Andrew Laming's recent appearances (OpenAustralia.org)
Budget | Statements by Members | House debates
Last night's budget was a boon for homebuyers—150,000 places over three years for deposit assistance. It's a policy so compelling, it's been appropriated by the other side. I also note...
Last night's budget was a boon for homebuyers—150,000 places over three years for deposit assistance. It's a policy so compelling, it's been appropriated by the other side. I also note today that it's been a year since those ridiculous allegations about me were published through the media, untrue, egged on by ALP opponents and broadcast without obtaining my version of events. They're now a thing of the past. Last year's bullies were not warriors for women. They used the same tactics against women for their own personal advancement. Strong women don't need that conduct in their lives. If the media has now considered war in their commentary will get both sides of the debate, then that is an important legacy for me to leave behind from these last 12 months.
Valedictory | Adjournment | House debates
There is something to be said for speaking from the heart but also speaking without notes. But if, in your final speech to the parliament, you omit to thank your own daughters and mum, there is...
There is something to be said for speaking from the heart but also speaking without notes. But if, in your final speech to the parliament, you omit to thank your own daughters and mum, there is something to be said for grabbing some notes and doing it properly! So, for the first time since 2011, I confess there's a very, very important prompt sheet—which, I assure you, has been put together by me, but there has been some oversight. I wanted to recognise—as I didn't, because I completely lost my way in talking about my wife's incredible journey to this country—my 13- and nine-year-old daughters. Sophie is this remarkably empathic young leader that I wanted to refer to in my final speech. She works so hard just to be good at everything she does, and already, at her age, she is starting to make these tough choices about what she can and can't do, to try and not raise ridiculous expectations—as we often do on teenagers. Isobel, at the age of nine, is delighting us with determination, resolve and insistence on process and fairness—particularly when dad doesn't show it! She just drove past the ASIO building this week and said: 'Dad, is that the spy building? I want a job there. Can you get me a tour?' That's a challenge to the minister! We all have parents who brought us to where we are, but the particular story with my mum and dad is that they fell in love and went to the far corners of the earth, as we knew it, in the 1960s, which was to Hobart—no offence to Tassie!—and then to the tropical island of Bougainville, and then to the Papua New Guinea highlands, one of the most remarkable places on the planet. Dad took me under the shadows of Mount Giluwe and taught me survival skills—which sometimes came in handy in this building! I learnt how to hunt birds using bows and arrows, with arrowheads made of possum glenoid processes to hunt a bird without damaging its plumage—something that I haven't done here in Australia with our indigenous species, you'll be relieved to know. Obviously, my dad's career went from being just a local councillor and giving it a go, and winning, when he didn't expect to, to joining the Joh for PM campaign, to being on the National Party Senate ticket with John Stone, and of course then to being a Liberal—mostly in opposition—state MP for a decade. I loved doorknocking for him and learning a bit more about issues that, as a young medical student, I never would have otherwise. And, as you would all know, as anyone in this building knows, those conversations around the table are so important. I remember what that great poet Robert Frost said, when he talked about two paths you can take in life: And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. And life is a series of choosing paths. My dad never got a formal education, but he had an incredible journey that was captured in two beautiful novels in the brief period he had between retirement and falling into the thicket of Alzheimer's and Lewy body dementia. We have a story that's autobiography but also probably the only firsthand account of the life of a shearer in Australia, because dad wrote notes and kept a diary. My lovely sisters, Susie and Jules, are sharpshooters. They're fun, and their husbands and partners are incredibly hardworking. One of them lives in Portsea, and, if that isn't heaven, you can certainly see it from there. And Julie and Simon live in my ancestral home, the Sunshine Coast, where they run a strata building as part of the tourism sector. Just to conclude, I want to mention some people in my electorate: in the transport sector, Phil, John and Caitlin Richards; Jennifer Parsons; and Chris and Ginni Anderson. Chris is an absolute visionary. Dawn, Scott and Craig Hogan have the only family owned pub in my electorate. I also want to mention Lynette and Doug Barton; Rob Jones; Jason and Kath Bradley; Jan Goetze; David Paterson; Albert and Lyn Benfer; Bill Stoddart; Warren and Julienne Pryde; Steve and Selina Lambourne of SS Signs; IGA's Tyrone and Leanne Jones; Brian and Esti Seiberts; Damien Smart; Ian Neil; Jon McCarthy, in the law; Bruce Durie; Steve Gibson; Victoria and Aaron Meyers; Rebecca and Justin Young; Susie Tafolo. I also want to mention my mentors, Don and Wendy Seccombe, Don being a former cricketer and mayor; Bill and Jeanette Vaughn; Ron, Matt and Mike Loney; Dan and Jacqueline Rigney, at IGA Alex Hills, famous for taking on a thief with a flamethrower; Mark Jones; Aunty Margaret; Uncle Norm Enoch; Dale Rusker; Kate Adams; Nat Manzoni, on Straddy; Darren Cole; Milly, Dave and Sam Nielsen; the tooth fairy Stephanie Roper; Debbie and Michael Leong; Dr Luke Katahanis; Pat and Sue Gaye; Ryan and Jess McCann; Todd and Emily Howard; Steve and Emily Baxter; Perminder and Julianne Thind; Rohit Pathak; Mary Gibb, in hospitality, such a tough path they've had; AITC's Mark Hands; Louise and Shane Peters; Brett and Melissa Webster; educators Dr Lyn and Bob Bishop; Dave Goodwin; Mick and Ruth Bentham; Jason Goodwin; Mick and Moira Goodwin; Steve and Cheryl Lawie; Tanya and Jarrod Bonney; Wolfgang Nespor; Paul and Cherie Luxton; and Mel and Janna Price-Jones. They bit off more than they could chew, chewed like hell and made it happen.
Valedictory | Parliamentary Representation | House debates
Others will judge our time here. It's customary to thank friends and colleagues, but we can do that over a 'Lukiatto' or a late-night dinner. It's customary to hold our family tight and say thank...
Others will judge our time here. It's customary to thank friends and colleagues, but we can do that over a 'Lukiatto' or a late-night dinner. It's customary to hold our family tight and say thank you for the remarkable opportunity, but we can do that at home. This opportunity I want to devote to thousands of Australians who never lost faith in what we do here and at a time when so often—perennially—in Australia we are tempted to dismiss, discard or disparage democracy. There are so many people out there, colleagues, that cannot count their time here in days or months or years or even decades. They were never here, but they fought and provided the basis of this pyramid that we enjoy of democracy, whose apex is right at that dispatch box. They weren't just our campaigners—they were anyone who cared enough to fill out a petition; bang the table; dare I say, glue their hands; burn the doors. Whatever their passion about federal issues, I need to say in your own way, thank you, because it may be ugly but it's our ugly. I've got a friend, Geoff Redpath, known as Twinks. He lived in Anzac Avenue, Camp Hill, and with his piercing blue eyes he would look at me as I would try to explain to him my shortcomings in this place, and he would ask me about what happens down here. He desperately wanted to know about the ifs, the buts, the workarounds, the expedience, the flexible and malleable morality that's on show here sometimes, and I would just try and try and explain. Geoff will be remembered as an unsuccessful LNP preselection candidate, and if you go on the web you'll see on the ECQ website that he ran in an unbelievably close Division 6 election for local government on the Fraser Coast, where three candidates all got 33 per cent. He led by 50 votes after prepoll and fell short by about that margin, and within months—no wife should come home to find a lifeless husband in the backyard shed. But he never lost hope; he wanted to fight to the end for this great nation in his own way. If I could talk to Twinks now—and there are so many of his mates that will grasp for answers and perhaps never get them—I just want to say: by never giving up he gave us an opportunity to do what we do here. All around outer metro Australia, a place that didn't really ever coalesce any political power when I got here 20 years ago, is now a place that seems to determine election results. In that time I've been proud to see two outer metro prime ministers do amazing things for this nation. Those busy outer metro people that so many of you will know who are busy commuting and driving—we often observe they drive into the left-wing water bubblers and pot plants only to drive home to the real thing at night: real water and real bushland. There's not a lot of headroom there for global issues for them. They're busy and they care about population, roads, jobs and development, and it's over and over again. Those conversations of outer metro Australia are now a serious force. I look around Team Queensland and I'm inspired by Dryden: some of them were princes of their land. Those ranked Team Queensland stood a team so variable that it seemed to me: Not one, but all mankind's epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts— Sometimes wrong. But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon. All of us together—like you can't choose your family, you can't choose Team Queensland—are a ragtag band who do great stuff down here, and in your own way you cut a cloth that works for your electorate. I was inspired by Don Randall, the great WA MP, who didn't give much for the pomp and the procedure down here. One day, when he was driving around his electorate, doing what he did so well, he pulled over to one side when he didn't feel well and he died in his car serving his electorate. He was, I argue—perhaps Ross Cameron's an exception—one of those first outer metro MPs who was here for there. This place is made by those people, and long may it stay that way. All of you, wherever you are, whether you're sitting in tea rooms recruiting membership or filling out the petitions that got us a defence force recommendation for a next-of-kin medal—Kay and Kerry Danes—and whatever you did, that's what makes it special and that's why I'm so delighted to have been here. Outer metro Australia is not deeply ideological. So, when you drive out from whatever city skyline you might inhabit and you head out to those parts, those expectations are simple, but if they see you doing the right thing they'll adopt you. I want to say a little word about social policy and a little bit about the place of activism on the Right. Social policy is very important to me. I find economic policy sometimes a little formulaic. My apologies to the member for Fenner who has exceptional expertise in that area. In social policy, the decision in 2001 was: do we join a party of economic credentials and fight silently on social policy? In two decades that has changed. Forgive the partisan comment, but I would argue that it is now this side of politics that is potentially the most progressive in reforming and rebuilding and reimagining social policy. We just don't fight for inputs but we fight for outcomes, and I think that's so important. When we arrived, the member for New England was speaking up in the party room in a way that absolutely captivated me. I took a different path and started working on pharmaceutical policy, something I knew a bit about, with Chris Bilkey and Professor Philip Clarke from the University of Melbourne. We mapped out a way to save the nation about three-quarters of a billion dollars every year. I didn't believe those figures at the start. The minister didn't believe those figures at the start, but, to his credit, he took on that idea before we lost power, and to Labor's credit they continued it. To this day, that one single backbencher policy saves this nation three-quarters of a billion dollars a year and another $60 billion to $70 billion of out-of-pockets for non-concessional cardholders who paid way too much for drugs for their kids. That's what we're here for. We fought hard for education so that teachers in the poorest areas of Australia can have the gains they achieve in NAPLAN and ATAR recognised. We still don't have those metrics. In welfare, it's been about work for the dole. It's been about making sure we get value for money and the principle of mutual obligation—that you're not paid a welfare payment as some sort of automatic right but there's an expectation that if you can give you should give. So much