The PRESIDENT (10:01): If there is no objection, the meetings are authorised.

Senator STEELE-JOHN (Western Australia) (10:01): I seek leave to move a motion relating to the government's NDIS bill as circulated.

Leave not granted.

Senator STEELE-JOHN: Pursuant to contingent notice of motion standing in the name of Senator Waters, I move:

That so much of Senate standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving a motion, namely a motion relating to the government's NDIS bill.

Labor's NDIS bill is just cruel. It should be scrapped. It should be withdrawn. It should be removed. It should be sent back. It should be torn up, quite frankly, loaded into a cannon and, if I had my way, fired into the sun. It is a horrific, inhuman piece of legislation that would see 241,000 disabled people kicked off the NDIS—fellow Australians doing it tough, struggling, stressed, trying to make things work and trying to navigate a bureaucracy that is always apparently against them and always apparently on the side of a government that is trying to find ways to get out of providing the basic supports. For these people, for these community members, this government plans to cut their lifelines to remove the programs, the therapies and the supports that are the source of hope for so many. Just when things were starting to potentially get better, just when the therapy was helping the child succeed at school, just when a disabled person had finally been able to keep a job, just when a new skill was within somebody's grasp, or just when a new friend had been made—a new connection built, a new safeguard against loneliness and isolation—this government would tear it away. Shame on you all.

This bill is a disgrace. The fact that the disability community have had to work and expend their time, effort and energy trying to explain to this Labor government why cutting nearly $40 billion out of the NDIS is a bad idea—that's a joke. It's a joke. One hundred and eighty-five billion dollars over the decade is the largest cut to a Commonwealth program in the history of this nation.

To my crossbench colleagues and to the members of the National and Liberal parties: whatever you may think of the NDIS, these cuts go too far. They go too fast. They will cost too many jobs. They put at risk too many lives. Our responsibility as members of parliament is to listen to the community.

In the brief window that the government deigned to give disabled people and our families to have our say, to speak about this bill that would shape and reshape their lives, we have spoken with a united voice. The verdict was unanimous. Evidence was taken from disabled people and their families, from healthcare professionals, from union members, from allied health professionals, from doctors and from service providers. They sent a clear message: this bill must not pass; this bill must be withdrawn; this bill poses a threat to the lives and safety of disabled people.

So we call on the government today to listen. Withdraw this bill. No parliament, no government, should ever have the powers to shape the lives and livelihoods of people that this bill grants this government—the ability, with a stroke of a pen, to strip away the basic supports needed to have a shower a couple of times a week, to go out into the sun once or twice a month, to keep your job, to go to the doctor, to have enough support work to enable you to get out of bed safely and to be able to help your kids get to school. This is something that no government should have the ability to strike away, to strip from people.

Withdraw this bill. The Greens oppose it now and will at the next vote and at the next vote and at the one after that. We will not stop; we will not bend or bow or break. We oppose this bill. (Time expired)

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for Finance, Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Women, Minister for Government Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (10:07): I move:

That the question be put.

Question agreed to.

The PRESIDENT: The question is that the suspension motion as moved by Senator Steele-John be agreed to.

Senator STEELE-JOHN (Western Australia) (10:15): I move a motion in relation to the government's NDIS bill, that it may be removed immediately and that this motion may have precedence over all other business and be determined without amendment.

The PRESIDENT: The question is the procedural motion moved by Senator Steele-John be agreed to.

Senator STEELE-JOHN (Western Australia) (10:20): I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) Labor's NDIS Bill is completely friendless, with almost every witness to the inquiry saying that the bill shouldn't pass in its current form,

(ii) the bill will have a devastating impact on disabled people, their families and carers, and it imposes inhumane and cruel requirements on disabled people, including requiring people to repeatedly prove permanent disabilities and navigate new layers of bureaucracy to access essential services, and

(iii) the government's own modelling shows that they want to remove 241,000 people from the NDIS by 2031; and

(b) calls on the Government to withdraw the bill.

This bill represents one of the cruellest acts perpetrated on a community by the Australian government. It is unfair. It is unjust. It is inhumane. From the moment it was introduced into the parliament, the Greens have opposed it. We will continue to oppose it. We will continue to work day in, day out to see this bill withdrawn—to see it scrapped. That is our goal. That is our purpose. That is the work we are engaged in, and proudly we've engaged in that work alongside the disability community across this country, who are unanimous—who are united in their view that this bill must not proceed.

This Labor government believed that, by forcing disabled people to attempt to pull together evidence, by only giving us eight to 11 days to make submissions to the inquiry into this bill, it would prevent us and our organisations speaking clearly about this bill. Well, it could not have been more wrong, and I want to congratulate every single one of the over 4,500 people who, amid everything else putting pressure on them, took the time to make submissions to the inquiry and who spoke with such clarity and courage in the face of this awful law. We heard such powerful evidence from so many people, across three days of hearings, about the harms that this would do to disabled people, the pressure it would place on families, the jobs it will cost across the economy and the businesses that will go to the wall because of this, and we heard about the risk to life. Again and again, people spoke in the clearest terms. They told us that, if this law passes, people will die. People will die. We must listen, for no apology after the fact, no public statement by a government inquiry, no response to a royal commission decades in the future and no compensation scheme will ever wipe this away or deliver moral forgiveness to those who would vote for a bill that so clearly will do harm and so clearly will put people at risk.

This is a moral question. This is about who we are as a society. The Australian community believes, still, in a fair go, in justice and in support for those who are struggling. The community backs disabled people and our families and expects the government to do the same, not to cut the vital supports that we need and that we rely on to go to work, to go to the doctor or to have a shower. They back the disability community. They have heard our call over decades: 'Nothing about us without us.' They do not accept that any government should have the power to prescribe, to require, to demand or to mandate that, before you can access a basic support under the NDIS, you'd have to prove you've done everything you can to cure yourself and that you've undergone all appropriate treatments to get rid of your disability before you can get support. The community think that is disgusting, particularly given the fact that the legislation in its current form contains no adequate safeguards whatsoever against a future government requiring that a disabled person undergo a restrictive practice before getting access to the scheme.

We heard from the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Rosemary Kayess, and from Women with Disabilities Australia that the legislation as written would allow the government to require children to undergo medical treatments—they would be forced to take medication—before they could access the NDIS. I'm sure the government, the ministers and the backbenchers, are about to launch to their feet and talk about their intentions. Well, I've got a very firm response to that on behalf of every person that gave evidence on that question: we do not care about your intentions. What matters is what the law would allow you or any future government to do. We will not, now or ever, place our rights, safety and liberty upon the safeguard of your intentions, because for generation after generation we have suffered at the hands of governments who have abused, exploited, violated and neglected us while they claimed to have the best intentions. So, no, the fact that you do not intend to do one thing or another does not allay our concern. If these are your intentions amend your bill, or better yet: shred it, and apologise to the communities who you have caused so much distress and fear.

The Greens want this bill revoked—withdrawn, removed—and only the Greens have this clear and steadfast commitment. Two hundred and forty-one thousand people will be kicked off the NDIS because of this bill. That is a staggering number. There are so many people that it is easy to lose connection to the reality that behind each number is a human life, a family and a community. During the course of this inquiry we heard so clearly the harms that the bill will do to so many, and I want to tell you about a couple of people that have come to me, which were shared in the evidence, and about the community members that have attended rallies, events and forums to try to persuade their representatives to do the right thing. I had a mum come up to me in Albany and talk to me about how the cuts that have already been made to her plan mean that she is losing the little function that she has to stand up because the NDIS, through this government, has cut the support hours that she receives. So instead of the two people required to enable her to transfer safely in and out of bed there's only one person, and she has to weight bear. That is wearing out her knees.

She said to me: 'I'm in my middle age. The NDIS was meant to make sure this didn't get worse, and in the last year I'm in more pain than I ever have been.' This person is a mum to wonderful kids. She uses what little funding she currently has from social and community participation supports—which is the very area of funding that this government wants to cut by 50 per cent—to help her kids go to school. She does not know what she will do if this bill passes. She's a single mum. She's it. She's the thing that sits between her kids and a life beyond imagining. She's struggling to make it work, to keep her head above water. She took her time on a Saturday night to come out and use some of those support hours to talk to me about what the legislation would mean for her. It meant so much to me that she did, and it is so inappropriate and so cruel that she had to.

The life of a disabled person in Australia today is complicated. There are joys and struggles and there is success and failure, just like in any other human life. Because of the discrimination that exists, because of the ableism that exists, often life is tough—tougher than it would be for other people. It's quite frankly sick that any government, any person in a position of power, would seek to make that life harder and put more barriers in place.

I spoke to another woman, who works for Foodbank. I kid you not—this person in a powerchair works two days a week at Foodbank in WA. I was there as part of a celebration of that fantastic organisation. She came up to me and talked about what the cuts would mean for her and what the cuts she's already experienced have required her to do. This person can't go out beyond her front door without a support worker to help her. She had had her plan reviewed by the government and her support hours had been cut, so she had had to make a choice: did she want to keep working two days a week at Foodbank, or did she want to go out on the weekend? So she decided to give up her weekends to keep her job. If her plan is cut, if those hours are cut—if they are slashed savagely as this government intends—I don't know how she will keep that job.

The inquiry heard over and over again what this will mean for disabled people. We also heard really clearly from the allied health professions—the physios and the occupational therapists—who do so much hard work to support disabled people, to ensure we get the right technologies and supports and to make sure that the chairs we sit in and the software we might need to be able to read a document work well for us. Those people, those professionals, all across the country have banded together, have put their life's work on the line and have built small businesses in communities to provide people, particularly in small regional towns, with access to these services and supports. These cuts will close their businesses. I heard from an allied health worker in Mount Lawley. She's built a very successful practice. But, if these cuts go ahead, she's not sure what the future will be for all of her workers and for her business.

These cuts go too far. They go too fast. They put too many lives at risk. They will cost too many jobs. They are cruel. They are wrong. This bill must be withdrawn.

Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales—Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) (10:34): I rise to speak on Senator Steele-John's motion, and I observe that there are other senators in the chamber who wish to do so also. This government believes that the NDIS is one of Australia's great human rights achievements. It is an achievement that was built on collaboration. Disabled people, who advocated for themselves, worked in partnership with unions, with disability organisations and, ultimately, with parliamentarians. Labor are proud of the role that we played in establishing this scheme, and we're proud of the contribution that it makes. It is a scheme that is unparalleled internationally. It exceeds what is on offer in any other jurisdiction, and that is something that we are proud of on the Labor side, that I think the parliament is proud of, and that I agree that the Australian public is proud of.

Serious social policy involves looking at programs and understanding where there are strengths but also where there are weaknesses. I think, more than a decade in, we should understand that the NDIS is in no measure perfect. There are very significant challenges that threaten the sustainability of the scheme and its social licence. The scheme is growing too fast, and it is already much larger than was ever anticipated when designed. It is distorting other parts of the care economy. It doesn't always provide high-quality supports to participants, and we hear stories of this over and over again. There is too much fraud in the system and too many people who think that they can take advantage of people with disability.

The way that the scheme is designed is making it harder for us to get spending under control. Current projections are that, without an intervention, the scheme will cost $100 billion per year by the middle of the next decade. Senator Steele-John spoke about this being a moral question. He spoke about human rights, and I agree that almost all questions that come before us in this parliament have a moral and an ethical dimension. If we are serious about our ethical obligations to people with disability, we must also be serious about the program design and whether or not it is likely to be sustainable in the future and whether it is designed in a way that it will maintain support from the broader Australian community, because a right that cannot be sustained is a right denied. It's on this basis that the government is looking carefully at the scheme and looking at what would be required to sustain this scheme into the future.

It's on this basis that we've proposed reforms to tackle fraud, to finally make clear who is eligible for the scheme, to reinvest in the social supports outside the scheme which have withered away and left the scheme the only lifeboat in the ocean, and to deal with runaway costs, because the scheme must be sustainable in all of its dimensions, including its fiscal impacts.

I want to reassure people, because a lot of quite frightening things have been put by public figures in recent weeks. After our reforms, the NDIS will still be the second largest social program in Australia outside of the age pension—larger than Medicare, larger than the PBS and larger than aged care. It will continue to be the most comprehensive suite of supports for people with disability anywhere in the OECD. It will continue to grow each year. It's projected that the NDIS will grow at an average of around two per cent over the next four years and five per cent over the medium term. Under our plan—I reiterate this—the NDIS will grow. It will continue to grow, but, instead of costing more than $70 billion in 2030, taxpayers will spend $55 billion.

It is incumbent on those who make the case for no change, for those who argue that the status quo is fine, to explain why they think this is fine, why they think this is sustainable and whether they think the Australian public will continue to support a scheme that is growing at this rate. When we came to government, it was growing at 22 per cent per year. The changes that we made in 2024, which Senator Steele-John opposed in much the same terms as he opposes these changes, have reduced that rate of growth to somewhere between 10 and 11 per cent per year, but that far outstrips the level of growth that we would ordinarily see in any mature social program. We see this growth because of some design features of the scheme that need to be addressed. Any social program needs clear boundaries about who it is intended to benefit. Any social program needs clear boundaries about the kinds of supports that will be available to beneficiaries. These are not presently features of this scheme, and, as a consequence of that, we see the runaway costs that I've already described.

We don't believe this is sustainable. We want an NDIS that is here for the long-term. In a decade's time there will be a little boy or a little girl born, and they will have a significant and permanent disability. I want that child to access the NDIS. I want that child's family to access the NDIS. I want that child's community to know that they will be supported. But achieving that means dealing with the very real pressures and challenges on the scheme as it is. The approach adopted by the Greens and the motion that they have before us is to deny that any of these challenges exist. They propose no solutions, no alternatives, no way to render the scheme sustainable, no way to render it safe, no improvements to integrity—simply opposition for its own sake. I do not believe that that is an ethical way to approach a scheme with the significance of this scheme to the Australian public.

I want to address specifically a couple of the reforms that Senator Steele-John referred to in his remarks, in particular the decisions that we propose in relation to access. As I said, every social program needs clear guidelines about who the scheme is intended to benefit, and that hasn't been the case in the past. It's seen the number of participants grow well beyond what was ever imagined in the original design. This scheme was always intended for people with permanent and significant disability. There are approximately 5½ million Australians living with disability, and between 3.2 million to 3½ million of those Australians are under the age of 65. At the moment, 740,000 people are on the NDIS. It is already the case that not every person with disability participates in the NDIS, and that implies that we need a strong system of support outside of the scheme for all of those people who live with disability and need assistance but are not eligible to participate in the NDIS.

It's on that basis that the government, working with the states and territories, intends to invest $10 billion into supports outside the scheme. We've already agreed on the profile of $4 billion of that expenditure—the Thriving Kids program—and states and territories as we speak are procuring the services and putting in place the arrangements to support families of children with low to moderate support needs who have developmental delay or autism. We can do more. Once upon a time there was an ecosystem of supports outside of the NDIS, and, since the introduction of the NDIS, those supports have been allowed to wither away. We don't think that that is right. We want all Australians living with disability to be able to access the support that they need.

This also means clarifying who the scheme is intended to support. What is the definition of significant and permanent disability? We know that this isn't an easy question to answer. We propose to establish a technical advisory group, a group of people with deep expertise in these areas who can consult and work with people with disability to provide advice to the government about how we would assess functional capacity and what threshold they would suggest to us for permanent and significant disability. Over time, people with high functional capacity with treatable impairments or people who are eligible to receive services from other systems may no longer be eligible for the scheme. We want to be upfront about this. These people will access more appropriate alternative support systems for their ongoing support. People will be required to engage in all medically appropriate treatment. Restrictive practices are not medically appropriate treatment, and the government will seek advice again from the Technical Advisory Group about the way that we approach this. No changes to access will occur until January 2028, giving us time to work through these questions with the disabled community, giving us time to seek advice, giving us time to test these proposals and giving us time to work with the states and territories to put in place additional supports outside the scheme.

I want to speak in the time remaining to the social and community participation budget. The current way that the NDIS funds and supports social and community participation has meant that programs that once afforded real opportunity for connection, real opportunity for engagement and real involvement with a local community have been scaled back. A heavy reliance on individualised supports has seen the volume of community access and therapy supports grow considerably. Spending in just this area has tripled in five years. Spending on community access supports costs around $12 billion a year at the moment, the same as what we spend on the entire Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

We know that the changes we propose will have an impact on people with disability, but we have thought carefully about the fairest and safest way to make changes to deal with these runaway costs. We will reset the total budget for social and community participation back to where it was last year, to prevent further runaway growth, and the average spend by participants will go back to where it was in 2023. The average planned spend this year is around $31,000. We anticipate, under these changes, it will go to $26,000 per year—back to where it was in 2023.

Claims that these supports are being removed entirely are wrong; they are false. People should not repeat them, because they put fear unnecessarily into the lives of people with disability and their families. We accept that the change will have an impact, but the suggestion that all supports are being removed is wrong; it is entirely wrong. Social and community participation will continue to be a feature of the NDIS. It will continue to be funded. We will see people spend at around the same level as in 2023.

I want to conclude by speaking about fraud because another falsity—which is being repeated over and over again by some people in this place and in the other place—is that the reforms do not deal with fraud. Well, let me tell you: since coming to government we have invested over $1.35 billion in tackling fraud and non-compliant claiming. There is $800 million in this budget to do the same. Schedule 2 of the bill is the longest schedule of all of the schedules in the bill, and it's the schedule titled 'Fraud measures'. At the same time, we are investing in mandatory registration for a far wider group of support providers than was ever the case under the previous government. We expect that, when our reforms are in place, around 90 per cent of claiming will be through registered providers, giving people assurance and confidence about how those funds are being spent.

These reforms are designed to improve participant safety and to improve the value for money for the community overall, because every dollar taken from a person with disability by a fraudster is money that is taken away from where it should be spent. We cannot tolerate this. It is a key focus for me, and it is a key focus for the government.

I say to senators that we should consider this bill carefully—of course we should. Reform requires careful thought, and it requires thought about the beneficiaries of these programs now and into the future. I am absolutely determined to deliver an NDIS that is sustainable now and for the long term.

Senator KOVACIC (New South Wales) (10:49): I thank Senator Steele-John for all of his work on the NDIS, particularly work we have done together—in committees on community affairs and, in the last couple of weeks, on this legislation, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

I challenge anybody that sat through any of those hearings to not be affected by that evidence. I challenge them to suggest that this legislation, as it stands, is acceptable to the community, to the people, to the participants and to the Australians that rely on it for their very lives. I challenge them to ask them whether they think it's fit for purpose; to believe them when they say they are afraid of what this will mean for them; and to actually believe them, which I do, when they say they are afraid they will die.

It is not very easy to sit in a room, whether you're there in person or remotely, and hear somebody tell you, 'I am afraid that I will die if this legislation passes.' Why am I here if not to listen to those people? Why are we here if we are not going to hear the voices of Australians who are directly impacted, and we are going to go ahead and do what we've designed because we think we know best. That's why people in this country are angry with us. That's why we have politics of grievance in this country, because we are not listening to the voices of the people that are impacted by the things that we are doing, and it is time for that to change.

