodged, their child support liability is recalculated. It turns out more child support should have been paid. The receiving parent's family tax benefit can then be reassessed as well, leaving them with a debt linked to additional child support they haven't actually received.
Think about that in terms of the kitchen table. You've been stretching the budget to cover the kids' needs. Then the debt arrives because someone else lodged their tax returns late. The extra child support is owed to you, but it's not in your bank account. The school expenses and electricity bills are still there. That's a real problem, and this bill takes practical steps to address it. For parents who remain on private arrangements, collection of those family tax benefit debts will be paused for three months after they're raised. That gives them time to consider their options and take the right action. They may pause the additional child support, move to agency collect or seek an application exemption or special circumstance waiver.
This bill allows parents who are moving to agency collect to ask Services Australia to pursue child support debts raised in the previous three months, including newly raised debts relating to older periods. That distinction really matters. A debt may have been raised recently because of late tax returns, even though the underpayments happened years ago. These changes create a pathway for government to help recover it. The three-month pause is breathing room. It doesn't mean every debt automatically disappears. Parents need clear information about what options are available to them and what happens next.
Schedule 2 also allows paying parents to choose agency collect. They can provide a more structured arrangement, clearer payment records and less need for direct negotiation between former partners. Private arrangements can work well when both parents cooperate. When an arrangement is being used to exert pressure, people need a practical way to change that.
Schedule 3 improves access to the Australian child support system for parents in certain overseas jurisdictions, allowing direct applications. A child doesn't stop needing support just because they live overseas. An Australian parent shouldn't be able to treat distance as an excuse to walk away from their responsibilities. These changes make access easier for eligible families and reinforce the straightforward principle that children deserve support from their parents.
This bill is the first stage. A second bill will bring further measures aimed at improving on-time payments, strengthening debt collection and enforcement, and supporting better information-sharing. There's more work to do. Families will judge these reforms by what happens when they contact Services Australia, lodge an application or need help recovering the money their children are owed. Implementation matters. Staff need the guidance and support to recognise misuse, protect sensitive information and explain decisions clearly. Parents need to understand their options without needing to become experts in legislation. For families in the Hunter, success will mean less time caught in unnecessary conflict and more certainty about meeting children's needs.
To the mums carrying the bills while payments don't arrive: your concerns matter. To the dads who feel worn down by the misuse of the system: your concerns matter, too. To every parent doing the right thing: these reforms should help build confidence that responsibility and fairness really do mean something. I'm the father of two beautiful girls. Like parents across this chamber and across the Hunter, I want children to grow up safe, supported and able to enjoy their childhood. They deserve adults who put them first. They deserve a system that helps those adults meet their responsibilities and steps in when someone uses it to cause harm.
This legislation is much needed. It responds to people who've spoken up, including the blokes who've raised concerns directly with me. It takes practical steps towards a safer and fairer child support system. Remember, these kids are loved. They need to be loved. They need our support. They need our help. They need help from both parents. They need to be cared for. And they need to feel that they're being listened to. I know there are some parents out there who have gone through some unfortunate steps and have ended up not being together anymore. Remember, you once loved each other. Remember that, and remember that for your kids, because what's really important is making sure the kids are first and foremost so they have the best chance at life. I commend this bill to the House.
As the member for Dunkley, I see the consequences of the systems we create here in this parliament in the lives of people in my community. I have met parents who are doing everything they can to provide stability for their children after separation. I have spoken with people who are trying to rebuild their lives after family and domestic violence. I have listened to local organisations that work with families at some of their most difficult moments, like the Brotherhood of St Laurence, Family Life, Frankston City Council and Good Shepherd, not to mention Women's Health in the South East. Those discussions have shaped how I approach this legislation, the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026.
The child support scheme is supposed to ensure that children continue to receive financial support after their parents separate. That principle is straightforward. But, for too many families, navigating the system is anything but straightforward. There is almost $2 billion in unpaid child support in Australia. Just over 100,000 parents and carers in the child support system are recorded as having experienced or being at risk of experiencing domestic and family violence. This government is investing an additional $182 million in this financial year to make that system safer and fairer and to help ensure that children receive the support they are owed. Child support is part of the economic security of those families. When it is paid in full and on time, it helps children have a more stable childhood and gives their carers greater capacity to meet the everyday costs of raising them.
This debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.
Our country post offices are under threat, and the government needs to take immediate action to save them. The alarm bells are ringing across the Central West and regional Australia over this. Dozens and dozens of post offices have closed in recent years, and our communities are very concerned that Australia Post has a secret plan to drive even more of them out of business. Country post offices are vital to the survival of country communities. We cannot do without them. We've seen the banks leave town, and now we could lose our post offices too. Instead of squeezing country post offices out of business with unviable business models, Australia Post needs to be supporting them. If this doesn't happen, many of our country towns are just going to be left with parcel lockers, and that's it. The federal government cannot and will not get a free pass on this. It doesn't get to say to our communities that it doesn't have any control over Australia Post. Both the government and Australia Post, including its CEO, need to be held to account. They need to come clean with their plans about what's happening to our post offices. Any attempt to mess with our post offices will be met with white-hot fury across country Australia. The government needs to bring Australia Post under control and be quick about it.
This week, I met two incredible sisters from Wollongong, 13-year-old Mia and 12-year-old Halle Shaw, who were born with moderate hearing loss. They came to parliament to tell their story for the Shepherd Centre's Power of Speech event, and I wanted to share some of their speech. Both girls proudly call their pink cochlear implants their 'buds', because they're buddies. Mia, who spoke on behalf of shy sister Halle, said:
We were really lucky to get help when we were very little.
We had our hearing aids, then our cochlear implants, and people at The Shepherd Centre have always been there for us, helping us learn to listen and speak.
I think every child with hearing loss should get that kind of help as early as possible, so they can grow up doing the things they love too.
And be ready to go to school, just like any other kid.
I'm really proud of Halle for always being her silly self.
And I'm really proud of both of us for standing here at Parliament House and getting to share our story.
Mia and Halle, you deserve to be proud. Your speech was a wonderful tale of two sisters who love to dance and also happen to have hearing loss. Thank you for sharing your story, and thank you to the Shepherd Centre for the work that you do for children and families across Australia.
Migration is one of the most contested issues in our national debate, but too often the discussion comes back to a single number. Net overseas migration counts everyone who arrives and leaves, including Australians moving overseas and coming home. It can be measured, but it can't be set, and it tells us little about whether the system is working for Australians or for migrants. The coalition and One Nation compete over how far to cut it. The government is tinkering at the margins. No-one is asking: what kind of country do we want to be, and how can migration help us get there?
I'm taking a different approach—listening to my community first. Nearly 800 people in Curtin offered to join an online community conversation about building a better migration system. From them, I brought together a group of delegates who reflect our community, including people who depend on the system, from aged care, agriculture, universities and small business, and temporary migrants themselves. Last night, delegates used two tools to share their views with me. With Polis, they proposed statements and voted on each other's, casting more than 11,000 votes to show where our community agrees and disagrees. With quadratic voting, each delegate spread a limited budget across reforms showing what they support and how strongly. These digital tools enabled me to identify reforms that are supported by people with different views, finding ideas that bring us together rather than drive us apart.
Today I'm reading a speech from Vedant, a 12-year-old student in my electorate who wrote this contribution for Youth Voice in Parliament Week:
One major issue shaping young people's futures is how poorly students are prepared for the transition from primary school to high school in Australia. Many students enter secondary school expecting supportive teachers, manageable work, and an easy environment. Instead, they face a sudden increase in homework, assignments, deadlines, and pressure, leaving many overwhelmed.
In many primary schools, especially public schools, expectations can be very lenient. Students often receive little homework, fewer consequences, and lower academic pressure. While this may seem positive at first, it can leave students unprepared for the workload and discipline required in high school.
As a result, some students lose motivation, fall behind academically, Stop caring about grades, and struggle to adapt.
The growing influence of phones and social media has made this challenge even harder. Many children are glued to their screen 24/7, unaware of how quickly expectations rise once they enter secondary school.
A student may spend Year 6 relaxing after school, only to find themselves in Year 7 struggling to keep up with multiple assignments and study demands.
Parliament should take meaningful action by improving the transition between primary and secondary education. Schools could gradually introduce homework, stronger study habits, time-management skills, and clearer academic expectations in upper primary years.
Programs that prepare students mentally and academically for high school would help reduce stress and improve long-term outcomes. Better preparation in education helps students succeed, reducing the risk of future unemployment, financial problems, and other long-term money struggles.
(): I want to talk about Warringah constituent Ron Hobden, also known as 'Hobbo', who sadly passed away a few weeks ago from motor neurone disease. Ron was a husband to Annie, a father to Lizzie and Henry, and a passionate rugby player. Diagnosed in 2023 while he was training for a marathon, his children were only one and three at the time. MND took away his ability to walk and hold his children, but Ron said to us, 'Research means hope. It's the only thing standing between despair and a better future.' It was such a privilege to meet with him and his family, and incredibly sad to attend his funeral a few weeks ago.
Every day in Australia, two people are diagnosed with MND and two people die from MND. We know there are diagnostic clusters—young men, people who play contact sports and those that live in regional areas. But the data is sporadic and anecdotal. Developments have been made to collect proper data. New South Wales now has made data collection mandatory, but that needs to be a national approach. We also need increased funding for research and clinical trials, and better support and respite for carers.
Let's honour all those impacted by MND with action from this government. We need to increase investment in the research, the data collection and the care. This is such a tragic disease. I give my absolute condolences to Annie, Lizzie and Henry, and pledge that we will continue fighting this horrendous disease.
For years, South Australians have known that our state produces some of the best food and wine in the world, and now the Michelin Guide has proven it. That is a fantastic recognition of our state's world-class hospitality industry—so much recognition that if I stood here and acknowledged each business awarded by Michelin, I would run out of time. From the vineyards of the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale to the fresh seafood of the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia has something for everyone. And let's not forget our incredible restaurants, cafes, chefs and hospitality workers, who bring the very best of our state to the table.
This recognition isn't just about good food; it's about supporting local businesses, creating jobs, attracting visitors and showcasing what South Australia has to offer. It's also a testament to our farmers, growers, winemakers and producers, who work tirelessly to put quality South Australian produce on plates across the country.
We might be a smaller state, but when it comes to food and wine, we punch well above our weight. So Melbourne can keep its coffee, and Sydney can keep its harbour views—you're both just playing second best. But for Australia's finest food, wine and hospitality, there's only one destination worth putting on the menu—that is, South Australia.
'We have the room and machinery to expand but we don't have the confidence in the Australian government to do so.' Those are the words of my mate Col, a pineapple grower from Munga. Col runs a longstanding family farming operation, but rising power prices, red tape, fuel and transport costs are making it harder for him to get ahead, to get on with the job. Labor's changes to the working holidaymaker system have added uncertainty. Like many growers, Col needs confidence that workers will be available when harvest comes around. Crops don't wait.
Now pineapple growers face another threat: biosecurity. The government is considering requests from India and Indonesia to import pineapples. Yesterday, Australian growers came to Parliament House to raise concerns about the biosecurity risks this would pose to their industry. When I think about these issues, I think about Col and farming families across Wide Bay. The coalition knows that cheaper energy, lower fuel costs, a reliable workforce and strong biosecurity protections matter. Farming businesses like Col's shouldn't have to choose between surviving and thriving. They need the confidence to invest, create jobs and pass their farms on to the next generation. That's what I will keep fighting for, backed by the coalition.
Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. We remember the babies who never took their first breath, the babies held for only a moment and the babies whose parents never had the chance to hold them. Every day in Australia around 285 families experience miscarriage and six babies are stillborn. For too long, pregnancy and infant loss were met with silence, the expectation to move on or the assumption that an early loss must have hurt less. It absolutely doesn't.
That's why our government has invested $9.5 million in a miscarriage support package, including Miscarriage Matters, a national education program and $6.8 million in stillbirth support, including $4.2 million for the Red Rose Hospital to Home program. Almost 12 months ago in this place, we passed Baby Priya's law, protecting employer funded paid parental leave for parents after a stillbirth or the death of a child.
To every family who has experienced pregnancy or infant loss: your baby mattered. Your grief matters. Your family deserves support. I invite everyone here to join me in a moment of silence to honour and remember all of the little lives lost. Thank you.
The Treasurer's complete lack of business experience is finally catching up with him. We're witnessing a government completely and utterly out of its depth when it comes to the economy. Little wonder—not one cabinet member has experience running a business, including the Treasurer, whose policies have caused 14,500 businesses to collapse in 2025 alone, the worst year for insolvency since records began.
We on this side remarked that small business is the backbone of this country. That is not some throwaway line. It is something we believe to our very core, because on this side of the house we know that small business drives the country's prosperity, drives local employment and anchors the character of our communities. I seriously don't think this government has thought through its relentless attacks on small business. If you keep pushing them and keep squeezing them, they will go. Where will you get your much needed revenue from then? Small business has had enough of 'Big Bill' Bowen, 'All Talk' Aly, 'Chaos' Chalmers and Anthony Albanese, who doesn't need a moniker. It is time this government take a look around and see the devastation it is causing—
I'm going to remind the member for Lyne that the use of those personal names is completely out of order.
I withdraw. It is time this government takes a look around and see the devastation you are causing. Stop hurting small business. Stop pushing families to the brink. Stop kicking hard— (Time expired)
James Austin received the NT Great Mate Award last month at a Parliamentary Friends of Healthy Masculinities event. A program facilitator at Darwin Youth Services, James runs the I Respect domestic violence prevention program for young men, providing education on healthy relationships, dealing with jealousy consent and social media safety. He said: 'I share stories from my own past and the things I wish had been explained to me when I was younger. Being a man isn't about acting tough, getting into fights or pretending you've got everything figured out. It's about taking responsibility for yourself and treating the people around you with respect. There's no manual handed to young people entering the dating world about how to have a healthy relationship. You take your cues from the people around you and what your mates are doing. These days young people are being shown what relationships and masculinity supposedly look like by the social media algorithms. We need to give them somewhere to ask questions and to have honest conversations. It's not enough to just tell a young person, "Don't get jealous". Jealousy is an emotion that we all feel. You can't necessarily control the feeling. However you can control what you do next.' Well done, James.
Yesterday, the Senate voted to throw out the government's rebate that they were going to take from our elderly people for their health insurance. Not only did they vote to throw it out; they voted to throw it out without even debating it. That's how bad it was and how popular it was. This thing is as popular as the pox. What this government is doing is taking away the rebate for health insurance for those over 65, a generation of Australians that built this country, did the right thing by this country and actually went out there and earned a living. They put money aside for their retirement, but also put money aside for their health to make sure that, in their twilight years, they could get private cover when they wanted it without being a burden on this country.
The government's own modelling had this at 44,000 Australians who would come off health insurance. We now find out that that's not the truth. In fact, it is 77,000. That's come out of the health department numbers. They can't even be honest with the Australian people, or with the states, who will have to take up the burden of those 77,000 older Australians who will have to opt out of health insurance because they won't get the rebate and will turn up to a public hospital and take that care away from someone else. You just can't make this stuff up. To show that sort of disdain for the generation of Australians that built this country that we're enjoying now shows this government is so out of touch that it's even forgotten who made this country.
I rise today to honour the proud history of the Shellharbour Surf Life Saving Club, which this year marks an incredible 90 years of service to our community. That is 90 years of dedicated locals keeping watch over the community while we're enjoying one of Australia's most iconic national treasures: our beaches. Shellharbour Surf Life Saving Club has over 1,000 members, reflecting the tremendous support they enjoy across the Shellharbour community. The club's achievements are founded on the dedication of their fantastic volunteers, whether they are patrolling our beaches, operating radio communications, undertaking admin, fundraising for equipment and facilities or running surf carnivals.
Importantly, the club's service extends beyond Shellharbour. In a demonstration of true surf lifesaving spirit, members provide volunteer patrol support to Sussex Inlet & District Surf Life Saving Club and Windang Surf Life Saving Club, offering beach safety across the region. The club has produced outstanding leaders and results, including a junior lifesaver of the year in 2010. Shellharbour Surf Life Saving Club was recently recognised by Shellharbour Council, winning the year's Community Capacity Builder award. This year, Shellharbour Surf Life Saving Club was also awarded Club of the Year by Surf Life Saving NSW. This is an honour that reflects decades of dedication, leadership, community service and lifesaving excellence.
This week we've enjoyed the spectacle of the Minister for Small Business trying to compare the record of the Labor Party with that of the coalition when it comes to supporting small business. It has been a spectacle that's drawn a few laughs on this side, but I thought I'd help out this conversation and go through some of the highlights of the things that the coalition did for small business during our time.
We cut the small business company tax rate to 25 per cent. We on this side introduced and expanded the instant asset write-off. We established the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, specifically designed to help small business navigate through the extra regulatory burden that Labor governments love to put on them. We extended unfair contract term protections to stop big businesses imposing unfair contracts on small businesses. We introduced a 50 per cent wage subsidy for new apprentices and trainees. Under Howard, we introduced the small business CGT exemptions that got small business going, back at a time when we needed that. We have consistently cut red tape for small businesses. They're just some of the highlights of the things that we on this side have done for small business in Australia.
I'm now going to run through just a couple of highlights. Actually, do you know what? I'll just go with one highlight of this government's supports for small business. This year is the worst year ever for small-business insolvencies. I'll put our record against theirs every day of the week.
I've been rereading Donald Horne's 1964 book The Lucky Country. In it he wrote:
The greatest single disaster in Australia is to grow old.
He went on to describe Australians being left to fend for themselves, relying on the kindness of others and facing old age with loneliness and financial insecurity. Now, here's what makes that observation extraordinary. When he wrote those words 62 years ago, the Liberal Party had been in government for 15 years. This was the Australia of Robert Menzies—the Liberal Party's supposed golden age. But, by the time the coalition finally lost government in 1972, when they'd been in power for 23 years, retirement security was still out of reach for millions of working Australians. It took the trade union movement and the Hawke Labor government to begin changing that.
In 1992, the Keating Labor government introduced compulsory superannuation. Compulsory superannuation made retirement savings a widespread entitlement for working Australians, not just the fortunate few. And what did the Liberals do? They opposed it and, when they returned to government, froze the increases to superannuation. Today, they're again entertaining proposals to let workers draw down their retirement savings to pay for housing. Labor helped build a system that gives working Australians greater financial security. They opposed it then, they oppose it now and what unites those three right-wing parties over there is their hatred of working Australians.
We have been talking intensely about small businesses this week—about the policies this government has introduced into this place that crush small business. Whether they're policies in taxation, policies in industrial relations or wages policy, energy policy, fuel policy or environmental policy, this government has waged a war on small business structures, their assets, their ability to employ people and their ability to grow.
This week I have been meeting with small businesses each and every day in the parliament, as I do each and every day in my own electorate—the textile industry, the horticultural industry, the community-banking industry and, last night, businesses across the spectrum at the Council of Small Business Organisations dinner. I've heard their fears for the future, but I've also heard about their extraordinary adaptability, their innovation and their determination to survive. They can't understand why this government, with equal determination, is trying to destroy them.
On this side of the chamber, small business is in our blood. It's what we do, and it's what we did before we came into this place. Unless you have lived that life, waking up at 4 am wondering how you're going to pay the next tax bill, how you're going to meet the subbie's invoice on time, how you're going to afford to buy that next big piece of machinery that you need or how you're going to pay your accountant or your lawyer—even though you ain't slept much, you get up and you do it all over again each and every day. None of you on that side have it in your gut, and that is the difference between you and us.
():
My child support is $10 per week, with 100% care.
How can a parent declare zero income? A working professional, why is that allowed.
My ex owes me … $107,000, I have three neurodiverse kids and he regularly goes on overseas holidays.
My children's father owes over $140,000 … and yet he is living on the waterfront, and has five years of outstanding tax returns.
These are just a few emails from my electorate of Dickson. These cases are why we are cracking down on the abuse of the child support system. Currently, there's $2 billion in unpaid child support in Australia, and 200 child support debts over $150,000. I know the vast majority of parents do the right thing, but for those who don't—we are coming for you. Our new laws catch parents who understate their income, prosecute parents who don't lodge their tax returns to avoid child support assessments, withhold child support from wages in suitable circumstances and impose travel bans for parents with a large child support debt and a history of travel. We're closing a lot of loopholes in the system. Parents in my electorate, both mums and dads, have been calling for change, and we are doing something about it.
There's been a lot of talk this week about small business—about how small businesses need to be supported, small businesses need to be encouraged and small businesses need to flourish in this country for our country to do well, for tax receipts to be healthy and for us to have a good standard of living.
But I want to remind those opposite too that our big exporting industries need a lot of support. Our big exporting industries need to survive because they are huge taxpayers and they make huge contributions to our economy's bottom line. The four biggest export industries in this country—Deputy Speaker Claydon, I'm sure you know; I hope all those opposite know—are coal, iron ore, gas and food/ag. I know that. A lot of us on this side know that. I'm sure the regional MPs on the other side know that because—as you know, Deputy Speaker—all those industries are from regional Australia. Those industries need help and need support because the world is competitive. All I hear from those industries is that they feel as though life is becoming increasingly difficult under this government, with increased regulation, higher taxes and a whole lot of other legislative effects. The government needs to be very conscious of those four industries.
To go back to where I started: small business. The Prime Minister got heckled at the National Bush Summit. When they started talking about regulation, he said, 'That's not good, if small businesses feel they're overregulated,' and they laughed because it's his government that is increasing the regulation on small business. We need small business and big business to do well to fund this country.
If bulk-billing is the beating heart of Medicare, then the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is its bloodstream, quietly ensuring essential medicines are made affordable and accessible to every Australian. Recently, the health minister made a huge announcement that will benefit many. The PBS listing of immunotherapy cancer treatment Keytruda has been significantly expanded. Keytruda is developed by MSD, a global biopharmaceutical company based in Macquarie Park in my electorate of Bennelong. For a first-of-its-kind listing, clinicians now have the option of prescribing the treatment for 17 cancer indications, approved off just one PBS application. Be it bile duct cancer, ovarian cancer or rare skin cancers such as Merkel cell carcinoma, Keytruda can now be accessed across 17 indications for just $25 a pop. Without this new expanded listing, patients could be paying up to $14,800 per script.
Labor has delivered 492 new listings since we came to government. Not only are we strengthening Medicare by adding new drugs to the PBS; we're also reforming it, allowing, for the first time, one PBS application to be used over multiple indications. Compare our record on Medicare to that of the Liberals. They froze Medicare rebates for six long years, they ripped funding from public hospitals and they tried to introduce a GP tax on every Aussie. Labor loves Medicare.
This week alone, the IMF downgraded Australia's economic growth forecast, COSBOA raised the alarm about the financial stress of small businesses due to energy costs and interest rates, Creditor Watch warned insolvencies—already at a record high—are set to rise further, the NAB reported confidence was 22 points lower than it was this time last year, and ANZ reported families feeling financially worse off than they were this time last year. There's something here that the Labor frontbench don't get, but that every member of the coalition does get. There's something here that I believe a lot of Labor backbenchers also get, and that is that the Australian economy is sick and that the Albanese government's policies will not fix it. You don't fix an economy by increasing taxes. You don't fix an economy by increasing power bills. You don't fix an economy by giving the ATO, but not small business, a free pass. You don't fix an economy by penalising seniors who take out private health insurance. You don't fix an economy by calling families who use trusts 'tax dodgers'. There is one thing that can fix an economy and that is a coalition government.
In my first term, there was a private member's motion on eating disorders. I remember sitting in this chamber listening to coalition members who had gone through the painful experience of their daughters having had an eating disorder. I can't imagine how difficult that would have been, particularly as a parent that is away for 20 weeks of the year.
As a parent, one of the reasons why I am here is that I want to make a structural difference to our children's lives, and that includes reducing the influences that increase the likelihood of an eating disorder. We know that social media algorithms are teaching boys and girls to hate their bodies. When the government released the draft laws, the Minister for Communications described what is happening right now. Girls are getting advice from chatbots on how to exist on only 600 calories a day. For those who don't calorie count, you need about 1,600 to 3,000. Today, the Albanese government is introducing a digital duty of care bill, which gives Australians control over their feed and protects kids online. I ask those opposite: what are you prepared to do to stop this scourge? We have a moment. As Senator Jonno Duniam said, there are moments where we can have bipartisanship. This could be that.
In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
I inform the House that the Treasurer will be absent from question time today, attending the G20 finance ministers meetings. The Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services will answer questions on his behalf.
My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister overruled and publicly humiliated the Treasurer over his widow's tax, his death tax, his super tax, his cap on veterans' health care and his botched ban on credit cards. What will the Prime Minister humiliate the Treasurer on next?
We are a government that works through a proper cabinet process and that has a Treasurer who I'm very proud of. He's a Treasurer who is promoting reform in the economy, including making sure that we don't create a society where we have our generation able to own their own home and younger generations not able to own their own home. The way that my government functions is orderly, with proper process, proper cabinet government—something that those opposite would not recognise.
We have the shadow opposition leader out there saying on RN Breakfast, 'Clearly there's a need for us to change,' and saying on News24, 'The Liberal Party is in a low ebb.'
The Manager of Opposition Business, on a point of order.
It goes to relevance, Speaker. It's fairly clear. There was nothing about—
Resume your seat. This was a peculiar question. This was not about programs. It was not about policies. It was a peculiar question regarding someone's personal behaviour. That's what the question was about. So if you're going to ask that question, you're going to get probably the broadest answer. That's the reality. Further to the point of order?