credit goes to the former member of Warringah in those areas. In housing, a very, very understated, quiet former adviser, Carolyn Rosario, said to me in 2018, 'What's your government got for people my age?' I reached for her speaking notes, and she said: 'What you need is to help us with deposits. In a Canberra rental market you can never ever save for a deposit with the rents we pay.' We sat down and did a one-page summary. We sat down with the Banking Association and ironed out the glitches, took it to the Assistant Treasurer and to Treasury, and, without me knowing—and we can argue over the provenance—our leader announced it. The campaign launched in 2019. Since then, 56,000 families that would be renting today are in their own home and they don't have to ask a landlord if they want to put a nail in the wall to hang up their young child's merit prize from school. We know how transforming that is. The Reserve Bank governor, just last week, was saying that it's about income. It's about raising household income, and everything else is so able to follow. In Indigenous policy, these have been long and trying debates, colleagues. You'd be right to say not much has changed. I spent a year in a semi-desert community, Lajamanu, and we pioneered a breakthrough drug that's now a standard treatment for trachoma. What I learned there is that we must never, ever forget the needs of remote Australia where the Indigenous languages are still spoken at home and never let that be washed away by general Indigenous statistics that don't reflect the true suffering in remote Australia. We, colleagues, are marked on what we're doing in the farthest corners of Australia—a globally unique political challenge and an immeasurably hard one. If, in the next few months, we can terminate and complete successfully a 20-year journey to allow a young Indigenous couple wanting to take out a loan from a bank to build a home on native title land—I cannot believe we haven't achieved that in the last 20 years. But I have to walk away from this place saying, 'Not yet.' It's remarkable that we haven't found a way to bring lenders to the table to make that possible. In welfare reform, it was about keeping Work for the Dole tacked together under significant attacks, but we saw the PaTH program expand that. One day I saw that the department, before Easter and Christmas, would routinely pay welfare cheats and people who were not compliant bonuses that the minister's office didn't even know about. I worked to make sure that stopped. To our credit, that has also happened. This touches on the role of activism. It's probably a little bit too strong to say that that has been an important part of my time here, but I firmly believe there's a role for activism on the Right. How you define it is a different question, but I want to say that we have brought through, in this party room now, many strong social policy reformers and many people prepared to be activist. You might say that it may impede our path to government or keeping in government. But, if there are some little things that in your heart you feel you've got to fight for, I'm just saying: 'Fight for it!' Let people know how passionate you are about it. The best example was from 2019. Our training providers and RTOs all over the country—Bernard and Daman Malik are here with me today—came to me and said, 'We're being driven into the ground, potentially, by an overly heavy and unreasonable bureaucracy.' I'm not speaking on Mr Malik's behalf but, in many cases, there was the perception that, simply, the chief officer wanted fewer RTOs in this country because other countries had fewer. We are the nation of small business. Those RTOs in every corner of regional Australia are providing the training and the vocational skills outside of TAFE. Eighty-five per cent of that training is private, and, to be driven off to court to the AAT and be told to muscle up with a barrister and find a hundred grand to keep your family business open when there was a chance to work together with RTOs was devastating. As an MP, you can give a speech here in the tiny Federation Chamber, snip it on YouTube and send it out to the people that matter. Two months and a week later, that chief executive was gone. Since then—thank you to the member for Swan—things are way better in the training space. Don't for a minute think that that's not important, because our greatest export is people, and one of our greatest service exports is training and educating overseas students. I will provocatively say that, more than submarines and tanks, our best foreign policy tool is to educate South-East Asia in the highest-quality, English-speaking vocational modules and university courses. That does us an enormous diplomatic advantage, and we need to make sure we are a major slice of international education. As we move through activism, there was also some crazy, stupid stuff—like the cruise ships. You remember getting booted out of here for 24 hours by Speaker Bishop for the bunker oil that was spilt in the chamber here. Who benefited from that, politically? Was I going to get a couple of votes from Balmain mums or a few people who live around ocean cruise ship terminals? But, honestly, for those companies to burn clean fuel in ports in every corner of the world except Australia—because we didn't mandate it—and to keep burning the disgusting stuff here, I thought, was disgusting. So speak up on it! I finally dragged the table to do it. If there is a way of being activist about small things, I think that makes a huge difference. We saw in Logan, streets torn apart and fence palings ripped off and everyone mugging each other. It wasn't, in these interracial fights, the case that we needed more social workers. I made the obvious observation that they needed jobs and opportunity. If you connect the disadvantaged and the dispossessed with work, that's the difference. I was absolutely ratioed for it, but months later, after the dust had settled, all the inquiries said just that. If we can start to think about the importance of connection to the economy as the solution, I think that's really important. For our South African colleagues, when I saw the farmers being murdered and mutilated, I asked a fair question: is it completely mutually exclusive to be white and a refugee? It isn't, and it was important to ask that question of DFAT, and I give them credit: they looked at that hard. We've also had designated area migration agreements that have provided a partial solution to this most complex of social issues. But these elements are utterly ones that we can all choose in our own time to fight. Now is the time for the sealed section. There are only people sitting around me because I promised to read out a few of the myths that deserve to be busted today, and in most cases the answers are going to be yes. It is true that I broke into a biohazard area during a white powder scare in my time in a ministerial office, purely because I wanted to check my emails. That is true. I then had 12 hours in there being fed McDonald's Big Mac meals by a dude in a biohazard suit. The only upside was getting a biohazard suit. I was doing my best for the Howard government. I remember Mr Howard asked me, 'What do I need to know about meningococcal?' I said, 'Prime Minister, there are only three things you need to know.' Before you ever say that to a prime minister, make sure you know what the third thing is! I was writing a speech for the Prime Minister and for my boss in the Senate, and I had the strange failing of writing that this vaccine would be funded for those 18 and under, instead of those under 18. A colleague of mine was listening and he tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'Which one was it?' We realised we had just spent, without any authority, about $20 million on meningococcal vaccine delivery to 18-year-olds. Thank you to my team for finding some kind of workaround. Of course, I also need to fess up here about my leadership aspirations and my leadership challenge in 2007. It was messy. I was tired of what was happening between Howard and Costello, and I decided I would announce my leadership bid the following day at the party room. I thought I would run those lines by a few staffers at the Holy Grail, and only later was I told that one of those in the group was John Howard's son. As I walked away to the sound of my own footsteps, I'm sure the first words were, 'Who is that guy?' It was neither good nor pretty. But inside this building there are some special memories as well. The first one is that we may hold the record for making a division in this chamber from the furthest distance. I was in Civic on the corner of Constitution Avenue and London Circuit, luckily in a car. We got green lights, and if you can do it at all you can do it with ease. But I was hurting inside. That's a record for you to break. I am looking to Angus Taylor for that. I've perennially raced him up and down that bloody Red Hill, and, when I asked him, 'Mate, what's your best time?' and he told me, I went out and broke it by 10 seconds. He then revised his time and said, 'I told you the wrong one.' He told me he was actually five seconds faster than what I'd just run. I said, 'Mate, I want to see the metadata.' It's never been forthcoming. Comcars have been an important part of our lives, and I must confess: yes, it is true that, I having lost my phone down into a storm drain when getting out of a Comcar, the driver dismantled the storm water drain and lowered me head first in, holding onto my belt, while I foraged around to find the device. We did, and I nominated him for Comcar driver of the year. He came second. It was rigged. We move forward to the media. I have an apology to the Melbourne Age, on not one but two occasions. First of all, when they phoned up and said they had identified what they believed to be a first-term MP wearing board shorts after midnight with a mattress on his head in Howitt Street, Kingston, we said, 'Deny, deny, deny,' but I was completing a move between apartments. We simply said they had no DNA evidence, and they elected not to go to print. Likewise, in Bougainville, when I for some reason jumped into the back of a truck full of Bougainvillean rebels and put my arm around them and did a Black Power salute with my white hand, again it was, 'Deny, deny, deny; it was simply the arm of a lightly complexioned Bougainvillean,' and they were told to ignore the fact that the latest model of iPhone was in that hand. It is true we have done some pretty silly handstand sculls, the first of which, again, was at the Holy Grail, pre smartphone. I said, 'I'm sure I can get away with it,' and knocked down a beer. The only way you should do it Down Under, Hawkie, is upside down. Every journo, of course, had no camera with them. They proceeded to report the story and simply used my parliamentary photograph in the newspaper upside down. Lastly, we do mow lawns in Bowman to get votes. I do want to confess: the 'Lam mow' was launched in the back of a utility. We had a mower. Many argued there was no motor in it, but it's true: I did mow one lawn in every suburb on one day. It is true I didn't completely have consent to mow the lawn from the homeowner. I had what I believed was a single mum who sounded like she desperately needed a mow. I didn't realise the partner was at home with his size 12 boots, and midway through the mowing he came out, opened a stubby, popped out a chair and watched me mow his lawn. It wasn't good, and, from now on, I've promised that, if ever someone says, 'Please come and mow my lawn,' I'll make sure that I have consent from every adult in the household. So that's the end of my confessions. There was one final one about writing op-eds, and one would have wondered whether they were actually going to lead to us getting into government from opposition or not. But that one contributed by my friend the member for Dickson: everything you said last night was dead right. In concluding, I want to mention some special people. We all have incredible offices behind us, don't we? I want to mention my team: Sonia Bryant, Stephanie Eaton and Penny Donald, and, more recently, Mitchell Dickens and Peter Nugent. But I'd also like to mention the young ones who came through our offices, where we provided platforms for them to go off to great things, like Matt McEachan, Mitchell Redford, Marty Kennedy and Shane Goodwin. There are those in Queensland who are passionate people, as I described earlier, from the president, Lawrence Springborg, to Lincoln Folo, Guelf Scassola, Con Galtos and Craig Luxton. Those people all exist in every one of our lives. In this chamber, of course, I have referenced 'Team Queensland'. I've loved talking welfare with the member for Pearce, who is someone that I think will be greatly missed in this place. On the other side, the member for Fenner, I always remind you, sir, that it took you four times as long as it took me to get your Harvard degree. After 12 months, they said that there was nothing else they could teach me. Then, of course, there's the deputy chair, Lisa Chesters, who has done an awesome job standing by the work of the committee, and there's my neighbour Maria Vamvakinou. Further afield, there's Gareth Ward MLA, a