I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent order of the day No. 5, government business, relating to the Prime Minister's motion on the Member for Indi, being called on at the conclusion of 90 second statements and the question being put immediately.
For the information of members: this would have been part of the later resolution that manages the rest of the week, but I didn't want to put some members who would want to oppose other parts of the resolution in a position where the timing of this particular vote was part of that motion—so, for that reason, I move it separately.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following occurring immediately:
The Prime Minister immediately attending the Chamber to make a statement of not more than 10 minutes to correct the record as to the purpose of the $6.05 million grant concerning the Marrickville Golf Club Precinct.
I draw the chamber's attention to a matter that has recently become public. To act in good faith, we are seeking that the Prime Minister attend the chamber and provide a statement of explanation on the matter. We hope that this can de-escalate the issue and clarify the chamber's understanding.
On 27 April 2025, the Prime Minister published a media release titled 'Building and Securing the Marrickville Golf Club Precinct'. This media release detailed a $6.05 million election commitment towards the golf club's upgrade. The media release stated:
Work will include expanding outdoor areas for greater social and community enjoyment as well as providing pedestrian and bike access so people can more easily get to and enjoy the precinct.
Patrons and guests will enjoy better indoor amenities with clubhouse renovations and the provision of community meeting and function rooms.
Sustainability will also be a focus with stormwater to be harvested, irrigating the golf course and the local sporting fields like Mahoney Reserve and Beaman Park, while boosting the health of the nearby Cooks River.
On 17 September 2025 the New South Wales government published a media release titled 'Putt-ing an end to sewer woes: Marrickville golf course to get a hole lot better'. The media release detailed a $269,500 grant from the New South Wales government to connect the Marrickville Golf Club clubhouse to the main sewers. The media release stated:
The clubhouse is not currently connected to the public sewer system and relies on two old septic tanks, one of which failed and discharged wastewater onto the course impacting golfers, recreational walkers and presenting an environmental risk to the nearby Cooks River.
… … …
The NSW Government funding to connect the clubhouse will pave the way for further upgrades to the golf course precinct funded by the Federal Government.
A year later, on 9 and 10 September 2026, during question time, the Prime Minister answered three questions relating to the Marrickville Golf Club grant. On 9 September 2026, the member for Barker asked a question to the Prime Minister:
Seventy-three per cent of funding from Labor's $560 million secret, invite-only grant scheme went to projects in Labor electorates, including a $6 million grant to the Marrickville Golf Club, of which the Prime Minister has not declared his own honorary membership. When the Prime Minister said, 'Shameless pork barrelling must stop, and it will, under a Labor government,' was that just another broken promise?
In response, the Prime Minister defended the merit and integrity of the grant. The Prime Minister said:
There were three grants in my electorate. One was for Leichhardt Women's Community Health Centre …
The second was to St Vincent de Paul for fixing up the refuge where women and children escaping domestic violence—
… … …
The third project is for the Inner West Council, which owns the public golf course at Marrickville. It has existed for a long time, almost a 100 years, and they have a septic tank. Because it is on the floodplain, when it floods in Marrickville raw sewage flows into the Cooks River—that is what the funding is for.
Later the same day in question time, the member for Kooyong asked again about the merits of grants. She asked the Prime Minister:
Don't you agree that government spending should be based on merit and need and should be transparent, rather than being based on retaining and winning marginal seats?
The Prime Minister responded by saying:
As to the three projects that are referred to in my electorate, I hesitate to find anyone who would regard them as not being worthwhile: fixing a women's health centre that literally needed repair after more than 50 years of providing services; a project dealing with women and children having a safe place to go when escaping domestic violence; and an environmental project stopping raw sewage going into the Cooks River during flooding.
That is twice now that the Prime Minister referred to an environmental project.
The next day, on 10 September 2026, the Prime Minister was again asked by Mr Pasin about the matter explicitly. He asked, 'Did the Prime Minister mislead this House about the purpose of the grant?' The Prime Minister responded:
The answer to that is no. We had election commitments, which we gave upfront. We gave less than one-third of the election commitments of those opposite. That is just a fact.
He said there were three commitments in his electorate—one for a refuge, one for a St Vincent de Paul facility and one for the upgrade of the Inner West Council owned Marrickville Golf Club. Included in that was funding to fix the sewerage because it goes into the river and causes a problem when it floods—three times.
A month later, on 22 October 2026, officials from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts attended a Senate inquiry. When the officials were asked about the Marrickville Golf Club grant, they responded—and this is important, and I hope everyone is listening:
The sewerage works are not in the scope …
Last night at Senate estimates, officials from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts again confirmed sewage is not a component of this grant.
With all this information now in the public arena, I'm asking the Prime Minister to attend the chamber and explain to the House why he stated three times—not once, not twice, but three times—during question time that the Commonwealth grant included sewage works when his own media release a year earlier did not, why a NSW government grant dealt with sewerage and mentioned the Commonwealth would deal with other matters, and now why the Commonwealth department said sewerage works are not in the scope.
This is an opportunity for the Prime Minister to clear the air. This is an opportunity for the Prime Minister to be frank with this House. This is an opportunity for the Prime Minister—for once, just admit you got it wrong and tell the truth. The cock has crowed three times on the Prime Minister on this now, and we've got to hear from the Prime Minister that the truth does mean something to him, because Australians are sick of the consequences of the Prime Minister not being honest with them. They're hurting. Every time he misleads and every time he's not upfront and honest with them, they are paying the price. They're at home. They're sitting there looking at their bills, wondering whether they're going to add up with the income that's coming to the household budget, and they're looking to the Prime Minister to show real leadership, to be upfront, to be honest with them, to come clean and to just admit—when you get it wrong, say you've got it wrong. It's not that hard. You just say, 'I'm sorry. We all make mistakes,' and, if the Prime Minister did that, this would be the end of it, but, at the moment, the Prime Minister won't. He needs to come into this House and explain himself.
The Leader of the House.
Opposition members interjecting—
No, he'd just finished his speech. Under 78(b)—
Member for Forrest, we're just going to do this in an orderly way.
Under standing order 45(c), I move:
That notice No. 1, government business, be called on immediately.
Opposition members interjecting—
I just brought on that a debate happen not that it stop.
The leader has moved—he's entitled to do so under the standing orders. The question is that the motion by the Leader of the House to bring on notice No. 1, government business, be agreed to.
I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent:
(1) on Tuesday, 27 October:
(a) a Minister introducing the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026 and the resumption of the debate being made an order of the day for a later hour;
(b) a Minister introducing the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026;
(c) when the order of the day relating to the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 is called on, a cognate debate taking place with the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 and Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026;
(d) at the adjournment of the debate on the motion for the second reading of the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, the bill and the two related bills standing referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration;
(e) when the order of the day relating to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026 is called on, a cognate debate taking place with the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026 and the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Minimum Tax on Discretionary Trusts) Bill 2026;
(f) after the discussion of a matter of public importance, when called on, debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026 and related bills continuing without interruption until the commencement of the adjournment debate at 7.30 pm; and
(g) at 8 pm, notwithstanding standing order 31, the adjournment debate being interrupted, and debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026 and related bills having priority until:
(i) no further Members rise to speak; or
(ii) 10 pm; or
(iii) a later time specified by a Minister prior to 10 pm;
at which point, the debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until 9 am on Wednesday, 28 October;
(2) on Wednesday, 28 October:
(a) when the order of the day relating to the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026 is called on, debate to resume and the bill standing referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration at the adjournment of the debate;
(b) immediately after, the order of the day relating to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission Bill 2026 being called on and a cognate debate taking place with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (National Policing Information Charges) Bill 2026;
(c) at the adjournment of the debate on the motion for the second reading of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission Bill 2026, the bill and the related bill standing referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration;
(d) immediately after the order of the day relating to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026 is called on:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 2(d)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(e) immediately following proceedings on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026, the order of the day relating to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026 being called on, and:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 2(e)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(f) immediately following proceedings on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026, the order of the day relating to the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Minimum Tax on Discretionary Trusts) Bill 2026 being called on, and:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 2(f)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(g) immediately following proceedings on the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Minimum Tax on Discretionary Trusts) Bill 2026, the order of the day relating to the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 being called on and debate resuming;
(h) after the discussion of a matter of public importance, when debate resumes on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, debate continuing without interruption until the commencement of the adjournment debate at 7.30 pm; and
(i) at 8 pm, notwithstanding standing order 31, the adjournment debate being interrupted, and debate on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 having priority until:
(i) no further Members rise to speak; or
(ii) 10 pm; or
(iii) a later time specified by a Minister prior to 10 pm;
at which point, the debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until 9 am on Thursday, 29 October;
(3) on Thursday, 29 October:
(a) if required, the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026, Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026 and the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026 returned to the House for further consideration;
(b) immediately after the order of the day relating to the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 is called on:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 3(b)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(c) immediately following proceedings on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, the item of business relating to the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 being called on, and
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any, second reading amendments [unresolved questions] and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 3(c)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(d) immediately following proceedings on the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, the item of business relating to the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 being called on, and:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any, second reading amendments [unresolved questions] and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to; and
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 3(d)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(e) immediately following proceedings on the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026, the item of business relating to the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026 being called on, and:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any, second reading amendments [unresolved questions] and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 3(e)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading; and
(f) immediately following proceedings on the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026, the item of business relating to the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026 being called on, and:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments [unresolved questions] and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph 3(f)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(4) on Monday, 23 November private Members' business having priority from 10 am to 1.30 pm and for a further 30 minutes, following the conclusion of Question Time, any documents being presented by the Speaker and by Ministers, and any ministerial statements, by leave, being made; and
(5) any variation to this arrangement being made only on a motion moved by a Minister.
by leave—I move that all words after '27 October' be deleted and the words which have been circulated in the chamber be inserted in its place:
That all words after "27 October" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
(a) a Minister introducing the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026;
(b) a Minister introducing the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026;
(c) when the order of the day relating to the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 is called on, a cognate debate taking place with the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 and Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026;
(d) at the adjournment of the debate on the motion for the second reading of the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, the bill and the two related bills standing referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration;
(e) the order of the day relating to the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 being immediately called on and having priority until 1.30 pm;
(f) after the discussion of a matter of public importance, when called on, debate on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 continuing without interruption until the commencement of the adjournment debate at 7.30 pm; and
(g) at 8 pm, notwithstanding standing order 31, the adjournment debate being interrupted, and debate on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 having priority until:
(i) no further Members rise to speak; or
(ii) 10 pm; or
(iii) a later time specified by a Minister prior to 10 pm;
at which point, the debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until 9 am on Wednesday, 28 October;
(2) on Wednesday, 28 October:
(a) when the order of the day relating to the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026 is called on, debate resuming and at the adjournment of the debate the bill standing referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration;
(b) the order of the day relating to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission Bill 2026 then being immediately called on and a cognate debate taking place with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (National Policing Information Charges) Bill 2026;
(c) at the adjournment of the debate on the motion for the second reading of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission Bill 2026, the bill and the related bill standing referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration;
(d) when the order of the day relating to the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 is called on:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph (2)(d)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(e) immediately following proceedings on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, the order of the day relating to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026 being called on, and a cognate debate taking place with the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Minimum Tax on Discretionary Trusts) Bill 2026 and the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026;
(f) after the discussion of a matter of public importance, when called on, debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026 and related bills continuing without interruption until the commencement of the adjournment debate at 7.30 pm; and
(g) at 8 pm, notwithstanding standing order 31, the adjournment debate being interrupted, and debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026 and related bills having priority until:
(i) no further Members rise to speak; or
(ii) 10 pm; or
(iii) a later time specified by a Minister prior to 10 pm;
at which point, the debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until 9 am on Thursday, 29 October;
(3) on Thursday, 29 October:
(a) if required, the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026, Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026 and the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026 being returned to the House for further consideration;
(b) when the order of the day relating to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026 is called on:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph (3)(b)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(c) immediately following proceedings on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 3) Bill 2026, the order of the day relating to the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Minimum Tax on Discretionary Trusts) Bill 2026 being called on, and:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph (3)(c)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(d) immediately following proceedings on the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Minimum Tax on Discretionary Trusts) Bill 2026, the order of the day relating to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026 being called on, and:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph (3)(d)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(e) immediately following proceedings on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 4) Bill 2026, the item of business relating to the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 being called on, and:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments [unresolved questions] and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph (3)(e)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(f) immediately following proceedings on the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, the item of business relating to the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 being called on, and:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments [unresolved questions] and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph (3)(f)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(g) immediately following proceedings on the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026, the item of business relating to the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026 being called on, and:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments [unresolved questions] and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph (3)(g)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading; and
(h) immediately following proceedings on the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026, the item of business relating to the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026 being called on, and:
(i) any second reading amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved by the Member proposing them;
(ii) the questions being put immediately on any second reading amendments [unresolved questions] and on the second reading of the bill;
(iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail and taken as a whole, with any detail amendments circulated being treated as if they had been moved [together] by the Member proposing them, with:
(A) one question being put on any Government amendments;
(B) one question being put on any Opposition amendments;
(C) separate questions being put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and
(D) a separate question being put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to;
(iv) debate on any amendments provided for under paragraph (3)(h)(iii) being limited to no longer than ten minutes for each question unless a Minister requires the debate to be extended; and
(v) the question being put immediately on the third reading;
(4) on Monday, 23 November, private Members' business having priority from 10 am to 1.30 pm and for a further 30 minutes following the conclusion of Question Time, any documents being presented by the Speaker and by Ministers, and any ministerial statements, by leave, being made; and
(5) any variation to this arrangement being made only on a motion moved by a Minister.
For the information of members, the variation to what was on the Notice Paper is to make sure that digital duty of care is dealt with today, rather than the tax measures. Originally we had planned to deal with the tax measures today, but that was on the basis of early planning that they would have been introduced yesterday. This is to avoid a circumstance where we're asking the House to vote on tax legislation on the same day in which it is introduced. It's a very long amendment, which is why I've had it circulated. But that's the substance of the change.
First off, I thank the Leader of the House and his office for his engagement on the procedure this week and especially for making that change. We support that amendment.
But I also say to the House that what the government is doing and that we will oppose is a complete and utter mega gag. We could come back next week. We could come back for a sitting fortnight. The lack of transparency when it comes to this government is absolutely appalling—gag after gag after gag. We've just been gagged from getting the Prime Minister to come into this place and admit his mistruths and admit that he can't be upfront with the Australian people. It's gag after gag after gag.
The manager will resume his seat. The Leader of the House.
Mr Speaker, he's already run out of material and stopped referring to the motion, so I'll move:
That the question be put.
The question is that the question be put.
The House will now deal with the amendment to notice No. 1 moved by the Leader of the House.
Question agreed to.
The question is that the notice as amended be agreed to.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Today, the Albanese Labor government is delivering on our commitment to boost innovation and investment through the tax system.
The reforms we are introducing today are part of our comprehensive plan to support businesses and grow our economy.
They are a key part of our ambitious tax reform package, which is also making it easier for Australians to buy their first home, cutting income taxes for workers again and again and better aligning the tax treatment of work and asset income.
A thriving private sector is the key driver of economic growth.
Our long-term growth agenda is built on that fact, and the reforms we are introducing today are as well.
These reforms give the private sector tools and tax concessions to help them succeed in an increasingly competitive world.
The bill provides more certainty for investors and more incentives for innovation, building on the $3.8 billion in new tax relief and concessions for businesses and start-ups.
These reforms will mean our tax concessions are targeted at starting a new innovative business and investing in a new build, helping Australians to invest their money, grow their wealth, and boost growth.
Importantly, the bill also provides more flexibility for businesses to meet their tax obligations.
Cash flow is crucial for small businesses which is why we're providing more options to pay tax in a way that works for businesses.
And reforms to better target support for electric vehicle uptake will make existing tax breaks fairer and more sustainable.
Schedule 1 to the bill implements the innovative business capital gains tax concession.
The concession supports early investment in innovative businesses by providing eligible founders, employees and investors with access to a 50 per cent capital gains tax discount on equity investments.
This means early investors in innovative startups that begin with a low or zero cost base still receive a significant discount on a future capital gain.
This will support investment in innovative Australian startups, and the continued growth of Australia's startup and venture capital system.
Critical technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics and clean energy will play a critical role in driving our nation's future economic growth, productivity and jobs.
Schedule 2 to the bill simplifies and refines the research and development tax incentive to better target government support for business R&D in Australia and drive innovations and productivity gains.
This schedule simplifies administration and better targets the incentive to genuine innovation, including by increasing core R&D offset rates by up to 50 per cent.
It extends access to the refundable offset for young, growing firms for longer by increasing the turnover threshold from $20 million to $50 million, reduces the R&D intensity threshold so that firms that invest more substantially in core R&D can benefit from higher offset rates, and it increases the maximum expenditure threshold.
In addition, the changes in this schedule recognise the longer regulatory approval processes and product development timeframes of biotechnology and medical technology firms by providing access to the refundable offset for up to 15 years for eligible firms.
Older firms' eligibility for the higher offset rate is maintained through a non-refundable tax offset.
It also improves integrity requirements around small claims, with expenditure claims below $50,000 requiring a partnership with a research service provider or cooperative research centre to be eligible for the incentive.
This schedule also introduces an instrument-making power to allow a treasury minister, in consultation with the industry minister, to prescribe eligible R&D activities as being integral to core R&D.
This will futureproof the incentive and allow governments to modernise the definition of R&D as markets, businesses and technologies evolve over time. Overall, these reforms are expected to lift investment in R&D by young firms by $400 million a year. These reforms form part of the government's response to the Ambitious Australia report, and we thank its authors.
Schedule 3 to the bill expands the venture capital tax incentives to encourage more investment and support early-stage and growth businesses.
These changes increase existing thresholds to reflect modern company valuations. This will allow venture capital investors to invest larger amounts over a longer period in startups that find it difficult to access traditional forms of finance.
Schedule 4 to the bill allows taxpayers required to report and pay pay-as-you-go instalments on a quarterly basis to elect to pay on a monthly basis instead.
This will provide individuals and businesses with more flexibility to meet their tax obligations.
It's one of several initiatives that we're rolling out that will ensure instalments better reflect real-time business conditions.
It also empowers the Commissioner of Taxation to require taxpayers with a demonstrated history of non-compliance to report and pay instalments monthly to strengthen the integrity of the system.
Schedule 5 to the bill adjusts the electric car discount settings to ensure they remains fiscally sustainable. It incentivises the supply of more affordable options and provides more targeted support for EV drivers.
This measure has been successful in boosting uptake of EVs while reducing transport emissions and contributing towards more fuel security as well.
The discount has helped take EVs from one in every 50 sales when we came to government to roughly one in every eight in 2025.
Now, we are ensuring these settings are sustainable for the future as well.
From 1 April 2029, a 25 per cent discount for electric cars up to the fuel-efficient threshold for the luxury car tax will be applied to the 20 per cent fringe benefit tax statutory formula rate that applies to all other cars.
The full 100 per cent fringe benefit tax discount will continue to apply to electric cars valued up to $75,000 from 1 April 2027 to 31 March 2029.
All eligible electric cars will retain the fringe benefit tax treatment that was in place when the last relevant commitment commenced.
Full details of the measure are contained in the explanatory memorandum.
I acknowledge the many groups and individuals, and colleagues, who have contributed to this bill.
Like all big tax reform, implementing details relies on constructive feedback and expert insights, and I thank everyone who has helped us to get this right.
There has been a lot of collaboration between ministers and members of this place on these proposals as well, and I acknowledge their role as well.
This is a bill that recognises the hard work of Australian businesses and helps them to succeed.
It encourages entrepreneurship and economic growth.
The changes are sensible, but they will make a positive difference to the businesses and start-ups that employ Australian workers and make our economy stronger as a consequence.
And that is why I commend this bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I am pleased to present the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026.
As we all know, Australia faces its most complex strategic environment since World War II. Technological change is accelerating and is rapid. Military capabilities are evolving rapidly, and Defence must work closer than ever with Australian industry and international partners and be able to protect the security of defence personnel as well as the sites and the operations.
This bill modernises the legislative foundations that support Defence's capability development, preparedness and security, helping implement the National defence strategy and AUKUS. These reforms will better equip Defence to respond to increasingly complex strategic circumstances.
Much of Australia's defence legislation was designed in a different era for a very different strategic and operational environment. While the Defence Act 1903 has been amended over time, important parts of the legislative framework have not kept pace with changes in technology, capability development, industry participation, international cooperation and contemporary security threats.
The Albanese Labor government is addressing these challenges. This bill provides a modern statutory framework to support defence capability development and preparedness, and establishes a contemporary framework for protecting defence personnel activities, capabilities and assets in Australia.
This bill provides clear authority to detect, identify, monitor, track and respond to drones and uncrewed systems where necessary for defence security purposes. This will enable Defence to act before an unauthorised system compromises sensitive information, disrupts an activity or causes harm. The powers are accompanied by training, authorisation, decision-making and oversight requirements.
Importantly, these reforms are accompanied by key statutory limitations and safeguards, including enhanced independent oversight functions for the Inspector-General of the ADF, to ensure that the new frameworks operate appropriately and accountably.
The bill contains six schedules. Schedule 1 contains the provisions relating to defence capability development activities. Schedule 2 contains provisions relating to defence security zones. Schedule 3 contains the oversight and accountability by parliament and the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force provisions. Schedules 4, 5 and 6 contain consequential and contingent amendments.
SCHEDULE 1—CONDUCT ENGAGED FOR DEFENCE CAPABILITY ACTIVITIES
Schedule 1 is a central objective of the National Defence Strategy to accelerate the development, acquisition and introduction of capabilities required for Australia's strategic circumstances.
To achieve this objective, schedule 1 of this bill establishes a new Defence capability framework to support capability development and preparedness activities.
Capability development is no longer confined to traditional Defence establishments or undertaken solely by Defence personnel.
They increasingly involve advanced technologies, integrated workforces, Australian industry and international partners, and may occur across multiple jurisdictions and in a wide range of settings.
The bill responds to these changes by replacing fragmented and uncertain arrangements across states and territories with a clear Commonwealth statutory framework, defined safeguards and strengthened oversight.
Defence's ability to develop and introduce new capabilities can be delayed or impeded by laws that were not designed with contemporary military activities and/or technologies in mind.
These constraints can be particularly significant where activities involve advanced technologies, Australian industry, foreign military personnel or multiple Australian jurisdictions.
For example, existing civilian regulatory requirements can affect the testing and evaluation of autonomous maritime, aerial and land systems, the development of electronic warfare and cyber capabilities, and the participation of industry and international partners in Defence training and capability activities.
In practice, these requirements—designed for a civilian context—mean that an activity can be delayed, modified or conducted in another jurisdiction, even where it is essential to the development of a priority Defence capability.
The framework will operate through a ministerial declaration process which specifies activities.
A declaration will identify the conduct and participants it covers, impose appropriate conditions and specify which state or territory laws, or which of a limited number of Commonwealth laws, will not apply to the specified conduct.
This will provide a single legislative mechanism for supporting capability activities, rather than requiring Defence, industry and international partners to rely on a complex patchwork of multiple exemptions and administrative arrangements.
Importantly, the framework is targeted and subject to clear limits.
Before making a declaration, the decisionmaker must be satisfied that the activity is necessary or desirable for capability development or preparedness, that its impacts are reasonable and proportionate, and that the proposed participants are appropriate.
The framework cannot be used to authorise domestic policing functions, compulsory acquisition of land, the use of force against persons in Australia or other categories of conduct specifically excluded by the legislation.
The framework will not apply in operational contexts, and includes strong privacy protections, offences for non-compliance with conditions, and independent oversight.
The ADF is increasingly reliant on electromagnetic and cyber capabilities to carry out its functions—an increasingly standard feature in major military platforms.
When integrated with more traditional systems, non-kinetic capabilities offer superiority in terms of scalability, proportionality and effectiveness.
It is critical that the ADF develop and test these technologies onshore. The framework establishes a specialised electronic capability declaration framework for the development, testing and training of electronic capability activities.
The criteria for making an ordinary capability declaration continue to apply, but additional requirements and controls are imposed to ensure alignment with the guardrails for similar activities under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979.
Schedule 1 will reduce legal uncertainty and enable Defence to develop and introduce new capabilities at the speed required by Australia's strategic circumstances. .SCHEDULE 2—DEFENCE SECURITY ZONES
Schedule 2 establishes a contemporary and consolidated Defence security zone framework for protecting Defence personnel, activities, capabilities, assets and facilities.
This bill replaces previous security arrangements across seven legislative frameworks with a single, integrated one.
Australia's existing Defence security arrangements have developed incrementally over many decades through a collection of schemes designed for different purposes and operational environments.
This has created complexity and inconsistency and has left some arrangements ill-suited to contemporary Defence activities and security threats.
Today's security environment has changed. Defence must be able to protect increasingly sensitive capabilities, complex military activities and visiting foreign military assets against a range of rapidly evolving state and non-state threats.
Schedule 2 responds to these challenges by establishing a consolidated Defence security zone framework that can be applied flexibly across a range of Defence activities and locations.
The new framework will provide for permanent, temporary, mobile and emergency Defence security zones.
This will enable security arrangements to be tailored to Defence facilities and activities, including major exercises, capability trials, visiting foreign military assets and sensitive AUKUS-related activities.
Defence also operates through a network of industry facilities, ports, airfields, training areas and mobile capabilities.
The bill recognises this reality by allowing security protections to be applied where Defence activities occur, rather than only where Defence owns or occupies land.
A significant element of the reforms in schedule 2 is responding to the growing threat posed by drones and other uncrewed systems.
These systems can conduct surveillance, collect intelligence, or carry out physical or cyber-attacks.
These risks are particularly acute around sensitive Defence capabilities.
This bill provides clear authority to detect, identify, monitor, track and respond to unauthorised systems where necessary for Defence security purposes.
This will enable Defence to act before an unauthorised system compromises sensitive information, disrupts an activity or causes harm.
The powers are accompanied by training, authorisation, decision-making and oversight requirements.
The framework also recognises that sensitive Defence activities may occur at locations operated by defence industry partners, and provides the flexibility to apply appropriate security protections where necessary.
The reforms ensure important defence capabilities can be protected regardless of where they occur.
The bill sets out a range of powers available to law enforcement officers, which can be extended to appropriately trained and authorised Defence personnel where necessary.
These include access control, identity verification, search and seizure, removal and detention, security monitoring and movement within Defence security zones.
These powers are largely the same as those that existed across previous frameworks, but consolidation will ensure greater consistency across Defence sites, reduce complexity and provide a more consistent set of powers and safeguards, including more robust training and governance.
Importantly, these powers will be subject to statutory limitations, training and authorisation requirements, privacy protections, review mechanisms and independent oversight by the Inspector-General of the ADF.
In an environment of rapid technological change and increasingly sophisticated threats, these reforms will ensure Defence has fit-for-purpose and effective laws to safeguard the capabilities, people and infrastructure essential to Australia's national security.
SCHEDULE 3—OVERSIGHT BY PARLIAMENT AND THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF THE AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE.
Independent oversight, parliamentary scrutiny and accountability are central features of this bill. The two new frameworks, which I've just discussed, established by the legislation are accompanied by statutory safeguards designed to ensure powers and authorities are exercised lawfully, appropriately and consistently with their intended purpose.
Schedule 3 enables the Inspector-General of the ADF to provide independent oversight of activities conducted under schedules 1 and 2.
The Inspector-General of the ADF will be able to examine whether activities under these frameworks are undertaken lawfully, appropriately and consistently with the purposes of the legislation.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence will also have an enhanced role in scrutinising key elements of the new frameworks, including through a role for the Inspector-General of the ADF in briefing the committee on capability declarations and associated activities.
These oversight arrangements are designed to provide parliament and the Australian community with confidence that the frameworks established by this bill are supported by robust accountability mechanisms.
The reforms recognise that effective national security legislation must be accompanied by effective transparency and oversight arrangements.
These oversight functions will complement, and do not replace, existing oversight, accountability and integrity arrangements.
The reforms do not alter the functions of existing statutory oversight bodies, including the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and other independent oversight agencies where applicable.
CONCLUSION
These reforms will provide a stronger legislative foundation for Defence to protect its people and its critical assets, develop the capabilities Australia needs, and operate effectively in increasingly complex circumstances.
The Albanese Labor government, through this bill, is ensuring that Defence is supported by the legal frameworks required to meet Australia's strategic needs into the future.
It will enable the National Defence Strategy and support AUKUS while preserving clear limits, appropriate safeguards, independent oversight and accountability to the parliament and the Australian community.
I commend the bill.
Debate adjourned.
The coalition is still working through this legislation, the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill and related bills. Obviously it is incredibly important that we do this work. There is already a Senate process going on, and we are working and engaging with that Senate process very carefully, and we will continue to do so, because, as I understand it, there will be more days of hearings. The coalition would like to work with the government to fix this legislation to make sure it functions as appropriately as it possibly can. And we say to the government, in good faith, that there is still work to be done on this domestic gas reservation scheme. But if you're willing, we're willing to do the hard work, to put the yards in to make sure this scheme—which is designed to make sure we're putting downward pressure on gas prices domestically—works and functions as I think nearly everyone in this parliament would like it to.
Obviously there are those who don't want any gas being produced in this nation or any gas being exported. We don't want to be party to that; we actually think gas is vital for our economic future, and that's why we want to work with the government. There are some principles that are fundamental to making sure this domestic gas reservation scheme will work. The most important of them is that we need to see, as we put more gas into the domestic system, continued investment in our domestic gas sector. That is going to be the nut that we need to crack: how we get that balance right so that manufacturing and industry can continue to thrive in this nation, especially those that are reliant on gas, and so that we make sure we keep getting future investment in our gas sector and so that we will be able to see gas play a fundamental part in putting downward pressure on electricity prices and so that we ensure that our gas sector continues to flourish.
This isn't easy work, because obviously it requires some sort of intervention in the market. For some in this place, that will be something that sits very well with them. For others, like me, it's something I find difficult, but I understand that there is a need to do this and for us to get it right. Many people, I think rightly, point to Western Australia and say, 'Well, they've had a domestic gas reservation scheme in place now for quite some time, and it's worked, on the whole, pretty well.' Sure, there are some things that you might want to fix, but, on the whole, it has worked quite well. If we could get the same for the eastern seaboard I think that everyone would think that that was a good thing.
What is it that we're going to have to make sure we get right? Well, we're going to have to make sure we get right the must-sell provisions because obviously forcing one party in a market to have to sell means that there are potential consequences. So we need to look at and examine that part of the bill. We also need to look at the oversupply provisions, where the gas exporters have to provide gas up to 110 per cent of the market, as determined by the government through the AER and ministers. Those two aspects will be absolutely critical for us to be able to look at and examine, because that goes to the whole question of demand and supply in the market. That's the bit that we have to get right because otherwise the unintended consequences are that it leads to an investment drought when it comes to gas production, especially domestically. That is not in anyone's interests, and that is not what we want to see.
We're also going to have to make sure that the Western Australian component of this is right, because Western Australians rightly think: 'We've got our own domestic gas reservation scheme. It works well, and the last thing we want is government ministers from Canberra dictating to us what we should do.' So we're going to have to make sure we get that component right. There is potentially one other aspect of that which we have to take into consideration. That is that, if we're going to have a domestic gas reservation scheme set up by the Commonwealth, then it has to deal with all states and territories. So threading that needle becomes critically important, because I and my colleagues think it's absolutely vital that Western Australia, given that they've already got a domestic gas reservation scheme in place, are allowed to basically operate that how they see fit. That is something else that we are going to need to talk with the government about to make sure that we can get that aspect of it absolutely right.
Obviously all this will involve the government taking us into their confidence. We want to make sure that we can have the discussions in good faith with them and that we've got a clear understanding of all the work that they've done behind the scenes to get to the stage where they have with this piece of legislation. If you talk to anyone, whether it be in industry, in manufacturing or with the gas sector, this is incredibly complex legislation. There are obviously things that need tidying up around definitions and exactly where the some of the aspects of this scheme will be applied, whether it's at the gas wellhead or other places. For all these things, we're going to have to make sure that we get the legislation absolutely crystal clear and right on because, if we don't, then Australia will be the poorer for it. That's in no-one's interest.
Why the government should allow the coalition, the opposition, to work with them is because it is important we get it right. Where the government has followed a process of secrecy, of non-transparency, of basically trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the parliament and the Australian people, it's led to an abject failure. The government should know and understand that, the more transparent you can be, the better the outcomes you get. I point to the Capacity Investment Scheme as just one example of that. Yesterday we saw in Senate estimates that 27 projects within the Capacity Investment Scheme have pulled out of the scheme. We had to get that information from Senate estimates. Do we know how much the Capacity Investment Scheme is costing? No. We can understand the arrangements as such that you might need commercial-in-confidence arrangements around each individual project, especially if companies are bidding into a scheme. But the fact the government won't announce the macro figure that it potentially is putting the Australian people on the hook for is just appalling—absolutely appalling.
The fact that the scheme is collapsing in on itself is no surprise because of the secrecy. We should be debating it. We should be able to look under the bonnet of the car and have a look at the inner workings and be able to debate, discuss, point out and show the energy minister where he's going so horribly wrong. He's not on track to meet any target, whether it be his emissions reduction or his renewable energy target. As a matter of fact, the deeply concerning part about what he's doing is that, while the scheme is collapsing like a house of cards, we're seeing in 2028 and 2029 warnings that we're going to get short of energy. We're going to get short of electricity and gas in this nation. This is something that ultimately will be on the Labor government's head. But, in the national interest, let's not have the lights going out. Let's not have people having to turn their electricity off or their gas off because they can't afford it. It's in all our interests to make sure that, as we continue to go through the 21st century, everyone can reap the benefits of the technological advancements that we've had. Yet we had the sad reality in South Australia recently where the ombudsman has pointed out there's been a 60 per cent increase in people disconnecting. Once you disconnect from the electricity grid, once you disconnect your gas, you're left with candles. How anyone in this place can think this is a good thing is beyond me, but that's where we've got to.
The Australian people are looking at the energy minister and saying: 'Do you really get this? Do you really understand it? You promised us $275 off your power bill, and instead the average power bill has gone up by about $1,000, 40 per cent. Do you get this?' And they look, and all they see is this world tour going on around pre-COP. We found out yesterday in Senate estimates that it was going to cost around $20 million. It ended up being $35 million. I don't know what everyone else thinks, but I can tell you that in my electorate that $35 million would go a long way. And they just look and they say: 'This was for five-star accommodation in Fiji and Tuvalu for what? No leaders turned up.' And it's so embarrassing that no leaders turned up. At Senate estimates, they wouldn't tell us which leaders were invited and which weren't. They're so embarrassed that they can't even be transparent about a leaders invite list. It's beyond farcical. And then it gets worse. They had to have a pre-COP pre-COP. And guess what that involved? That involved over $650,000 in hiring out a five-star hotel in Sydney so they could have a pre-COP pre-COP. What I don't understand is that surely you could have done it on Zoom or surely you could have done it in the offices here in Canberra. Why do you need to go to Sydney and stay in a five-star hotel for a pre-COP pre-COP costing the taxpayer $650,000 when there are Australians disconnecting from the power grid and going back to candles? Get your priorities right.
There's this and the litany of other things that we've seen. There's the cheaper home battery scheme. It was meant to cost $2 billion. In its first 13 to 14 months, it blew out. It was costing $4.65 billion. The official in the department when quizzed about it in Senate estimates said, 'When we designed it, it was a little too generous.' It's blown out. It was a $2 billion scheme. It was meant to run for four years. It blew out to $4.65 billion. Now it's an $8 billion scheme—heaven only knows. Then we started talking about the fraudsters that got involved and the safety issues around the batteries. Everything turned to custard.
The point I'm trying to make is that, if we don't get this Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme right, that's exactly what's going to happen. It'll turn to custard. I say this to the government. If you want it to turn to custard, do a deal with the Greens because that will absolutely turn it to custard. We'll have no gas industry. All of you know that that's what they want. We'll be left with no manufacturing and no industry in this nation as a result.
That's why the coalition is happy and prepared to, in good faith, work with the government to get this right. We'll be making sure we do this in a way where we work with the government in good faith, but it will require the government working with us in good faith and demonstrating to us that they're prepared to show us important information so that we can make sure we get the balance right now.
I'll finish on this note. This is important legislation which should be being debated in this House. Yet the government's lack of transparency, lack of integrity and lack of wanting to be scrutinised is so bad that they've put in place a mega gag to end the year. Rather than saying we should have a sitting week next week or a sitting fortnight to finish the year, what have they done? They've put in place this mega gag. They've used a mega gear to put a mega gag in place. What they should be doing is just being open to more scrutiny. Then they might get just something right. But they don't want to do that. So this will go off to the Federation Chamber, which is a disgrace. Given its importance to this nation, it should be being debated here in the House of Representatives. So that is happening. But we will still, even though they're putting a mega gag in place, be using our ability to scrutinise this bill not only in the Federation Chamber but in the Senate inquiry that's taking place. Then we'll try to work with the government to make sure we get it in the type of shape where it will do two things. It will make sure that gas continues to be explored for in this nation and that it will continue to be invested in in this nation, and that will mean our manufacturing and industries will continue to thrive.
Debate adjourned.
I rise to speak on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, and I move:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
(1) recognises the former Coalition government's world-leading record in protecting Australians online, particularly children, including establishing the world's first eSafety Commissioner, enacting the Online Safety Act 2021 and leading the charge for laws prohibiting children under 16 from accessing social media;
(2) affirms that protecting children from serious online harm and defending freedom of speech are fundamental responsibilities of government; and
(3) declines to give the bill a second reading because it:
(a) replaces enforceable online safety codes and standards with a general duty of care, without guaranteeing equivalent safeguards against child sexual abuse, terrorist material, extreme violence, or children's exposure to pornography and material promoting suicide, self-harm and eating disorders;
(b) poses a grave threat to free speech, relying on vague and subjective definitions of online harm, including material promoting hostility towards women or gender equality, which risk the expression of lawful opinions and legitimate political and social debate;
(c) creates powerful incentives for digital platforms to censor lawful speech through penalties up to $109.2 million without accountability for wrongful removal of lawful content;
(d) revives the Government's rejected misinformation and disinformation agenda, raising concerns that powers could suppress political dissent and debate;
(e) gives excessive power to the Minister and eSafety Commissioner without safeguards or parliamentary scrutiny;
(f) grants extraordinary covert surveillance powers, authorising the eSafety Commissioner and researchers to use 'sock puppet' identities and AI-generated content without judicial oversight or transparency;
(g) creates broad and inconsistent exemptions, including for certain classified pornography without explaining how this is consistent with protecting children;
(h) imposes sweeping new regulatory burden on small businesses, charities and community organisations; and
(i) fails to show that dismantling existing targeted, enforceable online safety protections and replacing them with a vague and excessively powerful regime will make children safer, while putting the democratic right to freedom of speech to unacceptable risk".
The coalition strongly supports protecting Australians online, especially kids, and holding big tech to account. We always have and we always will. Tough, clear laws that protect Australians online, particularly Australian children, are critical. There is no debating that. The coalition also defends free speech. It is how a democracy debates, corrects mistakes and holds governments to account. Free speech is not an optional extra. This bill fails both these tests. It is censorship of the Australian people dressed up as online safety. It is a mess of a bill, and, if it passes, Australians will be less safe online than they are today.
No party has done more to protect Australians online than the coalition. It was the coalition that established the world's first eSafety Commissioner in 2015. It was the coalition that legislated the Online Safety Act in 2021, with protections against child cyberbullying, serious adult cyberabuse and image based abuse. It was the coalition that built the framework for mandatory industry codes and standards. There are now 17 of them in force today. They are detailed standards that require platforms to detect and remove child sexual abuse material, deal with terrorist and extreme violent content, and keep pornography and self-harm material away from children.
In 2024, it was the coalition that led the push for a minimum social media age of 16. In this parliament, we have kept working. We put forward amendments for parental digital safety tools and for algorithmic transparency from social media platforms. Labor and the Greens voted them down. Our approach has always been the same: define the harms clearly in legislation, target them with specific obligations and protect freedom of expression. Contrast that with Labor.
Labor have badly mishandled the implementation of the under-16s social media ban, as expected. It's something I warned of many, many times throughout the implementation process. Within months they had to bring another bill back into this place to bolt on additional enforcement powers. When the coalition moved amendments to protect the privacy of children and give parents access to independent safety tools on their children's devices, Labor opposed them. Labor has failed to deliver outcomes under the existing legislation. The eSafety Commissioner's own evaluation using data from March found that the share of under-16s using social media had fallen by just 4.4 percentage points, from 85.9 per cent to 81.5 per cent. Before the Albanese Labor government asks this parliament for more sweeping powers, it should take steps to effectively use the ones it has. That is common sense.
Earlier this year, the coalition warned that Labor's digital duty of care was only vaguely defined at best. We warned the government that it had not explained how it would work or how it would be enforced, and this bill proves we were right. Here is what the government does not want Australians to know. This bill strips out those 17 existing mandatory codes and standards. They stay in force for just 12 months after the bill passes and then they are repealed. These are not suggestions. They are detailed, enforceable obligations and they are working now. In their place, the government offers a general duty 'to ensure a safe online environment'. Specific rules that platforms know how to follow will be replaced by broad concepts that the regulator interprets after the event. That is a recipe for uncertainty, overremoval of legitimate speech and, very likely, years of litigation.
At the heart of this bill are dangerous, vague definitions of online harm. One category of material is material that 'encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality'. What does that even mean? Does it cover a mother who argues for single-sex spaces? Does it cover a debate about Labor's gender policies? There is no clarity on how the all-powerful eSafety Commissioner will regulate this and no body of law to tell us. The eSafety Commissioner will issue guidelines on how to comply with the duty. These guidelines require no consultation, and this parliament cannot disallow them. The commissioner will also decide what counts as 'in the public interest' for the bill's exclusions. Look at who is exempt. Material produced by public officials in the course of their duties is excluded. The government's own material is exempt, but, Australians, your material is not. Platforms face penalties of around $109 million. There is no consequence at all for wrongly removing lawful Australian speech. Every incentive points one way, and that is to take it down. That is the chilling effect, and it is how lawful speech disappears without a single law being passed against it.
The bill also gives the commissioner the power to create fake sock-puppet accounts under false identities. The commissioner can open accounts and observe and record what Australians post and engage with on online services. That power applies regardless of a platform's terms of service and comes with immunity from civil action, without any warrant and without any time limit. On top of that, eSafety becomes an enforcement body under the Privacy Act and may share information with any Commonwealth entity. We know where this is heading. In New York, the Prime Minister described the next stage of the digital duty of care as combatting misinformation, disinformation and political polarisation. Australians rejected Labor's misinformation laws two years ago. This bill is a trojan horse to bring them back.
Labor wants Australians to think this bill is about big social media companies. Read the bill. The obligations in it cover every corner of the internet and more. It's social media, yes, but also messaging apps, email, search engines, internet service providers, the telcos that connect Australians to the internet in the first place, businesses that supply, install or maintain internet connected equipment and every website. This bill does not stop at big tech. There is no size threshold. Even low-risk small-business websites face onerous compliance obligations. They will be required to complete written risk assessments at least every year, keep them for six years, and hand them over to the regulator within 30 days. Unless the minister grants an exemption, a local business website faces the same legal duty as a global platform. Small businesses are already drowning in red tape and rising costs under this government. Why is the Albanese Labor government targeting ordinary small businesses across our nation instead of the big tech platforms?
Concerns about the protection of children are real, and the coalition shares them. It is why, in government and in opposition, we have taken clear steps to address online safety for children, from legislating the Online Safety Act to leading on the under-16 social media ban, but the answer is not to tear down protections that work and replace them with vague concepts and unchecked discretion, and it is not to put free speech at risk. The coalition's approach is clear and practical. We will take meaningful action to prohibit serious online harms as they emerge, but this is a matter for the parliament. Australians should not have to choose between safety and freedom. This bill delivers neither. It abolishes targeted protections. It replaces them with a vague duty and sweeping discretion. We are always willing to work with the government to protect kids against serious harm. What we don't support is a political censorship bill. Australians are entitled to safety and freedom. This parliament has a responsibility to protect both. This bill is fatally flawed. It must be scrapped, and the coalition will oppose it.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and I reserve my right to speak.
I rise to speak on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026. This bill is all about protecting people from harm. It's about setting basic standards and giving social media users more choice on what they see—what they are fed by algorithms. It will give them the choice to opt out of algorithms. It will require big tech and social media to provide a safe online environment, in particular for our kids. Our country needs this. Our kids need this. This month, AFP commissioner Krissy Barrett spoke about online child exploitation and victimisation. What is happening to our kids online is disgusting and we should all be concerned about it—nudify apps and young boys and girls being extorted for images of their bodies. We need to do something about the impact online on our kids, and we need to do it now. We also heard from the commissioner this week about the impact of online abuse and threats, not just for us as politicians but also for members of the public who are in public-facing jobs. We know that some of our Public Service workers, such as our hospital workers, our ambos and our police—a lot of people online—get a lot of abuse and hate just for doing their job.
Since I was elected, over the last three months I've taken up the opportunity to have an app installed to remove abusive, threatening and ableist comments from my social media feed. I had found that overwhelmingly my feed was being dominated by hate. I could scroll and scroll and I would struggle to find a comment that (1) was about anything to do with a policy we had made or (2) wasn't hateful or threatening or abusive or ableist. So I took on this plugin to see if it would make a difference. Extraordinarily, it filtered out, in three months, 55,000 comments from my page. If you go to my page, you'll see that there are still negative comments there. It doesn't filter out negative comments; it filters out abusive comments, threats, ableist comments and sexist comments. Incredibly, 55,000 of those have been filtered out. For MPs it's been filtering out, on average, about 50 per cent of comments, and the rest still stay whether they're negative or positive. That's a lot of comments on my page.
Having experienced this online hate—and I've experienced online hate since I put myself up for election—and the impact that it has had at times on my family, on my community and on me, I know that our community have to do about the way in which we conduct ourselves online. It's the public square. I think that most people forget that these comments are read and digested not just by us as politicians or by other people in the public eye. They are digested by kids; they are digested by people who are vulnerable; they are digested by people who are mentally ill.
We heard from Krissy Barrett this week that online abusive, threatening and negative content, even if it's about, for example, dieting and eating disorders, does have real-world impacts. Every single day, I'm called 'pegleg'. It doesn't bother me, but, for another person with a disability, it will bother them—'Is that how people see me?'
The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43 and will be resumed at a late hour, and the member will be granted leave to resume speaking when the debate is resumed.
I rise to speak to the appalling housing situation in Australia. We're not building enough homes? Then why doesn't the government just build some? Here are some numbers. Australia has a shortfall of 640,000 homes. The government's target is 40,000 homes over three years. What the government has delivered is 1,600. That's 0.6 per cent of total need. There is no way they're going to meet this target and no plan for what to do when it's not met and no plan to address the full need that exists in the community. Even just on their tiny target, that's four per cent of homes delivered in 40 per cent of the timeframe, but better things are possible.
We've seen it right across the world. We know it's possible to mass build quality public housing. They've done it in Vienna. They've done it in Singapore. Even here in Australia post World War II, 25 per cent of new builds were public housing. But, if the government's response to the worst housing crisis we've seen in generations is to build fewer than 1,000 homes through private developers, it is no wonder that people are losing faith in government and in the states' capacity to do good, useful things.
I've committed to 80 walks in 80 days, including the 142-kilometre Great Walk in November to raise support for Menslink and awareness about the great work they do. Menslink works with young boys and men through a range of mentoring, counselling and education programs right across the capital region. They help young guys develop important life skills, resilience, mental health awareness and healthy relationships. Lastly, Menslink provides support to more than 10,000 young people across our region, building community and connection.
So far, I've completed 52 out of the 80 walks, so there are 28 more to go. This morning, I was out with Simon and Charmaine. Yesterday evening, I was with the magnificent member for Werriwa. It's been an opportunity to get out and talk with Canberrans and friends of Canberra about ways we can build better communities, talk about families or debate team selections in the test cricket team, and the funds raised go directly to services making a difference in this region.
This is the fourth year I've participated in the 142-kilometre Great Walk, a five-day walk with more than 30 community leaders who are prepared to walk the talk. If you want to shake the dust off your shoes and come out for a walk, drop me a line.
I'm delighted to read a speech by Ella, a 22-year-old constituent, as part of the Raise Our Voice campaign. Ella wrote:
The rising cost of living. We hear it every day.
Prices are rising, groceries are expensive, and housing feels increasingly out of reach. Everyone talks about it for a reason.
For many young Australians pursuing higher education, student support doesn't reflect reality. Through Youth Allowance, financial assistance is based on parental income. On paper, this assumes parents support their children through university. In reality, those assumptions fall short.
Dependent students see their support reduced based on parental income, even when families are under financial pressure. Support for low-income families matters. But a growing group in the middle is being overlooked—families who appear comfortable on paper yet struggle with mortgages, loans, bills, and the cost of supporting children through tertiary education.
For students from regional areas, the challenge is greater. We must move away from home, pay rent and cover living costs to access study. Parliament must review Youth Allowance eligibility and raise parental income thresholds so assistance reflects the cost of living.
We don't control our parents' finances, but we live with the consequences. Opportunity shouldn't depend on whether your family falls into a gap in the system.
And so I say thanks, Ella, for your speech.
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Buckaroo Leather's new premises at the old Port Kembla RSL site. CEO Tanya Van Der Water and general manager Andrew Blevin took me through their vision for supporting manufacturing, STEM and good local jobs while carrying Australia's leatherworking tradition into the future. Tanya's father, Ken, started the business in 1971, moving to Stanwell Park shortly after. From selling dog collars in his garage, he built a nationally recognised Australian institution. In fact, Ken designed the first adaptable tool belt built for any trade. It was a customer request for something better, and it's now around the waist of thousands.
With a focus on values and vision, Tanya and Andrew outlined ambitious plans for the site: STEM school tours, community workshops and tourism as well as a cafe and cafeteria. They want to train apprentices in leatherwork, maintain a transparent supply chain and minimise waste and their environmental impact. Above all, they want to give back to the Illawarra community that they love so much while looking after their workers with a four-day work week and space to relax and recharge.
Thank you, Tanya and Andrew, for your passion and vision for Buckaroo's next chapter. This is how we will build a future made in Australia—by backing local manufacturing, local jobs and local businesses. I will continue doing what I can to support the future of manufacturing in the Illawarra.
I asked people, 'What would you do if you were the boss of Australia?' Out of the around 300 people I asked, only three didn't mention that they were finding it hard to make ends meet. There is a great wave of hatred of the Labor Party and of the Prime Minister. When you've been in politics as long as I have, you know that it occurs when people are really hurting. They will turn on you. If you're in government—well, too bad. It may not be your fault, but the fact is they're going to blame you. The Great Depression was a great example of that.
It is so easy to fix it up. The biggest import item—it's far and away three times bigger than anything else—is petrol. We are self-sufficient in petrol, because we are one of the four biggest exporters of grain and sugar in the world. Brazil is on 60 per cent ethanol, America is on 16 per cent ethanol and Australia is on nil. We export $60,000 million—that's $10,000 out of the pocket of every family in Australia, going overseas to buy petrol. We export our oil for $8,000 million. We import our petrol for sixty— (Time expired)
A new book entitled Mulligas and Cudjeries: Stories to Heal Us brings together local elders and young people to share stories of the stolen generations and the impact that that history continues to have on Territory families today. I acknowledge Grassroots Action Palmerston, the Mulligas and Cudjeries elders group Intrepid Designs and the young people who helped create this wonderful book. I have visited Grassroots Action Palmerston and seen the care and the trust built with young people. That same trust is at the heart of this book. Young people sat with elders and learned from their lived experience, and the artwork accompanying these stories brought together generational storytelling, speaking honestly about children being forcibly removed from family, culture, language and country, and why the young generations need to understand this history.
Thank you to the elders for their trust, and congratulations to the young people and everyone who helped bring Stories to Heal Us to life. Stories like these remind us why truth-telling matters. I want to acknowledge the contributing elders: Bernie Hunter, Netta Hunter, Henry Hunter, Rosie Baird, Shirley Cousins. Lesley O'Brien, Robert Birch, Faye Latcha, Rickie Latcha, Joyce Peris, Gloria Saxby-Ryan, Annie Chenery, Rosalie Lalara, Margaret Cooper and Anne Lange. Congratulations also to all the illustrators and everyone who brought this book together.
On Monday the Treasurer challenged business leaders to tell him where government should cut costs. It did not take long for them to come up with some suggestions, but isn't identifying waste and controlling spending literally his job? Australians shouldn't have to do the Treasurer's homework for him. They deserve a government that can manage its own budget, one that doesn't pass the bill onto its hardworking taxpayers.
The coalition will do just that. We will cut Labor's wasteful spending, axe Labor's toxic taxes and tackle the cost-of-living crisis head-on. We will stop Labor's assault on aspiration by introducing our tax-back guarantee, backing small business and ensuring Australians are rewarded for their hard work. We will deliver cheaper, more reliable power by scrapping net zero and making Australia an energy superpower. When oil prices spike, our fuel price shield will save motorists 27c a litre or around $50 per tank. Australians deserve a government that lives within its means, backs those who work hard and gives families a fair go. The coalition will get spending under control, ease the pressure on households and restore the opportunity so Australians can get ahead.
Australia finally has restaurants that have been awarded Michelin stars, and my electorate of Sturt is home to three of them. Earlier this month, 11 venues across Adelaide were awarded a coveted star, but Magill Estate Restaurant was the only venue to be awarded two. Magill Estate is beautiful. Set in the foothills, the views down to the city are spectacular. The service is outstanding, but, of course, it is all about the food and wine. My husband and I go out for Christmas dinner every year, and, even before the recent announcement, we had decided on Magill Estate this year, having enjoyed a beautiful lunch there several months ago, but, now, we're struggling to get a booking, and that is a good thing for the restaurant.
In today's climate, supporting hospitality must be at the top of the agenda. If I can't get a booking because Magill Estate is at capacity, I will try arkhé located on The Parade at Norwood or Esmay located on Hackney Road, both of which were awarded one Michelin star each. The aesthetics at arkhé and Esmay are stylish, contemporary and chic, and my advice to those who are thinking of eating dinner at either restaurant is not to eat any other meals during the day, because you will want to have room to consume every last morsel presented to you. South Australia's hospitality scene is world class, and the electorate of Sturt is leading the way. Heartfelt congratulations to Magill Estate, Esmay and arkhé.
Today, I want to talk about an extraordinary mother and an extraordinary advocate, Clare McCann. Clare suffered the tragedy of losing her beautiful son, Atreyu, to suicide after he was horrifically bullied at school. I know the pain that families suffer when a member of the family dies by suicide. The grief and sadness never leave you, but to lose a child must be unimaginably hard. Atreyu was just 13 years old—just 13—so it's all the more extraordinary that, in the grief and sadness, Clare has found the strength to do something about it. She's designed an antibullying program. It's a four-strike program with escalating consequences. And she went to the people. She started a petition, and it's been tabled in this parliament with 5,000 signatures.
I'm not an expert in antibullying, but I know that, when 5,000 Australians say we as a parliament should do something, it behoves us to listen. As of this afternoon, Clare McCann's petition is on the desk of the Minister for Education. I'm asking the minister to give it a fair run. We worked together to set up an inquiry into boys' education through the House education committee. When that inquiry is done, let's work together again. Let's send Clare McCann's proposal to a parliamentary inquiry. Let her and others tell their stories publicly. Let's give these issues the scrutiny they deserve and test her ideas alongside other models like the rapid review. Let's find the best way forward for the sake of the memory of Atreyu and for the memory and future of all Australian children.
I rise today to recognise two legends of the Shellharbour Sharks Rugby League Football Club, Mick Galligan and Allan 'Squeaker' Carroll. The Shellharbour Sharks are an important part of the local Shellharbour community, built on generations of a love of rugby league, family and friendship. Mick Galligan has been a part of the Shellharbour Sharks for an incredible 58 years. Allan Carroll has been involved with the club for 61 years. Allan Carroll was recently honoured by receiving the Unsung Hero Award at the Shellharbour Club Community Awards. Mick Galligan has been an institution in the Shellharbour community for many decades. He was president of the Shellharbour Sharks in the late 1970s. He was also president of the Shellharbour swimming club and vice-president of the Shellharbour Cricket Club, and was also involved with Wollongong Legacy through the Warilla bowling club.
Mick Galligan and Allan Carroll are two individuals whose contributions to the Shellharbour Sharks have been honoured through life membership, reflecting their place in the Sharks' proud history. Mick's wife, Margaret Galligan, now 94 years old, is also a life member of the Sharks. Life membership is a significant honour. It recognises a lasting contribution that extends beyond individual matches and seasons.
Mick and Allan have helped to safeguard the club's culture, have preserved its traditions and have created a proud legacy for future generations. Thank you, Mick and Allan, for your enormous contribution to the Shellharbour community.
Under Labor, Australians have experienced the worst collapse of living standards in the developed world. This government has a lot of nerve telling Australians to tighten their belts when it refuses to tighten its own. Australia was once called the lucky country, but under Labor Australians are lucky if their paycheque lasts a week. Australians are working harder and paying more, and getting less in return. That's not the Australian way.
Yesterday the coalition announced $31 billion in savings. The coalition will cut Canberra's bloated bureaucracy. We will axe costly net zero schemes. We will end billions of dollars in corporate handouts. The coalition will drive down inflation by cutting wasteful spending. We'll ditch Labor's net zero obsession, end the green hydrogen fantasy and the subsidies in renewables, and scrap the electric vehicle concessions and make electricity affordable for everybody. We'll build Australian sovereign capability and back our manufacturers, our resources industry and the businesses that make this country self-sufficient. Our tax back guarantee will mean bigger tax cuts; that's more money in the pockets of hardworking Australians. A pay rise should make you better off, not leave you paying more tax. The coalition will restore prosperity and protect our way of life. Australia is worth saving.
In Dunkley, we know how much our community relies on the people who care for us, support our families and stand beside those doing it tough. That's why the government is delivering a pay rise to 460,000 workers in female dominated industries. For too long, people working in health, disability, domestic violence and community services have been underpaid and undervalued, despite the enormous contribution they make to our community. As the member for Dunkley, I know these workers are the backbone of our many local services. They deserve more than our thanks; they deserve fair pay, recognition and respect—and that is what we are delivering.
I met with the Australian Services Union and the Health and Community Services Union, and have supported their campaign to see these changes through. We're increasing pay in female dominated industries, delivering six months of paid parental leave and making record investments in women's reproductive health. These are deliberate choices that make a real difference to women, families and communities across Dunkley. Progress for workers doesn't happen by chance; it happens by choice—and we are choosing to keep moving forward and support workers that support those most in need.
Labor is wasting billions of dollars while Australian families struggle to pay their bills. Mallee families, farmers and small businesses are paying the price for Labor's reckless spending, higher taxes and failed energy policies. The coalition has a better plan. We will cut $31 billion of Labor's wasteful spending, repair the budget and give Australians back more of their own hard-earned money. Our $20 billion tax back guarantee will index income tax brackets to inflation, so Australians aren't punished by higher taxes simply because their wages rise.
And where will the savings come from? We will cut $9.4 billion from Labor's bloated climate bureaucracy and another $7.3 billion from corporate welfare. That means ending taxpayer funded subsidies for Labor's expensive green energy experiments.
Mallee has been ground zero for Labor's reckless rush to renewables. Our farmers have been railroaded, our communities divided and our prime agricultural land threatened by industrial-scale wind, solar and transmission projects. I've drafted legislation to protect Australia's best agricultural land. Labor spends more taxes and delivers less.