If I may, Mr Speaker—
You may, on the point of order, yes.
just add to what the member for Wannon has just said, it is very clear in this question. It's about a whole series of taxes imposed by this government that they have had to ditch—the widow's tax, the death tax—
Resume your seat. Yes, that was part of the question, but the question was about someone's personal behaviour. That's what the question was about. It included that information; you're right, Leader of the Opposition. But the question was about personal behaviour. That's what the question was.
Thanks, Mr Speaker. I'll tell you what's humiliating. It's having someone behind the Leader of the Opposition stalk him and someone outside the parliament stalking him as well. This is what Josh Frydenberg had to say:
If our vote recedes further … I cannot see the party surviving in its current form.
An existential crisis.
You don't have to listen to people outside; you can listen to the Leader of the Opposition—for the moment—himself. On Saturday he went along to CPAC, which would be the equivalent of a Labor Party leader going to a Socialist Alliance rally. He went along there to this far-right gathering in Brisbane, and he said that the government he was a senior minister in spent too much money during COVID and allowed in too many temporary migrants. He said they should never have done net zero, and he said that they were never a party of the centre right, they were just a right-wing party. Well, you bet they are—in this race to the bottom. If people have a choice between One Nation or fake One Nation, they'll vote for the real thing, and this guy is a fake.
Manager of Opposition Business, point of order?
I ask the Prime Minister to withdraw. It was a proper question about your failings and your treasurer's failings.
Resume your seat. The issue of the Prime Minister calling someone a fake is the issue I'm dealing with now. I'd like the Prime Minister to withdraw that.
I'll withdraw it, and I ask the member to withdraw his return serve.
Yes. I'd just ask everybody—
Honourable members interjecting—
The Leader of the Opposition is entitled to be shown that. The Prime Minister's done the right thing. To the manager: if you're raising a point of order, I'll always take it, but we don't need commentary at the end of each point of order.
My question is to the Minister for Communications. Today, the Albanese Labor government introduced Australia's Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026. Why is it important that parliament work together to pass this important reform?
I thank the member for Moreton for her question, for her support and for her advocacy on behalf of all of the young people that she represents on the south side of Brisbane. Mr Speaker, the principle of a duty of care is simple. If you create a product for people to use or a space where people work, learn, play or relax, you must take reasonable steps to make it safe. Should a toy maker check for choking hazards? Of course. Should a car maker test the brakes? Of course. Do you expect a school to keep its students safe? Of course. So, the question for parliament is, if we agree on these basic legal obligations, shouldn't we expect the same of big tech? That is exactly what the digital duty of care will do. It will set basic safety standards for the online services we use every day, just like we have in every other industry. Talk to any parent, any teacher, any child or any teenager: the status quo is not enough.
I received a letter from an 8-year-old boy named Angus who lives in Yeronga in the member for Moreton's electorate. Angus wrote to me because he was worried about what Roblox was doing to friends and what it might do to his little brother. He said: 'I have a friend who used to be a great friend who would play with me on play dates, and we would have a great time. He got Roblox when he was about six years old, and, after he got Roblox, he wasn't interested in playing with me anymore. All he wanted to do was play Roblox, and it feels like he's addicted to it. My friends say weird things that they have learnt from the game, and I don't like it. It isn't safe that it is an online game and strangers can play with you, and I worry about my friends being online with strangers who might be dangerous. There are horror games on Roblox and it can be really scary for kids. When I've asked my friends to stop playing these games, they don't listen. I think that Roblox rots kids' brains because it has terrible graphics. There are horror and shooting games, and they learn very silly things.' If an eight-year-old Angus from Yeronga understands why we need to make the internet safer, surely a 60-year-old Angus from Cooma might be able to understand that, too. There's no reason why we can't work together to deliver a digital duty of care. All sides of parliament need to work together to get this done.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Today, the unemployment rate rose to 4.7 per cent, the highest rate in five years. Because of Labor, 103,000 more Australians have lost their jobs this year. When is the Treasurer going to lose his?
I'm asked about employment and then a usual sledge at the end of the question, so I'll address them in order. This government has the lowest unemployment rate of any government in 50 years. I note that, in the question, that was acknowledged by saying it was the highest unemployment rate in five years—since they were on the Treasury benches. What we have sought to do each and every day is to prioritise employment growth, which is why, on our watch, 1.3 million jobs have been created.
I'm asked about people in politics keeping their job. The Guardian has reported:
Some Liberals privately concede Taylor is faring no better—and possibly performing worse—than the female leader he replaced.
A Liberal MP told the Australian:
We're struggling. If you're the third party in a two-party preferred system, that's a problem.
You think?
Honourable members interjecting—
Members on my right will cease interjecting immediately. The member for Goldstein, on a point of order?
A point of order, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister was not asked about the opposition at all. We asked about the Treasurer's role and, of course, overall employment.
Yes, there was a question about employment, but it was also about the Treasurer's job, and employment figures were mentioned. The Prime Minister will need to be directly relevant, but obviously he's able to compare and contrast about jobs and employment because that's what he was—it's a very loose question. We'll just make sure that, if the Prime Minister is doing compare and contrast, he's got to make it directly relevant to the question he was asked about. Prime Minister.
Because the Treasurer is doing a great job. This is what those opposite say about who's going to lose their jobs. A Liberal MP told the Guardian:
One Nation now controls the Liberal agenda.
Another senior Liberal MP has said:
… the only joy is that the National Party would die before us.
There's optimism for you on that side, Mr Speaker! Then another Liberal MP told the media: 'I don't think the federal president, Tony Abbott, is doing Angus Taylor any favours at all. It's becoming a weakness for him.' Another on the same theme:
Every time Tony opens his mouth, it's as if he speaks for Angus in the party. That's even disturbing the guys in the hard right.
So they come in here in their tactics committee—
Has the Prime Minister concluded his answer? No? We'll hear from the manager then.
The Prime Minister's defying your ruling, Speaker. This is just a rambling mess. It's got nothing to—
To the point of order?
To the point of order, if they ask a question like that, then it is perfectly within the standing orders for me to respond in an appropriate way. If they want to ask about policy and be taken seriously, they should leave the sledges off the back of their questions.
Has the Prime Minister concluded his answer? The manager, further to the point of order?
Further to the point of order, the Prime Minister should listen to his own words about rambling sledges from when he was on this side. It's completely out—
We're just going to keep it within the standing orders, so the Leader of the House can respond to the point of order.
To the point of order, I just refer to the ruling you gave yesterday, where you referred specifically to tags like the one here and the way that significantly widens where relevance is able to go. It's the same way that Tony Smith used to rule. And, at any rate, the compare-and-contrast principle always remains.
This is the Leader of the House when he was in my position—
No, resume your seat. We're not having a debate. I understand the principle that everyone is frustrated. I'm frustrated as well. But if they're broad political questions like that—the question was about whether the Treasurer was going to lose his job. That was the question, and it contained information about unemployment. The Prime Minister has dealt with that issue. But, of course, if there are going to be these broad political questions—we've had two of them already, and we may have more today; that's the opposition's and any member's right to do so—it does broaden it. Normally there are questions about facts and figures, and we're after those data. Now we're talking about some political context, so there are going to be political answers to a political question. The Prime Minister's got 30 seconds remaining to his answer, and I'll ask him to be directly relevant.
The former leader—remember her?—the former member for Farrer, said this:
On the day the leadership spilled in February, the new leader said the Liberal Party needed to "change or die" … the result in Farrer demonstrates that statement needed to be far truer today than it ever was then.
They come in here, and they don't ask serious policy questions, because they're too busy struggling to keep this bloke going.
The Leader of the Nationals in the House, if we're getting into personal attacks, the Leader of the Opposition asked for the Prime Minister to withdraw something before, and he did. So I'm going to ask the leader of the National Party. The same rules apply to everyone.
I withdraw.
I thank the leader of the National Party in the House of Representatives.
My question is to the Minister for Education. How is the Albanese Labor government acting to help children learn and protect them online? What has been the response?
Order! The member for Hunter has asked his question and I couldn't hear it because of this continual interjection. So we're only going to do this one more time. We're going to hear from the member for Hunter and, out of respect for the House, I want everyone to be silent while the member for Hunter asks his question.
My question is to the Minister for Education. How is the Albanese Labor government acting to help children learn and protect them online? What has been the response?
Can I thank the Herculean and hairy member for Hunter for his question. A couple of years ago we banned mobile phones in schools. We're already seeing the impact of that; it's been massive. But it's just the start. Every parent knows the impact that screens are having on their kids at home and how it's turning them into zombies, and we're now seeing the evidence of the impact of screens in our schools. The evidence is showing us that the more time kids spend online the more likely it is that their results decline. I told the parliament yesterday that there's a reckoning coming. We're already seeing that overseas.
Los Angeles has just announced that they're going to set screen-time limits for kids in primary school. New York has just done the same thing. In fact, 17 states in the US have now introduced or are debating legislation to set screen limits in schools. We're starting to see the same thing happen here in Australia. From term 1 next year, in Victoria, there'll be screen-time limits for kids in primary school. The same thing will happen in New South Wales, and Western Australia has just announced this week that next year they'll roll out a pilot of a ban on screens for kids from kindergarten to year 2 in public schools. In a couple of weeks time, when ministers meet, we'll talk about what the next steps are.
So that's what we're doing inside schools, but we've also got to look at what happens outside of schools and what's happening online. This is where all of our reputations are on the line, because I think all of us know what a cesspit social media and online gaming can be. I think all of us know that every single parent in the country is worried about this and expects us to do something about it, and that's what the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill that was introduced today is all about.
The Minister for Communications told a story this morning about a 14-year-old girl who was approached by an adult on Roblox. They started chatting on Roblox. That conversation moved to Discord. That's where he asked her to send him photos, explicit photos. Then he blackmailed her. Then he asked her to write his name in blood on a wall. Then he asked her to livestream her own suicide. I don't think any parent could think of something more horrific. Surely we've got to put the acid on these tech companies to do something to stop this. Every mum and dad wants this sick stuff out of their kids lives and out of their kids heads. We just want our kids to be kids, and that's what this bill does. That's what it's all about. I think every parent in the country would be shocked and sickened if the Liberal Party makes the decision to vote against this.
My question is to the Prime Minister. The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Navi Pillay, Chair of the UN independent commission of inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territories, which concluded last year that Israel was responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza, and many of Australia's closest partners have imposed comprehensive sanctions on Israeli settlements. Why isn't Australia showing the same moral courage, standing with our strongest allies and doing everything in our power to prevent and punish genocide and the illegal occupation of the West Bank?
I thank the member for Mackellar for her question. Australia is steadfast in our commitment to the two-state solution. It is the only pathway to enduring peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians. We've worked closely with our international partners on this issue and we'll continue to do so. The government's position on settlements is absolutely clear. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, threaten the viability of a two-state solution and are a major obstacle to peace. That is why, in coordination with partners, we've imposed travel bans and targeted financial sanctions on senior Israeli ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir because of their role in serious human rights violations and abuses against Palestinians in relation to illegal settlements and settler violence, just as we have, in coordination with partners, imposed sanctions on Israeli extremists for their abhorrent settler violence targeting Palestinian communities, the latest of which was in June. These sanctions target extremist settlers and entities, including settlements responsible for horrific violence and human rights abuses. As the foreign minister has announced, we're pursuing further targeted measures, in coordination with international partners, to deter illegal settlements and settler violence.
Australia is not pursuing a blanket-style import ban. We have concerns about the implementation of a blanket ban and unintended consequences for Palestinians and other entities and that the declarations may not advance the objective of a two-state solution but may, in fact, provide a setback, as I said in a meeting I had with the member for Mackellar just this week. We will continue to work with our partners, as we will continue to call on Israel to immediately address illegal settlements and settler violence, which are undermining the two-state solution, just as we continue to condemn the ongoing acts of terror of Hamas, which are also aimed at undermining the two-state solution. There are people on both sides of that debate in the Middle East who are determined to rule out two states through their actions, whether it be Hamas, which does not support the right of Israel to exist, or whether it be some of the people, including ministers in the Israeli government—Smotrich and Ben-Gvir—who are determined to rule out a Palestinian state. A two-state solution is in the interests of both Israelis and Palestinians and is the only path forward for peace and security.
My question is to the Prime Minister. How is the Albanese Labor government managing the budget responsibly, and how will this lead to better services for older Australians? What is standing in the way?
I thank the member for his question. We have a very responsible measure now back before the budget, after it was opposed in the Senate—the 'noalition' is back: the Liberal Party, the National Party, One Nation and the Greens political party. Now, whether someone is 64 or 65, they will receive the same private health rebate. What could be fairer than that?
The Leader of the Nationals is now warned.
Under our legislation, which is back before the House of Representatives, the system will be based on a person's income, not their age, and that is a reasonable thing. Savings of $3 billion is a part of this, with every single dollar going straight back into funding aged care. But you can't come before—
The member for Bowman is warned.
You can't come before the parliament and say that we need tighter fiscal policy and less spending and then oppose every single saving that is before the parliament. The argument put forward by the Leader of the Liberal Party across the chamber that you need more health care as you get older is the reason why the rebate should be the same whether you are 64 or 65 or 70 or 75. It is not a higher rebate if you are older; it is the same rebate. The logic is simply not there.
The member for Casey is warned.
And the Liberal Party, of course, over there in the Senate—some of them—got a shock that the Greens political party, who say they oppose private health insurance, voted with them in the Senate. So this saving has gone down, and it builds on our record of responsible economic management. Every budget has contained savings, unlike those opposite. The over $230 billion improvement to the budget bottom line and almost $180 billion in savings adds to the $110 billion in unfunded promises that they've committed to since the current leader of the opposition filled that position.
I ask the member for Forrest to leave the chamber under 94(a) for continual and disrespectful interjections.
The member for Forrest then left the chamber.
I'd like to acknowledge Councillor Matt Burnett, the Australian Local Government Association president and Mayor of Gladstone Regional Council, and Councillor Nathan Errington, the Deputy Mayor of Port Stephens Council, as a guest of the member for Goldstein.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
My question is to the Prime Minister, on behalf of the 3.2 million older Australians and 1.2 million pensioners he has let down. After suffering a humiliating defeat in the Senate, Labor has reintroduced its cruel cuts to private health insurance—
An honourable member: That's right.
you say yes, you have—costing senior Australians up to $1,614 more each year. National Seniors Australia has warned that these cuts would add pressure to an already stretched public health system. When will Labor stop waging war on senior Australians?
I'm asked about older Australians and their health care and the decision in the Senate by a 'noalition' of the Liberals, the Nationals, One Nation and the Greens political party to oppose this sensible reform, which importantly would just mean one thing—the same private health rebate for someone, whether they're 64 or 65—and would put every single dollar of that savings from that measure that came in by the Howard government during the mining boom, where they had to actually make changes to the Age Discrimination Act in order to bring it in, because they had rivers of gold flowing in.
What we have done is to work through aged-care reforms that are a direct result of the royal commission finding, which found in its interim report it was summed up with one word—neglect. We have an ageing of the population. We will need more resources to go into aged care, and we have a view that you have to find some of that money through sensible reform, which is what this is—sensible reform. If the basis for the Leader of the Opposition voting against this is that older Australians need more health care, yes, that is right. That is why there are pressures on the budget.
Opposition members interjecting—
The member for Cowper and the member for Lyne are now warned.
That is why they will not pay a different rebate from when they're 64 to when they hit their 65th birthday—no difference whatsoever.
Those opposite at the last election, under their then shadow treasurer, promised higher deficits and higher debt. They've already racked up $110 billion in unfunded promises, and then they want to add this to it. Well, we know last time round they ripped the guts out of the public hospital system and didn't invest in aged care. What we are doing is we've put $25 billion additional into the public hospital system through the states and territories. We're funding urgent care clinics. We've tripled the bulk-billing incentive. And what we have also done here is a sensible reform so that there is additional funding available for aged care.
My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. How is the Albanese Labor government strengthening our health and aged-care system after a decade of cuts and neglect? Why is it important to invest in aged care and deliver responsible budget management? What is standing in the way?
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! I've been crystal clear about calling ministers and people interjecting. I don't know why this is so hard for everyone. It's a pretty simple principle. People are heard in silence with their question and shown that respect, and then I give the call to the minister and the House can make its own determinations. But, until then, I just want basic principles to be followed and basic respect to be shown to everyone. The member for Petrie has asked her question. Now, I'll give the call to the Minister for Health and Ageing and Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Thank you to the member for Petrie. She knows that government has no more important job than providing high-quality, dignified aged-care services to older Australians in their final months and years on this planet. And, from the time that we were elected in 2022, there's been no higher priority for this prime minister and for the government, going through the hard work of implementing the recommendations of the royal commission into aged care—whose interim report, delivered to the former Liberal government, had a one-word title: Neglectand growing and improving the aged-care services that older Australians need.
The year we came to government, the Commonwealth spent $24 billion on aged care; this year it is $44 billion. We have tripled the number of home-care packages for older Australians in just six years. There are now registered nurses onsite in nursing homes 99 per cent of the time. Those opposite said it couldn't be done. And our staffing boost means that, every single day, eight million additional minutes of care are being delivered to older Australians in nursing homes. But we know we need more services—lots more services—with the ageing of the baby boomer population, and that is why this budget delivered more than $3 billion in additional aged-care services.
Now, while we in this government, more than any other before it, will do everything we possibly can to deliver an aged-care system worthy of the contribution older Australians have made to this country, we are also committed to sound budget management and working hard to find the responsible savings that we need to fund new services like aged care, and that's what the bill that I reintroduced into parliament this morning does.
Opposition members interjecting—
I'm sorry to interrupt the minister, but the member for Lyne has been on a warning. Everyone heard me say that. She continually interjected right throughout that answer. If you're on a warning, that means the House is asking you to assist by not interjecting, so the member for Lyne will have to leave the chamber under 94(a). The member for Casey, the member for Bowman and the member for Cowper are now all on warnings.
The member for Lyne then left the chamber.
The bill returns the private health insurance subsidy system to its original design, where households next door to each other get the same rebate, based on their income, so that households on $50,000 or $70,000 or $90,000 will all receive a quarter of their private health bill paid for by taxpayers. Now, I don't pretend this is an easy decision. I've said that from the beginning. But it is the right and necessary decision to free up the funds that we need to expand these critical aged-care services, and that is our view about better aged care.
Now, I understand the Manager of Opposition Business, when he came into the parliament this morning, moved a motion that said that those additional aged-care services—more beds, more packages—were, in his words in the motion, 'wasteful spending'. Well, that's not our view. You shouldn't be surprised—from the Liberal Party who cut funding to aged care in 2015 and 2016 and 2017, pushing the aged-care system into the crisis that led to the royal commission in the first place. Those horrific stories that Australians heard—we are determined to fix this, not supported by an opposition that pays lip-service— (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Small Business. Can the minister confirm Labor's digital duty of care bill introduces a new requirement for every small business with a website to undertake annual risk assessments, which must be kept for six years?
The Albanese government recognises the importance of small business to the Australian economy and that's why we met with the Council of Small Business Organisations, COSBOA, during the exposure draft consultation. A duty of care is not a new concept to small businesses who sell products, deliver services, hire workers and, indeed, look after their customers. Providers of low-risk services like websites and applications run by small businesses will have minimal obligations under the digital duty of care. The eSafety Commissioner will provide further regulatory guidance in due course. Now, that is in recognition of the fact that websites and apps run by small businesses generally don't: (a) facilitate any user-to-user interaction, private messaging or otherwise facilitate connection between strangers; (b) allow users of the website to upload or stream or generate content for other users; (c) provide harmful or classified materials such as pornography or high-impact violence or include design features associated with negative behavioural impacts such as recommender systems or feedback features.
The digital duty of care is important reform, as we have heard today, to protect Australians from online harm, and I am ready to work through the issues like this with all sides of parliament to get it done.
My question is to the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services. How is the Albanese Labor government delivering responsible economic management, and are there any alternative approaches?
I thank the member for Macquarie for her question. I know the member for Macquarie understands the importance of managing the economy responsibly and prudently given the challenging global economic environment. Foreign wars and economic shocks have a real impact here. It is only by delivering a growing economy with low inflation and shared prosperity that we can ensure that working people benefit.
Our approach to economic management comprises a number of key elements. The first is managing the budget well. We have improved the budget position over the last four years by around $230 billion, compared to what we inherited from those opposite. Because of this, gross debt in 2025-26 was $197.6 billion lower than estimated when we came to office. That involves saving around $70 billion in interest costs in the 11 years to 2031-32. Treasury's advice is laid out in the budget papers and is clear. These responsible actions that we have taken in the budget are helping to take the pressure off inflation.
The second is investing in the nation's future. We have put in place free TAFE. This means hundreds of thousands of Australians are getting the skills they need for the jobs that they need. This investment in skills and the supply side of the economy is so important for productivity. We have also committed to a Future Made in Australia, so important in this uncertain environment. We are building sovereign manufacturing capacity.
Our third focus is on cost-of-living relief because we know that many Australians are struggling, almost every element of which those opposite vote against, and we are delivering tax cuts for every Australian taxpayer. This means an Australian worker on the average wage will be up to $2,816 better off from 2028.
I'm asked about alternative approaches. I am sad to say that—
Opposition members interjecting—
Members on my left will cease interjecting. There's far too much noise in this chamber today. The minister will temper his language as well, and I'm asking everyone to show some restraint. It's getting absolutely ridiculous. This juvenile behaviour is unacceptable. The minister will continue.
Thanks, Mr Speaker. I'm sad to say that those members opposite have a penchant for talking big, but, when it comes to supporting legislation in the parliament to restrain spending, they go to water. They'll complain about government spending and then they will oppose efforts to curtail it. Last night they were at it again. The coalition and the Greens political party teamed up to vote against a fair and sensible save that would have supported investment in aged care.
Labor is proposing that all Australians will now receive the same private health insurance support based on income, not age. Australians over 65 will continue to receive the rebate relevant to their income. This was not an easy decision, but tough decisions are required for sensible budget management. Every dollar saved by this measure will be reinvested in more aged-care beds and better aged care for older Australians. Those opposite, in their motion, call this wasteful spending. I call on the opposition to act in the nation's best interests and pass this bill. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Small Business. Around 350,000 small businesses are operated through a trust structure. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates that these small businesses will face bills of more than $50,000 for professional advice to comply with Labor's toxic tax changes, which were not taken to an election. Minister, when will Labor stop waging war on hardworking tradies, hairdressers and other small-business owners?
Can I just say from the outset that these reforms to trusts are incredibly significant reforms. They are reforms that will make our system fairer, and they are long overdue. These reforms to trusts are about better aligning the tax treatment of income from assets with income from work and helping to fund tax cuts for workers. Trusts allow some Australians to plan their tax affairs in ways that aren't available to most workers and families.
It's important to put this in some context. There have been a number of major reviews of the tax system over the last 50 years, dating all the way back to the ASPI review. The McMahon government commissioned that review, and it was handed to the Whitlam government. We then had the Henry review under the Howard government and the major review of business taxes under Abbott. All these reviews pointed to discretionary trust taxes as requiring attention and as requiring reform. It's this government that has taken the hard decisions to take on that much needed reform. It's important to note that in the last 20 years the number of trusts has doubled, and a significant proportion of that growth has been in discretionary trusts. The majority of trust income flows to the top-earning 10 per cent of families, and about 90 per cent of total private trust wealth is held by the wealthiest 10 per cent of households. The vast majority of Australians and the vast majority of small businesses do not operate through a trust.
When it comes to compliance costs, it is important to note that the compliance costs of our reforms are set out in the documents, and they'll be a fraction of some of the figures that are in the public realm. The difference between the estimates in the bill and those being reported by some is that the estimates in the bill have been prepared carefully and rigorously by Treasury—whereas the estimates that are noted by some opposite were prepared by the shadow Treasurer's cousin! Treasury estimates are based on established methodologies for compliance costs. They've been informed by stakeholder input. And they reflect that trusts will have different advice needs depending on their circumstances. Around half of trusts won't be affected in any given year, with low advice needs and no need to restructure.
Could I also say, in relation to small business, that it's very important to note that in the bill that was introduced by the Treasurer earlier this week there are two different methods for restructuring, and that was informed by stakeholder feedback. This is a very important measure. This will make our tax system fairer. Those opposites seem to be the only ones who think our tax system is all operating fine. We don't. We're going to reform it.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Today the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia is holding its national conference here at Parliament House. How does the contribution of multicultural communities strengthen Australia's economy and society? And what other responses to this contribution are there?
I thank the extraordinary member for Barton, and I thank her for the work she does with the many multicultural groups in her electorate, which borders mine. This morning I had the great pleasure of speaking to the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia. What FECCA does is embody the spirit of a country that has long offered migrants the gift of opportunity. It's an offer that migrants have, in turn, responded to with extraordinary energy and initiative. Migration plays an essential role in our country and throughout our lives, from maternity wards to the nursing home and every stage in between, because migration adds to our prosperity and builds our strength. The people that migration has brought us work hard and they pay taxes. They add to the bottom line and they lift our ambitions as a country by expanding our sense of possibility. They underpin our world-class health system in particular, with their skill and their stamina, from doctors right down to orderlies and nurses and the people in aged care—which, simply, without migration, would really struggle to fill those positions.