Disabled Australians are paying the price for the failures of this government in relation to the NDIS. Disabled Australians are paying the price for the complexity of the scheme. Disabled Australians are paying the price for the inability of the NDIA to manage the behemoth of a scheme that it's become. They just can't do it. It's too hard. It's too big. There are too many moving parts. Disabled Australians are paying the price for the intentional fraud that targets them. These are absolutely all problems that must be fixed, but why is it that disabled Australians are the ones that will be carrying the burden of this? That, to me, is unacceptable.

The minister has spoken about the fraud, and she has commented that there is too much fraud. I agree with that. Not only have I spent a couple of days on the inquiry in relation to this bill; I sit on the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We have heard from the Fraud Fusion Taskforce, from the NDIA, from the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commissioner, from the AFP, from the ATO—you name it. We've heard from them, and guess what they have told us? They can't quantify the amount of fraud. They don't know how much it is. They call it 'integrity leakage' because they actually can't segment how much of it is intentional fraud versus how much is operational or administrative error, which is people making mistakes, or how much is system error.

An example that somebody gave me was: 'I had to upload my invoices and my claim. I uploaded them both. There was a system failure. Only one invoice was successfully received by the NDIS.' Even though they uploaded both, that is captured as fraud. Sorry; apologies—that is captured as 'integrity leakage' and counted in the whole bucket of fraud. That's not fraud. We need to know exactly how much of this is intentional and how much of it is to do with the fact that the system is so burdensome and difficult to manoeuvre for participants and for providers.

The Fraud Fusion Taskforce told me in multiple hearings that international organised crime has targeted the NDIS. That's a fact. That's not something that we're assuming. It's not something that we've concocted to frighten people. It is a reality, and we are having a great deal of trouble managing that. Surely we should put the resources into the appropriate mechanisms so that we can be clear about what that fraud is; so that we are not frightening disabled Australians if they make an error; or so that, if there is a system problem, they are then not pointed to as being part of this fraudulent cohort called 'integrity leakage'. We need to be very careful about what we are doing here.

It concerns me that we haven't had appropriate scrutiny of this legislation. Our shadow minister in this space, Melissa McIntosh, has repeatedly called for a six-month inquiry. I don't understand why we can't have that. Why can't we properly listen to all of the stakeholders, the people who have the information that we need, and then make our decisions together? That is what Australians expect of us.

I'm going to read to you some additional comments from a report into the NDIS that we published in March:

Coalition members are concerned that the Government and the National Disability Insurance Agency have been unable to clearly quantify the scale of fraud within the Scheme. Without a clearer understanding of the magnitude of fraud and non-compliance, it is difficult for policymakers and the public to assess whether current enforcement measures are adequate.

If we are going to target something, we need to know how much of it there is. We need to know what to target and where. The report says:

Robust integrity systems are critical not only to protecting taxpayer funds but also to protecting NDIS participants from exploitation by unscrupulous providers.

This is a report that we tabled in March. These are the basic fundamentals that the government should have been looking at in developing this legislation, and they haven't. Instead, it's the packages of the disabled Australians that are being primarily impacted.

I noted that the minister also spoke about registration. The Fraud Fusion Taskforce spoke to me about the importance of registration in enabling them to identify the different providers in the market, and I do understand that, but one of the reasons that many providers don't register is because it is complex and costly. I've been told it costs between $10,000 and $15,000 for the paperwork to register.

If you are a physiotherapist in a regional town that may have two clients on the NDIS, it's not feasible for you to do that, but you are a professional who has qualifications—an allied health professional—and you need to go through this process. It the same process that, perhaps, someone who's doing some domestic duties for a participant goes through but doesn't have any credentials or qualifications. Why are we setting the same standard here? Why can't we have, for example, a fast-tracked enrolment process for people who have qualifications, whether they're a physiotherapist, a speech pathologist or some other professional? Why haven't we looked at that? Why are we once again, in this chamber, looking at a 'one size fits all' approach to solve problems? It doesn't work.

No two people living with disability in Australia have the same problem and the same need. Everyone's needs are different. Some of these changes particularly impact people in regional and remote communities, where there are what we call 'thin markets': markets where there are not enough providers already. What does that mean if we drive them out with some of these changes? That means that a disabled person living in a regional community can't access services in that community.

If they need to see a physiotherapist, they can't see that physiotherapist in their town because that physiotherapist just can't afford to operate under the NDIS. So, they're going to have to travel an hour or an hour and a half to go see their physiotherapist. Guess what happens then? Then there are transport costs to get them to that physiotherapist; to go all that way and then to come back. Again, these are unintended consequences of the impacts of some of these changes and, potentially, there are ways to solve these, but we don't know because there hasn't been adequate consultation and there hasn't been adequate time to deal with these issues. There should be; there absolutely should be.

Another element that people have consistently spoken to me about in relation to this legislation is in regard to the ministerial powers. I fail to understand how a minister of government will be able to determine how any particular Australian living with disability is going to have their needs best met. I don't get that. In particular, if I go back to fraud, the minister today currently does not know how much actual intentional fraud there is in the NDIS, yet that same minister is going to make a determination about what someone's plan should look like—or they'll have the power to. Is that right? That doesn't sound right to me. I don't understand what we are doing here, if we are not going to listen to the people who are experts in this space.

There is a significant burden on all of us here to ensure that this legislation, if and when it passes, doesn't look like it does today. There need to be changes to this legislation, and those changes need to take into account the devastating impacts on disabled people, their families, their carers and their communities. Again, I talk to the fact that people are afraid. There was one moment in one of the hearings where someone made a comment that we shouldn't be whipping up fear. This isn't about anybody whipping up fear; people are genuinely afraid. There were people in those hearings that wept in front of us because they were so afraid. I have received emails and messages from parents, from carers and from family members who are afraid. I've received messages from people who are good-quality providers who are afraid they'll need to close down, because they will not be able to afford to operate within the constraints of this system.

I'm going to read to you a message from one of those individuals. 'The Labor government's legislation before the Senate is the cornerstone of their proposed budget, a bill that diminishes the basic human rights of the most vulnerable people in our communities. Over the years, I've seen many people fight the NDIS for access, for basic supports, for a holistic approach to their disability needs. This government has allowed syndicated fraudsters to operate successfully but have framed providers in the media operating in good faith as ripping off Australian taxpayers. It costs more to be compliant, yet anyone can offer services and get paid by the government, with no accountability for what they are providing. This government closed down all state-funded programs, making the NDIS the only lifeboat in the ocean; they closed down important mental health programs, made us transition all of our clients to the NDIS—and, now, the very cohort they want to kick off the scheme, and will, when the bill is passed. I'm not saying the NDIS doesn't need to change. Maria, look back at the disability royal commission and the NDIS review recommendations. This bill completely ignores it all. It places vulnerable people in an untenable position. It places good-faith providers and their amazing staff on their knees. I am disgusted that we are going to sell the rights of people with a disability to the Australian population.'

How can you read that and not be impacted? These are clearly people who know what is going to happen and know what the impacts of these changes are going to be. We need to listen to them, and we need to understand what is and isn't workable in this legislation. We cannot ram it through without considering those elements, and we cannot ram it through without appropriate amendments to ensure that the very people that it was designed to protect are actually protected and not harmed in its implementation.

Senator WATERS (Queensland—Leader of the Australian Greens) (11:04): I am so proud that the first action the Greens have taken in this parliamentary fortnight before the winter break is to move to get rid of this cruel, inhumane bill that would cut over 240,000 people off life-giving support. I'd like to pay tribute to Senator Steele-John, who is such a staunch advocate for the disability community and who enriches our Greens team with his every contribution. I also want to thank his team for the work that it has done on this issue. This is an issue that touches Jordon and every single person with a disability in this community and their families. It touches them all. In fact, it goes to: what is the Australian character?

It breaks my heart that this government has chosen in its most recent budget to punish and to cut support from 240,000 Australians because it doesn't have the courage to raise revenue from taxing export gas, from cancelling AUKUS or from properly cracking down on property investor tax perks that have turbocharged housing inequality. Instead, it has made the active decision to punch down on the most vulnerable in our community as though they are some kind of revenue source. It is disgusting that this government sees disabled people as a means of raising revenue when it's letting the gas export companies, the huge submarine builders and the wealthy property investors off scot-free. Shame on you! We are moving this morning to get rid of this foul, cruel bill. With everything we've got, we will resist your ramming it through this parliament.

I note that the Liberal Party have spoken of their concerns about this bill. Well, follow through and vote against it. Don't team up with the government to ram these cuts through. Your rhetoric is sounding positive, so please do not vote for this cruel bill.

I call upon the government to withdraw this bill. That's what this motion is about. Stop punching down on Australians who need this life-giving support. Find other ways of raising revenue; you've got any number of them that you could use if you actually wanted to take on the one per cent and the big corporations who are ripping us all off. Change tack.

We saw in the inquiry into this bill, which Senator Steele-John and other colleagues in this place participated in just last week, the true inhumane impact of these cuts. We heard gut-wrenching testimony of what this bill would do to over 240,000 people, their families and the people that love them. With the removal of supports to leave the house, it would effectively condemn people to permanent lockdown in their homes. Whether or not it's to go to work, whether or not it's to go to the doctor or whether or not it's to have some valuable social connection, these cuts would mean that that support would be removed, condemning disabled people to be stuck in their homes. No other Australian is condemned to that, now that we're out of COVID lockdown. Why should the disability community be condemned to that because this government doesn't have the guts to tax export gas?

Another change this bill proposes is that people with a permanent disability would need to prove that they've got a permanent disability. Here's a newsflash, folks: permanent disabilities are permanent disabilities. I'm afraid cerebral palsy doesn't just go away. You don't wake up the next morning and find you're not suffering from it. That is not how it works. The fact that this bill would require people with a permanent disability to again prove that—to use their own time, resources and limited financial means and emotional bandwidth to go through that ridiculous process, to prove they have a permanent disability—is just an insult. It is a ridiculous waste of resources, and it is an insult.

Every single witness in the inquiry on this bill, and particularly those with lived experience, said that you cannot fix this bill, it should not pass in its current form, it is not fixable—get rid of it and stop punching down. The Greens are right alongside every single person saying that. We hear the pleas from the disability community to not raise revenue off the back of them and to not use punishment and cruelty against them to try to shore up some budget issue that you've got because you are buying too many shitty—pardon me—second-hand submarines from Donald Trump, don't want to take on wealthy property investors and definitely don't want to take on the one in three big corporations that pays no tax, including the wealthy gas export companies, who are fleecing us all.

This bill is an absolute dog, and it cannot be fixed. The Greens will use everything that we've got to get rid of it. It needs more inquiry, but really we should fire the whole thing into the sun. Is this really the sort of nation that this government wants us to be—a nation where the one per cent and the big corporations can continue to not pay their fair share of tax, where we continue to buy, from a madman, weapons of war that will not make us safer and that we probably won't get anyway, and where we bake in housing inequality by letting existing property investors keep all of their perks and instead we choose to raise revenue from the most vulnerable and needy people in our community, who we said we would stand by as Australians when this NDIS framework was first introduced, something that makes Australians proud that we support each other and that we value humanity enough to invest in people in our communities, including disabled people in our communities? The kind of Australia that the Greens back in is a community where people are looked after and have their needs met and where we raise revenue from the one per cent and the big corporations who aren't paying their fair share, rather than raising it from ordinary people and raising it off the backs of disabled people. For shame!

This Labor government is showing with every decision that it doesn't have the guts to take on the wealth inequality in this country and that it's not going to stand up to the billionaires and the big corporations. Instead, it's going to punch down on disabled people. It's not going to fix the housing crisis. It's not going to properly fund frontline domestic and family violence services. It is making all of the wrong moral choices, and the message that it's sending to Australians is: 'We don't care about you. We don't work for you. We work for our political donors, for those big corporations that donate to our political parties, and for the same billionaires that are boosting the hatred and racism that we see from other quarters of the Senate chamber.'

I'll note that the Labor Party and Pauline Hanson's—or should I say Gina Rinehart's?—One Nation party are the ones that oppose this motion. They sat together and wanted us to just crack on with other business. They didn't want us to be talking about the real impacts of this NDIS cut bill, because they support these cuts. So here we have the government sitting with Pauline Hanson's/Gina Rinehart's One Nation. They are both happy to make savings off the back of the disability community. They are both taking money from the same billionaires and the same big corporations, I might add. They are both happy to boost the existing system that sees wealth inequality get worse. They are now happy to punch down on disabled people, their families and people who love them. Well, let the record show that, when you embolden that kind of rhetoric, you're going to have to live with the consequences of that.

The Greens are proud that every single day we will stand up and fight against these cuts and we will always fight for a fairer economy that actually puts people first and that says that billionaires, big corporations, weapons of war and property investor tax perks are where we should be looking to raise revenue, not from ordinary people—not from Australians working hard, just trying to make ends meet, working harder than they ever have and not even getting ahead. We've got a huge homelessness problem. We've got a huge problem with housing unaffordability. We've got underfunded schools and hospitals. We've got fossil fuel subsidies going out to coal, gas and oil when we should be having solar on every single roof, attached to batteries, to both tackle the climate crisis and keep people's bills down. We could actually have a system that works for ordinary Australians. That's what a representative democracy is meant to be delivering. Instead, we see the government wimping out on all of those important decisions and not raising revenue from those who can afford to pay but instead choosing to make almost $40 billion of savings off the backs of people with a disability.

The government should be ashamed of themselves, and they should be withdrawing this bill at the earliest opportunity. The Greens will not stop pushing for that outcome. Every day, we will keep fighting these cuts because we proudly stand, roll and hang alongside people with disabilities, and we think they are worth it. We think all Australians are worth it. We are worth investing in. Our communities matter. People matter. Billionaires and big corporations, they don't matter to us; people matter to us. I urge the government to withdraw this foul bill that is so un-Australian, that punches down so cruelly on a community that deserves our love and our support and who want to contribute strongly to their workplaces where they are enabled to do so. This bill will stop disabled people being able to get to work, yet you're probably going to blame them for not working in the same breath. What an irony.

I urge the Liberal Party to follow through on some of the positive rhetoric that you've espoused around this bill, and actually vote against these cuts. We could stop this bill. We just need you to vote against it. If you won't vote against it, we need the government to withdraw it. But we're not going to stop shining a light on the cruelty of these cuts, and I'm so proud that we are doing so.

Again, I want to commend Senator Steele-John for having the courage and the determination to never back down when it comes to fighting for his community. We share that love for the disability community and we've got your back.

Senator DAVID POCOCK (Australian Capital Territory—Independent ACT Whip) (11:16): The NDIS has transformed so many lives. It's brought people out of their homes and into society. As the minister said earlier, the NDIS is one of Australia's greatest human rights achievements. The government has brought forward a bill that has deeply distressed the disability community. Over 100 people with disability, their families, their carers and their clinicians attended a community town hall I hosted last month. I heard overwhelmingly that people support reform. People want reform. We all share in the benefits of an NDIS that is sustainable, that is well governed, that is protecting against fraud and exploitation, and that gives people with disability autonomy in their own life and equality of opportunity. Ask anyone on the NDIS whether they think that the NDIS could be reformed and could save money and they will likely tell you yes. This came up time and time again at the town hall I hosted, where people said, 'If you want to see savings, I can show you where you can make savings.'

What the Senate has in front of us is a bill that represents the largest change to NDIS since it was introduced. These are difficult reforms. As Senator Kovacic said a little earlier, people are genuinely afraid. The minister is right to say that the sustainability of the scheme is necessary to ensure that it can be available in the future, to ensure that it does maintain its social licence and that significant work is needed to rebuild structures outside of the NDIS for people with disabilities such as in our health system, which is rapidly becoming unaffordable for many people in communities we represent. The minister is also right in saying that we need to deal with fraud. That is a matter we should treat very seriously. Each dollar defrauded is preventing someone with a disability from obtaining the services they need.

This discussion paper is about the very serious cuts to social and community participation that the government is putting forward. The bill gives unprecedented power to the minister to cut everyone's personal, social and community participation benefits by up to 99 per cent, and they can start doing that the day after the bill is passed with almost no safeguards. It's actually not limited to social and community participation. It gives the ministers the power to cut people's funding for activities of daily living—that is, the funding that helps people to have a shower, to prepare meals, to literally live and breathe. Now the government has said that they don't intend to cut activities of daily living, so why do they want the power to do so? If you say that you're not going to do something, you don't need that power. Why give it not just yourselves but to any future minister?

It's important for us to consider the importance of social and community participation funding. This is funding that helps people leave the house, to go to work and to be part of the world, and that is what the NDIS was set up to do. It was never supposed to be a scheme to provide the bare minimum necessary to just keep people alive; it was a scheme that was supposed to allow people to be part of society, a society that we all here in this chamber enjoy. But, importantly—and this is critical—social and community participation stops isolation, which we know can be deadly. The royal commission told us that, when people with disability are isolated, they are vulnerable to abuse, to neglect and to exploitation.

I want to read out a part of the submission to this inquiry by Women With Disabilities Australia and the truly tragic case of Ann Marie Smith, a woman who lived with cerebral palsy in South Australia who died from criminal neglect. It said:

Ann Marie Smith's death shows why community participation is a safety issue. She had cerebral palsy, lived alone, received NDIS-funded care and had very limited contact outside one closed support relationship. Police said she had been left in the same chair day and night, was malnourished, in septic shock and died in circumstances described as "likely preventable". Isolation was identified as a central risk factor, with advocates stating that safeguarding requires "multiple eyes" and "multiple people" in a person's life. The Disability Royal Commission examined what had been learnt since her death and stated that individual cases must identify the "policy and regulatory issues" needed to give practical effect to Australia's human rights obligations. Reducing social, civic and community participation supports risks cutting away the regular contact, visibility and informal safeguards that help people be seen, known and able to report harm. For women with disability, who already experience higher rates of violence, these cuts risk deepening isolation and worsening conditions where violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation are hidden.

This is what we have to grapple with in this bill that the government has brought forward. Every single person who came to the inquiry told us, 'If you cut social and community participation budgets indiscriminately without ever considering someone's personal circumstances, you will leave people in unsafe situations.' It seems, from the committee process and what we've been able to get out of the government and the department, that the government has essentially sought to make savings and retrofitted some sort of policy around that, and, clearly, there wasn't an understanding of what a 50 per cent cut to social and community participation would mean for participants on the NDIS.

If you take, for example, people with Down syndrome, these cuts to social, civic and community participation will mean that many of them will lose their employment. It seems like the government and the department weren't actually aware that Australians with Down syndrome use a big chunk of that funding to get to work, to participate in society, to feel valued and to feel like they are contributing and like they're part of a team and something bigger than themselves. We were told at the Senate inquiry, 'This won't have an impact on employment for people with Down syndrome,' yet you talk to people with Down syndrome and you talk to Down Syndrome Australia and Down syndrome ACT, and they say: 'Of course it will. A big chunk of that bucket of money is used for the supports that enable people to get to work and to stay at work.'

