Tim Watts's recent appearances (OpenAustralia.org)
Australian Society | Adjournment | House debates
I know from conversations in my community that many Australians are increasingly disturbed about the way that our country is being portrayed on social media and in the mainstream media. If you...
I know from conversations in my community that many Australians are increasingly disturbed about the way that our country is being portrayed on social media and in the mainstream media. If you believe the news or your news feed, you'd think our country was defined by polarisation and division, but this is not the reality that the vast majority of Australians are living in their day-to-day lives. There are certainly groups of Australians with a whole range of motivations who now seek conflict with their fellow Australians instead of connection, people who are quick to condemn others and slow to listen and change themselves. Social media platforms make money by training users to fight each other. They trick people into thinking that their differences are bigger than the things that unite us. While conflict has always been more likely to get a run on TV or in the papers than a good news story, a number of media outlets are now chasing financial viability by pursuing outrage as a business model. But, in our schools and in our workplaces, in our faith groups and in our sporting clubs—in our broader community—the overwhelming majority of Australians are proud of the country that modern Australia has become and thankful to live in the greatest country on earth. As the Prime Minister has said, we need to turn the temperature down in this country, and when disagreements inevitably arise we need to engage in those disagreements respectfully. This is important. It's also particularly important in this context that we take the threat of violent extremism seriously and vigorously pursue the small numbers of extremists who have fallen into the rabbit hole of radicalisation. But I also think that it's important in the current climate to spend time cultivating the things that we have in common as Australians. Australia is more than a nation of difference respecters. We're a nation bonded by shared identity and values, bonded by what one of our greatest authors, David Malouf, described as a community of experience or our common response to place, to land and to landscape in all its diverse forms over the continent, to the events that we call history, to the institutions that determine our relations to one another and through which we try to make a good and just society. Being Australian is about the ideas, values, customs, norms and behaviours that we share as a people and the stories and art that we value as expressions of this shared culture. Australian identity is an imagined community, an idea of what we have in common that we build together. Artists, authors, athletes, politicians, faith leaders, community leaders and volunteers, all Australians, build this together. Australian values—egalitarianism, a sense of humour, a love for nature and the great outdoors—aren't a cliché or empty rhetoric. They are lived every day in our communities, and they set our country apart in the world. We recognise them. We celebrate them. We feel connected when we see them embodied in other Australians. My electorate is one of the most diverse in Australia, and I see Australians with heritages connected to every corner on earth embracing these values every day. I love modern Australia, and I'm proud of it. I love that we're home to the world's oldest continuous culture on earth and share in its deep knowledge of our country. I love that we're home to one of the oldest democracies on earth buttressed by the AEC and democracy sausages. I love the incredible diversity of our achievement. I love our K-pop stars; our African Australian track athletes; our armies of NIDA educated Hollywood stars; our favourite team, the Tillies; and our tech entrepreneurs building world-leading companies. I love Pat Cummins's seam and Alana King's drift. I love that in modern Australia we respond to bushfires in hard hats, Akubras and turbans side by side, looking out for people in need. I love that a Japanese bloke can spend two years walking across this country with a wheelbarrow safely and Australians of every conceivable background will go out of their way to look after him—Catman powered by Australia. I even love this parliament—a place where every sitting week Jews and Muslims play basketball with atheists and Christians under gumtrees just outside this building; a place where our PM grew up in public housing with a single mum and found a father figure in Tom Uren, one of Dunlop's thousand, perhaps the greatest ever embodiment of Australia's values. What an extraordinary country it is that could produce all of this. We've built something special here in Australia, something better. Together, we've built a nation that isn't perfect. It's an ongoing project, and it's getting better over the long arc of history. We've made terrible mistakes as a country in the past, but we've not allowed ourselves to be defined by them or trapped by them. What a miracle it is that a country that federated in the cause of a white Australia policy became the most successful multicultural nation on earth. This is the real story of Australia, not the small numbers of people shouting at each other on the streets or on social media. House adjourned at 20 : 00
Cybersafety | Questions without Notice | House debates
My question is to the Minister for Communications. What action is the Albanese government taking to protect Australian children from harm on the gaming platform Roblox?
Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025, Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
The Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025 establishes the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, the ATEC. The ATEC was, of course, a key recommendation from...
The Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025 establishes the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, the ATEC. The ATEC was, of course, a key recommendation from the Australian Universities Accord. When the Albanese Labor government first came into power, the Minister for Education, Jason Clare, identified the need for reform of Australia's higher education sector, and he appointed six Australians to look at seven priority areas in the higher education sector. Considering these priorities, the accord puts forward a long-term vision for rebuilding Australia's tertiary education system. It argues that many more Australians—an increase, in fact, to approximately 80 per cent of the workforce—will require postschool qualifications in coming decades. It also noted that our universities and vocational education providers must work closely together to meet our future skills needs. It recommends expanding opportunities for people who are currently underrepresented in higher education—people like those in the communities that I represent in this chamber, including those from regional communities and from disadvantaged backgrounds—through new learning hubs, additional supported places and stronger financial and academic support. It also called for reforms to funding and student debt, improvements to governance and accountability, and a renewed focus on quality research, innovation and national capability. The government has implemented 31 of the accord's 47 recommendations. The accord is a blueprint for sector reform for the decades ahead. It will take a long-term vision and a long-term commitment to deliver. To ensure its success, it needs a steward to drive and to steer these reforms, and the ATEC will formally take on this role for the tertiary education sector. As the Minister for Education has said, of all the recommendations in the accord, the establishment of the ATEC may be the most important. The establishment of the ATEC provides a singular opportunity for Australia's future. It provides an opportunity for an independent, expert body to drive real and lasting reform in the higher education sector. It provides an opportunity to uplift the coordination and administration of the sector. It's an opportunity to coordinate and align efforts across higher education institutions—as the Minister for Education says, 'to get the sector to work more like a system'. The ATEC will have its own decision-making powers, and it will take on responsibility for new mission based compacts with individual universities. The ATEC will provide expert advice to government on policy settings and strategic direction, the cost of teaching and learning in higher education, student demand, and meeting Australia's current and future skills and knowledge demand. The ATEC, by taking a systems approach rather than an individual institutions approach, will ensure that Australian universities can deliver the vital sovereign capabilities that Australia will need in the coming decades. There's nowhere that we need this more than with Australia's engagement with a rapidly-changing world. The current external environment is asking more of Australia's leaders and Australia's institutions than ever before. China is seeking to change the regional balance of power. The Trump administration is pursuing a different role for America in the world. Our neighbours in South-East Asia are seeking to navigate their own way in these changing times. Australia needs to be able to understand and engage with countries in our own region through our own perspective, and we can't rely on other countries to do this for us. Australia needs our own leaders and our own institutions to have the capabilities necessary to be effective in our region. More than ever before, Australia's security and our prosperity depend on our ability to be effective in our own region. Asia capability—the mix of cultural understanding, language faculties and regional experiences needed to be effective in Asia—underpins all spheres of our national endeavour, our statecraft, our industry, our defence and our civil society. Australia cannot rely on other countries to produce the analysis that we need, to share our research priorities or to develop the relationships that we need to serve our interests. We need the sovereign capability to do these things for ourselves in our own region. It's the foundation of everything that we want to do in our region. Universities play a vital role in building Australia's Asia capability. It's where students develop expertise in the countries of our region, deepening their focus during honours, master's and PhD programs. I've met countless leaders—Australian ambassadors to countries in our region, business leaders investing in trading in our region and strategic thinkers aiming to understand our region—who all developed their Asia capability while at university. Currently, we benefit from the deep Asia capability within a small number of individuals at the top of our Public Service, universities, civil society and private sector. However, the expertise of these individuals is the product of investments made decades ago. Unfortunately, the structures and institutions that educated this generation of leaders, increasingly, no longer exists at our institutions of higher education. The pipeline of future Asia-capable leaders is breaking down in Australia. The institutions that we need to develop the next generation of leaders with deep Asia expertise are in crisis. That's why, as Chair of the Standing Committee on Education, I am leading an inquiry into the development of Australia's Asia capability, looking at the enablers and the barriers to addressing this whole-of-nation challenge. Universities are essential to developing this sovereign capability—this Asia capability—for Australia. University language programs and area studies are essential for producing the deep Asia expertise Australia needs to navigate the current circumstances we confront. Unfortunately, there have been a series of closures of Asian language and area studies programs at universities across the country. The decline in university enrolments in Asian languages and area studies is stark. Between 2004 and 2022, university enrolments in South-East Asian languages declined by 75 per cent. In 