The Aged Care Amendment (Restoring Human Override for Aged Care Needs Assessments) Bill 2026 restores a simple principle: decisions about care should be made by a qualified person, a qualified professional, not a computer algorithm with no human capacity. The current system allows an algorithm to determine outcomes without any capacity for a trained assessor to override it. This bill ensures the tool supports, not replaces, professional judgement, and it enshrines it in primary legislation.

The Integrated Assessment Tool should be a tool that assists assessors, not replaces professional judgement. The bill achieves this in three very practical ways. First, it restores the discretion of qualified assessors to override or adjust an algorithm's recommendation where their clinical judgement tells them that that outcome is wrong. Second, it improves transparency by requiring decision notices to explain how the algorithm was used and how the assessor's professional judgement influenced the final outcome, giving older Australians greater confidence in the process. And, third, it creates the right for people assessed since 1 November 2025 to seek a fresh assessment if they believe the algorithm produced an incorrect classification, ensuring people are not locked into decisions that have been wrong.

This bill responds to the significant concern raised by assessors, advocacy organisations and older Australians that the current system is failing to accurately assess people's care needs. It recognises that no algorithm can replace the experienced judgement and clinical expertise of a trained assessor when making complex decisions about an older person's care needs. The bill strengthens accountability by making the assessment process more transparent. Importantly, this is not about changing eligibility or increasing funding levels; it is about ensuring the existing assessment system produces fair, clinically-sound decisions about an older person's care needs.

The department confirmed in estimates in June 2026 that the algorithm was never tested as part of the live trial in 2023; it was developed and tested internally only within the department. There was never any consultation. The tool has never been clinically validated, and the decision to remove human override was a budget decision. If the government is genuinely committed to protecting older Australians, it should support this bill this morning and enshrine human override into the primary legislation.

Our bill provides lasting protection by embedding the right of qualified assessors to exercise their professional judgement in primary legislation, ensuring future governments cannot remove human override without proper parliamentary scrutiny. We know what happens when those protections are absent. The government removed human override without consultation with assessors, providers, older Australians or their representatives. Decisions of this magnitude—decisions that determine the level of care an older person receives—should never be made behind closed doors or altered by regulation alone; they should be subject to the full parliamentary oversight and accountability of this place. To the thousands of older Australians who've had their care packages slashed or been deemed ineligible altogether, even as their conditions deteriorate and worsen, we will support you.

Families and frontline assessors are watching vulnerable seniors denied the support they need to stay safely in their own homes. This is not the person centred, rights based aged-care system Labor promised the Australian people. Minister Rae's rapid review is a damning admission that the tool is failing, yet he has ruled out reinstating human override while only tinkering around the edges. Labor has failed older Australians at every single turn. Their reckless algorithms-first approach is driving assessors out of the sector in droves and leaving older Australians worse off than they have previously been. This is just another example of how the Labor government is leaving older Australians behind at a time when they are most vulnerable.

Older Australians have told us that they want this bill passed, and their families have asked for it, too. Unlike the Labor government, the coalition and others in this chamber have listened, and we will act.

At the outset, I want to put two things on the record. I think senators around this chamber have genuine care and concern for older Australians in ensuring that they get dignity in their later years; I'm not doubting that in any way. There was bipartisan support for the government's reforms, and we certainly want to continue in that way. Unfortunately, though, at the outset, I do need to make it clear that while the government shares the intent of this private senator's bill, the Aged Care Amendment (Restoring Human Override for Aged Care Needs Assessments) Bill 2026, we're not able to support its passage as it's currently drafted. We're concerned that, in practice, its provisions will be counterproductive and may not achieve what they set out to do. There is a lot of nuance when we talk about the way that these assessments are happening, so I am going to put on the record the information that Australians need to understand and know about how the government is progressing the most historical reforms in the aged-care system ever delivered and the most funding ever delivered to the aged-care system.

The integrated assessment tool that we're talking about today, also known as IAT, and associated classification and prioritisation mechanisms, are central parts to fixing a system that was previously slow and inconsistent, and, in too many cases—this is very important to understand—unfair to older Australians. It was unfair because they weren't getting the right assessment that they needed. It is part of a broader reform agenda that is fixing a system that was failing not just older people but their loved ones, aged-care workers and, indeed, all of those committed to the task of caring for those who have given us so much.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety shocked Australians with its damning assessment of a failing aged-care system. The final report, tabled in parliament on 1 March 2021, made 148 recommendations calling for fundamental reform. Since coming to government, we've been getting on with the job of delivering those recommendations, putting in place the once-in-a-generation reforms that are needed to deliver high-quality, world-class aged-care services to the older Australians who built this community and to whom we owe compassionate care. But we know that generational reform is not a single moment; it is a long-term project. With the commencement of the new Aged Care Act 2024 on 1 November 2025, we've already seen many improvements to the way that care is delivered to older Australians, and this has meant that we are now providing more care to more people more quickly.

As of 31 March, a record 300,000 older Australians have access to an ongoing Support at Home place, and, with the delivery of an additional 83,000 places last financial year and another 32,000 to come this financial year, by the end of 2026-27, 420,000 older Australians will have access to Support at Home. This is almost three times as many older Australians as the number that had a home-care package in 2020. This is the volume that we are talking about. But we've also said that we will watch closely as these reforms roll out and will make adjustments to ensure that they are delivering what older Australians need. We've been really clear about that.

The IAT is about delivering a system that's efficient, accurate and fair. It shouldn't matter where someone lives or who does their assessment. Every older Australian should be treated equitably by our aged-care assessment systems. To deliver on that aspiration, design decisions have specifically been made to ensure that consistency, so that, for a given set of clinical characterisations, the assessment system produces the same outcome. This is what it means to bring together clinical expertise, of course, and consistent national rules to deliver more equitable outcomes. The explanatory memorandum to this bill states:

This Bill clarifies that the IAT functions in a supporting capacity only, and that the approved needs assessor retains authority to record an assessment outcome based on their professional judgment.

The bill itself says that an assessor's discretion may not be limited by the assessment tool or any other requirements prescribed by the rules.

As I said at the beginning, I understand the intent of the private senators' bill. But a broader, unfettered discretion for assessors to override the classification or priority assigned under the rules, as is proposed by this bill, would actually risk undermining fairness, and, importantly, slowing access to care for many of those who need it. This is a matter of debate. We take a different view from those opposite and those at the end of the chamber about the need for fairness in the system, and that is what we will be debating today. But, under the former Home Care Packages Program, senators will be aware that there was a high degree of assessor discretion in determining funding and priority levels, and what that actually resulted in was that people with very similar needs received very different outcomes depending on where they lived or who conducted the assessment. In 2024-25, for example, around 20 to 25 per cent of packages were approved nationally at level 4, but, in some jurisdictions, that figure was as high as 60 per cent. That variation created serious equity issues and had a direct impact on wait times for care.

We also saw the consequences of that inconsistency in the accumulation of large volumes of unspent funds across the system, highlighting the limitations of process based, subjective decision-making with an inadequate focus on fairness and consistency. By the time the new act commenced, $4 billion in unspent care funding was sitting in people's accounts—money that could have delivered more care more quickly to more people.

I want to be clear about this. The government understands and appreciates the intent of the private senators' bill. It's not that I think that Senator Ruston or other senators are not genuine in their concern for older people. But we are concerned that the consequences of these provisions would have significant cost implications. An early analysis from the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing is that the cost of these amendments to the act would be significant. The senators proposing this bill have not explained how these costs would be met within the aged-care system. We are also concerned that departmental advice also shows that the provisions could have major implications for wait times, blowing those out by an estimated five months. These concerns should not just be brushed away as if they are of little consequence. Wait times, the cost of aged care and where that money is spent are so important to older Australians.

There is a reason why the assessment system had to change from what it was before; I can't be clearer about that. There was an unfair system resulting in people not getting the care they needed. There is a reason why the rules that govern the process were decided and went through a robust parliamentary scrutiny process. There is a reason why the parliament agreed that these rules would be what they are, and a provision, as is included in this bill, to allow assessors to in any circumstances set aside what is prescribed by the rules decided by parliament will not deliver the equity that this system should be maintaining for older Australians who deserve dignity, equity and fairness.

Being a responsible steward of this system upon which so many older people rely means approaching changes like this in a careful and considered way. It means working together, hopefully in the same bipartisan way that we brought the new Aged Care Bill to this parliament, to deliver on the needs of those in our community. That's why the government has announced that it will establish a new legislated escalation option, so that outcomes of the aged-care integrated assessment tool can be changed in extenuating circumstances. This means that, in the same number of cases where a person's complex circumstances are not fully captured by the integrated assessment tool, under this new pathway their assessment can be escalated to the system governor and adjusted if necessary so they get appropriate care. This will provide practical, responsible protection without compromising the care of older people, and we'll use the parliamentary break to consult on what this will look like so it can be implemented.

We are willing to work together with those opposite, as we are with all senators in this chamber, to find a way to achieve the intent of this private senator's bill without the adverse consequences currently before us. This is what older Australians expect. When the royal commission report was delivered, it shocked Australians. It shocked Australians because we expect that older Australians who have lived their lives, paid their taxes and contributed to our communities and our economy are taken care of in the most dignified way—and that was not happening under the previous government. Those 143 recommendations from the royal commission need to be implemented, and the government has been working to do that.

We know this is a challenge. We know this is generational reform. But it is this government that has taken it on. It is this government that is delivering. We want to ensure that the expectations older Australians have of their government to meet their needs, to deliver on the recommendations, to make sure that the system is fair and equitable no matter where you live and no matter who does your assessment—those are the expectations that older Australians, and indeed all Australians, have of us.

Just to finish here, I understand there is a genuineness to the debate that will happen today. I don't dismiss the care and concern that anyone in this chamber has for older Australians. The government shares that concern, and that's why it's implementing these reforms. It's why we are making sure those 143 recommendations are implemented. That is why the government introduced the new Aged Care Bill. We brought it to parliament, parliament decided on the rules that would be implemented, and the system we've developed is making sure that the rules are implemented in a fair and equitable way. This bill would result in longer wait times in and higher costs to a system that cannot afford either.

So I want to say that the government will not be able to support this bill, but we are working incredibly hard to review the system to ensure that there is an escalation system in place. We will consult on what that looks like and bring that back after the break to ensure that it is legislated, hopefully with bipartisan support.

The Greens stand as co-sponsors and supporters of the Aged Care Amendment (Restoring Human Override for Aged Care Needs Assessments) Bill 2026 alongside Senator Ruston and Senator Pocock, and I thank Senators Ruston and Pocock for the work that we continue to do together to make sure that older Australians get the care that they need at the time that they need it. I think the minister belled the cat in their contribution because they said, if this bill were to pass, there would be significant cost implications around aged-care assessments, which seems to me to support our view that the Integrated Assessment Tool has been designed to reduce costs of care. Every older person in this country has a right to have a human make the decision about their care needs, and any tool that is used in that process should be simply that—a tool, not the decision-maker.

The Labor government has outsourced the decision-making for older people's complex care needs to a computer algorithm with no ability for human override. That is unconscionable. Whilst the minister gets up and says that this parliament passed the rules, notwithstanding that the Greens didn't vote for them, those rules did not say that no human could override the decision of a computer tool that gets the decision wrong. When we questioned the department during our inquiry hearing and at estimates, it was clear that there has been no clinical review of this tool, that there have been no human trials of the tool—it was just tested on data from other decisions—and that the testing was internal only. Older Australians have lost trust in this government's ability to fairly assess their care needs. The minister talks about unfairness, and yet the community affairs committee, during estimates and in our inquiry hearings, has been given no evidence of unfairness. Simply stating that more people in one state had higher levels of care assigned to them than another is not a demonstration that the system is unfair. How do we know that a majority of people in a particular location have particularly complex needs? If you're going to put in a tool to assess the care needs of older people, then at least back it up with evidence instead of just falling back on this idea of unfairness. I'll tell you what's unfair: an older person having their complex needs put through a computer program and spat out the other end and then being told, 'That's it,' and no human—no clinician, no doctor, no geriatrician—can override that if it appears that it is wrong. When the geriatricians in this country are saying that the tool is not working, this government needs to listen.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety said that we needed a person centred, rights based system. There is nothing person centred in outsourcing the assessment of people's care needs to a computer algorithm. The government also say that they really care about older people and they're doing everything they can to give as many people as possible as much care as possible. Well, the government is still rationing care. The minister talked about 83,000 packages in the last financial year and 32,000 this year. There are 220,000 people on the waitlist. If you really cared about older people and their care needs, you would release the same number of packages as there are people on the waitlist.

This is about cost. This is about putting a tool in place that regularly underassesses people's care needs, forcing them into a process that requires at least a 90-day review to go back through the process again, rather than simply acknowledging that a person with clinical judgement should be allowed to override any decision that the tool makes that is unfair.

Labor has announced some minor changes to the IAT this morning. That's not surprising, because they have been dragged kicking and screaming at every turn to acceptance of the fact that their aged-care rollout isn't working. They were dragged kicking and screaming by this chamber to release 20,000 home-care packages sooner when they'd stopped releasing packages. They were dragged kicking and screaming by the senators in this chamber on the community affairs committees, and through our work in the community and through the media, to finally shift showering, dressing and incontinence care into free care, notwithstanding that people are still waiting until November. This Labor government that cares so much about older people is still making them wait until November before they can stop having to pay for assistance with showering, dressing and continence care.

The government say that they care, so it's unsurprising that they've gone out this morning and told everybody, 'We're changing the IAT.' Only some people, in a narrow section of exceptional circumstances, are going to have the benefit of potential human override, but everybody else out there who's waiting for their aged-care assessment will still be subject to the IAT, without the ability of a human to make those decisions.

How can older people trust this government when the minister goes on the radio this morning and says, 'The system is basically working fine'? Older people will tell you it is not fine. Just this week, I had an older couple email my office, telling me that they're too scared to get an assessment, even though their doctor has told them that their needs are higher than CHSP, because they are terrified that the algorithm will underassess them and that they won't be able to afford their care. That is the system that this government is overseeing. Trust is gone. How can older people trust you when you tell us that it's only a very small number of cases that are getting it wrong when we know it's thousands?

The government clearly do not understand the consequences of their own policy, so their hand needs to be forced, which this bill does. Every older person in this country deserves to have their essential care needs assessed by a human. Basic dignity should not be reserved for exceptional cases. That is why the Greens will be supporting this bill.

I want to start by thanking the opposition and the Greens for their work on this, and the outstanding work that Senator Ruston and Senator Allman-Payne have done through estimates and through other inquiries. I'd like to thank all the journalists who have covered the case studies—the real human impact of systems that aren't delivering for Australians. Often, we hear about numbers. We hear about big numbers in terms of cost, the number of Australians affected et cetera. Those numbers are humans. Behind every number is the story of an older Australian, their families, their support networks and their carers.

I want to share one story that was sent to my office by a Canberran about a woman in her 70s that we'll call 'Donna'. Donna was admitted to the Canberra Hospital with confusion, cognitive decline and cellulitis after being unable to manage her own wound care. Over recent months, she has become lost in her community and been picked up by police. She has not been eating and was not managing her own finances, spending well beyond her means. Her family had spent nine months trying to arrange an ACAT assessment, without success. In hospital, staff requested an ACAT. I'm hearing a worrying trend. It has been the case for the last few years, where older Australians are having to go to hospital to then get priority ACAT assessments. Despite the cognitive decline, despite the fact that she wasn't eating and despite the fact that she was getting lost in her own neighbourhood, the algorithm said she qualified for a level 1 package. That's less than two hours of care a week, and that can only be challenged through some complex reconsideration process with the department. Donna couldn't be discharged, because, obviously, the hospital knew that Donna's needs were far above a level 1 package, so she stayed in hospital. That's hardly a good outcome for anyone—for Donna, for her family or for all of us, who pay for our hospital system.

We've heard from the government many times that there are humans involved, but it turns out that the humans involved are inputting the data and then we pay someone to rubberstamp whatever the algorithm says. The person who's rubberstamping can't actually change the outcome. That's not proper oversight, and that needs to change. There was a welcome announcement from Minister Rae after the pressure from the Senate, but it's very unclear exactly what that's going to deliver, so I really thank the Senate for debating this important issue and for having brought forward the Aged Care Amendment (Restoring Human Override for Aged Care Needs Assessments) Bill 2026 to stand up for older Australians, to stand up for our communities and to listen to the robodebt royal commission.

Commissioner Holmes was so clear about the need for human oversight when it comes to automated decision-making. Recommendations 17.1 and 17.2 of the royal commission talked about the need for a government-wide act that actually governs the use of automated decision-making in laws and in delegated legislation. As yet, we have not seen such a bill, and it's my understanding that the government is a fair way off doing that. Recommendation 17.2 talked about the need for independent oversight, and this is a real frustration for us as senators—when we ask the department how the algorithm actually works, we're told: 'Well, it's commercial in confidence. We can't let you know that, because then people could game the system.' So, clearly, we need an independent, well-resourced regulator of sorts that can actually look at the algorithm and decide, 'Yes, this is in line with what we would expect.'

I commend this bill. Again, I thank Senators Ruston and Allman-Payne, the coalition and the Greens for their work on this bill, and I commend it to the Senate.

I move:

That the question be now put.

Senator Ananda-Rajah, are you seeking to raise a point of order?

I have a contribution to make. I'm just a little emotional because this conversation is actually, for me, dredging up some family issues. I have an 85-year-old father who's going through this, and I'm just a little distracted. I'm listening to the contributions and I appreciate them, and I do want to share my own story desperately, because I think it's very pertinent to this debate.

Thank you, Senator. Let me seek some advice from the clerks. The question is that the question be put.

The question is that the bill be now read a second time.

I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

The question is that the bill be read a third time.

I move:

That the committee does not insist on its amendments to which the House of Representatives has disagreed.

The coalition is not going to insist on these amendments. But I would draw to the attention of the chamber the basis of the amendment, that was put forward by Senator Lambie, actually served to support two cohorts of people more particularly than others by endorsing podiatrists to be able to prescribe within their scope. It was to make sure that people who live in rural and regional areas, who often don't have access to a GP, and who have gone to their podiatrists are able to get access to the medications on the PBS that they need. And let's not forget, this is not about allowing podiatrists to prescribe. This is about podiatrists who already can prescribe being able to get access to medications on the PBS for their patients.

The other group of people who are most impacted by this are older Australians. We know that older Australians, more than younger Australians, rely on having their feet looked after. Australians who live with disability are also more likely to need the services of a podiatrist.

What we have here is the government refusing to accept an amendment that would allow people in rural and regional Australia, older Australians and people who live with a disability the ability for their prescribing podiatrist to actually let them get their medications on the PBS. The only options that now remain, because they're refusing to let this amendment go through, are these: they can either pay full tote odds for those medications or they've got to go and make a second appointment to visit a GP so they are able to get those medications on the PBS. This is an absolutely egregious decision by those in the other place not to allow this amendment to go through.

I absolutely commend Senator Lambie for putting the amendment forward. I also acknowledge the fact that the Greens supported this amendment. But we won't stand in the way of nurse prescribers being able to prescribe in the same way as I've just outlined for podiatrists. We obviously want to make sure that the people who are able to get their prescriptions by that mechanism are able to get it on the PBS.

The government needs to have a very close look at some of the pettiness of their decision-making, particularly when they have not even responded to the scope of practice review, which was handed to them nearly two years ago, that actually outlined why this was so important. But, as I said, we won't stand in the way of this because we believe nurse prescribers should be able to prescribe to make sure that more Australians are able to get access to cheaper medicines. This move by this government, to not accept this amendment, is actually making sure that medicines are more expensive—not cheaper medicines, more expensive medicines—than they would otherwise be able to get if you'd let this amendment go through.

I'd like to commend the government on their changes to the scope of practice for nurses. This is a very welcome change. I want to acknowledge everyone who's been pushing for this change for many years now—the hard work that has gone into making the case and building up the evidence base—and the government for actually going ahead with it.

I am confused, though, about the government's reluctance to allow prescriptions from podiatrists to be covered by the PBS. As Senator Ruston said, this is already happening—podiatrists can prescribe, but Australians just have to pay a lot more. Here in Canberra, where we have a shortage of GPs, it's very hard to get in to see a GP—at short notice it's almost impossible—and we have the highest gap fee in the country. We have an average 50-buck gap fee. We're essentially saying to mostly older Australians who go and see their podiatrist and have something prescribed that they now need to book in to see a GP and go to the GP to get the script that the podiatrist gave them prescribed by the GP so they're covered by the PBS.

We hear a lot about productivity. We hear a lot about the cost of living. We hear a lot about caring for older Australians. It seems like such a sensible move for the parliament to say, 'Podiatrists are already prescribing; we accept that; it's working well; we're simply going to cover those prescriptions with the PBS.' I really think we need an explanation from the government as to why they're not backing this change. This seems like evidence based policy. It seems like it's in the best interests of all Australians and builds on the health system that we have. On behalf of Canberrans, I want to raise my concerns about a government that won't back an amendment from the Senate that I think is clearly in line with what most Australians would probably already think happens—if you can prescribe, you're covered by the PBS.

I want to place a couple of things on the record. First of all, I want to very clearly state the Australian Greens' support for the underlying legislation. This is a good reform. We would have liked to see the government pass this legislation earlier in the year. There were many opportunities for this bill to be resolved and passed earlier in the parliamentary agenda. There was a guillotine in March that they could have added it to. There was a guillotine at the beginning of the week they could have added it to. I know waiting to see the resolution of this legislation has caused a bit of stress and strain for the profession. As I said, we support this reform, so we will not be insisting on the amendment that passed the Senate but has been rejected by Labor in the House in order to see this legislation pass and for the profession to have certainty.

I will also say this. I read the government's reasoning for rejecting this amendment last night. It's a very simple amendment, an amendment which would have ensured, had the government supported it, that Australians that seek the healthcare support of endorsed podiatrists were able to receive and fill scripts from their podiatrists that were claimable and usable under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. It's a very sensible amendment. It closes one of the ridiculous gaps and loopholes in our healthcare system.

As others have contributed and stated very clearly in this debate, right now, Australians—a lot of older Australians, a lot of disabled people—who seek the expertise of an endorsed podiatrist or podiatric surgeon, those professionals who are enabled by state and territory law to prescribe, are in the position where they then face additional costs because they cannot utilise the PBS to fill in that script. They have to go back to the GP, where they then face the very real prospect of having to pay a gap fee before then getting a script that would then allow them to get the medication that they need more affordably. That doesn't make sense. It creates additional cost for the person seeking health care. It creates unnecessary, larger wait times for healthcare services.

The reasoning given by the government to reject this amendment in the House was, quite frankly—and I say this with a genuine acknowledgement of the diligence with which the minister and his team have worked across many areas of the healthcare system and the reform agenda, which we've been supportive of and are supportive of—ridiculous. The reasoning was ridiculous, folks. You rejected this amendment based on the idea that it's too hasty and doesn't take account of the required consultation needed to enact such a reform.

You've had the scope-of-practice review for two years, and this issue has been raised with this government for so long that, if my memory serves right, it was being raised with you when you were last in government in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. This has not come out of nowhere, and this is not extending the ability to prescribe to a profession that can't already prescribe, because it already can.

The patients of those healthcare professionals can't access affordable medicines. We've heard really clearly basic examples: somebody goes to a podiatrist with an issue. They are prescribed a regular 12-week course of treatment cream for the condition that might have led them to the podiatrist in the first place, and, because of this gap in the law, they pay upwards of $27 to $28 more than they need to—and that's without factoring in the additional costs of going back to the GP, the travel time, the complexity. That's ridiculous. We could have closed this loophole and made this form of health care more affordable to Australians right now. Right now we could have done that in this vote, but the government has said no.

Well, let me say this: we are not going to let this one go. This is a common-sense reform whose time has well and truly come. We're going to keep pushing this, and my message to the minister and their team is really crystal clear: this is going to keep coming back up, so let's get this done. Let's just come together around something that makes total sense and give people access to more affordable podiatric surgery and more affordable treatment from their endorsed podiatrist. It just makes sense.

I thank senators for your contributions to this debate on the Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025, in committee. I want to make a few brief remarks—not extended ones, because I did address many of the issues that have been canvassed here this morning in my contribution yesterday.

Based on the contributions that senators have made this morning, I understand that the bill will shortly pass this chamber, and I want to emphasise how pleased I am that that is the case. I think I share that with all senators here. This bill will allow the 400,000 nurses across the country to engage more widely and to work more fully within their scope of practice, and that is a very good thing for patients all across the country.

I note the comments about podiatry, and I emphasise, as I did yesterday, that the Podiatry Board is currently working with the National Medicines and Poisons Advisory Group on updating the podiatry endorsement for scheduled medicines. The Podiatry Board will return to that advisory group later this year as their work progresses, including to facilitate broader consideration of endorsement for scheduled medicine arrangements for the wider podiatry profession.

The government is, of course, deeply committed to supporting access to health care and increasing access to health care. I note Senator Pocock's remarks earlier in relation to the ACT. We are delivering our commitment in the ACT to strengthen Medicare and bulk-billing here. Just recently I saw Minister Gallagher and Minister Butler opening the two additional fully bulk-billed clinics in the ACT, and there's another one to come. Strengthening access to public health is a core commitment for the government. Strengthening Medicare, investing in public hospitals, expanding bulk-billing and restoring the integrity of that bulk-billing offering in the context of 10 years of cuts to services—this is core business for our government, and we intend to continue.

I think the Senate for your consideration of this bill. Without wishing to get ahead of the Senate processes, I look forward to the bill passing this chamber shortly.

Question agreed to.

Resolution reported; report adopted.

The committee is considering amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 3912, moved by Senator Canavan.

The question is that amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 3912 be agreed to.

I've got a couple of questions for the minister. Minister, is the government aware that the ACCC, ASIC and a number of organisations in Australia representing consumers, including the Consumer Policy Research Centre and the Consumer Action Law Centre, have all advocated for the government to extend the ban on unfair trading—

Senator McKim, I might get you to pause. Could senators please leave the chamber quietly if they're not participating in debate.

Thanks very much for your protection there, Chair.

I couldn't hear what you were saying.

I think it's more in my interest.

I'll start again, will I? Minister, is the government aware that the ACCC wants to extend the ban on unfair trading practices to the financial services sector? Is the government aware that ASIC wants to extend the ban on unfair trading practices to the financial services sector? Is the government aware that peak consumer groups, including the Consumer Policy Research Centre and the Consumer Action Law Centre, want to extend the ban on unfair practices to the financial services sector? If you are aware of those things, why haven't you done it?

The government is aware—both from our engagement with the agencies that you've outlined and with those peak councils and more broadly—of that question. It is the government's approach to legislate this tranche of reforms. There will be future reform.

Minister, are you saying that future reforms from the government will extend the ban on unfair trading practices to the financial services sector? And, if you are saying that, when will that happen?

I think the best way of describing it is that, while the government will make decisions about that in the normal way, we are examining precisely those issues.

What I'm hearing from that is that government is currently considering those issues, but you don't wish to either put a timeframe on any decision point or flag what you think the decision might be. Would that be an accurate categorisation?

Yes. I'm mindful of our cabinet decision-making process. I am happy to confirm that we are examining those issues. We're working them through carefully. Our focus now is on delivering this tranche of reforms through the legislation, but we're working carefully through the issues you've described.

I appreciate that, Minister. This is probably my final question, depending on your response, of course, on this issue: are you able to indicate whether there is a process underway? I'm not asking about cabinet, by the way. I'm asking whether, inside any agencies, there is a process underway. Is there consultation between, for example, Treasury, the ACCC and ASIC on these matters? Are conversations happening? If there is any kind of a process underway, could you just outline that, please, and confirm where you are currently at in that process, if there is a process underway.

Yes, the government is engaged across all of the agencies and organisations external to government that you describe. I can't put a timeframe on that, but we're, as I said, working diligently through those questions.

I won't reprise my second reading contribution here today, which I'm sure is a relief to the entire chamber. But what I will say is that, on behalf of the Australian Greens, I express our significant disappointment in the fact that the government has not chosen to extend the ban on unfair trading practices to the financial services sector.

These have been long held and long expressed views from the ACCC, from ASIC and from peak consumer groups in the country, as well as from the Australian Greens. The government has given no adequate reason for failing to extend the ban on unfair trading practices to the financial services sector, particularly given the view of at least one ACCC commissioner that the harm from unfair trading practices in the financial services sector is likely to be greater than any other sector in the economy. It is time that the government divorced itself from the interests of the big banks and the other financial behemoths in this country that run so much of government policy, and it is time that the government extended the ban on unfair trading practices to the financial services sector.

I'll move my amendments in a moment. I want to quickly respond to Senator Scarr's response to my second reading speech yesterday. I say this to Senator Scarr: I acknowledge the matters that he spoke about in regard to the potential to extend the ban on unfair trading practices to the financial services sector, and I look forward to further engagement across this chamber with a view to ensuring that we protect consumers of financial services in Australia by extending the ban on unfair trading practices to the financial services sector. We'll give everyone a chance to ensure that that happens now. I doubt that it will, but we are going to keep going on this. We will not be silenced on this. We will keep fighting until consumers of financial services in Australia are protected in the same way that consumers of a range of other products and services will be protected under the provisions of this bill.

I seek leave to move Australian Greens amendments circulated in my name, amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 3841, together.

Leave granted.

I move those amendments:

(1) Schedule 1, item 7, page 5 (line 16), at the end of subsection 28B(6), add:

; (e) lead generation.

(2) Schedule 1, item 7, page 5 (before line 17), before subsection 28B(7), insert:

(6A) In this section:

lead generation includes the following:

(a) collecting the consumer's personal information for a sales purpose in an obscure, complex or misleading way;

(b) failing to clearly disclose to the consumer the primary purpose for collecting, using or sharing the consumer's personal information.

The government will be opposing the amendments, but on the basis that Senator McKim and I just discussed, and I look forward to the senator's support for those reforms when they arrive here.

The question is that amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 3841 be agreed to.

Can I just clarify that the amendments that were just negatived by the chamber were about extending unfair trading practices to include lead generation. I want to make a couple of comments about that. We'll come to our amendments to extend the requirements to the financial services sector shortly, and I will move those shortly.

Firstly, on lead generation, as I said in my second reading speech, we have just lived through the collapse of First Guardian and Shield. These matters have been explored and examined at length in this chamber and in Senate estimates not just by the Greens but by a range of other senators right across the political spectrum—and so they should have been examined very closely in those contexts, because the collapse of Shield and First Guardian cost about 12,000 Australian people over $1 billion in lost retirement savings. As I said in my second reading speech, the chair of ASIC, Ms Sarah Court, indicated in estimates in October last year that a ban on unfair trading practices in the financial services sector may have assisted ASIC in their investigation and prosecution of the complex web of actors that were involved in the collapse of First Guardian and Shield.

The reason that lead generation should be included and explicitly caught in the provisions of this legislation is, if we did so, firstly, it would send an unambiguous signal to the 12,000-odd Australians who were ripped off so egregiously during the collapse of First Guardian and Shield that the Senate has got their backs, that the Senate understands what happened and that the parliament understands what happened. It's an opportunity for the government to show that the government understands how absolutely destructive that experience was for a significant number of Australians. Although it wouldn't necessarily get them their money back or provide the full recourse that they deserve and that justice demands, it would at least show that the Senate, the parliament and the government are taking steps to try to ensure that other Australians are protected from those kinds of situations in the future.

As we all know, the bill implements a general prohibition of businesses engaging in unfair trading practices, which is defined as behaviour that manipulates or unreasonably distorts the environment in which the consumer makes a decision. Subsection 28b 6 includes a non-exhaustive list of examples of behaviour that would constitute an unfair trading practice. The amendment, which was just negatived by the Senate, would have added lead generation to that list of examples. Lead generation was defined in our amendment, which the Senate just negatived, as 'collecting the consumer's personal information for a sales purpose in an obscure, complex or misleading way' and 'failing to clearly disclose to the consumer the primary purpose for collecting, using or sharing the consumer's personal information'. There is absolutely nothing objectionable in the way that amendment was drafted and the way it would have operated if it had been included in the bill, as the Greens were proposing.

What we've just witnessed is a missed opportunity. Like the government's and the opposition's stated position of not currently being able to support extending the ban on unfair trading practices to the financial services sector—another missed opportunity—this was a missed opportunity to protect consumers in Australia. Let me remind you that consumers are people. They are people—and they are people who are being price gouged everywhere they turn because of the concentration in market power in sectors like our supermarket sector, our airline sector, our insurance sector, our telecommunications sector and a range of others; the list goes on. There's health insurance—the list really does go on. They are being price gouged everywhere they turn because corporations are misusing their market power, and we all know, because of report after report, that over time the Australian economy is becoming more concentrated. The market power in more sectors of the Australian economy is becoming more concentrated, which gives the corporations more power to do things like price gouge, because the competitive element is being reduced and eroded over time.

The people that are being price gouged—the people that the corporations don't care about except for their capacity to generate profit for the corporations—will now look at what the Senate has done today and form the very reasonable view that, when the Senate had the opportunity to ensure that lead generation was added to the list of examples of behaviour that would constitute an unfair trading practice, the Senate decided not to do that. The Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the Nationals and One Nation—none of them supported adding lead generation to the list of examples of behaviour that would constitute an unfair trading practice. And none of them are going to support extending the ban on unfair trading practices to the financial services sector.

We've heard from the minister that the government is considering that matter. But, honestly, sometimes you've got to line this government up with a tree or any other kind of vertical object you can find just to see if they're actually moving at all. It is glacial, although actually perhaps that's an adjective we shouldn't use anymore, because the glaciers are actually melting and flowing a lot more quickly than they used to be, thanks in part because of the political coalition in this place that supports destroying our native forests and opening up new coal and gas mines hand over fist. So I withdraw 'glacial' and insert 'snail-like'.

Honestly, this has been an active discussion for years. The ACCC has for a long period of time called for the ban on unfair trading practices to be extended to the financial services sector. ASIC has called for a long period of time for the ban on unfair trading practices to be extended to the financial services sector. So, Minister, I want to ask you to explain, in the context of the collapse of First Guardian and Shield, why it is that the government took a position of not adding lead generation to the non-exhaustive list of examples of behaviour that would constitute an unfair trading practice.

As I indicated in response to previous questions and around the amendment that was just dealt with, the government's approach in terms of financial services more broadly is as I described. In relation to lead generation, it is the government's approach here, informed by advice, including from the ACCC, that, where conduct breaches the general prohibition, that is capable of capturing the key harms that, Senator McKim, your amendment seeks to address. That will ultimately be a matter for the courts and the regulators to determine. The framework is supported by the grey list, which already includes conduct such as disclosing material information in a complex, unclear or untimely way, which directly addresses the problematic practices that can occur in some lead generation models.

It's our view that a prohibition on lead generation would include prohibiting some practices that are not inherently harmful. That is, there is lead generation behaviour of the sorts that you are describing that are harmful and are constructed in a complex way that misleads consumers, but not all of that behaviour that's captured by lead generation does that work. It is our view, informed by advice, that the general prohibition that's outlined deals effectively with that kind of behaviour. It will, as I say, ultimately be a matter for the courts, and we'll be watching those developments closely.

Minister, while you are accurate in as far as your statements go that some elements of the collapse of First Guardian and Shield will be a matter for the courts, I want to say very clearly that the Australian Greens have a view that the government's response to the collapse of Shield and First Guardian has not yet met the threshold that would satisfy us. I know that some matters are being considered by government, and we can discuss those things in another forum, but I want to be very clear that justice has not been done for a large number of Australians who had some or all of their retirement savings stolen from them by unscrupulous behaviour. Not only has justice not been done but an adequate response from the government to the collapse of First Guardian and Shield has not yet manifested.

I want to be very clear about that, and I say to you, Minister, that the Greens do not intend to allow this to be the end of the matter. We will keep fighting for justice and adequate reparation for the significant number of Australians who were smashed and had their retirement savings smashed by the collapse of First Guardian and Shield. As there are no other folks wishing to discuss those matters, I will now seek leave to move the Australian Greens amendments together.

Leave granted.

I move amendments (1) to (3) on sheet 3774 together:

(1) Title, page 1 (line 2), after "2010", insert "and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001".

(2) Schedule 1, heading, page 3 (line 1), omit "Amendments", substitute "Competition and Consumer Act 2010 amendments".

(3) Page 22 (after line 13), at the end of the Bill, add:

Schedule 2 — Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 amendments

Part 1 — Unfair trading practices

Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001

1 Subsection 5(1)

Insert:

unfair trading practices: see subsection 12BN(2).

2 After Subdivision BA of Division 2 of Part 2

Insert:

Subdivision BB — Unfair trading practices

12BN Unfair trading practices towards consumers

(1) A person must not, in trade or commerce, engage in unfair trading practices.

(2) A person engages in unfair trading practices if, and only if, in connection with supply of, or an offer to supply, a financial product or services that are financial services to a consumer, the person engages in conduct that:

(a) does or is likely to do either or both of the following:

(i) manipulate the consumer;

(ii) unreasonably distort the environment in which the consumer makes, or is likely to make, a decision; and

(b) causes or is likely to cause detriment (whether financial or otherwise) to the consumer.

(3) Subsection (1) does not apply if the consumer is a body corporate.

(4) Subsection (1) does not apply if the supply is in the course of the consumer carrying on a business.

Note: A person who wishes to rely on subsection (3) or (4) in proceedings bears an evidential burden in relation to that matter (see section 12GBCP).

(5) Without limiting subsection (2), the following are examples of conduct that may be unfair trading practices:

(a) impeding the consumer's ability to exercise legal rights, or seek legal remedies;

(b) failing to disclose material information to the consumer;

(c) disclosing material information to the consumer in a complex, ineffective, unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous, untimely or overwhelming way;

(d) creating an environment (including by using design elements in digital interfaces) which places the consumer under unreasonable pressure in relation to, or obstructs the consumer from, making or fulfilling the consumer's decision;

(e) lead generation.