man of impeccable character in the New South Wales parliament, and Steven Marshall MLA, the Premier of South Australia, who took me to sailing lessons where we rammed straight into the marina's rocks with a journalist onboard. Thank you for that, Steven. To be honest, I've thought hard about just how inconsolable I would be at the time I talk about family. But I've been nothing but elated, and I want to celebrate and thank this incredible time I've had with my family through this job. Either I need more empathy training or my time at home has been truly incredible. To all the dads out there, there's nothing better than coming home 18 times a year and getting that massive groundhog day hug, like you've genuinely been missed. There's nothing better than to have your daughters say, 'Dad, you're back already,' 'Yes, darling, it's a short sitting week,' and then after a couple of days they say, 'Dad, when are you going again?' They have an incredible place to grow up at home, thanks to my lovely wife. I want to say to Olesja: our community has given us incredible support, and we have got through that, and your story, which is an amazing one, is now inextricably woven into the story of Australia. I dumped you into the WorkChoices election in 2007. You had no idea what was going on, but you roadside with me, something we've pioneered from Bowman that has now afflicted every campaign in Queensland. I can remember my wife coming to me and saying, 'Darling, they all seem to know your L name.' And I remember a tradie driving in his ute. His window came down, and he clearly wanted to say something. It could have been good or bad. He looked me right in the eye, and he went like that, thumbs down, and then he pointed at Olesja, and he went like that, thumbs up, and he drove off—I thought 'Whatever it takes.' Olesja, your story is remarkable. Your grandmother was a Belarusian partisan who basically lived in a burrow while the Nazis overran the country. Her husband went out briefly to try and find some supplies. When he came back, his wife and children were gone. They'd been found by the Nazis. It's a hard story. That mum looked after her two babies as well as she could, but they perished in her arms one by one from starvation on a forced march. She could have been liberated to the West when the Americans arrived. They gave her the choice of any Allied country in the world to live in. She said, 'No, I'm going back into Stalin's Russia to find my husband.' And she did. They spent winters eating bark, but they were together. She had more kids. That's why you're with me, darling. They're your elders, and those elders and that history is now part of this incredible social experiment we call Australia. I think that is truly, truly remarkable. I quoted Robert Kennedy. I remember that PM Howard leant across to Christopher Pyne and said, 'Clearly one of yours, Christopher.' In that fabulous South African speech in 1966, he said that every time a person stands up for a principle and acts to look after the lot of another, or take on an injustice or stand up to it, there's a tiny ripple of hope. Every time they do that, there is a tiny ripple of hope that is sufficient to sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. They were words designed for South Africa, but I thought it was still an utterly reasonable test for what we do here. They may not be mighty walls in Bowman, but they can seem pretty impervious down here. Those tiny cracks of opportunity that come along every now and then are the ones you grab to make this country a little bit fairer and a little bit more understanding for the people who most need it. Never underestimate those people. It doesn't matter if they vote for you or not; you make an incredible difference in their lives. I talk about ugly, but it's our ugly. I talk about never dismissing, disparaging or abandoning what we do here. Today I want to talk to all of those people who do that and give us the opportunity to be here. If I could be judged on those grounds, so I will: #jobdone, no fuss.
Defence Honours and Awards | Private Members' Business | House debates
I move: That this House: (1) notes the recent Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal recommendation to create a new class of medals and clasps which recognise the loss suffered by the...
I move: That this House: (1) notes the recent Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal recommendation to create a new class of medals and clasps which recognise the loss suffered by the families of Australian Defence Force personnel killed or seriously wounded as a result of their service; (2) acknowledges the advocacy role taken by former SAS serviceman Kerry Danes and his wife Kay Danes; (3) thanks the veterans and the families of veterans that made submissions to the tribunal; and (4) urges the Government to complete the consultation process as soon as practicable and ensure that the proposed recognition be applied to all military service on behalf of this nation. In this motion today, I wish to note, acknowledge, thank and urge. I want to note the very important decision from the Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal on 25 January, making a recommendation to government relating to recognition of the fallen—those who make the ultimate sacrifice—and those who are injured and wounded in service. Of course, I want to acknowledge the significant 25-year campaign by Kay and Kerry Danes of Alexandra Hills in my electorate, who since 1996—12 June, to be precise—have campaigned for the result that was released by the tribunal on 25 January. Of course, I wish to thank every veteran family that made a submission and every veteran family that was part of these discussions—260 of them in 2021. Of those, 70 made verbal submissions to this inquiry. And I urge my government and every future government to do everything possible to bring this proposal to fruition. Deputy Speaker, it won't have passed your notice that 25 years is a very long time, and it does reflect the reverence Australia holds for its honours and awards and the importance it attaches to them. Those 25 years have been incredibly frustrating for those who campaigned. I joined this campaign in 2008, when a former coalition colleague and former Assistant Minister for Defence said to me as he retired and completed his term, 'If there's one thing you should continue doing, it is this fight for recognition.' I want to make it very clear what this is. We are proposing that, in line with other Western economies and allied nations, there be a tangible form of recognition for the next of kin of those who have served in active service and made the ultimate sacrifice or been injured or wounded, whether physically or emotionally. When we talk about these matters, this is not in any way to disparage the current system but to recognise that historically there was a time when a mothers medal was sent to the next of kin as listed in the enlistment papers of service personnel. That finished in September 1945. From that period of imperial medals, we then moved to Australian medals, and it's this scope that the tribunal has considered. The recommendations—if you will forgive me as I attempt to distil them—were that we should look at a medal directly for the next of kin and for anyone who is identified as next of kin—potentially more than one person—and that a next of kin medal be worn on the left by the genuine next of kin. Veterans' medals, as everyone would know, are worn on the right by their family members. But the additional question is: can the medal order of wear clearly and tangibly demonstrate that this sacrifice has been made? At the moment, the medals represent the service given by the individual, but they don't recognise the sacrifice, and this comes in many different forms. A clasp, for those not initiated in these matters, is often a horizontal bar that appears on the cloth part of the medal. It is very tiny in some cases, but it is very noticeable and of extraordinary importance to those who understand the medal order of wear. The point of this clasp is to make it possible, when those medals are worn in perpetuity by family, to see at a single glance not only the service but the sacrifice. If you think about being at an RSL and approaching the families of veterans, the proposal is that, with one single glance, one can see that the sacrifice has been made, and an appropriate way of engaging or entering into a conversation with that family becomes all the more possible. That's important because, if we look at the numbers of Australians who have been fallen or been injured or wounded, the numbers are extraordinary. Keep in mind that the recommendation goes back to September 1945. Few of us in this place or beyond these walls would know that 98.4 per cent of Australia's fallen fell before that date. They currently have imperial awards, for which the tribunal is unable to make a recommendation. It surprises me that there wasn't some recommendation to this effect. While it cannot formally be done, additional work can be done by this place to ensure there is continuity back to 1885, when the first person fell in the service of this country, in the Sudan. If we think about the historical tale of Australia—from Sudan to the Boer War, to the trenches of World War I, to Beersheba, to the Rats of Tobruk, to Kokoda, to all the places of World War I's Western Front, to WWII service in the air, on water and on land—so many of these great historical battles are currently not able to be recognised with this clasp or medal, if we go ahead purely with this recommendation. This motion today contains a two-part recommendation—first of all, that we urge government and the entire community to look at the recommendations from 25 January and continue to be part of this consultation process. But with 98 per cent of our fallen holding imperial awards it's also important to recognise this may require an approach from this nation to Her Majesty for permission to include a clasp so we can treat all medals equally, back to the first fallen. I think it's incredibly important that we don't have clasps only for 1945 going forward. Many have expressed views on the mothers medal. Sadly, as I understand, they were sent in the post office to be collected by next of kin. While that would seem an incredibly hardhearted instance for us now, that shows the reality of how things were at the time. Many families didn't appreciate the mothers medal as much as they should have. But one would also agree if we can start the medal from that moment forward there is no duplication, but it is the clasp that is important because that sits on the medals themselves. This two-part recommendation of this motion is for everyone—not just this parliament, not just the veteran community. Remember, many of them made recommendations that may have differed quite significantly from what was recommended. We would ask those veterans to continue conversations in RSLs and with service personnel all around the country, on bases, here and overseas, because this is a very important step. It is incredibly important to finally capture, in a tangible sense, the full service and sacrifice of our service personnel. I'm utterly delighted that, finally, we have reached this stage. But it is not the end of the journey. There is still potentially 12 to 18 months of further conversation if and when this is to proceed. It would be incomplete of me not to make a passing observation that, through the 15 years I've been involved in this campaign and the 25 years since Kay and Kerry Danes picked up this challenge, with 50,000 people filling out petitions, there was a decision to develop a pin for the three arms of the armed forces in place of the medal. This was an important step, but it is only halfway there, and these pins have been presented. But I'm disappointed that in many cases these pins may well have been an effort to stymie the ultimate campaign for appropriate medal recognition. These are strong words that I put today in this motion, but we worked extremely hard with chiefs of the Defence Force over this time, with varying levels of success, and these pins began being presented internally by Defence without notifying the government of the day. I think that's incredibly disappointing—that it was done by press release. It was only because I stumbled upon an inbox press release in the minister's office that I was able to notify the Prime Minister that these pins were being presented without the Prime Minister being aware. That was fixed within one hour, and the Prime Minister presented the pin that day. This wasn't the greatest day in the history of this story, but, ultimately, I think the right thing happened. By supporting the recommendations of this report, we are allowing continued veteran contribution. I once again thank Kay and Kerry Danes and quote Kerry in particular, a 42-year Special Air Service Regiment veteran: 'I'm delighted with this recommendation from the tribunal. I feel we are very close now to a tangible result.' He, like all of us here, would thank every veteran family who, with the most painful memories of service in many cases, have made sure that, historically, not only service but sacrifice is appropriately recognised.