Sunday 1 November is a huge anniversary for Medicare and bulk-billing in this country. It is 12 months since our government expanded bulk-billing incentives to all Australian patients, meaning any Australian, if their doctor chooses to bulk-bill them—they will not pay a gap fee. It is also the anniversary of when—if the entire clinic decided to go to a 100 per cent bulk-billing model, they too received a boost payment. These changes have had a huge impact on my electorate. Bulk-billing rates have surged. We have now hit the target of nine out of 10 of all GP visits being bulk-billed. That's in the less than 12 months since we expanded these incentives. It's a phenomenal outcome. We now have clinics in our electorate that are back to opening seven days a week so that people can see a GP in their clinic on a Saturday or a Sunday. Again, this is as a result of the changes that we have made.
This is what our government is doing to invest in Medicare and health care. Yes, it's a cost-of-living measure. It says to people, 'It doesn't matter what's in your bank account; you can see the GP when you need to.' But, more importantly, it is a health outcome, ensuring that people in my electorate and in all of our electorates, can see a GP regardless of what is in their bank accounts. It's a huge day for us—1 November. This Sunday, we'll celebrate what we've done for bulk-billing.
When you have a problem, the first thing you need to do is admit that you have a problem. This prime minister and this treasurer refuse to do that. They refuse to admit that government spending is contributing to the inflation challenge we have. The member for Parramatta knows that; the Labor backbench know that. That's why they've talked about it. But, when the Treasurer was asked about his failures, he said:
I'm reluctant to kind of go through four and a half years and give you a sense of what I think we've done perfectly and where we could have done better. But I do acknowledge that, from time to time, you can explain things better, you can consult more.
Well, Treasurer, this isn't a communications problem; this is poor policy that's hurting small businesses, innovation, the economy, families and the Australian people. But this treasurer refuses to admit that he is the problem.
However, the Liberal Party, the coalition, have a plan to reduce government spending—$31 billion in savings to take pressure off inflation and help the RBA bring interest rates down. It is also to make sure that we can fund our tax-back guarantee that will mean, when you get a pay rise, you get a tax cut: $250 in year 1, $500 in year 2, $750 in year 3, a thousand dollars in year 4—and growing. The Liberal Party have a plan to make sure we can make your life easier, fix our economy and get Australia back to where it was.
In 2017, when I joined Catherine House as CEO, I was handed plans for a new purpose-built facility. Catherine House is a women's homelessness service based in 19 repurposed old cottages in the Adelaide CBD. Only its emergency accommodation living facility was purpose built, in 1988, but the shared bathrooms and living facilities are increasingly a source of conflict. So I was very pleased to attend the topping-off ceremony for the new Catherine House facility with Senator Penny Wong. This new 52-bed facility is funded by the federal government through the Social Housing Accelerator Fund and the safe places inclusion fund.
We all hope that these sorts of facilities aren't needed, but, sadly, they are. Around 60 per cent of women who use Catherine House come from domestic violence—recent or in the past, including in childhood. Trauma lasts. It impacts the lives of survivors for years, sometimes decades, but they can recover. That is the special thing that Catherine House offers: as well as a safe place to live, a door to lock and three meals a day, Catherine House also provides each woman with a caseworker to help her recover from the impact of homelessness and the issues that brought her into homelessness. They help her find a home, access income support, find a job, restart education and, sometimes, reunite with children. Emergency accommodation is an important part of our housing sector. This government backs housing while those opposite want to—
The member for Herbert has the call.
Australians are working harder, paying more and getting less. After years of Labor, families and towns across Australia are paying more for groceries, electricity, insurance, housing and everyday essentials. Labor's answer is always the same: spend more, tax more, big government. The coalition will take a different approach. We will cut Labor's wasteful spending, cut Labor's toxic taxes and tackle this cost-of-living crisis. We have identified $31 billion in savings, including $9.4 billion from Labor's climate bureaucracy, $7.3 billion from corporate welfare and $4.7 billion from failed housing programs and bureaucracy. That is money we can use to repair the budget and give back Australians more of what they earn.
Labor talks about cost-of-living relief, but its new working Australians tax offset is worth only up to $250 a year, which is less than a cup of coffee a week. Coffee shops have to put up their prices. You probably won't even get one coffee a week. A few dollars here and there does not fix the fundamental problem. The coalition's tax-back guarantee will instead provide increasing income tax relief, with the coalition estimating a taxpayer would pay around $14,000 less tax compared with Labor's plan. Australians do not need a bigger spending government. They need a government that respects their money, rewards hard work and gets the cost of living down. That's exactly what the coalition—
The member for Moore has the call.
Some years ago the National Australia Bank decided to shorten its name to NAB. It's an interesting choice for a bank, considering 'nab' is another word for taking something, particularly when you look at some of the fees banks have been charging Australians. But, now, NAB is taking something else: Australian jobs. Last year, NAB made nearly $6.8 billion in profit. That's more than $18 million every single day. In the 90 seconds it takes me to deliver this speech, that's the equivalent of almost $20,000 in profit, and, apparently, that's still not enough.
NAB has announced plans to cut 2,500 jobs, including 1,500 before Christmas. The Finance Sector Union says around 180 roles are being shifted to India and Vietnam. Let's remember where those billions came from: Australian families paying interest on their mortgages, Australian businesses paying fees and Australian workers who helped build this bank. This goes to the heart of the social licence of Australia's biggest corporations. Nobody begrudges a business making a profit, but you cannot make billions from Australians and treat Australian jobs as expendable. Surely, making billions in profit comes with some responsibility to the country that made those profits possible. If NAB is so keen to send Australian jobs overseas, perhaps it's time for another rebrand. Forget National Australia Bank, let's call it the 'National Overseas Bank'.
I'm glad the Prime Minister is here to listen to this because, since the parliament last sat, there have been two key pieces of evidence which go to the heart of the Prime Minister's ability to tell the truth in this parliament. At a Senate inquiry last week, it was revealed—when officials were asked about the Marrickville Golf Club grant, they responded:
The sewerage works are not in the scope …
Then at Senate estimates last night we got this from Senate officials at the Department of Infrastructure, Transport Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts when they said, 'Sewerage is not a component of this grant.' The Prime Minister three times in this parliament has said that it was when he defended the $6.1 million that went to the Marrickville Golf Club. I say to the Prime Minister when are you going to be able to admit that, when you get it wrong, that you have done that and apologise to the Australian people? Your lack of ability to admit to your mistakes means that Australians are hurting. Because when you can't tell the truth, Australian people hurt.
As a mum of three, I refuse to accept that cyber bullying, misogyny, violent content and harmful algorithms are simply the price our kids must pay for growing up in an online world. Children should not have to navigate an environment designed to maximise engagement at the expense of their safety. Parents should not have to fight billion-dollar tech companies to protect them. That is exactly why the Albanese Labor government's digital duty of care is so important. We are shifting the responsibility back where it belongs—on the platforms designing, operating and profiting from these digital environments. With stronger protections, tougher penalties and greater control over algorithms, we are making it clear that online safety is not optional. Every Australian child and every Australian deserves to feel safe, whether they are at home, in their community or online. That is exactly what we must work together to deliver.
In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members statements has concluded.
I inform the House that Minister for Health and Ageing and the Minister for Disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be absent from question time today. The Minister for Aged Care and Seniors will answer questions on his behalf. I also inform the House that the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia will be absent from question time today, and the Attorney-General will answer questions on her behalf.
The question is that the motion moved by the Prime Minister be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
My question is to the Prime Minister. On 9 September 2026, the Prime Minister told this House his $6 million taxpayer funded grant to Marrickville Golf Club was to fix sewerage flows into the Cooks River. On 10 September 2026, the Prime Minister doubled down on this claim in this House. Last week, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts confirmed to a Senate inquiry that sewerage works were not in the scope of the $6 million grant. This was confirmed again at Senate estimates last night. Will the Prime Minister give Australians a straight answer, admit he misled the house and correct the record?
What I'll do is answer the question. The delivery of the grant is, of course, a matter for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts. The Inner West Council confirmed to last week's Senate inquiry that they are currently finalising the design of the entire project, including improvements to the clubhouse, stormwater harvesting, a new toilet and landscaping. This is a grant to Inner West Council as a result of an election commitment made on 27 April 2025 as part of the renovation of the clubhouse to boost the health of the Cooks River, at which the building and securing the Marrickville Golf Club precinct announcement was made. Sewerage issues are a longstanding concern on this site. I'm advised that in September 2025—that is, after we had made the commitment—the New South Wales government committed funding towards the sewerage related aspects of the club. That is investment which is welcome.
Honourable members interjecting—
I'm stating the facts of what is happening, and the New South Wales government are funding—
The members on my left will cease interjecting. The Prime Minister was asked a specific question by the manager. He was heard in silence. The Prime Minister is directly addressing the question he was asked, as he said he would answer the question. I'd like the House to show respect to the Prime Minister, as the manager was shown, and listen to the advice given to the House by the Prime Minister.
The New South Wales government is funding the sewerage related aspects of the club, which has been an issue for a very long time. I'm advised that the club has a long history, and indeed, in the media release announcing the project, it spoke about the venue's last major remodel being in 1947. This is a local club owned by the council, par 62. The funding was going to be for sewerage. The New South Wales government have stepped in, which is appropriate, given that New South Wales run water and sewerage. It was an election commitment, similar to the member for Wannon's 23 election commitments that were made totalling a value of $26.3 million.
The manager on a further point of order?
I seek leave to table the transcript from Senate estimates last night which says that sewerage is not a component of this grant.
Leave not granted.
My question is to the Prime Minister. How will Australia's landmark free trade agreement with the European Union benefit the Australian economy and jobs, as well as our producers and consumers? Why is the implementation of this deal in Australia's national interest?
I thank the member for Moore for his question. The free trade agreement that is proposed with the world's second-largest economy will bring major benefits to Australia. This is a market with 450 million people spanning 27 countries with a large middle class purchasing goods and services. This will add $10 billion of benefit to the Australian economy. It eliminates European tariffs on critical minerals, expanding investment in that crucial industry, which will put us at a competitive advantage with other countries that are seeking to expand their exports into Europe. That is why this is such an important issue.
For Australian industry and producers, 98 per cent of trade with the EU will be tariff free. It removes all tariffs on Australian wine. It removes all tariffs on Australian fruits, vegetables and tree nuts. It removes 87 per cent of tariffs on Australian dairy. It delivers an eight-fold increase of Australian beef exports compared with what is exported today. It delivers a five-fold increase of Australian sheepmeat exports compared with what is delivered today. It delivers a better deal for Australian red meat than the agreement between the EU and South American countries. This will support more than 338,000 Australian jobs across the economy that rely on two-way trade with Europe. It means cheaper goods for Australian consumers. No doubt, this is a win for business, jobs, consumers and the Australian economy.
At a time when free trade is under some siege from parts of the world, we need to stand up for a market based economy and free trade. One in four Australian jobs rely on trade. One-third of our economic output is supported by trade. There is no question that it is in our national interest to implement this deal, harness its economic benefits and send a message to the world that Australia supports free and fair trade. I call upon all senators to support this agreement. It is in the national interest. All of the other agreements that have been set from whatever political party was in government have been supported on a bipartisan basis because they have been in Australia's national interest, and this is certainly in Australia's national interest.
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister's previous answer and ask: why won't the Prime Minister admit that he was wrong?
I thank the member for his question. I have said very clearly that we made the commitment that part of the upgrade of Marrickville Golf Club was going to be to fix the long-running sewage issue. That is not the case because the state government have stepped in and provided funding from September 2025 with the announcement that they have made. It is similar to the seven projects announced by the member for Forrest—
Here we go, another dirt sheet. It's played so well for you.
The member for Forrest is now warned.
totalling $22.26 million, including upgrades for the Busselton Margaret River Airport, ovals 7 and 8 at Leschenault Leisure Centre, funding for a new Gloucester Park pavilion, funding for Binningup Skate Park, funding for Brunswick Tennis Club and funding for South Bunbury Football Club. During election campaigns people make commitments.
I have said that was not correct. The state government have moved in and are funding the project.
My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence. How is the Albanese Labor government working with public and private sector organisations to strengthen their cyber resilience against malicious state actors and cyber criminals targeting Australian networks?
I thank the member for his question and acknowledge his great work on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Today the government has released the Australian Signals Directorate's Annual cyber threat report. It reveals that in the last financial year ASD responded to 1,500 cyber incidents, which is an annual increase of 20 per cent. By historic standards, that's a big jump. What's going on here is that malicious actors are using artificial intelligence to locate vulnerabilities in the IT systems of companies and organisations much more quickly. We are living in a more contested cyber environment.
But, in turn, ASD is engaging with companies and organisations around the country in a much bigger way, alerting them to threats, providing advice as to how to secure their IT systems and then doing just that. As a result, in this report there is some good news. For larger companies, which have good cyber defences in place and which are working with ASD, the average cost of a cyber event has come down by 27 per cent. The not-so-good news is that for medium-size companies the average cost has gone up by 45 per cent. So they are very much now the focus.
Today ASD has three really important messages. First, if you have an old IT system connected to the internet, that is a gateway for malicious actors; you need to replace it. Second, it's important to take the time to secure and harden your IT systems, even if that means that you go offline for a couple of days. And third, while AI represents part of the challenge here, AI is also very much part of the solution. You need to use AI to harden your systems. There are a lot of great AI products out there now and, through cyber.gov.au, ASD is providing a lot of advice about how to use those tools. In a more contested environment it is possible to meet this challenge and to win, and ASD is there to help. I am very fortunate to see firsthand the incredible work undertaken by the men and women who serve in the Australian Signals Directorate and who each and every day are providing for the cyber defence of our country.
I'd like to inform the House that present in the gallery today are representatives of Wounded Heroes Australia, the charity that supports current and former Australian Defence Force members, veterans and their families requiring practical assistance, located in the electorate of the member for Blair. I'd also like to welcome the Most Reverend Jeremy Greaves, the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, as a guest of the member for Griffith.
My question is to the Treasurer. Treasurer, our biggest import item—three times bigger than any other—is petrol. We export oil for $8,000 million and import petrol for $62,000 million—three times higher than any other item. Brazil is 60 per cent ethanol. America is 16 per cent ethanol. Australia is zero. Brazil is $1.60 a litre. America is $1.90 a litre. Australia is $2.60. Fifty-four per cent of Queensland's electricity comes from China, solar panels. Coal fired power and ethanol will give a $20,000 Christmas present to every Australian. Why won't you deliver this Christmas present, Treasurer?
I thank the honourable member for Kennedy for his question. I acknowledge that for as long as I've known him he's been a passionate supporter of the ethanol industry and the crucial role that alternative sources of fuel will play in Australia's fuel security. it's a really important part of the Prime Minister's Future Made in Australia agenda and the work that he does with the energy minister and other ministers to make sure that we get this right. That's why the energy minister and I went to the Ampol refinery in Lytton in Brisbane to announce the $1.1 billion Cleaner Fuels Program. We put $1.1 billion behind this very important objective that we share with the member for Kennedy, which is to make sure that ethanol and other sources of cleaner fuels can be part of our fuel mix.
Ethanol is estimated to be a $15 billion industry by 2050. I acknowledge the honourable member would like that to be even bigger. It will also be a really big ongoing market for Australia's farmers. It's no coincidence that the NFF stood up with Minister Bowen and I at the Lytton refinery because they're excited about it. They're investors there, as is the super sector and others. You can look at that as part of a really big effort across our government when it comes to fuel security. We've got a $15 billion fuel security package in the budget. It was one of the five essential elements of the budget. One of the things that we're proudest of in the course of the last six months or so is the steps that we are taking and have taken to enhance Australia's fuel security when that fuel security is under maximum pressure for obvious reasons.
In addition to the Cleaner Fuels Program I mentioned, there is $7.5 billion for fuel and fertiliser security facility, $3.2 billion for the Australian Fuel Security Reserve and $2.9 billion for our responsible temporary relief from petrol prices. All of that is about acknowledging the pressures that the honourable member mentioned in his question as well. And that's before we get to the important work that we're doing with our international partners to shore up our fuel security. Again, right across the cabinet from the Prime Minister to the energy minister and right across our team, including, in my case, in three different sets of engagements in the last three weeks, fuel security has been a big emphasis of our international engagement as well. So we're doing a lot of work to make sure that we make the most of this opportunity when it comes to ethanol and that we make the most of every opportunity when it comes to our international partnerships. Fuel security is at a premium right now, and that's recognised in the government's policy agenda.
My question is to the Minister for Cyber Security. How is the Albanese Labor government helping to strengthen cybersecurity for Australians?
Thank you to the member for Cunningham for raising this issue. The cyber threat landscape is always changing, but the fact that we are under attack is constant. The defence minister just referred to the Annual cyber threat report from the Signals Directorate, where we had 1,500 cyber security incidents last year, an increase of 20 per cent.
This is happening at the same time that artificial intelligence is being used by those who would want to do us harm. We need to remember that artificial intelligence is not creating vulnerabilities. What it's doing is finding vulnerabilities and finding them faster than they would otherwise be found. The gap between a vulnerability existing and it being exploited used to be about 2½ years. It's now 10 hours. Artificial intelligence is supercharging the pace at which these vulnerabilities are being found.
The vulnerabilities continue to exist in three key areas, all of which are being dealt with and addressed in horizon 2 of our cyber strategy. The first deals with legacy technology, and when we talk about legacy technology it's not necessarily old technology. There can be old technology that we don't call legacy because you can keep patching it and you can keep updating it. But any technology or edge device that's not capable of continuing to be updated is legacy and carries risk. The second is the issue of the human firewall. So many cyberattacks involve social engineering where somebody is tricked into opening the doors wide—sometimes an employee, sometimes an individual. The final vulnerability is links that can exist within an entire supply chain.
Just as those who want to do us harm are using artificial intelligence to find and exploit these vulnerabilities, we need the same capability to provide the protection. The change that people will start to see as businesses and government are using the best technology to find vulnerabilities as quickly as possible is that patching of software is going to have to happen and happen fast. We've got used to systems with a whole lot of the businesses that we interact with where you wait for Saturday night, and Saturday night between 2 am and 4 am is when the update occurs. We are going to start to see occasions where sites that we are used to having available for us constantly look like they're shut down for a time. Overwhelmingly, they won't be examples, by and large, of successful attacks. They will be examples of companies taking cyberdefences seriously. We need to use every single edge that is being used against us. Our entire world now—our electricity, our water and every household device—is capable of being connected, and we need to make sure that we have the defences Australians need.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister just stop the spin and admit he was wrong?
I think I know where the manager is coming from, but, to assist the House, maybe he could reference a point. I don't want to start this precedent where you can just make a statement and then that's a question. It has to have responsibility, I think, for consistency. I ask the manager to assist the House.
My question is to the Prime Minister and I refer to his previous answer. Will the Prime Minister just stop the spin and admit he was wrong?
It was not correct to say that the federal grant would deal with the sewer woes, to quote the state government media release of 17 September 2025—I assume it's from the state government—'Putt-ing an end to sewer woes: Marrickville Golf Course to get a hole lot better'. After we made the commitment to the club, which included fixing this issue, which has been an issue since 1947, the state government stepped in. That is a good thing. I was not aware of the state government grant. Why would I be, frankly? But it said the grant is being administered by the infrastructure department. The state government in their statement said:
The club's growing popularity as a social and community hub has placed increased pressure on its ageing septic system.
The clubhouse is not currently connected to the public sewer system and relies on two old septic tanks, one of which failed and discharged wastewater onto the course impacting golfers—
The Prime Minister will have to pause, but, if the manager asks a question about an issue and the Prime Minister is reading directly into the Hansard what has happened with that issue, it is going to be near impossible to claim relevance when you've asked about his previous answer and he's directly talking about his previous answer. He's not talking about opposition policies. He's not talking about any other issue. I call the Manager of Opposition Business.
Speaker, it was a very, very specific question. It is actually pretty sad that the Prime Minister can't admit he's wrong. This is pretty tragic.
Resume your seat. I remind all members, and the manager, to state the point of order. I call the Leader of the House.
I was just going to put it to you, Speaker, that that was a deliberate abuse. You had said before the member stood—you reminded him—that there was a reference to the previous answer in how the question was posed, and the Prime Minister was directly referring back to the previous answer. There was no reason for that point of order other than abuse.
No, we're not debating about whether the point of order is relevant or not, because I've made that decision. There was no point of order, because the manager did not state a point of order. But that's okay. We'll be reasonable. We'll handle this. But if you ask a question about previous answers and the Prime Minister is giving even more detail about a previous answer—I can appreciate it's not the way you'd like the question answered. But, from where I sit and the standing orders, if you ask about a previous answer and he's reading into the Hansard explicit details under the standing orders, he is being absolutely directly relevant.
It went on to say 'and presenting an environmental risk to the nearby Cooks River' and:
Crown Lands in the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure (DPHI) will provide the grant from its Crown Reserves Improvement Fund (CRIF) to Inner West Council to solve the problem by connecting the clubhouse to the mains sewer.
The NSW Government funding to connect the clubhouse will pave the way for further upgrades to the golf course precinct funded by the Federal Government.
That's the point here. This is not a for-profit organisation. This is a not-for-profit on Crown land managed by the local council for the benefit of the local community.
The Manager of Opposition Business, on a point of order?
Under standing order 201, I'd like the Prime Minister to table the document he was quoting from.
Is it a private, confidential document that the Prime Minister is reading from?
I'm happy to.
The Prime Minister has agreed to table the document. When the House comes to order we'll hear—
Honourable members interjecting—
I don't want to detain the member for Griffith, because she is being patient and she deserves the right to ask her question. The Manager of Opposition Business, on a point of order?
It was two pages, and the Prime Minister only table one of them.
The point's been made. Standing order 201 is:
If a Minister quotes from a document relating to public affairs, a Member may ask for it to be presented to the House. The document must be presented unless the Minister states that it is of a confidential nature.
I asked the Prime Minister if it was of a confidential nature. He said, 'No, I'm happy to table it.' So that's the—
Honourable members interjecting—
We're not getting into semantics here. A request was made. It was followed. Now, the member for Griffiths entitled to ask her question because she's being patient.
My question is to the Minister for Communications. How does the digital duty of care protect Australians from serious harm online, such as threats of violence and menacing and harassing behaviour—
Honourable members interjecting—
No! We're going to do this properly. The chatter, the interjections—
I'm not saying it was you, Member for Maranoa. Calm down. I didn't hear the question, and the member for Griffith is going to get a fair go, just like everyone else. I want to hear her question, and I'd like everyone to show her some respect while she asks the question.
My question is to the Minister for Communications. How does the digital duty of care protect Australians from serious harm online, such as threats of violence and menacing or harassing behaviour?
I thank the member for Griffith for her question and for joining the Minister for Social Services and me recently to announce the Albanese government's $3.5 million investment in the Preventing Tech-based Abuse of Women Grants Program. Social media promised to create a village square that would create community and inspire creativity and encourage the discussion of new ideas. Instead, it has become a cesspit.
When dehumanising language online becomes normal, it lowers the barrier to harm in the real world. Over the past year, the Australian Federal Police have recorded growing volumes of online abuse, threatening rhetoric and intimidation. ASIO's chief, Mike Burgess—a person of great repute in this place—has warned that social media is 'promoting discord and inflammatory rhetoric, exacerbating polarisation and creating a permissive environment for violence.' The eSafety Commissioner—a person appointed, and reappointed, by the coalition—cautioned that online content can surface real-world intent, shaping attitudes, behaviours and actions, including radicalisation, violence and hate. The AFP Commissioner—someone who we all respect in this place—shared that the national security investigations team is charging almost one individual a week for targeting Commonwealth parliamentarians and public officials. The question before us all this week is: how are we, as elected members of parliament, going to respond to these clarion calls from our most trusted security and safety experts?
Just as individuals are accountable to the police for their behaviour online, platforms must be accountable for enabling it. The digital duty of care is built on the principle that if you build it, you are responsible for it. It applies the same standard to big tech that we expect of every other industry in Australia. The digital duty of care will require platforms to have systems in place to proactively protect all Australians from threats of violence, death and rape, and menacing or harassing behaviour, because it's not good enough to wait until threats escalate or a person gets hurt.
This is not about censoring political debate. This is not about avoiding the criticism of policy. This is not about misinformation or disinformation. If social media platforms, forums, online games and AI chatbots know that the tools they make money from can be used to seriously harm Australians, they should put systems in place to stop it. We don't always agree in this place, but surely we can agree on this.
My question is to the Prime Minister. The average new mortgage holder is now paying $30,000 more per year because of the 16 interest rate rises under his government. The Prime Minister has failed to deliver the $275 reduction in household energy bills he promised 97 times. The National Farmers' Federation has warned that grocery prices will increase because of his failed working holiday-maker visa changes. Why do Australians always pay the price because the Prime Minister won't ever admit he's made a mistake?
I thank the member for his question. In part, I'm stunned at them raising issues of migration and access to the labour market, because the government is making sensible changes, just as we have brought down the level of net overseas migration by 45 per cent. What those opposite are suggesting would decimate the agricultural sector. I have certainly had representations about that, just as we are continuing to engage constructively with business. As the member might know, the offer has been there for other reforms that would further help to bring down the migration numbers and do so in a way that has no impact at all on the needs of the labour market, but those opposite, unfortunately, have chosen to not support those sensible reforms.
My question is to the Minister for Education. What action is the Albanese Labor government taking to help young people learn in the classroom and to protect them online?
I thank my friend the 'cracking' member for Corangamite for her question.
An honourable member: We're back!
We are back! I've talked in the House about why I think we need a digital detox in our schools. I'm not talking about getting rid of it altogether, but I do think that we need a little less tech and a bit more pen and paper. I think we all know when we write something down with a pen or a pencil it's more likely to stick in the noggin than if you type it down. We're more likely to remember it. I can advise the House that next week, when education ministers meet, we're going to have a look at potential changes to the NAPLAN tests that our kids sit every year—in particular, whether the writing test should go back to pen and paper and, in particular, whether it should for kids in primary school.
There's another benefit of a bit less tech. We've just got a report out from Macquarie University, and I think some of the stuff in this report will shock and surprise members here. What it says is that kids in year 11 and kids in year 12 are now spending an average of about an hour and a half a day on their screens at school, looking at things that aren't about school. I'm talking about gaming, talking about googling, talking about—well, I hope they're not watching question time! I'm talking about watching TV and watching sport and sending messages to their mates. Think about that. That's an hour and a half a day. That's the equivalent of two classes. Something is happening here. I'm not anti tech, but this is not helping our kids to learn. That's why I'm arguing for a digital detox.
I'm also asked about the threats that our kids face online. I can't think of anything worse than these nudify apps that allow sickos to cut and paste a picture of our kids and stick it onto a naked body and send it out to the world to humiliate them. It is disgusting. I ask us to think about this: how many times do you think these apps have been downloaded by Aussies in the last month? The answer is 200,000. It should be zero. There was a bloke in Queensland the other day that was sent to jail for using one of these apps against a 13-year-old girl. Her mum gave evidence in the court about the burden she faces knowing she's kept this as a secret from her daughter and that one day she's going to find out all about this. The truth is that it should never happen in the first place, right? This bloke should never have had access to an app to be able to do this to her daughter in the first place. That's what the digital duty of care legislation will help us to stop, to be able to take these things down. This week, we've got a chance here to come together to stop sickos like this and to help protect our kids. All we've got to do is vote for it.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Barron Valley Hotel owner Michael Nasser has warned your government's changes to working holiday-maker visas will see businesses fail left, right and centre. He said it will destroy regional Australia. There are backpackers here to do work that no-one else wants to do, and we actually need them. This is the worst government policy decision that I've heard of in my lifetime. Why do Australians always pay the price because the Prime Minister can't admit he's made a mistake?
I'll ask the minister to respond, but that was Barron River—
Barron Valley Hotel.
Barron Valley Hotel. If that was the group that I think the member for Kennedy came—it might have been the same group. Is that right, Member for Capricornia? If it's a group that I've met with—I'm not certain that it is, but, if it is, I met with them during the last parliamentary sitting week, and what they did was put forward very constructively the work that they do. They do fantastic work. They have accommodation there for people working on bananas and avocados in particular. They spoke about the great benefit that we had. What I did was have a very constructive discussion with them about the changes that were proposed and ways in which we could make sure that that workforce was looked after. I must say that the couple who were there were delightful, hardworking Australians who are making a big difference in that part of regional Australia.
One of the things that I spoke to them about was the UK free trade agreement and the impact that it has had, because, at the moment, unlike backpackers from other areas of the world, who have to spend time in regional Australia, those UK backpackers are arriving in very large numbers, much greater than they were previously to that arrangement being in place, and they are staying at Bondi Beach or Coogee or around particularly the capital cities and working in hospitality there. That's placing enormous pressure because it's distorting the labour market in these areas as well. That's just one of the areas in which we'll put forward changes. That requires discussions, and I'll be meeting with Prime Minister Andy Burnham. It's one of the issues which I committed to the publicans to raise with the Prime Minister of the UK. It's something I've raised with him informally as well. We know that it's very important to deal with these issues, and that's why I've been prepared to meet with these small businesses and engage with them constructively in order to provide assistance.
My question is to the Treasurer. How is the Albanese Labor government's economic strategy putting Australia in a stronger position to deal with global volatility, and what does this mean for Australian families?
Big thanks to the member for Chisholm for her question and also for her time earlier today discussing some of these issues. Tomorrow we'll get the inflation data for the September quarter and also the monthly data. What we expect to see there is that the war in the Middle East is pushing up the price of fuel and other prices in our economy, and that is making our domestic inflation challenge harder. This is being felt by every economy around the world in one way or another. Look at recent inflation data in other major economies, driven by higher oil prices. In annual headline terms, the US went up 0.3, Germany and the UK 0.4, France 0.8 and Italy 0.9. All of those numbers are annual headline numbers. The latest IMF World Economic Outlook shows global inflation is on the rise, and you can see that in interest rate expectations in every major advanced economy.
Here in Australia we have much lower debt than other countries and lower interest repayments. We have a stronger economy than almost all of our peers. But we do know that developments around the world are making our domestic challenges, like inflation, harder and that that is putting additional pressure on families and Australians more broadly. Markets aren't expecting to see a big jump tomorrow in our numbers like we've seen in some of those other countries, but they're also not expecting inflation to go down yet either. We know that budgets aren't the primary driver of prices in our economy, but they can play a helpful role. If you look at the last year of public final demand growth, you can see that it halved compared to the year before. So public demand is coming off in our economy. But private final demand growth tripled in that year compared to the year before.
This is why our responsible approach to managing the budget and managing the economy is so important. It's why we have found $180 billion in savings in the budget since we came to government. It's why the budget that we handed down from this dispatch box in May had the largest amount of savings in the history of the Commonwealth, more than $60 billion in savings. It's why we banked upward revisions to revenue and kept average real spending growth lower than those opposite. It's also why the mid-year budget update in December will have another savings package in it, just like the eight budgets and budget updates which preceded it.
This government has had savings in every budget and budget update—eight consecutive times. Those opposite didn't have a single savings measure in their last budget. So, despite all the volatility that is coming at us from around the world, Australia is better placed, we are better prepared and we've got a better plan to deal with it.
I'd like to welcome members of the Lightning Ridge Miners' Association as guests of the member for Parkes, who joined us today in question time.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
My question is for the Treasurer. The Treasury acknowledges that indexation on CGT has limitations when applied to low- or zero-cost based businesses. That describes every low-capital business built from nothing, but the fix, the innovative business CGT concession, only covers businesses that pass a narrow innovation test, leaving others who take huge risks to build medium and large businesses one of the world's highest tax rates on capital. Why won't the government just reduce the CGT discount on businesses to rebalance the tax system, rather than have this narrow carve-out?
I thank the honourable member for Wentworth. I acknowledge her interest and her input in this really important area of tax reform, and I acknowledge as well the other colleagues on this side of the House who've engaged constructively with our ambitious tax reform agenda. And it's a good time to ask the question, as the honourable member knows that only a couple of hours ago we introduced the legislation into this parliament for the innovative business carve-out in the CGT reforms and, alongside that, the reforms to the R&D tax incentive and some of the other important reforms in our tax package. That legislation recognises that our startup and innovation sector is a key driver of jobs and productivity in our economy. As the honourable member knows, in the lead-up to the budget and then publicly from budget night, we made it really clear that we would be consulting in a meaningful and genuine way about the best way to design the carve-out for innovative businesses. We were clear in the budget that we would have arrangements for startups with a low or zero cost base, and the targeted concession we're putting forward delivers on that commitment.
I acknowledge that the honourable member has a different view, but in our view we have struck the best possible outcome, the best combination of carve-outs and concessions which ensures that early investors in innovative startups will still receive a significant discount on a future capital gain. Our reforms mean that, for Australians looking to invest and grow their wealth, we've got concessions targeted at starting a new innovative business or investing in a new build. This is part of around $4 billion in tax cuts and tax concessions to incentivise and reward innovative businesses, startups and small businesses. In addition to that, as the honourable member knows, we're expanding the venture capital incentives. That's also in the bill that I introduced today—a very important part of our reform agenda. We're also strengthening the performance test to ensure that there are no unintended barriers to investments in areas like venture capital, an issue the honourable member has raised with me on other occasions.
To finish, I want to point out that across this package that we introduced today the government has run six consultation processes, and we've engaged with more than 500 submissions on these issues. This engagement has included round tables and bilateral engagements with peak business and industry associations, universities and academics, startups, incubators, innovation networks, life sciences firms, manufacturing, engineering, other key sectors and also members of the crossbench and of course members of the government. There'll always be a range of views about the best way to go about this. This consultation that we've done has made the reform package better, and that's why we put it to the parliament today.
My question is to the Minister for Emergency Management. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to help Australians to prepare for, respond to and recover from natural disasters?
I want to thank the member for Leichhardt for the question. In his part of the world, natural disasters are something he deals with frequently, and I really value the input he gives to my office on what's happening in his part of the world. Australians are no strangers to the impact of bushfires, floods and severe storms, and parts of Queensland are experiencing flooding right now. I'd like to send the parliament's condolences to the family and friends of James Hansen, who, tragically, died in floodwaters on the Fraser Coast this week.
Our government is focused on helping Australians to reduce risk and to build resilience. That's why we're investing record amounts in disaster risk reduction, in resilience and preparedness through our $1 billion Disaster Ready Fund. In just the past week I've announced 32 new projects across Victoria, Queensland and the ACT. These 32 projects will share in $54 million in Commonwealth funding as part of Disaster Ready Fund round 4. Combined with the investment from our project partners, that's more than $105 million to help communities prepare for and withstand the impacts of natural disasters. They include investments like the Aurukun Multipurpose Community Resilience Centre in Queensland, a $7.9 million project to deliver a purpose built public cyclone shelter and facility for disaster coordination and evacuation, or the $3.7 million for a flood levy to protect the Rochester hospital in the electorate of Bendigo. We're also investing in innovative technology too, like a $4.3 million investment in SmokeBench, enhancing our camera based bushfire detection technologies. SmokeBench is one of seven projects receiving more than $30 million in combined funding that I announced with the member for Canberra this morning.
We'll be announcing further investments through our Disaster Ready Fund in coming weeks as communities continue to prepare for the high-risk weather season, we've invested more than $100 million in our aerial firefighting fleet to support states and territories, and they are now prepositioned across the country to provide support this summer. We continue to invest in the National Emergency Management Stockpile to make more assets available and more easily accessible to supplement state and territory resources should they get stretched. Our new national warning system, AusAlert, is ready for use by emergency service agencies this summer, delivering near-real-time notifications to Australians in times of crisis. And, of course, we continue to support states and territories through our disaster recovery funding arrangements.
Our government will always be there to support Australians before, during and after natural disasters, and, as we head into this high-risk weather season, now is the time for all Australians to have their emergency plan ready. Now is the time to plan and prepare for what is ahead.
Prime Minister, according to the Australian newspaper, a Congolese serial rapist who abused his 13-year-old daughter has been allowed to stay in the country thanks to the government's direction 110. The man arrived in Australia on a refugee visa in 2008. Over a hundred other hardened criminals, including rapists, paedophiles and drug lords, have also been allowed to remain in Australia under the same direction under this prime minister's watch. Prime Minister, how on Earth did you let this happen?
I am so glad that this has been raised because the information and the conclusions that are drawn there are just plain wrong. I want to explain why, because a lot of people understandably have seen articles like this and have presumed that the ART decision is the end of the road of the decision-making in these processes.
First of all, the only reason any of these people have been before the ART, the Administrative Review Tribunal, is that, under exactly that direction, the department had cancelled the visa. Otherwise, there would have been nothing to appeal. So the direction is the reason that this process started, because the department—and I back the decisions that my department have made in cancelling visas for exactly the sort of people he just described. That's the starting point. I know you're bewildered and shaking your head. It's actually how the system works. You can't appeal unless the decision has been made against you in the first place. That's how they get to the ART. It's not complex.
Then, once they get to the Administrative Review Tribunal, if the tribunal looks at the decision in a different way to how we did, what happens is the minister calls the decision back in. Look at the record over time of what happens when those decisions are called back in. When the cancellations ultimately happen from the ministers, as it happens, we don't end up with the same front page in the paper. That's an editorial decision. That is what it is, because these articles only ever come at one moment in time. Look at each of these cases. Go through the history of them. You get the initial banning, the cancelling of a visa, by the department. Most of those decisions stay at the ART, but some of them the ART overturns. Then, overwhelmingly, you find it gets called up to the minister and the visa is cancelled again and the person is taken into detention and leaves this country as they should.
My question is to the Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness Minister for Cities. How is the Albanese Labor government helping more Australians achieve the dream of homeownership?
The member for Forde is one of our strongest advocates in the parliament for first home buyers. He has now helped 3,374 people in his electorate into homeownership; what an amazing achievement!
I can report to the parliament that, as of today, under the five per cent deposit program, our government has now helped more than 290,000 Australians get the keys to their own home. Just over a year ago we uncapped and expanded that scheme, and since then alone more than 100,000 Australians have gotten the keys to their own home. That is almost 300,000 people who have got a front door of their own, who have got security, who have got stability and who have got a place to put down roots for their family.
One of the best parts of my job is meeting the incredible young people who have tapped this program to get into homeownership. Recently, I met Jess and Roman, in Hobart. They welcomed Minister Collins and I into their absolutely beautiful home. This is a young married couple who wanted nothing more than a home of their own. We sat around the kitchen table and we shared a cup of tea, and Jess said something that has stuck with me: 'Having a space that was ours, that we loved, just feeling that sense of security—I didn't realise it was something that we didn't have before.' This is a theme that I hear again and again—that sense of peace that comes over these young people when they get the homeownership opportunity they deserve. In Geelong, brothers Jordan and Josh have bought their own home together, after we expanded the scheme to allow siblings to jointly apply. Josh said they probably wouldn't have done it on their own for quite a while, but the scheme made them able to do it much sooner.
What we see with this fantastic program, which is changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, is that when we give the young people of this country the opportunity they deserve they grab it with both hands. Of those almost 300,000 participants, the strong majority came into the program with a deposit of more than five per cent, and we can see from the data that this group of people are diligently paying off their mortgages. In fact, five per cent deposit program holders are, on average, more ahead on their mortgage than the average mortgage holder in our country. The average time that a couple will spend on this scheme is just 2.5 years, and more than a quarter of the young people that got into the housing market through this scheme have already graduated out of it.
It's pretty simple: our government believes in aspiration, and there is no greater aspiration for the young people of this nation than getting into a home of their own. We are incredibly proud to have now helped 290,000 Australians realise that dream, and there will be many more thousands to come under our government.
My question is to the Treasurer. The Ambitious Australia report said that the R&D tax incentive must be globally competitive, retain R&D intensive firms and extend support to commercialisation. It didn't recommend a time limit. The legislation introduced today provides that companies older than 15 years can't claim the R&D tax incentive's refundable offset. I'm hearing from some of our most innovative medical research companies that many advanced therapies take longer than that to commercialise and that a 15-year limit will force them to consider moving offshore. Why is the government putting this important sector at risk?
Thankyou to the honourable member for her question and for her interest, again, in this important part of tax reform. This is about reforming the R&D tax incentive to better target the incentive towards growing firms. Two of the key changes are, first of all, to make the thresholds more generous but also to make the age limit more sustainable; that's the part that the honourable member refers to in her question.
On the threshold, it used to be that firms lost access to the tax offset when their turnover exceeded $20 million. We've been able to increase that to $50 million—so we've made that more generous—but we have put in place fiscally responsible support for transitioning firms onto the nonrefundable part of the tax offset after 10 years or after 15 years for biotech and medtech; I understand that that's what the honourable member is referencing and responding to.
We've done a lot of consultation here. I acknowledge particularly Robyn Denholm but also others, including those involved in the Ambitious Australia report. We've done a lot of work with them. I acknowledge that not every element of what we've put to the parliament today is unanimously supported around the sector, but, if you look at the letter that Robyn Denholm wrote to her colleagues, it's clear that we've gone a long way as a government to respond to some of the legitimate issues that have been raised. For example, we've got more support for the biotech sector, we've got safe havens for innovators and we're expanding support for activities that are integral to core R&D. Here I want to acknowledge some of my own colleagues who've been raising these issues as well. The legislation before the House is better because of that consultation, including in a number of those areas that I've worked with the sector on.
What it means, if you take it all together, is that we'll be more effectively supporting R&D. Whether it's the combination of increasing the offsets by up to 50 per cent for core, whether it's lowering the intensity threshold on the non-refundable offset or whether it's increasing the maximum expenditure threshold to $200 million, all of this means that each dollar of tax offset will generate around 20 per cent more business R&D and will increase R&D by young firms by around $400 million a year. Altogether, this will have a very positive impact on the sector. The bills we introduced today are better because of the consultation we did, including the engagement on some of the questions central to the view put forward by the honourable member. We're very confident we've struck the right balance here, and we seek the support of the parliament.
My question is to the Minister for Small Business. How is the Albanese Labor government delivering real change for Australia's 2.7 million small businesses?
Thank you to the member for Brisbane for her question and for her consistent advocacy for the small businesses in her electorate. Every small business starts with someone who has an idea and the courage to back themselves. It's the young tradie who decides to go out on his own or her own, the family recipe that's passed on through generations into a thriving business or the migrant who arrives in Australia and sets out to build something of their own. As I visit businesses in our cities and in our regions, in our suburbs and in our towns, I'm constantly awed by the passion and the steely determination that they exhibit.
Small business is a story of aspiration, and it's a story of Australia. That's just part of the reason why the Albanese Labor government is focused on delivering the settings that businesses need to start to grow and to succeed. We've made the $20,000 instant asset write-off and the two-year loss carry-back permanent. We've invested $80 million in digital solutions programs, the Small Business Cyber Resilience Service and the Cyber Health Check since we came into office. We're delivering $10.2 billion in regulatory burden reduction. We've removed almost 1,000 nuisance tariffs, saving businesses $157 million a year in compliance costs. 1½ million sole traders received tax cuts, including our $250 Working Australians Tax Offset. We've invested more than $30 million to improve payment times. Our fee-free TAFE is ensuring that small businesses have access to the skilled workers that they need to be able to continue to grow and to thrive.
Opposition members interjecting—
Minister, pause for a moment. I want the interjections to cease. The minister is reading information to the House. The member for Brisbane's asked her question. These continual sledges and remarks and ongoing comments are not helpful to democracy, and it's not even funny. The minister is not saying anything controversial. We don't need commentary. We don't need remarks. We don't need snide remarks. Everyone, remember why we're here. We're not getting into the bad habits. People are entitled to their views, but not when ministers are just addressing the house on topics that we should all be supportive of. You can disagree but not with snide comments.
Those were just some of the measures that I mentioned in terms of what we're doing to improve those settings for small businesses so that they can start up, they can grow and they can sustain. One of the primary things that we're doing as well is continuing to work with states and territories through our National Small Business Strategy, the first of its kind. We're working with them, meeting with them regularly to look at how we can continue to do those things and reduce regulatory burden and cut red tape. When a small business succeeds, that success doesn't just stop at the shopfront or at the check-out; it's another apprentice getting their start, another Australian earning a wage and another Australian building a dream. That's what we're backing—an Australia where good ideas become great businesses, hard work creates opportunity, and ambition has every chance to succeed.
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to my previous question: why is this serial rapist, who is on a visa here in Australia, still here? Why won't the Prime Minister accept responsibility for his government's failure to protect the community from non-citizen criminals?
Order! The member for Wills will leave the chamber under 94(a). The Leader of the Opposition is entitled to be heard in silence and shown the same respect as any other member. To give commentary like that with remarks that I just spoke about is completely out of order.
The member for Wills then left the chamber .
I'm glad that this has been asked again, but I suspect the Leader of the Opposition won't be by the time he hears and is reminded of details.
The Leader of the House will pause. The Manager of Opposition Business, on a point of order?
Speaker, it was a very specific question, and it wasn't about the Leader of the Opposition. The way that the minister started that was completely inappropriate and not relevant to the question.
Yes, the manager is entitled to raise that point of order. If we're going to raise standards, that's fine. We will ensure that we get straight to the answer. Out of respect for the Leader of the Opposition, I'm going to get the Leader of the House to get straight to the answer. He's had 16 seconds, and I'll be listening carefully to make sure he's within the standing orders.
We are determined that, when a minister calls in one of these cases to make a ministerial decision, it is one that absolutely stands up in court. That means you have to wait for the ART to release its decision before the department can prepare the brief for the minister. That's what you have to wait to do. If you don't do that, you end up failing because they appeal the decision you make to the court, and they stay because you haven't taken into account all the relevant information. So you have to wait for the ART decision.
Allow me to also say this: in the earlier question which the Leader of the Opposition referred to, he referred to ministerial direction 110. That has already been superseded by a decision I made a couple of months ago, ministerial direction 123. That is to take into account and to give direction to the ART on this new line of reasoning that's trying to say, 'Because you are now sending people to Naoero if you can't send them back to their home country, that's too harsh.' We stand on our sovereignty—on our right to deport somebody who no longer has a valid visa—and the Naoero arrangement is our way of doing that. We make no apology for making that arrangement, and we are glad that the government of Naoero made that arrangement with us.
In direction 123, we have gone to the absolute limit of the law of being able to make sure that this is not taken into account into the future. Allow me to say this: there has been a letter which was agreed to, asking whether we would change the law on this exact issue so that we could give an even stronger direction to the ART. That was a letter that came to us from the Leader of the Opposition. We agreed on that. Ministerial direction 123 goes as strong as we are able to right now, but we are waiting for the day when the opposition will agree to vote for legislation that they wrote to us asking for.
My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. How has the take-up of the Albanese government's Cheaper Home Batteries Program helped cut wholesale energy costs for everyone?
I thank my Western Sydney friend and partner, the member for Werriwa, for the question. I can tell the member for Werriwa and the House that 589,313 Australian households have installed a cheaper home battery, and I have some good news for the member for Werriwa. We know that this take-up has been a very strong Western Sydney story, with the seats of Mitchell, Hume, Greenway, Chifley and Macquarie having more than 10 per cent of their houses put in cheaper home batteries, and now Werriwa has joined the club. More than 10 per cent of houses in Werriwa have installed a cheaper home battery.
But it's not exclusively a Western Sydney story. It's also a Western Australian story. I congratulate the member for Hasluck, who now has more than 10 per cent of her electorate with cheaper home batteries. On a bipartisan note, I congratulate my honourable friend the member for Berowra, who now has more than 10 per cent of his electorate with a cheaper home battery as well. In fact, there are now 12 electorates where more than 10 per cent of the houses have taken up an Albanese government cheaper home battery. That is helping those houses. We know, from the ACCC, that their household energy bills come down anywhere from $300 to more than $900 a year, but it is also helping all Australians reduce prices, as the member for Werriwa indicated in her question.
We know that, in relation to the report released last week, year on year, wholesale energy prices are down in Australia 27 per cent as they're rising everywhere else in the world. We also know that Australia now, in 2026, has lower wholesale energy prices than Germany, than France, than Ireland, than the United Kingdom, than Portugal, than Spain or than Japan. That's a good thing. That wholesale prices are lower in Australia than in all those countries is a good thing, and that is because we are rolling out renewables at utility scale and at household scale. That is very good for those households, and it's very good for all Australians, as we're seeing gas use in Australia fall to its lowest level in 27 years. Those batteries are storing that cheap renewable energy from the middle of the day and putting it to use at night.
It's also a small-business story. I can tell the House that the number of registered and accredited installers of batteries has doubled now to 9,000 across Australia. These are tradies and small-business people going around our suburbs and our regions, working hard and reducing the energy bills for their customers and for all Australians. We back those small businesses. We back those great tradies who are doing such good work in helping those Australians, giving them good advice about how to make the most of the government's support and the government programs and installing those batteries professionally and safely, for which Australia thanks them, because tradies are so important to our economy, and tradies are big beneficiaries of our cheaper home batteries policy, and we will continue to support that policy while others have promised to abolish it.
Manager of Opposition Business?
I seek leave to table the 'Solar battery inspection results report', which shows that more than 60 per cent of inspected batteries are substandard as of 20 October 2026.
Leave not granted.
My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Minister, Australia's population is projected to surpass 40 million by 2060. In regard to your contribution to the Intergenerational report, what specific and identified water security commitments have you secured for regional irrigated agriculture and the communities that depend upon it?
I thank the member for Farrer for his question, and I note that he does have a big interest particularly in water in regional communities. As I've indicated to the member before, this, of course, is the portfolio of the Minister for Environment and Water. As we have also discussed before, we certainly work very closely with the minister for water when it comes to making sure that agricultural production can continue in Australia and how important the Commonwealth levers are, particularly in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. What I'd say to the member more broadly is that our government has been working on a food security strategy to make sure that we have safe, everyday essentials for Australians available at reasonable prices in terms of the food security strategy. It's a national food security strategy. It's the first time Australia has had one of these. We have been out consulting on the food security strategy. We've had literally hundreds of submissions and we've also stood up the National Food Council with expert members on it, and members on the Food Council are providing advice to the government in relation to the food security strategy. It was an election commitment that we made, and we know how important it is to make sure that Australians are able to access safe, affordable food.
Obviously in Australia we produce a lot of agricultural product. We hit the $100 billion four years early, but 80 per cent of that is exported in terms of value and 70 per cent in volume because Australia can produce 2½ times what Australians need, and we'll continue to work with the industry and with the sector to make sure we have food security for Australians.
My question is to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel. How are the Albanese government's reforms helping to support Australia's veteran community?
I thank the member for Spence for his question. Of course, I acknowledge his service in our Australian Defence Force and his work as the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Veterans as well. I would like to acknowledge Wounded Heroes, who are here in the parliament today and who we have a function with a bit later today.
The Albanese Labor government has a proven record of investing in and driving an ambitious reform agenda to benefit and support our veteran community and their families. Not only are we better funding veterans support but we've made once-in-a-century reforms to simplify the veteran entitlement system and improve the integrity of the system, and we've put the wellbeing of veterans and families at the centre of what we're doing. From 1 July this year, we made the most significant reform to Australia's veteran support system in a generation. We've simplified the compensation system to make it easier for veterans and families to know what they're entitled to and to make it quicker for DVA to process their claims.
We've also opened the new Veteran and Family Wellbeing Agency. This was recommended by the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, and it strengthens how veterans are connected to wellbeing supports and improves how they can navigate the veteran support system. It's had strong early engagement from the veteran community, especially those who are navigating transition from defence into civilian life. The agency is also working alongside our Veterans' and Families' Hubs network. Last week I got to join the member for Brand in opening the new Goldsworthy Veterans and Families Centre in Rockingham, supporting their 8,000-strong veteran community and, of course, Australia's biggest naval base in HMAS Stirling. And we're working to make sure that women veterans' service is better recognised, understood and reflected through policy and supports during and post service with the launch of our Women Veterans Strategy. We're embedding women's health, transition and economic security into the core of policy, not just treating it as an add-on.
Our government has a deep respect for our veterans, who have served and continue to serve our country, and that's why we are delivering real change for them and their families. Those who serve in our Australian Defence Force and their families should be confident that they'll be well supported by their leaders, their mates and the broader defence community both during and after their time in service. Australia's personnel should be safe in the knowledge that, whatever may happen to them in service, they and their families will be looked after and acknowledged by a grateful nation.
I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Pursuant to section 65 of the Parliamentary Service Act 1999, I present the annual report of the Department of the House of Representatives for 2025-26.
Document made a parliamentary paper.
I present the 2026 Presiding Officers' statement regarding the condition of Parliament House.
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 honourable member for Bradfield proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The urgent need to prevent political violence and foster constructive and respectful public discourse.
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 rise to speak about this matter of public importance about the urgent need to prevent political violence and foster constructive and respectful public discourse. I'm absolutely shattered by what's happened to Dr Helen Haines, as are so many of the colleagues across the parliament. In the wake of this horrendous incident, I wanted to create a space in parliament for us to make sense of what's happened, to take a step back and to ask ourselves why the head of our security agencies has warned repeatedly of the rising risk of politically motivated violence; why the Prime Minister has urged the country, our leaders and our media to turn down the heat of political debate; why every day we seem to stray further from discourse that's respectful and constructive and fall instead into arguments and accusations that are hateful, abusive and inflammatory; and why we are then surprised when the hateful rhetoric bubbles into actual unbridled savage violence. What's going on here? Why are the bonds holding us together fraying?
Here's one possible reason. We move through digital worlds distorted by opaque algorithms that operate according to the whims of profit-seeking tech bros, and they wreak havoc because of the inability and unwillingness of governments to regulate them. The consequence is that we no longer share the same social world. We might walk down the same streets. We may shop in the same supermarkets and even send our kids to the same schools, but we do this all while inhabiting separate realms, separate bubbles. We've lost our common world—our shared understanding of social reality.
That shared understanding is absolutely critical to a functioning, cohesive society. Without it, we've got no civic space to meet and come together as equal citizens, where we listen to each other and exchange views with respect and tolerance. Increasing misogyny and violence are consequences of these ruptures in our social fabric. With each violent word and action, the tears become harder to repair, but there are things that we can do right now to begin mending them.
The starting principle is to choose people over profit, for governments to put the safety of the public ahead of the preferences of overseas tech lords. A digital duty of care—which will hopefully pass both houses soon—is a big step forward, and I commend the government for this reform, but we can't just blame previous governments for an unwillingness to regulate, and we can't just blame social media companies who are driven by a profit motive. We parliamentarians are also responsible. We fuelled this fire and now we have to douse it.
The quality of behaviour in parliament has become toxic, violent and inflammatory. We've let ourselves become hostages to the algorithms. We play by their tune. The objective of political discourse has become social media grabs, so politicians ape the outrage, the cheap shots and the anger that feed the algorithm and lay the foundations for physical violence. Yesterday—I feel upset to have to say this, but I have to get it on the record. Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition—the alternative to the government—stood there and refused to acknowledge that our words in this place have consequences. They do. We all need to change the behaviour that we have in this place.
Violence has no place in democracy, but politicians will never be able to preach that important message unless we ourselves practise it in this building. We're staring down a very dark path otherwise. We've been comfortable in our confidence that Australia is not like other countries—that we are somehow immune from the violence that others experience routinely—but this conveniently ignores our past. Australia's history is peppered with irregular, but nonetheless significant, politically motivated attacks. More recent events, like the Bondi massacre, and now this attack on the member for Indi, are proving this wrong as well.
They show that we are not immune. We're standing on the brink of something very frightening, but we can step into a different future, and, as Helen's husband, Phil Haines, has implored us to do in recent days, we must. We cannot respond to this horrific event by returning to the status quo. We should do everything we can to ensure that the member for Indi's story is remembered as a turning point for our country, where we chart a new course towards civility in politics, towards respectful disagreement and towards collaborative and constructive governance, where people come first, not corporate profits. As Phil Haines put it, there is a rage boiling in the hearts of too many Australians, but you can choose to tame it or to inflame it, and it's for all of us to choose which one.
I very rarely speak on an MPI. But I saw the words that the member for Bradfield put before us, and I thought it was important that I be here to contribute, given my role in the House, and I want to thank the member for Bradfield for bringing this forward for discussion. The concept of matters of public importance is that they are meant to be the issue of the day. The MPI doesn't always tick that box in terms of what is put forward, but today it certainly does, and government members were very pleased, when members were asked to stand in support, that it was much more than the crossbench standing for this. So I thank the member.
I want to go through some of the concerns that people have raised and hopefully help chart a way through, which many of us may follow and some of us inevitably won't. But I start with this: the first role that makes me believe I have to contribute to the debate is not that I've got that over-the-top job title of Leader of the House—which is a bit insane, given everyone else in the room—but the fact that I'm the minister responsible for the Australian Federal Police. I spend a lot of my working day looking at threats to people who work in this room, regardless of their politics. And people on the crossbench here and in the other place, people in the opposition here and in the other place, and people in the government here and in the other place have all had phone calls from me at different points where we have made various risk assessments.
The risk assessments where we get worried about someone's safety go to two main areas: either (a) where there is—and thankfully this is rare—a specific known threat against someone or (b) where the temperature is really high, with the online level being one of the arbiters, but not the only one, and is disproportionate to what's happening to others, and the police have been alarmed and Home Affairs have been concerned and wanting to make those decisions. At the moment it's been a very limited number of people for whom we've been able to provide that extra layer. And the Prime Minister made clear in our meeting today, which I also reported out, the way we are working through these issues, because there is an understandable need that more needs to be done.
So it's for your own security in this House that I look at this issue so often. But of course that issue of the temperature is not only an issue about the safety of each other. It's a safety issue about what it's like to live in Australia. As others have said, the risk is not only to people in public life. We are particularly targeted; that's true. But it has changed what it is to work in a hospital. What it is to work in retail or hospitality is different now. It has always been risky deciding that you want to be a sworn police officer, but it is different now to what it was. These issues of the temperature of the debate are real.
And this is not a partisan issue:
… "What we need is not to disagree less, but to disagree better."
Not disagreeing less, but disagreeing better.
When we disagree better: we engage with respect, rather than questioning each other's integrity and morality.
That was Scott Morrison talking there. Also: 'There should be long-term stability and certainty on the issue of national security' and 'I think everyone needs to lower the temperature.' That was Julie Bishop talking. In the same way:
It does have a direct correlation to what we see in terms of threats and abuse, and sometimes it's very immediate.
That is what the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Krissy Barrett, said on Insiders on Sunday, echoing words we have been hearing for a long time from Mike Burgess, ASIO's Director-General of Security.
Sometimes, in defence against turning the temperature down, people say, 'Oh, but we need robust debate.' No-one is saying we don't need robust debate. Absolutely no-one is saying that. You won't find someone who enjoys robust debate more than I do. I think it matters that the issues that are debated, in this chamber in particular, are real. Differences have real consequences for the people who we come here to represent. The sense of frustration will be real, and emotions will occur. I would hate to be in a parliament where those emotions didn't occur.
I think what we are talking about is what questions we ask ourselves and what levels of self-censorship, not censorship elsewhere—maybe not even self-censorship; maybe we just say decency and restraint, yes—we're willing to provide. I've been toying with these thoughts and trying to work through it for a long time but probably fairly intensely over the last week or so. I don't want to pretend that this is final. Others will look at this and come up with other options. I've tried to look at examples of ways we describe things, ways we disagree. They'll be across the board. This is not me claiming that no-one on my side has ever or even that I have never done any of this, but I think in the future, with where we're at, we need to caution against this.
Obviously, anything that goes against what we would refer to in antidiscrimination law as someone's attributes, the full range of those, is sort of obvious, but also to associate someone with terrorism—there are things that language can do that effectively imply someone is unworthy of the other protections of a democracy: associating someone with terrorism, claiming that someone is a supporter of war crimes or genocide, calling someone a traitor, calling someone criminal, accusing someone of treason. That sort of language actually, in its undertone, says, 'You are not worthy of the democracy.' We need to think not how that sounds in the debate or how we might actually intend it to be. I think we need to take very closely the advice of Phil Haines when he addressed us yesterday, which is to also think about how the person on the edge will hear it. There are more people on the edge than there used to be, and that whole temperature of the debate means that we can't pretend they're not there.