(6) In this section:

lead generation includes the following:

(a) collecting the consumer's personal information for a sales purpose in an obscure, complex or misleading way;

(b) failing to clearly disclose to the consumer the primary purpose for collecting, using or sharing the consumer's personal information.

3 After paragraph 12GBA( 6)( aa)

Insert:

(ab) a provision of Subdivision BB;

4 After subsection 12 GI( 4)

Insert:

(4A) In a proceeding against a person for a contravention of a provision of Subdivision BB it is a defence if the person establishes that he or she is a person whose business it is to publish or arrange for the publication of advertisements and that he or she received the advertisement for publication in the ordinary course of business and did not know and had no reason to suspect that its publication would amount to a contravention of a provision of Subdivision BB.

5 Paragraph 12GLD(1)(a)

After "Subdivision BA,", insert "BB,".

6 Before paragraph 12GXA(a)

Insert:

(aa) a provision of Subdivision BB;

7 Subsection 12 GXB( 2) (table item 1, column headed "If the infringement notice is for an alleged contravention of ...")

After "Subdivision", insert " BB,".

Part 2 — Drip pricing

Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001

8 Subsection 5(1)

Insert:

base price: see subsection 12CD(5).

transaction based charge: see subsections 12CD(6) and (7).

9 After Subdivision C of Division 2 of Part 2

Insert:

Subdivision CA — Drip pricing

12CD Transaction based charges to be displayed in certain circumstances

Requirement to display

(1) This section applies in relation to financial products or financial services of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use or consumption.

(2) A person who, in trade or commerce, in offering to supply a financial product or services that are financial services to another person, displays a base price for any of the products or services must display in accordance with subsection (3) the following information for any transaction based charge for the supply:

(a) either:

(i) if the amount of the transaction based charge can be calculated—the amount of the transaction based charge; or

(ii) in any other case—the method for calculating the transaction based charge;

(b) that it is a per transaction charge;

(c) whether the transaction based charge is or may be payable;

(d) whether or not the base price displayed includes the transaction based charge.

Note: This subsection applies each time a base price is displayed. The base price, and the information required to be displayed, could be different at different stages of the purchase process.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (2), the information must be displayed:

(a) while the base price is displayed; and

(b) in a legible, prominent and unambiguous way; and

(c) in close proximity to the base price.

(4) Subsection (2) does not apply if the offer is made exclusively to a body corporate.

Note: A person who wishes to rely on subsection (4) in proceedings bears an evidential burden in relation to that matter (see section 12GBCP).

Base price

(5) An amount payable by a purchaser for a supply of financial products or financial services is a base price for the products or services if it includes an amount payable for the products or services themselves.

Example: An amount that is merely a tax, duty, fee or levy payable in relation to a supply is not a base price.

Transaction based charge

(6) A charge (or part of a charge) of any description is a transaction based charge for a supply of financial products or financial services if:

(a) it is or may be payable by the purchaser for the supply of the products or services; and

(b) it is not an amount payable for the products or services themselves; and

(c) it is, or would be, payable at the same time as an amount payable for the products or services themselves.

(7) However, the following are not transaction based charges:

(a) a charge (or part of a charge) that is payable at the option of the purchaser;

(b) a payment surcharge (within the meaning of Part IVC of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010);

(c) any tax, duty, fee, levy or charge imposed on the supplier;

(d) any amount paid or payable by the supplier with respect to any tax, fee, levy or charge if:

(i) the amount is paid or payable under an agreement or arrangement made under a law of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory; and

(ii) the tax, duty, fee, levy or charge would have otherwise been payable by another person in relation to the supply;

(e) a charge (or part of a charge) prescribed for the purposes of this paragraph.

(8) Without limiting subsection 33(3A) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 or paragraph (7)(e) of this section, regulations made for the purposes of that paragraph may prescribe the following:

(a) that a charge (or part of a charge) is prescribed only in specified circumstances;

(b) different circumstances for different charges (or parts of charges).

10 After paragraph 12GBA(6)(a)

Insert:

(ab) a provision of Subdivision CA;

11 Paragraph 12GLD(1)(a)

After "C", insert ", CA".

12 Subparagraph 12GNB(1)(a)( i )

After "C", insert ", CA".

13 After paragraph 12GXA(a)

Insert:

(aa) a provision of Subdivision CA;

14 Subsection 12 GXB( 2) (table item 1, column headed "If the infringement notice is for an alleged contravention of ...")

After "Subdivision C,", insert "CA, ".

Part 3 — Subscription contracts

Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001

15 Subsection 5(1)

Insert:

excluded subscription contract: see subsection 12FA(1).

meets the consumer requirement: see subsection 12FE(1).

meets the small business requirement: see subsection 12FE(2).

standard form contract:

(a) in Subdivision BA of Division 2 of Part 2 and sections 12GND and 12GNF—has a meaning affected by section 12BK; and

(b) in Subdivision F of Division 2 of Part 2 —has a meaning affected by section 12FF.

subscriber, in relation to a contract for supply of financial products or financial services, means a person who incurs, or may incur, liability to pay for a supply under the contract.

subscription contract: see subsection 12F(1).

16 Section 12BA (definition of standard form contract )

Repeal the definition.

17 At the end of section 12BK

Add:

(4) This section does not apply for the purposes of Subdivision F.

Note: Section 12FF deals with standard form contracts for the purposes of Subdivision F.

18 Subsection 12 DA( 2)

After "12DN", insert "or Subdivision F".

19 After paragraph 12GBA( 6)( ba )

Insert:

(bb) a provision of Subdivision F;

20 Paragraph 12GLD(1)(a)

Omit "or D (other than section 12DA)", substitute ", D (other than section 12DA) or F".

21 Subparagraph 12GNB(1)(a)( i )

Omit "or D", substitute ", D or F".

22 After paragraph 12 GXA( ba )

Insert:

(bb) a provision of Subdivision F;

23 Subsection 12 GXB( 2) (table item 1, column headed "If the infringement notice is for an alleged contravention of ...")

Omit "or DA", insert ", DA or F".

24 After Subdivision E of Division 2 of Part 2

Insert:

Subdivision F — Subscription contracts

12F Subscription contracts

(1) A contract is a subscription contract if it:

(a) meets the requirement in subsection (2), (3), (5) or (6); and

(b) is not an excluded subscription contract.

Note: A contract may meet the requirement in more than one of subsections (2), (3), (5) and (6).

Indefinite period

(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(a), the requirement is that the contract contains terms that have the effect of providing:

(a) for recurring or continuing supply of financial products or financial services for an indefinite period; and

(b) for a person to automatically incur liability to pay for the supplies or continuing supply; and

(c) a right for that person to end the contract.

Fixed period

(3) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(a), the requirement is that the contract contains terms that have the effect of providing:

(a) for supply of financial products or financial services in, or recurring or continuing supply of financial products or financial services for, a fixed period; and

(b) for supply, or continuing financial products or financial services to continue after the end of the fixed period unless a party to the contract stops the supply or continuing supply or the contract is terminated; and

(c) for a person to automatically incur liability to pay for the supplies or continuing supply; and

(d) a right for that person to end the contract.

(4) For the purposes of paragraphs (2)(b) and (3)(c), disregard any supply or continuing supply that is free of charge.

Initial free period

(5) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(a), the requirement is that the contract contains terms that have the effect of providing:

(a) for supply of financial products or financial services in, or recurring or continuing supply of financial products or financial services for, an initial period free of charge; and

(b) for a person to automatically incur liability to pay for supply of financial products or financial services after the initial period; and

(c) a right for that person to end the contract before the liability is incurred.

Initial discount period

(6) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(a), the requirement is that the contract contains terms that have the effect of providing:

(a) for supply of financial products or financial services in, or recurring or continuing supply of financial products or financial services for, an initial period; and

(b) for a person to incur liability to pay for supply of financial products or financial services in or for the initial period at a rate; and

(c) for that person to automatically incur liability to pay for supply of financial products or financial services after the initial period at a higher rate; and

(d) a right for that person to end the contract before the liability to pay at the higher rate is incurred.

12FA Excluded subscription contracts

(1) The following contracts are excluded subscription contracts:

(a) a lease;

(b) a licence in respect of real property;

(c) a contract of hire-purchase;

(d) a contract for payment in instalments;

(e) a contract for supply of childcare;

(f) a contract for supply by a pre-school or school of tuition at a pre-school, pre-primary, primary or secondary level;

(g) a contract of a kind prescribed for the purposes of this paragraph.

(2) Without limiting subsection 33(3A) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 or paragraph (1)(g) of this section, regulations made for the purposes of that paragraph may prescribe the following:

(a) that a kind of contract is a prescribed kind of contract only in specified circumstances;

(b) different circumstances for different kinds of contract.

12FB Statement and information that must be disclosed when offering financial products or financial services under a subscription contract

Scope

(1) This section applies if:

(a) a person (the supplier), in trade or commerce, offers to supply, under a contract, financial products or financial services; and

(b) if the contract were entered, the contract would be a subscription contract.

Requirement to disclose

(2) The supplier must, when making the offer, disclose, in accordance with subsection (3):

(a) a statement that, if entered, the contract would be a subscription contract; and

(b) information about the matters mentioned in subsection (4).

Manner of disclosure

(3) The statement and information must be disclosed:

(a) if the financial products or financial services are of a kind (if any) prescribed for the purposes of this paragraph—in the manner prescribed for financial products or financial services of that kind; or

(b) in circumstances (if any) prescribed for the purposes of this paragraph—in the manner prescribed for those circumstances; or

(c) in any other case—either:

(i) in a comprehensible, audible and unambiguous way within a reasonable time before a person could agree to enter the contract; or

(ii) in a legible, prominent and unambiguous way in close proximity to where a person (other than the supplier) can agree to enter the contract.

Information to be disclosed

(4) Information about the following matters must be disclosed:

(a) liabilities to pay that a party to the contract (other than the supplier) would or may incur under the contract;

(b) period of the contract;

(c) renewal, extension or other continuation of the contract;

(d) any notice required before a party to the contract (other than the supplier) can end the contract;

(e) how a party to the contract (other than the supplier) can end the contract;

(f) any matter prescribed for the purposes of this paragraph.

Exception

(5) Subsection (2) does not apply in the circumstances (if any) prescribed for the purposes of this subsection.

12FC Information to be given in relation to subscription contracts in effect

Requirement to give information

(1) If:

(a) a person, in trade or commerce, supplies financial products or financial services under a subscription contract prescribed for the purposes of this subsection; and

(b) the contract meets the consumer requirement or meets the small business requirement;

the person must, while the contract is in effect, give the subscriber, in accordance with subsection (2), the information prescribed for the purposes of this subsection at each time prescribed for the purposes of this subsection.

Manner of giving information

(2) The information must be given:

(a) in a legible, prominent and unambiguous way; and

(b) if a manner is prescribed for the purposes of this paragraph—in that manner.

Regulations

(3) Without limiting subsection 33(3A) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901, subsection 13(3) of the Legislation Act 2003 or subsections (1) or (2) of this section, regulations made for the purposes of subsection (1) or (2) of this section may prescribe the following:

(a) all subscription contracts or a class of subscription contract;

(b) different information, times or manners for different classes of subscription contract;

(c) different information, times or manners for subscription contracts in different circumstances;

(d) different times or manners for different information.

Exception

(4) Subsection (1) does not apply in the circumstances (if any) prescribed for the purposes of this subsection.

12FD Exit method

Requirement to provide a way to end the contract

(1) A person (the supplier) who, in trade or commerce, supplies financial products or financial services under a subscription contract that meets the consumer requirement or meets the small business requirement must:

(a) provide a way for the subscriber to end the contract; and

(b) ensure that each way the supplier provides for the subscriber to end the contract:

(i) is easy to find; and

(ii) is straightforward; and

(iii) requires the subscriber to take only steps that are reasonably necessary to end the contract and protect the subscriber's interests; and

(c) if subsection (2) applies—ensure that one of the ways the supplier provides for the subscriber to end the contract is online.

(2) This subsection applies if:

(a) the subscriber enters the contract online; or

(b) the supplier provides an online way of entering into a contract that, if entered, would be a subscription contract for the same kind of financial products or financial services.

Exception

(3) Subsection (1) does not apply in the circumstances (if any) prescribed for the purposes of this subsection.

12FE Meeting the consumer requirement or the small business requirement

Meeting the consumer requirement

(1) A contract meets the consumer requirement if it is a contract for supply of financial products or financial services under which an individual acquires the products or services wholly or predominantly for personal, domestic or household use or consumption.

Meeting the small business requirement

(2) A contract meets the small business requirement if:

(a) it is a standard form contract for supply of financial products or financial services; and

(b) the subscriber satisfies either or both of the following conditions:

(i) the subscriber makes the contract in the course of carrying on a business and at a time when the subscriber employs fewer than 100 persons;

(ii) the subscriber's turnover, worked out under subsection (4) for the subscriber's last income year (within the meaning of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997) that ended at or before the time when the contract is made, is less than $10,000,000.

Counting the number of persons employed

(3) In counting for the purposes of subparagraph (2)(b)(i) the number of persons that a person employs:

(a) a casual employee is not to be counted unless employed on a regular and systematic basis; and

(b) a part-time employee (including a part-time casual employee counted under paragraph (a) of this subsection) is to be counted as an appropriate fraction of a full-time equivalent.

Working out a subscriber's turnover

(4) For the purposes of subparagraph (2)(b)(ii), a subscriber's turnover for a period is the sum of the values of all supplies the subscriber made during the period, other than the following:

(a) supplies that are input taxed;

(b) supplies that are not for consideration (and are not taxable supplies under section 72-5 of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999);

(c) supplies that are not made in connection with an enterprise that the subscriber carries on;

(d) supplies that are not connected with the indirect tax zone.

(5) Expressions used in subsection (4) that are also used in the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 have the same meaning as in that Act.

12FF Standard form contracts for the purposes of this Subdivision

(1) For the purposes of this Subdivision, if a party to a proceeding alleges that a contract is a standard form contract, it is presumed to be a standard form contract unless another party to the proceeding proves otherwise.

(2) For the purposes of this Subdivision, in determining whether a contract for supply of financial products or financial services is a standard form contract, a court may take into account such matters as it thinks relevant, but must take into account the following:

(a) whether the supplier has all or most of the bargaining power relating to the transaction;

(b) whether the supplier has made another contract, in the same or substantially similar terms, prepared by the supplier, and, if so, how many such contracts the supplier has made;

(c) whether the contract was prepared by the supplier before any discussion relating to the transaction occurred between the parties;

(d) whether the subscriber was, in effect, required either to accept or reject the terms of the contract (other than the terms referred to in subsection (4)) in the form in which they were presented;

(e) whether the subscriber was given an effective opportunity to negotiate the terms of the contract that were not the terms referred to in subsection (4);

(f) whether the terms of the contract (other than the terms referred to in subsection (4)) take into account the specific characteristics of the subscriber or the particular transaction;

(g) any other matter prescribed by the regulations.

(3) For the purposes of this Subdivision, a contract may be determined to be a standard form contract despite the existence of one or more of the following:

(a) an opportunity for the subscriber to negotiate changes, to terms of the contract, that are minor or insubstantial in effect;

(b) an opportunity for the subscriber to select a term from a range of options determined by the supplier;

(c) an opportunity for a party to another contract or proposed contract to negotiate terms of the other contract or proposed contract.

(4) For the purposes of paragraphs (2)(d), (e) and (f), the terms are:

(a) a term required, or expressly permitted, by a law of the Commonwealth or of a State or Territory; or

(b) a term included in the contract, or taken to be so included, by operation of a law of the Commonwealth, or of a State or Territory, that regulates the contract.

25 Review of operation of amendments made by this Part

(1) The Minister must cause a review to be conducted of the operation, during the 2 years from the commencement of this Part, of the following:

(a) the amendments made by this Part;

(b) any legislative instruments made for the purposes of Subdivision F of Division 2 of Part 2 of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001.

(2) The review must be completed, and a written report on the review must be given to the Minister, within 6 months after the end of those 2 years.

(3) The Minister must cause a copy of the report of the review to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the Minister receives the report.

Part 4 — Application provisions

Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001

26 At the end of the Act

Add:

Part 43 — Application provisions relating to Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Act 2026

348 Application — unfair trading practices

Section 12BN, inserted by the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Act 2026, applies in relation to conduct that occurs on or after commencement of Part 1 of Schedule 2 to that Act, whether in connection with a supply or an offer to supply made before, on or after that commencement.

349 Application — subscription contracts

(1) Sections 12F, 12FC and 12FD, inserted by the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Act 2026, apply in relation to a contract entered into on or after the commencement of Part 3 of Schedule 2 to that Act.

(2) Sections 12F, 12FC and 12FD do not apply to a contract entered into before that commencement. However:

(a) if the contract is renewed, extended or otherwise continued on or after that commencement—sections 12F, 12FC and 12FD apply to the contract as renewed, extended or otherwise continued, on and from the day on which the renewal, extension or other continuation takes effect; or

(b) if the contract is varied on or after that commencement and paragraph (a) has not already applied in relation to the contract—sections 12F, 12FC and 12FD apply to the contract as varied, on and from the day on which the variation takes effect.

350 Acquisition of property

(1) Sections 12BN, 12FC and 12FD, inserted by the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Act 2026, do not apply to the extent that:

(a) the operation of the sections would result in an acquisition of property from a person otherwise than on just terms; and

(b) the acquisition of property would be invalid because of paragraph 51(xxxi) of the Constitution.

(2) In this section:

acquisition of property has the same meaning as in paragraph 51(xxxi) of the Constitution.

just terms has the same meaning as in paragraph 51(xxxi) of the Constitution.

I know this is going back to the former amendment moved, but there was some confusion, as Senator McKim said, about which was being moved. I just want to put on record the issues around First Guardian and Shield and lead generation that the Liberal and National parties share. It's the concern about practices that led to this terrible fallout on people's lives and their savings. Obviously, there was some conduct that was reprehensible and there needs to be a response to it.

We did oppose that amendment, and I just wanted to put on the record the reasons for that, because we view that the response to these issues should be in laws that principally deal with investor protection, not consumer protection or consumer law. The laws we have here today are ones to protect consumers. There are different issues when it comes to people making investments which potentially put at risk their life savings et cetera compared to some of the other issues we're talking about today—say, signing up to a subscription service. They are two very different consumer activities. That's why we have traditionally had separate laws in regard to those. We recognise and support the efforts the government is doing—there's the, I think, consultation draft they have out on the response to First Guardian and Shield. We will wait to see that legislation to support change.

I'd also like to echo the comments put by the minister that we have to be very careful here that we don't outlaw sales practices—that we don't outlaw people doing basic selling and following up leads and the like as many real estate agents and the like do. It's just a common part of business. There's nothing nefarious per se about that. But, obviously, particularly when it comes to the provision of advice and application of large sums of money for an investment context, there should be a higher bar and obligations placed on salespeople in those environments.

I will indicate that the government will be opposing this amendment and the last one. I think we've traversed the rationale for the government's position. I won't take any additional time.

The question is that amendments (1) to (3) on sheet 3774 be agreed to.

I would ask all senators to remain in the chamber. More divisions are imminent. However, I will allow a four-minute bell if there is a change of voting positions. I'm in the hands of the chamber.

I'll be brief so we can get to those divisions. I seek leave to move the opposition amendments on sheet 3913 together.

Leave granted.

I move opposition amendments (1), (2) and (3) on sheet 3913 together:

(1) Schedule 1, item 22, page 21 (line 10), before "Section 28B", insert "(1)".

(2) Schedule 1, item 22, page 21 (line 11), after "conduct", insert "(other than conduct of a small business operator)".

(3) Schedule 1, item 22, page 21 (after line 14), at the end of section 311, add:

(2) Section 28B, inserted by the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Act 2026, applies in relation to conduct of a small business operator that occurs on or after 1 July 2030, whether in connection with a supply or an offer to supply made before, on or after that day.

(3) In this section:

annual turnover has the same meaning as in the Corporations Act 2001.

related body corporate has the same meaning as in the Corporations Act 2001.

small business operator has the same meaning as in section 58AH.

I'll just briefly explain to the chamber that these amendments would seek to defer the application of these new laws till 2030 for small businesses. I explained in my speech on the second reading that, to me and to us in the Liberal Party and the National Party, it seems logical that, given the significant change here, it would be better to see any teething issues be worked out with those larger entities that have the resources to do so, and that small businesses should be given time to adjust.

I indicate that, as outlined, the government will be opposing the amendment. Of course, almost all small businesses are doing absolutely the right thing and treating customers fairly. The government's view is that a blanket exemption for small businesses until 2030 would create loopholes and undermine a consistent approach across the economy, and that would leave consumers exposed to harmful conduct for years and risk giving some small businesses using unfair practices an advantage over the majority who are competing fairly.

Small businesses will have time and support to adjust, with a 12-month transition period before the obligations commence. And the ACCC will take an education-first approach, providing guidance and practical assistance to help businesses understand and meet their obligations.

The question is that amendments (1) to (3) sheet 3913 be agreed to.

I will be moving the amendments on sheets 3771 and 3772, circulated in the name of Senator Payman, on her behalf. Very quickly, the amendment on 3772 adds:

(e) requiring the consumer to provide information not directly relevant to a transaction (including requiring the creation of an account).

to the list of examples of conduct which subclause 28B(6) identifies as possibly constituting an unfair trading practice. The aim of that amendment is to prevent companies from requiring consumers to provide all their personal details to buy a single item from an online store—a very meritorious amendment from Senator Payman. The bill allows the government to set, through regulations, what information companies must provide to people with subscription contracts. The amendments on sheet 3771 would ensure that the regulations would require a subscription provider who offers an initial free period that eventually becomes paid to, three days prior to the end of the free trial, notify the consumer that the trial is ending, what the amount is that will be charged if they don't cancel and how they may cancel before being charged. Again, it's a very straightforward amendment that would protect consumers. These amendments are supported by the Australian Greens, and I seek leave to move the amendments together for Senator Payman.

Leave granted.

At the request of Senator Payman, I move Australia's Voice amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 3771 and amendment (1) on sheet 3772 together:

(1) Schedule 1, item 16, page 10 (after line 5), after the definition of excluded subscription contract, insert:

initial free period subscription contract means a subscription contract that meets the requirement in subsection 48B(5).

(2) Schedule 1, item 20, page 15 (after line 25), after subsection 48E(3), insert:

(3A) Without limiting subsection 33(3A) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901, subsection 13(3) of the Legislation Act 2003 or subsections (1), (2) or (3) of this section, regulations made for the purposes of subsection (1) or (2) of this section must prescribe a requirement that 3 days prior to the expiry of the initial free period, a supplier that is a party to an initial free period subscription contract must notify the subscriber of the following:

(a) that the initial period will expire in 3 days;

(b) that the party will automatically incur liability to pay for the supply of goods or services under the contract after the expiration of the initial period;

(c) the amount of the liability;

(d) the party's right to end the contract before the liability is incurred;

(e) how the contract may be ended.

(1) Schedule 1, item 7, page 5 (line 16), at the end of subsection 28B(6), add:

; (e) requiring the consumer to provide information not directly relevant to a transaction (including requiring the creation of an account).

I thank Senator McKim for moving those amendments together on behalf of Senator Payman. The government will be opposing the amendments on sheet 3771. We understand and agree with the intent of the amendments. This bill ends subscription traps. Consumers should be notified before a free trial ends, and we're actively developing those requirements, but we believe these amendments are overly prescriptive and remove important and necessary flexibilities.

We will be opposing the amendment on sheet 3772 also. Requiring a consumer to create an account or provide information can often serve legitimate purposes, including improving security, facilitating legitimate transactions and enabling ongoing services. Those practices in and of themselves are not unfair.

On that basis, we urge the Senate to reject these amendments.

The question is that amendments on sheet 3772 and 3771 be agreed to.

I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

On 9 May 1901, beneath the great dome of Melbourne's Exhibition Building, Australia's first Commonwealth parliament was opened. It was a moment of ceremony, confidence and national ambition. More than 12,000 people gathered to witness the Duke of Cornwall and York declare open the parliament of a new nation, a parliament created not by revolution but by consent, debate and democratic choice. Only months earlier, on 1 January 1901, the Australian Constitution had come into effect. Six colonies had become one Commonwealth. Edmund Barton had been commissioned as Australia's first prime minister, Lord Hopetoun had been sworn in as our first governor-general, and in March 1901 Australians went to the polls for the first federal election.

That election was itself an extraordinary undertaking. There were 75 seats in the House of Representatives and 36 seats in the Senate; 181 candidates contested the House, and 127 contested the Senate. Voting was not compulsory, electoral laws differed between the states, and party structures were still emerging, yet from that imperfect beginning came one of the world's most enduring democracies. The first parliament was asked to do nothing less than build the machinery of a nation: a high court, a national defence force, a federal public service, national electoral laws, industrial arbitration, trade and commerce arrangements and a future capital city. It had to turn Federation from an idea into a functioning Commonwealth.

Western Australia's role in that story was distinctive and significant. WA had only joined the federation after a fierce debate. It was geographically distant, economically different and still deeply conscious of its isolation from the eastern colonies, yet Western Australians sent five members to the first House of Representatives and six senators to the first Senate. Sir John Forrest, a great Western Australian explorer and former premier, was elected unopposed as the member for Swan and became a minister in Barton's first government. James Fowler represented Perth, John Kirwan represented Kalgoorlie, Hugh Mahon represented Coolgardie, and Elias Solomon represented Fremantle. In the Senate, Western Australia was represented by Hugh de Largie, Norman Ewing, Edward Harney, Alexander Matheson, George Pearce and Staniforth Smith. They carried with them the voices of a vast state still separated from the rest of the continent by distance, by sea and by desert.

For Western Australian parliamentarians, Federation came with a sacrifice. Before the Trans-Australian Railway was completed in 1917, members and senators from Western Australia travelled to Melbourne by sea—a four-day voyage, often out of sight of land. Sir John Forrest put it plainly in 1907, when debating the Trans-Australian Railway. He said:

My home over there is deserted and almost desolate. I visit it and see my old friends but once a year. The other honorable members from Western Australia are in very much the same position. There is no going back home on Saturday and returning to Melbourne on Tuesday for us. We have to live in lodgings in this city all the session. The object of Federation is to try to do good to every one in Australia, to build up a common feeling for the country, to create an Australian sentiment. But there can be no such feeling whilst Western Australia is separated and isolated from the rest of the Continent as she is to-day.

The tyranny of distance shaped Western Australia's federal experience from the very beginning. It reminded the new parliament that national unity could not simply be declared; it had to be built—through transport, communications, fairness and respect for every state, especially those furthest from the temporary capital.

The Senate was central to that compact. Each original state was given equal representation, ensuring Western Australia retained a strong voice despite its smaller population. It was Federation in practice: the people represented in the House and the states represented in the Senate.

The first Commonwealth parliament sat in Melbourne because the Constitution required parliament to meet there until a permanent capital was chosen. Of course, it would not move to Canberra until 1927, but the foundations laid in Melbourne were profound.

We're still living in lodgings when we're over here! Senator Smith, you'll be in continuation.

I present the eighth report of 2026 of the Selection of Bills Committee. I seek leave to have the report incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The report read as follows—

Selection of Bills Committee

REPORT NO. 8 OF 2026

2 July 2026

MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE

Senator Tony Sheldon (Government Whip, Chair)

Senator Wendy Askew (Opposition Whip)

Senator Sean Bell (One Nation Whip)

Senator Nick McKim (Australian Greens Whip)

Senator Ralph Babet

Senator Leah Blyth

Senator Ross Cadell (The Nationals Whip)

Senator the Hon. Anthony Chisholm

Senator Jessica Collins

Senator the Hon. Katy Gallagher

Senator Jacqui Lambie

Senator Fatima Payman

Senator David Pocock

Senator Lidia Thorpe

Secretary: Tim Bryant 02 6277 3020

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

REPORT NO. 8 OF 2026

1. The committee met in private session on Wednesday, 1 July 2026 at 7.10 pm.

2. The committee recommends that—

(a) the provisions of the Administrative and Judicial Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2026 be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 7 August 2026 (see appendix 1 for statements of reasons for referral),

(b) the provisions of the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026 be referred immediately to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 11 August 2026 (see appendix 2 for statements of reasons for referral),

(c) the provisions of the Biosecurity Amendment (Improving Operational Efficiency) Bill 2026 be referred immediately to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 28 August (see appendix 3 for statements of reasons for referral),

(d) the provisions of the Cash Distribution Framework Bill 2026 and Cash Distribution Framework (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2026 be referred immediately to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 7 August 2026,

(e) the Customs Amendment (Safeguard Inquiries) Bill 2026 be referred immediately to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 28 August 2026 (see appendix 4 for statements of reasons for referral),

(f) the provisions of the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026 be referred immediately to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 7 August 2026 (see appendix 5 for statements of reasons for referral),

(g) the provisions of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2026 be referred immediately to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee and report by 28 July 2026 (see appendix 6 for statements of reasons for referral),

(h) the provisions of the Statute Update Bill 2026 be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 7 August 2026 (see appendix 7 for statements of reasons for referral),

(i) the provisions of the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Medicines Shortages and Other Measures) Bill 2026 and Therapeutic Goods (Charges) Amendment

Bill 2026 be referred immediately to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee and report by 1 September 2026 (see appendix 8 for statements of reasons for referral), and

(j) the provisions of the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 be referred immediately to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 3 September 2026 (see appendix 9 for statements of reasons for referral).

3. The committee recommends that the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Amendment Bill 2026 not be referred to a committee.

4. The committee deferred consideration of the following bills to its next meeting:

(Tony Sheldon)

Chair

1 July 2026

Appendix 1

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill: Administrative and Judicial Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2026

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Scrutinise legislation

Possible submissions or evidence from: Relevant stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Legal and Constitutional Affairs

Possible hearing date(s): July

Possible reporting date: 7 August 2026

(signed)

Wendy Askew

Appendix 2

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

  Name of bill: Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026

  Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Scrutinise legislation

Possible submissions or evidence from: Relevant stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Community Affairs

Possible hearing date(s): July

Possible reporting date: 11 August 2026

(signed)

Wendy Askew

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill: Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:To demonstrate how, in concrete terms, the legislation will work to rectify the serious and disproportionate disadvantages facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities when it comes to aged care. Additionally to seek full clarity on the impact of the legislation on individual contributions.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ageing and Aged Care Council National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, Older Person's Advocacy Network Committee to which bill is to be referred: Community Affairs

Possible hearing date(s):

Possible reporting date: 11/08/2026

(signed)

Nick Mckim

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Appendix 3

Name of bill: Biosecurity Amendment (Improving Operational Efficiency) Bill 2026

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Issues related digital rights, data usage, data storage and individual privacy

Possible submissions or evidence from: Agriculture peak bodies (NFF, Cattle Australia, Grains peak bodies) Invasive Species Council, DAFF, DFAT, Department of Home Affairs, Digital Rights Watch, Electronic Frontiers Australia, Council for Civil Liberties, Centre for International Justice

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s): Weeks commencing August 3 or 10—following school holiday conclusion (inc TAS)

Possible reporting date: 28 August 2026

(signed)

Nick McKim

Appendix 4

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill: Customs Amendment (Safeguard Inquiries) Bill 2026

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Scrutinise legislation

Possible submissions or evidence from: Relevant stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Economics

Possible hearing date(s): July-August

Possible reporting date: 28 August 2026

(signed)

Wendy Askew

Appendix 5

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill: Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Scrutinise legislation

Possible submissions or evidence from: Relevant stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Finance and Public Administration

Possible hearing date(s): July

Possible reporting date: 7 August 2026

(signed)

Wendy Askew

Appendix 6

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

      Name of bill: Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2026

     Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Scrutinise legislation

Possible submissions or evidence from: Relevant stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Community Affairs

Possible hearing date(s): July

Possible reporting date: 28 July 2026

(signed)

Wendy Askew

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

  Name of bill: Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2026

  Possible submissions or evidence from:

  Committee to which bill is to be referred: Community Affairs Legislation Committee

  Possible hearing date(s): Suggested on the papers only.

  Possible reporting date: 28 July 2026

  (signed)

  Nick McKim

Appendix 7

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill: Statute Update Bill 2026

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Scrutinise legislation

Possible submissions or evidence from: Relevant stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Legal and Constitutional Affairs

Possible hearing date(s): July

Possible reporting date: 7 August 2026

(signed)

Wendy Askew

Appendix 8

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill: Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Medicines Shortages and Other Measures) Bill 2026, Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Charges) Bill 2026

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Scrutinise legislation

Possible submissions or evidence from: Relevant stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Community Affairs

Possible hearing date(s): July-August

Possible reporting date: 1 September 2026

(signed)

Wendy Askew

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill: Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Medicine Shortages and Other Measures) Bill Therapeutic Goods (Charges) Amendment Bill

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Hear from stakeholders and scrutinize detail

Possible submissions or evidence from: Various stakeholders, government departments

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s): 0-1 hearing in late August

Possible reporting date: 1 September

(signed)

Nick McKim

Appendix 9

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill: Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Scrutinise legislation

Possible submissions or evidence from: Relevant stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Education and Employment

Possible hearing date(s): July-August

Possible reporting date: 3 September 2026

(signed)

Wendy Askew

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill: Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: Significant change to university funding model that requires inquiry to look at potential issues and impacts.

Possible submissions or evidence from: Universities, peak bodies, student unions, NTEU, academics.

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Education & Employment Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s): mid-August

Possible reporting date: 3 September

(signed)

Nick McKim

I move:

That the report be adopted.

I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026 not be referred to a committee".

The question is that the amendment to the Selection of Bills Committee report moved by Minister Gallagher be agreed to.

I move:

At the end of the motion, add "and, in respect of the National Self-exclusion Register (Cost Recovery Levy) Amendment Bill 2026, the provisions of the bill be referred immediately to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 17 August 2026".

The question is that the amendment to the Selection of Bills Committee report moved by Senator McKim be agreed to.

I move:

That today—

(a) the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Legislation Amendment Bill 2026 be considered at 12.15 pm;

(b) government business then be called on and considered till not later than 1.30 pm; and

(c) general business notice of motion no. 558 be considered during general business today.

Question agreed to.

I ask that general business notice of motion 551 be withdrawn.

I ask that business of the Senate notice of motion No. 2, standing in my name, be withdrawn.

If there is no objection, we will proceed.

by leave—I move:

That leave of absence be granted to Senator McDonald for 2 July, for personal reasons; and for Senators Antic and O'Sullivan for 2 July, also for personal reasons.

Question agreed to.

by leave—I move:

That leave of absence be granted to Senator Babet from 11 to 20 August, for personal reasons.

Question agreed to.

At the request of Senator Bragg, I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Economics References Committee for inquiry and report by 25 November 2026:

Foreign currency loans (FCLs) issued by Australian banks, with particular reference to:

(a) the issuance of FCLs in the 1980s;

(b) the economic and consumer basis for FCLs;

(c) the governance of FCLs by Australian banks;

(d) responses to any complaints relating to FCLs;

(e) compensation arrangements;

(f) any outstanding claims for compensation;

(g) historical laws governing FCLs and their enforcement;

(h) law reform opportunities; and

(i) any other related matters.

The question is that business of the Senate No. 1, standing in the name of Senator Bragg, be agreed to.

At the request of Senator Collins, I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, by no later than midday on Monday, 3 August 2026, the tender package or packages provided to tenderers relating to the Base Services Transformation Program, including any revisions, amendments or addenda to that tender documentation and the executed contracts for the Base Services Transformation Program, including any variations administered as of 2 July 2026.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Housing, by no later than midday on Friday, 31 July 2026, a document that includes:

(a) for all individual programs under the $47 billion Homes for Australia plan:

(i) the name of the program and any former names,

(ii) a short summary of the program,

(iii) intended program outcomes,

(iv) the quantum and type of Commonwealth investment (equity stake, debt, loan, etc.) and which portfolio the funding has been drawn from,

(v) the quantum of spending from states and territories, and

(vi) the period through which the program runs; and

(b) for the overall Homes for Australia plan:

(i) a breakdown of housing spending and outcomes by state and territory,

(ii) the quantum of Commonwealth investment spent to date, and

(iii) the period through which the plan runs.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That the following bill be introduced:

A Bill for an Act …

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 present the explanatory memorandum 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—

'For too long, Australia's housing system has worked for some Australians rather than for all Australians. This must change to improve equity across and within generations'.

These aren't my words, they're a quote from the latest report by the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council, the independent expert body that advises the Australian Government in this area, in its 2026 report.

Boostedinvestment in social and affordable housing is one of the Council's five key reform proposals to address our country's housing crisis.

Why this Bill is needed

Underlying this recommendation is the reality that, relative to population, Australia's social housing sector has been in steady decline for most of the past 30 years. At the same time, the national shortfall in private rental homes affordable to low income renters has progressively grown.

Successive governments have turned their back on the need to re-start the routine annual social housing development program that effectively ended in 1996. And efforts to provide more moderately subsidised homes targeted at low income workers have remained small in scale.

One result has been rising rates of homelessness. The latest official national figures are for 2021—now way out of date. But a recent New South Wales Government survey found that rough sleeping had more than doubled in that state over the past five years.

Because of rising rents relative to incomes a vastly wider group of low income Australians is being placed at growing risk of homelessness due to resulting financial stress. We are now living in a world where, according to Anglicare's latest rental affordability report, less than 1% of all rentals available to let in March 2026 were affordable to a couple on the Age Pension.

Worsening affordability at the bottom end of the private market directly reflects Australia's intensifying shortage of social and affordable housing.

More broadly, analysis by property data company Cotality shows that, since the pandemic, median rents as a ratio of median incomes across the entire private rental market have tracked further and further above the 20-year norm. As a result, rental affordability in 2025 was the worst on record.