All of us return to our states tonight, and I return to Queensland, a state that still has emergency powers that were introduced in mid December and extended to April. I make an appeal to leaders...
All of us return to our states tonight, and I return to Queensland, a state that still has emergency powers that were introduced in mid December and extended to April. I make an appeal to leaders around the country that, with omicron having peaked and now declining in daily cases, we review the need for these emergency powers. Emergency powers are easy to introduce. They don't take long. The laws are drafted. You simply insert a date and get parliamentary agreement. I've argued that the state LNP was quite right in being cautious and using emergency powers as a last resort. What we've learned from COVID, of course, is that it's highly disruptive, and for some of us more than others. This has been a two-year journey—the word 'unprecedented' completely overused—but both sides of this chamber have dealt with these shocks. I remember the management of the GFC also set us challenges we'd never seen previously. And Australia is recognised as having handled these shocks remarkably well. But, as I go around the states, that element of freedom that we bestowed on jurisdictions in the guise of national cabinet, while it worked for us in the first 12 months, obviously became frayed after that. There were significant areas of overlap but also a gap. If we look at the individual policies and compare states, one wonders, if there's only one body of science, how there can be so many varying responses. I'll put mandates into that category. Mandates need to have a scientific basis, because, fundamentally, vaccination itself lies at the heart of scientific evidence. But seeing states dreaming up and fabricating mandates for potentially political purposes is, I think, deeply concerning. If mandates differ between jurisdictions, it can only be for political reasons, because there's only one a science. The Lancet said very clearly in an opinion piece: this is not an epidemic of the unvaccinated. And I differ from most of my medical colleagues because I don't believe in ostracising, humiliating, shaming or attacking people that don't have faith in a vaccine. I know the only way forward is to educate, politely and patiently. Australia now leads the world at the top of a handful of fully vaccinated populations. We don't need to go to these extra measures to corner, compel, threaten and sack people for those extra few people to get the jab. When you talk to those that are running the vaccine hubs now, they'll often say to people coming in for their boosters, 'Thank you so much for coming in willingly, because all I've seen during this period of mandate are people doing it resentfully and regrettably, and often just to keep their employment.' We don't have to be that way. We can get through COVID by positively encouraging a public health message and respecting that some people just aren't going to accept it, either because of level of education, awareness or understanding, or from listening to YouTube videos and following Facebook pages. This is the modern challenge of media. To those that were in the rallies, to those that have come down and protested against the mandates: while I don't necessarily share your point of view, each of you are citizens, worthy of an opinion. What we shouldn't be doing is humiliating, cornering and leading ourselves into a situation where good people have been sacked from their employment by virtue-signalling companies—travel agency companies that, for no good reason, sack someone who works at home on a computer taking bookings. We have a very robust AHPPC system, advised by the best in the country at ATAGI. As the chair of the Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training I was deeply concerned, as was my deputy chair, about the impact of COVID on the work of Fair Work, and we dug more deeply into the situation to look at what the implications were. Too many Australians have lost loved ones to COVID, but too many more, for no good reason, have lost their jobs in Queensland. The emergency powers have to come to an end. Whatever the mandate set out to achieve, it got the extra blip of vaccination in December. I urge the Queensland Premier: We will get through COVID. We can do it without mandates and without sacking people. We can do it without turning baristas and waiters into policemen at the doors of restaurants. No, this is not the most important thing in beating COVID. It's working in unison and making sure that mandates, if ever used, are a last resort.
Housing Affordability | Constituency Statements | House debates
All of us know the importance of housing, but a lot of us take it for granted. If there's one thing I've made a commitment of in my career, it's to make sure that housing is as affordable and...
All of us know the importance of housing, but a lot of us take it for granted. If there's one thing I've made a commitment of in my career, it's to make sure that housing is as affordable and available as possible—not easy when the Commonwealth government doesn't control public housing. But in 2018, thanks to a staffer by the name of Caroline Rozario, I put together a proposal for a first home owners deposit assistance scheme and workshopped that policy in August 2018 to the Banking Association, who gave great assistance at the time, because we identified that, in many ways, the deposit can be an insurmountable barrier to home ownership. I'm delighted that in the 2019 campaign launch, the Prime Minister announced that home guarantee scheme, that has now helped 60,000 Australians—who otherwise would be renting—into their homes. Just for a moment I want you to picture that young children should have the ability to put a hook in the wall to display their framed merit certificate, without having to ask the landlord. They need a place they can call home. And I'm not mentioning for the moment the challenge of not even having roof over your head. But I've made a commitment that in my electorate we can work together to make sure that no-one in my electorate is without a roof over their head at night. It was a sheer horror, two months ago, to see a young mum with four children, quivering in the full, pouring Queensland rain, in a park living in two tents for three nights—while people walked past her, taking photographs of her misfortune and reporting it to police. And there was a real estate agent sitting there, where she'd just been evicted from, saying, 'I'm not leaving her until we find a solution.' That's the front line. But, for me, it's not just about affordability for young professionals who can't find the deposit, it's about those who need economic security and to be on what we call the 'escalator of the economy'. I'm really keen to see this government, the Morrison government, considering options for rent-to-buy and for longer leases and making sure that those who are disadvantaged—such as women over 60 with no superannuation living alone—are able to find a way to home ownership. There are many models being considered in my electorate. Lastly, of course, there's the great Minjerribah and the people of Stradbroke Island. We need a situation where young Indigenous families are able to borrow from major lenders for land that is community or Indigenous title, and until now we've not found a way to do it. I'm calling on this government to find a way to make it possible for young Indigenous home builders to put their home on Indigenous land through an Indigenous led bank and through the convenorship of IBA, and Sean Armistead and his team have done an incredible job in this respect. I want young Quandamooka, young Indigenous Australians on North Stradbroke Island, to not only control their destiny and be self-determining but be able to borrow from an Australian lender to build their first home without impediment.
Schools | Statements by Members | House debates
As a career supporter of choice and faith based education and values, many of us in Brisbane were shocked by the actions of Citipointe Christian College last week. Brian Mulheran's notion of...
As a career supporter of choice and faith based education and values, many of us in Brisbane were shocked by the actions of Citipointe Christian College last week. Brian Mulheran's notion of gender contracts is just revolting, and I'm glad that they were consigned to history. More broadly in the scope of the Religious Discrimination Bill and these competing notions, I'm strongly supporting the role of faith based education. But I will be guided in my vote by the experience of a family in my own electorate who today travels one hour across my city and back, twice a day, to find a school that will accept this child who was not accepted at a local school. The current provision that expulsion of these young children struggling with gender issues shall be prohibited is simply not enough, because these students are usually not expelled. Too often, they're bullied out of schools by a range of other tactics that allow a school to say, 'We never expelled them.' It's incredibly tragic. Let's remember for a moment, in this great tension between parents seeking a faith based education and board members and schools maintaining what they believe they stand for, that schools are not necessarily a place of delivering faith as much as a place delivering education for those students who are there for the right reasons. They deserve to complete their education without being forced out of schools in the absence of these protections.
GP Access After Hours Service | Private Members' Business | House debates
[by video link] It's a brave member who stands up to New England MPs in a rage, but there is probably a need for some sobering information about exactly how after-hour services work and the fact...