They boost our economy. They have entrepreneurial spirit. More than a third of small-business owners in Australia were born overseas, and the common link is a profound enthusiasm to be part of the great Australian story. That was a theme of the conference that's taking place here, in this building, today. People have come from all over the world but are loyal to Australia and want to be part of the Australian story. It's a story that we are writing the next chapter on as we speak, a story that we'll continue to write for generations and a story that, at a time when the world is so troubled with conflict based upon religion and people looking for differences, we can be a microcosm for the world, because, overwhelmingly, people live in harmony here, in Australia. We're enriched by our diversity and people being able to celebrate who they are, practice their culture, practice their language, bring all their food and everything else that they bring—dancing and music—here, in Australia, but at the same time are loyal to Australia.
Migration has helped power Australia's growth and development. Ultimately, through hard work, aspiration and a love of country, migrants do something wonderful. They become Australians. They become us and who we are. Our conversation about immigration should be in these terms. We need sensible discussion about immigration. That's fine. What we should not do is use immigration to stir up division or to say to people that the reason why their lot in life isn't as good as they think it should be is because of someone who isn't just like them. It is un-Australian— (Time expired)
My question is to the Attorney-General. Women in Curtin have told me about the continued abuse they've experienced from former partners through family law systems. The Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission found that family law and justice systems are continuing to cause harm. It recommends your department lead a time-bound program that builds on past reviews, with measurable actions to address this. Will the government commit to that program so that our justice systems keep women safe?
I thank the honourable member for her very important question. The Albanese government is committed to ending family, domestic and sexual violence and strengthening the safety of women and children across Australia. Because the tragic reality is that too many women and children continue to lose their lives to violence, most often, at the hands of those whom they should be able to trust. The violence and these deaths must stop. In respect of the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner's 2026 yearly report to parliament which the member references, a recommendation of that report does go to building on and strengthening existing justice and family law reforms, including working with states and territories through the Standing Council of Attorneys-General.
The honourable member is very right. Every woman and child has the right to be safe, including when they turn to our courts and justice systems for help. The commission's report makes clear that, while important progress has been made, there is much more work to do. That goes to the question of systems abuse that the member raises, particularly in responding to sexual violence and ensuring our family law and justice systems support safety rather than providing another system for abuse.
While it is relevant to note there is more to do, significant reform has been undertaken in this respect under the Albanese government. We have fundamentally reformed Australia's family law system to put the safety and best interests of children at its centre, including removing the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility and making family violence, abuse and neglect central to decisions about what's in a child's best interests. We have strengthened the courts' capacity to identify and respond to family violence and other safety risks, and we continue to work on how to improve the family law system and how it responds where perpetrators seek to use processes themselves as a form of abuse, including in relation to cross-examination.
I can assure the member the commissioner's report is an important input as we build on existing efforts in developing the Second Action Plan under the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children. That plan will guide our work over the next five years and will strengthen national coordination and ensure governments are focused on practical actions that improve safety and outcomes for victim-survivors. As a practical example within my portfolio, in March this year we announced the establishment of new specialised trauma-informed sexual-violence legal services pilots in New South Wales and Queensland, and they build on the expansion and extension of the pilots already operating in the ACT and in Western Australia and the establishment of new pilots in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania, which we announced in November 2025. In conclusion, I can inform the House that women and children's safety are standing items on the SCAG agenda, which I chair, and the commission's report is the first agenda item at next month's SCAG.
Before I call the member for Richmond, I'm pleased to advise the House we have a delegation of members of One Gippsland, a regional advocacy group, as guests of the member for Monash in the gallery with us today.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
My question is to the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors. How is the Albanese Labor government supporting the workers who help our older Australians stay in their own homes, and why is this necessary after years of neglect? What policies would threaten this support?
I thank the member for Richmond. As a former minister for ageing, she plays a critical role in shaping our government's approach to our once-in-a-generation reforms to the aged-care system. More and more older Australians are wanting to stay in their homes for as long as they can, and they deserve to be able to do that with dignity and safety. This Labor government is doing all we can to meet that record demand for home care. But the people who make it all possible are the dedicated, highly skilled aged-care workers who knock on the doors of older Australians each and every day: the driver who gets them to their medical appointments, the nurse who checks their vitals and changes their dressings and the local council worker who makes sure that their house is clean and the pantry is stocked. When Support at Home began 12 months ago, we knew our work wasn't over. We said we'd continuously improve how we run home care in this country.
How have we done that? We've taken the time to listen to older people and those that care for them. They told us showering, dressing and continence care should be treated as clinical care. So that's what we did. On 1 October, personal care under Support at Home became fully funded by the Albanese Labor government, a $1 billion investment for almost 400,000 Australians funded in the budget using PHI savings. That means the conversation between older Australians and their home-care provider can be more about care and not about cost. We've also listened to the more than 800,000 older Australians who rely on the Commonwealth Home Support Program for their aged care. Around 1,300 providers deliver those services—councils, community groups, Meals on Wheels, not-for-profits—and they told us they needed certainty, so we've extended the program to 2029. That's giving confidence not just to providers but to the older people who rely on it and the thousands of workers who deliver it. Listening to what people need is how we've backed this workforce from day one, when workers were leaving the sector thanks to their paltry wages under the former coalition government. We came to office, and we increased aged-care wages. We invested $18 billion. We put registered nurses in every aged-care home around the clock 24/7.
As you can see, Mr Speaker, while there's more work to do, we're making progress to build and strengthen our aged-care workforce, but instead those opposite want to get rid of the visas that many of these workers rely on to work here. That will shrink our aged-care workforce and leave older Australians waiting longer for aged care. That's the difference. They see a workforce they can cut and a care economy they can gut. There is always more work to do, but this Labor government listens to older people. We listen to the workers who care for them, and we'll continue to deliver for both.
My question is to the minister for Small Business. Today the Daily Telegraph revealed the minister spent more than $150,000 travelling to nine countries in four months. Thirty businesses have gone bust every single day she's been overseas. Minister, when are you going to stop jetting around the world and start fighting for small business?
Government members interjecting—
Order, members on my right!
Order! The Minister for Defence Personnel, the member for Maribyrnong and the Minister for Defence Industry will cease interjecting. When the House comes to—
The Prime Minister will cease interjecting.
Mr Albanese interjecting—
Order! When the Prime Minister ceases, we will hear from the minister. There was far too much noise during that question. I wasn't happy with that level of noise. I want the minister to be heard in silence.
As the member is aware, I'm also the Minister for International Development, which is a portfolio within Foreign Affairs and Trade and which obviously has a requirement for me to travel internationally on behalf of our country.
My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. How is the Albanese Labor government helping Australian businesses with the challenges of cybersecurity?
I thank the member for Reid for the question and, in particular, for the work that the member for Reid is leading on cybersecurity with the House of Representatives Committee. When we talk about different threats to the country, particularly in terms of terrorism, we often talk about whether a threat is 'possible' or 'probable'. We don't tend to use that language with respect to cybersecurity, because the threat is always certain. Our critical infrastructure and our government institutions are constantly under attack. Some of those cyberattacks come from criminal gangs and some of them come from state actors. But the work in particular of the Australian Signals Directorate in making sure that we help critical infrastructure and government institutions be able to have the strongest possible cyber defences is as much part of our national security as anything else that we do.
The work of the Signals Directorate has traditionally provided advice to government and to critical infrastructure through a process known as the Essential Eight. That process and those essential eight documents have now been updated, and the new documents were released today. Effectively, we need to constantly update them with the new methods that people, those who want to do us harm, are using. The simplest example I'd give would be artificial intelligence. The gap between a hostile actor finding a vulnerability and being able to exploit it used to be roughly 2½ years. It's now 10 hours between finding the vulnerability and exploiting it. We need to make sure that we have the best possible cybersecurity across government and critical infrastructure to be able to keep Australians safe.
The new advice that's come from the Signals Directorate has a series of different themes that are part of it, but there are three new areas in particular that I would highlight. The first is the focus on the human firewall. We've started to find that businesses can invest extraordinary amounts of money in the technical firewall only to find that a well-meaning member of their own staff has inadvertently opened the door. There are gangs like Scattered Spider that exist throughout the English-speaking world that are trained at basically building relationships and pretending they're the help desk so that eventually somebody will unwittingly upload something that never would have made it through the technical firewall.
The second area that the new documents deal with, importantly, is legacy technology. Legacy technology is not just something that's old. It could be new or old, but it's something that can't be updated and can't be patched. Those constant patches and regular updates are a big part of how we make sure that new vulnerabilities, as they're found, are quickly shut down. But legacy technology and edge devices—sometimes people wonder why we are worried about all these other sorts of devices—often, if they can't be patched and updated, then become a pathway to infecting an entire system.
Finally, the supply chain—a business itself can have great cybersecurity, but if parts of their supply chain, businesses that they rely on or other operators who plug into their devices don't have the same level of cybersecurity, you can get a similar threat. I want to congratulate the Signals Directorate, thank them for the extraordinary work they do, and remind everybody about the importance of constantly checking and updating on these issues.
My question is to the Prime Minister. After four and a half years of your government, real wages are going backwards. Corporate profits are increasing while Australians' living standards are worse. Instead of blaming others, will you accept responsibility as Prime Minister of Australia?
I thank the member for Ryan for her question. I'm asked about a comparison between our government after four years, and I'm happy to give some. Employment is now 14.8 million. It was 13.5 million when we were elected. The participation rate is higher today than it was then, even in spite of the growth in population. It is 66.8 per cent, up half a per cent even with the increased population. The gender pay gap was 14.2 per cent. It's now 11.3 per cent, a record low, the lowest it has ever been. Women employed full time—the member would be interested—has gone from 3.6 million to 4.1 million. There were 128,000 industrial disputes in the last quarter of the coalition government. In the June quarter, the latest figures, it's now 21,200. It's down almost by one out of six. Annual headline inflation, of course, had a six in front. Now it's got a four in front. Annual wage growth was 2.6. It's now 3.2. The investment the whole way through, in the budget—
Honourable members interjecting—
You asked the question.
The member for Ryan has a point of order.
The question went to the cost-of-living crisis and the challenges comparatively—
No, there was no mention of the cost of living in the question. There was—
Honourable members interjecting—
No. We'll deal with this in an orderly way. It was a question to the Prime Minister. After four and a half years of your government, real wages are going backwards and profits are increasing while Australian living standards—there was a lot in the question, and the Prime Minister is giving facts and figures about the question he was asked. He is being directly relevant.
When it comes to fiscal policy, something that's been the subject of some debate today, a $78 billion deficit was anticipated in their last year. We turned that into a $22 billion surplus thanks to the Treasurer. The next year, the $56 billion deficit was turned into a $15 billion surplus by this government. In 2024-25, a $47 billion deficit was reduced to $10 billion. And in the last year, 2025-26, a $42.9 billion deficit was reduced to $20.3 billion. I do welcome the question, because what we are building is a stronger economy, a stronger Medicare, a responsible budget, more jobs, lower income taxes, higher wages and Australia's skill base through free TAFE. All of these measures are making a major difference from what we inherited in spite of the opposition that comes from those opposite and, occasionally, the opposition that comes from the 'no-alition', such as it did with the Greens party decision to oppose— (Time expired.)
My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. How is the Albanese Labor government responding to the latest H5 bird flu detections?
I want to thank the member for Bass. As a fellow Tasmanian, I know she has been keenly watching the H5 bird flu incursion as it's come across the country and across our home state as I know many members in this place have, and that's why our government has been acting over the past two years to prepare and respond. That's why we've backed that in with more than $270 million to ensure that we are as prepared as we can be and able to respond to the H5 bird flu.
But sadly I do need to update the member for Bass in relation to the advice I've received from the Tasmanian government today that H5 bird flu is suspected to have reached Macquarie Island, south of Tasmania. There's been suspected H5 in a kelp gull and a southern elephant seal. These are samples that were collected by researchers from the Australian Antarctic Division during their most recent mission and immediately tested in the Tasmanian state laboratory following the mission's return this week. Further testing will now be undertaken at the CSIRO laboratory, and we'll provide updates as those results become available.
If confirmed, these would be the first cases of H5 bird flu on Macquarie Island. Whilst concerning, it's not unexpected that the H5 bird flu would reach Macquarie Island, particularly given what we've seen in the other subantarctic islands. Importantly, I have been advised that other species that were sampled—such as the skuas, the giant petrels and the penguins—have tested negative, and there were no reports of any unusual illnesses or mass mortalities in wildlife before the personnel departed Macquarie Island late last week.
I can also tell the House that we've now had 706 H5 bird flu events nationally in our wildlife with no detection still on our agriculture or poultry systems and that the risk to human health remains low. Of the 706 events, we've had 330 in South Australia, 243 in Victoria, 70 in New South Wales, 50 in Tasmania, 10 in Western Australia, two in Queensland and one in Jervis Bay. There have been over 62,000 calls to our emergency hotline and over half a million views on birdflu.gov.au. I again want to thank Australians for reporting sick or dead birds and other animals.
In some better news, I'm pleased to advise the House that we've now agreed with the South Australian government that we will vaccinate the little penguin colony on Granite Island as guided by our agreed national framework. As I indicated earlier this week, there have now been over 3,000 H5 bird flu vaccines administered to priority wildlife species nationwide as part of our now more than 12,000 birds that we've identified for vaccination that will be vaccinated according to the advice from our experts. As I've said, this is the largest vaccination effort of its kind undertaken globally.
My question is to the Minister for Small Business. There are over 60,000 small businesses in the construction sector that operate as trusts. Master Builders Australia said there is 'a complete lack of practical understanding of the cumulative pressures the government is placing on small businesses'. How much more tax is Labor planning on collecting from small businesses in the building sector, and how much will that add to the cost of housing?
I thank the member for the question, and I reiterate the fact that these are important reforms. These are reforms that are needed for the fairness of our system, and I reiterate that these are reforms that have been informed by extensive stakeholder consultation. In the bill that the Treasurer introduced earlier this week, there are two different mechanisms by which small businesses can restructure, and they are contained in schedule 2 and schedule 3. Schedule 2 contains a mechanism by which it is possible for a business to move to a corporate structure, and there will be rollover relief in relation to Commonwealth taxes. Schedule 3 relates to an election method, which is something which has been added—again, after stakeholder consultation. That will provide for relief, which includes, on our advice, relief from state transaction taxes. We believe that providing that additional restructuring option is a very significant improvement in the overall package, and we believe that this is a package which is delivering both fairness and appropriate flexibility.
My question is to the minister for infrastructure. How is the Albanese Labor government delivering real change through infrastructure investment in Western Sydney and across Australia? How does this compare to other approaches?
I thank the member for Werriwa for her question. I've spent a bit of time with her in Western Sydney due to the incredible infrastructure projects and construction jobs that we have underway in her part of the world. These projects, like the M12 motorway, which opened earlier this year, are all part of the Albanese government's $18 billion commitment to Western Sydney, creating jobs in that region, cutting travel times and getting people home safely.
I am so pleased to say that in just 10 days time we will reach another incredible milestone, one that will transform the way people in Western Sydney travel. Next Sunday, the Western Sydney international airport will open and the first passenger flight will take off. Whether it's to the Gold Coast, Auckland, Ho Chi Minh City or Singapore, over the coming months we will see Western Sydney international airport open to the world. WSI has been a project decades in the making, kicking off over 15 years ago under a former Labor infrastructure minister. The entire WSI project has supported over 12,800 jobs, with around half of these jobs going to local workers in Western Sydney. And those jobs will continue, with the Nancy-Bird Walton terminal and the brand new cargo and business precincts as well. It is a great opportunity for Western Sydney, and I look forward to seeing the many members of parliament, including those opposite, who have been invited to the opening.
The government is, of course, delivering real change for Western Sydney through our infrastructure investment, new jobs, new industries and new ways to travel, and we're delivering real change right the way across the country. Further north in New South Wales, the Coffs Harbour bypass is nearing completion. Once finished, this will mean you can travel from Melbourne to the Queensland border without hitting a single set of traffic lights—fantastic news for our freight industry. It comes off the back of the opening of the M1 at Raymond Terrace as well. We've got the Singleton bypass, which is about to open soon, and the Newcastle inner city bypass, which is also opening soon. We've been getting on with the job of really delivering those projects, turning those press releases into actual action and actual delivery on behalf of this government.
The member for Casey is on a warning.
In Western Australia, we'll see the Fremantle bridge opening on 1 November—huge investment, again, by both levels of government. In Queensland, our $7.2 billion investment in the Bruce Highway is constantly making progress, and safety improvements were recently completed in Gin Gin—all committed to under a Labor government. In Victoria, we're investing in the Melbourne Airport Rail. We're seeing that at stage 2. Again, we've made an announcement there. And I know the member for McEwen will be pretty excited that the Watson Street interchange is about to open in his electorate, something that was languishing under those opposite.
My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. How long was the fire ant nest that was discovered at the Enfield intermodal there for?
I thank the member for New England for that question. As I outlined yesterday, the timeframe was that we first detected the red imported fire ants on 23 September as part of routine surveillance. The New South Wales department was advised the next day and activities commenced, and the initial site treatment was completed by 28 September. That included the direct nest injection to ensure the nest was destroyed and treated, in terms of the cracks and crevices.
The minister will pause. The minister is reading out a timeline that the question was related to, so she is being directly relevant, but I'll hear the member for New England's point of order.
Mr Speaker, with due respect, I was very direct. I don't want the subsequent timeline. I asked the question, 'How long was the nest there for?' because that's the question that's been asked of me by the authorities.
Well, the minister has two minutes and 30 seconds to go. She may have the answer; I don't know. But I can't compel her under standing orders to give a date or time. She's talking about the issue she was asked about. She's being directly relevant. She's not talking about anything other than the question, so I'll listen carefully and see what she says for the remaining two minutes and 27 seconds.
I can assure the member for New England that we are taking this very seriously as a government, and we're working very closely with the New South Wales department and government in relation to this detection. We are undertaking further surveillance, tracing and baiting, and the testing to date has shown that these ants are not related. The genetic analysis confirms that this is not from South-East Queensland, which is, of course, as the member for New England would know, the only active infestation of fire ants in Australia. So this has clearly come in from elsewhere, and we're doing the tracing, the surveillance and the baiting. At this stage, I can confirm there's no evidence of any spread beyond the site.
My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. How is the Albanese Labor government getting wages moving for working Australians? What policies would deliver lower wages for Australian workers?
I'd like to thank the member for Boothby not only for her question but also her commitment to improving wages for working Australians. Of course, our Labor government has taken significant action to help hardworking Australians earn more and to get wages moving. It is only this Labor government that works to improve wages for Australians. And, while our policies are aimed at delivering better wages for workers, I'm also asked by the member for Boothby what would deliver lower wages.
There are those in this place and out of this place that advocate for policies to cut workers' pay, and there's no more notorious an organisation for advocating for policies to lower wages than the famous HR Nicholls Society. Recently, the HR Nicholls Society announced a 14-point plan that, if legislated, would decimate the pay packets of working Australians and usher in WorkChoices on steroids. This plan was launched with a lot of fanfare. And who was the keynote speaker that rushed to endorse this plan? None other than the current shadow minister for workplace relations, Senator Hume, who was vocally cheering on this 14-point plan.
While this Labor government has advocated for wage increases to minimum award wages and for the protection of penalty rates, the Liberals are endorsing the HR Nicholls blueprint that would abolish awards and the safety net in this country. This Labor government has changed workplace bargaining laws that are delivering higher wages, including for early childhood educators. Not only has the coalition voted against those laws; they've now endorsed the HR Nicholls plan that would take these workers backwards. Our government introduced same job, same pay laws, which have led to more than 8,000 workers receiving significant pay rises. But, consistent with the coalition's previous commitments, they've again endorsed the intention of the HR Nicholls Society to repeal same job, same pay laws.
It comes as no surprise to anyone in this House that the party of WorkChoices—the party that bragged about low wages as a deliberate design feature of their economic policy—are again endorsing a plan to cut wages. Of course, we all know they'll be supported by One Nation, who voted against these laws to improve the lives of working people and have repeatedly failed to back wage rises for hardworking Australians. It is only this Labor government that Australians can rely on.
On that note, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
These documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
I have received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The damage done by the current Treasurer's taxes on every Australian small and family business.
I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.
More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
I've noted that the Prime Minister still hasn't published his speech that he made to business leaders on Monday night. He hasn't published it, and I think I know from the noise I hear from behind me that we know why. It's because the Prime Minister used his speech to tell them that he had overruled the Treasurer. You can see it now: the Prime Minister, in all his arrogance—the saviour, the hero, the white knight—personally intervening, delaying the tax office's absurd ban on credit cards for small businesses, countermanding his treasurer and not stepping back but stepping in, showing who's in charge. He mogged the Treasurer. That's what he did. He showed the Treasurer who wears the pants in the relationship. That's what he did.
You would have to be living on Mars not to see the rift in the relationship between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. The Treasurer wasn't here today, but—I'll tell you what—the Prime Minister looked very happy not having the Treasurer here today. He looked very happy calling the Assistant Treasurer to come forth and cover for his hapless minister for small business. He did it on multiple occasions. I am tempted to liken this to the Hawke-Keating rift, but it would be an insult to compare two economic heavyweights—I'll make that concession with Hawke and Keating—to the complete lightweights we have in the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. In question time, Labor's Caesar and Pompey are putting on quite a show—the forced smiles, the contrived statements of unanimity. You see the Treasurer looking down at his phone when the Prime Minister has to answer why he shouldn't sack his hapless treasurer. Even the doctor of spin can't spin away his ruptured relationship with the Prime Minister. He can't do it. Even this truth-twisting prime minister can't reframe the relationship between the two.
It's not just the Prime Minister and the Treasurer who are at loggerheads. Cabinet ministers are leaking. Backbenchers are speaking out. The member for Parramatta, today, was out. The Attorney-General was out. Lefty is turning on lefty, and there's nothing like lefty turning on lefty. There is nothing like it. It is back to the future, because I see it all over again. The Rudd-Gillard years are happening all over again.
Most importantly, Australians are seeing the wheels falling off the wagon with this government. What a shocking week for the government. The Federal Court overturned the Minister for the Environment and Water's decision on the Blayney gold mine—a decision that should never have been made, wrecking a great town in central western New South Wales, taking away the future of that town. A court has overruled that decision—a humiliation for the government.
Yesterday, there was yet another embarrassment, when the Senate rightly banded together to overturn the decision this government had made to hurt the over-65s by taking away their support for private health insurance. But it's worse: that proposal was going to hurt every Australian by adding to congestion in the public health system. We've fought long and hard against Labor's mean-spirited cash grab.
There have been other shockers this week. The government distributed $300,000 to an Islamist extremist media company that has been spewing hatred against Australian Jews—absolute shame.
Then there's the government's abhorrent legislation to put a tax on trusts. These are the very hardest working Australians. They don't get what employees get. They don't get a fixed income. They have to earn every single dollar they earn. This government wants to punish the tradies, the truckies, the farmers, the pharmacists, the cafe and restaurant owners, the builders—who build this country, who make this country what it is. Now, if the hopeless minister for small business actually visited some small businesses instead of spending $150,000 on overseas jaunts, she would appreciate that hundreds of thousands of Australian small businesses use that structure for flexibility because they need it. They are working harder than ever for less than ever. That is the reality, and we hear it every single day. I was with Tiffany today in Garran; she owns a cafe there. She is working seven days a week, every single week, and this government punishes her and every other small-business person in the country with its decisions.
Now, the wheels are falling off the wagon. Will the Prime Minister dump the Treasurer, or will the Treasurer dump the Prime Minister—or will there be a complete clean-out? I think the Assistant Treasurer is waiting for his opportunity. The members for Hindmarsh and Parramatta, as well as the Assistant Treasurer—they're strutting their stuff. He was out there today; we saw him. He's about to do it again! I don't know where the member for Parramatta is. I'd have thought he'd be doing a bit of an audition today as well.
The sad reality is that it doesn't matter who's in the chair. You're going to get the same policies every single time, where we see government spending at a 40-year high outside of the pandemic, fuelling inflation; 16 interest rate increases; 30 business failures a day; everything costing more—groceries, mortgages, insurance, you name it; the worst collapse in living standards in the developed world; power bills skyrocketing 40 per cent—still waiting for that $275. They came down 10 per cent when I was minister. I got the runs on the board, but there are no runs on the board from this hapless minister for climate change and energy. Confidence smashed, enterprise obstructed, investment hindered, productivity back five per cent—that means Australians are working five per cent harder for the same they were getting 4½ years ago. This is the reality of modern Australia: managed decline by this government.
Well, there's a better way. That means axing Labor's toxic taxes, red tape and waste—their tax on small businesses, on houses, capital gains. It means getting rid of the waste of this government—a trillion dollars of debt, green hydrogen. Even the energy minister's admitted it was a mirage—$7 billion a year of mirage. There's the red tape—2,000 pages in the National Construction Code, telling a builder how to build a house, adding $70,000 to the cost of building a house. We'll scrap their net zero. We'll scrap that energy minister with it because he's been absolutely hopeless. We will dig and drill for our coal and our oil in this country—and uranium. We will raise the moratorium on nuclear in this country.