1997, there were six Australian universities that taught Hindi; now, there are only two, with only the Australian National University teaching Hindi in person. Only 12 universities now teach Indonesian, down from 22 in the 1990s. Of the more than one million Australian domestic students at Australian universities in 2023, barely 500 students were enrolled in a single subject of Bahasa Indonesia nationwide. As Dr Matthew Davies, Deputy Vice-Chancellor at ANU, confirmed in evidence heard by the committee, the threat to Indonesian studies at Australian universities is 'existential'. Without government intervention, Indonesian studies—the study of language and the study of Indonesian culture and society—risks going extinct. As the founder of the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies, Professor David Hill, said: Only a handful of highly skilled, Indonesia-focused graduates are now being produced by Australian universities. He went on to say: … the current national decline in enrolments has consequences more severe than at any other time during my professional life. As the University of Sydney wrote in their submission to the inquiry: The erosion of university-level language and area studies capacity has left government and business without the deep contextual insight needed for long-term strategy. An Australian Academy of the Humanities report found that only 17 Australians completed honours in Chinese studies with language between 2017 and 2021—no more than five Australians a year. The University of New South Wales shared that student demand for Chinese language courses has fallen by 58 per cent since 2018, and enrolments for Japanese language courses have decreased by 19 per cent. The number of universities and academics conducting deep research into Asian studies is declining precipitously. Across universities, there is no nationally coordinated prioritisation of resources, data collection, leadership or long-term vision for Asia capability. The ATEC presents an opportunity to coordinate and align efforts across the higher education sector to get it working as a system when it comes to building our nation's Asia capability. ATEC will work closely with other agencies and offices, including Jobs and Skills Australia, TEQSA, the Australian Research Council, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research and state and territory governments to ensure its advice and decisions are informed by the best evidence. We've heard that breaking the cycle of program closures around the country in Asian languages and Asia studies requires government intervention on both the supply of programs and teachers teaching these courses and, importantly, to enhance the demand for Asia-capable individuals. We've heard that structural reform with enforceable commitments is required. Collapsing demand from students for the study of Asian languages has flowed through to the supply of Asian language programs. Universities Australia told the inquiry that teaching costs for language courses have also increased. Data from Deloitte indicates that foreign languages had the second-largest annual cost increase of 6.2 per cent from 2019 to 2020. As Universities Australia wrote: The combination of declining demand and increased teaching costs has placed significant pressure on universities to offer Asia capability building opportunities at a substantial financial loss. ATEC could help provide guidance on the costs of teaching and learning that will support meeting Australia's current and future skills needs. Many Asian language and area studies are kept on the whim of university leaders. As Professor Melissa Croucher said: In Australia, Asian studies and the study of Asia across the various disciplines … has long relied upon the institutional support of its leaders—its vice-chancellors, deputy vice-chancellors, deans, heads of school, and so forth. It has also relied upon secure structural foundations—Asian studies degrees, a suite of Asian language offerings, independent research centres, and the study of Asia embedded across a range of disciplines, from law to business. Yet over the past two decades, there has been a noticeable and alarming trend: a decline in the structures, institutions and people who make the teaching and training of our students possible … University leaders, who often have limited exposure to or lack of connections with Asia, are often unable to see the value of offering Asian languages or Asian studies units and majors for the nation. Often, there's limited or no leadership support for saving these programs when they're at risk of cuts for financial reasons. Further, the relatively high cost for universities to offer these courses in the context of a demand driven model of higher education often causes these programs to be cut. Unfortunately, the threat of cuts makes the teaching of Asian languages and Asian studies precarious and unappealing for academics and lecturers. Despite these significant challenges, the research into our region and teaching of Asian languages and area studies is vital for our national interests. Australia needs sovereign Asia capability, and universities need to play a role in developing it. In some cases, universities have attempted to innovate and collaborate to keep language studies alive. For example, people like Professor Greg Hainge from the University of Queensland are trying to innovate in these difficult circumstances. Queensland's three largest universities established the Brisbane Universities Languages Alliance, which offers nine languages to students from three universities. Another institution providing innovative solutions in these difficult times is ANU'S Australian Centre on China in the World. Led by Professor Ben Hillman, the Centre for China in the World has become a nation-leading institution for building risk informed China capability. Professor Hillman has played an innovative role in building pathways for students to develop their Chinese language capability from high school to university and through to postgraduate study. Initiatives like this are commendable, and, with leadership and coordination from ATEC, initiatives of this kind could have a system-wide impact. The ATEC is an opportunity to provide oversight and coordination to help address some of these problems. We've seen submissions and witnesses in this inquiry say the same thing over and over again. Professor Hainge again has said: To recognise that we need a coordinated national system is critical. I think we're at an ideal moment with ATEC coming online. This is a body that has stood up to talk about arrangements with universities that extend beyond the life of a single government. In their written submission to the inquiry, the University of Queensland wrote that Asia capability 'should be advanced by the Australian Tertiary Education Commissions university compacts'. As the University of Queensland wrote: Not only should there be incentives for universities with educational offerings and research capabilities in Asia literacy, but there should also be incentives for these institutions to expand the reach of their offerings to students studying at other universities. To do this, it will be necessary to find innovative solutions that enable students to add the study of Asian languages and cultures into their degree programs. The Australian Academy of the Humanities likewise said that ATEC 'should acknowledge Asia capability as one of Australia's priority national capabilities, monitor national gaps and opportunities and set benchmarks through mission based compacts'. Professor Michael Wesley from the University of Melbourne said: … ATEC is a real opportunity to have a national approach to Asia capability at our universities. And we need it now. Our region is increasingly dynamic, complex and consequential. Fundamental assumptions about Australian strategic and foreign policy are being challenged. We need the skills and capabilities to make our own way in the region. To be effective in our own region, we need our leaders and our institutions to be Asia capable. Unless we choose to make developing Asia capability a priority as a nation, we are choosing to leave our future security and prosperity to be determined by others. Universities play a critical role in developing the Asia capability we need for our future. We heard it consistently through the parliamentary inquiry, and ATEC, with its own decision-making powers and responsibility for new mission based compacts with individual universities, presents an opportunity to get our universities back on track when it comes to developing the Asia capability that Australia needs. I congratulate Professor Mary O'Kane and Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt for their work as interim commissioners of ATEC. (Time expired)
Defence Properties, Victoria: Infrastructure | Constituency Statements | House debates
This week, the government released our response to the Defence Estate Audit. This report recommends a divestment of RAAF Williams Point Cook and a significant part of RAAF Williams Laverton. The...
This week, the government released our response to the Defence Estate Audit. This report recommends a divestment of RAAF Williams Point Cook and a significant part of RAAF Williams Laverton. The government's response to this audit has rightly been made on the basis of its assessment of the national interests and the needs of the ADF in changing strategic circumstances in which Australia finds itself today. The world has changed a lot since these bases were established and Australia needs to make hard choices to ensure that locations of our defence bases are fit for purpose and that the ADF has the facilities and capabilities it needs to keep Australians safe. But these recommendations will also have significant local implications for our community in Melbourne's west. So I want to reassure my community of a few things. Despite the breathless media coverage this morning, no decisions have been made about what will happen to land divested as part of this audit. The process for deciding how this land is used will be a long one. It will take years and our community will have plenty of opportunities to be heard. As the local member, I'll work with all levels of government to ensure two things along this journey. First, that the heritage value of Point Cook as the birthplace of the RAAF is preserved. Point Cook has been on the Commonwealth Heritage List since 2004. Julia Gillard fought for its preservation as the local member then, and I'm not about to squander that legacy as the local member now. Done right, this process is an opportunity to increase Australians' access to this heritage site, which is currently severely constrained due to the significant limitations of public access to an active RAAF base. Second, I know full well the strains that development in Melbourne's west is putting on our local infrastructure. I live it. Point Cook has grown to become Australia's biggest suburb by population and our community needs infrastructure to keep up with it. So, should any part of these estates be made available for housing in the future, putting in place the necessary infrastructure to support it before any construction occurs is essential. At the last federal election, the federal Labor government committed $55 million to duplicate and upgrade Central Avenue between Lunn Court and Skehan Boulevard, leading into the intersection at Point Cook Road, which is currently being reconstructed with state government funding. We also made $3.5 million available for a business case to upgrade Point Cook Road between Jamieson Way and Dunnings Road. Both of those projects will make a real impact on the current congestion on Point Cook Road, but I understand that more will need to be done in the coming years. I welcome the engagement I've had with my state and federal colleagues on these heritage and infrastructure issues to date, and I'll continue to pursue them as this process unfolds in the coming years.
Bondi Beach Attack Victims | Condolences | House debates
As we've heard powerfully today, in the Jewish tradition, the memory of those that we have lost is kept alive by saying their names, so let me begin by again saying the names of those who were...