With all of this in mind, it is at least good to note that, as one of its six overarching priorities in this area, the Albanese Government's recently published housing policy statement commits to 'growing the social and affordable housing sector so more Australians have a stable place to call home'.

And credit to federal, state and territory governments that national efforts on social and affordable housing investment in the 2020s are a big step-up on the irresponsible neglect of the previous decade. But, given the scale of need, these efforts remain far from sufficient.

Worse still, the federal government's flagship social and affordable housing investment program is on the brink of exhaustion. By the end of this year, the Housing Australia Future Fund will be maxed out, unable to extend the current program beyond 2029 and therefore facing a cliff-edge at that point.

So the Albanese Government urgently needs to bring forward proposals to, at the very least, maintain the current level of new investment into the 2030s and beyond. Ideally, it would be striking a long-term agreement with states and territories to expand collective efforts to this end.

Funding future investment in social and affordable housing

We may not be in government, but we crossbenchers do, of course, recognise the public finance challenges posed here. But taxation income and public debt are not the only resources at the government's disposal.

That much is plain from the National Housing Accord of 2022, where the Commonwealth itself committed to identifying surplus federal land that could be used for social and affordable housing.

This chimes with progressively growing calls from community campaigners for Australian public land sales to incorporate affordable housing obligations on purchasing developers.

Participants in these debates have often suggested that non-market housing should form at least 30% of residential units developed on former public land. This is consistent with the position of the New South Wales Government's former Greater Cities Commission which, in 2022, indicated that 'City Plans will set a target of up to 30% for the proportion of social and affordable housing in residential developments on government land'.

Similarly, in 2022 the Minister for Cities in the former New South Wales Coalition Government committed to the stipulation of '30% affordable housing' as part of the large-scale Rozelle Bays renewal project—largely on former public land.

Further, along with a demand that all Government departments identify surplus and under-used land, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns stated in 2023 that 'a minimum 30% social and affordable homes [should be] built on [such] sites'.

While these arguments originate from New South Wales, they are equally relevant elsewhere in Australia.

And now, as a major federal case in point, we have the Defence Department's plan to sell off a huge swag of obsolete sites, many of them in prime locations. As yet, though, there has been no commitment that Defence land purchasers will be obliged to include social or affordable housing within any resulting residential development.

Especially given the clear commitment stated in the National Housing Accord, we should surely demand Government assurances here.

But this is just one instance that highlights a bigger and more systemic issue. With some estimating its market value at $3 billion, the Defence property sale is, in itself, a big deal. But government land disposals take place all the time and should be subject to a consistent principle; one that chimes with broader housing policy objectives.

Of course, not all surplus government sites are potentially suitable living environments. But whenever government cashes in land destined for housing development there should be a default expectation of a social or affordable rental contribution within that.

Purpose of the Bill, in summary

This Bill will therefore create a standard obligation on the Commonwealth Government and its agencies to require inclusion of affordable housing within residential developments on surplus Commonwealth land disposed to private entities by sale or long lease.

As I'm using it here, the term 'affordable housing' includes very low rent social housing for low income Australians as well as more moderately discounted rental homes for essential workers and other working households facing financial stress in the private market.

Under this legislation a proportion of such residential developments will be normally reserved for qualifying, income-eligible Australians to be housed at below-market rents.

Beyond its contribution to addressing the national shortage, the application of such practices will help to ensure some degree of social mix within developments otherwise likely to be wholly dominated by higher income residents.

This will yield a wider social dividend in combating the ongoing income-based social polarisation of Australian cities.  Applied to sites in expensive inner urban areas, such obligations will also have an economic pay-off by enabling the low-income workers essential to central city economies to live close to their employment.

How the law will work

My proposed law will normalise conditions of sale, sometimes termed covenants or easements, mandating the inclusion of affordable housing within subsequent residential development on ex-Commonwealth sites.

Alongside other policy levers, the stipulation of such conditions will provide another means for the Commonwealth to utilise its resources to support the acknowledged objective of increasing social and affordable housing provision.

To clarify a land purchaser's obligations, the bill includes a clear definition of 'affordable housing' as a rental dwelling to be rented at a maximum of 75% of market rent or 30% of tenant household income, if that is lower. Maximum allowable household incomes will be specified under regulations.

Partly to aid in the oversight of land purchaser compliance with these rules, affordable units must be managed by registered community housing providers which are subject to regulation.

Recognising that land-title mechanisms differ between States and Territories, the legislation is also designed to operate according to relevant legal and administrative frameworks within each jurisdiction. Provisions also ensure that affordable housing obligations are preserved if ex-government sites are on-sold.

Recognising that not all ex-government sites are suitable for inclusion under the regime, the Bill also clarifies that it is targeted on larger uncontaminated sites in urban Australia or in non-remote locations.

Finally, to check that the law is operating as intended, the bill includes a requirement for a review of the resulting Act five years after commencement.

No one would sensibly suggest that a measure like this is any kind of game changer for Australia's housing crisis. But this is a huge and complex problem with no silver bullet solution. There is no substitute for a wide-ranging and long term national housing strategy. A strategy led by the Commonwealth but also involving state and territory governments.

But that strategy will need to incorporate measures that pull every policy lever with a bearing on our housing system. This bill could form a small but worthwhile element within that wider effort.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

I move:

That the Senate orders the Minister representing the Attorney-General to provide the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Anti-Corruption Commission, as part of its consideration of approval of the minister's proposed recommendation for the appointment of the National Anti-Corruption Commissioner or a Deputy Commissioner under section 178 of the National Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2022, with all primary documentation relevant to applications for the position of Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner, any review of the applications by the Attorney-General's Department, any panel undertaking assessments or conducting interviews, or the Attorney-General.

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 555, standing in the name of Senator Shoebridge, be agreed to.

Senators, I advise that, if further divisions are required, there'll be one-minute bells.

At the request of Senator O'Sullivan, I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Education, by no later than 10 July 2026, the number of workers in the family day care and in home care sectors, broken down by employment type (including employees and independent contractors), by state and territory jurisdiction.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Attorney-General, by no later than Tuesday, 28 July 2026, the following documents created, received or held by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) in relation to the matter of 'BAM' and American Express Australia Limited, subject only to the redaction of the personal information of the complainant and any third parties:

(a) the full text of the determination and the Australian Privacy Commissioner's reasons;

(b) all correspondence between the OAIC and the complainant, or the complainant's representatives concerning confidentiality, publication or any restriction on disclosure;

(c) any direction, requirement, request, deed, undertaking or agreement that restricts, or purports to restrict, the complainant from disclosing information about the complaint, the investigation, the determination or the outcome;

(d) all records of the OAIC's decision regarding publication of the determination, including the determination regarding publication referred to in its public statements and the reasons for that decision;

(e) all correspondence between the OAIC and American Express Australia Limited, or its representatives, concerning confidentiality, publication, or any restriction on disclosure;

(f) any file notes, minutes, briefings or legal advice held by the OAIC concerning the handling of confidentiality claims and the decision on publication or decisions on any restriction on disclosure, including the details of attendees at each meeting relating to those matters.

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 559, standing in the name of Senator Shoebridge, be agreed to.

I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs, by no later than Tuesday, 28 July 2026, a full copy of the memorandum of understanding between Australia and Nauru on the Third Country Reception Arrangement, signed on Friday, 29 August 2025.

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 560, standing in the name of Senator Shoebridge, be agreed to.

I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs, by no later than Tuesday, 28 July 2026, a full copy of the Funding Arrangement Supporting Papua New Guinea's Independent Management of the Residual Regional Processing Caseload, agreed to in December 2021.

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 561, standing in the name of Senator Shoebridge, be agreed to.

I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, by no later than Tuesday, 28 July 2026, a full copy of the report, provided to the minister in 2023, of the review led by Mr Steven Grzeskowiak into determining a location suitable for the storage and disposal of high-level nuclear waste.

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Leave is granted for one minute.

The same document sought in this motion has also been sought via FOI. Whether or not this document ought to be released is currently before the Federal Court of Australia. The coalition is not opposed to the release of the document, in principle, but awaits the outcome of that matter currently before the courts before taking a final position.

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 562, standing in the name of Senator Shoebridge, be agreed to.

I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, by no later than Tuesday, 28 July 2026, a full copy of the report by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force (IGADF) into command accountability following the completion of the IGADF Afghanistan inquiry.

I seek leave to make a short statement, please.

Leave is granted for one minute.

The coalition is advised that the evidence within the report is highly classified and goes into operational matters within the ADF. Releasing it could impact and jeopardise ongoing investigations the Office of the Special Investigator is leading into allegations of war crimes.

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 563 standing in the name of Senator Shoebridge be agreed to.

I move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, by no later than Tuesday, 28 July 2026, a full copy of the Defence reform study conducted by interim National Armaments Director, Ms Nadine Williams.

The question is that general business notice of motion No. 564 standing in the name of Senator Shoebridge be agreed to.

At the request of Senator Bragg, I move general business notice of motion No. 565:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Housing, by no later than midday on Wednesday, 8 July 2026 documentation outlining the executive salaries at Housing Australia for the 2025-26 financial year.

Question agreed to.

I have received letters requesting changes in the membership of committees.

by leave—I move:

That senators be discharged from and appointed to committees as follows:

Community Affairs Legislation and References Committees —

Discharged—Senator Cox

Appointed—Senator Whiteaker

Corporations and Financial Services — Joint Statutory Committee —

Discharged—Senator Whiteaker

Appointed—Senator Dolega

Electoral Matters — Joint Standing Committee —

Discharged—Senator Grogan

Appointed—

Senator Brown

Participating member [for the purposes of the committee's inquiry into the 2025 election]: Senator Grogan

Environment and Communications Legislation and References Committees —

Discharged—Senator Walker

Appointed—Senator Brown

Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee —

Discharged—Senator Whiteaker

Appointed—Senator Walker

Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation and References Committees —

Discharged—Senator Whiteaker

Appointed—Senator Cox

Productivity in Australia — Select Committee —

Discharged—Senator Grogan

Appointed—Senator Darmanin

Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation — Standing Committee —

Discharged—Senator Darmanin

Appointed—Senator Walker

Question agreed to.

Messages have been received from the House of Representatives forwarding resolutions agreed to by that house relating to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence, the appointment of the Joint Select Committee on the Centenary of Parliament in Canberra and an amendment to the resolution of appointment to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.

The House of Representatives messages read as follows—

Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade

Message No.189

President

The House of Representatives acquaints the Senate of the following resolution which was agreed to by the House of Representatives and requests the concurrence of the Senate therein:

That the resolution of appointment of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade be amended to read as follows:

(1) a Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade be appointed to inquire into and report on such matters relating to foreign affairs and trade as may be referred to it by either House of the Parliament or a Minister;

(2) annual reports of government departments and authorities and reports of the Auditor-General presented to the House shall stand referred to the committee for any inquiry the committee may wish to make and reports shall stand referred to the committee in accordance with a schedule tabled by the Speaker to record the areas of responsibility of each committee, provided that:

(a) any question concerning responsibility for a report or a part of a report shall be determined by the Speaker; and

(b) the period during which an inquiry concerning an annual report may be commenced by a committee shall end on the day on which the next annual report of that department or authority is presented to the House;

(3) the committee consist of 19 members, eight Members of the House of Representatives to be nominated by the Government Whip or Whips, five Members of the House of Representatives to be nominated by the Opposition Whip or Whips or by any minority group or independent Member, two Senators to be nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, two Senators to be nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and two Senators to be nominated by any minority group or independent Senator;

(4) every nomination of a member of the committee be notified in writing to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives;

(5) the members of the committee hold office as a joint standing committee until the House of Representatives is dissolved or expires by effluxion of time;

(6) the committee elect a:

(a) Government member as its Chair; and

(b) non-Government member as its deputy chair who shall act as chair of the committee at any time when the chair is not present at a meeting of the committee;

(7) at any time when the chair and deputy chair are not present at a meeting of the committee the members present shall elect another member to act as chair at that meeting;

(8) in the event of an equally divided vote, the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, have a casting vote;

(9) six members of the committee constitute a quorum of the committee, provided that in a deliberative meeting the quorum shall include one Government member of either House and one non-Government member of either House;

(10) the committee:

(a) have power to appoint subcommittees consisting of three or more of its members and to refer to any subcommittee any matter which the committee is empowered to examine;

(b) appoint the chair of each subcommittee who shall have a deliberative vote and, in the event of an equally divided vote, a casting vote; and

(c) appoint the deputy chair of each subcommittee who shall act as chair of the subcommittee at any time when the chair is not present at a meeting of the subcommittee and who shall have a deliberative vote and, in the event of an equally divided vote, a casting vote;

(11) in addition to the members appointed pursuant to paragraph (10), the chair and deputy chair of the committee be ex officio members of each subcommittee appointed;

(12) at any time when the chair and deputy chair of a subcommittee are not present at a meeting of the subcommittee the members of the subcommittee present shall elect another member of that subcommittee to act as chair at that meeting;

(13) two members of a subcommittee constitute the quorum of that subcommittee, provided that in a deliberative meeting the quorum shall include one Government member of either House and one non-Government member of either House;

(14) members of the committee who are not members of a subcommittee may participate in the proceedings of that subcommittee but shall not vote, move any motion or be counted for the purpose of a quorum;

(15) the committee or any subcommittee have power to:

(a) call for witnesses to attend and for documents to be produced;

(b) conduct proceedings at any place it sees fit;

(c) sit in public or in private;

(d) report from time to time;

(e) adjourn from time to time and to sit during any adjournment of the Senate and the House of Representatives; and

(f) conduct meetings for the purpose of private briefings at any time;

(16) the committee or any subcommittee have power to consider and make use of the evidence and records of the Joint Committees on Foreign Affairs and Defence, and Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, appointed during previous Parliaments; and

(17) the provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.

Speaker

House of Representatives 2 July 2026

______

Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence

Message No.190

President

The House of Representatives acquaints the Senate of the following resolution which was agreed to by the House of Representatives and requests the concurrence of the Senate therein:

That the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence have power to consider and make use of the evidence and records of the Joint Committees on Foreign Affairs and Defence, and Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, appointed during the current and previous Parliaments.

Speaker

House of Representatives

2 July 2026

______

Joint Standing Committ ee on the Centenary of Parliament in Canberra

Message No.191

President

The House of Representatives acquaints the Senate of the following resolution which was agreed to by the House of Representatives and requests the concurrence of the Senate therein:

That:

(1) a Joint Select Committee on the Centenary of Parliament in Canberra be appointed to oversee planning and delivery of the commemoration of the centenary of Parliament in Canberra, in consultation with the Presiding Officers;

(2) the committee consist of nine members: Ms Claydon as Chair, Mr McCormack as Deputy Chair, Mr Dreyfus, Ms Payne, Ms Sharkie, Mr Rebello, Senator Stewart, Senator Walker and Senator Kovacic;

(3) the members of the committee hold office as a joint select committee until 30 November 2027;

(4) the deputy chair shall act as chair of the committee at any time when the chair is not present at a meeting of the committee;

(5) at any time when the chair and deputy chair are not present at a meeting of the committee the members present shall elect another member to act as chair at that meeting;

(6) the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, shall have a deliberative vote and, in the event of an equally divided vote, a casting vote;

(7) three members of the committee constitute a quorum of the committee, provided that in a deliberative meeting the quorum shall include one Government member of either House and one non-Government member of either House;

(8) the committee:

(a) have power to appoint subcommittees consisting of three or more of its members and to refer to any subcommittee any matter which the committee is empowered to examine; and

(b) appoint the chair of each subcommittee who shall have a deliberative vote and, in the event of an equally divided vote, a casting vote;

(9) at any time when the chair of a subcommittee is not present at a meeting of the subcommittee, the members of the subcommittee present shall elect another member of that subcommittee to act as chair at that meeting;

(10) two members of a subcommittee constitute a quorum of that subcommittee, provided that in a deliberative meeting the quorum shall include one Government member of either House and one non-Government member of either House;

(11) members of the committee who are not members of a subcommittee may participate in the proceedings of that subcommittee but shall not vote, move any motion or be counted for the purpose of a quorum;

(12) the committee or any subcommittee have power to:

(a) call for witnesses to attend and for documents to be produced;

(b) conduct proceedings at any place it sees fit;

(c) sit in public or in private;

(d) report from time to time; and

(e) adjourn from time to time and to sit during any adjournment of the House of Representatives and the Senate; and

(13) the provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.

Speaker

House of Representatives

2 July 2026

I move:

That the Senate concurs with the resolutions of the House of Representatives relating to joint committees.

Question agreed to.

I advise the Senate that the clocks are being worked on. If any further work is required that might impede the Senate or interrupt the Senate, I'll be advised by the Clerk and I will come back and seek the advice of the chamber.

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 table a revised explanatory memorandum relating to the bill, and 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—

I move that this Bill be now read a second time.

Australians have faced extraordinary economic challenges over the last few years, driven by events beyond our shores. The 2026-2027 Budget outlined the government's strategy to respond to these challenges through responsible savings, supporting intergenerational equality and by building an economy that is more productive and more resilient.

In particular, higher productivity is the key to boosting the real value of our wages and our standard of living. A more productive economy is a more resilient one, and reversing the decay to Australian productivity which set in during the 201O's is a key economic goal for the government.

Better regulation is a key piece of this economic picture. Regulation touches on nearly every aspect of everyday life. From road rules to housing construction, regulation sets the 'ground rules' which govern how individuals behave and how businesses and institutions operate. Last year's Economic Reform Roundtable highlighted the importance of getting regulatory settings right, and the strong desire from businesses and community organisations for better regulation.

The Government is delivering an ambitious Regulatory Reform Agenda to facilitate investment, protect Australians from harm, and reduce unnecessary regulatory costs across the economy. Through this agenda, we have been identifying and implementing continuous improvements to regulatory settings on a government-wide basis. When our agenda is fully implemented, the gains delivered for Australians will include:

Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bills will be instrumental in delivering needed legislative reforms under this agenda. Last October the Treasurer introduced the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2025 which was about better regulation, cutting compliance costs and launching the ambitious transition to a 'tell-us-one' approach to government service delivery. Today, I am proud to continue the government's regulatory reform agenda by introducing the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026.

This Bill continues the work from last year's omnibus Act by further simplifying regulation, particularly for businesses, progressing additional measures to support the government's 'tell-us-once' agenda and making technical amendments to get regulation working better for Australians.

In total, it amends 25 Acts, repeals 2 Acts and will improve the operations of 18 government agencies.

First, the Bill will update Australia's intellectual property laws.

It will provide the Registrar of Trade Marks with more discretion over the amount of costs, prescribed by the regulations, to be awarded in a trade mark opposition matter. Currently, the Registrar can only award scheduled amounts regardless of how much a party spent in legal fees. Giving the Registrar more flexibility to determine costs will further build integrity into the oppositions process for businesses and deter poor behaviour intended to run up the costs of the other party.

It will also introduce a six-month grace period for plant breeders to renew their Plant Breeder Rights where they are late in paying the annual renewal fee. Under the current settings these rights are automatically lost if the fee is paid late, and the plant breeder must apply again to get them back. We know that life and business get hectic sometimes. This change means that plant breeders won't accidently lose valuable rights just because they missed a renewal payment deadline.

It will boost protections by allowing investigations and discipline of patent and trade mark attorneys to continue, even if an attorney de-registers to try to avoid the process. It will also impose stricter requirements for re-registration where a patent and trade mark attorney is found guilty of misconduct. Together, these changes will help businesses maintain confidence in the IP attorney profession. It will close an unintended loophole, while still allowing easy re-registration for attorneys with a clear conduct record.

Beyond intellectual property, the Bill will remove the mandatory 30 day appeal period for importers who advise they don't intend to appeal a negative preliminary decision by the Anti-Dumping Commissioner for a partial refund as part of the duty assessment process. This change will allow importers to receive faster refunds when they advise that they don't intend to appeal the decision.

The Commissioner's preliminary decision is subject to being finalised by the Minister. When the decision is finalised, the importer can be paid the refund they are entitled to. However, even when an importer has no intention of appealing the decision, the Commissioner must wait the full 30 day period before recommending that the Minister finalise the decision. This amendment will allow the Commissioner, on receiving confirmation from the importer that they don't intend to appeal, to immediately recommend that the decision be finalised. This change means faster cash flow for businesses by adding fit-for-purpose flexibility to an administrative process.

The Bill will also simplify business reporting requirements.

It will simplify workplace gender equality reporting and target-setting requirements by adding a 12 month window at the end of a target cycle. Right now, reporting at the end of a target cycle comes with additional regulatory burden for businesses. Not only must they finalise their data and reporting for the current cycle they must also select new targets for the next cycle.

This amendment will give employers more time to identify high-quality, meaningful targets by adding a 12-month window to identify and nominate them. This change means more time for employers to analyse and understand their performance in the previous cycle, leading to more considered targets and more sustainable progress towards gender equality in our workplaces. The amendment also reduces the administrative burden for employers that comes at the end of a target cycle.

The Bill will also align the reporting period for public and private sector employers to ensure comparable data on gender equality in the workplace is available for both Commonwealth and private sector employers.

Another improvement to business reporting made by the Bill is to move reporting under the New Eligible Drama Expenditure Scheme from a financial year to calendar year basis. This aligns these reporting requirements for subscription television broadcast licensees and channel providers with other Australian content reporting schemes. This change will make it easier for businesses who are reporting under multiple schemes to prepare, compare and lodge the required information.

A core part of the 2025 Omnibus Act was supporting a shift towards a 'tell-us-once' approach to how government works for Australians.

A realised 'tell-us-once' approach across government means Australians and businesses won't have to enter the same information more than once when interacting with government.

This Bill will advance the government's efforts to embed a 'tell-us-once' approach across a wider range of government activities and services.

For importers, it will allow goods that are covered by a Tariff Concession Order to be exempt from dumping and countervailing duties in certain circumstances, without requiring a further administrative decision. This removes administrative delays in exempting some goods from dumping and countervailing duties and means importers can get on with business more quickly.

The Bill will make it easier for people who are 'nominees' under the social security law to cancel their nominee arrangements by removing the requirement to cancel in writing.

Nominees are appointed to assist social security, family assistance and paid parental leave recipients who need help interacting with Services Australia. Currently, when nominees want to cancel their nominee appointment they must notify Services Australia in writing, even if they've already said they want to cancel their appointment over the phone.

This adds administrative burden and can cause delays in the cancellation of arrangements that may no longer be appropriate or tenable (for example due to the presence of family or domestic violence). This change will ensure that nominee arrangements are simple to cancel on a 'tell-us-once' basis and can be actioned by Services Australia as soon as possible with minimal impost on the nominee.

The Bill will also make it easier for recipients of some Commonwealth pensions to comply with their Proof of Life obligations and reduce duplication of effort by Services Australia. These obligations apply to Australians aged 80 years or over who have been away from Australia for at least two continuous years. These amendments will allow Services Australia, in some cases, to rely instead on information it has already collected from other places. This is a significant change that will reduce the regulatory burden not just on elderly pensioners but also on Australia's consular officials, who often help prepare the certificates.

The Bill will also make changes that will get government working better for Australians.

It will improve the Australian Human Rights Commission complaints process by removing excessive mandatory complaint notification requirements. These requirements were introduced in an attempt to increase procedural fairness. In practice, they have only applied to people who play no role in the resolution of complaints and aren't able to formally respond. Receiving a notification can be a confusing and stressful experience for these people, and they may contact the Commission for support even though there are no legal consequences for them. The notification process has also not helped complainants get better outcomes. This change will mean more time for the Commission to spend supporting complainants and less stress for people who would otherwise receive these notices.

The Bill will also allow eligible defence force superannuation scheme members to access an account based pension from CSC when they retire. This will give former ADF members more choice to manage their money in retirement and has support from serving and former ADF members.

Finally, the Bill will also make various technical amendments to improve the operation of existing regulations. It will repeal Acts that have become redundant. It will clarify and align legislative definitions and concepts to support more efficient and timely administrative decision making.

I am introducing this Bill into the House on behalf of my colleague in the other place Senator the Honourable Katy Gallagher, Minister for Finance, Women, the Public

Service and Government Services. I want to acknowledge her and thank her for her work in bringing this Bill together. It is a reflection on the commitment of this Government to continued regulatory reform that we are able to introduce another regulatory reform omnibus bill so soon after the first.

As this Government has previously stated: Regulation should be there to protect Australians and empower them, not weigh them down.

This Bill is about making sure regulation supports businesses to get the most out of their investment and their hard work.

It is about sensible changes that simplify regulations while maintaining essential safeguards for the community.

It takes further steps towards a wider 'tell-us-once' approach across all of government.

It will support the government's work to build an economy that is more dynamic, more resilient and more productive for all Australians.

We understand that there is more work to do and expect to introduce further omnibus bills in the future.

This Bill is another step forward towards delivering the better regulation that Australians deserve.

Full details of all the Bill's measures are contained in the explanatory memorandum.Ordered that further consideration of the second reading of this bill be adjourned to the first sitting day of the next period of sittings, in accordance with standing order 111.

When a child walks into a classroom, joins a sporting club, visits a museum or takes part in a science program, parents should be able to trust that what they are receiving is education to protect them and help their learning and development, not to protect a multinational coal or gas company. This isn't a radical expectation. Frankly, we are stunned that the Labor government has made it out to be such. Children deserve education that is independent, that is evidence based and focused on helping them understand the world around them.

Right now, fossil fuel corporations are embedding themselves in the very places where children learn, where they play and where they grow. They are funding school programs. They are sponsoring children's sport. They are partnering with museums and science organisations. They are providing educational resources and programs that shape how young people understand climate change, energy and the future. What has been the Albanese government's response? To say: 'This is a matter for the states and territories. We're showing leadership. This is a matter for individual schools and teachers. This isn't our responsibility.' Well, we do not believe that parents see it that way. As a parent myself, I do not see it that way. Parents are asking a simple question: when my child is learning about the biggest challenge that their generation will face, climate change, who is providing that information and what interests do they have? That is an incredibly reasonable question, and this government should have a reasonable answer.

Of course this is not an attack on our wonderful teachers across this country and our early learning educators. Teachers are stretched. They are undervalued. They are doing extraordinary work under immense pressure. This is an attack on schools, sporting clubs, museums or community organisations. We are not attacking them. These organisations are underfunded and doing everything they can to give children opportunities. But the answer to underfunding cannot be to allow some of the world's biggest fossil fuel companies to buy influence in the places that our children and their parents trust.

Fossil fuel companies understand reputation. They understand public opinion, they understand PR and they know they are being slammed right now. They understand that their future depends not only on what they produce but whether communities continue to accept what they do and avoid uncomfortable questions about their role driving the climate crisis that our communities across this beautiful country are bearing the brunt of. They know their social licence is under threat.

Senator Hodgins-May, we have now reached 12.15 and that is the hard marker. You will be in continuation when this debate resumes.

One Nation has a second reading amendment to the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate calls on the Government to immediately pursue backpay for workers who were underpaid as a result of the use of casual labour hire contracts in the coal mining industry".

The 'workers' are the casual coalmine workers.

There are thousands of casual miners who have been underpaid in Australia's largest wage theft case. I've been chasing this up on their behalf for seven years. We are chasing this and we will continue to chase it. They have been underpaid for many years. Some are owed up to $211,000. Others are owed more than $40,000 a year.

We have some concerns with this bill but it's going through as a noncontroversial bill—I'll explain why in a minute—because we have listened to the miners. Long service leave in the coalmining industry has exhibited poor governance and broken government contracts. This has now been exposed. We exposed it. We were told, 'No, you're wrong.' Then they found out that we were correct. We were vindicated.

This bill is rewarding delinquent employers by giving them a discount when they pay. They get a discount for being delinquent and underpaying their levy. There has been such a mess made in coal long service leave for so long, and such shoddy governance, but we're informed that the miners would rather have some certainty on this being resolved hence giving the company the 20 per cent discount on entitlements that they must pay in order to have this resolved—otherwise it could drag on for years. We are listening to miners.

We've had three aims for our work on this since 2019: (1) to get Central Queensland and Hunter Valley miners their just, moral and legal entitlements; (2) to stop the practice of using unlawfully processed enterprise agreements—we're pursuing that; (3) to bring justice for the miners against those employers, union bosses and agencies that have been colluding against and ripping off these miners.

The Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Legislation Amendment Bill creates a voluntary pathway for employers to pay historical debts related to unpaid portable long service leave levies of employees in the black-coal industry. The coalition supports this bill and notes the support of industry and its involvement in drafting this bill. It is a noncontroversial reform to fix historic uncertainty and protect workers entitlements, jobs and business viability. This applies to historic liabilities that arose due to uncertainty about scheme coverage, not deliberate non-payment.

The black-coal industry remains a critical pillar of Australia's economy, supporting tens of thousands of highly skilled, well-paid jobs and underpinning the economic strength of many regional communities across the country. Black-coal workers perform demanding, skilled and often dangerous work. They deserve certainty, respect and the confidence that their entitlements will be honoured. Coal workers move between employers over long careers, which is why long service leave matters to them. This bill recognises their contribution to the industry not just a single employer.

We know that, as a result of the recent Federal Court decisions, some employers were suddenly exposed to large retrospective levy debts. These debts were unexpected and potentially business-ending if demanded immediately. Insolvencies were likely, and jobs were put at risk. The bill balances compliance and worker protection with commercial reality. Repayments are staged and can be repaid over six years, with a 20 per cent waiver if 80 per cent is paid. It won't change levy rates at the Coal LSL Scheme and will absorb the waivers easily. The Coal LSL Scheme exists to protect workers who move between employers. The bill strengthens confidence in the scheme and ensures long service leave hours are not lost.

The Coal Long Service Leave Scheme was established in 1949 and has been underpinned by Commonwealth legislation since 1992. It provides a single national system for long service leave for black-coal miners, regardless of job changes within the industry. As of June 2025, Coal LSL holds over 71 million hours of long service leave on behalf of more than 160,000 employees, including over 65,000 currently active in the industry.

Industry has welcomed the legislation and the minister's intention to grant extensions of time for repayment plans in light of the ongoing litigation. We know the Minerals Council of Australia considers the legislation to be a positive development that will help address the commercial and financial uncertainty faced by certain businesses as a result of these historic liabilities. The Australian Industry Group says:

Many businesses were facing hardship and potential insolvency, if required to pay the historical levy debts straight away. A large number of jobs were at risk. Therefore, the introduction of the Bill into Parliament is very welcome.

We recognise that the Bill needed to strike a balance between the interests of all parties. This balance was achieved following the Government's lengthy consultation process, in which Australian Industry Group was heavily involved.

The bill was amended in the House by the government following the Senate inquiry, and the opposition supported the government's amendments. The opposition supports the passage of this bill. We support black-coal mining workers and want to protect their entitlements while keeping the businesses that employ them viable. The bill should go towards delivering certainty, stability and fairness while strengthening the confidence of the Coal LSL Scheme.

I thank the Senate for the indication of support for the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. I'll just make a very brief comment. The bill is about delivering fairness and certainty for workers in the black-coal mining industry and supporting employers. The bill creates a practical, time-limited pathway for employers to resolve unpaid levies so that workers can access their lawful entitlements without delay. The bill also introduces an effective penalty for late levy payments that promotes employers' timely compliance with their obligation and contributes to the Coal Long Service Leave Scheme's long-term sustainability.

I want to extend the government's thanks to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee for their report on the bill and the recommendation that the bill be passed. I also thank those who engaged constructively with the committee's inquiry and provided submissions. The government has listened carefully and made amendments to respond directly to matters raised in those submissions.

I'll just speak briefly to Senator Roberts's second reading amendment. For clarity, the government has requested the Fair Work Ombudsman investigate allegations regarding coal mining worker underpayments. I understand that the Fair Work Ombudsman investigation is ongoing. It is currently underway and has been underway for a while, and we look forward to those investigations concluding. The government is very proud of the support that we've given to coal mining workers, not only through previous iterations of this legislation but by making wage theft a crime and delivering same job, same pay. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

No amendments have been circulated to the chair. I call the minister to move the third reading unless any senator requires that the bill be considered in Committee of the Whole.

I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

The first Commonwealth parliament sat in Melbourne because the Constitution required parliament to meet there until a permanent capital was chosen. It would not move to Canberra until 1927, but the foundations laid in Melbourne were profound. The parliament passed laws that shaped the nation and continue to influence Australian life today; 125 years later, we look back with gratitude but also honesty. The democracy born in 1901 was not complete, and many people, including First Nations Australians, were excluded. Women secured the right to vote and stand for federal parliament in 1902—a landmark reform—but representation remained limited for decades. That is the story of Australian democracy: not perfect at birth but capable of reform; not finished in 1901 but strengthened by each generation.

The first parliament reminds us that Australia was built by people willing to overcome distance, difference and doubt. Western Australians knew that challenge better than most. They travelled further, waited longer and often had to fight harder to ensure their voice was heard. Today, as we mark 125 years since that first parliament opened, we honour those first parliamentarians and senators and we recommit ourselves to the task they began—building our Commonwealth across one continent, with every Australian having a voice in its future.

As we reflect on 125 years of our Commonwealth parliament, it is also important that we remember another institution that has provided continuity, stability and restraint throughout Australia's democratic journey. That, of course, is the institution of the Crown. Australia's constitutional monarchy has never been about the exercise of political power. Its strength lies precisely in the opposite—in providing an impartial constitutional anchor above politics, above faction and above the passions of the moment. In uncertain times, that matters. The Crown has helped safeguard the conventions, institutions and democratic traditions that underpin our parliamentary system. It provides continuity when governments change, steadiness when politics becomes turbulent, and a reminder that public office is ultimately about service, duty and responsibility. Those values were embodied so powerfully by Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Many Australians will remember stories of Her late Majesty's extraordinary sense of duty—a monarch whose instinct, even in moments of personal grief, was to ask first about the welfare of others. That lifelong commitment to service before self helped strengthen not only the monarchy but the democratic institutions it supports.

Today, His Majesty King Charles III continues that tradition of service with dignity, intelligence and quiet purpose.

Debate interrupted.

Senator Smith, I'm very reluctant to interrupt you for this for the second time—

I know you know what pain it causes me!

but we do need to have a technician come on the floor of the Senate. He'll be stationed near the Deputy Clerk, and it will take him about 10 minutes to fix the clocks. We think this is the best time because we've got this address-in-reply going on. So, with the concurrence of the Senate, I'll allow the technician to come in. Thank you, everyone, and thank you for your indulgence, Senator Smith.

Today, King Charles III continues that tradition of service with dignity, intelligence and quiet purpose. His Majesty has come to the throne after perhaps the longest apprenticeship in modern history. For decades, he immersed himself in public life, charitable work, interfaith dialogue, environmental stewardship and engagement across the Commonwealth.

More recently, we've seen the important role a constitutional monarch can still play on the global stage. Whether opening the Canadian parliament at a time of anxiety about sovereignty and democratic stability or addressing the United States Congress with warmth, humour and subtle wisdom, King Charles III has consistently reinforced the enduring values of democracy, the rule of law, pluralism and constitutional government. Importantly, he has done so not through partisan intervention but through the unique moral authority that constitutional monarchs can exercise precisely because they stand above day-to-day politics. Royal meaning is often inferred rather than declared outright. But the message has been unmistakeable: democratic institutions matter, alliances matter, constitutional restraint matters, and freedom and self-government must never be taken for granted. At a time when democracies around the world face growing pressure from authoritarianism, polarisation and declining trust in institutions, those reminders carry significant weight.

Australia's constitutional monarchy has served our nation with distinction for 125 years. It has evolved with the country, adapted to changing times and helped provide the stability within which Australian democracy has flourished. Today, under King Charles III, that enduring tradition of duty, service and constitutional stewardship continues.

In the Governor-General's address to parliament, Her Excellency said:

The government recognises the dream of homeownership feels out of reach for many—particularly young people and aspiring first home buyers.

But the government isn't doing what needs to be done to make sure that everyone has a home.

On any given night in Queensland, right now, 22,000 Queenslanders are experiencing homelessness. Of that number, roughly 20 per cent are young people aged 12 to 24. That's 4,454 young people experiencing homelessness in Queensland on any given night.

The Greens have been advocating since we came into this place for a massive build of public housing. The only way we're going to address the housing crisis is to actually build homes for people to live in. After the Second World War, the Australian government was building roughly 30 per cent of the housing stock in this country, and people were proud to live in a home built by government. Since that time, successive governments have done what governments do: they let those assets run down; they sell them off; they turn them into something that no-one wants to live in, so that there's no demand, and then they vacate the field.

The Greens think that the federal government needs to get back in the business of working towards building more public homes, because everybody needs to have a home. The incoming prime minister from the UK Labour Party, Andy Burnham, said in a speech earlier this week that he thinks that the way for the UK to come back to prosperity is to have a massive build of public housing—to take a housing-first approach. Finland has had a housing-first model for more than 15 years, and they are one of the only European countries that registers decreasing homelessness numbers. It's not rocket science. If you want to house people, you need to build houses, and the government should be playing a leading role in building high-quality, accessible public homes for everyone, to tackle this housing crisis.

We need genuine investment in social and affordable housing. And we need to have continuing support for renters, because rents are still going up right across the country. We need a renters' protection authority to step in and make sure that renters have rights that are protected. We still have states that have no-grounds evictions. The federal government needs to be taking a leading role to make sure that they are abolished. We need to stop unlimited rent increases by limiting increases to two per cent every two years. The Labor government says it can't do that because it's a state issue. Well, there are plenty of other things where the federal government has stepped in. They did it for gas. If you can step in for gas to make sure that people have supply, then you can step in and give incentives to the states to cap rents.

They also need to regulate the banks to deliver fairer, lower mortgages. The five per cent home deposit scheme is simply funnelling more money to the banks, as more and more younger people have had to take on massive mortgages, with 95 per cent borrowings, where the extra interest—$200,000 on average—goes back to the big banks.