We will end Labor's mass migration and replace it with skilled migration. We've never seen anything like it: 1.5 million people in four years—the population of Adelaide. At the end of that, small businesses still can't get the people they need. Those opposite are creating a guest worker economy—three million people on temporary visas, up almost a million since they came to government. We will change that. We will oversee the end of bridging visas, which are being exploited in this country. We will make sure our universities are selling educational excellence, not visas, and we will put Australians first. We'll protect our flag, our national day, our statues, because we believe this is the greatest country on earth—it just doesn't feel like that for so many Australians right now. Australia is worth fighting for, and we will fight every single day to get Australia back.
I can only imagine, when news went out in the community this morning that the opposition leader was hosting an MPI today on small business that small business operators around the country thought, 'Here's my chance in my very busy day to take a little time out to log into live streaming of parliament to hear the opposition leader's great plans on small business.' All around the community, people had great expectation about this Thursday afternoon's MPI, where the opposition leader would finally lay it all out—his plan for small business. Although I don't want to misrepresent parliament and suggest that that is literally true, what I would say is the reason why it's important to imagine a small business operator logging into today's streaming is because, if any small business operator was actually listening to that last 10 minutes, what they would have heard was about just anything but small-business issues. It was about six minutes into that 10-minute speech, the first time that I heard 'small business' mentioned. Instead, what we heard was minute after minute of juvenile personal attacks, a rambling stream-of-conscious tour through the issues of the day according to the Leader of the Opposition—or rather stream of the subconscious. What we heard in that last 10 minutes was really the problem of the opposition—their knee-jerk reaction to every single issue of the day with an irresponsible populist response rather than a coherent response.
I'm going to talk in my speech about small business, about the actual topic of the MPI. I'm going to start by saying that we on this side understand that small businesses are the backbone of the Australian economy. Small businesses are the local cafe owner operating before dawn; the tradie working on weekends to grow their business; the retailer backing their community and the family business, employing local people; the small business operators working long hours putting their whole into their business, taking risks, and taking an idea and a dream and making it into a business reality. There are more than 2.7 million small businesses operating across Australia, and they employ millions of Australians. We understand that and that's why it's such a priority for this government.
We understand that higher costs, skills shortages, supply chain disruptions and rising interest rates have all placed pressure on small businesses, who are already doing it tough, and that's why we have a whole raft of policies that we have already delivered, and so many more that we are working on and will deliver in the future. We have already provided so much support to small business through the tax system. One that stands out is making the $20,000 instant asset write-off deduction permanent. That is something which small business had been calling for, for a long time. Until the last budget, it had been an annual dance as to whether it would be included in the next budget. Now small business has certainty on this deduction that is so important for so many businesses.
We are delivering $3.5 billion in business tax relief to support investment, productivity and growth. We are introducing a permanent two-year loss carry-back for eligible businesses. This will help businesses recover faster and invest with greater confidence, and that is so important in times like this, with uncertainty in global conditions, with uncertainty in broader economic conditions.
Around 1.5 million sole traders will benefit from our tax relief measures for working Australians. We are also working on cutting red tape across the economy, including for small business. In the last budget we identified over $10 billion in savings from better designed regulation.
The Leader of the Opposition mentioned the National Construction Code. They left the National Construction Code in a position where it was imposing huge costs. As a result of the three-day Economic Reform Roundtable convened by the Treasurer, the National Construction Code has been frozen. I identify and applaud the work of the Minister for Housing. That is going to lead to more houses being built. That's something which we did. The opposition, when they were in government for almost a decade, didn't move anywhere near that. It's not surprising in some ways because, for so much of that period, they didn't even have a minister for housing in the cabinet. We're helping small business deal with so many of these cost pressures.
We're also dealing with a range of other measures that affect small business, including helping them with their energy bills. We've provided significant relief in previous budgets to energy bills. The surcharging reforms are important reforms that have been called on for so long by consumers and businesses alike. Australia is one of the leaders in fintech, in financial and payment system technology. I was at an event this morning where we were lauding the efforts of innovation in the fintech sector. But, when it came to surcharging, we were basically the last major advanced economy to have surcharging. So the RBA made recommendations and then implemented a ban on surcharging. This is very important for consumer transparency. It means that the price that is advertised is the price that you'll tap.
What we understood is that small business needed a transition period. The ATO implemented a transition period of two months. When we heard loud and clear that small business needed longer, we acted. That transition period will now operate all the way through to the end of the financial year, 30 June next year. The Treasurer and I have asked the ATO commissioner to work on arrangements—for example, for hardship—going beyond 30 June next year.
Labor has strengthened protections for franchisees and is boosting enforcement of the Franchising Code of Conduct. We have also extended unfair trading protections to small business so that large businesses can't use their market power to push small operators around. This includes, for example, measures which the assistant minister for Treasury, the member for Fenner, has worked on with the Treasurer in relation to increasing price-gouging penalties tenfold. These are important measures which have been very instrumental in making sure that companies face real threats if they abuse their market power.
We're also promoting faster payments for contractors and subcontractors working on major Commonwealth backed projects, because small businesses should not be left waiting to be paid for work that they've undertaken. We understand how important cash flow is for small businesses. Small businesses don't pay their bills with rhetoric. The last 10-minute contribution, by the Leader of the Opposition, had so much rhetoric. As I said, it was a bare minority, a sliver, of that speech that even referred to small business. These are concrete actions that we've taken that have reduced the tax bill, that have reduced the regulatory burden and that have improved regulatory structures for small business. Those opposite, from the almost decade that they were in power, could point to almost nothing in that realm that was actually delivered.
Let's look at the alternative and what's actually happened in practice. Time and again, those opposite have opposed measures designed to support workers, households and economic growth. We know they've opposed almost every cost-of-living support during this last 4½ years. We know they've opposed tax cuts for every Australian taxpayer, but they have also delayed support for small businesses, including extensions to the instant asset write-off when those measures came before parliament. So those opposite talk the big talk—and this was something which came up a lot in question time today—but, when it comes to actually voting for measures that will help small business, when it actually comes to voting for measures that will reduce tax burden and when it actually comes to tough measures that are needed for responsible economic management, they decline to take that opportunity time and time again.
The coalition and One Nation are also falling over themselves to announce the biggest, most unrealistic, most unmodelled cuts to migration. Their plan will affect the cafe owner trying to find staff, the regional business that can't recruit workers or the employer who's trying to find skilled workers to grow. That's why business peak bodies around the country are complaining about the irresponsible behaviour of the opposition chasing One Nation in a race to the bottom. It's just one other manifestation of their incredibly incoherent and irresponsible approach to economic management. On top of that, it's an entirely cynical political exercise which is going to have very damaging repercussions for social cohesion.
I want to focus today—unlike the Leader of the Opposition and, I imagine, some further speakers—on the actual topic at hand: small business. I want to re-emphasise that there is a long list of things we've done for small business. That is very concrete. There is more to do. We understand—I understand—that many small businesses are still doing it tough, so we will continue, in the next budget and budgets in the future, to do more. But we have done a lot that is proof positive that we take this issue very seriously.
That was a solid audition from my friend the Assistant Treasurer. I'll give him credit: at least he did stick to policy. We do know that the current treasurer, when under pressure, resorts to attacking personally, so I'll give the Assistant Treasurer credit for that. But I will talk about policy and I'll talk about alternatives. The minister mentioned the instant asset write-off. What he didn't talk about was that the Labor government voted against increasing the instant asset write-off to $50,000 per year for small business. They talk about how important the instant asset write-off is, but they refuse to increase it to $50,000 to help every business across the community. The assistant minister talked about freezing the construction code and what a great policy that was. What the assistant minister forgot to mention was that was the coalition policy at the 2025 election that this government was happy to steal and rebadge because they had no ideas of their own. He was also happy to talk about banning surcharges. Clearly, the assistant minister hasn't been talking to small business about their thoughts on banning surcharges.
I've been out talking to my community. A small-business owner sent this text to me recently: 'Why would you bother running a business in Oz, mate? Small business is expected to absorb credit card surcharges. ATO says no to credit cards. I just got a business credit card to pay the ATO. It's hard to cop along with everything else.' That's how small-business owners in my community—and, I have no doubt, small-business owners on the Labor backbench—are feeling. While we're here in Canberra, it's 3.47 back in Victoria, and I know that, right now, there are tradies and business owners who have been up since 4.30 or 5 o'clock this morning. They've driven to the job site, they've finished up for the day and they'll be stuck, probably, in traffic on the Eastern Freeway, trying to get back home. But, as they're in that car, they'll be thinking. They'll be thinking, 'How do I pay my staff, how do I pay my apprentice, how do I pay my suppliers and how do I make it all add up so I can put some food on the table for my family and pay my bills?' Then, when they get home this afternoon, they'll spend some time with their families, but, as they're playing with their kids, they'll be thinking: 'How do I make it all add up? How do I make this work? I've got everything on the line.' Then, when they put their head down on the pillow tonight, after they've kissed their kids goodnight, they'll be thinking, 'How do I make this work? How do I keep my staff employed? How do I pay the bills? How do I keep going?'
That is the reality of running a small business across this country and in my community of Casey today. They will have just a sliver of comfort in the background, particularly if they're a tradie. They'll go: 'Well, the only silver lining, if I have to lose it all—because all my costs have gone up, subcontractors are more expensive, I'm not getting paid, the builder might have gone broke and I can't make it work—is that at least my house is okay. At least my house is okay because it's in a trust.' Not anymore. This treasurer and this government are coming after you to make sure that you can't put your house and your personal assets in a trust anymore to keep them safe. You will have to pay more and more. If you want to restructure, you will be caught by this government.
The reality is that this treasurer hasn't spent a day in business. He hasn't understood the pain that you face and the challenges that you face. He cannot comprehend a world where trusts are for small-business owners and for tradies just looking to get ahead, looking to protect their family. As a small-business owner, you're going to have to now go to your accountant. You're going to have to go to your financial adviser and potentially pay tens of thousands of dollars to look to restructure. That is the world that we are living in under this government.
Not you!
I will take the interjections from those opposite, because they know it's an uncomfortable topic, but the reality is that they have to deal with this treasurer. They don't support him, but they've got to sit there quietly and continue to background to other journalists.
I am fond of the member for Casey, and I think he was a bit forward-leaning when talking about auditions, because he was holding up a mirror during that speech and really could see himself at the dispatch box as a more prominent role, I would think, in whatever world happens after they roll the Leader of the Opposition. This hapless leader of the opposition's rambling speech at the start of this MPI was unbecoming of the office that he holds. If you want to look at the Leader of the Opposition's calibre right now, you can go onto his social media. The sorts of posts that that page has currently going on right now about the Minister for Small Business show exactly the substance of the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition, frankly, should take that post down right now. If any of your staff are watching right now, they should just take a good, hard, long look at themselves and think about what they're doing in this place and the office that they hold as the alternative office seeking to be the prime minister of this country. I would just say, to the Leader of the Opposition, don't go that low. You don't need to. This country and this parliament deserve someone who occupies your office to have more respect than that.
The other thing I would say, on more day-to-day matters, is that the Leader of the Opposition, his record and the things that he was talking about during his speech frankly need to be scrutinised. We brought tax cuts to the last election, tax cuts for hardworking Australians. I'll read out what the Leader of the Opposition said before the election. The Leader of the Opposition said this in March 2025: 'Labor's tax cuts are a cruel hoax. We won't support what they're doing here.' Fast-forward a federal election. What does the Leader of the Opposition say about the tax cuts? He said:
… we need to be the party of lower taxes, including lower personal income taxes. I think that was a mistake.
He realised his own mistake. He realised the mistake of the coalition of opposing Labor tax cuts at the last election, opposing them time and time again. They opposed the stage 3 tax cut changes that we made to make sure that not just higher-income earners but also lower- and middle-income workers across the country got a tax cut.
But of course, then, what's their big, grand plan? What's the big thing that the Leader of the Opposition decides to do in this place? Instead of talking about small businesses, he talks about mining uranium and lifting the moratorium on nuclear energy.
Plenty of small businesses in uranium!
Yes, there are a lot of small businesses mining uranium around the world. I'm sure of it. But the Leader of the Opposition seems to have learned his lesson on taxes and not opposing income taxes. But, by golly, these people just keep going back to the same old play. If you remember the previous leader of the opposition—actually, no, the previous previous leader of the opposition, before they rolled Sussan Ley—Peter Dutton came out and announced his nuclear energy policy before the last election and refused to go and visit one of the seven sites that they were proposing to have nuclear energy at any point throughout the election campaign. And what happened when they were leading with nuclear energy as their key election platform? Half the Liberal Party got wiped out, especially in the cities. It's hardly surprising that, when the Leader of the Opposition is lurching to the far right on every single opportunity with deep cuts to migration and chasing Pauline Hanson down the rabbit hole, the Business Council and all of the major business industry groups are saying that the coalition have literally lost their minds.
It's not surprising that we then have the other guy, the former treasurer, out there telling everyone how ready he is to take on the top job. The former treasurer is not bad at getting media. I'll give him that. But there are quite a few people over there that are very, very quietly quite happy for the former treasurer, the former member for Kooyong, to be out there strutting his stuff. I'll read out a couple of quotes of people who were thinking about whether or not Josh Frydenberg could lead the Liberal Party. Senator Kovacic said:
He's been the Treasurer … so that goes without saying, but obviously he's not in the party room now. We have got a leader.
It's not exactly the biggest endorsement of the current leadership. My friend Senator Sharma said:
Angus is our leader and Josh is not in the contest, so I'm backing Angus.
It's very qualified support from Senator Sharma for the Leader of the Opposition. (Time expired)
If the member for Macnamara is so fond of tax cuts, I invite him to join us on our lifetime tax cut, because we're offering every single Australian a tax cut every year for the rest of their lives. That is the current coalition policy. Every single year for the rest of their lives, we want to give every Australian a tax cut. Join us. Join us in a moment of bipartisanship. We would love to work with you to give every single Australian—because this government is currently the highest taxing government of all time. Income tax as a percentage of GDP has never been higher, and people are getting crushed.
Yesterday, on a very dark morning, Sunrise gave us some quotes. They said, 'We've got stark predictions for the Australian economy, with inflation and unemployment one of the worst in the developed world.' That's what Sunrise said yesterday. What was Sunrise referring to on this dark morning? They were referring to the International Monetary Fund. The International Monetary Fund looks at 43 advanced economies. They're basically every country in the world you'd want to live in: the US, Canada, developed Asia, South Korea, Japan, most of Europe, the big countries in South America. They benchmark those 43 countries.
How does Australia compare to the 43 advanced economies in the world? With interest rate rises this year, we are dead last. We're the only advanced economy in the world out of 43 advanced economies to have four interest rate rises this year. Of those 43 advanced economies, there's only one that's had three: Iceland. There are a handful that have two, and most have had less than that. We are dead last in the amount of interest rate rises this year. If you listen to Treasurer Chalmers, he'll tell you it's the war on Iran. Well, how do we compare to those 43 advanced economies before the war in Iran? Shockingly—surprise, surprise—we had the third highest inflation. Of all 43 advanced economies in the world, Australia was third last in that, doing comparatively better than the interest rate rises.
What's the International Monetary Fund predicting for our future? Surely, under Treasurer Chalmers, he's going to turn it around and it's going to be glowingly better. What we learned is that they're predicting that Australia will have the largest increase in unemployment in the developed world. They're predicting that we will come dead last in unemployment as well next year. What are they predicting for inflation? Surely, he's going to get that under control. Surely, we wouldn't be a global outlier in inflation as well. They're predicting we will be fifth out of the 43 advanced economies for our rate of inflation—fifth last in the world.
Australia is literally a global outlier. We are a global pariah in the advanced economic world. I invite the next speaker, whoever it is, to explain why it is that we have had the most interest rate rises in the advanced world. Why is it that we had the third highest inflation before Iran? Why is it that we're having the largest increase in unemployment next year? Why is it that we'll be the fifth in the world for inflation next year? Why are we this global outlier after four years of this Labor government? What has Australia got that others don't? We've got government spending at a 40-year high outside the pandemic. We have public demand growing twice as fast as the rest of the economy. Australia is struggling, and it's sad to say.
I had a small-business forum in Cook recently. A hundred small-business owners gathered in a room. As one small-business owner put it: 'I'm getting smashed by everyone all at once. I can't get ahead against this Labor government and I can't catch a break.' Almost 70 per cent of Cook and 70 per cent of Australia is employed by small business. They are the lifeblood of this country. Small business hires while large business fires. The only group that net adds more jobs than it takes away is small business. Large business fires more than it hires, and this small-business group is on its knees. That was the message I got from the hundred small-business owners that were gathered in the room only two weeks ago. They are crying out for help. That's why we will hold this government to account. We will fight for Australia to not be an economic pariah and for Australia to lead the world and not be a laggard.
We heard the rambling MPI from the Leader of the Opposition and we heard that the Leader of the Opposition is focused on culture wars. He's focused on punching down on migrant communities. He's focused, desperately, on trying to stave off One Nation and lurching further and further to the right. But we didn't hear him talk much about small business. We, on this side of the House, are focused on supporting our small businesses in our communities every single day, and we're focused on cost-of-living pressures. We know that Australians are under cost-of-living pressures and that small businesses are under pressure. Every single member on this side of the House engages with their communities and small businesses regularly, so we understand the kinds of pressures that they're under. That's why we're focused on solutions. We're not focused on harvesting grievance and we're not focused on sowing division; we're focused on helping them, with real solutions.
My wife works in a fantastic small business. They're flexible when it comes to helping our kids. When the business is doing well, they pass on pay rises to their workers, and, like many small businesses, they're deeply involved in the community. They support our local sporting clubs and they support the local neighbourhood watch. We know that small businesses are so much a part of the colour and the character that make up our local communities.
I'm lucky to represent an area that has about 22,000 small businesses. I've engaged with a range of the organisations and the small businesses. We've got the Jackson Court Traders Association. I was with them a few weeks ago, with Diana at Royal Stacks and the other members of the Jackson Court Traders Association. They're focused on working together and helping each other. They've got the Jackson Court Halloween Spooktacular 2026 coming up, which I'm really looking forward to. I haven't chosen a costume yet! They get thousands of the local residents through, attract them towards their businesses and get a lot more foot traffic in order to support each other in that way.
We've got the Whitehorse Business Group, which I attended a few months ago to talk about some of our changes in the budget. I've conducted a number of business roundtables, and I'd like to thank every single one of the businesses. We had the Chinese culinary foundation. We had people who were investing in housing. We had people working in every kind of small business attend those, and I think it's really important that we, as members of this House, listen to our small businesses and listen to the kinds of supports that they need.
We also have Persian Business Referrals. They meet every Saturday at seven o'clock in the morning. They're well attended. They support people from Persian backgrounds. Like so many small businesses, there are a lot of our businesses that are owned by people from migrant backgrounds. As the Prime Minister said during question time, a third of businesses are owned by people of migrant backgrounds. They give so much to our community, and we all benefit by having a lot more choice in food. We know how much the food culture in our local areas has improved. Around Box Hill, we don't just have one kind of Chinese food; you can get Chinese food from a range of areas. You can get Indian food and Korean food. In my area, you can get fantastic Persian food as well, as I've said. I'd invite any member of parliament to pop down to the area around Menzies if you want to try some amazing fare.
We're focused on making sure that we're doing everything we can to make life easier for small businesses, not just sowing fear and division. That's why in the last budget we've provided $3.8 billion in new tax relief and practical measures. These practical measures include the $20,000 instant asset write-off, which we have made permanent. Around 300,000 small businesses claimed it in the 2024-25 financial year. Every year since 2015 owners have waited to see if it would be made permanent. That's exactly what we did. That helps them with their cash flow
Menzies has a lot of professionals and a lot of tradies. The professional services, construction and real estate, make up around 15 per cent of local businesses. Construction makes up around 15 per cent of Menzies businesses. There are a lot of sole traders. The write-off means that they can buy tools and utes and that they'll be able to keep that important cash flow going, as does the permanent two-year loss carry-back. We've also got loss refundability for start-ups because we want to make sure that we're backing those who are coming up with innovative ideas, and we're going to continue to make sure that we're supporting our small businesses in every single way that we can.
I am someone who's really passionate about small and family run businesses. I grew up in one, and it's a great privilege to represent people who get out of bed every morning and put their house on the line to give other people a shot at a job. They're the first people in our community to put their hand up and sponsor everything from the local footy and netball teams to the food bank. They volunteer in our service clubs. And I tell you what, they deserve so much better and so much more than what they're being served up by this Labor government right now.
I think 'rambling' must have been in the talking points, because I've heard it in a few contributions by my good friends on the other side of the chamber this afternoon. Well, if you want to see rambling, you should have seen the ACCI speech delivered by the Prime Minister earlier this week. It was like the dodgem cars at the Melbourne Royal Show; it was just banging into everything in sight. It went from one corner to the other. It was a range of pointless lines delivered by the Prime Minister. But the real kicker—my good friend the member for Nicholls is nodding at this—was, I thought, the gratuitous humiliation of the Treasurer. I actually felt kind of sorry for him. I thought he deserved better from his leader than the way he was thrown under the bus in a gratuitous way. It was embarrassing and humiliating. I thought he deserved a lot better than what he got at that ACCI dinner. And this week there's been clean up in aisle eight ever since.
I'm going to raise some examples of the impost and the impact of this Treasurer's taxes on family run and small businesses in my electorate, because they are really suffering right now. They're really suffering from the price of input costs going up. I visited a transport company with the Leader of the Opposition a fortnight ago in my electorate. That fellow is paying $40,000 a fortnight in fuel. Everything is going up across the board. We visited a local food bank, and they are having thousands of people come through their doors because. These are people who are doing it really rough, who are sleeping rough, who are homeless, but these are also people who are fully employed, who are working two or more jobs. They cannot keep pace with their mortgage repayments. They cannot keep up with their rent under this government.
But let me run you through a few examples from my electorate. Just today, actually, I had an accountant from South Gippsland who had four clients today alone who have had to seek assistance in restructuring due to this Treasurer's trust changes. She says the cost is huge and, while changes can be made, it will cause massive disruption and leave them wide open with no protections in place.
Another example I want to raise is a constituent from Loch, also in South Gippsland. A cafe owner contacted my office frustrated that that all levels of government—the member for Nicholls and I are passionate Victorians—and that state and federal Labor governments right now are just smashing small businesses. This fellow said he simply cannot work any harder or continue to absorb spiralling costs. He believes he will have no choice but to increase his prices by seven to eight per cent, passing on those costs to customers. He purchased his cafe three years ago with a 10-year business plan and he questions why he should take all the financial risk, work the long hours and build a successful business only to potentially pay 47 per cent in capital gains tax when he eventually sells.
I also want to raise the example of a fellow who's very well-known to many Gippslanders and indeed many people right across Australia, and that's Jason Bargwanna, also known as Bargs in the Gippsland region. He's a former Bathurst 1000 winner. He contacted me about the fuel assistance scheme. He operates Gippsland Couriers in Warragul in West Gippsland. His weekly fuel bill increased from $9,000 to $10,000 per week. He's been mucked around by the federal government's Economic Resilience Program, mucked around by the Treasurer. He's got 40 staff and a belief in employing local people and putting back into the local community. But right now Jason Bargwanna, a champion in our region and a champion for Australia, can't get ahead, and neither can thousands of other honest, hardworking Australian small-business owners.
Those opposite have once again tried to spin a false story around small and family businesses. This government, one I am proud to be a part of, actually understands the daily rewards and challenges of small businesses. How? Because on this side we have lived it. Do you know who has run a small business? The incredible member for Eden-Monaro, and my good friend the member for Bullwinkel, who, on top of being a passionate and committed nurse, ran her own small business. And the member for Macquarie has also faced the challenges and opportunities of running her own small business. This is just a fraction of the many members on this side who know the hard work and dedication of running a small business. So when those opposite want to throw labels around about who understands small business, maybe they could learn a thing or two from those on this side of the chamber.
There is yet another member on this side who has run a small business—yes, it's me. I know what it's like to worry about paying staff, paying rent and making sure there's enough money coming in. I even remember a day when the product that was spilled on the floor was worth more than I was going to earn that week. So yes, I understand how hard it is, because before coming to this place I had a varied business life, including another role as a small business lender. I went into businesses and learnt how they operated and where their pain points were and I got them the funding they needed. I used my own experience in business to understand what they needed and to help them get support to grow their businesses.
I bring that experience with me as I represent the great electorate of Melbourne. Melbourne has more than 56,000 small businesses and more than a dozen small business associations. I've been meeting with them since being elected, because, for the first time in 15 years, they've had a federal representative who can be their voice inside government—unlike others, who spend their time shouting from the sidelines. Having someone in government who knows the hard work they do means that small businesses in Melbourne have a direct voice into government, where decisions are made, rather than someone who is creating outrage just for the sake of it, turning that outrage into data harvesting. They have someone who gets the hard and rewarding work they do and is here to fight for them—and fighting for them looks like making the tax system work better and for small businesses and making it fairer.
The Albanese Labor government is making the $25,000 instant asset write-off permanent, giving small businesses certainty when they need to invest in new equipment. We are also making the two-year carry-back permanent, because anyone who's been in business knows they can have a good year followed by a bad year. Around 1.5 million sole traders will benefit from tax cuts, and this government is expanding capital gains tax concessions to all 2.7 million active small businesses. The government is making tax settings more useful for small businesses and giving owners more certainty. And it is happening at a time when there are more than 265,000 additional active small businesses in Australia than there were when this government was first elected in 2022.
