If there is no objection, the meetings are authorised.

I'm pleased to continue my contribution on the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Tackling the Gender Super Gap) Bill 2025. I've previously outlined that, in Tasmania, older women are in the fastest growing group at risk of homelessness. Last winter, in Hobart, a former boarding house was bought, not for profit but to give women with little super a safe place to live. That generosity highlights a deeper problem: women retire with significantly less super than men—around $30,000 less on average in Tasmania—after years of part-time work and caring responsibilities that families rely on but the system does not value.

Senator Hume's bill offers a sensible, voluntary fix. It allows couples, during their relationship, to even up super balances with strong safeguards, no new taxes and no public spending. It simply shares retirement security, the way families already share, work and sacrifice. It is a practical response to a structural inequity, which is why the bill has my support.

Let me be clear about the design. The bill amends the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act and the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations to create an annual spousal superannuation redistribution opportunity. Trustees must process valid applications within 30 business days and exchange standardised information. The amount transferred is capped by a formula, known as the spousal redistribution limit, that ensures that neither partner ends up with less than the other and that the receiving spouse's balance never exceeds the transfer balance cap. The tax law is amended so that the amount is treated as a rollover, carrying the same taxed and untaxed, concessional and non-concessional proportions across, preventing gaming and keeping integrity intact. This is balance splitting, not contribution splitting. The tax has already been paid; the money has already been earned.

The existing spouse contribution settings are clunky and underused. The bill's approach is cleaner, fairer and more intuitive to couples who think in terms of 'our future' rather than 'my contribution versus yours'. Balance equalisation is not a silver bullet. This isn't a solution for everyone. Women's lifetime earnings still lag. Many women still step into low-paid, feminised sectors, and too many older women are exposed to housing stress. But policy is rarely about silver bullets; it is about using the strengths in the system to avoid people falling through the gaps. There are many gaps and this solution fills some.

Critics will ask: why intervene at all? Because people who made family-first choices should not face poverty-last consequences. Tasmania's relatively gendered superannuation gap coexists with legacy super gaps built over decades, and because even a small pay gap can produce a large retirement gap when magnified by compounding investment returns. A five per cent difference in earnings at age 35 can translate to a far larger difference at 65 when one account compounds uninterrupted and the other pauses for caring. And because the evidence continues to show the gap widens with age, by the time a woman is in her 50s, even female managers nationally, they are tens of thousands of dollars behind their male peers. That is why this bill is so important. It is a fix that will provide the mechanism to tackle the gender super gap and do it without raising taxes on others; instead, by just incentivising the current superannuation pool.

Others will ask about system integrity. The bill anticipates that concern. It excludes defined benefit schemes and retirement phase accounts, limits transfers to equalising balances without breaching the transfer cap. It retains the tax character of the funds, requires a single active account per spouse for access, and hardwires trustee timeframes and information exchanges. This is careful drafting, not a free for all. Will this help only affluent households? No. Bringing a $120,000 balance up to $170,000 can be the difference between selling the family home and staying put, between fear and flexibility, between needing a room at Hobart's Amelie House or having a lease of one's own.

This bill makes it easy for couples to share fairly what they built together, long before a court, a crisis or a separation forces the issue. The national conversation is alive to retirement equity. Paying super on paid parental leave is a positive step for future cohorts, but, as Tasmanian stories remind us, there is a generation of women already nearing retirement who need a lever that they can pull now. So what might this mean in reality on the ground across the country? It means a carer in Burnie can receive a rollover in the year she steps back to look after dad, preserving compounding that will otherwise be lost. It also means cultural permission to plan together. Too often, super is his account and her account. This bill says to Tasmanian and Australian families: your retirement can be shared, make your super reflect that, because sharing life choices is sometimes not a choice. It means when the unexpected happens, whether that is illness, redundancy or a decade that didn't go to plan, the a family's retirement doesn't depend on only one account's history.

This bill also focuses on simplicity. The provisions are user-friendly. They define who can access the mechanism, how to apply, how trustees must respond and how tax characteristics transfer. They set a clear ceiling, not a floor so couples can move at their own pace. And they do it by building on the familiar plumbing of rollovers, not inventing a new tax labyrinth. To those who say, 'not now', well, when? We have Australians who will commence retirement each year who will wish to have had this mechanism and others who would have had significantly higher balances if they did have it. National analysis warns of a looming crisis of older women retiring into poverty if policy doesn't move. Tasmania's headlines and service providers bring that national warning home. The sooner couples can start equalising, the more compounding can do it's quiet mathematical work for the next 20 years.

To the couple in Hobart who turned a private asset into 10 rooms of security, thank you for modelling the community we aspire to be. But it should not fall to individual generosity to fix structural gaps. Parliament can meet community halfway by making fairness the default in this aspect of superannuation. This bill says to every family mapping out the decade ahead: when you sit at the kitchen table with a pen and a super statement, when you are considering a new baby or an ageing parent or a course of study, you should have a simple, legal, well-designed way to keep your futures even.

Fairness in retirement is not a slogan; it is a sequence of small, deliberate choices made possible by law. With this bill, we make those choices available to every couple in Tasmania and across Australia who want their super to tell the true story of a shared life. I commend the bill to the Senate.

It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Tackling the Gender Super Gap) Bill 2025, and I commend Senator Hume for bringing forward this very important private senator's bill. It's something that I wholeheartedly support, and I encourage the Senate to do so. This bill works to ensure that the retirement outcomes for women and families are fairer and more flexible. The tackling the gender super gap bill 2025 is designed to address one of the most persistent and unfair challenges in the super system, the gender superannuation gap. In August 2025, a Super Members Council report said:

Women across Australia continue to miss out on super due to time spent out of the paid workforce to care for children and other family members. This contributes to an overall gender gap in super balances, which leads to working women in Australia retiring with a quarter less super than men.

This structural inequity also means women suffer more acutely from the scourge of unpaid super. The smaller your balance, the bigger a difference each dollar of unpaid super makes.

Missing out on super—which is a legal workplace entitlement in Australia—dramatically erodes women's super by retirement, magnifies existing inequity, and erodes women's future financial security.

The report highlights that the average affected working woman misses out on $1,300 in super each year, which can lead to more than $26,000 less in their retirement savings for that typical worker.

Labor's solution was to pay super on paid parental leave, investing $1.1 billion over four years. This was something that we supported, but it really doesn't go far enough to address the inequality that exists between women and men in relation to superannuation balances when it comes to their retirement. The paid parental leave measure will address the superannuation of women having children in the future, but it will not help women beyond child-bearing age. While estimates vary, women retire with significantly lower super balances—between 20 and 25 per cent lower—than men. The gap is worse for older women approaching retirement. That is to say that the change in relation to paid parental leave, while obviously welcome for young women having children, is not something that is going to assist older women at all. The gap is worse for older women when they approach retirement: 47.8 per cent for women aged between 55 and 59, and 42 per cent for women in the 50-to-54 and 60-to-64 age brackets.

The bill that Senator Hume has introduced will help to close the gender super gap by giving the partner with a higher balance, typically the spouse—a man—the option to transfer some of their balance to their partner to even up the accounts. The bill creates a simple and voluntary mechanism allowing couples to split their collective superannuation balances evenly during their relationship on an ongoing annual basis. Currently there is only one mechanism to make contributions on behalf of the spouse. This has an astonishingly low take-up, with only 1.1 per cent of Australians using it in 2021-22. Equitable splitting of superannuation balances is only currently considered in divorce proceedings. This bill uses the existing mechanisms already in place—that is, rollover with the standard form and recognised tax treatments—and it applies it proactively. If the economic partnership at the heart of most families is recognised in divorce by splitting super balances, then why shouldn't we allow the option of recognising it while the couple is still together? Splitting super balances using a rollover from one fund to another is a genuine structural change.

I might add that this could have the desired impact of helping to reduce the friction that often is there when couples are going through difficult times. When you take out the financial difficulty that a woman would face in terms of considering what her future would be like if they were to split from the relationship and whether or not there would be some sort of equitable settlement at the divorce and they can deal with that at the outset without having to go all the way through to divorce, it might actually give the couple a chance to be able to resolve their differences or potentially even reconcile the relationship and work it out without having that additional financial burden that often raises the tension within a household. This could have quite a significant impact, at least in addressing that disparity that often exists. Anything we can do to keep families together, particularly when there isn't domestic violence involved and there's simply a split that's occurring and friction within the relationship, is good for families. This could be a measure that couples could start while things are quite amicable and they're getting along. They say, 'This is the arrangement we're going to make to split our super,' potentially safeguarding against any future difficulty that could come as a result of that financial pressure. It's just a thought.

As we know, women are generally more likely to take career breaks or work part time, making noble and necessary sacrifices for the wellbeing of their families. If the super system does not reflect the value of the work that mothers do outside of the workforce, the gap will only continue to grow. As I've said already, the government has introduced superannuation on paid parental leave. It does not cover the nuances of every Australian mother's potential circumstances. After those six months of parental leave conclude, some mothers may not wish to return to full-time work or may return to a flexible arrangement as agreed with their employer. Families might get the paid parental leave for their first child, but, if they're having children in quick succession, then they have quite a period outside of work. They're not re-entering the workforce for a long enough period to be re-eligible for the paid parental leave, therefore they don't also get that benefit.

As an aside, something I think that we really should be looking at is the flexibility of the Paid Parental Leave scheme, the eligibility of that and making sure that we're not actually disadvantaging families that want to be able to have multiple children—which we need to have in this country, by the way. We've reduced our birthrate in Australia to 1.4 children per woman. There's a lot of talk about intergenerational economic impacts. One of the biggest intergenerational economic impacts that we have is that we're not replacing ourselves. We're not going to have a population coming in behind us to help us, particularly as we get older and end up needing the care of those that are younger than us. We're not going to have the population coming in behind us in the economy. These things are also important for those reasons.

Many households make decisions in relation to their finances, and they're not made lightly. Families weigh the needs of their children, workplace flexibility and financial pressures before deciding what arrangement works best for them. In many cases, part-time work and an extended break from the workforce is the best option for families with children in their formative years of life. With my role as choice in child care shadow minister, I now talk daily to families across the country who are saying to us: 'We want greater choice and flexibility. The current system is too rigid. It locks us into a particular path.' That path works for a lot of families, but it doesn't work for all.

For those that want to make that active choice, a choice that should be encouraged and supported in this country, to spend more time at home supporting their families—we should be doing everything we can to make sure that those families have got that support. It's not the choice that everyone's going to make, but for those that want to make that choice we need to make sure that the system is best set up for them, and why not allow people to use their own money to help provide that choice and flexibility? That's my view. It ensures, if we pass this bill, that mothers are not financially disadvantaged in retirement because they choose to prioritise the care and wellbeing of their families during the key stages of life. This is a role that cannot be replaced.

The ABS data shows that nearly 800,000 people—791,100 women—who experience violence by a previous partner while living together were pregnant at some point during their relationship. Heartbreakingly, 42 per cent of those women experienced violence during their pregnancy, including 17 per cent who experience violence for the first time while pregnant. These are devastating figures, and every one of those women is deserving of safety and security. The bill looks to develop that financial security for them. It helps to ensure that perpetrators cannot completely financially isolate their victims or set up for long-term financial disadvantage. Many women who have experienced economic abuse also experience reduced workforce participation or interruptions to their careers altogether as a result of that coercive control.

The HILDA survey, which studied a nationally representative group of women aged 18 to 64 showed that women who had experienced physical violence experienced an average loss of $3,180 compared to pre-violence earnings. This bill is protecting those women, too. It recognises that the temporary harm inflicted by those perpetrators should not have a permanent effect on a woman's quality of retirement. No woman should be subject to retirement insecurity owing to circumstances of violence and abuse. This bill is not just a retirement policy; it's a women's safety, dignity and autonomy policy.

Labor like to say that they invented superannuation, but it took a coalition government to make superannuation work for members by giving them the right to choose their superannuation fund. Instead of unions and super fund managers, individuals now have that choice. We want to provide that choice, through this bill, for families and couples to be able to work out their financial arrangements without the restrictions that are currently there. This bill provides more flexibility and it makes it fairer, particularly for women, making sure their hard-earned savings in superannuation are working for them and their families, not for Labor and their Labor mates.

Given some of the changes announced by the Treasurer last night, it would not be surprising if he decides to come after our superannuation next. The government is running out of money to spend. It needs another nest egg to attack. In 2024, the Treasurer said that he thought the $4 trillion super pool should help fund major economic and structural shifts, then he flagged it should be used for investment into housing. The Treasurer is confused. He thinks Australia's $4.3 trillion super industry is his money to repurpose. It's not his lotto ticket to fix other debt issues that he has created. We saw them come after Australians' wealth and equity last night in the budget. I've got no doubt that, if they had their chance at the next budget, we would see some changes in relation to superannuation. He is now intent on watering down the performance test so it can be vested outside of its current parameters. Labor wants to move to goalposts and make it easier for super funds to invest in projects that are Labor election commitments in energy and housing. The problem is that these projects don't stack up financially, otherwise super funds would already be invested in them.

This bill is all about providing that flexibility and that choice for families. This is their money. Superannuation funds are not the government's money. They're not a plaything of the government. This is about individuals and families. This bill is putting that choice as to who holds the balance of that super into the hands of couples—men and women, women and women, no matter what it is—to be able to provide that flexibility between each other. We think that is an honourable thing to do. I again commend Senator Hume for providing this bill for us to consider, and I hope we would see it supported by this Senate. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator O'Sullivan: I think you've summed that up beautifully. This is about choice, and the coalition wants Australians to have choice in their lives. We don't think the government should tell you how your family should work its finances out. Last night's budget was an example of that. The Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Tackling the Gender Super Gap) Bill 2025 is designed to deal with one of the most persistent and unfair challenges in the super system, and that is that women persistently and consistently have less super than men. There are a lot of reasons for that. The primary reasons are that women have babies, women tend to stay home with their babies and women have more care responsibilities, and that impacts their ability to earn income. Women tend to work part-time more than full-time, and women tend to take more time out of the workforce, whether it's caring for their children or caring for relatives.

That has an impact. If your spouse has more super than you, and they want to share that super with you, why shouldn't they be able to? You share everything else. If you were to divorce, that super would be shared; it would become part of the marital pool of assets. So why can't you make that decision when the family unit is intact and together? Why can't you have the choice to make that decision? Why are the rules structured in such a way that if you want to do that you're not allowed to?

As Senator O'Sullivan rightly stated, the money in the super funds belongs to Australians who have earnt that money as a part of their income. That money does not belong to the government. It is not something the government has given to Australian workers; it is something Australian workers have earnt, and that money has been set aside. I think that is one of the most fundamental things we have to clarify here: this is not a gift of government; this is an outcome of the work of Australians, and they should be able to make a choice about how that super is distributed in their families. This bill brought forward by Senator Jane Hume continues the good work of the coalition when in government to improve retirement outcomes by making superannuation fairer and more flexible—and I've talked about that a lot here—particularly for women and families. I've talked about the fact that women should be able to access their super to buy housing. Why not?

We understand the housing crisis. It's the same thing: why can't you choose what you do with your money? Women over 55 are now the largest-growing cohort of homeless people in this country. I think you've heard me say that dozens of times in this chamber. This is a mechanism by which that can be mitigated. Why wouldn't we allow that to happen? Why should we create a scenario where a woman has to fight for that share if there is a failure or a breakdown in a marriage but, when things are going as they should and a family makes a decision that they want to split that and share that amongst themselves, they can't?

I don't understand that. I don't get why that's not okay. If someone wants to split their super balance and give it to their spouse, why can't they do that? It makes the superannuation system fairer for women and enables a family's retirement outcomes to reflect the collective decisions they have made together as a family, not for the woman to feel that she is not an equal contributor just because she hasn't been in the paid workforce for as long as her spouse has because she is the one who's made the decision—or collectively they've made the decision—for her to stay home or work less in order to raise a family. That is a reality. If people don't want to accept that that's true, that's a matter for them, but that is real.

I know that it's my own experience. I spent many years at home with my children as they grew. I had three small children in under four years. It was not possible for me to work. I made that choice. But I didn't have the benefit of something like this. And, when my marriage broke down, I didn't have the benefit of any super, so I had to start from zero. There are many other women like me who have experienced just that. Why should they be in that position when there is an option here for that to be different?

I know that those on the other side talk about how super is a reflection of them because it was a Labor government that introduced super, that created this nest egg for Australians. But I think they also forget our record on super and the things that we have done in order to improve this system. We capped fees on low balances so that super funds couldn't eat into your small super balance with ongoing and high fees. That's something that we did. We banned fees on rollovers so that when you moved from one super fund to another it wasn't costing you money to do that. We made the expensive insurance premiums that were embedded into superannuation funds opt in rather than opt out, for young people. Do you see a pattern here? We're making a system fairer, simpler and easier to use for the people that have to use it.

We abolished the $450 rule, which was a deliberate design feature of the super system that Labor embedded in 1992 so that low-income earners, particularly women who were perhaps working casually or part time, weren't able to accumulate super like everybody else, because they earnt too little. We changed that. That was something that we did in order to reduce the gender pay gap in super. We allowed non-pay-as-you-go income to be used for contributions below the concessional limit to attract a tax deduction so that self-employed people could also take advantage of super in the same way that wage earners did. That was another important change that created choice but also mitigated the super pay gap.

We introduced the bring-forward rule so that three future years worth of non-concessional contributions could be made in one year. That was another important change that we made to make the super system fairer and better. We also ensured that workers' funds would follow them from job to job, rather than allowing companies to open a new account in their fund, charging more fees each time you changed jobs and charging fees on multiple accounts.

Do you see the pattern here, the change and the shift in how we have tried to continually make the system better and fairer and provide that choice for Australians to make? That is what we are doing here. We are not saying that everybody has to do this. We are not saying that this is the right thing. We're not telling people how to live their lives and how to manage their finances. We're saying that Australians should have the choice to do this if they want to.

Whilst Labor might like to say that they are the ones that invented superannuation, it has taken coalition governments to make superannuation work better for members instead of making it a bigger honey pot for super fund managers. As I said before, this money does not belong to super funds and it does not belong to government. It belongs to the Australians who earnt it. If a higher earning spouse wants to give it to their lower earning spouse, tell me why they can't do that.

They can when they divorce.

Indeed, they can when they divorce. So why can't they make the choice to do that beforehand?

It makes me think about last night's budget. It makes me think about the many broken promises. It makes me think about the increased taxes. It makes me think about the higher debt—indeed, we will have some $1 trillion in debt next year. It makes me think about the declining living standards that Australians are facing every single day in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. And it makes me think about the fewer houses that Australians have and how that has impacted both the costs of mortgages and rents and the ability for people to access the housing market.

We make everything harder than it needs to be. This is a way to make one thing simpler: to make a decision about your own money and how you allocate that as a family unit between your super accounts. I can't understand why this government won't consider that. I don't understand why they don't see that this is an opportunity to provide additional security for a lower income earning partner—and, let's face it, that is usually a woman. Why is there a barrier to that? What is the systemic issue where you say you shouldn't be able to do that? What is the problem with this? Who will end up worse off? The super funds will still get their fees, the funds remain in a superannuation account—they haven't been taken out—and a family gets to make a decision about something that works best for them.

The only thing that I can think of that is that there's a view that there might be an ability to tax less on the lower balance account, so they don't want to see a distribution from the higher account to the lower account. That means that this is about the culture of this government that just wants to tax you more. Why do they—actually, that might be wrong. I think it's not that they want to tax you more; they have to tax you more because they have spent so much, they have lost control of our economy. They don't know what to do and how to plug those holes, so they have to tax you more. This is another thing that they do not want to consider.

We know that this is a historic pattern with Labor governments in this country. When they run out of your money, they come and ask you for more—or not ask you but come and get more of it via taxes. They come and get more. We can't forget that this government went to the election, in the lead-up to 2022, saying that there would be no changes to super and no new taxes. But the moment they were elected, they reneged on that promise and immediately announced an unindexed tax on unrealised capital gains. We know what that is: a tax on money you don't have yet but you might have in the future. 'We're going to calculate it on the basis that you're going to get it, but if things go wrong and you actually don't earn that money and we've taxed you on it and you lose that money, we're not going to give you the tax back.' That's what they wanted to do—an entirely unworkable proposition that was absurd and would see young people starting out on even average incomes today paying more and more tax into the future on top of the fact that they would never be able to afford to own their own home.

That is the culture of this government, and, frankly, we need to create a circuit breaker for it. It can't continue. Australians cannot continue to pay the price of this government and its inability to manage our economy. We need to draw a line in the sand and say Australians have a right to make choices about their own lives and their own money, and this is an example of that. If Australian couples wish to split their super amongst themselves, then they should be allowed to do it. They should be allowed to do it at a time of their own choosing, when it best suits their needs and when it best suits the needs of their family because—guess what? If their family were to break down, then it gets split anyway. So why can't they do it at the time of their own choosing? I'd like the government to be able to answer that question. I'd like them to explain to Australians why this is yet another decision that's been taken out of their hands, why this government won't allow families to make choices about their own lives, about superannuation, about child care and about aged care. This government wants to have control but has no idea what it's doing.

I, too, rise to speak on this private senator's bill, the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Tackling the Gender Super Gap) Bill 2025. I commend Senator Hume, who put this bill into this place, and it gives me great pleasure to follow on from the spectacular contribution that we just heard from Senator Kovacic about why this bill is really important. It's really important to Australia, but, most particularly, it's really important to Australian women. Tackling the gender super gap is a really important thing and something that I think we should all be trying to do, because the gender super gap is a reflection of the fact that Australian women, on average, throughout their lifetimes, earn less than men, so, by the very nature of that, they are likely to have less superannuation.

We believe that it is our job as legislators here in this place to work to tackle that super gap to make sure that Australian women have the same opportunities at retirement that Australian men have, because we believe that we need to make sure that our superannuation system is fairer. We need to make sure that our superannuation system is more flexible and we need to make sure that our superannuation system has the capacity to respond to the realities of the challenges that Australians and Australian women face in their everyday lives. This particular bill is a practical reform measure that enables families' retirement incomes to better reflect the collective decisions that families make throughout their working lives on their journey through life as families.

As I said, your superannuation balance is a reflection of what you earn throughout your working life, and the reality is—it's not just an assumption; it's not just something we're saying here; these are the facts that our borne out by the statistics—that women are likely to earn less during their lives than men. They're more likely to work part time than men. They're more likely to take time out of the workforce when they're raising children, and they're more likely to take on caring responsibilities that affect their lifetime ability to earn and their retirement savings. This is what we sometimes refer to as the motherhood penalty, but it is a penalty that implicates women throughout their working lives, and the consequences are quite profound.

For older women who are approaching retirement, it is even worse. We see that, on average, women are retiring with a gap of between 20 and 25 per cent in their retirement savings when compared to men. But for older women, who haven't had the luxury of having superannuation guaranteed for their entire lives, we're actually seeing a much higher discrepancy, with the retirement superannuation gap at almost 48 per cent. The concerning thing is that, over the last decade, we have barely seen that gap change.

Unfortunately, this is contributing to the fact that women over 55 are now the fastest growing cohort experiencing homelessness in Australia. The government acknowledges this problem. I don't often quote the Prime Minister because I don't very often agree with anything the Prime Minister says, but I have to say that the Prime Minister was absolutely right when he said:

No mother should be penalised for taking time away from work to do the most important job there is.

I think we all should be able to agree with that. Senator Gallagher, the Minister for Women, has also acknowledged that one-third of the gender pay gap can be attributed to the time women spend caring for families throughout their lives and the interruption that makes to full-time work. The Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has himself admitted that women retire with about 25 per cent less savings than their male counterparts. Clearly, we absolutely agree with the statements of those three people, but the question that we need to ask today is: what is the government prepared to do about it?

This bill is something that we've put forward as a practical measure to do something about the problems that the government acknowledges exist. Labor's response so far has been to pay superannuation on paid parental leave. Whilst that's great—this is a policy that is worth about $1.1 billion over the four years—and might slightly improve women's retirement savings, it does very little in terms of the broader issue that is before us.

This bill seeks to take a different approach. It's structural, it's practical, and it's a measure that is before us that we can do something about today. It recognises the economic partnership that exists between women and men and in Australian families, however they are made up. It creates a simple voluntary mechanism by which families can distribute or split the superannuation that they're earning across the couples throughout their lives. It gives the person in the relationship who has the higher balance the ability to provide additional savings to the person in the relationship who has the lower balance.

This bill, importantly, uses mechanisms that already exist within the superannuation system. There is only a limited mechanism in terms of contributions to be made on behalf of a spouse. So far, we have seen a very low uptake of those provisions. Weirdly, contemplation of superannuation becomes very live when a relationship breaks down and you head to the courts for divorce. The obvious question this raises is: why on earth, if you can do this when you divorce, can you not do it when you are together? If we can recognise it when people are breaking up a relationship, surely we can recognise it when people are in a relationship.

So this bill applies existing rollover mechanisms proactively rather than retrospectively, but it has a whole heap of safeguards attached to it as well. The bill is not available for transfers from or to defined benefit schemes. It's not available to people already in pension and drawdown phases. Individuals can have only one superannuation account. There are clear limitations on the amount that can be transferred. The original fund balance cannot drop below the receiving fund's balance after the transfer, and the receiving fund cannot exceed the transfer balance cap. As an example, if one spouse had $300,000 and another spouse had $150,000, the maximum rollover would be $75,000, which would give each of the two partners $225,000 super each. Likewise, if one spouse had over $5 million in super and the other spouse had only $500,000, it would be capped so that the receiving balance could not exceed the transfer cap.

There are a number of other integrity measures that would be built into the system that this bill seeks to implement. The split amount retains its original concession—the non-concessional characteristics. Transfers are treated as a rollover, not a contribution, ensuring that the tax arrangements are not disadvantageous.

This isn't about tax minimisation, and it's not about gaming the system. It's about fairness, and it's about recognising that unpaid care that underpins so many Australian families is important. Today, with this bill, we recognise that importance. It's about giving families the flexibility to manage their retirement savings in a way that reflects their shared decision-making throughout their lives together.

I think the coalition has a very strong record in this space. In fact, in 2021 the Women's Budget Statement outlined practical reforms to improve women's workforce participation and economic security—real retirement outcomes for Australian women. We invested in more affordable child care to help women return to the workforce and increase their hours. We removed the $450 super threshold so that low-income earners and part-time workers could accumulate superannuation in the same way everybody else could. We've funded women's safety initiatives, workplace participation measures and leadership opportunities.

We also, as part of our superannuation reforms—to make sure that they were fairer, more transparent and more effective in working for Australians—capped fees on low balances, banned fees on rollovers in investment switches, made insurance opt in for young Australians and introduced catch-up concessional contributions to help women who had taken time out of the workforce. We also introduced the bring-forward rule and the downsizer contributions. Today, Australians will be retiring with more because of the coalition reforms, but that needs to continue to improve.

Quite frankly, too often Labor treats Australians' retirement savings as if they are its money and are some sort of honey pot for government and political projects. We are already starting to see the Labor Party try and water down some of the strong provisions that we put in place, reforms that were designed to keep super funds accountable to members. We've seen Labor break promises on superannuation taxes. We've also seen proposals designed to shift superannuation away from its core purpose—that is, to deliver dignity and security for Australians in retirement. The fundamental difference between us and the Labor Party is we believe that your superannuation savings belong to you, and this bill is designed to make sure that we provide you with, once again, fairness, flexibility and the ability to reflect the reality of your lives by allowing you to split your superannuation within your family during your working life, making sure that we don't continue to see women disadvantaged when it comes to superannuation savings.

Tackling the gender super gap is the next step in making sure that superannuation is more flexible and fairer, particularly for women. Unfortunately, we continue to see often that this government says one thing and does something else, so we're saying to you: 'Don't say something and do something else when it comes to supporting women. Make sure they have as great equity when it comes to their superannuation balances at retirement as their male counterparts do.'

Last night's budget was a classic example of the government being quite happy to go out there and say something that they themselves know isn't true; it sounds good, but in reality it's actually not true. Last night, Labor made an incredible number of great, big promises, and the announcement's fine, but you've actually got to deliver. Last night we heard a whole heap about housing and about getting young people into housing, but even their very budget papers tell you that what they're attempting to do, with the changes they announced last night, will actually result in higher rents and fewer houses and make it harder for young people to save for a housing deposit. I'm not quite sure which part of that is actually delivering for Australians.

We have got an opportunity today, with this particular bill, for the government to put their money where their mouth is. If you genuinely believe that we want to break down the gender pay gap, which is the contributing factor to great discrepancies between men's and women's superannuation balances, then you should be prepared to back and support the bill that we have before us here today. It provides real and practical measures in order for us to do something to make a difference on the pay gaps and the superannuation balance gaps that we're seeing between men and women at retirement.

I would say this to the government: instead of trying to pit generations of Australians against each other and instead of lying to Australians about the outcomes that are likely to be achieved by measures that sound good at announcement but actually, in reality, do the complete opposite of what they're saying, why don't you do something that already has been done for you? It's been designed for you and it's already sitting here in front of you. I don't think anybody in the Labor Party could pick a hole in what this very practical piece of legislation is trying to achieve. Why don't you support the legislation and demonstrate to the women of Australia that you are prepared to do what it takes for them to be able to have an equity proposition when it comes to their retirement savings?

Superannuation sharing seems like a very small measure that you would be able to take. It's a very small gesture to say that you're not going to be bloody minded and disagree with this legislation just because it's been put forward by the coalition. Recognise the fact that this legislation is good, because even your prime minister, your minister for women and your treasurer have all acknowledged that there is a problem. Here is a practical solution, and I encourage you to support it.

I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Tackling the Gender Super Gap) Bill 2025 put forward by Senator Hume. The money in superannuation belongs to the owner of the super fund. The reaction should be about benefiting the investor, not the government, not the super fund—the investor. But Labor sees the money in super funds as something it can tinker with. It's going to have to find a way to plug the $3 trillion hole that its economic mismanagement has opened up. We know from their record that you can't trust them on anything. They don't do what they say they're going to do. They backflip and call it everything else. They don't like the word 'cuts', even though that's what they are. They don't like the fact that they're saddling Australians with an immense amount of debt, but you can't cover that up because it's Labor that's been in government for the last four years. This is owned by their economic mismanagement.

The bill is designed to tackle one of the most persistent and unfair challenges in the super system: the gender super gap. It continues the good work of the coalition in government to improve retirement outcomes by making superannuation fairer and more flexible, particularly for women and families. Many women run small businesses. This bill will help them. Many women take time out of work to stay with their children. This bill will help them. Many women find themselves with a relationship separation later in life for a range of reasons. This bill will help them. The evidence is clear, but, as we know, it doesn't matter what the evidence says. Labor is driven by ideology. Don't get in the way of that.

Women's experiences of work are very different from those of men. They're less likely to earn the money that men earn. They take time out of the workforce to raise children. They work part time. They take lower paying jobs to accommodate caring responsibilities, often referred to as the 'motherhood penalty'. That's a reality. That's been my experience, too. While estimates vary, women retire with significantly lower super balances than men—between 20 and 25 per cent lower. The gap is worse for older women approaching retirement: 47.8 per cent for women aged 55 to 59, and 42 per cent for women in the 50 to 54 and 60 to 64 age brackets. Over nearly a decade, that data has hardly changed. A woman who has worked hard and finds herself single should be able to re-establish herself after circumstances she might or might not have had control of. It's the women of Australia that will benefit from this bill, but Labor doesn't see them.

This policy will help close the gender super pay gap by giving the partner with the higher balance, typically men, the option to transfer some of their balance to their partner to even up the accounts. The bill creates a simple and voluntary mechanism allowing couples to split their collective superannuation balances evenly during their relationship, on an ongoing annual basis. It also allows them to maintain the integrity of the superannuation system because it includes several guardrails and limitations. This is not a reckless idea. This is a sensible idea that should be adopted.

The limitations are that it's not available for transfers from or to a defined benefit scheme, nor is it available to those already in a pension or draw-down phase, meaning a spouse's funds must be in the accumulation phase. Individuals can have only one superannuation account. There are also limitations on the amount that can be rolled over.

It's a structural change focused on splitting balances rather than relying on clunky existing contribution mechanisms. Currently, there is only a mechanism to make contributions on behalf of a spouse; however, its take-up is astonishingly low, with only 1.1 per cent of Australians using it in 2021-22. While equitable splitting of superannuation balances is currently considered only in divorce proceedings, this bill uses those existing mechanisms, such as rollovers with standard forms and recognised tax treatments, and applies them proactively.

Let me tell you about the coalition's record on superannuation. In the nine years the coalition were in government we made superannuation fairer, more efficient and more transparent. Australians will retire with more because of the reforms the coalition made to super. We capped fees on low balances; banned fees on rollovers and investment switches; made expensive insurance premiums opt-in rather than opt-out for young people; abolished the 450 rule—a deliberate design feature of super that Labor had embedded in 1992—so that low-income earners and women in particular accumulate super like everyone else; and allowed non-PAYG income to be used for contributions below the concessional limit, to attract tax deductions so that the self-employed can take advantage of super in the same way wage earners do—and we know, because women are significant operators of small business, that that will be particularly attractive to women.

We introduced catch-up contributions so that anyone who has not used their full concessional contribution cap can roll up five years of unused concessions, helping women who have taken time out of the workforce. We introduced the bring-forward rule so that three future years worth of non-concessional contributions can be made in any one year. We introduced the downsizer contribution that allows a couple selling their family home to put the proceeds into super—up to 300,000 per person or 600,000 per couple—without breaching any caps.

Labor like to say that they invented superannuation. But it took a coalition government to make superannuation work for members instead of unions and super fund managers. I said earlier in my speech in this parliament that super is there for the people that earnt it, not for the super funds and not for the Labor Party to use it as their honey pot to prop up the next bright idea. It is there for the benefit of the people who earned it, and its only purpose should be to maximise returns to the person that worked hard for it.

We all know that, when Labor run out of money, they come after yours. Yes, we saw that last night in the budget. We saw that Australians will pay an extra $50 billion in taxes over the next four years. The budget last night was full of broken promises, higher taxes, more debt, lower living standards and fewer homes for Australians. It's exactly what Australians don't need.

Labor wants to move the goalposts to make it easier for super funds to invest in projects that are Labor election commitments in energy and housing. The problem is they don't stack up financially; otherwise, the super funds would already be investing in them. The only projects that super funds should be investing in are funds that will maximise returns to the hardworking investors that earnt those funds. Even with the record revenues from inflation-driven bracket creep and high commodity prices, Labor still can't manage the budget.

I wish to thank Senator Hume for this bill to make super fairer for women. It's an important bill; it supports women.

I rise to speak on the (Tackling the Gender Super Gap) Bill 2025, a very important bill being brought forward by Senator Hume, which is all about fairness to tackle one of the most persistent and unfair challenges in the super system: the gender super gap. This government says it cares about women. Well, if it cares about women, it will support this bill because this bill is about fairness. This bill is about giving women a leg-up—particularly those who have not worked for all of their adult life, because they were raising children and raising their families. It continues the very good work of the coalition in government to improve retirement outcomes and make superannuation fairer and more flexible, particularly for women and families.

Boy oh boy, I contrast this bill with the shocker of a budget handed down last night—a budget of broken promises, higher taxes, more debt, lower living standards and fewer homes for all Australians; a budget that cripples older Australians; a budget that is fundamentally unfair. It confirms that this incompetent prime minister is only interested in taxing Australians out of any sort of certain future, particularly for their retirement. What a disgrace at a time when older Australians and younger Australians need hope. They need incentives to invest in their future. This is an assault on aspiration. Already this morning, the airwaves, the newspapers and social media are full of people saying: 'Why would I want to start up a business in this country? Why would I want to invest in this country? Why would I want to bank on this government when it does this to us?'

This shocking budget is in stark contrast to the gender super gap bill that we're debating this morning, which is all about fairness and all about justice. It gives spouses the option to split their collective superannuation balances evenly between them on an ongoing annual basis. It makes the superannuation system fairer for women. It gives women confidence in their retirements, in their futures and in their families. It gives women the confidence to say: 'Yes, I can properly take time off work to raise my children and stay at home. We don't have to, as a family, both be working full time just to pay the bills and make ends meet.' If this bill is passed, we will have a superannuation system that supports families.

Look at what families are enduring now in this country. Last night's budget just made things so much tougher. It made things so much more difficult for families. The cost of living is killing families. You go to the supermarket, and people are walking around in a daze. They cannot believe the cost of food or the cost of bills. Electricity, gas and power are up some 40 per cent, and now there's this horrendous budget. I heard the Treasurer talking this morning about how debt is going down and how this is a responsible budget. What a joke. This budget confirms that Labor cannot manage money. We're facing a decade of deficits worth $150 billion. We're just about to go over $1 trillion in debt, and this budget confirms that we are heading towards $1.25 trillion of debt at a time when we are being hit with so much unfairness and so many broken promises on negative gearing and on capital gains tax, which is going to mean fewer houses delivered in this country. What a joke! This government is crippling young Australians. They have the same right to invest in their futures. At the very least, after what this government is doing to this country, this government could support this bill, because superannuation is fundamental to the security of every Australian.

I cannot even believe that any Australian now has any confidence in anything that this lying government says. How can anyone have confidence with the lies that we've heard from Labor, the lies left, right and centre? It is a shocking betrayal of Australians. This bill elevates women. This bill elevates families. This bill makes it fairer. This bill needs to be passed by this Senate. Superannuation balances—

Thank you, Senator Henderson. The time for consideration of this matter has expired.

I move:

That the provisions of paragraphs (5) to (8) of standing order 111 not apply to the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026, allowing it to be considered during this period of sittings.

I would like to speak on the motion to exempt the legislation entitled the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026 from the cut-off order. Obviously, there are serious issues that our country faces when it comes to matters relating to this fuel crisis, which, let's not forget, the government told us just a couple of months ago wasn't happening—there was nothing to see here; we didn't need to worry about it—and urgent responses are always needed. But it is important when, as a country, trying to deal with matters in the national interest, we have a bipartisan approach to any solution to those issues, especially when it comes to significant changes to legislation.

As far as I'm aware, the opposition has not been given a huge amount of insight or forewarning or indeed detailed briefings around what this legislation is and the urgency for such legislation. If the legislation is to empower ministers to make decisions in certain circumstances to do things, then one only has to turn one's mind back to the issues confronted by our country during the COVID period. At that time, we had a minister who was able to authorise certain actions that enabled the government to do certain things with regard to AdBlue in this country. That did not require legislative change. The powers existed to enable the minister to do that.

The opposition does support appropriate measures to ensure that we have in place the right measures to deal with any issue confronted by this country, to ensure that Australian households and businesses are not unfairly hit. We will always support those measures, but proper process and scrutiny is necessary here. We have indicated to the government that we would be very willing to support, as I said, appropriate measures that are well thought through and appropriately designed. I understand we have an amendment relating to an inquiry into the legislation that we're talking about here.

We're not talking about delaying this. This is not about some unduly long process to send this off into the never-never. We could do this a very short period of time. It is to understand what the powers in this legislation that we have barely had a moment to look at actually do and what solutions will be provided to the Australian people. To enable a parliament to do its job and properly scrutinise this legislation is the appropriate course of action, I think. I would very much welcome any indication from the government whether they are open to such an approach—to allow the parliament, while we're sitting this week, to undertake such scrutiny. We could properly interrogate this legislation. It is my understanding that Senator Canavan does have a second reading amendment relating to an inquiry. Obviously, the Senate will divide on this question of whether we do exempt from the cut-off. The opposition's position on that will be to oppose that on the basis that, at this point in time, we have not been provided with clarity around the necessity, the scope, the implications. We do not want to delete things unnecessarily; we are just asking for proper process to be followed here. We are willing to cooperate, and please give us those elements of information and supports we need to be able to cooperate properly for a good outcome.

I might just set out the rationale for this procedure. The first thing to say is, in a substantial sense, this must be dealt with and finalised today or tomorrow. That is the nature of the relationship between the sitting calendar and this set of issues. The rationale for that and the offer of briefings in this set of circumstances have been made to the opposition.

I want to set out what this bill does in order to, I hope, get people in this place to lift a little bit above the partisanship and politics which have characterised the opposition's approach to this set of questions since 2022. This bill supports the government's response to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which is of course impacting fuel prices, affecting Australian businesses in logistics, in the mining industry, and it is affecting ordinary Australians.

Schedule (1) to the bill creates new powers for the Treasurer and Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to permit coordinated action during a crisis. In short form, our competition regulatory environment is designed to support maximum competition. What we require is the capacity, should the circumstances arise in those extraordinary circumstances, to make a declaration that those risks to the Australian economy, businesses and consumers, but which fall short of a declared national emergency, require the ACCC to be able to exercise new and streamlined powers to enable those kinds of coordinated responses which will be so important to providing for supply, particularly to regional Australia—particularly to regional Australia.

I think it is extraordinary, having explained that to the Liberals and Nationals and One Nation, that they would contemplate some inquiry process that potentially means that that approach cannot be taken today or tomorrow. That is what is required here. I heard the reference to some of the challenges the previous government dealt with in the COVID context. We can't be prisoners of the past here. What is required here is for a very different set of circumstances.

While the ACCC can make some interim decisions quickly, the legislative requirements, particularly those in relation to consultation and very high thresholds for satisfaction of the ACCC, make the existing class exemption and authorisation powers too slow and inflexible for fast-evolving situations inside the economy that are the result of nothing that Australians, Australian businesses or the Australian government have done but external impacts on the Australian economy. It is too challenging for the ACCC to do what is required to authorise conduct and to respond to economy-wide shocks in a timely manner. It is too difficult. It is too high a threshold. For example, it took more than six months for the ACCC to deliver a final authorisation for supermarkets to coordinate grocery supplies in 2020.

We should actually have a little bit of an adult approach to this set of issues. It has been explained to the coalition. Now is the time to drop the partisanship, the ideology and the resorting to anger and oppositionalism that has got them into the mess that they are in in political terms. They have been the authors of their own destruction.

Drop the partisanship? I'm going to be really partisan!

I'm trying to help you understand. You are burying leader after leader. You are doing it again. You got yourselves into the pickle that you were in last Saturday by continuing to take the partisanship approach that you have taken. I'm just saying to you that Australians reward oppositions that act in the national interest. That's what they want to see in their politics. That's what they want to see in their parliament. It's about time you got the message. I urge the Senate to support the motion that I outlined before.

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Leave is granted for one minute.

I will quickly make the point to the Senate that the minister's argument is completely undermined by the fact that the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026 is retrospective. The minister just got up and said that they need this bill to take action in the next few weeks to secure fuel supply. If it is the case that that's the reason for this bill, why is it retrospective to 1 April? Those things have already happened. There is no urgency to exempt potentially anticompetitive conduct that happened over the past couple of months with a bill that rushes through and completely exempts a major change from the normal review practices of this place. We are happy to work with the government to fix something in the future. We are less happy to absolve the government or any other major corporation from bad behaviour they might have had in the last few weeks. We can consider that with more time. We should have more time. I'm happy to. I've even suggested the government have a quick snap inquiry today. Let's get the ACCC in. We deserve to hear from them, because these powers are very extraordinary and much broader than just the fuel situation we face today.

The question is that the motion as moved by Minister Ayres be agreed to.

I move:

That the following bill be introduced:

A Bill for an Act to amend the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and the National Emergency Declaration Act 2020, and for related purposes.

Question agreed to.

I present the bill and move:

That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

I table the explanatory memorandum relating to the bill and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

This Bill supports the Government's response to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East which is impacting fuel prices and affecting Australian businesses and consumers.

Schedule 1 to the Bill creates new powers for the Treasurer and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to permit coordinated action during a crisis. Under this Bill, the Minister can make an extraordinary circumstances declaration in circumstances that pose a risk to the Australian economy, businesses and consumers, but which may fall short of a declared National Emergency under the National Emergency Declaration Act. Once extraordinary circumstances have been declared, the ACCC will be able to exercise new, streamlined powers to enable coordinated responses to the crisis by businesses to complement the work of government in protecting the Australian public and economy from the impacts of the crisis.

These new powers are not just reactive; they are pre-emptive. They allow the Minister to make a declaration enlivening the ACCC's powers when there is a foreseeable harm, and allows decisive, cooperative action with the business community to prevent or mitigate that harm early. In the current situation, this could include businesses working together to minimise fuel usage to keep supply chain costs low for them and their customers; Instead of reacting to fuel shortages, we can allow businesses to find innovative and collaborative solutions to prevent shortages.

The ACCC already can grant authorisations, and has done during the current situation and past crises. But this process is burdensome and slow, making it too inflexible to respond to the changing situations Australia may face during exceptional global or domestic circumstances. This power will make it easier and faster for the ACCC and businesses to assist these vital efforts to respond to these circumstances, and future exceptional challenges the Australian economy faces.

Once this Bill passes, the Treasurer intends to declare an exceptional circumstances event to ensure Australia stays on top of the challenges arising from the current conflict in the Middle East. While Australia's fuel supply continues to operate effectively, this declaration will support the government's approach to. Keep Australia Moving under the National Fuel Security Plan. This will allow the ACCC to work with industry to complement the actions of the Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments in working to minimise any. future disruptions to fuel supply. By coordinating early, businesses can avoid risks to them· and their customers.]