We're in a cost-of-living crisis. People are struggling to put food on the table and to keep a roof over their head. This Labor government came to power, came to parliament, with a massive majority, and the people of Australia looked to the government to make real progressive reform, to tackle the issues that are impacting them. Yet this government continues to tinker around the edges.

It should not be the case that one in six kids is living in poverty. Many of them are those same young people in Queensland who are homeless. It should not be the case that people can't afford for their kids to go to school. This government says it cares about young people and education. They like to tell everyone that they fully funded our public schools, but they haven't. All of the bilateral agreements are backloaded. Money doesn't finally flow fully until 2034, and, even then, we will have loopholes that will still remain that will let states spend that money not on kids in classrooms but on things like teacher registration bodies. It's just another example where the Labor government want the community to think that they've fixed the thing when they've only gone halfway or partway there.

Right around the country, teachers are overworked, underpaid and lacking in resources, and yet we've seen in the Comms Declare report that fossil fuel companies, gas companies and coal companies are infiltrating our schools, taking advantage of the fact that schools don't have the resources that they need to do their jobs well. There's so much opportunity wasted. Government likes to talk about the need for kids' school results to improve. How does a kid who either is homeless, is hungry or has a family that's experiencing family and domestic violence—a family which can't get help because the frontline services aren't properly funded—meant to do well at school?

It's public-school teachers who carry the burden of helping those kids because we know that public-school teachers teach 85 per cent of kids who have some kind of complex need. Yet we still have a situation where virtually every private school in this country is overfunded, and 98 per cent of public schools are still not at 100 per cent of their full funding—yet the government wants you to believe that the job is done. It's frontline workers, it's parents, it's carers—particularly women—who are carrying the load in this country for the issues this government won't fix. It's women who are carrying the burden when they can't find care for their older parent. It's women who are carrying the burden as their NDIS supports are being cut off. Yet when the government needs to find money for submarines and war, it's no questions asked, no accountability. When parties that aren't part of Labor or the coalition try to get transparency around that, we just get a brick wall. We've got big data companies like Palantir getting massive contracts, being invited in. We've got big corporations wanting to build their data centres right near people's homes, being invited in. Yet everyday people want their voices to be heard, and they feel like no-one is listening.

The Greens are listening. We understand what it means for you when you can't afford the rent. The Greens understand what it means for you when your kids' public school doesn't have the resources it needs. The Greens understand what it means for you when your NDIS supports are being cut. The Greens understand what it means for you when your older parent gets assessed by a computer and no-one can override the decision when it's wrong. So much good can be done if the government has the political will and the courage to stand up to powerful and vested interests. It is big corporations that get a say in this place more often than the people we are all elected to serve.

This morning we saw the Senate doing its job, holding the government to account, putting up legislation that will right a wrong—and it passed in this place. We will now see a bill that makes sure every single older person who needs an assessment for care can have a human make the final decision—not just people who are deemed the exception, but everyone. That bill passed in this place. But you watch it sit languishing in the lower house, where the government has a massive majority. They could fix that problem today.

It's always people doing it toughest. It's always the services that care for people where the government wants to make cuts—put an algorithm into aged care to reduce costs, kick people off the NDIS to reduce costs, make public schools wait until 2034 to reduce costs, make frontline DV services continue to wait to be fully funded for the level of need that they say they have for people wanting help. Yet when big corporations don't want to ban gambling ads because they'll lose money, and coal and gas companies say, 'Don't you dare stop giving us subsidies for our fuel, because our profits won't be so big', and when big corporations come into this place and lobby governments, they get their way. No wonder people are frustrated. No wonder people want their politicians to do better.

When asked, most people think that the cause of, or the No. 1 reason for, the cost-of-living crisis they are experiencing is politicians—and who could blame them? This government has the power to make price gouging across our economy illegal, but it voted it down when the Greens put it up. This government has the power to end fossil fuel subsidies, end billions of dollars in subsidies to big corporations, but it won't do it. This government has the power to fully fund our public schools, not by 2034 and with loopholes but this year, but it won't. The Greens are the ones in this place who are continually putting things on the agenda and waiting for the government and the opposition to catch up.

It is a real honour to represent the people of Queensland in this place. As your Greens senator for Queensland, I am committed to continuing to advocate for decent, dignified aged care for older people at the time that they need it, not a system that continues to ration care. I am committed to continuing to advocate for our students and our teachers and our parents and our public schools, because they should have a system that they are proud of and that is fully funded—not in a decade but now. I am committed to continuing to advocate for people on social services, people who are on income support, who continue to be subjected to a cruel and inhumane targeted compliance framework that the government isn't even sure is lawful. And I am committed to continuing to advocate for the people across northern Australia, who, despite governments talking the talk, continue to experience a lack of the services that they deserve.

I rise today to respond to the Governor-General's speech and, in doing so, to reaffirm the enduring value of the institutions that uphold our constitutional monarchy. The office of the Governor-General and His Majesty the King's representative in Australia carry great responsibility and symbolism. I thank Her Excellency for the dignity in which she discharged her role in the opening of the 48th Parliament and for reminding us all of the solemn duty that we have to serve the Australian people.

The Governor-General rightly observed that many Australians remain under significant pressure. The cost of living is the No. 1 issue across homes across the nation, and rightly so. Prices are up, wages are stagnant and essential services are harder to access than ever before. Australians expect their government to respond not with slogans but with a coherent plan to erase these burdens, yet what we have seen from the Albanese government is a pattern of high-spending, high-taxing policies that offer little relief and even less reform. Their plan to tax unrealised gains in superannuation accounts above $3 million is a prime example. It punishes those who save, complicates the tax system and opens the door to further encroachments on Australians financial security. Instead of encouraging thrift and responsibility, the government seeks to penalise it.

What Australians need is not more government overreach but more opportunity. The best way to reduce cost-of-living pressure is to restore productivity, to rein in inflation and to address energy insecurity. Policies that reward work, that encourage private enterprise and that enable families to make choices for themselves are the foundation of a stronger economy. Creating greater dependence on the state is not value for money; it is a trap that risks diminishing personal responsibility, initiative and aspiration. Behind every economic figure lies a family budget. Behind every fiscal decision is a household trying to stay afloat. Every Australian family deserves the dignity of choice and the freedom to chart their own course. That requires economic stability and a government that trusts its citizens more than it trusts the bureaucracy.

Turning to health care, we hear the same tired refrain from Labor—that they alone are the custodians of Medicare—but this is simply not true. Support for Medicare is bipartisan, but good stewardship of it requires more than throwing billions of dollars at a broken system. Despite record health spending, outcomes remain stubbornly poor. Emergency rooms are overcrowded; waiting times are up; general practice clinics are closing, particularly in our regions; and bulk-billing rates are falling. Some Australians are delaying or avoiding seeing a doctor because they simply cannot afford it, despite the Prime Minister's broken promise that Australians would need only their Medicare card to see a doctor.

Labor has announced $1.1 billion for mental health programs, but results remain elusive. According to the National Mental Health Commission, outcomes have not improved in any meaningful way. One in five Australians now delays mental health care due to cost. Among young people, the rate of mental illness has surged to nearly 39 per cent. These are not abstract figures; they are the daily struggles of everyday, real Australians. It is not enough to fund mental health services. We must address the root causes of the mental distress: social isolation; economic insecurity; lack of purpose and opportunity. That requires policies that build strong communities, encourage connection and give people a reason to hope.

On housing: the government promises to build 1.2 million new homes by 2030, but Treasury's own advice suggests this target will not be met. The question is not whether Australians want more housing—of course they do. The question is how this government is proposing to deliver it. Announcing a target is really easy; meeting it requires practical action: faster planning approvals, cooperation with states and the removal of barriers for private development. With what Labor is doing and their policies, rents are soaring; mortgage repayments are unaffordable; we now have Australians with negative equity in their homes, after the disastrous five per cent deposit scheme; and young Australians are locked out of the housing market. The government's $43 billion housing promise will mean little, unless it actually delivers roofs over heads. Australians are tired of announcements without results.

Child care is another area where government spending is skyrocketing, but outcomes are not. Billions of dollars in new subsidies have been pumped into the system, yet families continue to struggle with affordability. According to the ACCC, many childcare operators have raised fees beyond the value of the new subsidies, and, as a result, out-of-pocket costs for families have increased by almost 10 per cent in the last year alone. There is no such thing as free child care; it is paid for by either the parents or the taxpayers. And, when the government subsidises costs without introducing competition or efficiency, prices rise. Families are being short-changed, and children are not necessarily receiving better or safer care as a result. There's a one-size-fits-all system that offers families no choice or freedom to decide what works best for them. It is also silent on unpaid care work.

At the same time, our education system is underperforming. Australian students are falling behind on international benchmarks in maths, science and literacy. Our 15-year-olds today are nearly two years behind where they were two decades ago in mathematics. Only 28 per cent of year 10 students meet the minimum civics standards. That means most students are graduating without a basic understanding of the system of government that protects their rights. This is not just an educational failure; it is a democratic failure. We cannot expect young Australians to value and defend our democratic institutions if we have not taught them how those institutions work. Education reform must focus on restoring rigour, respect for truth and civic understanding. Our students deserve far better.

The Governor-General's speech referred to building a more resilient economy. But words from this government must be backed by action. Under this government, Australia now ranks last in the OECD for economic complexity. That means our economy is dangerously undiversified and heavily reliant on a narrow range of exports. We are vulnerable to global shocks, and we are falling behind in advanced industries. Real resilience comes not from more regulation or subsidies but from encouraging innovation, attracting investment and backing Australian enterprise. Labor's industrial relations changes have created uncertainty and imposed burdens on small businesses at the very time we should be helping them grow.

On energy, the facts are sobering. Despite another Labor broken promise, to lower bills by $275, the average household is now paying over $300 more. Under this Labor government, emissions are rising again for the first time in a decade and our electricity grid is becoming less reliable, with AEMO warning of supply shortfalls as early as next year. This is all while Labor is spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on legislated renewables targets that are never going to be reached. We must ensure that our transition to a low-emissions future is pragmatic and affordable. That means investing in firming technologies, protecting energy security and ensuring that households and businesses are not left to bear the cost of poor planning. This government's obsession with net zero by 2030 has driven manufacturing offshore, impacted Australia's sovereign capability to have smelters that can stand alone without taxpayer funded bailouts, and driven families and businesses to the brink—for a target that will never be achieved. They are driving agricultural, manufacturing and economic poverty, and we must abandon the net zero fantasy.

National security is another area where ambition must be matched by delivery. The government says we face the most dangerous strategic circumstances since the end of the Second World War, yet our defence spending remains inadequate. AUKUS is a landmark partnership that should be supported, but nuclear submarines that arrive in the 2040s won't protect us in the 2020s. We need to invest in sovereign capability now. That means missiles, drones, cyberdefences, shipbuilding and workforce recruitment. Our defence industry are under immense pressure to deliver, but the support they receive is patchy. If the threats are real—and they are—then our response must be real too. National security cannot be a part-time priority. We must pursue peace through strength in our region.

Finally, I am dismayed that the Governor-General's speech made no mention of the disturbing rise of antisemitism in our country. Synagogues have been attacked, Jewish owned businesses vandalised, and families threatened and targeted. This is unacceptable in any democracy, let alone in a country like Australia that prides itself on tolerance and respect. We must stand unequivocally with our Jewish community. The failure to mention these issues in the government's agenda is not just an oversight; it is a signal—a signal that some threats are just not politically convenient to confront.

I see very little in the government's agenda that speaks to aspiration, to enterprise or to national unity. Instead, I see slogans over substance, division over any kind of community cohesion and dependency over dignity. The coalition will continue to stand with the forgotten people. We will fight for policies that make life better for families, safer for communities and stronger for the nation. We will hold this government to account and we will offer Australians a better way.

I rise to take note of the Governor-General's speech. It's an opportunity to do this nearly 12 months after the federal election—of course, the Governor-General gives the speech after our election—and, looking back over the last 12 months at the political landscape, the economic landscape and the developments in international spheres, make some really important observations.

Before I do that, I want to focus on the comments from the previous speaker about this 'net zero fantasy' that the Liberal-National coalition just can't seem to let go of. I totally agree that net zero is a terrible policy. It's nowhere near enough to act on the climate emissions that are polluting our planet and disrupting our economies, our agricultural communities and our communities right around the country. We need to do much better on climate action. Net zero is a very weak policy and was always, in my opinion, designed to be a failure.

Let's look at the economy to start with. We've just passed some budget reform. I've lost count of how many speeches I've done in my 14-plus years in this place around getting rid of perverse incentives that have rigged the housing market in this country, largely to the benefit of the wealthy—perverse incentives like a capital gains tax concession and negative gearing that allows some Australians to have hundreds of houses at the expense of those who are trying to get into the housing market. The government has used its mandate and has changed that. I am grateful for that. It is a small step in the right direction. After many years of the Greens pushing the government to do this—obviously, Mr Shorten attempted to do this in the 2019 election—good on Mr Albanese and his government for changing these perverse incentives that have been so unfair for so many people.

However, we would love to have seen the government go a lot further than that and change this inequality that is still locked in, because everyone who's got access to these benefits has got to keep them. Of course, some young Australians are asking, 'Why didn't I get access to these incentives so that I could own multiple properties?' But, luckily, there are so many Australians out there that are grateful that the housing market now will be more accessible and, hopefully, more affordable, and that will occur over time.

However, the Greens were very disappointed that the last budget had nothing for renters in this country. It's something that we've fought for for many years. My colleague Senator Barbara Pocock has been doing fantastic work in this area, and, of course, prior to this parliament, Mr Max Chandler-Mather, from the other place, did some amazing work to raise the awareness of this political issue in this country. There are so many renters out there that need our assistance. Of course, investing in housing supply will make a difference, but, at the end of the day, this government could have done a lot more to help renters in Australia.

We've pushed hard to make price gouging illegal, particularly that by the big supermarkets. I want to give a shout-out to Senator Nick McKim from the Greens who's been leading on this issue for many, many years now—and, by the way, he achieved some fantastic outcomes in the last budget to help our economic system be much fairer.

We need to tax the gas companies in Australia. Once again, I suppose the privilege of being here for many years is I've seen all the debates we've had over the years about changing the petroleum resource rent tax and trying to claw back some money for the Australian people who own the resources that these companies have exploited. It is a very popular campaign that has been run by parliamentarians including, once again, my Greens colleague Senator Hodgins-May, who's been tirelessly campaigning to get a tax on gas, a 30 per cent minimum tax, and that's not going away. That is not going away. This has resonated with so many Australians who want to see big resource companies pay their fair share. Imagine what we could do with the tens of billions of dollars of revenue if we actually tax these big multinational corporations, many of whom are polluting our planet and aren't paying for the damage that they're doing.

As I leave this place, I say watch that campaign build until it gets to a point, like getting rid of negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, it's going to be too hard for the government to ignore. There's no way that these companies that make billions of dollars in profits and are ruining our planet should be getting away with not paying a fair share on the resources that they extract that the Australian people own.

The Greens would like to see free public transport. It's another thing we've been fighting for at state level, at federal level and at local government level, all around the country—especially in a cost-of-living crisis—to do more to try and help Australians. We encourage them to use public transport not only because it lowers our emissions profile and it's good for the environment but also because it's a lot cheaper and a lot more efficient. That's something that we'll continue to campaign on.

Free child care and mental health care, getting mental health into Medicare and getting dental care into Medicare—once again, these are campaigns that have been long running that we will tirelessly continue to campaign on till we get there. And, of course, we want to see the billionaires in this country taxed. Tax the one per cent, who not only own this colossal amount of wealth but seem to be quite happy to spend their wealth on manipulating our political system. The Greens think it's long overdue that these billionaires pay their fair share of tax. That's something that is also very popular and very doable that we will continue to campaign on.

At least I'm part of a party that is not just defined by what we don't like. I just listened to the previous speaker from the LNP talk about all the things the Liberals oppose. I've just given you 10 things that the Greens want to see, constructive policies that will make a difference. But there are some things we do oppose that we are very concerned about, like the billions of dollars that are going towards AUKUS submarines. I want to give a shout-out to my colleague Senator Shoebridge for all the great work he's done over a long period of time to raise this with the Australian public. We are spending this money on submarines and tying ourselves to a US alliance that clearly can't be trusted. There are so many other things we should doing in this space without spending that kind of money.

I'd also like to give a shout-out to Senator Steele-John for the amazing work that he's done, in very difficult circumstances in recent months, to highlight the plight of those in this country on the NDIS who are facing cruel cuts and why we can find the money to support our most vulnerable in this community from other places, like cancelling AUKUS. It's not that hard if you've got the political backbone.

Since the election we've seen a couple of interesting and very alarming things occur. We've obviously seen a war in Iran. Let me say here, today, that the Greens were the first and the only ones who stood up in this chamber the day this happened and said that this war, just like the war in Iraq nearly 20 years earlier, is doomed to fail. It was based on a lie and disinformation; the evidence is clear on that now. There was no plan and no strategy. It was doomed to fail. It was going to be cruel and was going to put us all in a lot more hot water. And that's exactly what's happened. I think the world has now woken up to that. Whether Mr Trump has woken up to that is another matter, of course, entirely. Nevertheless, it's been very hurtful, especially to Australians doing it tough.

Only recently, I was visiting remote and rural Australia with the rural and regional affairs committee. Out in places like Kununurra in Western Australia, there was no-one on the roads and no-one in the caravan parks. Businesses were going bust because of the price of fuel and concerns about the availability of fuel. This has flooded all through our supply chains. It's impacting inflation and it's hurting Australians. And why? Because of some maniac running a foreign country who has no-one around him—clearly there are no adults in the room—to try and prevent this kind of thing from happening. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess. That kind of uncertainty feeds into markets; it feeds into financial markets; it feeds into people's households and their decision-making; and it will continue to impact our economy until this mess is sorted out. Of course, the Greens have called on the Labor government to do a lot more to distance itself from the US and to take a leadership role on the international stage.

The same goes for the atrocities that we've been seeing in Gaza and in Lebanon. I'd like to give a shout-out to Senator Mehreen Faruqi for all the work she's done in just fearlessly raising these issues—that, once again, are now largely supported by the international community, including the key institutions that we rely on for peace and stability in our world, who are calling this out for what it is. And many countries have joined in, too. Once again, we were the only ones in here doing that—the Greens showing leadership, another time. This is why people should vote for the Greens. This is why we're needed, in this chamber, to hold any government to account.

We've also seen the political anomaly of the very rapid rise of One Nation—an unprecedented rise in the polls, never seen before in Australian political history. I've talked about this in recent weeks: a 400 to 500 per cent rise in the polls has never happened to an established political party in Australian political history.

I am very concerned about what is behind this rise. This is a party that's had the same old tropes for 30 years. We have had a community that has wanted politicians to do better and is railing against the system. They know the system's been corrupted; they know it doesn't represent them—and that's been the case since I've been here. We've seen the vote shift away from the major parties in the last 15 to 20 years. But, suddenly, One Nation's votes are up by 400 to 500 per cent in a very short period of time. We've got a lot of work to do, to look at foreign interference in Australian democracy and what's behind this rise—an army of bots and trolls and shady interests, influencing Australia's democracy. We all should be very concerned about this and what the long-term impacts of this are going to be.

But there is a message here for all of us. The kinds of AI slopaganda and the rubbish that has been flooding social media platforms that are almost completely unregulated that have led to this have touched a raw nerve with many Australians. I accept that. Suddenly, they've noticed it, because they're being overwhelmed with this tsunami of misinformation and disinformation promoting Pauline Hanson. We need to learn from this and understand that many Australians do want better. And we need to act to do that.

I think I've outlined some of the key things we can do to help struggling ordinary Australians, but it will take political courage to do that. Business as usual is not going to be an option in this chamber. It shouldn't be now, but I can tell you what: it's not going to be in the future. I'm not going to be here. But the world is changing rapidly.

The political world is changing rapidly. The information environment that dictates just about everything we do is changing so rapidly, with the advent of AI and the power of these foreign influence campaigns—and some of them, by the way, are out of the United States of America; I'm not just talking about Russian or Chinese influence, or troll armies in Vietnam. This is where it's at right now, and we need to wake up to this.

I, too, wish to contribute to this address-in-reply. If you go back, over a year now, to the beginning of this term of parliament, there were a few aspirations that the Labor government set out. I remember very clearly the focus on transparency, and the focus on trust: 'My word is my bond.' Now, how deeply disappointed the Australian population have become in the failures of this Labor government to live up to its word—to abide by its word. It is now widely considered to be the least transparent government and one of the most dishonest governments of all time.

I look at where we are economically—and I have a relatively long economic memory—and it comes to me that, actually, some pretty significant comparisons can be made between our current situation and that of the early 1990s. In November 1990, the then treasurer, Paul Keating, said those infamous words about the 'recession we had to have'. What caused that recession, that dreadful pain, for Australians? You had a government and an economy with excessive spending. You had a current account deficit of $4 billion. The current account deficit is something that's not talked about anymore, is it, Senator Scarr? It was one of the key economic metrics back then in the eighties and early 1990s that was talked about not just in economic circles but in the wider discourse of the Australian population. You had a problem with the current account deficit then sitting around $4 billion. Of course you had inflation and you had interest rates out of control. Is anyone starting to notice any parallels?

Today, Jim Chalmers, someone who was mentored by Paul Keating, is Treasurer. We've had a per capita recession for quarter after quarter after quarter. The majority of the time, in fact, that the Labor Party has been in government we have been in per capita recession. Government spending is out of control, fuelling inflation and fuelling interest rate rises. The current account deficit, again, is not a figure that's talked about much these days, but for the first quarter of 2026 it hit a record high of $27.1 billion. Going back to the 1990s, that quaint $4 billion number does seem quaint now, when we've currently hit $27.1 billion. You have to ask yourself, in that circumstance and knowing the history of the Labor Party, whether the recession we had to have is the unspoken bit at the moment, and whether Labor's deliberate policies of increasing government spending at a time of high inflation, to keep inflation higher for longer, forcing up interest rates, is not a bug but actually a feature. This is actually the government's plan. It's not incompetence; it's deliberate strategy.

The Labor government is inflicting this pain on every Australian family. Every Australian family is worse off after four years under the Labor government. They talk about tax cuts when in fact they've massively increased taxes within the economy. Bracket creep has smashed take-home pay; inflation has crushed Australia's standard of living. Interest rate rises mean that the pressure that families are under today to make mortgage repayments is worse even than that point in the 1990s, when interest rates were sitting at 17 per cent. The actual impact on family budgets is greater because people have had to borrow more to get into their house. So you've got some very serious economic challenges confronting Australia and confronting Australian people—and, quite frankly, the Labor Party is just not up to the job of fixing those challenges.

I think I'm the last on the list of speakers on this item of business, which is to respond to the Governor-General's address when our wonderful Governor-General—and I think Her Excellency is doing a fantastic job, with the support of Simeon—opened the parliament following the last federal election. This is an opportunity for all senators to say something in response to the Governor-General's address.

The first point I'd like to make is that, since Her Excellency the Governor-General gave her address, I've attended a number of functions hosted by the Governor-General in both Sydney and Canberra, and I want to thank the Governor-General and Simeon for their generosity of spirit. They so welcoming. I've seen people from all parts of the Australian community come together at the Governor-General's residence and be treated with warmth, be treated as individuals, be made to feel welcome and made to feel that they're really part of our Australian story. So I commend Her Excellency with respect to the discharge of her responsibilities.

The second point I want to make is that democracy is a wonderful thing. I'm co-chair of Parliamentary Friends of Refugees. Last year Australia welcomed its one millionth refugee since World War II. It's absolutely extraordinary. So many of those people have now contributed so much to the Australian story. Also, many of those people bring with them to Australia an appreciation of how important institutions like this—our parliament—are: the fact that we have elections every three years and the fact that every person in this place has the mandate of the people from their home state or territory. That is not the case in much of the world. Many of the people who come to this country as refugees have a deep appreciation and understanding of the importance of our freedoms and of our liberties. Those are things that we must always remember. We are extraordinarily fortunate to live in this beautiful country.

The Governor-General's address also gives us an opportunity to review some of the things that have happened in the last 12 months. I'm afraid to say that I'm now, after my warm introductory words, going to change tack a bit, but that's the way it goes. When the Governor-General addresses the parliament, the Governor-General is basically giving a message from the incoming government—setting out the foundation for the incoming government—in this case our friends on the other side, the Labor Party. I note that on the second page of the address—and this was 12 months ago—it said, 'The government will work to repay the trust Australians have placed in it.'

So we now have the opportunity, 12 months after those words were spoken, to assess whether or not the government has repaid the trust Australians placed in it, and the report card isn't very good reading. We all know that in the last budget the Labor government breached that trust. In the Prime Minister's own words, '50 times' before the last election the Prime Minister said there would be no change to capital gains tax and no change to negative gearing. That was the basis upon which the Prime Minister went to the Australian people before the last election. But in government, in the last budget, he has broken that trust. He has done the opposite of what he said he would do before the last election.

That's on the record, in the legislation that's been passed in this place over the last 12 months with the support of the Greens. The Greens supported that breach of trust perpetrated by the Labor government. The Greens supported it, hand in glove with the Labor government. We should reflect on that. And we should reflect on another statement contained in the address, and that is that the re-elected government would continue building on the foundation of its first term: 'aspiration and opportunity, shaping an economy that rewards effort and innovation'. That was in the address about 12 months ago and yet what do we see? We see tax changes that are going to drive entrepreneurs, especially young entrepreneurs, overseas. Why would you start a business in Australia and pay punitive rates of tax in relation to capital gains when you can go to Canada and pay half as much or you can go to New Zealand and pay less? You could go to Singapore and pay less. That is my deep concern coming out of the government's performance over the past 12 months, that it's actually taxing ambition, taxing the entrepreneurial spirit and taxing those people who want to create wealth and prosperity for themselves, for their families and for the Australian people. That is a grave concern.

I come from the mining industry originally. The exploration industry is so important to mining in this country. We have a tradition in this country of people—small shareholders, retail shareholders—investing in exploration companies, supporting their activities to find the new mineral deposits, critical minerals or whatever it is that may become the next mine and provide hundreds and thousands of jobs. We have that tradition. But the changes to capital gains tax will actually have a devastating impact upon our exploration industry. That's what we're hearing from those small mining companies that are out there exploring, looking for the next opportunity to build wealth for our country. That's what they are saying. Again, they have options to move overseas. They can go to Canada. They can go to South America. They can go overseas and take those opportunities with them. That's what really does concern me.

I want us to be a country where the next Seek Ltd—we all know Seek Ltd. That's where people go online and find their jobs—politicians always have to keep their options open after each election—so we know the value of Seek Ltd. That is a business that has grown exponentially. It was founded in this country in the 1990s, but the founders of Seek Ltd have actually raised the issue of the tax changes and how it is going to provide a huge disincentive to innovation and building new businesses in this country. And now is not the time to do that. We need to be able to harness all of the energy, all of the creativity, all of the talents we have across the Australian community. We need to harness that for the benefit of the Australian people and reward the effort that goes into building new businesses.

Debate interrupted.

It nearly being 1.30 pm, we'll go to two-minute statements.

Labor is sending our country in the wrong direction. Under Labor, Australia has experienced the largest collapse in living standards in the developed world. Think about that, the largest collapse of living standards in the developed world in the last four years happened under Labor. Real wages have gone backwards, interest rates have increased 15 times and the cost of everything has gone up from your energy to your insurance, your gas prices, your rent, your food, your education, your health care—every price has gone up.

The fact is, Australians are poorer today than they were four years ago. They are poorer now than they were when Labor was elected. And if Labor are going to ask Australians to hand over more of their hard earned money, the very least that Australians should expect is that every taxpayer dollar is protected from waste, from rorts and from corruption. Instead, this week, day after day, front page after front page, allegations continue to roll out about corruption, about organised crime, about intimidation on Victorian construction sites—projects that receive Commonwealth money. So that's your taxpayer dollars that are going straight into the hands of criminals and organised crime, allegations which the Allan state government in Victoria knew about and some of which the Commonwealth knew about too. Federal Labor knew that corruption existed but still gave more of your money to those projects where the corruption was occurring. Labor said that they would fix the rot in the CFMEU. Well, clearly they have not. This is going on today. This is money that they gave in this year's budget.

Stop looking after your union mates. Stop looking after your mates in Victoria who are happy to take photographs with criminals like John Setka, with criminals like Mick Gatto and do your job, Labor. Start looking after the taxpayers of Australia.

It's the end of the financial year. The sales are on, and this Labor government is putting money back into the pockets of Australians. All working Australians will be getting a tax cut—around $270 this year and more again next year. They'll be able to claim $1,000 back in tax with no receipts, making it super easy. And we have brought in the working Australian tax offset, an additional $250 that will start from next year. All up, these five tax cuts mean that the average worker will be over $2,800 better off.

We're also boosting the national minimum wage. We have backed in increases to the minimum wage five times. No-one else thinks about workers on the minimum wage. The minimum wage will now be increasing to over $1,000 a week. That is a huge milestone for this country, and that means we're going to be helping young people, women, part timers, casuals and the people who work in our service industries, retail, hospital and farms.

In addition to that, payday super has arrived. That means that your super will now be paid alongside your wages, not several months down the track. It means that we're going to stop this leakage and the dodgy behaviour of employers who have tried to avoid paying super to workers. It means that an average 25-year-old will now retire with an additional $5,000 in their super. That is significant. It was hard won and fought for by the Labor government.

In addition to this, for families paid parental leave will be expanding to 26 weeks, from 20 weeks when we came in government, and we're slapping super on top of that. That means we're trying to close that horrible gap that happens to mothers. (Time expired)

Since the budget, I've been hearing from veterans in fear of Labor's proposed $5,000 allied health cap. This cap was proposed to limit veterans' access to the necessary care they need to live. It can't be overstated how important allied health is to veterans and their families. It can be as urgent as a veteran with complex PTSD regularly seeing a psychologist to someone who's been injured in combat or injured in training seeing a physio so that they can play with their kids. Without these supports we are denying veterans a full life.

Veterans don't just need questions answered; veterans need a change in how the government treats veterans. We know there's a lack of trust in government, and this kind of action only makes that worse. Defence always seems to be able to find more money for US weapons corporations, more money for the Defence leadership. But right now we're watching Defence under Labor slush it for the men and women who have served.

Again we're seeing Labor squibbing it on gambling reform, putting a hopelessly weak package on the table, instead of delivering the reasonable and modest reform recommended by the Labor chair of their own inquiry. Ban the ads. That's the pattern in New South Wales too, even at a council level, where it appears the Australian Labor Party has been literally bought by the Australian hotels lobby, borked up by gambling interests and their mates that they won't stand up to. Meanwhile, these same interests that have bought Labor are bleeding communities dry.

The Greens have forced the Albanese government to send its half-baked gambling bill off to a proper Senate inquiry, and that matters. This legislation was never good enough, and Labor knew it. Delaying ads until after 8.30 pm doesn't protect a single child. It just protects the profits of an industry that has spent decades buying influence in this place at the expense of families torn apart by addiction.

Just ban the gambling ads. No more inducements. Kick out the pokies, and end the cruelty festivals that are some of the industries that gambling is based on. (Time expired)

I would like to give a brief update on the Senate inquiry into the management of the defence estate, which I've been chairing. Back in 2023, well before the election, defence minister Marles handpicked an ex-banker and an ex-bureaucrat to conduct Australia's biggest snap audit on the defence estate.

At the first hearing, we learned that the so-called independent auditors were neither independent nor auditors. The defence minister also had regular meetings with his handpicked auditors, and so of course he loved their audit report when they handed it to him in December 2023. So the defence minister cooks up his own report, which is not surprising, given the standard practice of this crooked government. But there are so many sinister elements in the defence minister's master plan to rip out the heart of our Defence Force.

The report he cooked up had a plan to sell off 67 defence bases, including Victoria Barracks in Sydney, the heart and soul of the Army. He wants to sell all the Victoria Barracks, actually, at Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, and Lancer Barracks. The really strange part in the audit report is the recommendation that all defence bases be renamed as 'Defence Base' followed by 'suburb'. So HMAS Kuttabul would be Defence Base Woolloomooloo. HMAS Cerberus would be Defence Base Crib Point. It wasn't costed, and it wasn't in the terms of reference. So how did it get in there?

We all know that king and country don't mean anything to the defence minister. He wants offices and office blocks. He has declared a culture war on the Defence Force. He wants to sell most of their history and rebrand the remnants of what's left. And the worst part is that the Labor government had this plan years ago, but they waited until after the election to share their plans with Australia. Labor has sold out our troops, and they have sold out Australia.

For too long, women's health has been put off, set to the sidelines or just downright ignored—women being dismissed by their doctor for real concerns, women being told that life-altering perimenopause and menopause symptoms are normal and something they just need to put up with and women being plainly misdiagnosed and feeling misunderstood by a system that was set up for men. It's not new. It's just new that we're talking about it—admitting it—because this government doesn't put women's health on the sidelines. This government doesn't hide from the very real health issues that women experience. We on this side of the chamber put women at the forefront of health policy development, because it's about time a government did.

Perimenopause and menopause shouldn't be whispered about like a dark secret. Women's health shouldn't be a background policy issue. Something had to change. And that is why the Albanese Labor government has established the first national menopause and perimenopause awareness campaign—because women shouldn't feel alone when it comes to something we all go through. Women shouldn't be made to think that to feel severe pain, crippling fatigue and even a loss of their sense of self is a normal phenomenon. There is an explanation, there is support, there is informed health care, and we as women should feel empowered to access it.

Thanks to this Labor government, we can. We can access new Medicare subsidised menopause assessments, PBS listed affordable menopause treatments and specialised endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics. These resources mean that women don't have to guess, and they don't have to suffer. Most importantly, they don't have to feel alone. To the people watching, we hear you. We see you, and we will continue to prioritise women's health awareness, research and care.

Media reporting this morning provides a rare moment of transparency around lobbying in this place. It was reported in the media that a Labor member sat with Sportsbet and the gambling lobby at last night's Midwinter Ball. I think that is a real insight into this government and their approach when it comes to minimising harm and acting in line with the evidence based policy that we saw in the landmark Murphy report.

The legislation that they've offered up is so, so far off the mark. It does not protect children. It does not break the nexus between sport and gambling companies. It's a win for the gambling industry. It's exactly what the industry told the ABC six months ago they would be happy with. And Australians are rightly frustrated. They're rightly angry about what is happening in this place, where we have a public health issue. We have so many Australians who are sick and tired of seeing gambling ads on their screens, sick and tired of hearing their kids talk about the odds of a game and sick and tired of seeing a generation of Australians growing up thinking gambling is just a normal part of enjoying sport.

Then there was a glimmer of hope. We had the parliament—the best of the parliament—recommending to ban gambling ads, give us a national regulator and ban inducements. Then we hear the Prime Minister say: 'Yeah, nah, we're not going to do that. We're going to do the absolute bare minimum.' Australians should not stand for it. I urge people to go to stopgamblingads.com.au and write to your local member and local senator and say, 'You work for me, and I want you to ban gambling ads in August.'

A new financial year means that Labor has another chance to punish aspirational Australians with higher vehicle costs and fewer practical choices. Under Labor's new vehicle efficiency standard, the cost of utes, SUVs and practical work vehicles will be hiked. These are not luxury vehicles; they are vehicles Australians use to earn a living, run a business and raise a family. For a tradie, a ute is a tool of the trade. It gets the plumber, sparkie, bricklayer, carpenter and their tools to their job site. It is not a luxury or a nice-to-have; it is required.

Yet in the middle of a housing crisis, Labor is making life more expensive for the very tradies we need to build the homes Australians are desperate for. Labor claims to care about the housing crisis, then targets the very vehicles that are used by the people on the tools. Like so many decisions made by this Labor government, it makes absolutely no sense. For many tradies, farmers and families, the alternatives are ridiculous. A Tesla cannot tow a load, a Nissan Leaf can't travel great distances, and an MG is certainly not going to carry your gear. Labor can talk all it likes about efficiency, but this policy means higher costs and more difficulty for Aussies. It's not very efficient to do two trips to get your tools to a site.

This is about Labor's ideological net zero agenda. They cannot get there without punishing everyday Australians and forcing the country backwards. Labor thinks their ideology matters more than your livelihoods. This is more than just a tradie tax. It's a tax on work, a tax on small business, a tax on aspiration. In a housing crisis, it is a tax on the people we are relying on to build the homes this country desperately needs. Labor's ute tax needs to be scrapped.

This week is an important week for Australians, and it is a big week of delivery for this Labor government. We are delivering real change for Australians. From yesterday, 1 July, every Australian taxpayer has received another tax cut. That means more money in people's pockets at a time when we know household budgets are stretched. Around three million minimum and award wage workers are also getting a pay rise that our government advocated for. We know that real cost-of-living relief is about more than just one measure; it's about making sure people can earn more and keep more of what they earn, and making sure people can get a fairer deal when they go to the grocery shop, pay their bills, see a doctor or think about the future.

We are banning supermarket price gouging because Australians deserve to know that they're getting a fair go when they go to the checkout. We're extending paid parental leave to six months to give parents more time at home with their babies. For the first time, parents will receive superannuation on government paid parental leave because taking time out to care for a baby shouldn't mean falling behind in retirement. We're making urgent care clinics a permanent part of Medicare so that people can get free urgent care without having to sit for hours in a hospital emergency department. We're expanding endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics, making it easier for patients to access the health care that they need, and we're including menopause and perimenopause treatments as part of those services. We passed laws through parliament last week to give first home buyers a real shot at owning their own home. That is Labor delivering real change for every Australian.