Fighting for small business also looks like responsible economic management. This government has created 1.3 million jobs. We've had the lowest average unemployment of any government in half a century. This government knows how hard Australians work because Labor is a party of everyday Aussies. We are the party that stands up for small and family businesses and for the workers, because those two things are not separate. We know that when businesses succeed, workers succeed, and when workers are respected and paid properly, businesses grow and expand.
Unlike those opposite, this government is acting on behalf of all Australians. Unlike those on the sidelines, we are doing more than just arguing for the sake of arguing. We are getting on with delivering real change for everyday Aussies. I know what running a small business takes because I have done it. I know members across this government who have done it. This Labor government backs the people who run small businesses, the people who work in them and the people who walk through their doors. We are getting on with the work and making Australia fairer and stronger for everyone.
The previous member spoke about us on this side of the place arguing for the sake of arguing. I think that just tells this chamber and should tell every single Australian that those in the government have no grasp of the damage that is being done by this government and by this Treasurer's taxes on every single Australian small business and family business. Those on this side of the House have a very close familiarity with small business and with family business. We understand the sacrifice, the struggle and the opportunity cost that people have to take in order to put everything at risk, to employ people, to generate wealth and to create jobs in this country.
This motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition is key, and it is a matter of public importance because every single day that I'm in my electorate or here in Canberra, I have small-business owner after small-business owner, as I'm sure all my colleagues do—the member for Fisher as well—coming to us and saying: 'Things have gotten so tough in this country. It's so hard to run a business. The question is: why bother?' That is something that this chamber should be absolutely concerned about, because if we take out small and family businesses from this country, we have very little left.
We have a government and a prime minister who doesn't get it and a Treasurer who doesn't get it. We have seen backflip after backflip after backflip. Don't get me wrong; I'm happy that we've had those backflips because some of them were, quite frankly, terrible ideas. But if you look at the record, each and every one of these backflips shows that the government has no idea what they're doing. We saw it with the veterans' healthcare cap, the $5,000 cap that they had a change of heart on. They were forced to because the coalition brought so much public sentiment against them, and they backflipped. We've seen it with the ATO credit card ban—again, another backflip. We've seen it in part with the capital gains tax. There was a part retreat there because we had a massive social media campaign where investors and creators around this country said, 'What the hell is going on in Canberra?' Again, another part backflip. We're seeing budget tax measures watered down after being watered down.
And it's not just in this place. Look at what Labor's own mates are saying in other places. Look at the Premier of New South Wales. He has not been supportive at all of this government's economic management. He's got every reason not to be supportive, to be concerned and to distance himself from the Albanese Labor government.
Don't forget the Queensland disaster funding!
And Queensland disaster funding. That was another massive backflip which was going to deprive our state of the support that it needs at times when it needs it most, especially where I live on the Gold Coast, where we've had to access that in the past.
For today's matter of public importance, we should have the Minister for Small Business here. We should have the Minister for Small Business listening. We didn't get much out of her during question time; every single question, just about, seemed to be deferred to the Assistant Treasurer. But if we've got a small business minister who is not prepared to front up at the one part of the day, the one part of proceedings, where she's supposed to be accountable for her portfolio and for her actions, something is clearly wrong with this government.
Where are their priorities? I have no idea. This Minister for Small Business has spent $150,000 travelling the world. Those opposite will turn around and say, 'It's part of her portfolio.' But, while she did that, 800 small businesses went bust in this country—30 small businesses every single day that she was away. If her priorities are not to be addressing that significant issue in this country for small business then I think she needs to reconsider her role and I think the Prime Minister needs to reconsider her role.
We have a government that doesn't fundamentally understand small business. They don't understand the grit, the determination and the risks involved in starting and running a small business. What's even worse is they don't understand what they are doing to all of those hardworking Australians, including many on the southern Gold Coast, who have risked everything to create jobs and generate wealth in this country. I suggest they take a serious look at their policies and at themselves and reconsider if they're on the side of small business or not—because, quite frankly, I think they're not.
This government is very much on the side of small business. It has brought in billions of dollars in initiatives to help small businesses—making the $20,000 instant asset write-off permanent, ensuring that we're fixing regulations and getting rid of $10 billion in compliance costs and looking at the National Construction Code and ensuring that it is a more user-friendly, simple item after having paused it. That's because we need to not just be sticking with the status quo. We need to be making regulatory compliance simpler and more straightforward, cutting unnecessary red tape and making sure that we have user-friendly regulations that make compliance simple enough. That work has been continuing across the life of this government. We're doing it at pace now because we realise that productivity increases will depend on us having regulatory efficiency and easier-to-follow regulations as well.
Those opposite also talk about tax cuts for small businesses, forgetting that about 1.5 million small businesses are sole traders, all of which would have got the $250 worker bonus as well as every other beneficial tax cut for individual workers. Rather than that, they'll talk about a few niche issues, if anything at all. What we heard was a lot of personal attacks and some kind of amateur pop psychology about relationship dynamics, probably with not a lot of self-awareness tapped into there as well.
Small business also relies on a trained workforce, and that's why we're backing free TAFE—to make sure our economy has the skilled workforce it needs to be successful and to ensure that our migration program continues to serve the interests of our economy, rather than having the opposition's migration policy that, sadly, will be like a version of One Nation. We find that they have put at risk Victoria's economic future. International education is one of the most important industries in my home state. It creates thousands of jobs. It brings in billions of dollars in revenue. It is something upon which the Victorian economy is very, very reliant. But, just for the sake of a little bit of cheap populism, they decided to put all of that at risk. What's the point? To be a second-rate version of another populist party? Let One Nation be One Nation. Perhaps the Liberal Party should try going back to being responsible operators in this body politic, because right now what we're seeing is an attempt at populism that has managed to be unpopular. I can understand why they wag their finger around spending and then oppose every single spending cut. They can't afford to lose any more friends, so of course they have to be very, very careful. So they won't let the fact that it's rank hypocrisy get in the way of what they're doing. What they'll do is cry, 'You're spending too much. You must cut spending. Oh, but don't cut it that way. Don't cut it that way either.' They cannot make the tough decisions.
At this point in time, tough decisions are necessary. There is no way you can make the kinds of savings necessary to make sure that demand from the public sector is reduced and to ensure that we're doing everything we can to fight inflation without tough decisions. It does mean that we need to have the mettle to make tough calls, because there is no significant decision where there is no loser. It's hard, it is tough and we have genuine care and sympathy for everyone involved, but it's about taking responsibility. It is about making decisions that are in the best interests of Australia. It is about assessing alternatives and doing the work necessary to ensure that every cent we spend is spent as fairly, effectively and efficiently as possible. We don't let vibes dictate policy. We have to get the facts together. We have to consider the legitimate interests of a range of parties and then come to what is the most sensible policy prescription that is possible. Of course, the opposition aren't compelled to do that. It's all too easy.
They have to climb that ladder back up to relevance while hoping that someone will recognise one of their names, so they just have to jump on the crazy train. They have to jump on the outrage train and hope that that might get them some love back. Then we've got this situation where the Labor Party is left to be the only economically liberal party, the only fiscally responsible party and the only party for small business in this parliament, as well as the only people who still believe in free trade, strengthening our economy and making sure that we set ourselves up for a better tomorrow than yesterday, rather than simply looking upon yesterday with rose coloured glasses and hoping that we can go back. No. Setting Australia up for a brighter future means making intelligent and sometimes tough decisions in the national interests. It means doing what is right by the country, even if we have to take a political hit.
I noticed during question time that they're always pointing at the backbench and going, 'You're going to pay for this.' The truth is that sometimes we have to make calls while knowing that there is a political price to pay. It is not about us; it is about the Australian people. It is about doing what is right by Australians, even if it does carry a political cost. I'm incredibly proud to be part of a government that is taking on the challenges needed and setting Australia up for future success.
This discussion has now concluded.
I move:
That the amendments be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the amendments be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the requested amendments be made.
Question agreed to.
During my time here, I've had the privilege of receiving dozens of wonderful speeches written by young Australians as part of the Raise Our Voice program. Thanks to everyone who submitted a speech. It was really difficult to choose which one to read. I've got some very passionate and articulate young constituents.
Here is Alice's speech:
Dear members of parliament, my name is Alice. I'm 10 and I live in Brisbane. To me, climate change is the biggest issue shaping our future. Oceans are warming, coral is bleaching and ecosystems are suffering. All around the world today these horrible occurrences are happening and some events that are even worse. Do you care about this planet? The planet that gives food, water and a home to everything? The planet that gives us life. The planet that our own kind is destroying. If you do care then why isn't more being done as we approach the unrecoverable tipping point of climate change? Why are humans so resistant to positive change?
Well, I care. My friends care. My generation cares. This is because if we don't do something now, we will have to face the consequences of the future. We will have to pay the price, not you. So if you do care about Australia's future then start making an impact. Some things you could do include: increasing government incentives for renewable energy sources; investing in more solar farms, wind turbine farms and hydroelectricity projects, including working towards harnessing tidal power to generate electricity.
There are many things you, me and all Australians can do to make more sustainable choices such as using environmentally friendly products, recycling and composting. So what are you waiting for?
Thanks, Alice, for that excellent speech. Alice is completely right, of course, and it's her generation that inspires me.
Sadly, our political system allows big corporations, including fossil fuel companies, to donate huge sums of money to political parties. Then those political parties do as they're told by big corporations—they are bought. It's a fundamental structural, moral and ethical problem destroying trust in our politics, and it shouldn't be allowed. Later this month, I will present a bill to fix exactly this problem. It would ban fossil fuel corporations from making political donations, removing one of the worst corrupting influences on our government, poisoning our politics. I hope the other parties will support it. But of course, they've profited from this system forever, so I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime, I encourage young people like Alice to keep up the fight. The most powerful thing ordinary people can do is take on these big companies whose undue influence is corrupting our politics and damaging our future, and we should all stand up together for what is right.
I'm also thinking about the future and what AI means for our minds, our planet, our lives. Many Australians are understandably sceptical of AI. The government just can't keep up with the technology. We have seen across many sectors the huge damage that rapacious, profit driven, unregulated corporations can do—massive water-guzzling data centres, a new frontier of resource extraction. Is generative AI a useful tool or a quandary for education and learning? Will AI be beneficial to our society? These are the questions I am asking my community in Ryan to think about.
I want to know how real people feel about AI and its impact on their lives. If AI is here to stay, we've got to ensure that it's regulated and useful to us, not just to corporations. It can't be yet another drain on our communities. We can't let massive global corporations write the rules on this—companies like Microsoft's data centre company, who, by the way, paid no tax in the last financial year. The government have one chance to get this right, and they should know that regular Australians are watching closely. I'm looking forward to reading through the responses to my AI survey in the coming weeks, and to sharing Ryan's view in parliament.
It's well-known I am passionate about young people by providing them with a platform. That is why I signed up to the Raise Our Voices campaign and encourage local young constituents to submit a speech about an issue they care deeply about. This year I chose to read the speech by Anastasia, from Carrum Downs, about what our children are hearing on the radio and the effects this can have on their perception of healthy relationships and their mental health. Anastasia, who is watching and listening from home, says:
My name is Anastasia I am 17 years old and part of the Dunkley electorate.
The issue I face is the decline in community standards and the decreasing morality of teenagers that results in teen crime, teen pregnancy and an overwhelming lack of respect for others.
The Australian government with community support passed new media legislation in 2025, then porn legislation in 2026 due to their studies identifying detrimental effects on Australian youth. The legislation amends and restricts access for children under 16 years of age on social media due to community alarm over the internet and information that could be harmful. This age restriction went from snapchat, Facebook, Instagram to porn sites, only fans and other websites.
The legislation was in response to community outrage, initially over media bullying and teen suicides. The government received multiple submissions from the eSafety Commissioners research.
Some effects these submissions included are; poor mental health, sexism and sexual aggression and violence, sexual coercion and abuse by boys, child-on-child and peer-on-peer sexual abuse and shaping of sexual behaviours.
So, I put to you: why does this ban not extend to radio stations, music, music videos, free to air TV and other media? 9/10 songs on the internet speak about love, sex, violence between partners, drugs and disrespectful behaviour. I propose that the government review music and artists and the content that has slipped under the radar of the government's media legislation and harm minimisation plan.
The only "safe" radio station in Melbourne is 89.9 Light FM who are a non-government funded organisation. Light FM guarantee no harmful material and are a G-rated, no swear words, no sexual innuendos or smut talk by their presenters or in the music played. In comparison kiss FM were known for racy talk, sexual innuendos and derogatory banter between their presenters.
The government is prepared to ban harmful visual media and restrict access but not yet address and prepare to ban the same content found through artists and music, to safeguard developing minds and the morality of our nation?
Children put on songs and they are pure verbal porn. Why block visual porn if you still let children subject themselves to audio porn? Doesn't audio porn just have the same affects? Children and teenagers can access this through every music app and even karaoke sites. Is this not what the government was trying to protect our youth from?
There are many examples of songs all over the internet with hidden meanings, it is not appropriate to read these examples due to parliament standards yet it is heard playing in shopping centres and radio stations to all ages, yet censored for you right now.
Thanks, Anastasia, for your insights and suggestions. The points you have raised are very astute. Anastasia, as you know, the federal government is committed to ensuring the safety and protection of children and young people. We need to ensure that the standards in the Australian Broadcasting Industry Codes of Practice are implemented. I highly recommend that you submit a petition on this particular issue to the federal government's petitions website. We will continue to listen to the community and young people such as yourself and make changes to ensure the care and protection of the community.
Labor is going after our sweet and iconic pineapples. If we don't stop this soon, next it will be our nuts—a low blow for some growers, perhaps even a knockout. When will those opposite stop making life harder for Australian farmers? Fraser Coast pineapple grower Colin Hawken fears this could be the final straw for an industry that produces around 68,000 tonnes in Queensland each year, worth almost $80 million. The real concern is proposed pineapple imports from India and Indonesia and the risks that come with them: exotic pests, unfair competition and potentially devastating biosecurity consequences. Imports should not be approved until the science has been independently tested, strict biosecurity conditions are clear and Australian growers are protected.
That is why the Nationals have launched a petition to back Australian farmers. In Hinkler, we grow some of the finest pineapples in the world. Our growers deserve confidence that their livelihoods will not be put at risk. Colin, who represents growers in places like Littabella and Nikenbah, says the industry has already shrunk to around a third of its former size. Growers are asking a reasonable question: where is the fairness in requiring Australian farmers to meet high standards while allowing competition from imported fruit produced under very different conditions? It's unfair and, frankly, it's nuts.
On that note—our peanut growers have serious concerns too. Recently, I attended a shed meeting with Bundaberg and Childers peanut growers to hear directly about their worries about cheap imports. Like our pineapple growers, they produce a world-class product under strict scrutiny. The same scrutiny should be applied to imported peanuts, and growers deserve a government prepared to give them a fair go.
Here is some good news coming from our farms: the Bundaberg community can now lay claim to not one but two new Guinness World Records. Led by SSS Strawberries and its freeze-dried fruit business, Gina's Table, an incredible 1,522 people gathered on 19 September to set the Guinness World Record for the most people picking strawberries in one place at the same time. That is more than 1,500 people helping put our region on the world stage while celebrating some of the most delicious strawberries on the planet. Australian eating champion James Webb also tucked in and helped secure the second world record, eating just over 1.3 kilograms of strawberries in one minute. Congratulations to SSS Strawberries, Gina's Table, James Webb and every participant who picked their way to a record-breaking day. Two world records hang proudly in my office with plenty of Bundaberg pride.
Taking things to the next level is something we do well in Hinkler. Bundaberg's Community Group of the Year, Next Level Music, helps young local artists build experience, confidence and skills while connecting with other creatives. I recently attended their annual sunset fundraiser at Splitters Farm, where $15,000 was raised to support the regular youth jams and gigs. Led by Abby Skye, Andrew Gifford, Wayne 'Batman' and Amelia Johnson, the team creates opportunities for young people to connect, make music and feel supported. Thank you to those investing in our young people and giving local talent a place to grow.
I also thank Fraser Coast Mayor George Seymour for meeting with me and the leader of the Nationals, Senator Matt Canavan, here in Canberra this week. We discussed priorities for the Fraser Coast, including water, infrastructure, housing, accommodation and employment. I also acknowledge Regional Capitals Australia and its delegates, who advocate for stronger regional communities.
Finally, it's with sadness that I acknowledge the passing of Alfio Bonanno, aged 92. Alf loved to chat; more than that, he loved his community and put others first. In his later years, Alf lived in Bundaberg but was known to many as one of Childers' finest fellas. He was the husband of Helen, a dearly loved father and father-in-law, a beloved grandad to 13 grandchildren and a cherished great-grandad to 16 great-grandchildren.
Alf served Hinkler's federal divisional council for 20 years and was a loyal member of the Country Party, now the LNP, for almost 60 years. A man of faith and a cane farmer, he served on the Isis Central Sugar Mill Board for over 20 years, including as chairman, and contributed so much to his community as a Rotarian and in Apex. A family man who put his community first, he was kind and always ready for a conversation. He enjoyed a quality red, a whisky or perhaps even a glass of bubbles.
To Helen and the Bonanno family, I extend my sincere condolences. Cheers to Alf Bonanno, and to a long life lived in service and kindness to others.
I rise to share 16-year-old Dion's speech, provided to me through the Raise Our Voice program. Dion writes:
An issue that requires immediate attention is the growing uncertainty surrounding the nature of AI in both workplace and educational institutions. As AI advances significantly with every passing year, its implications on society have become increasingly unpredictable.
To be told that the future you have prepared for may soon be made redundant has caused me, and many of my peers, considerable anxiety. We are encouraged to develop qualifications for pathways that may fundamentally differ by the time we enter them. For many young Australians, decisions surrounding their futures are being shaped by speculation rather than by genuine interest.
I implore the parliament to consider my propositions. In doing so, they ensure that Australians are prepared for, rather than displaced by, its future implications. Firstly, educational institutions should teach basic comprehension skills surrounding AI and its use. Secondly, large-scale businesses should have mandatory requirements surrounding employment for entry-level positions. Finally, small businesses should be granted tax incentives or subsidies to educate young workers, promoting employee development over AI alternatives.
AI will shape all of our futures, though the future should not be one where young Australians are left wondering of their place in the world. Parliament must act.
I share Dion's concerns about AI. When the developers directly behind the technology say that there is a 10 per cent chance it could wipe out humanity, Australians are right to be worried. When we hear about an AI arms race between superpowers, the restructuring of our workforce and the demands that data centres place on energy and water, again, Australians are right to be worried. But when used properly, AI could accelerate medical research by decades. It could help address the productivity challenges that have caused so many national economies to stagnate. It could help scale and stabilise renewable energy so that we can properly transition away from fossil fuels. It is both a threat and an opportunity.
I was elected to this parliament to take difficult issues by the horns, so my job is to represent the human interest in policymaking and to put real people at the centre of the AI challenge, not to bow down to the demands of big foreign companies or to praise the pursuit of profit. Government can often be a slow beast, but not in this case. The current AI inquiry, with its short deadline and bipartisan support, will inform our world-leading artificial intelligence framework. That framework starts with the promise that AI will not undercut working conditions, divide communities or damage our environment. We'll also ensure that data centres are legally required to underwrite their own new power supply, pay their full share of connection costs so that household energy bills are not affected, reduce their power use when needed to support the grid and operate as efficiently as possible in their use of water. The detail on how to achieve these things can be delivered through the inquiry, which is due to report before the end of this year.
I don't want communities to feel like they have been blindsided by developments that care more about building in the name of profit rather than to the benefit of people. I applaud the work of the Bayside and Inner West councils in their advocacy around the proposed data centre at the old Kogarah Golf Club. Because of them, submissions to the project were extended, people got to have their say, and the councils' own submissions represented the community's concerns about the scale of the development, its impact on Cooks River and the unacceptable flooding impacts it may have. Such concerns and others are reflected in the 593 submissions that object to the plan as it stands. I've also written to the state member for Rockdale and to the state planning minister. I share these concerns and I look forward to the response through the State Significant Development process. AI is the biggest challenge of our time. Dion knows this, Barton knows this, I know this and this parliament knows this, and we will tackle it head-on.
Earlier today, the coalition announced a water taskforce, chaired by the member for Riverina, of which I am part. That taskforce is going to look at water for agriculture with a focus on ensuring that there is more water for agriculture around Australia, but particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin. Part of that will be introducing a bill, that I hope will be supported, called the Water Amendment (Ending Further Murray-Darling Basin Water Buybacks) Bill 2026.
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has had a vexed history in this place. It was signed into law in 2011 and, at the time, people in the Murray-Darling Basin were very concerned about what was going to happen to their communities if governments started ripping out their very economic fabric, which is irrigation water. A very passionate speech was given by Bernie Roebuck, the then principal of Finley High School. Finley is in the Riverina in southern New South Wales. He talked about the real concerns that community would have if governments didn't care. The then water minister, Minister Burke, the member for Watson, said that Bernie Roebuck had a profound effect on him.
Just recently, as a result of the water policies and Murray-Darling Basin policies enacted by the Labor government in that part of the world—Bernie Roebuck's patch—Sun Rice have let go 78 people workers. How hollow are those words from the member for Watson! How hollow they must ring for the people in the Riverina, in the Goulburn Valley and right across the Murray-Darling Basin who've been seriously let down by this Labor government when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and water buybacks.
The approach to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan since 2022, when the Albanese government was elected, has been an absolute disgrace. There had been an agreement with the federal coalition government and many states, some of them Labor states, on a socioeconomic neutrality test. To me, that means that the effect of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, particularly the 450 gigalitres of extra water buybacks, needs to be neutral in terms of its effect on communities from a societal and economic perspective—socioeconomics refers to society and the economy—and they have been anything but neutral. They have been overwhelmingly negative—negative for our society, negative for Finley, Deniliquin, Shepparton, Echuca, Griffith and many parts of the member for Riverina's patch, and negative for our economy.
The government ripped up that socioeconomic neutrality test and said, 'We don't really care if the effects of our policies are damaging to these communities.' How do you think that feels if you live in one of these places? There was a 15,000-gigalitre water buyback cap. They got rid of that too, so it's open slather, and the Australian people don't even know what the government's paying for this water. So, yes, it affects us in the Murray-Darling Basin, but all this taxpayer money is going, with very little transparency, to recover this water, and the tragedy of it is that it's not needed. It's a political solution, not an environmental solution.
One of the organisations that uses environmental water is the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority. They have said, 'We can't use the environmental water we've already got,' and that is the case across the basin, yet the government wants to get more. So they're getting extra environmental water that can't be used. It just sits and takes up airspace in the storages. Meanwhile, because the consumptive pool of water is reduced, the price of temporary water is going up. The price of temporary water is a cost on farmers. If they have to pay more for it, their businesses are threatened, whether they grow apples, dairy pastures, pears, rice, cotton—you name it.
Australia has had a great irrigated agricultural industry, but it's being threatened by this government. We're going to make sure we get more water for farmers.
I want to congratulate Bernie's Bar in Newcastle on receiving a business award at the 2026 Honour awards. Presented by ACON, the Honour awards are the premier LGBTIQA+ community awards celebration in New South Wales. Since 2007 they have recognised outstanding service, achievements and excellence within rainbow communities. This recognition celebrates Bernie's Bar for creating and sustaining a vital LGBTIQA+ cultural and community hub in regional New South Wales. For Newcastle's rainbow community, spaces like Bernie's Bar are so much more than a place of hospitality. They provide spaces where people can feel welcome, build connections, celebrate their identities and find a sense of belonging. In regional communities, having safe and inclusive spaces can make an enormous difference. They help bring people together, strengthen community connections and ensure everyone has somewhere where they can feel at home. I congratulate the team behind Bernie's Bar on this well-deserved recognition. Their contribution demonstrates the important role local businesses play in creating a more inclusive Newcastle.
I'm proud to recognise renowned Novocastrian sculptor Julie Squires, who has been selected to deliver the sculptural elements of a nationally significant commemoration at Old Parliament House in Canberra. The project will honour Wiradjuri elders Nangar, also known as Jimmy Clements, and Ooloogan, also known as George John Noble. Led by Regal Innovations, the design and construction team is creating a public work that will be located on the lawns opposite Old Parliament House as part of the centenary celebrations next year, marking 100 years since the building opened. The commemoration recognises two First Nations elders whose stories form an important, although little known, part of our nation's history. These two remarkable men walked more than 150 kilometres from a mission just outside of Tumut to assert sovereignty and take their place in the story of our parliament. That reminds us that our country's democratic institutions exist on Aboriginal land, with a history stretching back tens of thousands of years before the establishment of the Commonwealth. It's wonderful to see a talented Novocastrian artist contributing to a project of such national significance. This will add to her already impressive body of work represented in galleries and locations across Australia. The work is expected to be completed in May 2027, in time for the centenary celebrations. I congratulate Julie on her selection and look forward to seeing her work take place in our nation's capital.
I want to congratulate the Wallsend Wolves, who've returned from Japan after representing Australia at the Asia Pacific Seniors Touch Cup 2026. Natalie Little coached the women's 27 team, featuring Claire Spain, to a silver medal. Harry West helped the men's 30 team secure gold, while Cameron Maxwell coached the mixed 30s team, featuring Jarrad Rotumah, to gold. Natalie Frizzell was part of the women's 35 team that won silver, while Kellie-Jean Johnston helped the women's 40 team bring home gold. That is three gold medals and two silver medals across the Wallsend representatives. It's a fantastic achievement on an international stage, and I congratulate every player and coach on representing Newcastle and Australia with such distinction.