All around the world now, people are dealing with angrier populations. All around the world now, people are dealing with basically what is the end of the water cooler conversation. I remember, when I was first at the workplace, people would talk about the water cooler conversation. You had a physical place where everyone at a workplace would gather at different points during the day, and you all would have watched the same TV shows the night before. There were only four or five to choose from. That's not how people get their information anymore. The capacity for people living in silos is higher, and the likelihood that those silos are telling people that they're not understood and that they should be angry and are guiding them to who they should blame is real. It's just fact. That is how an increasing number of people now get their information—in ways that 20 years ago it was not possible to receive information. That must leave us with an extra layer of responsibility.
The list that I went through—I don't propose to change standing orders or anything like that, but I do ask that we think, because, when I went through the attributes at the start, that also is our guide for who's most at risk. Part of the increased risk profile that is happening for members of parliament is because we have had a great outcome in having a parliament that looks more like Australia. But you are more at risk of this sort of vile abuse if you are a woman. You are more at risk if you are Muslim or Jewish, if you are a person of colour, if you are gay. Whatever the attribute might be, it all compounds to a higher level of risk. I think, in terms of what we have here in the urgent need to prevent political violence and to foster constructive and respectful public discourse, we do need to understand that any language that says someone is unworthy of the rights of citizenship carries consequences for the risk of that person. It might be someone we know. It might be someone we don't know. But it is someone where our words will carry a layer of responsibility. If we expect the media to do it, it's on us to do it as well. I'm really grateful we're having this conversation.
I rise to speak to this very important matter of public importance. Thanks for bringing it, Member for Bradfield. Political violence has no place in our society or in our democracy. Millions of ordinary people made enormous sacrifices for our political system to be founded on the principle that our political debates are settled by the ballot box not by violence and not by coercion. There's been a flurry of commentary from politicians and from the media over the last week since the wonderful Helen Haines was brutally attacked. I've already spoken in this chamber, as have many others, about how inspiring and kind an individual Helen Haines is. Today, I want to focus on how we understand and undermine the drivers of political violence.
Firstly, it's unclear whether the attacker's motives were primarily or consciously political. We must not jump to conclusions. There were clearly major mental health issues at play and some failings of our support systems that let people slip through the cracks. If politics is involved here, it is part of a very complex and unique set of circumstances. There is no doubt that there's an increase in predatory online activity and ecosystems that seek to prey on people's isolation and hurt.
It is true that there's more anger in the community now than there ever has been. It is true that there is more division than before, and, of course, we must have civility and respect in politics, but these concepts can be vague and slippery enough to serve different agendas. Civility obviously means not being a monster, but it also may imply that everyday people are not entitled to their legitimate feelings of anger and frustration at unfair systemic treatment.
When we're asked to turn the temperature down, there is a risk that that can backfire. If everyday people are frustrated because their living standards are dropping and because they're feeling more and more disconnected and alienated from their communities and more powerless, they will want to see politicians who understand these feelings. Having politicians simply adopt a more civil tone but keep everything else the same will only create more frustration in the community. Of course, we should not have politicians shouting at each other, hurling personal abuse. Politicians should behave appropriately and model the decent behaviour the public expects, but the solution is not really at the level of rhetoric at all.
If the core reason for the growth of frustration and anger is a decaying social fabric, then the solution can only be found at the level of that social fabric. How do we mend that social fabric? First, policy—actually genuinely start improving people's lives in significant, meaningful ways. Things have to be affordable. Our services must not have huge gaps. Housing cannot be so precarious. We need to feel more in control of our own lives.
Second, social organising, rebuilding that social fabric through deep community work, through rebuilding community organisations, through community programs, conversations and campaigning that creates and expresses shared interests—it's only through this that the hypercompetitive individualistic and profit-first culture of neoliberalism can be overcome. This is why the lesson from this horrible attack cannot be 'maintain the status quo but be more civil about it', nor can the lesson be 'nobody have passion in politics and nobody express their frustration'.
Finally, the lesson cannot be for politicians to be removed even further from everyday people out of safety concerns. The lessons should be the opposite. We need to dramatically break with the status quo and improve people's lives. We need more caring, more passion in politics but more collective passion. We need politicians more embedded in their community and more responsive to community need. Helen is a woman so thoroughly embedded in her community. We need more like her.
Coming back to democracy, political violence is a tragedy for the individual, but it's also a tragedy for democracy. Democracy wasn't won by meekness, and it's not defended by meekness. Women were given the vote not because they were civil. The suffragettes were an enormous pain in the backside of the political establishment. In my youth, the backwards authoritarianism of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen years in Queensland was not resisted with bland civility. It was resisted with passion and with conviction, and it was through these movements of great collective power, strength and passion that our social fabric was built.
Over the past week, we've been reminded of something that should never be in question in our democracy: no-one should face violence or intimidation for serving their community. Yesterday we heard truly heartfelt words in this place about our colleague and friend Helen Haines. Our thoughts remain with Helen, her family and everyone who loves her. It is difficult to find the right words in moments like this, but we must, and words do matter. But I think it's important that we reflect on the kind of public life we want in this country and the responsibility we all have in shaping it.
Last night I spoke about a conversation I had on Friday with someone in the Deputy Speaker's electorate in Newcastle. I had to pop in to do some last-minute fruit and veg, and a man stopped me and said: 'You look after yourself. What a week it has been.' I knew instantly what he was talking about. He said:
Meryl, can I just tell you a quick story? A number of years back I went to the cricket. I was in the members. I don't get to the members very often, but in the break I stood up and I was stretching, and as I spun around the bloke behind me was having a stretch as well. It was John Howard. He was the Prime Minister, and in that moment I thought, how great is Australia? Here I am at the cricket with the Prime Minister. I know it was a few years back, but that's my Australia. That's the Australia I want. I want my political representatives to be in my community with me. On the whole, you all do a hard job and a pretty good job, but you can't stop turning up for us.
Amidst all the horror and all the sadness from what happened to Helen Haines last week, that conversation has stuck with me. That is the Australia we all want, and it's not some nostalgic harking back to days gone by. We know the world has changed. We know the world moves more rapidly, but we have to strive for that Australia. We can't lose Australia. We're not America, we're not Europe, we're not any other country. We are Australia and we are representing Australians, and we must strive for that. We cannot lose sight of it.
In this country, we can disagree about politics. We can vote for different parties, support different leaders and hold very differing views about the direction the country should take. That's not a weakness in democracy; it's our greatest strength. We have a long history of robust political debate in Australia, and I can't help but think of Paul Keating and some of the things he said in this very chamber. Some of them were quite incredible, but they never ascribed for a human being to be violent. Some of them were pretty acerbic and, as the member for Ryan points out, there's been some pretty robust debate over the years. We shouldn't shy away from that either, but it shouldn't lead to someone being mown down.
People have brought gender into this, and I know that women do face more threats and more violent threats. But I want to say not one man, woman or otherwise in this building could withstand being ploughed down by a Toyota Landcruiser. This is not about your gender. This is about humanity. We are all humans and we all put up our hand to serve. We do so willingly, knowing that it's a tough job. We've got to come here. We've got to have the disagreements because we want to strive for a better country. What we have here is precious. How we do this thing called politics does matter. We've got to keep doing it. We shouldn't shy away from it, but it is also important that we reflect what people expect out in our communities, and that's what I hear all the time when I talk to people. They want to hear good ideas. They want to hear passion. They don't want us to resile away from the hard conversations. But they expect us to do a good job for them, and, in return, I think most people in this place expect that they should turn up and do a good job. That's what we need to be striving for. So let the passion come. Let's have respectful debate, but also let's continue to strive to be the best versions of ourselves, both here politically and privately, that we can.
Dr Helen Haines, the independent federal member for Indi and my friend, was supposed to be here in this chamber delivering this speech, and I feel honoured that her team, specifically Chiara from her team, graciously trusted me to take Helen's place in this debate and speak for our friend while she is unable to do so. We're here to call out the urgent need to prevent political violence and to foster constructive and respectful public discourse. If now is not the time that we will heed expert advice and data, I ask when that time will be.
In his 2025 annual threat assessment, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess warned the country that the risk of politically motivated violence was 'already flashing red'. He's told us repeatedly that the words that we use matter. The McKinnon Institute recently reported that nine per cent of Australians believe that political violence is sometimes justified. In the last financial year, there were over 1,000 reports of threats to high office holders, federal parliamentarians, dignitaries and electorate offices around the country. That number has almost doubled in four years. Almost 90 per cent of women in politics have experienced online abuse or intimidation. A recent study by the University of Melbourne found that hostile attitudes towards women and the belief that violence against women is acceptable predict support for extremist violence more strongly than political ideology, religion or time spent online. If we want to combat rising extremism and division in our society, if we want to protect both our democracy and those who seek to represent it, we must address political violence, abuse and harassment in this country.
Firstly, social media has become a hotbed for rhetoric and violent threats. Algorithms reward outrage. Outrage keeps us scrolling. We must legislate a strong and enforceable digital duty of care which gets rid of impulse farming and the protections of anonymity.
Secondly, we must secure a new national mental health and suicide prevention agreement. Vulnerable people are moving to the regions of Australia because housing in our cities is unaffordable. We spend five times more on mental health care for those who live in major cities than we do on those who live in very remote settings, although those people in the regions have more emergency department presentations, more self-harm and higher suicide rates. Services are scant and overwhelmed in the regions, and the cost of our inaction always falls hardest on those people who live in areas where services are scarce. Just this week, researchers reported that about one in three homicides in Victoria in 2024 and 2025 were committed by people with psychosis. That's up from one in 10 a decade ago. If we don't look after those people who are acutely unwell, our whole society suffers. Helen Haines has advocated for a new hospital for Albury-Wodonga, for more mental health beds, for more training positions for healthcare professionals in the regions. We're asking the government to act with urgency on the mental healthcare crisis in our rural and regional centres.
Finally, we do need to set the standard in this chamber, in this parliament, in our public life. Our security leaders have told us that there are direct correlations between inflamed language, inflamed tensions and acts of violence. If we seek to lead, we seek to influence other people with what we say, how we think and how we act. So I ask my colleagues: if you're seeking to lead, shouldn't you consider how your words will affect those people who follow you? In 2023, in this House, Helen commented:
What we say in this place matters. Words matter.
She was the first Australian politician to sign the Civility Pledge, which says:
In my political life, I pledge to act with honesty, respect, and compassion.
It doesn't seem that much to ask. I've signed the pledge, and so have many of my crossbench colleagues, and we invite every member of this House to do so.
Helen, we're thinking of you, Phil, your family, your wonderful team and the people of Indi. Yours is the most measured and generous of voices in the chamber. It's missing from the chamber today. Your absence is felt deeply by us all, but you continue to inspire us and we will continue your work until you return.
My thanks to the member for Bradfield for bringing on this very important discussion and to the member for Kooyong for highlighting the advocacy of the member for Indi. I know, as we all expressed yesterday, how much we all want to see the member for Indi in the place of that cockatoo just there. What happened to the member for Indi was horrific. It shouldn't have happened to anyone in our community. There is no doubt that the temperature of our political debate and the temperature of our national debate has risen in recent years. We all feel that in here, and we all have a responsibility to do our part in trying to bring that down. We can agree to disagree with respect. We can agree that we will not always see eye to eye on political issues, but we can do so in a way that is civil and allows us to still see our common humanity and our common connections of community and country, the things that the member for Indi advocated for and that I know so many of us bring to this place when we do come here to do our work and to have our debates.
I also know that it's not just members of parliament who feel this increase in the temperature. We see it when we walk into our shopping centres with the signs that say: 'Please treat our staff with respect. People are here to work.' This is happening across our community—that frontline workers are facing too much abuse and, unfortunately, potential violence. So, as I said, the responsibility is on all of us.
I have noticed in my seven years now in this place a change in the way that conversations happen. I used to find that, when I had a disagreement or when someone came to me with a point of view that was different to, say, mine or my political party's or the government's point of view, we could have a conversation about that. We might, at the end of that conversation, agree to disagree, but we would both walk away knowing that we had respected each other. What I tend to find happens too often now is that people come to me not to have a conversation but to deliver to me what they've made their mind up on. It seems to me that that's because they've already had the conversation. They've had the conversation on their phone, in their algorithm. They're not looking to have the conversation with me or another member of parliament. They're not even looking to have a physical conversation with another member of our community. They've been pushed by an algorithm into a certain point of view that gets reinforced over and over again.
We know that too often these algorithms are pushing people to extreme points of view. That is what drives engagement on these platforms. That is where people are being pushed in their opinions and how they come to then engage with us and, more broadly, with the community. That is why I think it is so important that we do have a digital duty of care in this country, and that is why this government is bringing this forward. We cannot continue to have foreign owned tech companies profiting off spreading division in our communities, and that is what is happening at the moment. We have tech billionaires who are feeding discontent across our community. It is on all of us to act on this. I'm very aware that legislation alone won't prevent political violence, but we must hold these platforms to account.
I am also very aware that the need for mental health support for many in our community is real and that both federal and state governments are investing in this space. But I very much hear the words of the member for Indi and others when they say that there are people in regional communities and elsewhere who are still missing out on the support they should get in this space. We do need to be aware that, again, sometimes the people who are presenting to us, the people who are presenting to our offices, come with complex lives. They come with many things that are coming at them that they want to talk to us about. We hope we can have those conversations in safety. We hope our staff can have those conversations in safety. But we must also have systems set up to support people—mental health systems and systems that allow people to live lives free of poverty so that they can come and have those conversations with us in a respectful way. Improving public discourse and improving safety—that is something that matters to all of us in this place. It matters to our country. We have a dear friend and colleague who is suffering at the moment and who has a long road back to being here with us. We all want to see her back. We all want to make sure that we are taking this moment to improve how we come together as a country and as communities.
In the last sitting week Helen Haines and I sat together on the crossbench during a division. We talked about how important it is in this job to look after our health. Helen told me how much she was looking forward to at the end of the year, to slowing down and spending time with her family. None of us imagined that days later she would be fighting for her life. Helen is alive, and her condition is improving. Her husband Phil has told us that her heart and her mind remain strong. Anyone who knows Helen knows that to be true. She has spent her life caring for others as a nurse, as a midwife, as a researcher and as a representative.
Now it is our turn to care for her. My thoughts are with Phil, their family, Helen's staff and the people of Wangaratta and across Indi. In a regional community where people know one another, grief does not stop at one front door. It reaches into many homes. I thank the bystanders, paramedics and medical teams who came to Helen's aid. A great deal has been said this past week about what happened to Helen and what it means for us. Before this becomes a story about us, let us give Helen, her family and her community room to heal and leave the facts to the police and the courts.
I thank the member for Bradfield for this matter. Violence, threats and intimidation have no place in our democracy, whoever is targeted, and we've seen political violence in places and what it can do to communities and to countries. We've seen that in Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen, Syria, and, of course, currently in France. But prevention cannot only be about protecting ourselves, our offices and our online spaces. Those matter, but if this conversation begins and ends with us, we will have missed something. Prevention must also be about what happens in our communities long before anything reaches a crisis.
I'm not speaking about any individual case. Most people living with mental illness are never violent and are far more likely to be harmed than to harm others. But there's a hard truth we have avoided. Over decades we rightly move people with severe mental illness out of institutions and into the community. What we never fully built was the community care to go with it. For someone living with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or psychosis, a phone line is not enough. They need a psychiatrist who follows up, medication that is monitored, stable housing and someone who notices when things are slipping.
When that care falls away, the person suffers first. Their family suffers and sometimes, tragically, so do innocent people. Two and a half years ago, six people were killed at Westfield Bondi Junction. The New South Wales coroner found the man responsible had received good care for years, but, when warning signs of relapse appeared, they were not acted on. For nearly five years he was effectively lost to follow up. So whose responsibility is that?
Today, the honest answer is that government should be taking responsibility, but they are not. The Commonwealth funds GPs and psychologists. The state runs hospitals and crisis teams. People with severe mental illness fall into the gap between them, what experts called the missing middle. The Productivity Commission found the National Mental Health Agreement is not effective and the system is fragmented and out of reach for many. It wants a new agreement in place by June 2027. That is our window, and the Commonwealth must lead.
I ask the government to do three things. First, make someone clearly responsible with funding attached for community care for people with severe mental illness so no-one is discharged into nothing. Second, guarantee follow up. When someone leaves hospital, stops treatment or drops out of care, there must be a clinician whose job it is to notice and act. Third, make the care reachable in communities like Fowler, where around three in four people speak a language other than English at home. That means interpreters, culturally appropriate care and support for families who are often the first to see the warning signs and the last to know where to turn. None of this replaces responding to credible threats or enforcing the law, nor does it excuse us from how we conduct ourselves. We can argue firmly without humiliating each other and challenge a policy without encouraging hatred of the person behind it. Helen has always shown us how. Let us take it seriously for ourselves and for every family in every community we represent.
Last Friday, I went to visit St Aidan's. It's a girls' school in my local electorate, on Brisbane's south side in the suburb of Corinda. I went there to talk about democracy. While we were there, I talked with them about the Greek origins of demos kratos. We spoke about the importance of robust debate. We role-played what we do in this place. When I asked if there were any questions at the end, their eyes brightened and a sea of arms shot up into the air. We didn't talk about political violence, and I hope for a world, when they grow up, where they won't have to.
I want to thank the member for Bradfield very much for bringing this important debate to this place. It's important, particularly in a year when we've seen 1,067 incidents of harassing or threatening behaviour toward members of parliament. But can I boldly say that I believe it to be incomplete, because violence and threats are not exclusive to this chamber. Violence and threats are increasing across our community. We see it with school teachers going to a place where young people are to learn. We see it with nurses going to hospitals to look after our most unwell. We see it with ambos coming to people at a time of emergency, and we see it in shops and retail where people are simply going to do their job. No-one should ever go to work and experience threats. No-one should ever go to work and expect to see violence. At its core, it poses a very important question for us as a nation: who are we and who do we seek to be? Those primary values that we hold so dear—of respect, of a fair go, of dignity—sit at a massive mismatch to what we are seeing right now.
That's why our government has been talking for a long time about turning that temperature down and about the link that exists between what happens in the public discourse and violence that we have seen in our communities. I do want to mention the provision of the additional $17 million to protective services and electorate offices. I do want to mention the National Security Investigations teams set up to investigate those threats. I do want to mention the 41 individuals that have been charged and the parliamentary workplace support services we have developed with specialised training including safety training.
We are a country of robust debate. That's important here. But robust debate cannot and certainly does not negate accountability. Robust debate does not negate respect. Robust debate does not negate being kind to one another every day, whether that be in the flesh or online. We know that threats are increasing online. We know that the landscape that our children will face is a different one to the one that we grew up on. It's why a digital duty of care is so important. If big tech can spend billions of dollars to get you hooked, they should be able to save you from harm. When we talk about civility and constructive discourse, it's often hard to define. But it's easy to spot. We saw it yesterday in those words about Helen. At a time when our thoughts and our prayers are with her, her family, her community and her staff, we feel the collective weight of the realities of that violence, and we will continue to work with the expert agencies to keep people safe and to keep this place respectful so that those girls in State Aidan's and all Australian children will inherit something better than what we have now.
I'm definitely out of step with people in this place. My reaction when I heard this—I just can't get what happened to her out of my head—was entirely different. All I could think of was getting at that b— in that car and kicking him to death in the street, right? Kicking him to death may be a little bit extreme, but it's my rage and anger against that person. I am sick and tired, again and again, of hearing exculpatory explanations for behaviour. Scott Morrison had it dead right in that dreadful case where the person killed his three kids. He said this is not about exculpatory explanations for their behaviour or analysing how he got to this point. It is simply about good and evil, and, if our society has lost something of enormous value, it is our Christianity. I don't mean going to church on Sunday. That's not what I'm talking about. You have an inbuilt sense of good and evil. This is evil. The murder of those three children was evil. Don't talk to me about explanations for their behaviour or analysing what forces were at work here.
Once you move away from that good and evil and go into the area—and I make no apologies for saying this—that people have been going to in this place, then you are in desperately bad trouble. I am entitled to my rage and my sense of violence against the person that did this. I don't care about your exculpatory explanations. I'm not interested in that. This bloke tried to kill a friend of mine—another person, but in this case a friend of mine—and I know what my reaction would have been if I'd been there at the time. I say this with rage and anger. If you think you can make people good and if you say there is a rising sense of violence, the first time I set foot in this chamber was up there in the gallery. I was visiting my father. I thought I'd just look in on it. Jim Cairns left the front bench and ran around to bash Billy Wentworth, and three people were needed to restrain him from bashing Billy Wentworth. Don't say violence is new. In the state parliament on three occasions there were brawls. In one brawl I thought that McPhie had killed the bloke, and he thought he had as well! He played front row for Australia, and he was down giving him resuscitation because he thought he killed him as well. But the other bloke threw the punch. Violence from where I come from is not new at all. In fact, these days it's very, very peaceful compared with Jim Cairns racing across the chamber trying to bash Billy Wentworth. 'Hello to federal parliament, Bobby Katter!'
I want to return to the good and evil. Scott Morrison, if he did nothing else, was dead right. This is not about explanations as to why he behaved this way. This is about good and evil. The person that murdered his three kids is evil, right? Unless we have this right and wrong, evil and good—and Helen was an excellent example of good. I'm not talking about religion here or anything of that nature. There are some people that are Christian in the general sense of the word. They work hard for other people and they're prepared to sacrifice themselves for other people. The person that did that—I'm just different from other people. I mean, it wouldn't have been good for me to have been there, I suppose, if I'd witnessed it.
When we ask, 'how do we overcome these problems?' let it be known that, if you do something like this, then we will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Let's have you understand that—and then you might be able to stop doing what you're doing. (Time expired)
When we refer to political discourse, what we mean is the way in which language is used in the discipline of politics. That's how language is used in speeches, campaign materials, policy documents and debate to influence public opinion and decision making. Political discourse frames how issues are communicated and therefore how they are understood and how they are acted upon. Political discourse tells us not only about the policy agenda but about the strategies that politicians use to persuade, justify actions and gain support, but the purpose is often lost amongst analysis of the form and content. We say repeatedly that healthy and robust political discourse is a core feature of a well-functioning democracy and that we need it, we'll lose without it and we mustn't prevent or restrict it. That is right, because healthy political discourse can help to deliver many benefits to society.
There's no definitive blueprint for what healthy and quality political discourse looks like—it's different for many people—but the concern in this country is that what qualifies as acceptable political discourse is being infected by ever-present and dangerous scope creep where political discourse involving high-quality considered ideas is being replaced by poor-quality arguments based around sledging, saying 'no' for no's sake and populist vibes. There is no question that high-quality political discourse is under strain and that unhealthy, unproductive discourse is growing. Because unhealthy, unproductive political discourse has the potential to inflict great damage, we all have a responsibility.
I am not for a minute saying that politicians are solely responsible or that they have all the tools in the toolkit to address this issue, but there are things that we in this place and the other place can do to ensure a high standard of political discourse in Parliament House and out in our communities. Firstly, we can start by recognising that everyone in this House has shown something—displayed a quality, or multiple qualities—to their communities such that they got elected through a democratic process that is the envy of the world. We know that everyone worked hard to get here and that they have been chosen to be here by the Australian people who make up their communities.
Secondly, we should recognise that every political party and member of the crossbench actually have an 'Australia first' agenda. The agendas, the pathways and the policies may be different in terms of application and quality, but in their own way they all seek to put Australia first. No-one in this House, no political party, is out to ruin Australia or disadvantage the Australian people, and we need to stop saying that. Thirdly, vibes and slogans are catchy, but they need to be built on a foundation of evidence and data. Preparation for debate, careful consideration of the counterarguments and then the development of a persuasive position based on evidence is what produces high-quality political discourse. Why do we need it? Because the most important beneficiary is the voter, their families and their communities.
A few important questions: Will this speech I'm about to give benefit my community? Does this letterbox flyer give accurate information that my community needs? Is my social media post designed to offend or to inform? Does the question I'm asking in question time, or the answer I'm giving in question time, put the voter in a better, more informed position than before the question was asked or answered? Can I explain the policy rationale for doing something or changing something or not doing something? Can I explain why the opposition's policy offering is inferior, or am I just saying that? High-quality political discourse requires work and it requires preparation. It requires a proper consideration of different perspectives. It requires us to drop bad points and pursue credible ones. We must do this, because the Australian people deserve high-quality public and political discourse that leads to bipartisan action. If we don't provide this, people will turn to dangerously poor and ill-informed sources of information, and they will make their choice at the ballot box on that basis. So let's do the work.
I rise in support of the motion moved by the member for Bradfield, and I thank her for moving it. Yesterday I spoke about the member for Indi. Today I want to talk about the bigger picture, because the attack on Helen happened in a climate that has been escalating. Political violence reaches well beyond this building. Police officers have been killed by people with antigovernment beliefs. Places of worship have been attacked. Journalists, councillors and public servants face threats and intimidation for doing their jobs. ASIO now says politically motivated violence is one of its principal security concerns.
I've been thinking a lot about why this is happening. One reason is that we now spend less time in the places where we would interact and form relationships with people who disagree with us, like churches, sporting clubs, even workplaces. It's now quite easy to get through the week mixing only with people who agree with us. Much of our conversations about difficult issues have moved online, where algorithms reward outrage. Short videos favour heroes and villains, and there isn't much space for nuance or compromise. Trust is also low: around four in 10 Australians are dissatisfied with how our democracy is working. When people feel nobody is listening, frustration can harden into distrust of institutions, and sometimes into hostility towards the people who represent them.
We don't know what might have prevented this attack, but there are some things we can work on now. This week we're debating the digital duty of care, which I've been calling for. A duty of care starts to change the outrage that's good for the business of the social media platforms. Law enforcement and mental health services need to share information better so warning signs are picked up early. We need to look after the people who work in our electorate offices, who are often the first to cop that abuse. Importantly, we need to teach young people how to disagree well.
On the civics education inquiry, I heard that many teachers are wary of raising controversial topics for fear of being accused of pushing their own politics. This needs to change. The Scanlon Foundation puts it well: problems start when we treat our view as the right view rather than simply a view. There's an exercise I run with my year 11 youth advisory group to help demonstrate this. I ask each student to pick an issue they care about and then build the best possible version of the opposing argument. It's a good reminder that reasonable people can look at the same material and disagree.
We also need to look at how we behave in this place. Despite the fact that almost all the issues we debate in here have decent arguments on both sides, I don't think I've ever heard one side of this House genuinely concede that the other has a decent argument. Imagine how refreshing that would be! When MPs treat each other as enemies, it shouldn't surprise us when people outside do the same. In her first speech, Helen said that the people of Indi chose to use their voice not to drown out the voices of others but to hear the voices of others. I'd like to see this sentiment reflected in the way we all engage, particularly in this House. Disagreeing well is a skill that can be taught and improves with practice. Here in the parliament, we must start by setting an example.
Respectful debate belongs to all of us, and it's stronger when we all help build it—at home, at school, at work and online. We must all start by seeing the person behind the opposing view and remembering that no disagreement, however strongly felt, can ever justify violence.
The time for this discussion has now concluded.
On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the committee's advisory report on the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission reform package 2026.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—I rise today to present a report on behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security for its review of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission reform package 2026. The reform package consists of two bills: the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission Bill 2026 and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (National Policing Information Charges) Bill 2026. The bills were referred to the committee by the Minister for Home Affairs on 25 March and 26 March 2026 respectively. The committee received 10 submissions and held one public hearing with relevant government agencies, oversight bodies and the Law Council of Australia.
Serious and organised crime causes significant harm to the Australian community. This harm manifests itself in many ways, including private financial losses, fraud in government programs, loss of taxation revenue, environmental damage, trafficking of illegal drugs, child exploitation, serious violence and even deaths. By one estimate, serious and organised crime cost the community more than $82 billion in the 2023-24 financial year—more than Australia's entire defence budget for that year.
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, or ACIC, is an important contributor to Australia's fight against serious and organised crime. Through its unique capabilities and partnerships, the ACIC collects intelligence relating to serious and organised criminal activities and communicates it to its relevant partners. The origins of the proposed reforms are in an independent review of the ACIC completed by Mr Stephen Merchant and Mr Greg Wilson in 2024. The independent review found that, while there are significant benefits in Australia having a specialised and highly skilled national criminal intelligence organisation supporting the disruption work of law enforcement agencies, the ACIC is inhibited from fulfilling this intelligence mandate by a lack of clarity about its role, complicated legislative frameworks and uncertainty about its funding. The independent review set out a blueprint for reforms to the ACIC's legal framework, which the current reform package seeks to implement.
The committee considers it essential that these reforms are successful in clarifying the ACIC's role as a criminal intelligence agency and making its legislative settings fit for purpose. The committee has supported the passage of the two bills, subject to 25 recommendations aimed at improving legislative clarity, accountability, oversight mechanisms and other safeguards while ensuring a smooth transition to the new legal framework. Many of the committee's recommendations relate to the extraordinary intelligence-gathering powers included in the ACIC Bill, most of which are carried over from the ACIC's existing legal framework but some of which are new or substantially amended. These powers have significant implications for human rights, and, while the committee accepted that it is necessary for the ACIC to have those powers, they must be accompanied by adequate safeguards. The committee has also recommended that the government establish a clear and comprehensive transition plan, setting out which agencies will perform any functions that will no longer be performed by the ACIC and how those functions will be funded.
Together, the committee's recommendations will help ensure that the public can have confidence that the reform package provides the right legislative settings for the ACIC's long-term future and that the ACIC's extraordinary powers will only be used as intended to help keep Australians safe from serious and organised crime. The committee also recognised that the ACIC reform package is not yet complete. The government has indicated that a package of consequential amendments will be introduced to ensure the proper functioning of the re-established ACIC and its oversight framework. Therefore, while the committee supports the passage of these two bills, it does so on the understanding that necessary consequential amendments will be introduced and subject to appropriate parliamentary scrutiny prior to their commencement.
I thank the chair, Senator Raff Ciccone; the deputy chair, the member for Fisher; other committee members; and all those who contributed to the inquiry through submissions and evidence at the public hearing. I also say thank you to our very hardworking secretariat. I commend this report to the House.
On behalf of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, I present the committee's report 6 of 2026 Referrals made in May, June and August 2026.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—On behalf of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, I present the committee's sixth report for 2026 and the eighth for the 48th Parliament.
This report considers five proposed works:
In considering these proposed works, the committee received submissions, received private briefings and conducted public and in camera hearings with relevant government officials and other interested parties. The committee also took the opportunity to conduct site inspections at ANSTO's Lucas Heights campus in New South Wales for the campus utilities building project, RAAF Base East Sale in Victoria for the air mission training support project and the RAAF Base Darwin in the Northern Territory for the facilities to support the AIR 6500 integrated air and missile defence command and control project. The committee thanks the relevant government agencies and members of the community for their participation in the respective inquiry processes.
With respect to the ATO proposed fit-out of new leased premises at Festival Tower 2 at King William Road, Adelaide, the committee took the additional step of hearing directly from both tenderers for the fit-out. Whilst the committee raised several matters relating to the Festival Tower 2 tender, it was not satisfied that the existing Franklin Street building tender met all ATO requirements.
The committee has concluded that each of the proposed works mentioned in this report is necessary and that the relevant agencies have demonstrated that their proposals should be proceeded with. The committee, therefore, recommends that the House of Representatives approves each of the proposed works.
The committee also makes an additional recommendation in relation to the proposed fit-out works by the Australian Taxation Office.
The committee is recommending that expediency be granted by the House of Representatives for the proposed ATO works in Adelaide addressed in this report.
At the same time, over the course of this and other recent referrals from the ATO, the committee has developed concerns regarding the ATO's overall approach to the identification of new sites and its exit strategies from leases of existing sites. For this reason, the committee is additionally recommending that the Auditor-General consider conducting an audit into the management and administration of the ATO's property portfolio, lease arrangements and location strategy.
Finally, during this inquiry, the committee heard that some people within the Adelaide community have concerns around the appropriateness of the Festival Tower 2 development. That development, however, is a matter for the South Australian planning commission, and the committee does not express an opinion on it.
I take this opportunity to thank my fellow committee members and, in particular, the deputy chair, the member for Dawson, for their engagement with the committee's examination of all of these proposed works. I also thank the committee secretariat for their professional assistance to the committee in assessing and reporting on the projects referred to in this report. I commend the report to the House.
Continuing on from earlier, these laws are about protecting people from harm. They're about setting basic standards and giving social media users more choice over what they see. It will require big tech to provide a safe online environment, in particular for our kids. Our country needs this; our kids need this.
This month, the AFP has told us about and spoken of online child exploitation and victimisation, like on nudify apps. They've also spoken about online abuse and accounts; the manosphere; images and videos that glorify violence, porn and misogyny; and content that encourages eating disorders. Suicide is having a devastating impact, and all of this content is having a devastating impact on our kids. It has real-world consequences.
I spoke earlier about the number of comments that I receive on my social media accounts. If you had a side look at my socials for a minute, you'd see that, over the last 18 months, I've had tens of thousands of comments threatening my personal safety, calling me 'peg leg', calling me 'NDIS scum' and telling me that they hope my other son dies. Last week, one person wrote:
know where your family lives, run or burn
which was reported to the AFP. In the week before, Adrian said:
you are a delusional—
bleep—
retard that needs a hot poker shove up your—
bleep. John said:
jump off a building already—
bleep bleep. Jamie said:
I prefer assassinations.
Leroy said:
Someone shoot this dopey—
bleep. And, on the day after Helen's attack, Josh said:
are you gonna get the AFP to knock on my door for 'intimidating you'
We know that words and other content online and in the media fuel violence, threats and abuse in real life, not just for MPs but for teachers, health workers and retail workers. The Minister for Social Services, Tanya Plibersek, said yesterday that the explosion in social media tracks the explosion of sexual violence and strangulation. It's frightening. Kids, vulnerable people and people with mental health issues read those comments. They see and they feel the hate. They follow and are fed destructive content. There are millions of social media accounts that promote and normalise violence, misogyny, extremism and dangerous behaviours—porn.
We must demand better from big tech and the online environment. That is at the core of this legislation. If you run an online service in this country, you have a duty to keep the people using it safe. If you build it and put it online, you are responsible for the risks to users. And it's not just about social media; the games, the apps and the AI chatbots are all covered by this bill, as are nudify apps, which we heard today over 200,000 people have downloaded in Australia. That's scary.
We know what algorithms feed our young people: content that promotes eating disorders; content that glorifies dangerous behaviour, violence and suicide; and content promoting misogyny and the abuse of women. This content is seeping out of the screen and into our schools, our homes and our relationships. These are accounts that are, overwhelmingly, set up to menace and harass. Teachers are telling us about it. Young female teachers are now copping abuse in the classroom. They are telling us about attitudes that walk through the school gate straight off a phone or an iPad. It is content that radicalises, pushing young people towards extremism and violence.
This bill creates a single, overarching obligation—a digital duty of care. It requires the providers of online services to take reasonable, practicable steps to keep the people who use them safe. A duty of care is not a new idea; it is one of the oldest ideas in our legal system. We already ask an employer to take reasonable steps to keep their workers safe. We ask the builder to make safe homes and the manufacturer to make safe products. All this bill does is apply the same well-settled principle to online services that are now as much a part of our daily life as any workplace or public square The standard is not perfection. The standard is what is reasonably practicable—reasonable steps matched to the risk. That is a deliberate choice, because for too long the approach to online safety in this country has been to just politely ask the platforms, 'Do better,' with a set of basic online safety expectations and industry codes. They were a start. But, as we all know, that approach has been a big fat fail.
This bill replaces that with one clear, enforceable duty, set by this parliament, that every provider must meet. For young people, this bill goes further still. Providers must take particular care to protect Australians under 18 from the harmful material they promote. Where a platform breaches that duty of care it will face penalties of up to $109 million, enforced by the independent eSafety Commissioner. The bill also gives the eSafety Commissioner strong tools to act on the harms that are hurting Australians right now. It sets minimum standards for how complaints and disputes are handled so that, when an Australian reports something, they get a proper process and a real response, not a bot and a dead end.
This builds on the work the Albanese Labor government has already done to make Australians safer online with the social media minimum age and our crackdown on nudify apps and undetectable tracking tools that are used to stalk and control women. Then there is the part of the bill that hands Aussies back some direct control. We call it My Feed, My Way. Under the bill, social media services will have to notify their users—new users and existing users alike—and offer them a real choice over what drives their main feed, an opportunity to shut out the garbage, to switch it off. You can absolutely keep the algorithm and swallow that garbage if you want to, but if you don't want to you can choose not to: your feed, your choice. This bill gives you the power to make it social again, to make it about your friends, your family, your favourite charities and the businesses you want to follow.
Now, you would think that a law to protect Aussies from this would be a no-brainer, but we know that those opposite and One Nation will tell you this bill is censorship. They'll call it Big Brother. They will say that the government is coming for your freedom—which is just rubbish. Adults can still access what they want. The real freedom is in the ability to switch off the algorithm. We would not accept the harms caused online in other environments and other contexts. We demand that a car is safe before it is sold. We demand that a medication is tried and tested before it is put to the market. We demand that a toy is safe before a child can play with it. We should demand nothing less of the platforms Australians use every single day.
At the centre of this bill is one simple principle: that the best interests of Aussies should come first. On this side of the House we are choosing the wellbeing of the people who use these platforms over the profits of the companies that run them. Anyone who votes against this bill is choosing something else. They are choosing profit. They are choosing outrage. They are choosing harm. I know which side I'm on, and I commend this bill to the House.
I rise to speak on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, which the government has decided to ram through the House of Representatives today, even though the bill has been referred to the Environment and Communications Committee and the other place for examination in detail, with a reporting date of 20 November. I would have hoped that by now this government might have learned that approaching critical questions relating to digital regulation and online safety requires careful and methodological consideration, reflection, and interrogation of experts for the impacts and human responses to the reforms that are proposed here. After all, this parliament trusted this government back in December 2024, when the government shunned the wisdom of the proposal which had been put forward by the then leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton, back in June of 2024 to ban certain social media platforms for under 16-year-olds. When, after months of discussion and expert testimony before the joint committee on social media and the Australian society, during which, may I say Labor members did not conclude that a social media ban was required, and, after months of public outcry, the government finally and reluctantly introduced legislation to age gate social media platforms which we knew were doing the most harm, they made us stay late, and it was all very dramatic as they pushed their legislation hastily through the House. That time we trusted the government that it had devised strong and competent legislation to mitigate danger to young people via social media platforms, but, rather than work on the fine detail and create something watertight, those opposite got busy on a world victory tour. 'Look at us—we're global heroes for legislating protection for under-16s from the scourge of online harm.' If the government had given half as much time to the detail and the implementation of those laws as it spent in the departure lounge, maybe we wouldn't be here today where I can say, quite confidently, I do not know a single teenager who cannot get onto whatever social media platform he or she wants, and yet the minister has bundled in here today with haste and demanded that this bill be passed by tonight. Again, the government demands that we trust them. This time we do not.
Everyone knows where I stand on this topic. I got here on my feet for the very first time in this place and talked of today's adolescents who are 24/7 connected to devices, addled by algorithms and autoplay, showing signs of stress and, indeed, in some cases, distress. I cited their self-control difficulties, impulsivity, family conflicts, sleep disturbances, inactivity, concentration impairment and poor language development and the well-documented epidemic of anxiety and depression in teenage girls, which we now know correlates with the high use of social media.
In preparing my first speech, I sat down with some of Australia's then leading minds on the impact of screens on brain development, Sydney based child psychologist Dr Brad Marshall, leader of the Australian Gaming and Screen Alliance, and Pasi Sahlberg, who was then at the Gonski Institute for Education, working on the impact of too much screens in education. I read the works of Jean Twenge, specifically iGen, which details the impacts of social media and screens on the brain and psychosocial development of young people. That 2017 work, together with Generations, released in 2023, are essential reading for anyone with an interest in this topic, and I'm very grateful for the time Professor Twenge has given to me personally to discuss her work.
Soon after my first speech, knowing I had served on the NBN board for a number of years, the tech industry rang and asked me to lead a new parliamentary friends of tech group that they wanted to send up. I said sure, on one condition—that we talk about algorithmic transparency. 'Let me get back to you,' came the hesitant reply, and I never heard from them again. In my first 18 months in this place, I hosted the inaugural Australian Gaming and Screen Alliance symposium in this building, in which child psychology, brain development, education experts and psychiatrists, as well as leading voices in digital health, screen addiction and gaming behaviour, discussed what they were seeing coming out of COVID, and I've had the good fortune to stay in contact with people like AGASA's Dr Brad Marshall.
Last year, he and Professor Wayne Warburton published in Current Psychology a survey of 2,000 10- to 14-year-old students. They found that secondary students averaged over nine hours a day on screens—nine hours a day. Primary school students averaged more than six hours. Both statistics are up two hours or more since COVID, when we fattened our children on their digital diet. They estimated that more than 350,000 Australian children under 15 are at risk of smartphone addiction. We have a problem, but we have nowhere near the sophistication we need to deal with it, neither in the social media ban laws that were passed in haste in this place in December 2024 nor in the legislation the Labor government is trying to ram through the chamber today.
Let me tell you the story of a 17-year-old boy who does not actually exist. He was a fictional teenager with a fresh new Instagram account created by Reset Tech at my request. My fictional teenager searched for and liked 40 Jordan Peterson posts, looking for guidance on how to be a modern man. Within two hours, the Instagram reels algorithm was serving him videos of Andrew Tate. My fictional young man never went looking for Andrew Tate, but Andrew Tate was delivered up to him. While he may be fictional, there are thousands of young Australians for whom this experience is all too real. Today, what we feed Australians online is chosen by a machine they cannot see, built by a company that profits from their attention, while their parents, their loved ones and their mates have no idea what they are being shown. The question that this House should be answering today is: will this bill change this situation for the better? I regret to say that, as drafted, it will not.
It's important to remember that tech itself is not the villain. There is tech for good. There's really good tech—telehealth consultations, for example. In Rosebud, there's the community influencer raising awareness of issues in her community or for a local charity. There were the brilliant young entrepreneurs explaining to the Treasurer how his May budget was going to destroy their business with clarity and conviction that most politicians could only dream about. There is tech for bad—the endless scroll and hours stolen from sleep, sport or friendship. And there is tech for the bloody terrible—the feed that drives a 14-year-old girl to self-harm, this extortion ring that targets a lonely boy and the recommendation engine that walks a young man one video at a time towards extremism. Our job here should be to protect the first, discipline the second and stamp out the third.
The common thread separating tech for good from tech for bad is algorithms. In the context of social media, an algorithm is simply a set of computer instructions which enable a platform to decide what you're going to see next. Every like, every share and every second spent lingering on a video or a photo is recorded and the system uses that record to determine what keeps you scrolling the longest and then serves up more of it. It has no regard for what is true or what is helpful or harmful or even what you've asked to see. The algorithm chooses what will keep your eyeballs on the platform the longest so your attention can be sold to advertisers. Algorithms are not free speech. They are force-fed speech—someone else's idea of not what is good for you but what is good for them and their marketing revenue.
In 2024 I served on the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society with my most excellent colleague in this place the member for Fisher. More than 200 witnesses provided verbal or written submissions to that committee and, as coalition members wrote in our separate detailed comments on the 200-page report, we heard repeatedly that parents do not have a full or accurate view of their children's online lives. Ali Halkic described his son Allem as 'so beautiful and so confident', and he told us that:
… within four to six weeks Facebook basically destroyed us as a family.
Ali believes that had he known more about the danger his son faced online he would have done things differently. Parents are the best judges of how to raise their children, but no parent can parent what they cannot see.
The algorithms that hold our children captive are also damaging for our society as a whole. In the last parliament, I also served on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Radicalisation of young Australians was a key issue of discussion before the committee then and, as we learned from the interview with a former Leader of the Opposition on News 24 last night, it has been an ever-growing issue since his time as the Minister for Home Affairs almost a decade ago. We now know radicalisation happens not in backrooms but in bedrooms, served up by algorithms to vulnerable teenagers spending nine hours a day on their phones.
We know this partially thanks to the heroism of Frances Haugen, the Facebook engineer turned whistleblower whose story is now in Australian cinemas in Aaron Sorkin's The Social Reckoning. I got to know Frances during our last term of parliament, and one day she kindly offered to come to my electorate. On Frances's visit to Flinders, we sat down with a number of senior classes at Balcombe Grammar and we talked about their digital diet as well as cybersecurity and social media. One fact from my discussions with Frances that was indeed borne out both in the Facebook files and in the motion picture now made of her whistleblowing from her time at Meta is that Facebook's own internal research found that 64 per cent of all users who joined an extremist group on its platform were driven there by the algorithm. These people were not searching for hate; they were driven to it algorithmically. Two in three found themselves somewhere they had not set out to be nor where we want them to be.
The coalition has led this parliament's work in identifying dangers inherent in algorithms. The coalition comments in the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society included 13 recommendations. The first was that the Australian government require social media companies to provide easily accessible features for users to control or reset their recommender systems, including to reduce or remove persuasive design features such as infinite scrolling and to have more proactive ability to customise their feeds. Features would favour the ability for a customer to opt in or out of recommended content. Our 10th recommendation recommended that the Australian government should develop a reporting framework that requires social media companies to provide regular transparency reports, including on what data social media companies collect on users and for what purpose it is collected and the type of data social media platforms use to generate personalised content on recommender systems.
This built on earlier work by the coalition highlighting the danger of algorithmic diversion. In August 2023, the Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media, chaired by my friend James Paterson, found that foreign interference had become Australia's principal national security threat and that foreign adversaries can manipulate content algorithms. Its first recommendation was to require a minimum set of transparency requirements enforceable by fines for all large social media platforms. Authoritarian regimes rely on secrecy, and we must rely on openness. Doing nothing to address algorithmic transparency and choice is not an option. We have known this for a while, and yet this is not what this bill targets.
'My Feed, My Way' is a convenient catchcry the Prime Minister has used to describe his reforms, but it is utterly misleading. Very little in this legislation targets algorithmic transparency and choice. It is buried in an exposure draft relating to user empowerment tools which has been released, giving people the option of an algorithmically curated feed or a chronological feed like we used to have in the late 2000s and early 2010s, before likes and shares and advertisements and scams became the fuel in the engine of social media. Such reforms have been introduced elsewhere and could easily be included in this bill. Like its predecessor exposure draft, this bill remains too imprecise, too vague and too open to manipulation, which tries to hide the provisions of the much-maligned mis- and disinformation bill which was introduced by this government in November 2024.
Dangerously, however, this bill also abolishes unlawful material codes, unlawful material standards and age-restricted material codes, which today require online services to reduce the availability of the most seriously harmful refused classification material through mandatory prevention, detection, reporting, removal and access-restriction measures. The existing age-restricted material codes require online services to prevent children under 18 from accessing or being exposed to specified pornography, high-impact violence, self-harm and other age-inappropriate material through age assurance, access controls, safety settings, parental tools and content restrictions.
Let me be clear. Criticising this bill is not an argument for doing nothing. Doing something is no longer optional, but the coalition cannot support this bill in its current form.
I want to thank the member for Flinders for that contribution, because I think she made a number of compelling points based on her experience in the industry. Can I suggest to her that the minister herself has said on multiple occasions she is very keen to have specific amendments from the opposition to do what I hope we all want to do, which is provide some protection from the way that the online environment is harming particularly our children at the moment.
Right now, we have an information environment which is force-feeding billions of people a steady diet of outrage. It monetises hate. It drives division. It severs social connections, and it spreads the kind of disinformation that makes us all less safe. Nearly 39 per cent of Australians aged 16 to 24 experience a mental illness every year, according to ABS data—figures that have risen sharply when you compare them to the pre-smartphone era. It takes just 23 minutes for an account mimicking a 16- to 18-year-old boy to be fed misogynistic content on social media. The tenor of public discourse is now so vitriolic that nine in 10 female politicians in this country are experiencing persistent abuse or violent threats on a regular basis. These are just some of the examples that people have been canvassing in recent days, but the point is clear. Social media platforms are deriving enormous profits from unsafe products—products that harm our children, our democracy and our health while eroding any sense of common ground and pushing our community to extremes.
Our Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 will change that. It will ensure that tech giants are held to basic safety standards, just as toy manufacturers are, just as car makers are and just as food companies are. No-one should be able to sell faulty products in Australia that harm consumers or promote criminality. It will force platforms, gaming sites and AI chatbots to protect under 18s in particular from violent pornography, from hostile ideas about women and gender equality, from content that encourages eating disorders and from content that glorifies criminal activity or causes serious distress, including abuse and bullying. Of course, our greatest focus is on those under 18s because we know that they are the ones at greatest risk, but all Australians should be protected from content which depicts, encourages, promotes or incites child sexual abuse, which promotes sexual or gender based violence, which circulates fake nude material created without consent or which promotes or incites extreme violence or cruelty or involves explicit threats of violence, including death or rape threats. As we've been discussing these issues in recent days and weeks, I think most Australians would be shocked to know some of the content that we are proposing to deal with. They wouldn't believe that such things exist on the internet.
The other crucial thing that this bill does is give back users control over what they see in their feeds. Some of us are old enough to remember what social media was when it was first introduced. It was a great place to catch up with what family members were doing, particularly if they were in different parts of Australia or around the world. It was a great way to catch up with friends, particularly friends who'd moved away, or check out whether your high school boyfriend was now single. But, in recent years, it has really morphed into an environment where algorithms are shoving violence, misogyny and body dysmorphic content down users' throats. Research consistently shows that content that's divisive can radicalise users and prey on their most intimate insecurities. The bill seeks to give Australians back their agency online by allowing them to either opt in or opt out of recommender systems.
Many of those opposite are trying to pretend that this is somehow the government controlling what people see. It is the exact opposite. This is allowing people to choose the people they want to follow, the businesses they want to follow and the organisations that they care about—their local footy team, the coffee shop down the road, the community group that they're part of or their local church. They can choose who they receive content from. They don't let absentee oligarchs in Silicon Valley make that choice for them. That's what's happening now, with no transparency around it at all. Anyone in this chamber trying to frame this choice as censorship needs to ask themselves the question: what am I so determined for people to see online without giving them the choice that they can opt out of seeing it? Algorithms are built by tech bros who have no concern for Australia or for Australians. They themselves—those tech bros—are not champions of free speech. They use free speech arguments when it suits them, and then they use billions of dollars to shut down criticism whenever it criticises them. They're not champions of free speech. They're champions of their own speech. They worship at the altar of profit and they have proven time and time again that there is no low they won't sink to in order to keep eyeballs glued to screens.
Social media, of course, can be a tool for good. The member for Flinders was providing great examples of where it can be used for good. It can be a source of connection. It can be a way to enhance community. It can be a way to celebrate self-expression. If you're a small business, it can be a way to get connected to new markets and new buyers. But, as things stand at the moment, we have not got the balance right.
Our world-leading social media ban for under-16s has gone a long way already in shielding young Australians from the harms that some of these platforms inflict, while giving them back their childhoods. We're hearing great stories about kids playing in the playground more and talking to each other more, but technology changes rapidly. A digital duty of care will ensure that every Australian is entitled to safety online; that products, websites and platforms which violate those standards face consequences; and that users choose what they see on social media, not billionaires based in Silicon Valley.
The legislation has my full support because we know that online harms are rapidly spilling into the real world and because, in the words of Molly Bannister, who lost her beautiful 14-year-old son Olly to suicide after he was constantly and ruthlessly fed body-dysmorphic content on social media, Molly said:
For too long we've asked everyday people and parents to somehow outsmart the most sophisticated technology companies in the world.
This bill changes that. It gives more power back to parents. It gives more power back to social media users. As the minister in charge of the next plan to end violence against women and their children and as a mother, I back that. I implore those opposite to join with us to put the needs of children first, to put the safety of Australians first and to back our digital duty of care.
When the exposure draft of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 was first released, I received more than 30 emails from constituents who were concerned, outraged and, in some cases, perplexed about what the government was proposing. One constituent called it the 'big brother bill'. I'm sure that is not the government's intention, but that is how some people in my community perceived it, and we need to take their concerns seriously.
When I look at this bill, I think about the parents in Fowler who worry about what their children are seeing online. I think about the people who have contacted my office because they are worried about government having too much control over what they can say and read. I think about our small-business owners, who are already working long hours and cannot afford another layer of paperwork simply because they have a website. We have a responsibility to consider all of those concerns.
I support making big technology companies take greater responsibility for the harm occurring on their platforms, but supporting the intention of a bill does not mean accepting every provision in it. Tech companies make enormous profits from our attention and our children's attention. They cannot leave families to deal with the consequences on their own.
We still have to ask: Who is covered? What will they have to do? How will these powers be used? What safeguards will protect people when something goes wrong? That is how I approach this debate as an Independent and as the member for Fowler.
The internet gives us extraordinary opportunities. For many families in Fowler, it is how we stay connected with relatives overseas. It is how small businesses find customers. It is where people get their news and share their views. But it can also expose people to terrible abuse, exploitation and violence. We cannot ignore the role of the platforms themselves. These companies decide how their systems work. Their algorithms influence what appears on our screens and what keeps appearing again and again. They cannot take profits and leave families to deal with all the consequences.
I want to mention one recent piece of research. In August, the University of Melbourne released a report, Misogyny,online radicalisation, and youth extremism in Australia. It surveyed more than 1,100 young people aged 13 to 17 and around 2,300 adults. It found that roughly one in three teenage boys express misogynistic attitudes. One in four agreed that feminism is damaging to our society and should be resisted with violence if necessary. And 27 per cent of teenage boys agreed with white supremacist attitudes, which is a real concern. That is one study, but those findings should concern all of us.
We need to understand what young people are being exposed to, who is influencing them and what responsibility platforms have. There should be no disagreement about protecting children from sexual exploitation, content promoting eating disorders, threats of violence or serious bullying, nor should there be disagreement about addressing apps designed to create fake nude images without a person's consent. The question is whether this bill achieves those objectives with clear, proportionate and accountable laws.
Broadly, it creates a duty on those responsible for online services to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, a safe online environment. It requires written risk assessments and measures to address identified risks. It provides for tools to give users greater control over their online experience, including algorithmic recommendations. It also strengthens the cyberbullying and cyberabuse schemes and gives the eSafety Commissioner additional enforcement and investigative powers. I should also point out that the provision in the exposure draft that rightly caused much concern—a largely unfettered power to the minister to define seriously harmful content—has now been removed. What is and what is not harmful content is now set up plainly in the bill and not subject to arbitrary ministerial decision. That is a welcome development.
The bill certainly proposes some very significant changes to Australia's online safety regime. Personally, I think that you should get kids off the phone. Don't give them a smartphone. We should examine the changes carefully. A broadly expressed duty backed by substantial penalties can still encourage platforms to take down lawful content rather than risk getting it wrong. That matters in a community like Fowler. Our communities discuss politics, faith, history and events in their countries of origin, often in languages other than English. We should not leave those conversations vulnerable to automated systems that cannot understand the context or to platforms deciding that removing lawful discussions is the safest option. Protecting people from serious harm should not mean silencing lawful debate.
My next concern is small business. Small business is the beating heart of Fowler. Our local businesses are already dealing with rising costs, tight margins and growing compliance demands. Often the owner is serving customers during the day and doing the paperwork at night. A family business in Fowler is not Meta. It is not TikTok. It is not X. Yet the broad reach of this bill could capture ordinary business websites, not just the large platforms the government talks about. Think about the bakery in Cabramatta, the hair and nail salon in Canley Heights or the tradie in Bonnyrigg with a basic website and a contact form. For those businesses, a website is simply a digital shopfront. It tells customers where they are, what they offer and how to contact them. If those services are captured, the businesses behind them could have to prepare written online safety risk assessments, review them at least annually, retain records for six years and provide them to eSafety within 30 days if requested. This is a new obligation—to understand the requirements, prepare the documentation and keep it up to date. There is no automatic exemption simply because a business is small.
The Minister for Small Business has told this House that most small businesses will have minimal obligations because their websites generally do not allow users to interact with each other, message strangers or upload content. I welcome that assurance, but minimal obligations are not the same as exemption, and what sounds simple in a ministerial office can look very different to someone running a small business, especially in South Western Sydney and, no doubt, in regional Australia as well. They still have to work out whether the law applies. They still have to understand what a compliant assessment looks like. Will they need professional advice? Will they feel that they have to pay someone to prepare it? Most of the time they probably will. What happens if they add a customer review feature? These are reasonable questions.
Small businesses cannot pay their accountant in assurances. If the government accepts that a basic small-business website presents little online safety risk, it should put that protection clearly in the law, not as what the minister will determine as low risk and leaving them in limbo. Small size should not excuse a generally high-risk service, but simply having a website should not expose a family business to unnecessary compliance costs. For businesses that remain covered, there must be a simple and proportionate way to comply.
There should also be an independent assessment of the costs before these obligations apply to small businesses, with adequate time for them to understand and prepare, and the guidance must reach people who need it. That means, in Fowler, plain English, translated information and practical examples. We cannot put information on a government website and assume every business owner will find it, understand it and know what to do.
Accountability must also apply to the regulator. The bill would allow the eSafety Commissioner an approved researchers to operate accounts under assumed identities, sometimes called sockpuppet accounts, to investigate whether platforms are complying. I understand why those tools can be useful. Test accounts can help researchers understand what users are being shown and expose failures that might otherwise remain hidden, but, when public officials operate under assumed identities, there must be clear limits and independent scrutiny. An annual public report is a start. I believe the Commonwealth Ombudsman should also oversee the commissioner's use of these accounts with appropriate access to records and regular reporting to parliament. That is not about questioning the intentions of individual officers. It is about ensuring that significant powers are accompanied by meaningful accountability.
The government wants this bill through the House before the Senate committee has finished its inquiry. That committee is due to report on 20 November. That makes it even more important to address these concerns rather than asking Australians to trust that everything will work out. I want to be constructive. The safeguards I'm proposing are intended to improve this bill not defeat its purpose. A clear exemption for low-risk small-business services, proper scrutiny of compliance costs, protection for lawful expression, independent review and oversight. These are reasonable things to ask for.
Parents want their children to be safe. Australians want to speak freely. Small-business owners want to know what is expected of them without another unnecessary burden. We should be able to work towards all three, but, if these concerns are not adequately addressed, I cannot support the bill in its current form, not because I oppose protecting children online but because protecting children and holding big tech accountable should not require us to accept avoidable burdens on family businesses or inadequate safeguards for lawful speech. Protect children, hold big tech to account, respect our freedoms, and make sure a law aimed at global technology companies does not leave the local hairdresser carrying the paperwork.
I thank the member for Fowler for her contribution. The Albanese government is continuing its international leadership on online safety. We led the world with the under-16s social media ban, which has been taken up in countries around the world, including in the UK, Spain, Malaysia and many other countries, and we're leading the world again with establishing a digital duty of care.
This legislation sets basic safety standards for those engaging in the digital tools we use every day. It's fundamentally about two things: safety and choice. The idea that businesses have a responsibility for the products that they create is one of the oldest obligations in law. Negligence is founded in the concept of businesses having a duty of care for their consumers. It's something that we expect in things that we use every day, from food and drinks to the cars we drive, to the buildings we live and work in. This bill extends these obligations to online services, like social media, online games and AI chatbots.
This is not about limiting freedom of speech. There's already, I fear, misinformation out there about this bill. We've received emails from constituents concerned about restrictions on freedom of expression. We understand that freedom of speech is absolutely vital to our democracy, and I reassure those people that have written to us that this bill will not restrict freedom of speech. It will not prevent you from criticising the government or our policies, or from engaging in public debate about a range of issues. It will not stop you from disagreeing even strongly in the public sphere. This is about keeping people, particularly young people, safe online. It's about putting the obligation on social media companies to take reasonable care to prevent foreseeable harm. It's also about giving people more choice in what they see online.