[by video link] It's a brave member who stands up to New England MPs in a rage, but there is probably a need for some sobering information about exactly how after-hour services work and the fact that there's a broad platform of services that all residents in the Hunter and New England are able to access. The first speaker was absolutely correct that large amounts of money, from both sides of politics, have gone into supporting after-hours GP services. It was an absolute brainchild of the Howard government, which put together this scheme. It led to significant after-hours access to GPs, and it' really important. That funding has never been cut. But, by being activity based, as Medicare is, the more the service is used, the more likely a service is to be viable. Likewise, if hours are reduced by providers then, by definition, their income will be lower. I think that's at the heart of this problem, not some malevolent hatred from a political party towards after-hours access. The rules are the same nationwide. If an individual service is noting a decline in funding then it's most likely due to a decline in activity. That's a very important point. As a government, we don't directly fund Hunter Primary Care. Funding can and has been reduced, for instance, by the state government, which is likely to have a significant impact on the decision to close Calvary Mater hospital on, I think, 24 December. That's a state not a federal issue. I know that residents there can access one of the four other GP Access After Hours programs in the Hunter region. There's a John Hunter just a 10-minute drive away. You've got the explosion of online consultations, as well, through Medicare. We do understand the irritation and frustration, but hopefully not political opportunism, from the first speaker. She's a good MP, but I don't think she fully understands the economics behind changes in funding that are predominantly activity based. The government spends nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars on after-hours care, and $71 million of that for the PHN After Hours Program. It's basically driven by demand, isn't it? You need to be finding your GPs. I'd say to the member: go out and promote the after-hours service and get more GPs into your area who are prepared to bulk-bill. If you're losing that battle to electorates like mine, which have lots of GPs prepared to bulk-bill, then you have a PR issue and you need to work on your marketing and on your recruitment of GPs to your area. Do better. A C-plus for the member on those grounds. We know that after-hours investment ranges from all of the basic MBS to the Practice Incentives Program and the Healthdirect services. There are lots and lots of sources of funding. There's been a recent program evaluation of the Hunter, New England and Central Coast PHN. The PHN After Hours Program, in particular, had an independent assessment that looked at whether the program was filling critical roles, meeting after-hours needs, and they found significant areas that needed to be worked on and improved. You need to expect the government to be able to have that latitude and headroom to be able to improve services where required and to work with PHNs to redesign a service, particularly when they're not consistently prioritising the delivery of primary care services in the after-hours period. There are instances where the PHN was commissioning services that just duplicated other Commonwealth and state services. To follow the line of logic from the previous speaker, do we do nothing about that? Of course not. You've got to do something. You've got to hold workshops. You've got to improve the focus. You've got to make sure patients are able, through this raft of providers, to get an after-hours service. Whether or not it's from that service member is not as important as ensuring that they can get the service. We're not here to save every provider. I can see some whimsical, quizzical faces in the opposition. Well, I've been doing this for a couple of decades. I know that some services don't meet the needs of the population that others do, and we need to be making sure that there is a financial signal, and it's mostly through demand. If there are reduced operating hours at a place like Calvary Mater clinic, then that contract has to be renegotiated. It's quite simple. There are plenty of other providers out there for GPs to work for—to be redeployed. It just reflects the national trend, doesn't it? If providers are doing a good job, they attract GPs. The decision to bulk bill is one for them to make, and them alone. I know this is a very good member moving the motion, but I've got to be honest. I've been doing this for a long time; I know exactly how after-hours services work. Some do it better than others. Some meet community needs; some don't. Some deliver after hours in a genuine sense, and others are sometimes duplicating services and sometimes not getting the activity and the customer base that they should be from patients, and funding must reflect that. I think having these workshops at PHN level is an important step in that direction. I hope these service providers get through it, but there's no malevolence from the government. These are local issues, and these GPs need the support from their local MPs.
Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve’s Law) Bill 2021; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
[by video link] Thank you, Deputy Speaker Goodenough, for the second opportunity. I too strongly support the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve's Law) Bill 2021. Mitochondrial disease is a...
[by video link] Thank you, Deputy Speaker Goodenough, for the second opportunity. I too strongly support the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve's Law) Bill 2021. Mitochondrial disease is a group of inherited conditions that can significantly reduce an individual's life expectancy. Maeve's law, as it has been colloquially named, is the proposition that we can allow the staged introduction of mitochondrial DNA donation techniques into Australia. This story goes back many years. I was a medical and public health adviser under the Howard government with then minister Kay Patterson. At the time, the assisted reproduction debate around embryonic stem cell research came to the fore. This was a highly complicated piece of legislation. It's interesting that today is one of those few moments where that legislation is further amended. Of course, it's very hard to see where this kind of legislation will lead. I'm extremely proud of the work that I know that any government at that time would have done to ensure that embryonic stem cell research were possible. It's also a credit to how far society has moved and that, if science has the ability and the overwhelming benefit is clear—not just a net benefit but overwhelmingly so—the community is willing to countenance what, a generation ago, we couldn't have conceived. That is what this debate is all about. I commend the courage of other members contributing tonight. This bill is amending existing legislation. There has effectively been a prohibition on mitochondrial donation here in Australia, but my training as a GP obstetrician gynaecologist back in the UK introduced me to early work in this space and another controversial area of legislation that Australia addressed back in 2006: the controversial use of RU486. The irony, of course, is that abortifacients and technology like this find themselves under the general purview of obstetrics and gynaecology as far as specialist medical training goes. I pointed out back in 2006 the irony of working back in 1991 and 1982 in the UK for the first time in obstetrics and gynaecology: that one would work all morning counselling infertile parents only to then be performing terminations of pregnancy in the afternoon. It's incredibly morally stressful. To hear the stories that have been recounted by colleagues tonight in the chamber and early parts of the debate, we know just how much this means to you. The fact that this may be a disease that, in its severest form, may affect one in 50,000 Australians or one in 10,000 is no reason to say, 'I'm happy to roll the dice and, if I'm lucky, not worry about those who have to live with mitochondrial disease.' If it is within our powers then we should address it. I want to recognise Catherine McMahon, an absolutely committed and steadfast former policy adviser who has taken up the reins to see this legislation passed. Thank you, Catherine, for your great work. Over the last few years this has been a very, very committed campaign. I congratulate everyone involved for getting to your federal MPs and, hopefully, making this path as smooth as possible. This two-stage approach is really important, having research and training as well as further evidence being collected over time. It also allows the community to become more comfortable with these decisions. As I pointed out back in the RU486 debate, it's not just about safety and efficacy. It's not just about the TGA saying that a process has been assessed and therefore it's stamped and can happen. We need to take the community with us. It was for those reasons during the RU486 debate that I felt the community needed more say. I felt that, if there were something that completely changed the landscape, as an abortifacient would, that should be a decision that came to the parliament and to the people and not just a decision of the health minister. I actually moved an amendment that, while not successful, pointed out just how important changes like this are and that they need to come before the parliament. There were throwaway lines I recall from the Australian Greens at the time: 'Do we have this debate every time there's a new abortifacient introduced? Are we going to have a debate like this every time a new mitochondrial technique is introduced?' Hopefully, no, but for moments like today it's very important that these issues are being brought to the chamber, brought to the parliament and transmitted nationwide. It's very important to make sure that everyone realises that there has been a thorough consultation phase and process, which I'll talk about in a moment. I want to clarify a few things because many people have characterised these changes as more significant than they really are. This is ultimately about looking after people who are likely to have children who wouldn't have normally functioning mitochondrial DNA, which impacts the function of mitochondria. This only assists those who have an mRNA deficiency or defect, so it's about half of all cases, but it can have catastrophic effects in those that are affected. The symptoms can be seizures, muscle pain, fatigue, vision loss—very close to my heart—hearing loss and heart problems. I've talked about the odds of it appearing: about 60 children each year are affected by the severe form. There are 60 very good reasons to follow the UK's lead because they've always been very forward-leaning in this space. There are 60 very good reasons to acknowledge that there is no cure and that, if there is a scientific solution and a medical treatment, every Australian deserves the right to make their own decision about whether they should have access to it, if it has been established as being safe and effective and consulted on with the community. Obviously, I recommend that we watch the UK very closely. The legislation being considered tonight is very similar to what's been done in the UK. I remember the HFEA conducting their public consultations in the UK. That was a very important process and one that we've followed here. We had the Senate inquiry three years ago. The Senate community affairs references committee carried out the inquiry. I remember the findings being that there was a need for more consultation and more scientific review. But remember that time is ticking and, every time we delay these matters by a year, Australians are affected and living with the impacts of mitochondrial disease for life. Two years ago the NHMRC conducted a series of community consultations exploring moral issues around changing these rules and how the community felt about them. I think that was very important. It noted these issues associated with mitochondrial donation, including the creation and destruction of embryos, and the beliefs that it could potentially create children with more than two parents or that it's a form of genetic modification. I think those questions have been fairly answered and, on balance, adequately answered. Many supported the introduction of this two-stage regulatory approach. It's a lovely model going forward, should further changes ever happen to this legislation. The first stage is that mitochondrial donation itself would be legalised for particular research and training purposes and would support the selection and licensing of clinical trials where you could look more closely at the impact and success of mitochondrial donation and how it affects impacted families. Then a second clinical trial, a single one, should be allowed to run for a number of years. The Commonwealth Department of Health should potentially run a competitive grant process to identify who would run that. The licensing committee, the ERLC, should then have an expanded licence and regulatory role to oversee the mitochondrial donation process and its licensing, ensure that those that carry it out are adequately trained, administer applications and monitor compliance with these new laws. I commend every member who has gotten to know families who are living with mitochondrial disease, and I commend those families for getting out to see their MPs and getting this parliament to a position where it certainly wouldn't have been 10 or 15 years ago when embryonic stem cell research was first considered. This is not the leap that that was, but this is a very important tinkering—a recognition that mitochondrial DNA is completely different from nuclear DNA and that it offers incredible hope for a small number of families. It's a transformational piece of science that can give life, health and longevity to those who would otherwise be affected by this terrible disease. This bill has my full support.
Covid-19: Vaccination, Bowman Electorate: Homelessness | Constituency Statements | House debates
[by video link] I rise today to speak about vaccine mandates. We know how important vaccination is, and Australia is now one of the most vaccinated countries in the world. But I've always argued...