Big reforms like this deserve considered scrutiny. I absolutely support calls for this inquiry to be extended. There is much for us to look at. We need to give people more time to provide feedback. Really critically, what became almost farcical through the Senate inquiry was that the timing of when states and territories presented their submissions. On the morning of the final day of hearings, they basically said, 'Listen, we have no idea what supports we're going to have to provide to who and when.'

How can the Senate be considering a bill when we're told, 'Don't worry, there will be alternative supports provided by states and territories'—most of whom have very serious budget issues; look no further than here in the ACT. We're meant to believe that somehow, even when the very states and territories that will provide these supports are saying, 'We don't even know what we're meant to be doing.' This requires far more scrutiny, and I urge the Senate to ensure that we're doing our job scrutinising this bill, looking at the intended and unintended consequences.

I really welcome this debate in the Senate. This will impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of Australians, and it is very right that we take the time to debate it and to push the government to allow more scrutiny. There's been a very worrying trend lately where we're seeing bills being rammed through this place with little scrutiny and the Senate not actually being able to do their job.

Senator LIDDLE (South Australia) (11:25):  Thank you for bringing this motion to the chamber, Senator Steele-John. I sat with you for two of the three days, where we heard people talk about some of the flaws in this legislation, and it clearly should not have come into this place in the shape that it is in right now. In two days of inquiries, of the three, I heard really sad testimony from people who are worried and concerned, bringing very valid examples of why this legislation needs a rethink. It's so bad that they don't trust the government to get this right. They want to see the detail, they want to know how it's going to impact them and they also want a say in exactly what is planned.

You're right to say that it was completely friendless. Like you, I didn't hear many witnesses at all saying they would pass it in its current form; I heard them encouraging senators in this place to not pass it. Those watching the hearing would be left in no doubt that participants in the scheme want the scheme to be sustainable. They want the support to go to those people who need it most. I was asked on the weekend by someone, 'Who's going to be courageous enough to make the changes to the scheme that mean that it's sustainable?' I said, 'If you listened, like I did, to the testimony, the people who want this scheme to be successful, who want it to be sustainable and who want it to work are the families and the participants of the scheme itself and the people that provide the services to them.'

What was missing from the commentary and the evidence was a commitment to go after the obvious fraud. I think over a couple of days of the hearing I saw some items in local papers about significant charges being laid against people for NDIS fraud. Where there is NDIS fraud, the people impacted are the taxpayers, the participants themselves and the providers. Most providers are doing the right thing. They care about the participants they work with. They want them to live the best lives they can. But there are providers that are doing the wrong thing. We heard, in the inquiry into the integrity of the NDIS, from the Australian Federal Police, from the tax office and from other agencies whose job it is to detect fraud of organised crime and of people who are deliberately targeting vulnerable people to exploit them. I certainly haven't seen enough in this legislation to give me confidence that it will have a great effect.

The government's own modelling shows they want to remove 241,000 people from the NDIS by 2031, but they couldn't tell us who they are or where they are from. It's just an arbitrary number. We asked if it's in regional and remote areas, where there are currently thin markets, but we didn't get an answer to that question.

Let me give you an example that I became aware of. I wrote to Senator McAllister and to Minister Mark Butler about a devastating impact of recent changes to the NDIS related specifically to health impacts for residents living with Machado-Joseph disease on Groote Eylandt in the Northern Territory. As part of consultation for the NDIS annual pricing review, the Australian Physiotherapy Association told of the devastating impact those changes will have on service provision for those people. They said services in that area are already limited and now they can't provide services at all. Checking that, I spoke to the community itself, and they said they understand they live in a remote area and they live in thin markets but this is having a significant impact on them. I haven't yet got a response to that letter.

Groote Eylandt has the highest known prevalence of MJD per capita globally, which causes progressive loss of mobility, speech and independence. They can't wait for bureaucracy to find the answers. We heard from participants and their families over and over again that there is a void in information about these changes. Imagine what it's like for those people in thin markets, where they're relying on people they've built a strong relationship with to provide services. I asked that the ministers give urgent attention to that matter and provide me with advice and provide the community administrators that run those communities and service providers with that advice. I can hold my breath, but sadly others can't, and I still haven't got an answer to this one.

The NDIS provides not just support but also opportunity, independence and dignity. It is the chance to work, to participate and to access support that people need without feeling like they're a burden on the people they love. It is meant to provide hope for the future. I've been contacted directly by people in South Australia who talk about their real fear about what this will mean not just for the participants but for their families. What they're saying is not only that they don't understand what's going on here and they need all the detail but that there hasn't been an appropriate level of consultation. It seems like a pin was arbitrarily thrown to find a number the government needed to hit to reach its bottom line. It's policy laziness. That's what it is. It was writ large in the consultations.

What people with disabilities told us constantly throughout these consultations is that they feel invisible, they feel unheard and they feel like they are being reduced to a line item in the Albanese government's budget papers. It's no wonder they feel like that. While this government shuffles Treasury spreadsheets to fill its near trillion-dollar deficit and to make it look more manageable, it's the most vulnerable Australians who are left wondering why it is them who are paying the price for Labor's inability to control its spending.

There is no denial that the NDIS has grown far beyond what was originally expected when it was established 13 years ago. It was a scheme designed to support about 410,000 Australians, but it's now supporting 760,000 people and growing at about 10 per cent a year. It was originally expected to cost $13.6 billion, but it's now approaching $50 billion a year and it's projected to blow out to about $70 billion by the end of the decade. This is the NDIS that Labor built. This is their third attempt to rein in the scheme, to rein in that growth and to protect participants from bad actors. They have failed on all of those measures.

In August 2023, Labor promised growth would be reduced to eight per cent. They failed on that measure. Then, in January this year, despite growing that target, they pledged to reduce growth even further—five to six per cent. Guess what? They failed again. Now, a few months later, with no achievements under the belt, there's a pledge to reduce it by just two per cent. I want to be clear: the coalition's support for this scheme remains unwavering. We believe the scheme must be there for Australians with significant and permanent disability—exactly as it was intended—but the integrity of the very scheme that we're talking about here is weak. Criminals know the guardrails are weak and the fences meant to protect them are flimsy. Australians have heard the stories day in, day out; the NDIS has lost the social licence that it once had.

This government is in charge. It's been in charge for more than four years. It's their job to find the answers. It's not their job to bring legislation like this into the parliament, which has failed to convince not only the people it is there to support but also ordinary Australians who are quite happy to pay for it. But they're not happy to pay for the fraudsters or the criminals, which are the people that we need to go after. They're not happy to pay for the red tape, the bureaucracy, that means that money is not spent where it's intended. We heard about people needing to get reassessments for profound, lifelong, incurable disabilities. What a waste of money. I don't even have to work in the sector to realise that. What's the saving if you reduce the requirement to do that? It would make a huge difference.

This bill is a substantial bill. It provides significant change to the scheme. That's why it needs more consideration; that's why it needs more time. From hearing all of the submissions and the witness testimonies, I'm certainly convinced it could be much better in making the scheme more sustainable and in addressing the fraud that is plaguing it. One of the most concerning parts of the witness testimonies that I heard was about the impact on community supports. You could hear the fear in people's voices. You could hear it; you could see it. They were concerned about becoming invisible and about not doing, or having the ability to participate in, the things in life that we take for granted. That was the thing that caused the most anxiety for participants and their families.

Community supports are critical. Earlier we heard concerns about the impact of removing community supports on jobs. If people can work, they should work. It might not be in the same way that I, or someone else, can work, but if they want to be able to contribute by working, volunteering or doing things out in our communities then they should be able to do that. But to make an arbitrary cut to the ability to do that across every participant—I was left scratching my head and thinking, 'How is that right?' There's not even a suitable explanation to explain how this legislation got to that point. Meanwhile, dodgy operators continue slipping through those cracks while legitimate providers are buried in paperwork, bureaucracy, compliance and red tape. And it's not just the providers. The participants are bogged down in this. And their families are bogged down in this; what they want to focus on is improving the lives of the people they love. It's a simple request; you'd think it wouldn't be that hard.

The scheme must be sustainable for the future to continue supporting those Australians with significant and permanent disability for generations to come. There were very few people that I heard that wouldn't agree with that sentiment. There is opportunity to address its cost to make it more sustainable, but the way Labor is presenting it is not the way to do that. The inquiry should be extended and this bill should not be presented.

Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE (Queensland) (11:41): I rise to support the motion put forward by my colleague, Senator Steele-John, and I want to associate myself with the statements made by Senator Steele-John and Senator Waters.

Within less than a fortnight of this bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, being introduced into the parliament, people with a disability around the country mobilised to tell the government that this is not the way to be caring and supporting for people with a disability in our community. It would appear that the government isn't listening. If it were, it would have withdrawn this bill and engaged in a true process of co-design with people with a disability, their families, advocates and other stakeholders to come up with something that was not this.

This is a bill that is designed to do one thing: to make budget savings now and to continue to make budget savings in the future off the back of people who need support. This is a pattern that we are seeing from this Labor government. We've seen it in aged care, using the argument that they're implementing the recommendations of a royal commission. In fact, they're making the system worse for older people, making them pay more so that many of them can't afford care. The government are tying older people up in assessments and bureaucracy, which means they either wait years or they die before they ever receive support.

Just at the weekend I was talking to some older people in a workshop, and one of them said to me, 'We feel they just want us to die. because then they won't have to pay for us.' And it's hard not to wonder whether that is, in fact, the case, because the same thing is going to happen here with the changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. There are people who are going to die as a consequence of these changes.

Removing social supports for people arbitrarily can have catastrophic consequences for people. Not that long ago we had COVID lockdowns and so many people were saying that they were going stir crazy locked in their houses, asking, 'When would it end?' Well, this bill will consign some people with a disability to a lifetime of being locked down in their homes. Shame on you!

We keep hearing the word 'sustainability'. What's sustainable about chucking people off a scheme that supports them when we know that that's a false economy? Poor mental health is going to go through the roof, and we already have a mental health crisis in this country that we are not addressing with adequate supports. We're going to see more hospital admissions because people haven't had the care and support that they need. It's just like we're seeing with aged care: hospital beds are filling up because people cannot get the care that they need in their homes. We are going to see that repeated here.

Forty billion dollars in savings—I can think of a whole bunch of other places where we could find $40 billion in savings. Let's not buy submarines that are just going to put us on an offensive war footing against a country that's one of our major trading partners. That's not going to make us safer. How about we have a gas tax? Stop letting big corporations off scot-free without them paying their fair share. Let's tax the one per cent and make them pay their fair share. Let's stop giving massive subsidies to fossil fuel companies. Let's not grandfather into the never-never capital gains tax and negative gearing. There is so much money out there if the government had the courage to stand up to powerful vested interests, to not do their bidding, and actually do the job of government, which is to care for people.

People on the NDIS have said the scheme is not perfect. There are aspects that need reform. There are people who are being negatively impacted by fraud in the system. Why don't you start by going after that first? You could actually have a concerted effort to bring legislation into this place to seriously tackle the fraud that some providers are perpetuating, which is harming people on the scheme, and then reassess where you're at. But, no; you want to start with cuts. You want to not only start with cuts but give the minister virtually unfettered power to make more cuts into the future. Who knows who will be the government then? I find that pretty scary.

There are some parties in this place that would love to decimate the NDIS, and you're basically giving them a blank cheque and a free pass to do whatever they want in the future to cut people's supports. There is a pattern with this government: tying people up in bureaucracy and automated assessments. We're seeing algorithms creeping in to the way people are going to be assessed on the NDIS. We're already seeing what a disaster that is in the aged-care space—automation in social services and cutting people off from their payments. That's another group of people in our community who should be supported and looked after by governments, but this government refuses to do what needs to be done. They're getting savings out of not raising the rate of income support. It's just another example of going after savings from the people in our community, who governments are supposed to be helping, instead of standing up to vested and powerful interests.

This is a government that came to this parliament with a massive majority. This is a government that has a pathway through the Senate to do good things for people in our communities. What did we see with aged care? We saw them do a deal with the coalition behind closed doors about the financials, and now we've got a mess of a system where people can't afford to access care. They can't get care. I guarantee that we're looking down the barrel of the same thing again. They are working with those parties who are happy to help the government use the vulnerable people, the people who need our help in our community, as the cash cows to balance their budget, because they don't have the courage. Notwithstanding their massive majority, and notwithstanding the fact that they have a clear pathway through this place to do good things that will help our community, they want to punch down on the people who need and deserve government support.

How shameful it is that one of the ways that you've tried to build up consent in the community for these cuts is to put fraud out there like it's this massive emergency. I've seen people in the street with a disability getting spat on because the community has been led to believe that it's the participants who are committing this fraud. It's been quite convenient for the government to let people think that, because that will help manufacture consent for changes that are going to really harm people.

We know the focus groups were there; the research is there. How do we get consent to chuck 241,000 people off the NDIS? I know; we'll start telling everybody about fraud, even though I can count on my two hands the prosecutions for fraud. It's punching down on people who need support—people with a disability, older people, people who need income support. That's how this government rolls. And the public is noticing. I honestly don't know how you sleep at night. I don't know how you can have so much power, such a majority, and then not help people. It blows my mind.

What blows my mind even more is when I'm at rallies like one for the NDIS and I'll have someone who I know is a Labor volunteer or supporter come over and say, 'Thank you so much for speaking out.' Well, who's speaking up in your party room? Who's speaking up in caucus? What's the point of having 94 of you in the lower house, if you can't stop something as bad as this? Why even bother? I say to those Labor backbenchers in the Senate and the lower house, where are you? Where are you standing up and speaking out about cuts that are going to devastate people with a disability.

They already know. They've had a taste of what this is going to look like, because they've already had supports start to be cut and they know what that means for their lives. They know that it means some of them won't be able to get out of bed. They know that it means they're going to be disconnected from their communities. They know that it means they're going to be locked inside their houses. They know that it means they're not going to be able to get to work. Parents know that it means the family that's just hanging on by a thread as it is, because of the challenges that they are facing with their kids who need support, are going to go under. Knowing all that, what's the point of sitting on the Labor backbench if you can't speak up in your own party room?

I am really proud of the work that the disability community, people with a disability, have done despite the challenges, to stand together and to tell the government that this is not okay. I am proud of the work that the disability community has done to speak out and tell the public what this is going to mean for them, how devastating this is going to be for them and their families. Make no mistake: in addition to people with a disability paying for these cuts, women in our community are going to pay for these cuts. Who's doing the bulk of the caring work when the government's not giving people the support they need? Women! They're the ones looking after our parents and grandparents because they can't get access to aged care. They're the ones looking after kids with a disability and other family members with a disability because they can't get the support they need. This is a government that's supposed to be about women. We've heard that women and people with a disability are going to be more likely to experience violence, abuse and neglect if they get their supports taken away. Yet this is a government that tells the community, 'We care about violence against women. We're doing everything we can to stop violence against women.' There are things that you can do that will help such as not taking away people's community supports in the NDIS; getting rid of the partner income test in social services, which we also know exposes women to violence; getting rid of gambling advertising, which we also know drives violence. You talk the talk, but you're not very good at walking the walk. Again I ask: what is the point of having a Labor government with a massive majority if you're not going to act on the issues that really impact people in our community, if you're not going to look after the most vulnerable, if you're just going to keep bowing down to vested interests and powerful interests and do their bidding? You've had over four years, and that is the pattern that keeps repeating and repeating and repeating.

This bill is a dog of a bill. It will harm people. If this bill passes, there are people who will die. I urge the government to scrap this bill, to withdraw it from the Notice Paper, to go back and start again and to have a genuine process of true co-design with people with a disability. Come back and tell us how you are actually going to tackle fraud from providers that are taking care away from people with a disability.

I urge the coalition: do not support a bill that is going to harm people and that will see people die.

Senator BARBARA POCOCK (South Australia) (11:56): I rise to join my voice with that of others in this chamber who are asking the government, imploring the government, to throw this bill out and to provide the care and support that disabled people across our country deserve. I associate myself with the remarks of my colleagues Senator Steele-John, Senator Allman-Payne, Senator Waters and with Senator Kovacic and Senator Liddle and with the important evidence that you have brought forward. We share in asking the Senate to revisit this bill and for Labor to change their minds. No-one could have sat through those three days of evidence without feeling deep concern about the losses that individuals, disabled people, will suffer if Labor persists here. No-one could be under any doubt about what this bill will mean for families. It will cause a cascade of loss of freedoms, loss of life and certainly loss of control for the many millions of carers across our country who are supporting and looking after disabled people with complex issues.

This bill is an attack on disabled people. It is an attack on the care workforce. It is an attack on the economy of care, which provides such important services and freedom to people with disability. It is a cruel and inhumane act. It does not do justice to our standards as a community, as a parliament and as a society. Some 241,000 disabled people, a huge number, will simply lose their NDIS services, and a cascade of consequences will follow. If they had listened to the evidence of the individuals who came before this parliament and asked us, implored us, to understand their experience and what this meant for them then Labor could not persist with this bill.

The bill itself grants massive new powers to the government to cut supports for those who are reliant on NDIS. It cuts support for so many thousands of people who have disability, who make contributions to our labour market every day with great complexity in their lives. They manage complexity in getting transport to get to work, complexity in doing their jobs, but they do it and they manage it, in many cases because they have the kinds of support that this Labor bill will remove. It will remove people's ability to shower themselves and to look after their own personal hygiene with support. Can people imagine what that means for 241,000 households? That loss of that kind of basic amenity impacts on individuals. It impacts on households. It impacts on our labour market and our economy.

This bill also creates new access barriers which force people to undergo potentially expensive procedures not recommended or not required by their doctors. This is cruel, and it really will have a massive impact on those individuals, their families, their parents, their carers. It pushes all of that care back onto those individuals. We know what this means for the privacy of individuals, of people with disability. We know what it means for the many, many carers.

The minister said here this morning that there is no other way to do this. That is wrong. There are many other ways we can fund appropriate levels of care. There are many other ways we can end massive fraud where very big entities are practising aspects of providing disability support which are fraudulent. There are many things we could do. The minister has closed them all off. I feel like I'm back in Thatcher's Britain. 'There is no alternative.' There are many alternatives. I spent three days last week in hearings, two of them around housing. Many people came forward and said, 'If we didn't have the kind of grandfathering provisions that bake in massive benefits for very, very wealthy property investors, we would have billions of dollars added into our budget which could do exactly what is being removed here—fund the services that disabled people need.'

I spent a whole day on Friday listening to the cowboys and scoundrels in KPMG telling us about the kinds of activities they have been engaged in, misusing confidential information, to generate huge buckets of revenue. KPMG's revenue last year was $2.3 billion. There are 680 partners in that firm who do not pay corporate tax. They don't pay payroll tax. We could change the way in which we tax the big four and generate very significant levels of revenue.

We have a bill of $271 billion that Labor has committed to pay on the AUKUS submarine contract, a bill where we're very unlikely to get a significant usable product at the end. We're already sending billion-dollar cheques off to the UK and the US for this very implausible contract which is very unlikely to deliver what we need, and there are billions of dollars wasted in our defence budget. We can tax gas corporations. A 25 per cent tax could generate $17 billion in a single year. We could stop giving away masses of billions of dollars to fossil fuel companies in fuel subsidies.