As we've heard powerfully today, in the Jewish tradition, the memory of those that we have lost is kept alive by saying their names, so let me begin by again saying the names of those who were killed in the antisemitic terrorist attack at Bondi Beach on 14 December last year: Matilda, Edith Brutman, Dan Elkayam, Boris and Sofia Gurman, Alexander Kleytman, Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, Peter Meagher, Reuven Morrison, Marika Pogany, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Adam Smyth, Boris Tetleroyd, Tania Tretiak, Tibor Weitzen. There is a universe inside every one of those names. There is a universe of human potential, of human experiences, of thoughts and feelings, of joy and of love in every individual life that was ended in that abhorrent attack. We mourn for them in this parliament and as a nation. We grieve with all of those who lost a loved one or who were traumatised by this appalling attack, and we send to them our condolences, our love and our solidarity. We thank and celebrate the heroes of that day. People going about their everyday lives put themselves in harm's way to save others. First responders ran towards the danger. Surf lifesavers, a sacred symbol of Australian identity, braved human, rather than natural, threats on that day to save lives. This sickening ISIS-inspired antisemitic terrorist attack targeted Jews celebrating the first night of Hanukkah, the eight-day festival of lights celebrating Jewish resilience. Our hearts break not just for the loss of life on that day but also for the way in which this atrocity attacked the Australian way of life. I represent one of the most religiously diverse communities in Australia—home to churches, Sikh gurdwaras, Hindu mandirs, Islamic mosques and Buddhist temples—and I've been proud that over generations we have built a country where people don't need to choose between their faith and a sense of belonging with their community and their nation. It's a country where the things that unite us as Australians are bigger than the things that divide us. I see this on the beaches of my electorate every weekend. That this terrorist attack targeted Australians practising their faith on a beach—a place that unites people of all backgrounds in the secular rituals of Australian life—is an intolerable desecration. We don't do private beaches in Australia, because the country we share belongs to all of us. The idea that a terrorist has sought to deny a group of Australians the right to the peaceful enjoyment of our beaches in this attack feels like a particular affront. The reaction that we've seen in the swim-out at Bondi and the surf lifesavers standing arm in arm around our community, including at Altona Beach in my electorate, is a testament to this. The response of everyday Australians to this atrocity has been to stand in solidarity with Jewish Australians and to insist that they continue to belong as a valued part of our nation; that they have a right to practise their faith as Jewish Australians in safety; and that the violation of this right that we saw at Bondi, and in a series of antisemitic incidents in this country in recent years, will not be tolerated. For generations people have come to Australia from around the world seeking to build something better than the place that they left, to leave behind the prejudices of the old world and to build something new and better—a place where everyone gets a fair go to live their life and practice their faith in safety and security. Most poignantly, Australia has long been privileged to be home to the highest per-capita number of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel. Those people survived the worst of humanity and chose to seek safety among us. That a Holocaust survivor was killed in the Bondi attack is a fact of national heartbreak and shame. We have work to do in Australia to ensure that the promise of this country is extended to all Australians and to stamp out the antisemitism that is denying a group of Australians the ability to live their lives like the rest of us. Antisemitism is the oldest prejudice, but it's grown into something of a different kind in recent years. Terrible events on the other side of the world have led far too many Australians to treat their fellow citizens here terribly. It's not right, and we need to do better. We should be clear that it is antisemitic to hold Jews in Australia accountable for the actions of the Israeli government, that it is antisemitic to speculate that attacks on Jews in Australia are false-flag events and that it is antisemitic to celebrate terrorist groups whose stated objective is to murder Jews. These kinds of views are not right, but they've become too common in recent times. There's been too little empathy and curiosity and too much contempt and condemnation in Australia in recent years—too little kindness and too much hatred. All of us have an obligation to strive to do better in the wake of Bondi. We owe this to each of the individuals who lost their lives at Bondi and who we commemorate here today. May their memories be a blessing.
McKinnon Institute for Political Leadership | Statements by Members | House debates
I want to take the opportunity to celebrate one of the good news stories in Australian democracy and thank the people that made it happen. The McKinnon Institute for Political Leadership was...
I want to take the opportunity to celebrate one of the good news stories in Australian democracy and thank the people that made it happen. The McKinnon Institute for Political Leadership was established to support Australian political leaders, state and federal, to become more capable, effective and legitimate policymakers while also cultivating a sense of stewardship in our democratic institutions. It was established with the extraordinary vision of Grant Rule, Sophie Oh and Sam Mellett from the Susan McKinnon Foundation, with the objective of building a world-class, structured professional development program for Australian political leaders. It has been an extraordinary success. MKI has delivered over 30 programs, including its flagship Advanced Political Leadership course, leadership coaching, political mentoring and international study. These programs aren't just world class; they are world leading. Of the 91 McKinnon scholars who have participated in programs to date, 24 are currently ministers and 32 are shadow ministers. There are a lot of people who have made significant contributions to the success of this institution, but I want to pay special tribute today to Rod Glover. Rod has variously been the CEO, academic director and professor of political leadership at McKinnon Institute. He recently announced his resignation after six years at MKI. Rod's policy expertise, professional dedication, personal generosity and earnest belief in both best practice policymaking and the practice of democracy have left a lasting impression on all members who have participated in MKI programs. Rod is usually the kind of person who works in the background of politics and government, outside of the public eye, but I want to take the opportunity to thank him here publicly today. In working with the team at MKI to build this institution into what it is today, he's made a significant long-term contribution to the quality of the democracy that we all share.
Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
The Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025 establishes the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence. There's never been a more important time for parliamentary...
The Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025 establishes the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence. There's never been a more important time for parliamentary accountability and oversight over defence decisions. The stakes are higher than at any time since the Second World War. As the 2024 National defence strategy stated, Australia faces the most complex and challenging strategic environment since that time. Conflict has returned to Europe. Conflict has returned to the Middle East. We've also seen conflict in our own region in South-East Asia. We face evolving threats as well—cyber threats, grey zone tactics and foreign interference, as well as continuing threats like that of nuclear conflict. In a time of geostrategic uncertainty, it has never been more important to maintain independent oversight of our defence community. Engaging the parliament and the public in these matters is vital to the way that Australia responds to these challenges. The new Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence will enhance transparency, accountability and oversight of defence decisions. It will provide scrutiny to all parts of the defence ecosystem at a significant moment in Australia's history. I want to acknowledge at this point my colleague the member for Bruce, Assistant Minister Julian Hill. This bill would not be before the House but for the work of Minister Hill in chairing the Defence Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade in the previous parliament. He led the inquiry into international armed conflict decision-making which led to the bill before the House being with us today. The parliament plays a crucial role in scrutinising and debating decisions of the executive government and the implementation of those decisions by departments and agencies. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence will provide oversight of all areas of our defence ecosystem. The circumstances demand a coordinated, whole-of-government and whole-of-nation approach to our nation's defence. That's why this legislation is so important. The committee is modelled on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and provides a mechanism for classified parliamentary intelligence briefings and oversight of defence. The PJCD fills a gap in the current oversight framework by enabling scrutiny of classified matters in a secure setting. The bill gives the committee broad information-gathering powers. The committee's information-gathering powers include the ability to request a person to give evidence or to produce specified documents. The committee is empowered to receive and consider classified information subject to appropriate safeguards. These safeguards balance the government's commitment to greater public transparency with the necessity for the protection of information. These safeguards will ensure that information which maintains Australia's security and that of our international partners is protected and the arrangements for information handling will be closely modelled on those that apply to the PJCIS today. The PJCD will have oversight of the ADF, the Department of Defence, the Department of Veterans' Affairs and portfolio agencies, including the Australian Submarine Agency, Defence Housing Australia and the Australian War Memorial. It will also include the performance of key independent regulators, including the Inspector-General of the ADF and the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Regulator. The committee's functions will include oversight of administration, expenditure and personnel matters, and it will have the ability to scrutinise Australia's defence capability development, including strategy, planning and acquisitions. The committee will also be responsible for monitoring and reviewing the findings of royal commission inquiries relating to defence. The committee will be able to assess war, war-like and major non-conflict operations in the event of the executive deciding to enter into armed conflict. The establishment of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence is just one part of the government's strategy with regard to our defence and