Schedule 2 to the Bill increases the maximum penalties that can be imposed for breaches of the Oil Code of Conduct. Under this Bill, the regulations will be able to impose penalties on corporations in the oil industry up to the greater of $10 million, 3 times the value they derive from breaching the Code, or 10% of their last year of turnover. For persons other than corporations breaching the Code, penalties of up to $500,000 will be available for contraventions. The ACCC will also be able to issue penalty notices of 600 penalty units to corporations for suspected breaches and 12 penalty units for other persons. These changes mirror those introduced by the government in 2024 into the Competition and Consumer Act for breaches of the Food and Grocery Code. They also complement recent action taken by the government to increase other penalties under the CCA last week, and other action taken to address the supply and price of fuel in Australia. The Bill will further discourage fuel companies seeking to flaunt their obligations under the Oil Code of Conduct, including those taking advantage of the conflict in the Middle East.

Full details of the measures are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.

These are extraordinary times, with the fuel crisis roiling the world, but they're no more extraordinary than the times that we did face during COVID. We heard, in the previous contribution, the minister say, 'Oh, we shouldn't be slaves to what has gone before.' It was quite a remarkable statement, I thought, because surely, surely as legislators we should use experience and evidence to guide us with what we do today and we actually should look at what happened before in similar circumstances and at whether that is instructive or provides any lessons for how we should act today.

I want to start there in this debate on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026. It's about what happened during COVID with regard to competition laws and the need to take urgent action in difficult—in the term the government said here, exceptional—circumstances. There were definitely exceptional circumstances during the COVID lockdowns and the like.

The key point to make here is that we have the ability in current competition laws to provide exemptions to businesses that have to coordinate and cooperate to respond to exceptional circumstances. Obviously, during the COVID experience, at times, food suppliers—the financial industry, the aviation industry—had to work together to respond to extraordinary circumstances and in doing so were potentially, because they were talking together and cooperating, going to fall foul of competition laws. They could apply, under existing laws, to the ACCC to have something called an authorisation. They could authorise the notionally, potentially anticompetitive conduct because it was in the public benefit. The point the government made earlier is that this process is too unwieldy and it will take too long in responding to such a crisis as we're seeing today.

Let's look back at this experience that the minister wants to close his eyes to. Under that process, companies can ask for an interim authorisation that can be provided quickly and can respond to exceptional circumstances. In fact, during COVID the ACCC provided such interim authorisation orders in 28 different circumstances. There's a very useful report that I encourage all senators who want to consider this bill to look at. It's only a short report, but it's a report that the ACCC put out after this process, in April 2021, listing COVID-19 related authorisations. There's a very clear chart in this report, on page 3, that lists the 28 different authorisations, and it shows how quickly they were able to make a decision on the authorisation.

So let's keep in mind here that the government's point is that this interim authorisation process is too unwieldy, that it takes too long, that we have to do too much consultation. Well, when we go to the ACCC's reports to see what their lived experience was with the authorisation process, they were in fact able to turn around authorisations often within less than 24 hours. Let's just go through it, with a real-world example. The Australian Banking Association made an application: zero business days, less than 24 hours. Suncorp applied to be exempt from competition laws: again, a less-than-24-hours response. And there were many other companies, like Coles, the Motor Trades Association, the NBN, AIP—I'm not exactly sure what that stands for, nor SSA—and AEC, which I think is the electricity companies, as well as various state government. They all received authorisation within less than 24 hours, and there were a whole lot of others that were within two, three, four or five days.

So why does the government need to rush this right now? They seem to be hoodwinking us here with this quite transparently incorrect advice they've just provided to the Senate, that somehow the existing processes are too unwieldy and take too long. Well, no: the existing laws were used during COVID—which, as I said, was no more exceptional than what we face today—to provide exemption from competition laws within hours, not days. So I'd hope we're not about to go to level 3 fuel restrictions in the next 24 hours. That's one of the reasons the government has used to justify these laws—that we might need to restrict access to fuel if things get worse. Well, I don't think it's going to happen within 24 hours. I don't think it's going to happen within a couple of days. It's probably not going to happen within a week or so.

Given that, and given that the authorisation process can clearly work within a week, within 24 hours, what is exactly the justification for this bill? It seems very flimsy. And I want to make very clear here, to also combat the absurd resort to partisanship that the minister engaged in straightaway—'It's all you guys; you're just terrible'—I'm not going to repeat that to the government. I'm not necessarily accusing the government of that. I just want a proper investigation of what goes through this chamber. We are happy to work with the government if there is a legitimate and clear need for laws of this kind. Our attitude on this is exemplified by what we did in the last sitting period, when we did support immediate and urgent changes to the Export Finance Australia legislation so the government could help underwrite fuel coming into the country. We absolutely supported that. We had a very detailed briefing with the energy minister and saw the need and said, 'Yep, we're going to support you on that.' We moved some amendments that we would have liked the government to support, but we ultimately let it go through.

So I'm more than happy to do that. I just think we need to investigate this, given the clear questions I've just raised and some more that I'll come to. We should see this go to an inquiry of some kind. Surely, given the mammoth changes being made, which I'll come to in more detail, this should go to an inquiry. And I think, given the changes, that it should be in inquiry that goes for some weeks so we can get information maybe from some of these businesses that had experience with the COVID situation and get evidence from the companies that would potentially be exempted from competition laws and of course evidence from the ACCC, who we're told support this, but we're not allowed to talk them, apparently before this goes through. Why can't that happen?

As I said, we're very cooperative here. I'd like an inquiry to last for weeks, but I've suggested to the government, 'Well, let's do a snap one.' If we do one now we can at least have the ACCC in here at a moment's notice; they're just down the road. We could get them in here and have a chat with them for an hour or so, and we can consider it tomorrow in the cold light of day, rather than what I expect the government to do here now, which is to use their usual guillotine process to shut the Senate down and not ask questions on behalf of the Australian people—and that's how mistakes happen.

I want to say, notwithstanding the points I made earlier, that there are some broader issues raised by this legislation that the government seems quite reticent to highlight. I mentioned one earlier. If this bill is about simply allowing the government to respond to future circumstances that might arise in the next few weeks—these potential future restrictions on people's use of fuel that the government is flagging and the rationing that the government is obviously opening up the can on here with this legislation—and if it's needed to deal with something urgently, quickly, and to keep fuel moving, why does this bill exempt conduct that occurred in the past? Keep in mind that this bill allows the Treasurer to declare exceptional circumstances going back to 1 April this year. That's going back more than a month, six weeks or so. Why is that urgent? That conduct has happened, so we can't change that. We don't have a DeLorean; we can't go back and change it. It's happened.

Maybe there's a need to exempt that. If we're going to exempt past conduct, that is a very, very serious thing and should take due consideration through an inquiry. Why do we need to rush that this week? We could put that bit off the table. You could split that bit out of the bill and deal with it in the future. But the stuff in the past definitely needs consideration, particularly given there have been a number of legitimate complaints about some of the potentially anticompetitive conduct that occurred in the early stage of this crisis.

I've had a lot of complaints from different fuel distributors, large fuel users, farmers, manufacturers and the like who have said that they don't understand why, when there was enough fuel in this country and the government told us there was enough fuel in this country, they couldn't access it. There seemed to be some hoarding. There seemed to be some level of conduct that might have been anticompetitive. We've heard stories of the major fuel companies going around to businesses that had been supplied by the independent sector, trying to give them sweetheart deals to take their market share, to take their business from the independent fuel suppliers. These things deserve investigation. In fact, not only do they deserve investigation, but the Treasurer himself, this government itself, had referred such conduct and allegations to the ACCC. I don't think we've seen a conclusion from those investigations yet.

Why would we pass legislation here now that would potentially exempt, restrict and stop those investigations from continuing, given the legitimate issues that were raised and the very high price that Australian fuel users had to pay in the early stage of the crisis? Some missed out, some couldn't plant and some couldn't go about their business, because of those fuel restrictions. They deserve answers, not a rubber stamp from their own Senate potentially exempting any kind of anticompetitive conduct through that period. That doesn't add up at all.

The other thing that doesn't add up in this bill is that, while the government has hinged its argument on the need to deal with this fuel crisis, this bill is a lot broader than that. It doesn't restrict the Treasurer's definition or declaration of an exceptional circumstance to only this crisis or for only the next few months. Instead it gives a new, broad power that could be used for any potential reason going forward, if and when a treasurer decides there's an exceptional circumstance. Our competition laws are there for a reason. They're there to protect small business. They're there to protect competition in our country, which is so important to deliver fair returns to farmers and small businesses and to deliver good products and good service to consumers. It's a very serious thing to exempt businesses from competition laws, and that's why we've got a very detailed authorisation process. It's flexible, as it was during COVID. But to get more than an interim order, to get a full authorisation, yes, you do have to go through an extensive process, as you should. But this bill undermines that entire process and undermines it across the whole economy—not just to deal with a particular circumstance.

The question that has to be raised is: why isn't there some kind of sunset clause or something on this? We on this side of the chamber will consider, through this debate, why the Senate wouldn't say, 'We'll give you this for the next couple of months while we go away and think about it in more detail.' Again, I still don't understand why the retrospective stuff has to be done in the next few months. But, if there is this urgent need, I am more than willing to be cooperative here. I haven't made a single partisan point here. I'm raising particular and detailed issues with this bill, which is surely the role of this place. If we were doing our job, we'd sit down and consider this.

I'm happy to sit here tonight. I'm happy to meet the ACCC at any time tonight. I was hoping to get an earlier night tonight. It was a late night last night to lock up the budget, but I'm happy to do my job and stick around as long as I can to protect competition and our economy in this place. I think we need to look at the issue of the disallowability of some of the aspects of this bill. We hardly received a copy of this bill this morning. We had a briefing a few days ago that I didn't attend. I'm not the shadow minister, but I'm repping them here in this place. The information I've received is that the Treasurer's declaration of exceptional circumstances will be disallowable. Okay, good. Parliament can review that. But, once he or she makes that decision of exceptional circumstances, the ACCC then has the power to exempt certain conduct under a broad exemption provided by the Treasurer.

My understanding is that those ACCC determinations under this bill are not disallowable. They will not be reviewable by this chamber or the other place. To me, that seems a glaring omission that could be fixed with a relatively easy amendment. I move:

Omit all words after "That", substitute "the bill be referred to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 22 June 2026, with particular reference to:

(a) whether the existing Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) powers are genuinely inadequate;

(b) whether the Treasurer's declaration power is too broad;

(c) whether ACCC exemptions should be disallowable;

(d) whether transparency requirements are strong enough;

(e) whether the retrospective start date is justified;

(f) whether the powers are properly limited in time and scope; and

(g) whether there should be stronger sunset and review mechanisms".

I'm doing this is all on the fly, of course, given the way the government has approached this. We have now distributed an amendment that seeks to have this proper inquiry. This inquiry is listed to come back on the first sitting day of the next sitting period. I realise that's more than a month away, but, as I said earlier, we are more than happy to negotiate and be cooperative on this.

Given the wide scope of this bill that I've outlined, I think that a couple of proper hearings with businesses, with those companies that would be exempted, with departments and with the ACCC would be useful. But, at the very least, if the government and the Greens down there can't agree to a proper inquiry, why don't we just have a snap one? We could do that tonight. We could at least talk to the department and the ACCC and do our job. Let's just do our job. These are exceptional circumstances, but that means we should work even harder for the Australian people.

The Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026 empowers the ACCC to enable businesses to work together in exceptional circumstances—in a crisis, in other words—where businesses working together helps respond to the exceptional circumstances and serves the public interest.

The bill enables the minister to make an exceptional circumstances declaration with a disallowable instrument, as Senator Canavan just said. That instrument will also be sunset within six months under the provisions of this legislation. Once the minister has made such a declaration, the ACCC can grant fast-tracked class exemptions and authorisations to enable business conduct that would assist in responding to the exceptional circumstances that are detailed in the minister's declaration but might ordinarily breach competition laws. While the ACCC can grant class exemptions and authorisations under existing law, the ACCC has stated that the usual process is too stringent and lengthy to adequately respond to a crisis. That's the government's argument for introducing this legislation and seeking the passage of this legislation through the Senate this week.

The government has introduced this legislation in the context of a supply crisis caused by the United States and Israel engaging in an unprovoked, illegal war on Iran. Let's be very clear about what is driving the context for this legislation. We have a deranged, unstable president of the United States—a fascist, a war criminal and a fantasist—who, in an unprovoked fashion, along with his fellow war criminal, Mr Netanyahu from Israel—launched an attack on Iran. This is a war crime, and it has led, entirely predictably, to retaliation that has created a chokepoint in the Strait of Hormuz that is now having ramifications in economies around the world, including here in Australia.

When Trump and Netanyahu started their unprovoked, illegal war on Iran, the first government in the world to come out and say they thought it was a great idea was the Australian Labor government. Our prime minister, that lackey, that lickspittle to the United States, who came out and said he thought the war was a great—

Senator McKim, resume your seat. Point of order, Minister?

My point of order is in reflecting on and imputations made about a person in the other place.

Yes, I'll take that point of order. Senator McKim, I would ask you to withdraw that.

I withdraw that.

Thank you.

The fact remains that, no matter how uncomfortable it is for the so-called left of the Labor Party, our prime minister was the first global leader to come out and say that he supported an illegal, unprovoked attack on Iran that, not long after he said it, resulted in over 150 schoolchildren dying under a barrage of missiles launched by the United States and Israel in an unprovoked, illegal attack on the people of Iran.

I say to the Prime Minister: how is your support for the war going now? We've got thousands of people dead and hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes or injured. We've got a black swan event that is ruining economies around the world, including here in Australia. We're seeing interest rates climb. We're seeing fuel shortages add to supply pressures through our economy, driving up the price of things like food and fertiliser, and we ain't seen nothing yet. How is your war going now, Mr Albanese? How's the war that you were the first global leader to support going now?

I will tell you how it is going. It's not going well. It's definitely not going well for the people in Iran, who are being brutalised and slaughtered in their droves. It's not going well for the people in southern Lebanon, who are being illegally attacked by Israel and having their lands illegally occupied and their homes destroyed in war crimes by Israel supported by the United States and supported by the Labor Party here in Australia. How do you think it's all going now? I'll tell you how it's going. It's not going well, and the fact that it's not going well was entirely predictable when the Prime Minister became the first global leader out to make it very clear to President Trump and Mr Netanyahu that he thought their illegal war was a great idea.

I'll tell you what we need in this place. We need the war parties to wake up to themselves. We need the Labor Party, the Liberals and One Nation to wake up to themselves and stop supporting this illegal war. Stop supporting the slaughter of thousands of innocent people just because they happen to live in Iran or they happen to live in Lebanon. That's what this country needs and that's what the world needs, but we're not going to get it because we are effectively a vassal state to the United States. We are locked in by the military industrial complex, by the security industrial complex and by the Five Eyes arrangements. We are locked in to backing in the United States and backing in Israel no matter their war crimes, no matter the geopolitical stupidity of their actions and no matter the entirely predictable ramifications on the Australian economy of starting a war with Iran.

The new powers that this bill seeks to create will allow the ACCC to ensure businesses can work together to distribute products that are affected by the entirely predictable supply crisis caused by the illegal war in Iran that is perpetrated by the United States and Israel and supported by the Australian Labor Party here in Australia. Those products could include fuel, they could include fertiliser and they could include food. Those powers will allow the ACCC to ensure that those products, and potentially others, are distributed in a timely way to the places that most need them.

The Greens are not going to stand in the way of this bill. It ensures that people have access to essential goods and services in times of crisis. However, we do think the bill needs to have stronger safeguards in place to ensure that any exemptions from competition law that the ACCC grants to businesses are subject to parliamentary scrutiny. That's why we are preparing and will circulate an amendment that requires any class exemption that the ACCC makes to be made via a disallowable instrument. This will allow the parliament to ensure that the ACCC has granted exemptions that are strictly in the public interest and are sufficiently narrowly targeted to support businesses to resolve the particular crisis or the particular exceptional circumstances but are not so broad as to constitute an unnecessary relaxation of our competition laws. We will not allow a crisis to be used as an excuse to give free rein to big corporations to avoid their competition responsibilities.

I want to briefly refer to those provisions in the bill that allow civil penalties to be attached to the Oil Code of Conduct. The Oil Code of Conduct is a mandatory industry code that regulates the conduct of suppliers, distributors and retailers involved in the sale, supply or purchase of petrol. It is noteworthy and regrettable that, currently, the code does not contain penalties. We are supportive of penalties being added to the Oil Code of Conduct to ensure a better chance of compliance and a better chance of making sure that businesses involved in the fuel supply chain do the right thing.

I want to go back to the context before I conclude my remarks. The context of this bill is as follows. The US and Israel started an unprovoked and illegal war on Iran. That led to entirely predictable consequences—and not just the horrific consequences for the people of Iran and people in the region, who are being slaughtered in their droves and injured and displaced from their homes in countless millions. It has led to entirely predictable circumstances for the Australian economy.

To those who say Australia is not an active participant in the US and Israel's illegal war on Iran, I say, and the Greens say, think again. We have sent a spy plane. We have sent missiles. We have sent personnel into the war theatre. Labor's mealy-mouthed weasel words—that these are only being used in a defensive capacity—are deliberately designed to mislead Australians away from the truth.

The truth is that we are contributing to this war effort. Every single asset and any personnel we send into that war theatre, even if they are technically being used in a defensive capacity, are freeing up assets for the aggressors in this war, the United States and Israel, that can then be used in an offensive capacity. The intelligence being gathered by the spy plane that we have sent over there is undoubtedly being used to support offensive action against Iran. Australia is a direct contributor to the war on Iran. We are supporting the US and Israel in their offensive efforts against Iran. We are morally culpable for the slaughter of innocent people, the injuries to innocent people and the mass displacement of innocent people from their homes. We are morally culpable because we are directly contributing to those outcomes.

This war was supported from day one by the Prime Minister and the Australian Labor Party. We are direct contributors and supporters of the US and Israel in their illegal war, and the Australian people are now paying an economic price for this war—for Labor's support for this war. It is not as big a price as the people being slaughtered and displaced in Iran and Lebanon are paying. It is nevertheless an entirely predictable consequence of this war. So I say to the Labor Party you should rein in your warmongering instincts, you should think again before you jump when the US president tells you to jump and you should actually be leading Australia down a path where we are a truly independent middle power in the world that advocates peace and not war.

I rise to speak on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026 that has been thrust upon this chamber in such unusual circumstances. The coalition is not in a place to oppose sensible measures—it never is—that help manage the fuel crisis and protect households and small businesses, but this bill gives the government and the ACCC significant new powers. They're not powers that that consumer watchdog, the ACCC, required during a global pandemic. They are brand-new powers. They never even asked for these powers during the pandemic. So you can understand why there is a natural suspicion, a desire for scrutiny and a reticence to just rush this legislation through.

This sneaky and tricky Labor government has put these laws in front of us with absolutely no time to consider them and with no means of ongoing parliamentary oversight. That is unusual. But it is not just unusual; it is also dangerous. Giving the government powers that are immune from scrutiny—with not even the opportunity for a Senate disallowance—and that have retrospective application impacts matters as serious as suspensions of competition law, which keeps us safe. This should not be done lightly. An inquiry by the Senate Economics Legislation Committee should be a bare minimum in these circumstances. But this is a government that clearly hates transparency. It doesn't even want to do that—a basic inquiry.

If there is urgency for these laws, why did you not consult on them earlier? Why spring them upon the parliament at the last minute? This is the question that we need to ask. Is there some other part to our fuel crisis that Labor isn't being honest about? Is there something that they know that they are not telling the Australian public—indeed, not even telling the opposition? The Liberal Party will always support sensible deregulation. Do not for a second doubt that. But sensible deregulation or proper measures that allow our markets to operate more efficiently is what we are dedicated to, and we don't understand whether this is exactly that. These very significant sweeping changes with massive implications for consumers are not even going to be explained to the Australian people before they are inflicted upon them.

I call on the government to explain these changes, to allow for that proper parliamentary scrutiny and to tell Australians the truth: why are these laws needed? Why are these exceptional powers needed? And why are they needed urgently? Why are they retrospective? Why are they more expansive than anything that was requested during the pandemic or in past fuel crises? Why are the powers in this bill not limited to just a fuel crisis? Why are they so far-reaching and so expansive? Why not let stakeholders have their say, have their feedback, to ensure that there aren't any unintended consequences, and why is the bill not time-limited? Why is it not sunsetted? This seems to be an enormous risk, but the payoff hasn't been explained. Why is the instrument of the ACCC exempt from disallowance when disallowance is the most important safeguard of the parliament? We want to have these questions answered.

What the bill does is important. It creates a new framework for what are known as exceptional circumstances. The Treasurer will be able to declare that exceptional circumstances exist, and then that decision is disallowable. However, once that decision is made then the ACCC can very rapidly exempt conduct that in any other circumstance would be a breach of the competition law, and those decisions of the ACCC will be exempt from disallowance. This gives enormous powers to a regulator that go beyond the reach of the sovereignty of the parliament. This is intended to allow businesses to coordinate during major disruptions, something that is very good, and the current fuel crisis is an example of that, an obvious one. But the framework is broader than just fuel, and no-one has explained why. It could also apply to other crises—it could apply to a pandemic, for instance, or a major economic disruption. But if the powers weren't needed in the pandemic, why are they needed now?

In a genuine crisis, there is always some coordination that is needed between business and government. We can understand that, and we can understand that businesses might need to coordinate between themselves, too. In normal circumstances we would call that cartel behaviour; in a crisis, we might need it. I can understand that. During a fuel shortage, for instance, there could be changes to supply chains, disruptions or a national emergency. There might be circumstances where businesses need to work together quickly. We've seen those circumstances before and we've successfully navigated them before. The priority today must be keeping fuel and food and essential goods moving. We understand that. Households and small businesses shouldn't have to suffer because the law is too slow to respond—but is it too slow to respond? That's the question. This is the reason the coalition is prepared to work constructively on the bill with the government, but only if the government is willing to allow basic and commonsense courtesy of inquiry, because, let's face it, scrutiny of legislation is the role of this chamber, and it is being circumvented. It is being circumvented by a government that hates scrutiny, that hates transparency and, more importantly, that hates accountability.

These are enormous powers that we are giving the Treasurer and, indeed, a regulator. Competition law exists for a reason. It is there to protect consumers, it is there to protect small businesses, it stops large players from coordinating in a way that damages competition. When you have competition in a market, it keeps prices low, and then consumers benefit. So you can understand why any exemption from competition law needs to be treated very seriously indeed. We understand temporary coordination in a crisis may be necessary, but anticompetitive conduct must never be allowed to become normal, because if anticompetitive conduct becomes normal and competition is driven down, it is the consumers that pay the price through higher prices. That's why it is important to get the balance right, and that's the job of this parliament, that's the job of this chamber and that's what is being circumvented by rushing these laws through.

The existing system that we have now is workable. It's worked before. It's worked in many different environments, be they pandemics or fuel crises. The government and the ACCC argued that the current authorisation framework is too slow and too restrictive. That's something that I am open-minded to if it is in the circumstances of a particular crisis. The government and the ACCC are saying that disallowance and public consultation requirements can get in the way of a rapid crisis response. Now, potentially in some circumstances, they may be right, but that is yet to be explained. It is yet to be explained to those from whom you are seeking support for this legislation. It's yet to be explained to the public.

I reiterate that the current framework that we have used, particularly during COVID, has worked perfectly well. In fact, during COVID, the coalition government worked with the ACCC to get an exemption from competition laws many times, and some of those exemptions were enabled with less-than-24-hour turnaround. That sounds to me like a system that works pretty well. If that's the case, why are these new laws necessary? Moreover, it actually seems to be working pretty well in the current crisis as well, so would it then be more appropriate to take the time to test whether these new and very expansive powers, this new framework, is actually necessary? If it has worked before the way it is now and it's working currently, why do we need these powers? We should also test whether this bill is the narrowest possible fix to the problem that we face today rather than expanding powers out to last into the future for problems that we can't even foresee.

One of the concerns the coalition has is that potentially the Treasurer's declaration power is way too broad. The Treasurer's power to declare exceptional circumstances is essentially unlimited. It's not confined to this fuel crisis; it could be anything else. Once that declaration is made, it then opens the door for the ACCC, a regulator. The ACCC can then exempt big businesses from competition laws, which the government will then say would not be disallowable by this parliament. So the ACCC is giving very big, already powerful businesses the right not to be competitive, the right to cartel behaviour, and we can't exempt that from this parliament. Once it happens, it's done. That's why you can see we are very cautious about any attempts to take away that parliamentary scrutiny. The Senate inquiry, should there be one—if there were one—would test whether that threshold is tight enough. It would also test whether the safeguards are strong enough. Unfortunately, we're not going to have that inquiry, because this is a government that wants to deny scrutiny of its own legislation.

The Treasurer's declaration—and this is good news—can be disallowed by parliament, but that's not the concern here. The concern is whether the individual ACCC exemptions made after that can be disallowed. This is the significant issue that we face. It means that parliament can reject the broad declaration of a crisis but it can't directly disallow the specific exemptions that may affect competition in particular markets. That weakens parliamentary oversight. Exactly what it is that we are here to do is being weakened by this government because it is rushing through legislation that has not had the proper scrutiny.

The ACCC exemptions need to be made public within only seven days. That is also a concern. We should have higher expectations of transparency than that. Understandably, in some circumstances, a short delay may be acceptable. It may be understandable. But these exemptions can potentially authorise conduct that would otherwise breach competition law, and the public, the parliament and affected businesses—those businesses that potentially will be dramatically affected by those competition laws or the setting aside of competition laws—should know what is being authorised as soon as possible. You can imagine, if you were a small business that was going to be affected by these laws and you didn't find out about them for seven days, how potentially damaging that could be. So the Senate should be able to test whether faster publication, notification or reporting is in fact possible. Transparency should be built into the framework from the very start.

Also, the bill is backdated, weirdly, to 1 April, and I cannot understand that. Ther's no reason for that specified date. The Treasurer's office has simply said that they want flexibility. But retrospectivity is very unusual, and it's simply not good enough. Retrospective lawmaking should be very rare, and retrospective competition law exemptions should require an explicit and clear justification. So the Senate should be able to test why that 1 April date has been chosen.

The bill may be well intentioned. I don't doubt that. But because of these significant new powers to the Treasurer and to the ACCC, the Senate should be able to test whether the existing ACCC powers are genuinely adequate, whether the Treasurer's declaration power is too broad, whether the ACCC's exemptions should be disallowable, whether transparency requirements are strong enough, whether the retrospective date is justified, whether the powers are properly time limited and whether they're in scope, and whether there should be stronger sunset and review mechanisms. These are not unreasonable requests in any circumstance but particularly when legislation is being rushed through.

Can we be very clear that we support practical steps that protect households, small businesses and essential supply chains and that we will work constructively on measures that help manage this fuel crisis, as we have from the very start. But the fact that the government wants to limit parliamentary scrutiny and doesn't even want to give us the courtesy of having the scrutiny of its bills that limit scrutiny—and now the Greens, those champions of transparency and scrutiny, are going along with this—well, I think, 'So much for a transparent government.'

I have listened with great interest to the arguments provided by the government with regard to these legislative changes, the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026, and with particular interest to the words of Senator Hume, who I think has made a terrific case for why these changes should have received proper scrutiny.

However, I want to take a step back. We live in a time when, around the world, liberal democracies are under threat, and the role of this Senate is the ultimate final frontier for protecting Australia's democracy. It is in this place that every one of the 76 of us who form the Australian Senate have a responsibility to our states, to the organisations that send us here—our parties—and, most importantly, to the parliament and to democracy. I have been increasingly concerned by the actions of this government since they were elected only four short years ago—the number of pieces of legislation that are guillotined with no debate and with no referral or reference to committees for further examination, the trampling of incredibly important institutions that support our democracy, and the effects on industries that employ so many Australians who pay tax and that allow us to be the prosperous First World country that we have enjoyed for generations.

Today my blood runs cold, because not only is this the removal of a right of this important chamber to properly scrutinise legislation but it is legislation that removes important competition elements and powers that are important to our economy and important to regional parts of Australia, particularly to small businesses, whether they be food businesses, fuel businesses or other businesses. The removal of those rights by this government is something all Australians should be very concerned about. I would go so far as to say that, when I see the Greens political party stand with the government to remove that democratic right of review, I ask each of them to look in their hearts and ask what deal has been done that they threw away and trampled on this important democratic distinction.

I turn now to the specific legislation. The minister lectured us about the urgency of this legislation and how the coalition was opposing it just to be difficult—a painfully laboured arguments that bears absolutely no credence when you look at the history of these powers and how the exemptions have been allowed over many years. In fact, I was looking at the ACCC's own report which publishes the times when the interim authorisations have been utilised. This report goes back to 2014—more than 10 years of authorisations decided. It also provides a very simple graphical representation of the number of business days required for decisions, particularly during the COVID period: one day, one day, three days, one day—I could go through this entire list. Do we really think one day to make an exemption, an interim authorisation for an important competition decision, is too long, particularly when this government says that it is so urgent that it's backdating it to 1 April? To me, that smacks of a cover-up of decisions that were improperly made, leading to the government now seeking to introduce legislation to fix their inadequacies.

There has been absolutely no demonstration from the government to describe the urgency of this legislation and these amendments. Is there something urgent the government is not telling us about? Is there some looming threat today that the government is aware of but has not disclosed to the Australian people? That's a shocking thought, isn't it—something so urgent that a bill that collapses competition powers and allows non-disallowable decisions by the ACCC should be passed into law, without the government disclosing what that is. That would be a shocking position for Australia to find itself in.

The powers must have a sunset date. There must be transparency around when they are used, how they are used and for what reason they are used. I will give you an example as to why this is important. There has been a lack of inquiry and review. The coalition sought to hear from businesses and regions that were affected when these powers were used over the last 13 years. Let me tell you about some of them. Let me tell you about what happens in regional Australia when competition laws must be relaxed. When small businesses are unable to employ a lobbyist or somebody to speak for them with the ACCC, their rights are trampled. Let me give you the most recent example: the flooding in Cairns. Every single road and access point to Cairns was blocked, and the city began quite quickly to run out of food, medicine and fuel—all the obvious things. The ACCC's exemption and the government's decision to fly supplies into Cairns were obviously necessary and important, but the ACCC and the government failed to engage with small businesses, so the duopoly of Coles and Woolworths benefited. The Australian taxpayer provided food for those businesses to sell to the people of North Queensland. But what happened to the other businesses—the fruit and veg businesses, the fish and chip operators, the butchers, the corner store—the ones we rely on day in, day out to provide services and choice, and competition to the duopolies? What happened to those? There was no avenue given to them to have a business source—food. I was flooded with phone calls—what does this mean for me, for my business, for my employees, for the service I provide to the people in this community when this is over?

We should probably not expect this to be of any concern at all to Labor given that, under their watch, they put a butcher shop out of business in Cairns that supplied people who were hearing impaired, people who were intellectually disabled, physically disabled, and people from Indigenous communities because they decided it was no longer an appropriate business; instead, they would encourage all those people to go and shop at a duopoly business. This is the result of the lack of attention to competition regulation and legislation, so I ask the members of the Senate: take more care. I particularly say that to the members of the Greens party and to those other Independents who sat with government and agreed that there should be no scrutiny, no transparency and no review of these laws.

I am shocked. It takes absolutely no effort and time and cost to those people to allow for proper review that would have allowed people who would be affected by these decisions to have a voice, and, importantly, for the role of democracy to be upheld in this place. Because, like the story of the thousand sticks that broke the camel's back, this is just one law. It seems small and insignificant today but it is just one more removal of transparency and democratic decision-making that undermines our democracy. This is where bad government goes, to remove transparency and hide behind urgency without demonstrating why. I have been able to show you examples in the last 14 years of the existing powers being used to deal with crises powers overseen by the parliament, powers that are reviewable by the parliament, yet, under this rushed legislation, any argument to demonstrate why these powers should be given both to the Treasurer and to the ACCC will not be scrutinised.

The coalition, of course, supports sensible measures that would help Australia better manage crisis situations, things that will protect Australians wherever they may live, small businesses, big businesses, the states, the territories. That is the role of this parliament—to better protect Australians and to absorb crises shocks. But these are not powers that were asked for or required under COVID, a very similar situation of having shortages of supply. An inquiry by the Senate economics committee was the bare minimum of requirements, the bare minimum of scrutiny that should have been given.

This bill also creates a new framework for exceptional circumstances. Again, what exceptional circumstances are in this legislation that should not be examined through a Senate committee? What is so secret? What is so urgent and rushed that the Senate of Australia would not have the opportunity to review it?

I am very concerned. I'm concerned that there does need to be interim powers provided to businesses to coordinate during a genuine crisis. The priority must be to get fuel, food and medicine into all parts and points of Australia. But this legislation does not provide for Australians to understand what problem they seek to solve. What problem is it that the government is seeking to use this sledgehammer to solve? I fear we will never know until it is demonstrated to us. Retrospective powers, rushed powers, non-disallowable powers—this is legislation that bears all the hallmarks of a dangerous intervention into the democratic rights and reviews that the parliament should hold and certainly that Australians believe in. Australians fought for the right to have a democracy such as ours, and we should do that right here today.

First of all, I wish to congratulate Senator McDonald on her contribution, and I wish to echo many of the words she said. I hope not to speak for too long on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026. We'll see how we go, but I do think there are some very important points to be made.

My last count was 163 on the number of times the government has used what they euphemistically call time management in this place to ram legislation through. More colloquially, it's called the guillotine. Guillotines are available to governments in this place, but quite frankly this government uses them as a matter of routine, not something that is required in exceptional circumstances. In the vast majority of those cases, it has been the Labor Party and the Greens who have worked together to guillotine bills through this place. Both of those parties proclaim themselves to be champions of transparency and of the processes of this place in terms of legislative scrutiny. Yet, seemingly at every opportunity where a deal can be done behind closed doors, that deal is done, and legislation is rammed through this place without adequate scrutiny and without proper process being followed. To be perfectly honest, it beggars belief that we continue to see it. But with complete chutzpah, with complete lack of self-awareness, the Labor government continues to proclaim itself the champion of transparency, while at the same time ignoring the very reasonable requests from the shadow minister and the shadow minister's representative in this place towards this bill, in particular.

Senator Canavan made it very clear. He would have been—I won't say happy, but he would have been willing to see a short inquiry conducted today or tonight and for this bill to be considered tomorrow to at least allow a few of the key points in this bill to be interrogated by senators in this place, because that is our job. It is our job to scrutinise government legislation, to make sure it does what the government says it does, to make sure there are no unintended consequences, to make sure that powers given are proportionate, reasonable and not excessive and to make sure we aren't going to, in some way, damage those people that we are supposedly here to help. As I have said, Labor and the Greens seemingly do these deals behind closed doors and the proper processes of this place are ignored.

Let's just go through some of my concerns with this bill. I will remind those who are listening to or reading this debate that we have only had this bill for a matter of hours. Competition law is not simple. There are very few simple laws these days, but I will put that to one side. Competition law is excessively complex, and the risk of unintended consequences when you are meddling in the competition space is very real. These are significant powers being given to entities such as the ACCC and the government itself. These are big, significant powers that we are meddling with here today in a rushed fashion.

Competition law is designed to protect consumers. It's designed to protect small business. It stops large players from coordinating together to do damage in our marketplace. We don't want anticompetitive conduct to become normal, but the balance has to be right. The fact is, as Senator Canavan, Senator McDonald and others have very clearly pointed out, the existing system has worked before and has worked in a timely fashion. The current framework saw us through the COVID pandemic. That was obviously a time when there were severe economic shocks to the system, and exemptions to the competition framework were granted quickly, in a very timely fashion—in some cases, in less than 24 hours. So the argument that these special powers in this bill are necessary as an adjunct to the current framework are, quite frankly, dubious. It is dubious to say that this new arrangement is needed, because we have seen the current arrangements work in a situation where rapid action was required.

Another matter which I think does require a proper inquiry and consideration is the fact that the Treasurer's declaration power under this bill is very broad. It is not confined to a particular crisis, such as the current crisis on fuel. Once a declaration is made, it opens the door to the ACCC's exemptions from competition law, which then raises the other matter which I think is very worthy of scrutiny, which is that those exemptions from competition law are not disallowable by parliament. So it gives no capacity for this body to actually say: 'No, wait. The government and the ACCC have actually overstepped. They're actually damaging the market.' This Senate should have the power to step in and say no. That is a normal power of the Senate when it comes to matters such as this. But, instead, we are seeing these powers effectively being exempted from parliamentary scrutiny after the event.

I think that perhaps there is an argument to say that these declarations shouldn't be disallowed, but at the very least this chamber has an absolute obligation to consider whether giving up a power like that is warranted. We need an explanation. Hopefully, we will have a committee stage on this bill, and, hopefully, the minister will be able to explain it in a more comprehensive and less partisan fashion than he did in his earlier remarks. Perhaps he will be able to explain why this chamber isn't given that right, a totally normal right for this chamber to have. I'm also concerned about the matter of transparency. The exemptions made under this legislation need only be made public within seven days. Seven days in the middle of a crisis, which presumably is what is required to trigger these kinds of powers, is an awful long time.

In the modern world, there is absolutely no barrier to such decisions being made available to the Australian people and to business within 24 hours. There are absolutely no technical barriers meaning they can't be. Is there another reason why this information needs to be kept secret for seven days before being entrusted to the Australian people? I use that word euphemistically because we should always trust the Australian people. Is there a reason? That should be teased out in a Senate inquiry. I hope again that the minister has an adequate explanation for that if and when we get to a committee stage—if this bill is not guillotined like literally dozens and dozens of other pieces of legislation that have been guillotined through this place by the Labor and Greens political parties.

The other key matter that deserves investigation and deserves a proper explanation, not partisan nonsense from the minister, is why this bill is retrospective. If it is retrospective and that is justified, why do we need to rush it? Making it retrospective in a week's time is exactly the same as making it retrospective today. We could delay this bill for a number of weeks, have a proper inquiry and still make it retrospective to 1 April 2026. If you're going backwards in time with a bill, it doesn't matter if you do it three weeks later or six weeks later. But why? Why are we being retrospective in any case? What is the justification for that retrospectivity? Retrospective bills are an anathema to this place.

We should always treat bills that act retrospectively with even greater caution than we do other legislation because they effectively make things that have happened in the past legal when they potentially weren't. We need to understand exactly what those things are and how they have impacted on real people and real businesses. This is not some theoretical discussion. Laws have impacts. That's their whole point. If people are not willing to look properly at this legislation to see whether these powers, however well-intentioned, are justified, proportionate and will do what the government says they're going to do—though, to be honest, from my perspective, I don't think the government has given an adequate explanation of what they actually want to do with this bill.

I don't think they have explained the need for this bill. I don't think they have explained the need for retrospectivity. The coalition, as has been said by many speakers in this place, are absolutely willing to look at these kinds of powers. But it needs to be done in the cold, hard light of day, not in a secret deal with the Greens in some back room. That is unacceptable.

I think it's fair to say that the coalition is not in the business of opposing sensible measures that are going to help manage things like a fuel crisis and protect households and small businesses. But what we've seen from this government is their urgent need for us to look at this bill, to not scrutinise it at all and to pass it in a hurry. It is always very, very concerning when the Greens and Labor get together to work on backroom deals to pass emergency legislation.

The government's explanation for this is that we've got an urgent need for this legislation because of the fuel crisis that's happening in Australia. I think there are some sensible questions that need to be asked. Why isn't the current framework operating the way it should? If it's not, why has it taken until now for the government to decide that this has got to be rushed through? I think it's fair to say that, even during the COVID pandemic, extraordinary powers like these were never sought by the coalition government. We were actually able to work with the ACCC and turn around exemptions in under 24 hours without the need for exceptional powers to be granted that have no oversight from parliament and no scrutiny at all.

It is very, very concerning that the government is seeking to give both the government and the ACCC significant new powers with very little to no oversight from the parliament. That is a very concerning thing. I think everyone out there, the Australian public, are sick to death of government coming in with a strong, heavy arm, creating legislation that is going to infringe on their rights. It's fair to say that consumer protection laws are there to protect consumers. While Labor may have good intentions for this to manage what is, at the moment, a fuel crisis, the trouble with rushing through bills is the unintended consequences of granting such powers that don't come under any kind of parliamentary scrutiny.

I think it is only reasonable that, at a bare minimum, Labor allows an inquiry to happen through the Senate Economics Legislation Committee so that the committee can have a look at this bill, go through it thoroughly and ask some of these questions. This is a bill that is going to limit parliamentary scrutiny. This government is actually saying that we're not even going to have scrutiny over a bill that is going to limit scrutiny. I don't know about anyone else out there, but it concerns me a lot when government is looking to have no oversight from the parliament on what are extraordinary laws.

This bill is creating a framework to set up exceptional circumstances, and I think it is reasonable for everyone to ask what an exceptional circumstance is. At the moment, the exceptional circumstance might be the fuel crisis. But is an exceptional circumstance in the future something different to that? That is certainly what this legislation will take into account. It is not just limited to dealing with the fuel crisis. Perhaps if this bill was limited, had a very short sunset clause and existed purely for the management of the fuel crisis, that might be slightly more palatable. But it doesn't. This is going to look at what exceptional circumstances exist well into the future—things we don't even know will happen. It will be up to the Treasurer to decide what those exceptional circumstances are. That will then allow the ACCC to exempt conduct that would otherwise breach competition law in Australia.

I think we've got to be really careful if we're exempting competition laws and stopping that business from occurring. There may be unintended consequences to that. Do you know who pays for those unintended consequences when governments rush through legislation? It's the Australian people who will pay the ultimate price of those unintended consequences and overreach by government. It is always concerning when you have someone from the government turn up and say, 'Hi, I'm here from the government, and I am here to help.' That is what I am hearing from this government, and I think every Australian should be very concerned by the approach they are taking.

The bill's intentions are to allow businesses to coordinate during major disruptions, and I think that that is a reasonable thing, but can't that happen under the current framework? Hasn't that been occurring under the current framework? Or is there more about this fuel crisis that this government is not telling us? Is there more that they know and are not sharing with the Australian people and not sharing with the opposition or the parliament? And that's a problem when we're talking about a bill that is going to limit scrutiny of the parliament and we're not really being told why it's urgent and we're not allowed to ask questions and it's very likely that the government will just guillotine the legislation through, as it has been doing in this place on a regular basis, so that it doesn't allow a committee process or any kind of scrutiny. It's not allowing it to go off to a committee to hold a wholesome inquiry. This is really concerning. Is there more that we don't know?

Are these extraordinary powers needed because this government is not being honest? Just in the handing down of the budget we have certainly seen that there are broken promises everywhere. I don't know about everyone else, but I don't trust a single word that this government says, because it will go back on its word anytime it needs to. They come and say, 'We need this, and these are the good intentions that we have,' but, frankly, that does not cut it for me, because time and time again we have seen this government walk back commitments and promises that it has made. We've had legislation that hasn't explored what unintended consequences might look like, and it is the Australian people who ultimately pay the price for government overreach and sloppily drafted legislation.

I think it's fair to say that, in a genuine crisis, we do want businesses to be able to coordinate. We've got to have the priority of keeping fuel supply, food and essential goods moving. We've got to try and inoculate households and small business so that they're not suffering because government is too slow to respond in a crisis. That's why the coalition is prepared to work constructively with the government. We're willing to allow common sense so that we keep Australia moving, because that's what Australia needs. Australia needs to keep moving. There are things that happen far away from our shores that impact our economy and our way of life, so it is completely logical and reasonable that we would put measures in place to allow for things like food to keep finding its way to our supermarkets, farmers to be able to keep planting their crops and businesses to be able to stay open.

I think the key concern for us with this particular legislation is that competition law exists in Australia for a reason. It is protecting consumers and small businesses. It stops the large players from coming in and coordinating in a way that damages competition. It stops the big players from pushing the smaller businesses out of business, and that's really important. So we have to think very carefully when this government is putting forward legislation that would essentially allow the ACCC to put that competition law to one side during what they would define as a crisis, and that definition is whatever the Treasurer decides it to be. We have to be really careful. Any exemption from competition law in Australia needs to be taken very seriously. Perhaps temporary coordination is something that is necessary from time to time, but that should be limited. How long it would go for and in exactly what circumstances it would operate should be very specific, and we have to make sure that any kind of suspension or a temporary suspension of those protections doesn't have the unintended consequence of putting a small-business owner out of business and that it doesn't unfairly advantage bigger players.

We've got to make sure we can do all of that, which means that a bill like this requires some scrutiny. It's why we should be thoroughly working through bills of this nature and doing our due diligence. As elected members in the Australian parliament, we are trusted by the Australian people to go through and do that due diligence, and when this government takes that opportunity away from us, it means that we can't fulfil our obligation to the Australian people. That is an obligation I take very seriously, because I think it is very important that, when we are looking at any piece of legislation, particularly when it is looking at having extraordinary powers with no parliamentary oversight, it is incumbent on every single member in this place to take their obligation to the Australian people very seriously.