These are just three remarkable stories from the community in Newcastle. I couldn't be more proud to represent people like Julie Squires, the sculptor; the Wallsend Wolves, who have just been fantastic achievers on the international stage as seniors in their respective sports; and of course the Bernie's Bar. They had a bit of a rough trot trying to get their Facebook and Instagram pages reinstalled at one point. There seems to have been a very nasty campaign happening at a global level to prevent LGBTIQA businesses from advertising and maintaining their pages. It's obviously an important connection. I was very pleased to be able to get a positive outcome in dealings with Meta and seeing those reinstated. I wish Bernie's Bar a very long and prosperous future. Please know you are a very important and welcome part of our community.
House adjourned at 16:58
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Sharkie ) took the chair at 09:30.
We've had the announcement of $1.74 billion to be invested in three key New South Wales roads. Two of these are in the electorate of New England. I welcome the announcements, but we've already announced a lot of this stuff before. It's just that it doesn't get built. What we have to do is make sure that announcements actually turn into outcomes. One of the classic ones in New England is the Tenterfield bypass. The Tenterfield heavy vehicle bypass is essential for the safety of the people in the town of Tenterfield and for the even flow of traffic through the centre of Tenterfield that goes down to 40 kilometres an hour. It just doesn't work for people moving haulage. You have to try and work on an average speed of 80 kilometres an hour, which requires the roads to have a speed limit of around about 100, and it can't be slowing down to 40 kilometres an hour.
There are other areas where we would wish to see things formally announced move on, especially the Goonoo Goonoo Road duplication from Calala Lane to Greg Norman Drive. We also have the Lily Creek section between Bendemeer and Uralla. These are dangerous areas that need to be fixed. We have got the Rocky Cut realignment at Wingen. This is also incredibly important. We've announced it in the past. We announced it under a coalition government. It's just never been built, and what I'm worried about with this is the amount that's been discussed, the $849.8 million for the Muswellbrook to Armidale corridor—we're going to get yet another announcement without the actual construction of the road.
One of the reasons that they might be finding this a little bit imperative is the construction of the swindle factories, the intermittent power precincts. They are finding it very difficult to get the massive blades and everything up. Of course, they'd never thought of the logistics of how you move these things around before you build your swindle factories to destroy our power grid and put the cost of living through the roof. If you're going to move it, you're going to have to fix up the roads to get them there. At the speed they're going, they'll want to start pretty soon. Otherwise it's just not going to happen. We still haven't completed the Singleton Bypass. They haven't really even started the Muswellbrook bypass. I opened the Scone Bypass, but that was some time ago.
The other day, they were trying to move one of the batteries up. They had three prime movers at the front, three prime movers at the back and a prime mover with the battery on it. I don't know what that does to the pavement or the road that it's moving along, but your pavement rehabilitation is also going to be massive. As a closing note, we used to have a program to fix up remote roads. Even on my local road from Danglemah to Woolbrook—someone's going to get killed on that. It is just absolutely riveted out of control. So many people say it is just incredibly dangerous. These are roads that no-one even sees, but they're nonetheless roads people use.
Spring is happening all around Australia, but particularly in my electorate. Spring is definitely in the air, and I was pleased on 30 September to attend the Werribee Park National Equestrian Centre in the heart of the electorate in Werribee South for the Horseland Australian Interschool Championships. I was pleased to be invited. The event is held over four days and sees riders from across Australia compete in dressage, eventing, jumping, show horse, all abilities and combined training. To be able to share Werribee South's grounds with over 450 young riders and 500 horses is something truly special. For those competing it was an opportunity at a national level to put their hard work into practice and meet like-minded people with love for their sport. Behind every rider are families, coaches and supporters who help make their participation possible. I was pleased to join in the presentation and meet a few young riders at my visit.
I was also pleased last week on Tuesday, 6 October, to celebrate the Lalor Sports Presidents Night, an annual event that pulls together our sporting champion grant recipients and their families; sports presidents from our clubs, associations and organisations; administrators; and volunteers who keep sport running in our communities. This was a special occasion as always, and it reminds us how much our local clubs contribute and how important it is to recognise the people who keep them going.
I was pleased to welcome Lalor's own three-time WNBL champion and Opal squad member Madison Rocci as our guest speaker for the evening. Having a local sporting role model share her experiences was a valuable reminder to young aspiring athletes of what dedication and perseverance can achieve, and to have her celebrated by people critically involved in sport across our community was also really special. I presented our local sporting champions with their certificates and was grateful for the opportunity to celebrate their incredible achievements. To this year's recipients, congratulations! You've made our community proud, and I look forward to watching you continue to pursue your sporting goals.
On Wednesday evening, I got to attend an incredibly important event. It was an Arts Assist exhibition supported by Wyndham city council, the Melbourne Fringe Festival and locals, led by Melissa Lazaridis from the Arts Assist group. It was an exhibition called Here + Seen by visual artists with lived experience of intellectual disability and/or disabling neurodivergence. What a pleasure! All of those artists touched our minds and our hearts with their beautiful personal expressions. It was an absolute pleasure to be there with 250 other locals to celebrate young people. I thank the Saltwater Community Centre and their team for setting that exhibition up and for running it through to 3 December.
I rise to support some amazing mums in my community who are campaigning for road safety improvements at one of the most dangerous intersections in my electorate outside Asquith station on the Pacific Highway near Baldwin Avenue. I recently met with Belinda Fitton, Erin Wilkins and Heather Newland who are speaking up for residents who use this intersection every day. Erin's petition has gathered over 2000 signatures. This shows that there's real local concern, and I want to support their calls for action.
Parents are concerned with their children crossing the intersection twice a day, given residents' reports of near misses. A Hornsby High School student said that this crossing can be dangerous, as a few times he's seen cars just drive straight through when it's a green light for pedestrians. Children should be able to walk to school—there are four schools in that area—and catch a train safely. Parents should have confidence that crossings are designed to protect their children.
Erin Wilkins has gathered stories from across the community reporting personal experiences or witnessing a dangerous incident, including collisions or vehicle accidents, pedestrian incidents and near misses. One parent reported their child was struck after a collision caused a vehicle to swerve towards the child while waiting at the crossing. Police and paramedics attended, and the child was taken to hospital. Another respondent described a vehicle processing through the stop sign and narrowly missing a woman and a toddler. Residents describe drivers concentrating on entering traffic rather than watching for pedestrians, including people crossing with a green signal. Submissions mentioned vehicles failing to stop at the stop sign and raised red-light concerns.
Asquith is growing. Increasing apartment development, heavier traffic and greater congestion mean our infrastructure must keep pace as more children, commuters and pedestrians use that intersection. There's a tragic history here. In 2017, a pedestrian died after being struck by a vehicle at the intersection. That loss deserves to be remembered as we continue to make this area safer.
The intersection involves a state road and an adjoining council road. Transport for New South Wales and Hornsby council need to work together on a coordinated response, and I call on them to undertake an urgent road safety assessment, listen to residents and identify immediate improvements and a lasting solution. That assessment should examine pedestrian visibility, turning movements, traffic signal timing and the interaction between vehicles and pedestrians, particularly during school travel times. It should address residents' concerns about dangerous right turns and confusion surrounding the 'keep clear' road markers. Residents deserve to know what can be done when improvements will be delivered.
Belinda, Erin and Heather have suggested installing a red-light camera and extending the 40 kay school zone. This is a great idea. These proposals deserve assessment alongside the community suggestions for changes to traffic signals and improved visibility. I want to thank everyone who signed the petition. I stand with them in seeking safer crossings and timely action. I will continue to advocate for the Asquith community. As Asquith grows, our children and our families deserve to know that they will be safe crossing the road.
A little over a year ago, the Australian South East Asian Network, ASEAN Ltd, was formed and registered with ASIC. It's a local community group based in south-west Sydney. In just 12 months, this organisation has given communities from many backgrounds a stronger voice and a shared home for discussion. The name might be a little confusing to some people. Its membership not just draws on people with South-East Asian heritage but includes Syrian, Iranian, Cambodian, Laotian, Khmer Krom, Indian, Pakistani, Indonesian, Filipino, Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Burmese, Indigenous and Anglo-Celtic communities, all of which call my electorate their home. I'm so proud of our multicultural community. Our multicultural community is very much a part of the strength of the area I have the honour of representing and grew up in, and I will always stand up for multiculturalism and all its elements.
At the heart of the network is listening. Its community board brings together people from different parts of the community and raises matters that are important to them and brings them to the attention of decision-makers. The ambassador program is a very important one. It engages community leaders to build trust and senior advocates and scholars to drive social cohesion and inform public policy. The network is also recognising and encouraging contribution. There's a very extensive awards program run by the network. The Michael Kirby ASEAN Award was unveiled in parliament last year, and the Tom Bathurst award for achievement is to be unveiled on 11 November by the Hon. Tom Bathurst AC KC to celebrate people from diverse backgrounds who have given to Australia. Part of the strength of the network is the support it's received from eminent jurists—Michael Kirby, Tom Bathurst and Justice James Edelman—who have provided words of support for the important work.
I want to acknowledge the founder and CEO, Sawathey Ek OAM, who's also, as it happens, undertaking an executive leadership program at the Harvard Kennedy school through a co-funded program, bringing local community advocacy together with global policy expertise. I know the organisation will benefit from Sawathey's work at Harvard.
I also acknowledge the board of directors: Jane Li, Patricia Jenkins, Arthur Inglis, Davy Ek, Andrea Nevill, Angela Johnston and Tristan Manwaring. I commend the board of ASEAN for all the work they have done. They have held many events, some of which I've been able to be at, which have been very good events, bringing together the vibrant multicultural community of the area I grew up in, live in and represent.
Multiculturalism is one of our area's great strengths. It's one of our country's great strengths. We are the best multicultural country in the world. We have instituted multiculturalism more successfully than any other country in the world. It's not just because of governments; it's in no small part because of community leadership, which is very much represented and symbolised by this network which I'm proud to support.
Few traditions capture the spirit of regional Australia better than a country show. They are a celebration of country Australia at its very best, bringing together families, farmers, volunteers and community groups to showcase local talent, local produce and an enduring pride in regional communities. So today I pay tribute to the volunteers, exhibitors and community members who continue to make our country shows and festivals such an important part of life right across the great Central West.
The Burraga Agricultural Bureau recently held its 66th annual sheep show, opened by Oberon mayor Andrew McKibbon. I was very honoured to attend. I congratulate President Ann Millbank and committee members Neil Francis, Michelle Williams, Ross McDonald, Tahlia Millbank, Chris Francis, Leon Booth, Kevin Pearce and Ken Stapleton for staging another wonderful Burraga show. The show featured shearing, sheepdog trials, livestock displays and outstanding local exhibits.
Congratulations to all award recipients, including Elizabeth Peabody, Amelia Mitchell, Lachlan Millbank, Matilda Millbank, Blake Connor and Olivia Charles. I particularly acknowledge Robynann Larnach for her many years of service judging the showgirl competition, Chris Stapleton for his outstanding commitment to the sheepdog trials and Tahlia Milbank for successfully reviving the ute show after 25 years of not having that wonderful event. Congratulations also go to Ricky Zinghini, who travelled four hours to win Best Overall Ute. Thank you to the volunteers from Bathurst Correctional Centre for assisting with the town clean-up and to Rod Parks, Nikki Francis and Sandra Stapleton for their support on the day.
I'd also like to congratulate the team at the Cudal Show. Cudal recently celebrated its 125th show. I would particularly like to acknowledge President Chris Solomon, together with Jacqui Fowler, Elizabeth Wiltshire, Helen Colman, Tamar Devine, Dave Farrell, Ryan Fowler, Sue Garside, Prue Lindfield and Carol Smith, as well as community volunteers Steve Garside, Josie Lowe, John Rapley, Faye Whalan, Caitlin Christie and Katie Venikova. Their efforts contributed to a wonderful event.
On the weekend, the 39th annual Trunkey Creek Wool & Horse Festival was held. It was a terrific show, although my linedancing does need a little bit of work. Congratulations to President Kerry Johns and committee members Chloe Johns, Erin Johns, Nicole Meldrum, Graham Higham, Trevor Henry, Genny Henry, Rosemary Mikes, Marilyn Burke, Karen Noonan, Barbara Parrington, Amanda Byrnes and Therese Grimma. I also acknowledge the wonderful volunteers Chris Stapleton, Brett Meldrum, Brett Lowe, Mick Burke, Graham Henry, Kirsten Fenton, Murray Fenton, Tenisha Fenton and Gordon Holland.
You cannot beat a country show. These three wonderful shows help add to the vibrancy of our wonderful country communities. I thank them all.
It's Youth Voice in Parliament week, and today I rise to deliver a speech which was written by a young person in my electorate, Sofia on sports participation and the cost of living. Sofia writes:
There are few things Australians love more than sport.
Sport keeps us active and healthy.
It helps us make friends.
It teaches teamwork, confidence and how to be part of a community.
But not every child gets the chance to play.
For many families, the cost of sport is becoming too high.
Registration can cost $100 or more.
Then there are uniforms, shoes and equipment on top of that.
I don't think a child should miss out because their family cannot afford it.
My idea is a $100 Fit Kids Voucher for every Australian child under 18.
It would help pay the registration fee for one organised sport each year.
It could also work alongside the support already offered by state governments.
The federal voucher could help cover registration,
while state vouchers could help families with the remaining costs, such as equipment, uniforms or extra fees.
That means governments would be working together towards the same goal: getting more kids involved in sport.
My hope is simple
No child should have to watch from the sidelines because sport costs too much.
Every Australian kid deserves the chance to get active, join a team and get in the game.
It's an excellent speech. Well done, Sofia.
I also rise to pay tribute to Dorothy 'Dot' Robinson, who I had the great pleasure of meeting late last year and who sadly passed away recently. Dot's story is truly inspiring. As an amputee and a senior citizen, Dot thought she would never be able to participate in an amazing international cycling tournament, but she did so. She was supported by her aged-care provider, Harbison, in the Southern Highlands part of my electorate of Whitlam. Harbison has been supporting its residents to compete in an event called Road Worlds for Seniors. Thousands of participants like Dot from all around the world connect and compete on exercise bikes, pedalling long distances on a virtual cycling course. Dot was determined and competitive. Where others may have seen an obstacle, Dot saw an opportunity. She inspired others. She had multiple trophies and medals and was deeply proud of her achievements. Through sheer determination and incredible grit, she achieved second place overall in the women's worldwide leaderboard during the 2021 competition. Dot set an example for those around her, and, to honour Dot's legacy, Harbison staff are taking part in a tribute ride for Dot during this year's Road Worlds for Seniors. They'll cycle a total of 2,300 kilometres during October—Dot's personal best. May Dot's memory and the way she inspired others live on.
This week marks Raise Our Voice in Parliament. I had the pleasure of meeting Tasman, a 15-year-old from my electorate. Before I read Tasman's speech, I want to set the scene of my meeting with Tas. Tas is an extraordinary young man. I met him in Strathalbyn. He was in a trucker hat. He had an ironed shirt and jeans on. He was actually there meeting with the local newspaper because he and his friend Patrick have created a petition, because a McDonald's is proposed to be put in Strathalbyn. For anyone who doesn't know Strathalbyn, it is a beautiful, heritage listed town, and Tas and his mate are very concerned about a McDonald's being at the entrance to their beautiful town. On Tas's hat were the words 'keep farmers farming'. I just knew I was going to get along well with Tas.
Here is Tas's speech:
Australia is our great southern land that it is today because of farming, trades, strong community, Aussie spirit and heritage—all important and unique to our way of life, giving this country true value.
I'm a 15-year-old named Tas from the Fleurieu Peninsula, and I care about our history, our choices now and the future of this country.
I believe more could be done to protect the towns and farmland that support Australia.
Despite 57% of Australia being farmland, only 5% is used for crops and yet land like this is being used up in response to the housing quotas.
Poorly planned growth in precious parts of the country increases congestion in regional areas, weakens communities, lessens our sense of identity and adds more pressure on farmers.
Where I live—Mt. Barker—is often used as an example of what we don't want.
It feels like a city advertising itself as country living.
I believe growth should reflect the town itself, and only to the level the town needs and can support.
Parliament must take responsibility for planning growth boundaries around agriculture and heritage towns, ensuring we keep the balance along Australia's coasts where most Aussies live and farm.
Our land should be made to sustain us, our industry, our heritage and our culture. Young Aussies like me don't want to see these familiar parts of Australia under threat.
Such wisdom from Tas.
I acknowledge all the other young people across Mayo that put into the competition. You are all extraordinary young people.
I rise today to table the paper and epetitions prepared by Clover Goddard, who is a 10-year-old student at Aspendale Primary School in my electorate of Isaacs. I can inform the House that the two petitions I'm presenting have been considered by the Standing Committee on Petitions and found to be in order.
The petitions read as follows
EN10252
I am only 9 and I am writing to express my concern for marine sharks. Without sharks there will be less oxygen and lots of algae would take over. In fact they are not as dangerous as everyone thinks they are. Dogs have killed 30 to 40 people yearly and sharks have killed fewer than 10 people. It is harmful for several health reasons. It is a major problem to our oceans because these beautiful creatures are at a high risk of extinction.
We therefore ask the House to stop the import of shark fins. It is cruel and wasteful. It involves chopping the fin off a live shark and throwing the shark back into the water where they struggle to swim and die. Other countries including some places in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand have already done it so Australia is being left behind.
from 123 citizens (Petition no. EN10252)
PN0666
Reasons: I am only 9 and I am writing to express my concern for marine sharks. Without sharks there will be less oxygen and lots of algae would take over. In fact they are not as dangerous as everyone thinks they are. Dogs have killed 30 to 40 people yearly and sharks have killed fewer than 10 people. It is harmful for several health reasons. It is a major problem to our oceans because these beautiful creatures are at a high risk of extinction. Request: We therefore ask the House to stop the import of shark fins. It is cruel and wasteful. It involves chopping a fin of a live shark and throwing the shark back into the water where they struggle to swim and die. Other countries including some places in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand have already done it, so Australia is being left behind.
from 87 citizens (Petition no. PN0666)
Petitions received.
Clover wants the importation of shark fins into Australia to be banned, and she has worked tirelessly to collect the 210 signatures needed to formally petition the parliament. Lodging a petition to parliament is a fundamental right of citizens and gives individuals and groups a direct way to seek parliamentary action. Clover's petitions show me something profound in a young person. What troubles her conscience gives her both a sense of responsibility and a determination to act. She sees herself as part of a wider world with an obligation to help protect its future.
Clover recently visited my electorate office to tell me that she's deeply saddened that some shark species are threatened with extinction, even though they play a vital role in the health of our marine ecosystems. She said she's particularly distressed by the suffering caused by the practice of shark finning, where fins are cut from live sharks who are then thrown back into the ocean. In Clover's view, this cruelty overlooks the importance of sharks in sustaining the natural world on which we all depend.
Clover's efforts to build support for the petitions are commendable, starting with a call-out for support in her school newsletter, then at school assembly, and then setting up an e-petition to give more people the opportunity to support her cause. Her work has also attracted the support of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, which has encouraged her advocacy and her efforts to raise awareness for shark conservation. Australia already has important measures in place to protect sharks. This includes prohibiting shark finning at sea in Commonwealth fisheries and calling for bans on finning at sea through regional fisheries management organisations.
Clover is petitioning parliament, asking the Australian government to take further action to stop the importation of shark fins into Australia. I congratulate Clover on the initiative she has shown. At just 10 years old, she has found a cause she's passionate about and raised awareness in her community to build support for her petitions. If Clover and her classmates are watching this speech from school, I hope they're proud to see that her efforts on an important issue have reached the Australian federal parliament. I'm very pleased to table Clover's petitions today to bring the views of the signatories before the House and to congratulate Clover on her advocacy.
In the last sitting, I brought the chamber's attention to the abhorrent actions of Vestas, a Danish renewable energy company, that in my electorate of Maranoa put up a wind-monitoring tower outside Tara. This is a 300-foot tower with guy wires coming out of it. They built that at the end of 2024 and did not mark it. They did not put in any lighting, did not paint it and had no consultation with any of the general aviators or agricultural aviators in that area, putting lives at risk—in fact, so much so that there were near misses. So much umbrage did they take to me bringing this to the attention of the parliament that they publicly made statements after that that they had fixed this 12 months ago, forgetting that there had been nearly two years when they did nothing, endangering the lives of people in western Queensland. This is a company that is taking taxpayers' money to build renewable energy in my electorate and is showing scant regard for the safety of my people who are out there undertaking agricultural aviation.
So you understand what a wind-monitoring tower is, it's a 300-foot tower no wider than 50 centimetres in diameter that has guy wires coming out of it. Unless it's lit, it will be a significant danger to agricultural aviation, particularly to those who fly helicopters to muster cattle and to those who fly fixed-wing aircraft that spray our crops. If they're not aware of the tower or can't even see the tower, then there is the real risk of them running into it—killing people. Vestas gave three-fifths of bugger-all about the fact that they had endangered anyone's life for more than 18 months before they actually put a light on top of it—a light that previously was only run by a solar panel that ran out before daylight that meant that, when these aviators went up in the morning, they were flying without the guidance of this light. It is an absolute offence. The fact that we would even allow this company to continue on and think that they could build wind turbines in the Tara district—I believe it shows now that they do not have the social licence to continue.
We should strike Vestas from any ability to build anything in this country. We should send them back to Denmark as quickly as we possibly can. So bad is this company and so little social licence do they have that they are now going to farmers nearby who have landing strips on their property, asking—nearly telling—them to move them so that they can put their towers next to their properties. These are the landing strips that fight the fires that would protect them. That is the arrogance of a Danish company that we should tell to take a running jump, because they don't give a rat's about Australians lives.
It is a privilege to celebrate the recipients of the 2026 Tilly Aston Outstanding Young Achiever Award. The Tilley Aston Community Awards shine a light on the remarkable people who make the Aston community such a wonderful place to live. Our nominees represent many schools, clubs, organisations and community groups that create opportunities, support others and help people thrive. Named after Matilda 'Tilly' Aston, a pioneering disability advocate who fought for greater rights and opportunities for blind Australians, these awards celebrate people who demonstrate determination, courage, empathy and a commitment to others. This year we had an exceptional group of finalists for the Outstanding Young Achiever Award. They had contributed through sport, education, volunteering, leadership, mentoring and community service. I congratulate every one of them. I am delighted to announce that this year we have two winners, Pia Sharma and Lachlan Sefton.
Pia is an exceptional young person with a genuine desire to support and encourage others. For three years she has coached gymnastics twice a week, mentoring children aged four to 13. She has volunteered at Smart Oz Kids, led a children's youth group through her church and tutored young children at Kumon. Pia has also demonstrated outstanding academic potential, receiving the University of Melbourne's prestigious Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars Program award and completing her bronze Duke of Edinburgh's Award. Perhaps most inspiring is Pia's resilience in overcoming significant personal challenges. Her willingness to share her experiences has become a source of hope for other young people, offering empathy, encouragement and reassurance when they face struggles of their own.
Our second winner, Lachlan Sefton, is an inspiring example of what can be achieved through confidence, determination and a willingness to contribute. At Urban College, Boronia, Lachlan has thrived, embracing challenges with self-belief and bringing an infectious smile to school each day. He is an active member of the student representative council and consistently arrives early to help prepare the school breakfast club, showing his commitment to making a difference in the lives of his fellow students. His contribution extends well beyond the school gates. Lachlan volunteers with Backpacks 4 VIC Kids, a charity providing clothing for children in out-of-home care and also gives his time to the CFA. Lachlan's achievements demonstrate that everyone has something valuable to offer their community and that living with autism and an intellectual disability does not define what a person can accomplish. Pia and Lachlan remind us that being a young leader is not just about personal success; it is about lifting others up and making your community stronger. Congratulations to both very deserving winners.
Last week I visited a local steel fabrication business, NEACH, in Noosa, where skilled workers and apprentices fabricate structural steel for major projects. This is not about where raw steel is made. It's about where the components are detailed, cut, drilled, welded, assembled and finished. The Productivity Commission's interim figures show in-scope imports increased 27.9 per cent between 2020-21 and 2024-25 financial years. Its industry data set records full-time equivalent employment falling 5.1 per cent and investment falling 6.3 per cent in 2024-25. These figures do not settle the safeguards question. They demand a response. I call for three actions from this government. Firstly, address industry's evidence and explain how measurement concerns are resolved in the final assessment of the safeguard. Revenue is not the same as Australian fabrication output. Secondly, introduce mandatory verified national reporting of imported fabrication structural steel—tonnage, value and country of fabrication, including components arriving within prefabricated assemblies—reconcile customs and project data to verify the full volume; distinguish Australian fabrication from imported components sold through Australian businesses; and require public procurement to give transparent, auditable weight to the full economic value of fabrication in Australia, such as skilled jobs, wages, apprenticeships, tax revenue, full supply chains, investment and resilience. The lowest price from overseas is not necessarily the best value for Australia and Australians. Thirdly, establish and publish the base-line structural steel fabrication capability Australia must retain for infrastructure delivery and supply chain resilience, not merely an inventory of today's capacity. Measure actual output capacity, skills and apprenticeships against that requirement. Use the evidence to adjust procurement and, where justified, trade measures within our international obligations before essential capability is lost.