security. Greater oversight and transparency is necessary at a time when we have been lifting our defence engagement with regional partners in order to build the kind of region that we want to see—a region that's peaceful, prosperous, secure and stable, governed by rules, norms and international law, a region where sovereignty is respected and countries are free to make their own choices, where no country dominates and no country is dominated. As outlined in the 2024 National defence strategy our enhanced defence cooperation and activities with key partners 'build depth and trust in Australia's relationships, support collective deterrence and demonstrate Australia's value as a reliable partner'. In response to the more complex security environment facing the Indo-Pacific region, we have established upgraded bilateral defence arrangements with a number of partners. We've established upgraded defence agreements with partners including Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Japan, Korea, India and Indonesia. These agreements will facilitate deeper and more sophisticated practical cooperation between the ADF and our partners. In particular, we've been lifting our engagement with the Indian Ocean region. The 2024 National defence strategy identified the north-east Indian Ocean region as an area of primary strategic interest that is critical to Australia's security. It was identified in the National defence strategy because the Indian Ocean matters to Australia. It's critical for our prosperity and security. It's home to the world's fastest growing economies. Around half of Australia's sea-bound exports set sail from Indian Ocean ports, and the shipping lanes of the Indian Ocean are vital to Australia and the broader global economy. More than a third of the world's bulk cargo traffic and two-thirds of global oil shipments travel through the Indian Ocean. It's critical for our Defence Force posture. Half of Australia's naval fleet is based in the Indian Ocean. It's home to Fleet Base West, which is critical for Australia's capacity to deploy major fleet units for sustained operations off our west coast in the Indian Ocean. It's also home to Submarine Rotational Force - West. Submarine Rotational Force - West will help Australia build the necessary operational capabilities and skills to be sovereign ready. It will ensure Australia can safely and securely own, operate, maintain and regulate a fleet of nuclear powered submarines from the early 2030s. Submarine Rotational Force - West will accelerate our efforts to develop Australia's capability to safely and securely operate and sustain its future nuclear powered submarines. It's an investment in AUKUS and a significant contribution to the security and stability of the Indian Ocean region. Our defence relationships in the Indian Ocean region are an important part of our regional engagement, and the gifting of the first Australian built Guardian class patrol boat to an Indian Ocean country, the Maldives, will enhance its capability to protect its sovereign waters. It will also contribute to collective maritime security in the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean also saw in 2025 the largest ever participation in Exercise Talisman Sabre, with over 30,000 military personnel from 19 nations partaking and an additional three nations observing. Joint exercises like Talisman Sabre reflect the strength of Australia's alliance with the United States and demonstrate our commitment to working with like-minded partners in the region. Bilateral defence cooperation between Australia and regional partners enhances collective strength, contributes to all countries' security and makes an important contribution to regional peace and security. The context in this bill is that we're also undertaking a long overdue program of base hardening and investment in our northern and western defence bases. The Albanese government is hardening Australia's northern defence infrastructure in the Northern Territory, North Queensland and Western Australia, and we're doing this because the Defence Strategic Review identified improving the ability of the ADF to operate from Australia's northern bases as a key priority. Given our strategic circumstances, the ADF must be optimised for littoral operations in northern land and maritime spaces. The ADF must be equipped to support operations in the north through surveillance, air defence, strike and air transport. Development of defence estates will address force posture requirements and enhance an integrated, focused force as outlined in the 2024 National defence strategy. In order to realise this, the government is upgrading defence bases, including $1 billion for upgrades to land and joint estate capabilities, $600 million in maritime estate investments, including HMAS Coonawarra, HMAS Cairns and the Harold E Holt naval communication station, and an additional $200 million towards the acceleration of additional projects. The ADF will be better equipped to defend Australia's north thanks to $14 billion to $18 billion of funding for resilient bases under the 2024 Integrated Investment Program. In the Indian Ocean, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands is a key territory for Australia. The island is located 2,000 kilometres from Australia's north-west coastline, adjacent to vital Indian Ocean sea lanes. As argued by Professor Peter Dean and Alice Nason in a recent report by the United States Studies Centre, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands is a key Indian Ocean asset for Australia. That's why we're investing $567.6 million to upgrade the airfield there to sustain Defence operations in the Indian Ocean. This investment is expanding infrastructure in this territory and will see its operational significant to Australia only grow in the future. Despite this clear strategic imperative, the implementation of upgrades to Australia's northern defence network has been impaired by significant delays and rising costs. Under the previous government, we lost a decade of work on these projects. The lack of oversight and focus in the development of these bases in the north and north-west led to a decade-long delay between the 2012 Force posture review and the 2023 Defence strategic review. That's why the establishment of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence is so significant for Australia. Our government's defence base hardening is important for Australia's security, and the delay between the 2012 Force posture review and the 2023 Defence strategic review meant that our key bases in the north and west faced vulnerabilities. It also means that they now require significant, rapid investment and hardening. We got to work doing this as soon as we came to government, so it's important that we have committees like this to ensure that issues and investments like that maintain the focus of the parliament that they desire. More than ever, we need to ensure our defence ecosystems are transparent and accountable and have appropriate oversight. We need to ensure there is oversight of strategically key investments. We need to ensure Australia's defence ecosystem can meet the challenges of the time, and that is what the bill before the House represents. I cede time to my colleagues on the opposite side of the chamber to address this bill.
Housing | Questions without Notice | House debates
My question is for the Minister for Housing, the Minister for Homelessness and the Minister for Cities. How is the Albanese Labor government delivering for first home buyers to help them to get...
My question is for the Minister for Housing, the Minister for Homelessness and the Minister for Cities. How is the Albanese Labor government delivering for first home buyers to help them to get into a home of their own? What other approaches are the government being asked to consider?
Australia Indonesia Youth Exchange Program | Constituency Statements | House debates
With apologies to the Jakarta Bintangs, but the Krakatoas Football Club is the best named Aussie Rules team in the world. I was delighted to join them on a training run on the weekend with...
With apologies to the Jakarta Bintangs, but the Krakatoas Football Club is the best named Aussie Rules team in the world. I was delighted to join them on a training run on the weekend with delegates from the Australia Indonesia Youth Exchange Program. AIYEP is more than 40 years old and connects Australian and Indonesian youth for social, professional and cultural exchange. Each year, 42 delegates from Australia and Indonesia become immersed in each other's countries. They grow their intercultural skills, international networks and professional capabilities, and we're very pleased to host it in Melbourne this year. All 21 delegates from Indonesia come from a different province, coming from as far west as Aceh to as far east as the Papuan provinces, reflecting the vast diversity of that country. Given that the median age in Indonesia is just 30, this program is an important way to connect Australian and Indonesian leaders of the future. The 21 delegates from Indonesia are currently spending five weeks in Australia. This year's Indonesian delegates are hosted by generous host families and workplaces in Melbourne, and I'm delighted to be hosting one myself, in my electorate office in Melbourne, the lovely Petra. We've already learned so much from each other, and she has brought fantastic energy and enthusiasm to the office. Petra would like me to tell our parliament: I've really enjoyed living in Australia so far and the thing I love the most is living with my host family, sharing my Indonesian culture, and doing the internship at Tim Watts' Office in Melbourne. I've learned so much during my time here already and I will always be grateful for these experiences. Thank you to the Australian and Indonesia government for providing this life-changing opportunity. There are plenty of people to thank for keeping a program like this operating for 40 years. Terima kasih to all the generous host families in both Australia and Indonesia, and a special shout-out to Kristy and Ryan Newham for hosting Petra in my community. Terima kasih to DFAT's Australia-Indonesia Institute and the Indonesian Ministry of Youth and Sports for their collaboration on funding and organising this program. Terima kasih to Value Learning for their expertise and dedication in delivering this program across Australia and Indonesia. Terima kasih to Angus Baranikow and the Australia-Indonesia Youth Association, Victoria chapter, for supporting the program and putting on a barbie during the training run on the weekend. And finally, a shout-out to the founder and president of the Krakatoas, Iain Shearer, and the whole Krakatoas Football Club—or as they would say in Indonesia, 'Tim Krakatoa'—and thanks for the training run. And to all of the delegates, let me say this: selamat datang di Melbourne. Nikmati kesempatan luar biasa ini. Dan semoga sukses selalu! Terima kasih to everyone involved; congratulations to them.
Renewable Energy | Questions without Notice | House debates
My question is to the Treasurer. What did Treasury's net zero modelling show about the Albanese Labor government's approach to the transformation to cleaner and cheaper energy? And what risks are...
My question is to the Treasurer. What did Treasury's net zero modelling show about the Albanese Labor government's approach to the transformation to cleaner and cheaper energy? And what risks are there in other proposals?
Racism | Constituency Statements | House debates
Indigenous leader Noel Pearson has said that you can't tell the full story of Australia without telling three stories: the story of our oldest continuous culture on earth, the story of our...