Australians love their cruise ship holidays, but many would be shocked by the conditions of workers on board a lot of the boats they're on. This week I met with Christina and Queen, two former Carnival Cruise ship workers. They came to parliament to shed light on working conditions in Carnival's toxic workplaces. They told me about their poor working conditions; their exploitative wages; their extremely long hours; how many of the crew are paid as little as $2.50 an hour, which is the worst in the industry; how workers are doing 12-hour days with no weekends or leave; how workers are eating recycled food and getting sick; and how they have to buy and ration just two bottles of water a day each.

When workers raise these issues, there is a culture of suppression, demotion and retribution. Many crew members are scared of retaliation if they speak openly to the union or engage in any form of collective activity. This is a huge problem, and Labor can't let this keep happening. This is the biggest cruise ship company in the world. Carnival can afford to pay these workers a liveable wage. You cannot build a luxury industry on fear and poverty. Carnival crew have had enough. It's time to end the extreme exploitation of workers on these ships. It's time for them to pay a fair share of tax in Australia. Carnival need to enter into collective bargaining negotiations and stop discouraging workers from standing up for their rights. The government and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority need to enforce these workers' rights to collective bargaining and give them the basic dignity, respect and working conditions that they deserve so that Australians can enjoy their cruise ship holidays without worrying about the conditions, the pay and the long hours of all of those who are looking after them. (Time expired)

Labor's project to hijack the Australian economy for corrupt union bosses is becoming relentless. Legislation opposed by One Nation but rushed through by Labor and the Greens last month enables the Albanese government to discriminate against businesses which don't have EBAs backed by their union boss mates when awarding contracts and grants. The CFMEU now has an effective chokehold on supplying labour to building sites. It's no wonder that construction industry productivity is in freefall.

Don't get me wrong. Unions have their place. Workers need representation when it comes to pay and conditions, although most choose not to be union members. Only about 13 per cent of Australian workers are union members. Workers need to ask themselves whether unions truly represent their interests or just those of Labor and corrupt union bosses.

One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts has been instrumental in exposing the CFMEU's direct involvement in wage theft from coal workers in the Hunter Valley and Queensland since 2019. Labor don't want you to know this. At the federal level and in that economic basket case we call Victoria, Labor only pays lip service to evidence of massive corruption in the CFMEU and infiltration of that organisation by organised crime. The bell is tolling for the Allan Labor government in Victoria. The latest RedBridge/Accent survey published today shows the Premier's net favourability is at minus 42 and One Nation has overtaken both Labor and the coalition on primary votes for the first time. One of our first priorities in Victoria will be to put in place the measures which will expose and end the CFMEU corruption enabled by Labor and restore confidence in the building and infrastructure industry and deliver accountability for taxpayers' dollars. (Time expired)

Crikey! One Nation often claims that they stand with the everyday, hardworking Australians. But, just like it is for the Liberals and the Nationals, the real test is not what they say but how they vote. Standing up for working Australians is reflected in actions, not in cheap slogans. When parliament votes on higher wages, stronger workplace rights and protecting penalty rates, One Nation always votes with the Liberals and Nationals to say no.

In 2023, we introduced laws to deliver same job, same pay and to make wage theft illegal and to stop labour-hire workers from being undercut and rorted. Of course, yet again, the three white, right-wing parties over there—the uniparty—voted against these reforms. In 2024, we closed loopholes and made it easier for casuals to become permanent employees. We introduced the right to disconnect. We established minimum standards for gig workers. Once again, the right-wing uniparty said no. In March 2025, Labor legislated free TAFE, helping Australians to gain the skills for jobs in areas like nursing and aged care and construction. The uniparty said no. Just last week, Labor delivered a tax cut for every Australian taxpayer. And what do you know? They voted no. Time and time again, when parliament has voted on higher wages, stronger workplace rights, apprenticeships, or cost-of-living relief, the right-wing parties vote against everyday Australians.

So here's the issue: if they oppose higher wages, they call workers lazy. They are against strengthening workers' rights. They're against penalty rates. They are against supporting apprentices. Who's interests are they really serving? Definitely not the battlers' or the workers' but, instead, those of the billionaires who are showering them with cash and gifts. Shame.

In this time of high inflation, every wage rise or tax cut, rather than getting people ahead, just compensates for government driving inflation. Worse, these increases move many taxpayers into higher tax brackets, increasing their tax rate and leaving many workers worse off, as many are finding when they see how little of this week's pay rise they actually get to keep.

One Nation policy will solve this. We'll index tax brackets to inflation so that getting a wage rise to compensate for inflation does not put you into a higher tax bracket; inflation one year will be offset by tax brackets being lifted the next year. In 2025, the Labor government joined with the Liberals to oppose and defeat our amendment to index tax brackets. Because of the heat One Nation applied to the Liberals, the Liberals now agree with One Nation. Labor still does not, which is telling about who they represent these days—certainly not workers. This move will cost around $22 billion over the forward estimates and may come in at a much higher rate over time. Labor will engage in a scare campaign, of course, over this cost. The reality is that the costing depends on inflation; no inflation means no cost at all. Labor advances a cost above $30 billion a year. This means Labor is really saying they expect inflation under their government to remain out of control. Tax cuts take the pressure off businesses to give larger wage rises, countering the wage-price spiral that harms business, workers and every Australian.

Another major element of our income tax policy is to allow income splitting between families with a dependent, if that suits them. Families with two wage earners will probably keep their existing arrangements. Families with one income who split will have $9,000 a year back in their pocket. The PBO has put the cost to budget revenue at $7 billion a year, depending upon uptake. Money well spent helping families. One Nation represents families and workers. These are just two of many, many tax reform policies we took to— (Time expired)

Gravy burns, burnt coffee and long shifts: my memories of being a 15-year-old hospo worker in Ballarat. Like millions of young Australians, I wasn't just a teenager with a job; I was a worker. And workers deserve to be paid properly. But right now, money young people earn isn't going into their super. It's staying in the bank accounts of billion-dollar corporations like Coles and Woolworths—more than $400 million that should be helping young Australians build their future, instead of building corporate profits. Funny how that works. Maybe it's because supermarket giants donate to Labor and young workers don't.

When Labor and the Liberals team up against the Greens, it's ordinary people who pay the price. This time, it's 500,000 young workers across this country. Labor and the Liberals have decided that if you are under 18, you don't deserve super. And what's their excuse? That most teenagers work fewer than 30 hours a week. Of course they do; they're at school or they're studying. They're doing exactly what every adult tells them to do: get an education and build a future. So why are they being financially punished for it? Why?

Every dollar of super you miss out on when you're young is a dollar that misses out on decades of compound growth. That's not a technicality; that's money taken from young people's futures and handed to big business. The Greens say enough. To every young worker watching this: when you vote for the first time, remember who fought for your future and remember who voted to take money out of your retirement and leave it in corporate profits. Young people deserve super. Corporate giants like Woolies and Coles do not need more help to fill their bank coffers.

Labor was forced to treat older Australians with dignity and respect today. In November last year, Labor introduced an aged-care assessment tool with no ability for professional override and subjected older Australians to a 'computer says no' algorithm to determine their care needs. It was dangerous and not thought through, and vulnerable and older Australians have suffered ever since. The tool has exposed ageing Australians to the gaping holes in the algorithm's ability to assess malnutrition, elder abuse, sensory impairment and the true severity of frailty. No computer program, regardless of its sophistication, can fully capture the fluctuating, multifaceted circumstances of older Australians living with cognitive decline, social isolation or complex physical concurrent illnesses. Shame on you for doing that. How did you not realise that? The tool was designed to support, not to replace, clinical judgement.

As a senator for South Australia, my state has one of the oldest demographic profiles in the country, who are trying to navigate your system. Labor, you left many unnecessarily and cruelly desperate and confused. And stop peddling the myth that you are releasing record numbers of packages, because the department confirmed many of these are not new packages but are reassigned or recycled ones from when someone dies or enters a nursing home. Older Australians have spent their lives building this nation and they deserve better. They've paid their taxes, raised their families and contributed to this country. Labor, you treated them as data points, not as people. I'm not sure how you thought you could get away with it. The Aged Care Amendment (Restoring Human Override for Aged Care Needs Assessments) Bill 2026 provides for human oversight. It reassesses those already impacted. Fix the system immediately, in the interests of our elderly. (Time expired)

I would like to put on record that the new coalition partner of the Liberals and the Nationals, One Nation, are just regurgitating the same policies that they had 30 years ago. They're not a party of solutions. What they really are is a party of grievance. They don't really stand with Australian workers; the reality is that their voting record in this place is very different to that claim. They voted against tax cuts. When families are under pressure and people want help with affordability concerns, decent wages, secure jobs and lower bills, One Nation, along with the Liberals and Nationals, vote against them. That's the reality and the true story. We know One Nation wants lower wages because we've heard that from their leader. In fact, what she advocates is for bosses to be able to sack people more easily. One Nation wants, as I said, to give power back to bosses to override the working conditions that unions in Australia have campaigned for over decades. She wants people to be able to be sacked more easily. Shame on you. She refers to Australian workers as being lazy. Australian workers deserve a fair day's pay for the work that they do and they deserve job security, and they also need to be assured that the government in the future is going to support wage growth.

Those opposite, including the One Nation leader, are opposed to parental leave. This government has just extended it by six months. We're paying superannuation on that. What did One Nation, the Liberals and the Nationals do? They did what they always do. They say one thing back in their electorates to get elected, but, when they're in this place, they vote very differently. I'll give you a tip: Australians are not mugs. They know what you're about. They rejected you— (Time expired)

I've got to say, having listened to that last contribution, that you'd be forgiven for thinking that all was well apart from, apparently, the coalition being the problem in Australia at the moment. Well, I can tell you that you are in government and you have a prime minister who told Australians that his word was his bond and yet every single thing that comes out of his mouth after the election appears to be in complete contradiction of what he said before the election. And it wasn't just the last election; it was actually the election before. Do you remember those 97 times when he said that your power bills were going to go down by $275? What happened? I don't think that happened. Do you remember those 51 times that he said there would be no changes to any tax arrangements, no changes to CGT and no changes to negative gearing? Guess what? Apparently he's changed his mind. I can tell you the Prime Minister's word is not his bond. You cannot trust the Prime Minister with what he says, because he even admits himself that he's quite happy to change his mind. He doesn't even have the decency to turn up and ask the Australian people for the mandate for him to change his mind. He just changes it with no regard whatsoever for Australians.

We'll move to question time.

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong. Before the 2022 election, Prime Minister Albanese promised Australians cheaper mortgages. Instead, the reality facing Australians is that they are taking out bigger mortgages, making bigger repayments and in many cases watching the value of their home fall. Some are now even facing negative equity. The average mortgage has surged to $735,000, up $75,000 in just one year, under the Albanese government. Minister, how has this government managed to leave Australians borrowing more than ever to buy a home only to leave them at risk of negative equity?

I thank Senator Kovacic for her question. I do recall the Prime Minister saying that. My recollection—I'll check if I'm wrong—is that that was when we were announcing our Help to Buy shared-equity scheme. The specific purpose of that plan is to enable workers to gain access to homeownership and to provide assistance through government so that more people can enter the market without having to deal with mortgage insurance.

I'm sure you'd be very happy to know that some 40,000 Australians have saved up to 40 per cent of the cost on their own home as a result of that program—the Help to Buy shared-equity scheme. As a result of that plan, which was announced in the 2022 election and delivered by a Labor government, 40,000 workers have saved up to 40 per cent on the cost of their home. We on this side think it is a good thing to have more Australians owning their own home. I appreciate that those opposite have a different view. They think the status quo is just fine, and I would invite them, as I did yesterday, to talk to so many Australians about where the housing market was prior to this government and the extent to which young Australians, first home buyers, were locked out of the market.

We on this side do not think that was acceptable, so we have acted unashamedly, just as you have blocked us unashamedly. But we have prevailed, and legislation has passed through this parliament which is ensuring that first home buyers get a fair crack—a level playing field—so they can get their foot into the housing market, which we think is a good thing for not only them and their families but the country.

Senator Kovacic, first supplementary?

Housing finance experts are warning that Labor's housing tax changes are discouraging investment at the very time Australia needs more rental housing, with Macquarie estimating that new lending flows are tracking 20 to 30 per cent below a year ago. Minister, why is Labor driving housing investors out of the market, reducing the supply of rental homes and making rents for Australians even higher?

We want people to own their own home. That's what we want, and that's what we've acted on. One aspect of your question, Senator Kovacic, is correct, and that is that we have said that we don't think that investors deserve the same effective subsidy from taxpayers that previously existed. We don't think that it is fair to have a young Australian family trying to get their first home competing with an investor who's trying to get their fifth rental property, where it is the investor who is effectively subsidised by taxpayers. We do not think that is fair. We don't think it's good economics. Investors can still gain access to—

What about new builds? Why can't you add new builds? Why do you hate new houses?

Senator Bragg, I've called you three times. Order! Stop the banter across the chamber from both sides. Minister Wong, please continue.

I found Senator Bragg amusing, and now I've lost my train of thought.

That was his cunning plan!

It was his cunning plan; that's right. It made me laugh, and I've forgotten my train. The point is that we want more Australians to own their own home and we've acted accordingly. (Time expired)

 Senator Kovacic, second supplementary?

Minister, I wonder how many of those 40,000 you referenced are now in negative equity. Why should Australians keep paying the price for the Prime Minister's failed housing policies—bigger mortgages, bigger repayments, higher rents, falling home values and fewer houses?

Thank you, Senator Kovacic. I referenced this yesterday—I think it was in response to Senator Bragg, but it might have been Senator McDonald; I can't recall—and I made the point that, earlier last month, the RBA governor did respond to a question about negative equity. She said:

At the moment, practically no-one is in negative equity. … it's absolutely miniscule.

…   …   …

… and it has actually declined over the last year or so.

Now, that was about three or four weeks ago. I would say that I know that those opposite, the right-wing parties, actually don't want to deal with the fundamental issue of how you get more first home buyers into the market. They can no longer argue about the tax policy, so they're resorting to another scare campaign. And that has really been demonstrated all week—that all they have is scare campaigns, fear campaigns, assertions which are not true or are grossly overexaggerated and— (Time expired)

My question is to Minister Wong. The Albanese Labor government has been delivering on a responsible budget that is focused on delivering real cost-of-living help for Australians, giving every taxpayer another tax cut and supporting another meaningful boost to wages. That's on top of expanding paid parental leave to a full six months, banning supermarket price gouging and making urgent care clinics a permanent part of Medicare. Could the minister outline the impact that Labor's reforms will have and why the measures this government has taken will be so important to millions of Australians?

Thanks to Senator Stewart, and I recognise her and her Labor colleagues' determination to deliver real change for the people who send them here to the Australian parliament. Senator Stewart mentions that the government did support a real increase in the minimum wage and a real increase in award wages, and yesterday three million Australian workers got a pay rise.

Still going backwards.

I'll take the interjection from the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, because, every time we talk about higher wages, it's really quite interesting—the way the right-wing parties get so upset by the thought that Australian workers might actually get higher wages. But, of course, not only was the award and minimum wage rise delivered; every single Australian taxpayer got a tax cut, and all five of the Albanese Labor government's tax cuts together mean about an extra $2,800 in the pocket of the average worker. You see, on this side, we want to see higher wages and lower taxes. We want Australians to earn more and keep more of what they earn. This is what real change looks like.

That is why we've also banned supermarket price gouging, with tough new rules that came into effect yesterday—big fines for breaches. That is why we have opened all 137 Medicare urgent care clinics that we committed to and have made them a permanent part of Australia's healthcare system. This means four out of five Australians now live within 20 minutes drive of their local clinic. And yesterday this government lifted paid parental leave to the full 26 weeks, giving new families and parents more peace of mind and the support they need to give their baby the best start in life. This is the real change that the Labor government, the Labor Party, is delivering for the Australian people.

Senator Stewart, first supplementary?

Thank you, Minister. As well as delivering immediate cost-of-living relief for millions of Australians, the Albanese Labor government has passed the first bill of its ambitious tax reform packages through the parliament. It will help more young Australians to realise the dream of homeownership, while supporting investment into new builds. Can the minister explain how Labor is delivering real change for first home buyers and why it is so important to act now?

Labor wants more Australians to own their own home. We want more Australians to be able to own their own home. And that's why we've already helped more than 260,000 Australians into a home of their own through the five per cent home deposit scheme. That's why we're investing $47 billion into our Homes for Australia plan. And that's why we have delivered the first tranche of our ambitious tax reform agenda, which will support 75,000 more homeowners to get into the market at the same time as encouraging investment into new housing supply.

This is about levelling the playing field, and already I know many in this place have heard stories of young families finally finding success at auction. The difference, of course, is this: the three right-wing parties have teamed up against first home buyers. We are working for first home buyers, delivering real change.

Senator Stewart, second supplementary.

As the minister has said, acting to deliver real change for Australians cannot wait. And it's good to hear how the Albanese Labor government is acting to deliver cost-of-living relief, strengthen Medicare and to give first home buyers a fair go. Could the minister further explain why the government continues to act on cost of living urgently and if there is anything standing in the way?

We know that Australians are facing real pressures. We know that the world is more uncertain. And we know that Australians want government and the parliament to deliver real change for them. And that is why those of us on this side are doing that.

I'm asked what is standing in the way, and I think we all know it is the three right-wing parties, consistently. Every time you come here for a tax cut, for assistance, for support, for working families, for increases to the minimum wage, for penalty rates protection, for protection against unfair dismissal or for different groups of workers, those opposite cannot abide it. They cannot abide it, consistently trying to stand in the way of change. All they have—all they want—is Australians to be angry. They have nothing positive to offer.

And Senator Bragg, with whom I've been happy to talk so much this week, said this: 'The Liberal Party should have done more to develop policies on tax super, IR and small business, but we vacated the field.'

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, Senator McAllister. Yesterday in this chamber we heard of 91-year-old John Wilson, who spent his final months waiting for care this government had already assessed he needed. In 2024-25, 4,812 Australians died waiting for care they were approved to receive. How many older Australians died waiting for the care your government assessed them as needing in the past 12 months?

():  No-one wishes to see an older person die waiting for the care that they require, and our government understands that we need to make the investments that will make Australia's aged-care system fit for the future. Australians are getting older, and that's a good thing. We are living longer and healthier lives than any generation before us, and that means we need to make additional investments, and we need to make change.

When we came to government, the aged-care system was not fit for the population that we had, let alone fit for the future—not even close. The government that the Liberals oversaw cut $2½ billion and failed to meet the growing need for aged care.

Minister, please resume your seat. Senator Askew?

It's just a matter of relevance. The question was directed very clearly at how many.

The minister is being relevant. And, Senator Colbeck, I'm going to ask you to withdraw that remark.

I withdraw.

So $47 billion will be invested in aged care in the upcoming financial year, and that is the largest investment in this country's history. The government is continuing to back older Australians and the workers who care for them, and the system that they rely upon. The truth is that generational reform—and it is significant reform that is underway—is not a single moment; it is a long-term project, and this government is getting on with it.

Opposition senators interjecting—

I ask for silence.

We are compressing a decade's worth of reform, reform that could have taken under place under the watch of those opposite—

I see Senator Colbeck interjecting. I would observe that Senator Colbeck has more to say from his seat up the back there than he ever had when he was sitting over here as the minister.

Opposition senators interjecting—

I remind senators I did call those on my left to order. If you make an interjection, the minister is entitled to respond to it. Senator Askew, first supplementary?

Disappointing that we can't get the answer we're actually after in regard to the number. Minister, I want to read to you the words of Julie-Ann, a Daily Telegraph reader. Six months after her mother died waiting for a home-care package, My Aged Care rang to ask if she still needed it. Julie-Ann said, 'When I told this person Mum had died, she actually sounded relieved.' Minister, is that how this government manages its waitlist—waiting for people to die?

As I indicated in my answer to your first question, nobody in this chamber wants to see people pass away while waiting for care. What is necessary is the investment and reform needed to deal with a generational change to the demand for aged care and the need that this government recognises to improve our system so that we can respond to it. That is work that could have happened over the last decade but didn't.

In the budget, we will invest an additional $3.7 billion to deliver more beds, more packages and better care for older Australians. It means 5,000 additional aged beds each year, principally for those of limited financial means. It means faster access to Support at Home places. It means that personal care services, including showering, dressing and continence support, will be free alongside clinical care.

Senator Askew, second supplementary?

Another reader said her father had been waiting since October for a package your government assessed he needs. When Labor came to office, the wait was 30 to 90 days. It is now 12 months. In her father's words, 'By the time I get the help, I'll be bloody dead.' Minister, what do you say to him?

Australians want freedom, support and choice to remain at home and in the community with the people that they love as they age. We know older Australians want that support. They want to return home and they want to stay at home for longer. It is why we are making the reforms that we are making—reforms which were supported by those opposite, which were voted for by those opposite because, at the time, those opposite recognised that change was required and recognised that our government was prepared to make the necessary investments to deliver it. We are investing additional resources to bring forward the places that will support people to stay at home in the way that they need, and every single person assessed as urgent priority is being allocated their full funding within a month. (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Minister Wong. Minister, can you confirm that no Labor MPs accepted free tickets or hospitality from gambling corporations or their lobby groups to attend the Midwinter Ball, held the night before Labor introduced its half-arsed gambling legislation to the parliament?

First, I didn't attend the ball. A number of people did from all sides of the parliament. In relation to the—

An honourable senator interjecting

Sorry, I'm not sure what the interjection is. I'll try and stay focused. I apologise. In relation to disclosure, there are rules that senators and ministers have in relation to disclosing gifts and hospitality, and those will be complied with.

But, Senator, we've had this conversation before. The approach we take on issues of energy policy—including on the gas reservation—is because that is our view about what is the best public policy for Australia. I don't understand why you want to stand up on that. It's about a public policy position.

Minister Wong, please resume your seat. Senator Hodgins-May?

A point of order, President: I asked whether any Labor MPs have accepted free tickets or hospitality. With respect, those disclosures will not happen for months.

Senator Hodgins-May—

The public deserve to know now.

Senator Hodgins-May, I have reminded—

Honourable senators interjecting—

Order! Order! I have reminded senators before: when you get up to call a point of order, it's not an opportunity to make a statement. The minister is being relevant to your question. Minister Wong, did you wish to continue?

Senator, I apologise. I thought you said 'resources'. You said 'gambling'. I apologise. It was a genuine mistake. But the same answer applies. I don't know who goes to the ball with whom. I'm sure people might want to talk about that. But, in terms of the disclosure by anyone, whether it's the Greens political party, the opposition, One Nation or the Labor Party, I think we all are bound by the same disclosure rules.

Senator Hodgins-May—

I can confidently say that none of my colleagues—

Senator Hodgins-May, I haven't called you. Senator Hodgins-May.

I can confidently say that no Greens were sponsored by gambling corporations to attend the Midwinter Ball last night.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Minister, can you confirm—

Honourable senators interjecting—

Order! Senator Hodgins-May, please resume your seat. Order! Order across the chamber. Order!

Senator Whish-Wilson, you're interjecting on one of your own senators. Perhaps you can turn around and apologise to her, because you didn't listen to me calling you to order. Senator Hodgins-May has the right to have her question heard in silence. Senator Hodgins-May, please continue.

Minister, can you confirm that, during the consultation on Labor's watered-down gambling legislation, no Labor MPs accepted any other gifts or hospitality from gambling companies or lobbyists, including corporate box invitations or free tickets to sporting events?

Senator, first, I'll take your interjection previously, in relation to the Greens not accepting any hospitality from gambling companies. I would note that you may not have been sponsored for a ticket, but your party has been sponsored by a professional gambler. So I think people can take with a grain of salt the assertions that you make.

Again, I would say: we all have disclosure arrangements; they apply to all of us. Particular disclosure requirements apply to ministers, and they are observed.

Senator Hodgins-May, second supplementary?

Minister, do you think it passes the pub test for Labor's Attorney-General to attend the Midwinter Ball at a table paid for by a television lobby, alongside executives from companies she'd previously regulated as communications minister? Does that pass the pub test?

Senator, generally the Midwinter Ball has been a time where we put aside partisan politics.

Well, that generally has been how it's been approached. But so be it, if you wish to open that up. But I would ask you whether you think it passes the pub test for you to take so many hundreds of thousands of dollars from a professional gambler and then complain about gambling.

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator Ayres. The conflict in the Middle East has resulted in extreme volatility in global fossil-fuel markets and supply chains. In response, the Albanese Labor government has been focused on ensuring Australia's fuel, energy and fertiliser security. How has the Albanese Labor government acted to ensure that Australian households and businesses are shielded from this volatility?

Thank you, Senator O'Neill. On indulgence, I just want to welcome to the Senate my nieces, Abigail and Sophie, who've come down from Brisbane to visit the parliament and watch their uncle's excellent behaviour in this place.

This conflict in the Middle East has had very challenging impacts for Australians. It's been unwelcome, of course, for those living in the region but in particular for Australia's farmers, our freight companies, our logistics, and it's pushing up prices for businesses and for households. That's why we have been working so hard as a government to secure Australia's fuel and fertiliser.

On Saturday, Minister Bowen once again confirmed that we have more fuel now than when the conflict began. That is a remarkable Australian achievement. I remember what the responses of the government and the three right-wing parties were. In stark contrast, when war struck in the Middle East, the three right-wing parties got to Instagram and tried to frighten Australians, but the Albanese government got to work. We got to work and, as a consequence, in terms of fuel there is 44 days worth, over 1.8 billion litres, now in the country, along with 3.4 billion litres of diesel and 814 million litres of jet fuel. This month we have had the highest levels of fuel seen since the minimum stockholding obligations came into place. We get to work for Australians. The right-wing parties fight amongst themselves.

Senator O'Neill, first supplementary?

To build economic and energy resilience, the Albanese Labor government has been focused on building a modern renewable energy grid that puts downward pressure on prices. What has been the impact on energy prices of delivering more renewable energy into the grid?

It absolutely underscores the importance of the task that the government is engaged in, delivering on Australia's energy security requirements. In the electricity system, record renewables are replacing fossil fuels, particularly coal, making our grid cheaper, more reliable and cleaner to run. Since May, we have added over 22 gigawatts of renewables, wind and solar to the grid. Almost 455,000 cheaper home batteries, 12 gigawatts of usable capacity, is leading lower wholesale prices and almost 100 times the energy storage capacity of South Australia's Hornsdale big battery, built over eight years ago in this program.

Every step along the way, whether it's on fuel, whether it's on electricity— (Time expired)

Senator O'Neill, second supplementary?

The Albanese Labor government is protecting Australia's energy interests because it's vital for our national resilience. What are the economic and social risks if Australia does not strengthen its energy sovereignty?

The biggest risk to our energy and industrial sovereignty is those opposite. That's the biggest risk. Who did more damage? Mr Taylor, when he was the minister for energy, did more damage to Australia's electricity system than any other minister in our history. Four of our six refineries closed. The only thing that didn't stop refineries 5 and 6 closing when Mr Taylor was running the show was time; he just didn't have enough time to close refinery 5 and refinery 6. Mr Hastie in the other place hasn't struck a blow on industrial policy since Mr Taylor was elected. Lots of posts angry about One Nation, but not much work on industrial policy from Mr Hastie. They're all focused on their internal politics, not focused on delivering for blue-collar Australia.

My question is for the Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher. Minister, Labor's export finance agency has guaranteed $250 million for an Indian government owned corporation to fund renewable projects in India. At Senate estimates, officials confirmed that there is no direct Australian company involvement in these projects. Why is Labor financing foreign government owned renewable projects instead of Australian exports and jobs?

President, I believe that's probably a question better directed to Minister Farrell, who has ministerial responsibilities in this area.

Senator Canavan, you've heard the advice of the minister. Do you want the minister to continue answering or do you want me to redirect the question?

The finance minister is a shareholder minister, but I'm happy for the question to be transferred, if she doesn't have the knowledge. It's $250 million!

On the point of order, to assist Senator Canavan, ministerial accountability is in accordance with the portfolios and the legislation that ministers have responsibility for. The fact that the minister is a shareholder minister does not mean she is accountable for that program. The responsibility is with the portfolio minister.

Oh, wow! The government doesn't know what is going on.

It's about the Westminster system. I just thought it might be of assistance to remind you that—

Thank you, Senator Wong. Senator Canavan has indicated that the question can be redirected to Minister Farrell.

I thank Senator Canavan for his question. I might just say at the outset how important the role of EFA, the export finance authority, has been during the recent crisis that we've had in terms of fuel supplies. It was quick action by the Albanese government to set up the EFA so that it could buy all of the petrol, the diesel, the airline fuel and the fertiliser that we needed to get through the most recent crisis.

One of the reasons that EFA was able to act so quickly and, I might say, so successfully—we just heard from Senator Ayres about some of the volumes of fuel now being stored in Australia—was the good relations that this government set up with our neighbours in our own region. One of those countries, of course, is India. In a couple of weeks time we've got the Indian prime minister coming to visit Australia. In fact, I think this might be the second time that he has visited this country during the time of this government.

India represents a fantastic opportunity for us in terms of trade. The role of the EFA is to find and support successful business opportunities not just for Australian companies but for companies in our region. (Time expired)

Senator Canavan, first supplementary?

That's simply not correct, Minister. The EFA's purpose is to support Australia's export trade—it's called Export Finance Australia—and help Australian businesses take on the world. How does financing an Indian government owned corporation to help it build renewable projects in India, using no Australian products, no Australian know-how, supporting no Australian jobs, meet the purpose of Export Finance Australia?

I thank Senator Canavan for his first supplementary question. Not only did Senator Canavan get the responsible minister incorrect; he also misunderstands the role of Export Finance Australia. In particular, he misunderstands the nature of this investment. This particular investment was through—

Where's the Australian involvement?

Well, you've asked the question, Senator Canavan, and you could at least give me an opportunity to answer the question in silence. That's the minimum you could do, I think.

Senator Canavan, come to order.

That's the minimum you could do, Senator Canavan. You're xenophobic. Control your xenophobia, Senator Canavan.

Minister Farrell, you need to withdraw that.

Alright, I'll withdraw it.

Thank you.

Anyway, this particular investment was through Export Finance Australia's commercial account. (Time expired)

Senator Canavan, second—

Thank you, Madam President. I'm glad we've established the Labor Party—

Senator Canavan! I've only just called you, and you're already talking over me. Wait until you're called. Please put your question.

Thank you, Madam President. We now understand the Labor Party views it as 'xenophobic' to say that Australian taxpayer dollars should be used to support Australian jobs. Minister, Australian energy prices have skyrocketed under your government. Why is your government investing in energy supplies in India, not fixing Australia's energy crisis, which is seeing our manufacturing jobs shipped offshore day after day?

Senator Canavan, before I call the minister—to create the most harmonious Senate I can, which is sometimes challenging, I did ask the minister to withdraw that, so it's not really appropriate for you to refer to it. But I'll call the minister to answer the question.

I thank Senator Canavan for his second supplementary question. As I was saying, this particular investment is through Export Finance Australia's commercial account, meaning that there's no cost or exposure to Australian taxpayers. Export Finance Australia is a key strategic asset. It helps Australian businesses—

Why do we give it to them, then?

Oh, dear, oh dear! Give me some respect please, Senator Canavan. You've asked the question. You don't want the answer. I'm giving you the answer. It helps Australian businesses to trade and invest overseas, and it supports infrastructure development in our region where there is a direct benefit to Australia. It only invests in projects that have a direct benefit to Australia. These projects strengthen our partnerships with emerging economies, grant Australian businesses access to new, lucrative markets and create new research and development opportunities. (Time expired)

Honourable senators interjecting—

Minister Ayres and Senator Canavan, I have a senator on her feet.

():  My question is to the Minister for Trade and Tourism, Senator Farrell. On 24 March, the Prime Minister announced a landmark deal with the European Union. This deal—some eight years in the making—is a milestone for Australia. The European Union is the world's second largest economy, a market of 450 million consumers, yet Australian exporters have faced prohibitive tariff barriers when trying to access it. What real change does this new market access to the EU deliver for farmers, producers, exporters and Australians?

I thank Senator Whiteaker for her first question. She certainly understands the wonderful benefits that are going to come to her home state of Western Australia from this new free trade agreement. Senator Canavan, you won't like this answer either, but the European Union is the world's second largest economy, and we estimate that, in its first year, this agreement will be worth $10 billion for Australia. But don't think of this as just one agreement, Senator Canavan; it's essentially 27 new agreements. It's doubling, in one fell swoop, the number of Australian free trade agreements. It's great news for the Australian businesses, opening up access to a market of 27 countries and 450 million new consumers.

Just to give you one example, the seafood industry, which is so important to Western Australia—particularly all those wonderful crayfish—will see the removal of up to 26 per cent on tariffs, making it easier for the $7 million worth of seafood exports to the EU to grow and thrive. Tariffs on Aussie dairy, rice, nuts, honey, olive oil, fruit and veg will all be either eliminated or significantly reduced. Tariffs on our critical minerals—which are very important to Western Australia, Senator Whiteaker—will be cut to zero, and we will strengthen cooperation between Australia and the EU on critical minerals, renewables and research. The Australian excellent wine industry—and you make some beautiful wines in Western Australia, almost as good as South Australia. There's good news—

A nice Stanthorpe riesling!

No, Xanadu won the top award. I presented it to them a couple of weeks ago. Our world-class— (Time expired)

Senator Whiteaker, first supplementary?

Thank you, Minister. I know as neighbours you understand my home state of Western Australia very well. Of course, it's home to world-class critical mineral deposits, a premium wine industry—better than South Australia's!—and agricultural exporters who have long sought improved access to the European markets. What does this Australia-European Union free trade agreement deliver specifically for Western Australian exporters, investors, producers and workers?

I thank Senator Whiteaker for her first supplementary question. Western Australian wines are as good as South Australian wines.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Yes, there we go. But the Australia-European Union free trade agreement will create new opportunities for Western Australia to export its world-class goods to the EU, including minerals, wheat, barley, beef and sheepmeat. It will grant WA exporters immediate access to the EU markets, with the vast majority of EU tariffs eliminated or duty-free access locked in. It delivers commercially meaningful outcomes for WA beef and sheepmeat exporters and the elimination of tariffs on agriculture of exporters of wine, wheat, barley, vegetables and fresh fruit. The outcomes secured in the Australia-EU FTA will help increase investment into Western Australia. Greater certainty for EU investors will add the attractiveness of Australia— (Time expired)

Senator Whiteaker, second supplementary?

Thank you, Minister. Another great state is of course Queensland, home to some of Australia's most significant export industries, yet farmers and producers have long faced restrictive and frustrating trade barriers when attempting to access the European market. How will Queensland farmers and producers benefit from the free trade agreement between the European Union and Australia, and what places those benefits at risk?

I thank Senator Whiteaker for her second supplementary question. Queensland exporters will benefit from the elimination of tariffs on wheat, copper, seafood, vegetables and much more. But there's one key thing placing those benefits at risk, and it's those who promise easy solutions. The argument for free trade and against protectionism was aptly put in 2013. I quote:

Those who argue for fortress Australia are wrong. The pursuit of global opportunities in sectors where we can excel will strengthen us.

That apt reflection was in fact made by the Leader of the Opposition in his maiden speech. I say it was easy to argue for barriers. It's easy to tap into the frustrations of a community by blaming the systems. But Australia is an island nation, and we rely on imports just as much as we rely on exports. Each import is a lower cost at the check-out. Each export is a farming or production job— (Time expired)

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator Ayres. In the early 2000s, electricity companies were allowed to charge a special solar metre fee to customers with home solar. Over time, it morphed into a daily connection fee. In 2025, the Australian Energy Regulator reduced electricity charges, and energy companies responded, increasing the connection fee—in one case, up from 26c a day 10 years ago to $1.46 a day, $530 a year, 15 times the inflation rate. Minister, are the energy companies profiteering, or is your government trying to hide the real cost of electricity?

I was giving some thought to that as I got up, actually, Senator Watt. The idea that you would, as the minister for energy, conceal from Australians anticipated price rises in electricity that you had been provided and that you would make all sorts of administrative arrangements to cover that up until after an election—that dubious honour only belongs to one bloke. I can tell you he's not a comedian, this fella, Mr Taylor, from the other place, who was the minister for energy under the Morrison government. He did share that honour with Mr Morrison for a period. You asked you asked about concealing—

Senator Roberts?

On a point of relevance, I asked about the current government's policy, not someone else in the lower house.

Thank you, Senator Roberts. I'll draw the minister back to your question.

If there's anything we can provide you in addition to that answer in relation to the relationship between connection fees—these things are very clear. We have just provided, for example, starting yesterday, three free hours of solar power, which are required to be produced for the 455,000 Australians who have solar panels on their roofs and have now got a home battery, who will pay zero in electricity costs because of the support of this government. These are not people in inner-city suburbs, I can tell you, but, overwhelmingly, people in the outer suburbs and in the regions of Australia, who are benefiting from low or zero cost and delivering benefit to the rest of the electricity system. (Time expired)

Senator Roberts, first supplementary?

Electricity feed-in tariffs—the price energy companies pay people for rooftop solar electricity fed into the grid—have fallen. Retailers pay 5c to 15c per kilowatt hour on new contracts while charging 25c to 45c for additional power plus $530 a year just for connection. Minister, did you deceive Australians into installing rooftop solar to save money when the benefit is being ripped away in increased connection charges and reduced feed-in tariffs?

(—) (): Senator, I know that One Nation doesn't like solar electricity. I know. Australians have benefited from this. Many, many households, pensioners and working Australians are benefiting from having solar on their home. Many hundreds of thousands of households are benefiting from batteries. Now, I know you don't like it. I know One Nation doesn't like it. I know you've led the National Party into not liking it—they don't like it any more—and, of course, dragged the Liberal Party into this far-right vortex and into taking wilder and wilder positions that have got nothing to do with the experience of suburban and regional Australians who have benefited from solar on their roofs, benefited from batteries in their homes, benefited— (Time expired)

Senator Roberts, second supplementary?