In terms of how the existing system works, I don't think this government has provided a reasonable or thorough explanation as to why the framework that currently exists hasn't been adequate to be able to respond to the fuel crisis in Australia or any emerging crisis that may happen in the future. I don't think this government has been able to explain why they need these extraordinary powers and why they need this piece of legislation. Certainly, sending it off to a Senate inquiry would allow for us to get to the bottom of exactly what the intention of this legislation is and exactly why the government feels that it needs these extraordinary powers.

The Treasurer's power to declare exceptional circumstances is very broad. It is not confined purely to the current fuel crisis. Once a declaration is made, it will open the door to the ACCC to provide exemptions to competition law, which the government says would not be disallowable by the parliament. If those exemptions are made, this parliament could not go through and disallow those. That is extraordinary. That is a significant power that will exist outside of parliamentary scrutiny. I think parliamentary scrutiny is a really important safeguard we have in this country to protect people from government overreach or the unintended consequences of legislation. I think a Senate inquiry is reasonable to test whether the threshold is tight enough on this. I think we should also test whether the government and the safeguards it is putting in place on this legislation are strong enough.

The Treasurer's declaration under exceptional circumstances would be disallowable by the parliament, but the ACCC exemptions made after that declaration would not be. It means that, while the parliament could reject the broad declaration, it couldn't do anything about exemptions the ACCC has granted. The ACCC needs to make the public aware within only seven days of the exemptions. Seven days is a really long time when we live in a world where you could pick up your phone put something up on a website or social media. It could be instant. It is really unclear as to why seven days is the timeline this government has chosen, particularly when there is no scrutiny and no oversight to this. It should be transparent. It be immediate.

This bill is also backdated to 1 April 2026, and the government has provided no reason for that specific date. Basically, all the government has said is, 'We need this flexibility, we need this legislation to be able to deal with the fuel crisis and future crises that may come up in Australia's future,' but I don't think it has done its job in justifying why this bill is needed and why the current framework is not adequate to deal with these things. Either the government is hiding something or this is just a really grotty power grab to make sure it can intervene in things that it probably shouldn't.

Competition law exists for very good reasons. It exists to protect consumers, it exists to prevent collusion between big businesses on price or supply or market behaviour that would damage competition and undermine the rights of consumers, it exists to prevent asymmetries of information that would disadvantage consumers. Any changes or exemptions to the competition laws need to be viewed with gravity because, potentially, they will disadvantage consumers and allow businesses the freedom to increase prices or lessen competition and, overall, will reduce economic welfare.

It may be, as the proponents of the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill argue, that at times exemptions need to be made to the normal application of competition law because of exigencies, national emergencies or extraordinary circumstances. The coalition recognises—and I recognise—that temporary coordination between businesses may be necessary in a time of crisis to alleviate supply shortages, coordinate in response to national emergencies and help fulfil a government objective that might not be a commercial objective. But the important point is that such a framework already exists under existing competition law, has been tested previously and has been shown to work effectively.

We had the COVID pandemic, an emergency, or a set of extraordinary circumstances, and that lasted for close to two years and involved some remarkable disruptions to supply chains, whether it was supermarket goods, pharmaceuticals or personal protective equipment and the like. We managed well through the COVID crisis. If you look at our existing competition law framework, the ACCC was able to grant 28 authorisations or exemptions to the competition law framework during the COVID crisis, often turning those around within a matter of days, sometimes even in a matter of hours—24 hours to 48 hours. We saw that framework work. Also, during the AdBlue and urea supply crisis we saw the ACCC use the existing framework and exemptions that exist within the Competition and Consumer Act to grant urgent interim authorisation within a day. A framework exists. It has been shown to work well during the COVID crisis and others. Even before the COVID crisis, the ACCC, in a normal year, would issue somewhere between 20 and 30 exemptions or authorisations under the Competition and Consumer Act to allow behaviour that would otherwise fall foul of the Competition and Consumer Act.

We have a system that's working well, that is subject to appropriate oversight and that has proven itself fit for purpose to deal with existing crises, supply shortages and whatnot, and the question then is: Why do we need a new piece of legislation? In particular, why is a new piece of legislation which changes that system and introduces a whole new set of powers being rushed through? Why isn't the normal course of business being followed—a referral to a Senate committee and an inquiry? Why isn't there an examination—as the Senate, this chamber, is meant to do, which our committee process is designed for and intended to do—of the consequences of this legislation, whether the powers are overly broad in scope and whether parliament exercises appropriate oversight? They're all normal things that a committee inquiry would help elucidate and flesh out, but none of that is being followed this time around.

I have several concerns about this bill. Whilst we understand the intent of the bill—and we do not necessarily have an objection to the intent of the bill—the existing framework has been shown to be fit for purpose. What we have in this bill is significant changes to that framework.

Firstly, we've got provisions that will allow the Treasurer to declare, basically, an emergency or exceptional circumstances, and those powers are exceptionally broad. Once such a declaration is made by the Treasurer, it opens the door for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to introduce exemptions from competition law. The Treasurer's power to make this declaration is a disallowable instrument, but any exemptions that the ACCC makes following a treasurer's declaration are not disallowable. This means that they are not subject to scrutiny by the parliament and the parliament is not able to concern itself with, and apprise itself of, these exemptions to competition law—exemptions which potentially, if misused or not used correctly, could jeopardise and hurt consumers. That should be a concern. The powers of the Treasurer to make such declarations under this act would be exceptionally broad, and the ACCC exemptions are not going to be scrutinised by parliament and not disallowable.

But of perhaps equal concern is the fact that the ACCC will not need to make public its exemptions until after a period of seven days. Now, why would it take so long for the ACCC to exempt certain businesses from the normal requirements of competition and consumer law? Surely that should be of interest not only to the market and not only to shareholders but to consumers and to competitors. If the ACCC is to exempt certain players in certain sectors from the provisions of competition law and allow them to commit what would otherwise be breaches of competition law, the parliament and the public should be notified of that as soon as possible. There's no reason given in the explanatory memorandum and there has been no explanation on the floor of parliament as to why a seven-day period is required. Why could the ACCC not comply before that period?

Also, this legislation is retrospective. It will be given retrospective effect from 1 April 2026. Again, there has been no justification for why this legislation is being backdated. Is there anticompetitive conduct that has been going on that the ACCC is aware of—that we have not been told about—that would fall foul of existing laws and that this legislation would retrospectively seek to validate? We don't know. Is it in response to the Middle East fuel crisis? The conflict in Iran began on 28 February, so some 31 days before the date of this legislation's backdating. If that's the justification, why has 1 April 2026 been chosen, not some earlier date or some later date? Bear in mind there's no second reading speech on this bill yet, so no minister has actually explained why these powers are necessary. All we've got is the explanatory memorandum. All we've had from the Treasurer's office is that they need sufficient flexibility. This is a case of retrospective lawmaking, which should always be of concern to legislators and should always be of concern to the parliament and should only ever be done in exceptional circumstances. If those exceptional circumstances exist, the case should be made publicly for those exceptional circumstances—what they are.

Finally, and most importantly, there has been almost no scrutiny of this bill. It was introduced this morning. It has not gone through the House. It has come straight to the Senate. It's almost certain to have its progress hastened or guillotined. What is the justification for that? What is the emergency that is being dealt with? Is there some sort of anticompetitive conduct or collusion that has been going on that we haven't been told about that is in violation of existing competition law and that this is designed to retrospectively fix? We do not know the answer because we don't have ministers in here explaining or giving the rationale for this legislation.

We have not had the courtesy of a normal Senate committee inquiry to examine these issues. That is why the coalition is moving amendments in the Senate—because we believe an inquiry is important and in the public interest and in the national interest. Bear in mind that the ACCC, as it currently stands, has these powers, and they have been used before, during the COVID crisis and others, to exempt conduct from the normal rigours of competition law. Are these existing ACCC powers genuinely inadequate? What are the shortcomings? When have they not been able to be used as intended?

We would like a Senate inquiry to test whether the power of the Treasurer of the day to make these sorts of declarations is too broad. Should it be more narrowly defined? Should better justifications be given before such a broad declaration is made?

We would like a Senate inquiry to examine the very pertinent question of whether the ACCC exemptions should be reviewed by parliament as a disallowable instrument, as would normally be the case for subordinate legislation or legislative instruments.

We would like a Senate inquiry to examine why the ACCC would be given up to seven days to announce the details of any exemption, when such information is critical, vital and time sensitive. It's of interest not only to consumers but to the market, to shareholders and to other competitors and players in those sectors. Surely that transparency should be an urgent and immediate requirement under this legislation, not something that can wait seven days.

We would also like a Senate inquiry to examine the rationale for the retrospectivity of this legislation. Is it warranted? Why is it warranted? What has happened between 1 April and today that justifies the retrospectivity? Is there conduct that has been going on that the ACCC has not sufficiently authorised, has been unable to authorise, which falls foul of competition law, that this would give a retrospective legal blessing or sanctification to? If that is the case, the Senate should be made aware of it, the parliament should be made aware of it, the public should be made aware of it, then we can decide with open eyes, with informed knowledge, with informed consent about what exactly it is we are voting for.

We would also like a Senate inquiry to review whether these powers are properly limited in time and scope. These are powers that in the normal course of events should not be exercised. They are extraordinary powers. As I said earlier, competition law exists for a reason and, in the normal course of business, the normal rules of competition law should apply because they are there to protect consumers, to discourage and deter and penalise anticompetitive conduct, to prevent collusion, and to prevent not only misuse of market powers but also monopolistic and oligopolistic power. If we're to grant powers to the Treasurer and to the ACCC, in many cases powers that will not be reviewable by this parliament, then we want to make sure that those powers are limited and properly constrained, limited in time and scope to circumstances as well, and that is what I would expect a Senate inquiry to look at.

Finally, we would like a Senate inquiry to examine some set-and-review mechanisms, a normal part of legislative process, especially when powers like this are being introduced. We would expect that there would be reviews of such legislation and that parts of the legislation should sunset.

But more broadly, I just do not think a case has been made for this legislation. It has been dumped on us today at short notice. It has not been through the House. There has been no detailed or comprehensive public or parliamentary justification for why this legislation is needed. Frankly, the whole thing is highly suspect. I'm not conspiratorially minded but these sorts of things give me pause. Why is something being introduced in parliament and likely to be guillotined today for which there has been no parliamentary debate? Why is this piece of legislation being backdated to 1 April but only 1 April? What is going on? Why can't we have an explanation? Why can't we have an explanation from someone who is a proponent of this legislation making the case for why this is necessary? We're reasonable people on this side of the chamber. We are prepared to examine the merits of the case. We recognise we have been in a fuel and energy crisis prompted by the conflict in the Middle East, and we have shown ourselves, whether it was a support for the cut to the fuel excise or other measures, willing to support the government in a political, legislative and public sense for measures necessary to deal with this crisis. But in this instance, we are simply being left in the dark and it is hard not to be suspicious or at least be alert to something that is going on here.

As people in the Senate, my colleagues, know much better than me, it is highly unusual for a bill to be guillotined through. Unfortunately, it is becoming more of a habit under this government but it should be for left for extenuating and extreme circumstances. It is very unusual for a bill not to be referred to a Senate inquiry. It is also unusual to do so the day after the budget. I would expect the government's focus, and rightly so, to be on selling and prosecuting and making the case publicly in parliament for their budget; instead, it is introducing this piece of legislation that really doesn't have anything to do with the budget but that makes some pretty drastic changes to competition law in a retrospective fashion that threatens consumers and leaves the parliament and the public in the dark about what the motivations are. That is why we should be opposing this legislation unless it is referred to a committee for an inquiry.

Senator Cadell, you only have a short time before the hard marker, but you will be in continuation.

Thank you, Deputy President. I will give you the Reader's Digest version of what I was going to say. When I was speaking on gun laws, I mentioned that I didn't blame the Greens for the way they voted because it is in their DNA to oppose them, but I was critical about Labor. But, on this, the boot is on the other foot. We have Labor doing what's in their DNA: introducing a bill late, not giving the reasons for it and guillotining it through with no debate, no inquiry, no knowledge—because that is their core and DNA. But I find it strange that the Greens should support this, because this isn't in their DNA. I note Senator McKim was there, my militant brother on the supermarket inquiry. He wanted more powers to the ACCC, and now we're not giving the ACCC the ability to prosecute people. As Theodore Logan said, 'Strange things are a foot at the Circle K'—

Senator Cadell, resume your seat. It being 12.15, we will now proceed to senators' statements.

Who could believe that we'd live through a period in Australian history where we would see a government announce a new plan to smash Australians with $77 billion in new taxes and, at the same time, admit that as a result of those new taxes we would have 35,000 fewer houses? Who would believe that that would be our reality? But that is our lived reality in Australia today.

The issue with the $77 billion in new taxes is that it's going to hit the whole economy. It's going to hit younger generations. It's going to hit people who don't have a lot of money and just want to invest in a couple of shares or a couple of ETFs or a small business or want to bootstrap a small startup. Every single person with an ounce of self-starting initiative is going to be hit by this minimum tax rate of 30 per cent. We live with one of the most punitive pay-as-you-go systems in the world. We have the second-highest pay-as-you-go system anywhere in the OECD, and we see no relief for working people. What we see is a new tax that hits them in every way that they might try and lower their tax burden to try to get going and make something for themselves. It is quite shocking that that is our lived reality, but when you look at the economic figures—low productivity, high inflation, high interest rates and anaemic growth—maybe it's all consistent; this is all part of the plan.

On the issue of the capital gains tax now becoming a minimum of 30 per cent, that gives us the world's highest CGT. Many people will be paying 33 to 47 per cent in capital gains tax, and it's going to be a jobs killer. Why would you stay in Australia if you have the ability to do something with ingenuity, something innovative? I think it's going to push people out of this country.

In a housing supply crisis, why on earth would you deploy anything that is going to limit the number of houses you can get and—what's more—why would you have a policy that is going to reduce housing supply? But, when you are spending $80 billion to build fewer houses, again, maybe this is a natural design feature. Who could believe that you could spend all this money, billions and billions of dollars, on these housing bureaucracies—Housing Australia Future Fund, Housing Australia, these boondoggles that don't build houses—and you could then say, 'We now think we're going to have a new tax policy that's going to collapse housing supply by 35,000'?

I'm surprised the government decided that, on page 158 of the budget papers, they would so clearly say, 'As a result of our new taxes on housing, there will now be 35,000 fewer houses.' It actually restores my faith that the government have some sense of supply and demand, some sense of basic arithmetic. Yes, higher taxes do mean less stuff. So there'll be 35,000 fewer houses, and we've already gone from an average of 200,000 houses a year under the last government to 170,000 houses a year, and now we're looking at fewer houses even though the government have allowed 1.4 million people to come into the country and have built only 600,000 houses over the course of that time. This is the worst possible time to be deploying more taxes which reduce supply.

Of course, they've tried to cover the tracks by saying, 'We're going to spend more money on infrastructure to cover our tracks.' But who could believe that this government could properly administer a program that would actually result in trunk funding going to places where it will supply more housing and actually provide the roads, sewerage and water that are needed to unlock supply? They've had four years, wherein they collapsed housing supply from an average of 200,000 down to an average of 170,000. They've spent billions and billions. They brag in their budget papers: 'We're spending $47 billion.' That's what they say; it's actually $80 billion. They brag about the money they're spending. What I want them to brag about is how many houses are actually being built in this country.

When you have a bigger population, you need more houses. The housing problem is only going to be solved through building more of them. It seems insane to me that the government's policy is to build fewer houses. The Labor Party's policy is that there should be fewer houses in Australia but more people. That is their policy. That is their position. This budget guarantees and locks in Labor's policy of having more people in this country but fewer houses. It is a deliberate design to have pumped up prime house prices combined with a five per cent deposit scheme, which is going to send house prices still higher and higher. This is a budget that locks in higher house prices for younger Australians. This is a budget that guarantees that younger people won't get a go. They won't get ago if they want to invest in small business or a start-up. They won't get a go if they want to buy a house, because Labor have locked in a low-supply model—low supply, high population growth and a criminal five per cent deposit scheme that guarantees that younger people will have to pay more for their first home.

Then there's the hypocrisy. The Prime Minister, who spent decades negatively gearing and building up a property portfolio, now wants to cut that opportunity for young people. It's all good for Mr Albanese to use negative gearing to build his own portfolio, but it's no good for someone else who's a young person who wants to do negative gearing, wants to build some wealth or wants to rentvest because that's their only way in. That's all going to go. You can forget about that. What's more, they're also carving out their best mates in the super funds. The super funds who support the Labor Party politically and fund their campaigns are carved out of all of this. They're all good. It's all good for them. If you're a super fund, you can do whatever you want. I'm coming back in the next life as a super fund because I think that gives me the greatest opportunity for graft and theft!

Then we have them giving up on their other housing policies. They're giving up on their New Home Bonus program, where they pay the states to build houses. They've gutted $2 billion for that because they've given up on their housing target agenda. They've clearly discovered that they can't be bothered asking the states to build more houses, so why on earth would they pay them? They've also admitted in the budget that their housing fund is 'at risk'. The Housing Australia Future Fund has been a disaster. It has wasted $10 billion just to build no houses. The five per cent deposit scheme has forced up house prices and has locked in the higher price model for young Australians. Now, we have this third gimmick: the new tax model. The new tax model pushes down supply and takes away opportunities that Mr Albanese himself has used as a property investor from younger people.

Then we have this ridiculous claim that, according to Treasury modelling 75,000 people will be able to own a house. Well, the last time the government did modelling on housing was just after the election. They said that the five per cent deposit scheme was going to push up prices by 0.6 per cent over six years, and it resulted in prices going up by six per cent in six months. That's how good the five per cent deposit scheme modelling was! It would literally be one of the worst modelling exercises ever undertaken in the history of the Commonwealth. That's why this government has fought tooth and nail to cover it up. They're embarrassed.

They announced this policy during the election campaign. They said: 'There'll be free mortgages for everyone and free money for everyone because we live in a utopia where money is free. We'll just take away taxpayer funds and give anyone who wants it a free mortgage even though we've collapsed housing supply.' Then, after they won the election, they thought, 'Maybe we should model this.' So they asked the Treasury people to do some modelling. Treasury did the modelling. It obviously is wrong. They've covered up all the modelling so we can't see the parameters or any of the risks and sensitivities or anything that Treasury said about the Labor Party's failure on supply.

So here we are, with $77 billion of new taxes, 35,000 fewer houses projected over the course of the next 10 years, more taxes on everything, a sclerotic economy, with low productivity, high inflation and high interest rates, and these bribes and more housing gimmicks. Gimmicks don't work—like the housing future fund, the five per cent deposit and new taxes that will make things worse, not better. It seems unbelievable that that's their housing suite, but there you go.

This budget is what it looks like when a government stops working for people and starts working for the one per cent. After Labor being in power for nearly four years, it's starting to dawn on people that Labor are content to keep letting everyone down. Across the country, people are angry. Despite having a massive majority in the lower house and a dysfunctional opposition, Labor is wasting everyone's time. People are working harder, paying more and falling further behind, while the one per cent—the giant corporations, the ultrawealthy billionaires and the professional property investors—just get richer.

Labor's fifth budget fails to include a tax on gas exports, which would have been worth at least $17 billion in revenue. Instead, Labor has chosen to gut services, including the NDIS, to cut climate programs and clean energy manufacturing and to keep people on poverty-level income support. We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. Housing is unaffordable. People are struggling. Yet the Treasurer announced last night that the biggest cost-of-living measure in this budget—the working Australians tax offset—equates to $4.81 a week and you won't start getting it until 2028.

This is a government that is just not up to the job. They are not governing for people; they are governing for big corporations and billionaires—the one per cent. There's no money for essential services, but there's billions to buy additional weapons off Donald Trump. There's no funding to build public housing, but wealthy property investors get to keep their tax handouts. There's no money for household electrification. In fact, there's $4 billion being cut from climate transition and there's $5 million to open up new gas fields. They are kicking 160,000 people off the NDIS, but they could not possibly introduce a gas tax. There's nothing for renters. There's no new money to build housing, unless you count the $110 billion for UK and US troops under AUKUS. And their ambitious reforms to negative gearing and capital gains discounts? They look more and more like a damp squib. The housing tax changes just grandfather inequality. They protect the unfair wealth hoarding of wealthy multiproperty investors and the one per cent. The changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax will still give tens of billions of dollars to wealthy property investors to outbid renters at auctions every weekend.

The test for Labor is whether the housing crisis starts to ease. If it doesn't fix the housing crisis, Labor will be explaining that at the next election. Tinkering around the edges of a broken housing system and spending billions for corporations and the one per cent will be the legacy of the Albanese Labor government. This was an opportunity to show Australians that parliament can actually work for them and improve their lives. Instead, Labor chose cowardice. It chose corporate comfort over structural reform.

Big corporations are making massive profits. Billionaires are increasing their wealth. Everyone else is going backwards. Over the last decade, corporate profits in Australia have grown almost double the rate of wages. While Australian billionaires increase their wealth by $600,000 a day each, over a million people are struggling to keep a roof over their heads. While one in three big corporations are paying zero tax, working people are falling further behind, struggling to keep their heads above water.

Budgets are about choices, and in this one it was so simple: stand up to the one per cent and work for ordinary people, or protect the profits of big corporations and the ultrawealthy. Labor chose the one per cent. They could have made people's lives better. They could have made the one per cent pay their fair share. They could have taxed gas. They could have protected the NDIS. But they didn't. And after the Treasurer finished his budget speech last night he attended, as he does every year, a series of fundraisers with representatives of big corporations. That is who Labor is working for—who this budget is for, who benefits from the economic mismanagement of this government. It is not a budget for the people. It is a budget for the coal and gas corporations, for the gambling corporations, for the property industry and for the big banks—for the people who are already making billions of dollars each year.

No wonder people are fed up. They're fed up because Labor was the first government in the world to back in this illegal war with Iran. It's this illegal war that is fuelling the cost-of-living crisis, and it's fuelling billions of dollars of extra profits for gas corporations. As the illegal war fuels inflation and economic inequality, Labor's budget needed to choose a side: deliver for people, or deliver for corporate profits and the wealthy few. If we taxed the profits of these greedy gas corporations and invested in the things people need, it would bring down inflation and help ease interest rates. Instead, Labor is protecting the profits of the big corporations and making the people pay. Instead of making big corporations pay, Labor is cruelly cutting the NDIS. Labor's cut to the NDIS is the biggest cut to any government services program this century.

This budget represents a tipping point for the Albanese Labor government. In the UK and the USA we've seen what happens when people are fed up because politicians back the one per cent. This government is not concerned with inequality. It's concerned with appearances. It pays lip service. That's why people are fed up. They're fed up because Labor could do something about the problems people face but they waste every opportunity. People are sick and tired of the tinkering, the cowardice, the weakness and the wasted time. People are sick of the gas industry getting the gas they're flogging off for free and not paying their fair share. They're sick of rents going up and up while wages fall behind. They're sick of worrying about whether their kids will be able to afford a home.

And here's the thing: Australia's economic system is broken. In the past, people were able to get ahead. Wages kept up with the cost of living. Housing was affordable. Essential services were owned and run for the public, not for the profits of the one per cent. Over the last decade, corporate profits have doubled. The wealth of Australian billionaires grew by more than $29 million per day last year, and the top one per cent now holds more wealth than the bottom 50 per cent. If you're a teacher, a plumber, a nurse or a hospo worker you're paying a higher rate of tax on your wage than big corporations and the ultrawealthy are paying on their extreme wealth.

The one per cent aren't just accumulating wealth. They are buying political power. Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals—and One Nation, for that matter—are all funded by big corporations and billionaires. One Nation's rise in the polls isn't happening in a vacuum. It is getting harder to get by, and people are right to be angry. But Senator Pauline Hanson's explanation that immigrants and outsiders are to blame is pure self-interest. It's to protect her own ties with billionaires like Gina Rinehart. In the last 10 years Labor, the coalition and One Nation have taken a quarter of a billion dollars in donations from big corporations. These politicians then walk into parliament and make laws that help the super-rich get even richer and help corporations avoid paying tax. Then, after the budget, they all go for drinks together.

It doesn't have to be like this. Either we act now or our kids will never be able to afford to buy a home. If we taxed the one percent, we could fund public services like dental in Medicare, like wiping student debt and like funding the NDIS properly. Right now, the one percent of this country are running the country while the 99 per cent are doing all the work. It's no wonder people are fed up.

This budget cements Labor's legacy—a government who offers people less than the bare minimum and tells them to accept their declining standard of living. Back in Gough's day, Labor represented working people. Now people are getting left behind, and they're not being heard. This government think they can get away with it because the Liberals are useless, but it is not good enough. We demand better. Millions of people demand better. We can do better. These guys work for the one per cent. We're working for you. (Time expired)

I've come to Canberra to remind the Labor government of Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers of the very real cost of living pressures facing Western Australians and how those pressures are being made worse by Labor governments that remain too slow, too reactive and too out of touch. In Western Australia, the cost of living is not abstract. It is immediate, intensifying and, for many families, unsustainable. Last week, the Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate by another 0.25 percentage points, to 4.35 per cent. It was the third rate rise this year and the 15th since Labor came to power. That means higher mortgage repayments, growing borrowing costs for businesses and more pressure on families already stretched to the limit. The Reserve Bank has warned that Australians face a difficult period of higher inflation, weaker growth and rising unemployment. That should concern every countryman in Australia.

While the Reserve Bank is trying to reduce inflation by cooling demand, governments continue spending in the opposite direction. When spending remains high, inflation stays higher for longer, locking in higher interest rates for households and businesses. Western Australians are already feeling the consequences of this. Analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics CPI data shows Perth families have experienced the highest increase in consumer prices of any capital city over the past five years. Perth prices have risen by 27 per cent since 2021 while wages in Western Australia have grown by just 18½ per cent. Real wages have gone backwards, but families are working harder and falling further behind. Basic essentials in Perth have surged. Eggs are up 38.4 per cent. Coffee, tea and cocoa are up 39.4 per cent. Bread is up 31.2 per cent. Milk is up 28.3 per cent. Electricity prices have risen by 25.4 per cent over the past year while fuel prices surged by 32.8 per cent in March alone—the largest monthly increase on record.

Western Australians are being hit hardest where it hurts most. That's at the checkout, at the bowser and in their mortgage repayments. Housing pressures continue to worsen. The cost of building a new home in Perth has surged by almost 72 per cent over five years—the fastest increase of any capital city—while Perth rents remain above $700 a week. Consumer confidence in Western Australia has fallen to its lowest level since March 2023. More than half of households are already cutting back spending, and more than a quarter expect economic conditions to worsen. Now those pressures are compounding on WA families and businesses.

Across regional Western Australia, businesses, farmers and industry are also feeling the impact of diesel shortages while communities across the North-West continue dealing with cyclone damage, disrupted infrastructure and strained supply chains. Tourism operators are facing cancellations due to high fuel prices while regional businesses absorb yet another economic hit. We've already seen how fuel shortages linked to the Middle East conflict forced a WA gold miner to stand down workers, exposing how small miners in my home state are being squeezed. That means jobs on hold, investment delayed and confidence shaken. Western Australia is the engine room of the national economy, but that engine runs on diesel. Mining accounts for more than a third of diesel use across Australia. When supply is disrupted, the effects flow through communities, through small businesses and through families. Farmers entering seeding season face delays that threaten a national grain crop worth around $20 billion. Businesses are being forced into impossible choices, absorbing higher costs or passing them on to consumers. This is a cycle that is now taking hold—higher costs, higher prices, weaker confidence and households falling further behind.

The recent Western Australian state budget only reinforces those concerns. At a time when the Reserve Bank is warning governments to show restraint, the Cook Labor government has delivered billions in additional spending and short-term cash handouts. The WA budget projects a headline surplus, yet state debt is forecast to climb to almost $45 billion over coming years. That's not fiscal discipline; that is spending today while sending the bill to future generations to Western Australians. Ultimately, households pay the price through higher interest rates, higher rents and higher everyday costs.

This crisis is more than just economics; it is about whether families can afford groceries, whether young people can buy a home, whether regional businesses can survive and whether working Australians are getting ahead or simply treading water. Western Australians deserve governments that understand that disciplined economic management matters, that energy security is economic security and that backing productivity industries is essential to keeping this country running, because the test of economic policy is simple: does it make life better for Australians or does it make them go backwards? Right now, for too many Western Australians, the answer is that they are going backwards.

I rise to pay tribute to William 'Bill' Grayden, AM, soldier, parliamentarian, author, advocate, husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather and one of the truly great Western Australians. Bill Grayden lived to the remarkable age of 105, but the measure of his life lies not simply in its length but in its service, courage, independence of spirit and extraordinary contribution to Western Australia and to our nation.

Born in Perth in 1920, Bill Grayden belonged to a generation for whom service was not a slogan but an obligation. His father had served at Gallipoli with the 16th Battalion, and when the Second World War came, Bill was determined to follow that example. Rejected at first because he was too young, he changed his name from Wilbur to William, adjusted his age and enlisted. He would go on to serve with the 2/16 Australian Infantry Battalion in the Middle East, New Guinea, Borneo and the Celebes. He fought on the Kokoda Track, endured unimaginable conditions and at one point was even reported killed after being knocked unconscious by shellfire. In typical Bill Grayden fashion, he later returned to battalion headquarters and corrected the record.

His wartime service shaped him, but it also deepened his understanding of duty, resilience and practical action. After the war, he became a journalist, and in 1947, at just 27 years of age, entered the Western Australian parliament as the member for Middle Swan. Two years later he resigned to contest the federal seat of Swan, becoming part of Robert Menzies's historic 1949 government, one of the Liberal 49ers who helped shape postwar Australia.

In his first speech, Bill Grayden spoke of Western Australia's vast distances, small population, vulnerability and need for development. He understood what remains true today: that Western Australia carries immense national responsibilities and deserves a fair hearing from Canberra. He argued that Western Australia could prosper only if fair financial relations were established between the Commonwealth and the states. Bill Grayden never saw Western Australia as a distant outpost. He saw it as central to Australia's future.

After his federal service, he returned to state politics as the member for South Perth, serving from 1956 until 1993. Across state and federal parliaments, he served for more than four decades, making him Western Australia's longest-serving parliamentarian. He held ministerial responsibilities in labour and industry, consumer affairs, immigration, tourism, education and cultural affairs, yet one of the most significant contributions came through his advocacy for Aboriginal Australians.

In 1956, he chaired the Select Committee on Native Welfare Conditions in the Laverton-Warburton Range Area. His work exposed conditions that many preferred not to see. The film he shot during that inquiry helped build momentum for the 1967 referendum and brought national attention to the treatment of Indigenous Australians.

Those who knew him described him as a doer, not a talker. He was independent minded, straight talking and fearless. He did not enter public life to be fashionable; he entered it to make a difference. He was also a man of great curiosity and energy. He wrote extensively, including A Nomad was our Guide and Kokoda Lieutenant, preserving stories of war, endurance and the Australian spirit.

Above all, Bill Grayden was devoted to his family. With his wife, Betsy, he raised 10 children. He leaves a legacy of 36 grandchildren and 50 great-grandchildren. In 1994, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for service to the Western Australian parliament and to the broader community. Today I, like so many others, honour him as a soldier of courage, a parliamentarian of conviction and a Western Australian of rare distinction. May he rest in peace.

As a senator for Tasmania, I have the great privilege of being able to work across my home state, especially across the north-west of Tasmania, and getting to meet with community members, community groups and businesses. I recently spent the day in Circular Head, connecting with the community. For those who haven't been, it's a great place. It's magical, and it represents great examples of Tasmania's natural beauty. Throughout the day I met with some truly inspirational people and organisations and I learned about the incredible innovation happening in the far north-west, including in an incredible small business that is using automation in farming. What really stood out to me was the pride, resilience and deep sense of community in every single person that I met.

My visit began with meeting the team from the Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation. The team is dedicated to preserving and promoting culture and country—work that is both deeply vital and meaningful. The CHAC is a key community support organisation that prides itself on how it supports the entire Circular Head area by running 21 programs, not just for the Aboriginal community but for the entirety of Circular Head. CHAC is dedicated to promoting and preserving language and culture, keeping it alive and strong for future generations. They also care about health and wellbeing. They provide youth programs and mental health support, and they operate a healthcare centre that provides culturally safe care close to home. There is so much more to say about the work that this amazing organisation does than I have time for here today, but I thank them for the work they do in the community.

From there I had the opportunity join the local Pride Coffee group, organised by the team at Working It Out. I had the great pleasure of enjoying a long black while speaking with Emma, Parker, Garry and Nicole, who are proud members of the local LGBTQIA+ community. Working It Out is Tasmania's sexuality, gender and intersex support, education and advocacy service. They support LGBTQIA+ Tasmanians and they play a role in fostering inclusion and understanding across our state. I really want to acknowledge and thank Garry for the work that he does in creating safe places for people to come together and to enjoy each other's company.

I then had the opportunity to meet Sergeant Lee-Anne Walters, Circular Head's citizen of the year. With four decades of service to Tasmania Police, Sergeant Walters exemplifies dedication to public service and to community. I also had the great pleasure of then visiting the Stanley Discovery Museum, and I had lunch at the local pub before returning to Smithton to meet with the Circular Head Council. They are an example of a great local council that's got such a strong vision. They've got really great plans to attract investment and to create opportunity for the region. I congratulate Gerard on the work that he and his team are doing.

Later in the day I visited the Wyndarra Centre, where I met both staff and clients, whose warmth and positivity left a lasting impression. Wyndarra has been an integral part of our community since 1982, providing a wide range of services, including housing support, specialised disability accommodation and an on-call service. It's there that I met Noelene O'Halloran, the municipality's senior citizen of the year. She's a tireless volunteer whose contribution to her community is just amazing. She is a true Tasmanian gem.

My last stop was to La Cantara Artisan Cheeses, where I met Genaro. He and his wife, Rosselyn, have created something truly special. Their business reflects the strength, resilience and innovation in Tasmania's agricultural sector. Genaro and Rosselyn migrated to Australia from Venezuela with the dream of having their own small business. An idea for what was originally to be a cheese operation out of a shipping container is now a state-of-the-art facility that uses automated technology to organise their cattle for milking, feeding and cleaning of their sheds. Genaro told me that he is looking forward to the business growing and to starting to employ local workers. They are a great story of what migrants can bring to our country.

Last week I had the great opportunity to tour TasRail's shiploader ore reclaim system and the new infrastructure at the Port of Burnie. This $64 million Australian government investment represents a significant commitment to Tasmania's economic future. It's already improving efficiency, increasing capacity and supporting the movement of goods across the state, and it's ensuring that our mining sector has a strong future in which to export Tasmania's great resources to the world.

There is a question many Canberrans ask, and that is: why in the national capital, a city of half a million people and a region of 1.2 million people, can't we look after young Canberrans and those in the region when they go through cancer treatment? This week we have seen yet another mother in Canberra begging both levels of government to work to establish a paediatric oncology and haematology service in the ACT. The travel, the chemotherapy and the stress takes a toll. As that mother said in the media earlier this week, no child should be vomiting in a public bathroom after chemo because there is no service closer to home.

This is obviously not an isolated case. I have heard from dozens of families that have had to split their time between Canberra and Sydney about the toll that that takes on their family and on the child getting treatment. I think we can do better. We can do better as a territory and we can do better as a Commonwealth government to ensure there is a service here in the ACT. Many Canberrans rightly ask: if our health system cannot look after sick children, is the system actually working?

On a related note, I recently met with a Canberran who tragically lost a child to glioblastoma. He was just five years old. I was so struck by the courage of his mother and her fortitude in the face of the loss of a child to come and raise this issue in the hope that other families wouldn't have to go through what they as a family have been through. Too many ACT families are forced to spend their child's final days outside Canberra. Most families can't come home from Sydney for end-of-life care because the ACT system doesn't have the support in place. This Canberra mum fought hard to get her son home, but it was a struggle. There are only two paediatric palliative care nurses in the whole of the ACT and no dedicated paediatric palliative care doctor. Everything has to go through Sydney. She told me they had to wait six days for a medication patch to help with vomiting. The patch arrived the day after her son died. I think that delay says everything about the system. Those 10 days at home mattered enormously to that family and to that young boy's siblings. I don't understand how we as a territory cannot do better when it comes to looking after children and families here in the ACT. I fear that we have some of our priorities very, very wrong.

There were some welcome changes in the budget for aged care, particularly the reversal of the decision to charge people up to 200 bucks, in some cases, for a shower. That should never have happened. I really welcome Minister Butler's intervention and announcement that that was going to be the case. One of the things we also saw, though, was that there were no new Support at Home packages in the budget. At last count, there were 230,000 people on the waiting list. Now we learn in the report that the government tabled during budget lock-up to try and avoid scrutiny that there are actually 48,000 people on the assessment waiting list to then get on the waiting list for a Support at Home package. So we're perhaps close to 300,000 people now. I would love for the government to just tell us how many people are currently waiting. What we do know from the government's report, which was meant to be tabled as soon as practicable after they received it—they received it on 28 April and waited until budget lock-up to get it out there—is that it's taking 12 months to get a package and to get services going.

Meanwhile, states and territories are reporting that there are 3,300 older people in our public hospitals needing aged-care services. They probably wouldn't be there if we had a supported home system that was working. So I urge the federal government. I understand that this is complex. It's a big change. But we've got to do better, because currently we're simply shifting the costs from the Commonwealth to older Australians, to carers, to families and to state and territory governments that have hospital systems that simply cannot keep up.

It's a defining feature of our political system that people are losing hope that a better life is possible, and more and more Australians are losing faith that politics in this country can deliver for them. This budget was a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Labor to address this loss of hope and to restore people's faith that politics can actually do something meaningful to address the great challenges of our time: a spiralling cost of living, a housing crisis where the Australian dream of owning your own home is drifting out of reach for so many young people, the breakdown of the planet's climate systems, the destruction of nature and biodiversity, economic inequality, racial injustice, and young people being ripped off everywhere they turn instead of being given a fair go.

That was the opportunity before Labor when Treasurer Jim Chalmers got up to deliver his budget speech last night, and it's an opportunity that the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and the Labor Party have squibbed. This wasn't a budget that was brave, that was courageous, that met the moment with the kind of bold reform that these great challenges require. Jim Chalmers promised the world, but all he served up to Australians last night was an atlas. For months we were all told that this would be a transformational budget that tackled inequality, that restructured the tax system to look after working people, to look after young people, and that it would respond to the housing crisis and deliver meaningful reform. That's the story we were told, and that is what we were promised.

Instead, it was a budget defined by caution, by timidity and by protection of corporate profits and the superwealthy in this country. At a time when everyday Australians are struggling with rising rents, increasing mortgage repayments, impossible house prices, growing grocery bills and worsening climate disasters, Labor had a choice to make. They could choose to take on corporate profiteering, to invest in the things people desperately need, or they could choose to protect the profits of the top end of town—the big corporations—and look after the existing wealth of the superwealthy. Instead of the 99 per cent, they chose the one per cent.

This budget contains around $4 billion in cuts to the climate transition, including cuts to funding renewable energy. This is the biggest rollback in climate funding since the Morrison government took an axe to Australia's climate response. Labor has cut support for electric vehicles, cut renewable energy programs, cut clean energy manufacturing and cut funding from ARENA while continuing to hand out tens of billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies, increased subsidies for native forest logging and increased financial support for new gas projects. I mean, hello? The world is in an energy crisis caused by the illegal war perpetrated by the United States and Israel on Iran, where fuel prices and fuel supply are being respectively going through the roof and highly constrained, and you want to cut funding for a renewable energy and slow down the transition to electric vehicles. I mean, what kind of budget response is that? Yet you can find even more taxpayer subsidies for the mendicant native forest logging industry which costs taxpayers many tens of millions of dollars a year, destroys nature, destroys biodiversity, destroys cultural heritage and emits massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere to turbocharge climate change. (Time expired)

Another year, another Labor budget with more missed opportunities than an under-7s soccer match. Back in the early 2020s—you know, the olden days—some might have been surprised by a budget doing so little for ordinary people and so much for Labor's big-business donors, gas companies and lobbyist mates. But over five budgets, Prime Minister Albanese, Treasurer Chalmers and the crew have lowered the bar to a point that it is now buried. That is how low the bar is. It is buried right beside millions of Australians' hopes of meaningful change, for action on the cost-of-living, housing and climate crises.

Let's take a brief tour of the missed opportunities this time around. The budget confirms the government is cruelly cutting $37 billion from the NDIS. Disabled people shouldn't suffer just because Labor want to prove they can be just as callous as the Liberals. If there were any moral courage on the government benches, they would listen to community members who have raised the alarm about the impacts of cuts and do the right thing—reverse course and fully fund the NDIS.

For uni students, there is no reprieve either. Labor would love you to think the eye-watering cost of university degrees is the fault of Scott Morrison's so-called Job-ready Graduates fee hikes. But let's be real. The absurd fees that are driving the cost of arts degrees to higher than $50,000 are now firmly Labor's responsibility. The Liberals fee hiked for 16 months; Labor has now kept them high for more than 47 months. These are their fee hikes through and through, and the responsibility of loading students up with debt they may never be able to pay off in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis sits squarely with this Labor government.

Meanwhile, communities around the country are living with rising hate, threats and violence, yet completely absent from the budget was any funding to start implementing the National Anti-Racism Framework. Yes, it will require investment but, in the scheme of things, it will be a drop in the ocean—the same ocean, I might add, that Labor is trying to fill with US nuclear subs at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. After 18 months of silence and delay, the budget was their chance to get on with the practical steps the framework sets out to tackle racism, push back against online hate, strengthen community safety, and centre truth telling and justice for First Nations people. The forces of hate cannot be ignored or placated. If anyone in this government thinks racists will be mollified by burying antiracism funding then they should know they are playing directly into the hands of the far right.

This parliament should be a place that confronts injustice and stands together against it. We deserve better. The planet deserves better too. The world is on fire, hurtling towards climate catastrophe, and this government is cutting climate funding—$4 billion of climate funding—and backing in fossil fuel subsidies. It is the groundswell of anger and passion in the community that the Greens choose to side with. Some Labor MPs want to pretend that the tinkering in this budget is a gift to young people, like these tax changes that let big property investors off the hook. To those MPs, my message is clear: there is no secret number of Instagram reels that you can post to make houses cheaper. There is no 'tragically cringe' AI meme that can curb emissions or ease the sting of heartless NDIS cuts. You have to listen to people, and you have to front up with policies that meaningfully improve their lives. You have not done that. By that standard, this budget is a wholly missed opportunity and an abject failure.

Last night, the Treasurer handed down the 2026-27 federal budget. It represents, again, the Albanese government's nation-building. It is our fifth federal budget under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. It's a responsible budget focused on economic resilience and economic reform. It's about getting Australians through the global oil shock and building an economy that works for more Australians. It's an ambitious budget for all Australians. It makes our country better and fairer. Our government has delivered tax cuts, cheaper medicines, urgent care clinics, cheaper child care, free TAFE and a 20 per cent cut to HECS debt. We're reforming our country for the better. But, as the Treasurer said last night, the war in the Middle East is pushing up prices, pushing down growth, putting pressure on inflation and punishing Australians.

This budget is ambitious. It is a reforming budget in the strongest of Labor traditions. There is more cost-of-living relief, more for Medicare, more for aged care and more housing. It makes the tax system fairer and stronger for workers, businesses, first homebuyers and future generations, responding to the pressures of the here and now while embracing an intergenerational responsibility.

As Australians, we confront global challenges together from a position of strength. Economic growth here is still higher than it is in other comparable nations. Real incomes have been growing strongly, unemployment is historically low and we have one of the strongest budgets in the world. This government cut taxes two years ago. We're cutting them again this year and next year, while Mr Taylor and those opposite took to the last election a 'no tax cut policy' for the Australian people. Since the budget was handed down last night, all they've done, on that side, is complain. They've offered no solutions to the challenges facing this country.

One Nation destroyed those opposite in the Farrer by-election, but there's still no humility from those opposite. What we will see now is a new and revitalised 'no-alition' of the Hanson One Nation, Liberal and National parties. They have no plan for government, only a plan to refuse reform, complain and vote 'no' to everything. People will see, in the fullness of time, Senator Hanson for who she really is. She has no policies. She has no agenda for the future. The only advice Mr Barnaby Joyce could give voters last night was that instead of investing in their future, they should just piss it up against the wall. That's the One Nation theory for the future!

Last night, I was proud to see Labor delivering another round of ongoing tax cuts for Australian workers. We put more money in the pockets of 13.3 million workers, with a new $150 working Australians tax offset. Altogether, our five different tax cuts—which One Nation, the Liberals and the Nationals voted against—will put, on average, $2,816 in Australian workers' pockets by 2028.

When in government, Labor always invests in Medicare, cheaper medicines and public health so that Australians receive care when they need it. This budget includes another $25 billion for public hospitals. We're also investing $5.9 billion to list more medicines on the PBS so that Australians continue to access life-changing medicines at cheaper prices.