Indigenous leader Noel Pearson has said that you can't tell the full story of Australia without telling three stories: the story of our oldest continuous culture on earth, the story of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders; the story of the Westminster institutions that followed, our rule of law and our democratic institutions; and the story of our multicultural migration, a migration that has built a country where half of us either are born overseas or have a parent born overseas—the most successful multicultural nation on earth. The marches against Australia we saw on the weekend were an insult to all three of these stories that make our country great. Australians are rightly proud of the diverse country that we have built here together. We are a country that produced John Wing, a 10-year-old Chinese-Australian boy who suggested that, in the closing ceremony of the Melbourne Olympics, athletes march not as separate countries but together as friends. That is a unique, egalitarian, Australian Olympic innovation. We are a country that has produced two Fields Medal winners, Terence Tao and Akshay Venkatesh, a migrant and a child of a migrant. We are a country enriched by the diverse contributions of Australians like Sir Gustav Nossal, Harry Seidler, Harry Triguboff, Frank Lowy, Victor Chang, Gout Gout, Usman Khawaja, Sam Kerr, Jason Day, Melanie Perkins and Jack Zhang. We're proud that the Australians who work in our hospitals, care for our elderly, help our country grow and help our parliament govern have heritages from every corner of the globe. We're proud of them because they are us—they're our family, our friends, our teammates, our work colleagues and our classmates. The tiny number of protesters on the weekend are scared of this. They want an Australia that's small and weak. They want an Australia that never grows or changes. They want an Australia that would be left behind in the modern world. They are so clearly wrong, and that's why the vast majority of Australians disagree with them. The Scanlon Foundation's Mapping social cohesionreport has consistently found that nine out of 10 Australians believe that multiculturalism has been good for our country. We should understand that, at most, the views of those protesters are one in 10 Australians. We have a choice about how to respond to these rallies. We should choose to take the public presence of Neo-Nazis at these rallies seriously. All groups with hateful and violent ideologies need to be taken seriously by our law enforcement and security agencies. I have been increasingly concerned about the way these groups have intimidated people, including in my electorate, without law enforcement action. We should choose to make another choice, too, and that's to not empower these protesters by believing the lies they tell about our country. We shouldn't give the tiny number of people who turned out at these protests the unjustified power of wrongly believing that their views are widely shared by other Australians. These protests were sadder than they were scary. It's understandable that a freakshow of Neo-Nazis, sovereign citizens and racists attracted significant media attention—freakshows generally do. But we shouldn't empower this fringe element by taking the lies that they tell about our country seriously.
Housing Australia Investment Mandate Amendment (Delivering on Our 2025 Election Commitment) Direction 2025; Consideration | Documents | House debates
My community in Melbourne's west are hard-working, aspirational Australians who want a good life for themselves, their children and their grandchildren. They're tradies, small business owners,...
My community in Melbourne's west are hard-working, aspirational Australians who want a good life for themselves, their children and their grandchildren. They're tradies, small business owners, shift workers. They're young people who dream of security and independence. They're parents who want their children to grow with stability and opportunity and for their children to be afforded the same opportunities that were afforded to them. People in my community are doing everything right. They work hard, they're saving diligently, and they're contributing to their families and their community. They still can't afford a place to call home. All the time, I hear from Australians who dream of owning their home but can't see a pathway to homeownership. I hear from renters whose rents increase as they struggle to save for the 20 per cent deposit needed to buy their first home. It all just feels out of reach. A home is more than just a roof over your head. It's a place for family, where birthdays are celebrated, which kids take their first steps, where memories are made. For a generation of Australians, though, this homeownership has felt like a distant dream. On top of that, renters have felt insecure, with the scales tipped against them. The Albanese Labor government is continuing to listen to young Australians, and we're continuing to deliver for them. We're delivering on our election promise to ease the housing crisis and help more Australians to own their own home. From 1 October, everyone in Melbourne's west and across Australia will be able to buy their first home with a five per cent deposit. It's a game changer. For many, this will mean the difference between continuing to rent indefinitely and stepping into homeownership. It will cut years off the time that it takes to save for a deposit. There are no income caps and no limits on the number of places. It means that more families, more young people and more single parents can access this support. We'll have house-price caps that reflect the cost of homes where you live, which means people won't be forced to look too far from their communities or their families to qualify. And, because the government will guarantee part of these mortgages, people won't have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in lenders mortgage insurance. In just the first year alone, first home buyers using the scheme are expected to avoid around $1.5 billion in potential mortgage insurance costs. We're also continuing the Family Home Guarantee, which helps single parents buy a home with a two per cent deposit. For first home buyers in Melbourne's west, I know this will make a real difference. But expanding access to five per cent deposits to all first home buyers is just one plank of the Albanese government's Homes for Australia agenda. Since we first came to government, we've already seen 180,000 Australians get into homeownership with the Albanese Labor government's support. In my community alone, nearly 1,000 households have already participated in the Home Guarantee Scheme since we came to government in May 2022. That's a thousand families who now have a place to call their own and who have moved from renting to owning—from insecurity to stability. Under Labor, there have been 6,000 more first-home-buyer loans a year, compared to the coalition's previous period in office. Labor's shared-equity scheme, Help to Buy, will mean that the Commonwealth government pitches in up to 40 per cent of the upfront costs of a home, meaning first home buyers can purchase a home with a smaller mortgage. We're not just helping people buy homes, though; we're building more homes too, and building more homes means more affordable homes for everyone. We've started the biggest housing build in Australia's history, investing $43 billion in housing in pursuit of an ambitious target of the construction of 1.2 million homes over the next five years. As part of our plan to build more homes, we're investing $10 billion to build 100,000 homes reserved for first home buyers. Our investments in Australians' aspirations to own a home are complemented by our commitments to make renting more secure. We're working with states and territories to make renting fairer. We've built more rentals with stronger protections. We've passed legislation to help deliver 80,000 new rentals across the country, and all rentals under this scheme will have five-year leases, which will provide renters with more certainty and more security. We're working with the states and territories to implement stronger protections for tenants and to ensure that renters can make their rental their own. Because of our reforms, most states have implemented minimum standards for rental properties. Renters are now guaranteed a baseline standard for their rental property, which wasn't guaranteed before, to ensure that their rental is actually habitable. Our reforms have also meant that most states have now banned no-grounds evictions. Stamping out no-grounds evictions provides renters with more certainty, stability and security. It also allows renters to establish a more stable home and better plan for the future of themselves and their families. We've delivered a 45 per cent increase in Commonwealth rental assistance, helping one million low-income Australians to pay the rent. We're delivering 55,000 social and affordable rental homes for the Australians that need them the most. Through programs like the Housing Australia Future Fund, we're reducing the social housing waiting list and delivering homes for vulnerable women, children, veterans and key workers. We're investing $1.2 billion in building new crisis and transitional accommodation. This investment will ensure at-risk groups like women, younger Australians and those fleeing domestic violence have access to safe and stable housing. Building more homes and supporting renters wouldn't be possible if we didn't invest in the people we need to build these homes. We're training more tradies through our fee-free TAFE program. The fee-free construction program will boost the number of skilled workers in the construction and housing sector. This will ensure that Australia has the skilled workers to build the houses that we need. We're providing $10,000 incentive payments to apprentices in construction. We're investing $78 million to fast-track qualifications of 6,000 tradies, to help build more homes across Australia. The Advanced Entry Trades Training program will help experienced but unqualified workers get the qualifications and recognition they deserve for their work. The program will assess participants' skills by a recognition-of-prior-learning process and then fill in any gaps with individualised training delivered by TAFEs and other high-quality registered training organisations. The best bit is that if they need extra training, it will be free. We're also cutting red tape with our planning reforms. We're providing $120 million from the National Productivity Fund to incentivise states to remove red tape to help build houses faster, and we're leading efforts to speed up construction. We're delivering $54 million in investment in advanced manufacturing of prefab and modular homes. The Albanese Labor government is building new homes, supporting renters, ensuring we have a skilled workforce for our housing agenda, and cutting red tape. We're tackling this housing crisis from every angle. But, unfortunately, this crisis wasn't created overnight, and that means that it won't be fixed overnight. The crisis we're currently experiencing is a result of decades of underinvestment and neglect. We're working hard to undo this decade of neglect by the coalition, who didn't even have a housing minister for most of their time in office. As my colleague, Minister O'Neil, told parliament last week, they built just 373 social and affordable homes in nine years. If that wasn't bad enough, they continue to oppose homeownership for Australians. They voted against Help to Buy; in fact, they promised to abolish the scheme entirely. They didn't support our policy to deliver 100,000 homes for first home buyers. Bizarrely, they are now trying to scrap 80,000 new rentals by raising taxes on builders. It's as if they've completely given up. On this side of the House, we haven't. Owning a home is a dream that should be available to all Australians—not just some. We're making that dream more achievable. The Albanese Labor government was elected with a clear mandate to support the aspirations and dreams of all Australians. From 1 October, the days of 20 per cent deposits for first home buyers are over. We're bringing the dream of homeownership within reach of everyone in my community of Melbourne's west and across Australia. It's not just a policy change. It's a change which will support Australians to achieve their goals and dreams. We're removing barriers which hold Australians back from homeownership. We're building more rentals with stronger protections, and we're delivering more social and affordable homes for vulnerable Australians. We're working with states and territories to make renting fairer, and we're boosting rent assistance. We're offering a clear, fair pathway to homeownership for all Australians. We are investing in the future of housing. We're speeding up construction. We're investing in the workforce we need to build new homes, and we're fast-tracking the qualifications of experienced but unqualified tradies. This housing crisis has been decades in the making, but last weeks announcement of five per cent deposits for first home buyers is another plank in our Homes for Australia plan, a comprehensive plan that tackles every dimension of this crisis.