There are so many things we could do that are alternatives, and we sit here and hear the Labor government say, 'There is no other way to do this than to punch down on people in our society, people we know in our streets, in our communities and in our households, that depend on our support.' For every $1 that we invest in the NDIS, Per Capita's research tells us we get a $2.25 return to the Australian economy. We have a very significant care economy there which deserves support and which should be backed in rather than cut and treated in the way that Labor proposes.

We had a select committee into work and care here a few years ago with very firm evidence about the role of carers in our economy, assisting so many thousands of Australians. Witnesses came before us and told us what the care responsibilities meant for them and how NDIS support was critical to their participation in our economy and their participation in public life—all of the activities, voluntary and paid, that they contribute. Make no mistake, this bill is diabolical in its implications for women. This bill is an attack on women. This bill is an attack on the millions of women across our economy who provide care to Australians who desperately need it and rely on it for being able to participate in their lives. This is a bill which attacks women. It's an attack on carers, disproportionately women. It is wrong. It is an attack by a government that wears its credentials on its services and support for women every day out there in public. But this bill is a clear demonstration of their failure to understand the implications of these massive cuts for women, for their participation in work, for their participation in their family life and for their participation in so many other activities.

Turning to the experience in South Australia, I have had so many South Australian constituents make contact with my office and ask for their voices to be represented here. They come forward with stories—for example, a 50-year-old woman who finally gained full independence not so long ago and confidence that her son could act in this community with the help of a support worker. The parent is now able to enjoy retirement knowing their adult child is supported. Parents who are able to work and pay tax because they have some physical and mental load taken by a support worker are now at risk of losing all of that. This is an incredible loss not only for the economy but especially for the individuals and for those they care for. Their teenager has the chance to get involved in teenage activities, following years of support by a parent, and get the independence so important for young kids. People who are able to walk without fear of falls due to equipment and who've joined a gym with support from a support worker are now at real risk of losing that. And people with intellectual disabilities who have brought their stories to my office are currently able to save up hours and travel out of town. Before the NDIS, they were unable to leave their small town and overcome issues of isolation.

Through the NDIS, people across the state of South Australia and our whole country have been able to gain confidence, to escape isolation, to work on goals, to get jobs and to aim for dreams like others do. Cutting back on all of this is a disaster for these individuals. I can't talk about this evidence without mentioning the incredible example of the loss of the life of Anne-Marie Smith in South Australia. This is a story of isolation—a failure in the life of a disabled person to see enough people which resulted in the appalling circumstances of her loss of life—which shocked and horrified everyone in our own state, South Australia, and across our country. Key multiple support interactions are critical to saving the life of someone like Anne-Marie Smith.

People will suffer due to this bill. We have heard people say over and over again in this chamber that people will die. We will be back at inquiries in the future that will look at the cost of this 241,000-person loss of services. We really need to see this for what it is: a Labor bill that is cruel, a Labor bill that is not necessary and a Labor bill which cuts services which could be funded by a whole range of possible actions that could have held off this massive cut. I think of the recent stats we've seen in this country of the growing number of billionaires. We're now at over 178 billionaires in this country, and their wealth grew by $25 billion last year. We do not tax those billionaires at anything like the rate we tax our nurses, our teachers and our retail workers. We have a whole range of tax levers available to us in this country that mean we can fund decent services for disabled people. We can fund a decent social safety net which supports people to live with dignity. How dare a government who promised that they wouldn't cut the NDIS now balance their budget by selling disabled people's dignity? It is all wrong and all against our national values. It's disgusting that Labor would strip a sense of hope away from disabled people and their families when the ultrawealthy are doing so well.

We are an increasingly unequal society. It shocks me how much our country has changed in the last 30 years. We have a massive pulling away of very wealthy people at the top who are not taxed enough, and down at the bottom are a growing number of people who are really struggling. And we wonder, as people in this place, why people are changing their vote—why people are moving their vote away from the big parties. The reason is they don't feel listened to. They don't feel heard in a place like this and they are bringing their experience to us in their many hundreds, saying: 'Look at what this cut will do to me. Look what it will do to my child, my teenager or my aged parent.' We need to listen to those voices if we want people to have any confidence in our democracy. If we want people to engage in a serious way with policy, we need to show we are listening. Labor is showing in this bill that it is cruel, it is not listening and it is going to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of Australians for the worse.

Senator McKIM (Tasmania—Australian Greens Whip) (12:10): Let's be very clear about what Labor is proposing to do to disabled people in Australia. It is attacking the NDIS—a great Labor reform, I might add, from the days when Julia Gillard was the Prime Minister. Labor is intending to attack the NDIS to the extent that somewhere around 240,000 disabled people are going to be booted off the NDIS. That means they will lose access to critical supports that, in many cases, are life-saving supports: access to carers, access to services and access to desperately needed equipment. People will die as a result of Labor's attacks on the NDIS and, by extension, Labor's decision to attack disabled people.

This is a diabolical proposal from Labor. It is the biggest single cut to a program in the history of the Commonwealth of Australia. Labor will say they have no choice and they have to rein in costs. We in the Greens say to Labor: there is always a choice. The choice that you have taken is to fund, for example, the AUKUS nuclear submarines at a cost heading rapidly towards $400 billion over the life of that program and, at the same time, move to cut tens of billions of dollars of support from disabled people. The choice you have made is to not tax the one per cent in this country and to not make the billionaires and the ultrawealthy pay their fair share of tax so that we can do more to support people who desperately need support, including disabled people. The choice Labor has made is to not make big corporations pay their fair share of tax. The choice Labor has made is to not put in place a minimum 25 per cent tax on gas exports to make the big, polluting, profiteering, price-gouging fossil fuel corporations pay their fair share of tax. At the same time, Labor chooses to punch down on disabled people.

Make no mistake; these NDIS cuts will force every single participant to be reassessed, placing massive stress on those people and the family networks that do so much to support them. Even participants with lifelong conditions like cerebral palsy will have to be reassessed with the specific intention of either removing them from disability supports or lowering the level of support that they receive. These cuts will be the difference between a disabled person being able to leave their house and their not being able to leave their house. These cuts will be the difference between a disabled person being able to have a shower and their not being able to have a shower. These cuts will be the difference between a disabled person being able to improve their verbal communication skills and their remaining non-verbal, unable to communicate verbally. These cuts will be the difference between a disabled person being able to remain in a mainstream classroom to learn and be educated and their not being able to remain in a mainstream classroom. These are disgraceful and diabolical cuts that Labor is proposing, and they are cuts that Labor is choosing to make.

Labor's rhetoric about having no choice but to reduce costs to the NDIS system is absolute rubbish. It is a diabolical spin on a diabolical proposal. There are always choices in politics. Every day, governments make choices. Budgets are all about choices. Labor has the choice to walk away from this diabolical proposal, and the Liberals have a choice to stand with the Greens and prevent these cuts from happening. Make no mistake—if the Liberals are genuine about wanting support for disabled people to continue at reasonable levels, they have an opportunity here to vote with the Greens in this Senate and stop Labor's NDIS cuts.

But, before we get to that, the real choice here is for the government. The government could simply acknowledge the stories that were told in the Senate inquiry hearings over the last few weeks—the horrendous stories about what people will face if these cuts go through, about the harm that will be caused to disabled people and about the death that will be caused to some disabled people. Those stories surely are enough now for Labor to admit the error of its ways and to withdraw this bill from the parliament. No-one who listened to that evidence that was given so bravely and courageously by so many disabled people could possibly argue that this bill should be supported by the parliament. From witness after witness, day after day, we heard heart-rending stories of how much so many disabled people rely on the NDIS to lead dignified lives and how much they rely on the NDIS for the supports they so desperately need. Those stories were heart-rending. Those stories were told from the heart and from the gut by people who came in because they wanted to be heard and demanded that they be heard by this parliament.

The Greens are here to fight these cuts with every fibre of our being. We will do everything we can to ensure that these cuts do not go through this parliament. These cuts should not receive support from this Senate. Even if the government, Labor, won't see the error of its ways and do what it should, which is withdraw this legislation, the numbers are still there if the opposition joins with the Greens to vote this friendless piece of legislation down. These kinds of cuts have no place in a compassionate, contemporary society like Australia's. I have no doubt that the email inboxes, the phone messaging apps and the letterboxes of every single senator are being flooded, as mine are, by people with disabilities and by people who care for people with disabilities who want to make sure that these cuts do not progress.

I want to relate one story—just one out of the countless stories that have been told to me. It's from someone I know well, a friend of mine and a constituent of mine in Tasmania who has a child with Down syndrome. As he points out, he's a very proud father of a son with Down syndrome. He goes at length into the consequences for him and his son if the level of supports for his son are withdrawn. He also makes the point that, while it is great for people with disabilities—in particular, people with Down syndrome—to have support for social experiences, what is often lost in this debate is how the lives of everyone else are enriched by an interaction with someone with a disability like Down syndrome. As my friend says, it breaks moulds, it enlarges thinking, and it encourages special insights. His son has recently started work at a grocery, and his son who is non-verbal has brought the best out of the other staff at that grocery. He is bringing out their better selves as they find ways to interact with him and then subsequently improve their interactions with each other.

This is not just a debate about how we can support disabled people. It is a debate about what disabled people bring to us—the gifts they give to us and the opportunities they bring to us to learn about ourselves, to improve ourselves as people and to improve ourselves as a society. Those are the opportunities that Labor wants us to spurn, and those are the opportunities that either Labor can ensure we continue to have by withdrawing this legislation or the Liberals can ensure we continue to have by joining with the Greens to oppose this legislation.

Let's be very clear about budget choices. In this budget, Labor chose not to impose a minimum 25 per cent export tax on gas. Labor chose not to make the super wealthy pay a wealth tax in this country. Labor chose not to put in place genuine reform of our tax system, from negative gearing through to capital gains tax, to not only do something significant to fix the housing crisis but also to make sure the super wealthy property speculators pay their fair share of tax. Labor chose to proceed with the AUKUS nuclear submarine proposal, which, over the lifetime of that program, is now heading up towards $400 billion, and I predict will end up even more than $400 billion. They chose to do and to not do those things, and, at the same time, they chose to punch down on disabled people and make a massive budget saving—the single biggest saving of a single program in this budget and in the history of the Australian Commonwealth—by slashing funding to the NDIS.

This is not just about inquiries. It's not just about reports. This is actually about people—people who need and deserve support so that they can have a dignified life and their families can have some much-needed relief for the supports that all families with disabled people give and continue to give to their family members who are disabled. So this is a very stark choice. This is a moment in time for the major parties in this parliament—the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the Nationals—and it is a moment in time where people need to stop and think about the impact of the decisions that they make in this place on the so many millions of Australians who rely either directly or indirectly on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. When folks do take a moment to think about the implications and to think about the impacts of the decision that this parliament will shortly have to make in regard to the NDIS legislation and Labor's proposed NDIS cuts, when people genuinely think about those impacts and those implications, any decent, compassionate, reasonable thinking human is going to come down on the side of protecting the NDIS from these cuts. There are savings to be made elsewhere. There is so much revenue that Labor has chosen to leave on the table through its budget choices that this choice to protect disabled people from Labor's NDIS cuts should be abundantly clear. This legislation should not and must not pass this parliament, and the Greens will do everything that we can to ensure that that is the case.

Senator GREEN (Queensland—Assistant Minister for Tourism, Assistant Minister for Pacific Island Affairs and Assistant Minister for Northern Australia) (12:25): I move:

That the question be now put.

Question agreed to.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The question is that the motion moved by Senator Steele-John be agreed to.

Senator BLYTH (South Australia—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (13:28): One of the fundamental responsibilities of government is to uphold people's rights, but what happens when the rights of two groups come into conflict? That was a question that I put to the Australian Human Rights Commission during Senate estimates last month, following the recent Federal Court decision in the Giggle for Girls versus Roxanne Tickle appeal.

Biological males who identify as women are entitled under the current legal framework to access spaces and protections traditionally reserved for women. When I asked the commissioners how competing rights should be balanced when the rights of biological women and those of men who identify as women come into conflict, I did not receive a clear answer. Women have fought long and hard for sex based protections. Those protections exist to preserve safety, fairness, dignity and privacy in sport, prisons, toilets and change rooms. Yet, when women raise concern about those protections being eroded, they are too often dismissed, ignored or labelled as bigoted or transphobic.

During questioning, Dr Cody suggested that a biological male who identifies as a woman could face discrimination on the basis of a potential pregnancy. Many Australians find that impossible to reconcile with biological reality. Women should not have to apologise for seeking protections based on biological reality, nor should their concerns be treated as any less worthy than someone else's identity claims. This is a question of common sense. When institutions are unable or unwilling to balance competing rights using clear and practical definitions, parliament has a responsibility to act. That is why the coalition will support changes to restore definitions of men and women based on biological reality to the Sex Discrimination Act.

Senator WHITEAKER (Western Australia) (13:30): I am proud to be a working parent, and I know many of my colleagues in this place and many, many working parents across the country feel the same way. It's a juggle and it's tough, but it is worth it. I can feel confident coming across the country to this place in weeks like this, or heading off to work in the great state of Western Australia, knowing that my son is somewhere safe, learning and growing and being educated by experienced and trained early education workers—early childhood educators. It's one of the best things about our country that we have a choice as working parents and—let's face it—as working mothers to do that. It's been long and hard-fought.

But what we saw last week from Senator Hanson is that Senator Hanson and One Nation don't believe that working parents should have that choice. They don't believe that working mothers should have that choice. Senator Hanson thinks that paid parental leave shouldn't be something that women are entitled to and shouldn't be something that businesses provide to their workers. She certainly wants to see superannuation stripped off paid parental leave and apparently believes that hardworking early childhood educators shouldn't be qualified to do the really important work that they do. Make no mistake: this position by Senator Hanson and One Nation will take our country backwards. It will take the progress that we have made on women's economic equality, on workplace equality and on gender equality more broadly backwards.

While One Nation and Senator Hanson want to tear it down, thank goodness they're not in charge. From 1 July, paid parental leave will be extended to a full six months so that parents can have more time at home, and we are rolling out three days of guaranteed cheaper child care for families.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG (South Australia—Manager of Australian Greens Business in the Senate) (13:32): I love Australia, but Senator Pauline Hanson hates Australia. She hates our free press. She hates our public broadcasters. She hates the very idea that ordinary Australians deserve access to truth, culture and a fair go, because, when you strip away the slogans and the stunts, what is she actually arguing for? She wants Australians to pay to access ABC iview, to put a price tag on public information. She wants to put ABC Kids behind a paywall. She wants to shut down SBS altogether—the very broadcaster that reflects modern, multicultural Australia back to itself, the one that brings us global stories, diverse voices and, yes, even those ultimate exciting moments of the World Cup shared across living rooms across the country. That is not patriotism. That is cultural vandalism. Pauline Hanson and One Nation are not patriots; they are cultural vandals. Senator Hanson doesn't believe in a free press. She undermines the institutions that hold power to account. She wants a media landscape that is narrower, weaker and easier to bully. Let's be clear: when you go after a free press, you go after democracy itself.

But it doesn't stop there. This is part of a broader pattern. Pauline Hanson and One Nation's attack is on workers' rights, an attack on women's rights, an attack on multicultural Australia and an attack on Indigenous Australia, the most ancient culture of all—the very foundations that have built our country and that bring us together. I, for one, believe in a free press. I believe in public broadcasting. I believe that everybody deserves a fair go. Pauline Hanson and One Nation are vandals.

Senator McDONALD (Queensland—Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (13:34): I rise today to sound the alarm on another threat to Australian food security. The Albanese government is progressing a process aimed at opening the door to fresh banana imports from the Philippines. Australians should know that the department of agriculture's own officials visited banana farms in the Philippines and observed diseases which would devastate the banana industry here, including Moko, black Sigatoka, banana freckle and Panama disease Tropical Race 4.

While Australian growers are working every day to feed Australian families, Labor is examining more ways to weaken the protections that have made Australian bananas the envy of the world. This doesn't happen in isolation. It's part of a broader pattern from a government that refuses to prioritise what's good for Australia; a government that continually puts ideology ahead of food production. We've seen attacks on farmers through the proposed EPBC Act changes. We've seen commercial fishing communities hammered by net-fishing bans. We've seen productive water ripped from regional communities through the Murray-Darling buybacks. We've seen oppositions to dams and water infrastructure that would strengthen agricultural production. Now we have the threat of imports hanging over one of Australia's most important horticultural industries.

What concerns me even more is that, while Labor talks endlessly about resilience and sustainability, government funding for agricultural, veterinary and food science research has fallen by more than $100 million over the past four years. At the same time, environmental science funding has increased by around $400 million. That tells you everything that you need to know about Labor's priorities: less investment in growing food, less investment in protecting food and less investment in farmers who feed this nation. Australian farmers are not the problem. They are our greatest national asset.

Senator POLLEY (Tasmania) (13:36): One Nation's dangerous rise should cause great concern to every Australian who believes in a secure workplace, fair wages and a decent standard of living. Behind the slogans and grievances of One Nation is an agenda that would take Australians backwards. One Nation has shown hostility to the very important measures that are helping Australians, particularly when it comes to working families: stronger workplace rights, paid parental leave, superannuation, affordable child care and wage growth. One Nation opposes it all. If One Nation gets their way, bosses will be able to fire workers at will with no recourse for working Australians. At a time when families are already under pressure, One Nation's approach would weaken workplace protections, drive wages down and leave workers with less take home pay and less job security.

The Albanese Labor government has delivered tax cuts for all Australians, energy bill relief, cheaper child care and urgent care clinics. It has invested in Medicare, expanded paid parental leave—and paid superannuation on that parental leave—and boosted superannuation. But One Nation, no matter what they tell people back in their electorates and through the media, we know they oppose the tax cuts for every Australian. They oppose the energy bill relief. They oppose cheaper child care. They have opposed urgent care clinics. Their leader said just last week that women who aren't at work shouldn't get paid. So much for paid maternity leave!

We believe in building this country through superannuation. We are actually the friends of the Australian workers, unlike the—

(Time expired)

Senator WHITTEN (Western Australia) (13:38): It takes some serious gall to come out and celebrate the latest immigration figures as a win; the third-highest immigration figures in Australia's history—during a housing crisis fuelled by Labor's previous two record immigration years. That is another 306,000 people that need homes that we don't have, who will need our doctors and hospitals that are stretched to breaking point and who will pile into a job market this Labor government is killing with its disastrous budget. This is the population of Geelong added in a year, or one-and-a-half of Hobart's—and the Labor Party is trying to tell you that this is some sort of victory? This is managed decline. This is a party that is willing to sell out Australians and their standard of living to hold on to power. They're willing to sell us out for votes. This is not rhetoric; this is fact.