[by video link] I rise today to speak about vaccine mandates. We know how important vaccination is, and Australia is now one of the most vaccinated countries in the world. But I've always argued that additional coercion and pressure doesn't get you much of a result. You might move a small percentage of people who need a nudge, but you start getting distortions and deadweight loss. We're now seeing martyring of those who definitely don't want to be vaccinated. It's not terribly helpful. As a medical practitioner and a registered specialist, we will win this and vaccinate this population. We don't need to move to non-evidence-based mandates. I want to be clear about what that is. Of course there's an evidence base for vaccinating any worker in contact with COVID cases in the healthcare system, in aged care, in disability; there's very strong public health evidence for that. Fair Work has very clearly indicated that there are a number of tiers where the degree of reasonableness falls away as the evidence weakens. In public health, we need to make sure that that evidence is provided freely, fairly, openly, publicly and in real time. There are not enough CHOs doing that. That's a real loss for our country if, unlike the Commonwealth, the CMO and the AHPPC, we're not releasing this evidence. It must be released, if possible. Otherwise, you end up with this appalling situation I'm seeing in Queensland, where it is alleged that practitioners will squirt the vaccine on the ground for a fee of $5,000 and sign you off as having been vaccinated so that the unvaccinated can get around the mandate. That kind of behaviour is not what we need in a democracy with a high-quality health system like Australia. There are inconsistencies in border travel for people flying in from overseas. If they fly via Sydney, they get hotel quarantine in Queensland; if they fly direct to Brisbane, they get to home quarantine. These are inconsistencies not based on public health evidence. On Sunday 5 December at 9 am at the Cleveland Library, I'll be talking about these vaccine mandates, where they belong and where they have no place. I would also like to talk about homelessness in my electorate. This is a really important issue. I made a pledge three years ago that no Redlander should live without a roof over their head. In the last week we've seen a complete collapse again in homelessness services, with the Homeless United Program being defunded by the state Labor government—a perfectly-working, 98 per cent successful program replaced by the northside drive-in drive-out service of part-timers. It's not good enough, Minister Enoch. I've spent the past two days on a full-court press trying to help a family with six children who were left in a park in the rain, living in a tent, because there were no services. Queensland Housing rose to that challenge. They moved the earth to get this family housed. The family are now housed, and I am so proud that Queensland Housing lifted where providers were not able to. We need to remember this: some of us will find ourselves in these terrible situations where we're without a home. No child should have to go through that. I want to thank Andrew and Helen Drysdale, from Pat Barrett Realty, who stayed with that family until we got them housed. Thank you.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation | Statements by Members | House debates
[by video link] News of the defamation decision in favour of the member for Dickson yesterday reminds us that, while there'll always be worms and grubs in public debate, we're seeing a return to...
[by video link] News of the defamation decision in favour of the member for Dickson yesterday reminds us that, while there'll always be worms and grubs in public debate, we're seeing a return to civil behaviour from select parts of the media. Honesty is the lesson of 2021—that being, that if you lie you just admit to it, fess up and apologise. Don't 'Milligan' around for months with the moral hazard of knowing that, certainly with public broadcasting, the taxpayer will fund your intransigence and your delays. This was the experience in 2021, but there is no basis in law whatsoever that is available that the national broadcaster should have colluded with a staff member to defend defamatory material in the public domain, but they did. They passed up the opportunity of a completely cost-free apology and then vaporised around $170,000 on court costs at the taxpayers' expense. We need to accept that it's aggravating that you have to complain about ABC conduct to the ABC News unit first and then to another part of the ABC, but you can never go to ACMA. If we've learnt anything from the last 12 months, it's that the egos and entitlement of some in the Australian media need to be curtailed. We need a public broadcasting ombudsman. I commend Senators Abetz, Antic, Henderson and McGrath for standing up for these matters in the Australian Senate. The Labor Party and crossbenchers should do the same. We need a public broadcasting ombudsman and FOI decisions not done by the ABC for the ABC.
International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People | Motions | House debates
[by video link] The piecemeal approach on the economic and security challenges in the occupied Palestinian territories, which we've seen not just for years but for decades, really does look like...
[by video link] The piecemeal approach on the economic and security challenges in the occupied Palestinian territories, which we've seen not just for years but for decades, really does look like being perpetuated, particularly in recent events. I want to summarise the work of the relevant UN report but I also want to make it fairly obvious that many of us have travelled to this part of the world—and we deeply thank our hosts for making that possible—but we all have to be very cautious that we don't develop a political view on this complex part of the world based on whoever funded our last delegation to the region. We have to acknowledge that unravelling this is highly complicated and it goes back well over 70 years. The point I want to make pretty clearly is that short-term fixes aren't going to be the answer. Picking out isolated anecdotes and fixating on them as representing some form of horrific injustice is not going to help fix the problem or the additional crises, led by COVID; nor is the respective parties failing to work together and failing to focus on the economic elements of this tragedy. They are the means through which we can one day have a political solution. If we keep putting the politics of all this first, at the expense of economic opportunity, that's where we will see the suffering. The UNSCO were right to point out this month that the economic and fiscal situation there is 'dire', and their report says that we've got to take this head on. Every hour of every day that I was in that country, I was reminded of a famous quote: if you stay for a day in Palestine, you can write a novel; if you stay for a year, you can barely fill a page. The reality is that the longer you stay there the more you appreciate the complexity. We've had years of economic stagnation in the West Bank, which has seen a further collapse during COVID. The situation in the Gaza Strip has resulted from a multidecade decline, which is not something that can be turned around overnight, particularly given the high unemployment and the status of women in the country. It's increasingly difficult for the Palestinian Authority to even deliver on its mandate let alone cover its minimum expenditures or make any form of critical investment in the economy. That's what our clear and present challenge is right now—to not devalue, diminish or ignore the political challenges. Both parties, not just the PA, are responsible for the economic elements. It's not just of the water supply. We have to make sure that we are constantly focused on vocational training, getting more graduates and addressing unemployment and making small and micro business opportunities possible in the Palestinian-run areas. The longstanding shortage of public funds is a concern, but we can't continue to expect the international community, 70 years on, to be primarily responsible for the support. Neighbouring Islamic economies need to be playing not just an increased role but almost the complete role in supporting the Palestinian territories both in finding a diplomatic solution to this but also driving the economic possibilities for this generation right now. There's no need for the international community to be running the schools and childcare centres. It's patronising. The Palestinian Authority, despite its lack of funds, needs to be making sure that this is done with international bilateral partnerships, where local countries with a stake in the reality on the ground are pulling their weight and not relying on this becoming a persistent global effort. It does not need to be that. Israel, too, can do far more in releasing clearance revenues, which they're unilaterally equating as the amount paid by Palestinians to its prisoners and their families or the families of those that are killed or injured during attacks. This is a severe crisis. We don't want unilateral action. We need to be working on an integrated response. The report this month has called for that. In the last couple of days the chair's summary of the meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee that met in Oslo on 17 November was released. It was virtually supported. But all met at that high level. They're trying to promote some form of cooperation between the parties but with an economic focus. We're identifying the next step. There's an IMF report. The destabilisation we're seeing at the moment, the high friction created in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, breakdowns in ceasefires—all of that is ultimately being spawned by political obsession in the absence of any economic development. Both parties need to be focusing on that or having a second track that explicitly looks at economic development opportunities and overcoming structural constraints for the sustained development of the Palestinian territories. Against that backdrop, I'm calling for both parties to continue that renewed focus and to support the next step as we try and get economic development in the Palestinian state.
Child Care | Private Members' Business | House debates
[by video link] It's with pride that I speak about the coalition's record in early learning. I also recognise there's similar passion on the other side of the chamber but point out to the...
[by video link] It's with pride that I speak about the coalition's record in early learning. I also recognise there's similar passion on the other side of the chamber but point out to the previous speaker that the federal government isn't responsible for setting the wages in the public sector. This is done through an appropriate independent Fair Work process. I suggest that the previous speaker pay a bit more attention to the number of applications that have been made to Fair Work to increase those wage rates, something I think is very important and has widespread support. Today we're recognising how the early learning sector evolved and adapted to get through the COVID process. While every opportunity was taken by the government to have some form of continuity, the shock that was placed on the early learning sector necessitated some unique interventions. We recognise that COVID would have led to falls of well over 50 per cent of income had there not been a Commonwealth response. That response was quickly implemented, particularly where there were falls in attendance of greater than 50 per cent. The waiving of fees for families in that situation was important. It worked. It kept staffing levels as high as possible, particularly in the non-casual sector. Fee freezes, as well, made a really big difference. We can now reflect on the fact that, next year, government payments to this sector will be nearly double where they were under the Labor administration in 2013. We will see up to 1.2 million families benefiting from them, and the particular changes that we're bringing forward in the budget next year will help about a quarter of a million of those. Remember that allowing second and subsequent children able to get even more childcare subsidy than they otherwise would makes a huge affordability difference. A family which has two income earners on say, $65,000 and $45,000 respectively will be more than $100 per week better off under these changes. The annual cap of just over $10,000 for those with two children in full-time care will see significant improvements. This cap that applies to those earning over $190,000 is effectively removed. It means that all families can benefit, making sure that attending early learning, the same as attending secondary education, is affordable for everyone. Removal of the cap benefits around 18,000 families. This will have massive impacts at the marginal tax rate level for families in that situation, but don't miss the fact we're also making huge changes for those on lower incomes. Most importantly, I want to draw attention to the most vulnerable. We know that typically 15 per cent of children in the early development census are vulnerable. Another 10 per cent, on average, are at risk. In some areas it's far higher. The role of government is to get it right for this group of people. I remember debating the state health minister last year, when she was the education minister. She wasn't even aware of what proportion of her own state was vulnerable when her government was saying that only vulnerable children could attend school. It is important that we all know that one in six to one in five children need these additional supports. In some cases under this government's reform it's paying the full amount plus some to make sure that those children can attend and making sure that up to 12 hours per week are available to all families. For more early learning support than that there has to be some form of manager activity, which we think is critically important. Locally, in Bowman, under Early Learning Redlands, a fabulous local group really making a difference, we've built a considerable group of providers that can offer allied health support for these children. I want to make the observation that we've always had strong GP connections to visits in aged-care facilities. But this nation is yet to make that direct connection between holistic general practice care and visiting children in early learning centres to ensure they get the allied health they need. One of my great policy pushes was to use those EPCs, those primary care Medicare item numbers, more freely for all Australians, including children, to get coordinated allied health support, including psychology, so they could get the start they needed at school and be ready to be educated. These highly vulnerable children deserve additional support. Goodstart Early Learning is leading the way, but current providers as well need to find ways to connect with GPs and make sure that these allied health services are delivered in the centre, which would be quite revolutionary, or that these parents can at least get access to allied health, given the workforce shortages, outside that. Nothing is more important than looking after these young Australians.