Address-in-Reply | Governor-General's Speech | House debates
In this traditional first debate of the parliament after a federal election, it's always been my practice to begin by saying thank you. Thank you to the voters in my electorate in Gellibrand in...
In this traditional first debate of the parliament after a federal election, it's always been my practice to begin by saying thank you. Thank you to the voters in my electorate in Gellibrand in Melbourne's west for their trust and confidence. Thank you to them for choosing the things that unite us and seeing that the things that we have in common are bigger and more important than the things that divide us. Thank you to the outstanding, professional and independent staff of the Australian Electoral Commission, who undertook a very well-run election in Gellibrand in Melbourne's west. Thank you to the other contesting candidates who ran in Gellibrand at the last federal election. They all conducted themselves with, I think, very real respect and dignity, and I was proud to spend many, many hours standing next to them at prepoll and on election day. But, of course, the most important group that I need to thank here in this chamber are the Labor true believers and my supporters, who made the election win in Gellibrand for the Labor Party possible. We couldn't have achieved the result we did without the volunteers who shared our vision for building Australia's future, including those who, without complaint or ego, showed up in a common cause to support our Labor campaign. I'm proud that our campaign in Gellibrand was as diverse as the place in which we live and work. It reflected modern Australia and won the endorsement of modern Australia. It brought together people from all possible backgrounds in pursuit of a common cause: to build a stronger and fairer future for Australia. I want to name many of these people individually here for the benefit of the Hansard. I want to give special thanks to Alison, Catherine, Freddie, Victor, Azhar, William, Jason, Greg, Leon, Clovis, John and Nitika, who showed up throughout the entire campaign to deliver our Labor government's vision for building Australia's future. Alison and Victor showed up for all the usual events, joining me for doorknocking, prepoll and election day, but also went so far as to indulge me in that very Queensland practice of wobbleboarding on Point Cook Road and Central Av, where our government has committed $58.5 million to get our community where they need to go faster and safer. That funding will deliver duplication on Central Avenue to Point Cook Road to ease congestion. We're also developing a business case to duplicate Point Cook Road between Jamieson Way and Dunnings Road. I'm proud that we're delivering meaningful action for some of Australia's most diverse and fastest growing suburbs. Scores of people turned up to help throughout the campaign and on election day to share our message for the voters in Gellibrand. I want to thank our booth captains: Tully, Melissa, Felix, Gary, Bill, Japinda, Jason, Anne, Rajash, Alison, Archita, Gary, Nathan, Sean, Catherine, Rajash, Sean, Scott and Aidan. I also want to share our gratitude with all the locals who volunteered on the doors, at train stations and at voting booths: Amar, Ken, Noel, Mel, Peter, Narelle, Isaac, Dylan, Myles, John, Effie, Andy, Houssein, Kifeh, Raha, Claire, Ahmad, Ghassan, Milad, Micheel, Olivia, Ehsan, Amany, Khaled, Louay, Kemal, Wajid, Tefera, Meserat, Matiebie, Catherine, David, John, Peter, Daniel, Dan, Margie, Craig, Marguerite, Lucien, Mark, Muffy, Chandni, Nadia, Tilak, Kazim, Israel, Abdi, Azhar, Abdul, Lorraine, Robin, Dean, Peter, Dan, Enchalew, Di, Lance, Andrew, Rajash, Palak, Solomon, William, Hasan, Julie, Kiran, Rubay, Tekeste, Alula, Neha, Jeeva, Aymart, Rashmi, Mac, Vinesh, Eva—but, wait, there is more—Rabindra, Mita, Ravi, Amit, Ivo, Kay, Gavin, Matt, John, Tom, Greg, Nahida, Rayane, our third Rajneet, Greg, JP, Katherine, Reena, Anagha, Niharica, Nick, Abnash, Ali, Trish, Sumit, Nick, Maryam, Ian, Kerry, Kevin, Molly, Maria, Justin, John, Linelle, Patsy, Ralph, Carrol, Trevor, Kai, Joel, Sandy, Scott, Jane, Kate, Ken, Sam, Andrei and Bill. I also want to thank our state members, Mat Hilakari, Melissa Horne and Sarah Connolly. It was a team effort. Thank you for giving us all your early mornings at train stations, your voices at doorknocks, prepolls and polling booths, your time scrutineering, and for coming together to celebrate on election night. Thank you to all—it really means a lot. Can I also say thank you to my staff, some of whom were experiencing their first election campaign working from an electorate office. I should assure them that they're not all like this one! Thank you to Lachlan, Priya, Arth, Alex, Annabel, Laura, Mel, Francis and Archita. I do want to single someone out here, and that is, of course, Stevie Le. I want to briefly recognise the contribution that he has made as a long-term member of my office, who finished up with me shortly after the last election. Stevie Le has worked with me since I started as a member of parliament 12 years ago. He's the only staffer who's done the full journey. We've gone through five elections together and seen thousands of volunteers and staff come and go through our office and our campaigns. During that time, Stevie has been the foundation stone of the work of my office. He's been a mate, and he's been a personal rock for me. We've been through a lot together over the last 12 years. There's been a lot of joy. Steve's had a wedding and three kids while working in my office. Steve won ABC's Hard Quiz with his expert knowledge of S Club 7. He won the APH footy tipping competition—an extraordinary achievement that deserves recognition in the Hansard. We were both there when the Western Bulldogs won the flag in 2016. We were also there for the open training, the banner making, the grand final parade and all that good stuff that goes along with a grand final win. There were hard times too, though. We've been confronted by neo-Nazis at the pub. We've lost dear friends from our office and grieved our fellow staffers Clara and Walter together at their funerals with our electorate office family and the community that they served. We got through the long Victorian COVID lockdowns together, for stretches of which it was just Steve and me in the electorate office. Through all this, there has been no-one who has helped more people in my electorate than Steve. As a result, he's been a beloved member of our local community. It would be a rare day for me at a train station, polling booth or supermarket that someone in my electorate didn't thank me for something that Steve had done for them. So thank you, Steve. More importantly, thank you, Marylyn, for sharing Steve with us on so many weekends and late nights. To Sammy, Spencer and Maisie: you can all be very proud of your dad. For the benefit of the Hansard, I want to say thank you, mate, for the last 12 years, and I do want to note that Steve isn't out of the electorate office game just yet. He's just moved on to work with a dear friend of the both of us, the new member for Gorton, helping her set up her electorate office in the electorate down the road. So he's got plenty more people to help in Melbourne's west just yet. I want to send him off into this new role with the words of S Club 7. Let me say this just once for the record. I say: Don't stop, never give up Hold your head high and reach the top Let the world see what you have got Bring it all back to you Thank you, Steve Le. Point Cook in my community in Melbourne's west is the largest and most multicultural suburb in Australia. In Point Cook, one of those spaces for connection where we come together in our diverse backgrounds is the Point Cook Pop Up Park. For nearly a decade, this diverse and growing community has come together at the Point Cook Pop Up Park at Stockland. The Point Cook Pop Up Park would not have existed without the tireless work of CoLocal, a not-for-profit grassroots group who have championed the park from inception and nurtured it to the success that it is today. It's been supported by a series of state and federal grants along the way and has hosted a swathe of important local and multicultural events which reflect who we are as a community in Melbourne's west. I have personally attended at the pop-up park many Diwalis, Holis, Lunar Festivals, Pasifika Festivals, a Latino festival, Filipino Fiesta, Tamil New Year, Eid al-Fitr, Harmony Day, the Africa Festival, Halloween events, spring racing activations, kids fun days and the Christmas market and carols. There's also a wonderful Rainbow Serpent mural celebrating First Nations culture, symbolising community unity and cohesion. The events that have been at the Point Cook Pop Up Park are a reflection of the rich tapestry of culture, tradition, food and storytelling that makes Point Cook unique as Australia's most multicultural suburb. The park not only provides community space and celebrates our community but provides real economic benefits to local traders and has revitalised Point Cook Stockland's dining precinct, with 81 per cent of people who have said that the events at the park encourage them to explore new shops, cafes and restaurants in the area and 83 per cent of people surveyed who purchased food or went shopping at nearby stores before, after or during