The Institute of Public Affairs has analysed the per capita economic growth of the last five Labor and coalition governments. This is the only government, going back to 1975, to preside over a per capita decline in the Australian economy. It is the only government that has seen the Australian people go backwards. The middle class is shrinking and the working class is ballooning because people are being pushed down. People who used to have enough for their house, their family and their bills, with something left over for a rainy day, are now struggling to make ends meet. People are turning to food banks and homeless shelters in huge numbers. Police, nurses, teachers, those who once lived comfortably, are now on the brink with a Labor government that has the gall to tell them it is on their side. This government keeps spending, keeps taxing and keeps immigration at record levels. The Australian people deserve a real change, and One Nation is ready to deliver it.

Senator O'SULLIVAN (Western Australia—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) (13:40): Earlier this month, the Australian Institute of Family Studies released a report on the adverse childhood experiences of men and their long-term mental health impacts. It found that 33.6 per cent of Australian men experienced physical abuse as children, 37.9 per cent experienced emotional abuse and 25 per cent lived with someone who struggled with mental illness. These are not just statistics; they are childhoods. If we want to understand family violence, we cannot ignore the childhood experiences of so many that often sit in the background.

While these experiences do not determine a person's future, they can profoundly shape it. Family violence is rarely an isolated event. Trauma, fear and unhealthy coping mechanisms can pass quietly from one generation to the next, shaping lives behind closed doors. Prevention means more than responding after harm has occurred. It means helping people address trauma early, strengthening mental health support and ensuring men have the tools to cope, to communicate and to seek help before problems escalate.

But there is hope. University of New South Wales research published last month found that many people who experienced childhood trauma still showed resilience, maintaining moderate to high wellbeing as adults. As Professor Gatt observed, childhood adversity can be traumatic, but it doesn't have to determine a person's whole life. That is why prevention matters. Family violence prevention begins long before violence occurs. It begins with helping people heal, building resilience and developing healthy relationships. Every child deserves to inherit safety instead of fear, and every generation has a responsibility to leave the next one better than they found it.

Senator DARMANIN (Victoria—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (13:42): In my first speech to this place, I said:

Diversity and difference are the magic that make our local communities into the places we love and Melbourne into one of the most vibrant cities in the world. The politics of fear and division help no-one and hurt us all. We must stand up for what's right, because hope will always triumph over hate.

I stand by those words today and every day just as strongly as I did then because multiculturalism has enriched Australia and it continues to do so. We are a country built on migration. Our diversity is not accidental, and it is not a recent development. It is a defining characteristic of modern Australia and one of our greatest strengths.

I'm a proud Victorian senator. The proportion of overseas-born Victorians who come from non-main English-speaking countries is 78 per cent, the highest in Australia and something that I celebrate. You see that strength every day in our schools, our workplaces and our neighbourhoods. You see it in the small businesses that bring life to our communities, the fantastic food and the workers who care for us when we are sick, teach our children and help build our country. In fact, half of Australia's health workforce was born overseas. These are the people who chose Australia, and what a privilege it is for us that they've chosen to come here and care for our loved ones and for us when we are sick.

The promise of Australian multiculturalism is simple. It is the promise of a fair go—that everyone gets a fair crack at life no matter their background or how long they have been here. There are those who want to turn back the clock to an Australia that is no longer who we are. We must not be afraid ever to call that out, because multiculturalism is about diversity, not division. It's about interaction, not isolation. It's something that I will stand up for every single day, and, in the face of hatred and division, we should always choose hope, respect and inclusion because they are the values that have built the Australia that we know today.

Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (13:44): The rise of One Nation from 6½ per cent of the national vote at the federal election last year to polling over 30 per cent in nine months is a political anomaly the likes of which we have never seen in this country before. It's an established political party that's campaigned on the same issues for nearly three decades—at a time when Australians have been moving away from major parties for the last decade—suddenly jumping from nearly 400 or 500 per cent in the space of nine months. Yet, the commentariat in this country are treating it like it's business as usual—that somehow they've tapped into how people are feeling about politics. It's a protest vote. It's a vote against the major parties.

Well, they're ignoring the elephant in the room. One Nation have risen because they have a massive machine behind them. They're making no secret of the fact that they're tied in with Australia's richest woman, Gina Rinehart, and no doubt have significant funds behind them. We're not talking about the massive international misinformation and disinformation machine. We know foreign websites have been pumping out up to 400 fake posts a week using deepfake AI promoting One Nation. The Senate select committee that I chaired called for an independent investigation into this, but it's getting worse.

I ask senators to read the book Angertainment by Ed Coper. That, I think, is one of the best explainers as to why we live in an age that desperately needs new solutions; otherwise, we risk our very democracy disappearing before our eyes. Seriously, to use some pub vernacular, this country needs to wake the fuck up to what is going on in the sphere of social media—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Scarr ): Senator Whish-Wilson, could you please withdraw the use of that term.

Senator WHISH-WILSON: I'll withdraw that use of pub vernacular, Acting Deputy President. But my point is very serious: if we don't do something about this cancer, it will kill our democracy in the years ahead. The outrage and the anger that One Nation are appealing to are the algorithm and social media.

Senator BABET (Victoria—United Australia Party Whip) (13:47): Culture is the shared values, traditions, beliefs, customs and way of life that bind a people together. It's the invisible thread that connects generations and gives a nation its identity, its character and its purpose. Australia's culture did not emerge by accident. It was built by generations of hardworking Aussies who cleared the land, built business, established institutions, raised families and defended the nation. The worldview that shaped those Australians is Christian. Christianity provided the moral foundation upon which Australia was built. Our understanding of right and wrong, human dignity, equality before the law, personal responsibility, charity, forgiveness and justice all flow from the inheritance of Christianity.

Australia is a multiracial nation, and that's not a weakness; it's one of our strengths. We come from every corner of the world and every ethnic background imaginable, but, while we might be multiracial, we must remain a monocultural nation. We must be united by a common culture, a common set of values and a common national identity. A nation cannot remain strong if it becomes a collection of separate tribes, each with different loyalties, values and visions for the future. Diversity of ancestry can be a strength. Diversity of fundamental values, however, is a recipe for division and a recipe for problems. Our task is not merely to protect our borders; it is to protect the culture that sits within those borders, because, if we lose our culture, we will lose the foundation of our unity and our cohesion, and ultimately we will lose our nation.

Senator MULHOLLAND (Queensland) (13:49): Australia's housing crisis won't be solved with a three-word slogan or a social media culture war. Australians can't live in a press release or a political cartoon, no matter how jazzy the jingles might be. They can't house their family in a National Press Club address. They need a home with a foundation, a frame and a roof over it. Australians need leadership on this issue. They need political parties focused on building homes and getting more Australians into a home of their own. But, while this government is focused on cranes and construction, those opposite are focused on culture wars. Australians need builders, not blockers. If your answer to every housing proposal is no, you are not a serious party of government; you are a protest party.

Let's look at what is getting delivered out there in the real world, not in cartoon land. In Margate, construction is well underway on 60 homes delivered by Bric Housing. In Redcliffe, I met with Lyndal and Margot, who are some of the older residents who have moved into the 82-dwelling complex in the heart of the Redcliffe CBD. In the seat of Longman, I visited new homes that were being delivered by Coast2Bay Housing for women and families fleeing domestic violence. In Chermside, I visited BHC's development of 92 homes for essential workers, seniors and people living with a disability. On the Sunshine Coast, I visited a construction site that, thanks to BlueCHP, had 63 new homes under construction. These are not numbers on a page; they are people that this chamber cannot play politics with. They are real Queenslanders, with real stories, that are looking for real solutions. This government will continue to build more homes and open more doors to housing affordability. While we build more homes and get more Australians into a home of their own, the only thing those opposite want to do is build outrage.

Senator COLLINS (New South Wales—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (13:51): This bad Labor budget is an assault on the Australian dream of being able to work hard and being rewarded for that work, as well as the dream of providing for your family and having your children live better lives than you could. Australians were told that Labor would not touch capital gains tax, negative gearing, trust, super or stage 3 cuts. Labor broke those promises. If you could not trust Labor on tax a month ago, you cannot trust them now. The so-called small-business carve-out is an absolute con. Nine out of 10 small businesses will get nothing. Labor's toxic taxes still leave them worse off.

Labor and the Greens are doing a deal on this budget, and the dirty deal between the Labor Party and the Greens will see Australians go backwards. It will see more small businesses close and more young Australians look overseas for opportunities that were once possible here. Those opportunities of enterprise have been killed by this prime minister. He lies down with the Greens to tax Australians more and locks all Australians out of the prosperous future guaranteed by coalition governments. The Prime Minister wouldn't take this to the Australian people. He knew that Australians would outright reject his partisan politics of punishment on aspiration.

If the Prime Minister were a bird, he would be a lyrebird. He mimics Marx and whistles a different tune before the election to what he hawks now. Labor's toxic taxes don't need a tweak, a carve-out or another Canberra fix. They need the axe, because you don't fix a bad tax by making it more complicated; you scrap it. The Liberal-National coalition backs small business. We back you all the way. We understand small business and we will axe this terrible tax.

Senator DAVID POCOCK (Australian Capital Territory—Independent ACT Whip) (13:53): A recent Knight Frank report ranked Australia second globally for data centre investment, yet our government is yet to put in place effective regulatory and tax settings to protect Australians from the risks and from demands on water and energy and to capture the benefits from tax to local content requirements and computing power. While France and the UK now have digital services taxes in place that deliver roughly $1 billion to $1½ billion a year to their respective budgets, the Australian government seems content to let the global hyperscalers set up here but take their profits offshore.

We looked ready to repeat exactly the same mistakes we made with gas: big multinationals are coming here and telling us how much they're investing and how great it's going to be for the future of our country, but at the end of the day we're paying international prices for our gas, we're constantly being told that we have a shortage of gas here in Australia despite being one of the biggest gas exporters in the world and we aren't getting a fair return. We cannot allow this same mistake to be made when it comes to data centres. There's no plan, there's no coordination, and there's precious little transparency for this burgeoning new industry.

As of the 31 March 2026, Australia had 162 operational data centres and 90 proposed data centres, but it seems like there's no information about where they're going to be, what sort of energy they'll use or where they'll get their water. How can we have adequate oversight when this is the case? What is the government doing to ensure that local Australian businesses will have access to compute? What are they doing to ensure that these big multinationals, who are experts in profit shifting, will actually pay tax here in Australia, where they are benefiting from the use of our resources? We cannot make the same mistakes. Unfortunately, it seems like the Albanese Labor government is heading in that direction.

Senator CADELL (New South Wales—Nationals Whip in the Senate) (13:55): On Friday of this week, I'll be returning to the Hunter Valley where we'll be celebrating life and mourning the loss of Warrant Officer Brett Wild, retired. Brett was a personal friend of mine. He began his military path with Citizens Military Forces before joining the 1st/19th Royal New South Wales Regiment, subsequently transferred to the 21st Construction Regiment and qualified as an army engineer within the Australian Military Forces.

In 1999, Brett went in and rolled into the continuous full-time service under the auspices of the Army Personnel Agency, and then over the next nine years he went to Special Operations Command, 8th Combat Engineer Regiment, 5th Combat Engineer Regiment and then the Special Forces Training Centre at Singleton, where he eventually settled down. In 2008, following service related injuries, Wild accepted a discharge and settled in the Hunter Valley full time where he kept an interest by purchasing some armoured vehicles himself, which he drove around his farm—it's always good to have friends with tanks—and he also set up the Hunter Pet Motel, where he looked after pets and animals and, quite interestingly, set up a concierge service at Newcastle Airport where you could drop your pet off and it would be limousined up to his place to stay while you went on holidays.

He was also a driving force behind the Branxton-Greta memorial, which honoured the service of Hunter people and connected both the Branxton and Greta war memorials with a cycleway between them. He designed the project to represent the 10,288 service members that came from the Hunter in World War I and subsequent conflicts. In the launch of the initiative, he bought $1.95 million from the Cessnock Council from the RSL subbranches and the business chamber. We will miss him. We will miss his service. I will miss a friend, and I join with the Singleton subbranch to celebrate the service of a good man. Vale Brett Wild.

Senator GREEN (Queensland—Assistant Minister for Tourism, Assistant Minister for Pacific Island Affairs and Assistant Minister for Northern Australia) (13:57): I want to rise in this chamber to acknowledge and encourage the Socceroos in their must-win game of the World Cup on Friday. For those of you who are new to football here in Australia, yes, the Socceroos are the boy Matildas, and they are an excellent team who are doing a great job in the World Cup. They were written off for their first game, but they did an amazing job, and we know that they are preparing for a must-win game on Friday. Every single Australian will be behind them. Every single Australian will be supporting them from over here.

The Socceroos are the very best of Australia. They represent modern multicultural Australia. They come from all over the world, born in places like Sydney, Newcastle, Scotland and even Tanzania. From refugees to sons of Socceroos, we are so proud of this team and what they represent to our country, and we know that, when they go out wearing the green and gold jersey, they represent Australia with pride. We are incredibly proud of their performance, and we know that they will do a great job on Friday night.

We know how important it is for Australians to be able to watch the World Cup live and free on SBS, and we know how important it is for governments to support the SBS and to ensure that Australians can continue to watch the World Cup live and free on SBS. On Friday, we will continue to show our support for this incredible team, a team that shows us exactly what modern multicultural Australia means, and the support that is shown from all around this country is because that is what Australians want to see represented back to them. Go the Socceroos. We know you've got this. Let's go, Socceroos.

Senator DOLEGA (Tasmania) (13:59): Virgin Australia is holding $93 million of customers' money in the form of COVID-era travel credits, and they are refusing to refund those travel credits to their customers. Recently, they announced that they were going to extend for customers to use those credits by May next year, but they need to do it by 30 June. It's time for Virgin to do the right thing and allow those customers to get a refund for their travel credits or extend them indefinitely. Do the right thing, Virgin.

The PRESIDENT: We'll move to question time.

Senator KOVACIC (New South Wales) (15:04): I move:

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

Well, I listened with interest to the answers to the questions from coalition senators. I think the one thing that the government failed to address in all of the questions was that was that this is the highest taxing government in Australia's history. This government wants us to believe that taxing shares, taxing small businesses and taxing ETFs is somehow going to make housing more affordable. What is a little bit more egregious than that in itself is that they want to take away tax concessions from young Australians who are using those other avenues to build wealth so they can enter the housing market. They're taking those avenues away even though, historically, generations before them have been able to use those levers. This government is calling that intergenerational equity. It is a total falsity. It is a total lie. Nobody believes it.

They couldn't answer questions around which small businesses would be eligible for the proposed carve-outs. They don't know. They have no answers for that. This is the problem with this government: they go ahead, they do things, they don't think about it—poorly executed, poorly drafted legislation—and then it needs to be cleaned up later. Nobody knows who's going to be eligible and who is not. What will an innovative small business be? We had questions around a cafe and a hairdresser effectively scoffed by the government. They're legitimate questions; they're real questions. Who determines what innovation is? Is it a departmental official? Do they determine it? Is it subjective? Is it what they think is innovative, or is it something that somebody else will determine? They're reasonable questions.

What it does create is uncertainty. When there is uncertainty, people won't invest. When there is uncertainty, people move somewhere else where there is no uncertainty. Based on this legislation, we will have some of the highest CGT in the world. Communist China has a flat rate of 20 per cent CGT. Australians who want to innovate and create new businesses, to have a shot at making something special are probably going to go: 'We might go to New Zealand instead. That's easier.'

Senator Scarr: Singapore—zero per cent.

Senator KOVACIC: 'We might go to Singapore instead. That's easier—zero per cent.' Why wouldn't they do that when there are risks and uncertainty here. When Senator Hume asked that question, Senator Wong came back and said, 'There's chaos and uncertainty across the other side.' Respectfully, the Albanese Labor government is in government. It's up to them to solve these issues, and it's up to them to present to this chamber legislation that will actually work for Australians. This won't. This legislation will damage this country.

The CGT and the negative gearing, as put forward by this government, are totally damaging. In the same way, they have failed to address Australia's housing shortages. The fact is that they won't acknowledge that their own changes in the budget will actually see 30,000 to 35,000 fewer homes constructed. How do you address that? How do you answer that question without acknowledging and understanding that the problem you're meant to be solving is being made worse. That is clearly stated in your own budget papers. Something needs to change.

Senator DARMANIN (Victoria—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (15:08): On this side we are big supporters of small business and innovation. This budget was all about backing small business to invest and to grow. I want to talk a little bit, again, about the changes to the small business concession so that we can provide clarity and certainty for small businesses and others. As Senator Kovacic just said, they need certainty. Well, let's be really clear: the government is extending the eligibility of the 50 per cent active asset reduction to more businesses by increasing the turnover threshold from $2 million to $10 million. This brings the eligibility for this concession into line with the turnover threshold for the instant asset write-off. This will mean that all 2.7 million active small businesses and 98 per cent of active businesses will be eligible for a 50 per cent CGT discount on active business assets, and that's on top of the discount for inflation, where eligible, once these reforms are in place.

The government, as has been mentioned, has also released the consultation paper on the design of a 50 per cent CGT discount for early stage investors, including founders and employee share scheme participants of innovative startup businesses. Final details will be implemented in a later tranche of tax reform legislation. Importantly, this will be released following consultation.

These measures, of course, build on the existing significant measures to support small business risk taking and investment in the budget, including the two-year loss carry-back, loss refundability for startups, expanded venture capital incentives and making the $20,000 instant asset write-off permanent. The additional support for small business has an indicative cost of $300 million over the forward estimates and brings the total new tax measures to support businesses in the tax reform package to over $3.8 billion. This $3.8 billion also includes making the $20,000 instant asset write-off permanent for small businesses; a two-year loss carry-back for companies with a turnover of up to $1 billion; supporting cash flows through disruption; and incentivising sensible risk taking. Remember that, without this measure, the asset threshold would have reverted to $1,000 in just a week or so, on 1 July this year. There will be loss refundability to help startups to grow in their first two years, and we are also expanding the tax incentives for venture capital to help unlock more investment in young and expanding businesses.

Of course, running through all of these things to provide business certainty is one thing, but I think the actual perspective about what small-business owners and startup innovators think about this is best heard in their own words. Last week we heard from Mr David Turner, a small-business owner and a startup founder who advises Australian startups and small businesses as a lawyer. In the inquiry last week, evidence that he submitted said:

… I commend measures such as the proposed loss refundability scheme, the loss carry-back scheme, the R&D tax incentive, and the permanent instant asset write-off, each of which offer cash flow support to start-ups and small businesses … tax system features such as up-front supports for new ventures may be more effective incentives than relief that materialises when a business is sold.

Very quickly, I note that, on this question about whether Australian innovation will go overseas, Mr Turner also said:

… for many founders, there are natural constraints to their ability to pick up their lives and move to another jurisdiction—not only personal and family ones but also professional ones. They may be in a position to commence a business in Australia because of their professional network, because of their knowledge of the market or because of their connections to customers.

(Time expired)

Senator COLBECK (Tasmania) (15:12): It's a bit of a misnomer to refer to this part of today's proceedings as taking note of answers, because I think the only thing that we got was non-answers to the questions asked by the coalition today. In circumstances where the budget is now in a complete shambles, the government are doing backflips to try and resolve the problems that they have themselves created by not properly designing the reforms that they wanted to bring in in the first place, which is not the first time we've seen Labor do this. Now they're trying to scramble to get things back in order and to try and recover some ground from what has been a terribly received budget and, quite frankly, a complete shambles of a budget.