The reforms in this budget will lift our total investment in housing to a record $47 billion. What did those opposite do when they were in government? They didn't build one house. This budget is levelling the playing field for first home buyers with a five per cent deposit and tax reform to help more young Australians into their own home. There's $3 billion to deliver more beds, more packages and better aged care for older Australians, and I applaud that. There's $2 billion for the Thriving Kids program and a $3 billion provision for other fundamental supports for those who will be outside the NDIS. And there's $2.2 billion to strengthen Services Australia and ensure Australians continue to receive safe, secure and reliable services as quickly as possible. Australia will be better because of this budget. The Australian people know that. That's why they rejected those opposite.

I don't know where Jim Chalmers was last Saturday. Not only did Labor not have the guts to stand—

Senator Hanson, please take your seat. Senator Polley?

My point of order is that the good senator has been in this place too long. She should already know that she refers to the Treasurer by his correct title.

I will remind Senator Hanson to address those from the other place by their correct title.

I will make it quite clear. Labor's Treasurer, Jim Chalmers—I don't know where he was last Saturday. Not only did they not have the guts to stand a candidate for Farrer, but, if we are to believe last night's performance, they also have no idea what the average Australian is concerned about. We know they are hopeless on social policy. They have no intention of taking Australia back for the majority of Australians. They have no idea how angry Australians are about being welcomed to our own country. They have a deaf ear to the fact that some people will never become part of Australia if they can't speak the language or if they hate what Australians value most.

Then, last night, we get one of the most shameless performances in all of budget history—no shame in admitting that our young people will face budget deficits way into the next decade and no shame that gross debt will reach a million million dollars next year. I repeat: a million million dollars. Go and tell young people that. No wonder there were no revenue projections for the next ten years. This mob will raise taxes even more—$77 billion in net tax increases next year. They had no shame about telling us that inflation could reach seven per cent, but then they have the gall to say they will help young people into houses. How the hell do they get houses with interest rates climbing to ten per cent?

I have said before that Gough Whitlam, one of Labor's heroes—and, certainly compared to this lot, a real hero—was turfed out in a landslide defeat in 1975 because he was economically incompetent, but revenues were then 24.5 per cent of GDP. Last night, Chalmers had no shame in announcing that the Albanese government's revenues would be 27 per cent of GDP and no shame in saying that there would be higher taxes over the medium term. There is nothing in this for hardworking and productive Australians—nothing. The handouts to renewable energy continue, when anyone with a modicum of common sense would say: 'Scrap net zero. Get out of Paris and do what this country did for years until it was overtaken by the global warming climate change hoax. Use our plentiful natural resources to deliver the kind of wealth to individuals and businesses that used to be taken for granted and then say emphatically that we will decide who comes to this country and no-one is welcome to bring the problems they left behind into our once stable and united world.'

The polls say that the Albanese-Chalmers farce is supported by barely 30 per cent of the voters—that is, 70 per cent don't want them. Last night proved why they don't want them. One Nation will take Australia back to the majority of Australians. One Nation will educate Australians, as we care about the next generation. This generation has to live within its means. The age of bribing voters has to end. The age of irresponsible spending has to end. In fact, the age of not having the guts to tell Australians the true story of the mess Labor is leaving this country must end. A government that can't tell voters the truth does not deserve to be in government.

That brings me to the seat of Farrer. They said One Nation was a party of grievance, a party of protest, a party that would always be on the fringe. They said we were racist, illegitimate and divisive. They said we might get the odd Senate seat but would never win a seat in the House of Representatives. But then something happened in South Australia a few weeks ago. That state's political landscape was reshaped by a One Nation earthquake. We won as many seats as the Liberals did and we smashed their primary vote. We achieved massive swings in safe Labor seats and made them marginal. We demonstrated we could convert our surge in the polls into votes. They panicked, suddenly realised One Nation was a real chance in the Farrer by-election and did everything they could to stop us. They spent a fortune and created attack websites and social media accounts. They put up billboards all over the electorate. They bullied our volunteers. They ran dozens of hit pieces in the media, and there was a lot of cheap mudraking.

Well, the people of Farrer have sent a loud and strong message, but I suspect it will fall on a lot of deaf ears. I congratulate David Farley on his stunning win in Farrer, and I'm please to acknowledge his presence in the Senate chamber today. David is a native of Narrandera, in the heart of the Murrumbidgee irrigation area. David is going to be most welcome to work with the team, and I congratulate David on his win.

The 2026 Labor budget delivers more tax cuts and a fair shot for young people at buying their own home and strengthens Medicare for all Australians. This budget is great for workers, great for young people and great for Western Australians.

To my home state, the budget delivers $20.8 billion in funding, including $9.5 billion in GST payments. That is a real investment in WA's services, infrastructure and future—I know you will agree with me, Acting Deputy President Cox. We're delivering more tax cuts for Western Australians to help with the cost of living, with 730,000 Western Australian workers to benefit from the new $1,000 instant tax deduction from 2026-27, and around 1.5 million WA workers will benefit from the $250 working Australians tax offset from the following year. This is practical and targeted cost-of-living relief for people who are working hard but still feeling the pressure. That's on top of cutting fuel taxes to save money for every Australian when they fill up at the petrol browser.

In housing, we're levelling the playing field for first home buyers, with a fairer tax system; our investments to make housing more affordable, including our five per cent home deposit scheme; and our plan to build more homes. In this budget we will also deliver what Western Australian local governments need to build local infrastructure like water, power and roads to unlock more housing supply, with at least a quarter of that dedicated to regional projects.

WA's 14 Medicare urgent care clinics have already delivered more than 313,000 fully bulk-billed visits since the network began in 2023, and those urgent care clinics are now a permanent part of Medicare, under this Labor budget. There are now 234 fully bulk-billing practices in WA because of Labor's bulk-billing practice incentives, with many more to come, I'm sure. Importantly, for my local community the budget delivers an additional $552 million for Anketell Road upgrades to get us moving on Westport. Plus there's $4 million for the Great Northern Highway, from Broome to Kununurra, making our rural and regional roads safer for everyone.

While the Treasurer, Minister Gallagher and the Labor team have been working hard putting together a budget for ordinary Australians, working Australians, young Australians and Western Australians, the Liberal Party have been yet again distracted; their eyes have been off the ball. Last night Senator Cash was really quick to the socials to criticise our changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing. It's funny that the loudest critics are often those with the most skin in the game. I think that, if Senator Cash spoke to people of my generation—millennials right across the country and certainly in our home state of Western Australia—she would understand that young people, my generation and the generation below me and the generations to come, want the government to take action to make owning their own house a real opportunity that exists. That is what Labor is doing.

Of course, the Liberal Party's relatively newfound friends in One Nation also take issue with a fair go for hardworking Aussies, but, again, that's probably what you'd expect from Senator Hanson, who instead of talking to battlers is being gifted planes by billionaires. But actually I should correct myself: it's not new that the Liberal Party are cosying up to One Nation. In fact, in 2017 Senator Cash was having secret meetings with One Nation, talking about doing preference deals with them back then. So it seems to me that this is just the same old Liberal Party. I guess, when you run out of reasons to explain your policy stance, there's always that old standby of blaming migrants and people who are doing it tough. What really unites the Liberal Party and One Nation is the same old tired playbook. I hope that we see something different from the Leader of the Opposition tomorrow night when he delivers his budget reply, but I doubt it.

Last night, Treasurer Chalmers handed down a budget that we've talked about for a very long time at kitchen tables in Hobart, at farm gates in the Midlands and in back offices in small businesses across the state. My job, as always, is to cut through the spin from both sides and tell Tasmanians plainly what it means for them.

It's the budget we had to have. Overall, the plan is well considered, albeit a little bit painful. Short-term pain for the upper middle class is likely to put Tasmanians in a better position in the long term and activate the course correction for up and comers. I know that's cold comfort for those who will feel the pinch from changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax and discretionary trusts, but our tax system has drifted over many years in a direction that favours those who already have wealth over those who are trying to build it, and that needed correcting. This budget makes a genuine start.

On small business, I proposed expanding the instant asset write-off for small businesses, and that's been adopted—yay! Businesses with turnover of up to $10 million can now permanently write off eligible assets of up to $20,000 without the uncertainty of annual renewals. There will be no more waiting to see if the write-off is there at the next budget. That is a real and lasting benefit for the tradespeople, retailers and hospitality operators who are the engine room of our Tasmanian economy. Additional funding to Tasmania for our health care and aged-care system is very welcome, and I'm glad that primary production income is exempt from the minimum tax on discretionary trusts. That's a big win for our farmers. The $80 million in additional targeted hospital funding, the Northern Heart Centre in Launceston, the new hospice at the Launceston General Hospital and the $361 million for Marinus Link are all meaningful investments in Tasmania 's future. So too is the funding for Macquarie Point and the Hobart Antarctic wharf precinct, which will create real jobs and real economic opportunity in our capital city. I also welcome the funding for more maternity services in Hobart. Education also had some small wins in Tassie with the new literacy support program for our kids and 20 more Commonwealth supported places per year at UTAS for primary care.

But I will not stand here and tell Tasmanians that it's all sunshine and lollipops. It's not. We should have more in the budget for social housing, for our farmers and for our community organisations in the face of the cost-of-living crisis. There is seemingly no new social housing funding in Tasmania or nationally, and that's not good enough. Housing stress is acute in our state. Tweaks to negative gearing and capital gains tax will have some effect on affordability over time, but they do nothing for the Tasmanian family that needs a roof over its head tonight. Our community organisations picking up the government's slack also needed a far more serious commitment. The agricultural sector deserved a much stronger showing beyond fertiliser security measures. In a state where farming is woven into our identity and our exports, that's a significant gap. Our workers at Liberty Bell Bay have been left in the dark, with money kept aside until negotiations have concluded on a buyer, but we don't know how much money has been put aside or when this will be paid to cover employee costs.

The budget's tax reforms also undermine our action on climate change. There's no new tax on gas exports for future contracts, and that's so disappointing—and Australians have noticed that flaw. Not only that but the government is sneakily introducing a tax on renewable investments, deterring renewable investments and possibly putting price pressure on power by harming large-scale renewable infrastructure like wind farms and solar farms. Gas companies paid $100 million less in PRRT than expected last year. That outrageous arrangement continues untouched, while capital gains tax on renewable assets from 2030 will give investors pause at exactly the wrong moment. We should not be creating tax settings that work against our clean energy future.

Finally, removing the private health insurance rebate for over 65s without means testing will hit Tasmania harder than any other state. We have an older lower income population, and over 78,000 Tasmanians in that age group hold private cover. This will shift enormous pressure onto our already stretched public hospitals, and the government needs to hear that clearly.

There is real good in this budget for Tasmania, and I give full credit for it. But the gaps on housing, agriculture, community support and climate coherence are serious, and I will not let them pass without a fight.

Last night, fellow Queenslander and Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivered a budget that delivers for Australians and for our home state. This is a budget that is responsible and responds to the pressures that people are under right now, while reducing spending and banking savings because we know that we need to provide relief while delivering reform to systems that are just not working.

Last night we announced even more tax cuts for working Australians so you can earn more and keep more of what you earn. In addition to tax relief for Australian workers, we're ensuring that we are providing more access to homeownership, particularly for young Australians. This is about levelling the playing field for first home buyers so they can have a crack, because it is our responsibility to make sure that we don't wait two more years to deliver a better housing system for Australians. Our government is choosing to respond to the pressures that we're seeing today, and addressing the pressures of our future, with substantial policy reform.

While the Albanese Labor government is focusing on providing a budget that prioritises resilience and reform, delivering urgency and ambition, at the same time the state Liberal National government in Queensland is busy cutting hospital beds. This budget will deliver $42.3 billion in funding to Queensland. That includes a whopping $4.4 billion of infrastructure funding alone. We're backing Queensland roads, with new funding for the Bruce Highway and new funding for the M1 Pacific Motorway, as well as for the Boundary Road level crossing, the Bowen Basin service link and Glass House Mountains road. In my home town of Cairns I'm proud that we're delivering an additional $166 million for the Cairns Western Arterial Road because we know the critical role that the Bruce Highway plays for Queenslanders, tourists and freight. Over the next 10 years, the state of Queensland will receive from our government more infrastructure funding than any other state. We're providing tax cuts to help with the cost of living for Queenslanders, and the government are increasing our investment in housing, including the Housing Support Program.

The budget is making more investments in Queensland. We're delivering $9 billion in health and hospital funding. This will increase to $11 billion by 2029-30. We will make every single urgent care clinic permanent. That means that, in regional Queensland, the urgent care clinics in Bundaberg and Gladstone and Rockhampton and Mackay and Townsville and Cairns south and Cairns north will now be permanent—because of our budget. That's taking pressure off emergency departments and getting people the care that they need.

We're delivering more funding for education. We're delivering a gas reservation policy that will help manufacturing in Queensland, because we know that Queensland deserves a long-term plan that connects our local, regional and national economies. This budget delivers just that. At the same time, the Crisafulli government is refusing to fund key projects that we have delivered. My message to the Crisafulli government is this: you've got a budget; you can deliver on the projects that we have announced. We know that this budget delivers for Queenslanders, delivers for Australians, delivers for young people and delivers the reform that we desperately need.

We're at two-minute statements.

If last night's aspiration-crushing budget wasn't enough with its additional billions of dollars in taxes on houses, small business and farms, then let me, sadly, add another layer of doom and gloom to Labor's line items. One which might actually not have taken a lot of attention and scrutiny was the $654.3 million over four years to meet its legislative commitments under the Digital ID Act 2024. That's $366.2 million up from the $288.1 million which was promised last year. That seems odd to me. It seems like a lot of money for a scheme that was meant to be voluntary.

Didn't Senator Katy Gallagher say to us that it was going to be voluntary? Didn't she, on 19 December 2023 in a speech launching the public consultation on the exposure draft, say:

An essential aspect of Digital ID is that it continues to be voluntary for individuals accessing government services.

…   …   …

Even with a Digital ID you opt-in to Digital ID and choose each and every time you use it.

Didn't she, on 30 November 2023, in a joint media release introducing the bill, say:

Digital ID is a secure, convenient, voluntary, and inclusive way for Australians to verify their ID online.

Then, in a tweet from around 1 December 2023, didn't she say:

Digital ID is not compulsory.

It's a voluntary, secure & convenient way for you to access online services safely without having your personal documents stored by 3rd parties—

very reassuring! On 27 March 2024 in a media release after the bill had passed, didn't Senator Katy Gallagher say:

Digital ID is a secure, convenient, and voluntary way to verify who you are online …

It seems like $654.3 million is a lot of money allocated to your voluntary scheme, Minister.

When we talk about domestic and family violence, we also have to talk about housing because, for a lot of women and kids, leaving a violent situation is not just emotionally terrifying; it also comes with the very real question: where do we go now? Nobody should have to choose between staying unsafe or becoming homeless.

That's why the Albanese Labor government's budget continues major investment into crisis and transitional accommodation for women and children escaping violence. The government is delivering more than $1.2 billion into crisis and transitional housing programs, including a $1 billion investment through the Housing Australia Future Fund. That funding is helping deliver more housing options for women and children experiencing family and domestic violence, as well as young people at risk of homelessness. Those are the types of things that Australians want to see their tax dollars go towards.

Having somewhere safe to go can completely change the trajectory of someone's life. It gives people breathing room, stability, a chance to regroup and rebuild without constantly living in survival mode. Programs like Safe Places and the Crisis and Transitional Accommodation Program are also helping fund emergency accommodation and expand services right across the country. At the end of the day, safety is not just about laws and policies on paper; it is also about whether someone can access a safe room, a secure home and support when they need it most. I think most Australians would agree that women and children escaping violence deserve that support, and they deserve to know they will not be doing it alone.

Every day, the world is told to look away from Palestine, to move on, to accept the unthinkable as the norm. But the brave humanitarians who are on the Global Sumud Flotilla to break Israel's illegal blockade and deliver aid to Gaza refuse to let the horrors of Israel's genocide disappear into silence. The flotilla is making this journey as Palestinians approach the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe that saw the violent expulsion of approximately three-quarters of all Palestinians from their homes and homeland by Zionist militias and the new Israeli army during the establishment of the State of Israel. The Nakba is not just a historical event; it is an ongoing reality. The erasure of Palestinians through mass murder, displacement, dispossession and Israel's apartheid continues on to this day.

Yet it is not Israel that the Labor government will take action against but their own people who have the courage to tell the truth about the genocidal state's crimes and atrocities. They silence us for telling the truth but support Israel for murdering Palestinians with full impunity. It is barbaric and immoral. Palestinians will continue to resist, and people who have the moral compass will continue to come out on the streets in droves. They will continue to join flotillas, and they will continue to speak out no matter the consequences. They will do so with all the courage and conviction that Labor lacks. They continue because Palestinians deserve life. They deserve dignity, and they deserve freedom. They continue because they refuse to surrender to hopelessness. They continue because solidarity is one of the few things left standing against the machinery of death.

We've all gone over many aspects of the reaction of this government to the Bondi massacre—gun laws and what they've done. It was only touched on very briefly at the time, but the effects are coming through now on the gel blaster industry and a sporting competition that happens in Queensland very strongly throughout the area. They were designated as skirmish markers for the first time in legislation. I'm sure that one of the great responses that we want to a terrorist attack is stopping gel blasters! That will stop it! Imagine if the two Islamic terrorists had been armed with gel blasters! They could have put serious welts on the people that they were harming!

This is the reaction of this government to stop it. We're stopping a sport in Queensland because of a designation as skirmish markers. I'm sure we all feel safer walking the streets today because we can't buy a skirmish marker or a paint gel bomb. Now each individual aspect has to be imported into Australia after getting police certification for a magazine for a gun-looking device or anything that shoots gel, a small microbead that takes water. These things were named Orbeez and craft beads historically, but now they are a weapon that has to be signified and tested by police to get there. This whole sport is facing import restrictions and shortages of goods—all this as a reaction because this wasn't a gun law to stop terrorist attacks in Australia. We aren't preventing this. It was a gun law to stop guns.

It was every gun law ever thought of in the top drawer of any bureaucrat. Bring it out and put it in. Remember the one saying that no clothing can have more than 30 rounds? That was one of the things they brought out. My wranglers can hold more than 22 bullets, so are we going to stop importing wranglers because we're doing this? This is another overreach that this government always does in reaction to be seen to be doing something whether it's effective or not. Just do something. We couldn't have shooting vests for our Olympic shooters. We can't bring wranglers in, apparently, because they can hold 22 rounds. And now we can't bring in craft beads without them getting tested by police, certified and imported, because they belong in gel blasters.

Last night, Treasurer Jim Chalmers handed down a budget that delivers for Queensland. But, today, I want to highlight an announcement of $1.7 million for mental health support in Brisbane's north. Last night, the Albanese government threw a vital funding lifeline to four Safe Spaces located at Caboolture, Redcliffe, Strathpine and Bardon. These are centres that were threatened with closure under the LNP in Queensland. They are after-hours mental health facilities whose doors remain open when other clinics are closed. It means people experiencing severe mental health challenges are met with care instead of crisis, literally saving lives.

I want to thank Minister Mark Butler for hearing the concerns raised by Petrie's MP, Emma Comer; Ali France from Dickson; Madonna Jarrett from Brisbane; and me. We challenged the federal government to take this fight up with the state government. I also want to acknowledge the efforts of Mark Ryan, the state member for Morayfield. Five strong Labor voices united behind one message to make sure that these centres do not close, but we know that our work is not done. Locking in the federal funding is only half of the equation, and we know these centres are funded 50-50 with the state government. We are now waiting and watching to see whether Queensland's LNP government comes to the table with their fair share of funding.

We know it is in the DNA of the Queensland LNP to cut deeply into our health system, but the state government knows the value of these centres. They know that they divert people in crisis away from our emergency departments, which reduces pressure on ramping, our ambulance officers, our police officers and our EDs. So I say to Minister Tim Nicholls the federal government has stepped up; it is now time for the Queensland LNP government to do the same.

This week's budget from Treasurer Chalmers, on behalf of the Labor-Greens government, could not be further from the Labor Party's original support base of working Australians. A simple question: what in this budget will ease the challenges everyday Australians are facing, challenges the Labor government have created themselves? Under Prime Minister Albanese, inflation is 4.6 per cent and 13 per cent across his government's four years. Don't blame Iran or Ukraine! It's the government itself which is the leading cause of inflation.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics tracks increases in government services on a like-for-like basis. In the 12 months to March this year, government property rates and charges went up six per cent, water and sewerage went up seven per cent, postal services went up eight per cent, secondary education went up seven per cent, preschool and primary education went up five per cent. All of these government charges have increased faster than the overall inflation rate. Wages have gone backwards. Average wage increases in the last 12 months were only 3.7 per cent in the private sector and 3.9 per cent in the government sector—less than inflation.

Under the Albanese Labor government, if it feels like you're going backwards while working harder, it's because you are. That's why 56 per cent of the public in a recent Freshwater poll think the country is going in the wrong direction. It's no wonder the ANZ-Roy Morgan index of consumer confidence fell 4.3 points last week to 58.8 against the long-term average of 110. This is the lowest consumer confidence reading since records began in 1973.

The tax cuts in the budget are an insult and will be wiped out from inflation before they start next July. We need infrastructure spending, smaller government, an end to net zero madness and waste, and balanced budgets. And stop flooding this country with more people than we can build homes for. It's driving the prices of houses beyond affordability. These are all One Nation policies which will help. One Nation is now the party for workers.

The budget confirmed for Australians that Labor's economic vandalism is killing our once prosperous country. Labor's betrayal, broken promises and backflips have consequences, and fellow South Australians are paying the price. We have the highest proportion of older people on mainland Australia. If you are over 65, your private health insurance rebate is about to be cut. Continuing the reckless pursuit of net zero, Labor is taking from ever hardworking Australians to spend $18 billion on its net zero fantasy. South Australia has the highest renewables mix in its energy grid, yet we pay some of the highest electricity prices in the country—up more than 32 per cent under this government.

Groceries are up 17 per cent, health care is up 17 per cent, education is up 21 per cent, insurance is up 42 per cent, and rents are up 23 per cent, too. That will only get worse. For more than 200,000 rental households in South Australia, getting ahead is about to get harder. Just in, new quarterly data shows South Australians are experiencing the equal worst wage growth of any state or territory at just 0.4 of a per cent.

That is Labor's economic wreck. Small businesses in South Australia are experiencing record insolvencies. The dream, the aspiration, has been killed off for them. Australians will pay an extra $50 billion in taxes over the next four years. That includes an extra $15 billion in personal income taxes and billions more from new taxes on housing, businesses, farms and shares. Labor is making it worse. This is Labor's doing, no-one else's. They have had it for four years; they have stuffed it.

I am a millennial, and I know acutely that my generation has felt locked out and let down by the housing market. Those of us lucky enough to be in a position to buy before COVID may be able to live in the communities we grew up in, work in and have rented in. But too many of my peers have been left behind completely. My generation is facing the heart-wrenching reality that they aren't able to provide for their children the same opportunities that their parents provided them. They can't own a home, and, if they can, they are not able to buy in the same community. They can't provide the backyard. There's no room for a dog or a swing set like the one they grew up with. Their own children's childhood looks fundamentally different to their own. For the next generation, it feels even more grim, where the idea of homeownership feels completely out of reach.

If we are serious about our intergenerational responsibilities, it has to change. I believe in an Australia that delivers to generation upon generation improvements and opportunity. That means making our tax system fairer, and that's what this budget does—because, when you work hard and save, you should be able to buy your own home. Right now, first home buyers are being priced out by property investors with tax breaks on their side. We simply have to reform negative gearing and capital gains tax. We can also do this while recognising that working-age Australians need more support, with more tax cuts, an extra $250 off their tax bills permanently and a $1,000 instant tax deduction.

The system has been failing my generation. It's been failing the next generation coming through. If we don't do something now, we will fail our children and their children and their children. That's not acceptable to me, and that's why I support this budget in full.

This budget tells people on income support exactly where they stand with this Labor government. After all the spin, the speeches and the stories about understanding poverty, Labor has delivered nothing to lift people out of it—no increase to JobSeeker, no increase to youth allowance, no increase to the age pension and no real increase to the disability support pension. There's nothing for the people skipping meals, rationing medication, sleeping in cars or choosing which bill they can afford to ignore. The government says that it's increased income support by $11.8 billion, but let's be honest. That is overwhelmingly the system doing what it is already required to do—indexing payments for inflation and accounting for more people needing support. That is not reform, and that is not lifting people out of poverty. The government's own advisory committee has told them again that working-age payments are too low, that previous increases are inadequate and that JobSeeker and related payments must be substantially lifted, and Labor again has ignored them.

The Prime Minister used to speak often about growing up in public housing with a mum on the disability support pension. It was a powerful story. But, for people living that reality now, that story is wearing very thin. You cannot build your political brand on poverty and then govern as though poverty is acceptable. You cannot tell people you understand what it means to struggle and then hand down a budget that leaves them trapped below the poverty line. The Greens will keep fighting to raise every income support payment above the poverty line because no-one should live in poverty.

Australia is sleepwalking into collectivism. That's what is happening. The tragedy is that many Australians are cheering it on. Every year, there are more regulations, more restrictions and more bureaucrats telling ordinary Australians what they can say, what they can own, what they can build and how they should live. Private property rights are being eroded. Businesses are buried under red tape for a species treated like a dangerous inconvenience. Australians are now monitored, censored and intimidated for expressing opinions that, only a few years ago, were considered completely normal.

What replaces freedom? I'll tell you what. It's dependency—a society where more and more people rely on the government, on their payments. They rely on things like government approvals, government permissions just to survive. Productive Australians—what's happening there? They're being punished. Risk takers are demonised. Success is treated with suspicion. Treasurer Chalmers's budget yesterday proved exactly that. This government is intent on dragging people down. There is no aspiration anymore and no incentive to build wealth, create business or strive for success. Instead of lifting up Australians through freedom and opportunity, this government, in my opinion, is trapping them in dependency, while at the same time calling it compassion. It's garbage. Meanwhile the state grows larger, more intrusive and more powerful.

Australians were told to trade liberty for safety, and what did they get? They didn't get either of those things. The government expanded its authority into every corner of Australian life, and millions applauded when it happened. A nation once built by rugged, self-reliant people is slowly becoming a nation of compliance and dependence. You must take responsibility and speak the truth, even when it is unpopular, because, when a nation loses its courage, it will also eventually lose its freedom.

I rise to speak about regional Australia and what it looks like when a government shows up for it. I want to talk about the electorate of Nicholls in my home state of Victoria, where I had a visit recently. What I saw was a region not waiting around. The coalition talk a big game in regional Australia; it's a shame they can't seem to hold onto their seats in it. As we saw in Farrer, the carpet can be pulled out from under you in an instant, and, when you can literally stand with one foot in Farrer and the other foot in Nicholls, the coalition should be very worried because here's what showing up for regional Australia actually looks like. Funnily enough, it aligns with what the Labor government is delivering. It looks like traditional owners sitting at the table on clean energy projects, not as an afterthought but as partners, on the Gangarri Solar Farm. It looks like Cobram Anglican Grammar School, a community that fundraised for years to give their students a trade facility they deserve, finally cutting the ribbon with a Labor government backing them in. It looks like communities building things, connecting with each other and asking the right questions about what comes next.

Local Labor legends like Bommer, Narelle and Alan told me about the work they're doing on the ground to engage with community and the issues they are hearing from people who genuinely care about where they live. None of that happens by accident. It happens because the Albanese Labor government has made a deliberate choice to invest in regional Australia—in clean energy that creates local jobs and makes bills cheaper, and in school infrastructure that tells students that 'we believe in you'. There is more to do. I know that, the Albanese Labor government knows that, and the community of Nicholls knows that. But what I know is that the Albanese Labor government will keep showing up because, when those in opposition fail to deliver to regional Victorians, the Albanese government will always show up.

A couple months ago, I came into this place to share the story of a young Canberran named Heidi who tragically passed away from ovarian cancer at the age of just 35. Ovarian cancer and, indeed, all gynaecological cancers, have very low survival rates. It's around 49 per cent for ovarian cancer, and it hasn't moved much in decades. Nineteen women will be diagnosed with a gynaecological cancer every day in Australia—today, tomorrow and the day after that. We have not made the investments in research or supportive programs that we need to for these women like Heidi, for their families and for the broader community.

This year, the sector came together in a proposal to turn this around. It's a mere $70 million to accelerate research, to find the next early diagnostic test to actually catch these cancers earlier and to ensure that no woman goes through gynaecological cancer without support. Last night, although there were high hopes, it was not included in the budget, and I share the disappointment of the sector that this package was not funded. Yes, there is more funding in the Medical Research Future Fund. I welcome that decision, but we don't know whether any of that will flow to gynaecological cancer research. Just two days of a gas export tax in this country would more than fund game-changing research for gynaecological cancers.

I want to end with a quote from Belinda Barnier: 'Our hope is that women's lives will be valued through meaningful investment and research, particularly into the early detection of ovarian cancer, so women are not continuing to die at the current rate of 51 per cent. Australian women and families deserve better outcomes, greater hope and urgent national leadership.'

Mass killings, disease, sexual violence and environmental degradation. This was genocide. This is not a quote about Israel's genocide in Gaza. It's a quote from the Yoorrook Justice Commission about what happened here based on the stories of over 1,500 First Peoples across Victoria. My people were and still are its victims and its survivors. It continues today in a different form. So why is the government silent? This month Gunditjmara man Travis Lovett is bringing the Yoorook report to parliament. He is walking more than 800 kilometres from Wurundjeri country through Taungurung, Yorta Yorta and Wiradjuri country to Ngunawal-Ngambri country, where parliament sits. Thousands of people of all ages, backgrounds, genders and religions are walking with him—first peoples and allies, people who want to tell their stories and listen to the stories of others, people who want truth-telling. Anthony Albanese ran on a promise to have real truth-telling in this country. He acknowledged the work of the Yoorook Justice Commission when he attended the Gaarma Festival last year. But today I echo Travis' call for the PM to publicly commit to a national truth-telling process led in genuine partnership with the first peoples. It must be legislated, well-resourced and allowed to take the time it needs.

Travis and those who walk with him say that truth-telling is an act of respect and national repair. Truth-telling is not about dividing this country. Truth-telling us about bringing this country together for healing and unity.

Before I give the call to Senator Collins, Senator Thorpe—

Prime Minister Albanese.

Thank you, I didn't want to interrupt you before, because it wasn't necessary.

We are in the land of broken promises. Last night Prime Minister Anthony Albanese broke some very serious contracts with the Australian people, but this is a man very comfortable with breaking promises. First it was $275 off your power bill. We all know that was a dismal failure an absolute lie. Last year the PM told us emphatically, 'The only tax policy we are implementing is the one we took to the election.' He said changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing were off the table, and in his own words he said that at least 50 times. Still, last night Anthony Albanese and his Treasurer Jim Chalmers dropped their new taxes on housing. They axed negative gearing, they increased capital gains tax and they made a new tax on discretionary trusts. It is absolutely crystal clear to the Australian people that Anthony Albanese has run out of money and he's coming after yours.

But that's not the most egregious bit of all. While the good people of Australia bear the brunt of this cheap money grab, foreign residents disposing of renewables get a CGT exemption until 2030. Anthony Albanese's net zero obsession has come at a cost to Australian people, because guess how much that is going to cost the rest of us taxpayers—$425 million. It's absolutely outrageous, Labor. You are—

Senator Collins, resume your seat for one moment.

A point of order. Reluctant as I am to interrupt the Senator, she does need to refer to members in the other place by their correct titles.

Yes, I did remind Senator Thorpe of that point before. I did wait until the end of her speech so I didn't interrupt her, but I will remind Senator Collins that she does need to refer to others in the other place by their correct titles. Senator Collins, you may resume.

I'm terribly sorry, Prime Minister Albanese. This is absolutely outrageous, Labor. You are no longer for the people. You are not here for families. You have lost control of your budget and you have lost control of your sense. With this big-spending, big-taxing government, you, your children and your grandchildren will be paying for the debt long after Prime Minister Albanese has retired to his beach house in Copacabana. Just remember, Labor are running out of money and now they are coming after yours.

Last night we saw the Treasurer deliver one of the most ambitious budgets in recent history, one focused on cost-of-living relief and giving the next generation a fair go. We are rolling out more tax cuts, making free urgent care clinics a permanent part of Medicare, and building more homes. Our reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax will help 75,000 homeowners get into the market over the next decade. You'd think that giving our kids a future is something everyone would get behind, but no. Instead, we saw members of the Liberals and Nationals, along with their friends in One Nation, opposing this budget before the details were even announced. In fact, this uniparty of the right has always voted against cost-of-living relief—in December 2022 on energy price relief, in December 2023 on closing loopholes— (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Gallagher. Can the minister confirm that their own budget shows young Australians today face a diabolical combination of higher inflation, higher interest rates, higher taxes, lower real wages, lower living standards and fewer homes thanks to this government's reckless spending?

The answer to that is no. I would say to those opposite that this budget is about making sure that generations of the future get a fair go. That's what it's about. We've already noticed them saying no to that. We have taken responsible decisions in this budget in a whole range of areas, whether it be in tax reform, spending restraint, our fiscal strategy, our investments in housing or relief to make a difference for people.

I will take the interjection on housing because I think it's important to let everyone know that those opposite didn't even have a housing policy. They didn't even have a housing minister. The issues we are dealing with on the supply side are a combination of factors, but a big part of that is the fact that those opposite did nothing for more than a decade when it came to housing.

The housing package in this budget delivers more housing. It works in partnership with the states and territories to deliver more housing. There is more housing delivered in this budget. It deals, for the first time, with the significant challenge of the intersection of tax policy or tax arrangements and the housing industry and how that's working for young people. We on this side of the chamber want to ensure that younger generations are not locked out and forever destined to life in the rental market if they want to own their own home. That's what we're about—making sure that younger generations have that opportunity, that they are not locked out forever. This budget delivers on that. We look forward to your support.

Senator Chandler, first supplementary?

Minister, can you confirm that your own budget shows, after four years of Labor government, debt will soon hit $1 trillion and climb to $1.25 trillion, leaving a debt bomb for young Australians?

I thank Senator Chandler for the question. If she is concerned about the projections for the debt in this budget, she must have been extremely concerned when they forecast hitting $1.2 trillion in their final budget. When they were last in government, they forecast an increasing debt burden. They doubled the debt before the pandemic hit. They did nothing to pay down the debt. I know they like to pretend that everything is someone else's problem. We've seen that. That's the way they operate. We inherited $1 trillion of debt from those opposite. We have consistently lowered it. Again in this budget, debt is lower in every year of the forward estimates compared to what we inherited and, as a share of the economy, growth of net debt is and will remain lower than we inherited. (Time expired)

Senator Chandler, second supplementary?

Minister, can you confirm that your own budget shows the yearly interest bill on your debt bomb will hit more than $42 billion, or more than $80,000 per minute, and that this bill will be passed on to young Australians through higher taxes?

I don't want to continue the history lesson, but if we look at when you were in government and what we saw when we came to government we inherited $1 trillion of debt forecast from you in 2023. We have managed to lower debt, to pay down debt. Debt is $173 billion lower under this budget, and we save in the order of $70 billion in interest payments. That's because of the responsible decisions we've taken in this budget, and that is the approach we will continue to take in future budgets: paying down debt, lowering it from what we inherited and making sure the interest payments are lower.

My question is to the Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher. Last night the Treasurer handed down the Albanese Labor government's most responsible budget yet, while also delivering significant reforms to make our tax system fairer and to support Australians with the cost of living. This has all been delivered at a time when the global oil shock is pushing up prices, putting pressure on growth and adding challenges for Australian households. How does the Albanese Labor government's responsible approach support people who are under pressure and deliver for all Australians?

I thank Senator Polley for that question and for the advocacy and work she does on behalf of the people of Tasmania. As the Treasurer said last night, this is the most important and ambitious budget in decades. It's a budget that responds to the pressures Australians are feeling right now, while putting in place the reforms needed for a stronger, fairer and more resilient economy.

The conflict in the Middle East is feeding inflation, slowing growth and putting Australians under more strain. At the core of the budget is an economic strategy with five main parts: fuel security and resilience, cost-of-living relief, productivity, tax reform, and responsible budget management. Under each of those five key areas there are important investments. In cost-of-living relief, a new $250 Working Australians Tax Offset will benefit 13.3 million workers from the second half of 2027, paid automatically through tax returns. This means that across the government's five tax cuts, including those that those opposite campaigned against, the average worker will be up to $2,816 better off in 2028.

We're also making investments in housing and in medicines and the ongoing funding in Medicare urgent care clinics—all areas where we know these measures are making a difference, where those opposite have argued and criticised us for the investments we've made. This budget continues the approach to support households with those important cost-of-living measures.

Senator Polley, first supplementary.

The finance minister, our very fine Senator Gallagher, and the Treasurer have been clear that the Albanese Labor government's fifth budget saves more than it spends while still funding essential services and responding to major pressures across the economy. How does the budget build on the job of budget repair? And why is that continued task so important?

I thank Senator Polley for that question, and it's an important one. This budget does put enormous emphasis on fiscal repair and strong, responsible economic management alongside the budget. This means that the budget is $44.9 billion stronger than MYEFO and more than a quarter of a trillion dollars better off than what we inherited. Deficits are lower in every year than forecast when we came to government in 2022. Debt in 2026-27 is $173 billion better than what we inherited, avoiding more than $70 billion in interest costs over the decade. There are $63.8 billion worth of savings and reprioritisations, which takes our total savings since coming to government to almost $180 billion. And, for the first time on record, consecutive updates have returned every dollar of revenue upgrades to repair the bottom line.

Senator Polley, second supplementary.

This budget responds to immediate pressures while pursuing the reforms Australia needs. How does the Albanese Labor government's responsible approach support people who are under pressure and deliver for all Australians?

I thank Senator Polley for that supplementary. This budget is about aspiration and fairness, helping with cost of living, boosting resilience in uncertain times and showing savings and reform can all work together. Against global uncertainty, the budget invests in Australia's resilience and economic sovereignty; delivers more cost-of-living help and new tax cuts for workers; backs small business aspiration and innovation; levels the playing field for first home buyers; and helps put homeownership back within the reach of younger Australians. It includes $64 billion in savings and reprioritisations, taking total savings since coming to government to $178 billion, and it sets out more responsible budget repair and more economic reform than any other budget this century.

I draw to the attention of honourable senators the presence in the chamber of a parliamentary delegation from the National Assembly of Kenya. On behalf of all senators, I wish you a warm welcome to Australia and, in particular, to the Senate.

Honourable senators: Hear, hear!

My question is for the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong. I refer to an example in the government's own budget documents. Jack has a taxable income, before capital gains, of $25,000 and realises a capital gain of $10,000 on an asset that he purchased. Jack does not receive an income support payment, so he's not exempt from the minimum tax. The tax on Jack's capital gain of $10,000 is $1,400, or a tax rate of 14 per cent. As this is lower than 30 per cent, Jack pays an additional $1,600 in tax to bring the tax rate on his capital gain up to 30 per cent. This cannot be true. Why is the Albanese government forcing Australians earning $25,000 a year to pay $1,600 in additional tax through their high-taxing budget?

Honourable senators interjecting—

I'm waiting for the chamber to come to order before I call the minister. Senator Cash, Senator Watt. Order! Order! Order!

Honourable senators interjecting—

Order across the chamber! Order! Minister Wong.

I thank Senator Hume for the opportunity to talk about the budget, to talk about the changes to tax and to say to her that I realise her legacy for the Liberal Party was more debt, higher deficit and higher taxes but that is not the approach we are taking. What we are doing is changing the tax system to give young Australians a chance. I've heard the discussion on the other side about aspiration and I ask them: What is more aspirational than the Australian dream of owning your own home? What is more aspirational than that? And why are you standing in the way of that?

The Treasurer has outlined in great detail, and I'd invite Senator Hume to read the budget papers, because they tell the story of the generational impact the tax system that we have has on the capacity of young people to get a fair chance to have the sort of opportunities that we had. That is what these papers show, and we believe on this side that it is part of our obligation, as those who form the government in the country, to make sure that the next generation of Australians has the same opportunities for homeownership and to get ahead that many of the people in this chamber had. That is the fundamental promise of this budget, and fundamentally it is the promise that you cannot countenance, because you accept the status quo, which continues to ensure that younger Australians do not have the same advantages. You accept that. We on this side do not.

The time for answering has expired. Before I call you, Senator Hume—when ministers rise to answer questions, I expect them to be heard in silence. I must have had to yell 'order' at the very top of my voice at least five times, and you all ignored me. The running commentary is disrespectful, and you will listen in silence.

The Prime Minister admitted today that he has used negative gearing in the past; he admitted that he still does. It is a great rags-to-riches story for a boy from social housing. Why is the Prime Minister happy to deny the next generation the opportunities that he used to build wealth and get ahead?

Before I call the minister—

Honourable senators interjecting—

Order! The question has been asked. I am going to invite Senator Wong to answer it.

(—) (): I would make a few points. The first is people can still use negative gearing when they invest in a new build. That is the position the government has articulated in the budget. We have acknowledged this is a change. Why have we made this change? The budget papers go through this very clearly. What they show is that the combination of capital gains tax and negative gearing has the effect of privileging the position of investors in the housing market, and what we want to try and ensure is that the composition of housing includes more owner occupiers because we want more young people to enter the housing market, to have the same opportunities as you had. That is what this is about. What we are also combining it with is tax reform that delivers more for working Australians—again, something those opposite— (Time expired)

Honourable senators interjecting—

I am waiting for silence again. Senator Hume, a second supplementary?

According to his own budget documents, the Prime Minister is forcing low-income Australians to pay thousands in extra tax and closing the door on opportunities he used to young Australians. Isn't it clear that this budget is nothing but a shameless tax grab which denies opportunity for young Australians to get ahead?

Honourable senators interjecting—

I wait for silence. Senator Hume, you have asked your question.

Senator Cash, you should not be talking to anyone.

What I would say to those opposite about tax is not only does this budget contain a new tax cut for every working Australian but the combination of the tax cuts that this government is delivering is around $2,800 to someone on the average income, and that stands in stark contrast to Senator Hume, who went to the last election promising Australians higher taxes.

Senator, you may shout and wiggle your finger at me and look down your nose at me, but you will never be able to run away from the fact you are 'higher taxes Senator Hume'. That is what you are, and you will always be.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Well, that was a pretty disgraceful response; so disgraceful that it was impossible for me to get order because all of you were interjecting.

My question is to Minister Gallagher. Minister, your government's budget cut $180 billion—in fact, $185 billion—from the NDIS over the decade, the largest reduction to a government program in living memory. Are you proud that your government is making 10 times more from the defunding of disabled people than it is taking from the ultrawealthy property investors?

I thank Senator Steele-John for the question. I do think it has been an important budget to ensure the ongoing sustainability of the NDIS. I've been around a while, and, when the NDIS was originally established, the information available to everyone was that at full rollout it would annually cost in the order of $13 billion and that it would assist and support in the order of 460,000 people. Where we are now, some years down the track, is that the scheme is exceeding $50 billion and, outside of the age pension, is the largest social program in the country. Without taking action, and at the current growth rates, it would exceed $70 billion. I think—and the government's taken the view—that if that is allowed to continue then the sustainability of the scheme will be in question.

Yes, we have taken some really hard decisions. A lot of work has been done by Senator McAllister, along with the Minister for Health and Ageing, to look at how we can protect the scheme, return it to its original focus but also, importantly, Senator Steele-John, rebuild the system outside the NDIS, and there are investments in this budget to do that.

At the moment, if you are not in the NDIS and you need extra support, it doesn't exist unless you have dollars to pay for it. That is a problem. Again, we can put our heads in the sand and say, 'We'll leave that as a problem for somebody else down the track,' or we can sit down and try and work out how we return the NDIS to its original intention, idea and program. It's quite different to that now. Anyone who has watched the NDIS understands that. Yes, we need to focus on compliance and all the other issues, but we need to deal with these big challenges as well. (Time expired)

Senator Steele-John, first supplementary?

Minister, when governments have previously changed the NDIS, they have assured the disability community that no-one would be worse off. Can you guarantee today that no disabled person will lose support, receive less support or be left worse off under your government's changes?

This budget tries to deal with those reforms in two ways. In the first way, it tries to manage the growth of the scheme immediately, and some of that is to do with plan inflation and the reassessments of plans. Then there's a second piece of work around how we manage some of the other changes that are going to be required in the NDIS. I know that, under the leadership of Senator McAllister and the Minister for Health and Ageing, that will be done in consultation with the disability community.

Senator Steele-John?

On relevance, my question was very clear: 'Will you guarantee that no-one will be worse off?' I would draw the minister's attention to answering that basic question.

Thank you, Senator Steele-John. The minister is being relevant to the question you asked.

In terms of people's needs for day-to-day support and disability support, we are about protecting that and making sure that the budget can fund that in an ongoing sense. At the moment, the scheme is growing and has been growing much faster than anyone expected, and we need to deal with that. I think the failure to do so would put at risk the NDIS as a program. (Time expired)

Senator Steele-John, second supplementary?