There were many speeches yesterday that touched upon the online environment, how the anger and aggression that has, sadly, become endemic in Australian society finds its worst expressions online and how the online environment even fuels it. This anger and its symptoms—the worst being violence against retail and hospitality workers, hospital workers, paramedics, teachers and politicians, at every level of society, it seems—is not going to be solved by this bill alone, but I believe this bill is part of the solution.
Our under-16s social media ban, which passed with bipartisan support, has already shown that effective regulation can help improve safety online. It's already resulted in over five million accounts being deactivated. We recognise that not every account that is held by a young person has been deactivated, and that they often find ways around it; they're very resourceful in that way. I think it's particularly difficult for the generation that had social media and have been asked to delete their accounts. But, as a parent, I know it will be easier to say no to my kids signing up for social media. My daughter is becoming a teenager now and we haven't let her sign up for social media because there is that norm in society now that teenagers, that young people, can't sign up for social media in the first place—and their friends won't be online, so we won't have that group pressure. As a result of the under-16s social media ban, we're hearing about some good outcomes. Teens have reported greater engagement in sport, better sleep and a reduction in bullying online just since our reforms took effect. We're making meaningful progress, but there's still more work to do, and that's what this bill is about. This digital duty of care is particularly focused on strengthening the safety of young people.
Under this legislation, all online services, including games and AI chatbots, must protect people under 18 from harmful content like pornography and material or conduct that encourages, promotes or instructs disordered eating; that encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality; that glorifies crime or encourages dangerous stunts or seriously harmful practices; and that involves abuse, harassment or bullying, or any other material or conduct or combination of material and conduct that may cause serious harm to children. Under-18s will also be protected from design features that will have negative behavioural impacts, like addictive features that cause kids to stay up late and to lose sleep.
These steps address concerns that I hear from parents and people across my community. Algorithms that have targeted vulnerable children and young people come up amongst teachers and parents chatting at the school gate or at the local footy, and they come up with young people themselves. Young people know about the harm an unfiltered and unregulated social media presence can have on them and their friends. Often they're even more aware of it than adults are. I've spoken to students at East Doncaster Secondary College and Box Hill High and with our youth advisory committee, who understand online harms all too well.
As I said, one of the harms we're addressing is disordered eating. These laws will require platforms to prevent minors and users from being targeted by material that promotes eating disorders. In Australia, over 1.1 million people are living with an eating disorder. Twenty-seven per cent of these people are aged 10 to 19—and that's a figure that's doubled since 2012. Eating disorders are amongst the deadliest forms of mental illness, and for those that seek help it takes an average of one to six years to recover. A 2015 study of teen girls reported that social media users were significantly more likely than non-social media users to have internalised a drive for thinness. Now, 10 years later, the risk of young people being fed targeted and harmful messaging that can exacerbate eating disorders is significant. Robb Evans, who lost his daughter, Liv, to anorexia, has spoken about the ways in which social media can magnify mental illness. Liv, after searching for low-calorie recipes, was fed reels providing her advice on how to survive on just 200 calories a day. Her feed actively directed her towards more extreme and harmful content. Thanks to the bravery of people like Robb who have shared their stories, we now have an opportunity to protect vulnerable young people in the future from these exacerbating factors.
We've also heard in the House from the Minister for Communications and the Minister for Education how algorithms' bias towards misogynistic content means that accounts registered to teenage boys will be directed towards antiwomen, dehumanising content within just 23 minutes of being created. Within two to three hours, a teen boy's feed will be filled with videos promoting violence and sexist attitudes and war cries like 'your body, my choice. This is material they are force-fed purely because of their age and gender, and it tells them that social and personal frustrations are caused by gender equality. It is not woke to want our young men to have healthy, respectful attitudes towards women and to want to have healthy, respectful, equal relationships. It is a foundation of a decent society. This is especially the case in an environment of rising sexual violence and negative attitudes towards women.
This bill will also require that online services, including games, must protect under-18s from being exposed to pornography. Young people shouldn't be getting their sex education from pornography that normalises things like choking or violence or degrading acts. Online services will also need to protect young people from content that glorifies crime or dangerous stunts. Research done by the eSafety Commission showed 46 per cent of children have seen dangerous online challenges. In recent years, trends like the skull breaker challenge and the squishy toy microwave trend have resulted in significant harm for many Australian children and young people who are exposed to them. This includes spinal cord injuries, seizures, severe burns and head trauma.
When we consider the capacity of social media platforms to cause serious distress, the story of Emma Mason and her daughter Tilly comes to mind. Tilly Rosewarne was 15 when she died by suicide, and her mother, Emma, says:
This was death by bullying but it was enabled by social media.
Tilly's family are all too aware of the real-world harm that can be generated from online abuse, as Emma has so powerfully said. She has taken her Let Them Be Kids campaign to the UN and shared her story across the world. Now the world knows that tech companies are all about the algorithm and not the human cost of what's going on. As long as social media companies are the ones setting the rules, the safety of our children will not be the priority. As Emma has said, these reforms will save lives, and they will keep more kids safe.
This bill also places greater obligations on big tech companies to ensure their products are safe and gives adult Australians greater choice about what they see online. Social media companies like Meta and TikTok, online games like Roblox and more recent technologies like AI chatbots all have had ample responsibility to fulfil their social responsibilities, and far too often they have failed to do so, even when compelled. This bill will require them to do annual risk assessments of the harms the features on their services could cause Australians and put systems in place to prevent those harms.
Very importantly, this bill will give Australians the option to opt out of the social media algorithm. The option must be accessible, prominently displayed and not make your feed harder to navigate. If people choose this option, it means they'll only see content from friends, family, businesses and content creators that they choose to follow. Again, this is not about restricting freedom of speech. It does the opposite. It is about giving people more choice. For too long, big tech companies have avoided their social obligation. This bill puts the onus back on them. It will give Australians more choice. It will make them safer and it will make our young people safer. I commend this bill to the House.
For several years now, Australians have been increasingly concerned about the impact of the online world on the welfare of children and on the cohesiveness of our society. A movement for change, begun and led by brave parents who saw their children's lives taken by cruel and highly addictive social media, created a remarkable period of bipartisanship that put Australia in the forefront of global movements to bring about online safety. It enabled the government of Malcolm Turnbull to create the world's first online safety watchdog, the Children's eSafety Commissioner, whose remit was later extended to adults. Then, in 2024, the parliament came together again and legislated a minimum age for social media. We did it for Rob Evans and Liv, Emma Mason and Tilly, Mia Bannister and Ollie, Wayne Holdsworth and Mac, and for every young person who has lost their life or been damaged by the experience of social media and the online world—and we did it for their parents—so all children and adolescents would be protected from unnecessary harm.
It has had positive impacts on the welfare and happiness of our children and adolescents. Five million underage social media accounts have been deactivated, removed or restricted, and surveys have found that many young Australians are now spending more time playing sport, getting more sleep, being less exposed to inappropriate and violent content and suffering less from bullying. Despite the fact there are still too many under 16s using social media, it was a highly promising start and it attracted global attention, respect and support, which is why it is being replicated right around the world. It demonstrates that Australia can lead the world on truly important issues. Its failure to achieve even greater success can be put down to one overriding cause: noncompliance by the online platforms, some of whom have evaded their responsibilities under the law. We strengthened the compliance requirements recently through the Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026, and, empowered by this, the eSafety Commissioner is currently investigating noncompliance by five platforms: Instagram, Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat.
Too many children, though, are still at risk and are still being harmed. There is a growing body of research pointing to the reality that, as a result of the deliberate design of its algorithmic features, social media is changing our society in harmful ways, turbocharging anger to the detriment of our social cohesion and our democracy. It is promoting misogyny, building an aggressive and sometimes frightening manosphere and driving a wedge between men and women, leading to an increase in gender based violence. Algorithms discourage nuance. They deliver increasing levels of angry content into the devices. At its most extreme, this is contributing to the normalisation of aggressive behaviour. The negative consequences are being felt by everyone, not just by politicians but also by nurses, doctors, ambos, teachers, shop workers, hospitality workers—in fact, people from all industries and all walks of life. It is affecting all of us in ways that are becoming increasingly negative and unpleasant. The problem has gone on for far too long.
The nation's security and police leaders have warned us that the level of potential danger is increasing. ASIO chief Mike Burgess warned:
Social media is … promoting discord and inflammatory rhetoric, exacerbating polarisation, and creating a permissive environment for violence.
AFP commissioner Krissy Barrett has said that the National Security Investigations team is charging almost one individual every week for targeting Commonwealth parliamentarians and public officials. The AFP, she said, is recording growing volumes of online abuse, threatening rhetoric and intimidation. This level of harm must be addressed and must be reduced.
The onus is not on children or parents to act. It is on the companies to act to ensure their services are safe. It is doing harm to our kids and to our society, and we must call time on it. We have given the tech companies years to address these serious problems caused by their products, but they have failed to do so repeatedly. By not meeting their social responsibility properly, the companies have been undermining their social licence. The time is up. Their social licence must now be expressed through legislation, and these technical companies, run largely outside of Australia, can make a difference.
I recently met with Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. The new Apple phone has features on it designed to protect children and designed to empower parents to act more decisively in the interests of their families. So it is possible for companies to act responsibly, but the truth is that we have a responsibility as well to act, and this is the moment for this parliament to act, to make the social media and the online world safer, to pass the government's digital duty of care bill, and, by doing so, require tech companies to take responsibility for the safety of the products and services they provide that have made them hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars of profit.
This bill puts a positive obligation on big tech to provide a safe online environment where Australians are protected from seriously harmful and illegal content, adults are given a meaningful choice about what they see on their feeds and under-18s are protected from content and features harmful to young people. It will set safety standards for the digital services we use every day, just like we do for motor cars and food and children's toys. If we can do it for all of those products, why is it hard for us to do it for something that has a much greater and regular impact on families?
It will require companies to undertake risk assessments of their services, put systems in place to address their risky features from doing harm and provide people over 16 with empowerment tools that give them choice about what they see in their feed. Crucially, online services, like social media, online games and AI chatbots, must protect under-18s from harmful content that promotes eating disorders and hostile ideas towards women and gender equality, pornography, material that glorifies crime or dangerous stunts, and content that causes serious distress, including abuse and bullying.
The bill will also protect under-18s from addictive features that cause kids to stay up late and lose sleep. It will ban nudify apps, which cause so much distress and harm to young people. Our children simply should not have to live in this poisonous and unhealthy environment. They deserve better. Their childhood should not be spent glued to a device. They should be playing outside with their friends, off their phones and on the footy fields and cricket pitches, the tennis and netball courts, in the swimming pool, trying any sport that grabs their interests, reading books, and engaging with human interaction with real people. The stories we hear about people identifying a chatbot, a nonperson, as their best friend should be a huge wake-up call for every member of this parliament to be prepared to act. Young people need to be able to figure out who they are, free from the pressure of the entire world to act in a certain way.
The bill will also protect all Australians, including adults, from material that promotes child sexual exploitation or child sex abuse, grooming, sexual violence, extreme violence or cruelty, the menacing or harassing of individuals and the encouragement of terrorist acts. Importantly, it will halve the length of time that digital service providers have to respond to cyberbullying complaints from 48 to 24 hours, and it will empower eSafety to go undercover to make sure that companies are complying with the law. Failure to comply with this digital duty of care will result in a fine of up to $109.2 million, which is in line with other Australian penalties designed to protect Australian consumers.
Let me be clear: under the digital duty of care, online services will be required to have systems in place to protect all Australians, including Commonwealth officials, from death threats, threats of rape, threats of violence, terrorism and material or conduct that can cause serious harm by menacing or harassing an individual. Some have suggested this is about censorship. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is not about preventing mean comments or political debate. It is about preventing serious harm. It is not about controlling what adults do online. It's about giving people back power and choice. Rather than someone in the United States deciding what they see, they get to decide themselves. That is what this legislation is about. It is about increasing choice, because it will require platforms to give us more choice over the content and the features that we use, including the feeds that we choose.
I urge the parliament to support this bill. This bill, if we carry it, will be replicated around the world, just like the bill banning under-16s from social media has been. This is an opportunity for our country to lead, and lead we should. At its core, the legislation brings together 17 existing industry made codes into a single overarching legislative framework in a way that makes them easy to understand and enforce. The complex and contradictory nature of these codes has made them difficult to enforce and easy to evade. It makes them a lawyer's picnic. Put the power back in the hands of our constituents and away from the multinational companies and the tech giants. That is what this is about. The evasion has gone on too long. This bill will put an end to this subterfuge and will help to keep our people safe.
The bill in essence is a much-needed but moderate and commonsense response to a problem that is becoming more serious with every passing day, a response to a rising chorus of concern across society about what social media is doing to our children, our relationships and our social cohesion and community behaviour. It's backed by academic experts and by our intelligence and police leaders. It's endorsed by important organisations that support the rights and welfare of children, young people and young adults—headspace, Project Rockit, the Butterfly Foundation, SmackTalk and Teach Us Consent, whose impressive young leader Chanel Contos I met with yesterday to discuss this issue. I want to thank all of them for their advocacy. I want to thank the parents who have taken personal grief and channelled that into not wanting other parents to go through what they have gone through with the loss of their son or daughter.
Ultimately, this bill is, of course, in the interest of the digital media platforms and social media companies themselves, because it is the best way for them to actually retain their social licence, which is fast losing public support, and avoid a potential backlash. Australian parents and the Australian people want the measures in this bill passed. I say to everyone in the House and the Senate please examine your conscience, please examine what is in this bill, and please do not be distracted by what is not in this bill as well. This is sensible reform, and I commend it to the House.
Imagine you could travel back in time 50 years to the 1970s. Imagine telling someone about the internet, about the mobile phone and about social media. 'Within 50 years,' you could tell this person, 'nearly everyone on Earth will carry a device in their pocket that gives them instant access to the sum of human knowledge—every book, every paper, every fact available in seconds. That same device will allow you to communicate with friends and family around the world in an instant. You'll be able to send messages, hear their voice and see their face. The tyranny of distance will be no more. You'll even be able to communicate with almost anyone on Earth. You'll be able to share stories, photos and videos. You'll be able to message people you've never met before with similar interests and ideas.' What would you have thought at that time, hearing about the promises of the future? The possibilities would have felt so bright and exciting. Access to the world's knowledge would surely drive productivity, new inventions and rising standards of living. The ability to connect with anyone at any time would surely drive greater connection and thriving families and communities, and the ability to share ideas with strangers would surely drive greater democratic participation and exciting new collaborations.
But fast-forward 50 years to the present and consider that productivity and living standards have plateaued or are going backwards. Families and communities feel even more strained and disrupted, and, around the world, democracies are backsliding towards authoritarianism. How has this happened? How has the technology that promised so much, which could have unlocked incredible possibilities, failed so badly? What went wrong? Our online spaces are now vectors for incredibly harmful material—child sexual abuse material, suicidal content, aggressive bullying, radicalisation and racism. Social media fosters anger and division. It causes anxiety and mental illness. It drives a constant feeling of negativity and helplessness. Social media is fraying our social fabric. We welcomed this technology into our lives, enamoured by its promises, without thinking about the harms it could cause. And now, decades on, we find our lives intrinsically intertwined with the digital world, and we find ourselves with the almost infinitely impossible job of unpicking the harms caused by social media and digital platforms, piece by piece.
The Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 is one of those really important pieces. It places a digital duty of care on online services. They must take appropriate action to provide a safe online environment. For the first time, responsibility will sit with the companies that design these services and not only with the parents and children whose attention is being monetised. My electorate supports this. In a survey of my community of Curtin, more than 90 per cent of the 1,200 respondents supported the idea that social media companies should have to take more responsibility for the harms they cause. Importantly, the digital duty of care will extend beyond social media to other online services like search engines, AI chatbots and app stores.
The bill is strong when it comes to protecting children. Under the digital duty of care, online services would be obliged to protect children from content such as pornography, abuse, misogyny and the promotion of eating disorders. For adults, online services are required to protect people from serious harm, like content that promotes child sexual abuse, extreme violence, suicide and terrorism. What does this actually mean in practice? It doesn't mean you will no longer see harmful content online, but it means that platforms have to take appropriate action to limit it. That means doing risk assessments to identify the risks in advance, rather than waiting for harms to occur, and it means putting in place systems to deal with those risks. That could include better screening of extremely violent content, faster responses to content reported by users or dialling down algorithmic echo chambers that show extremist content.
Perhaps the most important step in this bill is that it goes beyond content. The bill requires services to look at the design features that cause harm to children and serious harm to adults. This means companies will have to consider the impact of algorithms and of addictive design features, content moderation systems, content monetisation processes, ad approval systems and beyond. This is an acknowledgement that it's not just individual pieces of content that cause harm; it's also the systems designed by social media companies. To give you one example, it's alleged that Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, previously had a 17-strike policy before it suspended accounts engaged in the trafficking of humans for sex. You could give 16 indicators that you were sex trafficking, but only on the 17th would you be banned. Under the digital duty of care, systems like this are also under the spotlight.
The bill makes two further important changes. Firstly, it includes important transparency measures, which will allow researchers and the eSafety Commissioner to understand what safety measures these companies are actually putting in place. Secondly, it enables the minister to require user empowerment tools to give Australians greater control over their online services. The government has announced that it will use this power to require all social media companies to give you the choice to opt in or out of your algorithm.
The bill is very welcome. We need it, and I commend the government. It signals an important cultural shift as we start to expect more from social media companies. But it can be better, and I am proposing some improvements. The first is to introduce a private right of action. This would give Australians a way to take direct action when they've been harmed to take the pressure off regulators and to take the politics out of enforcement. It would then be Australians, not just the Australian government, holding international tech companies to account. This is complex drafting, and I haven't attempted it in the House, but I strongly encourage the government to move it and the Senate to consider it. The second is to increase the penalties. The current maximum penalty for breaching the duty of care and for failing to carry out risk assessments or provide user empowerment tools is $100 million. That might sound like a lot, but this would be about one-twentieth of one per cent of Meta's revenue last year—too small to change behaviour. Other jurisdictions have seen this. The EU, the UK, Canada and New Zealand have fines that range from three to 10 per cent of global revenue. I propose changing the maximum to 5 per cent of global revenue. If we want to change behaviour, there need to be consequences that mean something.
Another important amendment that I'm proposing deals with a harm that this bill doesn't address. Psychologists are telling us that AI chatbots and companions create a risk to children's long-term psychological development and human attachment through what's called attachment hacking. This is where AI systems like chatbots and companions simulate emotional intimacy, fostering a child's dependence on it instead of human relationships. As the PM mentioned in his speech a few minutes ago, we're seeing children confiding in AI chatbots and companions rather than in a friend, a parent or a teacher. An AI companion tells you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear to make sense of the world and sense of yourself. This can create a critical disruption to psychological development and a child's sense of reality. This bill would be improved with my amendment to include this type of harm. My fourth amendment is simple. User empowerment tools must be prominent and accessible, and this should be written into the act. It's meaningless to give adults a choice about their algorithms or future more sophisticated user empowerment tools if that choice is hidden deep in the settings menu. We've seen the EU struggle with this malicious compliance, an algorithm opt-out that's technically available but hard to find. Australians must have a real choice about what they see that's prominent and accessible.
I want to turn to free speech or, more accurately, our implied right of freedom of political communication. I've heard the concern from my community and from this chamber that this reform is about censorship—the government deciding what you see online now. I commend the government for listening to concerns and removing the minister's power to extend the categories of harm. This was a power that could theoretically have been used to threaten freedom of communication. I believe that this change should have quelled most concerns related to censorship, but I've still heard some pushback, which I want to address. If anyone is controlling what you see, it's the social media companies. Their algorithms decide what lands in your feed, and they are designed to make a profit by keeping every one of us scrolling for as long as possible. They are monetising our attention. We are the product, not the customer.
This bill shifts some of this control from the platform not to the government but back to the user. The bill doesn't make a single post unlawful. What changes is how services are designed. Reducing this important piece of legislation to a scare campaign about censorship is exactly what the worst of these platforms want. They want users to defend their ability to design platforms to keep those users hooked and angry so the platforms can sell your attention to advertisers.
Passing this bill is the start of the work, not the end of it. I want to make three points about what comes next. First, this bill will come down to compliance and enforcement. A duty of care is only as strong as the regulator that enforces it. The eSafety Commissioner will be asking some of the best resourced companies in the world to explain their algorithms and their safety systems. Ensuring that the commissioner is well funded and empowered is critical for the digital duty of care to succeed.
Second, we should design more user empowerment tools, and we should design them with the people who use them. I held a workshop on the digital duty of care with students from the University of Western Australia earlier this month, and the word that kept coming up was 'control'. Young people who grew up with social media told me that, rather than a binary choice about recommended content, they want to be able to dial it up or down—for example, by increasing the ratio of discovery to personalised content on their feed. They want to know what a platform has decided about them. The opt-in and opt-out choice is a good first tool, but it's blunt, and many will choose not to opt out. We should be thinking about other, more nuanced user empowerment tools that can help people combat echo chambers and doomscrolling to give Australians more control over their own experience of social media.
Third, we need to think harder about the more insidious role of social media in our public life. Australia has seen a rise in anger over recent years, with recent examples of anger spilling over into real-life violence. There's a broad recognition that social media has a role to play in the amplification of anger, negativity and outrage. Social media rewards short, emotional posts and punishes balance. Algorithms drive echo chambers, where people become more and more set in extremist views. Addictive features keep people online for longer, degrading mental wellbeing, disrupting families and keeping people disconnected from other people in the real world. Anonymity and the separation of a phone screen allow people to say things they would never say in real life. Social media is not the only reason for the rise in temperature, but it's a big reason and one that we've not dealt with before. Australia has gone through difficult economic times, international shocks and periods of polarisation, but we've never dealt with social media before.
These are issues that go beyond this bill. This bill deals with serious harm—not anger, outrage and anxiety for adults. It's about the relationship between the online service and the user, not about the broader impacts of social media on families, friends, communities and society. The next step in our journey must be to unpick the broader, negative impacts of social media on our society: the constant amplification of anger and negativity and the fraying of our social fabric. We must understand the impact so we can make our own choices about who we want to be, not just assume that this is inevitable.
To conclude, digital duty of care puts responsibility where it belongs: on the companies that design these online services. It looks at how services are built and not only at what's posted. It gives people some control over their own experience. Until now we have not made a considered choice about the role that digital platforms play in our lives. We can make one now. I encourage the government to seriously consider my amendments. I commend the bill to the House.
More than five million underage accounts have been deactivated, removed or restricted since our government set a minimum age for social media. At the time we were told it couldn't be done—that the technology did not exist and the kids would find a workaround within a week. Most notably, we were told that Australia was going to embarrass itself in front of the world for trying. But our government persisted, and now more than 30 countries either have legislated or are considering legislating similar laws.
Five million is a significant number, but perhaps what is more significant are some of the following numbers. A YouGov survey found 30 per cent of young Australians aged 13 to 15 are now spending more time playing sport, 27 per cent are spending more time with their families, online bullying in that age group is down nine per cent and exposure to inappropriate and violent content has fallen by 18 per cent. These are early numbers, but they all point in the one way and they are the result of a law that some of the loudest voices in this debate said was unworkable.
We know there are still too many under-16s on social media. Nobody in this government is pretending otherwise. But it's not the law failing; it's the platforms who are failing to comply with the law. That is a different problem with a different answer. The eSafety Commissioner right now is investigating noncompliance by five platforms: Instagram, Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat. Some of the largest and best-resourced companies in human history, who can comply, have decided themselves the pace at which they will. It is this arrogance and disregard for the safety of our children that is the case for this bill.
For the better part of 20 years, we have asked these companies to do the right thing through the codes they wrote themselves and then chased individual pieces of content around the internet long after the damage was done. Australia's digital duty of care sets basic safety standards for digital services that we use every day, just like we do for food, for cars and for kids toys. Nobody thinks it's an assault on the free market that a pram has to meet a standard before it can be sold. Nobody expects a parent to test the brakes of that pram themselves. We settled that question a long time ago. The person who builds the thing carries the responsibility for whether it is safe, and the parliament sets the floor so the operator doing the right thing is not undercut by those cutting corners.
The duty in this bill is lifted almost word for word out of the work health and safety law—taking reasonably practicable steps to provide a safe environment. It is the benchmark for best-practice regulation in this country. It is what the European Union and the United Kingdom have both landed on, and there is nothing truly novel about it. The only novelty is that we are finally applying it to an industry that has spent the last 20 years insisting it was worth a special exemption. Under the duty, services will have to do annual risk assessments of the harms their features could cause, put systems in place to stop those features causing harm and give people real choice about what lands in front of them. Failure to comply carries a penalty of a $109.2 million, in line with what we already impose on companies that rip off Australian consumers. There is an efficiency argument here too. One duty set by this parliament in language Australian businesses already understand is simpler to comply with and simpler to enforce than the 17 overlapping codes it replaces.
I have two daughters, aged 12 and nine. My eldest, Gweny, and her mates will be 16 before this duty is fully bedded down. The point of this bill is that it is not my job, it is not my husband's job and it is not the job of Gweny's friends' parents—it's not our job alone, at the kitchen table, to work out whether a product or an online product is safe for our kids. That has never been a fair fight. So here is what this duty requires for children, because a great deal has been said about this bill that's not actually in it.
Every online service—social media, online games, AI chat bots—will have to protect under-18s from pornography, from material that encourages or instructs disordered eating, from material that promotes hostile attitudes towards women and gender equality, from material that glorifies crime or encourages dangerous stunts and from abuse, harassment and bullying. They will also have to protect kids from the design features that keep people, young people, scrolling to all hours of the night. Anyone in this chamber seeking to ignore this aspect of the bill in favour of made-up hysterics is only making our kids' lives harder.
The chatbots are a part of this bill that public debate has not caught up with. I'm currently chairing the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, and we have heard from researchers, unions and industry as well as from the people who build these systems and the people who study them. The honest summary is that these products are being put in front of kids faster than anybody can test or understand what they do to them. That is the most concerning part. The rapid development of AI means that, if we write a law today that covers only the platforms we happen to be concerned about today, we'll be back in this chamber in the years to come writing something again. A duty of care does not need a new industry code every time a new technology appears. That is the whole design of the thing.
The same logic covers the disgusting apps built to generate fake nude images of real people. This bill empowers the eSafety Commissioner to take down apps and websites designed or predominantly used for that purpose, and it defines fake nude material as seriously harmful, so every service has to protect every Australian from it. On average, one in 33 children has reported someone creating a nude image of them, using AI—that is a terrifying thing to read as a parent—and one in 25 Australians has reported being victimised by deepfake pornography. For adults, the duty is narrower, and it goes to serious harm—child sexual abuse material, grooming, sexual violence, image based abuse, incitement to extreme violence, explicit threats of rape and death and terrorist-and-violent-extremist material.
Beyond these incredibly vile behaviours, this bill does not tell a single Australian adult what they can look at. The digital duty of care is not about controlling what adults do online; it is about requiring platforms to give us choice. That is the most underrated part of this bill. These companies make an extraordinary amount of money out of our information and out of our attention. We are asking that, in return, they let us decide what is in our own feeds. If you want your friends and the creators you choose to follow—the app has to let you do that by default, rather than throwing you into an algorithm full of people you will never subscribe to. I think that's a modest ask of an industry that has never once been asked for much.
We can all recall a time when we have been scrolling through a platform and something popped up that made us question why it had. I can remember a few times when something gruesome or awful came across my screen unwarranted. When something does go wrong, people are entitled to better than a web form and silence. This bill cuts the required response time to cyberbullying and abuse complaints from 48 hours to 24 hours and lets eSafety set minimum standards for how complaints and disputes are handled, because an automatic confirmation email—and then nothing else—is not a response.
Last week, the member for Indi was attacked outside her electorate office. While the details of what led to this attack are still to be fully understood, we know—the women in this chamber especially know—that online platforms are not safe. They allow people to live in bubbles that make them angrier and angrier. The people charged with keeping this country safe have also spoken plainly about the environment we are all now living in. The ASIO Director-General, Mike Burgess, has warned that social media is 'promoting discord and inflammatory rhetoric, exacerbating polarisation and creating a permissive environment for violence'. The AFP Commissioner, Krissy Barrett, has said her National Security Investigations team is charging almost one individual a week for targeting Commonwealth parliamentarians and public officials. We've also heard from workers and their unions about the rising abuse that is directed towards them. I'm talking about our frontline workers, nurses, teachers, retail workers and care workers.
This isn't about mean comments or robust political debate; we are talking about serious harm and serious harm only. If an individual can be held accountable by the police for their behaviour, a company that built something that carried it and made it money through amplifying should be accountable too. If you build it, you're responsible for it. That has always been the Australian way.
For a decade, online safety in this country has been bipartisan. The world's first online safety watchdog was built here by those opposite. That was good work, and that deserves to be said aloud in this place. In 2024 this parliament came together again and legislated a minimum age for social media. Every one of these reforms passed with bipartisan support, because some things matter more than politics. That is why the position the coalition has taken on this bill is utterly— (Quorum formed) I appreciate that it's hard to be held accountable for your decisions, Opposition. The claim that this bill censors Australian adults is absolutely false. The claim about test counts is even worse and in my opinion rather dangerous, because it is an argument against truly holding these big tech companies accountable. The test accounts are not about policing what people see online. They're about making sure the tech companies are adhering to what we expect of them.
So right now our government stands on the side of parents and their kids, whilst those opposite appear to be content with siding with big social media platforms. I implore the opposition to reconsider their position. It is not too late for there to be a bipartisan approach, in the same way that we have delivered progress in this space as a parliament over the last couple of years. It is so important that we get this right, not just for our kids but for all of us. We deserve to see a safer, better place online. I commend the bill to the House.
Consider the influence that social media companies have over you. Consider the way they shape the news you read, the jokes you listen to and the people with whom you interact. When your feed was chronological, simple and all about the people you actually knew feels like a distant memory. Most of us—at least, those my age—joined social media to connect with friends and family. Today, the algorithm can be fun, interesting and even informative, but it can also be divisive, isolating and radicalising. It exercises enormous power over us, and we barely understand how it works.
Governments have allowed tech companies to cultivate this power with minimal oversight, and for too long a handful of tech billionaires have written their own rules. They've had years to fix the problems themselves, and they have chosen not to. These multinational companies have discovered that the most effective way to increase their profits is to hook us—and the best way to hook us is to inflame us, to drive us further apart from each other into echo chambers and digital worlds that are often dark, dangerous and divisive. In just 13 minutes, an account mimicking a 16- to 18-year-old boy will be fed misogynistic content. Too many children in my electorate are experiencing these harms, and parents write to me frequently to express their concerns. They feel powerless to protect their kids from these formless, invisible algorithms that manipulate their kids' minds and distort their development.
Social media is the Wild West, and the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 tries to bring some law and order into the digital world. It's time for government to crack down on the tech-bro cowboys and govern to protect the people who put them in this place. At its core, this bill puts a legal duty on online services to take appropriate action to keep Australians safe. That covers social media, websites, messaging and online games. For the first time, companies will be required to protect us from serious harmful materials and conduct resulting from the products they sell. These serious harms include child sexual abuse material, grooming and image based abuse. In addition, companies must protect children from specific harmful material, including content promoting eating disorders, self-harm, misogyny and dangerous stunts.
Tech companies will need to give users new tools that increase an individual's ability to control what they see, rather than be subject to the invisible whims of the algorithm. At least once a year, they will have to assess the risks their own products create and act on them. The cost of taking action is no excuse. There'll be fines for breaching the duty of up to $109 million. These could and should be higher, and that's why I'll be proposing a sensible amendment to calculate penalties as a percentage of revenue. This would make our legislation consistent with similar legislation in other jurisdictions which places higher penalties on companies, recognising the enormous quantum of profits that these companies enjoy.
The bill also gives the eSafety Commissioner new powers to take down nudify apps. It halves the time platforms have to act on cyberbullying and abuse complaints before the eSafety Commissioner can step in, from 48 hours to 24 hours. It starts to prise open the black box of platforms so that independent researchers can finally look into how those algorithms actually work.
Opponents of this bill claim that it's about censorship, that government wants to control what you see and read. The obvious response to that objection is: if there's someone controlling what you see, it's the social media companies that develop the algorithms, with no scrutiny or guardrails—and they do so entirely in pursuit of profit. This bill is about giving you more control to determine what you watch, what you listen to, what you read and, therefore, how you think and feel.
Let's just take a step back and remember what it is that's being restricted here—child sex abuse material, terrorism, nonconsensual fake nudes, rape threats. Which of these do you want to allow unrestricted? For children, preventing their exposure to pornography, to material that encourages disordered eating or to attitudes hostile towards women seems, to me, eminently sensible and reasonable. I welcome the government's decision to drop the power for a minister to add new categories of harm without first coming back to the parliament. Limiting this ministerial discretion, I believe, is an important step and should put to rest the claims that this bill is about censorship.
The bill could be stronger. I'm going to support the amendments put by my colleagues from the crossbench. It should ensure that opt-in to algorithms is the default, and that's what the campaign led by Chanel Contos of Fix Our Feeds is calling for. It would mean that you have to intentionally choose to use particular algorithms rather than being nudged into them by the tech companies. The bill could include amendments to protect children from AI companion chatbots, including attachment hacking where tech companies manipulate people into emotional connections with AI. I applaud, in particular, the member for Curtin for her leadership on this issue, showing what constructive, courageous leadership from the crossbench can look like.
More broadly, this bill doesn't address every harm caused by social media and other online services. We still have so much more to understand about how these services and the companies operating them drive radicalisation and polarisation. The bill's own explanatory memorandum points to research showing social media can accelerate young people's paths into violent extremism. We see the same forces pulling our politics further apart, making it harder to talk with one another, disagree respectfully, trust each other and find common ground. If we want safer and more connected communities, it's time to put the platforms in their place and the people in control. I commend the bill with the amendments brought by the crossbench to the House.
The coalition has launched a petition to kill the bill. Apparently, the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 is government censorship. That is an extraordinary description of legislation that gives Australians more control over what they see online while requiring technology companies to take responsibility for the products they design. I've been on Facebook since around 2008 and on Myspace before that. I'm starting to give away my age! Then again, back then it was a terrific way to keep in touch with friends and family, particularly while I was travelling overseas. When I returned to Australia, it helped me stay connected with the people I'd met along the way. I could see their photographs, hear their news and maintain friendships across thousands of kilometres. It was simple: you followed someone because you wanted to hear from them, and, for the most part, you did.
These days, Facebook is a different experience. Posts from friends and family are still there, but they're sprinkled throughout my feed like salt and pepper in between a sponsored post, videos from strangers, arguments I never asked to join and advertisements for things I have no intention of buying. I joined Facebook to keep up with people I actually know; now, I spend more time scrolling past people I don't. Apparently the algorithm knows what I want better than I do.
The technology writer Cory Doctorow has explained how platforms arrive at this point. At first, a service offers something genuinely useful. It connects friends, helps small businesses find customers and allows people to share information. We join because it works. Then, when enough people depend on it, the company starts prioritising advertisers and paying customers. The experience changes. What we choose to see competes with whatever keeps us looking at the screen. Eventually, the platform starts squeezing those businesses too. A local business spends years building an audience only to discover it may have to pay to reach the people who already chose to follow it. The experience gets worse, but leaving becomes harder because our friends, customers and communities are all still there. That is not just a complaint about the advertisements; it is about the enormous power platforms acquire over connections Australians have built themselves.
It brings us to My Feed, My Way. Under the proposed rules, Australians over 16 will be able to choose whether their primary social media feed contains posts from accounts they follow or personalised recommendations selected by an algorithm. If you like the recommendations, you could opt in. If you prefer posts from friends, family and chosen creators, you could choose that instead. The choice should be clear, easy to make and persistent. A platform should not quietly reverse it each time you open the application or make the alternative impossible to use. It should not take a science degree, six settings screens and the patience of a saint to see what your friends are posting.
The detailed feed requirements are proposed through a legislative instrument enabled by the bill, not spelled out word for word in the primary legislation. That distinction's important and parliament can scrutinise how the rules operate, but the underlying principle is straightforward: the person holding the phone should have a meaningful say in what appears on it. The coalition calls this censorship, but I struggle to see how giving someone the choice to reject recommendations silences the person whose content is not recommended. Nobody has the right to appear in a stranger's feed simply because a company's algorithm predicts that an argument will generate engagement. And, if choosing your own feed is censorship, what should we call a system in which a technology company chooses it for you?
There is another question we need to ask. For years, social media companies have presented themselves as platforms where people post content, but those services are not passive noticeboards. They select, rank and recommend posts. They decide which video plays next, which controversy is amplified and which content reaches people who never asked to follow its creator. Those are decisions about distribution. They can have commercial and human consequences. Traditional publishers carry legal responsibilities associated with what they publish. The High Court's decision in Voller demonstrated that facilitating third-party comments can, in particular circumstances, amount to publication for defamation law. That decision did not declare every technology platform a publisher of everything it hosts, and this bill does not do so either—but the policy question remains. When a business activity recommends and amplifies content for profit, what responsibility should accompany that power? There is a difference between allowing someone to speak and deliberately putting their words in front of a million strangers.
I do not suggest that every recommendation amounts to an editorial endorsement—a newspaper editor and a recommendation system are not identical—but we cannot ignore the decisions made by the people who built and tune those systems. They determine the incentives, the measures of success and the way content travels. If a company can optimise its system to maximise advertising revenue, it can also be required to assess how that system exposes people to foreseeable harm. That is a more useful discussion than pretending the platform has no role once someone presses 'Publish'. The digital duty of care begins to address the risks created by the system doing the amplification, and the principle should be familiar to anyone who has worked in an industry where safety is taken seriously. In workplaces across Australia, employers have duties to identify hazards and control risks. They cannot simply wait for a worker to be injured, hand them a complaint form and declare the system successful. We apply similar expectations to cars, food and children's toys. If a product has a foreseeable defect, the company designing it has a responsibility to act. Online services should not get a different rule simply because their products apply on screens.
This bill requires providers to assess the risks arising from their services, including risky design features, and take effective measures to reduce them. It is about prevention, not just removing a harmful post after somebody has already been hurt. It also changes the way online safety is regulated. Today there are 17 industry developed codes and standards spread across different services and obligations. The bill replaces that complicated framework with an overarching duty of care after a transition period. Rather than waiting for the industry to draft a new code each time technology changes, providers must assess new risks and respond to them. Companies remain responsible for designing their services, but safety is not simply left to rules written by the companies being regulated. The duty applies to specified serious harms affecting adults, including child sexual exploitation, explicit threats of violence, intimate image abuse and material encouraging suicide or serious self-harm. Children receive additional protections against pornography, material encouraging eating disorders, dangerous stunts, bullying and hostility towards women, as well as design features associated with harmful behaviour. This is not about outlawing political disagreement; it is about defined categories of harm and appropriate steps to reduce the risk that online services expose Australians to.
The government has already introduced the social media minimum age of 16. According to the updated government figures, more than five million underage accounts have been deactivated, removed or restricted. That does not mean the job is finished. There are still underage accounts, and the eSafety Commissioner is investigating possible noncompliance by major platforms. (Quorum formed) The answer to noncompliance is to enforce the law, not to abandon the expectation that that platform should follow it. The figures also describe survey respondents reporting more sport and better sleep, alongside reduced exposure to some harmful experiences. These are early findings, not a declaration of victory. The responsibility remains on platforms to meet the law and on regulators to test what is happening in practice. The risks to children extend beyond social media accounts. They use online games, messaging services and artificial intelligence chatbots, including products that imitate a friend or adviser. Parents cannot expect every interaction or understand every feature of every new product. Children should not be expected to recognise unsafe design before the provider has any responsibility to intervene.
The bill also addresses a particularly disturbing use of artificial intelligence: apps that generate fake nude images without consent. A perfectly ordinary photograph can be turned into an intimate image the person never agreed to create. For the person targeted, especially a child, the damage can be devastating. The commissioner will have powers to require action against apps and websites predominantly designed and used for generating that material. When serious cyberbullying or adult cyberabuse is reported, the bill reduces the waiting period before the commissioner may intervene in relevant cases from 48 hours to 24 hours. Australians should not have to submit a complaint into a digital black hole and wonder whether anybody has read it.
There is another issue that those opposite have become particularly excited about: sock puppet accounts. It sounds sinister, but in reality these regulated test accounts are rather like mystery shoppers for the internet. If a shop says it checks identification before selling an age restricted product, an inspector can test whether that actually happens.So why should regulators have to accept a technology company's word that its safety systems work? Can an adult profile contact a child through an online game? Can a younger teenager open an account without age checks? How does an AI service respond to attempts to produce abusive images? Those are practical questions. A test account can help answer them.
These provisions allow appropriately regulated testing and provide a pathway for approved researchers to obtain relevant safety data. They are not a licence for government to plant political opinion in people's newsfeeds. They are a means of checking compliance. We do not let companies mark their own homework, and there is no reason to start with big tech.
The coalition has also criticised powers that were removed before this bill was introduced. The proposed ministerial power to add new categories of 'harmful material' was removed. The final bill contains protections for professional news material. It does not establish a general regime for deciding whether political claims are true or false. Those are facts about the legislation before parliament, whatever a petition might suggest. Nor does the duty mean a neighbourhood florist's basic website will be regulated as if it were one of the world's largest social media platforms. The framework is risk based, with minimal obligations intended for low-risk services and guidance to be provided by the eSafety Commissioner. Technology should serve the people who use it, not the other way around. I commend the bill to the House.
I rise to speak on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 and to oppose it quite strongly. One of the most fundamental responsibilities of the parliament is to ensure that the laws we pass are clear, properly defined and capable of being applied without political or ideological prejudice. This responsibility becomes particularly important when legislation has the potential to restrict freedom of expression and speech. While we all support protecting children from violence, exploitation and genuinely harmful material online, we must be very careful not to confuse protecting people from harm with protecting them from ideas the government happens to disagree with. Unfortunately, I believe that this is a very real danger with this legislation.
This bill gives unprecedented powers to the government and the eSafety Commissioner, authorising them to make decisions that, to be honest with you, in many cases, should be decisions made by parents, not government. The bill explains a plethora of extremely concerning recommendations. I agree with Senator Henderson's comparison of it with a dog's breakfast. Its intention to protect children is perplexing considering Labor has already imposed restrictions on under-16-year-olds on social media platforms and begs the question: is that legislation a complete and utter failure of Labor once again?
The bill is full of vague phrases and makes restrictions around undefined terms such as 'gender equality', which I'll expand more on shortly. It threatens online social media platforms with penalties of up to $109 million for failing to protect users from online harm, something the bill can't even properly define and something that will be decided by the government of the day. No doubt this will only serve to have a chilling effect on public debate and free speech.
I have real concerns about many proposed sections in this bill, but one of the ones that I find very concerning is proposed section 25E(1)(c), which covers 'material or conduct that encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality'. It seems very reasonable, but the bill doesn't define what 'hostility towards women' or 'gender equality' actually mean. This leaves the scope of the provision unclear and open to broad interpretation.
To better understand my concern, one can turn to the explanatory memorandum accompanying the bill, which, when expanding on section 25E(1)(c), refers to a 'growing proportion of adolescents' expressing 'misogynistic attitudes'. The word 'misogyny', which has an established dictionary meaning of hatred of women, once again, at face value, seems like an appropriate term to describe hostility towards women. But when referring to misogyny, the explanatory memorandum cites a federal government funded study into misogyny conducted by the University of Melbourne that adopts a definition of misogyny developed by feminist academic and activist Kate Manne. It is a definition that broadens the meaning of misogyny dramatically beyond the commonly understood meaning of hatred of women.
Manne's definition of misogyny is less about hatred of women and more about mechanisms that enforce what she describes as 'patriarchal expectations'. Manne describes her new definition of misogyny as aligning with other semantic activism, which is effectively the practice of changing the meaning of words for the purpose of achieving a social engineering goal—in other words, weaponising words in the Left's never-ending culture wars. Manne's analysis of misogyny encompasses concepts such as traditional gender roles and expectations that women provide men with care, sympathy and attention. That women caring for men—and indeed men caring for women—can be considered as a form of misogyny is clearly outside what Australians ordinarily understand as hatred of women.
Of course, any disagreement with any of the many and varied forms of feminism is considered misogynistic also and therefore hostile to women. If this broader concept informs the interpretation of hostile attitudes towards women, serious questions arise about section 25E(1)(c)'s reach as it relates to online content teaching children about a pro-life view of the world, including that human life begins at conception. Will this section also prohibit online teaching that a man and a woman are determined by biological sex? These are all captured by this definition of misogyny.
This bill needs to address these serious matters of violence against women and men, which is something we all support. But this certainly adds many questions. The bill's failure to define gender equality raises questions about how the term will be interpreted, particularly in the light of the government's approach, which places an emphasis on disadvantages experienced by women while being blind to the serious disadvantages faced by men. I suspect that this government doesn't actually know what gender equality really means. For example, the government's main policy document on gender equality is clearly titled Gender Equality (Working for Women). Its first objective is addressing gender based violence. Whilst we should all be concerned about violence towards women, the strategy does not address the fact that the vast majority of victims of violence are male.
As a former police officer, I have a very good understanding of violence and domestic violence. And as a father and grandfather of five girls I feel we need to address violence against females. But I also know that to achieve equality we need to understand that men can be and all too often are the victims of violence. Official Australian Institute of Criminology statistics show that males have consistently accounted for a substantial majority of homicides in Australia. From 1989 to 2025, on average, approximately 70 per cent of homicides had male victims. Australia's 2024-25 domestic violence homicide data showed that male victims are a substantial group also. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's domestic homicide analysis shows that, of the reported 98 domestic homicide victims, over half—49—were male. Where Labor's gender equality policy does mention male victims, it states, 'Men are also victims of men's violence,' which is obviously true but ignores the significant number of female offenders. The same Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2024 domestic homicide data for intimate partner homicide showed that approximately 30 per cent of offenders were female, and police data shows similar rates for offending for domestic violence assaults. That's a third.
These figures support a response to male victims and female offending alongside efforts to address male perpetration and violence against women. With glaring inconsistencies in the government's interpretation of equality, it's fair to ask: when the government is using the term 'gender equality' in legislation, what does it actually mean? While I've spoken a lot about the bill's reference to gender equality and misogyny, the bill's ultimate flaw is that it grants extraordinary powers to the government and eSafety Commissioner, forces companies to regulate an extensively complicated and undefined mess and takes away responsibility and accountability of both parents and individuals. The government should never be awarded these sweeping powers to censor what someone has access to, because it appears that what they consider safe or harmful is completely subjective.
I understand the member for Pearce would like to present a copy of her speech for incorporation into Hansard, in accordance with the resolution agreed to on 6 November 2025.
() (): The incorporated speech read as follows—
I would like to speak in support of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026. This bill is about a simple but powerful principle: the companies that build the digital spaces where Australians live, learn, play and connect have a responsibility to keep those spaces safe. For too long, we have asked parents, teachers, young people and community organisations to carry the burden of online harm on their own. This legislation shifts that responsibility back to where much of it belongs—with the platforms and services that design the products, set the algorithms and profit from our attention.
In Pearce, I hear about this every week. I hear from parents in Butler, Tapping, Yanchep, Clarkson, Banksia Grove and Quinns Rocks who are worried about what their children encounter online. I sit on multiple school boards within Pearce and hear from teachers and school leaders who see the effects of cyberbullying, sleepless nights and harmful content flowing into classrooms the next morning. I hear from local sporting clubs, youth groups and community organisations who do extraordinary work keeping young people connected, active and supported but who know that the online world can undermine that good work in an instant. Pearce is one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of Australia. Our community is full of young families, new schools, new suburbs and new opportunities. That growth brings energy and optimism, but it also means many parents are navigating the challenges of raising children in a digital age while trying to work, run households and keep up with technology that changes faster than any of us can reasonably expect. They should not have to become experts in algorithms, privacy settings and platform design simply to keep their children safe.
The Albanese Labor government has already taken world-leading action to protect Australians from online harm, particularly young people. We began by establishing a minimum age for social media accounts, because we recognised that children deserve a childhood that is not shaped by endless scrolling, targeted content and commercial pressure. The early results are encouraging. More than five million under-age accounts have been deactivated, removed or restricted. A YouGov survey found that 30 per cent of young Australians aged between 13 and 15 are now spending more time playing sport. Twenty-seven per cent report better sleep. Online bullying is down nine per cent, and exposure to inappropriate and violent content has fallen by 18 per cent. These are not abstract statistics. For a young person in Pearce, that can mean more time at footy training, netball, surf lifesaving, dance or cricket and less time lying awake at night with a phone in their hand. It can mean a better night's sleep, a better morning at school and a better chance to simply be a kid.
But we also know there is more to do. There are still too many children under 16 on social media. That does not mean the law has failed. It means some platforms are failing to comply with the law. The eSafety Commissioner is currently investigating alleged noncompliance by five platforms: Instagram, Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat. Australians expect the rules to apply to everyone, including the largest technology companies in the world. This bill strengthens the framework so that safety is not treated as an optional extra or a public-relations exercise.
The next step in our mission is the digital duty of care. This bill will set basic safety standards for the digital services Australians use every day, just as we set safety standards for food, cars, medicines and children's toys. When we buy a car, we expect seatbelts, airbags and brakes that work. When we buy a cot or a toy for a child, we expect it has been designed with their safety in mind. We do not accept that a manufacturer can say, 'We built the product, but what happens next is not our problem.' Yet, for too long, that has effectively been the approach of parts of the digital economy. The digital duty of care will require platforms to protect Australian children from harmful content and harmful features. It will also give parents better tools to keep their families safe online. Importantly, it is not about telling adults what they can and cannot do online. Adults should be free to access lawful content and make their own choices. What this bill does is require platforms to give people more control over the content and features they use while ensuring that services are not designed in ways that cause serious harm.
At the heart of the duty is the creation of a safe online environment. All Australians should be protected from seriously harmful and illegal content. Children and young people under 18 should receive additional protection from content and features that can harm them. For the first time, the bill sets minimum standards for the features digital companies use. Services will need to conduct annual risk assessments of the harms their features could cause to Australians. They will need to put systems in place to prevent risky features from causing harm. And, for social media services, they will need to provide user-empowerment tools that give people over the age of 16 genuine choice about what appears in their feed. These are practical, sensible obligations. They ask companies to think about harm before it occurs, rather than waiting for a tragedy, a complaint or a headline. They ask companies to design safety into their products from the beginning. That is what we expect in every other industry, and it is what families in Pearce rightly expect from the apps their children use.
The protections for children in this bill are comprehensive. Online services, including online games and Al chatbots, will need to protect under-18s from harmful content such as pornography; material or conduct that encourages, promotes or instructs disordered eating; material that encourages hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality; content that glorifies crime or encourages dangerous stunts; and abuse, harassment or bullying. The bill also captures any other material or conduct that may cause serious harm to children. Children will also be protected from design features that have negative behavioural impacts. We know that some features are deliberately engineered to keep young people engaged for as long as possible: infinite scroll, constant notifications, streaks, rewards and recommendation systems that learn exactly how to hold attention. These features may be good for engagement metrics, but they can be terrible for sleep, concentration, mental health and family life. When a child in Yanchep or Two Rocks is losing sleep because an app is designed to keep them awake, that is not an unavoidable feature of modern life. It is a design choice, and it should carry responsibility.
The bill also protects adults from seriously harmful content. It addresses child sexual exploitation and abuse material, grooming, sexual violence, non-consensual intimate images and fake nude material, extreme violence and cruelty, explicit threats of physical violence, gender based violence, menacing or harassing conduct, content encouraging suicide or self-harm, animal cruelty, terrorist content and violent extremist material. These harms are not hypothetical. They affect real people, real families and real communities. Every member in this place will know of constituents who have been targeted, threatened or traumatised online. The digital duty of care is not about controlling adults. It is about choice. When someone buys a new appliance, government sets minimum safety standards, but the consumer still chooses what to buy. In the same way, this bill sets minimum safety standards for digital services while preserving lawful choice for adults, provided that choice does not cause serious harm to others.
One of the most important reforms is My Feed, My Way. Algorithmic recommender systems and doomscrolling cause real harm to young people, which is why we have set a minimum age of 16 for social media. But, for people over 16 and for adults, social media platforms make substantial profits from using our information and shaping what we see. They should give us choice and follow basic rules, just like every other industry. Under this bill, social media platforms will have to give Australians choice over the primary feed they see when they first open an app. People should be able to opt in or opt out of the algorithm. If someone wants a feed made up of friends, family and creators they have chosen to follow, the platform must allow that by default. No-one should be forced into an algorithm filled with content from people they do not follow or subscribe to. And, if someone is happy to receive recommended content, they should be able to choose the kinds of content they do and do not want to see. This is a meaningful change. It recognises that people are not merely products to be sorted, targeted and monetised. It gives users back a degree of agency over their own attention.
The bill also takes decisive action against nudify apps. There is no place in Australia for tools designed to create non-consensual deepfake images or child sexual abuse material. These tools are abhorrent. The bill empowers the eSafety Commissioner to take down apps and websites that are predominantly designed or used to generate fake nude material. It also defines fake nude material as seriously harmful, requiring platforms to protect all Australians from it. The scale of this problem is deeply concerning. On average, one in 33 children have reported that someone has created a nude image of them using Al. On average, one in 25 Australians have reported being victimised by deepfake pornography. Behind those figures are young people who feel humiliated, frightened and powerless. In a connected community like Pearce, where young people know one another through school, sport and local networks, the damage can spread quickly and be devastating. This bill sends a clear message: technology that facilitates this abuse has no safe harbour.
The bill also strengthens complaint and accountability mechanisms. It reduces the required response time for cyberbullying and abuse complaints from 48 hours to 24 hours. It empowers the eSafety Commissioner to set minimum standards for complaints and dispute processes, because too many people have submitted an online form only to receive no meaningful response. It allows the commissioner to use sock-puppet accounts to test whether services are complying with the law, and it gives university-accredited researchers access to data about online safety. Better evidence means better policy, better enforcement and better protection. Failure to comply with the digital duty of care will attract penalties of up to $109.2 million. That is consistent with other Australian penalties designed to protect consumers. It is not about punishing companies for the sake of it. It is about ensuring that safety obligations have consequences. A fine that is too small becomes merely a cost of doing business. A meaningful penalty changes corporate behaviour.
This legislation is not anti technology. It is pro safety, pro family and pro choice. It recognises the enormous benefits of digital connection while refusing to accept serious harm as the price of innovation. It supports parents who want their children to benefit from technology without being exposed to its worst excesses. It supports young people who deserve to learn, create and connect without being targeted by predators, bullies or harmful algorithms. And it supports adults who want transparency, control and basic safety from the services they use every day. For the people of Pearce, this bill is about dignity and protection. It is about a parent in Alkimos being able to trust that the apps on their child's phone meet basic safety standards. It is about a teenager in Butler having more control over what appears on their screen. It is about a local sporting club knowing that young members are less likely to be drawn into harmful online content after training. It is about a community that wants technology to serve people, not exploit them.
The Albanese Labor government is taking world-leading action because Australians deserve nothing less. We have started with a minimum age for social media, and we are now building the next layer of protection through a digital duty of care. This bill asks digital services to do what every responsible business should do: identify foreseeable risks, act to prevent harm, respond when things go wrong and put people before profit. I commend the bill to the House.
I rise to speak on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026. In this House on Monday, Helen Haines's husband, Phil, asked for us to ensure that the horrific attack she endured last week would mean something. The attack on our dear colleague last week brought into sharp focus the toxicity of online environments and the abuse and threats that not only politicians but Australians across the country are facing every day. It shone a spotlight on the intentional stoking of online outrage, grievance and anger by AI algorithms that are designed to drive profits for the tech bro billionaires. Quite simply, outrage sells. This growing online rage is dividing our nation and our communities. As this culture of abusive rhetoric becomes increasingly normalised online, it's now spilling out into the real world. Vulnerable people, people with mental ill health, are being radicalised with a rapidity never before seen and at younger and younger ages. This is not healthy for individuals, and it is not healthy for our nation. As Phil Haines said, we have a choice right now. We can choose to inflame this toxic rhetoric or tame it.
So the introduction and debate of this bill is extremely timely. It presents a critical opportunity to protect Australians from the growing harms of an increasingly toxic and harmful digital world. It is our opportunity to finally hold big tech accountable and put the wellbeing of Australians ahead of the profits of some of the most powerful multinational tech companies in the world. Quite disingenuously, the coalition and One Nation will try to argue that this bill is about restricting freedom of speech and expression. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is, in fact, about putting the power and choice back in the hands of Australians. And, at its heart, this bill is about prevention of harm to Australians. It would place a duty of care on digital platforms to identify and reduce foreseeable online harms. It would require platforms to take reasonable steps to safeguard their users with stronger protections for children and young people. It would also give Australians greater control over what appears in their social media feeds. Importantly, it would strengthen the powers of the eSafety Commissioner and introduce penalties for companies that fail to meet their obligations.
These are important reforms, and I welcome them, but we must ensure this legislation is as strong as possible and does in practice what it is intended to do. For too long we have allowed the big tech companies to operate unfettered and without boundaries we would expect of all other industries. We would never accept children's toys or bikes, for example, being sold without proper safety standards. Yet we've allowed social media platforms into our homes, our schools and our children's bedrooms without demanding the same duty of care. Research shows that 63 per cent of Australian children aged 10 to 17 years were exposed to harmful online content in the previous year and 74 per cent have been exposed at some point in their lives. Exposure to cyberbullying, online abuse, self-harm content and other harmful material is recognised by the eSafety Commissioner and mental health experts as a risk factor contributing to youth mental ill health and suicide risk.
Too often it is shock, outrage and anger that keeps us engaged, so that is what the tech bro algorithms serve up constantly. I see it firsthand. This toxic online culture is getting worse, and it's becoming normalised. People talk in a way they would never do face-to-face. A quick look at my own Facebook page is case in point. Comments say: 'Bullshit clown', 'Look at you. All stupid and shit', 'Stupid bitch'. These are just a handful of the comments I, and so many others here in this House, receive on a regular basis. As a member of parliament, I accept that public scrutiny and robust debate are an important and crucial part of this job. Freedom of political expression is fundamental to our democracy, and we must defend the right to disagree. But intimidation, harassment and abuse should never be the price of participating in public life. It weakens our democracy. Research commissioned by Women for Election found that nine out of 10 female politicians and candidates had received abusive threats online, including those of a sexual nature. Of course, this has a chilling impact on our democracy. Freedom of speech does not mean tech companies should have a free pass to amplify abuse and division for profit.
This bill is not about suppressing legitimate debate or unpopular opinions. It's about making big tech responsible for the systems they design and the harms they can prevent. Nowhere is this responsibility more important than when it comes to our children. Parents across my electorate of Mackellar are deeply concerned about the impact of social media on their kids, and, yes, they're still getting around the limits. A mother of a young girl wrote to me recently. She said she was horrified by the onslaught of violent and misogynistic content across social media, and how these key messages feed back into our community and our schools. Her concern is one I hear repeatedly. Parents are worried about what their children are seeing online. Many children can circumvent that 16-year-old limit and find themselves immersed in an online world that is uncensored and harmful.
We know that young people who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems, including symptoms of depression and anxiety. We know that harmful content, unhealthy comparisons, cyberbullying and sleep disruption can and do affect young people's wellbeing. We know that algorithms can repeatedly expose vulnerable users to material that reinforces their insecurities. Prevention must be at the heart of our response.