Member for Bowman | Statements by Members | House debates
[by video link] Today I withdraw my 25 March parliamentary apology. It's now obvious the accusations against me were fabricated. My apology at the time was to anyone genuinely upset by my...
[by video link] Today I withdraw my 25 March parliamentary apology. It's now obvious the accusations against me were fabricated. My apology at the time was to anyone genuinely upset by my electorate communication, but none of those televised in March were genuine. My electorate work is always in the interests of the residents of Redland City, and that local record remains online, unaltered and defended 100 per cent. Serious accusations deserve to be the subject of a formal complaint, and, apart from one thrown out just minutes after I provided a written statement, no complaint has ever materialised despite my public and repeated requests. The caper is now pretty clear: run to the media but assiduously avoid laying any form of complaint, lest it be exposed as baseless. Anyone feeling upset has formal channels available to them. Deliberately avoiding that process for trial by media is not and should never be rewarded. That's why the ALP suspending the House's operations on no fewer than 25 occasions was disappointing political opportunism, and the ABC refusing to apologise for months and stooping to trawling my electorate for mildly annoyed critics to join the pile-on in the form of a bizarre 7.30 report was disappointing. I don't believe there are any exceptional circumstances at play to justify the national broadcaster's conduct, nor at any time was this ever an honest mistake of the ABC—which they continue to maintain to this day.
Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme (Facilitation) Bill 2021, Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2021; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
[by video link] I'm coming in virtually from Queensland. This is a very important companion bill, the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme (Facilitation) Bill 2021, and I recognise the...
[by video link] I'm coming in virtually from Queensland. This is a very important companion bill, the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme (Facilitation) Bill 2021, and I recognise the previous speaker, the member for Newcastle, is passionate about this area. It's an area where both major parties can be proud of what they've done, and in particular, the Prime Minister, who will be remembered for achievements like this—and also the national redress scheme for institutional care. They're really important steps and very compassionate ones, campaigned for for a long time and delivered under the Morrison government, which I'm particularly proud of. I have no hesitation in recognising the large number of people who worked to this destination. The Commonwealth takes its role very seriously for the Commonwealth territories. We have a focus today, obviously, on the Northern Territory, and I think there were reasonable summaries from the previous speakers—no disagreement from me. This is a companion bill that implements certain aspects of this scheme and ensures that recipients of these payments are not subject, for instance, to the Social Security Act or the Veterans' Entitlements Act, where they may potentially not be eligible for payments. It addresses situations of bankruptcy where these payments are quarantined, and these are important elements as well—that the payments are not subject to income tax assessment or income testing or capital gains tax. That's what the bill is about, but the opportunity today is to say how important these redress schemes are: the national scheme and the stolen generations redress scheme. Clearly, many of the recipients are very, very senior and frail, and many of them have chronic disease. It's imperative to act quickly, and the government has done that—and I think with a trauma informed, culturally sensitive approach with a focus on survivors. That is what was needed, potentially, decades ago. My contribution to this debate, for those that are listening around the country, is to pick up on a point by the member for Newcastle— (Quorum formed)To think that an opposition Labor Party MP would call a quorum in the middle of a bill of the gravity of the stolen generations readdress scheme is absolutely unbelievable. Obviously, from my virtual position in the parliament, I'm unable to see who that MP was, but, if it was in fact the member for Lalor, it is a complete disgrace that she would call such a motion in the middle of such an important scheme being debated. With bipartisan support and having very supportive, considered, survivor focused commentary being made in this parliament, this is a moment for us to celebrate. If, indeed, the person who just called that quorum was an individual representing the seat of Lalor, that is absolutely disgraceful and Hansard will record that. These matters may seem trivial to members like the member for Lalor, but her party takes a very different view to healing, truth telling and reconciliation. They understand that a payment like this took a long, dogged fight for many outside of this parliament. It has become a position supported by both sides of politics in what is, we all recognise, an important practical step but completely inadequate to heal in a symbolic sense the suffering of, and the loss of what was taken away from, these individuals. I am very glad to speak on behalf of this facilitation bill. I know that we have the support of both sides of politics. A message to the broader Australian community is that this important amount is not to be counted in dollars; it's to be counted in the gesture and the goodwill that comes with the payment and the commitment to hear, to listen, to accept and to understand. Just as I was saying about the member for Newcastle's point of view about not allowing out-of-home care to ever get out of control in the way that it did in the past again, we may well be facing the need to apologise for other forms of policy and the way they've affected and injured people and possibly, but not necessarily, children. A whole range of policies around employment, education, school attendance, incarceration, rehabilitation—all of these matters need every member's attention to make sure that what we do during our time while incumbent is not something that our successors have to apologise for on our behalf. While it's important to apologise as soon as possible and in good faith, let's all look within and not satisfy ourselves that apologising for the actions of others is sufficient to get ourselves through as caring and compassionate about the issues facing Indigenous Australians. It simply isn't. Things are not as they should be. I'm happy as a member of the government to take full responsibility for that, but I know that every member of this parliament in Canberra, as do the state parliaments, regard this as one of the great domestic challenges for Australia. This redress scheme is something that is long overdue and very much welcomed. Let's make sure that nothing we do right now, while we are representing Indigenous Australians, leads to an apology in the future and let's make sure that the lessons of today's legislation are learnt by everyone.
Social Security Legislation Amendment (Remote Engagement Program) Bill 2021; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
[by video link] This is an important change to social security law in remote Indigenous Australia. There is a long history of battling to make sure that the opportunities we enjoy in the cities...
[by video link] This is an important change to social security law in remote Indigenous Australia. There is a long history of battling to make sure that the opportunities we enjoy in the cities and regions are also available in Central and remote Australia. And it's a timely reminder that, right now, Indigenous Australia has been exploring, as recently as last week at the Aboriginal Economic Development Forum in Alice Springs, potential opportunities to unlock the Aboriginal estate; and to recall that, by 2030, perhaps half of Australia's landmass will be under Indigenous control, and we need to make sure that Indigenous Australians can be maximising their opportunities for cultural, economic and social self-determination. There's plenty of that kind of talk in the parliament, but, in reality, how many of us have actually lived in a remote community to understand how it works? Having listened to the member for Barton give a speech clearly written by someone else and basically read out word for word, it's of enormous frustration that there's certainly no reform zeal from the party that have consistently made out that they lead the way in social policy and in Indigenous policy reform. Quite clearly, the federal opposition are all about moving the lips just sufficiently to not offend anyone and to walk both sides of the street, making out that they're defending the needs of those in remote Australia but also doing the right thing by those in the city and being seen to be appeasing the bleeding hearts that insist on these terrible generalisations that come out of the left wing—that every young Indigenous person wants to be either a ranger or a painter, and it's simply not the case. Aboriginal Australia have moved on from the Australian Labor Party, and they're about making the most of opportunities that are increasingly coming to remote Australia. But, before we can get there, we do need a fit-for-purpose social services system and we don't have that at present. That's despite the efforts of two sides of government. As an employee of ATSIS in 2004 and, arguably, one of their last employees—I was paid out long after the organisation ceased to exist—as a consultant I saw firsthand exactly what was going on in education, employment and housing entities, and I was, among other things, reviewing how CDEP worked. Listening to a Labor Party politician, let alone a shadow minister, talking about CDEP as if it was creating real local jobs and a genuine alternative to welfare—that is an urban-based Indigenous Australian who clearly has never lived in a remote community to understand how it is out there. You quite simply cannot expect these kinds of outcomes that she describes, a pathway to self-determination, from programs like this alone. What's needed is an honest conversation. We've got 16 Close the Gap targets, so many that no-one can remember them all, and virtually no-one in this country wakes up and makes it a mission to close the gap. There are simply too many of them. It's fine to have a blizzard of Close the Gap targets, but it starts off with the somewhat paternalistic notion that they need to catch up to us. I firmly believe that Indigenous Australia can be better than us—that the black brand can be something that the world seeks. This is not about closing a gap. This is about, in many cases, Indigenous Australians moving ahead of the way we see the world, if they haven't already, and exploiting and maximising the opportunities available to them. But what have they got to do for that to happen? We need some honest conversation about the importance of senior men and women in an Indigenous society that simply doesn't exist in mainstream. We've set up a welfare system that weakens, erodes and undermines the senior men and women who should be having more of a say on the ground. This is not about regional and state voices to parliament. This is about local voices, full stop. Until you're listening to local voices, not undermining them with these individualised welfare models that work very well everywhere else but don't work in remote Australia—and then we use the overlay of community funding arrangements to cause internecine disputes and squabbles over funding, and we have supracommunity groups, such as, and dare I say it, very good people on land councils. But, as long as land councils are doing the stuff that families need to be looking after for themselves, there will still be an agentive challenge. We need to be honest that the work of land councils, some of it good, some of it maybe not, needs to come back to family groups. There's nowhere else in the world where we basically expropriate our own financial services and our financial matters off to another body when we do not actually know what we own in the body. It's one thing to use technology like blockchain to identify exactly who the trusted authorities are and exactly who owns what, but we don't have that at all. We're seeing money funnelling across into these other agencies and, rightly, questions on the ground about whether this is working in the interests of individual family groups. If there is one message I would leave today as we try again for a new set of pilot assessments for a better way of community economic development in remote Australia, be it small, be it modest—and it needs to start small and then be replicated when successful—it would be to identify the senior men and women in kinship and clan groups and work with them for a solution just for their family group. If there are three, four