Minister, we understand that the government's so-called Thriving Kids program is intended for children under nine. Your government has been silent on what will happen to autistic teenagers and adults. Many autistic adults and teenagers are wondering whether they will be part of the 160,000 your government intends to kick off the scheme. What alternative supports will you fund for autistic adults and teenagers in this budget?

We have made provisions in order to rebuild the system that exists outside the NDIS, and I can speak about this because I know it personally; my daughter has spoken about this. Outside the NDIS, for young autistic people that need an extra hand there is very little offered that doesn't cost money. Unless you have money, you're not going to be able to go and get the supports you need, so part of our motivation is to make sure the system that exists outside the scheme is there to help people and support people. They may need more or less support at a particular point in time or may need a particular program. That is exactly what we want to rebuild. The system outside the NDIS used to exist. It doesn't exist anymore. We've got to rebuild that, and Senator McAllister and Minister Butler will consult on that, and there are provisions in the budget for that.

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Housing, Senator Ayres. Building more homes and making housing fairer have been key focuses of the Albanese Labor government. Yesterday, the government announced further decisive action to help more Australians into homeownership. Minister, how will the measures in the budget help more Australians buy their own home, and what will be the impact on housing supply?

Thank you very much, Senator Brown. This budget is landmark Labor reform. This is a government that, in this budget, isn't doing the easy or convenient thing. We are doing the right thing for Australians, particularly young Australians, by getting more Australians into their own homes. Too many young Australians know that the system is weighted against them. We have made decisions in this budget to fix up those problems. Those opposite have said that they're going to take that away from young Australians. They're going to take those opportunities away from young Australians—

Jack's paying more tax under you!

Don't you worry about Jack's tax; I'd worry about Jane's tax if I were you.

That is why we are levelling the playing field for young Australians in this budget. The changes to the capital gains tax and negative gearing remove that unfair disadvantage. That's what they do. That's what people want out of their parliaments and their governments—to act in their interests. That inequity is something that Australian first home buyers, particularly young people, have faced for far too long. Carve-outs in the tax changes for new homes will drive housing investment towards new supply. I would have thought that's something that the coalition would have understood. We're investing a further $2 billion in infrastructure, along with our friends in the states, to unlock tens of thousands of new homes. That's what that will do—pipes, pavements and powerlines to power the homes of the future.

Honourable senators interjecting—

I'm waiting for silence. The running commentary, particularly of those on the front bench on my left, at the end, needs to stop. Senator Brown, first supplementary?

Over the last four years, the Albanese Labor government has prioritised building more homes, with a particular focus on social and affordable homes. Minister, what progress has the government made in delivering more homes, and how does greater housing supply benefit both homebuyers and renters?

Just a moment, Minister Ayres. Senator Bragg, you are one of the people I was referring to, and I expect you to listen in silence. If you can't, I invite you to leave the chamber.

I'd prefer he stayed for all of this, President, if he could—he might pick up on a few things! More than anybody else, Senator Bragg has hampered and undermined the government's efforts to build new homes. Despite his efforts, leading the Liberals on this issue into a cul-de-sac—

Senator Bragg, you might think it's humorous, but I have just called you to order. I've invited you to leave the chamber. You are not in a debate with me and you are not in a debate with the minister. This is question time.

I'm trying to help.

Senator Bragg, I will name you if you keep disrespecting my direction, and my direction is that you sit in silence or you leave the chamber. That's the choice you have.

I shouldn't have wound him up. The truth is more than 660,000 homes have been built since we came to office. Housing starts are up 26 per cent since last year.

What about completions?

Well, I'll give you a tip. In order to complete a house, you've got to start the house. That's the order of the process; that's the way it works. Completions are up too. We're delivering 55,000 affordable new homes under those programs, with more than 6,000 of those already built. (Time expired)

Senator Brown, a second supplementary?

The Albanese Labor government is committed to making housing fairer, particularly for renters and people struggling to buy their first home. What are some alternative views in the community about housing policy?

We know all about Senator Bragg and his colleagues' views. They're not a surprise—disappointing but not a surprise. What surprised me is how much the One Nation party once again just sound like the poor, old Liberals.

You sound like the Greens!

Order!

It's that kind of thinking, Senator Cash, that's got you into the strife that you're in now. Who needs the Liberals when you have One Nation? Australian voters, certainly in Farrer, have reached the conclusion that they don't need the Liberal Party. At least Senator Canavan was down there, campaigning in Farrer. I saw him. He was in his flannel shirt.

Opposition senators interjecting—

Minister Ayres.

I'll give you a tip, Senator Canavan.

Minister Ayres!

You don't iron the flannel shirt; you just put it on.

Minister Ayres, resume your seat!

Opposition senators interjecting—

Order, Senator Canavan. Order! Please continue, Minister.

He is 'Senator Flanavan'. You don't iron the flannel shirts before you pose for the picture in the caravan park.

My question is to the Minister for Indigenous Australians. In the Northern Territory, data shows only 17.5 per cent of First Nations children being removed are placed with an Aboriginal family under the Aboriginal child placement principle. Despite this, the Northern Territory government today introduced legislation to further weaken that principle. The national and Northern Territory Indigenous children's commissioners have said these laws should be paused until an inquiry into the system is complete. Do you agree with the commissioners that this legislation should be stopped?

I thank Senator Thorpe for the question. There are two elements to this that I think are really important for the Senate to be aware of. One is that, clearly, the Northern Territory government have embarked on a piece of legislation that they already had in place prior to what we saw—and this Senate gave a condolence motion yesterday in regard to what has happened in Alice Springs. And, with the decision by the NT Children's Commissioner and the Australian First Nations commissioner for children, those decisions came about, Senator Thorpe, as a result of the concerns that were coming through what was happening in Central Australia. I have certainly reached out to the Minister for Child Protection in the Northern Territory, expressing my concerns that unless the minister is working with the First Nations—

Order!

No, actually, Senator Price, that is absolutely not true. No, it's not true. Please have some respect, Senator Price.

Order! You will listen in silence or leave the chamber.

As I saying, what I've asked certainly the Northern Territory government to do in this instance—in reference to Senator Thorpe's question—is to ensure that they do meet with the Aboriginal organisations and both the Aboriginal children's commissioner at the Northern Territory level and the national children's commissioner, which we put in place here because we are concerned about our First Nations children right across Australia. And that is important. This parliament supported that and endorsed that because we know that, by having that position in place, that commissioner at the national level could look out for our children.

Senator Thorpe, first supplementary?

The two commissioners, Aboriginal women and child wellbeing experts offered to lead an inquiry into the system; instead, the Northern Territory appointed a former police officer in this role. What do you think—should this inquiry about Aboriginal families be led by a cop or by Aboriginal experts?

I think what is important here is that there is a coronial investigation underway. There is a police investigation underway. We want to make sure that the words we use do not jeopardise, certainly, that legal investigation that's underway. In terms of the roles of the NT Children's Commissioner and—

On a point of order on relevance, this isn't about the coronial inquest or anything else; this is about the child placement principles.

The minister is being relevant to your question, and I will continue to listen carefully.

Senator Thorpe, what's important here is that the NT Children's Commissioner and the National Children's Commissioner are heard in terms of what they are requesting of the Northern Territory government.

Senator Thorpe, second supplementary?

The Commonwealth has power under the Constitution to override Northern Territory legislation, which has been done in the past with euthanasia. We are hearing calls for another intervention against our people in the Northern Territory, but, with so many laws attacking us in the Northern Territory, isn't it time for an intervention against the racist Northern Territory government instead?

We've heard and seen what an intervention in the Northern Territory has done to the families of the Northern Territory. It hasn't been good. We know that there are members opposite who are also calling for an intervention into the Northern Territory, and we know—

Honourable senators interjecting—

Senator Thorpe and Senator Nampijinpa Price, come to order!

These calls that I'm getting, and this parliament hears, for an intervention in the Northern Territory—to go to the question of power of the Commonwealth. We know the Commonwealth has the power to intervene at any time, for any law, into the Northern Territory, but what we must do here as legislators is be responsible about the power that we have. Just because we have the power to do that doesn't mean we should be using it.

Senator Nampijinpa Price, I have called you about four times. I expect you to come to order when I request it!

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong. How many times before last year's elections did the Prime Minister promise the Australian people that he would not make changes to negative gearing?

There has been a change in policy. The government is upfront about that, and the Prime Minister has been upfront about that. Why have we changed our position? We have changed our view because we look to what is occurring in this country and the intergenerational inequity that is becoming entrenched, and so—

Senator Cash, on a point of order

It is on direct relevance. The government have broken a promise. I'm interested in knowing how many times before the election the Prime Minister said he wouldn't make changes.

Senator Cash, I will entertain your points of order, but they are to be made without statements. The minister is being directly relevant. She has only just started her response, and I will continue to listen carefully. If the minister isn't being directly relevant, I will remind her of your question.

I have heard the question, and I have acknowledged upfront that this is a change in policy. We are upfront about that. This is a change of policy, and we are upfront about it. But what the senator doesn't want to discuss is the why—because they have no substance, because they are not able to articulate a clear tax policy—

Senator Cash, on a point of order?

With all due respect, it's on direct relevance. This is a question I posed in relation to something that happened prior to the election. For example, 97 times you said 275—

Senator Cash, you are making a statement again. The minister is being relevant, and I will continue to listen.

I again say we are upfront about the fact that we have changed the policy position.

Senator, I know that what you want to do is have a process argument, an argument about that, because you cannot actually engage with the policy. You are incapable of engaging with the policy, and you are incapable as an opposition—

Senator Cash, on a point of order?

I'm going to keep trying—direct relevance. The leader of the government is refusing to engage in the question. How many times!

Thank you, Senator Cash. The minister is being relevant to your question, and I will continue to listen carefully—and I'd ask for silence so that I can hear the minister.

Senator Cash, you're entitled to ask me a question; you are not entitled to determine how I answer. I have been very clear that we have changed our policy position, and we are upfront about that.

We have done it because of what the budget papers tell us and what young people tell us, which is that that Australian aspiration—that Australian dream—of homeownership is slipping away from generations of Australians, and we do not wish to stand for it. That is, fundamentally, the issue. You will hear from this opposition, with all the drama that Senator Cash can muster, a lot of discussion about that. What you will not hear is what they are going to do to ensure young Australians can own their own home.

Senator Cash, first supplementary?

How many times did the Prime Minister, prior to the last election, promise the Australian people that he would not make any changes to capital gains tax?

I give the same answer. We did go to the last election with a policy position that we have changed, and we are upfront about that—and we are accountable to the Australian people for that. What we say to the Australian people is we have done this because what we can see—despite all the work that we are doing on housing supply—is that, absent changes that the Treasurer announced last night, young Australians will continue to be locked out of the housing market. They will not be able to build the sort of security that their parents and their grandparents did, and we want them to be able to. That is the difference between this side of parliament and that side. The status quo is not working for young Australians, and you only need to look at the budget paper to look at the extent to which intergenerational inequity is worsening. Well, that is not the thing that we want for this country, and that is why we have put this budget forward.

Senator Cash, second supplementary?

How many times did the Prime Minister, prior to the last election, tell the Australian people that he would not increase taxes on family trusts?

Again, what I would say to Senator Cash is, if you look at what the Treasurer spoke about last night, the growth in trusts has been remarkable, and 82 per cent, I think it is—over 80 per cent of trusts—have no underlying business operations. Now, we have been clear about excluding various categories of trusts, including farming trusts and testamentary trusts, but, fundamentally, if you have a tax vehicle where 82 per cent of trusts actually have no underlying business, what that says is, 'Well, perhaps we should actually think about how we provide equitable tax arrangements for those tax arrangements,' and we have done that. Fundamentally, what this budget does is say we will try and make the taxation of assets more equivalent to the tax that nurses and tradies and plumbers and construction workers and— (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator Ayres. Minister, I refer to reports in the Australian Financial Review that energy ministers are considering rules to require data centres to fully offset their power usage. Is this confirmation that the voluntary national expectations the government released in March will be insufficient to effectively regulate data centres impact on our energy and water resources?

Senator Pocock, it certainly is not. When I announced earlier this year the expectations for data centres I was very clear that that set of expectations that we had would need to be operationalised through the states in terms of planning approvals. We have, in the government, some of this work being conducted by my very able colleague from the House of Representatives. Assistant Minister Charlton has been engaging directly with data centre developers to make sure that they understand that what we require from them is additional electricity generation and transmission investment. Just like we want to see in big industrial electricity investments—those investments underwrite, at scale, additional generation to put downward pressure on prices, not just for their businesses but also for all Australian businesses.

You'll have seen the investment that the government made, along with Minister Crisafulli and the Queensland government, in the Boyne aluminium smelter. A billion dollars from the Commonwealth government, a billion dollars from the Queensland government and $7½ billion from Rio Tinto is being invested in new renewable electricity generation for Queensland. That is a slam dunk for Queensland. It means more generation, more transmission, lower prices and industrial jobs. I want to see—and I'm glad that my colleagues in the state government's energy ministers are prepared to operationalise those principles as they do their important work in the states—

Thank you, Minister Ayres. Senator Pocock, first supplementary?

It's interesting that Queensland is the one state that won't sign up to the new energy minister's rules. The NEXTDC CEO told Alan Kohler on his podcast That's Business with Alan Kohler, which is well worth listening to, that the national expectations were basically the current rules, which have been put on a website. Why have we got such lax government guardrails when it comes to data centres and when it comes to artificial intelligence?

Senator Pocock, I'm not sure I agree with any of that proposition. We've been very clear in both our national artificial intelligence plan and the data centre expectations. The approach of the Australian government is that it is in the interest of Australians that we secure as much as possible of that investment not just in digital infrastructure but in the tech economy more broadly in Australia so we have agency, control, good jobs and a stronger, more secure Australia for the future, but we want to make sure that data centre development delivers for Australian jobs, Australian skills, Australian communities and that the national interest always comes first. That is what our framework is all about. It is in the Australian national interest and in the interest of Australians.

Senator Pocock, second supplementary?

Given that the commissioner of Jobs and Skills Australia has said we can probably expect at least 6,000 job losses due to artificial intelligence in Australia, how is the government thinking about the trade-offs? How do you think about this huge benefit from data centres with the building effort that's taken away from constructing homes, which your government desperately says that you need? How are you weighing up these trade-offs while not actually having clear guardrails or more than just expectations which are the current rules on a website?

Senator Pocock, the data centre expectations are being operationalised. They are reflected in the agreements that the Australian government has reached with a number of these organisations. The data centres and digital infrastructure operators are not the only interests—not the only technology—that we want to see here in Australia. We want to see the tech sector right through the stack being built here in Australia by Australians in the Australia national interest. That is why we are operationalising that in a cooperative way with the states. That is why, when the rubber hits the road in terms of planning approvals, we want to see the states ensuring that there is additional electricity generation so that downward pressure is put on electricity prices.

My question is to the only competent minister representing a prime minister since 2013, Senator Wong. Last night the Treasurer announced Australia's fuel security and resilience package in the federal budget, which will help to immediately secure more fuel, strengthen Australia's supply chains and build long-term resilience. Can the minister explain why acting now to strengthen Australia's fuel resilience is so important?

Thanks to Senator Sterle for the question. Senator Sterle, probably more than almost anyone on this side of the chamber except perhaps Senator Sheldon, understands the importance of fuel to keeping Australia's economy going. I thank him for his work and for his interest in this area, because he's right: last night we saw the Treasurer build on the Prime Minister's early announcement of a $14.8 billion fuel security and price relief package.

There will be $7½ billion to shore up Australia's near-term fuel and fertiliser security through the Fuel and Fertiliser Security Facility. There will be over $3 billion invested to help build our long-term aviation and fuel supply resilience through our own Australian fuel security reserve, a permanent government-owned fuel reserve of around a billion litres. Of course, the government will also lift the minimum stockholding obligation to increase Australia's reserves of diesel and jet fuel to 50 days. And this government, this Labor government, is implementing a landmark Labor reform: domestic gas reservation—a reform that is all about delivering cheaper gas for Australians and shielding our economy from global shocks. The reservation is an investment in Australia's sovereignty and an investment in Australia's economic resilience.

These are all elements of Labor's comprehensive plan to provide certainty today, to shore up supply tomorrow and, most importantly, to secure Australia's fuel security for the future. We all know that ongoing conflict in the Middle East has generated uncertainty in the community, in industry and in agriculture, and we know there is no part of the world that will be wholly unaffected by disruption. But the measures put in place by the Albanese government will help provide certainty in an uncertain world and will protect Australians from the worst effects of global events. (Time expired)

Senator Sterle, first supplementary?

The minister outlined how events in the Middle East are having a particular impact on our region's fuel supply. Could the minister provide more detail about how the Albanese Labor government is working with our partners in the region to ensure regional fuel and energy security?

In our conversations with our partners in the region, our message has been that we can count on each other. The Prime Minister has made clear the quality and reliability of Australian agriculture and Australian resources, including Australian gas. This has been critically important to the assurances the government has been able to receive for future supplies of petrol, diesel and fertiliser to Australia. As a result of our work, we have new agreements signed with Singapore, Brunei, Korea, Japan and Malaysia to help ensure the continued flow of essential fuels and fertiliser to Australia. The Chinese government has agreed to facilitate engagement with Australian businesses on jet fuel. We know we assure our energy security by working with trusted partners and friends, and we will continue to strengthen our international relationships so as to respond to this unprecedented shock to the global economy.

Senator Sterle, second supplementary?

I thank the minister for outlining the ways that the government has been working with countries of the region to ensure Australia's fuel security. How does the Albanese Labor government's approach to ensuring regional fuel stability and security during the current crisis in the Middle East compare with any other alternatives?

Thank you, Senator Sterle. In the face of the worst fuel crisis the world has seen, the Albanese government has acted responsibly and consistently to secure supply, implement relief for Australian consumers, support our industries and show national leadership. What have we seen from those opposite? We know that the Leader of the Opposition, when he was in government, made the call to store Australia's fuel reserves in Texas. We also know that, while those opposite were in power, four out of six of Australia's refineries decided to shut down. We know also that the shadow Treasurer and apparent leadership hopeful Mr Wilson can't decide if his plan costs $80 billion or $800 million. Mr Wilson and Senator Hume are looking to form a coalition with One Nation. Goodness me! Those opposite are so busy fighting for their own survival— (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong. The government has conceded that its higher housing taxes will now reduce housing supply by 35,000 dwellings. How will building fewer houses help younger people?

That is untrue, Senator Bragg. As a result of the government's policies, there will be 35,000 more houses built than in the absence of the government's policies, including those in the budget, and you know that. What I would also say is that you understand there are two issues here. One is the composition of those who own homes, and one is the number of homes. Not only are we adding to supply; we are also determining through the changes we are making—and you would understand this—a different composition in the housing market because we want more owner-occupiers owning homes. It's as simple as that. You know that the way to ensure that we get first home buyers into the market is to level the playing field for them. The problem with your position is that you are insistent that they are not entitled to a level playing field. That is the position of those opposite.

We have been clear that the impact of our tax and other housing policies will increase housing supply by at least 30,000 over the medium term, including through the $2 billion Local Infrastructure Fund, which will support up to 65,0000 homes. In addition, the tax changes that we have announced will see 75,000 additional owner-occupiers over the decade. That is the position that the government has set out in the budget. That is what Treasury is clear in its advice on. That is the effect. The reality is that you on that side are happy with the status quo. Young Australians are not happy with the status quo. (Time expired)

Senator Bragg, first supplementary?

The Prime Minister has used negative gearing for decades to build a property portfolio. Why is he cutting off this opportunity for younger people?

Senator Bragg, you understand that the policy that was announced will enable people to still use negative gearing when they invest in a new build. But we have a situation where housing prices have diverged from incomes and have risen 400-plus per cent between April 1999 and April 2026, twice as fast as average incomes have risen. Now, you might think that's alright, Senator. This is about housing affordability.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Minister Wong, please resume your seat. I'm waiting for order. Senator Bragg?

On a point of order on relevance, President, the question was about the Prime Minister cutting off this opportunity for younger people.

The minister is being relevant to the question, and, if there's silence in the chamber, I will be able to hear the minister more clearly.

I began my answer with a very clear answer, Senator, which is that negative gearing is still available to those who invest in a new build. But the fact that you made the interjection on relevance shows you don't understand the problem, because what I was reading out is the problem. That is the problem. When you have a 400 per cent increase in housing values and they are decoupled to the extent that they are from income growth, then you lock young people out of the market. That is the problem we are seeking to fix.

Senator Bragg, second supplementary?

This is a very simple question. Will the minister guarantee to young Australians that Labor's higher taxes will result in more homes being built?

The budget papers make it very clear that this package adds to housing supply. I want to give you a quote: 'Today it's time to be honest. The tax system is screwing over young Australians. Instead it favours well-off, established interests against those trying to get ahead.' You know who that was? Your shadow treasurer.

I ask that further questions be placed on notice.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

Labor's higher taxes are intergenerational fraud. They pull the ladder up on younger Australians who are trying to get ahead. There are young Australians who cannot afford a home. They are doing the responsible thing. They are saving. They are investing in shares, crypto or other assets. They are trying to build their futures. They're staying with mum and dad or friends for longer. They're house sharing. They're doing all of the things that they need to do to save for a future. Yet last night we saw the way that the previous generation built their futures taken away from them. Older Australians had the benefit of the capital gains tax discount while they built wealth. Younger Australians are now being told they won't get that same chance, and that is not fair. That is definitely not intergenerational equity. It means Australia will have one of the highest capital gains taxes in the world—a tax on saving, a tax on investing, a tax on aspiration. That's not reform; it's an assault on aspiration. It is about shutting the door on younger Australians when they are already locked out too much.

If you see a map of the house prices in South Australia—South Australia was once considered affordable. The unaffordability started going up a couple of years ago, but the greatest hike that has occurred has been on Labor's watch. The steepest hike in the price of houses in South Australia, once considered affordable, is on Labor's watch. The evidence is overwhelming. The evidence is clear.

The government has been spending at its highest level in 40 years, outside of a pandemic. For every $2, they are actually spending $3. This bill is passing onto the next generation of Australians higher taxes. Labor, it's your spending spree that means Australians face higher inflation, higher interest rates, higher taxes and a lower standard of living. That's coincided with your four years in government. Failed economic policies have contributed to that.

Young Australians are staring at a decade of deficits, with the debt bomb forecast to hit $1.2 trillion. Labor's own budget admits their new housing taxes will result in fewer houses and higher rents for young Australians, as if it wasn't tough enough. They're paying more for electricity, more for insurance, more for groceries, more for just about everything under Labor's watch, and inflation continues to rise so there's no hope for them that anything will change any time soon. Labor misled the Australian people when it went the election barely 12 months ago. Your changes, your backflips, are not the first and won't be the last, but this is a huge betrayal of Australians, a huge betrayal of young Australians, who are just trying to get ahead, and they can't do so because of your economic mismanagement.

For many young Australians, homeownership has shifted from being a milestone in adulthood to a distant aspiration. That Australian dream is crumbling in front of their eyes, and you can look at the evidence. Let's look at that evidence. The average age now for a first home buyer is 34 years to 36 years, ballpark. In the 1990s, it was in the late 20s. If you look at the graphs, it has been ratcheting up over the last 40 years. What has happened is that we have seen a decoupling of house prices from salaries. They completely diverged. They diverged under the Howard government, thanks to that interaction between negative gearing and capital gains tax. It supercharged it. After pouring on low debt, the whole thing exploded.

If you look at another metric, another piece of evidence, we're seeing that the national house-price-to-income ratio has rocketed over the last 50 years. In 1985, it was three to four times. That means it took around three to four years to be able to own a home. The national house-price-to-income ratio is now eight to nine times. In Sydney, it is 13 times. When it hits the eight to nine times, it's unaffordable. When it goes to extremely unaffordable, when it goes to 13 times, I don't think we have any language to describe that.

That is the evidence, but you don't need to look at the evidence, necessarily. You can just look at the faces of young Australians. They have lost hope. The longer they rent, the less chance they have of feeling secure and growing wealth, the longer they may stay with their parents in the family home and the less chance they have of meeting someone and maybe settling down and having children. Then we wonder why our fertility rate is in freefall.

This is at the heart of the budget—housing affordability. It is writ large across the sky. This is the issue, and I am done admiring this problem. This Labor government is acting. We are acting in the interests of millions of young Australians, and we have to. The moment is now, and we will fight this out with the coalition, who have said today that they may repeal these changes going into the next election, turning their backs on millions of young Australians who, by the way, are not an island. Those young people live with parents. They live with grandparents. They are connected to their communities; they are connected to their workplaces. Those older Australians are watching what we do in this chamber.

I speak as someone who is a property investor, but I bought my properties at a time when I thought governments were doing their job. I thought governments were investing in housing supply. Unbeknownst to me, over that period when the coalition was in power, they vacated the field. There wasn't even a housing minister for six of their 10 years. No money was put towards housing supply. It's taken this Labor government to invest $47 billion in increasing housing supply. That's the highest it's ever been in Commonwealth history. So, while we take the heat out of the property investment market, we also have to boost supply. (Time expired)

What we've seen from this Labor government is a whole lot of broken promises. And I lament, because I listened to them over there with their talking points, buying what the Prime Minister is trying to sell and what their Treasurer is trying to sell. But this is the highest-taxing government that this country has ever seen, and I have never ever seen a country anywhere in the world tax itself or its citizens into prosperity.

What we've got to remember here is that government has no source of money, and this government has been spending irresponsibly. They have been taking the people's money and spending it on all sorts of folly that has produced nothing for the Australian people. They talk about housing funds that deliver no houses. Those are taxpayer dollars. That is not their money; the government has none. That is the money of hardworking, everyday mum-and-dad Australians, who have worked hard and given over their hard-earned tax dollars. And what this government does to reward them is increase taxes. You don't get to a trillion dollars in debt by accident. You get to a trillion dollars in debt by mismanaging an economy.

Australia is a resource-rich nation. We would be one of the wealthiest nations in the world if we had a government who could actually manage the resources that we have. Instead, we have a government over here that would rather look at net zero fantasies and send Australia into poverty. So we've seen that Australians will pay, over the next four years, an extra $50 billion of their hard-earned money to this government, to be spent on whatever it feels like, whether that's net zero or subsidising Chinese EV carmakers. They are doing all of that. At the same time, they talk about housing supply and how young people and other Australians are struggling to get into the housing market.

What about those poor Australians, those young people who are living with their parents because they can't afford the rental market? The dream of putting a deposit down on a home is long gone. They're staying at home with their parents, and they are saving hard. Those young people are now going to be hit with the CGT and negative gearing changes. So if you stay home with your parents and your parents help you out, you're now going to be hit for that investment property, even if you plan on moving into it but can't afford to. This is the reality of this government. They have pulled the ladder up behind them, and they want Australians to believe there is a great divide, so they'll put the boomers against the young generation in Australia.

It doesn't have to be like that. We are a resource-rich country, and government needs to get out of the way. We need to stop letting 1.4 million people into the country over three years while building a fraction in housing supply. We need to be investing in hospitals and infrastructure. If we want to have high net migration in this country we have to make sure all our infrastructure keeps pace with that. This government has been irresponsible, and then they stand there and say: 'It's not our fault. We're going to spend more of your hard-earned money on trying to fix the problem we have started.' And ladies and gentlemen, for me, as soon as someone from the government comes along and says, 'I'm here from the government and I'm here to help,' we should all be very afraid—and I am very afraid, not just for my children but for everyone out there in Australia, with this government's budget.

The very first question really framed what was going to happen with the opposition questions today. And the very first response from Senator Gallagher, the Minister for Finance, really nailed on the head what this budget is all about. Senator Gallagher said in response to that first question that this budget is about making sure that generations of the future get a fair go. That's what it's all about. She went on to say that the opposition's response to that is to say no. They're already saying no. What exactly are they saying no to? They're saying no to future generations. They're saying no to fairness.

Last night, the Treasurer stood in the House and handed down a budget for the times that we're living through—not a budget written as though the world is calm, not a budget that pretends families are not under pressure and not a budget that says hard things can be left for another day. This is a budget that meets the moment. It helps people now, and it builds for the future. Australia is facing a serious global oil shock caused by the conflict in the Middle East. Australians did not choose this conflict. They do not control the global oil price, but they feel it in the cost of freight, at the bowser and in the family budget. The job of government is not to stand back and hope for the best; the job of government is to act. That is exactly what this budget does. It more than halves the fuel excise for three months, reduces the heavy vehicle road user charge to zero and invests in fuel security, cleaner fuels and stronger supply chains. That is resilience in practice: help now and strength for the future.

This budget is also about workers. Labor believes that, if you work hard, you should be able to get ahead. That is a simple promise. For too many Australians, it has been harder to believe. That is why this budget delivers a thousand-dollar instant tax deduction from 2026-27. It also delivers the new $250 Working Australians Tax Offset from 2027-28. In Tasmania, my home state, around 140,000 workers are expected to benefit from the instant deduction and around 270,000 workers are expected to benefit from the Working Australians Tax Offset. This is money going back to workers. It is a recognition that people who earn a wage, pay their bills and keep this country moving deserve a tax system that works better for them.

That brings me to housing. If there is one issue that cuts through in every community, it is the fear that the dream of owning a home is slipping away, and a Labor government cannot accept that. This budget says that we need more homes and we need to build them faster. It invests a further $2 billion in housing enabling-infrastructure—the roads, the water, the power and the sewerage that make new housing possible. Tasmania will be eligible for $50 million through this fund. Supply is the main game, but it's not the whole thing. The tax system has pushed too much investment into existing homes while too many first home buyers are locked out. (Time expired)

The answers to coalition questions from the government today demonstrated that Australians cannot believe a thing that this government says. Young Australians cannot believe this government when they say this is about equity, because this budget goes after investment and savings across the board. It doesn't deliver anything for younger Australians. It won't make houses cheaper. Saving for a deposit on a home will take longer and will be taxed more. That's what this budget does. It will make it harder for a young Australian to save for and invest in a home. It is killing investment in innovation and it proves conclusively that no-one can believe what this government says.

Remember: they promised before the 2022 election that they would reduce electricity prices by $275. They promised that the cost of living would be lower. They promised a better cost of living. They promised that there would be no changes to superannuation. They broke that promise. They promised cheaper health care, and yet in this budget people over 65 charged up to an extra $1,600 for their health insurance. Forty per cent of admissions to public hospitals are people over 65, accounting for 50 per cent of bed nights, and, of the three million people over 65 in this country, about 1.0 to 1.2 million people are full pensioners who will be charged that extra slug. So much for cheaper healthcare for those pensioners who are going to be charged more.

They of course promised no change to negative gearing. They promised no change to capital gains tax and they promised no new taxes on trusts. It's a pretty comprehensive list, and they've broken every single one of those promises. So, when they stand up in question time and try to run a justification for it, why should anybody believe them? Why should we believe a thing this government says given the trail of broken promises they have left behind them over four years in government? You cannot trust a single promise this government makes.

Last night, Labor delivered a budget of deceit, and young Australians cannot believe this government when they say it's about equity, because it's about raising an extra $77 billion in tax.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to questions without notice asked today.

It was wonderful to have so many disabled people in the gallery of the Senate today. They are here in Parliament House because they are angry. They are angry with this government. They are disgusted with this budget. They are horrified by the fact a government they voted for on the promise that Labor would protect the NDIS has delivered a budget that cuts out $185 billion from our NDIS over a decade. This budget raises 10 times more from the cuts it makes to the NDIS than from the changes that have been made that will tweak around the edges of some of the privileges enjoyed by wealthy property investors. Shame!

There are many moments in politics where people look into Parliament House and are rightly confused, frustrated, angered, repulsed by what they see, but last night's budget and its treatment of disabled people is one of the most horrifyingly immoral decisions that I have ever seen a government make. It makes no sense to make these cuts to our NDIS, to introduce so much struggle into the lives of families and communities that are already doing it tough.

I asked the minister today to give some assurance and clarity to the community. I asked the minister to repeat the pledge that had been made by so many other ministers when they have sought to make changes that turn out to be cuts to the NDIS. I asked them: will they guarantee nobody will be worse off? Nothing—no response; they pretended they did not even hear the question. I asked the minister to give some assurance to the Australian autistic community, to autistic teenagers and adults, who fear they are the ones in the sights of the government in this moment. When the government talks about kicking 160,000 people—at least—off the NDIS, they fear it will be their community that the government comes for first. I asked the minister to detail the supports and services for adult autistic folks, for teenage autistic folks, and what was the minister's response? Well, they said these services do not exist; they were removed as the NDIS rolled out. That is exactly the point: there are no alternative services.

The government has been peddling a myth for so many years now that there will be these supports, that there are already these supports outside the scheme, when we know the reality—that there is so little available for anybody, and when you move beyond services for babies and younger kids, there is nothing. What the government is proposing to do is kick over 160,000 people off a cliff and then promising to build a trampoline by the time folks hit the bottom. Well, that is not good enough. The Greens will continue to organise with the disability community to oppose these cuts. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the response from the Minister for Indigenous Australians (Minister McCarthy) to a question without notice I asked today relating to Indigenous Australians.

The Northern Territory government wants to weaken the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child placement principle, which was a key recommendation from the Bringing them Home report—solutions from the people for the people. The principle is supposed to put family, community and country at the centre of all decisions about our children. It is about not putting our children with strangers that do not understand our ways. Data shows that only 17.5 per cent of First Nations children who are removed in the Northern Territory are placed with an Aboriginal family. That means the majority of our children are being given to white people to be assimilated. The Northern Territory government don't even follow the child placement principle yet they are complaining that it does not work. It seems to be working quite well; they just do not use it in the Northern Territory.

Minister McCarthy says she asked the Northern Territory government to meet with the Aboriginal children's commissioners. How is that working out? It is not enough to just meet with the children's commissioners if nothing is done. The Commonwealth has the power under the Constitution to override the racist laws the Northern Territory are legislating to hurt our people further. Doing nothing means this government is complicit in what the Northern Territory government are doing to Aboriginal people. What's going on in the Northern Territory is genocide.

And, might I add, the minister dishonestly twisted my question, pretending I was asking for an intervention on Aboriginal people. That was absolutely wrong—absolutely, disrespectfully wrong—because the only invention I'm talking about is her intervening in the genocide that the Northern Territory government are committing on Aboriginal people every day. Have a look at the statistics. All I want is for the minister to stand up for our people for once. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science (Senator Ayres) to a question without notice I asked today relating to data centres.

The question was around the statement of expectations that the government has set for data centres, and it goes to the bigger concern amongst the community that the current Labor government is not meeting Australians' expectations when it comes to regulating artificial intelligence and the huge growth in data centres in this country. To simply say that we have a statement of expectations, which one of the largest data CEOs says is essentially just what the current rules are, and to simply whack that on the website and say, 'There is our statement of expectations. We're doing our job,' doesn't cut it.

I know so many experts are concerned and I think people in the broader community are really concerned about a government that seems to be asleep at the wheel when it comes to the AI freight train that is coming at us. You have the Commissioner of Jobs and Skills Australia saying that 600,000 Australians will likely lose their jobs. There has been no modelling that we know of to actually look at the implications of that in terms of tax and in terms of unemployment.

We have to do better. This is a huge change that is coming at us very fast, and it doesn't cut it for the government to simply say, 'Well, at least we'll have data centres. You know, it's good for the country. We're seeing investment.' Take Microsoft, who have made a $25 billion investment in Australia. As I said yesterday, they paid two per cent tax on revenue here in Australia. These big tech companies are very good at minimising their tax, and they're laying off workers. In the US recently, we saw that 8,750 were laid off. That's seven per cent of their workforce.

What makes us think that investment from these tech companies that results in job losses here in Australia will mean that we win? Everything suggests that we will allow companies to simply displace workers. When you go to Coles, you check out your own groceries. When you go to Qantas, you now check yourself in. AI will displace jobs, and we currently do not have a plan to deal with that, and we do not have a plan to raise the revenue that's going to be required for retraining and, potentially, for mass unemployment.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report as expeditiously as is practicable:

Proposed fit-out of new leased premises—Festival Tower 2, King William Road, Adelaide.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That—

(1) To ensure appropriate consideration of time critical bills by Senate committees, the provisions of all bills introduced into the House of Representatives after 14 May 2026 and up to and including 4 June 2026 that contain substantive provisions commencing on or before 1 July 2026 (together with the provisions of any related bill), are referred to committees for inquiry and report by 22 June 2026.

(2) The committee to which each bill is referred shall be determined in accordance with the order allocating departments and agencies to standing committees.

(3) A committee to which a bill has been referred may determine, by unanimous decision, that there are no substantive matters that require examination and report that fact to the Senate.

(4) This order does not apply in relation to bills which contain:

(a) no provisions other than provisions appropriating revenue or moneys (appropriation bills); and

(b) commencement clauses providing only for the legislation to commence on Royal Assent.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Ruston, I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) on Monday, 23 March 2026, the Senate agreed to order for the production of documents no. 438, relating to the Integrated Assessment Tool and the Support at Home classification system, requiring the Minister representing the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors (the Senate minister) to comply by no later than Thursday, 26 March 2026,

(ii) on Thursday, 2 April 2026, the Senate minister tabled a portion of the documents within the scope of the order but withheld further documents on the ground that it would be an unreasonable diversion of public resources to compile and assess the documents,

(iii) the minister has not produced the following documents expressly included within the scope of the original order:

(A) any briefings, correspondence or advice between the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors (Aged Care Minister), their office and the department relating to the decision to implement the Integrated Assessment Tool in its current form, including consideration of the absence of human override mechanisms for the Support at Home program, and

(B) any correspondence received by the department or the Aged Care Minister from stakeholders, assessors, aged care providers, advocacy organisations or members of the public raising concerns regarding the outcomes or operation of the Integrated Assessment Tool;

(iv) the order has not been fully complied with,

(v) as outlined in Odgers' Australian Senate Practice, ministers are obliged to comply with orders for the production of documents, subject only to a properly made public interest immunity claim and it is for the Senate to determine such claims, and

(vi) the response provided by the Aged Care Minister does not constitute such a claim because the potential administrative burden involved in complying with an order is not an acceptable ground for a public interest immunity claim;

(b) requires the Senate minister to fully comply with the order, including to produce the documents described at subparagraph (a)(iii), by no later than midday on Friday, 19 June 2026; and

(c) any public interest immunity claim raised by the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors in response to this order must specify the particular harm to the public interest that would result from the order being fully complied with.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That the following bill be introduced:

A Bill for an Act to provide for the establishment of an extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging, and for related purposes. Extended Producer Responsibility Scheme for Packaging (No Time to Waste) Bill 2026.

Question agreed to.

I present the bill and move:

That this bill may proceed without formalities and now be read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

I move:

That this bill be read a second time.

I seek leave to table the explanatory memorandum related to the bill.

Leave granted.

I table the memorandum. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

Since the year 2000, the total amount of plastic consumed in Australia has more than doubled, while Australia's plastic recycling rate has stayed the same. By 2050, without ambitious and urgent reform, the amount of plastic consumed in Australia will more than double again.

Based on recent available data covering years 2023-24 published by the Department for Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water (DCCEEW), Australia had a total national plastics recovery rate of approximately 14%, with the remaining 86% of plastic waste recorded in this period primarily being sent to landfill. Globally, just 20 companies are the source of more than half of all the single-use plastic items thrown away, while according to the United Nations, plastics generated 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019—that's 3.4 per cent of the world's total emissions. This is also a number that is set to grow considerably as the production of plastics is expected to triple by 2060.

In August 2025, negotiations to strike a high ambition treaty on tackling plastic pollution ground to a halt and ultimately failed, dashing hopes for a binding international agreement to reduce plastic production and its use. It was reported at the time that fossil fuel industry lobbyists outnumbered many national delegations, scientists and Indigenous groups, and their presence created a profound conflict of interest. Many of the countries committed to these negotiations, such as Australia, have long recognised the need to tackle the toxic tide of plastic polluting our oceans and planet, risking human health. The failure of these negotiations was universally blamed on the large oil producing nations, vested interests in the fossil fuel industry, and big producers of plastic, who all lobbied and furiously undermined any binding regulatory precedent that would reduce global plastic production and consumption.

Whilst it was reported at the time that the federal Environment Minister pushed for a legally binding global agreement during these negotiations, it is ironic that at home the Australian Government still doesn't have any mandated or binding regulatory policy frameworks of its own to hold big producers, brands or retailers of plastic responsible for their products across their lifecycle, from design right through to end-of-life. This applies to many problematic waste streams, not just plastic or other packaging.

Australia is not winning the war on waste, and the scourge of plastic continues to pollute our bodies, oceans and our environment. Report after report, including those commissioned by the Albanese Labor government, has outlined the compelling evidence that our current and historic federal policy framework related to plastic and packaging has failed to achieve its objectives. Across the past decade, the Australian Greens have initiated and chaired three Senate inquiries to interrogate these critical matters of public interest. The deep frustration, and at times, justified anger regarding the ongoing lack of progress to regulate the big plastic producers and make them responsible for the mess they make is shared by a breadth of stakeholders across environmental advocacy movements, the recycling and resource recovery sector, concerned communities and members of the public and, now in recent years, even brand and business owners.

Each of these Senate inquiry reports contained a number of recommendations supported by the community, environmental advocates and waste management and recycling peak bodies. These recommendations, many of them recurring across the years, have consistently been ignored by consecutive governments, resulting in our current state of affairs, which sees waste increasing, more packaging being sent to landfill and recycling rates remaining stagnant.

In 2024, during the most recent Greens-led inquiry into the worsening waste crisis, it became apparent that many organisations which have historically been opposed to, or maintained an ambiguous position on, proposals for federal regulation of packaging, such as the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation, and the Australian Food & Grocery Council, which represent many producers, brands and retailers of packaging, have also now shown recent public support for federally mandated rules and regulations. Visy, arguably the most significant national player in packaging manufacturing, gave similar evidence in support of this during the inquiry. These same groups are also rightly asking why, after so many years of delays, reports, forums, consultations and policy progress in other international jurisdictions, is Australia still kicking the can down the road? Why have we not taken the urgent legislative or regulatory action necessary to fix a clearly broken system?

During this recent inquiry, consistent evidence was raised and questions were also asked as to why Australia hasn't moved beyond ineffective voluntary or co-regulated national schemes, to mandatory and government-regulated product stewardship schemes that hold the producers and retailers of waste to account? In other words, why haven't we implemented binding Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for different waste streams? Resistance to regulation from big producers of waste streams such as plastics is the problem, followed by a lack of leadership and culture at a Commonwealth Government level to both own and oversee national schemes, and drive ambitious change. It is telling that respective federal Environment Ministers over recent years have all threatened to step in and regulate different waste streams, particularly the big packaging producers, if industry doesn't get its act together. But the federal Ministers never have, instead handing responsibility to the states to go it alone to clean up different waste streams, it has been too easy, and a total cop out for the federal government.

The Albanese Labor government came to power talking a big game on the circular economy. However, it's now been 4 years since this government came to power and regulation on such a critical waste stream as packaging is still not forthcoming. With this lack of legislative ambition and action, coupled with each passing report, consultation process and obfuscation at Senate Estimates, it's understandable that stakeholders wanting legislative and regulatory intervention to address the packaging crisis—including many in the waste management and resource recovery industry—are feeling frustrated, sceptical and nervous about whether this will ever happen.

The Greens are introducing this bill somewhat reluctantly—but also out of necessity in the absence of Commonwealth Government leadership and action. This Bill, titled the Extended Producer Responsibility Scheme for Packaging (No Time to Waste Bill) 2026, provides for the Government of the Commonwealth to establish a uniform national Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme for packaging no later than 3 months after this Bill receives the Royal Assent. This EPR scheme would place a direct and legally binding obligation on producers, importers or distributors of packaging for the end-of-life management of the packaging they place onto the Australian market. The EPR scheme introduced by this Bill would also see Australia's National Packaging Targets made mandatory and legally binding.

Additional key elements of the EPR scheme established by this Bill would incorporate several product stewardship requirements and objectives, particularly relating to a primary focus on avoidance and reduction in packaging use, particularly single-use plastic packaging, in the first instance, along with strict eco-design standards and minimum recycled content requirements applied to packaging in Australia. These objectives would cumulatively serve to meet the intent of reducing demand for virgin plastic, preventing plastic waste, supporting the economy, increasing recycling and resource recovery rates, as well as reducing emissions and better protecting the Australian environment.

One significant positive and deeply encouraging dynamic that the Greens wish to note as this Bill is introduced, is just how much support there is right now for federal government regulatory or legislative intervention in this space. A 2024 report by the Australia Institute shows that a clear majority of Australians support regulatory and legislative reforms that would reduce plastic waste beyond what currently exists, including; 85% support for legislated plastic waste reduction targets for producers and suppliers, 80% support for laws phasing out the use of single-use plastics, 78% support for banning plastic which cannot be recycled in the kerbside bin, 86% support for laws requiring new plastic products to contain recycled plastic material, and critically in the context of this Bill's introduction, 81% of Australians think that businesses that produce and use plastic packaging are the party most responsible for reducing plastic packaging waste.