Very recent research from the eSafety Commissioner shows that almost 50 per cent of Australian kids have been exposed to offensive, sexist or hurtful content about women and girls, fight videos, dangerous challenges, content encouraging unhealthy eating or exercise, and hate based content targeting identity groups. In 2024, researchers from the University College London examined how TikTok's algorithms delivered misogynistic content to accounts modelled on teenage boys. They found that, after just five days, misogynistic content increased from 13 per cent to 56 per cent of recommended videos. The boys were not necessarily searching for hatred towards women. Some accounts began with interest in fitness, self-improvement or loneliness, but the algorithms increasingly directed them towards content built around anger and resentment towards women. This is deeply disturbing because it demonstrates that young people do not have to actively seek out harmful content to be exposed to it. I have two sons, and, like many parents, I don't want them logging on to social media to watch sports highlights or fitness videos only to be automatically exposed to content that demeans women or promotes harmful ideas about masculinity. This is particularly concerning because adolescence is the time when young people are forming their identities and are highly susceptible to influence. They are learning what healthy relationships look like and developing their understanding of respect, consent and equality.
The consequences of harmful content do not stay on our screens. A recent study conducted by the University of Melbourne found that young men are more likely to hold hostile attitudes to women. Amongst other alarming findings, it found that 24.7 per cent of teenage boys believe that feminism is damaging to society and should be resisted with violence if necessary. Toxic and extreme attitudes are becoming increasingly normalised online and are now spilling into our real-world interactions, including in schools and in classrooms. This is not just an online safety issue anymore. This bill is also about preventing abuse of and violence against women.
We're also seeing the devastating consequences of so-called nudify apps. These AI-powered tools can turn an ordinary photograph of a young person into a sexually explicit image without their knowledge or consent. Girls and young women are overwhelmingly the targets. These images are being used to humiliate, bully, harass and even blackmail children, with devastating consequences for their mental health. In 2025, Australia's eSafety Commissioner took action against nudify services attracting around 100,000 visits a month from Australians. These services had been used to create sexually explicit deepfakes of Australian schoolchildren. This technology is facilitating sexual abuse, and we have a duty to ensure that these companies prevent these types of harm.
The government's proposed My Feed, My Way reforms are a welcome step, allowing people to choose between algorithmically recommended content and the content from the people and pages they choose to follow. Algorithmically recommended content should be opt-in, not opt-out. This is especially important for young people. We cannot expect a child to understand how a sophisticated recommendation system is shaping their emotions, interests and beliefs, and we should not put the entire burden on parents to fight algorithms developed by some of the world's most powerful technology companies.
We must also confront the addictive nature of social media. These platforms are not designed to simply entertain us. Many are deliberately designed to keep us coming back. Infinite scrolling means there is never a natural point to stop. Autoplay delivers the next video before we have decided whether we want to watch it, and notifications draw us back into the app. Likes and comments encourage us to keep checking. There are striking similarities between these techniques and the psychological mechanisms used in poker machines. We regulate poker machines because we understand the dangers of their design and intention. Why should we ignore those same risks with digital platforms? We should not wait until harm has occurred before we act.
Then there's the prolific and violent pornography that our sons and young men are frequently being delivered by AI algorithms and exposed to day in, day out. This has led young people to believe that strangulation is a normal part of sexual relations. This had devastating consequences in my electorate of Mackellar not long ago, with the tragic loss of a beautiful young life recently. Also increasingly commonplace is anoxic brain injury.
The organisation It's time we talked has spent almost two decades working to prevent the harms of pornography on children and young people. It warns of the growing normalisation of sexual strangulation. Amplified messages on social media that portray dangerous sexual practices are contributing to this normalisation. It's time we talked are seeing the consequences of the large-scale promotion of gender inequality, sexual aggression and violence. They are calling for stronger action to prevent the normalisation of harmful sexual practices. They want a regulator with the authority and the tools to hold digital platforms accountable. I support that call. We cannot allow engagement algorithms to help normalise dangerous behaviour while companies evade responsibility for foreseeable risks, and we cannot continue to treat the online world as though it's disconnected from the real one.
But strong obligations must also come with strong accountability. Australians need access to free and independent external dispute resolution when digital platforms fail them. While the bill provides for stronger internal complaints and dispute resolution processes, an internal complaints process alone is not enough. For many Australians, dealing with a large digital platform can feel like shouting into the void. Accounts are hacked, businesses are locked out of platforms they rely on and harmful content is reported but not removed. Complaints are met with automated responses, endless online forms or no meaningful response at all. And when the platform fails to resolve the problem, where does the consumer turn? Too often there's nowhere to go. We should expand the jurisdiction of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to cover the digital world. The TIO is an established and trusted scheme. Expanding this model would give Australians a practical avenue for redress, and I will be moving amendments to that effect.
Today's bill is about the kind of world we want to create both online and outside—one where teenagers are manipulated by addictive designs built by teams of engineers or behavioural experts, one where people cannot be targeted simply because outrage, division and engagement are profitable and one where we can engage respectfully and robustly in debate without doing harm. We have a responsibility right now to Helen, to Phil and to all Australians. This is our duty of care, and we must uphold it.
I move the amendment as circulated in my name:
That all words after "House" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
", whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading:
(1) notes that:
(a) people, small businesses and community organisations need an accessible and affordable avenue for redress when they are in dispute with large digital platforms, including where their accounts are suspended or terminated, or they are otherwise adversely affected by a platform's decisions or conduct;
(b) an independent ombudsman is needed to provide accessible, independent and effective dispute resolution for users of online services; and
(c) there is strong support for expanding the remit of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to cover digital platforms, including from the public, consumer advocates, legal and community organisations, academics and parliamentarians; and
(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) require appropriate online service providers, as determined by a legislative instrument, to join and abide by an External Dispute Resolution scheme operated by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman; and
(b) expand the remit of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to establish an Online Services Ombudsman, providing independent, accessible and effective dispute resolution for users of digital services".
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
Every parent wants to believe that when they send their child out into the world, that child will be safe. Every parent knows the fear of not being able to protect them from everything the world might throw at them. That used to mean waiting with bated breath on the porch, as the sun came down, for them to ride in on their bike. But the world our children are growing up in has changed. Their lives extend far beyond the school gate, the local park or the sidelines of a weekend sport.
The online world is now woven into how children learn, socialise and come to understand themselves, who they are and the world around them. But that connection comes with risks. Through social media, online games and other digital platforms, children can be exposed to harmful content, online bullying and dangerous influences that can affect their safety and wellbeing. It has quietly slipped into their pockets and into their bedrooms. We cannot leave parents on the digital front line to fight by themselves.
The companies that design and profit from these platforms must take responsibility for the harm their services can cause. If big tech can spend billions of dollars to get you hooked on an algorithm that keeps you coming back for more, it is not too much to ask for those same companies to keep you safe from harm. The question is not whether children should be able to participate in the digital world. It is whether the companies shaping that world should be required to take greater responsibility for the harm their services can cause. If you build it, you have to be responsible for it. The Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 builds on our social media minimum age reforms by setting clearer expectations for online services, requiring them to take a more proactive approach to safety and giving Australians greater choice over their online experiences.
I think about this issue not only as a member of parliament, but also as a parent. My daughter is three years old. She is at an age when the world is full of things to discover every day—questions to ask and new experiences to explore. Like any parent, I want her to grow up with the freedom to learn, to make friends, to develop her interests and to find her own place in this world and in this country. I also want her to grow up in a society that takes her safety seriously. Technology will continue to change, and the online world she encounters as a teenager will almost certainly look different from the one that we know today. I hope that is because of a Labor government introducing a digital duty of care.
We have the opportunity to set a clear standard for the world that she'll grow up in. Companies that profit from digital services must take responsibility for the harm they cause. This is not a new concept at all. In the 18th and 19th centuries, unscrupulous bakers used to put chalk and sawdust in bread to thicken it out—to make more of it. That doesn't happen anymore, and it doesn't happen because we have standards, because there are rules and because those who made the bread needed to be accountable for it. We see those standards in every facet of our lives, from cars to manufacturing and retail.
This is the extension of that into the digital world. These platforms are not neutral spaces that live in a vacuum. Companies make decisions about what appears in a feed, what gets recommended next, how long people are encouraged to stay online and how easily they can report abuse. Those decisions shape people's experiences. Harmful material can affect how young people see themselves and others. Features that encourage prolonged engagement can interfere with sleep, and online bullying can follow a child beyond that school gate; it can follow them home. Adults, too, can experience threats, harassment and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images. These are not problems that can be solved simply by telling people to log off. That's not how the world works. We need to address the risks at their source, where digital platforms have the capacity to prevent harm.
This government has shown that it's prepared to act. In December last year, the Albanese Labor government introduced Australia's social media minimum age law, setting a minimum age of 16 for accounts on covered platforms. Since then, more than five million underage accounts have been removed, restricted or deactivated. A YouGov survey earlier this year found encouraging figures among 13- to 15-year-olds. Thirty per cent reported more time playing sport, 27 per cent reported better sleep, online bullying was down by nine per cent, and exposure to inappropriate and violent content fell by 18 per cent. You don't have to listen to what is happening; it's there in the numbers.
These results ask us to answer a bigger question: what kind of childhood do we want our children to have in Australia? One where they face constant threats from an ever-present digital world? Or one where they have more time to play, better sleep and less exposure to harm? The social media minimum-age law was an important first step. But protecting young Australians online means going further than just setting that age limit. We must also address how digital services operate, the content they promote and the features they use to keep people engaged. The eSafety Commissioner is already investigating whether major platforms are meeting their existing obligations. We must ensure that those obligations are enforced while building on that work to make online services safer by design, day by day. That is the next step: a digital duty of care that requires digital services to take greater responsibility for preventing harm.
The purpose of this bill is pretty straightforward. The bill will establish basic safety standards for online services, including social media platforms, online games and AI chatbots. Services will have a positive obligation to protect Australians from seriously harmful and illegal material and conduct and to protect people under 18 from material conduct and features that are harmful to young people. The bill shifts that focus towards prevention, stopping harm in its tracks before it becomes a reality.
Providers will need to assess risks associated with their service's features and put systems in place to prevent harm, including through annual risk assessments. In other words, companies should not have to wait until someone is harmed before asking whether a feature is safe. They should be considering those risks when they design their services and when they decide how those services should work. What is the impact on our young people? What is the impact on people streaming on their services? We expect manufacturers to consider product risks and to act when they identify those problems. Digital services should not be exempt from that basic principle that has been around for a very long time. The bill strengthens protections for young Australians against content that promotes eating disorders, glorifies crime or dangerous stunts, causes serious distress, or encourages hostility towards women and gender equality.
We want young Australians to learn, connect and participate online, but not at any cost, and not in an environment where harmful material circulates without safeguards, where seatbelts have never been required to be installed. The bill also addresses design features that can encourage children to stay online late into the night and to lose sleep. This is not about eliminating every risk; it is about requiring technology companies to take reasonable, proactive steps to reduce the harm that we know is happening.
The bill also empowers the eSafety Commissioner to take action against apps and websites that are predominantly designed or used to generate fake nude material. These so-called nudify services can be used to create intimate images of people without their consent. The consequences for those targeted can be deeply distressing. Services designed to facilitate this kind of abuse shouldn't be able to operate without meaningful consequences. The bill reduces the required response time for cyberbullying and abuse complaints from 48 hours to 24 hours and empowers the eSafety Commissioner to set minimum standards for platforms' internal complaints and dispute-resolution processes. It also allows the commissioner to use covert accounts to test compliance and enables university accredited researchers to access online safety data. This helps assess services' performance rather than relying solely on what the companies say.
The bill is also about giving people more choice. Through the My Feed, My Way initiative, social media services will be required to give Australians aged 16 and over a choice about the primary feed they seek. People will be able to choose a feed based on the pages and the people they follow, rather than relying only on algorithmically recommended material. Those who prefer personalised recommendations should also have choices about what they see. In my household, my partner, Mark, doesn't tell me what I can watch on television. Why should I let Mark Zuckerberg tell me what I can scroll on my phone if I don't want to? This is not about the government deciding what adults should think, what they should read or what they should watch. It is about giving people greater control over their online experience while requiring services to take responsibility for serious harm. In short, this ain't about freedom of speech; it's about freedom from harm.
Obligations mean nothing if there are no consequences for failing to meet them. Under this bill, failure to comply with the digital duty of care can attract penalties of up to $109.2 million. That is substantial—and appropriately so. Online safety obligations are serious legal responsibilities because they not only affect our kids, our young people and every Australian but impact on our society as a whole. At the same time, strong safety standards must have clear boundaries. The government has listened to concerns raised during consultation and made changes to the bill. Protecting people from serious harm is not the same as censoring legitimate debate. There is a difference between expressing unpopular opinion and threatening someone with violence, just as there is a difference between lawful discussion and the non-consensual creation of intimate images. We can uphold freedom of expression while requiring companies to take reasonable steps to address those serious risks. For the bill itself, as it progresses, we should consider genuine improvements constructively while keeping its purpose in view.
The question is whether we are prepared to establish reasonable standards and hold big tech accountable. I believe that we are right to do so. Australians have strengthened safety standards in workplaces; we've strengthened safety standards in cars and in everyday products. The social media minimum age law was an important step in online safety, and the digital duty of care is the next. It puts Australia at the forefront, as a world leader in this space, and we watch as the rest of the globe looks to us for that leadership. It will require online platforms to assess risks, prevent harm, protect young people, respond quicker to complaints and give users greater choice. Most importantly, it makes clear that responsibility for online safety cannot rest with parents alone. We must hold the companies creating these platforms to account.
I will start with a quote from political philosopher John Locke. In Two Treatises of Government in 1690, he said:
… the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom …
The bill before us, the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, seeks to introduce a digital duty of care which will require online service providers to deliver a safe online environment that takes effective measures and manages the design features of their services with the goal to effectively provide protection from serious harm and illegal material and conduct such as terrorist or child sexual exploitation material. I would say there is already statute with respect to illegal material—terrorist and child sexual exploitation material. It also seeks to provide protection for Australian children from harmful material and conduct and harmful design features. Again, I would say there's already legislation that's supposed to protect children and they're not actually supposed to even be online until they're older than 16.
I do appreciate that the government is trying to address some of the awful behaviour that does happen online. It's antisocial in many cases. Even on posts that are about people letting a room in their house, you'll see a litany of comments, with people making all sorts of absurd comments. Often they actually don't even read the original post. But the question is: do we legislate for that in here? I would say no, and I would say we can't.
I would like to keep this debate and my contribution quite dry. I'm going to look at what various learned legal professionals have said and not go down the emotive path that many in here have done with this. I understand that they come from a different place on this. However, I've reviewed the submission of the Law Council of Australia regarding this exposure draft and they say that:
The Law Council acknowledges concerns about online harms that may impact mental health and wellbeing. Certain forms of online content, online abuse, image-based abuse, algorithmic amplification and self-harm-related content can contribute to adverse mental health outcomes, particularly for children and other vulnerable persons.
But they then state that:
… any reforms in this area must consider and have regard to potentially competing rights, such as freedom of expression.
While proposed subsection 233(1) of the act has been retained, which makes explicit that the act does not apply to the extent, if any, that it would infringe on any constitutional doctrine of implied freedom of political communication, there is no proposal for freedom of expression or similar to be included as a consideration in the administration of the act. Freedoms of expression are not included in the objects of the act, which the Law Council see as an important addition. This is the cornerstone of our democracy and this must be at the forefront of all of our thoughts.
While ministerial discretion to extend the definition of material or conduct that is seriously harmful or harmful to children has been omitted from the bill as introduced and that material or conduct may be extended only by return to the parliament, the definitions of harmful material or conduct are sufficiently vague and broad to engender concern. The Law Council of Australia says of the exposure draft that:
While at face value, the material and conduct referred to at section 25C could reasonably be regarded as seriously harmful, we are concerned that there are instances where the drafting could result in unintended consequences.
To me, the words 'unintended consequences' should strike fear in all of us. It is not the position of this place to create unintended consequences.
I note the bill as introduced now addresses the Law Council of Australia's concerns that the definition of 'seriously harmful material and conduct' could capture services that publish material for legitimate journalistic, legal, educational or other public interest purposes at least in part through proposed section 25F on excluded material. The Law Council proposes that the definition of 'seriously harmful material and conduct' link materials to an existing criminal offence, which would provide greater certainty in determining whether it's appropriate. It said:
Section 25D lists a range of content that is deemed to be material and conduct harmful to children. Similar to the above reflections on section 25C, while few would argue that the core content listed has the potential to be harmful to children, there is a need to ensure that definitions are sufficiently targeted and clear.
The Law Council broadly supports the requirement for providers to undertake periodic risk assessments but suggests that the legislation be clarified to direct assessments towards identifying risks that could undermine a safe online environment or otherwise expose children to harm. Again, I'll just remind the House that we have already passed legislation which means that children shouldn't actually even be on any social media.
A requirement to identify all reasonable foreseeable risks is also very broad. In support of a risk based and proportionate approach to compliance, the legislation should make clear that the nature and extent of a risk assessment should be appropriate, having regard to the nature, size, complexity, functionality, reach and risk profile of the relevant service. Smaller businesses that are only minor participants within the online services ecosystem and have limited ability to influence broader online harms should not be subject to the same compliance expectations as large platforms with substantial user bases, sophisticated functionality and significant control over user interactions.
Today, I met with small business representatives from across the country who are seeing businesses around them fail due to reduced earnings and increased regulatory burden. The last thing that they need for their basic outward-facing website with a contact form is to have to do another risk assessment or, worse still, pay someone to perform it and then maintain the records for many years. The Law Council of Australia proposes guidelines that provide safe-harbour protections for low risk small businesses, and this is an idea that I would like to see adopted.
Finally, the Law Council has stated, in relation to the creation of accounts for research and data access, sock puppet accounts, that, while the bill does contain some safeguards, proposed section 205C permits but does not require the data access rules to address the kinds of data that may be accessed or the privacy, security or confidentiality of that data. As the scheme could involve access to personal or sensitive information, minimum safeguards should be established in the primary legislation. The bill does not establish limits on the number or frequency of data requests, and, although these matters could be addressed in the data access rules, repeated or technically complex requests may impose an undue administrative burden on smaller service providers.
I'd just like to go to this whole sock puppets idea. Really? What on earth are we thinking? This is just Big Brother on steroids. It's just mental that we would give a government department the power to then create all these fake accounts to then try and impersonate themselves as fake people online to try and capture where they think that there's harm being done.
I'd like to mention comments from Leanne Ho. She's pro bono partner at Wotton Kearney. She stated in the Law Society Journal online in, in an article titled 'What if the Harm is More to Democracy or Social Cohesion? Is that Protected?':
Australia doesn't have a Human Rights Act nor a Digital Services Act, like the one in the European Union, where the risks identified in the draft Bill are already recognised under their human rights framework.
And she says:
"So, this creates risks on the community side because the Bill is very much centred on safety rather than human rights so you could have a situation where, depending on the government of the day and the kinds of views that are represented … democratic rights and freedoms could actually be at risk …
I go to the Business Council of Australia. They recommend changes to ensure the framework is clear, proportionate and focuses on those providers which can control online safety risks, set clear statutory boundaries, make compliance and risk assessments proportionate, define harm better, set core obligations in legislation and proportionate enforcement and regulatory safeguards.
My view in where we are with this? I think it's self-evident that children and vulnerable people should be protected from online harm and radicalism. There are, sometimes, illegal acts that are online that are put out for other people to view, but we already have criminal charges on the statute, both on the Commonwealth and in individual states, to address this. In fact, in some states, there's a separate offence for filming and then uploading such crimes. The government has already legislated social media minimum age restrictions. That should already be providing protection for children under 16 years of age. However, we've already seen that, while the government says it's very successful, many others say it's not successful.
I would also like to say, if the government are so concerned about harm, why have they avoided implementing the Murphy report recommendation which we have? We know about the harms with respect to online gambling. If the government is so concerned about people's algorithms and protecting them from their algorithms, why don't we just do an education piece about how on, say, Twitter, you can pick to follow either the For You page, where the online platform determines your algorithms, or a 'Following' page or you could even just have your favourites page and then you just get that? I understand that's the same on Twitter. I'm not sure about all of the other online platforms, but really maybe it's more of an education piece.
The definition of harm, I believe, in this bill is far too subjective. It's broad, and what I consider harmful may not be considered harmful by somebody on the other side of the chamber. This bill also places considerable burden on small businesses, which have already suffered enough this year. They've suffered economically. They've had a massive downturn, many of them. We've had so many businesses close, and they now have new taxes on them that were never mentioned at the election and that were sprung on all of us at the budget. This is burdening them with more compliance that I believe is unforgivable.
So let's take the emotion out of this debate. Let's look at the legislation before us. This bill gives too much power to the eSafety Commissioner. I do not believe there are enough legislative guardrails. For me, this is less about harm and more about the control of adults and their behaviours and actions that are technically not illegal. On that principle, I cannot support this bill.
I'd like to begin by sharing the experience of a mother in my electorate of Griffith who contacted me many months ago about the devastating impact an AI companion chatbot has had on her family. Her experience is deeply confronting, and it demonstrates why we cannot leave the safety of Australian children in the hands of technology companies that have repeatedly failed to protect them.
This mother said:
I am writing to you first as a mother.
My eldest daughter was seriously harmed by an AI companion chatbot when she was 12 years old.
I am also a technology founder who builds privacy compliance infrastructure for regulated industries, so I come to this issue from both sides: as a parent living with its consequences, and as someone whose work is in regulatory compliance and who understands what is at stake in getting it right.
In December 2024, my eldest daughter, then 12, was harmed by an AI companion app called Talkie AI.
She was first introduced to an AI roleplay website around the middle of 2024, at school, on a friend's phone.
From there it escalated quickly, and the harm built over an extended period of conversations rather than a single exchange.
During those conversations an AI character told her she was worthless and made references to self-harm.
Reading the exchanges back afterwards, they had the clear hallmarks of grooming and gaslighting.
This is not a historical event that we have moved past.
My daughter is in regular therapy.
The experience affects her every day.
She recognises it as a problem and does not know how to stop returning to it, and what we are managing at home now has the characteristics of an addiction.
Minimising her access helps, but it does not undo the harm already done.
Despite building close to a best-case home environment, including a physical device lockbox, a router with DNS-level filtering, device-level controls, a browser-free phone, and more than 100 AI roleplay and companion domains blocked manually, my children can still reach these platforms.
My younger daughter has since also been exposed, this time at home, through her older sister.
The responsible-parent ceiling is not high enough.
Debate interrupted.
The strength of our community often lies in our small businesses. They sponsor local sporting clubs, they employ local people, they support community events and they build the character of our neighbourhoods. However, many are in trouble and struggling.
Along with many other small-business owners, a local accountant who, through both their own practice and their professional network, sees the finances of hundreds of small businesses in detail contacted my office to outline a picture of the health of our small businesses, both locally and nationally—and they are doing it tough. Many businesses are struggling to remain viable. The pressures they face are cumulative. Rising interest rates have increased their borrowing costs, with operating expenses continuing to rise. Simultaneously, business owners are adapting to changes affecting payroll tax, superannuation obligations, new pay-as-you-go tax arrangements, payment processing costs and compliance requirements.
The government seems to be completely oblivious to the environment in which small businesses are operating and struggling under ever-increasing compliance requirements. Keep in mind that these are not large corporations with dedicated compliance teams and extensive resources. They're often mum-and-dad small businesses that have served our communities for years. The cumulative impact of growing requirements is becoming overwhelming for so many small businesses. Every new obligation, every new reporting requirement and every additional compliance cost may appear minor in isolation, but, together, they create a significant burden that disincentivises new businesses and punishes existing ones.
It's time for some quick numbers, to give you an idea. Since 2000, Commonwealth laws with the biggest impacts on businesses have grown in complexity and size by some 225 per cent. The number of restrictive terms within legislation impacting small businesses—such as 'shall', 'must' and 'prohibited'—has doubled. We're talking about a whole lot of compliance that keeps adding to this network and web that is so restrictive for small businesses. Meanwhile, the job market for people with a simple identification in their job description—the term 'compliance'—has doubled since 2010. The estimated annual cost of compliance, just for Commonwealth regulation alone, has risen from $65 billion in 2013 to $159 billion in 2024.
If you're wondering why so many small businesses are struggling to continue at the moment, look no further. We can't keep putting so many layers of burden and compliance on them. It's costing business, it's hampering innovation and it's slowing down productivity. We need a deregulation agenda that stacks up and takes a load off small business. That means listening to stakeholders' pain points, testing the rationale with departments and regulators and asking whether rules achieve their objectives or if there is perhaps a better way of achieving the outcome at less cost. The burden isn't just about volume; it's often about the process and experience of dealing with government and then enforcement.
None of this should be radical. Everyone in this place says that they are for small business, but, when you look at the practical impact of repeated legislation that keeps increasing the level of compliance, one has to wonder how much you are really listening to small business. Who is a voice for small business to government? There are a lot of people contacting my office to say they just don't think the government gets it—that the government just doesn't understand the environment in which businesses are operating.
We all want small businesses to be able to thrive and grow. To do this, we have to ensure that businesses have the conditions they need to succeed. It means recognising cumulative impact and regulatory and financial pressures. It's too complex, it's too onerous and it's too expensive to comply, and the continual changes are such a disincentive for people commencing small businesses.
Many families in my electorate know what it's like to watch a member of the Australian Defence Force head off for their duties, whether it's a disaster recovery operation, an exercise or a military operation. Last week, I got the chance to take part as an observer of Exercise Keris Woomera that Australia does in partnership with Indonesia. It's our largest offshore exercise. This is not the first time I've taken part in the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program, but it is the first time with the Navy and an Army weapons unit. The program provides insight into the complexities associated with defending Australia and its national interests and helps us, as members of parliament, understand the capabilities and activities of the ADF. As a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence, I think it's even more important to gain insight into what life is like serving in Defence. What it showed me was the extraordinary skill, commitment and endurance of our sailors, soldiers and aviators, who worked long days in East Java in heat and humidity as they fulfilled their duties during the exercise.
More and more Australians are choosing to join and stay in the Defence Force, with a record $1 billion investment by the Albanese government putting Defence recruitment and retention back on track. Over the last year, more people have signed up to be sailors, soldiers, aviators or cyber and space operators in the Australian Defence Force than at any time in the last 16 years. During 2025-26, the ADF grew to its largest size in a quarter of a century, with more than 8,100 new personnel, expanding the full-time and permanent workforce beyond 64,000 people. Recruitment growth has been recorded across all three services, with the Navy achieving its highest intake in 16 years, Army its highest intake in 12 years and the Air Force its highest intake in 24 years. Importantly, the separation rate—the number of people choosing to leave the ADF—was 7.4 per cent, the lowest it's been in 15 years. The men and women who wear our nation's uniform go to work every day to keep Australians safe. I thank the officers and crew of HMAS Choules for hosting me, the C-130J Herc team, who flew us there and the Army troop who showed me the ropes. I thank you all for your service.
Nepean District Historical Society have proudly marked the 50th anniversary as custodians of the historically significant Arms of Australia Inn at Emu Plains. Dating from 1826, the Arms of Australia Inn was one of 23 roadside inns in the Nepean district and the last stop before starting up the mountain road and the trail west. The sun shone for the celebrations, stalls, costumes and displays. Nepean Creative and Performing Arts High School students entertained us all, while visitors could explore the inn and see some of the extensive collection of historical items. It's thanks to the vision of Penrith City Council and the Nepean District Historical Society members of the 1970s that the inn was restored as a museum of local history for the district.
To mark the occasion, Penrith deputy mayor Hollie McLean was presented with a ceremonial cane that had belonged to Michael Long, a former Penrith mayor, returning this historical piece to council's care. As you'd expect at an inn, sustenance was available, with tea and scones with jam and cream in the tearoom, while the Lions Club barbeque proved popular as well. Congratulations to historical society president Phillip Braham and all the volunteers who keep this part of our history alive.
I want to say a big thank you to the volunteers of the Glossodia Rural Fire Brigade, who have celebrated a significant milestone—the 85th anniversary of their brigade. When this brigade started, the volunteers used knapsacks and beaters to fight fires, but, now, the 70-member brigade is equipped to respond to a wide range of emergencies, from bushfires to house fires, floods and traffic accidents. Closely connected to their local community, they'll soon be getting ready for their annual Santa Run. I can't wait to cut the ribbon on their new sign, part of improvements that they've made with their $50,000 federal Macquarie grant. Congratulations, Captain Peter Morrison, President Paul Crick and all of the amazing brigade members past and present.
This Melbourne Cup Day, it looks like we are all going to be losers. Just before the race that stops the nation, the Reserve Bank is expected to deliver another rate rise that will stop family budgets in their tracks. That would be 17 interest rate rises under this government, and inflation is still way above target. The Reserve Bank has made two things very clear. Firstly, it can't control government spending—the very thing that is driving up inflation and forcing up interest rates. Also, it will do whatever it takes to get inflation back within the band that's expected. So, while the RBA is using interest rates to force households to tighten their belts, the Albanese government keeps splashing the cash. There'll be a winner at Flemington on Tuesday, but millions of Australians will be counting their losses. If there's one horse that should not be backed, it's this Albanese Labor government.
Speaking of interest rates, the Minister for Housing has a theory about why the housing market is struggling: interest rates. She said it on Sunrise. She said it on Insiders. She said it at the National Press Club, and she said it on Radio National—interest rates, interest rates, interest rates—and she's right. There have been 16 interest rate rises so far under the Albanese Labor government, and they are crushing the hopes of first home buyers. If only there was something that the government could do about the inflation that's causing these high interest rates. Amazingly, there is! It's them, on that side. They could actually do something about their spending. But Labor keeps spending, inflation stays high, the Reserve Bank keeps having to raise interest rates and the housing minister keeps talking about these interest rates like they've fallen out of the sky. Minister, the call is coming from inside the house!
Another of this Prime Minister and this defence minister's great ideas is the great land sell-off that they are undertaking of our defence estate. This is not a land sale; this is a national security sellout—make no mistake. The Albanese government is selling off 67 defence sites, including the historic Victoria Barracks, and, once again, they are turning their backs on our veterans and our Defence Force. Thousands of Australians have taken to the streets. Veterans, former military leaders and—would you believe—even Labor politicians are demanding that the government stops this fire sale, but the Albanese government refuses to listen. Defence personnel are already being told to pack their bags, with serious questions about where they will be headed. These sites are not just land; they are part of our military history, part of our defence capability and part of our national identity. Once they're sold, they are gone forever. Australia's national security should not be for sale.
Finally, today the Liberal and National teams are proud to have secured a win for older Australians. Labor wanted to cut the private health insurance rebate for Australians aged 65 and over. That would have hit more than three million older Australians—thousands in the northern Gold Coast communities that I represent in this place—and premiums would have risen by up to $800 per year for singles and $1,600 per year for couples. Many of these millions of Australians are pensioners who've paid for private health insurance for their whole working lives. They shouldn't now be punished for it by this Labor government.
We fought this. We fought it here in the House, we fought it in the Senate, and we won. I want to say a sincere thank you to all who wrote into my office, who supported this campaign, because we fought hard and we won. But what we've seen is that Labor will try it again. They will not rest until they've taken every last dollar off every last Australian. The way they are treating older Australians with such contempt brings absolute shame on them. I, and the Liberal and National parties, will stand up for older Australians, retirees and families throughout this country, who deserve so much better than what this Labor government has to offer.
Last week I had the absolute pleasure of being in George Town for the opening of its new aquatic, health and wellbeing centre. George Town, as some people here may know, is one of Australia's oldest European settlements, with a convict history stretching back to 1804 and, of course, a much, much longer Tasmanian Aboriginal history. It's a town with deep roots built on hard work, with generations of families connected to the local industries along the Tamar—our farms, tourism and small businesses. While its history is something to be proud of, I'm just as interested in what comes next, because the people of George Town have faced some real challenges recently. The closure of Liberty Bell Bay has been absolutely devastating for workers and families. After 18 months of uncertainty surrounding Bell Bay Aluminium, we finally secured its future for another five years, and this has brought some much-needed relief. Through those challenges, I've spent a lot of time working with people. I know how very deeply they care about their town—they know their town—their jobs and the opportunities that their children will have. So it was particularly lovely to be there celebrating another positive step for George Town's future.
This is far more than simply a swimming pool. We have a heated 25-metre indoor pool plus a warm-water program pool, as well as a full gym, a dedicated fitness room with regular classes, and spaces for allied health services and a cafe. What excites me most isn't just that equipment or what's there on the ground; it's what people will be able to do there. It's a little one learning to swim and discovering a new confidence. It's someone recovering from surgery and rebuilding their strength close to home, rather than needing to travel 40 minutes into Launceston. It might be an older resident keeping active, perhaps staying for a coffee at the end of a swim and finding a new friend. Importantly—my favourite part—this centre has been designed with accessibility in mind. We have step-free wheelchair access throughout, accessible change rooms and amenities, a lift and equipment to help people with mobility challenges to get into the pool. It's not a minor design detail; it's the difference between being invited to enjoy a facility and actually being able to use it. For people in George Town, having these facilities close to home and available all year round, no matter what the weather is, means more opportunities to enjoy them without having to travel.
I'm so proud that our government contributed $15 million to this project, alongside $2.5 million from the Tasmanian government, because your postcode should never determine the opportunities you have to live an active and healthy and connected life.
I want to pass my thanks on to George Town Council, the builders, the designers, including Tasmanian firms Fairbrother and Philip Lighton Architects, and the people whose work brought this centre to life—not only on time but on budget as well. To the local community, I know you care deeply about this pool. I know you were concerned when the outdoor pool was removed. Thank you so much for contributing your ideas and continuing to care so much and advocate for what George Town can become next. This centre will open on 12 November, and I hope people of all ages and all abilities come along on that day to enjoy it.
Of course, we know there is more work ahead for George Town. Securing Bell Bay Aluminium was an enormous achievement, but supporting workers, strengthening local industries and continuing to create local jobs for that next generation will really remain top of my to-do list. I hope moments like this remind people that there is a great deal to look forward to in the north. My hope is that this centre becomes somewhere people feel welcome, where the friendships will grow and where local families will make memories, just as they did at the old pool—memories that they'll carry with them for years to come. George Town deserves a future every bit as strong as the people who call it home, and I couldn't be prouder to represent them.
With the five minutes I have tonight, I'd like to highlight five Labor failures that are hitting my constituents the hardest. There are many, many more, but I only have five minutes. Without a doubt, No. 1 is energy policy and power costs. Labor's obsession with ideology over delivery has cost Australians at every point of their household budget. It's not just their own power bills. It's at the checkout as those increased costs flow onto the supermarket. The higher the power price, the higher the cost of production. The higher the input cost, the higher the output costs. Simple economics. Hopefully somebody passes this on to the Treasurer. So no wonder my community is crying out saying they have never been able to buy so little for so much. You go into the grocery store, you spend 100 bucks and you've got one lousy paper bag.
Now, No. 2 is migration and housing. They go hand in hand. Record high migration numbers coupled with record new low housing builds has created a market at a breaking point. But the pile-on continues from this government with more and more red and green tape driving up costs, blowing out timelines and creating a market that Australian investors are leaving in droves. You only have to look at the clearance rates every Saturday. It's everyday Aussies that are paying the price of higher rents, higher mortgage rates and lower aspirations to get into the housing market.
Now No. 3, importantly for regional areas, is funding for councils and regional infrastructure. I've had all my five mayors over the past four years come and see me and say, 'Pat, we cannot continue to carry this burden.' They're cash strapped, and the ratepayers can't pay them either. You can't continue to increase your rates. This government has scrapped the Local Roads and Infrastructure Program, slashed the Growing Regions Program and stemmed the total 2026-27 funding for the Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program to just $15 million nationally. That's a disgrace. All the while our councils watch $36 million of taxpayer funding get blown at the recent climate summit. That's a disgrace.
No. 4 is compounding small business burdens. This Labor government views small businesses, who are the backbone of our economy and our regional economies, as the enemy. They look at them as the enemy. They must, because of what they're doing to them. They're intent on piling more and more weight on a once solid backbone until it breaks. And, as we've seen, the number of insolvencies over the past 12 months has hit a record high under this government's watch. Industrial relations reform, including overly cumbersome changes to casual employment, have added complexity and compliance burdens. I have to say it was just remarkable that they imposed the credit card ban but then the ATO comes out and says, 'We're not doing it.' It's a case of do as I say, not as I do.
And then finally—and I think this is the most insulting one—is cutting the private health insurance rebate for those over 65. That is a slap in the face to our older citizens, who have effectively worked and paid their health insurance to ensure that they weren't a burden on the public health system, which we know is already stretched. I know we've booted it out of this place once, but the arrogance of the Albanese Labor government to bring it back into here when they know the Australian people are against it just screams volumes. It's time for this government to go. We have to pop the Canberra bubble.
One of the reasons I put my hand up to represent the seat of Paterson was to stand alongside the people of Williamtown following the discovery of PFAS contamination. I remember the shock, the frustration and the uncertainty facing local families, farmers and landholders. People were worried about their health, about their properties, about their livelihood and about their future. After years of seeking answers and fighting with the then government, they had every right to be frustrated. Since the Albanese Labor government came into office in 2022, we've worked hard to move this important issue forward. We commissioned the independent review led by Jim Varghese. We tabled it in parliament and we're acting on its recommendations.
One of those recommendations was the establishment of the Williamtown Working Group. As we approach its first anniversary, I want to recognise the progress that's been made. Before the working group held its first meeting, I sat down twice with Minister Khalil and all four community representatives to discuss how to get it right. I want to acknowledge Minister Khalil's persistence and leadership in making sure local voices remain at the centre of this process. He has taken a genuine interest in the work of the working group and continues to closely monitor its progress. We wanted to hear directly from our community about what mattered most to them, and the message was clear: they wanted action on the drainage network, they wanted action on rezoning of the contaminated areas, they wanted genuine consideration of remediation options and they wanted an independent assessor to assess properties within zones of concern. These were the community's priorities, and they needed to be at the centre of the work, and that's exactly what the working group was established to do.
Since its first meeting in November last year, we've brought local, state and federal agencies together with community representatives to work through these challenges and progress practical solutions. A dedicated sub-working group has been tackling drainage issues, with community members playing a crucial role alongside local and state agencies. Port Stephens Council has now been provided with a scope of works to progress the agreed short-term drainage improvements, and the project has gone out to tender. This is a really important step forward on an issue that the community has consistently identified as a priority.
The New South Wales EPA is continuing to work on its rezoning of the contaminated zones, with further action to progress these outcomes expected in the new year. This is a massive step. The Commonwealth has also gone to tender for an independent assessor to undertake assessments for the affected landholders. These are tangible steps forward on the community's longstanding priorities and reflect the progress being made through the working group. I also want to acknowledge the important role being played by all the agencies involved. Progress can only be achieved when local, state and federal governments work together alongside the community to deliver practical outcomes, and we're doing just that.
We're making real progress with clear outcomes in a very, very difficult process. That doesn't mean we have all the answers, and it certainly doesn't mean the job is finished, but it shows what can happen when we listen to the community, we bring the right people into the room and we focus on getting real outcomes—getting things done. I want to thank the community members who continue to show up to the meetings, ask hard questions and hold us all to account. They've put countless hours into this process, and their persistence has helped keep focus on what matters most.
We know there is still a mountain to be done. PFAS is an incredibly complex issue, and we cannot undo more than a decade of uncertainty overnight. Residents need clear answers, continued communication and, above all, practical outcomes, and that's what we're working towards. We have made real progress, but we must keep the momentum going, and that's what we intend to do.
The contrast between the Labor government and this opposition is so clear to Australians. They have weak leadership, a divided team and no plan, and Australians are paying the price. In contrast, we have strong leadership, a strong team and a strong plan that will fix the problems that this country has been facing as a result of this prime minister, this treasurer and this Labor government.
In accordance with the resolution agreed to earlier, the debate is interrupted.
Moments ago, I did share the words of a local mother from my electorate of Griffith, and I have thought about those words a great deal. Here is a parent who has done everything a parent could do—monitored her children's internet use, invested in safety tools and sought professional support—and still the negative impacts of technology have found their way into her daughters' lives. What chance does the average Australian parent have against companies developing increasingly sophisticated technology designed to keep people engaged? This mother has since taken her advocacy beyond her own family, speaking at a national and international level about the urgent need for better safeguards. I thank her for trusting me with her family's experience and for her determination to protect other children from the same harm.
Parents have a responsibility to teach their children about online safety. They're conversations that we have in my household with my children, aged 11 and 13, almost daily. As parents, we set boundaries, we discuss risks and we help young people make sound decisions. But we as parents cannot inspect algorithms, anticipate thousands of private chatbot responses or block every new dangerous feature a company introduces. The companies developing these products must take responsibility for their safety. We already expect manufacturers to meet safety standards for children's products and employers to protect their workers. Businesses must take reasonable precautions against foreseeable harm. Digital services should have clear responsibilities too.
The Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 will require online service providers to take reasonable steps to protect Australians from serious harm. Instead of relying solely on the removal of dangerous material after someone reports it, companies will need to identify risks, assess their consequences and act to reduce them. Those obligations extend beyond social media to services such as online games and AI chatbots. As technology changes, our protections must keep pace. A company should not wait until a child is harmed, a family makes a complaint or a damaging exchange is shared publicly before examining the dangers built into its product. The obligation must begin when a service is being designed and continue as its features change.
This bill builds on this Albanese Labor government's work to establish a minimum age of 16 for social media accounts. That reform recognised the growing evidence of harm associated with children's early exposure to social media. It was a major change and one that many parents had been calling for, and we are already seeing encouraging results. More than five million under-age accounts have been deactivated, removed or restricted. I know in my house, with preteens, we had talked for quite some time about when they could have social media accounts, and I had kicked that ball down the line for so long, saying, 'We'll talk about it when you get to high school.' But then, as my eldest started high school, I realised that that time had come up so quickly, and I did not feel that he or we were ready for that. These laws now have actually given my own children several more years without this presence in their lives. Indeed, 30 per cent of young Australians aged 13 to 15 reported spending more time playing sport, and 27 per cent reported better sleep. These are promising findings, but we know the system still needs improvement. Too many children under 16 continue to hold social media accounts, and our government is determined to hold platforms accountable for complying with the law.
But protecting children from online harm cannot end at the age of 16, and restricting access to social media does not address the risks children face through other digital services. A young person using an online game can encounter strangers, bullying or harmful material. A child using an AI companion, as we heard in the example I shared, can develop an emotional attachment to a program that imitates friendship or affection. A teenager can be exposed to dangerous material through recommendation systems and repeated promotion of similar content to them. Digital duty of care addresses these broader risks.
I want to address directly the suggestion that introducing this legislation is somehow an admission that our social media minimum-age laws have failed. Some have argued here in this chamber and even this evening that if the under-16 restrictions were working we wouldn't need a digital duty of care. But this argument fundamentally misunderstands what each of these reforms is designed to achieve. The social media minimum age restricts access to accounts on certain platforms for children under 16. Digital duty of care places responsibility on technology companies to make their services safer for all Australians, regardless of their age. They address different problems, and it has always been intended that they will work together alongside one another.
We should recognise what the minimum-age laws have already achieved. Millions of underage accounts have been removed, deactivated or restricted. That is important progress. But we know that some platforms have not done enough to stop children from accessing their services. The eSafety Commissioner has been investigating possible noncompliance, and the government has strengthened enforcement powers and increased the penalties that platforms face. We are holding technology companies to the responsibilities parliament has already placed on them. Even if every platform complied perfectly with the social media minimum age we would still need this bill. A 12-year-old could still encounter harmful interactions through an AI chatbot, a 14-year-old could still face grooming or bullying through an online game, and a 17-year-old could still be exposed to dangerous material promoted by a social media algorithm.
Adults face serious online harms, too, including threats, abuse and the creation of intimate images without consent. None of those risks disappear simply through restricting social media accounts for children under the age of 16. And of course young people do not suddenly become immune to online harm on their 16th birthday. That is why the government is taking this next step. The minimum-age laws address when children can access certain platforms. Digital duty of care addresses the responsibility of those platforms and other services to keep their users safe. We need both.
AI has enormous potential. It can assist students with learning, help people access information and support new developments across health care, research and education. But AI companion technology raises particular concerns. These services can simulate human conversations and relationships. They can remember personal details, respond to emotions and create the impression that a user is speaking with someone who understands them. For a young person who is experiencing loneliness, anxiety or difficulties at school, that interaction can feel deeply personal. The eSafety Commissioner's research paints a concerning picture. In a survey of children age 10 to 17, almost 80 per cent had used an AI assistant. More than half of children who had used an AI assistant or companion reported using it for personal or social reasons. And one in five children who had used these tools reported potentially inappropriate or harmful interactions. That includes harmful advice, bullying and controlling behaviour. This bill will require providers to assess the harms associated with their services and take reasonable steps to prevent them.
The bill introduces specific protections for Australians under the age of 18. Online services will have a responsibility to protect children from material and conduct that encourages eating disorders, promotes harmful attitudes towards women, or exposes them to bullying and harassment. It covers pornography, content that glorifies dangerous behaviour and material that can cause serious psychological harm. Crucially, it addresses the design features of online services. Consider the way that some platforms encourage people to keep scrolling, watching or interacting. A young person begins watching a video about healthy eating. They go from one video to another and another, and gradually their feed becomes filled with increasingly restrictive dieting advice, extreme body ideals or material promoting disordered eating. We know that these are design features that are intended to prolong engagement, and they can encourage compulsive use and interfere with sleep, study and relationships. Under this legislation, companies will have to undertake risk assessments and introduce safeguards for features that create foreseeable harm.
We know that men and women often have very different experiences online, and I'm confident that female colleagues from across this chamber could speak firsthand about the vile threats, abuse and harassment they have endured simply for participating in public life, but it's not just politicians who are exposed to this. It's women across our community. That is why I particularly welcome the provisions of this bill addressing online violence and abuse against women and girls.
We have seen disturbing developments in the use of artificial intelligence to create intimate images of people without their knowledge or consent. The images can be used to humiliate, threaten and intimidate victims. Young women and girls are particularly exposed to these forms of abuse. This bill will give the eSafety Commissioner stronger powers to restrict access to websites and applications predominantly designed or used to generate fake nude images.
Another important element of this legislation is My Feed, My Way. Most Australians who use social media will recognise the experience of opening an application and finding a feed filled with content they never asked to see. Some of it comes from friends or people that they follow, but much of it is selected by an algorithm that predicts what will keep them watching. These systems can be useful. They can help people discover new information, communities and interests, but users deserve more control over their own experience.
These reforms have been shaped by years of advocacy from parents, researchers, community organisations and people with lived experience in online harm. I particularly want to recognise the work of the Butterfly Foundation. They have welcomed the government's decision to identify content promoting disordered eating as a harm that online platforms must address. There are so many other organisations who have also welcomed this legislation, like the Alannah & Madeline Foundation and John Hartman at the Minderoo Foundation. They have said that this bill is a much needed step when it comes to protecting women and children, who experience disproportionate harms in the online world. Wayne Holdsworth from SmackTalk lost his son Mac to suicide, and he said that they wholeheartedly support the digital duty of care.
We cannot keep asking families to manage risks that technology companies have created and know how to prevent. The Albanese Labor government is taking practical action to change this. This legislation will set clearer expectations, strengthen accountability and give Australians greater control over their online experiences. It builds on our social media minimum age reforms and recognises the rapidly changing risks associated with AI. Companies that develop products for Australians must take reasonable steps to protect the people using them.
I rise to speak in support of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026. It is really urgent that we have this in place, and I want to thank at the outset so many who have campaigned for this and done a lot of work, particularly Chanel Contos with her Fix Our Feeds campaign, to give users back that control and autonomy of choosing what you see and what you switch out of in your feed. Many organisations have championed this because it's an area that is really the hallmark of this generation: how exposed they are to this online world. Yet it's an area that has been devoid of proper protections, so I do welcome the fact that we are finally here with a digital duty of care legislation.
It is time to rebalance responsibility for online safety in Australia. For too long, the burden of navigating online harms has fallen on individuals and families. We need to prevent the harm before it happens, rather than leaving individuals and families to deal with the consequences. The list of harms is long. When it comes to mental health, eating disorders, violence, sexual assault, intimidation and discrimination against women, we know that the online world has given rise to this environment where harm is allowed to go unchecked, and it's led to major issues when it comes to suicide and eating disorders. There is another area, though, that this bill does fail to address, and that's the growing threat of AI deepfakes, which use people's images, voices and identities without their consent. We know deepfakes can spread misinformation, fuel hate and damage reputations and public trust. Yet, despite the events—despite everything that we are discussing at the moment around rising threats and violent commentary online—this bill is failing to address what I would say is a major area that should be addressed.
We know the internet has transformed how we communicate, how we learn, how we do business and how we participate in public life. It has created extraordinary opportunities for connection, innovation and democratic engagement, but we also have to acknowledge the serious harms that can arise from these technologies. Social media platforms can amplify harmful material, recommend it to vulnerable users and spread abusive content at a scale unimaginable a generation ago. That's why it is so important that that control in relation to the feeds be given back to the user.
We can't expect individuals, especially young people, to bear the full responsibility for protecting themselves from highly sophisticated systems designed to capture and keep their attention—that's the really important bit. This is not innocent technology; this is highly sophisticated technology that is creating significant harm.
We can't leave families alone to deal with the consequences or navigate the risks alone. We've had so many stories of families absolutely devastated by tragedy as a result of the pernicious and damaging influence of social media—the algorithm and the pushing of harmful content—with no real action coming in return. Busy, exhausted parents should not have to rely on settings that are difficult to find and confusing to use or be sent through opaque and impersonal reporting and complaint processes that all too often result in very little change.
Technology companies have access to the data, expertise, resources and the technical capacity to identify and mitigate foreseeable risks at a scale that individuals simply do not. That is at the heart of the requirement of this legislation, and that is why it's important. They have the tools and the capacity. They must use those to mitigate foreseeable risks.
That's why this is important reform. It establishes a clear principle: online services should take reasonable steps to protect their users from serious harms arising from the use of their services. We accept that of every other business. For every other business, even if it's a supermarket that you walk into and buy a product from, we expect there to be compliance when it comes to duty of care—that a product can't cause harm. There are consequences when the risks are ignored. We know that, too often, big tech companies wait for harm to occur and only act if they're really forced to. Even then, it is a convoluted process. I welcome this move to a model where platforms must identify risks and prevent foreseeable harm in the first place.
The people of Warringah are highly digital aware. They appreciate the opportunities presented by digital technologies and AI, but they are also concerned about the harms. Since before this bill was introduced, my office has been contacted by many people who want to see greater protections in the online space. They want to see a digital duty of care passed. They believe that it will create a safer online environment, particularly for young people and vulnerable groups.
The age limits that the government proposes to pass are simply not sufficient—I've said that from the start—to keep young people safe online. In particular, young people in Warringah have told me loud and clear that they want online safety to be prioritised. A 16-year-old in the electorate wrote to me just a few days ago to urge me to support this bill in the hope that it will build a safer online world.
The push for a digital duty of care has been building for some time. Former member for Goldstein, Independent MP Zoe Daniel, in fact helped bring the idea into parliament, introducing her own private member's bill in November 2024. It would have required major online platforms to identify and manage the risks their services pose to Australians. The bill lapsed when parliament was dissolved in 2025, but the legacy continues. I welcome the Albanese government's developing this digital duty of care with the same principle at its heart: online platforms should do more to prevent foreseeable harm. I've long argued that online safety must involve meaningful accountability for the companies that design and profit from these systems. Remember, they are the ones that benefit from algorithms that keep pushing dangerous content.
But the details matter. We need legislation that delivers real safety and accountability and greater choice for users. Of course, everyone fearing this legislation has been hiding behind smokescreens of 'freedom of speech', 'freedom to choose' or 'government intervention'. In fact, I would argue that it's the complete contrary. This is giving choice back into the hands of users. They can control their feeds, and they can no longer be preyed on by these billion-dollar-making companies who benefit and profit out of pushing content through these algorithms.
We know that as the technology evolves so must our approach to the harms it can create. We have the opportunity in this legislation to ensure that it addresses not just the risks that we already understand but also address emerging threats. One such risk is the spread of highly realistic AI generated audio, images and video depicting identifiable people without their consent. I've been trying to get the government to engage on this when it comes to truth-in-political-advertising legislation and to cover deepfakes in that, but it goes broader than just political advertising. It's actually everyone. Why should anyone in Australia have their image or likeness used in a way that is contrary to their wishes and without their consent to do something that can be very harmful? The amendment that I intend to move will address this issue.
Artificial intelligence can make someone appear to say something they never said. It can create a scene that never happened or make a fabricated event look like a genuine news report. We do not have to look far to see examples of these risks in Australia. Consider the AI generated videos released by Sportsbet featuring high profile AFL players Lachie Neale and Will Ashcroft. The videos depicted the athletes saying things they had not said and were made without their consent. The videos were reportedly intended to help Sportsbet attract new gambling customers, and the AFL instructed Sportsbet to take them down. They were able to do that because they had that power, but an individual in the community does not have that same power to ask for a deepfake to be taken down.
A deepfake video depicting Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie has also recently circulated on social media. It portrays her making statements that she never made, including comments criticising another party's voters, which then led to increased threats against her because they then were outraged by the perception that these comments have been made. These are the risks we face and the dangerous environment in which we are in. These examples raise a fundamental question should someone or an organisation or an account overseas be able to use artificial intelligence to put words in another person's mouth and use their identity, image and likeness to deliver a message they never agreed to deliver? I think any right-minded Australian should say a firm no to that.
AI can also be used to create fabricated scenes that appear realistic. Earlier this month, the One Nation Victorian branch aired an AI generated video featuring a man of African appearance wielding a machete and a suicide bomber who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent. This is incredibly dangerous content. The video used fabricated imagery to portray threatening scenarios, stoke hate, provoke fear and create a highly racist and dangerous environment. It demonstrates how synthetic content can influence public perceptions, particularly when viewers may not realise that the scenes are artificial. As AI tools improve, the distinction between authentic and synthetic content becomes increasingly difficult for ordinary viewers to make. This material can also be produced, copied and distributed at an extraordinary speed. The consequences can extend well beyond the original post. They can affect personal safety, professional reputations, public trust and the quality of our democratic debate. Australian law must respond to these risks in a way that is practical, proportionate and capable of adapting as the technology develops.
The European Union has introduced transparency requirements intended to make AI generated and manipulated content easier to identify. Since August this year, the EU's AI framework has required certain deepfakes to be disclosed as artificially generated or manipulated. The framework also includes requirements concerning machine readable markings of some AI generated content. These European laws recognise that people should not have to guess whether what they are seeing or hearing is genuine. The European approach also recognises that art, fiction and satire should not automatically be treated in the same way as content pretending to be authentic. Transparency requirements are not the same as a blanket ban on deepfakes. What we should do is seek to avoid people being deceived while allowing legitimate uses of AI to continue. We need to look at that, and the framework, to recognise the benefits of innovation while ensuring that people affected by fake content are not left without meaningful protection.
We need to ensure that deepfakes which depict an identifiable person without their content and are likely to cause serious harm are captured within this bill. That means content that depicts you, Madam Deputy Speaker Garland, and any other member in this House but also members of the public. We should not have the right to use someone's image, voice or likeness in AI generated content without their consent. It's not about prohibiting artificial intelligence in creative works or preventing Australians from commenting on public figures, but we cannot pass that off as being authentic content. We need to address the specific risks where AI generated content that uses a real person's likeness without consent is capable of misleading viewers into believing it is genuine and is likely to cause serious harm, not just misinformation. I commend my amendment to the House as incredibly important if we genuinely want to make this environment safe.
Social media platforms are responsible for assessing and managing risks associated with this material. This would force them to consider and take reasonable steps to reduce that risk. It would also give the eSafety Commissioner the power to order the removal of harmful online content. Platforms shouldn't wait for a victim to suffer consequences before taking reasonable steps to address a foreseeable risk. It's particularly important because deepfake content can spread so rapidly. In fact, we saw it in the aftermath of the Bondi terror attack, where we saw fake content generated online; that should be banned. Once a video or image has been widely shared, removing the original material may not be enough to undo the damage.
The bill recognises that AI generated abuse is a serious and growing problem. The proposed powers concerning fake nude material are an important example of the need to act before harm spreads, before the person is depicted, because it's so devastating. But we need to go beyond just that because the harms are much greater. I support the principle, but I ask the government to look for all AI generated fakes. Many are worried about freedom of expression, which is front of mind. Satire and political commentary are a legitimate and valuable part of democratic life, but they are not a licence and we shouldn't be creating a framework that enables us to abuse and take on the image, likeness and content of another person. I commend the bill to the House in relation to the digital duty of care, but I urge the government to go further.
Just to clarify, Member for Warringah, you are not seeking to move amendments at this stage? Thank you very much.
I rise to make a contribution on the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026. The online services we use and increasingly depend on have reshaped so many aspects of our everyday lives—how we stay connected with one another, how we stay informed, how we work, how we learn and how we interact with services. Given the significant role these services play in our everyday lives, it is only appropriate that we establish a set of basic safety standards to protect Australians as they go about their lives online. This should not be controversial. We impose basic safety standards across so many aspects of everyday life, and we have a responsibility to ensure that our online services meet those same fundamental standards of safety. We are committed to ensuring that online services meet appropriate safety standards and that technology companies fulfil their responsibilities to keep Australians, particularly our children, safe online. We are taking world-leading action, with our approach and learnings being closely watched by countries right around the world. This bill forms part of that action to keep Australians safe.
At the heart of this bill is the establishment of a digital duty of care. This will ensure that Australians are protected from serious, harmful and illegal content while under-18s are protected from content and features that are harmful to young people. Another key element of the digital duty of care is giving adults greater choice and agency over the content they see and the features they use online. For the first time, the digital duty of care will establish minimum standards for the features used by digital service companies. These standards will require digital service companies to undertake annual risk assessments of the potential harms associated with features on their services, put systems in place to prevent those features from causing harm to Australian users and, in the case of social media platforms, provide user empowerment tools that give people a 16 and over greater choice and agency over what they see in their feeds, and, if platforms and online service providers fail to comply with the digital duty of care, they can expect the fine of $109.2 million. This will bring penalties for this sector in line with the penalties that apply in other sectors on which Australian consumers depend.
One of the key objectives of the digital duty of care is to protect Australian children from content and features that are harmful to young Australians. We are placing a positive responsibility on platforms and online service providers to protect children and act in their best interests online. The digital duty of care will protect Australian children across online services, particularly those popular with young people, such as online games and AI chat bots. It will address harmful material including abuse, harassment, bullying, pornography, content that promotes eating disorders, content that promotes hostile attitudes towards women and gender equality, and other material that causes harm to children.
Another form of harmful content this digital duty of care will seek to tackle is content that glorifies crime or encourages dangerous stunts. Regrettably, we have seen young men in particular engage in criminal activities after being exposed to content that glorifies a life of crime. Having spoken to parents, local community organisations and schools, I have seen the very serious and lifelong consequences for those who have fallen into that life. Those consequences are not limited to the individuals themselves. They affect their families and they affect the wider community, and, of course, there is the impact on their victims, who are often other young people. It is critical that we dismantle the ability of criminal organisations to use online platforms to recruit vulnerable young people into a life of crime. As a member of the Joint Committee on Law Enforcement, I've seen evidence of the consequences of predatory behaviour online and the harm it does to children.
The digital duty of care will also take action to protect Australian children from design features on digital platforms that can have negative behavioural impacts, including addictive features that encourage children to stay up late and lose sleep. As a father to a young child, I share the concerns of many parents about screen time and its impact on our children, particularly the younger ones. We all know how important it is for young children to spend time away from screens and maintain healthy habits, so I am pleased to see action being taken through this bill.
The reforms in digital duty of care bill before the house today build on the other actions the Albanese Labor government has taken to protect Australian children online, including the minimum-age requirements for social media accounts. The Albanese Labor government introduced and passed legislation establishing a minimum age of 16 for social media accounts, with the laws coming into effect in December last year. It's been less than a year since those laws came into effect, and they're already having a significant impact, with more than five million underage accounts deactivated, removed or restricted.