attending events at the park. Located on a pedestrian street in one of the community's biggest shopping centres, events aren't just something on the way to your weekly grocery shop. They're a destination. It's clear that CoLocal and the Point Cook Pop Up Park's events are deeply valued and supported by the community, drawing 60,000 people to the town centre in the last 18 months alone. The park has become a cherished gathering place for westsiders to frequent today and a focal point for building community and connection and an array of events and entertainment. Although it is a collaborative project, the driving force is CoLocal, a grassroots community group who conceived of and power the park's development and success. Sadly, CoLocal have made the difficult decision to step away from future involvement in the pop-up park in coming months, and now the future of the park is at risk. Stockland has indicated its preference to wind up the park and reopen the road it currently occupies. As a community, we can help ensure this doesn't happen. Wyndham City Council is currently seeking feedback from people in Melbourne's west that will determine the future of the park. This feedback is vital to the pop-up park's existence. The council will be guided by what our community tells them. Although CoLocal is stepping away from the pop-up park for now, their hard work and legacy will not be forgotten. I want to thank CoLocal for their leadership, determination and passion over the past eight years. They turned a regular suburban street into a welcoming space that celebrates diversity, fosters connection and champions collaboration. I want to thank in the Hansard in this place today the CoLocal volunteers who made this project possible: Sudhit Juneja, the organiser of the Diwali and Holi events I mentioned earlier; Phebe Yeo, the organiser of the Kids Lunar Festival; Luciana Manrique, the organiser of the Latino festival; Kaliope Vassilopoulous, the organiser of the Greek Festival; David Mullins; Steve Jaz; Karthick Thanigaimani; and Senthill Sundaram. And, of course, I want to personally recognise Sara Mitchell, the founder of CoLocal. Sara has really put her whole soul into the Point Cook Pop Up Park. I've seen it over the years, and I've seen the very real personal sacrifices she has made investing her time and labour into this passion project. I've seen it, I valued it, I recognise it in this place and I thank her for everything she's done—and I do understand the reasons that she is now walking away from the project. But I do want to say to everyone in Melbourne's west: whether you're a resident, a community group or a local business, share your feedback on how you use the Point Cook Pop Up Park via the Wyndham City Council's community survey. You can voice your support and what you'd like to see happen there in the future. You can complete the survey online or by speaking to one of the council staff present at the pop-up park from 1 pm to 3 pm on Sunday 7 September or from 3 pm to 5 pm on Thursday 11 September. This feedback will directly determine the future of this vital space for Point Cook locals, and I encourage my community to jump online and make sure the community knows you support the park's ongoing operation and existence. Let the council know how important it is to have a place in the most multicultural suburb in Australia for our Diwali events, our Holi events, our lunar festival—a place where you can bring your family and your friends to come together to celebrate. Share your stories of connection, of celebration and of tradition. If you value the Point Cook Pop Up Park as a place for our community to come together, make sure your voice is heard by the council. After the federal election I was pleased to be appointed as the Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Indian Ocean Affairs. The Indian Ocean matters to Australia. The Indian Ocean region is essential to Australia's prosperity and security. It's a major part of the Indo-Pacific region, home to the world's fastest growing large economies and also a centre of increasing geostrategic competition. Australia faces the most challenging strategic environment since the Second World War, and our strategic circumstances are continuing to deteriorate. In the Indian Ocean there's increasing competition for access and influence, including efforts to secure dominance over sea lanes and strategic ports. The shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean aren't just vital to Australia; they are vital to the world economy. The Indian Ocean is already bustling with more than a third of the world's bulk cargo traffic and two-thirds of global oil shipments. Around half of Australia's sea-bound exports set sail from Indian Ocean ports. The Indian Ocean is also critical for our defence and national security. Half of Australia's naval fleet is based in the Indian Ocean. And of course it's home to Fleet Base West and Submarine Rotational Force—West. The north-east Indian Ocean was identified as an area of primary interest in the National Defence Strategy for these reasons, and strengthening our partnerships with key partners in the Indian Ocean is one of the Albanese government's priority areas for action in response to the Defence Strategic Review. Our priority in the Indian Ocean is to enhance regional resilience by coordinating with partners on solutions to shared challenges, including maritime and economic security, climate change and disaster resilience. As the foreign minister, Penny Wong, has said, by building resilience we can help keep Australians safe. Australia has shared interests with the countries of the Indian Ocean in maintaining the peace, stability and prosperity of the Indian Ocean and in seeing all countries growing their economies and deciding their own futures. The Albanese government is working with the countries of the Indian Ocean to increase our trade, investment, diplomatic and development ties. And we're supporting regional institutions, like the Indian Ocean Rim Association, the region's premier ministerial-level organisation. IORA is critical for Indian Ocean countries to collaborate and resolve shared challenges, and Australia is working to strengthen regional resilience through IORA, including through our investments in maritime security, the blue economy and climate change. We're also supporting humanitarian initiatives to help prevent regional crises from spilling over and causing instability throughout the Indian Ocean region. For example, we continue to support regional resilience through our development program, including, since 2017, $1.26 billion in humanitarian assistance for people in need in Bangladesh and Myanmar. In Bangladesh, in Cox's Bazar, there are now 1.1 million Rohingya refugees who have been in that camp for going on nine years. This week in the parliament is the anniversary of their exodus from the Rakhine state in northern Myanmar into Bangladesh. It's important for countries in the region—like Australia, the South-East Asian countries, the Indian Ocean countries—to support Bangladesh and support their resilience in hosting this very significant refugee community in our own region. Where requested, the Australian government also invests in regional resilience by taking targeted actions to help lift the sovereign capabilities of Indian Ocean partners. For example, this year Australia announced that we will gift the first Australian built Guardian class patrol boat to an Indian Ocean country, the Maldives. This gift is a key milestone in our bilateral relationship and a significant step towards enhancing the Maldives's capability to protect its sovereign waters and to contribute to collective maritime security in the Indian Ocean. Lifting the sovereign capabilities of Indian Ocean partners supports them with meeting their challenges in the best way that they see fit. It invests in their agency and their sovereignty. We've lifted our engagement throughout the Indian Ocean region. We've expanded our diplomatic footprint in the Indian Ocean with a new high commission in Male, in the Maldives, and new consulates in Bengaluru and Kolkata, in India. We're also strengthening our defence partnerships with key partners in the Indian Ocean. Our bilateral defence relationship with India is a primary example of this effort. India is a top-tier security partner for Australia, and we have never been more strategically aligned than we are right now. There are real steps we're taking to grow our defence relationship. We're doing more exercises together, and we're concentrating on how we can build interoperability between our defence forces, enabling us to have greater access to each other's defence facilities. In times of increasing geostrategic uncertainty, engaging with the Indian Ocean is more important for Australia than ever. We have the biggest search and rescue zone of any nation in the Indian Ocean and one of the biggest EEZs. Australia is using all the tools of statecraft to build a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indian Ocean region where each country can pursue its own aspirations.
Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025 | Statements | House debates
At the last federal election, the Albanese government promised to cut student debt by 20 per cent, and this week in parliament we're delivering on that promise. We said it would be the first...