The Australian Greens, the Australian public, environmental advocates and the recycling, resource recovery and waste management industry, the last of which employs tens of thousands of Australians, have always supported and urged federal governments to act on mandating product stewardship or EPR schemes for packaging. These long-standing champions of packaging reform have now in recent years been joined by packaging and grocery industry peak bodies and businesses, economists and major brand owners, all joining the chorus calling for urgent and ambitious packaging reform.

Given the consistent commitments made by the Albanese Government that packaging reform would be a major environmental and economic priority of this 48th parliament and indeed the last, the Australian Greens are hopeful the Government, Opposition and crossbench will seize this opportunity for action, and work cooperatively and constructively across the Parliament to secure these long-overdue reforms.

The urgent calls from the community, waste management, resource recovery and Australian businesses are clear. The time for establishing an ambitious, mandatory and nationally uniform EPR scheme for packaging is now.

There is no time to waste.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

At the request of Senator McKenzie, I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee for inquiry and report by 15 October 2026:

The management, delivery and cancellation of the Inland Rail project since May 2022, with particular reference to:

(a) the reasons for the Labor Government's decision to cease the Inland Rail project north of Parkes;

(b) the escalation in estimated project costs from May 2022;

(c) the governance, management and delivery of the Inland Rail project;

(d) the implementation of recommendations of The delivery of inland rail: An independent review;

(e) the economic, social and environmental impacts of the cancellation of the Inland Rail north of Parkes;

(f) the loss of projected carbon emission reductions that would have been achieved through shifting freight movements from road to rail;

(g) engagement with communities, governments and industry on the delivery and future of the Inland Rail project; and

(h) any other related matters.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Bragg, I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Treasurer, by no later than midday on Thursday, 14 May 2026, all advice by the Treasury on the impact of changes to housing taxes or lower tax concessions (including changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing) on housing supply and rents.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Barbara Pocock, I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister for the Environment and Water, by no later than midday on Monday, 15 June 2026, all documents, including but not limited to correspondence, file notes, minutes and briefing materials, relating to any communication in relation to the proposed Festival Tower Two in Adelaide between:

(a) the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (the department) and Walker Corporation;

(b) the department and any officer of the Government of South Australia;

(c) the department and the Australian Heritage Council;

(d) the Australian Heritage Council and Walker Corporation;

(e) the minister and Walker Corporation; and

(f) the minister and any officer of the Government of South Australia.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Liddle, I move:

That, during the 2026-27 Budget estimates hearings, the hours of meeting of the Economics Legislation Committee from Tuesday, 2 June to Friday, 5 June 2026 be from 9 am till 11 pm.

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Leave is granted for one minute.

It is unusual to plan an estimates hearing by motion in the Senate. Decisions on estimates programming are more appropriately made by the members of these committees, who are best placed to consider the full context of these matters. It is unreasonable for senators to continue demanding additional consideration while repeatedly choosing to leave early. I encourage senators to carefully consider their position on this motion and to ensure that, if it's supported, they use this additional time fully.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Bragg, I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) order for the production of documents no. 441, relating to the Housing Australia Future Fund, required the Minister representing the Minister for Housing to comply with the order by no later than 31 March 2026, and

(ii) the order has not been complied with; and

(b) requires the Minister representing the Minister for Housing to comply with the order by no later than Thursday, 14 May 2026.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Collins, I move:

That, during the 2026-27 Budget estimates hearings, the hours of meeting of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee from Tuesday, 2 June to Friday, 5 June 2026 be from 9 am till 11 pm.

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Leave is granted for one minute.

I refer to my previous remarks about an earlier motion. Essentially, committees are being micromanaged on the floor of the Senate when they should be resolving these matters themselves. That is the normal custom and practice and had been occurring pretty happily. But senators who are asking for additional hours should stay and actually do the hours instead of nicking off early on a Friday night.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Ruston, I move:

That during the 2026-27 Budget estimates hearings of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee from Tuesday, 2 June 2026 to Friday, 5 June 2026, the order of the program for the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing and Department of Social Services be as follows:

(1) On Tuesday, 2 June 2026:

(a) Department of Health, Disability and Ageing—whole of portfolio/corporate matters; and

(b) Outcome 3: Ageing and Aged Care and related agencies, including:

(i) Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission,

(ii) Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority, and

(iii) Inspector-General of Aged Care.

(2) On Wednesday, 3 June 2026:

(a) Outcome 2: Individual health benefits and related agencies, including Professional Services Review; and

(b) Outcome 1: Health policy, access and support and Closing the Gap outcomes 1, 2 and 14 and related agencies including:

(i) Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency,

(ii) Australian Institute of Health and Welfare,

(iii) Cancer Australia,

(iv) Food Standards Australia New Zealand,

(v) Hearing Australia,

(vi) National Health and Medical Research Council,

(vii) National Rural Health Commissioner,

(viii) Office of the Gene Technology Regulator, and

(ix) Organ and Tissue Authority.

(3) On Thursday, 4 June 2026:

(a) Department of Social Services—whole of portfolio/corporate matters;

(b) Outcome 1: Social Security; and

(c) Outcome 2: Families and communities and Closing the Gap outcomes 12 and 13 and related agencies including:

(i) Australian Institute of Family Studies,

(ii) Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission, and

(iii) National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People.

(4) On Friday, 5 June 2026, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing Outcome 4: Disability and carers and related agencies, including:

(a) National Disability Insurance Agency; and

(b) NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.

(5) That each day commence at 9 am and conclude at 11 pm.

I seek leave to make a one-minute statement.

Leave is granted for one minute.

The government has said that the previous two similar motions shouldn't have been brought to the floor of the Senate. The Community Affairs Legislation Committee tried to get a meeting to discuss this, and the chair refused to have one. We have done everything we can not to bring this to the floor of the Senate, and we would ask that, in the future, when committee members are asking to have a meeting to discuss the program, we be able to have one—not going around to other senators who aren't on the committee and trying to ask them if they can change it. We are over. We have tried very hard to do this the way that we should, and we haven't gotten anywhere, so we are using the floor of the Senate, and that is appropriate.

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Honourable senators interjecting—

We are actually voting differently.

Minister Gallagher, please resume your seat. I'm going to remind senators that this is formal motions. Every day, senators from various parts of the chamber seek leave. It should not be an opportunity for a debate. Leave is either given or not given. I'm not entertaining shouting out across the chamber or arguing. The minister has sought leave. Is leave granted? It is. Thank you.

I refer to my previous comments, and I understand. I would encourage all of those issues to be resolved within the committee, including acknowledging the role of the chair.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That the following matters be referred to the Environment and Communications References Committee for inquiry and report by 16 November 2026:

(a) the effectiveness of existing regulatory frameworks in managing the growth of data centres in Australia, including in relation to existing and future deals between the Government and global Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies;

(b) the potential impacts of AI and data centres on Australian communities, industries and the environment, water and energy; and any other related matters.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Hanson, I move:

(1) That the following matters be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 3 September 2026:

(a) the appropriateness of granting tax Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR), or charity status to Equality Australia;

(b) prior decisions of government bodies, tribunals or courts in relation to the DGR status of Equality Australia;

(c) the appropriateness of granting DGR status to lobby groups;

(d) patronage of Equality Australia; and

(e) any other related matters.

(2) That standing order 193(2) not apply to the inquiry.

by leave—At the request of Senator Cash, I move an amendment as circulated:

Omit paragraphs (1)(a) to (e) and paragraph (2), substitute:

(a) the appropriateness of granting tax Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR), or charity status to lobby groups including, but not limited to, Equality Australia and the Environmental Defenders Office;

(b) prior decisions of government bodies, tribunals or courts in relation to the DGR status of Equality Australia and other lobby groups;

(c) any other related matters.

I just note that it feels as though that side of the chamber can't work out—

Senator Hanson-Young!

who they want to beat up on the most—

Senator Hanson-Young!

the LGBTI community or the koalas.

Order! May I remind you, Senator Hanson-Young, that you don't stand and launch into a statement; you stand and seek leave. I called you three times. You completely ignored me. That's incredibly disrespectful when I was simply calling you to order. I remind senators that you do not stand up and launch into a statement. You seek leave. Senator David Pocock, were you seeking leave at the same time or not?

 No.

The question is that an amendment to business of the Senate No. 5 moved by Senator Cash be agreed to.

The question is that business of the Senate No. 5, standing in the name of Senator Hanson, be agreed to.

On behalf of Senator Bragg, I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Housing, by no later than midday on Thursday, 14 May 2026, all documents relating to the appointment of the next Chair of the Housing Australia Board.

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 484 standing in the name of Senator Bragg be agreed to.

I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Attorney-General, by no later than Wednesday, 20 May 2026:

(a) details of all briefings to the Attorney-General, her office and the Attorney-General's Department relating to the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS) and Justice and Equity Centre (JEC) advice that the Australian Government has the constitutional power to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 and set minimum legislated standards for the treatment of children in criminal legal systems, including briefing dates, and who has been briefed by whom;

(b) any and all briefing documents received by the Attorney-General, her office and the Attorney-General's Department relating to this advice; and

(c) any and all internal and external correspondence to and from the Attorney-General, her office and the Attorney-General's Department on this advice.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister for Indigenous Australians, by no later than Wednesday, 20 May 2026:

(a) the following documents referred to in the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) schedule to the Northern Territory Remote Aboriginal Investment Agreement (NTRAI) 2025-31:

(i) the one-off NTRAI baseline data report that was due on 1 May 2026,

(ii) the MEAL Framework that was due on 1 May 2026, and

(iii) the plan on the agreed approach to capturing NTRAI service user experiences that was due on 1 May 2026,

(b) each final report relating to the previous NTRAI 2024-25, that were due on 30 November 2025;

(c) all progress reports and plans delivered under each schedule to the NTRAI 2025-31, including:

(i) the two-year plans for each output, covering the period 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2027, that were due on 30 November 2025, and

(ii) the six-monthly progress reports for each output, covering the period 1 July to 31 December 2025, that were due on 1 April 2026,

(d) the sum of all payments made by the Commonwealth under each schedule to the NTRAI 2025-31; and

(e) a breakdown of each payment made against each associated performance milestone.

Minister Gallagher?

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Leave granted.

The government has already agreed to provide Senator Thorpe these documents along with a briefing. Senator Thorpe made this request late last week separately to this OPD. The government continues to identify, collate and work through the large number of documents that relate to both the Northern Territory government and the Commonwealth. We are doing this in good faith following Senator Thorpe's request. In light of the steps we've already taken to provide this information, this order for production is not needed and a waste of the Senate's time.

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 487 standing in the name of Senator Thorpe be agreed to.

Senator Henderson has submitted a proposal, under standing order 75, today. It has been circulated and is shown on the Dynamic Red:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

"The Albanese Government's Budget is full of broken promises, higher taxes, more debt, lower living standards and fewer homes for Australians, with Labor's economic mismanagement locking the nation into a decade of deficits that every Australian will be forced to pay for."

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

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

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

This is a budget full of broken promises—higher taxes, more debt, lower living standards and fewer homes for Australians. Because Labor can't manage money, we're facing a decade of deficits worth $150 billion, and every Australian will be forced to foot the bill. Australians will pay an extra $50 billion in taxes over the next four years. This includes an extra $15 billion in personal income taxes and billions more from new taxes on houses, small businesses, farms and shares as a result of capital gains tax and negative gearing broken promises.

This budget confirms Labor's housing tax will make the housing situation worse, reducing the supply of homes by 35,000 and increasing rents. This makes it harder for Australians to save for the future and harder for small businesses to grow and invest. These are taxes on aspiration and Australians who work hard to get ahead. Real wages are down three per cent, and Australians have experienced the steepest fall in living standards of any developed country. Unfortunately, there is more price pain on the way for Australians.

Even before the war, Australia's inflation was higher than any major advanced economy. Now inflation is set to reach five per cent this year. Families will be forced to pay more for everyday essentials like fuel and groceries, and there will be more upward pressure on interest rates. Disgracefully, Labor will bring two million migrants into Australia in its first two terms, including 90,000 more than targeted over the next two years. This will make housing less affordable and put more pressure on hospitals, schools and roads.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Treasurer, Mr Chalmers, have gone on a public servant hiring spree with nothing to show for it. When Labor was elected there were 172,000 bureaucrats; now there are 217,000. Under Labor, annual interest repayments have more than doubled and will reach more than $42 billion by the end of the decade.

Labor's budget of broken promises—sickening broken promises—shows $18 billion in new net zero spending, plus money to establish a massive new green bureaucracy—the Environmental Protection Authority, staffed by 700 bureaucrats. This is a job-killing, project-cancelling agency. Labor is giving a capital gains tax cut to foreign investors in renewable energy while raising capital gains tax on young Australians trying to get ahead. A massive $750 million cut for veterans includes a $340 million-a-year cut on allied health services. In the middle of a skills crisis this budget rips out $266 million from Australian apprentices at a time when there are 130,000 fewer apprentices and trainees then when Labor was elected. Labor is cutting Defence spending next year, at a time when Australia faces its most dangerous strategic circumstances since World War II.

On Thursday night Angus Taylor will deliver our budget-in-reply and outline the coalition's plan for a stronger economy and a better Australia. This will be a plan to restore Australia's standard of living and protect our way of life by backing Australians who have a go. The coalition will fight tooth and nail against Labor's new taxes and reckless spending—against Labor's reckless spending which is driving up interest rates, which is driving up inflation and which is making all Australians poorer. This is a budget which has betrayed every single Australian.

I rise to respond to the coalition's MPI about last night's budget that delivered more tax cuts for Australian workers, delivered a fair go for Australians who want to get into a home of their own and strengthened the future of Medicare. In the motion, Senator Henderson talks about broken promises. That's pretty brave from the Liberal Party, so let's go there. This is the same Liberal Party of Tony Abbott, who went to an election and promised no cuts to health, no cuts to education and no changes to the ABC, and then did exactly that. It's the same Liberal Party of Malcolm Turnbull, who promised stable leadership on climate change and delivered nothing but chaos that took this nation backwards. It's the same Liberal Party of Scott Morrison, a prime minister who secretly swore himself into five ministries—a government so full of trust and honesty that the Prime Minister didn't even trust his own ministers to do their jobs.

Senator Henderson wants to talk about higher taxes for everyday Australians—again, crazy brave of her, given her party went to the last election promising higher taxes for working Australians. That was your policy at the last election. If you want to talk about higher tax policies, we have the receipts for what you took to the last election.

Last night's budget was about delivering a tax system that is fairer for working Australians. It is about ensuring that everyday Australians can get ahead for their work and for their effort. It is about helping more Australians get ahead and get a foot in the housing market. This budget isn't about making the easy decision to do nothing. Labor is making decisions to build an economy that delivers greater productivity, an economy that rewards workers and an economy that encourages investment in new housing supply, to deliver more homes for more Australians.

Another claim from Senator Henderson is about living standards. This is coming from the same Liberal Party that went to the election proposing higher taxes for working Australians, the same Liberal Party that had wages stagnating for a decade, the same party that saw productivity stall in this nation and the same party that saw living standards materially go backwards. Bulk-billing rates were practically in freefall under the Liberal Party. They made it more expensive to see a doctor and more difficult to find a bulk-billing doctor in this country.

But most extraordinary is Senator Henderson's claim about fewer homes for Australians. The very heart of this budget is about helping more Australians get into a home of their own—the same Australians who are struggling with rents and the rising cost of living while trying to save a deposit to get into a home. They are the very ordinary Australians we are fighting for in this budget. It is only Labor that is brave enough to take the decision to unlock housing supply and address the structural fairness issues in the housing market.

We have delivered almost a thousand social and affordable homes in my home state of Queensland. We've delivered 62 infrastructure projects to support new housing in Queensland. We've delivered more than 330 safe places across 18 crisis and transitional housing projects in Queensland. We've delivered Commonwealth rent assistance to more than 348,000 Queenslanders. And more than 34,000 Queenslanders have bought their first home thanks to Labor's first home deposit of five per cent. That's 34,000 Queenslanders that Senator Henderson and the Liberal Party would prefer were not in a home of their own. The Liberal Party would prefer that those 34,000 Queenslanders were locked out of the housing market. They would dismantle Labor's five per cent deposit scheme, given half a chance, and would force young Australians to pay mortgage lenders insurance of $20,000, $30,000 and up to $40,000. They would rather see those young Australians saddled with a 20 per cent deposit that meant they would never get a foot in the housing market.

I challenge Senator Henderson and some of her Liberal colleagues from Queensland to go out and doorknock those 34,000 Queenslanders that got into a home thanks to this Labor government's five per cent deposit scheme. You tell them that you don't believe that they deserve to be in that home, that they don't deserve a five per cent deposit—that you do not support the very scheme that they accessed to get into a home. I encourage you to go out in Queensland and tell those 34,000 Queenslanders that you do not support their housing deposit.

This budget is another part of a big Labor lie. Labor told you, the Australians watching at home, that electricity prices would come down. Labor told you that the Medicare card would be all you need to see a GP for free. They told you 50 times that they would not touch negative gearing and they would not touch capital gains tax, and now they are telling you those broken promises will somehow help young people buy a home and live a fairer life. That is the big lie at the heart of this budget. They are asking Australians to believe two impossible things at once: making investment harder for somehow make housing easier, and Labor can break a clear promise and still be trusted. They cannot be trusted. This is a budget that lies and pretends it doesn't tax workers, but it does. A nurse with a rental property is a worker. She's not a robber baron. A tradie putting money into shares is a worker. They are not the enemy. The small-business owner building an asset for retirement is a worker, not a loophole to be closed. What we are looking at is pure class warfare dressed up, plain and simple.

These workers are not the problem with Australia; they are its backbone. But, under Labor, aspiration and success have become something to punish and tax. What is the message to a young couple trying to save and invest? The message is, 'Don't bother.' What is the message to a young tradie hoping to buy a unit and one day turn it into an investment for his future? The message is: 'Don't get ahead of yourself, mate. That's not fair.' One Nation disagrees. We believe in aspiration. We believe Australians should be rewarded for work, saving, investment and risk. We believe young Australians need a real, fair path to ownership and wealth, not a government that pulls up the property ladder and then calls it justice.

Is it fairness to saddle future generations with a trillion-dollar debt and a net zero obsession that costs $100 billion a year and will not change the weather one bit? No, that is not fairness. Is it fairness to allow mass migration to flood the housing market and compete with young people for rental properties and homes? No, that is not fairness. One Nation believes that Australians deserve a government that keeps its word, and what we have over there is a government that does not keep its word. They break promises. They cannot be trusted. This budget is a broken promise, a tax grab and a direct attack on aspiration—aspiration at the very heart of the values that make us Australians.

The next time the Labor government makes a promise, tells you the electricity price will come down or holds up a Medicare card and says that's all you need, remember: this is a government that breaks its word. (Time expired)

Labor senators from Western Australia often come to this chamber proud of the fact that, in the 2022 and 2025 federal elections, Western Australians endorsed Labor. The challenge for WA senators from the Labor Party today is to explain why it was necessary last night for the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer, to turn their backs on WA voters? Why was it necessary for Labor to break promises they gave to Western Australian voters? This is a budget of broken promises, higher taxes, more debt, lower living standards and fewer homes for Australians. The budget is a document that has turned its back on the desperate needs facing Western Australia and families and businesses today.

Let's remind ourselves that it was just one year ago when the Prime Minister was asked whether he would make changes to housing and other taxes. What did the Prime Minister say? He told people he that he wouldn't make changes and the proof would be in the pudding. The pudding last night was a blatant tax raid and an assault on ambition dressed up as ambitious reform, leaving all Australians worse off because this is a government that cannot manage the economy and cannot manage the economy at times of crisis.

I encourage voters to go to one book just to find the litany of lies and broken promises in last night's budget. That one book is what's called the budget strategy and outlook. At page 158, you will find revelations that actually fewer homes will be built under Labor's plan. At page 159, you will find that, under Labor's plan, rents will increase. At page 256, you will find the shocking detail that Australia's net debt levels will tip over $1 trillion, peaking at $1.2 trillion. That's an important revelation because debt is a tax on future generations. Those future generations are young people today, but they will be families and business owners into the future. Then, to demonstrate that this is in fact the highest-taxing and highest-spending government in decades, you need only to look at the historic data tables at the back of this volume. You can start at page 437. That is the reality of the situation. You can't trust Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and you can't trust Jim Chalmers.

I just remind you to use, specifically for people in the other place, their correct titles.

The budget has cemented this Albanese Labor government's position as the highest-taxing government in our history. Last night, we saw Jim Chalmers whack Australians with an extra $50 billion in taxes over the next four years, taxes which include $15 billion in higher personal income taxes. We saw a housing tax, a small business tax and a family savings tax. On housing, the budget papers confirm it. Labor's housing taxes will reduce the supply of homes by 35,000 over the decade. They reveal that Labor's plan will push rental costs up.

On deficits and debt, they say that Labor cannot manage the economy, because we are facing a decade of deficits worth $150 billion and a net debt of $1.25 trillion. The yearly interest bill on that debt alone will hit more than $42 billion, or $80,000 every minute. The most alarming revelation, of course, is that more than $9 out of every $10 of improvement in this budget over the next five years is, in fact, due to changed economic conditions and not the blood, sweat and tears of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Labor Treasurer, Jim Chalmers. This is a budget of ruin.

Senator Smith, I did remind you to use people's titles and you repeatedly did not. So I'll just remind senators that you should be using people's correct titles.

I rise today to thank Senator Henderson for another opportunity to talk about the outstanding budget delivered last night by Treasurer Chalmers and how it will continue to deliver for every single Australian. But, if you are going to stand up in this chamber and say that Australians are paying higher taxes under this government, I think that the record needs to be corrected. Broken promises, higher taxes, more debt, lower living standards and fewer homes—Senator Henderson lays this at the feet of this Labor government. The problem is that she's actually reading from her own report card. That was the combination of their nine years in government and what the coalition took to the last election.

But let's take a closer look at what was delivered last night on taxes. Every single Australian working taxpayer received a tax cut from this budget. That is 13.3 million workers. An average worker will be up to $2,816 better off every year by 2028. Over a working life, the average Australian earner will pay up to $38,977 less in tax compared with where we were sitting in 2023. So it feels as though someone's calculator must be broken on their side over there, because that doesn't equal higher taxes to me. I don't know what budget Senator Henderson was reading.

On debt, gross debt peaks lower, peaks earlier and is lower in every year for the next 11 years compared with what we inherited. The budget position is more than a quarter of a trillion dollars better than when Labor was elected in 2022. Real spending growth averages just 1.5 per cent for the eight years to June 2030. That is the lowest average growth rate in any eight-year period for almost 3½ decades. For those over there with the broken calculators, that's 35 years. If that is economic mismanagement, I'd hate to see what Senator Henderson thought about the trillion dollars of debt and nothing to show for it during their time in government. But you did get something out of that trillion dollars of debt; you did get those little 'Back in Black' mugs printed.

On living standards, real wages have grown for eight out of the nine last quarters. The fuel excise has been cut from 52.6c to 20.6c per litre. There has been a $1,000 instant tax deduction, with no receipts required, saving millions of working Australians time and money. There are 137 Medicare urgent care clinics—fully funded, free, walk-in, seven days a week, permanent. By July, four in five Australians will be within a 20-minute drive of one. That is what it looks like when a government takes cost of living seriously.

Let's talk about women. This budget is one that benefits every Australian woman. The average Australian female worker, on $68,000, will receive a combined benefit of up to $2,494 per year from 2027-28. The tax changes are expected to boost women's labour supply by 900,000 hours. And there is $182.6 million to address the weaponisation of the child support scheme, because $2 billion in child support debt is owed in this country, and 83 per cent of the people affected are women. This will be life-changing for Australian women. This government is one that sees the need and acts on it. Australia's gender equality ranking has risen from 43rd to 13th since 2022. The gender pay gap is at a historic low. That is not an accident; it is deliberate policy.

For the regional Victorians I represent, the fuel excise is absolutely valuable. They drive further, they depend on fuel more and they feel these global pressures harder. This budget delivers $14.8 billion for a fuel and fertiliser security package that directly supports farmers and regional industries. There is $781.6 million for new rounds of the Thriving Suburbs and Growing Regions programs—money that flows directly to councils and community organisations across regional Victoria. There is $1.75 billion to improve Australia's freight and rail network, critical infrastructure for agriculture and manufacturing for our regions. We've also made changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax that will mean that more Australians can get into a home sooner.

The Prime Minister has said he wants early education and care to be his legacy, but his actions and the actions of his government are telling a completely different story. A legacy is something you build, something you fight for that ideally improves the lives of people. But this budget does no such thing for families across this country. There is no real progress on affordability or access, no meaningful move towards universal child care, and looming pay cuts for 60,000 early childhood educators in one of the country's lowest-paid industries.

After all the speeches, the glossy announcements and the self-congratulations, Labor has delivered nothing that brings Australia meaningfully closer to universal child care. They've spent months boasting about educator wage increases through the worker retention payment, a payment that expires in November. You would think this budget would at the very least guarantee those hardworking educators keep the pay rise that they originally received; instead, under Labor's watch they will face a cruel and unnecessary pay cut right before Christmas—I mean, come on. What a slap in the face to workers who have held this sector together through some of its toughest years.

Last week's announcement of an early childhood education and care commission is something the Greens have been calling for for over a year to address the childcare crisis, but when you open the budget papers there is nothing there—no funding, zero—just more consultation, another talkfest, another press release dressed as action, quite the legacy, Labor, well done. Because if Labor had the courage to take on the one per cent multinational corporations and make them pay their fair share, we could build a universal childcare system tomorrow and still have money left over—not good enough.

Last night's budget made one thing very clear. This is a budget of higher taxes, more debt, lower living standards and fewer homes for Australians. After four years of this terrible Labor government, Australians are working harder, paying more and falling further behind. It feels like everyone is going backwards and that is because we are. Labor has announced more than $50 billion in higher taxes, including $15 billion in higher personal income taxes.

Labor continues to prove itself inept at economic management and has set the record as one of the highest-taxing governments in Australia's history. Labor cannot manage money. Australians are now facing a decade of deficits. Our debt is set to reach record levels under Labor, and this budget shows that debt is only going to continue to grow. The debt is climbing to $1.25 trillion, and every single Australian is going to be forced to foot the bill. Debt is a tax on future generations, and it is those future generations who will pay the ultimate cost for Labor's economic mismanagement.

It was only 20 years ago under former Prime Minister John Howard that Australia was debt free, and now, under Labor, debt has surged and will continue to surge well over a trillion dollars. The yearly interest bill on that debt will hit more than $42 billion—that is, about $80,000 every single minute in interest. That is money not spent on aged care, not spent on roads, not spent on schools and hospitals and other essential services; that is just the Australian taxpayer servicing the debt of this Labor government. Labor's debt and this debt will kill Australian aspiration for years to come. These are the businesses that our children and our children's children won't be able to start, the memories they won't make on trips overseas and the families they won't be able to afford.

Australians' living standards are falling. This budget confirms Australians are now worse off under Labor. There is no plan by this Labor government to deal with inflation; instead, the Treasurer is bucking the trend and the pleas of the RBA governor and is spending more and more money, which means inflation will only continue to get worse. Labor continue to break the commitments they made to the Australian people and Australians have been misled. This is not the budget Australians were promised. The Prime Minister went to the last election promising there would be no changes to negative gearing, saying, 'Yes, it is not that hard, for the 50th time.' They are the words of our Prime Minister when asked by a journalist whether he would change negative gearing in Australia. This is the same Prime Minister who told Australians 'my word is my bond', and last night that bond was well and truly broken.

Under Labor, our children will not be able to own their own homes. The government's budget actively works against your children's future because Labor's housing tax will reduce the supply of homes by over 35,000 over the decade while simultaneously increasing Australians' rents. Their own budget papers say this. Labor has not heard the concerns of Australians when it comes to housing because Australians know that to increase housing supply, you must reduce demand as well.

Under Labor's new budget, migration is still out of control. Their migration target is expected to blow out by another 90,000. This means Labor will bring in almost two million migrants across their first two terms in government. Where are all the houses? Where are the new hospitals? Where are the new schools? Where are the roads? Labor would have driven the country into a recession already if not for papering over the economic mismanagement with excessive and reckless immigration targets. Labor will play this budget off as a win for Australians, distracting them with a $250 sugar-hit tax refund. But Labor's $250 back on your taxes is not a gift. That is your own money that you have paid in hard earned tax being returned to you. Jim Chalmer's budget is an assault on aspiration. What's next? The family home? Your super? Labor no longer has any integrity at all, and we will continue to fight every day against Labor's agenda.

The time for the debate has expired.

The Senate will now consider the proposal from Senator David Pocock, which has been circulated and is shown on the Dynamic Red.

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for investment in nature conservation to protect and manage our incredible landscapes and species, given at least half of Australia's GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature and only 0.1% of the federal Budget is spent on its protection.

Is the consideration of the proposal supported?

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

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with informal arrangements made by the whips.

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for investment in nature conservation to protect and manage our incredible landscapes and species, given at least half of Australia's GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature and only 0.1% of the federal Budget is spent on its protection.

Last week was Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday—a remarkable man, someone who has seen more of the natural world than almost anyone alive. He told us that to restore stability to our planet we must restore its biodiversity, the very thing we have removed. It is the only way out of this crisis we have created. Reflecting on the budget last night, there were undoubtedly good things and some tough decisions made, and I applaud the government for doing that.

But, yet again, nature has missed out. If we look at this through the view of the importance we attach to managing and protecting the natural world, our priority is not there. That is not a priority in this budget. We know that we are in a biodiversity crisis. More than 2,000 species and ecological communities are threatened. Nineteen ecosystems are showing signs of collapse on this megadiverse continent that we call home. Growing up, I used to hear stories from my father and grandfather about what the area we farmed in was like when they were growing up. It sounded like a much richer place—more wildlife, more adventure. I remember feeling a sense of loss and a bit of anger even as a kid—'Why didn't I get to experience that?'

Then you look at the statistics. This is actually what's happening. That was in Zimbabwe. Here in Australia, we've seen a 75 per cent decline in threatened and near threatened species since 1985. That is a disastrous drop. We have an impoverished environment. Growing up, I had no idea that that was what we now call shifting baseline syndrome, where we go into what are still incredibly beautiful landscapes in this country and we enjoy them. The Murrumbidgee River Corridor is a place that I have just fallen in love with since moving to the ACT, but it is but a fraction of what it used to be. There's less birdsong. There are almost no small mammals left along that corridor. Cats and foxes reign supreme. The river is being starved of water. It's in a perpetual man-made drought.

We have a choice as a country. If you just want to look at the economics, there's a strong argument: $893 billion of GDP, nearly half of our economy, depends directly on nature and the services it provides. So, if you don't care about nature—still, if you care about the economy, you should care about investing in the environment. This shouldn't be a left versus right issue. I don't see what is more conservative than actually conserving the environment and protecting our natural heritage. Yes, we need money. We currently spend just 0.1 per cent of the federal budget, $474 million, on protecting it. I think this is both an economic failure and a moral failure.

The Biodiversity Council says that we need to lift that to at least one per cent. If we just took a third of the destructive subsidies in this country, that would solve it—that would be one per cent. This is doable for us as a country. The money is there. This is about priorities. A relatively small investment would be a down payment on our future, both the future of the places and species we love and ultimately our future as a species because our survival is inextricably tied to the environment that we have evolved out of and we rely on.

The ask is for an increase—an investment of one per cent of the budget—and there's a lot at stake. As EO Wilson reminded us:

The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.

Yes, we need money, but clearly we need a change in attitude. We've got to stop viewing land as something that we just own and can demand a return from and view it more as something that we actually belong to and is there not just for us but for everything else that we share it with and for future generations.

I take the opportunity to put on record our disappointment about the budget's commitment to biodiversity and its failure to protect the environment. We think they could have done better.

There is a particular emphasis I want to make in this contribution around invasive species, which is a really big problem for our country. We have so many invasive species across our country destroying local flora and fauna and destroying habitat. I think of my own experience growing up in northern Victoria seeing the impact of the European carp and how the European carp would eat the small native fish and even some of the other introduced species which were not causing any great damage. I note your enjoyment of this contribution, Senator Ayres. It's a small example of a much bigger problem for our environment and our economy, particularly when you think about some of the bigger problems, like the fire ants in Queensland which offer a significant threat to human life as well as the ecosystem that we all rely upon. That's why the 2026 budget's failure to provide the right sort of funding in the invasive species space is particularly disappointing.

The government have rebranded the Saving Native Species fund as Protecting Australia's Native Species, but there appears to be a 27 per cent fall in funding, from $64 million to $46 million, and that then provides uncertainty around fire ant eradication, for example. That is, of course, a huge concern for people in Queensland. It also creates uncertainly for deer eradication in World Heritage zones, yellow crazy ant control and feral cat eradication on Kangaroo Island. These all need sustained focus. Minister Ayres, I'm enjoying your smirking there, but these are serious issues. The rabbits cost $197 million. Almost everyone who's got an interest here is saying that there's not enough certainty on the funding, and we want to see from this government a long-term commitment to the eradication of these invasive species. We also note that the national rabbit coordinator expires in late 2026. There's no replacement funding in sight there for the rabbits. The agriculture portfolio overall faces almost $200 million in cuts. These are serious issues for our future.

We note the budget removes a significant amount of funding, and it doesn't have the certainty that is needed to provide the eradication, which takes many years. It would be no surprise to you, Minister Ayres, on the point I made before, about European carp, that this is still a major issue in the waterways of the Murray-Darling and in other parts of Australia. These things take decades to get rid of. That's why putting it on an annualised basis, where governments look to nickel and dime these programs, creates great uncertainty for people who are worried about our environment. Farmers and the like all have genuine concerns about the funding profile here.

We want to see a stronger commitment, over the next year, from the government on these issues. We will of course be considering our own program on this in terms of a funding envelope and also a policy that is a serious policy that can be put against all these different invasive species. The government so far have had a terrible record here. We want them to do better, and we'll be encouraging them to do better.

Protecting Australia's environment is essential to our future. Our incredible landscapes and unique and magnificent ecosystems are vital to Australia. They're vital to life on this continent. Our environment is important to our economy. Our environment is loved and enjoyed by Australians around the country. I love and enjoy our environment. I cherish time spent in the wilderness. I, as Senator Pocock did, grew up watching David Attenborough. The videotape of The Trials of Life got a repeat run in the Ghosh-Nagarajan household. As an adult, I enjoy bushwalking in our magnificent national parks, swimming at our beaches and fishing in our rivers and oceans.

But I don't agree with the approach set out in this motion. The protection and conservation and management of Australia's environment is not just about cherrypicking a proportion of GDP as a spending amount and then using it as a method of criticism. It's a number selected artificially to create an impression because it's small. But the reality is that this government's environmental agenda has been large. I think it has been the biggest environmental agenda a government has had in this country in terms of its substance, not only in terms of addressing climate change but in terms of those vital reforms we made last year to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. So, while I understand and agree with many of the things Senator Pocock said today, I think the logic of the motion is flawed and I think its purpose is misguided.

But—but—I do just want to take a moment to address my colleague Senator Bragg's comments about the environment. Senator Bragg is a very serious policy person, but he made a number of statements that did not gel with his party's attitude to the most significant piece of environmental reform in this country in a generation last year. He made a number of comments that didn't gel with Senator Henderson's comments on the earlier motion, about wanting to defund the Environmental Protection Agency and not establish or give proper funding to Environment Information Australia. It is well and good to mention yellow crazy ants in some abstract way, but, when you want to address the problems of the environment, you have to do it holistically. You have to do it through a framework that's going to work. Last year, when we were debating and passing these reforms, senator after senator from the coalition stood up and decried them. Now, when Senator Bragg comes in—and, again, I have a lot of respect for Senator Bragg—and suggests they are serious about environmental protection and rattles off some invasive species names and then walks back out, it's a little hard to take seriously.

The Albanese government does, however, take a substantive and broad approach to environmental protection. The government has increased funding for the environment over the next four years in relation to our Saving Native Species program, a highly successful program which ensures that many of our unique plants and animals get a better chance than they had before. These are the same animals that are unique to this country and well known around the world—our koalas and our bilbies. I was heartened to hear Senator Pocock talk about biodiversity and the importance of genetic variance in our environment, because that is something that will ensure that our environment can survive the many challenges that come and are coming as a result of climate change.

The government has taken significant action to try and address the issue of climate change and reduce Australia's emissions, not only through a commitment to a net zero target but through a commitment to significant adaptation in the way we produce electricity in this country and, significantly, through trying to clean up the way we do industry in this country. The government has taken very significant action to protect the Great Barrier Reef, trying to invest to deal with that climate problem and climate adaptation, to improve water quality and to ensure fishing is sustainable around the country and invasive species are managed. Our aim is to conserve 30 per cent of Australia's land and 30 per cent of our marine areas by 2030. Our significant investment in this aim is something that will ensure that species can thrive, that species that are endangered do not go extinct and that species that would otherwise become endangered are safe.

What about the Maugean skate in Macquarie Harbour?

Senator Whish-Wilson, we are undertaking these measures. I appreciate you—

Well, it's knocking on death's door.

are very specifically interested in skate, but they are part of a holistic approach to environmental protection which, mercifully, your party supported last year. We are engaged in a process of trying to make Australia's biodiversity safe from the challenges that are coming down the pike. I don't think that one budget number as a proportion of GDP is an accurate reflection of what is an incredibly ambitious environmental agenda.

It is disappointing that, despite all of the work that this chamber has done over the last 12 months in relation to laws to protect the environment, the government has failed to match the legislation with the investment in nature that is needed. It's disappointing because not only do we know that less than 0.1 per cent is being spent on nature from the overall budget but experts have told us over and over again that, if we want to halt extinction of our native species, if we want to halt and stop the destruction of biodiversity and the loss of biodiversity for good, we actually have to be spending much, much more.

In fact, we should be spending at least one per cent of the overall budget and GDP on nature. That's what we should be doing. That's what a number of the experts have told us. There were a number of budget submissions from organisations right across the country pleading with this government to spend what is needed on nature. One per cent of what is spent across the board on all these other things could have been spared for investing in our environment, saving our native species and protecting our biodiversity—but, of course, it was not. Over and over again, this government, just like previous governments, sees looking after the environment as some kind of luxury, when of course it's not; it's fundamental. It is fundamental to the health of our communities, to the health of our air, to the health of our soil, to the wellbeing of our communities and to the sustainability of jobs in this country.

Rather than invest with what is called for—one per cent of the budget—we saw significant cuts. This budget handed down last night had $4 billion in cuts to the climate transition. That is going to leave Australia's environment in a very, very perilous position. While they cut $4 billion from the climate transition, they forked out $46 billion in fossil fuel subsidies. There is $46 billion going to subsidise the polluters and wreckers of nature and nothing more for the environment itself. It's shortsighted, it's dumb politics and it won't save us from this environmental decline.

Protecting our natural environment—what does that mean? We hear about individual preferences from certain people—be it Senator Bragg and his rabbits, Senator Whish-Wilson and skate or various other groups—looking at one particular element without understanding how important it is to look at this holistically, to think very, very clearly about what the totality looks like. It's not just about that individual piece and individual program; it's the totality. It's reducing pollution, it's improving recycling, it's increasing renewable energy generation to help protect the planet, it's the development of biofuels—and so much more. This government has invested significantly and made a lot of inroads since 2022, when we were elected, and, if you cast your mind back to when we were in government the time before that, we did the same thing. Committing to looking at it holistically and improving the state of the environment is critical; it is really important.

The investments from this government have been in Indigenous rangers, the 30-30 target that Senator Ghosh was talking about previously, Indigenous protected areas, renewable energy, threatened species, protecting plants and animals, managing our feral animals and weeds, greater Barrier Reef investment, the new EPA and better environment protection. There's just so much that we have done and so much that we are still doing, and there are so many plans that we have articulated about that holistic approach.

It's easy for Senator Pocock as an objection politician to look very narrowly at and to think very narrowly about particular issues. I appreciate a lot of the work that you do and a lot of the stuff that you commit to in this chamber, absolutely. But what we have seen over many years—when we were in government last time and being in government this time—is things that genuinely are going to make a difference being slowed down, thwarted or blocked on the basis that perfection is the answer and good is not good enough. If there were no barriers, then protection would be lovely. If there were no hurdles to jump over, no objections from across the chamber, then, sure, let's all go and be perfect. But doing a good job, making progress, is where we're at. Making progress is what we focus on, and this budget is making progress.

Since 2022 we've delivered significant and targeted work to generate real momentum towards reducing and reversing environmental decline. We know that, on the curve over there, it's never good enough. We know that. From your perspective, it is never, ever good enough. But we are committed to protecting our environment now and into the future. And we have been so much more ambitious and so much more successful than our colleagues on the benches across the chamber. But, if we had more support from our objection politicians in the corner over there, then we might well make more progress.

I know that I've wittered on about this quite a lot, but climate change would have been a whole different ball game if people had made different decisions in 2013. We might have seen much less damage to the environment, had those things gone ahead. But that's not what we saw, and so we're always going to disagree on this. It is great to have people pushing the boundaries, pushing the edges—absolutely. That's what helps move things along. But the progress we have made has been significant. There is so much more to do, but we need to continue to make progress. I could cite a whole range of examples here of where I've seen that holistic approach, like protecting great swathes of land so that we can see regeneration. We can see our environment improving in areas where it has been catastrophically devastated. These are the kinds of progress points that we need to look at. These are the kinds of things that are going to make a difference.

As a last point, on Senator Bragg's commentary about the Murray-Darling, later this year and early next year we'll be really looking forward to his support when the issues around the Murray-Darling Basin, following the review, come into this chamber. We'll be very much looking forward to his support.

One Nation agrees with Senator Pocock that protection of the natural environment is a fundamental duty of any government. I do, though, disagree with Senator Pocock on the definition of environmental protection. ABARES executive director Dr Jared Greenville said last December that research indicates that projected land-based carbon sequestration goals for our net zero transition will require sequestration projects across 18 million hectares by 2050. While some of this land is co-used, agricultural land locked up for carbon credits is not environmental land. Inevitably it becomes a refuge for pests which infect local farms and devastate native fauna and flora. Carbon dioxide farming is the enemy of the natural environment and the enemy of food production.

Add to this total the 205,000 hectares of farmland and native forests which are being clear felled for the construction of wind turbines and access roads, plus the land for the 1.25 billion solar panels needed to reach net zero—that's billion with a 'b'. Then add the 20,000 kilometres of new transmission lines necessary to take power from where it is being generated to where it is needed. Each transition line runs through an easement, usually 75 metres wide, of clear felled land. In 2020 the AEMO cost estimate for most of the transmission line projects was $8.5 billion. Now the transmission line cost is estimated to be at least $120 billion and is more likely to blow out beyond $200 billion. Add another $160 billion for wind and solar generators and we have a $350 billion net zero cost being financed with high-cost loans, which in turn blows out the total 35-year outlay to above $1 trillion.

For environmentally destructive projects like Snowy 2 and for most of the wind projects in North Queensland, those transmission easements run through forests of national significance. I've been there, in the very forests this motion is calling to protect. They're the same projects in which so-called green environmentalists are installing wind turbines and blowing the tops off mountains to make space for the huge concrete bases of massive wind turbines.

Here's what I don't understand. Here's a sensible motion about the need to protect our beautiful environment, yet the motion ignores the massive environmental damage from net zero measures. How can anyone look at one of Australia's beautiful landscapes scarred with wind turbines, solar panels, access roads and transmission lines and think: no damage here; this is beautiful. No, it's not. It's vandalism. This is not just happening on land. Offshore wind turbines harm the environment. A new study in Science Advances shows that offshore wind turbines actually warm the sea surface. Turbines slow the wind. This weakens mixing, shuts down upwelling and in turn traps heat at the surface. This changes the microclimate for more than 10 kilometres behind and stirs up sediment which interferes with marine life, including whales. Add this to bird kills, underwater noise and microplastic shedding and the picture is clear: offshore wind isn't solving an environmental problem; it's creating one. This does not even take into account the environmental cost of manufacture, transport, insulation, maintenance, decommissioning, disposal and remediation of massive wind turbines.

One Nation will care for the natural environment. We will ensure that the land is in the hands of the best stewards: farmers. We will cancel the entire project and protect those beautiful landscapes from net zero vandalism, returning land, where possible, to its best use, be that farming or native forests. Unfortunately, we can't put the tops back on mountains. That damage is there for eternity—a testament to hubris and the tragedy of the paradox of virtue. It's the killing of the environment in the name of saving the environment. One Nation is now the party of the environment.

Luckily I don't think Australians are going to get their environmental and climate information or misinformation from an individual, a senator, who thinks the Bondi shootings were a false flag operation.

I just want to state that 0.1 per cent of this budget went into protecting the environment. The Australian Conservation Foundation reported this morning—simple back-of-the-envelope calculations, which all of us can do—that at least seven times more was spent in this budget on damaging climate and nature than on protecting it. I did my own calculations. I think you can total around $10 billion, if you're really generous, that might have gone towards climate and positive nature allocations. But then you look at: the $13.6 billion subsidising liquid fossil fuel use; 153 million fast-tracked approvals for new oil and gas projects; $2.2 billion cut from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water; $46.2 billion on fuel tax credits and rebates for fossil fuel companies; $1.9 billion for the Middle Arm fossil fuel development project; and so on.