Minister, why is your government deceiving everyday Australians, telling them electricity prices are falling when, owing to connection fees, electricity bills are actually rising and rising quickly?

It will be a source of disappointment. Every time Australia succeeds, it's a source of heartache and misery over there, isn't it? You feel sad when Australia does well.

We are making progress. There are 22 gigawatts of new generation capacity in the grid. Default market offer shows that the Albanese government's work in this area, after a decade of disinvestment and decay in the electricity system—it was utterly irresponsible, what Mr Taylor did. He wrecked our fuel refineries. He wrecked our electricity system—

Senator Roberts on a point of order?

It is on relevance. Why are electricity bills rising? I didn't ask about someone in the lower house.

Thank you, Senator Roberts. I will draw the minister back to your question.

He wrecked our electricity system, wrecked our fuel refineries, didn't invest in transmission—

Minister Ayres.

and did more to damage Australian energy security—

Minister Ayres!

than anybody in our history.

My question is to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Gallagher. Yesterday, the Albanese Labor government's next round of income tax cuts came into effect alongside a pay rise for millions of workers, cheaper fuel at the bowser and paid parental leave reaching a full six months for the first time. This support is arriving while global pressures continue to push up the cost of living. What support came into effect yesterday and how will it make a difference for Australian workers and their families?

I thank Senator Ananda-Rajah for the question. It's an important question about how governments can work on and implement policies that assist households with cost-of-living pressures, as we have done consistently since coming to government. Today is 2 July, one day into the new financial year, a financial year that delivers an additional tax cut for every working Australian and, of course, builds into our tax arrangements the new instant tax deduction—the $1,000 off your taxable income with no receipts—and the working Australian tax offset. That will also be part of our tax law from now on and allows us to provide a tax offset for those who are earning wage income through the tax system.

In addition to that, when you look at those tax cuts in conjunction with the tax cut already delivered and those ones coming down over the next 12 months or so, it will mean that the average worker will save up to $2,800 a year. That is a big help. When we know families are balancing pressures on household budgets, to be able to have that additional income coming into the house is really important.

On top of that, we're undertaking a range of measures, including, for new families, the extension of paid parental leave to a full six months, with superannuation paid on that, the new minimum wage and award wage increases, which will again be very welcome in those households that rely on those wage adjustments to help them meet costs of living. Three million workers will benefit there. And, of course, there are all of our other investments into Medicare urgent care clinics and cheaper medicines and the funding that we've provided in schools and hospitals to make sure that those basic services are properly funded.

Senator Ananda-Rajah, first supplementary?

Thank you, Minister. The Albanese Labor government is also backing small businesses with billions in tax support so that they can invest and grow and by providing practical help to make the most of new technologies. How is the government supporting small businesses to get ahead?

I thank Senator Ananda-Rajah for the question. She is a very strong advocate for small businesses both in her state and around the country. We have in this budget recognised with a significant investment package the importance of small business and the way that the tax system can work to support them to invest, manage cash flow and build capability, with $3½ billion in tax support measures. In addition to that, we have the $25 million in round 3 of the Digital Solutions program, which is helping small business adopt digital tools, grow online and stay secure. More than 15½ thousand small businesses have already benefited from this program, receiving over 33,000 hours of coaching and participating in more than 1,700 workshops. Digital capability is an issue that a lot of small businesses in Canberra raise with me, and so this is a really important program that is helping small businesses.

Senator Ananda-Rajah, second supplementary?

What other support is on the way for households and small businesses, and why is the Albanese Labor government so determined to deliver it in full?

I thank Senator Ananda-Rajah for the second supplementary. Delivering on cost-of-living support is our No. 1 priority, and it has been since we came to government, in conjunction with dealing with all of the other areas of dysfunction and neglect that we inherited—in energy policy, in aged care, in early education and care, in the environment, in our trade, in our international relationships and in the budget.

We have also, while undertaking that work, been implementing new measures to help families with cost-of-living pressures. The tax changes are a really important part of that, but so are our other investments—whether in energy bill relief, in our Medicare urgent care clinics, in tripling the bulk-billing rate or in making sure that people can get access to more medicines, cheaper medicines, with 60-day dispensing. They are all part of our plan to make sure we're doing whatever we can to help families with those cost-of-living pressures.

My question is to the Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher. After four years of the Albanese government, Australians are paying 42 per cent more for insurance, 38 per cent more for electricity, 37 per cent more for gas, 23 per cent more for rent, 21 per cent more for education and 17 per cent more for food and health. On top of that, interest rates have increased 15 times under Labor, leaving Australians with a typical mortgage around $29,000 a year worse off. Minister, how can the Prime Minister claim his economic plan is working when Australian families are paying more for everything—they're paying tens of thousands of dollars more on their mortgage—and are worse off today than they were four years ago?

I thank Senator Smith for the question. This government, since the day we were elected, has inherited a whole range of challenges, which I just alluded to in my previous question, and we have been addressing those methodically. At the same time, we've been cleaning up the budget, getting rid of the rorts and waste, repairing the budget and delivering those two surpluses that those opposite promised and never delivered. We're reducing debt, reducing interest on the debt, delivering those surpluses, reducing the deficits and fixing up all these areas of neglect that the Commonwealth had just walked away from in—for example—housing, infrastructure, aged care and health. In almost every area I think of, the Commonwealth had vacated the field.

What Australians see is their government dealing with all of these national and important challenges and, at the same time, keeping our eyes focused on them. What they see when they look over there is three parties fighting each other like an episode of The Hunger Games. No-one's quite sure who's going to come out in the final episode and be the person who remains alive—it's very unclear at this point—although we have some suspicion that it's at that end of the table from the way it's going at the moment. But what Australians know is that they have a government that cares about addressing cost of living, fixing the budget, dealing with all of those national and important challenges, tackling hard reform where it's the right thing to do, standing against those advocates for the status quo and delivering real change for all Australians. That's the approach we've taken in the last four years and that's the approach we'll continue.

Senator Dean Smith, first supplementary?

Before the election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised Australians life would be cheaper under Labor. Minister, after four years of Labor, why have you made life more difficult for Australians?

I thank Senator Smith for the question. You'll remember that in the election campaign you were campaigning to raise taxes, have bigger deficits and have higher debt, which would have all led to higher costs for the Australian people. You don't talk about it very often these days, but remember that great plan to build $600 billion worth of nuclear power stations around the country that were going to be funded off the budget? Remember that? They were going to be funded off the budget, and there were going to be tax increases for everyone because you went to repeal the tax cuts that we had passed.

The Prime Minister was quite correct in that that would have led to higher costs on households and on individuals under the plan that you were offering the Australian people. And the Australian people said no to that plan. They had a look at it. They knew what you were offering. They knew you would make cuts in order to deliver that. And they said no.

Senator Smith, second supplementary?

Australians are paying more for the basics, more to keep a roof over their head and more in tax because of bracket creep. Minister, isn't the truth that, after four years of Labor, Australians are working harder but paying more and falling further behind?

Well, the answer to that is no. You voted against tax cuts. You voted against every single piece of cost-of-living help that we have brought to this chamber. You have voted against it, and I think the Australian people recognise that they have a government that is going to make the right decisions to invest in them and support them with cost-of-living pressures. They saw what you and your party were offering, Senator Smith—they watched The Hunger Games continue—and they know that the decision they took in 2025 was the right one.

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Senator Watt. From 1 July, a range of cost-of-living measures come into effect that will help Australians with the cost-of-living pressures that are currently facing. A key part of the Albanese Labor government's plan to help workers earn more and keep more of what they earn is to make sure wages continue to rise. Minister, how has the government's support ensured Australian workers will earn more from the start of July?

Thanks, Senator Dolega—who's got a very proud record of standing up for the working interests of people in Tasmania. Well, traditionally July the first has been a time of celebration for the nation's accountants and tax agents. But this year, 1 July has been a time of solidarity with every Australian worker because the Albanese Labor government is helping Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn—and even the people in the gallery are very excited about that!

This week we've heard about Labor's tax cuts for every worker, the cheaper health care and the expansion of Paid Parental Leave. Beyond that, from 1 July millions of minimum wage and award-reliant workers have received a real wage increase of at least 4.75 per cent. For two years in a row, our government has strongly advocated to the independent Fair Work Commission for an economically sustainable real wage rise for Australian workers, especially those on the minimum and award wage, and what that real wage increase that's now been delivered means is that, a personal care worker in aged care will get a pay rise of about an extra $59 per week; a registered nurse in aged care, an extra $86 a week; and an enrolled nurse, an extra $67 a week. Since the Albanese Labor government came to office, we've advocated for Australian workers to get a pay rise at every single annual wage review—that is, five years in a row—and, for five years in a row, those workers have got the pay rise that Labor has argued for.

Now, in contrast, of course, the only pay rise we've seen the Liberal Party remotely interested in is the pay rise that goes to their party leader. Let's just think about the last fortnight in the Liberal Party. It started with anonymous Liberals briefing the media saying that Mr Taylor's leadership is on borrowed time and it ends with his rival, Mr Hastie, denying rumours that he's about to give politics all away. The Liberals end this autumn session in disagreement and disarray. Labor, on the other hand, remains exactly where we started, utterly focused on relieving the cost-of-living pressures of Australians.

Senator Dolega, a first supplementary?

The decision of the independent Fair Work Commission will ensure millions of minimum and award wage workers will receive a wage rise to help with the cost of living. Can the minister also detail how workers on enterprise agreements in the private sector are also seeing wage rises?

We know that enterprise agreements continue to be a key source of wages growth for Australian workers. Under the coalition, enterprise bargaining had crashed, and that was of course part of its deliberate strategy of keeping wages low. Well, under Labor, enterprise bargaining is back. If we look at the latest ABS wages data, we saw a solid 3.2 per cent annual wages growth in the private sector. But newly approved enterprise agreements are delivering even higher average pay increases in the private sector at 4.1 per cent, so the Labor Party is delivering for workers in every single part of the economy.

And while we're focused on delivering real change for Australians, the Liberal Party are only interested in real change to themselves. It got so bad this week that we saw the return of' Scotty from marketing' in the form of the member for Lindsay calling for the Liberal Party to completely rebrand itself. No wonder all of this mob over there are counting down the clock, have got the motors running in the car park to escape the parliament and to escape each other. They hate each other and they're not focused on the Australian people.

Senator Dolega, a second supplementary?

The Albanese Labor government has been consistent in its position for years now, that the wages of Australian workers should be rising to keep pace with global inflation. How important is it for governments to provide policy certainty when it comes to helping workers earn more?

Senator Dolega, second supplementary?

The Albanese Labor government has been consistent in its position for years now that the wages of Australian workers should be rising to keep pace with global inflation. How important is it for governments to provide policy certainty when it comes to helping workers earn more?

The Albanese Labor government has consistently advocated for wage rises, and that certainty is good for workers and good for business. But what isn't certain is what version of the Liberal Party will turn up in five weeks time when we come back. After knifing Sussan Ley when she was at 18 per cent, the new leadership team of Mr Taylor and Senator Hume have dragged the Liberal's vote down to 17 per cent.

Point of order—there is absolutely no relevance to the question.

Senator Collins, the minister is being relevant to the question.

It's good to see that Mr Taylor's still got one supporter in the Liberal Party. I'm sure that problem will all be fixed once the member for Lindsay's Liberal rebrand is finished. But what brand will the Liberals come back from the winter recess with? Will they stick with brand Taylor with his new Driza-Bone and Akubra fresh out of the packet and his best Yellowstone impersonation but without the soundtrack? Or will it be brand Abbott, who's running around Europe with his far-right conspirators looking for new ways that the Liberal Party can chase after One Nation? Or will it be brand Hastie, who veers between giving it all away and wielding his sword and refusing to bend a knee? It doesn't really matter which way the Liberal Party rebrands itself, because everyone knows the Liberal Party is not supporting working Australians.

Thank you, Minister Watt, and I do remind you, when referring to people in the other place, to use their correct titles.

Before I close question time, which I'm sure everybody is very keen to happen, I just wanted to take the opportunity to farewell Senator Askew, as it's her last question time, and to compliment her on a very fine contribution, yesterday, as her final speech. We wish you well with your family. On that basis, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.

I wish to provide some further information to an answer I provided in the Senate during this sitting fortnight in question time and Senator Gallagher referred to in the committee stage of the tax bills debate in relation to limited recourse borrowing. Updated analysis the government has received today from the ATO show there were around 8,700 new limited recourse borrowing arrangements for residential housing in 2023-24. This includes both new and established properties. This is an updated figure from that which was provided to the Senate on Monday, which was based on the latest advice provided from the ATO at the time.

As both Senator Gallagher and I indicated, limited recourse borrowing arrangements are still less than one per cent of total residential property borrowing and less than 0.5 per cent of new residential borrowing each year on average. And, of course, these changes do not impact any existing SMSF borrowing arrangement and provide time to finalise arrangements that are in train.

I move:

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

There are two tales of two economies happening at the moment. There's the tale of the economy that Labor wants you to believe, and there's the tale of the real economy which was revealed this week in the minutes of the RBA meeting. Labor wants you to believe and wants Australian families to believe that everything is fine and that, in fact, the Prime Minister is honouring his commitment of four years ago that life would be better under Labor for Australian families. That's not true if you look closely at the minutes released of the RBA's meeting which was held a few weeks ago to hold the cash rate.

This document makes crystal clear the risks and the poor performance of the economy being delivered by Labor. Let me just share with you a summary of what the RBA has said and what the RBA has revealed in the minutes of that meeting. It has said that international economies will continue to experience above target inflation and concerns about the inflationary effects of the Middle East conflict remain, and that is bad news for the Australian economy. It goes on to say that expectations in Australia of increases in the cash rate—that is, interest rates—continue and will remain through 2026 and into early 2027. It then says that, because of ongoing inflationary pressures, Australian families will have to prepare for the worst. It goes on to say that the Australian economy is experiencing widespread inflationary pressures. The RBA knows it, the government wants to deny it, but Australians live with it every day when they purchase their groceries, when they purchase their insurance and when they pay their mortgage bills.

It goes on to say that consumer and business sentiment is weakening in Australia, that economic growth is slowing and that inflation will continue to exist outside the RBA's preferred range of two to three per cent. That means Australians will be poorer. It means Australians will have to prepare for higher interest rates. The RBA then says that for a further two years Australians will have to experience higher inflation until inflation gets to a sustainable level. It says that the inflationary impacts in the economy will continue to exist over the short term. Finally, it says what Australians already know, and that is that the Australian economy continues to experience poor productivity growth. And, unfortunately, it predicts potential material weakening in regard to the housing market and the negative effect that that will have on consumer confidence and consumption.

It is a tale of two economies. Labor wants you to believe that all is well. The RBA governor—the independent judge, the independent adjudicator of the government's economic performance—unfortunately is saying that things are going to get harder for Australian families because of the policies of the government. There are two interrelated policies that the government doesn't want you to talk about, that the government doesn't want you to know about. One is record levels of government spending, which is fuelling inflation— (Time expired)

Look, I know it's the end of parliament before the break. Everyone's tired. So it's not a surprise that we've had a pretty mediocre question time from those opposite—if you can even call it that. I know they're all eager to get to the Qantas Lounge and jump on the plane, so it's no surprise that they're just repeating the same old questions.

The coalition's entire housing strategy is to insist that nothing changes and then wonder why nothing changes. That doesn't make any sense to me. When faced with a choice between helping a young family to buy their first home and protecting generous tax concessions for wealthy investors, the coalition never hesitates to show us who they really are and who they'll back. Those opposite do not have a solution to the housing crisis. They are out of touch with what reality looks like for young people at the moment. They talk about young people all the time.

I spend a lot of my time out talking to young people, and they have a diverse range of views. But I wonder whether those opposite actually talk to young people or just say they do. They generally don't vote in a way that would benefit young people. Of the things young people raise with me, housing is one of the top issues. That's why I'm proud to be part of a government that is doing something about the housing crisis. Those opposite sit over there complaining endlessly and blocking legislation, but they won't actually do anything. And the stats do not lie: more than 260,000 Australians have used the five per cent deposit scheme, and nearly 70 per cent of scheme participants are ahead on their mortgage repayments.

We trust first home buyers to make decisions in their financial interest—decisions that support their aspiration to own their own home for the long term. A fun fact for those opposite: first home buyers using the five per cent deposit scheme are less likely to be in arrears on their mortgage than mortgage holders in the mainstream market. We are delivering 55,000 social and affordable rental homes and we're building 10,000 homes reserved just for first home buyers.

But we know investment to build homes alone is not enough, which is why we're training more tradies, building more infrastructure and cutting red tape, including pausing the National Construction Code and fast-tracking environmental approvals. In our most recent budget, we made an investment of a further $2 billion in enabling infrastructure to unlock 65,000 new homes.

Young people are making up a bigger proportion of the voting population than before. Just a word of unsolicited advice: if you want to save the furniture, maybe just reflect on your voting record. It might explain the position you're in. Australians aren't stupid. They see what you vote for. I have some other inconvenient facts for those opposite. In 2019, just over two per cent of homeowners were in negative equity. Now it's less than half of that. Where was this outrage when more than twice as many Australians were in negative equity under the former government? Nowhere to be seen. Those opposite do not care about first home buyers. Their voting record says so.

Westpac recently told the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics that:

… the performance of that cohort over the last few years is where our average book performance is—and … we're not seeing underperformance or more challenges in that part—

(Time expired)

Well, we all saw it today: Labor putting politics over people. We heard about how they've been using algorithms, a computer that says no, with no capacity for a human being to override the decisions of the computer. How is that possible when older Australians, those in the most frail period of their lives, are different? Every single human being is different—life experience, medical conditions and the way that people age. So how is it that the Labor Party for one minute thought an algorithm could work out what they need? And, worse, they couldn't tell us—or wouldn't tell us—how many people on the aged-care waiting list that keeps getting longer and longer under Labor have died who had already had an assessment that they needed care? The number is around 5,000. Just absorb that for a minute. Every person living has someone who's older than them who loves them and who they love in return. It is devastating for people to watch their older people not being cared for as they should be.

There have been so many examples of failure by the Labor government. This week, the coalition received an email from a woman in Tasmania of 76 years of age. She's on her ninth guide dog. That guide dog is essential for her independence, dignity and wellbeing. These are her words. She was on a home-care package that had been covering the cost of those guide dogs at about $5,000 a year. But, under Labor's new home support scheme, her support for her guide dogs is going to be capped at $2,000. It's woefully inadequate, cruel and mean. Imagine being blind, being that age and being frail and then getting the news that the very thing that gives you independence you're going to have to, as you get older, pay for a large proportion of yourself. In her words, she says: 'It's disingenuous to tout the no-worse-off principle'. There you have it—a participant who tells us it's a lie. She's anxious and concerned, and we heard that over and over again from people who had that dreadful algorithm applied to their care.

Waitlists have blown out under Labor. You're only replacing people on the waitlist when people die or go into care, so they no longer need it—again, a misrepresentation of the reality. These people in our communities and their families know it to be true: Labor is putting politics over people. That's the truth of your care of our ageing. (Time expired)

I was going to talk about housing, but in fact I think I'm going to switch to aged care. We seem to think that, as humans, we are perfect decision-makers. In fact, we are far from perfect. We are riven with internal biases, the most dangerous of which are unconscious ones—the ones we don't even recognise. We have our own blind spots, and we are highly subjective. I know this well because of my career in medicine.

In medicine, we have multiple scoring tools, clinical decision support tools, or what are called, in this House, algorithms—so many. We have the APACHE score for critically ill people. We have the Apgar scores for newborns. There is the Glasgow coma score for people who might be losing consciousness. There is the Framingham Risk Score for people with cardiovascular risks, when you're trying to weigh up whether you need to give them certain meds or not. There's the RIFLE score for people with chronic kidney disease. There are so many that are incorporated in medicine, because, in medicine, we appreciate that unconscious biases can kill people, and that is exactly what happens. And that's why so much research has gone into developing clinically validated scores.

This morning, I heard a lot of rhetoric in this chamber around the integrated assessment tool that has been developed for aged care. Some senators from the coalition said that this has not been clinically validated. They questioned why we are using an algorithm on older Australians: how dare we do this! In fact, the integrated assessment tool was developed over a four- to five-year period, starting back in 2020 or thereabouts, because we found that, in the old system, when people were being dispensed home-care packages, there were people with very similar clinical, social, cognitive and physical characteristics who were getting widely different packages—widely different packages. In other words, it was highly variable, and there was inbuilt inequity in the old system, meaning that we were creating a country of haves and have-nots, by design, because we were relying on subjective assessments by flawed humans.

This is why the IAT was developed. It was originally prototyped in 2020. There were advisory groups—clinical, technical and statistical. In 2022, Flinders University ran a living lab trial—mock scenarios, with actors and clients. This is what we do in medical school, by the way; this is how we train doctors to become better doctors: we use mock scenarios. In 2023, there was a live trial in over 22,000 people, and it was clinically validated on them. Then the IAT was further clinically validated on a dataset of over 100,000 people. It turned out, from that, there's a classification tool, which determines your level of funding, and a prioritisation tool, which determines which level you get. And we have launched this.

We had a hearing where we found that, of the 180,000 assessments that had been done, 834—or 0.5 per cent—are now undergoing review, and only one, as of April of this year, has gone to the Administrative Review Tribunal. In other words, it's not perfect, but it's not bad at all. It's not bad at all, and it means that we are delivering more equitable aged care to more Australians without creating, by design, a series of haves and have-nots. We know there's more to do, and we are introducing further escalation protocols to improve this tool. (Time expired)

I asked some questions at Senate estimates a few weeks ago, and I was a little gobsmacked by the answers. I didn't ask those questions thinking there would be any major controversy; I was just reviewing the different loans, guarantees and other investments that a body called Export Finance Australia had made recently. I was a bit shocked to find out that a loan that Export Finance Australia had made to the Power Finance Corporation of India involved no Australian whatsoever. I thought perhaps there was some Australian business that was a co-investor or supplier or perhaps even a contractor working on this project. But, in fact, this investment that had been proudly announced by Export Finance Australia, the government's financing arm, that you taxpayers all pay for, on 30 September last year didn't involve any Australians except the poor taxpayers who have to pay for it. That's it.

This wasn't a small amount of money. This was a US$171 million investment. At current exchange rates, that's roughly A$250 million—a quarter of a billion Australian dollars—that has been provided to an Indian corporation that involves no Australians. Their corporation is installing solar panels in India to provide electricity to Indians. Now, I want to put on record that I love India—love it! I love the place. We've got a great relationship with them. I think we have a fantastic future trade and investment relationship with them. But I don't think a quarter of a billion Australian taxpayer dollars should be going to a corporation in India.

And it gets worse. This corporation is actually government owned! An Indian company that this government has thought fit to risk $250 million of your money with is government owned. It doesn't produce a single Australian job. It doesn't support a single Australian business. It's all just going to another country, hand over fist.

I don't think we build respect in our region when we act like this, when we act like mugs. They would just laugh at us. They would absolutely laugh at us. The Indian government would never do anything as stupid as this, as stupid as putting $250 million of their own money into another country, be it Australia or be it anywhere else. But we're mugs, absolute mugs; we're taken as suckers for doing things like this.

It gets worse. At the same estimates I asked, 'Well, why is it that Export Finance Australia has not helped a Mackay business, a North Queensland based business, who wanted to provide services to maintain trucks to coal mines in India?' This was an Australian business. It would have been an Australian export of mining services—a big growth industry for our country. It would have fitted the very purpose of Export Finance Australia—yes, admittedly, helping another country, but that's what we do with our exports, of course—but it was knocked back because, in the words of EFA, Export Finance Australia, it said, 'We might not be the right financier for them.' Why aren't they the right financier? It involves an Australian business. Why not? Well, guess what? It involves coal. That's why.

The government won't invest in anything that supports Australian industry and jobs if it involves the four-letter word 'coal'. But it's happy to hand over $250 million of your money to build solar panels, not made here in this country, to another nation's government. This is all because this government is obsessed with this absurdity of net zero emissions. It's putting that on a pillar above Australian jobs, above Australian industry, and it's now costing Australian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars at least.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Wong) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the gambling industry.

I asked Minister Wong to confirm that no Labor MP accepted free tickets or hospitality from gambling corporations or their lobby groups to attend the Midwinter Ball held the night before Labor introduced its half-arsed gambling bill to parliament. And what did we get? We got evasion and we got weasel words.

Well, let me help the minister. On the eve of introducing what Labor describes as 'gambling reform', Labor MPs were seated at a Sportsbet purchased table at the Midwinter Ball. You could not script this stuff. They're breaking bread and rubbing shoulders with the very industry that profits from gambling harm in the same 24 hours they're claiming to be cracking down on gambling harm. When I asked the minister a simple question—'Does this pass the pub test?'—I get told there's nothing to see here. I get told we should put partisan politics aside so the minister's colleagues can party with the gambling lobby while overlooking the immense harm that gambling causes to people in this country. Minister, this is not leadership. This is corporate capture that creates real harm for people right across Australia.

Australians have had an absolute gutful. So-called convention around fancy dinners in this place does not excuse ministers accepting paid gifts from the very groups they are meant to regulate. We are not entitled to be in this place. We are elected to this place, and it is a privilege to serve those who elect us. Fancy dinner convention doesn't cut it for families facing financial ruin because of gambling. It doesn't cut it for those living with mental distress, family violence and in the worst case, in the most devastating case, suicide.

We all have disclosure obligations in this place, but they lag months behind. All I asked for was a moment of transparency, a moment of accountability. Unsurprisingly, we didn't get it. We also didn't get a guarantee that Labor MPs didn't accept free tickets to the Midwinter Ball bought by the gambling industry or a guarantee they weren't accepting hospitality, free tickets or corporate box invitations from the gambling industry whilst Labor consulted on their watered-down gambling legislation. Is it any wonder that it has been gutted? We're supposed to believe it's all just a coincidence. Sportsbet and Tabcorp donated more than $132,000 to Labor last year. We know that's not a donation; there are expectations around those contributions. Frankly, to these corporates, that's a bargain—a small investment to help water down reform, protect billions of dollars in profit and keep Australians gambling. But, for everyday people, that is a house deposit.

On a related theme of corporate capture, I have repeatedly asked a simple question of ministers: who attended Labor's $5,500-a-head budget night fundraiser? No minister would answer it. If there's nothing to hide, why keep it a secret? Who was there? Gambling executives, gas companies, property developers? For multinational corporations, 5½ thousand bucks is minor birdseed. It's eight weeks of income for aged pensioners. They cannot compete. It's an uneven playing field. You shouldn't have to be on a playing field with cash to get good outcomes in this place. But that 5½ grand buys something incredibly valuable. It buys access, relationships, influence—the chance to whisper into a minister's ear. It also fuels the fast-spinning door between this place and lobbying jobs: former ministers and former chiefs of staff walking straight into lobbying firms and industry bodies, cashing in on contacts and influence they built whilst meant to be serving the public.

Australians are sick of watching corporate insiders get privileged access while everyone else waits outside in the dark. And what has all of this access delivered? The great tragedy is that Labor's woeful gambling reforms will not keep Australians safe. The ones that Australians were promised will not eventuate. It's certainly not what Labor's own report recommended. Over $104 billion has been lost to gambling in the 1,000 days since the Murphy report was tabled. That is the real cost of Labor's weak reforms. Australians are asking themselves this: when Labor waters down gambling laws, when gambling companies donate hundreds of thousands of dollars, when ministers refuse to say who they're meeting with, who is this government actually working for?

Question agreed to.

I move:

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

I rise to take note of the answer from Minister Ayres to my question regarding deceitful government messaging on electricity prices. Well, actually, I'll correct myself. I didn't get any answers to my questions. I got responses to my questions, but they were talking more about someone named Taylor in the lower house. It was not that I could find an answer, as I said. Causing a minister to be directed twice by the President for relevance was a new personal record for one of my questions, so thank you, Minister Ayres. You're afraid to give us a true response.

As I travel throughout Queensland and Australia, one question I'm often asked is this: why are we being told electricity prices are coming down when my bill keeps going up? The answer is that this government has separated electricity connection charges from charges for electricity use. By only concentrating on half the actual electricity charge, they can say prices have fallen when they have actually gone up, because there's the other half of the bill, the connection charge and other fees.

Solar won't save you, because those transmission lines need to be maintained, and power companies don't do that for free. If you install solar power on your roof thinking it will save you enough money to pay even for the insulation, then think again. It's proving that it isn't. Energy companies need to spread the cost of the grid across every home connected to get maintenance and capital costs back. The less revenue they get from supply, the more they need from the connection charge.

A typical connection in Queensland is now paying more than $500 a year in connection charges in addition to the cost of the electricity. Solar only generates during the day, and now selling that power into the grid has become pointless, with homes paid a few cents a kilowatt hour. Solar alone doesn't cut it anymore, and you need another $5,000 for a battery. The costs just mount up because people don't include the total cost of the solar and wind system. But the battery just stores enough for a day without sun, so homeowners, even with solar and battery, won't be able to disconnect from the grid. These connection charges will be with you forever. I point out that the real cost of that battery is $10,000, yet the government at state and federal levels are subsidising batteries at $5,000 a unit. So you're paying twice.

For the record, wholesale power prices have risen from $65 a kilowatt hour in 2020 to over $100 dollars per kilowatt hour today. The reduction comes from daytime solar. That's what the minister was talking about. There are three hours when there is a glut, causing prices to go negative. The Left may not understand this. Those negative daytime prices in the middle of the day must be balanced by extreme prices at other times. This is why the Australian Energy Regulator's cap is -$1,000 during a glut but—wait for it—tops out at $25,000 a kilowatt hour at other times.

In China, they're selling coalfired power for 8c a kilowatt hour. We used to have the cheapest electricity in the world, when we relied on coalfired power stations. Now, with increasing quantities of solar and wind and all the paraphernalia that goes with it, we have got, apart from three countries in Europe, the highest cost of electricity in the world. You don't see those prices of $25,000 a kilowatt hour in internet memes. At this rate, One Nation will need to commission more than Fire the Liar trucks.

Let's have a look at a few prices. A coalfired power station in Australia is usually at a mine mouth, with no transport. The cost is 26c to 33c a kilowatt hour. That's from coal. We transport all the way to China. They produce it and sell it for 7c to 8c a kilowatt hour. Our coal, our gas and our oil are helping people overseas, but we're not allowed to use the stuff here. One Nation will liberate the hydrocarbon fuels that liberated humanity. Look at how far we've come in the last 150 years. A One Nation government will liberate Australia. A One Nation government will restore our Australia.

Question agreed to.

On behalf of the wonderful Senator Askew, I present the report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee on offshore processing and resettlement arrangements together with accompanying documents.

On behalf of the Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I present Human rights scrutiny report No. 8 of 2026 and the committee's annual report for 2025.

At the request of Senator Kovacic, the Deputy Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, I present the report of the committee's inquiry into the integrity of the NDIS, together with accompanying documents. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I rise today to speak on the tabling of this report. While the coalition members of this committee wish to thank the participants, families and advocates who shared their often harrowing stories, we must be blunt about the findings before us. The NDIS is a life-changing social reform, but its integrity is not a technical afterthought; it is a fundamental condition of its purpose, because for every dollar that is lost to maladministration, misuse, fraud, integrity leakage—whatever you want to call it—is a dollar that doesn't go to a person who needs it most.

The National Disability Insurance Agency has admitted to a broad integrity leakage of between 8.2 and 8.3 per cent, a figure that equates to approximately $3.7 billion every single year lost to errors, noncompliance and criminal fraud. It's a national shame. The chair's report, while documenting the scale of the crisis, fails to deliver the structural solutions required to protect the scheme's future. It can go much further than it does.

We heard chilling evidence from the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission that the scheme is being targeted by higher end organised crime groups, some based offshore, who view the NDIS as merely one component of their much bigger, broader business model. These syndicates don't just commit paperwork errors; they use intimidation and threats of physical violence to coerce vulnerable participants and their families into collusive arrangements, effectively recycling the proceeds of disability fraud into other criminal activities.

We must reject the report's framing that this is the work of a limited number of bad actors. Organised networks that chop and change companies to evade detection and exploit cognitively impaired Australians are a systemic threat, not a residual one. The most glaring structural failure remains the unregistered provider market, which now accounts for a staggering 94 per cent of all active providers. This has created a vast shadow market, operating with almost no accountability to NDIS standard practices. We received evidence of cleanskin registered businesses being sold as commodities to individuals who have never undergone a single screening check.

While criminals exploit the back end of the system, our rural, regional and remote communities are being abandoned at the front end in so-called thin markets. The combination of a flawed pricing model and the government's abrupt 50 per cent cut to travel reimbursement is forcing legitimate high-quality clinicians to withdraw from service.

I actually gave an example that was given in the inquiry about Groote Eylandt, and I wrote to two Labor ministers saying this is a matter of urgency. People on Groote Eylandt who have MJD, which is a progressive condition that means they lose their mobility and independence—it's a devastating condition—need a response soon. They might be out of sight to most of us, but the conditions that they live with every day require urgent, consistent and appropriate responses. I still haven't received a response, and that was weeks and weeks ago. It's not just me waiting. Those people in that community are waiting for a response.

There is great concern, first and foremost, for the very people these providers service.

Most providers do the right thing. They really care for the people they're providing services to, but there needs to be more focus on those that aren't. It's interesting that, in the last couple of weeks, we've seen a big flurry of media reporting on providers to the NDIS that have been charged or are currently in the process, somewhere, of criminal proceedings. We need a better system, not to respond at the end but to intervene early, to make sure every taxpayer dollar in the NDIS goes to a person who needs it most, not to fraudsters.

I talked about the unregistered market. We must close that unregistered market. Integrity must be built into the front of the scheme so we know exactly who is claiming taxpayer money before those funds move elsewhere, move to where they're not being used for the purpose of the scheme. We have to protect whistleblowers against injustice and harmonise NDIS protections with the Corporations Act to ensure that those with the courage to speak up are supported by the law and not punished by it. Australians with disability and the taxpayers who fund this scheme expect those who exploit the vulnerable to be confronted and held accountable, not merely monitored as an efficiency target.

The coalition will continue to fight for a scheme where every dollar reaches the person it was meant to support and where people living with a disability have access to personalised, responsive and appropriate care and support regardless of the postcode that they live in. We can do better. We must do better. As the Prime Minister has said, we must not leave Australians behind, and that includes these Australians. I commend the additional comments to the Senate.

I'll just make a few brief remarks on the report now before reserving to continue when the Senate reconvenes. I, first of all, want to thank every member of the committee for the diligence and dedication that we brought together in carrying out this report and this work. I want to thank the witnesses that took the time and energy to share their stories with us as a committee. And I want to thank the secretarial staff, who did such a great job ensuring that we as a committee could undertake our work efficiently and very productively.

Through the course of this inquiry I have had a lot of opportunity to reflect on the realities experienced by those who are the victims of big provider fraud within the NDIS and the experiences of those members of our Australian disability community, who, right now, bear the brunt of that criminal activity while also living under the weight of public discourse around this topic.

I'll save my more detailed comments around the report for when the Senate reconvenes, but I do want to put this very clearly on the record: disabled people and our families are the people who suffer the most when fraud is committed by big providers. We're the ones that lose the services. We're the ones that lose the supports. There is, I think, no community more passionately committed to stamping out provider fraud from the NDIS than disabled people and our families, for this reason.

It has been really heavy and hard for the community to have to bear the weight of that experience while also, from day to day, seeing commentary from the government that fed a narrative—and feeds it to this day—that it is disabled people who are primarily responsible for fraud within the NDIS. I have to say quite bluntly to the government—who, when challenged on this, will talk about the fact that they don't often talk about individual participants in their discourse around this—that what we heard very clearly in the course of the inquiry was that the Fraud Fusion Taskforce does not measure fraud. They do not have a definition of fraud. When asked about the question of fraud, Mr Dardo said, 'We don't measure it.'

Instead, what do they do? Well, they measure something called 'integrity leakage'. Now, what is 'integrity leakage'? I've got to commend Senator Kovacic for one of the most forensic examinations of government spin I've seen in a while, because what we discovered as a committee is that 'integrity leakage' is a broad term for a number of different categories of reported activity—yes, some fraud, but also accidental inappropriate payment. If somebody is required to submit two invoices and they click 'go' and only one invoice comes through, that is bounced back and recorded as 'integrity leakage'. So it includes accidents, mistakes, genuine fraud and 'sharp practice'. Now, what's 'sharp practice', folks? 'Sharp practice' is abuse. 'Sharp practice' is the governmental catch-all for financial exploitation and abusive practice, and that figure is lumped together and reported as integrity leakage.

That's where we get the number of eight to 10 per cent of the NDIS potentially being fraud that we see in the media. That's not fraud. That's 'integrity leakage', and I just think that is so disingenuous. We've seen, over the course of the last couple of months, the minister and other members of the government talk about tackling fraud and the need to tackle fraud, and they've quoted this figure, knowing full well that the taskforce they set up has not told them, and has never, ever told them, that fraud within the NDIS is measured accurately by the work that they do and can be reflected accurately by that particular figure. That's just been left out there, and that's wrong, because leaving that out there as a perception—being so loose with the language—has allowed a lot of people to draw conclusions about what is happening and who is responsible.

What we heard was that the vast majority of fraud that does occur is committed by large providers and that the government's response to these instances of fraud is woeful. In the time that the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, the so-called cop on the beat, has been in existence, since it was set up, it's secured somewhere between 23 and 25 convictions for fraud.

That's ridiculous. That makes a mockery of the idea that this government is genuinely committed to tackling fraud and to stamping out big-provider fraud in the NDIS. That's nowhere near good enough. These people running these companies need to be held to account. I've got absolutely no time for bureaucratic nonsense that talks about how 'maybe we haven't got convictions, but we have put in place processes that have made it so much harder for these people to rip off the system and to rip off disabled people, so we've diverted fraud away. We've stopped it happening so you wouldn't see it in the figures'. Nonsense! If you want to end fraud in organisations, you send a clear cultural message by putting the perpetrators in prison for a long time, and then you watch the culture change and you watch the fraudulent practice from these companies end. That's how you do it.