There is still more work to do in this space. Despite millions of accounts being deactivated, we know there are still far too many under-16s on social media. That is why the eSafety Commissioner is investigating platforms that have failed to comply, including Meta, TikTok and Snapchat. Even so, there is a strong start, and we are seeing positive signs for young Australians. Exposure to inappropriate and violent content is down by 18 per cent, online bullying is down by nine per cent, 20 per cent of Australian children are reporting better sleep, and 30 per cent of young Australians aged 13 to 15 are spending more time playing sport. It's no wonder that other countries have looked to follow Australia's lead, with the United Kingdom, Canada, Indonesia and the European Union all considering or adopting similar policies.
The digital duty of care is not just intended to protect Australian children, it is intended to protect all Australians, including Australian adults. I belong to a generation that grew up as the internet was becoming part of our lives, long before it became the dominant force it is today. The internet and the digital services that now shape our everyday lives are a far cry from what they were when I was younger. The internet has become more advanced and more deeply integrated into our lives. That has brought many benefits, but it also brought new risks and harms.
The bill before the House will work to address the harms Australians are at risk of being exposed to online. It will require online services to protect Australians from a range of harmful content, including sexual violence, child abuse, animal abuse, content that incites or promotes extreme violence, content that promotes physical violence, death threats, rape threats, gender based violence, self-harm, material supporting a terrorist organisation and other harms. The bill will also provide additional powers for the eSafety Commissioner to take down platforms that create non-consensual deepfake images. It is critical that we protect all Australians from exposure to harmful content online.
This is not neutral technology. Algorithms are designed to feed us more in a way which has amplified harmful content. As the Prime Minister said today, big tech are failing to meet their social responsibilities. The companies have been undermining their social licence, and their time is up. Their social licence will be expressed by this legislation. We have seen the devastating impact the online world can have on young people, including driving them towards self-harm. We have seen bullying take on new and more damaging forms. We have seen how people can approach, manipulate and exploit children without ever meeting them in person. And we have seen how children can be manipulated into causing harm to others and, tragically, to themselves. Parents suffer, families suffer and children suffer. On platforms where people can manipulate children anonymously, the harm inflicted on a child can be broadcast to their community and to the world.
Social media is a unique service and market. In most other markets we have a choice about what we want to consume. If we are on a streaming platform, we choose what movie we watch. If we are watching television, we choose the channel. If we are listening to music, we choose the song. But social media platforms are different. That is because algorithmic recommender systems feed us content from people and pages we have not chosen to follow. Social media companies make a lot of money from our information and our attention. Therefore, users should have a say in how their experiences are shaped on these platforms. Our feeds can be crowded, with content being recommended to us rather than the people we actually want to see and follow. But this bill is not about removing the algorithm. It is about choice.
Having worked in the tech space for most of my professional life, I've seen how much the digital landscape has changed. Our cyberthreats have evolved, but so too has the way we interact with online platforms. We all remember when our social media feeds were largely made up of posts from our friends, family and the people we chose to follow. Today it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the content we have chosen to see and the content platforms choose for us. For us as users, it is not always clear how much control or agency we have over the experiences that these platforms create for us. These experiences are shaped not simply by neutral technological choices but by business models in which engagement and attention generate revenue. That is why giving Australians greater choice over what they see online is so important.
The bill before the House will introduce My Feed, My Way. Under the digital duty of care and My Feed, My Way, social media platforms will have to give Australians a choice over the primary feed they see when they first open the app. It will allow Australians to opt in or opt out of algorithmic recommendations as they wish. It is about choice, not restrictions. If you want to continue using algorithmic recommendations, you can opt in. If you no longer want to use them, you can opt out.
Those who oppose these reforms have characterised them as an attempt to control what Australians can and cannot see on social media. It's simply not the case. It is about giving Australians greater agency over what they see and do on their social media accounts and bringing this industry into line with so many other markets where Australian consumers have a choice. So it is interesting that those opposite, who so often advocate for individualist approaches, suddenly seem opposed to the principle of individual choice. When it comes to social media, why shouldn't Australians have the same agency over their own experience that we expect in so many other parts of our lives? It's not telling people what they can and cannot see. It is about giving people the freedom to decide for themselves.
The bill before the House will bring about an important set of reforms to protect all Australians online and build on our world-leading action to protect Australian children through the under-16 social media minimum age requirements. We are holding big tech companies to account while making sure that Australian consumers have the same opportunities for choice and protection that they would normally expect in other parts of our economy. I am proud to be part of an Albanese Labor government that is taking action to address the serious challenges in this space.
Australia's digital duty of care is about giving adults more choice over their feeds and protecting kids online. We're acting and we're making sure big tech and the tech companies take more responsibility for the online environments they create. I commend the bill to the House.
Few bills that hit the floor in this place elicit the same level of response, not only from the Australian public but from international commentators, as the one we see before us today. That is because this bill, the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, is a unicorn of some sort. It's a piece of legislation that simultaneously represents both an overreach and an underreach of government controls, which is quite a feat in itself.
My inbox, social media pages and office phones have been flooded with messages from my constituents concerned that the bill in its current form will pass. They're imploring me to ensure that their voices are heard. Protecting Australians online should never come at the expense of the fundamental freedoms that underpin our democracy. Nobody in this chamber wants to see children exposed to exploitation, bullying, pornography or dangerous online material. Nobody wants Australians subjected to threats, intimidation, harassment or abuse. Nobody disputes that multinational technology companies are making billions of dollars from Australian consumers and they should be held accountable.
The coalition supports strong protections to keep Australians safe online, particularly children, and holding big technology companies to account. That's why the coalition established the world's first eSafety Commissioner. That's why we enacted the Online Safety Act 2021. That is why we established mandatory industry codes and standards strengthening protections against cyberbullying and image based abuse and gave the eSafety Commissioner powers to investigate, issue removal notices and enforce compliance. There's more action required to keep children safe online, and we agree on that entirely.
I'm going to divert from my prepared comments for a moment. I spent 12 years as a police officer—three on general duties, five as a detective, four as a prosecutor. During that time I saw carnage, murders, suicides, cot deaths. You name it, I saw it. Then I left the police force and decided to become a lawyer. There was one thing that stuck with me over that 12 years: the material that I had to investigate on child abuse and child sexual assault. That was the only thing that ever, ever kept me awake at night. Because of that, I swore when I became a lawyer that, as a defence lawyer, I would never take on child abuse material or child sexual assault—and I never did, in 18 years. So it enrages me—and I don't use that word lightly—to hear contributions from members across the floor saying that if we do not support this bill then we do not support keeping our children safe. For those to stand up, from the Prime Minister down, and say, 'The coalition does not support keeping children safe if they do not support this bill,' exposes the filthy underbelly of partisan politics. We all know what this bill is about. We don't have to agree on it. To go down that road to suggest that members of parliament don't care about keeping our young people safe online is a disgrace. I hope these comments are passed on to the Prime Minister, because every person in this parliament cares about our children and would do everything to protect them.
Australia is a liberal democracy. We have a proud tradition of robust debate, political disagreement and the right to challenge those in authority. Those freedoms are not always comfortable. Sometimes people say things that offend us. Sometimes they express opinions we find objectionable. Sometimes they challenge the prevailing political or social narrative. But that is exactly why freedom of expression matters. Labor's bill is a blank cheque for political censorship. It relies on vague definitions of online harm and compliance with the proposed digital duty of care. Those definitions give the government and the eSafety Commission wide-ranging powers to determine what material and conduct may cause harm to children. While the minister's discretion to prohibit any category of online harm may have been removed, the regulator is still given an extraordinary power to determine what material or conduct may be harmful.
The bill creates new categories of regulated speech that are not linked to established legal standards. There is no developed body of law or judicial decisions to guide how those categories will apply. One example is 'material or conduct that encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality'. That language raises serious interpretive questions: What is the distinction between genuinely harmful material and lawful disagreement about sex, gender equality or public policy? What happens to robust debate about social policy, education, religion, crime or cultural values? These are matters on which Australians hold deeply different views, and we have to ensure that disagreement, even strong disagreement, is not confused with unlawful or serious harmful conduct.
The Australian Human Rights Commission has identified significant areas requiring improvement, including clearer definitions of harm, tighter restrictions on rule-making powers and stronger protections for human rights. When Australia's national human rights institution identifies risks to freedom of expression and privacy, the appropriate response is to address those concerns before the legislation becomes law. We cannot have a system where the boundaries of acceptable public discussion are left uncertain. When the law is uncertain and penalties can reach $109 million, the safest option for a technology company may be to remove content rather than risk regulatory action. That creates a real danger of lawful speech being suppressed, not necessarily because the government directly orders its removal but because the regulatory framework encourages excessive censorship. The Australians who pay the price are ordinary citizens.
This brings me to the most important question surrounding the legislation. Who decides what constitutes harmful material, and who decides when something crosses the line from being offensive or controversial to being unacceptable? Credible threats of violence and serious harm should never be tolerated, but the bill replaces a targeted regulatory framework with a broader obligation, requiring platforms to identify and minimise vaguely defined terms. The duty is defined by content. Risk assessments must identify the content services are seeking to manage. Compliance is measured by how services respond to that content. Platforms are therefore given every incentive to remove material that is lawful but controversial, politically contentious or difficult to assess.
Another deeply concerning feature of this legislation is the scope for significant regulatory obligations to be shaped through delegated legislation and regulatory guidance. The bill gives the eSafety Commissioner sweeping powers to issue guidelines and directions about how online services must comply with the digital duty of care. Those powers are not subject to the same consultation and disallowance safeguards that should apply to rules affecting fundamental freedoms. Members of this House are elected to scrutinise legislation, debate its consequences and ensure that laws affecting rights and freedoms receive proper democratic oversight, yet governments increasingly introduce broad legislative frameworks and leave significant details to the regulators, leaving the guidelines and administrative decisions to the bureaucrats. That is not how important questions of individual liberty should be settled.
There's another reason why Australians should be concerned about this bill. It appears to be a Trojan Horse for the Labor's failed misinformation and disinformation laws. The Prime Minister has said, after protecting children, the next phase of digital duty of care will be to combat misinformation, disinformation and political polarisation. That reveals the direction in which this framework will travel. The government says this bill is about online safety, but the Prime Minister has already identified misinformation, disinformation and political polarisation as future targets. Australians should always be wary of any framework that begins with protecting children but then can later be expanded to regulate political disagreement, contested facts or views that this government considers harmful.
Shockingly, this bill will potentially put Australians' online safety at risk. After 12 months, it will remove the 17 mandatory codes and standards that currently govern unlawful and age-restricted material. Those codes and standards impose specific obligations to prevent, detect, report, remove and restrict access to sexual abuse material, terrorist material, extreme violence, material promoting illicit drug misuse, pornography, graphic violence and material promoting suicide, self-harm and eating disorders. The existing framework is targeted, specific and legally enforceable. It imposes different obligations according to the type and risk of profile service. This bill would dismantle that framework and replace it with a general duty built around broad concepts of harm. That is not necessarily stronger regulation. It may be weaker regulation where specific protections are most needed. The government has claimed it is putting the 17 codes and standards into law, but those instruments are already legally enforceable under the Online Safety Act.
The government wants parliament to believe that opposing this bill means opposing online safety. That is not true. We support protecting children. We support holding technology companies accountable. We support strong action against child exploitation material, terrorist material, extreme violence, serious cyberabuse and other genuinely harmful content. But, once governments are given excessive powers over the digital public square, reclaiming those freedoms will be extraordinarily difficult. The burden is on this government to demonstrate that these powers are necessary, proportionate and accompanied by appropriate safeguards. For those reasons, I will not support this bill.
The House transcript was published up to 20:55 . The remainder of the transcript will be published progressively as it is completed.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( M s Payne ) took the chair at 12:38.
One of the most important responsibilities we have as members of parliament is to listen to our communities, understand their challenges and ensure their concerns are heard here in parliament. My office receives a significant number of emails from Warringah constituents about issues directly affecting their families and lives. Whether it's changes to the NDIS, delays in aged care, concerns about artificial intelligence or keeping our beaches safe, people want clear information, guidance and accountability, and they want to be heard. I take this opportunity to raise some of those issues here today.
As we move into summer, the safety of beachgoers remains front of mind for my community in Warringah. Over the past year we've been reminded of just how vulnerable we can be in our waters. Late last year there was a tragic and fatal attack on Merc Psillakis at Long Reef Beach in Dee Why, and earlier this year there were two more attacks in Manly and Dee Why. That has shaken our community. I tried to address that earlier this month, because we know that it not only impacts obviously beach goers and safety in the water but also impacts our local businesses. It changes tourism, and it changes confidence. So, earlier this month, I convened a roundtable with our lifesaving clubs, local businesses, academics, industry groups and Surf Life Saving NSW to discuss these safety concerns and how we can best work with our natural environment and our local communities. We discussed shark safety, ocean education, emerging technologies and the growing responsibilities placed on local councils and lifesaving organisations. There were practical proposals ventilated and discussed, which are very much worth pursuing.
First and foremost, we need to review whether the current CASA drone regulations adequately support beach safety operations. What we heard was that drones are increasingly important for monitoring sharks and assisting lifesavers, yet the existing restrictions can limit their deployment in busy coastal areas. We heard from local businesses who are taking on the responsibility of having drones themselves to ensure their ongoing business models—for example, for learn-to-surf schools. But they identified the restrictions of the current regulations prohibiting or preventing them from being able to get drones in the air in a timely way and in a way that would be of assistance.
We also need stronger evidence to guide investment in prevention, education and shark risk management. Local councils and lifesaving organisations carry significant responsibilities, and the federal government has a role in supporting those consistent standards, research and funding across our nation to make sure that goes better. There were a number of further suggestions, and I will provide further information to the community. I want to assure local businesses and local stakeholders, neighbouring MPs and relevant ministers that we are going to all work together to progress these issues because they are so important.
Another issue that I'm often contacted about, as I'm sure many others are in this place, is the NDIS and Thriving Kids. Families need certainty. Families across Warringah are deeply concerned about the proposed changes to the NDIS and the uncertainty surrounding the rollout of Thriving Kids. Parents are worried about what changes to eligibility and support will mean for their children, particularly those who rely on early intervention services. There's considerable uncertainty about what services will be available, who will qualify and whether appropriate supports will be in place before changes are made. The community understands the objective of Thriving Kids. They understand that it's important. Every child deserves access to timely developmental support and families should be able to access early intervention before challenges escalate.
I support the principle of providing more accessible, community based services for children with developmental needs, but good intentions must be matched by clear implementation and services that families can actually access. I'm increasingly hearing from constituents who are worried about the growing gap between what has been announced by government and what is available on the ground in reality. Families are being told that new supports are available, while clinicians report uncertainty about whether to refer children who do not access NDIS but still require developmental intervention. That leaves parents in the middle, trying to navigate a system that is changing without clear information about what will replace existing supports. This is all whilst the development and the timeline for their children is very much at stake.
These are families who are already managing significant pressures and should not be left searching for answers about their child's care. The message from Warringah families, clinicians and community providers has been the same. They want assurance that children will not lose access to existing assistance before appropriate alternatives are available—or all those hard-won gains will be lost. The government must provide clear referral pathways, realistic implementation timelines and transparent information. Early intervention can make an enormous difference to a child's development, education and wellbeing, so we need to get these settings right.
Finally, another issue that is frequently raised is around aged care. There's a very real human cost to delays. We know there's enormous distress for constituents in Warringah around the issue of access to aged care. Too often, I am hearing that aged care plans are approved but that incredibly long delay in actually then accessing plans means that families are left incredibly vulnerable.
The new Aged Care Act commenced on 1 November 2025, introducing a rights based framework intended to put older people at the centre of their care, but the reality being experienced by far too many older Australians is deeply concerning and not consistent with that commitment by the government. Last year, around 6,400 older Australians died while waiting for home-care support. That was a 34 per cent increase on the previous year. Current estimates suggest that between 198,000 and 266,000 older Australians are waiting for assessments or approved funding. It's just not good enough. The government has made changes on how it reports on waiting lists, including those receiving interim funding, but changing how you describe or calculate a waiting list and how it's reported does not resolve the underlying problem of shortage of timely care.
In Warringah, I regularly hear from older residents and families struggling to access support. Some are waiting months for funding already approved, and they simply don't understand. If the government has been able to proceed with approving the requirements, surely that can then proceed to actual funding. Yet in reality they wait for months. Others rely on family members to fill gaps in essential services, often at enormous personal cost. So these delays can lead to loss of independence and increased pressure on family carers.,
The concerns go well beyond waiting times. Since the implementation of the new aged-care reforms, there's been an ongoing concern around AI decision-making built into the system, and I've continued to raise with the government the concern that the automated aged-care assessment system lacks adequate safeguards and produces unfair outcomes. My office continues to hear from constituents battling with this system that the automated funding system is unfair and not fit for purpose. Yesterday the Commonwealth Ombudsman released a deeply concerning report that agreed with that assessment. It found that decisions cannot be overridden by assessors even where those assessments are shown to be clinically inappropriate. That has to be a red flag for all members of the government.
There are real concerns about transparency and equity as well as oversight of the system. While the government has made steps by legislating an escalation pathway for exceptional cases and commissioning an independent review, we have to remember it's only exceptional cases, so it's not capturing all of these instances. It's not enough. The escalation pathway creates more questions about what the criteria will be for it to be deemed urgent, and another review means more lengthy delays to meaningful changes. We should have learnt the hard lessons from robodebt: automated government decisions require transparency, human oversight and clear rights of review. In June I met with Minister Rae to raise concerns about people in their 90s facing waits of up to nine to 12 months for approved funding. I thank the minister and his staff and the department for the engagement on tricky cases, but it's just crazy to think that a 90-year-old who has been assessed as needing care can reasonably be expected to wait another year.
'Everyday people doing extraordinary things'—that's the way Commander Paul Hardman described the work of his outstanding crew on HMAS Choules, who generously hosted me recently as part of the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program. I couldn't agree more with him, and I was proud as an Australian to have the opportunity to see it up close in person.
The ADF Parliamentary Program allows members of this place to step into the shoes of the Australian servicemen and servicewomen who we ask so much of as a nation. It gives MPs a meaningful insight into the day-to-day operations of the ADF through practical, immersive experiences. We get the opportunity to experience their workplaces, share their daily routines and gain a much deeper understanding of their lives and the responsibilities that they carry on behalf of Australia every day. I've participated in the program four times now, and I've always walked away with a feeling of deep pride in being able to see Australians in the ADF executing what they have been trained to do in the field.
I also want to put on the record that, in the decade that I've participated in the program, I've personally observed the way that the culture of the ADF, like this parliament, has changed. I was proud to see the diversity of modern Australia reflected in the young service men and women that I saw on this program. Real progress has been made on this front, and I want to recognise it here in this place.
This year in the ADFPP, I joined the ADF personnel taking part in exercise Keris Woomera 2026. Exercise Keris Woomera is a major bilateral military exercise conducted between the Australian Defence Force and the Indonesian National Armed Forces, and it was established by this government in 2024. The name Keris Woomera tells a story. The kris is a traditional Indonesian dagger, the woomera a traditional Australian spear thrower. Together they symbolise two distinct traditions working together towards a common purpose. That symbolism is important because this exercise is about far more than military exercises. It's about trust. It's about understanding. It's about building the habits of cooperation that allow two neighbouring countries to work effectively together when it matters most. Around 1,000 ADF personnel and over 1,200 TNI members participated in the exercise and conducted complex training across maritime, land, air and cyber domains. It's a significant exercise and a key element of our broader Indo-Pacific Endeavour program. The exercise is designed to strengthen interoperability, enhance combined operational capabilities and further deepen defence cooperation between Australia and Indonesia.
As part of KW 2026, I bunkered down with the REM on HMAS Choules, embarked on amphibious vehicles to land on the east coast of Java near Banyuwangi, slept in barracks with an artillery unit and experienced the South-East Asian heat in uniform with protective gear.
KW 2026 was a significant exercise for multiple reasons. It was the first time Australia's High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, HIMARS, was deployed and fired overseas. KW 2026 was also the first time that RAAF No. 4 Squadron deployed aircraft into South-East Asia since the Second World War. It was also the first time that Australia conducted cyberintegration training with Indonesia.
Participating in exercise Keris Woomera gave me the opportunity to observe something that's increasingly important in Australia's security and prosperity: the partnership between Australia and Indonesia. Australia and Indonesia are good neighbours and close partners. We're bound by strategic trust, mutual respect and a shared interest in a peaceful, stable and prosperous region. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Albanese and President Prabowo signed the Australia-Indonesia Treaty on Common Security, the Jakarta treaty. That treaty reflects a close friendship, partnership and deep trust between Australia and Indonesia. At its core is a simple idea: to keep Australia and Australians secure, we have to anchor our security in our region. Exercises like Keris Woomera show what that looks like in practice. They deepen understanding between our people and help build the habits of partnership that contribute to peace, stability and security across the region.
What struck me most during the exercise was not the equipment, impressive though it was, nor the complexity of the planning. It was the people. The Australian Defence Force and TNI are building something that no agreement or exercise directive can create on its own: trust—trust that comes from training together, solving problems together, spending time together. I had the opportunity to speak to both ADF members and TNI personnel throughout the exercise, and again and again I heard the same thing: they genuinely enjoy working together as partners. They value the opportunity to learn from one another. They appreciate the different perspectives each side brings. They recognise that every exercise strengthens relationships that may one day prove critical when our countries are called on to work together.
I acknowledge and thank all those who made my participation in exercise Keris Woomera possible. I want to thank my in-country liaison officer—makasih pak. I thank Lieutenant Alec Fuller for sharing an early-morning picket with me in Java. I thank Colonel Mark Tutton, Commander Landing Force of the Australian Amphibious Force; Captain Christopher Doherty, RAN, Commander Australian Amphibious Task Group; Commander Paul Hardman, the commanding officer of the HMAS Choules; Bombardier Max Vaughan, who demonstrated how to make things go bang on Java; and all of the ADF personnel who hosted us throughout the exercise, including my cabinmate on the Choules, Lieutenant Elliot Mitchell. Thank you also, as always, to Lieutenant Colonel Andy Martin, who does the important work of preparing all Australian parliamentarians to participate in the program. And I want to recognise Lieutenant Colonel Brett Edmonds, who I hosted in my office as part of the ADF parliamentary exchange before his departure. You're a credit to the ADF. Thank you also to all the Australian service men and women for our country.
Deputy Prime Minister Marles recently said that artificial intelligence is 'as big a sovereignty inflection point as we've seen since the Second World War'. He's right. A commitment from a frontier AI lab to train their models here could be the foundation of a new Australian-based AI industry that powers our security and prosperity in the decades to come. Hosting the training of frontier AI models in Australia could greatly expand the range of choices available to Australia in the rapidly changing and uncertain world we are seeing emerging around us. But the terms of that investment matter. Done right, it could commit the labs to invest in Australian researchers, put compute in the hands of Australian universities and start-ups and deal Australia into a seat at the table where the rules on the regulations and safety of frontier AI get written.
If Australia hosted an internationally significant share of the world's training compute, our voice would carry further with the labs and with other governments. We'd be wired into the supply chain of an industry that will shape the coming decades. We'd make ourselves indispensable. None of this will just happen, though. The labs have choices about where they invest. They weigh energy, talent, law and politics, and other countries are courting them. Winning this investment will take what Australia used to do best: an approach of our own—one that shapes things in the Australian way.
The Prime Minister has stated that the work with his framework on Australian standards for AI is intended to do this. The Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence has backed it. A letter to the Prime Minister from the committee on 12 October, signed by the chair and the deputy chair, said that Australia should not merely be 'a consumer of AI technologies developed elsewhere, but a trusted, competitive and strategically capable partner of the global AI industry'. The letter asks that any deal with the labs reserve compute for national security and our universities. It asks that the Australian Signals Directorate be given early access to new models.
But the committee also heard that there's a real obstacle to being able to realise investment in frontier AI model training in Australia. In my first speech in this place, in 2013, I noted that Australian intellectual property law was throwing sand in the gears of digital innovation and limiting Australian productivity growth. American copyright law has built the most rewarding economy for content creators in world history. Home to the biggest film and music industries in the world, Hollywood and the Grammys, as well as a video game industry bigger than both of them put together, it's a great place to be a filmmaker, musician, writer or artist. But US copyright law also allows transformative uses of content—using existing work to create something completely different. This kind of transformative use is the foundation of digital innovation, and there may be no better example of this transformative use than generative AI.
Generative AI doesn't substitute or compete with the products that it learns from. It learns from them and creates something completely new. American courts have ruled on training for generative AI and so far have found it to be a fair use. Australian law has no similar legislative protection for transformative uses. As a result, the work of Australian artists, musicians and journalists is currently being used to train generative AI models in the United States—in the words of the committee's letter to the PM—'without adequate control or payment'. At the same time, it's also why no frontier AI labs are training models here.
The evidence before the committee is clear: the status quo doesn't work for anyone—not the creators, not the labs, not the Australian national interest—nor does it maximise our sovereignty. And that's what the committee's letter to the PM said. It asked the government to re-examine our copyright settings so that creators keep control and get paid to build a better outcome for Australia—one that, if we can reach it, will be a world-leading settlement. Last month, at the National Press Club, former prime minister Kevin Rudd warned that Australia could slide into becoming a second-rate country. Missing opportunities like this is what would make us one.
Imagine yourself so lucky as to be in the shoes of a customer walking into a cafe in Dunsborough in my own electorate this summer—one of the prime tourist hotspots of the South West and, certainly, Australia as a nation—and, at the checkout, telling the owner of the cafe that they can no longer place a surcharge on your bill, making that cafe owner absorb the cost of that transaction themselves. In response, the cafe owner tells you, 'Well, you can't use your card at all because I'm not prepared to wear the card fee.' Now, I don't think that would happen, because, like many small businesses around Australia, no-one in the South West would do that to their customers lest they feel the wrath of angry Google reviews and the impact it has on their revenue.
But that is exactly what has happened to small businesses across Australia: the Australian tax office has banned them from using credit card payments. Of course, there has been a somewhat stay of execution for a few months through to the middle of next year, but let's take a step back and examine how this whole saga unfolded. On 1 October the ban on card surcharges took effect. The Reserve Bank made the decision that the Prime Minister was very quick out of the gates to claim as a win while marketing it as a cost-of-living relief measure and proudly posing for Instagram videos and the like. What it meant was that, from that morning on, small businesses—which are going bankrupt at a faster rate than at any point in Australian history, I might add—had to absorb the cost of card fees.
On the very same day, the Australian tax office announced it would stop accepting card payments from small businesses because it didn't want to absorb the fees that every small and family owned business in Australia was made to absorb on the very same day. The Australian chamber of commerce described it as a double standard, which is perhaps the most polite expression I've come across for it, because it is hard to describe it in any other way and it is certainly hard to describe it as fair. If it is good enough for the local cafe owner in Dunsborough, why isn't it good enough for the Commonwealth of Australia? Businesses were given two months notice in the busiest part of the tax year, and two days later the Prime Minister had to step in to clean up yet another mess from the Treasurer and bail out the Australian tax office to the sum of $200 million for this financial year. The government has been caught out of touch on this one.
The Treasurer says he became aware of the ATO's plan in late September, but the Assistant Treasurer told the ABC's Insiders that the government knew in July. So either the Treasurer wasn't told by his own junior minister or he hasn't been straight with the Australian people. On the very same program of Insiders the Assistant Treasurer said the ATO bailout 'would have very serious fiscal ramifications for the budget'—but apparently the Albanese government was very happy for those same 'very serious' implications for every small and family owned business across Australia. Is it any wonder that they are collapsing at a record rate? This is a government that's spending at its highest level in more than 40 years outside the pandemic. Debt has ticked past a trillion dollars, yet the same government decided that $200 million in card fees was a cost it could not carry out of a budget of more than $850 billion a year in revenue. That certainly doesn't sound like cost-of-living relief to me. It sounds like more smoke and mirrors from a government that cannot be straight with the Australian people.
The Treasurer was asked whether he'd been rolled by the Prime Minister, and he firmly denied it. But the same treasurer who had sat on this news since July and then had watched the Prime Minister take credit for fixing it with a text message to the CEO of the Australian chamber of commerce has been rolled whichever way he likes to spin it. And now his cabinet colleagues are going on television to insist the two of them get along famously. For years I was a skipper with Bunbury Sea Rescue before going on to a career in shipping, and one of the first things you learn is that when the boat is taking on water the captain cannot be the last one to find out. Bad news needs to travel like lightning in any functional organisation. Yet it seems that the Albanese government, despite the Prime Minister's protestations of running a stable, cabinet centred government, is anything but a functional organisation. This saga gets worse when we consider that the Minister for Small Business has told the House of Representatives that she found out about the credit card ban on 1 October—'the same as everyone else'.
So the government had known since July, and the Treasurer knew after the Assistant Treasurer, but the small-business minister didn't find out until the same day as the public. It sounds all very orderly to me! We knew this didn't add up, so, when the shadow treasurer asked the Minister for Small Business—whose own Labor colleagues have been quoted in the press as saying, 'We've got a small-business minister who's got no idea about small business'—in question time whether the Reserve Bank had decided to ban credit card payments to the ATO, the minister answered with the Reserve Bank's ban on surcharges, as though they were the same thing. They are not. Banning surcharges on card transactions is very different to banning card transactions at all, and every small- and family business owner across Australia knows the difference, even if the small-business minister does not. That's what you get when you have a university academic in charge of the backbone of our country: small and family owned businesses. This is also the same minister who earlier this year suggested that the reason for small businesses going insolvent at record rates was because they were, and I quote, 'dodgy'. Fourteen-and-a-half-thousand businesses went under in 2025, the worst year since records began. And the small business minister's reason? Well, the owners must have been dodgy.
It's not only the opposition saying this minister and indeed the Albanese government don't understand small business; Labor's own backbench are now briefing Australian press, saying that there is nobody in cabinet who's got any business experience, which explains why the wheels are falling off. When the government's own side are saying it's bad, well, it must really be bad. We've got the member for Bennelong, the Labor backbencher who championed the surcharge ban in the days after it all turned to custard. But he's not dancing in tuxedos; he takes to Facebook to celebrate a cafe in Epping, cutting A coffee from $5.06 to $5. That 6c is massive cost-of-living relief for that particular customer! But it's 6c off already squeezed margins that might well be the difference between a thin profit and slowly going bankrupt for that cafe owner, who had the spine, the courage and the conviction to put it all on the line, perhaps risking their family home and their life savings to start a business in Australia, to employ people and to create something. If that's not what we want in this country—the same entrepreneurial spirit that's built our standard of living into what it is today—I don't know what is.
But the card surcharge ban is one decision. It follows the same pattern as the rest of Labor's approach to small business. When they run out of money, they simply come after yours. Labor's minimum 30 per cent tax on trusts is the clearest example. Treasury's own papers show that more than 200,000 small businesses across Australia will be forced to restructure. In Forrest, my own electorate, farming families, builders, family run shops—you name it—are the small and family owned businesses who use a trust, because it is the way that small businesses have been structured in Australia for decades.
When the Assistant Treasurer was asked whether some could pay more than 60 per cent tax, he wouldn't rule it out. How an effective tax rate of more than 60 per cent is in any way equitable or has a place in the Australian tax system is beyond belief. Just on Saturday I was speaking to a local man at the Brunswick Show who works in security, and he pleaded with me to come to Canberra this week to keep the government to account because our regional pubs and restaurants, like every other small business across Australia, are doing it tough. He told me that patronage is down, prices are up, and local businesses are losing the incentive to stay open. There are ever more for-lease signs cropping up through the streets of the towns of the south-west. It's not a future made in Australia. It's not the regional Australia that I grew up in. And it's certainly not the future that I want for our country.
So our answer starts with spending. We've got to get inflation down, because high inflation means high interest rates, which means more pressure on family budgets and more pressure on business budgets. And that's why we've announced $31 billion in savings across the four years from 2028-29, which will be the next election. That's $9.4 billion worth of climate bureaucracy gone, corporate welfare to the tune of $7.3 billion gone, $4.7 billion in the national housing schemes that haven't delivered any homes gone and an additional $7.9 billion in revenue by breaking open the black market for cigarettes. That's our plan to fix Australia.
The Australian Signals Directorate has today released its Annual cyber threat report 2025-26. In my time in the technology sector, I saw the impact of cybercrime on businesses and organisations, including the significant financial costs and operational disruptions that can follow from an attack. Cybercrime poses a serious threat to Australia's national security and our economic security. Cyberattacks are carried out by a range of actors, from organised criminal networks to state sponsored entities seeking to exploit vulnerabilities across our increasingly interconnected digital economy. As modern supply chains become increasingly reliant on data processing, digital infrastructure and the digital exchange of information, cybercriminals are exploiting these connections to compromise systems and disrupt operations. The impacts can extend well beyond individual organisations, interrupting supply chains, affecting critical infrastructure and harming the consumers and communities that rely on them.
Importantly, these threats are not confined to large corporations. Small and medium sized businesses, local organisations and not-for-profits are also vulnerable to cyberattacks and often have fewer resources and less capacity to prevent, respond to and recover from them. This highlights a common vulnerability across interconnected supply chains in which attackers can exploit weaknesses in one organisation to gain access to others. Even when larger organisations have invested heavily in their cyber defences, attackers may target smaller businesses and third-party suppliers with weaker security measures as an entry point into broader networks. By exploiting these vulnerabilities, cybercriminals can gain access to systems, data and operations well beyond the business they initially compromised. That is the evolving nature of a cyberattack.
The Minister for Cyber Security recently highlighted just how rapidly the cyberthreat landscape is evolving. The scale of that change is concerning. It reflects the growing speed and sophistication with which cybercriminals can exploit technological advances. He illustrated this with a striking example. The time between a hostile actor identifying a vulnerability and exploiting it was once measured in years. Today, that window can be as short as 10 hours, compared to approximately 2½ years previously.
The ASD's report released today recognises that artificial intelligence has been the defining force in the cyberthreat landscape over the past year, allowing malicious actors to identify vulnerabilities faster and exploit them at an unprecedented scale, speed and sophistication to conduct espionage, steal money and disrupt systems. In this environment, our approach to cybersecurity must continually evolve alongside the threats we face. We must ensure that government institutions and critical infrastructure operators have the strongest possible cyber defences to protect essential systems, safeguard sensitive information and keep Australians safe.
Cybercriminals are constantly looking for new ways to exploit weaknesses, whether through sophisticated scams, outdated technologies or software vulnerabilities found in businesses and service providers. They employ a variety of tactics to target Australian small businesses, including phishing messages and suspicious links or QR codes, fake websites and advertisements, business email compromise, malware, ransomware, denial-of-service attacks and deceptive requests to install software. Importantly, effective cybersecurity requires more than simply investing in technology. It also means ensuring employees can recognise suspicious activity and understand the potential risks of communications that impersonate legitimate third-party suppliers and service providers. These are practical measures that can make a real difference in reducing an organisation's exposure to cyberthreats.
As our economy and services become more interconnected digitally, an attack on one organisation can quickly create risks for others, particularly where supply chains and digital networks are closely connected. For small and medium sized businesses, having clear and accessible guidance is particularly valuable. Many operate with limited resources while facing the same increasingly sophisticated threats as larger organisations. Helping them strengthen their cyber defences is essential to protecting their operations, their customers and the broader economy. That is why I'm encouraged by the Albanese Labor government's work to support Australian businesses in navigating these growing challenges and ensuring Australian organisations can operate confidently and securely in an increasingly digital world.
The Albanese government is working with public and private sector organisations to strengthen their cyber resilience and continues to invest in our cybersecurity through project REDSPICE, the largest investment in the ASD's history, strengthening Australia's capacity to detect, prevent and respond to cyberthreats. We are asking all entities to lower thresholds for reporting to the ASD and to prioritise security over service availability. Australia's cybersecurity landscape is becoming increasingly complex, and as businesses, government agencies and essential services become more dependent on digital systems, protecting those systems is critical to our national security and our economic resilience.
As a member of the House Select Committee on Cyber Security for Small to Medium Sized Businesses and Organisations, I recognise the importance of understanding the challenges these organisations face and identifying practical ways to address them. The committee is looking to the cybersecurity maturity of Australian small and medium sized businesses and organisations, including not-for-profits, and assessing the adequacy, appropriateness and accessibility of government provided cybersecurity guidance. These considerations will also help assess how an organisation's level of cybersecurity maturity affects its ability to participate in government and large corporate supply chains. I want to thank the chair, the member for Reid, for her work in chairing the committee, and I acknowledge the deputy chair, here in this chamber today. I look forward to contributing to the committee's work, designed to help Australian businesses and organisations strengthen their cyber security and participate confidently in an increasingly digital economy.
I want to congratulate a local, young athlete from Craigieburn in my electorate, Divjot Singh. At just 19 years of age, Divjot is currently representing Australia at the 2026 Commonwealth Kabaddi Championships in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in India, making him one of the youngest competitors in this year's tournament. For those unfamiliar with the sport, Kabaddi is an ancient contact sport which combines elements of tag, wrestling, strength, strategy and agility. The game is played between two teams of seven players. Divjot has been selected as a raider—a position that requires him to enter the opposing team's half of the court alone, tag as many defenders as possible and return safely to his own half. The defending team, meanwhile, must work together to tackle the raider and prevent his return before time runs out. It is a sport that demands courage, tactical awareness, quick decision-making and extraordinary physical ability. There are parallels with the strategies of warriors, requiring infiltration, spatial awareness and the physical skills and tactical thinking associated with combat sports. We make them warriors in our part of the world. The competition represents an exciting opportunity to showcase this ancient sport on the international stage, with the potential for Kabaddi to feature on the main Commonwealth Games program.
What makes Divjot's journey particularly special is where it began. He first developed his tackling and defensive skills playing Aussie rules football. He went on to train at the James Hird Academy, associated with the Essendon Football Club. During his time playing footy, Divjot demonstrated strong tackling and defensive ability. Those skills caught the attention of people who recognised his potential in Kabaddi, and he was encouraged to take up the sport. There is always a great sense of pride when a young person represents our community and our country on the international stage, and Divjot has not stopped at Kabaddi. His ultimate goal is to play AFL, and we are cheering him on and hope to see him achieve that ambition.
Beyond his sporting achievements, Divjot has also demonstrated a strong commitment to giving back to his local community. For a number of years, he has served on the Kalkallo Youth Advisory Council, which plays an important role in empowering young people to participate in policy-making and civic life. It is wonderful to see a young person balancing sporting ambition with a commitment to helping others and making a positive contribution to the community. I want to congratulate Divjot on his contributions to sport at the local, national and international levels as well as to our local community. At just 19, he has already given us plenty of reasons to be proud. We are proud to see him representing Australia on the international stage and will continue cheering him on as he pursues his ambitions in both Kabaddi and Australian Rules football. Divjot, congratulations on your achievements so far. We wish you every success in the championships and in pursuing your goals both on and off the field.
I rise today to speak about whether we as a country have properly learnt about, from our experience of a global pandemic, our dependence on the rest of the world. During the pandemic, supply chains broke down, essential goods became scarce and governments scrambled to secure supplies that we'd previously taken for granted. We spoke about national resilience. We spoke about sovereign capability. We recognised the danger of being too dependent on others for the things that we could not do without. But recognising a vulnerability is not the same as addressing it. COVID was supposed to be our wake-up call. We should not need another crisis to remind us of the consequences of being unprepared.
The conflict in the Middle East has again demonstrated how instability overseas can put pressure on Australia's fuel supplies and household budgets. For the people of my electorate that is not an abstract discussion about global markets. It's the tradie filling up between jobs; the small-business owner facing higher freight costs; and the family commuting on the M1, trying to work out how much further the household budget can stretch. Those are the everyday consequences of the economic exposure I am raising today. Make no mistake: I am ringing the alarm bell.
The Australians we represent cannot resolve a conflict overseas. They cannot negotiate the passage of international shipments. But they are expected to absorb the consequences when things do go wrong. So they are entitled to expect their national parliament to take those vulnerabilities seriously. No government in Canberra can control every event beyond our shores, but we do have a responsibility to consider how exposed we are, what we can do about it and whether the decisions we make today will leave Australians better prepared tomorrow. This is about generational and long-term thinking.
Fuel is one of the clearest examples. Australia's allowed its domestic refining capacity to decline, leaving us increasingly reliant on imports. The assumption has been that international markets will deliver what we need when we need it and at a price that we can afford. That's an assumption we must be prepared to question, because fuel is not simply another item in the household budget. It supports the transport of food, equipment and medicines, and it provides back-up power for critical services. The availability of fuel matters to the functioning of this country, and it also matters to our defence capability. We cannot separate the security of our essential services and supplies from the security of our nation. An island nation that cannot be confident in its access to fuel is an exposed nation, and the consequences do not stop at the petrol pump. When it costs more to move goods, those costs flow through to businesses and consumers. A disruption overseas becomes yet another pressure on an already stretched Australian family. This is where economic exposure becomes personal.
The same principle applies beyond fuel. Imagine just for a moment going to your local pharmacy with a prescription and being told that the medicine that you need is unavailable, not because you can't afford it but because the supply has been interrupted. Imagine discovering that there is no alternative available—no generic—and no domestic capability to fall back on. That's the distinction we must understand. Affordability matters enormously, but affordability offers little comfort when the product itself cannot be obtained. We should be asking those questions before a crisis, not discovering the answers in the middle of one. That is what sovereign capability should mean in practice—a clear understanding of what Australia needs to keep functioning, where we are vulnerable and what options we have when normal arrangements fail.
But there are two mistakes that we must avoid. The first is complacency—assuming that global markets will always meet our needs, without giving sufficient thought to the risks. The second is overcorrection—assuming that the answer is to manufacture everything ourselves, supported by permanent subsidies and government picking winners. Neither is a sound foundation for our future.
Australia does not need to make everything, but we do need to be clear eyed about what we cannot afford to lose. We should focus on targeted strategic capability in areas that are critical to our national interest and products for which Australians have a comparative advantage. We should back high-value, high-skilled manufacturingwhere Australians can compete. Where a capability is essential, we should not be comfortable with having no alternative to complete dependence on others. This is not an argument for protectionism; it's an argument for resilience. Nor is it an argument for abandoning free enterprise; it is an argument for creating the conditions in which Australian enterprise can build the capabilities that we need.
Government has an important role—there is no denying that—but it must play the right role. That means cutting unnecessary red tape. It means ensuring competitive energy and input costs. It means supporting the skills and training that industry needs and delivering infrastructure that allows businesses to develop and expand. We must not make investment harder and then act surprised when the capability we want does not emerge. We can't burden enterprise with unnecessary costs and then assume that some sort of government subsidy will provide a lasting solution. Our objective should be industries that can compete, innovate and endure, not industries whose future depends on the next announcement from Canberra. Competitiveness is not separate from resilience; it's central to building capability that lasts.
Alongside that domestic effort, we must diversify. In my first speech to this parliament, I said:
I am a firm believer in diversifying our import and export markets so we don't rely on any one country and expose ourselves to being held ransom by adversaries.
That remains my view. We should not confuse participation in the global economy with dependence on a narrow part of it, and Australia has seen the consequences of this directly. Diversification does not mean turning our back on trade. It means giving ourselves more options, more sources of essential supplies, more markets for Australian businesses and less exposure to the decisions of any single country.
Consider the example of Taiwan. According to figures reported by Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, China's share of Taiwan's outward investment fell from 83.8 per cent in 2010 to just 2.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2025. That is a substantial change in the concentration of investment. Australia's circumstances are different, but the principle is relevant. Economic exposure is not something we must simply accept. We can make deliberate decisions to broaden our options and reduce our vulnerabilities. The purpose is not to withdraw from the world. It's to engage with the world from a stronger position.
I believe in personal responsibility and preparation. Those principles should apply to the way we govern this country as much as they apply to individuals. We should not treat national preparedness as something to consider only when an emergency makes it unavoidable. Measures to manage an immediate disruption matter, but the responsibility of government extends beyond managing the next difficult week. It includes preparing for the challenges that may emerge many years from now.
I've decided to raise this subject during a grievance debate. And I am aggrieved, because I do not see this government approaching sovereign capability as a long-term national task. I don't see them being clear about which capabilities are essential to our security and our economic functioning. I don't see them addressing the barriers that prevent viable Australian businesses from developing them and making diversification a practical priority in our economic relationships. These objectives belong together. Domestic capability without competitiveness risks becoming a permanent burden; international trade without sufficient diversification can leave us exposed—and neither will provide lasting security without the discipline to prepare before a crisis arrives.
The people of McPherson should be able to pursue their livelihoods without being left unnecessarily vulnerable to events beyond their control. We cannot promise Australians a world without disruption, but we should be determined to build a country that is better able to withstand it. Australia should not abandon free markets. We should operate within them more strategically, with a clear understanding of our national interests, our vulnerabilities and our strengths. COVID was our wake-up call. But, more than five years later, this government has failed to learn the lesson. We cannot control every crisis that comes our way, but we can control how prepared we are. The failure to prepare today is a decision to leave Australians more vulnerable tomorrow.
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing Australia, our region and the world. We are already seeing its impact in our communities, with more frequent extreme weather events, rising temperatures and increasing risk to our homes, infrastructure and natural environment, and affecting our health and way of life. `Of course, across our region, our Pacific neighbours are confronting the very real threat that rising seas pose to their homes, livelihoods and futures. These challenges demand serious leadership and long-term action. They also present an enormous opportunity for Australia. With our abundant renewable energy resources, skilled workforce and our growing clean energy industries, we have everything we need here to be a leader in the global clean energy transition. But, of course, that opportunity depends on the decisions we make today.
We do need to be investing in renewable energy, strengthening our electricity grid and supporting communities as we move away from ageing coal-fired power stations. We need governments that are prepared to make those decisions rather than continue the political arguments that have held Australia back in this space for far too long, which brings me to my grievance today. While the Albanese Labor government is getting on with the job of driving the clean energy transition, the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation seem determined to take Australia backwards—back to dirty coal, expensive nuclear reactors and the same old climate wars that played out for more than a decade. After nearly a decade of division and inaction by those opposite, it seems they've learnt nothing. And Australia cannot afford to lose another decade.
We know what happens when the Liberals are responsible for climate policy. We did see it during their time in government: nearly a decade of division and dysfunction and of wasted opportunities. They went through a few prime ministers, but the climate policies cycled as well, and Australia lost valuable time. It seems, as I said, that they have learnt nothing from these failures and are looking to drag us back to that decade of inaction.
The Liberals have now abandoned the commitment to net zero by 2050, which was a commitment made by their own former government. Just yesterday they announced that they plan to cut $16.7 billion from climate and clean industry programs. They want to cut support for renewable energy, scrap funding for cheaper home batteries and electric vehicles, and turn their backs on the clean industries and the jobs of the future. The Liberals claim to care about household energy bills, yet they want to rip away the very support that is helping families to bring those bills down. They talk about Australian jobs, while they're proposing to slash investment in the very industries that will create them and sustain them into the future.
And what are they offering instead? More power from coal, from ageing, expensive, dirty plants, and—possibly—from unrealistic, prohibitively expensive, nuclear reactors. They want to keep ageing coal-fired power stations running, while gambling Australia's energy future on expensive nuclear reactors that would take decades and decades to deliver. Our coal-fired power stations here in Australia are approaching retirement, and this is a serious factor that we are confronting. It is why Australia needs investment in cleaner generation, storage and transmission now.
The Liberals wasted nearly a decade holding Australia back on climate action, and now they are trying to tear down the progress that this government has made. They have no credible plan to replace ageing coal-fired power stations, no credible plan to reduce emissions and no credible plan to deliver the affordable, reliable energy that Australians need and deserve. They are more interested in reopening the climate wars than in taking responsibility for Australia's energy future. Australians cannot afford another decade of Liberal division, delay and denial.
I'd like to say it's just the Liberals, but, of course, then we have One Nation, and their position on climate change is equally as bad. They want Australia to abandon being part of the Paris Agreement, scrap net zero and invest further in coal-fired power generation, as I said—expensive, dirty, ageing technology. Their climate policies question the overwhelming scientific evidence of human-caused global warming. At a time when countries around the world are investing in clean energy, One Nation wants Australia to retreat from international climate cooperation. At a time when businesses are investing in new technologies, they want to prolong our reliance on dirty coal. At a time when communities are confronting increasingly severe climate risks, One Nation continues to question the science.
Climate change does not disappear because politicians choose to ignore it. Australia cannot build a credible long-term energy policy by rejecting the need to reduce emissions. Now, the Liberals and One Nation might have a few details that are different, but, essentially, both are now arguing against the long-term net zero commitment that once had bipartisan support in this place. They owe Australians an explanation about how their policies will prepare our country for the future, because the truth is: they will not.
The Albanese Labor government has taken a very different approach when it comes to securing Australia's energy future. We know that Australia needs a serious plan to reduce emissions while delivering reliable and affordable energy. That's why we legislated our 2030 emissions reduction target of 43 per cent below 2005 levels, and, last year, we announced our 2035 target of reducing emissions by 62 to 70 per cent.
We know that targets are not enough. We're investing in renewable energy, battery storage and the electricity grid. Through the Capacity Investment Scheme, we're supporting new renewable generation and storage projects. Through Rewiring the Nation, we're helping to build the infrastructure needed to connect clean energy. With our Cheaper Home Batteries Program, we're helping households store their rooftop solar power and use it when they need it. This is practical, realistic action that Australians need. It's making energy more affordable, supporting new industries and building an electricity system that will be fit for Australia's future. I've seen this firsthand in my community in Jagajaga, where families are installing solar panels and batteries. We've had more than 2,000 households locally install a battery through our Cheaper Home Batteries scheme. Our community organisations are reducing emissions, our local businesses are finding opportunities to operate more sustainably. Of course, transforming our electricity system presents challenges, and we do need reliable supply, more storage and stronger transmission infrastructure. We need to support workers and communities connected to existing energy industries, but the answer is to manage those challenges, not to pretend that they're not there. The answer is to build for the future, not try and take us back to some imaginary past. Australia has enormous advantages in renewable energy, critical minerals and the skills needed to develop new industries. As a government, we are working to make sure we make the most of these opportunities.
I am also currently in my role as Special Envoy for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience, focusing on the impacts of climate change that communities in Australia are already experiencing. Last year, our government released Australia's first national climate risk assessment, alongside our national adaptation plan, and the findings of both of these were clear: climate change is increasing risks to our homes, our infrastructure, our health, our environment and our economy. More severe heatwaves, bushfires, floods and coastal hazards will affect communities across Australia. We need to reduce emissions to limit future warming, but we also need to set our communities up to be able to deal with the impacts that are already unavoidable.
This does mean building resilience into our infrastructure, supporting local communities and improving how we prepare for extreme weather. This, I think, is important for all of us now and into the future. It is why we are investing in cleaner energy, it's why we are working to protect communities and make decisions that are responsible both now and for that future that all Australians should have. We absolutely cannot risk another decade of arguing about climate action while those risks continue to grow. I say to those opposite: this is the time to take Australia's energy future seriously. We've seen how it plays out when you retreat to denial, we've seen how it plays out when you try and pretend that technology that is no longer fit for purpose and no longer meets the needs of a modern Australia or a future Australia is the way forward.
We cannot be extending the life of dirty, expensive, ageing coal power plants. We cannot think that our future depends on unproven, prohibitively expensive nuclear technology here in Australia. We have an enormous opportunity before us: to continue to invest in renewables to boost our grid and to help households who are already installing, in record numbers, cheaper home batteries. This is the path the Albanese government has focused on. All of this is at risk from our opponents. Australia's future is far too important to risk on the climate denial of those opposite.
Sitting suspended from 13:38 to 16:00
On Sunday, as the warm morning sun rose above the waves at Narrabeen Beach in my electorate of Mackellar, our community came together for the Big Beach Brekky. The brekky was hosted by the Men's Wellbeing Collective, a grassroots network of local organisations united by a shared commitment to help boys, men and the families of the Northern Beaches feel more connected, supported and heard. The collective is built on a simple but powerful idea: no single organisation can reach every person who needs support, but together, as a connected, visible and coordinated network, the group can make sure that every man on the beaches, no matter what age, knows where to turn, has a group to belong to and has someone who will listen to them. Many men, older Australians and members of our diverse communities can carry distress quietly and struggle alone without support. Too often distress is unseen and conversations go unspoken. Sunday's relaxed beachside breakfast gave people the opportunity to have a chat, connect and discover our extraordinary network of local community supports. Sometimes the first step towards better wellbeing starts with a coffee, a bacon and egg roll and someone asking: 'How are you going?'
I want to sincerely thank the wonderful organisations who came together to make Sunday's breakfast possible: Mongrels Men, Man Anchor, Head Above Water, Lifeline Northern Beaches, The Kerry Gleeson Centre, meditationHQ, Breathwork HQ, Northern Beaches Veteran Wellbeing Centre, Sydney North Health Network, PAVE Mentoring, The Men's Table, Mowana, Northern Beaches CARES, Mr Perfect, Odyssey House and the Vipers Run Club. Together these organisations are creating pathways to friendship, belonging, wellbeing and support for men at every age and stage of life. Thank you also to the Northern Beaches mayor, Sue Heins, and Councillors Jody Williams and Sarah Grattan for attending and showing your support for this important community initiative. As the Head Above Water crew put it, Sunday was all about good people and good conversations, reminding us that the power of connection, the strength of community and the simple act of showing up for one another will ensure that nobody feels they have to face life challenges alone.
One of the most important responsibilities in being a member of parliament is representing everyone in your electorate, whether they voted for you or not. But we also must give advice to those who can't vote, and that's our young people. In my electorate of Shortland, roughly 20 per cent of the population is under the age of 18.
The Raise Our Voice in Parliament campaign gives young Australians an opportunity to deliver messages on issues that matter most to them. As part of this campaign, Akira from Belmont, on the beautiful shores of Lake Macquarie, wrote about the pressures faced by HSC students. Here is Akira's a Raise Our Voice statement:
Recently, I conducted a survey of 47 students and recent graduates to better understand their experiences. The results were striking.
More than 74 per cent reported feeling high or extremely high pressure to achieve a high ATAR, while 83 per cent said this pressure came from themselves. This shows just how deeply the expectations surrounding the HSC have become internalised.
The responses revealed the real impacts this pressure is having on students. Many described their biggest concerns as 'trying not to fall apart' and 'not getting into university because of my marks.'
Perhaps one of the most striking responses was 'the feeling of wasting so much of my youth years, missing out on memories and not living my life as a teenager as a result of studying and doing school work all the time.'
The survey also highlighted educational inequality. An overwhelming 91.5% believe private schools provide greater support for HSC students than public schools.
Students were clear about what needs to change: increased funding for public schools, meaningful wellbeing support, greater promotion of alternate pathways, and mentoring programs to help students navigate their futures.
I rise today so that no student feels the future is defined by a single exam or their worth determined by a number.
Every student deserves to approach their future with confidence, not fear.
That was Akira's submission. Despite finishing high school a number of years ago, I agree with Akira. A test result or number should not define your worth. We must support the next generation through their education, giving them the opportunities and resources to succeed.
I'm proud that the Albanese Labor government has committed record funding to our public schools, expanded access to free TAFE and created more pathways for young Australians to pursue further education. Thank you, Akira, for your speech for shining a spotlight on what people are going through. As the HSC exams conclude, I say to every student: your ATAR does not define who you are or what you will be. Be proud of what you've achieved and what you will achieve in life. To the parents, carers, teachers and all supporters of all these kids, thank you for all your hard work in getting them through an extremely stressful period. It will soon be over as they turn to the next stage of their life. Thank you to everyone who supports the next generation in Shortland and in the whole nation.
In the last sitting week, a rare occasion occurred. There was a joint parliamentary friends group. Both Parliamentary Friends of Women's Health, of which I'm a co-chair, and Parliamentary Friends of Endometriosis Awareness came together to hold an event. I'd like to thank my co-chairs: Senator Marielle Smith, Alice Jordan-Baird and Julian Leeser. I'd like to acknowledge Sarah White, the CEO of Jean Hailes for Women's Health; Victoria Bowring, who is the General Manager of Endometriosis Australia; and Deanna Flynn Wallis, an Endometriosis Australia ambassador.
Deanna is a young woman who shared her extraordinary story with us, and it takes a huge amount of courage to stand in front of strangers and share your story. We all sat around the table, and Deanna opened up to us. She first experienced symptoms of endometriosis at 13. She experienced 'debilitating pain, extraordinarily heavy bleeding, nausea, fatigue, excruciating bloating, bowel symptoms and nerve pain to name a few.' She said:
My body changed and I lost the energy for much of what I loved.
But perhaps one of the most damaging parts wasn't happening inside my body—it was what happened when I tried to tell people. I wasn't believed.
It was another six years until Deanna was diagnosed. She had a hysterectomy, but the endometriosis continued. She said:
There is physical exhaustion, but also the exhaustion of appointments and constantly proving your pain is real. Then there is grief—for your body, fertility, pregnancies and the future you imagined.
She says that medical gaslighting has left some of her deepest scars. Now Deanna says:
Sometimes I wonder what 13-year-old me would think if she could see me now. Maybe she'd ask—Wait, they believe us now?
And I think I'd tell her—more than they did then. Enough that one day, your dear friend the member for Mayo will invite you to the federal parliament to tell them about it.
… … …
I cannot change what happened to 13-year-old me. But all of us in this room have the opportunity to change what happens next
I'd really like to acknowledge the work that the government has done with respect to endometriosis and pelvic pain. It is huge, what's been done, but we are so far behind and we have so much more to do. It is still so difficult to access for so many women, particularly in regional areas. So many women go to their doctors, and their doctors still do not believe them. They think that you're just having a heavy period, when it's so much more. Thank you, Deanna, and thank you to everybody involved.
I rise today to recognise some of the wonderful community organisations in my electorate of Aston that are making a real difference in the lives of people with disability and their families. These organisations remind us that inclusion is about more than providing support. It is about creating opportunities for people to build friendships, develop skills, participate in their community and live life to the fullest. In Wantirna, Smiley Happy People is doing important work supporting neurodivergent children and their families through play based early childhood intervention programs. Early intervention can make an enormous difference in a child's development, and play is such a powerful way for children to learn, communicate and connect with others. Smiley Happy People provides a welcoming environment where children can develop at their own pace and families can feel supported along the way.
I also want to recognise Riding for the Disabled Association Knox, which uses the unique benefits of horseriding to support people with disability. Its programs help participants develop physical skills, balance and coordination while also building confidence and independence. Just as importantly, they provide opportunities for connection, achievement and enjoyment. The dedication of the volunteers and everyone involved makes this a very special part of our community.
In Bayswater, Waverley Social Enterprises is another outstanding local organisation creating opportunities for people with disability. Through its social enterprise model, it helps people build skills, gain meaningful work experience and participate in the workforce. Having the opportunity to contribute, develop independence and be valued for your abilities can make a profound difference to a person's life. These organisations may do their work in different ways, but they share a common belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to participate, belong and reach their potential.
I also want to give a special shout-out to the Ferntree Gully Tennis Club, which is celebrating the fifth anniversary of its All Abilities Tennis program. Five years is a fantastic milestone. Congratulations to everyone who has helped build a program where people of all abilities can get on the court, learn new skills, enjoy the game of tennis and be part of a team. It is a wonderful example of how local sporting clubs can make their communities more welcoming and inclusive. To all the staff, volunteers, families and participants involved in these organisations: thank you for the work you do every day. You are helping make Aston a stronger, more connected and more inclusive community, and I'm so proud to recognise your contribution in this parliament here today.
On Sunday, I joined around 2,000 people at Moore Park with a single message: keep Victoria Barracks Sydney in public hands in Defence. On that stage stood people of all political stripes, side by side with the RSL, a former chief of the army and local representatives. We rarely see agreement across such a broad spectrum. The government should not ignore it.