Imports have a place, but that place shouldn't replace the productivity and commercial viability of the Australian fabrication industry, which we need to rely on. When times are tough and we can't rely on imports, we must have a sovereign capacity. Measure the imports, value the local work and maintain the capability in Australia.
I want to acknowledge the NT veterans and families art exhibition, which is showing right now at Darwin Visual Arts. Veteran artist Robby McKenzie has put the exhibition together. He's done an incredible job. He's an absolute champion. Robby is working with Kat Baldwin, who runs ANVAM, the Australian National Veterans Art Museum, which provides connection points through the arts for our nation's veterans. I want to thank ANVAM in advance for their support of Robby up in the north for FOVA, the Festival of Veterans Art, which will be held next March, including in Darwin.
Another champion is the Darwin veteran artist who wrote a poem as a reflective piece after reading submissions to my old mate Hocks's Afghan taskforce. This artist wanted to give those veterans and family members a voice. The poem is called 'The Anxiety in Me' and was penned for all veterans by this particular veteran.
The way my thoughts storm my mind like a tornado swirling, twirling and thundering …
… It's the anxiety in me …
The way my body responds to sudden movements and noises in public places …
… It's the anxiety in me …
The way I wake in a sudden state of fear thinking, knowing, feeling something brewing …
… It's the anxiety in me …
The way my brain loses concentration in conversation
… It's the anxiety in me …
Like a thief in the night this anxiety in me is robbing the life inside of me …
Then suddenly out of nowhere that tornado emerges and a flood of memories flash before my eyes
I see and hear the ships, the guns, the rushing, the yelling, the orders … and then … then the Silence …
… that was the life inside of me …
The service to my country …
The sacrifices given …
The days, weeks, months and years spent apart from loved ones …
… that was the life inside of me.
"Move don't think, just do," becomes the mantra replacing thinking and feeling.
My eyes saw the Darkness and my ears heard the screams so you didn't have to …
My body held the wounded and found the lost so you didn't have to …
The flag is flying freely because I Pledged to protect it so you didn't have to
… That was the life inside of me.
And when the dust settles and my feet return to home soil who will bear the darkness and anxiety so I don't have to …?
Who will stand in the gap and say
Theres life coming back into you now …
Who will hold me and answer when my anxiety screams at me
Who will stand up and say no it's not your anxiety but instead say it's OUR PTSD in all of us.
Don't fight alone!
That's a very powerful reminder from this veteran artist about our need and our collective duty to our veterans.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics Business Register shows that there are about a total of 20,000 businesses located within the Riverina federal electorate. The vast majority of those—97 per cent, in fact—are small businesses. The Liberals and Nationals will always stick up for and defend small businesses, which are under attack like never before. In an official state government snapshot tracking the electorate's business structure, 13,762 businesses classified as non-employing businesses such as sole traders, and 6,000 were small businesses employing fewer than 20 people. Combined, as I say, they make up nearly 97 per cent of small businesses. I want to thank all of those businesses within the Riverina—the likes of Ron Finemore, in transport, and Geof Harrison, in construction and joinery. They do an amazing job.
Those two sectors I just mentioned, transport and construction, are under pressure like never before. As a national situation, they are two sectors which are losing businesses, particularly small businesses, in record numbers. Insolvencies are at a record level, and this is just so, so sad. The local business economy is being driven by some of the investments that the coalition made, in fact, including the nearly $1.5 billion that we're spending on both the Royal Australian Air Force base at Forest Hill and, indeed, the 1st Recruit Training Battalion, 'Home of the Soldier', Kapooka Army Base at just south-west of the city. What we want to make sure of is that those businesses have the people, the labour and the investment that they need. But, at the moment, as I say, small business is under attack. It's under attack from policies brought about since the budget, since the election—policies that the Labor Party never actually enunciated or flagged before either the budget or the election, and they are having such an effect on our small businesses.
But we've just announced a stop to the water buybacks. We are going to push that through the Senate. What we've also just announced is a dams taskforce which will make sure that we build the infrastructure to help our regional communities and to help our farmers. All too often, when it comes to mentioning small businesses, farmers aren't considered as part of that group, but they are. They are the best farmers in all of the world, and the Liberals and Nationals will always stand up and defend their rights.
Recently, I had the pleasure of welcoming Noah from the Northern Adelaide Senior College to my electorate office for work experience. During his time with us, I asked him to write a speech for me to present to parliament about something that he considers important. These are his words:
Thank you, Noah, for your thoughtful insights.
In closing, I want to congratulate and acknowledge the fantastic contribution you've made in our office. You've kept our whole team on their feet. I hope that you've learnt plenty during your time with me and my team. One thing that I definitely know is that you have an extremely bright future of you. Keep your head down; keep studying hard. I look forward to seeing what you do in the future.
After 12 years of Victorian Labor, the people of the southern Mornington peninsula are still waiting for a hospital that is fit for purpose. The Rosebud Hospital serves a growing and ageing population in a region that welcomes millions of visitors every year. Its facilities are outdated, its emergency department is overwhelmed, surgery and maternity are long since closed, and today's patients are regularly rerouted to Frankston for treatment. Local residents are forced to privately fundraise for essential medical equipment, including a new CT scanner. They do a mighty job, but, in 2026, a community shouldn't have to pass the hat to fund essential equipment. The hardworking doctors and nurses of Rosebud Hospital deserve better, our elderly residents deserve better, and families across the southern peninsula deserve to have the confidence that quality health care is available close to home.
Last night, the candidates for Nepean gathered to talk through the future of the southern Mornington peninsula, and there were fine words about the importance of the hospital from the Greens, the indies and PHON. Shamefully, the Labor chair was empty 44 days from the state election, and there is still no Labor candidate for Nepean, a seat that they held between 2018 and 2022. Only one candidate promised the public funds to rebuild the Rosebud Hospital, and that was Liberal candidate, Anthony Marsh, who, together with Jess Wilson, our leader, and Georgie Crozier, the shadow health minister in Victoria, have repeatedly turned up, repeatedly listened and repeatedly inspected the conditions of the hospital. They have looked at their budget, and they have committed the funds necessary to rebuild Rosebud Hospital, starting as soon as the state government gets the fresh start it needs in November.
The state election will also be essential for my region getting the attention it so desperately needs to address. homelessness. My region has the highest incidence of homelessness outside the Melbourne CBD. Over the years, various efforts have been made to invest in crisis accommodation. Plans have been mounted and eventually aborted due to the lack of interest from the Victorian state government and challenges that are sometimes faced at the planning level in council. Hundreds of public housing properties have sat empty over the years, sometimes for maintenance and sometimes for other reasons, while we lose lives in tents on the front beach. I commend the work of the state Liberal members, Anthony Marsh in Nepean and Chris Crewther in Mornington, who have committed more to support the local work of Fusion, which provides accommodation and support for young people who are homeless. Together with Chris, Anthony and the member for Dunkley, Jodie Belyea, we have been fighting for fusion so we can expand and meet what feels sometimes like a bottomless need for crisis accommodation, particularly for young families.
The southern Mornington Peninsula is a place of dire and urgent need. Anthony has committed a future coalition government to support the work of the Southern Peninsula Community Support centre, led by the extraordinary Jeremy Maxwell and his tireless team, and I have been working with the Special Envoy for Social Housing and Homelessness, the member for Macnamara, and more recently directly with the minister for housing and her team to support the women's community housing project in Rosebud. I thank her for her attention and engagement across party lines.
A division having been called in the House of Representatives—
Sitting suspended from 10:16 to 10:29
I am proud to be part of a government that is investing in the infrastructure that my community needs and deserves. In Jagajaga, 3081 is a growing and changing community with young families who need good local facilities and places to come together. I was really pleased to recently join Mayor Alison Champion and Councillor Mary O'Kane to turn the sod on a new pavilion at Shelley Park in Heidelberg Heights. This is a long-awaited project for the Heidelberg Heights community. As I said, this is a community that is changing rapidly. I know that people are looking for places where they can come together and gather as a community, which families can access and, of course, which our wonderful North Heidelberg Sporting Club can use as they continue their successes. I'm really pleased that the Albanese government is investing $3 million in this new community facility, which will support the North Heidelberg Sporting Club and support the wider 3081 community. I want to thank Banyule Council, Warren, Leigh and the North Heidelberg team for their patience and their advocacy to me to get this project delivered, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it finished next year.
In Eltham, in the northern part of my electorate, it's been wonderful to be able to invest in community facilities there. Again, I'm really aware how important it is for local people to have places to come together, to get outdoors and to celebrate our community. It was wonderful to recently be with state member Vicki Ward, Nillumbik shire mayor Naomi Joiner and residents to celebrate the upgrades at Eltham Lower Park. This has been achieved with $2 million from the Albanese Labor government. Again, a big thanks to all the community members who advocated to me for this upgrade. We're seeing a new pavilion to support the cricket club and the lacrosse club, allowing for greater participation in local sport and community activities. We've got improved accessibility, some new amenities and the new off-leash dog park. It also involves some important environmental works, because it is a beautiful part of the electorate—some revegetation and landscaping and protecting the local biodiversity. I have even seen an echidna at this park, so, if you're lucky, you might get to see one too. Thanks to the Friends of Eltham Lower Park and the fantastic volunteer committees at the clubs there.
Finally, I would like to mention the support we're giving to sport in Ivanhoe. This is really a cross-generational project where we are supporting older Australians to age well through sports like croquet and also encouraging more girls and young women to get involved in netball. This is a $2 million investment from the Albanese Labor government at Ivanhoe to upgrade the sporting precinct there. I'm looking forward to seeing this come together and more locals benefit from our government's investment.
I want to tell the chamber about a hardworking 55-year-old man from Lindsay who recently reached out in absolute desperation. He works full-time, yet for the first time in his life he cannot afford his immediate living costs. He said:
With all the cost rises I am in severe financial distress. More working-class people, like myself, are becoming the new poor of our country.
That is what the Albanese government's cost-of-living crisis looks like in Lindsay—a man with a full-time job looking at people sleeping in their cars and wondering, 'How far am I from that?'
Penrith Vinnies support centre coordinator Thomas Jones said the centre recorded 3,000 walk-ins last year—20 per cent more than in 2024. That's on top of another 4,000 requests for assistance. But what really hit home is who he is helping: up to 80 new people a week who've never sought charity assistance before; 53 per cent are private renters—that's more than half; and 20 per cent are paying off mortgages. Thomas said:
They're all working, even couples—dual incomes and they're struggling still. It's not that these families are mismanaging their finances. It's that prices have jumped everywhere.
When asked whether he saw things improving, his answer was heartbreaking:
I don't really see any end in sight.
When did Australians at work need emergency food relief? When did this become normal? These are people for whom work is no longer enough. And is there any wonder? Labor promised to cut electricity bills. Instead, prices are up nearly 40 per cent—groceries, insurance and fuel. For a tradie in Penrith, it's costing more than $230 just to fill up a ute, and the dream of owning a home is slipping further out of reach. New Canstar figures show that you need to earn at least $250,000 a year before tax to afford a typical Sydney house.
Meanwhile, median house rents in Penrith have risen more than 40 per cent under Labor from $450 a week to $640 a week. That's nearly $10,000 extra a year, money people don't have and certainly money that families don't have. A family with a typical $860,000 Penrith mortgage is paying $521 more a month than in February. How much more does this government expect families to absorb? The people of Lindsay are such hardworking people. They want to get ahead. They want a better life for their families, but they need breathing room. What does it say about Australia when people work hard their whole lives and they still become the new poor, one missed payment away from losing their home and one step closer to living in their car?
I rise today to highlight a huge win for the Perth Hills environment and community, and it's also a win for common sense. The WA State Administration Tribunal has upheld their refusal for the proposed North Stoneville Structure Plan. I acknowledge the work that the tribunal has done in its rigorous consideration of this matter. As a former Shire of Mundaring councillor and deputy president and the federal member for Bullwinkel, I have consistently opposed this particular proposal because of the unacceptable bushfire safety risks that it posed to future residents and the broader community.
The development would have seen major residential real estate established across 535 hectares of fire-prone bushland in the Perth Hills. It would have caused the destruction of 60,000 trees, which are importantly part of the habitat for the endangered black cockatoos. The site had insufficient bushfire evacuation options, and it relied on strained water supplies and strained local infrastructure.
Importantly, this is not about opposing development; this is about supporting appropriate development. We all know we need more homes, but they must be built in the right places and planned with the appropriate infrastructure and local conditions in mind. I want to thank the local community group, Save Perth Hills, who have worked tirelessly over many years to ensure local voices were part of the planning considerations as well. I'm proud to have stood with my community in Perth Hills throughout this 35-year-old campaign, and I welcome this as a win for us all.
I also rise to talk about the remarkable work of Comfort Quilts Against Cancer. They're a not-for-profit charity based in my electorate of Bullwinkel in the Wheatbelt town of Northam. They provide free, hand-made care packages to patients undergoing treatment in their fight against cancer. As a nurse, I know what comfort and sense of hope these care packages can bring to people undergoing treatment. I recently had the pleasure of visiting their workshop, where I met Maureen and Ros, two dedicated volunteers who care deeply. I saw firsthand the quilts, scarves and beanies that they make across a huge network of volunteers and send to patients right across WA and Australia voluntarily for free.
Each step of the process—from sourcing materials, assembly and postage costs—relies on the compassion of everyday Australians who want to provide a symbol of comfort and hope to what is often one of the most challenging times in people's lives: undergoing cancer treatment. To the founder, Bronwyn; to Maureen and Ros; and to everyone involved with Comfort Quilts Against Cancer, thank you for generosity and compassion.
I rise to share the words of nine year 11 students from my electorate. These incredible young and rural achievers from Grey are the future of our nation. These are the voices everyone in this place needs to listen to. So I am happy, on their behalf, to share their speech with you today:
We write this speech not just as students, but as future adults deeply concerned about the Australia we are growing into.
For generations, owning a home has represented independence, security and the ability to build a future.
A home is where families create memories, where children grow up, and where people feel they belong.
But for many young Australians today, this dream is becoming increasingly out of reach. We worry that by the time we are ready to buy a home, prices will be so high that it will be impossible without sacrificing our entire quality of life.
We do not want a future where we spend every dollar just trying to survive.
We want to enjoy life, travel, spend time with our families, and pursue the things that make us happy.
Just as the generations before us have.
We are asking Parliament to take action.
Invest in building more affordable homes and increasing housing supply…
So young people have a genuine chance to own a home.
Expand opportunities in trades and technical education.
And encourage skilled migration so we have more skilled workers who can build the homes Australia desperately needs.
Young Australians are not asking for special treatment.
We are asking for the opportunity to build a secure future in the country we call home.
Please listen to our concerns and act now.
Because the future we inherit depends on the decisions you make today.
Thank you to Amelia, Ryan, Rachel, Darcy, Chloe, Jaxon, Josh, Olivia and Harper for letting me share their speech with you here today. These students have told us what they think with more clarity than many in this place. We need more targeted skilled migration not mass migration. We need to invest in housing supply not more housing taxes. We all know that, when you tax something, like housing, you get less of it. They've done their part. Now, it's up to us to do ours, and that means listening and acting on what we hear.
Yesterday, in the House, we saw it again. We have a small business minister who listens to small businesses. What are they saying? They're saying your government policies are killing them. CGT changes and trust changes that didn't go to an election are hurting small business. The inability to use credit cards for ATO payments, forcing payment surcharges on small businesses—these policies are not helping small business.
Last Friday, I was really pleased to be able to drop into Savannah Pride's celebration of 20 years of operation. Savannah Pride compares itself to the savanna tree—deep roots, strong branches and shade comforting the whole community. It's a great initiative, beginning in 2006, when a handful of South Sudanese basketball coaches and students set out to help young people find their feet in a new country. Its founder and long-time coach, Mayor Chagai, came to Australia as a refugee, and, for years, the club ran on little formal funding and a lot of heart, with its founders regularly putting in 80-hour weeks, going above and beyond to support young people in our area. It's welcoming young people of every background, boys and girls, from under 12 to adults, and it runs in partnership with the PCYC out of Mount Druitt.
It's much more than basketball. The rules are simple: no study, no play. Players who fall behind at school have got to commit to tutoring alongside mentoring and cultural guidance, and the club works closely with families, schools and local police, and it's made a huge difference in students' lives. Since 2008, Savannah Pride players have regularly earned basketball scholarships to American colleges, and, in 2020, Mayor's work was recognised with a Harmony Medal at the New South Wales Premier's Multicultural Community Medals. Thank you to the founders, coaches, volunteers and families who have built it over 20 years, and congrats for the next 20 years.
I also want to congratulate Dr Michael Malek of Covenant Medical Hub in Mount Druitt. He was recently named GP of the year for New South Wales and the ACT by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. Dr Malek takes the time to listen to patients, builds long-term relationships with them and doesn't rush them out the door, and he's led free flu vaccination programs and initiatives supporting Aboriginal and culturally diverse communities, which is a big deal in our area, and he's also an educator creating resources that help future GPs sharpen their consultation skills. General practice is the front door to our health system, and Mount Druitt is very lucky, very lucky to have Dr Malek at that door. Congratulations to Dr Malek.
Finally, this Sunday, the newly built Penshurst Mosque has its grand opening, a truly special and historic occasion for the Bosnian Muslim community in Sydney. The Penshurst Mosque was built in 1989 and has been serving worshippers for over 35 years with a vision and mission to inspire all attendees to adopt everlasting attitudes of resilience, optimism and kinship and to be proud of our Muslim identity through times of ease and hardship. The Penshurst Mosque is active in the local community, and I wish them all the very best for this special and historic moment in their history.
In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.
I rise to speak on the House Standing Committee on Economics report A level playing field: report on the inquiry into schemes, digital wallets and innovation in the payments sector. I particularly acknowledge the committee chair, the member for Chifley, who did a great job in exposing everything we learnt in that inquiry, which I'll go into in this speech today.
This is a report about the fees that sit behind every time you tap your watch, your phone or your card when paying at the checkout or when paying online. It's about who in this building is willing to look at that and ask the right questions. I'm proud to be a member of this committee and I'm proud of the recommendations we have put to the ACCC, to Treasury and to government. This report builds on the recently announced surcharge ban and lays a path for the ACCC, the RBA, the private sector and the government to lay out a competitive playing field in the digital payments space.
Ask a teenager in Ryde to write a cheque and watch them search for the undo button. Cheques are behind us and payments have modernised for the better. Australians now overwhelmingly pay with the tap of a card, phone or watch, and money moves across town near instantly. This shift has brought real convenience but has also brought hidden fees and a great deal of market power sitting with a handful of global tech companies. Every time someone pays for something, a few businesses take a slice of the sale before the business gets the rest. When those players answer to nobody, the cost lands on businesses and the family doing the weekly shop. Before I came to this place, I ran a small business. Like 84 per cent of businesses, we absorbed those costs from these high multinationals—and they were high. I welcome that banks have started to pass on the full interchange reduction enacted by the RBA on 1 October, but those costs are just the interchange element of the full cost. We need to do more work on the other costs, and that's what this inquiry explored.
The committee measured the payment system against four tests: Can people trust it? Can everyone use it? Does it leave room for new ideas? How can costs be further reduced? Card payments make up around three-quarters of retail transactions across the country, and most of those payments go through Visa and Mastercard. Aussie owned and operated Eftpos keeps competition alive in the debit space, but Visa and Mastercard dominate credit and hold a large share of debit transactions. Net scheme fees paid by Australian financial institutions reached $2 billion in the 2024-25 financial year alone and grew a staggering 11 per cent year on year.
Our committee learned that it was small businesses who were being shafted by these unfair fees in the cost space. Fees are complex and unfair. As it stands, a small local shop pays a higher percentage than a multinational retailer does to accept a card. Where some big businesses pay 0.002 per cent, some small businesses pay 2.6 per cent; that is over 1,000 times more. A cafe in Gladesville pays a bigger fee on a flat white than a giant retailer pays on a trolley-load of groceries. That is unfair, and the committee said so. Recommendation 1 calls on the Treasurer to direct the ACCC to run a full and formal inquiry into what card payments cost. The ACCC should examine the Visa and Mastercard duopoly and work out what card acceptance costs small businesses and their customers, and compare that with what they're paying today.
Between 2020 and 2025, digital wallet payments grew from 10 per cent to more than 43 per cent of all card transactions. Around half of in-store purchases now happen with the tap of a smartphone. Big tech companies have put themselves in the middle of every one of these taps. Some collect a fee without facing the same rules that the banks face and without making the same investments in Australian payments infrastructure as others. Apple's one of them. Every time an Australian taps an iPhone, Apple charges the bank a percentage fee on that transaction. This fee is covered by secrecy clauses and non-disclosure agreements, so the public cannot see it. Banks cannot pass these fees directly onto consumers, but the cost still pushes up merchant fees for small businesses down the line. A fee that nobody is allowed to see is a fee that nobody can challenge.
Recommendation 6 asks the Reserve Bank to consider strict transparency requirements for wallet providers that charge pass-through fees on tokenised cards, matching the transparency expected of card scheme fees. Card scheme fees already have to be disclosed, and digital wallet fees should meet the same standard. Publishing a number costs Apple nothing and it gives banks, regulators and merchants the facts they need to shop around.
Apple also keeps tight control of the tap-and-go NFC chip inside the iPhone. An Australian bank or fintech with a good idea for a competing digital wallet cannot get access to it. Apple's answer to a local innovator is often no. Recommendation 7 asks Treasury to direct the ACCC to review Apple's market dominance in digital wallets, including its contracts and its control of the hardware. If those contracts and fees stand up to scrutiny, a review will say so. If they do not, Australian merchants and shoppers deserve to know before the next contract is signed.
Recommendation 8 asks the government to follow the European Union and require open, fee-free access to the iPhone's NFC chip. Europe has already made that call, and Australian shoppers and businesses should not wait years longer for the same choice. If a bank or a fintech start-up in Macquarie Park wants to build a secure digital wallet for Aussie shoppers, it should get the chance to use Apple's NFC chip, just as they do in Europe. Open access will spark innovation, push down costs and give consumers a real choice.
For more than 30 years, direct debits and batch payments in this country have run on the Bulk Electronic Clearing System, known as BECS. BECS is a legacy system and it takes weekends off. Payments do not. The new national payments platform—again, Australian owned and built—carries PayID and PayTo, runs 24 hours a day and moves money in real time. It also complies with important anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing laws that BECS does not. The retirement of BECS has been delayed and the date keeps shifting. Every date that slips is another year of businesses running on a system that shuts on Friday afternoons. Recommendation 9 calls on Treasury to work with industry and set a clear, firm timeline for a full transition to the new payments platform. A firm date lets banks and businesses plan and invest, and it ends the guessing.
Small fintechs also gave evidence that they face heavy technical and commercial hurdles when they try to connect to that platform. It's not easy. A good idea from a small fintech is of no use if it can't use the payment rails and access them easily. Recommendation 11 directs Treasury to work with regulators and industry to build a streamlined and simple access pathway for small, emerging payment companies. With direct access, local fintechs can offer fast, low-cost options, like PayTo or QR code payments at the counter, that exist in so many countries across the world.
Global card schemes and big tech dominate our payments cost base. We back small business. This report hands down a set of recommendations on how the payment systems can be further reformed, building on the important work of the surcharge ban which came into effect on 1 October. I thank the chair, the member for Chifley, and committee members for the amount of work that's gone into this report and also the secretariat.
New technology and convenience should never be an excuse for foreign tech giants to collect hidden fees or lock out local competition. I would encourage the ACCC to investigate card costs further to question Apple's dominance and make wallet fees visible and for all involved to open up the NFC chip so that we can have a vibrant and competitive local and domestic payments sector here in Australia. I commend the report to the House.
Debate adjourned.
As a community, Australia continues to underestimate the economic, social and health toll of alcohol and drug consumption. For many, drinking alcohol is our national pastime. In my home state of South Australia, research in the past half decade suggests that four out of five South Australian adults self-report that they do consume alcohol. Culturally, it is a norm. Older Australians are more likely to consume alcohol than younger Australians. I guess the good news from that is that the data shows that younger Australians seem to be drinking less. Maybe the culture is changing. However, the consumption of other drugs, like stimulants, opioids and other pharmaceuticals, is on the rise, and the flow-on effects can be devastating. Addiction to alcohol and other drugs can have an impact on family and work and is a leading cause of illness and death. Overdose deaths are not infrequent. In fact, overdose deaths caused by illicit drugs are consistently double the national road toll every year. In a previous role, I worked in a health service that saw a lot of people seeking narcotics. I saw the impact it had on their lives, with formerly functional people spending literally their entire waking lives moving from service to service, doctor to doctor, desperately trying to access more drugs. In the obituaries, we would see their names—passed in their sleep.
The Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability's report on the health impacts of alcohol and other drugs in Australia is a timely reminder that alcohol and other drugs remain a present threat to the health and safety of Australians. The findings are sobering. The committee's report notes that alcohol alone is estimated to cost Australia tens of billions of dollars each year through illness, injury, workforce losses, family violence, crime and premature death. It also highlights the increase in drug related harms, including the tragic reality that overdose deaths have exceeded the national road toll for around a decade. Opioids remain the leading cause of overdose deaths, while stimulant use is an increasing concern.