We need to strengthen these systems. We need to safeguard those who would report fraud by properly strengthening the whistleblower safeguards in the act. More than anything, this government needs to stop pretending that the legislation—the NDIS bill that it's trying to get through this parliament—was created and is intended to ever tackle fraud, because that's nonsense too. When confronted with a basic question—how much money is this government intending to raise in their budget through these NDIS changes from fraudulent providers versus how much will they raise from cutting the basic and essential supports required by disabled people and their families?—what was their response? Their response was: 'Senators, we intend to raise $40 billion over the next four years or thereabouts from our measures, and, of that amount, less than $5 billion comes from fraudulent providers. The rest is from people's basic plans and supports.' It's an absolute outrage, and we must scrap this bill. I seek leave, however, to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

I want to make some brief remarks here. I was in the chamber yesterday when this report was tabled. I have never really seen, in my experience, such a partisan attack on a group of Australians who are simply participating in our democracy. For reasons a little unknown, this government has decided, post an election, on day one, to target and attack a group of people broadly under the description of the Exclusive Brethren church with collective guilt for simply being involved in an election process.

It is not unusual for a group of people to be involved in our elections. The Labor Party, of course, know this very well through the trade union movement. I put on record that my wife and I have been subject to some terrible behaviour from trade unions on polling booths. Once, my wife was pregnant and was told by a particular unionist that he hoped her baby was a mutant. I have never, ever resorted to the conclusion then that all trade unions should be condemned or, somehow, all trade unions should be banned from being involved on polling booths because they're always bad apples. I don't believe in collective punishment of people. I believe in encouraging all Australians to be involved in the political process and the democratic process.

Now, apparently, this government, despite the fact that they won the election and won it well, don't believe that. Apparently, they don't believe that and they want to target a particular group of Australians. Even worse, I haven't heard—I sat through the debate yesterday evening—a single example of conduct like I just described. I did not hear it. There were generic complaints that it was an intimidating environment and there were a lot of people—okay. Being part of a big group is not a crime. Being involved in our democracy is not a crime.

During the election, the Prime Minister referred to members of the Exclusive Brethren as a cult. He referred to a group of people of a certain religious belief as a cult. It was unbecoming of the Prime Minister. Perhaps I could give him some understanding for, in the heat of an election campaign, lashing out in that sort of way. But now, after an election, in the wake of that, where it could be considered properly, the Labor Party continues a jihad on a group of people just trying to practice their religion and just trying to be involved in the Australian political scene.

We saw the spectacle yesterday of a senator from the Greens party effectively concluding that members of a certain religion shouldn't be involved in politics. If you've got religious views, they're not welcome in our democracy. Freedom of religion is at the heart of the beginning of our democracy. It is why, back in the 1500s, a bunch of civil wars in England started the democratic freedoms processes in the countries we now draw our democratic history and heritage from. It was over the very right to freely practice your religion that those wars were fought and that, ultimately, democratic freedoms and practices were established which we still honour—or we should honour—to this day.

This approach should be utterly rejected by this parliament. This one-sided, partisan weaponisation of the committee processes here in this chamber is a disgrace to the democratic process in this country. Everybody can see it for what it is. Particularly, for a political party that won an election to act like sore losers afterwards is unbecoming. The Australian Labor Party, are, I recognise, an important part of our democratic history, but they're not doing themselves any favour with this kind of partisan, self-interested attack on another innocent group of Australians.

To continue the remarks of Senator Canavan, it is disappointing. I've similarly stood on plenty of polling booths where groups of one organisation have a belief in their candidate or in one sort of thing. The unions believe, for better or worse, that the ALP better represents them, so they come out and stand on their booths. There is nothing wrong with that. I would prefer they didn't—I'd like to stay at home and have a beer and watch the footy—but they come out because that represents their belief. If a church or a group of people come out because a different party represents their belief and values, that is a good thing. I stood on a booth where people from the same organisation preferred a different candidate than the coalition candidate, and they handed out for that candidate—not ours—because they preferred that candidate. That is their right. I might have been annoyed at that and preferred they stay home, but they did not. If we go down the path of prosecuting people for standing behind their beliefs, what has this country become? If people have to be mute, remain silent and sit on their hands rather than strive for the country they want, strive for the values they want and strive for the government they want, that is wrong. If I tell the union movement they should no longer be allowed to come out and hand out on ballot papers, that is wrong. GetUp annoy me because they don't run candidates but they're happy to go to polling booths and hand out material, but if I tell them they can't do that, that is wrong.

We should be careful about including only those people that agree with us in the democratic process, because that isn't a democratic process; that is the first step towards dictatorship. Using a report—using a process—to go after people of belief or people with values, whether you agree with them or not, is the wrong thing to do. That is censorship. It is horrific, and I don't want to see it. I also see members from the other place who highlighted the effect of this group behind another community group. The Brethren out in the seat of Calare ran and funded their own rapid response team given the lack of emergency services. It was called the Rapid Relief Team. The local member there, Mr Andrew Gee, highlighted and praised their activities in saving people during the Eugowra floods and put on his social media how it was great to see people come together for their community. He thought it was a good thing when that same group of people, being community focused, were doing a good thing for the community, but as soon as one handed a 'how to vote' card out for someone other than him, they were 'bad people'. That is wrong. Let us not go down the path of choosing who can participate in democracy. Let's not go down the path of saying people are good when they do things you want and bad when they don't.

I feel like you're going to regret saying that.

Here we go: 'I'm going to regret'. Here is a gentleman that's now raising regret for organisations getting involved. Let's talk—through the chair—about the CFMEU, who came out on booths, handing out for the Labor government.

Senator Cadell, please take your seat. I remind all senators that interjections are disorderly, and, certainly, shouting across the chamber is unwarranted. Senator Cadell, please continue with your remarks.

Responding to interjections is allowed in the rulings, and the interjection was clear in that I would regret saying this. There's another implied threat through you, Acting President.

A government senator interjecting—

Here we go; we hear more, so let's go down this path. When we have the CFMEU accused of taking $15 billion of money out of the coffers of Australians to build infrastructure, when we have people from that organisation charged or being investigated or when we have an administrator come in to run the organisation because things are looking so crook—the feeling of this government is that they should be allowed to exercise their democratic right but people of faith should not. People of faith should not be able to act as a group and come out and seek—

Government senators interjecting—

Order! I'm asking you to come to order. I know everyone's excited that it's Thursday, but I will remind people that shouting across—

I'm sorry; did you not hear me, Senator, when I called everyone to order?

This is what we're hearing now. We're hearing that people in the public order that have had allegations made against them can participate, but a group of people who share beliefs another way cannot. Weaponising that and saying that they will be subpoenaed to appear in front of hearings when they have already volunteered to come at a different time is wrong. To use it to try and denigrate others is wrong. And it doesn't matter what group it is. I welcome the involvement of the union movement in democracy. I welcome the involvement of Brethren in democracy. I welcome political parties in democracy, because that is what we do and that is how we make our country better—by getting more people involved in the process, not alienating those who want to be involved.

by leave—I present the report of the Australian parliamentary delegation to the 152nd Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly and bilateral visits to Malaysia, Bangladesh and Turkiye, which took place from 6 to 19 April 2026. I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate to take note of the document.

As I table this report on the bilateral visits to Malaysia, Bangladesh and Turkiye and on the participation of Australian parliamentarians in the Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly, I acknowledge the leadership of the delegation by none other than the Speaker of the Australian parliament, my good friend and a great representative of this nation, the Hon. Milton Dick, the member for the seat of Oxley in Queensland. I also acknowledge my fellow delegates on this bilateral program and attendees at the IPU conference: Ms Sharon Claydon, the Deputy Speaker and member for Newcastle; Senator Andrew McLachlan CSC, senator for South Australia; Senator Tammy Tyrrell, senator for Tasmania; and Mr Basem Abdo, the member for Calwell. In undertaking this work on behalf of the nation and seeking to further parliamentary relationships between our nation and other nations around the world in support of the democratic project, I acknowledge the great support of the chief of staff of the office of the Speaker and also of our delegation secretary, Dr Jane Thomson, who was ably assisted by Ms Fattimah Imtoual. They are all fine Australians doing their part in the international environment to make sure that important discussions are held between our nations.

There were a series of critical themes discussed in the bilaterals as well as at the IPU, about clean and green initiatives operating in Australia, about civics and, critically, about democracy—also, how we include youth engagement through a youth parliament, and gender equality and representation. And we had some conversations with our fellow parliamentarians around financial transparency.

When we travelled to Malaysia, which was the first point at which we contacted our parliamentarian colleagues, we covered issues of mutual interest—strengthening those parliamentary ties, particularly talking to the civil society, and how democracy works. We had a roundtable to discuss the topic of Malaysia's institutional governance reforms. It is very important for us to understand that development in Malaysia.

We then travelled to the People's Republic of Bangladesh with the objective of strengthening those parliamentary engagements. The focus of these meetings was on parliamentary systems, good democratic governance and discussions to support Bangladesh's ongoing democratic transition in light of recent national elections, which were held in February 2026. Another pertinent topic of discussion during a meeting with the speaker, the deputy speaker and other members of the Bangladeshi parliament was of course regarding the parliamentary committee structure that we have here in Australia and the functions that they provide in strong democracies. In visiting the Bangladesh parliament, our delegation also discussed ways to strengthen parliamentary democracy, including by enhancing legislative independence and increasing transparency.

Our final bilateral visit of the trip was to Turkiye, where we paid our respects to the fallen Anzac soldiers at the Haidar Pasha Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery. As part of the general debate at the IPU, Mr Speaker, Mr Abdo and I all contributed on important topics. Mr Speaker spoke about his personal mission to advance youth engagement and his support of civics. Critically, Australia co-sponsored—through the voice and active engagement of the Speaker of the Australian parliament—a proposal for an emergency debate focused on the need for parliamentary efforts to preserve ceasefires and support peacebuilding in the Middle East and elsewhere. Mr Speaker did a sterling job for our delegation, expressing our support for the role that parliamentarians collectively have in supporting regional and global peace initiatives. We were very successful in having that carried by the 152nd IPU gathering.

Finally, I want to indicate that I did some work as the co-rapporteur on the Standing Committee for Sustainable Development, and the assembly endorsed the work of the committee, which was undertaken with the support of my co-rapporteurs, Senator Rojo Edwards from Chile and Ms Jacqueline Sabao from Zambia. The resolution, which was accepted unanimously across the assembly, was about building a fair and sustainable global economy and a minimum taxation inside countries to make sure that all countries benefit from the profits that are made by multinationals in their jurisdiction. I commend the report to the Senate.

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

by leave—I want to make a short statement regarding a response to the order for the production of documents No. 488 concerning Festival Tower Two.

The response to the order presented out of sitting on 16 June 2026 inadvertently contained some personal information. I seek leave to table a replacement response to the order. The only change in that response is to redact personal information.

Order! The President has received letters requesting changes in the membership of various committees.

by leave—I move:

Community Affairs Legislation and References Committees —

Discharged—Senator Cox

Appointed—Senator Whiteaker

Corporations and Financial Services — Joint Statutory Committee —

Discharged—Senator Whiteaker

Appointed—Senator Dolega

Electoral Matters — Joint Standing Committee —

Discharged—Senator Grogan

Appointed—

Senator Brown

Participating member [for the purposes of the committee's inquiry into the 2025 election]: Senator Grogan

Environment and Communications Legislation and References Committees —

Discharged—Senator Walker

Appointed—Senator Brown

Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee —

Discharged—Senator Whiteaker

Appointed—Senator Walker

Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation and References Committees —

Discharged—Senator Whiteaker

Appointed—Senator Cox

Productivity in Australia — Select Committee —

Discharged—Senator Grogan

Appointed—Senator Darmanin

Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation — Standing Committee —

Discharged—Senator Darmanin

Appointed—Senator Walker

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—

STATUTE UPDATE BILL 2026

The Statute Update Bill 2026 amends 42 Commonwealth Acts to make minor, technical amendments across the Commonwealth statute book, including to fix errors, remove spent and obsolete provisions, and update references to align with modern legislative drafting practice. The Bill also repeals 106 spent or obsolete Acts. Such amendments would improve the quality of legislation and ensure it can be more easily understood.

Statute Law Revision Acts and Statute Stocktake Acts have been passed since 1934 in order to remove obsolete and spent provisions from the statute book and correct drafting mistakes. They are traditionally non-controversial and are essential to keep the Commonwealth statute book accurate and up-to-date.

Statute law revision and update Bills aim to enhance the clarity and efficiency of the statute book. The amendments are minor and technical in nature and either make no change, or only minor changes, to the substance of the law, and only in ways that are consistent with the scope and intention of the relevant provisions.

This Bill contains 2 Schedules. Schedule 1 contains general amendments to 42 Acts across the Commonwealth statute book. These are intended to enhance readability, facilitate interpretation and administration, and promote consistency across the Commonwealth statute book.

Amendments in this schedule correct typographical errors and minor inconsistencies, update references, and repeal spent or obsolete provisions within Acts. Schedule 1 also makes minor updates to reflect modern drafting practices. The amendments are minor and technical in nature, and either make no change or only minor changes to the substance of the law.

Schedule 2 repeals 106 Acts. The amendments relate to Acts that are spent or redundant and do not alter the current or future effect of the law in any way.

These ongoing improvements to legislation are important to ensure that the Commonwealth statute book remains up to date, accurate and accessible.

In accordance with standing order 111, further consideration of this bill is now adjourned to 11 August 2026.

I move:

That these bills may proceed without formalities, may be taken together and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bills 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—

DEFENCE LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (IMPLEMENTATION OF RELATED MEASURES NO.2) BILL 2026

I am pleased to present the Defence Legislation Amendment (RCDVS Implementation and Related Measures No. 2) Bill. This Bill reflects the Government's ongoing commitment to responding to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. On 9 September 2024, the Royal Commission delivered its Final Report, making 122 recommendations. The Government agreed to, or agreed-in-principle to, 104 of the recommendations.

This Bill directly implements 15 of those recommendations, and supports a further 20 recommendations focused on strengthening health and wellbeing outcomes, improving suicide prevention and information sharing, supporting Defence families, enhancing transition and continuity of care and modernising governance and accountability arrangements.

Broadly, the reforms in the Bill support the health, wellbeing and safety of current and former ADF members, and their families, prioritising these matters in both Defence and the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA), supporting information sharing for these purposes, establishing more robust frameworks for Defence health services, enhancing family supports and ensuring people who have been imprisoned for serious violence and sexual offences can never serve in the Defence Force.

The Bill provides clear statutory authority for entrusted persons to collect, use and disclose information for research, data analysis and evaluation relating to health, wellbeing and safety outcomes. These powers are balanced by strong privacy safeguards, including compliance with ministerial guidelines, requirements for de-identification where practicable, and alignment with the Privacy Act framework.

Critically, the Bill supports a more integrated approach across Defence, OVA and other portfolio agencies, including the new Veteran and Family Wellbeing Agency. It enables more efficient and effective information sharing to support continuity of care, proactive outreach and improved transition arrangements, including the earlier transfer of relevant information from Defence to OVA. This will support timely claims processing, compensation and tailored support for individuals identified as being at increased risk, consistent with Royal Commission recommendations 78, 80, 87 and 102 regarding moral injury, transition support, a veterans wellbeing agency, and family and domestic violence.

Together with other Royal Commission-related reforms, this Bill delivers further practical, system-wide change aimed at reducing harm, supporting families and ensuring Defence is better equipped to intervene earlier and more effectively when members, veterans and families are at risk.

Specifically, the Bill contains five Schedules.

Schedule 1-lnformation sharing to improve wellbeing, health and safety outcomes

Schedule 1 of the Bill inserts a new part in the Defence Act 1903 focused on health and wellbeing support for Defence Force members, veterans and their families, and amends the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 to enhance the Repatriation Commission's functions to include the provision of wellbeing supports for Defence Force members, veterans and their families, including during transition out of the Defence Force. It establishes new arrangements to support the lawful, ethical and proportionate collection, use and disclosure of information to enhance health, wellbeing and safety outcomes for Defence members, veterans and their families.

The Royal Commission identified that Defence and veterans' systems hold critical information, but systemic deficiencies in information sharing and data integration have led to information siloes, delays or gaps in access. These issues have been significant barriers to identifying risks and providing proactive support where needed, evaluating what works and strengthening suicide prevention.

Schedule 1 addresses these issues by creating clear, transparent and proportionate authority for information sharing in critical areas of focus for the Royal Commission.

Schedule 1 supports the implementation of several Royal Commission recommendations, including 74, 80, 87, 107 110, and 116 regarding privacy legislation, transition, wellbeing, a national veterans' data asset, Defence data, and research, by striking the right balance between protecting privacy and enabling disclosure of information where a member or veteran may be at risk or in distress; supporting wellbeing during transition from service and underpinning the operation of the new Veteran and Family Wellbeing Agency and the new National Veterans' Data Asset. It will also enhance research and data capabilities, improve timeliness of information sharing between Defence and OVA to support claims processing efficiency, and strengthen the quality, integration and use of data, particularly in relation to preventing suicide and suicidality.

Defence and OVA are only able to collect personal information where it is reasonably necessary for the performance of their functions. Use and disclosure will be limited to legislative purposes and safeguards—primarily health, wellbeing and safety of members, veterans and their families.

These reforms will enable Defence and DVA to better understand suicide risk factors and deliver a more responsive and integrated experience for those across the Defence and OVA ecosystem, supporting earlier, proactive interventions for individuals assessed as vulnerable.

Faster access to ADF members' information will mean OVA can process claims from those members as they arise.

This will directly address recommendations 94 and 98 of the Royal Commission regarding data sharing and OVA claim processing times. The new wellbeing and transition support functions will enable the Veteran and Family Wellbeing Agency to connect individuals with tailored supports and services appropriate to their individual needs whether or not they have started a claim with DVA.

Schedule 2-Defence health services

Schedule 2 modernises and clarifies the legislative framework for Defence health services in direct response to several Royal Commission recommendations, including 67, 68, 76, 78, 113 and 116 regarding clinical governance frameworks, beneficial disclosures, postvention, moral injury, continuous improvement and research.

The Defence health system performs a unique role. It ensures members are fit to serve, supports operational capability, and underpins long-term health and wellbeing. The Royal Commission found that the legal framework governing this system has not kept pace with contemporary clinical practice, particularly in relation to mental health, data use and clinical governance.

Schedule 2 addresses this by clearly defining the Defence health system, those who work within it, the services it provides and the information it generates, and by clarifying how that information may be collected, used and disclosed. This clarification will improve access to timely mental health screening and enable the appropriate use of health information for system monitoring, quality assurance and continuous improvement.

The Schedule allows Defence to collect, use and disclose health information for population-level monitoring and evaluation, while embedding safeguards and strengthening legal protections for health practitioners involved in approved quality assurance and improvement activities. This ensures clinicians can engage openly and candidly in safety and quality assurance processes, mirroring best practice in civilian health systems.

This will, for the first time, provide a clear statutory framework governing how health information may be collected, used and disclosed within the Defence health system.

It ensures members receive earlier, better coordinated care, while enabling command to make safe and appropriate fitness for duty decisions based on limited, relevant information.

Critically, the framework is calibrated to member interests: statutory authority is provided for uses that support member health and operational readiness. This principled approach reflects the RCDVS's recognition that ADF members' right to privacy and confidentiality must be respected alongside the health and operational needs of the force.

The Bill also supports alignment with the National Model Clinical Governance Framework, enabling Defence to actively manage clinical safety, monitor effectiveness and improve service quality in line with national standards.

These arrangements for Defence health services align with civilian settings and are tailored to the unique requirements of the ADF.

For example, key decisions about which health conditions to monitor, what quality assurance activities to undertake, and how state and territory requirements apply in the Defence health system, are decisions made by the Surgeon-General of the ADF as the ADF officer with resp0rnsibility for delivery of the Defence health system.

These reforms respond directly to the Royal Commission's finding that data relevant to suicide, suicidality and health is often fragmented or unavailable when needed.

Schedule 3-lnformation sharing to support ADF families

Schedule 3 of the Bill strengthens legislative support for Defence families, recognising their critical role in the health, wellbeing and safety of Defence members. It gives effect to Royal Commission recommendations 102 and 103 regarding family and domestic violence and support for defence families by improving support, communication and services provided to Defence families, including through the Defence Strategy for Preventing and Responding to Family and Domestic Violence.

The Royal Commission identified a clear nexus between family and domestic violence and suicide risk, and emphasised the need for Defence to address family violence as part of its broader suicide prevention framework.

Service in the ADF can place significant strain on members and their families. Family and relationship breakdowns, particularly when compounded by the pressures of service life, can increase the risk of harm, including suicidality, for serving and ex-serving members.

Schedule 3 responds by ensuring systems are in place to communicate directly with families about available services, payments and supports. It allows for information sharing so that families are better informed and better supported and ensures that former partners impacted by family and domestic violence are not excluded from assistance during separation.

In practice this will enable provision of a payment or benefit to a former partner in relation to family or domestic violence to assist the safe separation of the former partner and the member.

Schedule 4-Requirements to serve in the Defence Force

Schedule 4 introduces clearer and fairer end-of-service provisions to strengthen integrity, accountability and procedural fairness within Defence. It implements Royal Commission recommendation 22 by establishing more transparent and consistent arrangements for mandatory end of service where members are convicted of certain offences, while preserving appropriate safeguards and review mechanisms.

The Royal Commission emphasised that Defence decision-making affecting a person's service must be clear, proportionate and consistent with contemporary community expectations. Schedule 4 responds by modernising legislative arrangements governing acceptance into service, continuation of service and termination, ensuring decisions are made on a sound statutory footing and with appropriate procedural protections. These reforms provide greater clarity for members and decision-makers, reduce the risk of inconsistent and ad hoc outcomes, and ensure that decisions to enter, continue or leave service are made in a way that is transparent, fair and aligned with contemporary standards.

Critically, these changes strengthen fitness for service and end of service provisions to make clear that anyone who is imprisoned for an act of serious violence or a sexual offence will automatically be separated from service and will not be accepted back into service in the Defence Force.

Schedule 5-0ther amendments

Schedule 5 makes a number of minor amendments that support the independence of the Defence and Veterans' Service Commission and its ability to undertake its role consistently with Royal Commission recommendation 122. These changes improve transparency, strengthen accountability mechanisms and ensure that inquiry powers and reporting processes function as intended.

This Bill represents a considered, comprehensive and necessary response to the findings of the Royal Commission. It supports better health, wellbeing and safety outcomes for members, veterans and families. It strengthens information sharing to support prevention and early intervention, modernises Defence health governance, improves support for families and ensures service entry and exit arrangements are grounded in safety, integrity and accountability.

Above all, it ensures that Defence and OVA systems are fit for purpose, designed to protect the health, wellbeing and safety of those who serve, have served and those who support them, and to give practical, lasting effect to the findings and intent of the Royal Commission.

I commend the Bill.

HEALTH INSURANCE AMENDMENT (INCENTIVE PAYMENTS AND OTHER MEASURES) BILL 2026

I move that this Bill be now read a second time.

The Health Insurance Amendment (Incentive Payments and Other Measures) Bill 2026 is an important step in strengthening the integrity, transparency and sustainability of Medicare primary healthcare funding.

Medicare is the very best of Australia. It allows Australian to receive high-quality health care, regardless of their bank balance.

The Albanese Government is strengthening Medicare, the heart of universal healthcare, to make it easier for Australians to see a GP for free.

Primary care incentive programs are a central part of how the Government is strengthening Medicare. They support better access, affordability and quality in Australia's primary care system.

These programs are an integral part of Medicare and provide targeted support to healthcare providers to improve patient outcomes, expand access to care, particularly in rural and regional communities, and encourage innovation in service delivery.

These programs include those introduced by this Government. This includes the Bulk Billing Practice Incentive Program, which supports practices to provide bulk billed Medicare services to patients, and the General Practice Aged Care Incentive, which supports the delivery of high-quality primary care to older Australians in residential aged care.

These programs are working, with bulk billing rates increasing in every state and territory since the Bulk Billing Practice Incentive Program was introduced. Thanks to this program, approximately 97 per cent of the population are now within a 20-minute drive of a bulk billing practice.

They also include long-standing programs such as the Practice Incentives Program, which supports quality improvement and better health outcomes through targeted payments to general practices, and the Workforce Incentive Program, which supports a stronger multidisciplinary primary care workforce, particularly in rural and regional areas.

Together, all of these incentive programs represent over $1.4 billion of this Government's annual investment in Australia's healthcare system.

However, these incentive payment programs currently operate without a clear and consistent legislative framework tailored to their administration, compliance and oversight.

This Bill addresses that gap.

It establishes, for the first time, a clear and enduring legislative framework for Commonwealth health incentive payment programs.

The Bill inserts a new Part into the Health Insurance Act 1973 to provide a consistent statutory basis for the establishment and administration of these programs, while retaining flexibility for operational program detail to be set through rules.

This approach ensures that the framework is robust, while remaining adaptable to evolving health system needs.

The reforms in this Bill will deliver several key improvements.

First, they provide greater certainty for healthcare providers and government by placing these programs on a stable legislative footing.

Second, they establish clear and consistent processes for program participation, administration and decision-making, including strengthened approval pathways and procedural fairness safeguards.

Third, they enhance the integrity of government expenditure by ensuring that existing compliance, information use and debt recovery provisions apply appropriately to incentive payment programs

Together, these changes support proper administration, protect public money, and maintain confidence in incentive payment programs under Medicare.

Importantly, the Bill does not alter the underlying policy settings of existing incentive programs. There are no proposed changes to substantive eligibility criteria or payment amounts for providers.

Providers currently receiving payments will transition seamlessly into the new legislative framework without the need to reapply. This ensures continuity for providers and avoids unnecessary administrative burden.

Importantly, it provides stability, so patients can continue to benefit from the outcomes of these programs and strengthened access to primary care.

The Bill also modernises the legislative architecture underpinning these programs.

It enables the use of automated administrative processes, supported by appropriate safeguards, transparency and oversight mechanisms. These provisions are designed to support efficient, high-volume administration while maintaining accountability and review rights.

Australians rightly expect care when technology is used in decision making. That is why a cautious and deliberate approach is taken for the automation of administrative processes.

The Bill establishes structured review mechanisms, including internal reconsideration processes and access to independent merits review by the Administrative Review Tribunal. This ensures that providers have clear avenues to challenge decisions that affect them.

The Bill also strengthens information-sharing arrangements to support administration and program integrity, while maintaining appropriate protections for personal information.

A further important element of the Bill is the amendment to the short title of the Health Insurance Act 1973 to the Medicare Act.

This change better reflects the scope and purpose of the legislation and improves public recognition and understanding of the Act. The renaming will occur following a transition period to allow for consequential amendments across Commonwealth, state and territory frameworks.

This Bill is a foundational reform that supports the Government's broader delivery of its strengthening Medicare reforms that will improve access to high-quality primary care.

By providing a stronger statutory basis for administering, monitoring and protecting the integrity of Medicare incentive payment programs, the Bill helps ensure that Government investment in primary care is delivered effectively and sustainably.

This Government is committed to Strengthening Medicare. Measures introduced in successive Budgets since 2022 has have stopped the freefall in bulk billing rates. Instead, we are now seeing them rise. This bill supports improved health outcomes, better access to care, and a stronger primary care system for all Australians.

I commend the Bill to the House.

In accordance with standing order 115 (3), further consideration of these bills is now adjourned to 4 September and 14 August 2026 respectively.

I move:

That these bills be listed as separate orders today.

Question agreed to.

I move:

That the Senate notes that grocery prices have skyrocketed due to net-zero policies, energy costs, foreign corporate land ownership and massive regulatory costs faced by farmers dealing with red, green, black and blue tape.

What is happening in Australia now is something we cannot disregard. It should concern everyone, especially the people in this parliament, because the decisions that we make and legislation that we introduce do affect the people of Australia.

That's why I've moved this motion to speak to the rising cost of living. Grocery prices have skyrocketed due to net zero policies, energy costs, foreign land ownership and regulatory cost forced on the farming sector by red, black and green tape, and blue for that matter. Blue tape means United Nations agreements that we've been signed up to and free trade agreements or whatever agreements we've signed up to which dictate to us. They're not agreements that have been born out of this parliament but have been signed behind closed doors by our ministers of the day, and we're bound to them.

The biggest thing that's coming out of all this is the cost of living. We have homeless in Australia, and we hear so often from our aged that cannot afford to pay their bills and are choosing whether to put on a heater, buy their medicines or eat. And too often we hear about the homeless sleeping in their cars—families in their cars. You see it constantly, all the time. I see it even where I live, driving past people that are living in their cars and people living in tents with their children. And it's an absolute disgrace to see this country has gotten to this situation. As I said, it all comes down to what has been passed by this government, previous governments and successive governments that we've had in this country; that is delivering to us what we are enduring today.

I want to read you some figures here. The Salvation Army's latest Red Shield Appeal report, released in May this year, highlights the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on the low-income Australian families. Of the 4,400 people surveyed, 19 per cent said they'd eaten food from rubbish bins in the past 12 months; 60 per cent said they'd eaten expired or spoiled food; 91 per cent said they had skipped meals, and 32 per cent said they do so on a daily basis; 35 per cent said they survived on only one meal a day; 67 per cent said they watered down food and drinks to make them last longer; 35 per cent of parents said their children had gone to school hungry; 59 per cent said their children had missed school because they couldn't afford the transport costs; 84 per cent said they went to bed early to keep warm; 63 per cent said they used candles and torches for lighting their homes; 49 per cent said they go to public places like shopping centres to keep warm or cool; 51 per cent can't afford a doctor, dentist or optometrist; and 46 per cent can't afford prescription medicine. OzHarvest's annual Frontline report this year showed about 350,000 Australians were seeking food relief each month; more than two-thirds of them are families. Charities report having to turn away 74,000 people each month, and every charity reports increasing demand. About 36 per cent of people seeking relief are doing so for the first time. Almost a third of households needing relief have at least one employed person.

These figures—they're absolutely disgusting. They're appalling. And it's like, 'Who cares? Who's really talking about these figures?' Even with full-time jobs supporting them, hundreds of thousands of families in Australia need basic food relief just to get by. We hear about it all the time. And it just doesn't seem to be sinking in. This is the main issue on people's minds at the moment: can they feed their families? And, like I said, it's about whether you can turn on a light, or keep yourself warm or cool. It's about: 'Can we actually buy the medicines? How are we going to survive? Are the kids going to be fed?'

These real impacts on us are coming from net zero, and I'll tell you why. This government has been driving net zero to the point that electricity costs have gone up exponentially. That's why we can't afford this. So everything comes from the cost of electricity. We've seen, in past decades or centuries, that having electricity creates productivity and a decent standard of living and way of life. But since this government has driven this net zero BS—that's why we're in the state that we are in now, because we can't produce the electricity that we need to drive this nation and to give cheap electricity costs.

Now, primarily, there has been a massive increase in the cost of Australian electricity—at least 206 per cent since the first introduction of large-scale renewable-energy targets by the Howard coalition government in 2001. In some states, the figures is closer to 300 per cent. The cost to Australian taxpayers of the renewable energy transition—the chief vehicle by which proponents claim net zero will be achieved by 2050—is estimated at $1.5 trillion. Get your head around that: $1.5 trillion. That's $1,500 billion.

The massive geographic footprint and high materials and energy intensity required by renewable energy generation, including wind turbines, solar facilities, batteries and new transmission lines, are particularly impacting productive agricultural land, native forests and ocean habitats and increasing the vulnerability of Australian energy grids to weather or system shocks, examples of which include the statewide blackout of South Australia in September 2016 and the nationwide blackouts in Spain and Portugal in April 2025. The impact of record-high electricity prices on Australian households, businesses and industry has been devastating. So, because of all this net zero—because of renewables—blackouts are happening.

Outside of Europe, Australia has the highest average household electricity prices in the world. This is substantially higher than other Western nations rich in natural energy resources such as the United States which is $1.179 per kilowatt hour. It's $1.157 in Norway, and we're more than twice as high as Canada's average price of $1.118. Household energy costs in Australia have increased by up to 40 per cent in just the past two years to June 2025 under the pro-net-zero Albanese Labor government.

In December 2024, the Australian Energy Regulator revealed more than 130,000 Australian households were on energy hardship plans in 2024, up from fewer than 96,000 in 2023. The AER also revealed that more than 215,000 Australians are in energy debt with average household energy debt in 2025 at $1,415. That's up $309 from the previous year. This government says: 'Oh, well, we're going to give you a rebate. We're going to give you a couple of hundred dollars here in rebates, and that's going to solve the problem.' It just keeps going up and up and up, and it will continue to go up.

Let me just tell you what they're putting in at Scone. Go and ask the people about transmission lines. I had a meeting the other day, and it was pointed out to me about the plan for all these wind turbines going all down the East Coast, then around Victoria, South Australia—Western Australia's in there—and Tasmania. What they're going to do in Tasmania is they want to put all these wind turbines there and hook it up with the Marinus Link to give cheap power to Victoria and destroy Tasmania. A lot of people don't realise this. The cost of doing these transmission lines is massive. They got 4,500 wind turbines now in Australia. They're planning to put in 31,000 wind turbines.

I passed down through Bathurst. When I was there, there was a 3,000-acre property covered with solar panels. In some of these solar panel areas, they're planning to put in five million solar panels. That's on agricultural land. Once you lose that land, you'll never get it back. There's only so much land that we have in Australia that we can grow our food and product on. This is the plan for Australia. In Scone, that's near the Walcha powerlines. They're wanting to put in some powerlines, some transmission lines and wind turbines. They're wanting to put up these transmission lines. It's going to go through 150 farms and landholders. There's been no consultation and nothing's happened. That project was going to cost about double what's charged for the Central West.

There was another powerline that was put in and that was going to originally cost $650 million. That was in 2020. Guess what. That blew out to $5.5 billion. The one they're planning at Scone is supposed to be double the $650 million, so $1.3 billion. Who knows what it's going to blow out to—possibly to $20 billion. This is what the taxpayer pays for. And, on top of that, you don't get cheap power. It actually costs you more in power. The people have to be prepared for that to actually happen.

But, while we're doing all this, we are such fools. We are living in such an energy rich nation. We've got one per cent of carbon emissions, but we're destroying our nation, our productivity, our industries, our manufacturing, and we're putting people in poverty because you're pushing these renewables. Asia emits 60 per cent of the world's emissions. We export seven times the coal we use. That's smart. That's really smart.

It's slower growth and declining living standards. Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter and the second largest gas exporter. You couldn't make this up. This is just ridiculous. We have 30 per cent of the world's uranium. We should have the world's cheapest energy. But we ban the use of hydrocarbons and nuclear power. Australia's de-industrialisation means Australia has now the smallest manufacturing share of the OECD countries of the world. We can't even make anything here any more. Under this current Albanese government, we've lost over 1,400 industries and manufacturing. Under this current government we've lost jobs, prosperity, money into the country. The cost pressure of high energy costs force productivity down.

Asia energy sources are a major driver of carbon emissions—60 per cent of carbon emissions worldwide and over 80 per cent of the world's coal use. This is Asia. They're going to ramp up their coal use. Internationally, Asia will burn 150 million tonnes of more coal this century. But we shut it down. We can't use it. We can't have coal-fired power stations deliver us that stable, reliable power that we need. No, that's stupid. That's too stupid.

You wind and solar can only deliver 30 per cent of power on a good day, if you're lucky. It's only on a good day, so 70 per cent of our power at the moment comes from coal and gas, but we're exporting everything and we're stupid enough—listen to this—that we actually are importing our gas. We're going to start importing gas, and we can't burn our coal. We're driving this country into such a state that people can't afford power, and the cost of groceries will keep going up and up under this current government.

That's why we oppose it. Common sense tells you this is not a good business proposition for the people of Australia. You're running them into absolute poverty. Australia exports four times more gas than we use. The UK and Germany have destroyed their economies, going after this de-industrialisation, and Australia is following. Then we want to go down the data centres. I'll tell you what: data centres use 24/7 power and need stable base load power. On top of that, this government predicted a population increase by 50 per cent over the next 40 years. They're electrifying an entire vehicle fleet. This is what we're doing. That government is running this country into the ground.

I welcome the debate that's been brought forward by Senator Hanson, because we just haven't heard enough from the government about the most important issue facing Australian families, and that is the cost of living. It is the most common issue that's raised with me. When we get out of this place—we'll get out of it soon—I'm sure we'll be inundated. When we go back to our electorates, when we go back to watching our kids at the soccer fields and the like, people will go, 'Jeez, everything is costing so much in this country, and why is it?'

The biggest reaction I had on budget night—now we're finishing these budget sessions, so it was back in early May, six weeks or so ago—was, 'What are they doing about the cost of living?' There was just no mention of it. It was it was just completely ignored by this government, despite it being consistently the most important issue that's raised by Australians as what's wrong with the country right now. It comes through in all of our polling that all political parties do. The cost of living is right up top, way, way above everything else. But there was not even a mention of it in the budget speech six weeks ago. It's the major economic plan from any government each year, an annual statement they make on what their plans are for the economy, and it was pretty clear the government had no plan on this.