or five of them—however many there are in a community—that's so many conversations we will have to ensure no-one is left out. We need a menu of training, employment and education options for every working-age adult and every teenager on their way to becoming a working-age adult, to give them a solution. And we need more opportunities than there is demand for them, remembering that, like everyone, people will fail, change their minds and try something new. That has to be accounted for. You may be listening in today to this debate and wondering which side of this green chamber is actually looking out for the family connection to land, this absolutely understood relationship between family and their land and sea. There has to be a recognition that the senior people in these families need to have more say but also carry far more responsibility for the conduct of their family members. But the last thing we want to be doing, as I've said before, is expropriating out these kinds of decisions to community councils or non-elected bodies or government officials or land councils, for goodness sake. These decisions need to be with the families themselves, or we are absolutely certain to be beset by more failure. Australians living in remote Australia know it's a complex environment. They don't need us talking about it like we're giving a Close the Gap speech once a year, particularly from an opposition spokesperson for the Labor Party. This speech would have broken thousands of hearts around the country, simply because of the lack of vision, the lack of understanding about how it is out in remote Australia. We understand, in mainstream Australia, having lived in business conditions for five centuries, that two-thirds of businesses don't employ anyone. We know that 95 per cent of them fail in the first two years. We know that only one per cent of businesses employ more than four people. Just switching on the business switch alone doesn't solve any problems; it's a series of options that come together to provide opportunities. If you're a young Indigenous person at high school right now in remote Australia—and you could be a fair way from home—I challenge you to talk to your community leaders, like the one you just heard speaking before me, and say: 'What is your plan for my community? Where are the jobs earmarked for me on my country?' I understand you don't all want to be rangers and dot painters—and I don't dismiss Aboriginal art in any condescending manner; I'm saying that young Aboriginal Australians don't all want to be painters because they tell me that. They want the full range of economic opportunities. To deliver those opportunities to remote Australia takes ingenuity, planning and making unique arrangements, but I want to say one very clear thing: the cost of a better running system is a fraction of the status quo with the enormous social, housing, incarceration, health and education costs that we currently bear. Noel Pearson has said that so clearly. There is only a way out of this causal web of dysfunction if people like the member for Barton can put their speaking notes down and actually identify a community where the conversation has to be led, guided, by senior Aboriginal men and women on how everyone has something to do. As a government, you can't step into the lives of every family. I know as a doctor I can't kick a door down to go in and deliver public health, but to have a mature conversation begins with both major parties recognising the failures of the past. I've said already that 27 years ago I had my first experience living in a semidesert community in the Northern Territory, on and off for 15 months. Twenty-seven years prior to that, just up the road, at Daguragu and Wave Hill, the land was handed back in that symbolic moment with the then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. You'd have to say, Deputy Speaker, there have been a few moments since when we all hoped for change. We all hoped that then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology was going to make a difference. I've tagged it enough times in things I've said: more practical, less symbolism. I'll continue to stand for that in public life and ultimately will be proven correct. No-one's saying symbolism isn't important, but too many of us have used it as cover to get away with not changing anything on the ground. It's hard. There are special interests and divided responsibilities. Money flows in, primarily from these social service and welfare payments, and, in a single pass, that non-Indigenous dollar shoots back out of the community, usually through the local store, through buying goods that aren't manufactured in the community and not cultivating or encouraging any services for Indigenous people in that community are delivered by that community themselves. What we've created is a unique economy in remote Australia where the residents make no goods that their fellow residents want to use, they deliver no services privately that anyone is prepared to pay for, and we're left with publicly funded welfare and imported cheap goods that are dumped into the store as a way of siphoning welfare back out of these communities as fast as possible. In the absence of any value adding, in the absence of any vertical integration, in the absence of any multiplier effect, this is the most corrosive economic model we could have imposed on our First Australians. We have managed to do it and we give lip service to how passionate we are about changing it. But we are yet to have, even in one community—save perhaps the Cape York work and the Cape York Institute—one conversation about how we might change that. We are yet to have one conversation that looks forward five years, identifies the children in high school or even finishing primary school, and says: 'We are a town council, we are a land council. My job today is to provision for those young people five years from now. Where will they work, study, train? How will they orbit out of their community when they need to? How do we account for a culturally safe employment arrangement where, should they need to return to their communities, they can?' If I had my way, every Indigenous Australian leaving a remote community would have in their hand a flight ticket back to their community to use at any time social requirements mean they need to return urgently. We have to be flexible around the importance of family in Indigenous Australia. It is something that we in the mainstream are yet to grasp. If you talk to mining companies, they'll say, 'We put 20 on but we're lucky to get three to show up.' Well, start having the conversations about having an Indigenous-friendly system that allows these workers to be confident to go to work and stay at work. We have way too many yellow hi-vis vests, way too many payments that aren't being attached to employment. (Quorum formed) This is probably a good time to wind up as well. I will just say that this trial, which effectively provides a minimum wage type employment— (Time expired)
Redland Strawberry Festival | Statements by Members | House debates
[by video link] Last Saturday was the mini RedFest. The Redland Strawberry Festival originated back in 1953. So it is one of oldest community festivals in the state of Queensland. Despite the...
[by video link] Last Saturday was the mini RedFest. The Redland Strawberry Festival originated back in 1953. So it is one of oldest community festivals in the state of Queensland. Despite the challenges of COVID and being cancelled last year, it finally happened this year in a pop-up form. So we're referring to it as the 61.5th RedFest, as opposed to the 62nd. It went off without a hitch, finishing with a fire and light show. I have to recognise the incredible committee that made it happen under really tough circumstances: President Peter Goleby; Vice-President Lee Nelson; Treasurer Garry Skene; and Secretary Michael 'China' Walker—who was in charge of entertainment. I also want to acknowledge the members: Rowena Plant, Stuart McQueen, Justina Goleby, Kathy Huff, Kay Howick, Betty Goleby, Sandra Hodder and Adrian Addicott, who was given a life membership on Saturday. They all worked against the odds with all three levels of government, generous sponsorship and support. It was a fabulous event to recognise Redlands' heritage. In 1851, we tried to become the capital of Queensland. That was short-lived, but hopefully the RedFest will be around far longer. It is a constant reminder of our Indigenous and horticultural heritage, right on the doorstep of Brisbane—so we're now an outer-metropolitan community. We're blessed to have the RedFest and a volunteer committee that makes it happen every year.
Aboriginal Economic Development Forum | Constituency Statements | House debates
[by video link] While the member for Solomon is, basically, freestyling in the Antarctic Territory there's a very important 10th Aboriginal Economic Development Forum happening in his own...
[by video link] While the member for Solomon is, basically, freestyling in the Antarctic Territory there's a very important 10th Aboriginal Economic Development Forum happening in his own territory. These are key stakeholders from business, government and the non-profit sector committed to progressing Aboriginal economic develop in Alice Springs, starting today. Sharing knowledge is critical. We need to look back over the last two decades and ask ourselves what both sides of government have achieved in Aboriginal self-determination, predominantly from economic independence. I think they're very important questions that we raise in Alice Springs, starting today: What is this work, as we define it? How far away should it be from country, where there is unquestionable connection? We need to know that Indigenous Australians are getting their share of economic activity in their regions, particularly that those opportunities are spread across all households, fairly and evenly, rather than just being enjoyed by one or two. We need to make sure that economic opportunity is to all age groups, not just working-age healthy adults. We shouldn't lose, for instance, those over the age of 40 or 50 as being too late to engage in the global economy. This connection to country is extremely important. We understand the need for that connection, but it doesn't mean being trapped on country. We need to be asking questions about at what point business can exist in remote communities, particularly service provision that traditionally, between Indigenous Australians, hasn't been monetised necessarily. We know that in the mainstream around half of all employment is service provision. In the notion of global engagement, Indigenous Australia will have an increasing role, walking down both paths—the traditional Indigenous path but also the global economic one. These are vitally important, and goods and services will be showcased in Alice Springs over the next couple of days. The big question is: where can this all lead? What will Indigenous communities look like in 10 or 20 years from now? Can we initiate a genuine socioeconomic conversation that preserves the best of Indigenous Australia but gives them a chance to do these things: have four out of five children not vulnerable, completing and enjoying school; and four out of five adults, at working age and healthy, engaged in the real economy outside of government jobs. These important questions are ones well worth hearing the answers to in Alice Springs. Minister Ken Wyatt and, particularly, the Northern Territory government have done some exceptional work, both in Nhulunbuy, in East Arnhem Land, and down in the Barkly to trial some new models. We have to admit that much of what we've done hasn't worked. Now is the time for new ideas and to engage Indigenous Australia in making them reality.
Personal Explanation | Statements | House debates
On 16 April this year the Opposition Leader visited my electorate to make a series of unsubstantiated allegations, referencing my standing in the community I represent. During the course of a...
On 16 April this year the Opposition Leader visited my electorate to make a series of unsubstantiated allegations, referencing my standing in the community I represent. During the course of a televised media interview conducted right in front of my electorate office, the Opposition Leader misrepresented me, claiming I had engaged in behaviour that brings politics into disrepute and that I have not represented the community and was an embarrassment to the local community. He then stated the words: 'This is a creep,' without any independent substantiation whatsoever. Finally, he misrepresented my apology, claiming that it was for behaviour when in fact it was nothing of the sort. My apology was for any hurt or distress that communication may have caused. With the clear documentary evidence now available and the absence of any complaint on these matters to answer after six months, let alone any investigation or even a charge, I repudiate these misrepresentations by the Opposition Leader and ask him to correct the record now that all this information is in the public domain.