Behind every statistic is a person. Behind every hospital admission is a family. Behind every death is a community left grieving. That is why the government begins from the principle that alcohol and other drug misuses are fundamentally a health issue, requiring evidence based prevention, early intervention, treatment, recovery support and harm reduction measures. That is why a review of the National Drug Strategy is imperative. The inquiry was tasked with examining whether current policy settings appropriately support the prevention, reduction and recovery of alcohol and other drug related harms. The National Drug Strategy is a 10-year framework that aims to reduce and prevent the harmful effects of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs through a coordinated strategy of demand reduction, supply reduction and harm reduction. This framework guides governments, health professionals and community organisations working with people with lived experience to work together to reduce the harms associated with alcohol and other drugs.
A public health approach to this problem recognises that no single intervention is sufficient on its own, hence demand reduction, supply reduction and harm reduction. Demand reduction focuses on preventing harmful use before it starts and supporting people to help to seek help early without stigma. This means education, public awareness, early intervention services and investments in treatment pathways. Supply reduction aims to limit the availability of harmful substances through effective regulation and enforcement, and harm reduction acknowledges a simple but important reality: reducing deaths, injuries and illness must remain a priority, regardless of where a person is on their recovery trajectory.
These principles have guided Australian drug policy for decades because they are evidence based, practical and focused on improving health outcomes, and this report strongly reinforces this health focused approach. It recognises the importance of improving treatment access, strengthening the alcohol and other drugs workforce, supporting prevention initiatives and ensuring services are available to those who need them most, including people living in rural and regional Australia, First Nations communities and other priority populations facing additional barriers.
One of the report's most significant areas of focus is alcohol harm. Alcohol remains the most widely used drug in Australia and, as the committee found, contributes substantially to illness, injury, violence and social harm. The report therefore recommends stronger regulation of alcohol advertising and marketing, particularly to reduce children and vulnerable groups' exposure to it. It calls for a new, mandatory national regulatory framework, improved oversight and stronger protections in the collection and use of personal data for alcohol marketing. These recommendations align closely with the government's commitment to protecting public health and ensure that commercial interests do not undermine the wellbeing of Australians. The report also recommends a review of alcohol taxation settings, better collection of alcohol retail data and the development of national standards for online alcohol sales and delivery. These recommendations recognise that effective policy must be informed by good evidence and adapt to changing consumer behaviours and technologies.
In my home state of South Australia, the state government has recently passed laws to change alcohol delivery, ceasing 24/7 delivery and limiting it to 10 am to 10 pm, and implementing a mandatory two-hour delay for any same-day order and delivery. But this is state based legislation and would require other states to follow suit if they wished to impose similar limits.
This inquiry also highlights the need to improve support for people experiencing alcohol and other drug dependence. Recovery is not linear. People often face complex challenges involving mental illness, housing insecurity, unemployment, family stress and social disadvantage. The report recognises that our response must therefore be holistic and person centred. It is not enough to treat one aspect of a person's circumstances if the broader drivers of disadvantage remain unaddressed. People lead complex, multifaceted lives. They cannot be reduced to one diagnosis or one issue—hence any interventions, in order to be effective, need to recognise how people live their lives.
The report also plays significant emphasis on prevention. It's a truism in public health that $1 of prevention saves $9 of costs down the track. Every dollar invested in effective prevention reduces future costs across health care, emergency services, policing and social services. More importantly, prevention saves lives and prevents suffering before it occurs. It saves in human costs.
The report also discusses the need to reduce stigma. Stigma around alcohol and drug misuse remains one of the greatest barriers to treatment and recovery. Too many Australians delay seeking help because they fear judgement, discrimination or shame. We know that substance dependence is a health condition, we know that treatment works and we know that people achieve better outcomes when they can access care in a supportive environment. A modern health system must meet people where they are, support them with dignity and provide pathways to recovery that are affordable and accessible.
The report also acknowledges the invaluable contribution of clinicians, peer workers, community organisations, researchers, lived-experience voices and families. Their experience, expertise and dedication are essential to achieving the goals of the National Drug Strategy. Effective policy is strongest when it is informed not only by evidence but also by the lived experience of those directly affected by alcohol and other drug harms.
This report does not present alcohol and other drugs policies as a simple challenge with a simple solution. It recognises the complexity of the issue and the need for coordinated national action across governments, services and communities. That is why the framework provided by the National drug strategy remains fundamentally important. By reducing demand, limiting harms and supporting recovery, we can improve health outcomes, strengthen families and build safer communities. By investing in prevention, treatment and evidence based policy, we can save lives. By reducing stigma, we can ensure that more Australians seek and receive the support they need when they need it. Through the continued implementation of the National drug strategy, we can create a healthier Australia where fewer people experience alcohol and other drug harms, more people are supported in recovery and every Australian has the opportunity to live a safe, healthy and fulfilling life. This report provides a valuable roadmap for future reform, and I look forward to the government's ongoing consideration of its recommendations. I commend the report to the House.
For the past decade, deaths from overdose have been higher than road traffic deaths in Australia every year. Behind these deaths are thousands of Australians—individuals, families and communities—living with the consequences of alcohol and other drug harms. These harms are a complex web of challenges presenting across our health and welfare systems in our hospitals, in family and domestic violence cases, in mental health challenges, in homelessness, and in those lives who have been lost. In those lives lost are the grieving families and communities they leave behind. They are also felt in less visible ways—in a parent worried about their child, in people struggling to keep their job or maintain a relationship, or in families trying to find that support. That's why this inquiry and this report is so incredibly important.
I'm really proud to be a member of the Standing Committee for Health, Aged Care and Disability, and I was a member on this committee throughout this federal inquiry. I'm really proud of the report that we're delivering to the Minister for Health and Ageing. I'd like to thank the committee's chair, the member for Macarthur, and our deputy chair, the member for Kooyong, for their tireless work on this report and steadfast leadership, along with the other committee members. The presentation of this report follows an extensive inquiry spanning two parliaments, receiving more than 300 written submissions and holding 15 public hearings across Australia. I want to acknowledge those who shared those experiences with us. Speaking openly about addiction, treatment and recovery isn't always easy. People often revisit really painful moments, and it takes a certain courage to share these experiences with a parliamentary inquiry. The contribution of individuals and communities have been invaluable to the work of this committee. They remind us that the people experiencing these difficulties must have a voice in the shaping of our response.
I also want to recognise the organisations supporting people and families every single day, like those at Cyrenian House in Western Australia, where we visited alongside our public committee hearings in Perth earlier this year. Cyrenian House has been providing alcohol and other drug treatment services since 1981 and providing services including counselling, community based support, withdrawal services, residential therapeutic communities, and aftercare and transitional support. They showed us what a continuum of care can look like, because there's no single pathway into or out of alcohol and other drug dependence. Recovery can mean building relationships, finding stable housing, processing trauma, treating mental health conditions and reconnecting with education or employment. Support needs to recognise these circumstances, and it needs to continue as people move between services. Cyrenian House demonstrates the value of a person centred approach, focusing not on just abstinence but the broader social, psychological and behavioural factors often involved in substance abuse and recovery. It's approaches like Cyrenian House which have informed the concepts which underpin our report, including that alcohol and other drug dependence doesn't occur in isolation. It can intersect with mental health, trauma, housing insecurity, family and domestic violence, and involvement with the justice system as well.
This report recognises the overlaps between these issues and recommends a multipronged approach to reform, which brings me to the many recommendations for reform presented in the report. On alcohol, the report recommends a new mandatory advertising and marketing framework, national standards for online alcohol sales and delivery and further work on alcohol taxation and point-of-sale data. On prevention and early intervention, the report recommends evidence based alcohol and other drug education in secondary schools, better support for parents, routine alcohol screening in primary and antenatal care, and continued action on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. On overdose and illicit drugs, the report recommends a nationally coordinated early warning system, continued expansion of Take Home Naloxone and the use of drug checking and testing to support harm minimisation. These recommendations matter nationally, but the submissions that have been made to this inquiry from stakeholders all over the country show the deep impacts they can have in local communities.
In my own community in Melbourne's western suburbs, over the past decade in Brimbank, emergency ambulance call out rates for heroin use have been consistently far higher than the state average. Meanwhile, in the Melton local government area, Melton hospital's admission rate for illicit drugs is nearly double the Greater Melbourne average. My community is made up of young people, with those aged between 25 and 30 accounting for the highest proportion of drug related ambulance attendances, hospital admissions and treatment episodes. When local rates of drug related ambulance call-outs and hospital admissions are substantially higher than metropolitan and state averages, we need prevention, treatment and harm-reduction services that are capable of responding to that need. We need people to be able to access support early, before substance use becomes a crisis, before a family reaches breaking point and before an ambulance or emergency department becomes the first point of intervention, because behind every one of those statistics is a person and a family and a community who feel the consequences.
This report gives us a clear opportunity to do better, to intervene earlier, to make treatment more accessible and to ensure that our response to alcohol and other drug harm reflects the complexity of the lives of the people experiencing it. Most importantly, it recognises that alcohol and other drug harm is not inevitable and that, with practical evidence based action, we can prevent harm, support recovery and save lives. On that note, I commend this report to the House.
Debate adjourned.
Two things happened recently. Last week, the Australian government hosted a climate conference in Fiji to help drive climate action and focus the world's attention on climate impacts in the Pacific. The week before that conference, the largest coal mine extension in New South Wales history was approved. These two events happening side by side sums it up really. Australia says it cares about preventing climate change both at home and in the Pacific, but then it ploughs ahead with more coal and gas, with more of the very thing that is causing the supercharged heat we're expecting this summer and the Pacific Islands to sink beneath the waves.
Tuvalu's prime minister has said that fossil fuel expansion represents a 'death sentence' for his country. It's nonsensical and unconscionable that these two events—a climate conference and a huge coal mine extension—happened in such quick succession. But we can't simply chalk this up as a case of bad timing, because these kinds of clashes keep reoccurring. Last month, the PM attended the Pacific Islands Forum in Palau, where he signed a declaration reaffirming that climate change remains the single greatest threat to the Pacific. But, just days before, his government celebrated the opening of a new fracking project in the Northern Territory's Beetaloo basin, which has the potential to produce about 10 per cent of Australia's current climate pollution. These kinds of clashes speak to the fundamental contradiction at the heart of Australia's climate response. The government wants to be seen as a climate leader and as a good neighbour in the Pacific, but it also doesn't want to do anything that upsets the coal and gas lobby, which has previously run very impactful campaigns against sitting governments.
Our coal and gas might be sent to other countries, but climate impacts don't stay overseas. They come back home to bite. A few months ago, the New South Wales government, based on research by Deloitte and the University of New South Wales, found that incomes in New South Wales were approximately $20,000 less per person than they would have been if they hadn't been experiencing the impacts of climate change. Altogether, that's $180 billion lost from the New South Wales economy in 2024 alone. Whatever we export in coal and gas we import back in climate change; in fire; in flood, like the devastating floods in northern New South Wales last year; in higher insurance premiums that people in my electorate are feeling; in lower crop yields; lower productivity; and harder, poorer futures for our children and our grandchildren.
Of course, the flip side of all of this is that our future incomes are projected to be much higher if we do more to reduce pollution and stabilise climate change. The same modelling found that lowering pollution could save around $1,000, on average, in a New South Wales household's annual grocery bills by 2070. Building the clean industries of the future would generate thousands upon thousands of new jobs, far more than we currently have in the fossil fuel industry.
A few years ago, a research partnership between the University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, Princeton University and the Nous Group estimated that between one million and 1.3 million new workers will be needed to meet climate pollution reduction targets. People living in coal-producing regions like the Hunter Valley need job security. They understandably want to continue living, working and thriving in the communities that they've built over decades or even centuries. But more coal is not the solution. It's a quick fix. When the government approves extensions to existing coalmines or new mines, it's handing communities a bandaid for a haemorrhaging, long-term structural decline in the coal market.
Instead, these workers deserve money, support and strategy to help them move from coal to new industries in the region. The largest coalmine in New South Wales history, the one that was approved by the state government a couple of weeks ago, is now sitting on the federal minister for the environment and water's desk for approval. He has a choice: approve it and make our futures harder, or reject it, support coalmining communities into new industries and set us on a new, safer, more prosperous and wealthier course. It's up to him.
It is National Carers Week, and, as a foster carer for many years, I want to start by thanking carers of all ages and backgrounds for their tireless and often thankless work. Even on the hardest days, I know you're doing a great job, and I want you to know that I see you. Across my time in parliament, I've met with many different versions of carers—people looking after kids in out-of-home care, families looking after their loved ones—with all sorts of challenges. Even young people, kids, are looking after their parents and siblings.
One organisation supporting young carers is Little Dreamers. Run by Madeleine Buchner, Little Dreamers was started because, as a young person, she had to care for her own family without the traditional supports of the adult carer system. Growing up, Madeleine cared for her younger brother, who had a range of chronic illnesses, and her mother, who was diagnosed with breast cancer. Without the pay, without the recognition and without the respite offered to others, she ensured her family were taken care of before she took care of herself. Hearing this story, I often think of what we're always asked to do when flying, which is to put on your own mask before helping others. As a child, having to put on a mask on your family first means leaving behind the innocence of childhood long before you should.
Little Dreamers was set up to support young people who are carers. Some are incredibly young. I think of a nine-year-old boy who lives in Melbourne, who cares for his older sibling with an intellectual disability and supports his family in that care. Every day before school, he gets up, helps feed and dress his sibling and then does it himself. It is easy to look at this young person as selfless or compassionate but, as carers know, it is simply what you have to do to look after the ones you love. While some of us in this place are lucky enough to not have ever experienced this, it is a version of the story I hear almost every day.
This week in parliament, I stood up in front of the media to talk about the incredible work carers do, because their stories and their voices must be brought to the attention of this place. I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to my colleague and the current chair, the member for Canberra, for hosting a National Carers Week event here on Tuesday. It was an incredible opportunity to speak with carers and to hear a few songs from the Alchemy Chorus, a group of carers who unite the community through song.
As someone who has spent many years caring for kids and young people who need somewhere safe to call home, being in a space with so many other people who are doing the same work really brings home how important the support we can give is. I am proud that it was the Albanese Labor government that brought back the National Carer Strategy last launched by the Gillard government and left to end without support by the former coalition government in 2015.
The National Carer Strategy was created in partnership with carers and the care sector and reflects the needs highlighted by people with real lived experience. Programs like Carer Gateway—to name just one—and its extended counselling sessions show that this government is committed to improving the lives of people who are improving the lives of those in most need. The government has funded an additional 10,000 counselling sessions each year through Carer Gateway, helping more than 1,600 additional carers. As the first three-year action plan comes to an end in 2027, I look forward to being a strong voice for carers as our government continues to stand up for them.
I finish by saying 'thank you'. Thank you to the foster carers, the kinship carers, the young people who do not see themselves as carers and the people who are looking after family members and loved ones. I see you, and I will always keep standing up for you.
I rise today to once again implore the Victorian state Labor government and the Albanese Labor government to put more funding into our roads. I ask the Albanese Labor government to stop taking funding away from state and territory governments when it comes to roads. You cut the contribution that the federal government makes for our major highways, from 80c to every 20c the states put in back to a fifty-fifty ratio. That has meant less investment into our roads, and, sadly, we are seeing the consequences of that on a daily basis.
We're seeing it through rims being damaged. We're seeing it through tyres being completely worn out. We're seeing it through motorists travelling on the roads fearing that they're going to hit potholes metres deep, and, sadly, we're seeing it through fatalities. This has to stop. We have to get funding back into our roads. We have to get significant funding back into our roads.
Sadly, yesterday, in my electorate, on the Princes Highway, a road of national importance—a road that I fought to get made so we would have an 80-20 federal-state split on funding so we would get more money into that road—there was a fatal accident. There were people seriously injured and a fatal accident. This has to stop. People are taking their lives in their own hands now when they're driving, because they've got to weave through the potholes. It's so bad they've got to weave. Now we're seeing them, in their weaving, putting their lives at risk. We don't know ultimately what led to that two-car collision, but it's clear that the better the standard of your roads, the safer they are to drive on. I implore the Albanese Labor government: stop your wasteful spending and start investing in our key infrastructure, starting with our roads. Enough is enough.
Last night the Senate did something which I have to commend them highly for. They canned the government's cruel hit on older Australians. On the private health insurance bill which was going to take $800 out of the pockets of singles and $1,600 out of the pockets of couples if they had private health insurance and were aged over 65, the Senate said to the Albanese Labor government, 'That is a disastrous policy.' It was bipartisan, with the Independents, the Greens and the coalition all voting together to say: 'Labor, this is a disaster. This will impact 1.2 million pensioners. They will pay $800, if they're single, or $1,600 more for their private health insurance.' Lots of elderly Australians have private health insurance. They scrimp and they save so they can do it. The last thing they need in a cost-of-living crisis is to be hit with this cruel hoax by the Albanese Labor government.
The sad thing is that this government isn't listening. It doesn't have its priorities right. It's quite clear that no-one thinks this is a good idea. As a matter of fact, when the bill was debated in the House of Representatives, the Labor Party backbenchers didn't want to speak on it because they didn't want to be there saying, 'Yes, we want to take money off pensioners.' Of course, the health minister, who is on some sort of push to take over from the Treasurer so he can be next in line to the Prime Minister when he sails off into the sunset, is all for it. (Time expired)
Since the turn of the century, the world has drifted from one crisis to another, beginning with the 11 September 2001 Twin Tower and Pentagon attacks in the USA, followed by the October 2002 Bali bombings, the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 2007-2009 global recession, the ISIS terrorist years from 2014 to 2019, the three-year global COVID pandemic from 2019 to 2022, the 2022 Russian war against Ukraine, now in its fifth year, and now the military attack on Iran and the resulting disruption to global fuel supplies. All of these events, coupled with countless less publicised conflicts and numerous destructive extreme natural disasters, including floods, fires, droughts, hurricanes, cyclones and earthquakes, have taken their toll on national economies, with unquantified amounts of funds being lost or diverted away from essential daily services into the restoration or rebuilding of the regions affected.
These events are not only taking money out of communities but driving up prices and, in turn, putting people under financial stress. Throughout the world, cost of living is becoming the priority issue for governments as so many people struggle to make ends meet or to purchase their first home, pay their rent or cover education, health and aged-care costs. For too many people, life has become a daily struggle, which is why the voluntary work of service organisations is as important today as ever before.
There are numerous humanitarian organisations that every day do extraordinary work in helping people in need. However, today, I'll focus my remarks on the work and immense contributions of service clubs such as the Country Women's Association, Lions Clubs International, Rotary International, VIEW Clubs and Zonta International and how they are making a real difference to the lives of people in need.
All of these clubs have existed for decades and have become respected and trusted institutions in Australia and throughout the world. That is one of their most important strengths. I see firsthand the invaluable social work all of these organisations do in my own region, such as financially assisting individual families, delivering invaluable environmental projects, providing emergency relief support to families at times of natural disaster events, helping the rollout of health services and food and supporting education programs both locally and overseas. Whenever there is a worthy humanitarian cause, whether it be local, interstate or overseas, these organisations are often the first to step in, with no hidden agendas or personal benefit to members. Additionally, and very importantly, at a time that there is so much division within society, the humanitarian work of these service organisations is invaluable in breaking down barriers, bringing people together and creating goodwill between people of different backgrounds.
It is impossible to measure the collective value of service clubs, but I have no doubt that the hardships faced by so many and the demands on government would be much greater were it not for service clubs who, through their army of volunteers collectively do so much good. I see evidence of their worth throughout the Makin electorate, just as I'm sure that other members see it in their own electorates. Yet most of the volunteers associated with these groups quietly do what they do with little fanfare or public recognition. These are people who have often given lifelong service to their service club and the humanitarian projects those clubs have been involved with. They do so not only with a huge demand on their own time but often at a considerable financial impost to themselves. Today, I say thank you to each and every one of them. Your work and your commitment change lives, give people hope and make the world a better place.
I rise today to acknowledge the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia's specialist nurses who are here in Canberra and Parliament House this week. They have travelled here because they are fighting for their patients, their profession and the future of specialist prostate cancer care in Australia. They should not have been forced to come to Parliament House to defend their service, which saves lives, yet that is why they are here. On 31 August, the government announced it would end Commonwealth funding for prostate cancer speciality services, for our nurses, when the current agreement expires on 30 June 2027 and redirect that funding into a broader all-cancer nursing and navigation program. The decision affects 96 Commonwealth funded specialist nurses working with the PCFA's nationally recognised model of care. Let us call this decision what it is. It's a decision that risks dismantling a proven specialist service. Replacing it with a generalist model and cannot offer the same depth of expertise.
A nurse supporting every type of cancer patient is not the same as those that have specialities. This isn't a criticism of any other specialist nurses or generalist nurses, but it is not the same. Prostate cancer nursing is a specialist discipline. These nurses understand diagnosis, surgery, radiation therapy, hormone treatment, survivorship, advanced disease, continuous sexual health and mental health. They guide men and their families through some of the toughest decisions of their lives. They understand the questions men are often too embarrassed, frightened or overwhelmed to ask. They provide support and expertise long after treatment is finished. That expertise cannot be simply transferred with a contract, it cannot be replaced by a rebranding exercise, and it cannot be replaced overnight.
This service has been built over 15 years through specialist training, clinical leadership, mentoring, governance and professional networks. The PCFA argues that this model of care is unique and cannot simply be handed to another provider. What is equally concerning is the apparent lack of consultation. According to the PCFA, 96 per cent of affected specialist nurses opposed this change. That should concern every member of parliament. When 96 per cent of the specialist workforce says the government has it wrong, surely the responsible minister must agree. Instead, this government appears determined to press ahead regardless. The minister needs to explain why the people who know the service best were not properly consulted before such a significant decision was made. The government will argue that an all-cancer model improves coordination and navigation, but that is creating a false choice. Australians should not be forced to choose between broader cancer support and specialist cancer care. We should be delivering both.
Professor Damien Bolton, President of the Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand, has made the point clearly:
… investment in cancer nursing … should not come at the expense of a proven specialist service.
This is not an argument about bureaucracy, contracts or organisational structures. It's about patients. The PCFA reports that one patient from a regional centre said his specialist nurse helped him through the health system and was the main reason he was alive today. How many more stories like this does the minister need to hear? How many more patients must speak out before the government realises what is at stake?
Nearly 29,000 Australian men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year. Almost 4,000 die from the disease annually. Nearly 310,000 Australians are living after a prostate cancer diagnosis. These are not statistics. They are fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, mates and veterans. For regional Australians, the stakes are even higher. Men living in regional and remote communities face poorer outcomes and significantly greater risk of dying from prostate cancer than those living in major cities.
We should be supporting these specialist nurses. They provide care and support and they change and save lives.
No Australian should ever be turned away from crisis or transitional housing, but we know that too many Australians each and every night, whether it be young people, or women and children fleeing a violent home, simply don't have a place to go that is safe. We need to do more in order to ensure that people who are facing probably the hardest moments of their lives have somewhere safe to go—crisis and transitional housing that is complemented by advice and the support services that they need in order to move through that and to get their life back on track. We have made a record investment in crisis and transitional housing of already $700 million in grants, plus other grant programs that have supported and worked with state governments. We have recently announced a further $300 million in crisis and transitional housing to ensure that people who need a home in the worst moments of their life have one.
Last week I went to the Northern Territory to speak at the Australian Homelessness Conference put on by AHURI, and I also had the absolute privilege of going to YiSSA. YiSSA is the largest short-stay accommodation service in the country. There are over 300 units, and at any one moment there were almost 400 people living there on site. There were kids. There were people who had serious health conditions. There were people who needed dialysis treatment. There were people who had experienced rough sleeping and homelessness for way too long. It was an outstanding service. The team at Yilli and Mission Australia run this service.
Yet the Northern Territory government decided that, instead of maintaining YiSSA, they were going to take all of the residents out—kick them all out—and move them to a site in Batchelor, 100 kilometres out of Darwin. Of course they were unprepared for this; of course the Northern Territory government didn't actually do the work required to ensure that people were safe and had adequate care. They didn't have the homes in Batchelor ready for people. It is also going to cost them $18 million to build a completely new facility, when YiSSA is up and running and available. The Northern Territory government not only rejected our $3½ million offer to help purchase the site; they also rejected the full over-$6 million offer put forward by the federal government to purchase the site. The Northern Territory government also promised to not move people who had severe medical needs, yet people with severe medical needs have been sent to Batchelor. The bus that was driving people to Batchelor broke down and people were stuck waiting in the searing heat for hours while the replacement bus came to pick them up.
The Northern Territory government has also kicked people out of YiSSA. Only 30 people are currently in Batchelor. It has left hundreds of people homeless in Darwin when they already don't have enough services and already don't have enough capacity—and the Northern Territory government's response is to build a facility out of mind, out of sight, on gravel roads. When you've got people in wheelchairs meant to move through a very unstable, non-smooth surface, it is not only cruel; it is a waste of money, and, frankly, one of the worst public policy decisions I have ever seen in my time in politics.
The Northern Territory government have proven themselves to be not only cruel but incompetent. To pursue this outcome is infuriating, because they themselves know that they have a problem with crisis and transitional housing. They know that we are keen to work with them to do more. They know that treating First Nations people in this way is nothing but cruel and, frankly, bigoted—yet they chose to go ahead with the Batchelor model. Each and every member of that CLP government should be deeply, deeply ashamed of themselves.
Question agreed to.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 11:42