The simple definition of sustainability that we teach schoolchildren is that we leave the joint in at least as good a condition as we found it, if not better. How can this not be borrowing from future generations? We know that we have no intention of ever repaying those borrowers if we do this year in, year out. I'm pleased that David Attenborough has been quoted by a number of speakers today. I remind the chamber that he said in his recent film Oceans:

After almost 100 years on the planet, I now understand the most important place on Earth is not on land, but at sea.

And 'If we save the oceans, we save ourselves.' While Senator Grogan talked about some money for the Great Barrier Reef, and I welcome money for the Great Barrier Reef—for the crown-of-thorns starfish project, for dealing with reef restoration projects—there was not a single cent for the Great Southern Reef in this budget, an arguably equally important ecosystem in this country. You weren't interested in the Senate inquiry into the longspined sea urchin—and I understand you have a real issue with the government doing something about that—but that is a good example of what the government could be funding that helps create an industry and solve an environmental problem.

I note also $28 million to facilitate native forest logging under the new environment laws—that is, $28 million to put swift parrots, one of the most critically endangered species in our country, at further risk, or Tasmanian devils. Then we have the Maugean skate where we funded the salmon industry to push species that to the brink of extinction. Come on, get serious. (Time expired)

The question is that the motion moved by Senator David Pocock be agreed to.

I present Delegated legislation monitor: monitor 5 of 2026 of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation and move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I rise to speak to the tabling of the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation's Delegated legislation monitor: monitor 5 of 2026. This monitor reports on the committee's consideration of 184 legislative instruments registered between 11 February and 22 March 2026. In this monitor, the committee has commented on four new instruments.

The first instrument is the Biosecurity (Electronic Decisions–Goods) Determination 2026. This instrument enables decisions under prescribed provisions of the Biosecurity Act 2015 to be made an authorised computer program. Under Senate standing order 23(3)(c) and (m), the committee scrutinises instruments that facilitate automated decision-making, particularly by reference to whether such instruments fetter the exercise of discretionary powers or raise other technical scrutiny concerns, such as limiting parliamentary oversight.

The committee's view is that instruments should not provide for the complete automation of discretionary decisions, but where they do, they should be accompanied by explanatory materials that explain in detail the nature of the decisions and applicable safeguards.

The explanatory statement for the instrument explains that the decisions that would be automated under the instrument are routine and less complex, involving facts that can be reliably established without interpreting or evaluating evidence. The explanatory statement also notes that decisions made by computer program may be substituted with a decision of a biosecurity officer when satisfied that the decision is inconsistent with the objects of the Biosecurity Act or where another decision is more appropriate.

While the committee welcomes these important safeguards, it remains concerned that other protections described in the explanatory statement are contained in policy, business rules and other instructional materials rather than in legislation and, as such, are not subject to systematic parliamentary scrutiny. For these reasons, the committee has sought the advice of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry about how the safeguards outlined in the explanatory statement will be maintained and reviewed to ensure that they remain fit for purpose over time. The committee has also sought the minister's advice about whether consideration has been given to key recommendations of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme regarding the use of automated decision-making.

The second instrument that the committee has commented on is the Electoral and Referendum Regulations 2026. This instrument prescribes authorities and permitted purposes in relation to access and use of electoral roll information and provides for matters regarding electronically assisted voting for sight impaired persons and Antarctic electors.

The instrument contains five provisions which appear to create criminal offences subject to penalties. While the text of the instrument itself refers to these provisions as 'offences', the explanatory statement refers to some of these provisions as 'civil penalty offences' and to others as 'offences of strict liability'. As such, it is unclear to the committee whether these provisions are intended to be criminal offences or civil penalty provisions. The committee has therefore sought the advice of the Special Minister of State to clarify the drafting of these offences.

The committee has also sought the minister's advice in relation to the provisions which impose strict liability. Strict liability offences are offences for which guilt may be established without proof of intention or a similar mental state, subject to the defence of honest and reasonable mistake of fact. The committee's longstanding view is that strict liability undermines the presumption of innocence. As such, the committee expects explanatory statements for instruments that contain strict liability offences to explain why those provisions are considered necessary and appropriate. The explanatory statement for this instrument provides no guidance in this respect.

Furthermore, several offence provisions in the instrument contain defences that reverse the evidential burden of proof by requiring the defendant to raise evidence that suggests a reasonable possibility that those defences are made out. The committee considers that these provisions also undermine the presumption of innocence and should be accompanied by explanatory materials that explain why such an approach is necessary and appropriate, how the subject matter of the defence is peculiarly within the knowledge of the defendant and why it would be significantly more burdensome for the prosecution to disprove the subject of the defence than for the defence to establish it. As the explanatory statement for this instrument is largely silent on these matters, the committee has sought the minister's advice.

The instrument also contains several provisions that provide for the use of personal information on the electoral roll by prescribed bodies for prescribed purposes. While the explanatory statement explains safeguards that apply to the use of this information under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, it does not, contrary to the expectations of the committee, explain why prescribing these authorities and purposes is necessary and appropriate nor whether the Privacy Act 1988 or other legislative or policy safeguards apply. The committee has sought the minister's advice in this regard.

Furthermore, the instrument creates a framework for sight impaired persons and Antarctic electors to register and be assessed for electronically assisted voting. However, the explanatory statement does not explain whether decisions made regarding registration and voting eligibility may be reviewed. Given the potential for these decisions to impact a person's ability to vote, the committee has requested the minister's advice on the availability of independent review and other safeguards. Finally, the committee has sought the minister's advice in relation to consultation on the instrument, as it's not clear from the explanatory statement, contrary to the committee's expectations, what the outcomes of consultation were, whether external consultation was undertaken and, if not, why it was not considered necessary.

The third instrument that the committee has commented on is the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Amendment (Tobacco Laws) Regulations 2026. This instrument exempts the Public Health (Tobacco and Other Products) Act 2023 from the operation of the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act 1997 on an ongoing basis. Under Senate standing order 23(3)(l), the committee scrutinises instruments that amend the operation of primary legislation. The committee has a longstanding expectation that amendments to primary legislation be made through primary law. In this regard, the committee is concerned that, as this instrument directly amends the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act 1997 on an ongoing basis, it limits parliamentary oversight of the amendment and may subvert the appropriate relationship between parliament and the executive. Therefore, under Senate standing order 23(4), the committee draws the attention of the Senate to the amendment of the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act 1997 via delegated legislation.

The committee has also sought the advice of the Treasurer in relation to Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Regulations 2026. Under Senate standing order 23(3)(j), the committee considers whether instruments contain matters more appropriate for parliamentary enactment. In this instance, the instrument prescribes exemptions for certain kinds of employees and payments from the superannuation guarantee framework which were previously contained in part in the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992. The explanatory statement explains that these matters have been moved to delegated legislation to improve readability or because they are specific and technical matters.

However, the committee does not generally consider operational flexibility or legislative readability alone to constitute sufficient justification for including matters previously contained in primary legislation in delegated legislation. As such, the committee has sought the advice of the Treasurer about why it was considered necessary and appropriate for the instrument to consolidate these exemptions in delegated legislation. Finally, I advise the chamber that the committee has resolved to place a protective notice of motion to disallow the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Regulations 2026 and the Biosecurity (Electronic Decisions–Goods) Determination 2026.

I'd like to take this opportunity to note that, while the committee ordinarily endeavours to engage with ministers prior to the disallowance period expiring, this is the first occasion the committee is raising scrutiny concerns in relation to both instruments. However, in keeping with the committee's longstanding practice, the committee has lodged these disallowance notices in order to facilitate additional time for the committee to engage with the minister on the scrutiny issues identified with a view to resolving those concerns. The committee has also resolved to place a notice of motion to disallow the High Court Amendment (Fees) Rules 2026.

It came to the committee's attention that the instrument was mistakenly categorised as exempt from disallowance when provided to the Senate for tabling. As the High Court Amendment (Fees) Rules 2026 is a disallowable instrument and the disallowance period expires today, the committee agreed to lodge a notice of motion to disallow the instrument to provide an opportunity for all senators to consider the instrument and preserve their right to disallow the instrument. I therefore draw the Senate's attention to this instrument and advise that the committee intends to withdraw the notice of motion to disallow prior to the expiration of 15 sitting days. With these comments, I commend the committee's delegated legislation monitor 5 of 2026 to the Senate. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.

At the request of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, I present a report by way of a statement on the draft estimates for the Australian National Audit Office and the parliamentary Budget Office for 2026-27.

I present a government response to the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security on its inquiry into the listing and relisting of eight organisations as terrorist organisations under the Criminal Code and seek leave to have the document incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The document read as follows—

Australian Government response to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security report: Review of the listing and re-listing of eight organisations as terrorist organisations under the Criminal Code

April 2026

Recommendations

Recommendation 1: The Committee recommends that the Australian Government engage proactively with the Palestinian-Australian community, and with Australian organisations that are providing or are likely to provide humanitarian aid or other assistance to people in Gaza; to disseminate guidance and promote an accurate understanding of the legal scope of, and policy limits on, offences arising from the listing of Hamas under the Criminal Code.

Response: The Government accepts this recommendation, noting that Government agencies do not provide legal advice to private citizens.

Recommendation 2: The Committee recommends that, within 12 months of tabling this report, relevant Government agencies brief the Committee on the impact of the listing of Hamas, particularly in relation to humanitarian assistance, engagement with the Palestinian diaspora in Australia, and other governmental activities relating to Gaza.

The Committee notes that it also proposes to seek briefings from relevant non-government organisations as part of its monitoring in this regard, particularly in relation to engagements at the community level between people and organisations in Australia and Gaza.

Response: The Government accepts this recommendation, noting that with the passage of time, it is a matter for the Committee whether a briefing is of assistance.

by leave—I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the MIKTA Speakers' Consultation 2025 and bilateral visit to Seoul, South Korea, and the report of the Australian parliamentary delegation to the 68th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, held in Barbados.

by leave—I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to Singapore and Japan, which took base in December 2025, and I seek leave to move a motion to take note of the document.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone who made this delegation possible. To the committee secretariat: thank you for putting together a deeply informative program. To the high commissions of Singapore and the embassy in Tokyo: your expertise, coordination and on-the-ground insight were invaluable to us as a delegation. To my fellow committee members: thank you for your curiosity and spirit that you brought to this delegation. Australia's engagement with our region is one of our greatest strengths. This visit to Japan and Singapore demonstrates why, but this was not just a study tour; it was a practical opportunity to see how other countries respond to one of the defining challenges of our time: how we care for an ageing population with dignity, innovation and sustainability.

In Singapore, we visited a senior-care centre embedded in a public housing estate where older people were connected to their community, cooking, exercising and spending time together alongside childcare facilities that kept generations connected. We met staff delivering dementia care, rehabilitation and daily support, with technology strengthening care and improving outcomes. We also stepped inside a community-care apartment, a place where elders can maintain independence and care is available as their needs change.

In Japan, we saw another part of the system. We visited a residential aged-care facility where technology is integrated into daily care. Sensors monitor sleep and detect falls, robotics assists with lifting and mobility and workers use wearable support devices that reduce physical strain. We also saw residents benefiting from that support with technology helping maintain their mobility, their dignity and their quality of life within residential care and also within their community.

The lessons here are clear. There is no single model of care; there is in fact a continuum of care. Community based care, in-home support and high-quality residential aged care all have a role to play. We also had some frank conversations about how these systems are funded. In Singapore, there is a clear co-payment model. Individuals contribute to their care, supported by a government subsidies. In Japan, there is a long-term care insurance system—again, with co-contributions from users—with protections for those with lower incomes.

These are not easy conversations, but they are necessary ones because sustainability and fairness matter. Technology is part of that conversation. It can reduce workplace injury, it can support a stretched workforce and it can allow older people to live with dignity and independence. The task for governments is very clear. We need to harness technology in a way that strengthens and supports the care workforce—not replaces it—and to fund systems that are fair and sustainable. This is where Australia is getting the balance right.

Under the Albanese Labor government, we are part of the global shift towards fairer, better and more sustainable aged-care systems. These reforms delivered by this government span the full continuum of care, from strengthening our Support at Home to lifting living standards, accountability and workforce capability in residential aged care. This is about ensuring that wherever an older Australian receives care, they receive quality care.

At the core of these reforms is fairness. For too long, older Australians with the same needs received different outcomes depending on where they lived or who, in fact, conducted that assessment. The Albanese government is addressing this through the Single Assessment System and the Integrated Assessment Tool. Assessments are done by people, skilled professionals, not by AI and not by robots. Human judgement still sits at the centre of every decision. What has changed is consistency. Assessors are supported with better tools informed by data, with more than 20,000 assessments across diverse communities.

Importantly, the government is monitoring the rollout and refining of this system to ensure that people with the greatest needs also receive support faster. This reflects what we saw overseas—different systems but a shared direction—and it shows why learning from our region, understanding what works and building partnership to strengthen us all are really important. Australia is on the right path, and these reforms are setting the standard for what a modern aged-care system should be. It is about ensuring that every Australian can age with dignity, with independence where possible and with high-quality care when it is needed. That is what this government is delivering.

Question agreed to.

by leave—On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, I present the report of the committee on its delegation to the United Kingdom and Poland, which took place from 9 to 15 November 2025. I seek leave to move a motion to take note of the document.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

This report is not simply a record of meetings and engagements. It is a clear reminder of the strategic environment Australia now faces and the importance of strengthening our alliances in an increasingly uncertain world. The delegation had three central objectives: to deepen bilateral relationships, to advance understanding of the Australia and United Kingdom nuclear powered submarine partnership under the Geelong treaty and to examine international cooperation in support of Ukraine.

What emerges from this report is a consistent and sobering message. Our partners in both the United Kingdom and Poland see the global security environment in much the same way we do. They recognise that Russia's war in Ukraine is not an isolated conflict. It is part of a broader contest that has implications far beyond Europe, including in our own region, the Indo-Pacific. That shared understanding matters because alliances are not built on words alone; they are built on common purpose, shared threat assessments and a willingness to act together.

In the United Kingdom, we observed Australian Defence Force personnel training Ukrainian forces in trench warfare and drone operations. This was not theoretical; it was practical cooperation in helping Ukraine defend its sovereignty. One moment in particular stands out. A Ukrainian officer spoke of the psychological toll of drone warfare—how even the sound of drones continues to affect veterans long after they have left the battlefield. It is a stark reminder that modern warfare is not only physical but also psychological, technological and relentless.

We also attended Remembrance Day services in London. They are important moments to reflect on the service and sacrifice of Australians across generations. The day reinforces a simple truth: the freedoms we enjoy today are underpinned by those who have served and those who continue to serve.

A central focus of this visit was cooperation under AUKUS and the Geelong Treaty. What we heard clearly was that success will depend not just on capability but on people. Workforce constraints, skills shortages and barriers to mobility were all identified as real challenges, particularly in long-term projects such as submarine construction. If we are serious about delivering AUKUS then we must be equally serious about building the workforce and industrial base to support it.

We also engaged with industry leaders through a bilateral economic roundtable, where the benefits of the Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement were reinforced. At a time of global uncertainty, strong trade relationships with trusted partners are essential.

In Poland, we gained a direct and powerful insight into the reality of Russia's war on Ukraine. We heard from Polish and Ukrainian ministers about the scale of the challenge, both military and humanitarian. Poland is now spending close to five per cent of its GDP on defence; Ukraine, in the midst of conflict, is spending close to 40 per cent. These figures reflect the seriousness of the threat and the scale of the response that is required. We also heard about hybrid warfare, cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns and threats to food and infrastructure capacity. These are not distant concepts. They are part of the modern strategic environment and are increasingly relevant to Australia.

Perhaps most striking was the resilience of the Ukrainian people themselves. At the ReBuild Ukraine conference in Warsaw, we witnessed a country determined to not just survive but rebuild, even in the midst of a conflict. Australia's contribution—over $1.3 billion in military and humanitarian assistance—has not gone unnoticed. It's not just solidarity. It's an investment in the rule-based international order, an order that underpins our own security and prosperity. There is also a deep historical connection. Australian and Polish forces stood together in Tobruk during the Second World War. Today, that partnership continues, grounded in shared values.

This report reinforces a clear message: Australia cannot afford to be passive in the face of growing global instability. We must strengthen our alliances, we must invest in our capabilities and we must remain steadfast in our support for those that defend our sovereignty and the sovereignty of other nations. In doing so, I commend this report to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

On behalf of the Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories, I table the 2026-27 regional budget statement.

I table documents relating to 12 orders for the production of documents as listed in the document available in the chamber.

The President has received letters nominating senators to be members of a committee.

by leave—I move:

That Senators Babet, Lambie and David Pocock be appointed as participating members of the Select Committee on Productivity in Australia.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

The Australian Government is committed to protecting Australians from dangerous fake goods and protecting the rights of genuine businesses from fraud and intellectual property theft.

This change toughens existing regulatory measures that exist to deter and penalise those who bring counterfeit items into the country. In the 2024-25 financial year, over 700,000 individual counterfeit items were seized at the border. Had the items been genuine, their estimated value is over $35m.

The Customs Legislation Amendment (False Trade Marks Infringement Notices) Bill 2026 will create a new strict liability offence for importing goods with false trade marks—that is, counterfeit goods. This will bring the importation of counterfeit goods within scope of the Infringement Notice Scheme under the Customs Act 1901 as administered by the Australian Border Force.

The Bill also includes amendments of the Customs Regulation2015 that enable Australian Border Force officers to issue infringement notices as an alternative to prosecution for the new offence.

As a strict liability offence, only the physical element of the offence must be proven. This aligns this reform with existing laws in the Copyright Act 1968 which already contains a strict liability offence for breaches of copyright.

This reform is necessary as counterfeit products pose a significant consumer safety risk. Any goods can be counterfeited, and the potential for harm from consumer goods, such as phone chargers, beauty products, pharmaceuticals or vehicle parts, is severe. Those who import commercial quantities of high-risk consumer products will be targeted by the new laws.

Consumers buying counterfeit and pirated goods are not only receiving a flawed and potentially dangerous product but are also supporting the black market. The sale of counterfeit and pirated goods is often linked with the funding of criminal enterprises.

Making the importation of counterfeit goods an infringeable offence would allow the Australian Government to directly impact the profits of counterfeiters. This would provide an additional deterrent alongside the current process of civil litigation.

Any infringement action would only occur after importers of counterfeit goods have been identified through the existing compliance process. When products are seized, the Australian Border Force officer has discretion to levy an infringement notice, taking into consideration factors such as first-time offences, genuine mistake of fact, quantity of goods and the type of goods.

Alongside the proposed changes, the Australian Border Force has already put in place complementary measures to request evidence of legitimacy if individuals want to claim their seized goods back. There will be no new regulatory impacts on lawful importers or border industry as part of this Bill.

This reform will support Australian businesses by protecting their legitimate intellectual property rights. This reform will support a more prosperous and reputable retail sector and retain consumer confidence in Australian retailers and products.

This is a change that Australian trade mark owners have called for more deterrents for counterfeiters from importing fraudulent goods, and to reduce the financial burden small and medium businesses must bear of bringing expensive civil litigation. The Australian Government is listening to the needs of legitimate businesses, and ensuring their interests are protected and not undercut by importers who bring fake products that fail Australian safety standards.

This change will support the Government's priorities of growing the Australian economy and supporting Australian businesses by implementing a means to further combat the economic, community safety and criminal risks of the trade in counterfeit goods.

Debate adjourned.

I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Economics References Committee for inquiry and report by 15 September 2026:

The extent and impact of foreign influence in Australia's critical infrastructure sectors,

with particular reference to:

(a) the nature, scale and sources of foreign ownership, investment and control in critical infrastructure, including energy, water, telecommunications, ports and transport assets;

(b) the adequacy of existing regulatory frameworks, including the role of the Foreign Investment Review Board, in identifying and mitigating risks to Australia's economic sovereignty and national interest, including reviews of the 'National Interest Test' used by the Foreign Investment Review Board to assess and advise on referred matters;

(c) the potential economic impacts of foreign influence, including effects on competition, pricing, supply chain resilience and long-term investment outcomes;

(d) risks to regional communities, strategic industries and essential services arising from foreign control or influence over infrastructure assets;

(e) the effectiveness of transparency, disclosure and compliance mechanisms relating to foreign investment and ownership; and

(f) any other related matters.

As we are getting down to the nitty-gritty, we're seeing the effect of the war in the Middle East on supply chains throughout the world. It's something we saw in COVID. We are at the end of a very long dependency line right throughout the world. This involves our critical infrastructure as well. If we are not the sovereign holders of our own infrastructure—if we are not the person that makes the final decision—we are at risk of losing access to the key things that keep this country strong and that keep this country operating. Whether it be transport, whether it be ports or whether it be electricity—whether it be any service—these are the key things that keep a nation strong. Sovereignty is the definition of not being at the behest of others but being able to make your own decisions without coming under duress.

As the rule of law around the world is diminishing to the rule of power, I have been approached by numerous organisations, some partly owned by foreign companies or foreign countries, that are seeing an increasing reach down from ownership into the management of their businesses to a level that they have never seen before. This is not always welcome. This is the real risk of what can happen if the basis of law throughout the world goes down and we move to a power based world. That is not good enough for Australia. What I am looking at is to move this to the committee where we can look at these things—the transport sector, airports, ports, electricity holders and so many things—and work out if this is in the best interests of our country.

We welcome investment. It builds services and things, it employs people and it gives us what we want. But do we want the influence? In some cases, the answer will be, 'Not a problem. There is no issue in the world,' because it's not targeting any one nation and it's not targeting any group or ownership structures. It's targeting the very influence right throughout it. I can tell you that there are two specific countries that I have been approached about, and they couldn't be further apart on the spectrum in the world order. They are very different in what they do.

It is no longer good enough for us to trust just our security services to look after the protection of our nation. Every board, every management structure and every CEO across this nation is being put under increasing pressure as countries look to protect their own interests. Australia is no different. If we are not out there with a strong country, with strong systems and with strong companies that can stand up to this, we can lose everything we have. We found out that more than half of the CCTV cameras around military bases could be controlled by other people, and they had to be replaced. We're talking about cars being able to be turned off. We're seeing all throughout the world that we're not masters of our own domain.

All I am asking is for a referral to the committee to examine this in depth over time. I'm not being alarmist. I'm not saying we have to change this. I'm not going out there beating the doors. We've seen the commitment by this government. They have gone silent lately about the sale of the Port of Darwin and the concerns around that.

If we are so concerned about an infrastructure piece that the government is moving forward with the compulsory disposal of that—although it has gone quiet; I'm wondering whether that's still on the agenda—why are we not concerned by other things, not necessarily owned by the same country but owned by other organisations? Is it in our interests to have our water, in our productive use, owned by super funds of other nations? Is it good to have our electricity distribution owned by corporations of other nations?

As I said, we welcome the investment, but if the control is being increased and the fingers are reaching down, simply because the world has turned into a different world than it was 10 years ago, then we need to be ready for it. And if we are not examining that, we run the exact risk we're running now on the fuel supply. If we are not prepared for the changes and for things to happen when they happen, we'll be playing catch-up—just as we are on oil, just as we are on power, and just as we were during COVID on our medicine and safety supply chains. We can go one of two ways. We can say, 'She'll be right,' and do nothing, or we can actually start making plans for what we should do and for weaknesses we have.

I like to quote, and I'll quote again from Sun Tzu: 'Prevention of defeat lies in oneself.' We have no-one to blame for being weak except ourselves. And if we say no to this, if we say, 'Nothing to see here; we'll move it aside'—I'm not out there ringing alarm bells; it is a safety check, an audit, a check-up on Australia's sovereignty, on the strength of our country, the strength of our services—and if something happens, that is on us. I am sick of sitting in a parliament, sitting in an organisation where things happen and we blame other people: the price of this is on Ukraine; the price of that is on the Middle East. For any action, we always blame someone else. It is time to take responsibility and own these things ourselves.

If we say no—and I can count, and I think the chances are that we will say no to this referral today—the next thing that happens because of foreign influence is on this parliament. It's not on any country or any organisation that tends to do it. We've already had all sorts of fingers reaching down, for the first time last year, and the government was strong on this—the IRGC involvement in attacks in Australia. We are seeing governments and organisations doing more, being more active, having more influence in Australia. So it will be on the government, it will be on those who vote against this, if we do nothing and things happen to our infrastructure. So I urge the Senate to support it. It is not an alarm bell. I have been approached, as I said before, by people on boards and CEOs of organisations in this country who are concerned and who have reached out to agencies of this government for assistance. That is the level of concern they have. They are reaching out to agencies, between our security organisation and our Home Affairs, to gather assistance, to get the resources for this, because it has never happened before and they aren't comfortable.

I thank the Senate for their time. I urge their support. All I want is an Australian community that can stand on its own when times get tough, because we're increasingly finding that we don't know who we can trust.

I rise to speak in favour of my good colleague Senator Cadell and the senator's motion to refer to the Economics References Committee an inquiry into the impact of foreign influence in Australia's critical infrastructure sectors. Australia's critical infrastructure is not just an economic asset. It is the backbone of our national sovereignty. It underpins our energy security, water security, communications, supply chains and the functioning of everyday Australian life. In an increasingly uncertain world, this parliament has a clear responsibility, and that is to protect Australians from those who would do us harm. We must ask whether our existing safeguards are strong enough, and we must be honest about the risks we face. This Labor government has its head in the sand on national security, and Australians are paying the price.

We live in a time of heightened strategic circumstances: war in Europe, conflict and tension in our region, pandemics that shut borders that cripple supply chains, and natural disasters that strain energy, transport and communication systems. These events have taught us one clear lesson: resilience cannot be piecemeal; it must be whole of government and it must be built into our economy, our infrastructure and our decision-making. A resilient nation needs an advanced and diverse economy that can withstand shocks, one that can keep food moving, power flowing and communications running when it matters most. Critical infrastructure assets are fundamentally different from ordinary investments. Sovereign ownership and oversight of these assets are key to our resilience. That is why these assets require a higher level of scrutiny and that is what this inquiry would do.

It is against our national economic security to vote against this motion. Let that be a message for the Australians watching. Those acting on your interest will be on one side of the chamber and those against it, the other. Australia has benefited greatly from productive international investment and this inquiry is not about opposing that. Foreign investment has helped build our economy but it must align with Australia's long-term national interest. According to ASIO's annual threat assessment, foreign interference and espionage are now at unprecedented levels. Corporate espionage is at an all-time high, with foreign adversaries attempting to infiltrate our institutions and industries at unprecedented levels. They have surpassed terrorism as Australia's principal security concerns. That is a reality we cannot ignore. Australians expect us in this and the other place to be proactive, not complacent. Political or economic convenience cannot come ahead of national security, and I implore those opposite to act in the interests of Australians, not our adversaries. When it comes to food production, freight, energy and communications, we must legislate defensively and act responsibly. There is no better time for this conversation as we face fuel and fertiliser pressures, global instability and increasing competition for essential resources.

It is a core responsibility of government to protect Australians, and that protection must be across the whole of government, private sector and with industry partnership. To walk away from that responsibility is to abandon the public interest. The coalition understands this. When in government the coalition passed several key pieces of legislation to secure our critical infrastructure. But the work is not done, and the threat environment continues to evolve. That is why we are committed to sovereign resilience, and that is why only the coalition has a portfolio dedicated to this task and why only the coalition has put this inquiry to the Senate. Foreign investment is vital to our economy but, without scrutiny, Australians will be taken advantage of, and that is why I support this motion and ask all other senators to do so too.

The question is the motion as moved by Senator Cadell be agreed to.

I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Economics References Committee for inquiry and report by 12 August 2026:

The appointment of the next Chair of the Housing Australia Board, with particular reference to:

(a) the outstanding governance issues at Housing Australia;

(b) the performance of Housing Australia;

(c) the key role of the Chair in leading an agency that is responsible for policies that shape the housing market, allocate billions of taxpayer funds and influence whether Australians can achieve home ownership; and

(d) the Senate's interest in ensuring the appointment of properly suited candidate with the commensurate skills, experience and capacity.

In moving this motion, I make the point that, in Housing Australia, the government have established a behemoth. It is an agency which is a property developer, an insurer, an issuer of bonds and a runner of various programs like Help to Buy. It is an enormous agency inside this Commonwealth government, and in the main, it is undertaking the activities that would usually be run by the private sector. It is spending literally billions of dollars of taxpayer funds, and it will do even more things over the next few years, as per the government's policy.

Even though we don't agree with having this agency doing these things, we stand for integrity in public finances and proper administration of public programs. Those would be reasonable things for an opposition to pursue. I would say that the dysfunction at Housing Australia has totally destroyed its capacity to actually undertake the functions that have been given to it by this parliament—as I say, insurer, property developer, issuer of bonds and programs. All of those things are very expensive, very significant programs. But, from the board down, the agency is very sick. It has been a very sick agency.

Through the estimates process, we have uncovered secret Treasury reports into the conduct of the board, which the government initially attempted to cover up. We have discovered that there is a 25 per cent turnover of staff in the agency, and we have discovered that there has been an observer appointed to the board by the Minister for Housing, Clare O'Neil. The director-general of the housing group of the Department of the Treasury sits in board meetings of Housing Australia. So you've got the plastic tree, you've got the airless room with maybe a couple of windows, and then you've got the Treasury official sitting in there with all the appointees, some of whom are former Labor Party politicians. Others are people who formerly worked in the property industry. That's the Housing Australia board, and they've got to be supervised by Minister O'Neil's delegate because they can't be trusted. The reason they can't be trusted is that they're wasting millions of dollars.

So far, the performance of the agency has been such that it has not been able to build houses, and the Housing Australia Future Fund is at risk, according to the government's own budget papers. The reason it is at risk is that, after 2½ years and $10 billion, it hasn't built any houses, and we get different answers at estimates as to whether it has built zero—is it on a duck?—or whether it has built 10 or whether it has built 600. Every time we ask a question, we get a different answer. The most criminal element of all of this, though, is that the agency, having failed to build houses, has been buying houses. They call them turnkey acquisitions, where they buy off a plan or they buy from developers who are building properties that Australians could actually own. Minister Gallagher said at estimates about a year and a half ago, 'The Housing Australia Future Fund has acquired and converted 340 of these properties.' The next time we had Senate estimates, Minister Gallagher had been moved on from her duties and we had Minister Ayres, who the government appointed to be a bit of a bulldozer. He had a different set of talking points. He tried to walk back and eat the words of good Minister Gallagher, who had done nothing wrong. All that good Minister Gallagher had done was read the papers delivered to her by her office which said that the Housing Australia Future Fund had acquired and converted 340 houses. Her crime was being honest. Then we had Minister Ayres come in and obfuscate with an entirely different set of talking points and different Treasury officials trying to explain that, in fact, what Minister Gallagher had said was wrong and that it wasn't doing that at all. But unfortunately these efforts have run aground because the budget has made it very clear that the Treasury actually does regard this as an at-risk program.

Fancy in a housing crisis having the idea that you have constrained supply, so you have gone from 200,000 houses a year under the last government down to 170,000 houses a year overall. The government's housing fund is now buying houses that Australians could own and is now trying to cover it up when the parliament tries to inquire into whether that's a good idea. Who would believe the government housing scheme would be on the demand side and actually making the problem worse? It's actually quite hard to believe. But, of course, the reason they're doing this is that they're worried about their numbers. After 2½ years, most people would think that with $10 billion you could build something.

Then you look at the spending commitments they have made in round 1 of the HAFF. In some cases, they are spending up to $1.5 million per dwelling. The average cost of a new build in this country is half a million dollars. They're paying three times the price the average homebuilder would be charging to build a new home. Extraordinary! There's an average of about $750,000 across HAFF round 1. This is an agency which is also committing a large amount of taxpayer funds to very expensive builds. So we have asked for all the information to be provided on how much money is being promised in HAFF round 1, round 2 and round 3 and what the progress is on building. It's very hard to get to the bottom of how many have actually been progressed and how many have actually been completed. We imagine that, at some stage, the $10 billion will actually result in a few thousand houses being built. We imagine that may be the case.

The government promised, as we heard today from Minister Wong, that this thing will build 55,000 homes with $10 billion. But, so far, after 2½ years, it hasn't been able to do anything like that. In the long run, the main game in housing is surely going to be getting the builders, the developers and the tradies to build the private housing system. Of course there is a role for social and affordable housing. This has traditionally been the preserve of the states. States have historically built public housing. Maybe there's an argument that there should be more of that. Maybe there's an argument that you should have more social housing supported by state governments with maybe the federal government standing behind it in some way. But the idea that the federal government would establish this behemoth housing fund and it would try and go around to get good value for taxpayers' money and build houses has now been disproven after 2½ years. Once we get to October, it will be three years. I think that has been disproven.

My fear is that this agency has been more worried about how it works out its availability payments and its subsidies to institutional investors than it has been about getting a good deal for taxpayers. That is my fear. In the case of HAFF round 1, the biggest beneficiary, with over $2 billion, is the Assemble group, which is owned by the super funds. This is an organisation which, with its owners AustralianSuper, HESTA and CBUS, had lobbied the government and Dr Chalmers about having a housing future fund that would subsidise the returns for investors, because they of course want to be involved with receiving taxpayer funds. It's not good enough for them to open the door every day and have 12 per cent of people's wages and salaries fall in. They also want to find ways to capture more money from the Australian people via the taxman, via the federal government. And so they devised a scheme which the Housing Australia Future Fund is now delivering, where they open the door and they get huge subsidies from the housing fund to build build-to-rent houses that Australians will never own. They will build apartment blocks that Australians will never own, courtesy of the taxpayer allowing the funds to get to scale in the first place with management contributions then through these contracts through Housing Australia.

My great fear, as I said, is that the agency has been much more focused on supporting the subsidies for institutional investors than it has been on supporting the taxpayer getting the best value for money. The Australian National Audit Office is about to finish its performance audit into this agency. This is going to be a very important audit. This audit, I am sure, is going to highlight that taxpayers have not received value for money when it has come to this program, because how could it be the case that you could be paying two or three times the market rate for a new house? How could that be justified? I don't see how there's any explanation for that. So that is going to be a significant governance concern for the agency going forward.

The chair, of course, is going to be appointed by the executive. We understand that. In Australia, we don't have confirmation hearings for this type of appointment. But I think it's only reasonable that we consider the type of skills and the capability of the people that will be on the board of this agency. It's not good enough to have more Labor mates and the unions dumped onto this board that's going to be spending tens of billions of dollars. We have to have in this program someone who has brains and some experience—someone who's going to screw down the money and get the best value for taxpayers. Whether we agree with these programs or not, we are all Australians. We all want to see the Australian taxpayers get the best possible value for money.

If we have another situation where the board is descending into infighting and maladministration, this program will stagger on. There will be bad deals made. There will be more conflicts of interest. If you were to do an internal audit of the organisation, the first recommendation would be, 'Why the hell do you have a Treasury official sitting in your meetings when you're dishing out billions of dollars?' particularly in relation to the conflicts of interest which may be there in relation to round 1 of the HAFF, where the biggest beneficiary is the super funds which have extensive links to the government. We know that Dr Chalmers used public interest immunity claims to cover up the representations he received from CBUS. I have no idea whether that has to do with his association with Mr Swan or someone else, but the fact is that he used the public interest immunity claims system to protect information that should have been tabled in the Senate through the FOI process and through the OPD process. The Information Commissioner through that out. The Information Commissioner said, 'I've reviewed this claim, and my judgement is that the information that was provided to Dr Chalmers from CBUS about these housing matters is lobbying and should be disclosed.' Thank goodness for the Information Commissioner, because they were able to deal with this as an FOI.

Unfortunately, in the Senate, when we try to seek information through orders for production, we just get stymied. All we see is obfuscation when we're making genuine inquiries. We've made inquiries in relation to many programs that have been administered by this behemoth. For example, the five per cent deposit scheme is administered by Housing Australia. The Prime Minister said that it would drive up prices by 0.6 per cent over six years. It's resulted in a six per cent increase in prices six months. We are not allowed to see the modelling, the risks and sensitivities that were conducted by the Treasury in relation to these matters. We have tried. We had an attendance yesterday from Minister Ayres, who spent most of his time talking about my appearance rather than dealing with the actual matter at hand. He spent a lot of time trying to accuse me of being insane and enfeebled and all those sorts things, which were all very funny, but these are serious matters.

The coalition and crossbench have been trying for many months to get to the bottom of these things, and that's why we are recommending this inquiry to the Senate. We think someone appointed to chair this agency needs to have the skills and capacity to do the job properly. We want to take submissions and have a hearing where we can force the Treasury to explain their process and actually do our job, which is to try and kick the tyres on the proposed approach going forward for this agency. We don't have the time at estimates to get to the bottom of these things. We need a special inquiry into this particular matter right now before the government makes the appointment.

I think this will help the government make the best possible judgement, because it will shine a light that the government should not just be appointing another former failed politician from Victoria or some other failed state. They should be looking to appoint someone who can actually do the job and get the best possible value for taxpayers. This person needs to be very smart because they are going to be running an insurance company which is giving unlimited guarantees. They are going to be running a massive property developer. They are going to be running the Help to Buy Scheme. They are going to be issuing bonds. They probably need to be smarter than anyone who works in this building. We want the best person, and we recommend this inquiry to the Senate.

I rise to support Senator Bragg's reference to the economics committee particularly because Housing Australia, as Senator Bragg said, has billions and billions of taxpayer dollars, but the reality for taxpayers is that it failed to build any houses in the whole of 2025-26. Think about that. This government has set up a housing agency. That sounds like a good thing. They put $10 billion of taxpayer funds in it. That's a lot of money. You would therefore expect that, when we ask simple questions of the government on behalf of the Australian taxpayer about how many houses this fund has actually built, they would be a little surprised to be told that the reality under the Labor government is that in the whole of 2025-2026 this fund failed to build one home.

What's worse is that, in October 2025, the Chair of Housing Australia was forced to resign. Why? She was forced to resign after it was revealed there was a secret 2024 Treasury report into the former chair's alleged conduct . On top of that, you have dysfunction in the agency. The staff are quite literally walking out the door. On top of that, there are workplace safety complaints. What is worse is there's a secret report that nobody was supposed to see. Now the government just wants to quietly appoint the next person to run the whole thing.

This is billions of dollars of taxpayer money with a dysfunctional agency. The government says to us: 'We don't want any questions. We don't want any scrutiny. We just want to hand the keys to the next person and pray to God they do better than the last person.' We're saying no, and that is why Senator Bragg has moved this motion. This is something that does need to be inquired into by a committee—in particular, the role of the chair in leading the agency that is responsible for policies that shape the housing market, because to date, based on the statistics alone, it failed to build any houses in the whole of 2025-2026. It has been a total failure.

The government has put $10 billion into the Housing Australia Future Fund, $10 billion of taxpayer money. They then told the Australian people that this fund will build thousands and thousands and thousands of homes. They were actually very proud of that announcement. They had press conferences; they put out press releases. It was the biggest thing since sliced bread—$10 billion. Yet the reality under Albanese Labor, when you step away from the press conference and step away from the press release, is this: in the entire 2025-26 financial year, how many new homes did it build? Zero, not one, nought. I'm not making it up. That's in the government's own Treasury portfolio budget statement. It's there in black and white.

And right next to the zero, as Senator Bragg articulately put it, it also states in black and white that the target is now at risk. At risk—seriously? It's absolutely at risk, because the agency isn't building any homes, because of what's going on within the agency itself. Staff turnover was more than 25 per cent in one year, with one in four people walking out the door in the 12-month period to August 2025. What is worse is their own staff survey confirmed this. The people who work at this agency are saying to the government and the Australian people: 'The agency is broken. We might have $10 billion of your money and we built no homes in that financial year, but what is worse is we are telling you the agency itself is broken.' It also has four work health and safety cases. What's strange about that? It's a housing bureaucracy. These are not tradies on a building site. They are office workers, and there are four safety complaints. Quite frankly, that tells you about the culture in this place.

Obviously, what's worse is the person who headed up the agency, the chair of Housing Australia, was forced to resign. Why? It came out that the government's treasury department had secretly commissioned a $24,000 report into allegations about the chair's conduct. It was a secret report for 24 grand of taxpayer money to investigate the person who was supposed to be running what is now, as we know, a dysfunctional show. This is the summary: the government spent $24,000 on a secret report investigating the chair of their own housing agency, the chair has gone, the staff are leaving, no homes have been built, and the government want the taxpayer to trust them with the next appointment. Senator Bragg, you're right; it needs to be inquired into, and we need that transparency.

But it actually does get worse. What did the government do when it found all of this out? The government actually has this information. Did they clean up the agency or overhaul the agency? No, they didn't. They sent in a person known as an observer. The bad news, though, for the Australian taxpayer is that nobody has a clue what this observer actually does. We think they sit in a room and observe, but we're not sure what they're observing. But, when a government feels the need to put someone in a room just to watch what a board is doing, quite frankly that tells you everything. This place is either heavily conflicted, deeply dysfunctional or, worse for the Australian taxpayer, both.

That's Housing Australia—billions in, zero homes out in 2025-26, boss forced out, staff fleeing, safety complaints, secret reports, a mystery observer. The government can't even pretend it's working anymore, and that's why I say shame on the government today if they are not supporting Senator Bragg's motion, which does nothing more than demand transparency on behalf of the Australian taxpayer. But, no, they probably won't support this motion.

Senator Bragg has been absolutely right on this, and this is what he said: 'We cannot continue to fund a housing bureaucracy in Canberra that brags about spending billions while building fewer houses. The next head of Housing Australia should have to front up to the Senate and prove they are up to the task before they get the job.' You're absolutely right, Senator Bragg. It is time for transparency. The time for supply is overdue, and it is time to restore the Australian dream of homeownership.

Sadly, these are facts. Senator Bragg and I aren't making this up. This is in the budget paper. This is the reality of the Housing Australia agency. That's why we need transparency.

Let's now put this into context. Sadly, it gets worse for the Australian taxpayer in the context of what the government dropped last night in the budget. If you think Housing Australia is bad, it gets a whole lot worse in the budget. Here's the budget in three words: broken promises everywhere. The Prime Minister promised 50 times that he would not touch negative gearing or capital gains tax. He said that to the Australian people prior to the election, yet on Tuesday night, last night, he did both. He didn't bend the truth. He didn't stretch it. Quite frankly, he snapped it in half and threw it in the bin. Fifty times prior to the election he looked Australians in the eye and he said no. And then last night he broke every one of those 50 promises, and he did it anyway.

Every Australian who bought a property, invested in shares or made a plan for their retirement in the last 12 months did it based on what the Prime Minister told them. Yet the centrepiece of this budget is a $77.2 billion tax hike over the next decade—$77 billion ripped out of the economy. There's a brand new minimum 30 per cent capital gains tax on everything. The 50 per cent discount is gone. If you are a young person and you're investing in crypto, ETFs et cetera, guess what? He's going to tax you. The Prime Minister is now coming after your aspiration, and he is taxing you. There is $77 billion in new taxes over 10 years. That is not reform. That is the biggest broken promise in Australian political history.

Does it even work? Does it fix housing? This is what Mr Albanese wants the Australian people to believe. The answer is pretty obvious. All of the experts were out there today saying, 'No, it makes it worse.' We actually don't even have to guess. The government's own numbers say so. The government today wants to turn its back on what is in black and white in their own budget papers. Their own modelling says these tax changes will mean 35,000 fewer homes over the next decade. Not more—fewer. For those listening in to this broadcast, go to page 158 of Budget paper No. 1: budget strategy and outlook. In the final paragraph it says that over the next decade, the increase in supply is expected to be around 35,000 dwellings fewer compared to no tax policy change. That is what is said in the government's budget papers. On what planet does a government that wants to increase housing supply bring in a tax that it had promised 50 times before the election it wouldn't and that its own budget papers state is going to have an impact of 35,000 fewer houses? Quite frankly, it's a government that doesn't know what it's doing.

What did Australians get out of this budget when it comes to housing? Unfortunately, it gets worse, because, as Senator Bragg knows, housing is actually directly linked to migration. Over two terms, the Albanese Labor government will have presided over the arrival of two million people to Australia. Think about that for a moment, Australia. I can tell you that this government is not taking the impact into consideration. This is not a migration intake. This is a transformation of this nation, undertaken without a plan, without the infrastructure to support it and without the honest conversation that the Australian people deserved. There are no new cities, and no serious housing targets have been met. There is no credible answer as to where these Australians are going to live. You have Australians that today woke up in their car. They slept in a car park with their family overnight, and do you know what this government says to them? 'Too bad, so sad. We're going to prioritise bringing in two million additional people to this country over you.' That is an absolute disgrace.

The result of this government losing control of migration is plain to see in every capital city, and the data doesn't lie. Australia, this is what is happening because of the Albanese government. Rents have surged. Don't take my word for it. If you're a renter, you know you can't afford to pay your rent. Vacancy rates have collapsed. Young Australians who did everything right—saved, worked, waited—are now being priced out of the market not by bad luck but by deliberate policy decisions of the Albanese government. This is a simple economic fact. When you run the largest migration intake into the tightest housing market, guess what happens? There are less homes for Australians, and this government doesn't care. It is continuing to bring in more people. That is an absolute disgrace.