Since the 1840s, the Victoria Barracks Sydney has farewelled Australians to war from the Sudan War to the First World War. It is a spiritual home of the Australian Army. But this is not just about the history. Victoria Barracks Sydney is still operational today. It is home to Headquarters Forces Command and the 2nd Health Brigade, minutes from the CBD, major transport, hospitals and stadiums. Veterans and former senior officers, including the former chief of the Army, told me that it has strategic and operational value. Its value to counterterrorism is one of the most compelling reasons for why it should not be sold and why it should continue to remain in Defence hands, and my community agrees. When I surveyed residents across Wentworth, 98 per cent rejected handing the site to private ownership. They asked me to protect its heritage, respect its military history and, above all, keep it in public hands—ideally, Defence hands.
Let's be honest. One group's voice is missing from this. While the bureaucracy made the recommendation to sell Victoria Barracks Sydney, uniformed officers and uniformed members of the Army cannot have their say. They cannot speak up about their perspective on this. They have to be unpolitical; therefore they cannot speak up. But when you hear from veterans and former chiefs of the Army about how important this is, you get a sense of what the uniformed community feels about this. I'll be honest. I'm not against making sure that every single site in Defence serves Defence's interests now. We need to be strategic and we need to be disciplined in the sites that we preserve, but this is the birthplace of the Australian Army and the closest and largest base to the CBD, where we are most likely to have a terrorist attack if we have additional terrorist attacks. That is the reason why we should hold on to this one—for its significant historical value but also its ongoing strategic value. It is short-sighted of the government to sell this off. It is not wanted by anyone in the community, and one government does not own 180 years of history. Once it is sold, it cannot be got back.
This is a government making a decision that is short-sighted and is not supported. I urge the government to rethink this. We do not want a boutique hotel. This is not the additional need in our community, and we don't believe that, even if it is sold, it would go to in public benefit. We think that this will go into commercial hands. This is not what the community wants.
I rise today to congratulate and recognise several outstanding athletes from across Eden-Monaro who are achieving remarkable success on the national stage. First I want to acknowledge Pat Wilson from the Pambula Merimbula Golf Club, who has been named the New South Wales Golf Course Superintendents Association's Superintendent of the Year for this year. It's a prestigious honour recognising Pat's exceptional work, his leadership and his contribution to the turf industry across New South Wales after working both at Wimbledon in England and on golf courses in the United States, Pat's dedication to the club, his staff, his volunteers and the next generation of turf managers make him a really worthy recipient, so well done, Pat. I look forward to catching you soon.
I also want to recognise a talented group of young motocross riders who proudly represented our region at the 2026 KTM Australian Junior Motocross Championships in Shepparton, in particular Raphael Rossiter from Wamboin, who claimed the Australian Championship in the 250cc class and finished third overall in the 125cc class despite challenging conditions and mechanical setbacks. Congratulations also to Kai Frezza, Trav Barker, CJ Savill, Billie Savill, Beau Johnson and Oli Boucher, who showcased their skill, determination and commitment at the national championships. Trav Barker and Kai Frezza were also selected in the New South Wales Tailwhips team, which is a tremendous achievement. These young athletes are supported, supported by dedicated families, coaches, volunteers, local clubs and sponsors, whose efforts helped make these successes possible.
While we're talking about motorsport, I also want to congratulate Bathurst 1000 podium finisher Zach Bates, who delivered a career-best performance at Mount Panorama. Zach claimed his first Supercars podium, secured his first provisional pole position and won the top 10 shootout, making his family, friends and the entire Eden-Monaro community incredibly proud.
A special congratulations also goes to Goulburn student Jordan Sturgiss, who, along with Cooper Gersbach, recently won gold at the Australian Under-18s Championships for lawn bowls in the boys pairs—an outstanding achievement that reflects tremendous hard work and dedication. Jordan started playing family social bowls and quite enjoyed it, so when an opportunity arose to represent Goulburn High School, he grabbed it with both hands. He's now one of the region's best young players, and it's great seeing him go from strength to strength in this sport.
On behalf of the people of Eden-Monaro, a big congratulations to Pat, Raphael, Kai, Trav, CJ, Billie, Beau, Oli, Zach and Jordan. Your achievements are an inspiration to people right across our region. This is what we do in Eden-Monaro. We punch well above our weight and we make sure we let people know about it.
Victoria is heading in the wrong direction, and we need a fresh start with a team that we can trust to deliver a fair share of funding for our regional areas. Under the Labor Party, we've seen $15 billion wasted on rorts and corruption on building sites. Our road network in regional areas is falling apart, and it's costing lives. It's also costing Victorians a fortune to repair their vehicles. We've also seen an increase in violent crimes, with Victorians feeling less safe in their homes and on the streets. The only way we can change Victoria is to vote for your local National Party and Liberal Party candidates in the upcoming state election. They have a plan to recruit more police and lock up criminals to keep our communities safe. They have a plan to deliver a fair share of funding for our regional areas, for roads and health services. They have a plan to eliminate waste and corruption, a plan to fix the budget and a plan to lower taxes and ease the cost of living for Victorian families. To get the change we need, I'm asking all Victorians to vote 1 for your local National Party and Liberal Party candidates.
The Latrobe Valley has been neglected by a Labor government which has traded the jobs of hardworking blue-collar workers in the country for Greens preferences in the city. How else can you explain the Labor Party's failure to stand up for workers in the energy sector and in paper manufacturing, along with the illogical decision of the Labor Party in Victoria to ban hardwood timber harvesting across the entire state?
There is a better way. In the seat of Morwell we have my friend Marty Cameron fighting for our fair share and working to protect the jobs of everyday people for the future. To get anything done in politics, you need to have a strong team. We're sick of being ignored by Labor politicians in Melbourne who don't understand our community. That's why I'm working every day with Marty Cameron to deliver a fair share for the Latrobe Valley and a fair share for regional Victoria, because, under the Labor-Greens, we've seen jobs lost right across the Latrobe Valley. We've seen crime increase. Our roads are falling apart. The cost of living is out of control. But Labor's answer has been to waste billions of dollars on rorts and corruption on Big Build sites in Melbourne. It has to stop, and we need a change that we can trust in our community.
Marty Cameron is someone who understands our community. He grew up in the Latrobe Valley. He played footy here. He ran his own small business. He wants to make sure the Latrobe Valley is prosperous again. The Nationals have a plan for better roads, schools, hospitals and community facilities, right across the Latrobe Valley. Marty Cameron understands our community, and I trust him to fight for us and deliver our fair share.
No matter where I go across my electorate of Corangamite, people are coming up to me and voicing their serious concerns about online safety. Whether they be parents, teachers or small-business owners, people are united in their view that social media has become the Wild West, with few constraints, and that the tenor of online debate is harmful, particularly for young people. It's why the Albanese government created a minimum age to have a social media account, and, so far, more than five million underage accounts have been deactivated, removed or restricted. As a result, YouGov has reported a nine per cent drop in online bullying, and exposure to inappropriate and violent content has fallen by 18 per cent.
This is welcome progress, but we know there's more to do—and that work is happening right now, with the debate underway on a digital duty of care bill. This bill is all about creating safety standards for the digital services we all use. It will force platforms to protect Australian children from harmful content and will ensure parents have the tools they need to keep their family safe online. For the first time ever, tech companies will need to do annual risk assessments of the harms their services can cause to Australians. They'll need to put systems in place to prevent risky features from causing harm, and, if they don't, they'll face serious penalties of up to $109 million.
That's significant, but so too are the provisions designed to tackle doomscrolling. We know doomscrolling causes real harm to young people. Locals tell me this all the time. Teachers speak to me about how young people are increasingly seeing more and more misogynistic and inappropriate content online. We know it's impacting their relationships with peers and, at times, their mental health, which is just so heartbreaking and so concerning. It's why we're backing the My Feed, My Way approach as part of our bill. It'll give Australians a choice. They can either opt in to the algorithm, or choose to only see content from accounts they follow. Social media platforms make significant profit from using the information of its users, so it's only fair that they give Australians some choice and follow the same basic rules as every other industry.
The bill also puts a stop to nudify apps. That means we're giving the eSafety Commissioner take-down powers to remove platforms that allow for generation of deepfake AI-generated nude images.
In closing, the bill in the House responds to so many of the concerns I've been hearing right across my electorate. I call on the parliament to unite in support of the digital duty of care bill. It's good for children, teachers and parents, and it's good for all Australians. It's about time that social media platforms are no longer the Wild West.
I rise today to celebrate an incredible milestone in Australian medical research and to pay tribute to a community in my electorate of Forrest that has quite literally changed the course of global public health. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the world renowned Busselton Health Study, which began in 1966 as the visionary idea of a local GP, the late Dr Kevin Cullen, and has grown into one of the longest running, most significant community health cohort studies in the world. Dr Cullen understood that, by studying a stable, representative regional population over time, we could unlock the secrets of chronic disease. Sixty years later, more than 25,000 citizens of Busselton have stepped forward, volunteering their time, their data and their own blood to build a resource to advance human health. Administered by the Busselton Population Medical Research Institute in partnership with UWA, this single study has produced more than 400 peer reviewed publications gracing the pages of the world's most prestigious scientific journals, including Nature, Science and the New England Journal of Medicine.
The diverse domains of medicine that have been transformed include cardiovascular disease, when, in the 1970s and eighties, Busselton's data systematically tracked risk factors like blood pressure and smoking, proving that community-wide lifestyle shifts accounted for a 67 per cent decline in male cardiovascular mortality; sleep disorders, when, in 1990, a pioneering in-home sleep study on a population-wide basis proved that moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnoea is a significant independent predictor of all-cause mortality; and genetic medicine, where the very first genetic markers associated with asthma were first discovered. Today, through the Busselton Healthy Ageing Study, researchers are tracking thousands of baby boomers to study how diabetes, hearing loss, cognitive decline and physical function interact as we age. They're also leading urgent research into the long-term metabolic and respiratory impacts of long COVID.
Busselton is not just a study; it is a vital research-enabling platform for our entire nation. Its deep database and decade-spanning biobank are registered internationally, allowing external researchers from across the globe to collaborate and benchmark health data. But beyond the data, the algorithms and the biobanks, the true heart of the Busselton Health Study is its people. This 60-year legacy is a testament to the community spirit, generosity and civic pride of those people of Busselton, where generations of families have participated, creating an unbroken chain of contribution to global human welfare. I want to formally congratulate the many project leads, the staff, the boards and every single resident who has ever participated in a survey, given blood or undertaken a clinical test, because for 60 years you've helped the world live longer, healthier and better lives. Your local contribution is a global triumph, and this parliament commends you.
The one-million mark for 1800MEDICARE was achieved just a week or so ago. This is an important service that our government has created—1800MEDICARE. Since January, more than 30,000 Tasmanians have used 1800MEDICARE for free health information and advice. This is a free, 24-hour service that is connecting Tasmanians with registered nurses who can provide expert health advice and help people find the most appropriate care for their needs. It is nationwide, as I said, but for Tasmanians, particularly constituents in my electorate who are living in regional and rural communities, this service is really making a difference.
Between 1 January and 27 September, more than 8,300 callers in Tasmania living in rural or remote areas contacted this service, providing them with accessible health care after hours when they haven't had it before. Importantly, nurses and GPS through 1800MEDICARE have also helped divert approximately 3½ thousand Tasmanians from unnecessary emergency department visits or calls to triple zero. We had our Premier out just this week, a Liberal premier, with a campaign around how one in five triple zero calls are not necessary and are not requiring an ambulance, and they are asking people to call 1800MEDICARE. This is a state Liberal premier promoting 1800MEDICARE as a valuable service for Tasmanians. It's clearly assisting and impacting and supporting the Tasmanian health system, helping people to navigate their care while keeping the emergency services genuinely for the people who need them for an emergency.
They are obviously complemented by our urgent care clinics that are also diverting people away from emergency departments and unnecessary visits to those. Of course, that network of eight in Tasmania has now provided over 200,000 free visits for Tasmanians with no out-of-pocket expenses. As I said, they are free. In my electorate of Franklin, our urgent care clinic at Kingston, which only opened earlier this year, is doing incredibly well. We're rapidly approaching now 10,000 visits to that urgent care centre in my electorate.
We also have, of course, more constituents being fully bulk-billed right across Tasmania, right across the state. I recently heard from a constituent, Mary, about how life-changing it had been when her local GP started bulk-billing her. She said that this meant she didn't hesitate to go to the doctor when she needed to get a scan done. This has of course improved her overall health and wellbeing.
Our cheaper medicines policy is also having a big impact on the lives of people in Tasmania, and Tasmanians have now saved $74 million through our cheaper medicines policy.
As the local member, hearing from constituents the difference that having 1800MEDICARE, the urgent care clinics and the cheaper medicines policy alongside the bulk-billing is making to them really matters. It makes this job worthwhile.
I rise today to pay honour to a dear, dear friend and mentor, Michael Stewart, who died on the weekend aged 96. If you want to look at a life well lived, Michael's life was well lived. He was one of that generation that we still look to and wonder how. They were that generation; they were tough, they were resilient and they just got on and built Australia. I say to Michael's family—he's the much-loved father of Tim, Gina, Simon and Lisa; admired father-in-law of Hugh, Alison and Simon; adored grandfather of Annabel, Sophie, Annabel, Fergus, Victoria, Jock, Olivia, Serena and Liam; and great-grandfather of Theodora and Araminta—my thoughts and prayers are with you at this time. It would be incredibly sad to lose someone so dear, but what a life he lived. What a remarkable life he lived.
Michael was a New Zealander who came to the Western District because his sister's husband died. At age 22 he came over from New Zealand to help her run the farm. That's where he met his wife. He, along with his wife, ended up running a farm called Kinvonvie. He, with his wife, turned it into a wonderful, wonderful farm. But that wasn't all that Michael did; he was just one of those people that wanted to be involved in the community. He was involved in the local football club. He was involved in the local research centre. He was involved when it came to agripolitics.
He was involved when it came to politics. He knew that good government in Australia was very much dependent on having the Liberal Party in power. He helped and supported Malcolm Fraser, he helped and supported David Hawker and he helped and supported me. He actually helped me win preselection for the seat of Wannon. I can never, ever thank him enough for the way that he showed me around, the way he introduced me to people. It was like I was a prized colt or something of the type. He was just fantastic. It was through his support that I was able to win that preselection and go on and represent the people of Wannon.
Michael, rest in peace. You were a great, great man.
I'm pleased to report that the Noarlunga Aquatic Centre is on track to reopen this summer. The Albanese Labor government has made significant investment, along with the Onkaparinga Council, to ensure that this swimming pool can come back to life. Of course, the centre was facing serious challenges. It had not had a redevelopment for decades, and without major works this pool would have been closed, disappointing so many community groups, schools and local residents that use this important swimming pool. We partnered with the Onkaparinga council, and this pool is set to open. It is an example of the great local community investment that this government does for important infrastructure. I would also note that there is more work coming, with the grant that was provided to both the Cove Sports and Community Club and, importantly, the South Adelaide Football Club, as an investment in women's facilities there. The Panthers are both immensely successful, but the women's team particularly are having a lot of success on the field.
Speaking of the South Adelaide Football Club, I did want to actually mention a wonderful volunteer who has hung up her volunteering. I want to acknowledge the contribution of Maxine McPherson. Maxine is known well across the southern suburbs of Adelaide for her unmatched energy, enthusiasm and her willingness to volunteer for others. For more than 75 years, Max has devoted herself to others, from fundraising to build a kindergarten in Aberfoyle Park, raising millions of dollars for community organisations to, of course, her work at the South Adelaide Football Club. She is truly remarkable. It would not be right of me to not also acknowledge her role on the Christmas carols committee at South Adelaide. She usually hits me up for a donation in February for the Christmas carols coming up in the year. Her passion and commitment to bring joy to our community is just wonderful. She really is an absolute treasure to our local community. She, together with so many other volunteers, make a huge difference.
As we go in to the Christmas period, we in my office make a call for donations to support those doing it tough in our community. I'd just like to acknowledge Flagstaff Hill Primary School, who have made a huge donation to help others. A big shout out to them. Thank you very much, your donations were very much appreciated by our community.
Over the past week, I've had the privilege of spending some time with some remarkable organisations in Townsville. These organisations may have different purposes, but they are all united by something very important: community, mateship and looking after one another. I recently joined a local dragon boat regatta raising awareness for breast cancer and celebrating life after a breast cancer diagnosis. It was an extremely important event. We saw teams there from across Townsville, from corrections to the hospital and to other local organisations. They were also highlighting how men need to check for breast cancer as well.
I was sitting off on the side with the Rotary Club of Townsville who sponsored and supported the event, and I thought that was good enough, but I ended up in a dragon boat and racing. I am not fit enough to be in a dragon boat. My body was sore for many days after. The team had won every event until I got into it, and then we got second—but it was for a good cause. Events like this are far more than competition; they are about standing beside the people who have faced enormous challenges, celebrating their strength and reminding them that their community is behind them.
I also had the honour of joining local war widows at a luncheon at the Townsville RSL club. It was an opportunity to learn more about the remarkable Jesse Mary Vasey, who founded the War Widows' Guild of Australia, following the death of her husband Major General George Vasey in 1945. She helped create an organisation that provided friendship, counselling and practical support to war widows, while also becoming a powerful voice advocating for their interests. That spirit of supporting one another was certainly alive in Townsville.
There was another great reason to be in the room: Gladys was marking her 100th birthday. Happy birthday Gladys! What an extraordinary milestone.
Last week, I also spent a bit of time at the Townsville Men's Shed, where it was terrific to meet the president, Jeff, and chat with members. Men's Sheds play an important role in communities like ours. They give blokes a place to come together, work on projects, have a yarn, build friendships and stay connected. Sometimes the most important conversations happen while working alongside someone else, with a cuppa in hand.
These organisations represent the very best of Townsville. They remind us that strong communities aren't built in Canberra; they're built by local people in the regions. They look after each other. They look after their mates. They step up when someone needs a hand. To everyone involved in the dragon boat community, to Rotary, to war widows and to the Townsville Men's Shed, I want to say: thank you.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, and you've heard me say this: the Hunter Valley is the best wine region in Australia. I know there might be a few members in this place from South Australia, from Victoria—like you, Deputy Speaker Aldred—or from Western Australia who want to argue with me on that, but the stats don't lie, the trophies don't lie and neither do the experts. The 2026 Halliday Wine Companion Top 100 Wineries have just been announced, and an incredible nine wineries from the Hunter Valley made that list. That's nine. It's nine local wineries recognised amongst the very best producers in this entire country. If that's not enough, Tyrrell's Wines has been ranked No. 2 in Australia—No. 2 in the entire country. What an outstanding achievement for one of the Hunter's most iconic family owned businesses! I want to congratulate all nine wineries recognised this year: Tyrrell's Wines, Brokenwood Wines, Mount Pleasant Wines, Lake's Folly, Pooles Rock, Thomas Wines, Margan Wines. First Creek Wines and Silkman Wines. Every single one of them deserves a massive pat on the back.
But these awards aren't just about what's in the bottle; they're about the hardworking people behind the scenes: the grapegrowers, the winemakers, the cellar door staff, the hospitality workers and the families who have poured their hearts and souls into building the Hunter Valley's reputation. They're the people getting up early, working long hours and putting in the hard yards to produce some of the finest wines anywhere in the world, and they're doing it right in our backyard in the Hunter.
The Hunter Valley has been producing wine for more than 200 years. It's one of Australia's oldest wine regions, and generations of families have helped build an industry that we're incredibly proud of. From our world-famous semillon to our outstanding shiraz, the Hunter has something pretty special going for it, and it's not just about the wine. Our vineyards bring visitors from across Australia and around the world, supporting local accommodation, restaurants, tourism operators and small businesses. That's jobs, investment and opportunities in our regional communities.
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a pretty partial and parochial bloke when it comes to the Hunter Valley and Hunter Valley wines. But, when we've got nine wineries in the top 100 and one sitting at No. 2, I reckon we've got every reason to be. So congratulations to everyone involved. Keep producing outstanding wines, keep collecting those trophies and keep showing the rest of Australia how it's done. And remember the Hunter Valley is the best wine region in Australia, hands down. Thank you to everyone who enjoys a bottle of Hunter Valley wine tonight.
I rise to congratulate the winners of the second annual McPherson Honours. This year our theme was our community's quiet achievers, and I'd like to name them for the record.
Educator of the Year Alan Dick has inspired generations through 48 years of teaching at St Augustine's. For years, Community Safety Award recipient Sue Abele has kept students and families safe at the St Augustine's Galleon Way Crossing as well. Environmental Champion Tom Pasley established Palm Beach Currumbin State High School's sustainability program, introducing recycling and composting. Volunteer of the Year Jeffrey Weber has given 25 years as a justice of the peace, including extended signing sessions at The Pines in Elanora. The Youth Leadership Award recipient, Pippa Bell, a Nipper captain at Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club, contributed over 52 patrol hours during the season. Local Hero of the Year award recipient Nicholas Scott helps young performers build confidence as chairman of the Gold Coast Eisteddfod. The Sporting Club of the Year, Burleigh Barbell Club, builds confidence and resilience through weightlifting. The club helps young athletes reach state and national success while maintaining a supportive community culture.
Our surf lifesaving clubs are very much at the heart of what we do on the Gold Coast, and Pacific Surf Life Saving Club took out Surf Life Saving Club of the Year. It helps children needing extra support through its Confidence Club. The Service Club of the Year, the Country Women's Association of Coolangatta, supplies essential services and essential goods to domestic violence refuges and people who are experiencing homelessness in our community. Community Organisation of the Year Walk With Us and the team, led by Nikki Luke, provide meals, clothing and essentials to people facing hardship. Employee of the Year Mathew Bell makes music achievable and enjoyable for students of all ages at the Currumbin Rhythm Music School. And Small Business of the Year GCIT supports many organisations including the Currumbin Wildlife Hospital, Cancer Council Queensland, Animal Welfare League Queensland, the Starlight Children's Foundation and veterans through the Currumbin RSL Mateship Run. Spirit of McPherson recipient Father Harry Reuss has provided pastoral care for over 15 years as St John Ambulance Queensland's senior chaplain.
I thank Ken Clark OAM, Leeanne Cohens and the committee who helped me decide who was worthy to receive acknowledgement. I also thank our emcee, Al Dobie from Triple M Gold Coast, the Currumbin Rhythm Music School's performers, who provided the entertainment, Mr Consistent, who provided the refreshing mocktails once again, the Lions Club of Robina and the McPherson Community Connect. To every nominee, finalist, sponsor, volunteer, family and friend, thank you. McPherson is special not simply because of where we live but because of who we are.
I always love being able to provide an update to this place on some of the incredible people that call my community home. In particular, I want to shout-out a few people who caught up with me last Friday in my first of my multicultural roundtables that I held in my office. This captured community leaders from the northern parts of my electorate, from Tullamarine, Gladstone Park, Glenroy and Gowan Brae.
I want to thank Aruna, Harun, Lina, Niva, Ramsin, Sadaf and Siad for spending the morning with me to talk about their experiences, their insights and how we can support their communities better in the work that we do, in particular around shared concerns of cost-of-living pressures, mental health and how we're supporting our young people. Being able to work directly in our communities is how we make sure we can bring people along with us.
I also want to do a massive shout-out to the wonderful grade 5-6 class at Moonee Ponds West Primary School, who invited me into their classroom last Friday to pepper me with questions on how this place works, the job that I do and how I engage with my community. Some of their questions were pretty hard hitting, I must say. They really put me through my paces. In particular, they asked me: How much does an MP earn? What's the PM's favourite food? I couldn't quite answer that, but it was such an incredible opportunity to see the excitement that they have for civics education and the role that they play in helping drive our communities forward. With the number of kids in that room who I could see as future members of this place, we are in no shortage of opportunities for young people to contribute to this great place in years to come.
I also want to shout-out the Friends of the Maribyrnong Valley, who are celebrating their 40th year. They were formed in 1986 by locals who wanted to support the Maribyrnong River, from which my electorate takes its name. I must say, the 'Maribyrnong' comes from, 'Can you hear the ringtail possum?' That's the First Nations language. Friends of the Maribyrnong Valley for 40 years have been supporting that river and the parklands, as I said. Over that time, volunteers have put in more than 150,000 hours and planted more than 500,000 trees and shrubs along the valley. I also want to particularly acknowledge their role and the work they did during the floods in October 2022, when the river came up into people's homes, and the banks were left under silt and rubbish. They were still going out there cleaning months after. It is those people that really make Maribyrnong the best place to be.
I take this opportunity to read out a speech by Olivia, who is 13, from Durack and part of the Raise Our Voice campaign, as follows:
One of the biggest problems shaping the future of the pastoral industry is the shortage of skilled workers.
Most pastoral stations, especially those in remote parts of Australia, struggle to find and keep experienced staff such as, station hands, mechanics, livestock managers and station cooks.
This shortage increases the workloads for existing workers, slow downs productivity and makes it more difficult for businesses to stay profitable and ensure animal welfare remains the priority.
In my opinion a meaningful action Parliament could take is to invest in a national agricultural workforce program.
This means it would include funding more trainees and apprentices, while improving regional services such as schools, hospitals and housing.
Parliament can also support schools and training organisations to encourage more young Australians to pursue careers in agriculture.
These changes would make rural jobs more attractive and help to build a skilled workforce for the future.
By taking these actions, Parliament will strengthen the pastoral industry, improve productivity, support rural communities and help make sure Australia's agricultural industry remains sustainable and competitive for many years to come.
Thank you, Olivia. I think we can all agree that there is some very good advice amongst your very well-chosen words.
A big issue affecting our regional communities is the changes to the Working Holiday Maker program and the subsequent impacts on regional Western Australia's workforce. Over the past few months, I have spoken many times about the government's senseless changes to the Working Holiday Maker program, and, in particular, the impact of the proposed second- and third-year ballot arrangements. I've now written yet another letter to the Minister for Home Affairs on behalf of several regional WA organisations representing business and primary producers who are deeply concerned that the proposed arrangements simply do not adequately recognise the workforce realities facing regional and remote Western Australia. It is not just these organisations that are concerned. The Labor WA Premier in Western Australia has also written to the Minister for Home Affairs. He wrote:
We simply cannot support changes to the working holiday maker visa scheme that could have such a significant negative impact on regional Western Australia.
So, Prime Minister, what's it going to stop? Please, stop playing politics. Our small businesses in regional Western Australia are on their knees. They need you to help them, not harm them.
For generations, Keilor residents have lived alongside Melbourne Airport. In turn, Melbourne Airport has brought significant benefits to our local community and economy. But, while Melbourne Airport's contribution is significant, Keilor residents are reasonably concerned about the impact of the third runway on their health, homes and quality of life. Many have contacted my office seeking clear, accessible information about what these changes will mean for their families and what protections will be available through the noise sharing and noise amelioration plans.
Residents already experience aircraft noise, with current data indicating an average of six flights a day over some locations in Keilor, rising to 14 on busier days. By 2031, under projected airport growth, this could increase to 112 flights a day, on average, reaching 200 on busy days. By 2036, projections indicate up to 160 flights a day, on average, and 234 on busy days. These are not just numbers. They represent families trying to sleep, children trying to learn, people trying to work from home and residents trying to enjoy their own backyards. Residents also have concerns about older homes, many of which were built in the 1970s and 1980s, before modern acoustic standards, and may be more vulnerable to aircraft noise. The third runway approval includes conditions intended to manage aircraft noise, including a noise sharing plan, a noise amelioration plan and a long-term study on the health impacts of aircraft noise. However, residents remain concerned that the noise amelioration plan's reliance on the ANEF 25 contour may exclude households experiencing significant noise impacts, and the noise sharing plan is yet to provide sufficient clarity or predictable respite.
Many residents have also found the consultation process and technical information difficult to understand, leaving them uncertain about the practical impacts on their properties and how their concerns will be addressed. Genuine consultation must go beyond providing technical information. Residents deserve clear explanations, meaningful opportunities to ask questions and confidence that their lived experience are being heard. I have met with and written to Melbourne Airport to convey these concerns and invite greater consideration of the impacts on Keilor residents. I remain committed to working with both Melbourne Airport and the minister for the long term to find a suitable pathway to properly addressing these concerns. Our community understands the importance of Melbourne Airport to jobs, freight and our economy. Residents are not asking the airport to stop growing. They are asking for fair treatment, meaningful noise relief and assurance that their homes, health and quality of life will not be overlooked.
When an older Australian reaches the point of needing aged care, they are often at their most vulnerable. They're looking for help, dignity and someone who will listen. The Commonwealth Ombudsman has handed down a damning verdict on Labor's aged-care algorithm, exposing a government that intentionally switched off human override, ignored the lessons of robodebt and left older Australians to pay the price. He has found the government's handling of it to be unreasonable. This means there are serious questions about whether older Australians can trust their care needs will be assessed fairly. It means families will be lying awake at night, wondering whether a computer has got it wrong. And here is the most troubling part: the system was designed so that qualified assessors cannot override the computer when it makes a mistake. Think about that. A trained professional sees exactly what a person needs, but they are powerless to act on it because the algorithm says otherwise, because this Labor government has decided an algorithm knows what is best for your grandparent.
Take Neil from Kadina. He's 83 and has lived with motor neurone disease for 20 years. He lives alone with no family nearby. Back in 2018, Neil was approved for a level 4 home-care package. Recently, his condition has deteriorated. He was reassessed in the hope of moving to a level 8 package. What was the outcome? It was to stay on the same package that he was on. Neil and so many other older Australians in regional South Australia are not just numbers. They are Australians who need care.
Aged-care needs are too important to be left to an algorithm. That is why the coalition has been fighting for a simple safeguard: a qualified assessor must be able to step in and override the decision. It is common sense. Our bill has already passed the Senate, opposed by Labor. The Ombudsman has recommended the very same safeguard, yet what has Labor done? It has merely noted the recommendation. More than 200,000 older Australians are waiting for aged-care support. Every one of them is someone's mother, father, grandparent or friend. They have worked hard, raised families and built our communities. Of course technology has a role to play. It can support the work of skilled professionals. But it can never replace human judgement. This government must act on the Ombudsman's findings. Older Australians deserve better. They deserve care, not a computer generated score.
St Patrick's Cathedral is the spiritual heart of Parramatta's Catholic community and a place where faith is turned into practical compassion. An example of this is the parish's planned trial overnight shelter in the cathedral hall on Friday nights for people experiencing homelessness in Parramatta. I heard about this trial from my friends Michael Lilley and Claire Pospischil, members of the parish pastoral council. Thank you both for your incredible work. Many hands are making this trial possible. Mattresses and linen have been donated. Heaven on Earth will bring the food. Orange Sky will visit with its mobile shower and washing machine. Uniting NSW will handle referrals and support. Trained volunteers will sit alongside their guests as equals, offering a safe bed, a meal and a friendly face. Congratulations to the Parramatta parish pastoral council and parish social justice committee for this important and compassionate initiative.
I also want to wish the whole of Australia a happy Hindu Heritage Month. Two years ago I asked this parliament to recognise October as Hindu Heritage Month in honour of festivals such as Navaratri, Dashain, Durga Puja, Lakshmi Puja and, of course, Diwali, the festival of lights. I thank the Hindu Council of Australia for building this up every year. In my electorate, Harris Park is lit up and temples and halls welcome neighbours to celebrate these festivals together. Hindu Australians make a massive contribution to Australia as doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers and small-business owners.
This year, recognition also means facing harder truths. Many people have told me about growing racism, violent attacks, hateful graffiti and online abuse aimed at their South Asian heritage or their faith. After the Nepal floods, at the hardest moment for their families, Australians with Hindu names were told they weren't Australian. That's not true, and that rhetoric has no place here. Too often incidents like these go unreported. That's why last week I was glad to hear from the organisations launching SAKSHI, a secure online tool for Hindu Australians to report hate, discrimination and Hinduphobia. It was developed by the Hindu Council of Australia, the Australian Hindu community, the Australian Cohesion Forum and Hindus Down Under.
To the Hindu community of Parramatta and across Australia, thank you for this initiative. Thank you for what you do for our country, and happy Hindu Heritage Month.
In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.
I rise to speak on the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 and the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026. Australia is one of the largest gas exporters in the global economy. We extract it from the ground, load it onto ships and send it to customers right across the globe. Yet for years Australian families and Australian businesses have watched that gas be exported while they paid more for it at home. We have been suffering from gas shortages and price shocks, but we have plenty of it here in our own backyard. That is a situation that should never have been allowed to take hold.
Aussies should have access to affordable gas, the gas this great country produces. We can reserve gas for Aussies and continue to export. We can do both. This bill establishes a domestic gas reservation scheme requiring LNG exporters to oversupply the domestic market. For the businesses and families I represent in Dickson, affordable gas is the difference between staying afloat and sinking. Gas is essential for manufacturers and businesses right across my region. It is used to grow, process and package the food that lands on supermarket shelves. It's used for processing aluminium and making glass, bricks, cement, ceramics, steel and, of course, power—that all important energy.
When gas costs more, every one of these things costs more. Everything in Australia costs more. This is not some abstract debate in a faraway gas field. It will have an impact on all Australians. For too long, gas has been treated as an asset of gas companies for them alone. These laws change that for the first time. They recognise gas resources as our country's assets. When we came to government in 2022, we walked straight into an energy crisis. A decade of the coalition umming and ahhing on energy policies, mismanagement that has made gas more expensive and left the rules governing our gas market unreliable—22 energy policies in nine and a half years. They left a gas market mess. Who remembers the gas-fired recovery that never actually arrived? Combined with global economic shocks, all this meant that prices went through the roof. There was a point where gas was being offered into our own domestic market at a price of more than $60 a gigajoule. That was simply not workable or sustainable.
The Albanese Labor government acted. We capped coal and gas prices to get families and businesses through the shock, and let me remind the House that those opposite voted against that measure. We used the tools that we had. The Gas Market Review said in its recommendations that our gas market needed fundamental reform to fix the mess, and it recommended that a national reservation scheme be at the very heart of that reform. That is what these new laws deliver.
The first of these bills, the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, is at the heart of the reform. It establishes Australia's first national domestic gas reservation scheme. Under it, our exporters will be subject to a domestic supply obligation. They will be required to contribute up to the equivalent of 20 per cent of their exports to the Australian market. The figure will be set by the Australian Energy Regulator based on what Australia actually needs at the time, with a supply buffer on top so that we hold a steady supply here at home. That means more of our own gas is supplied to our own market. More gas—more supply—will mean cheaper gas. There's been a bit of criticism about this reform. Some have asked: 'Why does this not cap our gas exports? Why does this not put a stop to our gas trade? Why are we not taxing gas?' Australia is and will remain a reliable supplier of gas to the rest of the world. Australia will keep the income and the jobs our gas exports provide to our domestic economy. What changes is simple and very much overdue: before that gas goes overseas, Australians get looked at first. We're prioritised.
The second bill, the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026, clears out the patchwork of previously implemented measures and replaces it with one set of rules. It goes to the Gas Market Code and our competition law, and it fixes the single biggest flaw in the old system. For years, the rules only asked exporters to offer gas to Australians, not actually to sell it to us. Thanks to these bills, the obligation now is to supply real gas into the Australian market—not to offer it but to actually deliver it—and there are no loopholes to be exploited by exporters trying to dodge their obligations to supply gas into the Aussie market.
The third bill, the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026, makes sure that the cost of regulating the gas industry is covered by the gas industry, not the taxpayer. This means that the cost of the scheme is recovered from the companies that hold the export licences and profit from our resources.
These bills are common sense. Our gas is our national asset, so it should look after the national interest, and the companies that make their fortunes shipping it overseas should make sure our domestic market is looked after here at home. This is not antibusiness and it is not antitrade. The contracts our exporters have already signed will be honoured. We are doing all of this while maintaining Australia's reputation as a trusted trading partner with our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region and across the globe. Australian gas will be reliable abroad and reliable here at home. It does both. That reliability is so very important, because reliability and certainty of supply is what unlocks investment potential here in Australia. When producers and large users know a steady volume of gas will be here in this market, in my electorate of Dickson, they can sign the long-term contracts that let them build new supply, new projects, new factories and importantly, the jobs that run on them.
For a manufacturer deciding whether to build here or overseas, the question is this. 'Can I count on affordable, reliable energy for the next 10 and 20 years?' This reform helps us be able to say: 'Yes. Set up shop. Build here. Build in my local industrial area of Brendale.' And the jobs that flow from that benefit our whole community—manufacturing jobs, processing jobs, jobs that aren't outsourced. They are the trades and the apprenticeships that let a young person in Moreton Bay build a career and a life close to home. Affordable energy is the foundation the rest of our economy rests on. With this bill, the Albanese Labor government backs our domestic manufacturing sector and the workers that work in it.
These new bills, these new laws, will mean that locals in my electorate of Dickson are better shielded from the next global price spike, because, when we keep more of our gas onshore, a price shock caused by conflict or some external factor on the other side of the world has far less power to reach into our suburbs and drive the energy bill up. A family running the heater through winter, a business manufacturing plastics, steel or anything like that and a manufacturer in Petrie trying to keep its people on won't be at the mercy of the global gas economy. They can be reassured that 20 per cent of our gas supplies will be held for them.
This legislation sits alongside everything else we are doing to take the weight off local power bills. Across Dickson, families have taken up our Cheaper Home Batteries Program—storing their own energy and cutting their bills. Of course our government still supports the rollout of renewables like solar and wind. The switch to renewable energy has absolutely gained pace since the Albanese Labor government came to power, but it doesn't happen overnight. We still need gas to support the rollout of renewable energy across the country while we build the renewable energy infrastructure for our future. We need gas for our domestic manufacturing industry, and we need gas to keep the heating on at home. Keeping that gas affordable and keeping it here is how we hold bills steady through the transition instead of leaving families and businesses in Dickson and around the country exposed to price shocks.
This reform does not pull us away from our climate goals; it helps us meet them. The government's own Future Gas Strategy is clear that gas has a part to play on the road to net zero by 2050. Gas is the key on our journey to net zero. We need gas to process and refine the critical minerals and rare earths that are right here in Australia. Critical minerals go into renewable energy infrastructure such as solar panels. This is another building block in a future made in Australia that's built by Australians and powered by our own resources for the benefit of all Australians. Those opposite oppose these bills. They say that, apparently, they have their own gas policy to offer. We know how that ended when they were in power for nine years, with 22 different policies and no gas recovery. As I just said, history has shown that they can't deliver. Even One Nation chose to ditch its gas policy which was hastily announced a few months ago, because they're more focused on protecting the interests of their mates rather than Australian families who actually foot the bill.
On this side of the House, we stand with ordinary Australians. We are the only party that actually cares about the everyday Australian—the ones that are struggling to pay the bills, the businesses that are driving our economy, our innovative businesses. We're securing more affordable Australian gas for Australian homes and businesses, and we're doing it to shield Aussies from the global economic shocks that they did not cause and cannot control. For too long Australians have been last in line for their own gas. These new laws will end that. There will be more Australian gas for more Australian homes and businesses—more gas and more security. I commend these bills to the House.
I move the second reading amendment as circulated in my name:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House calls on the Government to implement a 25 percent gas export tax, which would lower domestic gas prices while raising revenue for Australians who desperately need cost-of-living help".
The Greens will be opposing this bill in the House in its current form and reserving our position in the Senate. This bill poses serious risks to Australia's climate action goals and to political integrity. I'm very concerned that this bill will facilitate new gas infrastructure development in the Beetaloo basin and set off a wave of climate bombs at a crucial tipping point for climate action.
The United Nations gave a very stark warning this week. We've already passed the point of no return for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. If we want to limit the increase to 1.7 or 1.8, we must make rapid and deep cuts to our carbon emissions. That means not allowing any new gas projects, ending the millions in taxpayer handouts to big fossil fuel corporations and, instead, investing in renewables. This bill does not do that. Instead, it seeks to embed gas into Australia's energy mix for the long term. The Labor government seems totally cavalier in the face of this alarming UN report on global warming—happy just to carry on as if nothing needs to change. Could it be that their willingness to do gas corporations' bidding has something to do with the millions of dollars they accept in donations from the fossil fuel industry? That is the sad story of this Labor government: letting big corporations get away with anything, while pretending there's absolutely nothing the government can do to make life easier for everyday people. It's no coincidence that those big corporations help fund their election campaigns. Follow the money.
Speaking of integrity in our politics, or the lack thereof, that brings me to my second major concern about this bill. By setting up extensive new ministerial powers, including the power to exempt individual gas companies from regulations, this bill creates fertile ground for favours. Some would call it corruptibility. It would build a favour factory between gas companies and resource ministers. 'A few hundred thousand dollars in donations? Thanks very much. We'll put a carve-out in the regulation for you.'
Specifically, this bill allows the minister to exempt gas corporations from the proposed domestic supply obligation. The entire purpose of the bill is to increase domestic gas supply, and yet it gives the minister the power to exempt any company they like. What a joke! We know that the gas companies are very generous donors to both sides of politics—and to One Nation, too. They've covered all their bases. They've hedged their bets. This set-up means it doesn't matter if the government changes. Decisions will always be made in the gas corporations' favour.
To dismantle this favour factory between the gas industry and political parties, my detail amendments will prevent all political donations by the gas exporters regulated by this gas reserve legislation. My amendments will also remove a gaping loophole: the open-ended ministerial discretion to exempt individual gas companies.
Finally—the elephant in the room—this bill still does not tax gas. This government would still allow private gas companies to use our sovereign resources, flog them off overseas, to their enormous profit, and not pay their fair share in taxes. Regular Aussies pay their taxes, but not big gas companies. It's one rule for some and another rule for others. My amendments will therefore also include a gas export tax. It's a no-brainer.
We need to be moving urgently to renewables. But, while they're still allowing gas corporations to extract our resources, that we all own, at the very least we should be getting some tax in return. A 25 per cent gas export tax could raise $17 billion a year to spend on actually making people's lives better. Because it's an export tax, it would put downward pressure on domestic energy prices by disincentivising overseas exports over domestic supply. More than 60 per cent of Australians support a gas tax. When will the government listen to the community and do the right thing?
Without these amendments, I cannot vote for this bill as it stands because it risks our climate. The risks to our climate and the political integrity are too great and it ignores the Australian people's call for a fair return on our resources. Politics should work for people, not for fossil fuel profits.
Why was the gas lobbyist dancing? It was because he knew the Labor government committed to another win for his industry. Why was the gas lobbyist dancing on Monday night last week in a Canberra nightclub? It was because, just that day, the Labor government released their final version of their gas reservation bill, which will incentivise new gas developments and allow the minister to make copious exemptions for them. Why was the gas lobbyist dancing at 2 am to 'Money for Nothing' by Dire Straits? It was because he knew that, if the government passes this weak, watered down, ineffectual gas-reservation bill, it'll help the government weasel out of implementing an actual gas tax. The gas lobbyist was dancing because, if Labor's bill goes ahead, gas companies will continue to get their money for nothing and their chicks for free. They will keep exporting our resources for massive profits and pay little to no tax. The Australian public will be $17 billion poorer every year and gas corporations $17 billion richer.
But here's something that the gas lobbyist doesn't know: the Australian people are not going to let this industry get away with this rip-off anymore. Hundreds of thousands are demanding real action, not fake solutions. Labor must tax gas.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
Australia is one of the world's greatest exporters of natural gas. We have the resources. We have the skills. We have the workers to build, operate and maintain the projects that supply customers around the world. Yet Australian manufacturers and families can find themselves competing with overseas buyers for gas produced in their own country. We dig it up here, we process it here, we export it from here and then Australians are told to pay prices shaped by international markets to use their own gas. Something has gone badly wrong with that arrangement. Australians should not be at the back of the queue for Australian gas, and that is the principle behind these bills. We can remain a trusted exporter while making sure our homes and industries have access to the gas they need.
Australia's gas is a national asset. It is not simply an asset on a company's balance sheet. And let's remember: the private sector didn't build this industry on its own. Australian taxpayers helped lay the foundations. Government scientists mapped our offshore resources, and publicly funded research helped reduce the risks for companies looking to develop them. We know this because the cabinet papers have been released. In 1988 Treasury was questioning why taxpayers were carrying so much cost when private companies stood to benefit and the government expected to recover less than five per cent of the research costs. The Australian public helped carry the risk. It is only reasonable that the Australian public shares in the reward. We value the investment, jobs and exports the industry has delivered, but let's not rewrite history and pretend government and taxpayers have had nothing to do with building it. That is why a successful export industry must also serve the country whose resources it uses. That is not radical; that is common sense.
The Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 creates a national system of export licences and domestic supply obligations. The related bills update our gas market rules and make exporters pay the cost of regulating the scheme. The standard obligation is gas equivalent to 20 per cent of covered LNG exports, subject to adjustments and calibration to actual Australian needs. And here is an important distinction: the obligation is about domestic supply, not just a press release about gas available. Gas must actually reach the domestic buyer. The scheme contains measures to prevent exporters meeting the obligation merely by shifting around gas Australians could already buy. We want genuine additional supply, not creative accounting.
The difference between offering gas and supplying it is not some technical argument reserved for lawyers. If a factory needs energy to run its machinery, an unaccepted offer does not keep the machinery moving. The scheme is built around actual domestic sales, with limited flexibility when demand and timing do not line up. Those deferred quantities must be made up later. That is how a supply obligation becomes something meaningful rather than another voluntary promise.
Nor does the legislation impose an overall cap on LNG exports. A company can keep exporting provided it meets its domestic obligations. This is about linking an export opportunity to a public responsibility, and it replaces a system built around responding to predicted shortages with a standing framework designed to prevent them in the first place.
From January 2028, domestic supply obligations are intended to apply under the new framework. Businesses planning investment need rules they can understand, not another scramble when the market tightens. There is a reason this bill does not simply demand as much gas as possible at the lowest imaginable price. The Australian Energy Regulator will calibrate supply obligations against forecast domestic demand. The policy aims for a modest buffer of supply, rather than a glut that drives prices so low that producers stop investing or renewable projects become harder to finance, and that is what balance looks like in legislation.
We should also recognise why long-term contracts count. Companies and trading partners make investments on agreements signed years in advance. Pulling those agreements apart without warning would damage confidence in Australian projects. But treating every renewable as permanently protected would leave us with a reservation policy that never really begins. So the bill draws a line. Commitments entered into on or before 22 December 2025 are recognised, but subsequent renewals and extensions are not automatically sheltered. This is the difference between respecting an agreement and writing an indefinite exemption. Because the scheme is national, the regulator must consider the demand and supply conditions of the relevant market, not assume that every corner of the country faces the same pressures.
The framework also recognises contracts in place before 22 December 2025, existing state reservation systems and genuine infrastructure constraints. Those are adjustments, not a lifetime exemption from responsibility. We have listened to the people who will have to make this system work. Consultation has changed the design, including the start date, the calculation of obligations and the arrangements for flexibility. A sensible government listens, changes what needs changing and still delivers reform. The goal is downward pressure on domestic prices. I will not promise that every bill will fall overnight. Gas markets don't work that way. But giving Australian buyers more secure access and a stronger position when negotiating contracts is a worthwhile reform.
Western Australians already understand domestic reservation. Our state has required LNG projects to make gas available for local use for years. It is one of the reasons we have a different starting point from the east coast. Australia has two physically separate gas markets, with different pipelines, contracts and supply conditions. This national scheme recognises that difference. It can operate alongside the state arrangements and adjust conditions in each market. As a Western Australian, I do not want Canberra pretending a system that works in Queensland will operate identically in the Pilbara. But neither should we pretend that the needs of Australian users stop at the state border.
I represent people who work in resources, construction, electrical maintenance and manufacturing. Some travel long distances to their jobs. They know that investment takes years, projects cost money and supply does not magically appear because a politician makes a speech. They also know that the Australian public should receive a fair return for its natural resources. Both things can be true.
I want to address some voices in the media and in this debate who say the answer is simply to tax gas exports more heavily. There are two very different arguments being mixed together. One is that taxpayers should receive more revenue from valuable resources. That is a legitimate argument and one I take seriously. The other one is that higher taxes might discourage gas production and help bring the industry to an end. That is a different objective altogether. People are entitled to argue for either, but they should be upfront about what they are trying to achieve and what the consequences might be, because raising revenue is not the same as securing supply. You can collect another billion dollars in tax and still leave an Australian factory unable to secure a gas contract. You can announce a new tax rate without delivering an extra kilojoule to a household or manufacturer. And if you damage investment in the essential supply before alternatives exist, the people paying the price may be workers, not the company executives everyone was hoping to punish.
That does not mean the gas industry gets a free ride—far from it. The Albanese Labor government has reformed the petroleum resource rent tax to bring forward additional revenue. Gas companies should pay their fair share, and Australians should benefit from what comes out of the ground, but we should judge every new proposal on the evidence. Will it raise sustainable revenue? Will it affect domestic prices? Will it support investment? What happens to jobs and emissions? The experience in the North Sea is a warning that tax investment and production decisions interact. It is not proof that every gas tax destroys an industry, and pretending otherwise would be another slogan. A tax can be justified, and so can stronger environmental standards, but neither substitutes for a plan to keep Australian factories supplied.
I serve on the committee dealing with climate change, energy, environment and water. I care about the environment. I want emissions to fall. I want cleaner air, healthier oceans and a safer climate for our children. But I also know the energy transition is a construction job, an engineering job and a workforce job. It needs more solar, wind, storage and transmission. It needs electricians installing equipment, apprentices learning new skills and tradespeople maintaining the systems that we build, and it needs a reliable supply of energy while those systems expand. Gas remains important to some industrial processes and can support electricity reliability during the transition.
Certain clean energy supply chains also rely on gas today. These include the processing and refining of materials used in renewable technologies. This is a fact, and it's not an excuse to abandon net zero. In fact, the scheme can recognise renewable gas in arrangements that reduce natural gas demand. Its calibration is designed to avoid making gas so artificially cheap that it undermines investment in renewables and storage. We can pursue affordable gas today without giving up on a cleaner energy tomorrow. The alternative is to pretend that we can close one part of the economy before we have built what replaces it. That might earn applause at a rally, but it will not keep a furnace operating or a family employed.
Energy prices flow directly into wages and job security. When a manufacturer pays more for gas, it has less room to invest in equipment, train an apprentice or negotiate a pay rise. If production becomes uncompetitive, overtime disappears, then jobs and then, sometimes, the entire plant. That reaches far beyond the factory gate. It reaches the local cafe, the supplier and the family sitting at the kitchen table working out a mortgage. We should never talk about closing an industry as though we were simply closing a spreadsheet. A worker's pay packet is not an inconvenient footnote in an energy debate—which brings me to One Nation.
One Nation likes to present itself as the champion of working Australians, but workers should look very carefully at what it offers and what it changes. In March this year, One Nation proposed introducing a 15 per cent domestic gas reserve. Then it shifted to a policy based on government taking equity in new offshore projects and subsidising exploration costs. It has moved away from the clear domestic reservation proposal it put before parliament. So where is the guarantee for Australian households and manufacturers under its new approach, and what would its broader rejection of net zero mean for the thousands of workers building Australia's new energy industries? An electrician installing solar panels is a worker. The technician maintaining batteries is a worker. The gas plant operator is a worker. So is the steel worker whose factory needs affordable energy. They should not have to pick which group of workers deserves a future. One Nation cannot claim to speak for wages while treating the energy transition as something we can simply wish away. Gaslighting is not a gas policy. If a party wants working people to trust it, it should explain how its policy protects their industries, their next pay rise and their children's jobs.
And what of the coalition? After years of talking about a gas fired recovery, Australians were left with announcements, subsidies and a market still struggling with price and supply pressures. The coalition itself went to the last election with a gas reservation policy. Now its members must decide whether they will support an actual national framework or find another reason to oppose it. The question is not whether they like the government; the question is whether Australian buyers should have a dependable claim on Australian gas.
It is worth remembering how difficult governing actually is. You have to protect households from high prices without undermining the investment needed for supply. You have to make climate commitments without forgetting workers in existing industries. You have to maintain export relationships and make sure Australian businesses come first in their own market. Sometimes that means disappointing people on both sides. It is easy to demand a higher tax with no account of what happens next, easy to call for the end of gas without explaining the replacement jobs, and easy to promise cheaper energy without doing the work of connecting supply to customers. It is easy to throw rocks from outside of government. It is much harder to build something that works. That does not mean criticism should stop. It means the criticism should be useful: bring evidence; attend inquiries; and meet workers, businesses and environmental groups; propose changes that improve the outcome; and get involved with building the solution, instead of cheering for every difficult decision to fail.
This legislation is not a magic wand. It will require careful regulation, genuine compliance and scrutiny of its effects on supply prices and investment. But it makes a choice about whose interests Australia's resources should serve. We can remain a reliable trading partner without putting Australian users last. We can require industry to meet its obligations without pretending investment is optional. We can cut emissions without abandoning the people whose wages support our communities. We can make decisions for the long-term instead of chasing the next headline. Australian gas should support Australian homes. Australian industry should support Australian jobs. That is the balance this package seeks to strike, and that is the responsibility of governing. I commend the bill to the House.
Why has it taken so long to get the government to secure gas supply? We are a nation with abundant gas reserves. We have the capacity to be able to supply not just our own gas needs but the world's needs. But the Albanese government, at every point, has dithered in their responsibility and taken no interest in a secure gas supply. We all know why. It's because Labor actually doesn't want to use gas.
We still remember the madness. Sorry, not madness—that's being too charitable—the insanity of former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews when he stopped the extraction of gas in Victoria and put it in the state Constitution. That's beyond the definition of an insanity. That's how crazy it was. I see the member for La Trobe here. Do you remember, Member for La Trobe, how, when Labor were in government—oh, sorry, they're still in government, but, I can assure you, with 33 more days, we hope and pray to the Maker that it will end and that the era of tyranny and corruption under the Andrews, Carroll and Allan governments will finally be put to bed for all time—they tried to transition homes out of using gas. They tried to get businesses and industries to stop using gas. Shock, horror—
Rentals.
And rentals! When 90 per cent of Victorian households using gas for heating, cooking and making sure they had proper hot water, there wasn't a huge degree of enthusiasm from the people of Victoria. Their answer was actually: 'We'd quite like to keep using gas. We have the infrastructure and the sunk investment. There is one thing we would like, though: cheaper gas.' That's because gas prices have continued to rise, and it has put further and further pressure on Victorian households.
Why has it taken the Albanese government so long to secure gas supply? It's because the Labor Party doesn't want gas. We know they don't. I still remember when the Minister for Climate Change and Energy—that rapscallion—said that the Kurri Kurri power plant in New South Wales would never be fuelled by gas. It was only going to be fuelled by green hydrogen. That was before the 2022 election. If it wasn't so serious, it would be absolutely hilarious. He made that bold promise and now goes into the House of Representatives and says that he never really believed in hydrogen and its potential as part of the Australian economy, even though he explicitly ruled out the Kurri Kurri Power Station using gas before the 2022 election. I don't even know what more to say about the Labor Party's approach to gas. It's farcical. There is literally more hot air coming out of this government's mouth than is being generated by the gas that they support—but here we are.
After being dragged kicking and screaming in a tantrum-like manner by the coalition—who argued at the last election that we desperately need a domestic gas reservation to secure gas supply because we need to get prices down for Australian consumers, that we need to make sure we have a secure supply for our sovereign needs so that we can reindustrialise and back-in industry—with Labor fighting it every step of the way in the lead-up to that election; after having successfully won that election, Labor has now accepted that maybe, just maybe, we need a gas reservation. Imagine that radical proposition. Now they think they're geniuses, as the member for La Trobe can no doubt attest. They think they're geniuses because they've stumbled on the necessity of some component of secure supply.
But let's talk about the practical reality of what a secure supply means. While we talk about it in the nation's parliament, and we think about these big infrastructure projects and everything else that goes on, obliging energy companies to make sure there's secure supply, it's actually much more human. Let's think about the pensioner who opens up their electricity bill and their gas bill and wonders whether they can afford it. Increasingly, with the government's active inflation agenda, they are having to make choices—because they're going to the supermarket and paying more and getting less. That means one thing. They've got to make choices about things like their electricity bill and their gas bill.
In Victoria, pensioners are opening their gas bills—90 per cent of households use gas for cooking and heating their homes—and enduring incredible shocks and having to make tough choices about their priorities, between whether they can afford to eat a protein or whether they end up having bread and butter for dinner. If anyone thinks that is an exaggeration, they don't understand the challenges that a lot of pensioners face and the choices they face. What about the family who has watched energy prices rise by around 40 per cent under the life of this government and now stands at the supermarket with their red basket or their trolley deciding what goes back on the shelf? Australia 2026, and the choice for Australian families is to put food in their supermarket trolley or pay their gas bill. Well, how do I put it? That is not something to be proud of under the Albanese government, but that is their legacy.
They're not alone, because these are the choices being faced by small-business owners. Gas is a critical part of the infrastructure to keep their businesses going. It's the baker. It's the restaurateur. It's the dry cleaner. Often getting up at a sparrow's fart to work and employ other Australians and provide a service to their fellow Australians. They're faced with higher costs, rising costs, and no end to those costs because of the policies of the Albanese government, particularly around their gas. They are people who rely on gas to open their doors every morning. It isn't a choice. That's the business. Gas is necessary to provide an essential service to the community. They're just watching their costs rise while their revenue falls. There's been a 15 per cent decline in profitability, according to the most recent ABS data. And, of course, they're not just facing the cost rises from gas; they're also facing cost rises from the surcharge ban, inflation, rising wages et cetera et cetera, while the revenue is only going into decline. In fact, dry cleaning is one of the small businesses most likely to face closure and most likely to face increases in costs.
That's at the small business end. Think about the big businesses, the medium-sized businesses and the manufacturers. They employ a lot of local people, but, more importantly, they're part of the industrial strength of our country. Gas is not some sort of esoteric option for them. It's necessary for feedstock. They literally need to turn on the gas to provide the temperature often required for things like melting metals. They're quietly asking whether they've got a future in this country at all between all the rising costs being imposed on them by the Albanese government—and, even more so, because of whether they can secure supply. This is not an abstract concern; this is literally one of the biggest challenges facing our country.
During the last election, the number of times secure gas supply at affordable prices came up when I spoke to small-business people and households and pensioners was incalculable. It came up so often. I still remember going to a dry cleaner in Sandringham and them saying, 'The No. 1 issue for me is gas supply.' He and his husband were desperate to secure the gas supply they needed at the price they needed so they could keep their small business operating. I heard this all over the electorate, but it falls on deaf ears under the Albanese government. They're paying more, and, of course, that doesn't just come with the issue around their business; it comes with the human dimension around anxiety, and it also comes down to whether people can afford to heat their homes during winter. We've just gone through a winter, and now, fortunately, we're in the period of spring, but winter comes around again cyclically, and this is going to be a big challenge for Australian households, particularly for those on fixed incomes and low incomes, in the forthcoming 12 months.
We are a resources superpower. We should never have a shortage of these important resources, but the government has chosen to. The Albanese government has actually chosen shortages, along with state Labor governments. They have actively chosen shortages, which have sold Australians out and sold industry out. We are not going to oppose this legislation for a gas reservation through the House of Representatives. We have a deep distrust of the Albanese government's approach, because, as I said, the government was dragged, kicking and screaming, to a position of eventually adopting a gas reservation. We're going to make sure of that through our process and through the Senate.
This government has no interest in transparency. It was only yesterday we were being given lectures by the government about how things needed to be changed and how we needed to be a kinder and gentler parliament. The Prime Minister was trying to model his best behaviour. But it was only a little less than 24 hours before the member for Watson, the Leader of the House, was running gag orders through the parliament and the Treasurer was introducing legislation into the parliament that he hadn't even bothered to tell anybody about and had tried to sneak through just before midnight yesterday. He doesn't want to have any proper consultation or engagement with the opposition unless we demand it. Now we've seen the government continue to try and sneak through legislation—ram it through the House of Representatives, ignore parliamentary democracy, ignore the will of the people and, certainly, ignore members of the House of Representatives.