I'm going to do something that's very unusual for someone from the coalition, and that's to quote the ABC, which said in an article last Friday:

Business has labelled Labor's budget tax overhaul a "freak show", saying its proposed changes are like an American celebrity who has had too much plastic surgery.

If the ABC is saying this about Labor's budget, what is the reality? We've seen this before. The article continues:

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) chief executive Andrew McKellar told the ABC's Insiders Podcast the changes were starting to get ugly.

…   …   …

Australian Industry Group CEO Innes Willox said the changes to Labor's cornerstone tax policy added complexity, uncertainty and retrospectivity into the tax system that would harm business.

We all know—and Labor knows this too—that, if you tax something more, you don't get more of it. I sat in this chamber during the last period when Labor were in government, when they started hiking up the taxation on tobacco. Now how's that going? That's a complete shambles. There's another thing that the Labor Party has lost control of completely. There was Kevin Rudd's war on alcopops, where they ratcheted up the tax on alcopops with the express intention of having less of them. And here we are—increasing tax and saying that we're going to get more housing when the budget papers say we're going to get less. That's on top of the fact that the Labor Party, despite the fact that they say that they're building more houses, are building 30,000 houses less per year—170,000 houses a year are being built in this country under Labor. Under the coalition, it was 200,000 houses per year. How can they stand there with a straight face and say we're getting more houses when the reality is we are getting less? That is how dishonest this government is.

This is a government that went to the election that said it would not make changes to capital gains tax—

Senator Scarr: Fifty times.

Senator COLBECK: Thank you, Senator Scarr. Fifty times they said they would not make changes to capital gains tax. They said they would not make changes to other taxes, and then they did that in the budget. This is a dishonest government. You cannot trust a single thing this government say, whether it's defending the changes that they're making now or anything else they say, because we know that, when they want your vote, they'll say what they think you want to hear, and then, when they get back into government, as they've done on two occasions now, they do the exact opposite. This is a dishonest government, and they deserve the ignominy that's being thrust upon them by the Australian people.(Time expired)

Senator DOLEGA (Tasmania) (15:16): I too rise to take note of answers to questions asked by the coalition. I am extremely proud of the budget that this government has delivered and of the changes and the theme of delivering fairness for working Australians, for young people and for those who would strive to own a home. Our changes to the capital gains tax and negative gearing for houses will and are already creating a fair go for people to get into a house. We've already seen great stories in the weekend newspapers, including Domain, where young people and couples are getting a home without competing with investors. We're already seeing a great effect that people are getting a chance to be able to live the Australian dream.

You see, for a quarter of a decade, housing has been treated as a vehicle for building wealth—houses for building wealth. To me, housing is a right. Having somewhere to live and a safe place to come home to is a fundamental right, and young people are realising it's the Liberals and the Nationals and John Howard that they have to thank for this. They really did a trick on us, and we're feeling it generations later. Those governments' decisions, not just in housing, have caused fundamental issues which this government is looking to fix. We're also restoring fairness to the way that income on investments is treated. How is it fair that the labour of working Australians, whether it be cleaners, teachers, tradies, public servants or nurses—why should their labour be taxed higher than income that is earned on investments? Our changes are going to restore fairness to the way that income is taxed.

Our budget also delivers on some of the other commitments that we've taken to the election, such as delivering on tax cuts—the tax cuts that are due to come in on 1 July. That is the next round that we've delivered. Since coming to power, the average working taxpayer is up to $2,800 better off and paying less tax than when we came into government. We're also including, in the tax system, when people go to do their tax returns at the end of the year, a $250 working Australians tax offset, and we're delivering the standard deduction of $1,000 for taxpayers, which will make a difference to people and make it easier for them to complete their tax return.

When it comes to small business, recently Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced some changes to our policy, following a period of consultation with stakeholders. So we will be changing the threshold of a small business from $2 million up to $10 million. That means 2.7 million active small businesses—98 per cent of active businesses—will be eligible for concessional treatment. This is on top of the four existing CGT concessions, which means eligible small-business owners will pay reduced or no capital gains tax when it comes time to sell. I'm incredibly proud of this budget, I'm incredibly proud of the work of this caucus and I say: let's get it done.

Senator SCARR (Queensland) (15:20): Labor's budget is a tax on ambition, a tax on aspiration and a tax on success. That's the reality. It's gone down like a lead balloon in the Australian community across all demographics, from young people to retirees, and the Labor government is now in damage control. They're trying to pare back various elements of the increase in capital gains tax, trying to play favourites, and they're just digging a deeper hole. That's the reality. Labor's budget has gone down like a lead balloon in the Australian community.

Senator Hume, in her question to the government, raised the legitimate point that the government say they're going to give carve-outs for startups who use innovation—who are innovative. What business isn't innovative? What business today isn't using innovation to survive and prosper? As Senator Hume said, from the local cafe—and I want to give a shout-out to my friend Nick, who just sold his cafe in my local area, where he had to struggle every single day to be innovative so that his business prospered, providing employment to people and providing an excellent service—to your local hairdresser, they're innovative. My friend Khalid, my barber, who just got made an Australian citizen last week, is a wonderful man who, with his family, came to this country and built a business. He now employs eight people and owns the premises in which he conducts the business. He has to be innovative every single day. But Labor's now setting up this false construct that some businesses are innovative and some aren't, picking and choosing between different Australian businesses. It's not right.

As Senator Cash said, it's a question of timing. You might be innovative when you start the business, but what about when you sell it 20 years later? I want to read to you a quote from a founder of SEEK, a company that was set up in 1997. Five or half a dozen people set up that company. It's now the go-to platform for people looking for jobs. It may have been innovative in 1997, but what about in 2026, when it's got a market capitalisation north of $4 billion and 3,000 employees, including across Asia? Are they innovative now? They were certainly innovative then. This is what Mr Paul Bassat—not a politician but one of the founders of SEEK Limited, one of Australia's most successful startup companies—says in relation to the Labor government's changes to capital gains tax:

… the government is committing a big own goal that will have a significant impact on a critical sector of the economy.

He said:

I am in a range of different WhatsApp groups with Australian founders, and the overall mood is one of great disappointment and frustration

There is great disappointment and frustration amongst the people who are actually setting up these new businesses and creating wealth, prosperity and employment. That's what they think. Mr Bassat goes on:

We don't want own goals either in the World Cup or in our economy, and the government is committing a big own goal that will have a significant impact on a critical sector of the economy.

This is a founder of SEEK, now a very successful multibillion-dollar company. We don't want the next founders to go to Singapore or Canada to set up their companies; we want them to stay in Australia and create wealth and prosperity for the Australian people.

Question agreed to.

Senator WATERS (Queensland—Leader of the Australian Greens) (15:24): I rise to take note of the answer to my question to the Minister representing the Prime Minister about the cost of living, the rise of the far right and taxing the one per cent. Politics should work for people but right now it doesn't. Ninety-six per cent of Australian rentals aren't affordable for essential workers. Just last week I was listening to a story about a couple on the Sunshine Coast, a nurse and an electrician, who've had so much trouble finding a rental that they've started their own community organisation to help other young people find housing. We need to be better than this. We need to demand better than this or we'll end up like the US, where inequality is rife, where services are underfunded or non-existent and where billionaires run politics. We're not there yet but we're on the same path. The one per cent are accumulating wealth and buying political power here in Australia too. In the face of this clear and rising inequality, Labor simply refused to take the bold action that would actually fix the housing crisis, the cost-of-living crisis and the climate crisis. This unwillingness to act is how Labor has created the conditions for One Nation to rise.

Senator Hanson wants an Australia that is angry and divided. She wants us scared of our neighbours and blaming each other for the cost-of-living problems that the major parties caused and that her billionaire backers benefit from. That's not the Australia that I want, and I don't believe that it's one that many people want either. But One Nation will not change the system any more than the Labor or Liberal parties will. They all do the bidding of the same billionaires and big corporations who donate to their political parties.

The major parties are in decline, and we have an opportunity for real change, so what I would say to those people looking for a change, looking for a fair go in Australia, is that you can start by changing your vote. You can vote for a party that puts people ahead of profits, and that's the Greens. The Greens don't accept that tinkering around the edges is the best that we can hope for, and neither should the Australian people. Better is possible if we're willing to fight for it. Change isn't something that we can just wait for to land in our laps; it's something that we have to make together. It starts with reminding ourselves that, while the system is stacked in favour of the one per cent now, people are not powerless. The billionaires and the big corporations out-lobby and out-donate, buying out politicians like just another asset in their portfolio. Just ask Gina Rinehart. They fund fake grassroots campaigns to make it look like their support is bigger than it is. They set up industry groups to use their megaphone to argue that their interests should come first.

By ourselves, it feels like there's little that we can do, but, luckily, we're not by ourselves; we have each other. That solidarity is how we challenge the divisive politics of the one per cent. It's how we build a movement that welcomes everyone and a community that is safe for everyone. The one per cent want us to blame one another so that we don't come together and realise that it's the big corporations and the billionaires making life harder for everyone, just to boost their own profits. But around the world we're seeing people-powered progressive movements for change that are growing and winning. The many are powerful. We can have that here too.

It feels like people are so used to the system not working for them that they've given up hope that it ever can. They don't have hope that change can happen. They've been told too many times that their basic asks are too much, that a system that works for them is unrealistic. Well, I don't accept the powers that be telling Australians that we can't have nice things or that the system can't be changed, or that a nurse or an electrician have to start their own community organisation to find affordable housing. It's time to take our power back. It's time to take on the one per cent.

Question agreed to.

Senator HANSON (Queensland—Leader of One Nation) (15:29): I asked a question today of Labor about immigration to the country and the minister said, 'Oh, we're doing a great job. We're actually reducing the immigration by 45 per cent.' Well, you're the ones that actually caused the problem in the first place. You had the highest immigration coming to this country between 2022 and 2023—739,000 people. Take out those that will leave the country—500,000. Then you're saying: 'Oh, we're doing the right thing by you. We're dropping it by 45 per cent.' Well, isn't it funny what a spin that is! It's like the dodgy discount supermarkets when they double the price and then claim that they've discounted it.

What you've done is cause the problems in this country by mass migration. You've allowed the people into Australia. For the people out there watching this or listening: it would equate over the period of time to 1,375 people a day coming into this country—at the high point, even 1,800 a day coming into the country—created by Labor mass migration. They can't control their spending or their GDP; therefore, they're allowing mass migration to come in to boost up the GDP productivity. It's caused the problem of fewer homes for people to be able to move into for shelter. We've got over 130,000 people that are homeless in this country—living in tents, caravans and cars, couch surfing—because of the Labor Party. You caused the problem in this country because you can't control your spending. You have to bring in more people in the country to prop it up.

So what we have is, after departures like I said, 1.4 million people that you've brought into the country. As I said, you've got about 250,000 people in Hobart. So we're talking about 1.4 million. We're talking about cities—Hobart how many times over? That's the number of people you've brought into the country. And there are already three million temporary visa holders in the country right now—over three million. You've just destroyed this nation with the number of people that you've allowed in, and you've taken absolutely no notice of it for the past more than three years you've been in government. Now you're going to face an election in about 1½ years time. Now you're saying: 'Oh, look how good we are. We've pulled it back 45 per cent.' You've still got it at 301,000. You've said you're going to reduce it to 225,000 by 2027-28. It is not going to solve the problem that we have now.

People have been screaming out for a reduction in immigration. You turned a blind eye to it. You're not interested. You've actually—because you know damn well. You're relying on that. You've destroyed industries and small business. Under your government, you've lost 50,000 small businesses; they've gone insolvent. Over 1,400 industries and manufacturers are gone under your government. So you know damn well there's no investment in Australia. We are economically so unstable that you have to bring in migration to prop this up. With everything that you've touched, you've destroyed this nation.

I hear other people saying that I'm divisive. I want to pull this country together. I want people to be with success—a fair day's pay for a fair day's work in our nation. We need to increase our industries' manufacturing and give our small businesses the helping hand they need. Stop cutting the guts out of them with the regulation rules that you've applied to them. It takes years to get anything to happen in Australia. Cut that all back so we get compliance and they can go ahead and do what they need to do in a matter of months not years.

Your mass migration has been absolutely farcical. Bringing in those people in from Gaza is another thing. They weren't vetted—24 hours to vet them. Then you actually had the ISIS brides. That's again another lie to the Australian people that you knew nothing about. They found 150 documents over there to say that you didn't know what was going on. All we get out of this government—I've started the Fire the Liar campaign. That's what I've said: 'Fire the liar.' This current government needs to go. You cannot be straight with the Australian people. You lie about everything that you do with housing, investment, industries, manufacturing, climate change, even the wind turbines, solar panels and everything. You are destroying this nation.

Question agreed to.

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for Finance, Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Women, Minister for Government Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (15:34): I withdraw government business notice of motion No. 1 for today.

Senator ASKEW (Tasmania—Chief Opposition Whip in the Senate) (15:34): I withdraw general business notice of motion No. 421 standing in the name of Senator Cash.

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for Finance, Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Women, Minister for Government Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (15:35): I move:

That private senators' bills be considered this week as follows:

(a) Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Tackling the Gender Super Gap) Bill 2025, on Wednesday, 24 June 2026; and

(b) Online Safety and Other Legislation Amendment (My Face, My Rights) Bill 2025, on Thursday, 25 June 2026.

Question agreed to.

Senator ASKEW (Tasmania—Chief Opposition Whip in the Senate) (15:35): by leave—I move:

That leave of absence be granted to the following senators:

(a) Senator Liddle for 24 and 25 June 2026, for personal reasons;

(b) Senator McKenzie from 22 to 25 June 2026, on account of parliamentary business; and

(c) Senator Ruston for 22 and 23 June 2026, for personal reasons.

Question agreed to.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT (15:36): If there is no objection, the extensions are authorised. There is no objection.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT (15:41): Senator McKim has submitted a proposal, under standing order 75, today. It is shown at item 12 of today's Order of Business:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today the Australian Greens propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Australian Government to place a moratorium on meetings with representatives of the gas industry and their lobbyists for the duration of the public debate on the taxation of gas exports, revoke sponsored parliamentary passes held by such representatives, and immediately disclose all meetings held between Government Ministers and representatives of the gas industry or their lobbyists over the previous 12 months."

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

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

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

Senator HODGINS-MAY (Victoria) (15:41): I move:

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

The need for the Australian Government to place a moratorium on meetings with representatives of the gas industry and their lobbyists for the duration of the public debate on the taxation of gas exports, revoke sponsored parliamentary passes held by such representatives, and immediately disclose all meetings held between Government Ministers and representatives of the gas industry or their lobbyists over the previous 12 months.

The corporate parties have given the gas lobby free run in this building for far too long, and the Greens are saying time is up. Australians have a simple message for the Albanese government: stop the great Australian gas rip-off and make corporations pay what they owe. During our Greens led gas tax inquiry, we heard it over and over again from Shell, INPEX, AEP, Woodside—different logos, same script: 'The PRRT is working. Now isn't the time for more taxes. Don't change the system.' Of course it's working for them. It is delivering exactly what it was designed to deliver: billions in profits for multinational gas corporations and next to nothing for the Australian people whose resources they are selling. Now, we have the receipts.

New analysis from InfluenceMap confirmed what we all suspected—every gas company and industry association that appeared before the inquiry opposed reform using the same talking points, the same scare campaigns and the same script: 'We can't tax gas properly because of energy security. We can't tax gas properly because of our trading partners. We can't tax gas properly because the sky might fall in.' The gas lobby came to parliament prepared with a script, and the government and Albanese repeated it word for word. Every time Australians demand reform, the gas lobby leans in and Labor rolls over.

What's perhaps most extraordinary is the access that these companies enjoy. While ordinary Australians struggle to get a meeting with their local rep, gas executives walk the halls of parliament like they own the place. Believe me, they do think they own this place. Freedom-of-information documents obtained by the Australian Conservation Foundation revealed almost 200 text messages between Woodside and senior government officials while conditions on the North West Shelf Project extension were being negotiated. One Woodside representative asked, 'Any chance we can see the final conditions as put to the minister?' Imagine the entitlement. It's not 'do the conditions protect the environment?', not 'do they protect cultural heritage?', just 'do they work for Woodside?' and 'do they protect our profit margins?'. Then, after months of negotiations, came the message from the government—'Thanks. We got there.' Those three words that tell Australians everything they need to know.

At budget estimates, I repeatedly asked about meetings between ministers and gas industry representatives during the gas tax debate. Nobody could tell me. Nobody could disclose to me whom met whom. Nobody could even tell Australians whether gas companies attended Labor's $5,500 a head budget night fundraiser.

All of this matters because another major decision is looming. Right now, Woodside lobbyists are roaming the halls of parliament trying to win support for the Browse Gas Project, a project we do not need for domestic supply, a project that only stacks up if those gas corporations keep getting Australia's gas for cheap. The Prime Minister dismisses the calls for a gas tax as a slogan. It is not a slogan, mate. It is a groundswell. Australians can see the billions of dollars of profit flowing offshore. They can see the corporations get rich, and they can see how little comes back when they're struggling with the cost of living.

That's why we need to ban gas lobbyists from this place. If you want to break the cosy relationship between Labor and the gas industry, we need to lock these bastards out. We need to ban the secret meetings. We need to revoke their sponsored parliamentary passes.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Hodgins-May—

Senator HODGINS-MAY: I withdraw. Buggers. Revoke their sponsored parliamentary passes. Publish the ministerial diaries. Let Australians see who's really calling the shots in this place.

Today, Labor and the other corporate parties have a choice. Do they stand with the Australians demanding a fair share and a fair return for publicly owned resources, or do they keep taking orders from mates in the gas lobby? If Labor won't tell Australians who's influencing them, maybe they should save everyone the trouble and wear the logos of their gas industry sponsors around Parliament House. The Fremantle Dockers wear Woodside's logos, so why doesn't Labor? Honestly, wear the logos. Tell the Australian people who you're working for because it's sure as hell not us. People are outraged. We demand a ban on gas lobbyists in this place and their dirty influence because Australians deserve a tax on our gas exports and they deserve to reap the benefits of our resources and the sale of those.

Senator McDONALD (Queensland—Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (15:47): I'm amazed that now the Greens greatest idea is stopping democracy, stopping letting people engage with the political process. I mean, what's next? Are we going to ban nurses and unions from engaging in political discussion? You cannot block a sector in the middle of a significant discussion about public policy. It is clear that years of intervention by the Labor government has created problems in the Australian gas market, but the solution from the Greens to stop engagement is, I think, extraordinary. What they now propose is that the market's problems should be left to bureaucrats, not to the people who are actually elected to make decisions. That is our very role in this place, to be listening but most importantly accountable to Australians. Every sector should have the ability to come to parliament to raise concerns about policy and about impact, with their local member or with their senator. But it is not up to any political party, particularly the Greens political party, to block one sector due to ideological reasons.