We have people in Australia waking up in cars every single morning, and the government laughs at them and says in its published migration statistics, 'We're moving full steam ahead and bringing in more people.' You've got broken promises, higher taxes, more debt, lower living standards and fewer homes. The Australian people can see it, and they won't forget it.

The question is that the matter be referred to the Economics References Committee. A division is required. It being after 6.30 pm, we will defer that division until tomorrow.

I do not believe that I've spoken on this, and I would be absolutely delighted to speak on this reference. Again, I commend Senator Bragg for the work that he is doing as the shadow minister for housing. Senator Bragg, like everybody in the coalition, actually wants more houses to be built in Australia. Sadly, under this government, as I said, when you look at the Housing Australia fund, it has got billions and billions of taxpayer dollars, but it failed to build any houses in the whole year of 2025-26. How can a government get up every day and tell the Australian people that they have a plan for housing, that they have a plan to make their lives better, when the actual reality of the lived experience of Australian people is that, under this government, it just doesn't matter how hard they try. They can't get into the housing market.

But what's worse is that they have to live with the fact that this is a government that makes a huge announcement when it comes to the Housing Australia Future Fund—as I said, $10 billion of taxpayers' money was put into the Housing Australia Future Fund. They told the Australian people. They stood up proudly. They fronted the cameras. They issued the press releases. They said: 'Guess what? We're creating this fund, and this fund is going to build tens of thousands of homes.' When you look at the budget papers, the reality of what this government has done with this fund is that, in the financial year of 2025-26, it failed to build any houses. That is an absolute disgrace. As I said in a previous speech, what is worse now is what is next to that figure of zero. This is not me making it up and this is not Senator Bragg making it up but in the government's own Treasury portfolio budget statement—it is there in black and white, right next to the big zero for number of houses built—says the target is now at risk. Let's translate to plain English for people. What that actually means is this: the government have basically sold you a pup. They have completely misled you. They have taken $10 billion of your hard-earned money and they have put it into what is now a dysfunctional agency with little-to-no transparency. The government themselves have had to send in an observer to watch the board and what they do. But that doesn't change the fact, does it, that they made an announcement that this fund was going to build tens of thousands of homes, yet in 2025-26, in that financial year, an entire year, how many new homes did it build? As I said, it is there in black and white—zero.

But what is worse, as I said, to compound this last night, to add insult to injury, despite the Prime Minister looking the Australian people in the eye and promising 50 times prior to the election that he would not touch negative gearing or capital gains tax, last night he did both. He didn't bend the truth, he didn't stretch it, he snapped it in half and threw it in the bin. Fifty times he looked the Australian people in the eye. In fact, he snapped at journalists when they dared ask him the question: 'Prime Minister, if you are re-elected, will there be any changes to negative gearing or capital gains in Australia?' And he snapped at them—the audacity of a journalist asking the Prime Minister such a question—and said 'no'. We are not allowed to say that word in the Senate—it begins with an L, ends in E and has an I in the middle of it—but that is what the reality was, fairly and squarely 50 times over.

But to add insult to injury is what is said at page 158 of the government's own budget paper No. 1. You see, the government are trying to deny this because they don't want Australians to know what the actual reality of the broken promise is. This is the reality—I'm reading it out: '… the increase in supply over the next decade' is 'expected to be … around 35,000 dwellings fewer compared to no tax policy change'. Do you know what that actually means? It means there are going to be 35,000 fewer homes built in Australia as a direct result of what the Prime Minister is running around with his Treasurer today and saying is a great reform in Australia. In black and white, there it is: 35,000 fewer dwellings. How in God's name does a government bring in a policy that puts a stake in the heart of aspiration but, worse, actually has the impact on the ground of 35,000 fewer dwellings? As I said, it is there in black and white in their budget papers—not more homes, fewer homes. They broke their promise to deliver a policy that their own numbers say makes the crisis worse. You literally can't make it up.

And as we know, that was compounded last night. Again, there in black and white in the budget papers for all Australians to see. Over two terms, the Albanese Labor government will have presided over the arrival of an additional two million people to Australia—two million people. I want everybody in this chamber to actually think about that. How many times are you actually creating Canberra? If you're bringing in two million people, how many more Canberras has this government created over its time in office? But do you know what the problem is? It actually hasn't created Canberra, because Canberra has infrastructure. There is no infrastructure associated with these additional two million people.

This is not a migration intake. This is a transformation of our fantastic nation of Australia. It has been undertaken by Albanese Labor, despite Australians begging him to slow down the mass migration into this country and begging him for a plan to deal with mass migration coming into this country. And he laughs at them. He makes announcements—'I'm going to build more houses'—and then his own budget papers show that, actually, the government's tax policy and what it's just done is going to build 35,000 fewer.

He says, 'I've taken $10 billion of taxpayers money and I've put it into the Housing Australia Future Fund and it's going to build tens of thousands of homes.' Again, their budget papers show in black and white that, for 2025-26, the numbers of homes built by this agency was zero. Two million people came in without a plan, without the infrastructure to support them and, what is worse, without an honest conversation with the Australian people. Quite frankly, the Australian people deserve nothing less than credible answers to the two questions they're now asking. Two million people have come into this country over the two terms of the Albanese Labor government. The first question the Australian people ask is: where are you going to put them? There has been no answer to that question.

But what is worse is this. This is for those living in their cars. This morning, with your family, you woke up in your car in a car park, whether it was in a suburb of Western Australia, a suburb of Sydney, a suburb of Melbourne—anywhere in Australia. You used to live in a house, but your cost of living got so high under Mr Albanese that, sadly, those 15 interest rate rises meant you just couldn't afford your mortgage anymore. Your wages were going backwards. Inflation was killing the family budget every time you went into the shops. So you had to move your family out of your house and into your car.

The bad news is I don't have an answer as to where you're going to live, because under Mr Albanese the houses are not there. But I can tell you that, tomorrow night, in the budget in reply, there will be an answer. The numbers are too high and—we have said it plainly—they must come down. We must put housing Australians front and centre of any government policy. The numbers must come down. When you bring in two million people over two terms in government and you do not have the housing supply to house those immigrants, let alone the Australians who are waking up in their cars every day, you have to acknowledge that the numbers must come down.

But, sadly, this is a government that just doesn't care. So the reality for Australians, in black and white in the budget paper, is that if you've had a mortgage, you're about $32,000 worse off per year under this government. But what's worse is what Mr Albanese is saying to younger Australians. He's trying to tell them that this is a budget for them. Sadly, the reality is that it's actually just not. What this government did last night was intergenerational fraud. They have pitted young kids against their parents. They have said, 'Your parents were able to get a house, but we're going to make sure that you can't.' They have pulled the ladder up on every young Australian who is trying to get ahead. You can't buy a home, young Australians. You know that. Everybody knows that.

You're doing the responsible thing. You're saving money, you're putting money into shares, you're putting money into ETFs, you're putting money into crypto and you're putting money into a managed fund. You're trying to build something for yourself because the housing market under Mr Albanese has shut you out, and guess what? This government's policy last night—its broken promises on negative gearing and capital gains—has just whacked you for it, because the reality is that the capital gains changes don't just hit property. Don't believe the 'intergenerational' argument. This is intergenerational fraud. The capital gains changes don't just hit property. They hit everything—everything you own, every investment that you have made.

You're saving and you're putting money into shares, ETFs, crypto or a managed fund. As I said, you are trying to do the right thing to get ahead under this government. And what did the government do to you last night? They whacked you. They whacked you with their changes to capital gains. Go and do your research. Go and talk to an accountant, because the busiest people in Australia are shortly going to be the accountants, quite frankly, trying to work out what in God's name is going on because of the Albanese government's budget. But capital gains changes don't just hit property. They hit everything. Every single asset you own and every investment that you have made is now going to be whacked with the Albanese government's broken promises.

We'll go back to where we started, back to Housing Australia. The agency's a wreck. Zero homes have been built. Billions have been wasted. The boss was forced out over a secret report. A quarter of the staff are gone. There are workplace safety complaints. A government observer is on the board because the government don't actually trust their own agency. The government's housing target—well, guess what? The budget papers now say it's at risk. But, worse than that, the Prime Minister, who looked all of the Australian people in the eye prior to the election and said, over 50 times, that he wouldn't make any changes to capital gains or negative gearing, did that last night. This is a government that has spent billions, built nothing, broken every promise and, sadly for Australians, made the housing crisis worse.

Australians deserve a government that builds homes, not bureaucracy; that keeps its promises and doesn't break them; that rewards hard work and doesn't punish it; and that treats your money like it matters, because it does. That's the point of this motion.

The question is that the motion moved by Senator Bragg to refer a matter to the Economics References Committee be agreed to. A division having been called and it being after 6.30, we will proceed to that division tomorrow.

Debate adjourned.

Before I was so rudely interrupted by a hard marker earlier today after a 46-second speech, I was getting to the point that, when we get down to it, there's a rush to put something through. Let's get down to it.

The Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026 was not written overnight. We know the drafters take some time, so, even if this had been brought on yesterday, we would have had another day. The fact is we're still talking about it tonight, and all we wanted was to do a short inquiry. We could have had the inquiry tonight. We've done that before. But we won't vote until tomorrow now. So what is so absolutely urgent that we are hiding from an inquiry? It could have actually taken place and not slowed down this bill. That's what's really getting to us.

I came out this morning and said that it's in Labor's DNA, when in government, to push things through, run things through, guillotine, not have inquiries and not know. What I don't get on this specifically is the Greens support for this, because it is the Greens who normally like accountability and that sort of stuff, and this is about the ACCC, of all things. I said how I was on the supermarket inquiry with Senator McKim. He loved the ACCC having extra powers to prosecute, to go after them. He wants to talk about price gouging. He wants to talk about breaches with the ACCC. But on this single point the Greens are backing running this through without an inquiry, without knowing. That's why I said, to quote Ted 'Theodore' Logan from that great movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure:

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Strange things are afoot here, where the Greens are backing not going through with the ACCC stuff.

When we come to it, it was a great point today. This is being retrospectively added back to April Fool's Day, back to 1 April. So what would it matter if it went down another three weeks, another four weeks or another day to have the inquiry? It wouldn't matter because everything back to that day is covered anyway. Why do you rush when you have retrospectivity? When everything that has happened will be forgiven, you don't need to rush it through. That is why the amendment by Senator Canavan to have an inquiry is so important.

What are the motivating points such that this needs to be pushed through, that this needs to be rushed through, and why is it done? Are we aware of circumstances already where the ACCC are aware of actions that have been taken in a non-competitive manner that they don't want to disclose? Has this taken place? Has a nod and a wink been given to organisations—'Go and do this, and we'll clean it up'—that they don't want to be discovered? Something is crook in Tobruk when there was the capability of inquiry tonight without holding up the bill and when the Greens have been offered something so fabulous as part of a deal that they walk away from their key principles of transparency, of inquiries and of giving the ACCC powers. If you join the dots, something's a little bit rotten here. Why can't we have an inquiry?

Look at the bill on its merits. We understand that in a crisis there may be requirements to do this. But something's a bit on the nose when all these things line up and we don't understand why. There could be an inquiry. We'd only have to ask four or five questions—why, what and how?—and we'd get this through. But it's just a blanket no. That is not good government. That is not the way things should operate when it could absolutely be there. We could come back in a month if that took that long. We could come back for a separate hearing later on and pass this because everything will be given retrospectivity back to April Fool's Day, back to 1 April. The only fools here are the Australian people who think that this is the right way to run government.

We know we got through a little thing called COVID. It went for a couple of years. You might have heard of it. It wasn't a three-month, one-month or two-month war in the Middle East. This affected the entire world, and the ACCC and the previous government got through with the powers they had. But, no, this government cannot get through this Middle Eastern conflict without being able to change the rules to a level of no disallowance. If you want to, call this an emergency. I accept what's going on is extenuating circumstances in the Middle East. We wouldn't want to disallow that, necessarily. But the what ifs of a minister and the ACCC being able to tick off individual measures, allowing the ACCC to give permissions that they don't already have, is where it comes down. What is it? There is this mates' rates deal—I'm not saying it will happen, but it could happen—to tick the box where the parliament can do nothing because we've signed off on it now. There's no disallowance. There's no ability to review.

Let's go back to the seven-day disclosure basis. It's like the legislation. They wrote the legislation over a period of days, if not weeks, but they don't disclose that until the morning they want it through. They will do the same with the actions they take. When they declare an action or say they're going to do something, they are not going to do it on the spur of a moment and take seven days to have to disclose it. They could tell us straightaway that they are taking this action. They could tell us what they are trying to prevent, who they are giving the nod to and how it's going to act. But, no, they want seven days so that people could not possibly know the nod has been given and the fix is in for seven days.

That is everything that this parliament should not stand for. This parliament should be about getting out there, being open and saying: 'This is the problem—problem (a)—and this is the action we need to give. We need to allow, say, the fuel companies to say who's sending fuel where, and this is why.' In all reasonable circumstances, this parliament would also always say yes. That is another thing that triggers this. You go through. It is drafted over time without disclosure. It is brought in not following process. There is no inquiry. It is retrospective, so it doesn't really matter when it passes, because actions are there. There is no disclosure for seven days. All of these things spell potential trouble. When you look between conspiracy and circumstance, it's usually circumstance, but we want that clarity and the Australian public needs that clarity. That is why we are here. That is why we are opposing moving through this quickly. That is why we want a small committee hearing to answer some questions that are reasonable, that the public would expect us to ask. Nothing matters more in that process.

I urge the Senate to vote for the amendment, to have a deeper look at this. This could almost pass on the voices if our concerns were met. They aren't anything out of the box. They aren't 'we hate this idea'. I will tell you that I've had my experiences with the ACCC in my previous engagement. I was involved in three court actions with them. In two they took us on and lost. In one they went in on something on our behalf even though we weren't thrilled with it, and they lost that too. So I'm not really thrilled with the ACCC's ability to hold people to account, but in this we'll see. I hope they have more success in the Woolworths action they've got now. But let's have a quick inquiry. Let's get this done and get it through as soon as possible.

This is indeed a very curious matter before the Senate. Perhaps quite inadvertently, what the government, with the support of the Greens, have done is draw attention to an issue that could have been very procedural, very matter-of-fact. We believe that a Senate economics committee inquiry could have been done very expeditiously given that the coalition understands at a first-principles level why a legislative course like this may be necessary. Much discussion has happened during the course of today about the merit of a Senate economics committee inquiry. That committee process, that level of scrutiny, has been denied to the Senate—not just to the coalition but to the whole Senate—but I want to draw attention to the second matter, and that is that a second inquiry, a standard feature of this Senate process, has also been denied on the bill and also denied to the Senate. That is the scrutiny of bills committee process.

For those that are unaware, every piece of legislation that comes before the parliament goes before the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills. The Senate scrutiny of bills committee scrutinises—and I note that the Temporary Chair of Committees is actually a member of the Senate scrutiny of bills committee. Every bill goes before the committee, and each bill is assessed against some fundamental principles. The key point here is that every bill is assessed against those principles. The committee provides a report to the parliament on every bill in every sitting of the Senate. In more recent times, senators around the chamber have had cause to applaud the work of the Senate scrutiny of bills committee because it's done its scrutiny inquiries in a very expeditious manner, allowing the Senate the full disclosure of a whole range of various matters, some of them highly technical, that are drawn to the attention of senators so that they can improve their deliberation on a bill. If that Senate scrutiny of bills committee process were to have been allowed on this particular matter this particular week, I suspect a key issue that would have arisen in that scrutiny of bills committee inquiry process is the use by governments—plural; it's a feature of all governments—of disallowable instruments which are denied the ability to be disallowed by this Senate chamber.

This is a really fundamental issue in our system of government: we elect people to come to the Senate and to review legislation and to give very keen deliberation to whether this Senate chamber holds the ultimate authority around laws and regulations or whether, over time, that authority is given to regulators, to bureaucrats, and, over time, diminishes the ability of this Senate chamber and every one of its 76 senators to properly deliberate over a bill.

So I thought I would use the brief time that's available to me—others have canvassed the importance of the bill; others have canvassed other issues—to re-emphasise why I think it's the absence of the Senate's Scrutiny of Bills Committee process that is the more serious omission in regard to how the government has chosen to do this. I might make this observation also: when proper parliamentary scrutiny is observed, confidence is maintained—confidence in regulators, confidence in the decision-making of the Senate and confidence amongst stakeholders in the laws this chamber makes and passes. Transparency and scrutiny are always a good thing. It's very hard to recall instances when lack of transparency, lack of scrutiny, has been a public good.

Conversely, when scrutiny is diminished or transparency is denied, suspicion is born. And I might just say that in this particular case I'm someone who's a keen observer of the work of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. I'm quite an enthusiast of the work it does. I'm going to go to Senate estimates in a few weeks time and ask the chair: is this something she supported? Did she actively support the denial of the Senate to have proper scrutiny over this piece of legislation? What's happened is that we now think there is something being hidden from view. That's demonstrated by the fact that much of the Senate's time tonight has been taken up on this matter, and we will be back here tomorrow. And unlike Senate the estimates periods we've had in the last year, we have an extended Senate estimates period beginning in the next fortnight, so there will be plenty of time to ask the ACCC, to ask the Treasury and to ask ministers at the table why it was necessary to deny the Senate scrutiny.

In our political comings and goings, I have a saying. I say to people: 'That's okay. You don't have to tell Senator Smith now; you don't even have to tell Senator Smith next week. Nothing stays a secret forever.' And it's only a matter of time before the real truth in regard to the issues around this bill are revealed.

I want to share with the Senate what the Scrutiny of Bills Committee's position is in regard to the importance of allowing a disallowance. Regarding this bill, a key element of our criticism, a key element of our concern, a key element of what we would have explored more thoroughly, had an inquiry process been provided to us, is why the disallowance mechanism has been undermined. It's the published view of the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee that disallowance is important because it's the primary means by which the parliament exercises control over the legislative power it has delegated to the executive. Exempting instruments from disallowance therefore has significant implications for parliamentary scrutiny, and the exemption of disallowance is an element of this bill.

In June 2021 the Senate chamber itself acknowledged these implications and resolved that delegated legislation should be subject to disallowance unless exceptional circumstances can be demonstrated which would justify an exemption. In addition, the Senate resolved that any claim that circumstances justify such an exemption will be subject to rigorous scrutiny, with the expectation that the claim will only be justified in the rarest of cases—not in Senator Smith's view, not in Senator Colbeck's view, not in Senator Grogan's view but in the view of this Senate chamber. Just this year, digest 5 of the scrutiny of bills committee said:

The committee reiterates its view that a stated need for immediate and ongoing certainty is not an exceptional circumstance that alone justifies the exemption of a delegated legislation from disallowance.

It goes on to say that the Senate scrutiny of bills committee also considers that the explanatory memorandum should always establish what would be the consequence of disallowance, so that the Senate can properly measure the appropriateness and proportionality of its decisions.

Disallowance is important for a very important reason. It changes the behaviour of regulators and it changes the behaviour of officials. It forces them to think more consciously about the nature of the regulation, the importance of the regulation and the extent to which parliament should be denied its constitutional right and obligations.

Let me just put disallowance in context. We know that the existence of disallowance is a positive thing because it changes behaviour, and it changes behaviour towards transparency and accountability. It's important to note that the number and proportion of instruments in respect of which a disallowance notice is made is in fact low, with instances of disallowance themselves being rare. Of the 562 notices of motion to disallow legislative instruments between 2010 and 2025, only 55 have been successful, representing 9.8 per cent. What that demonstrates is that the existence of disallowance works, and disallowance as a mechanism in this chamber is rarely used. When it is used, it is often not successful because, in that intervening period of 15 days, discussion happens between senators, between executive government, between the regulators and between departments to get a better outcome.

So, for someone like me, the way that this bill has chosen to deal with the disallowance matter raises very significant concerns. It may well be that, when the minister comes back to the chamber, he or she can provide a very reasonable explanation. But guess what? That's an explanation that gets provided tomorrow—an explanation that could have been made available to a Senate committee inquiry tonight. These matters could have been more easily and more efficiently resolved.

The impact of COVID on Australia was significant. It lingers for a variety of reasons. My personal view is that the greatest and most lingering impact of COVID on our country is the level of trust that citizens have in governments and in government decision-making, and the level of trust that people have in regulators and regulatory decision-making. If we are to rebuild community trust, then episodes like this in the Senate today, this afternoon, are going to take us a very long way from re-establishing that level of trust from the community.

To reiterate, it was our view and it will continue to be our view that public scrutiny—because a Senate committee process is public—allows stakeholders, not just parliamentarians, not just senators themselves, to make contributions. A Senate inquiry would have added to the confidence around this particular legislation, because the risk now is that the legislation may pass with a much-diminished level of public confidence and a heightened level of public suspicion in regard to what this bill seeks to do. Our view, quite simply, was that a Senate inquiry would have tested whether the existing powers of the ACCC are genuinely inadequate, whether the Treasurer's declaration power is too broad, whether the ACCC's exemptions should be disallowable, whether transparency requirements are strong enough, whether the retrospective start date is justified, whether the powers are properly limited in time and scope and, finally, whether there should be stronger sunset and review mechanisms. This is a very disappointing episode.

I feel sorry for the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission. I feel sorry for them. I'm disappointed for them because I don't think that this is their preferred operating environment. I've always found them to be highly cooperative at Senate economics committee hearings. They're highly informed and always very available when dealing with competition matters that come to my attention as a result of constituent work. At this particular point in this particular debate on this bill, I've got to say the ACCC's diminished itself. But all is not lost. At Senate estimates, the chairman and officials will have an opportunity to redeem themselves. And like I said, nothing stays a secret forever.

I rise to make my contribution on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026. It's very pertinent to note the way that the government is conducting the debate on this piece of legislation, which provides an exceptional circumstances section within the Consumer and Competition Act. Having been in this place for a long time and having been engaged with my local farmers, food manufacturers, the supermarkets, a number of dairy inquiries and a number of beef inquiries, the importance of the Consumer and Competition Act and the fairness of that act is not lost on me.

I don't know how many debates, discussions or inquiries I've been involved in around the act. There have been plenty even within my own party about changes to the act. It's a complex piece of legislation, but it's a really important piece of legislation for protecting consumers but also ensuring fairness in supply chains. This government has made a lot of promises to farmers about the way that they will be protected in supply chains and how they'll make sure that consumers get a better deal, farmers get a better deal and the supermarkets will be managed properly. Any changes to this act are always scrutinised closely by anyone who has any engagement with them. I certainly know that's the case with growers that I work with at home in Tasmania.

The fact that this government isn't prepared to provide any level of scrutiny for these changes—which are important but also substantial in that they give the Treasurer significant powers to make a declaration and the ACCC significant powers to operate—is something that I'm keenly interested in and that I know that my constituents are keenly interested in. Pieces of legislation like this should be jealously guarded. I have to say the fact that no government senator has come to put a perspective on this piece of legislation is of great concern to me. They haven't even had somebody come in to trot out the talking points.

What is the story? Why won't the government let us understand what's going on, particularly in relation to the retrospectivity in this piece of legislation? What happened in April that means we have to go backwards and provide retrospectivity with respect to the management of the fuel crisis? Why do we have to do that? We know, in the early days of the fuel crisis, the government said: 'This is not a problem. There's plenty of fuel. There's nothing to see here. We don't have to worry about it.' They banged on and trotted out those talking points for a whole fortnight here in the chamber. The day after we left, the responsible minister, Mr Bowen, came out and acknowledged that there was a crisis and that there were significant issues in certain supply chains. I even asked in this chamber during question time, on one occasion, who was hoarding the fuel. If there was so much fuel around, where was it? Who was hoarding it? We still don't know the answer to that question. It took the government two or three weeks to get a handle on all of the supply chains and what was going on, so what happened in the interim? Why do we have to go back to 1 April in the context of retrospectivity?

It's becoming a genuine pattern of behaviour of this government, which promised to be open and transparent with the Australian people, that we have debate after debate in this place where, on some occasions, we don't even get the opportunity to speak. At least we're getting that opportunity on this piece of legislation. But it is the most secretive government that I've ever seen. They ignore notices for the production of documents. They redact heavily documents that they do provide. In this circumstance, where there's a significant change to an important piece of legislation, they're not even prepared to work with the opposition to have a quick inquiry, to ask the questions that we all want to ask and then get on with it.

It's not as if this parliament hasn't passed legislation quickly before. It has. There have been a lot of references to what occurred during COVID. But, during COVID, when the coalition was in government, we worked with the then opposition to establish an inquiry—the COVID inquiry. We gave the then opposition the chair of that inquiry. They could look at whatever they wanted and call hearings whenever they wanted to look into the elements of the work that we were doing in quite an extraordinary time. It was a time that I hope none of us has to see again. It's a difficult time right now, and there are global pressures on the supply of fuel and energy into this country, but there is no such cooperation from this government in terms of this piece of legislation.

We learnt last night that we can't trust what they say. We can't trust what they promise because last night they continued their record of breaking their word, their solemn word, to the Australian people. The point is that we're not talking about temporary changes to the Competition and Consumer Act with this piece of legislation. We're not talking about a temporary change. We're talking about inserting a whole new section into the act that will be permanent. It's not here for the term of the fuel crisis. It's a permanent addition to the act.

We're told that these powers are needed so that the government can make quick decisions, but we know that the ACCC can act quickly. Many of my colleagues have already put on the record how quickly the ACCC was able to act to make decisions within 24 hours under the existing provisions. So what is in this legislation or what sits behind the rationale for this legislation that we're not being told? I feel very justified in asking that question because my trust levels with this government are very low, particularly after last night, when they proved yet again that you can't believe anything that they tell you. This is important legislation. These permanent changes to the act are not just about the fuel crisis. They stay on.

A number of my colleagues have talked about their concerns with respect to the 'capacity to disallow' elements of the proposed legislation that stands before us. The declaration of an exceptional circumstance will be able to be disallowed, but, once that's done, the ACCC is free and clear. There's no capacity for scrutiny with respect to the ACCC's actions.

We know that there's a need to move quickly at times, but, as I said earlier in my presentation, the ACCC has proven before that it can act nimbly. It did so under the coalition when we were in government. A number of decisions were made within a day, within 24 hours, two, three or four days a week. Why do we need to be retrospective with this legislation? It's critical that we have some insights as to why that's going to be the case. When is the government going to come clean with respect to that not only with the chamber but the Australian people? As I said, there hasn't been one single government senator who's stepped into the chamber to make a contribution on this piece of legislation to explain to us what's going on, particularly with respect to retrospectivity. It's an important matter.

Competition laws in this country have been hugely contested over a long time from both sides, particularly by smaller operators who have wanted to make sure that the big end of town couldn't do them over. They are genuinely concerned about that. That was one of the things I was hearing in the early days of this fuel crisis, when independent supply chains, in particular, were clearly being starved of fuel by somebody. We were told there was plenty of fuel in the country, but there were hundreds of fuel stations in different jurisdictions that had no diesel or no petrol or nothing at all. What was going on and what were the drivers of that? We still haven't received any data on those elements.

I want to be assured so that I can assure my constituents, who are concerned about the way that this piece of legislation operates, that those protections that are important for consumers and particularly for small business aren't undermined by this process. It doesn't matter whether you're selling fuel or whether you're a farmer, a fisher, a vegetable grower or a small business operating a centre close to a big supermarket. We've all heard and we've all seen the complaints and the concerns about the way the supermarkets can operate to impact on the trade of a small business.

I think it's only reasonable that the government lets this place use the toolkit that is available to it so that we, as elected representatives in this place, can confirm for ourselves that we're comfortable with this piece of legislation. We are very comfortable to work with the government, but what's clear is that the government doesn't want to work with us. The government continues to undermine the democratic process in the way it attempts to ram legislation through this parliament. They'll do a deal with the Greens. They'll subvert a Senate inquiry process, like they did with the changes to the EPBC Act. They're all about the politics. They're all about the deal, and they don't care about the people who are being impacted by the legislation. They just want to have another tick on the sheet to say that they've achieved this outcome.

This legislation is too important for us to just roll over, have our tummies tickled and say, 'We'll give this a tick and flick.' We want to ensure that our constituencies are receiving the protections they deserve and that they demand from this important piece of legislation, from these permanent changes to the bill.

Senator Colbeck, the time for this debate is expired. You will be in continuation for 37 seconds when the debate resumes.

I was unable to be in the chamber at the time appointed for the condolence motion for Peter Morris and I seek to make a contribution this evening.

Peter Morris was one of Newcastle's great Labor figures, representing the people of Shortland from 1972 to 1998 and serving as a cabinet minister in the Hawke government from 1983 to 1990. When Peter Morris came into the parliament, Newcastle was a big industrial city, BHP was at the centre of it, and its streets were filled with steelworkers, stevedores, seamen, skilled tradespeople and their families. Newcastle has always been a union town and a Labor town but, during the 1970s, Labor politics in Newcastle was something else. Its political culture was genuinely unique, and everything was hard-fought.

Peter Morris came to the parliament with the support of Newcastle's rank and file Labor leadership, and they backed him relentlessly through a very hard battle, a preselection with ballot after ballot that went all the way to the federal executive, an epic battle in the history of the New South Wales branch. But having entered in that way, he then had the privilege of serving for some 30 years, representing the people of Shortland and serving the country as a cabinet minister who delivered the upgrade of 16,000 kilometres of national highway which, at the time, was the largest civil works program in Australian history. He was a big player during the major program of reform which took place during the Hawke period. He led reform of the interstate trucking industry, revitalised the railways and opened up commercial aviation by terminating the two-airline agreement.

For Peter Morris, these reforms weren't about the infrastructure or about the lines on a spreadsheet; they were always about creating a better standard of living for ordinary people right across the country. After his time as transport minister, he put together the Ships of Shame report, a piece of work that shone a light on the outrageous conditions faced by seafarers in international shipping ,and that report changed people's lives for the better too, not just for Australian seafarers but for maritime workers all around the world.

I should say that the city of Newcastle also had a great privilege of being served by two Morris's in the House of Representatives at the same time, with Peter's brother Allan serving as the member for Newcastle from 1983 to 2001.

As a parliamentarian, Peter Morris was a person who had a reputation for being incredibly proper. He was always in a suit and, no matter the intensity of the debate or some of the more robust internal struggles that Labor went through in that era, he was unfailingly polite and courteous to all. As a result, he was someone very well respected across the parliament and in his community. That is something he shares with his niece Julia Morris, a good friend to me, and someone many senators and members will know due to her extensive work in the parliamentary committee system over the years. So from the bottom of my heart, I wish to pay my respects to Peter Morris and to the whole Morris family. Peter Morris served Newcastle, Novocastrians and the Australian people with great distinction. Vale, Peter Morris.

For nearly three decades, Training Ship Argonaut at St Helens has stood as a cornerstone of its community and a proven pathway into service. Within its walls, more than 300 naval cadets have been steeped in Navy tradition, discipline and leadership while developing the practical skills needed to pursue enlistment in the Royal Australian Navy. It is a proud legacy built on commitment, service and community support. Yet with the stroke of a pen, a baffling decision has been made to end the lease of this purpose-built facility and divest the site entirely, placing the future of TS Argonaut and its cadets in serious doubt. TS Argonaut is just one of 15 Defence sites across Tasmania slated for full divestment or lease termination under the Albanese government's Defence estate audit. Collectively, these decisions would hollow out Tasmania's defence capability. TS Argonaut stands as a clear and poignant example of why this course of action is reckless and demands urgent reconsideration. This decision defies logic and ignores the reality on the ground.

St Helens is more than two hours from Launceston, the nearest major centre, where cadets were told they could relocate to a proposed triservice facility that does not yet exist. Asking young people, their families and dedicated volunteers to rely on an unbuilt and unestablished alternative is neither reasonable nor responsible. The other suggestion—that cadets simply lease a school hall or community space—beggars belief. TS Argonaut is not a generic meeting group; it is a purpose-built naval cadet facility funded by the Department of Defence on land owned by the Break O'Day Council. The facility includes a large galley, necessary for Navy training, and provides secure storage for naval boats. These are specialist assets that cannot be easily or cheaply replicated elsewhere.

The facility has also served as a regional training hub for other cadet units because of its location, space and infrastructure. It includes bunks and amenities suitable for cadet training camps—activities that bring not only cadets but their families into the region. These visits support local accommodation providers, retailers and businesses, injecting valuable funds into the local economy. Removing TS Argonaut from its home would undermine decades of investment and community goodwill. More than that, it would place unnecessary barriers in front of young people in regional Tasmania who wish to serve their country. This decision must be reconsidered.

The loss of TS Argonaut would affect far more than cadets alone; it would also strike at the heart of the Break O'Day community itself. During recent bushfires, TS Argonaut opened its doors and was staffed around the clock by cadets to support elderly residents displaced by the fires. They provided hot meals from their industrial galley, a safe place to stay and fellowship and care for some of the most vulnerable members of their community. That is service in its truest form.

Tasmania has a proud military history, and yet we are disproportionately vulnerable to the divestment decisions being pursued by this government. Beyond the impact on cadets, Defence has also recommended full divestment of the Stony Head and Buckland military training areas, both of which are currently used for live-fire training. Serious questions remain about the rationale behind these decisions. The Albanese Labor government claims it is delivering record defence spending, but what message does it send when the Minister for Defence, Richard Marles, and the Assistant Minister for Defence, Peter Khalil, announce cuts that strip away critical defence infrastructure? What message does it send to young cadets seeking to enlist when the government will not even guarantee them a permanent home?

The next generation of soldiers, naval officers and Air Force pilots will come from the cadet ranks. Forcing these young Australians to choose from between unsuitable school halls and facilities that are geographically out of reach will only discourage participation and erode confidence in the cadet system. Cadet units are far more than four walls; they are community hubs that instil leadership, resilience, discipline and practical skills. Former and serving cadets are widely recognised as valued employees and responsible citizens, people who give back to their communities.

Decisions like this should not be made by Canberra based bureaucrats or politicians who have never set foot on the ground at places like TS Argonaut or the many other outstanding cadet and Defence facilities across Tasmania. I challenge the Labor members for Bass and Lyons, Jess Teesdale and Rebecca White, to stand up for their communities, to advocate on their behalf and to ensure that vital cadet facilities, especially in remote and regional areas, are not lost. Our cadets and our entire Defence Force deserve far greater respect than this.

A few short weeks ago I received contact from a brave woman called Caroline Graham. Caroline had lived a full and passionate life. She was a retired senior lecturer in international politics at UTS in Sydney and had for decades been a staunch supporter of the free Palestine movement. Caroline was also 87 years old and suffering from an incurable terminal illness and was only a few hours away from ending her life, using, as she described it, the wonderful voluntary assisted dying process. There was something Caroline needed to tell the world before her life ended. Standing here, I want all of those who knew and loved Caroline to know I feel humbled that she entrusted this truth with me.

Caroline sent me a video that commenced:' I'm Caroline Graham and I'm recording this myself on my iPhone from my home in Willandra retirement village. I wanted to say a few things before I go.' Because of time, I can't put every word that Caroline said on the record tonight, and I can't share the video outside of this chamber, because, if I did, I would likely be arrested and charged for breaches of secrecy laws protecting ASIO's supersecret questioning powers.

So here are the core parts of what Caroline wanted the world to know before she died. She described how in the late 1970s she hadn't really known much about Israel-Palestine conflict until she got into a taxi with a Palestinian driver. He changed her. He told her the truth about the conflict, and they started a radio show together and formed a group called the Palestine Human Rights Campaign.

Caroline then said in this video: 'I want you to know the main point in making this recording is because I'm pretty angry at the way ASIO has been able, through legislation started under the Howard government in 2003, to call people in to secret hearings. They're called questioning warrants. They can come to the house of anybody—doesn't have to be suspected of doing anything bad. It's anybody who might be of the slightest bit of interest. This was to combat terrorism—anybody who might be of interest. Plus their husbands, fathers, mothers, relatives and friends can also be taken in for serious secret questioning. And, if you don't obey in going to these hearings or being questioned, you're liable to be jailed for as much as five years.'

Caroline said this because it happened to her. She said: 'I just wanted to say my experience was in 2013. My husband, from whom I'd been separated for about 40 years, rang me—he has now passed away—to say that the antiterrorism squad from the federal police had called in looking for me. He wanted to warn me. He'd probably be arrested for that too. So the police rang me, and in the end they came. I lived alone. These two people from the federal police antiterrorism squad came three times to interview me, and they took away photos I had of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.'

Caroline then remembered how, in 1982, at the height of some of the most appalling parts of Israel's occupation of Lebanon, she was part of organising a demonstration outside the Israeli consulate in Sydney to protest the killings and massacres. Caroline said that when she arrived there were more police than demonstrators. Two protestors were arrested, and she said, 'The rest of us just had a little demo out on the street.' The next day she was shocked to hear that a bomb had gone off at the consulate and injured a cleaner. Remember that this was in 1982, and they were the events the AFP were questioning her about in 2013.

Caroline then said: 'That's why 30 years later, in 2013, someone like me was called up and interviewed three or four times about my activities organising demos and this and that. The third time they came I said to them, "You must want a cup of coffee," and they said, "No, if you knew what we were going to do, you wouldn't be offering us coffee." At that point they said, "You have to appear before a hearing in Sydney on such and such a day, and, if you tell anyone about this, you're liable to go to prison, so don't mention it even to your children or friends." They made it quite clear from the very start that this thing was highly secret, so I was very scared of telling anyone. Now I no longer care if I go to prison, because I'm going to have a dying dose administered to me. I don't care anymore. I'm really glad I can say this.'

She said: 'It was somewhere behind Margaret Street. There's a downstairs court that's so dim lit. There was just a judge or whoever sitting there on a podium on one side of the courtroom. On the other side were a couple of stenographers taking down the proceedings. At the very opening, the judge said, "We've decided that you're not responsible for the bombing of the consulate in 1982, but we'd like to question you anyhow." So it went on. It didn't go on for all that long, but there was a person who was questioning me about every Palestinian I'd ever met. I don't think they mentioned an Anglo name. But, anyway, it was every Palestinian I'd worked with in all our campaigns, and they were totally innocent of everything. I was released from the court, and nothing more seemed to come of it, except I was terrified to mention it to anyone for years. I have no idea how many hundreds of people would now be walking around having to shut their mouths about anything related to such hearings, be forced to talk about people and be liable to be jailed for five years if they mentioned it to anyone whatsoever.'

Caroline said: 'So, with that, I will sign off and just say I wish, now that I'm about to die, there were better news on the Palestinian front. But I will say, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." I know it will. And I'd be happy to be arrested right now for saying that. And they would be able to learn to live side by side, as many Jews, Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs have already formed good friendships. I know this could happen. And I just wish I were around to see it all. To all my friends, and even to my enemies: goodbye, and good luck.'

That is truth to power, and that is the reality of ASIO's coercive questioning powers. That is why the Greens oppose these laws, because we don't want anyone else to live a life scared of telling their closest friends and family about what they are scared and fearful of, and in this case it's the state.

As we know, the federal budget delivered $10 billion for an Australian fuel security and resilience package that was introduced by the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, on Tuesday night. That is to ensure that we secure our energy sovereignty and boost national resilience. This also builds on the Albanese government's action to secure additional fuel and fertiliser supply, growing strategic reserves above the precrisis levels. The package will also establish a permanent, publicly owned Australian fuel security reserve of one billion litres, and a fuel and fertiliser security facility, increasing the supply and storage of diesel, aviation fuel and fertiliser. Crucially, these strategic reserves will be stored onshore in Australia, where they are needed, not on the other side of the world. The government will also increase the minimum stockholding obligation, ensuring at least 50 days of fuel supply and storage of diesel and aviation fuel.

Just last month, the fire at Viva Energy's Geelong oil refinery in Victoria highlighted the importance of Australia's fuel security and the value of strong workplace safety protections. Despite the seriousness of the fire, thankfully none of the workers on site were injured, and this is testament to the safety procedures, the training and the protocols that many people, particularly the Australian Workers' Union and the broader trade union movement, have won through decades of advocacy and collective action. I want to give a shout-out to the Victorian branch of the AWU for their cooperative work when that unfortunate fire occurred. I know many members and workers on site were thankful that there were no serious injuries.

The Geelong refinery has continued producing diesel and jet fuel at about 80 per cent of the regular capacity at the site and 60 per cent of petrol production, helping to minimise the disruption across the country. Viva Energy anticipates production will return to over 90 per cent of capacity next month, following further repairs. I applaud the refinery workers for keeping the refinery running and keeping our country moving. I want to say thank you very much from the Senate.

The ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the closure of the strait continue to place significant pressure on global oil and refined liquid fuels. The Albanese government's Australian fuel security and resilience package will ensure that Australia is protected against future disruptions while supporting secure jobs, local refinery capability and safer workplaces.

On another note, I want to touch on defence. This year's budget delivers on the Albanese government's 2026 National Defence Strategy and 2026 Integrated Investment Program, expanding defence investment by $53 billion over the next decade. Defence investment will total $887 billion to 2035-36, funding major projects such as our nuclear powered submarine program through AUKUS.

But this investment is not only about national security. In Victoria, the defence manufacturing sector is turning this record investment into sovereign capability and securing many Australian jobs. In the past month alone, Melbourne companies SYPAQ Systems and Aim Defence, for instance, secured more than $31 million in federal funding contracts to develop counterdrone technology. These projects are moving advanced systems from research into real production, supporting highly skilled engineering, manufacturing and testing jobs in Victoria. In Bendigo, the government also committed $750 million for 268 new Bushmaster vehicles. In Geelong, the armoured vehicle centre of excellence at Avalon is already producing major land systems, including self-propelled artillery and infantry fighting vehicles. At peak production, these programs will support 2,100 jobs.

These investments are important. They're important because they form an integrated defence manufacturing network that is supported by suppliers across Victoria, from small businesses to major contractors. In fact, Victoria's defence industry contributes around $10.9 billion annually to our economy and supports over 29,000 workers. These figures will only continue to grow. Thank you for the work that you are doing, and I want to say it is important that we continue investing in our defence manufacturing.

A budget of broken promises, an ambush on aspiration and an assault on Australians' standard of living—this is what we had from the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, and his budget last night. That budget statement foretold a future of new and higher taxes, surging inflation, declining real wages, higher debt and, all up, a fundamental demolition of the Australian dream. This is a budget that will not only make Australians worse off; it destroys their dreams of ever getting ahead. Previous generations have been able to use our tax system to save, invest and get ahead—people like the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and many of his colleagues. But, after this budget, Australians will have amongst the highest tax rate on investment anywhere in the world. This Labor budget is increasing the tax on every class of investment—on housing, on shares, on ETFs, on managed funds, on crypto, on small business and on start-ups. If you're a young Australian and you've just started work or maybe you're working part time, and you've been buying shares or putting money in an ETF as a way to save, when it comes time to sell them, you are going to be paying more tax on their sale—a minimum of 30 per cent—than you do on your wages. How does that encourage savings and investment? How does that promote aspiration? How does that give young Australians the hope for a better future? If you've got an idea for a small business or a start-up, it's even worse. The tax outlook that you will face there is nothing short of punitive. Rather than helping young people get ahead and providing them with the opportunities that their parents enjoyed, what this budget does is pull the ladder up. It relegates younger people to a future of wage servitude.

Not only does this budget destroy the Australian dream, hacking away at the hopes of young people for a better future; it will leave Australians worse off in the here and now. This is the future we are facing: higher taxes—$77 billion in new taxes over the next decade and income tax receipts growing by another $27 billion over the next year, accounting for the highest share of tax receipts on record. Higher inflation—the budget papers confirm that government spending will be growing at a real rate, at twice the rate of the economy. Government spending, already at a 40-year high outside the pandemic, will continue to grow. All that extra spending will add to inflationary pressures, making further interest rate rises—we've already had 15 under this government—almost inevitable. Real wages—continuing to fall. Real wages, which are already lower than they were four years ago, when this Labor government came to office, are set to shrink another two per cent over the next year on the Treasury papers. Higher debt—government debt is set to hit $1 trillion this financial year and then set to hit $1.25 trillion, $1¼ trillion dollars, in the next four years. Interest on this debt alone is now the fastest-growing item in government spending.

We hear from this government—and we keep hearing—that this budget is going to help younger Australians. But how does saddling them with more debt help younger Australians? How does higher inflation and falling real wages help younger Australians? How do higher interest rates help younger Australians? How do higher taxes on investment, the very pathway their parents used to get ahead, help younger Australians? Where is the intergenerational equity in all of this? Saddling young people with the debt from out-of-control government spending is not intergenerational equity; it's intergenerational larceny. Denying younger people the investment opportunities afforded to older Australians is not intergenerational equity; it's intergenerational theft. Condemning younger people to stagnant real wages, flatlining an economy, is not intergenerational equity; it's an abdication of leadership. This is a budget of broken promises, yes, and that alone condemns it, but it is also a budget of broken dreams, and that is its cruellest feature.

Senate adjourned at 19:53