We're not going to oppose this legislation, but we are very concerned about what the government is going to do. We are very concerned about whether the government is actually going to get this right. We've seen this a lot during other debates. The government says they're going to bring down prices. Do you remember the $275 reduction in electricity prices? It never happened. Do you remember how they kept saying that all of their energy policies were not just going to deliver $275 of cheaper prices, but going to deliver wholesale price reductions across the entire economy because we were going to enter into a new Labor-Greens nirvana? That's not the lived experience. Do you remember when the Treasurer and the Prime Minister said that we turned the inflation corner? Because, of course, there was no link between government spending and inflation and higher interest rates! It was about March 2025. Since then, the Reserve Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Australian people and even some of the Treasurer's own colleagues have called that out and made the point that the government is now the key driver of inflation. Once again, the claim of delivering lower prices for Australian households has not materialised under this government.
In fact, Australians are slowly being targeted by this government increasing costs and punishing and humiliating people, removing their basic sense of dignity because they do not have an understanding of economics or the consequences of that implementation. If there were any debate about that, you would just need to go and look at the absolute—I'm not sure it's parliamentary, but there's a word I want to use about the response and the consequences of the last federal budget, which, in part, provided the finances to be able to implement this policy. If you read the Australian Financial Review's analysis from a couple of weeks ago, which went through who said what at different times and who understood the consequence of that budget at different stages, the one thing that was abundantly clear was the government had absolutely no idea what was going on before the budget, when they were designing it and when they were printing it, and they still don't have any idea how they're going to go through with its full implementation. When we raise concerns about this government's gas reservation policy, we don't do so lightly; we do because we know there is a consistent track record of behaviour from a deeply immoral government that is arrogant and fundamentally misunderstands the consequences of its actions.
The consequences of this government's actions is not to build a stronger Australia; it's to weaken it. It's to kneecap small business, undermine families, increase costs on households, and make it harder for Australians to get ahead. I think we need to be very clear eyed that the mad ideology of the Labor Party, as they have co-opted parts of the radical Greens agenda, is selling Australia short. But it isn't just one in some sort of ideological nirvana or isolation. The impacts are human. The impacts are real, because the small businesses of this nation are be brutally punished and tortured by this government. Families are being kneecapped and undermined by the Albanese government. Those that risk capital and want to grow and build a better future are being actively undermined by this government, and some of the most marginalised in our country, particularly those on low incomes, are being made to go cold during winter because this government does not understand the consequences of its decisions. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.
This landmark legislation will establish Australia's first national Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme and ensure Australian gas works for Australians. It delivers on our commitment to secure gas supply for Australians and put downward pressure on domestic gas prices by requiring gas producers to reserve up to 20 per cent of gas exports for domestic use, fixing gas supply shortages. This is about ensuring more Australian gas is available here at home, powering Australian households and ensuring affordable gas for local manufacturing and heavy industry, to create more jobs and grow the economy.
For too long, Australia has been in the perverse situation where, despite being one of the world's largest gas producers, we had shortages and price shocks at home. The scheme will work to ensure Australian households and businesses have access to secure, reliable and affordable gas. And, what's more, gas is vital in supporting renewables and essential for manufacturing and processing critical minerals. It will be a crucial energy source as we make the transition to a low-carbon future, and cheaper gas will help households and businesses make the switch.
If the bill passes, the lost decade of coalition policy failures will finally be put right, securing Australia's energy future as we transition our economy to net zero by 2050. This legislation creates a national gas reservation scheme. It represents a significant structural reform. The three bills together form a package establishing a nationally consistent domestic gas reservation framework. Australian gas supports jobs, investment, regional communities and export earnings and provides economic and energy security for our trading partners. Gas powers Australian homes, underpins our manufacturing and contributes to reliability of our energy system. This scheme is designed to secure Australian gas to Australian homes at fair prices.
To give some context, when we came to power in 2022, the first thing we had to deal with was an energy crisis. What was interesting, when I listened to the member for Goldstein, was the fact that they voted against helping people with energy bill relief and capping gas prices. The coalition voted against this stuff. They voted against the very thing that he is waxing lyrical about and lamenting about us allegedly failing to do. And who could forget the 22 policies and the NEG, which didn't last from the caucus meeting of the coalition until question time? That was the utter dysfunctionality of the coalition during that period of time. So let's get this in context, and let's listen to the reality of what was needed and what was happening. I want to pay tribute to industry and particularly to the union movement, who also backed this gas reservation scheme. I've been at national and state conferences of the Labor Party where we backed this particular policy, so today I'm pleased that we are passing this legislation through the House of Representatives.
We had ageing gas and coal-fired power operations when we came to power—ageing coal-fired generators. Maintenance backlogs are myriad. We experienced extraordinary disruptions in terms of what happened in Ukraine with the illegal and immoral invasion by Russia and the impact on the international gas market—the perfect storm that culminated in gas being offered in the domestic market at much too high prices. Frankly, it's unacceptable to our government and to the Australian people. The regulatory framework we inherited from the coalition—a series of bandaid solutions created in response to previous crises—was ineffective and was expiring. Our government acted quickly and decisively to ensure affordable gas and energy. We reformed and extended the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism and its heads of agreement. We introduced a Gas Market Code of Conduct and we capped gas prices at $12—opposed by the coalition.
Then we set to work to build something better. In 2024, we released our Future Gas Strategy, which set out the role gas will continue to play, particularly in supporting the rollout of renewables for peaking and firming in Australia and for our trading partners. We commissioned our gas market review last year, which recommended establishing a national gas reservation scheme, and over the course of this year the government has consulted extensively, wisely and widely on the detailed design of the domestic gas reservation. In May this year we released our draft design framework for consultation. It set out a headline reservation figure of the equivalent of 20 per cent of export volumes and the regulatory architecture such as an export licence scheme. In other words, the gas reservation scheme for domestic consumption will require gas companies to supply Australians with up to 20 per cent of their exports to ensure a modest domestic oversupply.
As a result of the extensive consultation feedback, further design work was undertaken. We further refined the reservation scheme and we released the exposure of the bill for further consultation in September this year. That exposure draft included the announcement of the demand calibration mechanism, which provided for the Australian Energy Regulator to vary the domestic supply obligation from year to year in response to projected demand, with a target of 110 per cent of that demand. Indeed, the bills that the Minister for Resources introduced on 14 October included further refinements of the scheme based on consultation on that draft bill. It's not like we haven't spoken to people about this.
Some of the changes from the exposure draft included limiting ministerial discretion and making the scheme more transparent, preventing loopholes and making it harder to game the scheme, and ensuring that the states and territories are consulted on decisions that impact them—for example, in relation to market-wide domestic supply obligation adjustments. Importantly, our legislative package abolishes the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism, which will no longer be needed in the circumstances.
A lot has been said about the role of gas in the past year, but it's important to reiterate a few points. Gas is essential to supporting the rollout of renewables, gas is crucial for a strong Australian manufacturing industry, and we need gas to continue heating our homes. We need gas to process more critical minerals and rare earths here in Australia. The reality is that only gas can provide the sustained high temperatures needed at the right cost to process and refine them. We can't have a critical minerals revolution here in Australia without a guaranteed supply of affordable gas.
This is a pretty big day for critical minerals, I might add. It's the first anniversary of the Australia and United States framework for securing of supply of critical minerals, and the government has just launched a refreshed Critical Minerals Strategy with a big focus on economic resilience, national security and industrial capability. More-affordable gas is central to that strategy. We've announced we're backing two major critical minerals projects that boost our critical minerals capability, supporting local jobs and deepening supply chains with international partners.
When it comes to international partners, the reality is we need to keep developing gas to export for our region. We're fortunate to have nearly 50 years of peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific. Australia's reliable flow of energy exports has played a big role in regional stability. Indeed, our engagement and our leverage with energy export partners in Asia this year was a case in point. Our trade relations are mutually supportive and have helped us to shore up our domestic fuel supplies and security—as well as urea, I might add. Our exports of gas and coal support the energy security of Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore, while their refining of liquid fuels like petrol, diesel and aviation fuel keeps Australians moving.
A successful, orderly energy transition relies on continued Australian exports of energy. We should continue to export traditional commodities, resources like gas and coal, while our export markets still need them and while our regional partners follow their own paths to net zero. We understand that no two nations are the same and they'll follow their own strategies. What's important is our commitment to that goal and a peaceful, stable journey towards it so we can minimise the impact of climate change while making sure our local industries and communities have all the energy they need. As I mentioned before, the legislation will be subject to extensive consultation and feedback.
Industry and unions have been calling for a domestic gas reservation scheme for several years and have backed that proposal. Peak bodies like the Australian Industry Group are broadly supportive while the Energy Users Association, which represents major gas users like manufacturers, have applauded the intent of the proposed laws and welcome the legislation. They understand, and the government has acknowledged, that it's reasonable to have some flexibility in terms of how gas exporters meet their obligations under the scheme. They accept we need to respect long-term contracts between exporters and overseas buyers, and these should be exempt from the scheme. I know what a game changer a domestic gas reservation scheme will be for local manufacturing in my outer suburban and regional communities in Blair, for the local economy and for good blue-collar jobs.
For example, Capral Aluminium is the largest producer of aluminium extrusions in Australia and has a major plant in Ipswich in my electorate. There are hundreds of people in my electorate working there in good, unionised jobs. They have been very clear that local manufacturers like them need affordable gas to compete on a global scale, and I visited Capral's facility on numerous occasions. Gas makes up seven per cent of Capral's manufacturing costs. They've said that gas prices are nearly triple what they were five years ago and they're paying three times what they were. From their perspective, our proposed domestic gas reservation scheme is absolutely vital to keeping their prices sustainable and globally competitive.
I also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the strong advocacy of the mighty Australian Workers' Union on this issue. For over a decade, the AWU have campaigned for a domestic gas reservation policy through their Reserve Our Gas campaign to lower energy prices, protect manufacturing jobs and boost our sovereign manufacturing capability. They've taken that to state and national conferences to pursue that campaign. I want to recognise the leadership of the national secretary, Paul Farrow, in this space, as well as the efforts of Queensland state secretary of the AWU, Stacey Schinnerl in my home state of Queensland. I'm from Queensland, and I know how important the gas industry has been for jobs and investment, particularly in Central Queensland.
We know some industry stakeholders have raised concern about design, workability, implementation of the scheme and the issue of ministerial discretion. I note the bill was referred to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, and it's due to report on 11 November. Issues from stakeholders, I'm sure, will be raised during the course of that committee inquiry. There's no doubt about that. But I make this point, and I say this to the Greens political party. They're always in favour of reform on issues—whether it's housing, climate change, environment or in areas of gas—until they get faced with the legislation, and then they run. They run away always, the Greens political party.
An honourable member interjecting—
I'm sure One Nation, for example, will want to hide from their position, abandoning any form of gas reservation policy after having massively championed it. One Nation, the great champions of blue collar jobs, all of a sudden abandoned it to back big business—typical of One Nation. They're always saying one thing and doing another. I want to thank the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, the Minister for Resources, and the Minister for Industry and Innovation for bringing forward this major structural reform.
Australians deserve access to affordable gas, and that's exactly what this reform will deliver. For too long, we've watched gas leave our shores while local households and businesses face uncertainty and rising costs. Despite us being one of the largest producers of gas in the world, we're still suffering shortages and price shocks at home. These reforms lock in more gas for Australians. They strengthen our energy security. They support our energy transition to renewables and help put downward pressure on the price of gas. Our national resources are crucial, and gas is important. It's a national asset. We rightly expect to support our export success and our domestic economic prosperity. This scheme will make Australian gas available to Australian users. In that sense, it's about our sovereign security. It's about our nationalism. It's important that we support it. The legislation is about securing Australian gas for Australian industry.
All members of parliament have a choice, and it's critical that we support this. I say to the crossbench that the Greens political party are always letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and the One Nation party is always backflipping and selling out Australian workers. I say to the coalition: stand up for regional communities, stand up for blue-collar jobs, back this legislation. To vote against reservation is to vote against blue-collar jobs, and that's what the Greens and One Nation are going to do. I support this legislation.
The irony of all ironies is that Labor members are coming into the chamber to support the gas industry. We just heard the member for Blair talking about the fact that a gas reservation policy apparently has been on their national conference agenda for years and years and years. He talked about the union supporting such a policy for a decade.
Sitting suspended from 18:07 to 18:08
If it were such a priority for federal Labor and the unions, why then, why oh why, didn't they complain to their state colleagues, particularly in Victoria, about the need to drill, baby, drill? In Victoria we've had a situation there for years where the state Labor government, operating out of Spring Street, had this aversion to gas to the point where they demonised the industry for years and years and years. Offshore, onshore—it didn't matter. It didn't matter that we had the CFMEU racking up $15 billion worth of windfall from the infrastructure being spent in that state. If there's one thing that Victorian voters can do on 28 November, it is to get rid of a bad Labor government. It was an Andrews government; then it became, of course, an Allan government; and now it's a Carroll government. But it doesn't matter. They can change the premiers, but they can't and won't alter what that Labor government has done. Whether it's on gas, whether it's on forestry, whether it's on whatever, the Labor government hasn't looked after the interests of Victorians.
I have to say, in New South Wales, too, the Labor governments haven't wanted to drill for additional gas supplies. There are many projects, indeed, in the Pilliga which could be explored and utilised for the nation's benefit.
But I tell you what: there is one person who has never lost sight of what it means to have a good gas policy, and that is the Northern Territory Chief Minister, Lia Finocchiaro. I am a big supporter of that particular leader. Recently, on 22 July in fact, she said that the Beetaloo proposal highlighted the Territory's prominence as the natural hub for data centre development. This is the digital proposal. But more than that, she understands that, whether it's data, whether it's defence—it doesn't matter what—she wants to see development for that particularly progressive Territory. Onsite, gas-fired power generation, utilising what's under the ground at Beetaloo, is going to unlock so much potential for the Northern Territory. Indeed, she understands that you can turn potential into profit. I know, when I was the infrastructure minister and the regional development minister, the efforts that we went to, to help progress what was at Beetaloo. But we were stymied a lot by the then Labor government in the Northern Territory. Fortunately, now we have a Finocchiaro government that wants to see the potential utilised. What we need to see is investment, and more investment, indeed, in getting the Northern Territory the power it needs, to not only make sure that they can get investments for the Northern Territory but also get export opportunities for the Top End and elsewhere in northern Australia.
There was an interesting article in the Australian by Liliana Molina on 23 September, headed '"Economic engine" gas needs policy security, stability'. In that particular article we read that the gas industry is 'one of the country's most consequential economic engines' and that the decisions made about its future will shape the nation's industrial capacity 'for a generation'.
We hear a lot from Labor about its 'made in Australia' policies and its 'made in Australia' sovereign capability. They don't always show the fact that they back 'made in Australia'. You only have to look at what they're doing, by their policies—and certainly in the power space, the energy generation space—to know that they're getting it all wrong. If they aren't getting it all wrong, why is there a need to bail out the alumina sector in Newcastle, in the Hunter? Why is there a need to bail out the steel industry in Whyalla? Why is there a need to bail out the rice industry down in the Riverina, in Leeton, in Finley, in Deniliquin and elsewhere, given their bad water policies, their bad energy policies—their bad policies per se? It is a concern.
We should be a nation pretty much like the United Arab Emirates. I've visited there a number of times to see how that country has taken advantage of the export of the energy, the minerals and the resources that lie under the sand. We've got all of those exports and minerals and all of that energy and potential lying underneath Australia, yet we've had the propensity from that side to not want to do anything about it.
I mentioned Victorian Labor, but you only have to reflect on the very first budget delivered by the Treasurer, the member for Rankin, in which he couldn't even bring himself to use the words 'coal' or 'iron ore'. Instead, he talked about 'the things we sell overseas'. Well, those things that we sell overseas and the good work done by former treasurer Josh Frydenberg helped Labor produce a budget surplus. But for former treasurer Frydenberg and the things we sell overseas, we would be in a far worse economic condition than we are now, and I have to say it galls me greatly when I hear of Labor talking up a trillion dollars worth of debt. That's what we have now under those opposite.
When they inherited the economy in May 2022, it was on the back of COVID-19, which had such a huge effect not only on our economy but on economies right across the world. We know that. But what former treasurer Frydenberg, former prime minister Scott Morrison and the executive team, including, dare I say it, me, did at that time was protect jobs and save lives. Yes, it cost a lot of money, but we kept the doors of business open, we kept the wheels of the economy turning and, most importantly, we kept Australians alive. But that seemed to have been forgotten by the Treasurer, who continually talked about the trillion dollars worth of debt. It wasn't a trillion dollars worth of debt; it was nowhere near a trillion dollars worth of debt. I think he was just making excuses and justifying his position, knowing that he was going to spiral Australia into a trillion dollars worth of debt, and that's, unfortunately, where we find ourselves now.
I want to get back to this article from the Australian. It quoted Australian Energy Producers chief executive Samantha McCulloch, who said:
… Australia's gas industry is not simply a provider of fuel but also one of the country's most consequential economic engines, and policy decisions over the next 12 to 24 months could shape the nation's energy systems and industrial capacity for a generation.
This next quote is really interesting. She said:
Continued investment in new gas supply is critical to Australia's energy security and economic prosperity, delivering jobs, economic growth and opportunities for regional communities …
She went on:
Developing Australia's abundant natural gas resources requires significant capital over many years, making stable and predictable policy settings critical to investor confidence and Australia's long-term energy security.
That is so important, because the article also mentioned the fact that the industry contributes around $105 billion annually to the national economy and supports—wait for this; this is an important number—215,000 jobs. I dare say a lot of those people would be members of unions, so I can't understand why Labor has demonised this sector for so many years. They have done so at a state level and even federally.
The article continued. Just listen to this:
It buys about $33 billion in goods and services from Australian businesses each year and pays around $6 billion in employee salaries.
In 2024-25, the oil and gas sector paid $21.9 billion in taxes and royalties to federal, state and territory governments …
That is revenue that keeps prices down—imagine if we didn't have the gas sector; goodness gracious—keeps the lights on in many places, keeps schools open, keeps hospitals saving people's lives and making sure that people's health is protected. Those things are important, and I don't understand why Labor members have so often demonised the mining industry. Labor, as Australia's oldest political movement, once supported those people who put on the high-vis vests and went out to work and got the dirt under their fingernails—the people who worked in mines, the people who were proud of the fact that they had a coalmining heritage, the people who came out with dirt on their faces and sweat on their brows and worked for a living. But that was when the Labor Party had the U in its name. Unfortunately, the Labor Party has forgotten about you. And when I say 'you', I'm referring to those workers. I'm referring to those people who do work in mines. Of course, these days the Labor Party is just l-a-b-o-r. If I'm not mistaken, I think they took the U out of Labor in 1912. But I digress.
An honourable member interjecting—
Well, it's not a joke, unfortunately. I'll take that interjection. Sadly, it's not a joke. It's a truism. Labor really needs to start remembering the workers, the workers who made your party what it is and who did build the roads and who did go out and actually work for a living.
But anyway, Ms McCulloch talked about policy uncertainty and—this is interesting—a deteriorating approvals environment and the threat of new taxes. As for approvals, it takes so long to get anything done in this nation, so very long. It doesn't matter whether it's the local, state or federal government level, it just takes too long. As for the threat of new taxes, why do you think, Member for Cook, she would mention new taxes? Because you know why?
Because they love new taxes.
They love new taxes—precisely. Bingo! Labor has never seen a policy where it doesn't think: 'Gee, we could tax this more. We could get more money in with our economic vandalism and policies that could help fund the next stupid idea that comes out of caucus.' Ms McCulloch says that the manufacturing sector is amongst the most exposed to the risk of supply disruption, as natural gas provides 37 per cent of the energy used by Australia manufacturing.
So what we need to do is get back to first principles. What we need to do is make sure that through our policies and our work here—and that goes for both sides of politics and dare I say, given the fact that we've been joined by the member for Bradfield, the crossbench as well—we don't just say we've got a future made in Australia but actually put policies in place that help enact that and actually help the Whyallas, the Deniliquins, the Finleys and the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Areas of Australia and not have to subsidise to the nth degree every single sector. Put in place policies that are going to help people pay their power bills without having to open that bill and think: 'How am I going to pay that? Am I going to heat my house, or am I going to eat for the next week?' That is on Labor because Labor is in government. Labor needs to understand that, yes, it's all well and good to have a Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, but it needs to start looking after manufacturing, start looking after made in Australia and start looking after households and people struggling to pay the power bills. It starts with small business, and it works all the way up.
I'd like to acknowledge the contribution of the member for Riverina. In this new era where we're considering how we can make this place better, I'd also like to acknowledge that, following my first speech, the member for Riverina was the only member of the coalition who crossed the floor and shook my hand. He said, 'I didn't agree with many of the things you said, but I respect the way you said it.' I'd like to acknowledge that those words and those gestures do mean something, and I appreciate it. I'd also like to acknowledge his dad joke about the way that 'Labor' is spelt, and I'd like to point out that there is no U in Liberal. There is no U in Nationals, and there is no U in coalition, and there never has been.
He spoke about the importance of keeping prices down, and I think he should back the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 as a result. A national gas reservation policy is something that has been called for, for a long time by many members of the Australian public and many members of my community in Menzies. It's a scheme that has been in place in Western Australia for some time, and, as I said, there have long been calls for a similar scheme to cover the rest of Australia. Australians and people in my community recognise that Australia's resources—our gas—are a national asset. They belong to the people of Australia, and we recognise the important role that gas companies play in the exploration, extraction and processing of gas. We recognise, on this side of the House, that gas companies invest and take risks in extracting gas and that they deserve a return on their investment. But, ultimately, our natural gas resources belong to the Australian people, and they also deserve a return on it.
The domestic gas reservation policy will create a modest oversupply and put downward pressure on gas bills for households and businesses. Those opposite who are calling for cost-of-living relief and who are talking about the pressures created by higher energy prices should back this bill because it will provide cost-of-living relief. It's real, practical support for businesses, industries and everyday Australians. That's what this government is delivering through this bill.
Gas and energy more broadly are vital, of course, to local households in my community and to everybody's community here, in this place, as well as to our local businesses and industries. They literally keep the lights on. We use gas for cooking in many of our homes and in local restaurants. Induction cooking is improving, but my community has a large Chinese Australian community, and there's not really a replacement for gas when it comes to cooking in a wok. I know that there's some induction cooking, and we've seen some other technologies emerging, but a lot of people are still relying on gas. It's vital for manufacturing. It's vital for many industrial activities and for high-heat processes like steelmaking, glassmaking and heavy ceramics. And it remains an important firming fuel in electricity grids. There are other technologies coming online, but we're not there yet. It's also important to acknowledge that it is an important part of our export industries.
The bill that we're debating today was developed methodically by this government. That's how we go about developing our policies and our legislation. In December 2025, the government released the gas market review, which stated its intention to introduce a domestic gas reservation scheme, and this year we've undertaken extensive consultation with gas producers and exporters, with peak bodies, with manufacturers, with unions, with state and territory governments and with our trading partners. An exposure draft of this legislation was released on 10 September, and now we're bringing this bill to the House.
The scheme has two components. First, LNG exporters will be required to hold an export licence. Second, licence holders are required to contribute up to 20 per cent of annual exports to domestic gas markets. The amount of gas that's reserved will be determined by the Australian Energy Regulator to create a modest oversupply in order to put downward pressure on prices. This will ensure prices don't sink below levels which would disincentivise production or undermine our transition to renewable energy, which is something we're absolutely committed to. For LNG exporters with existing contractual commitments, these may be recognised through adjustment mechanisms. They'll be limited in terms of time and circumstances. There aren't blanket exemptions from the domestic reservation requirements.
To meet our commitment to net zero, this bill will enable the Gas Market Code to prescribe circumstances in which renewable gas or arrangements to reduce demand for gas may contribute towards meeting domestic supply obligations. There's also flexibility to take into account the different markets on the east and west coast. Importantly, the cost of administering the regulatory framework will be paid for by industry with a levy on export licences. While the scheme is not expected to have an ongoing impact on the budget, there may be a need for the Commonwealth to provide initial funding before the levy and other cost arrangements are in place.
Many people in my community are concerned about climate change—in places like Doncaster, Templestowe, Surrey Hills and Mont Albert—and they want us to transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewables. I've met regularly with people in my office, people around the community and groups like Menzies for Climate, the Australian Conservation Foundation Community Eastern Rosellas, Parents for Climate and Asian Australians for Climate Solutions. Sometimes, they come and demonstrate outside my office—as is their democratic right—and I appreciate their engagement, I appreciate them sharing their expertise, and I appreciate their passion and idealism. Our government is absolutely committed to the transition to renewable energy. We've got ambitious targets to have 82 per cent of the grid powered by renewables by 2030, and we're making real progress in that regard. We're doing this for a few simple reasons. We believe in climate change. We believe the evidence that's there from experts and scientists around the world. We want a habitable planet for the next generation. I've got children, and we've seen the increasing numbers of natural disasters that are driven by climate change and the effect it's having on our environment, like the increasing regularity and severity of bushfires. I want to ensure that my kids are able to enjoy the nature, the planet and the lifestyle that we had.
The member for Riverina implied that we were no longer backing working people, but the people who are going to be most impacted by climate change are going to be the vulnerable. They'll be the least capable of having the adaptation measures within their homes, and they'll be most affected by food insecurity, by rising sea levels and by having to relocate. We need to make sure that we're providing just outcomes for the next generation. We also recognise, though, that renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy. Again, this isn't something that we've come up with from an ideological basis. This is something that the experts tell us, and that's part of the reason why we're pushing ahead with the renewable energy transition.
It's also increasingly clear how important having that commitment to net zero and having the commitment to the renewable energy transition and addressing climate change is to our international relationships—to our middle power partners in Europe and Canada, with other middle powers and with our Pacific neighbours as well. It's allowed us to rebuild our relationship with our Pacific neighbours and, in some cases, allowed us to form stronger economic and defence ties with them. That's because we understand that climate change is an existential threat to many of our Pacific neighbours, some of whom will cease to exist with sea level rises.
In Australia, we also know that we've got a competitive advantage when it comes to renewable energy. We've got abundant wind and solar—the best wind and solar—resources in the world. Australians understand this as well. That's why we have the highest uptake of rooftop solar in the world. When you walk around suburbs in my electorate—I think in most of our electorates—you'll see solar panels all over the roofs.
Nationally, through our Cheaper Home Batteries program, we have installed over half a million solar home batteries. It's around 589,333, according to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy in question time. These are helping households store cheap solar power through our 30 per cent discount. That 589,333-plus number includes 3,639 solar batteries in my community. Recently, we visited Glen, a constituent of mine, who was kind enough to show us his whole solar home battery setup. He was very proud of the app on his phone, and he was able to show us where the peaks and troughs were. I think there's a particular kind of person who can be really proud of how much they're saving and can show you on their app minute by minute and day by day when they're feeding energy into the grid or when they're getting paid back. I was able to visit there with the Special Envoy for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience, the member for Jagajaga. Glen was able to talk very proudly about he was able to save money and about he's able to manage his household's energy consumption, keeping his energy bills low. He's also taking pressure off the grid and contributing to reducing emissions.
We're making real progress in the transition to renewable energy. On some days, renewable energy now accounts for more than 50 per cent of energy that's generated in the grid, up from 33 per cent in 2022—pretty significant gains in a short period of time. This is a result of the government's investment. The latest of the Australian Energy Market Operator's Quarterly energy dynamics report backs that renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy. Wholesale electricity prices are down 27 per cent compared to this time last year. They've been falling in every state—the lowest September quarter since 2021. For the first time, big batteries supplied more power in the evening peak than gas, so households with solar and batteries are drawing around 75 per cent less from the grid during the evening peak than households with solar alone.
We also want to make sure that we're seizing the opportunities of the renewable energy transition to become a renewable energy superpower. Figures released earlier this month show we've already had more renewable energy investment this year than in 2025, so we'll set a new annual record, and we want to leverage the competitive advantage that we have to create new green industries and rebuild our manufacturing capacity through things like the Future Made in Australia Innovation Fund and the National Reconstruction Fund, creating new industries around green steel, green aluminium and processing critical renewable energies and also clean aviation fuels.
But we know that gas still has a role to play. We're working on these things. We're working on the transition. But gas still has an important role to play in firming the grid. It is being supplanted by batteries—community batteries and home batteries—but we need to recognise that particularly in some of those manufacturing industries, the heavy industries, there's still no alternative.
We've also ensured that the Australian people are benefiting more from gas by reforming the petroleum resource rent tax. In the last financial year, the PRRT revenue increased by more than 26 per cent, rising from $1.48 billion in the 2023-24 financial year to $1.87 billion in 2024-25. This is the second-highest amount since reporting began.
Just as Australian households, businesses and industries are still reliant on gas, we need to recognise that many of our allies are as well. Japan, the United States and South Korea are all export markets for our gas. Just as we cannot ask the Australian people to endure energy shortages and blackouts and we cannot ask industry to close while we're making a renewable energy transition, we can't ask that of our allies either.
When the recent war in the Middle East broke out, causing the current international energy crisis, being a reliable supplier of gas became incredibly important for securing our own domestic fuel supply. While those opposite were fuelling panic and recommending things like fuel rationing—hoping that people would forget that, the last time they were in government, they let four refineries close—we took action. As the Treasurer said in question time today, we had a $15 billion fuel security package, including $1.16 billion for cleaner fuel programs. But we were also able to rely on some of the relationships that we've been developing in our region since we were in government in order to obtain further fuel by leveraging us being a reliable partner in providing gas to secure more liquid fuels and to secure more fertiliser with countries like Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia to make sure that we could keep our agricultural sector running and that we could keep other essential services like freight running.
This bill is another step in securing cheaper and cleaner energy. It will help Australian households, businesses and industries. It will ensure Australians gain greater benefits from our sovereign finite resources—our natural gas. This is something that Australians have been calling for for a long time, and this is something that the Albanese Labor government is delivering. I commend the bill to the House.
We pay too much—way too much—for our own gas here in Australia. The government has failed to appropriately regulate private contracts, which has in part led to a domestic supply problem. We also don't get our fair share from our gas that's sold overseas. The government has failed to appropriately tax our finite natural resources, and it continues to fail to do that at a time when our nominal national debt is the highest it has ever been. The Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 tries to do something about that—about the first problem, that is. But it does not seek to address the second.
I went to the election in 2025 calling for a national gas reservation scheme, and it's hardly a radical idea. It was then supported by the then opposition leader. It is the most basic thing that a gas-rich country can do—make sure that its own people get first dibs on its own resources. Western Australia has done it for 20 years. The east coast never did the same, and now we are literally paying the price. When the Gladstone export terminals opened a decade ago, east coast gas suddenly became tied to higher international prices. Domestic prices roughly trebled. So I support this bill because it tries to do something about that. It's a step forward for every household and business that has asked me how we, as one of the world's biggest gas exporters, ended up here, in Australia, with our own gas affordability problem.
But it's obvious that this bill doesn't solve all our problems. More than half of the gas we export attracts no royalties, and over five years Japan has raised more by taxing the gas it imports from us than we raised from the PRRT. Japan gets more tax from our gas than we do. Now, a well-functioning market does not look like this. This is a rort. But this bill does nothing about that.
Let me pause to put this bill into the context of the Australian energy economy one-quarter of the way through the 21st century. Despite the ups and downs of the climate wars, commitments to climate change have seen a reduction in the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, principally through changes to land based systems but also through switching out fossil fuel powered electricity with renewables like solar and hydro. Just under half of Australia's electricity market is now powered by renewables. So Australia is well on the way to its 82 per cent of renewables set for 2030. I don't think we're going to get there in time; we may fall short. But the benefits of energy security and sovereignty and to the cost of living mean that we will stay the course.
Now, the Australian economy is also definitely going to need fossil gas for some users into the future. It provides firming as we roll out renewables, although this will become increasingly more expensive as batteries provide more storage into the electricity market and do that much more cost effectively over the coming months and years. Fossil gas also has high-value uses in certain industries—as a feedstock for plastics and polymers, for example, and to transport chemicals in, say, medical applications. That's why it's so important that we address the regulation of gas, domestic and export, fossil and renewable, taking a concerted, long-term strategic view about its use. And it's why any discussion of the gas reservation scheme should have a wide range of industry stakeholders in the room—not just those fossil gas companies with existing contracts but also stakeholders from a broader range of sectors, current and future. It's also why any discussion of a gas reservation scheme should include financiers, providers of debt equity and insurance, who can and do take a global view of international energy markets and economies. And it's why any discussion of a gas reservation scheme should start with a discussion of the absence of a gas export tax.
Australians across the political spectrum are crying out for us to get our fair share of natural resources to pay for all of the public and social services that we deeply value and desperately, badly need. The government is ignoring these calls, and I believe that is a grave mistake. I urge it to change its position.
If we have to take this bill on its own merits, on its own terms, does it achieve what it sets out to do, which is to ensure Australians can get access to their own gas reserves at affordable prices? Now, on this front, it does make some steps forward, but it's far from perfect. From 1 January 2028, anyone exporting LNG is going to need a licence. In return, licence holders must supply the domestic market with gas equal to up to 20 per cent of what they export, and the Australian Energy Regulator will enforce this domestic supply obligation backed by civil penalties. Rather than a grid flat rate mandate for every exporter, the regulator can calibrate and lower each domestic supply obligation percentage to maintain an aggregate domestic supply target of 110 per cent of the forecast demand.
The bill also contains a deemed supply provision. Some things count towards an exporter's domestic supply obligation without being a direct gas sale, including supply of renewable gas or helping customers cut their gas use—for example through electrification. This last part is a great provision. We've got to take a step back here and remember that, while many households and industries currently use gas, we don't want or can't afford that to be the case for decades to come. The more that we can electrify these houses and businesses, the better for the hip pocket, the better for our climate and the more resilient and internationally competitive our economy becomes.
Let's go to where the bill falls short. First, nothing in this bill guarantees that we're going to see lower gas prices here. The government argues that, by ensuring a modest oversupply of gas, prices are going to go down. That may be the case. But it refuses to say by how much, to set a specific target against which we can measure progress or release modelling underpinning the government's assertions or decisions. Second, the ministerial discretions are too wide. The default reservation is 20 per cent of exports. The minister can lower that figure, granting adjustments for existing export contracts, stretching obligations over long periods at lower percentages and exempting some export facilities altogether. To be clear: again, I'm a pragmatist not a perfectionist, and I believe that some flexibility may indeed be necessary.
These are big changes to the existing market. The minister may need to grant an exemption, for example, if some exporters are actually already reserving gas under the WA reservation scheme. But these ministerial powers need to be carefully calibrated to ensure that we're not creating loopholes that exporters will exploit and therefore rip off the Australian taxpayer. Specifically, the government should ensure that the reservation can't be gamed with dodgy gas deals with third parties or promises of investment in speculative and expensive new gas basins. All that would do would be to reserve high cost gas for Australians and make it harder to address the climate crisis. That's why I'm moving an amendment to this bill.
The bill already recognises that cutting demand for gas through electrification can count towards an exporter's domestic obligation. That is good. My amendment makes those options a 'must do' rather than an afterthought. Before the minister can reduce, defer or exempt any supply obligation, they must first satisfy that a demand reduction through electrification or renewable gas has been genuinely pursued, because the real long-term answer to high gas prices is to use less gas. The cheapest gas, in fact, is the gas that you never have to buy.
Every home that switches to a heat pump and an induction cooktop—yes, there are fantastic induction woks available—and every factory that electrifies its process heat can plan its energy costs years ahead. Electrification lowers bills, lowers emissions and lowers our exposure to markets that we do not control. We need to electrify the economy at pace. The technology is here. What we've been missing is the investment and the political will.
I support this bill, and I want to thank the minister's office for engaging with my office on this critical initiative. I need to urge the government to adopt my amendment and others from the crossbench. I also urge the government also to legislate a gas export tax as soon as practically possible.
I rise today to speak in support of reducing the cost of energy bills and the cost of living, reducing the cost of doing business in Australia and increasing our energy sovereignty and in support of a transition to clean and renewable energy and Australia's goal of net zero by 2050. We have before the parliament an innovative approach and solution to some of these challenges with the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026 and two related bills, the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 and the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026. This package of reforms to gas supply delivers on a simple idea: a fair share at a fair price. Australia's gas is an asset which belongs to all Australians. Our government is committed to delivering a nationally consistent domestic gas reservation framework. Gas powers Australian homes and industry and contributes to the reliability of our energy system. Australians expect our national resources to serve our national interest. Australians also expect a reliable supply of affordable gas at home.
For many years, many Australians have been calling for better management of our gas resources in our national interest. The gas market review recommended that fundamental reform of Australia's gas market was needed and recommended establishing a national gas reservation scheme. Extensive consultation has been undertaken since the release of the gas market review in 2025. Gas producers, exporters, peak bodies, manufacturers, unions, state and territory governments and trade partners have engaged in this discussion through formal consultation processes.
The proposed framework informed by this consultation will require exporters of liquefied natural gas to hold an export licence and meet a domestic supply obligation. This will require LNG exporters to contribute up to the equivalent of 20 per cent of their exports to domestic gas markets. The framework does not limit the amount of LNG that may be exported. It instead ensures a reliable and appropriate domestic contribution in the form of gas sold to domestic customers at prices agreed in commercial negotiations between buyers and sellers. An important commitment by our government is that Australia will remain a reliable energy trading partner both now and into the future.
Australia has two distinct domestic gas markets: the east coast gas market, which includes the Northern Territory, and the west coast gas market in Western Australia. Conditions in one market do not necessarily reflect conditions in the other. The bill recognises this physical separation and provides scope for obligations to be calibrated to the supply and demand conditions of each market based on the circumstances at the time. This bill makes reliable domestic natural gas supply a normal and predictable part of LNG export activity. Our government's aim is to strengthen Australia's energy security and improve the predictability of domestic supply in the long-term interests of Australian households and businesses, while providing greater regulatory certainty and maintaining Australia's position as a reliable LNG exporter and trading partner.
Australia's gas export industry ramped up a little over a decade ago. We are now one of the largest exporters of liquefied natural gas to the world. We have an abundant supply, and we need to structure the market to make sure our needs are also met. I'm pleased to say that, as a nation, we have managed to build a strong and growing renewable energy market and our reliance on fossil fuels, especially on coal and gas, has been declining. We are advancing electrification for households and for businesses. This is good for the planet, for household budgets and for our future. But, right now, we still need gas as part of our energy mix, especially for major industries like steelmaking that are critical to our manufacturing and construction needs. We should not be making it impossible for our major industries to access reliable supply and pay their energy bills. Ballooning gas prices are one part of the cost-of-living crisis we are all trying to combat, and there is really no reason for this cost crunch other than a decade of piecemeal reform and missed opportunities for a country that has an abundance of gas.
Australians are facing a cost-of-living crisis, one that the Albanese Labor government did not create but is taking action to control. We have provided important rebates and subsidies. We're providing cheaper medicines, and we have substantially increased the number of fully bulk-billing GP practices so that Australians can put their health needs first. We've made getting a trade qualification easier for many Australians through our free-TAFE initiative. These and other measures are designed to make things easier for Australians both now and into the future. This approach has also informed how we are addressing domestic gas reform. We want to deliver Australians more gas at affordable prices.
In the Illawarra, and relevant to my electorate of Whitlam, is BlueScope, an icon of Australian industry which is woven into the fabric of our community. The Illawarra is the home of steelmaking in New South Wales, with BlueScope in Port Kembla. BlueScope employs thousands of people across the region, is a major income generator for Australia and provides steel products for our nation and the world. But BlueScope has reported, in recent times, losses to their profit margins, and, in their analysis, this is due to the increasing price of gas. BlueScope needs and uses large quantities of energy. BlueScope requires 24/7 power supply. BlueScope understands that we are transitioning to renewables, and it may be well placed to be a world leader in producing green steel in the future. However, BlueScope has publicly stated that some electrification technology processes are not yet commercially viable and that it expects to remain a significant gas user as part of its broader decarbonisation pathway. The company has also indicated future lower emissions steelmaking technologies could require substantial gas volumes before hydrogen becomes commercially competitive.
For the time being, Australia will rely on gas as part of our energy mix. Gas does not make up a dominant part of Australia's overall energy mix. However, it's still necessary, particularly while solar, battery, wind and other technologies are being advanced and rolled out. Industries like BlueScope need gas right now, but they should not be exposed to export based pricing. Once again, this reflects our government's commitment: our gas belongs to Australia, and our domestic gas should be priced by and for Australia. BlueScope is a major employer in the Illawarra. It's a major export earner for Australia. It needs reliable energy at a fair price, and the same applies to the many other allied metal processing and advanced manufacturing industries in the region that have high energy demands.
Elsewhere in my electorate is the Dunmore industrial precinct. This supports the quarrying, concrete and construction materials production that serve the Illawarra and Sydney markets. These industries commonly rely on gas for drying, heating and other energy intensive processing. I believe the future of these industries will also be supported by more clean and renewable energy over time, but, for them to have a future and provide jobs and products that we all rely upon, they need to be able to pay their energy bills today. Our gas reservation policy aims to give these industries that opportunity. We will do this by providing a modest oversupply of gas into the local market to push prices back down—prices that have only escalated because of international demand, rather than domestic supply, and have set an unrealistic price. We want these industries to be successful, and we want them to be sustainable. We want them to ultimately invest in clean, renewable energy that is fit for purpose, but, right now, they face an energy price squeeze because of export market dynamics, and our government is acting to address this challenge in the interests of Australian industry, Australian jobs and Australian consumers.
Australia collects tax on productive activity for our Commonwealth. We use that tax to build and maintain infrastructure that helps business and industry operate in our country. We use that tax to grow and support the workforces for these businesses and industries. We use that tax for Medicare, schools and services. The gas sector is subject to tax that contributes to all of these purposes, including the petroleum resources rent tax, or PRRT. For too long, the PRRT was not fit for purpose, particularly for the emerging LNG export sector. We have recently amended the PRRT so that Australia will receive a greater share of royalties from gas sales in future, but this doesn't fix the gas price issue for Australian businesses and consumers. A new tax on gas will not directly bring down gas prices. That's why we need a policy that targets supply, and that's what this gas reservation package will do.
By carefully increasing domestic supply, we will create conditions for the sale of gas at prices that Australians can better afford. We also want to make sure there is a viable market for companies to sell gas in Australia. If we oversupply, the price may go too low too quickly or fluctuate too much. This could make it difficult for local companies to sell gas into the domestic market. We are offering a market based solution through the gas reservation reform package. The Australian Energy Regulator will be tasked with monitoring gas demand. It will determine the amount of additional gas needed to provide the local market with a modest oversupply to put downward pressure on prices. This mechanism will manage gas suppliers to provide the equivalent of up to 20 per cent of their export volume for this purpose. The third bill in this package sets up an industry levy. A levy will also make the implementation of this policy cost neutral for the budget.
There is a broader issue confronting Australia which our reforms will also address, and that is our energy security in an increasingly volatile world, Australia's energy security depends not only on the energy we produce but on whether Australian households and businesses can reliably access it. Recent global events have shown us that abundant resources are not enough, if domestic supply is vulnerable to tight markets and global price pressures. Our reforms address this practical sovereignty challenge. Exporters will have to supply a modest percentage equivalent to their export production to the Australian market. That's alongside reforms intended to support domestic supply and energy security.
The government's Future Gas Strategy links energy security and affordability with decarbonisation and with the legislated goals of reducing emissions and reaching net zero by 2050. Our task is to manage that transition responsibly by safeguarding dependable supply for consumers and industry, supporting clean energy growth and maintaining Australia's ability to make decisions in the national interest. Reserving gas is one practical tool within that transition. It's not a commitment to greater gas consumption but a way to help ensure essential domestic needs are met as Australia decarbonises. Our gas reservation package has the backing of major industries.
High energy prices set by the gas export market have had flow-on effects to all businesses and onto families and households who need to put food on the table. The Albanese Labor government has already made a big difference with the rollout of cheap solar and wind power for households, small business and larger industries. We are driving innovation in electrification. One in three Australian households now have rooftop solar, which is an extraordinary statistic. Half-a-million home batteries have been installed through our government's Cheaper Home Batteries Program. We have funded 400 community batteries across Australia. Small and medium businesses are taking up cheaper renewables through our Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme. Together, electric and hybrid vehicles now represent more than half of new vehicle sales, and we are asking large data centres to invest and bring their own renewable energy.
Our government is taking practical action to reduce carbon emissions and help reduce the cost of energy for all Australians, both now and into the future. But right now we still need gas, especially for some heavy industries and some manufacturers to firm and back up their need for constant and intensive energy. That's why our package of gas reservation reform deserves the support of this House.
Australia's domestic gas market is at a tipping point. Longstanding and clearly identifiable structural weaknesses in our domestic gas market have been exposed by Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Despite being one of the largest exporters of liquefied natural gas in the world, because of our longstanding policy failures, Australians have been exposed to the same cost of energy shocks as energy-importing nations. Global energy prices have surged, and Australian households and businesses are paying the price. Household electricity bills have jumped by about $400 a year on average. It's a bit of a disgrace, actually, that Australia still continues to produce so much more gas than it consumes, and yet we're still facing potential shortages at home.
The Gas market review, completed in 2025, found that total gas production in Australia is roughly four times annual domestic consumption, but domestic regulators, including the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Australian Energy Market Operator, continue to warn about possible shortages of gas to power our homes, our businesses and our industries—shortages which could emerge from 2029 on the east coast and from 2030 on the west coast of Australia.
The vast majority of Australian gas production still goes overseas. In 2024-25, almost 74 per cent of domestic gas production was exported. The challenge facing Australian households and manufacturers is not a lack of methane under our earth; it is that too much of our gas is unavailable to the domestic market. And it is particularly galling, given that fact, that Japan and China, Australia's two largest LNG customers, are increasingly reselling our gas to third countries for profit. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has claimed that, in 2024, Japanese companies sold between 600 and 800 petajoules of Australian LNG, mostly to Taiwan and South Korea. That's onselling of up to 1½ times the total annual gas consumption of eastern Australia. IEEFA has further claimed that Chinese companies made about $1.6 billion reselling Australian LNG between 2021 and mid-2026 and that they're on track for their most profitable year yet in 2026.
Successive governments have attempted to address our broken gas policies with a patchwork of mechanisms. The heads of agreement with east coast gas exporters, the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism and the mandatory Gas Market Code have all sought to improve domestic supply and to moderate higher prices since the 2022 price of energy crisis. But the Gas Market Review concluded last year that these instruments cannot guarantee or direct a supply of gas and that they provide insufficient long-term certainty for investment and supply.
We need a simpler and more durable framework; hence, the gas review recommended a domestic gas reservation—a scheme able to increase volumes available to the domestic market and mitigate forecast shortfalls, increase supply diversity and improve upstream price competition. It does make sense to replace a system that requires exporters to offer gas to the domestic market with one which will require gas to be supplied to the domestic market. That could significantly strengthen the bargaining position of Australian gas users and, given that Australia remains mired in a prolonged cost-of-living crisis, it's contingent on all of us to support efforts by this government to reduce gas prices for households, manufacturers and small businesses.
The legislation will deliver greater certainty for our markets and for consumers, but there's still room for improvement across several aspects of the scheme. One of the most striking features of this legislation is the degree of ministerial discretion that it enshrines. Responsible ministers retain vast discretion to vary exporters' supply obligations, with little or no recourse for decisions to be contested or reviewed. The government has not yet responded to the widespread concerns about the extent of ministerial discretion expressed by many expert groups in their responses to the exposure draft of this legislation. As the Grattan Institute and IEEFA have warned, this level of ministerial discretion introduces significant uncertainty and risk for both buyers and also sellers. Setting the level of oversupply between zero and 10 per cent of domestic demand and adjusting domestic supply obligations for individual exporters without clear guardrails and guidelines could well create further uncertainty about future supply, both in aggregate and also from individual exporters. Markets function best when rules are transparent and predictable, not when they're subject to the vicissitudes of changing ministers and governments. A manufacturer weighing a 20-year investment horizon shouldn't have to speculate about how future ministers might exercise broad discretionary powers over the energy that they need to operate.
A second concern is the duration of export licences. Under this legislation, those licences could be granted for terms of 20 to 50 regulated periods, which effectively permits licences lasting for as long as half a century. This increases the likelihood that such licences will later have to be either revoked or amended. Clearly, this could increase investment uncertainty and raise concerns, at least potentially, regarding perceptions of sovereign risk. Additionally, Australia has pledged to hit net zero emissions well before those licences held by gas exporters to supply our domestic market reach their fifth decade. Licences extending for 40 years or more could well drive both increased domestic and global emissions beyond Australia's net zero commitments and also take us beyond the Paris Agreement. IEEFA has suggested shorter, 10-year licences would provide sufficient certainty for LNG contracting while allowing sufficient flexibility for governments to periodically reassess market conditions and our emissions trajectory. The member for Mackellar will move an amendment to that end, and I do support it.
Another issue raised by experts is the bill's oversupply mechanism. This legislation creates a means of ensuring that sufficient gas is available for the domestic market. Each year that number will be set by the minister, based on expert advice, at 10 per cent above projected total domestic demand. It's been argued that that 10 per cent buffer is potentially excessive—in fact, that it could create unnecessary price pressure on domestic producers—and that a more modest two to five per cent oversupply buffer would be adequate to provide the government with certainty of supply and also with the downward pressure on prices that it's seeking, but also with appropriate market forces remaining, such as to encourage electrification of homes and businesses. In other words, there would be enough gas for those households and businesses which still rely on it, but no more than is necessary; enough gas for manufacturers and trade-exposed industries that have limited short-term alternatives to gas, and just enough gas to smooth the shift to renewable energy.
A national gas reservation is one part of a broader suite of climate and energy policies which are driving our historic transition from polluting fossil fuels to clean energy. While a gas reserve is welcome, the long-term solution to energy affordability is electrification, powered by abundant, affordable renewable energy. Helping households to replace gas appliances with more efficient alternatives and businesses to electrify their industrial processes, while expanding our renewable generation and supportive infrastructure, has to be our endgame in reducing pressure on Australia's domestic gas market.
While a mechanism which secures affordable access to our own natural resources is important, we're still awaiting fair taxation of those exported resources. It's been reported that Australia's gas exporters are set to reap a $23 billion windfall this year off the back of the conflict in the Middle East. We're still giving up about $50 million every day, while multinational gas companies pay next to nothing in corporate tax and the PRRT. The best time for the government to fix these broken gas laws was four years ago. The next best time is now.
Finally, I want to address a rapidly emerging challenge to our energy security. The amendment I have circulated raises concerns about the extraordinary increase in construction of energy-intensive data centres in Australia and their potential impact upon our future energy needs. In the United States, the rapid growth of data centres has contributed to a near-tripling of gas-fired energy capacity in 2025 alone. Further increases are anticipated this year. Closer to home, the Energy Market Operator has predicted that data centres will account for at least 13 per cent of demand in the National Energy Market within the next decade. If gas is to be reserved for domestic users, that gas should benefit the households and traditional industries that underpin our economic resilience. I therefore urge the government and the regulators to ensure that the gas saved for Australian purposes by this scheme is reserved for Australian homes, critical infrastructure and businesses, not for energy-intensive data centres.
This bill represents an acknowledgement that our gas market is not functioning in the best interests of Australian consumers. It recognises that the global market poses unreasonable risks to domestic gas supply and to energy affordability. For that reason I support the establishment of a domestic gas reservation. However, given how foundational a national gas reservation is to the future of our energy market, I feel strongly that this legislation should include stronger limits on ministerial discretion. It should provide shorter and more realistic export licence periods. It should adopt a more modest oversupply buffer. And it should better align with Australia's climate commitments. I urge the government to strengthen the bill and to continue the more extensive work of building an energy system that is affordable, secure and compatible with our net zero future. With that, I move amendments (1) to (2) as circulated in my name:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House calls on the Government to implement a 25 percent gas export tax, which would lower domestic gas prices while raising revenue for Australians who desperately need cost-of-living help".
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
I rise to support the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill 2026, the Domestic Gas Reservation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026 and the Domestic Gas Reservation Levy Bill 2026. In doing so, I congratulate the ministers who have put these bills together: the Minister for Resources, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, the Minister for Industry and Innovation and the Minister for Science. This is part of the government's wider strategy to bring back manufacturing in Australia, as the government says, for a future made in Australia.
Former prime minister Paul Keating said that 'if you change the government, you change the country'. The reason for the economic dislocation that we have in the community today and in working-class communities especially, like the one that I grew up in and the one that I represent today, is that—we have seen three things happen to our economy over the last 30 to 40 years: privatisation, economic rationalism and unfettered free trade. On that last point, to me, unfettered free trade means that we absolutely should have lower tariffs. It would be the silliest thing to put tariffs up to make imports more expensive for consumers in Australia. But what unfettered free trade has meant is that our local manufacturing industries are competing against state owned and state subsidised industries overseas. For that we have seen the destruction, the utter collapse, of our textile industries in Australia and we have seen our manufacturing industry teetering on the brink of utter collapse.
I listened to the UK prime minister deliver his speech to the party conference a couple of weeks ago. He put it slightly better than me, but it was still those three main things: privatisation, deregulation and deindustrialisation. It has devastated our communities and it has caused the angst and the inequality that we see today. Change the government, and you change the country. Since 2022 we have seen through the Albanese Labor government a change in direction and a rejection of the status quo. We are not going to just stand by and watch our foundational industries—the industries that we have left—completely collapse and fall apart.
I like to surprise people. It's easy for a Labor member to quote Paul Keating. It's not so easy for a Labor member to quote Peter Dutton or to say that one of their economic role models is a Liberal premier. But I can do both of those things. One of my economic role models is Thomas Playford, who was the premier in South Australia from the forties—during World War II, in fact—until the seventies. His economic philosophy, as it was around the country, was about investing in public housing and public energy. You saw with that government, which was carried on by the Dunstan Labor government that came after him, an investment in public housing, with a strategy to keep the cost of living and rents down for workers. That meant that the pressure would be off wages, which was what attracted manufacturing businesses.
If you look at the suburb of Elizabeth, it was a suburb of public housing. It was built around the car industry—in fact, it was built for the car industry—to keep the pressure off wages and to keep rents down, but living standards could be so high. In fact, the high point of South Australian public housing was sometime in the nineties, where something like more than 40 per cent of rentals in South Australia were public housing. Then, across the country, 20 per cent of rentals in the country were public housing, but today that figure is 10 per cent. If you go to the Gold Coast, to parts of the area that I represent, it is five per cent. And it's unsurprising—I mean, you think about it: if you want to support small business, how does small business properly pay the wages of somebody that's got to spend $800 a week to pay for a crappy little three-bedroom house in the outer suburbs of South-East Queensland? Eight hundred dollars a week! How does a small business really pay those wages? But they have to, because that's what the cost of living is.
So the strategy was with energy. Here I'll quote Peter Dutton—not that I'll do that a lot. I thought Peter Dutton really summed it up perfectly when he said—in fact, I've forgotten the exact quote, but the punchline was 'energy is the economy'. Energy is not just part of the economy; energy is the economy. When you look at us, you'll see we're a society born of the Industrial Revolution—an economy born of the Industrial Revolution, of steam and coal of the 19th century, of oil and the internal combustion engine of the 20th century, and of electricity and renewable energy of the 21st century. Energy is the absolute—as I said, it's not just the bedrock of the economy; energy is the economy.
So it was that, in South Australia, but around Australia as well, we had state owned, publicly owned, energy assets which provided electricity as an essential service, not to make a profit off pensioners but to give a break to people, to keep the cost of living down for people, and also to keep the cost of business down for manufacturing. Publicly owned housing and publicly owned energy assets really made Australia, after World War II.
In the eighties and the nineties, we started to follow this mind virus of economic rationalism where we thought that the private sector could always do better. I'm all about entrepreneurialism. Anybody that has sat through one of my speeches would know that I quite often talk about my own experiences building my own companies. The spirit of entrepreneurialism is the spirit of being human. It's about following your passion. It's about finding your dreams and pursuing them. It is about what you'll always find, I think, when it comes to really following your passion—that is, it is about finding the best contribution that you can make to other people. That's, to me, what entrepreneurialism is. That's, to me, what business is. The best businesspeople that I ever saw, that I ever worked with and worked for, were people that didn't really care about the money; they just had this burning idea: to help other people. The fact that they could make money out of it—well, that was almost secondary.
There is a role for government that has not been played by government since the 1990s. This government is about reclaiming that role by getting in there and, initially, protecting what's left—protecting our foundational industries, whether it's steel in Whyalla, whether it's lead in Port Pirie, whether it's aluminium in Gladstone and Newcastle or whether it's copper in Mount Isa and Townsville. It's about getting in there and protecting those foundational industries, because that is all that we have left, and it is about building on those foundational industries as well. So it is that we have, through the Future Made in Australia, a strategy to bring manufacturing and sovereign capability back to our country and to breathe life back into the working-class communities that are struggling to get by.
One of the key parts of this is the Domestic Gas Reservation Bill, because what this bill does is to literally pump energy back into the economy. It is about this recognition that what made Australia great, post World War II, was cheap energy—which, by the way, is the reason I think it is such a wrench for our economy to transition away from coal. Not only has coal been such a important part of mining towns like the one I came from—which is not a coalmining town, of course—around Australia; cheap coal has been also such an important input into the economy. Moving away from that is a wrench both for the communities that dig it out of the ground and for the whole of Australia that relies on the cheap promise that coal gave to us for so many decades. So it has been a wrench.
As the world transitions away from coal, and as our coalfired power plants become obviously uneconomical to replace, we can't just throw our hands up and let the market do it, because the market's not doing it. Leave it up to the market, and all our gas goes overseas. So we have to intervene. We have to make sure that our strategic, domestic and economic interests are looked after. And that's what is at the heart of this gas reservation.
It is also, I think, a recognition that we are saving the gas companies from themselves. Either the gas companies have nobody advising them on public relations at the moment, or they're just wilfully blind to it, but the pressure that is out there in the community for the gas companies to actually do their fair share is overwhelming. And, unless they come to the party and realise that this is actually going to help them keep their own social licence, they really could lose their social licence. At the end of the day, this is our gas. It belongs to us. And this is about making sure that we get the benefit of this natural resource that belongs to us.
I'd also just make the point that this bill is very sensible and practical. It recognises that there are existing contracts, and it respects those existing contracts with international suppliers. That is important for a variety of reasons. One, of course, is that Australia needs to be a good place to do business. International companies need to know that the rules aren't just going to change instantly, under their feet. Those current arrangements need to be respected. The other thing—and it's been shown in this fuel crisis, since February this year—is that gas has given us enormous leverage on an international stage. It's given us the ability to really secure the petrol and diesel that we need to run, because those countries need the gas that we have to run. It is important, in the world that we are in today, that the relationships we have with countries like Japan, which are so critical to the future of Australia's success, are maintained by respecting the contracts that exist at the moment.
This is not a radical tear-up of the way things are working, but it is a change of the status quo. It is a change of the status quo, because we need to look after our own energy security first. We can no longer be a country at the end of international supply lines. We have to come first. Our people have to come first. Our communities have to come first, both in security and in opportunity.
So I commend this bill to the House. This bill sits in that great strategy of Future Made in Australia. It sits there alongside Rewiring the Nation, where we are modernising the grid for the energy economy of the 21st century. It sits beside the National Reconstruction Fund, where this government is investing in businesses like Gilmour Space, in the heart of Forde, my electorate, where we are literally looking to the stars for the future of Australian manufacturing. It sits within the strategy of maintaining and defending our foundational industries around regional Australia—the foundational industries that keep the cities going. I commend this bill to the House.
Debate interrupted.