The interventions that Labor has made over the last few years have made our gas market more complex, more confusing and less secure. Instead, we're going to see the collapse of domestic gas producers, particularly in Victoria and New South Wales, in the places where we absolutely need this gas. But, instead, we have investors worried, we have the stock market for those companies very, very damaged, and we now have the spot market trading at $6 and less. That means that the result of Labor's policy will actually be to invest more power into LNG exporters and to cruel and cripple domestic players who are the ones who are most capable of solving this problem, particularly those in offshore Victorian waters who have the infrastructure that's necessary to supply. Labor has systematically undermined our gas market through repeated interventions, anti-gas rhetoric from senior cabinet ministers and its general disregard for the billions of dollars of capital needed for gas companies to make investment decisions in Australia. So, while Labor are claiming that they are pursuing cost-of-living relief, the reality is that taxpayers will be forced to come in and bail out investment in the gas industry after the payout of these policies comes to fruition.

Last week, I went to Norway because I wanted to see for myself what the impact of those tax policies is on the Norwegian gas market. People there were completely horrified to hear of the proposals of the Albanese Labor government for a domestic gas reservation or the Greens political party proposals for gas tax increases in the middle of an investment cycle. They were appalled and surprised that they were being held up as the example. We are seeing concerns from local businesses about the sugar hit that this gas reservation will provide to the domestic gas market and then the wasteland that we will see in Australia for gas in the places where we need it.

Of course, we need to be clear that this is an agenda being run by anti-gas and anti-fossil-fuel activists and lobbyists. Whilst the Greens would like to see the gas sector have their passes pulled, how about they pull the passes from their mates in the Australia Institute, Punter's Politics, IEFA and other people who shamelessly have an agenda to stop fossil fuel investments and new gas, coal and oil projects? How about they be honest with Australians about what they're really seeking to do, which is to keep us poor and to keep us in the dark? I think this is a shocking urgency motion, and I do not support it.

Senator WHITEAKER (Western Australia) (15:52): Well, the Greens used to be far more interesting than this. They used to be a party that put forward genuine policy ideas for debate. Instead they just rely on online commentators and follow whatever Senator David Pocock is up to determine their priorities in the Senate. I understand it's all about a nice social media grab. It's all about a bit of profile building for Senator Hodgins-May, who likes to travel around the country and make pretty social media videos about how we should tax gas companies more.

As to getting up and saying that gas companies don't pay tax in this country, it sounds like a good line. It's a popular line, clearly. But what they forget to mention is the work that our government has done to make sure that gas companies pay their fair share of tax. In our first term of government, Labor made changes to the petroleum resource rent tax to ensure offshore gas companies pay more tax and pay it sooner. It increased the number of companies paying the PRRT, and in this budget it revised revenue from the PRRT up $1.6 billion. The government announced just in the last few months that we are introducing a gas reservation scheme modelled on the scheme that exists, and has existed for some time, in my home state of Western Australia, which is all about making sure that more Australian gas stays here in the country and provides reliable and secure energy for Australians who need it as we transition away from coal fired power.

The truth is this: in 2023-24, oil and gas companies paid almost $12 billion in tax. Seeing that some in this place like to use the beer excise as a measuring stick these days, I note that $2.6 billion was raised off the beer excise. Let me tell you those numbers again, because some in this place like to pick and choose the numbers they use. Oil and gas companies paid almost $12 billion in total tax in the 2023-24 financial year. The beer excise raised $2.6 billion. So, no, Aussies aren't paying more tax on beer. This is a government that is committed to making sure that oil and gas companies pay their fair share, and I know that voters, particularly in my home state of Western Australia—and in your home state, Deputy President—see through this kind of rubbish that they hear from some members of this chamber. They can see through the social media grabs. They can see through the one-liners, because they know how important the oil, gas and broader resources industries are to workers in my home state, to families in my home state and right across this country, and our government is committed to doing that.

I also wanted to talk about a new Parliament House access policy that has been announced in the last week or so by the presiding officers. I think Senator McDonald made a really good point that we shouldn't pick and choose who shouldn't be entitled to a pass, but what the presiding officers have done instead is made a commonsense change to the pass policy to make sure that there is more transparency in who has access to this building. I think it is important not only that we are clear about who has access to this building but that we don't make those decisions based on our own political ideologies.

The other work that our government has done on transparency in politics includes establishing the National Anti-Corruption Commission, strengthening the ministerial code of conduct, strengthening protection for whistleblowers, increasing funding to the Australian National Audit Office, restoring transparency to AAT appointments, establishing the Administrative Review Tribunal, reinstating standalone privacy and freedom-of-information commissioners, implementing the recommendations of the Bell inquiry into former prime minister Morrison's multiple ministries, establishing the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission and working to tackle the influence of big money in politics with reforms to our electoral system to lift transparency. Those are reforms that, I think, the Greens political party voted against, so if the Greens were serious about stopping the influence of big money in politics they would've voted for our electoral reforms, but what we're seeing here is that they are not committed to that work.

Senator DAVID POCOCK (Australian Capital Territory—Independent ACT Whip) (15:57): This motion addresses a very serious issue: the influence of the gas lobby over this place. It's clear we have a huge issue with vested interests and their stranglehold on the major parties when it comes to gas. We are not getting a fair return for our gas. It's got to the point where, even when the ACTU suggests a 25 per cent gas export tax, Labor politicians rubbish that idea and agree with those in the coalition about how much tax the gas industry pays. But, first, I want to mention a huge win that the crossbench and the community had last week: the Prime Minister and presiding officers finally said that there will be real transparency over who walks these corridors. For years this has been the call: more transparency over who is in this place, who gave them that access and who they are here to represent. This is an important step forward, and I welcome it from the government. Clearly, pressure does work.

This motion seeks to go further: an outright ban on conversations between the gas industry and government. I understand the intent of this, but I think governments should actually be talking to the industries that they regulate. I think what we need is transparency. We need ministerial diaries rather than some outright ban on certain industries. Lobbying is a good thing. You need to hear from those who are affected by legislation, but we just need transparency. That is what I have been pushing for the last four years and will continue to push. I don't think a blanket ban is the way to go, so I call on the government to listen to the vast majority of Australians and give us a 25 per cent gas export tax now to solve this problem of a potential shortfall and make Aussie gas cheaper for Australians.

Senator GHOSH (Western Australia) (15:59): There are few more dangerous ideas in a democracy than banning people and ideas you don't like. The Greens political party's vendetta against the oil and gas industry is relentless and irrational, and it's in full swing here again today. This motion tries to single out and ban representatives of the gas industry and prevent them from engaging with elected representatives. It's undemocratic, it would hurt the Australian economy and it would set back the achievement of net zero. But none of that matters to the Greens because it's about grandstanding, it's about stunts, it's about props; it's not about achieving good policy.

I also can't speak to this motion without addressing what is at its core, which is an attempt to ban people whose ideas one political party doesn't like. That is the creeping hallmark of the totalitarian left—not democratic engagement but proscription, naming names and preventing people from putting arguments in this parliament. The idea that, in a democracy, we would bar a group of stakeholders involved in the production of a crucial resource, a key pillar of our economy, from interacting with decision-makers is quite simply absurd.

Good government doesn't operate in an echo chamber. It does not seek only to hear voices that it agrees with. Meeting peak bodies, industry bodies, regulators, workers, customers and members of the community is an incredibly important part of our role in this place. It's an incredibly important part of developing good policy. Trying to exclude one group from that is absurd. It's more than absurd; it's dangerous.

But let's have a think about this industry that the Greens so badly want to demonise, because the oil and gas industries—the gas industry, particularly, is an important part of Australia's future. It is a vital element, as a firming fuel in the energy transition and our path to net zero. It's vital as an industrial feedstock, particularly in the state of Western Australia, and as a fuel for industrial and mining processes that are hard to abate. It has energy density that, in different areas, can't be matched. Over five million households are currently connected to gas networks, as are thousands of small businesses, particularly in the food and hospitality industry.

And it's an important export. I'll say it again: our gas industry is an important export industry. It increases the standards of living of all Australians; it supports well-paid, secure jobs in Australia, and in Western Australia particularly; it supports the energy needs of our regional partners; and it underpins aspects of Australia's energy security. By remaining a reliable LNG supplier and a responsible climate actor, Australia can develop new regional partnerships in emerging energy industries and clean energy exports as well. It is vital for our energy transition and as we move to net zero that we have gas available here and gas available to our regional partners to achieve that transition. Why is that relevant to the motion? It is relevant because making good gas policy requires us to listen to a wide range of people, including—surprise, surprise—the people affected by that policy.

You would think that the Greens political party would be interested in advancing the transition to net zero and the clean energy system, which, under the model we're moving forward at the moment, requires and relies on gas. It's a firming fuel for intermittent renewable sources of energy. But, just as the Greens voted with the coalition against meaningful action on climate change in 2009, when they voted down an emissions trading scheme, and just like they come in here week in, week out and run these stunts with no view to the Australian interest and no view to good public policymaking in this place, they've got another absurd motion in here today. And it's got that extra kick, that extra barb—to ban people they don't agree with from the building. It's intellectually pathetic, and it's democratically dangerous. It's the kind of charlatanism that has come to characterise the Greens political party, the mountebanks of the environment movement.

If you're actually serious about net zero and the transition, then you have to be serious about gas not only in Australia but in the region. If you're serious about how this industry works in Australia, you have to listen to the people in the industry—and not only those people. We should listen to a wide range of stakeholders. We should listen to environmental groups. We should listen to people in the community. But we should also listen to people in the industry when we're designing these sorts of policies. That's why, again, this motion, this attempt to proscribe people from access to the Australian parliament, is not only stupid; it's dangerous.

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (16:04): Fossil fuel money flows through this country's cooked political donation system like gas through a pipeline. Labor, the Liberal Party and One Nation dance to the tune of the same corporations and the same billionaires. When the cheques aren't enough, there is always the revolving door. We know Labor ministers walk out of cabinet and straight into gas industry boardrooms. They approve the projects in government and then collect the salary in industry. That is the business model. That's why there is open access to the fossil fuel lobby. Ban these dirty donations, and lock the gates of parliaments to these climate wreckers. That's what needs to happen.

The Labor government approves gas project after gas project while families can't afford to put food on the table and gas companies rake in obscene and record profits. The Greens are fighting to tax gas exports properly to fund health care, housing, aged care and education. An overwhelming majority of Australians want a 25 per cent tax on gas exports. There are billions of dollars sitting right here to be unlocked, but the government rejects it because the gas industry said no. And what they say goes for this Labor government.

While the revolving door spins, the planet burns. Every approval comes with more climate breakdown, more fires, more droughts, more floods, more extreme weather events. It's no wonder people are walking away in disgust from the two old big parties. The people of this country do not need governments at the beck and call of the gas industry, their executives and their lobbyists. They deserve for power and wealth to be put back in the hands of the many, not hoarded by a few.

Senator WHITTEN (Western Australia) (16:06): 'Don't listen to the experts. Don't listen to industry. Mandate that politicians ignore key stakeholders.' What a great idea! This is peak socialist rhetoric from the Greens. There is a name for a system of government that makes decisions without consultation—a dictatorship. But the Greens have no issue with dictating to the people. They are as authoritarian as they come. One Nation will be a government of freedom. We will listen to all involved and find the best way forward for the country.

One Nation hears the Australian people. They want a better return on their natural resources. That is why we developed our oil and gas policy with two objectives in mind: more oil and gas for production in Australia and a better return for all Australians. We want Australians to have real ownership of their oil and gas assets, providing energy security, lower prices and more jobs for the Australian people. We don't want to kill the industry like Senator Pocock and the Greens. Their climate change billionaire donors demand they kill oil and gas.

One Nation wants an oil and gas industry that is strong for generations to come—an industry that can help power Australia into the future. We did consult with industry on our gas plan and we will continue to consult. We don't apologise for that. In fact, let me share some feedback that we got. We briefed a wide range of industry participants—the big end of town, small Australian producers, offshore, onshore. You name it. The No. 1 thing we heard was, 'We can't believe we're genuinely being consulted.'

This government is flying blind to making up policy on the fly. Labor and the Greens don't see it as an issue. They want to mandate ignoring the experts. One Nation will listen to Australians and industry. We will listen to whoever we need to to ensure we have the best plan for Australia's future.

Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (16:08): One of my favourite Australian authors, Gregory David Roberts, who wrote the book Shantaram, said in his book:

The only force more ruthless and cynical than the business of big politics—

and we're all in the business of big politics—

is the politics of big business.

When the two get in bed together, they're an unstoppable force. That's exactly what we are witnessing here today. A textbook word for it might be cronyism; it might be institutional corruption, state capture. When the people demand that their resources provide a fair return to them as the owners of that resource and the government ignores them because they won't take on big, powerful, greedy multinational corporations, then that is corruption. That is corruption, and we should call it out for what it is.

We need to clean up politics and we need to hold these companies to account. That's what the Australian people put us here to do. It's not as if we don't need the money. We do. We desperately need money. We're cutting billions of dollars from the NDIS—targeting some of the most vulnerable people in our community—because apparently we don't have enough money. All it would take is a decision by a government to turn around to these corporations that have been getting away with it for too long and say, 'You are going to pay your fair share of tax for the minerals and the resources that you mine from this country.' Let's not forget that this gas, a dirty fossil fuel, is pushing us further towards the brink of climate collapse, and who's going to pay for that? Who's going to pay for the adaptation and the mitigation that we need to make sure that future generations in this country and on this planet inherit the joint in better shape, better condition, than we did when we came into this parliament?

Senator SHOEBRIDGE (New South Wales) (16:10): Gas companies are making off like robber barons right now, and Labor and One Nation are helping them get away with it. The hundreds of billions of dollars of publicly owned gas exported from Australia delivers next to nothing to Australians in return. Multinational gas corporations are pumping gas out of Australia, selling it around the world while giving nothing back to the public. It's a rort. It is no wonder it is being called the 'great Australian gas rip off'. The public can see these multinationals raking in super profits from our gas, while Donald Trump's war in the Middle East is driving up energy prices. They know they're paying more. They know they'll keep paying more, so it's even more obscene that Labor in this year's budget gave the gas lobby another free ride and refused to put in a 25 per cent export gas tax. That was a $17 billion gift to Santos and Woodside, a great return for their multimillion-dollar donations to Labor, One Nation and the coalition.

When the majority of Australians want at least a 25 per cent tax on gas exports, why is the Albanese government refusing to tax them? When people every day are spending more on housing, on energy, on food, on just living, why are Labor and One Nation running cover for the gas corporations? I was struggling to think of a reason and then I remembered the million dollars Labor received from the fossil fuel industry in the run up to the last election. And I remembered that every retired federal resource minister in the past two decades has left parliament and walked into a high-paying job in the resources industry. So when I see these swanky fundraisers from Labor, when I see the chummy pictures of Albanese and fossil fuel CEOs, when I see retired Labor ministers gaining special access and when I see the protection racket that Labor runs for the industry, I see a betrayal of the public. The Greens see that. Parliament is meant to be for the public. The gas industry has paid to own Labor and One Nation, but has not bought the public, not paid the people, and, until it does, shut the door. (Time expired)

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Polley ): The question is that the motion moved by Senator Hodgins-May be agreed to.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Polley ) (16:18): The Senate will now consider the proposal from Senator Bragg under standing order 75, which is also shown at item 12 of today's Order of Business:

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

The need for the Albanese Labor Government to explain why it misled Australians before the election by promising not to increase taxes, only to now pursue higher taxes on superannuation, savings, investments and small businesses, proving that Labor's answer to every problem is more tax, more government and less reward for hard work, enterprise and aspiration.

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

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

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerk will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

Senator BRAGG (New South Wales) (16:19): I move:

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

The need for the Albanese Labor Government to explain why it misled Australians before the election by promising not to increase taxes, only to now pursue higher taxes on superannuation, savings, investments and small businesses, proving that Labor's answer to every problem is more tax, more government and less reward for hard work, enterprise and aspiration.

The reason this motion is being moved is that this has been an absolute dog's breakfast of a tax policy that we've seen over the last month, and I think people are over this. People are—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Polley ): Sorry, Senator Bragg, I don't believe your mike's on.

Senator BRAGG: That may be a tragedy for some.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I think that's better now. Would you mind starting again.

Senator BRAGG: I'll wait for the clock to reset—very good. The whole point of this motion is about really making the point that people have had enough of politics as usual, and I think people have had enough of the incompetence as usual as presented by this government.

This treasurer, Dr Chalmers, as he styles himself, has had two tax policies in four years and both have collapsed. His first policy was to tax unrealised gains, and that collapsed last year. His second policy has been to put in place a 30 per cent tax on everything, ostensibly to improve housing affordability. Now, people are not stupid. They can see through this and they can see that putting a tax on everything else in the economy is not going to help housing. People are aware of the Treasury's own admission in the budget papers that the government will supply 35,000 fewer houses. People are not stupid, and people object to being treated as if they are idiots or children. The way that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have sought to address the Australian people over this past month or so has been objectionable at best. People are intelligent. We are living through an age where people have more access to information than they've ever had in human history. So people understand that these taxes are stupid. They understand that more tax is not good for Australia. People know this budget is bad for them and is bad for Australia because it increases the tax burden on working people. It increases the risk that we won't have the houses that we need. This 30 per cent CGT is going to be a jobs killer, an investment killer and a nation killer because it will sink our competitive position relative to other jurisdictions, which will be able to attract capital in an age where, of course, labour and capital are mobile.

The deliberate design feature of 35,000 fewer houses is bizarre, but at least it is consistent with a government that has built 30,000 fewer houses each year—just by an $80 billion investment. Who could believe that a government could increase investment to the tune of $80 billion and get fewer things as a result? When we hear these ridiculous motherhood statements from this shocking government about their investment in housing—what matters is the result. Just because you spend more money doesn't mean you get more stuff. When you lose it in corruption and productivity losses, it's gone. And when you fail to address the core problems of the red tape disaster, the CFMEU running the show, the inflated labour costs, the corruption and the crooks, then you end up with fewer things. So more money doesn't mean more stuff. I don't know what he did his PhD in, but it certainly wasn't in anything practical or anything to do with economics or housing.

Then we have this issue of the arbitrage, where the good doc has found a way to help out his bros, the unions. He's got Wayne Swan and the 40 thieves with their hands in the till. They only pay 10 per cent CGT, but everyone else pays 30 per cent. So if you're Cbus super fund and you go and buy some shares, you only pay 10 per cent capital gains. But if you're a poor old punter living somewhere in Australia and you buy the same shares, you'll pay 30 per cent. This is the system that Labor has put in place to protect its mates. It's got a secret good deal for its mates in the super funds and a similar good deal for foreign fund managers who can invest in housing and pay 15 per cent withholding tax when everyone else will pay 30. So these, at the end of the day—the arbitrage, the 30 per cent capital gains tax and, of course, the higher rents—are the consequences that the Australian people will have to live with because this government doesn't like Australian enterprise. It doesn't like the idea that people should be able to get ahead and invest.

Of course, at its fundamental point, it must be recognised that people have already paid tax on this money. We're living in a country with one of the highest pay-as-you-go systems in the world, probably the highest in the English-speaking world. And now you've got the highest capital gains tax system. So you've got more taxes than you can poke a stick at, and you've got a so-called reform, $77 billion in new taxes, which is not a reform. More tax is not reform. There are more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese because they're helping out their mates while they smash the battlers.