In fact, it was the first budget speech this government has given—they've given four of these now—where they did not even mention and did not promise to lower electricity prices. It was a core promise of this government when they came to power that they would lower your electricity bills. The Prime Minister infamously said it almost 100 times on the hustings in the 2022 election that he and the Labor Party won. They promised that they would lower your power bills by $275. It hasn't happened. In every budget speech they gave, though, until this one, they repeated the promise—that is, they wouldn't repeat the $275 figure; they dropped that pretty quick, but they repeated the promise that their investments in these renewable energy things, their investments in hydrogen, their investments in batteries would lower electricity prices for Australian families. That was until this one. It didn't happen. They never got there. They never reduced electricity prices. The average family's bill has gone up at least $500 since this government came to power, but many families with larger households, with kids, end up with bills that are $1,000 or more than what they were four or so years ago.

It hasn't happened, but the government did keep up this myth, this idea, that, 'while we don't have these discounts today, come back to the pub tomorrow, and there'll be free beer. There'll be free beer tomorrow. Just hold you out,' like at the Ettamogah Pub. 'There's free beer tomorrow.' But, when you come back tomorrow, the sign is still there; it hasn't changed. That's what this government's economic pressure was, but at least now it's had to drop the sign, because people have come back enough years to realise this is a trick; this is a ruse. So now they're not even promising to lower electricity prices and therefore lower the cost of living.

Instead, they've now sought to distract the Australian people with a massive big tax grab, with a policy that they don't really know what the impact will be on the property market. Let's say a few prayers for our banks, for our financial institutions, for property! The government has no real idea of what it's doing at the moment. It's making up things as it goes along. So we come back to asking: what is the plan here?

There's a very strong reason why this is the most important issue, why people see this. They're not fools. They can see. When you get to the checkout now—and often you're at these self-service things—you can see it; you can see that the bill goes up every time you scan. You look down at your basket and you look back at the checkout and you think, '$50 doesn't get you much these days, does it?' It's hard. I find it hard. I've got five kids. It's hard to actually buy stuff for dinner that's less than 50 bucks if you want some meat, some protein. It's expensive stuff. If you're not just going to do noodles or something, if you're going to actually give your kids a healthy dinner, you struggle to get it under about 50 bucks. That's what it used to cost to go out; you'd go out for a takeaway meal and you might spend 50 bucks or 60 bucks. That was a special night. Now every night making dinner is a real challenge. You're left with tacos to get something reasonable, but even the price of that has gone through the roof. Forget about doing a steak on a regular basis. It's out of control.

In a country like ours, we should be able to offer every Australian family to be able to afford a steak for themselves and their kids. We've got all this cattle. We've got all this land. Why can't we afford it? Because we impose all these costs on farmers, on our food production. The farmers have to make money. The processors have to make money. They're being loaded up with so much cost that all of that has to be passed through.

I want to use a stark Australian example here to hammer this home. I just checked this while I was listening to Senator Hanson. It's a comparison I've used a few times, but I just made sure it was still the case. I looked up Woolworths. At the moment, if you go down to your local Woolies to get yourself a pack of Tim Tams, to eat while you watch the footy over the weekend, that's going to set you back six bucks. That's six bucks for nine Tim Tam biscuits. That's 66c a biscuit these days. At least it might be good for your diet! You won't want to have too many of them.

If you have a look—all this stuff's online now; you can check it easily—you can all see how terribly this government has managed our economy. If you go to Walmart in Canada, a pack of Tim Tams is Can$3.98. If you convert that, at the current exchange rate they're about the same; we're about parity, so it's $4.08. That is compared to six bucks here. So it's Can44c. If you're a Canadian, good luck to you! You get your Tim Tams for Can44c each. How is it that a basic Australian staple is now costing 33 per cent more, a third more, in Australia than it does in Canada? How has that happened? Have we lost a war or something? What happened? Why?

There's one big difference: Canada uses its energy resources. It's always proudly used its oil and gas, even while it's had hopeless left-wing governments. Even this current one has completely scrapped all their carbon taxes. They've moved away from all this rubbish in Canada, even under a left-wing government. They had to scrap the Trudeau government because they were failing all these issues, but even under the Trudeau government, every time I went there, they were still massively oil and gas. They promote their resources. They promote their industry. They're proud, in Alberta and these provinces, of their industry. They export it to the world.

But this country has followed a naive approach, a different approach, where we've denigrated them. This government denigrated our coal industry and denigrated our gas industry. We still export it to the world. We do that, just not proudly. We let that happen because the government needs the revenues to pay its bills, to cover its wasteful spending; we just don't use the resources ourselves. We deny ourselves the use of the resources.

The government's only response now is to provide more and more subsidies—that have run out now, for electricity, at least directly. Let's see your electricity bills go through the roof. They're reliant now on an unbelievably wasteful home battery scheme. This is one of the greatest scandals in Australia's fiscal history. A scheme that was meant to cost around $2.8 billion is now $12 billion. This home battery scheme has blown out by six times. Then they have the temerity to say, 'This is a cheap form of power.' How is it cheap? It's $12 billion. You're all paying for that—people pay for that—just not through your bill. You pay it through the debt that we're racking up and the interest we're going to have to pay on that debt. It's still being paid for; it's not cheap. It's $12 billion for those batteries—and counting. So that hasn't helped.

But, more to the point here, this fundamentally misunderstands the importance of energy to our economy, because this government has been trapped in this political spin on energy where it only really views the energy question at the household level, through people's household bills. And that's very important—the electricity bill is very important to everyone. You can see it. You know how much it's costing. So, when the government come along and say, 'We'll give you a battery; we'll give you a rebate for a few years,' they think they've solved the problem. But the problem is that the electricity that households use—that pops up on your bill—is only about a quarter of the energy used in Australia. Businesses use four times the amount of power that households do, in Australia. The power that goes into making Tim Tams, that goes into making bread, that goes into refrigerating and transporting milk—that energy use is way, way more than what we use to run even our air conditioning or dishwashers or TVs in our homes. It's just off the scale.

What happens is, when electricity prices go up, when energy prices go up, yes, you feel the impact through your bill, but you actually feel it a lot more keenly through your shopping trolley. It's a silent cost increase—well, it's not silent; you see it, but people don't know it. They don't see it on the Woolworths docket. You don't see, 'Okay, this is the amount that it's gone up by because of electricity costs.' It's just embedded in all these products, embedded right through our economy.

The National Party did some work on this a few years ago in partnership with our research centre, our think tank—the Page Research Centre. They did some work and looked at what the impact of the increase in electricity prices is on the average household bill. They found that the cost from the higher energy prices we've seen under this government was over $3,000 extra. So, as I said earlier, electricity bills have gone up by maybe about $500 to $1,000 depending on the size of your home, but your other costs, the costs of buying things at the shops, have gone up another $3,000. That's the impact on Australians; that's why people are feeling this cost-of-living crisis. And that's why the government's gaffer-tape-type solutions at a household level are not going to work. They're not dealing with the fundamental problem, which is the efficiency, the productivity of our electricity sector.

That brings me to one of the most important issues here, and that is the productivity of our economy. The government's been making a big play this week of the fact that on 1 July, yesterday, the minimum wage went up 4.75 per cent, saying: 'Great! Your wages are up 4.75 per cent.' It sounds good; that's a pretty good increase if you just look at it at that level. What the government don't say—or they don't say it in the same sentence—is that their own budget papers that they released at the start of this sitting period say that inflation this financial year is set to be five per cent. So your minimum wage goes up by 4.75 per cent, but the price of everything, on average—sometimes it's going up by more than that—is going up by five per cent. Now, either the government are just completely deceiving you or they're not very good at maths, but five is greater than 4.75. So, if the price of everything you buy is going up five per cent and your wage is going up 4.75 per cent, you are not better off. You're worse off. You've gone backwards.

That's why the government's rhetoric on wages going up is falling flat, because people are not stupid. They can see that their living standards are falling at a rate we've never seen. The first four years of this government have seen the worst performance in our productivity in our nation's history—and it's not even close. In fact, we have never had a four-year period—four consecutive years—in our nation's history where productivity growth has been negative. Sometimes it dips, it goes down, but it has always stayed even just slightly positive over any consecutive four-year period—until now. This is a record-setting government in a negative fashion. They have set the record: productivity growth has fallen over this first four years of their government, and not just by a little bit; it's fallen by five per cent. It is a five per cent fall in just four years.

That's why we can't get real wage increases. It's why, when wages started going up, as they did last year, inflation broke out again. We had the highest inflation rate before the Iran war—so before the war, before the increase in fuel prices, we had the highest inflation rate in the developed world. That is because, without productivity, you can't offer higher wage increases without it leading to this increase in prices and this spiral. The Reserve Bank had to increase interest rates again. After a small respite last year of a couple of reductions, we're now back to increasing rates—and we might get another one before we're back—and that's because we just haven't dealt with a major issue.

The government had a productivity conference last year. They had a roundtable with lots of fanfare. They invited all these business leaders and everybody to come here. But, just like in their budget, they ignored the major issue. They ignored electricity prices; it didn't rate on their agenda. If you look at what's happened to productivity in our country at a sectoral level, there is an electricity issue. Electricity is a sector that's gone down massively in the last 20 years—a 20 per cent reduction in our productivity in electricity. The mining industry's had a similar reduction, although there are some specific issues there that I don't have time to go into—particularly around the terms of trade booms—but it's electricity where we could have a big impact. If we got that right, it would make a huge difference to our nation's prosperity, our wealth and, ultimately, the living standards of Australians—and, ultimately, the price of Tim Tams in our shopping trolleys!

But the government's waved the white flag on that. They don't have a productivity agenda. They don't have a growth agenda. They don't have an economic plan about getting inflation down. Their plan amounts to taxing you more. That's what they've got. They've got a massive, big tax that they think will crash prices in the housing market and will somehow help. I don't know how hurting our economy, our most important asset, is going to help. We need a government that focuses on the real issues. We need a government that focuses on the cost-of-living crisis. We don't have that right now, after this budget period.

It's heartbreaking how few Australians can say they are better off now than when Labor took over four years ago. In this amazing country of ours, we've been accustomed to our standard of living increasing year on year, generation after generation. But, under this Labor government, that trend has been shattered. Too many families are treading water or slipping backwards. Real wages have plummeted to 2011 levels. And don't give me your 'Every working Australian gets a tax cut'—seriously! Oprah was giving away cars, but not Labor: 'You get a cup of coffee, you get a cup of coffee!' Australians haven't had a real pay rise in 15 years, and these pitiful tax cuts will be eaten up by inflation within the year.

In my home state of Western Australia, we're hearing from more and more people that the escalating price of groceries has become their biggest concern. Since Labor took office, the cost of the weekly shop has exploded, adding hundreds of dollars for just the basics. What is driving these ballooning prices? One of the fundamental drivers is energy prices. Energy reaches into every corner of the economy. No work is done without it. Whether it's diesel, gas or electricity, it is the most fundamental input of any enterprise—and food is no exception. But now, for the first time, many Australians are having to make decisions that put a country as wealthy as ours to shame—to heat their homes or put food on the table, to stay cool in summer or skip the essentials.

Energy prices driven by deliberate Labor policy have smashed our country's most vulnerable people. The long-term increase of power prices over the last 10 years, under the Paris Agreement, has been staggering. Electricity prices have run at twice the rate of general inflation. And since this Labor government's promise of $275 off your power bill, we have seen power bills rise by more than 25 per cent. Remember 'We've done the modelling—oh, hang on: we've changed our position; it's not our modelling anymore'?

The renewables obsession has driven up costs, through intermittency, expensive grid upgrades and the early retirement of cheap base-load coal plants. These higher energy costs flow straight into the price of food, through production, processing, storage and transport. The mismanagement of our energy system borders on criminal. It is driven by ideology, not reason or economics. The attack on energy is putting our farmers under enormous pressure. They face skyrocketing input costs for energy, fertiliser, transport and, on top of that, the regulatory burdens of climate policies.

Australia is a food powerhouse. We produce far more than we consume, exporting around 70 per cent of our agricultural output and importing only about 11 per cent of our food. But our food systems are under threat. Productive land is being sequestered under climate change targets for carbon credits, taking it out of food production and adding pressure on remaining farmland and rural communities. Prime agricultural land is precious, and we need to have strong support to keep it in the hands of our Australian farmers, who have cared for the land for generations. But under the current strain we are seeing farmers sell off farmland to foreign corporates to make ends meet. Around 50 million hectares is now under foreign control. That's roughly the size of Spain and Portugal combined.

We cannot take our strong agricultural heritage for granted. Our self-sufficient food system is part of what built Australia into the great nation it is today. But the recent energy shock from the Iran conflict has highlighted just how vulnerable our food production is, with fertiliser supplies caught short. Australia is the third-highest producer of gas in the world. Why don't we produce our own fertiliser? It is because this Labor government doesn't want the emissions from the production, even though the countries we buy it from most likely use our gas to produce it. Labor has strangled this vital industry to death through carbon taxes and environmental regulations. It's not just a disaster for food prices; it's a disaster for national food security.

All of this accumulates in the hip pockets of Australians, with our most vulnerable impacted the worst. Australians deserve better, and there is a clear, positive path forward to mitigate these problems and unlock the next golden era of Australia: cut government spending by targeting waste, reducing the bloated bureaucracy, scrapping programs that duplicate functions between federal and state governments, and ending subsidies for intermittent energy. This will deliver billions of dollars in savings every year. Cooling public demand will help bring inflation under control and create room for real cost-of-living relief without adding to debt burden. We will end subsidies for renewable energy. If it can't stand on its own economic merits, the taxpayer will not be propping it up—no more billions of taxpayer dollars being poured into projects that have failed to provide affordable or reliable power.

We will focus on reliable, affordable, dispatchable base-load power from our incredible resources, like coal, gas and nuclear. These will deliver stable, low-cost electricity around the clock and help to ease prices throughout the economy, including the weekly shop. We will support the farmers, who feed the country, and ensure that our prime agricultural land stays in the hands of Australians.

Implementing these measures to drive down the cost of the basics is a top priority—more money back in the pockets of everyday Australians. We have the land, we have the resources, and we have the skills and the people. What has been missing is the will and the courage to change course from policies that have failed. This vision is achievable, it is necessary and it will deliver a brighter future for every Australian family. One Nation has a vision and a plan.

I've been thinking about the comments from the last speaker and comments from the other speakers in this debate. From most of my interactions with senators in this place, I think we all have a view about trying to make things better for fellow Australians and the ambition to help particularly those who are in need but really everybody in the community, to lift people up and give them an opportunity.

But the real question comes down to not just wishing for it to happen but actually working out policy so that it can happen and, when those policies are put forward, not voting against them. Consistently there have been policies put forward to deal with the cost of living. There are consistently policies put forward in this place to make it easier, not easy, for Australians, to make sure that people can raise a family and can afford to buy small luxuries and sometimes even larger ones—whether it be our housing policy, whether it be our industrial relations policy and, yes, whether it be our energy policy.

But what we see time and time again is that, with every proposal to reduce taxes, to improve wages, to deal with energy policy, to give bill relief, those opposite, the parties of the right, the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation, gang up to say to fellow Australians, 'That's not the right way to go.' I think they have an ambition for things to be better, but the problem is they never have a pathway. They never have an explanation. They never have a sense of what has to be done, because, if they did, they'd be voting for the things that have been put forward in this place.

I hear them say that we haven't had a real wage increase and there are issues with wages. Yes, I agree with you. Wages in many places need to go up even further—in an appropriate, fitting and negotiated way that the system allows. But the fact is that One Nation has, for the last 20-odd years, voted with the Nationals and Liberals on every occasion to smash the living wage. They voted against gig workers having minimum standards. They voted against gig workers not being sacked by an algorithm. They voted against gig workers getting paid the minimum wage. They voted against truck drivers getting better arrangements. Those at the top of the supply chains that are making all the dollars are the ones that they rally against but vote for. It's easy to rally against somebody and then tell them, on the private: 'Don't worry. I'm not going to vote against you; I'm just going to talk against you.' That's the reality of what happens on the opposite side. That's the reality of what happens with One Nation. Time and time again they come into this place and vote against real Australians getting real support and having real rights.

When they start talking about this very broad thing about blue tape, green tape, black tape and red tape, what they're talking about is that they want to take rights off people. They talk about those as red tape. Someone's red tape, blue tape, green tape or black tape is someone's rights they want to take away. Time and time again they come in this place and, whether it's a motion or a proposal, vote something down. They vote down consistently people's rights in this country. And I don't mean only people in small groups; I mean across the economy.

When you say that you're against, don't support and won't rally for the minimum wage being increased, which you do time and time again; when you say that people should not have access to parental leave; when you vote against weekend penalty rates being protected; when you vote against same job, same pay, which you did consistently—where one person's getting paid $20,000 or $30,000 more for doing the exact same job as the person they're standing next to and getting the same instructions and working for the same management, while the company at the top of supply chain is making all the money out of it—then you are saying to Australians, 'You don't deserve to get a leg up.' Oh, sorry, that's right; we're all lazy Australians. Remember that? We're lazy Australian workers. That's how we were described by One Nation at the National Press Club. I saw every one of those One Nation senators and House of Reps people standing there and applauding.

I still remember when the increase of $110 a week to the minimum wage came through, and Barnaby Joyce called it a pittance, something that was hardly even worth it. Those sorts of approaches from those people opposite tell the real story. That tells the truth of what's actually going on. That tells the truth about what they're actually saying. They say one thing and they quietly say to those very powerful forces, who make the Tim Tams: 'You can get away with it. You can charge more. You can make them pay more.' We've brought price-gouging regulations in against the retailers. We've brought actions against a whole series of areas in the energy industry to deal with those shonky arrangements where they just keep putting prices up. You'd find out about it after it was done secretly, but they have to do it on an annual basis. That's more transparent. We turned around and had energy bill relief, which they voted against. So they can paint it any way they like on the opposite side. They can play whatever game they like to play, saying they really know what's going on. Well, you know what? I know what's going on with you people: you're voting for the ones that you're rallying against rather than voting for the people you pretend you're supporting. That's what the right is about. That's how the right across here have been voting for, for 20 years.

Let's not pretend to ourselves that One Nation is some new fad. I've sat here for seven years and watched it my entire life, and those characters across the way have voted with the other characters across the way and voted against every initiative that's given somebody a leg up or a support or lifted the boats for all, because they think it should just be dog eat dog. People like Gina Rinehart can get away with whatever they want whilst everybody else that's working for them can't get a fair shake. That's why they want to get rid of same job, same pay. I heard them rallying for same job, same pay for years, saying the casuals were being badly treated, and what did they do? When it came to it, they turned around and voted against those same people. They misrepresented what they were going to do to them. They were going to betray them. That's exactly what they did. They come into this place and, on every occasion, they betray those people they pretend to represent. Now, I agree that we all have an aspiration in this place for things to be better, but their pathway to be better is to look after those at the top of the town rather than the people across the town.

We've got so many changes that we've made that have made improvements in so many places. There are the tax questions. We've had five rounds of tax cuts, leaving the average worker up to $2,800 better off per year. And what have the parties of the right done? They have voted against it every time. That's what they do. They say one thing and then they vote against tax cuts. They say wage increases and then they vote against the way to get a wage increase and don't support wage increases coming in. They talk about Australian workers. 'We're for them.' 'No, they're all lazy.' They talk about families. Oh, no, they shouldn't have parental leave. The reality is that this country will be in a dire position, that every hardworking Australian will be in trouble, if these people are ever elected to become part of a government. The coalition of the ugly, I'd call it, because of the consequences when you start standing up here saying there's too much money spent on some of the things that they raised here on so many occasions. When you get down to the detail, you find out how many billions of dollars they want to take out of services for Australians. They want to follow the playbook that's been used in other parts of the world, because they can't come up with an idea themselves. So they want to take an un-Australian approach and say that they're going to beat down on every Australian to make sure things are just a bit better for those at the top just to make sure that they get a bit more of a pat on the back from Gina. You never know; there might even be an extra plane in it!

After that contribution, you start to understand why One Nation's 'Fire the Liar' campaign is slowly creeping towards $5 million, with nearly 80,000 individual Aussies getting behind us because they are sick and tired of listening to this government talk big and deliver nothing. It's interesting to note that one of the things that was just said by Senator Sheldon was that One Nation somehow blocked something. I actually can't recall recently where One Nation blocked a single proposal from this government. What we see is that the government comes to us with legislation. We take a look. The last tax grab budget they passed is a perfect example. We took a look and we said: 'Well, there's a lot of this that is absolute rubbish. We'll support your tax cut. Fair enough.' We moved an amendment to carve that out, and they said, 'No, we won't carve it out; you have to vote for it all as one.' It's a trick. It's a trick where they'll put in a tiny little sweetener and say, 'Well, if you vote against everything else that's in the legislation that is absolutely terrible—a giant tax grab—then we'll accuse you of voting against a tax cut.' That's the trick. That's the trick they are playing. Then they say we block them. We haven't blocked anything. Labor, with help from the Greens, have gotten every single thing through this parliament that they've wanted. Every single thing that they have said is supposed to make your life cheaper and easier, they have gotten—every single thing—yet things have never been worse for Australian families.

All of the words and promises that they say and make, all of the election commitments that they change their position on—none of them have come true. And Australian families are hurting. They're hurting because the cost of everyday staples is going up. Groceries are not expensive by accident. It's not a magic thing that occurs. It is because the major inputs into the cost of food that Australians need when they're having dinner, including fuel, fertiliser, electricity, land, the regulations, the freight and the labour, all have been driven up by this Albanese Labor government because of the legislation that they have passed with the help of the Greens.

We stand here and we say that these ideas that they're pushing and this legislation as proposed are going to make things worse, and we vote against it. They get what they want; prices continue to rise. At the centre of this failure, the Albanese government's failure—and this is what we point out time and time again—is their net zero agenda. It is that net zero agenda which is forcing higher energy costs onto farms, transport operators, manufacturers, retailers, households, families, mums and dads. It is their net zero agenda that is doing this, that they all vote for, that they get and that we proudly oppose. The second that we have the chance, we will scrap it. We will dismantle it, and we will replace it with mechanisms that deliver the cheapest possible energy—coal, gas, whatever delivers the cheapest energy to bring down the cost of food and the cost of electricity for families. That is what One Nation will do. If they proposed that, we would support that. But they don't. They keep putting up terrible ideas and then, with the help of the Greens, they get them through.

The grocery bill for families is where the failure of this government really hits home. In the 12 months to May, ABS data shows that food and non-alcoholic beverages are up 3.3 per cent. Meat and seafood are up by 5.4 per cent. Beef and veal are up by 13.3 per cent. Lamb and goat are up by 14.8 per cent and dairy products are up by 5.2 per cent. We warned them that, if they continued to pass bad legislation, this is what would happen, which is why we voted against it. But they got it anyway. They got what they wanted with the help of the Greens. Prices have gone up and inflation has gone up. Behind those increases is the same cost chain. Electricity is up 21 per cent. The cost of transport is also up, by 3.3 per cent. That's electricity and freight.

When Australians look at the supermarket receipt, they are not just seeing the price of food; what they are seeing is the cost of Labor's policies and the cost of the Albanese Labor government's net zero agenda. Australian families are not asking for luxury. They are asking merely to be able to afford the ordinary essentials of life: food, fuel, power and maybe enough left over at the end of the week to breathe a little easy. That is not asking too much in a country that is as blessed as Australia, with the natural resources that we have that they fail to use. Consider the benefit and prosperity that could exist if we simply used our natural resources to their full extent instead of cutting ourselves off at the knees because of their net zero agenda. A government that cannot deliver on food affordability has failed the most basic test of all, and food security is national security. A country that cannot afford its own food is not a strong country. A country that fails to protect its farmers is not a secure country. A country that allows the cost of food processing to spiral out of control is not a well-governed country. You cannot keep driving up the cost of energy and then pretend that food will stay cheap. You cannot force farms and food processors to carry the cost of net zero.

The Paris Agreement is an agreement signed through the United Nations. When people talk about United Nations regulations, that is where it's coming from—the Paris Agreement. The reason we must get out of the Paris Agreement is that the mechanisms of legislation that you move are actually downstream from that agreement. A lot of people don't realise, but, for the federal government to be able to legislate on the environment, they need an international agreement. It's through a mechanism called the external affairs power. This is why there is not a single international agreement that this government would ever consider getting rid of. Their entire legislative agenda depends on it. That is why One Nation talks about getting out of these international agreements. It's because it is those agreements that you are using to force your destructive net zero agenda onto the Australian people. You cannot make fertiliser more expensive and harder to secure. You cannot bury farmers in paperwork and expect grocery bills to go down.

The Fire the Liar campaign is successful because the rhetoric, the things you say, simply do not match the lived experience of the Australian people. This new trick that you're using—you're standing up and completely misrepresenting Senator Hanson's position on paid maternity leave. She has stood up in this place, and she said to social media: 'We're not going anywhere near paid maternity leave. We're simply not going to do it.' Yet you hear them time and time again. You watch. They will continue to bring this up despite the fact that they know it's a complete misrepresentation, but that's okay because the Australian people are awake to these tactics. They're awake to the broken promises.

This is the reality, and this is why One Nation is resonating. We have not forgotten about what everyday Aussies are going through, and we are prepared to stand with the people who grow our food, the people who transport the food across the nation from the farms to the supermarkets and the people who process and manufacture our food. We stand with the small businesses who try to sell the food, and we stand with the families who struggle to afford that food because of this government's vandalism of our economy. We stand with the farmers trying to keep the property viable; the truck drivers trying to keep the shelves stocked; the butcher watching the costs rise, hoping he can keep his business running; the baker opening another power bill with dread; the pensioner counting every dollar; and the parent putting items back when they get to the check-out and see the cost of their groceries, the cost that is a direct result of your bad policies.

No child should go hungry in a country that could feed the world. That is why One Nation says the answer is not more excuses; the answer is to take the cost of net zero out of the food chain. Irrigation systems, cold storage, dairies, abattoirs, bakeries, processors, packaging plants and small grocers all depend on energy. When power prices rise, food prices rise. Your groceries, your food, the reason that you can't get a steak as much as you want, the reason why, when you go out to have a dinner, prices are through the roof—it all comes down to the cost of electricity driven by this government's obsession with net zero. One Nation will prioritise whatever source of energy delivers the cheapest and most reliable power, whether it's coal, gas or nuclear. We're happy to use renewables where appropriate, but it has to stand on its own feet and not be propped up by billions and billions of dollars of government subsidies hidden in shady areas like the Capacity Investment Scheme. That will stop.

Australia must secure its fuel supply as well, because a weak fuel supply means a weak food supply. We should never have allowed ourselves to become dangerously dependent on overseas supply chains for the fuel that keeps this nation moving. Every weakness in the fuel chain becomes a cost in the food chain. Every cost in the food chain becomes a burden on Australian families. We have that many natural resources, like oil and gas, that are underutilised because of this government's refusal to utilise them.

I do not think this government understands the burden of administration they put on our farmers. Every time you pass a new bill, like that gigantic mess of an EPBC Act you rushed through and guillotined the other day, farmers sit there in dread because they know that the sheer scale of administrative work they have to do is going to crush them. I'm actually not sure, off the top of my head, the exact number of new regulations that have now flowed through off the back of that legislation, but I think it's over 20. And every single time you do that, you take a farmer away from doing something that could be productive. You make his life harder, you hurt productivity, and you drive up the cost of the food. You drive up the cost of the groceries, and that causes everyday Australians to suffer.

A nation should be able to feed its people, protect its productive land, back its farmers, secure fuel and deliver cheap and reliable power. That is what they should be able to do. And yet this government seems unable to do so. One Nation instead want Australia to grow things, make things, own things and build things. We want to mine more. We want a second mining boom. We want to put Australia first and give them the opportunity to have good jobs. We want to see the price of groceries come down. That is why we vote against your legislation—because we see what you're doing, and we know the result is going to be higher electricity prices, more inflation and more expensive groceries for Australian families.

The Australian people are paying the bill for your failure. That is why, again, I'll say it: we will scrap net zero. One Nation will back the cheapest and most reliable energy. We'll take pressure off farmers, businesses and households. And we will fight for a food system that serves Australian families first. As I said, a country that cannot afford its own food has been very badly governed. A country that punishes the people who grow its food has lost its way. Australia is too rich, too capable and too blessed to leave its own people struggling to put dinner on the table. This is a failure that One Nation will keep calling out. This is a fight One Nation is taking up. We will always put Australians first, and, so long as you continue to put up terrible legislation, we will oppose it, and we make no apologies for it.

Sadly, the reality facing Australians after four years of the Labor government is this: Australians are paying 42 per cent more for their insurance. They're paying 38 per cent more for their electricity. They're paying 37 per cent more for their gas. They're paying 23 per cent more for their rent. They're paying 21 per cent more for their education. And each and every day, when they go through that checkout, they know that this is their reality. They are paying 17 per cent more for their food. That's right. Each time you walk into that grocery shop and walk out of that checkout under the Albanese government, you are paying 17 per cent more for your food.

But, on top of that, Australians have now lived through interest rates increasing 15 times under the Albanese Labor government. When that Reserve Bank meets, Australians hold their breath, and they pray to God—they pray, 'Please, please drop interest rates.' But, sadly, the role of the Reserve Bank is to step in when government fails. Because this government fails time and time and time again to rein in its spending so that inflation is under control, the Reserve Bank has to step in and do the hard work. Sadly, what that means for the Australian people is Labor fails them and interest rates go up. Under Labor interest rates have now gone up 15 times. That means that the average Australian with a typical mortgage is now, under the Albanese Labor government, around $29,000 worse off per year.

What's worse is that Mr Albanese time and time again promised the Australian people that, if he were elected, life would be cheaper. That's not the reality for the Australian people. The reality after four years of Labor—it doesn't matter what those opposite stand up and say. Australians know when they wake up each and every morning that their reality is that they are paying more for the basics and they are paying more to keep a roof over their heads—if they can keep that roof over their heads. So many Australians now are living in their cars. These are Australians that have jobs. But, because interest rates have gone up 15 times under the Labor government and because on average Australians with a mortgage are paying around $29,000 more per year, something had to give. Do you know what the bad news is? The house had to give, and they now live in their car.

The reality is they're paying more tax under Labor. It doesn't matter what the Labor Party says. The reality is that Australians are actually paying more tax under this government. Sadly, after four years of Labor, this is the reality they're faced with. They're actually working harder. Many more Australians are actually working two jobs now. Do you know why they're having to work two jobs? They're having to work two jobs because they're paying more when they walk out of the grocery store. They know the reality is that they are now paying 17 per cent more for their food. You've got to have insurance. They now know they're paying 42 per cent more for their insurance. Electricity is a way of life. You can't live life without electricity. They're paying 38 per cent more for their electricity, 37 per cent more for their gas, 23 per cent more for their rent and 21 per cent more for their education.

Those on the other side say, 'We're doing the right thing by the Australian taxpayer,' but the reality for the Australian taxpayer is they know that you're not. What the Australian taxpayer is actually looking for is a plan for a fairer Australia. They love a fair go in this country. They want a government that says, 'We have a plan for a fairer Australia, for a freer Australia and for a better Australia.' That's what the coalition is going to put forward—a credible and competent plan to restore Australians' standard of living. They know standards of living under this government have crashed. Australians live that on a daily basis. Worse than that, this is a government that has turned its back on Australian values. They are looking for a credible alternative and a government that will say to them, 'We will protect your way of life.'

We will offer Australians a tax-back guarantee. Those on the other side wouldn't know what that is. Each and every year under a coalition government you will get an automatic tax cut that gets bigger every year by stopping inflation from pushing you into a higher tax bracket. If you get into that higher tax bracket, do you know what happens to you? The government takes more of what you earn. If a government can't control its spending, you deserve to actually ensure that you keep more of what you earn. That's what the coalition will offer you.

Migration and housing—this is where the Labor Party have fundamentally failed Australians. You bring in 1.4 million people, you basically crash the housing market and you wonder why Australians are living in their cars. You have got to tie migration numbers—lower them; numbers have been too high and standards have been too low—to the number of houses built. Only the coalition offers a plan for a fairer, freer and better Australia.

Order! The time for the debate has expired.

I move:

That—

(a) the Senate, at its rising, adjourn till Tuesday, 11 August 2026, at midday, or such other time as may be fixed by the President or, in the event of the President being unavailable, by the Deputy President, and that the time of meeting so determined shall be notified to each senator; and

(b) leave of absence be granted to every member of the Senate from the end of the sitting today to the day on which the Senate next meets.

Question agreed to.

All parliamentarians know the quiet work of committees is essential to our democracy. Coherent reports emerge out of a maelstrom of evidence; rough edges are chipped off legislation; witnesses are treated with care; institutional wisdom is held and passed on. Never in the limelight but always making a difference, we owe so much to the staff who serve in the committees in this place. I rise tonight to observe the passing of one such staff member, Julia Morris, and to acknowledge the significance of her contribution to this place and to her community and to her family.

Julia Anne Morris was born in Newcastle on 24 December 1972, the daughter of Anne and Allan Morris. Senators will know Allan by his years of service to the people of the Hunter as the member for Newcastle, and senators will also know Julia's uncle Peter by his service as the member for Shortland. Knowing that, it goes without saying that Julia was born into a family deeply involved in the public life of Newcastle and deeply ingrained with the values of the Labor Party and the labour movement. She was, as you might expect, incredibly worldly in outlook. She was well read, she was well travelled and she was comfortable in more than one language. She graduated from ANU with a Bachelor of Arts, cementing her love of literature in her studies in English. With that immense capacity and with her love of politics and of political debate, she came to work here in the parliament.

Julia gave almost all of her working life, 25 years, to the service of the Australian parliament. By my count, she served 10 committees, nine of them as secretary, and she pursued this commitment to our democratic institutions with incredible professionalism. She was always conscious of the privilege of working in this place, the roles that each of us plays and the particular obligation that this placed on her to serve every parliamentarian in this place equally and to support the proper functioning of our committees. She shepherded inquiries on everything from coastal biodiversity, to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to education in remote and complex environments. She began her first role, as Secretary of the Standing Committee on Economics, in the middle of the global financial crisis. She worked with former senator Dodson in the committee considering the constitutional recognition of First Nations Australians. She deployed to the Solomon Islands during RAMSI. What a gift to the people of Australia to receive the best of Julia Morris's time and energy and heart.

I, however, did not meet Julia in this place. Growing up in Newcastle, she attended school with my husband, John. Together they were the school captains in their final year at Newcastle High School, and she was a dear friend and a loyal friend to him. We all shared a love of film and music, and I first met her at the Sydney Film Festival, when as young people we would lock ourselves inside the theatre for an entire long weekend, armed only with a backpack of cheese and a bottle of wine. She attended the Bluesfest approximately 26 times. She was devoted, and we frequently spent time together there also.

As we all grew older, we were able to share our families too. Julia gave birth to her beloved daughter Mollie, who is now a terrific young woman, and she was the light of Julia's life. Julia was the great gatherer, having been born on Christmas Eve. Every Christmas, she would create a warm space, a welcoming space, for friends old and for new friends too, to come together. She was the glue.

On 21 May 2026, Julia lost her long battle with breast cancer. Her death leaves a great hole in the lives of many people that she touched. She was fierce and she was funny and she was intelligent. She was generous and caring as a friend. She was a dedicated servant to this parliament. She was a devoted mum, sister and daughter. I offer my condolences to all of those who loved her, especially her remarkable daughter, Mollie. Vale, Julia Anne Morris.

This Labor government was elected and re-elected on the promise of housing affordability. It's been four years of Labor, and where are we? Housing is failing on three fronts at once: people can't afford to buy, renters can't afford to stay put, and too many people can't access secure housing at all. In 2024-25, an estimated 1.26 million low-income households were in housing stress, meaning they spent more than 30 per cent of their disposable income on housing. One in five renters are in rental stress, and the number of rough sleepers has increased by a third in two years. The social housing waitlist is getting longer and longer, and rents are staying at record-high levels.

Australians want this Labor government to get on with the job, to fix the housing crisis and to build public housing—housing that is guaranteed to be affordable for every Australian. Instead, Labor's Housing Australia Future Fund has invested more in the multitrillion dollar investment company BlackRock than it has in building affordable housing. In fact, most of the HAFF's top investments are in private equity, asset managers and the big banks, all of which rely on skyrocketing housing prices to keep up their immense profits. It's actually a joke that the fund that is meant to help fix the housing crisis relies on investing in companies that actually profit from it getting worse. It's circular, a housing policy that actually relies on not solving the problem.

It's been two years since that policy was implemented, and, as the Greens warned, it has been an embarrassing failure. We were promised 30,000 houses over five years, and we've barely gotten 1,000 in three. When will the Labor government admit that they were wrong? When will they admit that these convoluted schemes can't get around the simple fact that we actually need to build public housing? It seems that Labor can't do anything themselves. They can't tax the big corporations, so they need to invest in BlackRock to make their money. They can't build public housing, so they need to rely on the private market. What Labor needs to do is to get on with the job.

One of the best examples of Labor's inability to actually do anything themselves is the five per cent deposit scheme. Other governments have realised that they can actually build houses themselves, but Labor is so committed to this solution that all that they can imagine involves having massive debts incurred by first home buyers whilst the banks make massive profits off them. People are now having to make impossible choices, paying an unsustainable share of their income in rent or their mortgage, moving repeatedly, living in overcrowded housing, staying in unsafe situations or experiencing homelessness. We know that Labor's failures on housing are especially punishing renters, low-income households, young women, older women, First Nations people and people at risk of homelessness.

It's time to stop the useless bureaucracy and ineffective schemes and recognise that the solution to the housing crisis is building more affordable public housing and freezing the rent, not putting mortgage holders in more debt, not funnelling hundreds of million dollars to BlackRock, private equity and the banks. Build more public housing. Freeze the rent.

I wish to place a matter on the public record in relation to my brother, who, through a consortium, has acquired a minority interest in the Phosphate Hill fertiliser operation. I have sought advice from the Office of the Clerk of the Senate regarding any obligation I have to include this information on the Register of Senators' Interests. This advice has indicated that I am under no obligation to record this on the register. However, in the interests of transparency and public accountability, I wish to place this information on the public record.

Senate adjourned at 17:41