Senator DARMANIN (Victoria—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (16:24): I find Senator Bragg's contribution on this issue somewhat curious. He has what is really an obsession with industry super funds—Cbus in particular—when they're working on delivering decent and fair retirement outcomes for all Australians, and I think it is getting in the way of Senator Bragg being able to have a look at what's really in front of us in terms of these tax reforms.

While Senator Bragg has been feeling quite eager to comment on some of those matters and these reforms here in the Senate chamber, he certainly didn't take up the full opportunity to do so during the important inquiry last week, having not attended at least half of it. Senator Bragg was notably absent for much of the detailed scrutiny undertaken by the Senate Economics Legislation Committee during the inquiry and the meetings in the lead-up. It's always easier to complain at the fringes than actually engage with the evidence, but, unsurprisingly, the evidence does really matter.

The first thing the evidence tells us is that Senator Bragg's motion rests on a false premise, because here's the thing: what is before the Senate is not a new tax. What the government is proposing is a reform to the capital gains tax discount, and that distinction matters. For 26 years, Australia has provided a 50 per cent discount on capital gains for assets held for more than 12 months. That concession has become increasingly expensive, increasingly poorly targeted and increasingly difficult to justify. As I mentioned just earlier today, the Parliamentary Budget Office estimates that more than $38 billion in revenue has been forgone through capital gains tax concessions since 2010. Evidence before the inquiry last week estimated the annual revenue cost of existing concessions has been more than $21 billion. Governments must act and respond to impacts on the Australian people, not stand still and wring our hands because it might be too hard to undertake important reform, because Australians deserve better. We are talking about whether taxpayers should continue to subsidise one of the most generous discounts in the tax system, regardless of whether that concession is delivering public benefit.

The evidence before the inquiry was overwhelming. Who is really benefiting? Evidence presented to the committee showed that 82 per cent of the benefits of the capital gains tax discount flow to the top 10 per cent of income earners. Three-quarters flow to the top five per cent. Nearly 60 per cent flow to the top one per cent. That is not a concession primarily helping ordinary working Australians; it is a concession overwhelmingly benefiting those who already hold substantial assets, and it comes at a substantial cost. Billions of dollars in revenue are forgone every year through these arrangements. The alternative being put by Senator Bragg is to preserve billions of dollars in tax concessions flowing overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Australians while opposing tax relief for 13 million working Australians. Labor makes no apology for supporting working people over tax concessions for the already wealthy.

At a time when younger Australians are finding it harder than ever to purchase a home, when wealth inequality is growing and when income from work is often taxed more heavily than income derived from appreciating assets, it is entirely reasonable for governments to ask whether these settings remain fit for purpose. That is exactly what these reforms do. They retain recognition of inflation through indexation, they retain important small-business concessions and they retain incentives for genuine product investment. But they also recognise a simple principle: that a fair tax system should not provide the largest benefits to those who need them least.

Senator Bragg claims Australians are being misled. What is misleading is how Senator Bragg and the rest of those opposite arguing against these reforms have characterised them. Cherrypicking aspects of the reform and manipulating the data just spreads concern and anxiety, which is just incorrect. What is before the Senate is an ambitious reform agenda, and Labor makes no apology for that. We are proud to be putting forward reforms that take on structural inequities in the system—reforms that ask whether longstanding concessions are still delivering in the national interest. It should not mean preserving tax concessions that overwhelmingly benefit those who are already at the top of the income and wealth distribution. These reforms are about fairness, they are about integrity, and they are about ensuring that the Australian tax system delivers for working Australians.

Senator McKIM (Tasmania—Australian Greens Whip) (16:29): Australia desperately needs genuinely progressive tax reform. I say to the Australian people: if you are working harder and harder and falling further and further behind, if you're struggling to pay the rent, if you're struggling to pay the mortgage, if you're struggling to get in to the housing market, if you're struggling to see a doctor, if you're struggling to pay your kids' school fees, and you are wondering where all the money's gone, check the bank balances of the billionaires. Check the bank balances of the one per cent because that is where your money is going. While you work harder and harder and pay decent amounts of tax on your income, the wealthiest one per cent of Australians are effectively paying no tax at all as their bank balances go through the roof.

Let's be really clear about something: you cannot work your way to $1 billion, let alone $2 billion, $5 billion, $10 billion or $20 billion. You can't work your way to that kind of money. The only way you can make that kind of money is if you've got a massive amount of capital to start with and you invest that capital—you buy things, you buy property portfolios, you buy shares and you put your money in tax advantaged trusts. Your wealth goes up, and the government doesn't make you pay your fair share of tax on your wealth. Unlike if you go to work as a cleaner, if you go to work in hospitality, if you go to work as a nurse or if you go to work as a carpenter—you are paying your fair share of tax.

Why shouldn't the billionaires pay their fair share of tax? Why shouldn't the one per cent pay their fair share of tax? Why shouldn't the big, price-gouging, polluting corporations pay their fair share of tax? The question actually is: why don't they pay their fair share of tax? I'll tell you why: it's because they've captured the political class in this country from the Liberal Party and the National Party to the Labor Party and now to One Nation. Every single one of you is in the pockets of the one per cent and the big, polluting, price-gouging corporations and is in cahoots with each other to make sure the super wealthy don't pay their fair share of tax and to make sure the big corporations don't pay their fair share of tax. The result is an economy where wealth flows upwards into the pockets of the few while the many work harder and harder and fall further and further behind. Shame on the lot of you!

Senator KOVACIC (New South Wales) (16:32): Those contributions from the Greens and from the government have actually made my blood boil. How about being in the pocket of the CFMEU, with their corrupt and criminal conduct, which time after time after time you refuse to support an inquiry into because your pockets are full of their money? How about that?

Can I tell you right now that I could not believe what the government was saying in relation to this. They said, 'We make no apology about the tax concessions for the already wealthy.' Can I give you a newsflash? You're letting the allegedly already wealthy keep the tax concessions, but young Australians that have never had the opportunity to negative gear and that have never had the opportunity for a capital gains tax concession can never have one. You've taken it away from them. If they've been saving their money in shares or building a small business, you're taking those concessions away from them. You're saying: 'No, it was good enough for us to create our wealth, but it's not for you. To make it fairer for you, we're not going to let you do what we did to create wealth.' I'm sick of hearing it.

Australians aren't stupid, as Senator Bragg said. They actually know what is going on here, and the Albanese government has to explain why they misled Australians before the last election. The Prime Minister, in his own words, said, 'Fifty times, I've said no changes to negative gearing and CGT.' Guess what he does after the election in this year's budget. He changes both those things. He had an interview with Andrew Clennell where he said, 'Our position changed, and no-one else has had the ticker to make these changes.' Guess what? This prime minister didn't have the ticker to take the changes to an election, because he knew that he couldn't sell them, he knew that they were fundamentally unfair and he knew that they would not change the ability of young people who currently do not own a house to actually have a house.

The other interesting thing is, if we wind back to last year, they introduced their five per cent deposit guarantee and encouraged young people to use that to actually enter the market with the support of the government. Now guess who is at the greatest risk of negative equity based on this current policy from the Albanese Labor government? It's those very people who took up the five per cent deposit guarantee. The lack of understanding of the impacts of this policy is extraordinary. They point to a two-day inquiry and call it evidence and say that evidence matters. If evidence does actually matter, I say to the government: why was your inquiry two days? What a sham. These are some of the biggest tax changes this country has seen, and less than 48 hours is what you allot to it. You're not interested in consultation. You're not interested in the evidence. You're interested in ensuring that the vested interests of this government are advanced. That is it.

Australians were told that these taxes were not coming. They were told that they were not on the table. The Prime Minister said over and over and over that they were not on the table. His deception is of the highest order. This government is taking our country in the wrong direction. This is the highest taxing government in our history, with higher taxes, more complexity, less certainty and fewer opportunities for Australians to get ahead. That is the legacy of this government. In Hong Kong, Singapore and the UAE, CGT is zero per cent. In the US it's between zero and 20 per cent. In the UK it's between 10 and 24 per cent. And in Communist China it's 20 per cent. Under the Albanese Labor government in Australia, it is 30 per cent. Have a think about that for a minute. That's for individual Australians.

The Australian mum and dad and the Australian worker, who those opposite always talk about, are treated as the enemy while foreign backed build-to-rent capital can receive concessional treatment. We can have expensive concessions for them, just not expensive concessions for the actual Australians who are paying the tax. Why does that count? Why does that matter? Even the super funds are getting concessions. But everyday Australians? No. If you want to build wealth, you're a bad capitalist. We want you to sit in your wage cage, pay your tax, sit down and be good, and speak when you're spoken to.

Senator ANANDA-RAJAH (Victoria) (16:37): I'd like to thank Senator Bragg for this motion and for the opportunity to discuss the important relationship between taxation and housing. Here we are, two senators—one from New South Wales and one from Victoria, the two largest states in this nation—in a State of Origin on housing. Housing affordability is the battleground, and in the stands are young people—there they are, all the way up there—some of whom will be locked out of housing, but not on our watch; older people of limited means; and then everyone in between who does not have that default option of the bank of mum and dad.

But, before we kick off, the outcome has already been settled. I turn to a publication by the Fairfax papers that came out on the weekend, on 19 June. It declares that Melbourne is poised to become the biggest, most liveable city. It says, 'Just ask the growing wave of Sydneysiders moving to Melbourne.' A former Sydneysider, now homeowner in Melbourne, in the suburb of Clifton Hill—it's got beautiful terraces, leafy streets and lots of parkland and it's near trams and amenities—said: 'I rented the whole time I lived in Sydney. The idea of buying a house in Sydney seemed completely unattainable. There's no way we'd be able to own a house like this in a comparable suburb in Sydney.'

According to Domain, there is a $700,000 price difference between houses in Sydney and houses in Melbourne. The median price of a house in Sydney as of March was $1.79 million. In Brisbane it was $1.21 million and in Melbourne it was $1.08 million. Across all types of dwellings, whether they be units or houses, Melbourne is nearly 40 per cent cheaper than Sydney, according to CommBank. Why? Because Melbourne is actually better at building homes than just about any other state in this country.

According to the State of the housing system report that was released in April of this year, Victoria built the most homes out of all the states in the period from 2019 to 2024, at 306,000—this compares to 251,000 in New South Wales—and Victoria is on track to meet its target goal according to the housing accord. This is clear evidence that increasing supply actually improves housing affordability. It decreases—it puts downward pressure on—prices. We are certainly backing this in with a $47 billion housing package, which is designed to deliver an additional 100,000 homes for first home buyers, to ring fence these from everyone else; $2 billion for enabling infrastructure like payments, powerlines and pipes, of which $500 million will go towards regional Australia; and, of course, we are intending through the Housing Australia Future Fund to build 55,000 social and affordable homes. But we know that this is not enough. It is not enough.

In 1999, a home cost about four times your median income. It's now around eight times. If you were in Sydney, however, it would cost 10 times your median income, and in Melbourne it's seven times. That is clearly unattainable for most working people. The average age of a first home buyer in 1999 was late 20s. It is now 34 to 36. One in five first home buyer loans by Westpac are given to people over the age of 40. In other words, people are ageing into first home ownership. That has knock-on effects on everything else, including relationships, having children, settling down and so on.

We are not standing back to admire this problem any longer. We are acting. The changes to capital gains and negative gearing are having an immediate effect. They haven't been legislated yet, but they are already cooling the property market. They are giving this $12 trillion housing market a bit of a haircut. It turns out that most people do support it. Polling by Resolve out today shows that 54 per cent of Australians support this, and 60 per cent of 18-to-34-year-olds support it. Support is seen right across all income brackets: high income, medium income and low income. The support is there because people intuitively understand that we need to give first home buyers a foot in the door, and we need to enable them to compete against property investors. This is why we're doing it.

Those opposite can berate us, but they, along with the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation, all voted against every single one of our measures to increase housing supply and to make homes more affordable.

Senator HANSON (Queensland—Leader of One Nation) (16:43): The Albanese Labor government's latest budget has gone down like a lead balloon. It's a $77 billion tax grab. It's a litany of broken promises. It's going to kill investment, innovation and aspiration. It's going to hurt farmers. It's going to destroy small businesses already doing it tough. It's going to drive rents higher as investors pull out of housing. It's going to drive mortgages higher. Despite Labor's promise to reduce immigration, this budget projects an increase. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis created by Labor's obsession with net zero and renewables, it's going to drive inflation higher.

The budget doesn't create intergenerational equity; it creates intergenerational poverty. They got to the top; now Labor is pulling up the ladder on younger generations of Australians. This budget attacks hardworking Australians who have sacrificed to save and invest. Labor doesn't want Australians to be able to pull themselves up or invest their hard earned savings so they can be independent. Labor wants Australians to become more dependent on handouts and government services.

This is the most dishonest, secretive, unaccountable government in Australian history, and increasing numbers of Australian voters know it. They're not buying the lies any more. They're mad as hell about this budget. With this budget they see a government, and a political system, which no longer listens to them and no longer cares. One Nation will reverse the capital gains tax and restrict negative gearing to two houses. We will not disadvantage businesses. They will not be faced with any capital gains tax changes. They invested their hard earned tax money, mortgaged their assets and worked long, hard hours with no help. One Nation will not allow an out-of-control government who cannot stop spending— (Time expired)

Senator BLYTH (South Australia—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (16:45): This budget has fallen very flat with the Australian people. As Senator Bragg said, they smell this a mile away. They know when they're being sold a lie, and that's exactly what Labor is trying to do here. Before the election, Labor promised that there would be no changes to CGT in Australia, and it promised this dozens of times. Australians were promised that they would see relief if they elected a Labor government. Instead what they've got is a Labor government that is now the highest-taxing government in Australian history. Rather than control spending and live within its means, as it demands the Australian people to do, Labor continues to spend more and grab more tax.

Let's remember, everyone out there, that government has no money of its own. The only money it has is the dollar that hardworking, everyday Australians earn, which the government takes. While families are struggling with mortgage repayments, rent, grocery bills, insurance premiums and energy costs, this Labor government is continuing to hurtle towards its net zero and renewables fantasy, and Australians are still asking where that relief is in their electricity bill. Well, it is not coming under this Labor government. Labor's policies are increasing costs and reducing confidence in Australia. The CGT is taking away young people's ability to buy a home. At my eldest daughter's age, I was able to save a deposit and buy my first home. I fear that she is never going to be able to do that, because under this Labor government the settings are not there in the economy.

We've then got this Labor government looking at vehicle emissions standards, which is pushing up the cost of everyday household vehicles and farming vehicles. This is going to hit regional Australians and families the hardest. Millions of Australians made financial decisions based on the rules that government put in place. Australians have been encouraged for decades to save for their retirement and plan for their future. Millions of Australians are now finding themselves retrospectively caught up in Labor changing the goalposts and the rules. If governments are able to change the rules at any point in time, where is the incentive for Australians to work hard and save for their futures?

This is not the time to be questioning whether Australia is a good place to invest, but we have to remember that it is the small businesses and the hardworking Australians—it is those families who drive our economy. While they struggle with all sorts of headwinds, this Labor government has delivered them a budget that is like a kick in the guts, when they are already struggling to pay their electricity bills, struggling with higher insurance costs and struggling to be able to afford the personnel that they need. This is an insult to all hardworking Australians.

This budget will see the end of aspiration in our country. Instead of Labor's instinct to try and control its spending, they are going to come after Australians' hard earned dollars. Families can't continually spend more than what they earn. If the family budget doesn't balance, then you spend less. Businesses also cannot continually spend more than they earn, and governments should be held to the same standard. But under this Labor government we continue to see higher spending, higher debt and higher taxes. This is when Australia is already facing significant economic challenges. We have weak productivity growth, housing affordability is non-existent for young people, there are high energy prices, and there is global uncertainty. We should be encouraging enterprise, rewarding hard work, attracting investment and growing the economy, and, above all else, we should be honest with the Australian people. If taxes are going to increase, Australians should be told before an election not after it. Ultimately, this motion is about trust, and Australians deserve a government that keeps its promises. Australia cannot afford another Labor government.

The PRESIDENT (16:54): The question is that the urgency motion as moved by Senator Bragg be agreed to.

Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE (Queensland) (16:59): by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I rise to take note of the Aged Care Amendment (Motor Neurone Disease Priority) Rules 2026. These rules provide a faster pathway for people with motor neurone disease to access aged care, and that is welcome. However, our aged-care system is far from appropriate for people who are suffering from motor neurone disease, especially in its current form. Most people who get a diagnosis of motor neurone disease die within an average of two years, and whilst a faster pathway to access care is helpful, it actually costs around $300,000 a year to provide adequate care for someone living with MND. If you are over 65 and you are forced into relying on My Aged Care to support those needs, the most help you can get is $78,000 under a supported home package, and that is woefully inadequate for people whose needs are very high.

We've seen, around the country, people coming together to support people like Neale Daniher in the fight against MND, and people like him have done an amazing job at raising the profile of this disease, but I don't think people realise how much stress there is and how hard it is for somebody who gets that diagnosis when they're over 65. The co-payments that have been brought in under supported home mean that even that highest level of package is now purchasing 30 per cent less. When we go from a need that's around $300,000 a year to $78,000 and you then cut the purchasing power of that by even more, that is putting families in really difficult positions. It has massive impacts on other people in the family. I will use my family as an example. My mother got an MND diagnosis over the age of 65. She was still working. My father, who was much older than her, carried the burden of her care. She never got care under My Aged Care because she was one of those 5,000 people a year who die before they get care.

In Queensland, if you are over 65 and your My Aged Care package falls woefully short, which it does, then you are reliant on MND Queensland. MND Queensland is the only motor neurone disease support organisation in the country that gets no recurrent state government funding despite MND Queensland advocating to both the Labor and the coalition governments, and still they remain without recurrent funding. We have an organisation that is out there fundraising their backsides off to fill the gap that is left because, if you're over 65 and you get that diagnosis, My Aged Care is not going to be there for you, and, if it is, which I hope it will under the 30 day pathway, it will fall way, way, way short.

My mum was lucky. We had the capacity to buy the hospital bed that she needed. We had the capacity to buy the electric wheelchair that she needed. We had the capacity to pay OTs and other multidisciplinary teams to come and work with her, and every time we did, my thoughts went to, 'What do those people who do not have the capacity to do that do?' We need to do better. These people are diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease where their body fails them. They can't speak, they can't eat and they can't walk. They are wholly reliant on someone else for their care. We cannot leave them at the mercy of an aged-care system that falls far too short. So I implore the government, for all of those people out there who are over 65 and get this devasting diagnosis, to please do better. The 30 days are welcome, but, like I said, it is going to fall far, far short, and they need more. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Senator HODGINS-MAY (Victoria) (17:06): by leave—I table a report about the gas industry's engagement with the Senate select committee titled Energy crisis narratives in Australia's tax inquiry: Australian and LNG interests deployed crisis narratives to oppose Australia's gas tax.