At the last federal election, the Albanese government promised to cut student debt by 20 per cent, and this week in parliament we're delivering on that promise. We said it would be the first thing we do when parliament returned after the election, and now we are here delivering it. We're delivering real cost-of-living relief for 18,000 Australians in my electorate with a student debt, we're delivering a better deal for three million Australians across the country with a student debt, and we're reducing the average student debt by about $5,500—in one hit, in one bill. Labor's commitment to cutting student debts by 20 per cent was one of those policies that, I can tell you, really cut through at the last election. I can't tell you how many voters I met on the doors, on the streets or in the shopping centres in my electorate, at pre-poll or at polling booths on election day who I asked: 'Do you have a student debt? Do you want to buy your first home?' 'Well, vote Labor, and the first thing we'll do is cut your student debt by 20 per cent, then we'll also increase your borrowing capacity with the banks, and, to top it off, we'll enable every Australian to buy their first home with a five per cent deposit without having to pay lender's mortgage insurance.' This cut through because it spoke to a bigger intergenerational injustice. It was offering a fairer deal to young Australians who have gotten a raw deal in recent years. I agree with the member for Kooyong. Young Australians are facing a housing crisis, a cost-of-living crisis and the legacy of a climate crisis. Of course, it also cut through because the coalition, those opposite, opposed these cuts to student debt when Labor announced them at the last election. They called them 'wasteful'. In this parliament, the coalition's No. 1 priority is now protecting generous tax concessions for Australians with $3 million in superannuation, which is already there for their retirement. These are the intergenerational priorities of the coalition. They still don't get it, and it's no surprise that coalition MPs have been telling journalists in the press gallery that they suspect that even their own children weren't voting for the coalition at the last federal election—and, really, who can blame them? While we're in this chamber, cutting student debts this week, we should also remember that, when it was introduced, HECS was one of the great innovations of Australian public policy. Consider the challenge that HECS was designed to meet. When the Hawke government came into office, barely one in three Australians finished high school, barely one in three Australians completed grade 12. Through a decade of persistent policy effort, recognising the way the world was changing, recognising the way the global economy was changing and recognising the need for increased skills and increased levels of education, the Hawke government increased funding to secondary schools, targeted disadvantaged areas, modernised curricula, introduced vocational and applied learning pathways and made the case publicly on the need for kids to stay in school longer. After ten years, the Hawke government was able to lift the high school completion rate in Australia to nearly eight in ten—from three in ten Australians finishing high school to eight in ten Australians finishing high school—in a decade. That was an extraordinary expansion of the opportunity of education from a reforming, pioneering government. It's a great Labor legacy. But what then to do with the now more than doubling of the proportion of Australian school leavers who are now able to dream of going to university? HECS, a deferred-repayment, income-contingent loan scheme, enabled Australian students to contribute to the cost of their degrees proportionate to the expected private salary returns that they could expect to receive from their qualifications, in a way that didn't force them to pay upfront or to face crippling interest repayments on large upfront loans. It enabled students to pay back their student debts only when they were earning the kinds of salaries expected from university study, with debts being indexed rather than subject to private interest rates. HECS expanded educational opportunity, and did it in a fair and fiscally responsible way. It was a great Labor reform that the Hawke government; the Hawke government's education minister, John Dawkins; and the designer of HECS, Bruce Chapman, can rightly take great pride in. Income-contingent loans of this type have been copied by governments around the world, and it was a Labor innovation. It was an Australian innovation. But, unfortunately, over time, a series of reforms to higher education introduced by those opposite in the last decade—the wasted decade before the election of the Albanese government—broke the balance that made HECS work. The recent COVID-driven inflation spike really threw things off kilter. The spike in the indexation of loans through that period after COVID really got out of control. This bill fixes that. In the previous term of government we wiped $3 billion in student debt from Australian student loans. We fixed indexation to ensure that, in the future, debts cannot grow faster than the wages of the students who have incurred them. Now we are going further to ensure that more money is back in the pockets of more Australians, wiping another $16 billion from three million Australian student debts in the bill that we have debated this week. For the average Australian, with a student debt of $27,000, that's a reduction of more than $5,500. This bill will also help Australians with student debts who are earning lower wages to keep more money in their pockets, increasing the repayment threshold from $54,000 to $67,000 a year, a recommendation made by the architect of the HECS scheme, Bruce Chapman, who designed it with Dawkins back in the 1980s. I know from media reports that Bruce is very, very excited about that particular reform. This will reduce yearly repayments. For someone on an income of $70,000 a year, it will reduce the amount of compulsory repayments by about $1,300 a year. Australians will only start to pay off their studies when their studies start paying off for them. We're also replacing the current repayment system with a new marginal repayment system. Instead of the amount Australians pay being a percentage of their entire wage, it is a percentage of their wage above the minimum repayment threshold of $54,435. It is a structural change and it's a fairer change that will benefit people with a student debt now and in the years ahead. In the debate about this bill, particularly during the election, there were some ignorant and smart, snarky comments from conservatives about who these changes would benefit. I'll tell you who these changes will benefit. They will benefit teachers. They will benefit nurses. They will benefit engineers. They will benefit social workers. They will benefit doctors. They will benefit scientists. They will benefit researchers. They will benefit all Australians who've backed themselves by going to university to improve their skills to build our nation. This is betting on Australians who have bet on themselves. This is a bill that rewards aspirational Australians. And it comes on top of a suite of educational reforms that we made under the previous government and that we took to the last election, like fee-free TAFE and prac payments, expanding opportunity in the education system for more Australians. There's an enormous legacy in this country of pioneering reforms to our education system made by Labor governments. They have a few things in common. They're fair, they expand opportunity, and they let more Australians have access to that ladder of opportunity—the opportunity to improve yourself, to aspire to something better, to back yourself to develop those skills—but they do it in a fair way. That's what this bill that we have passed this week is all about. It's delivering on our commitment to young Australians, to support them to improve their own skills without being burdened with a crippling debt in the future. This is just the start, though. This government has a big agenda in education policy. It's one that we will continue to work on through the life of this government. The member for Gippsland is on manoeuvres at the moment! I'll be finishing my speech in some seconds, and, if he wants the call next, he can get back to the chamber. Thank you. On that note, I will conclude my comments.
Parliamentarians | Adjournment | House debates
Speaker, I extend my congratulations to you for your continuing service in this important role. The results of the last federal election said something about the kind of nation we are, and we...
Speaker, I extend my congratulations to you for your continuing service in this important role. The results of the last federal election said something about the kind of nation we are, and we have seen it in parliament this week. On Tuesday we saw new MPs being sworn in on Bibles, on Korans and on the Bhagavad Gita. We saw gender equality in the members and the senators sitting on the government benches during the Governor-General's address, and in members' first speeches we've heard beautiful stories encompassing the glorious diversity of modern Australia. At the last election, the Australian public chose a government that reflects and represents modern Australia, a diverse nation united by common values and aspirations, a nation that doesn't always agree but still comes together around the bigger things that unite us as Australians, a nation that defines itself not by our differences but by what we have in common. It is what the Prime Minister called a 'progressive patriotism'. The Australian voters voted for this at the last election, but they also voted to reject those politicians who practice the politics of division. They rejected politicians who sought to advance their own partisan interests by dividing the Australian community. The world has thrown a lot of challenges at Australia over the last three years. Australians have been traumatised by direct connections to international conflicts, and some Australians have disagreed strongly about how the world and Australia should respond to these conflicts. It's challenged the cohesion of our diverse Australian community. I've said before that cohesion is a verb, not a noun. It means the action of forming a united hole. It's an ongoing process, not an end state. Preserving our cohesion as a nation requires a continuing work, and Australian multiculturalism works best when we work at it. This means engaging with each other in good faith; understanding that our fellow Australians will sometimes see things differently than we do and listening to each other with empathy and curiosity about this rather than judgement; trying to understand where other Australians are coming from and why they think, feel and act in the way they do; and using that understanding to find common ground. Unfortunately, in the last parliament, some in this place chose to exploit the challenges we faced, demonising some groups and seeking to divide the Australian community for political gain. The Australian public rejected this at the last election, and many of the most enthusiastic practitioners of this kind of politics are no longer with us in this chamber as a result. But there are lessons for those who remain and for their parties. For the Greens, the lesson is that you can't build a political movement condemning everyone who disagrees with you. You can't build a political movement based on the premise that everyone who disagrees with you is either financially corrupt or morally evil. Unsurprisingly, this approach to politics doesn't persuade anyone who didn't already agree with you beforehand, and it makes it impossible to build a big enough coalition to actually deliver anything on the issues you care about. Speaking of coalitions, there are lessons for the LNP from the last election too. From labelling Chinese Australians participating in our democracy as Chinese spies to actively preferencing Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, it sometimes felt like the Liberal-National coalition were deliberately trying to alienate every segment of modern Australia. But tonight I want to highlight one specific trend on the right of politics that has attracted less attention and needs to be addressed. It's not a reflection of the broader Australian community but a narrow part of right-wing politics. In far-right circles around the world, there's now an emerging trend to specifically single out Indian diaspora communities in anti-immigration rhetoric. Media reports have noted a significant increase in overtly racist AI generated material targeting Indian Australian communities on social media platforms like TikTok. Former Liberal National MP George Christensen has even nonsensically alleged that the Albanese government rigged the last election in slow motion by flooding Australia with Indian migrants. George is an irrelevant nobody, but this kind of singling-out of Indian migrants over other groups has more recently been taken up by Advance, a group that has actively campaigned for Liberal-National coalition candidates. Advance recently published an anti-immigration video that explicitly singled out Indian and Chinese migrants as hurting Australia by sending remittances to their families. The video even included a photo of the Prime Minister wearing a turban—an act of respect at a Sikh event. What are they trying to achieve by sharing a picture of the Prime Minister wearing a turban in an anti-immigration video? And why did they not use a picture of any other group referenced in that report? The new Leader of the Opposition says that she wants the Liberal Party to reflect and represent modern Australia, and I'm glad to hear it. All of us in this chamber should work together in this cause. I welcome the Liberal Party joining this mission. A good contribution the new opposition leader could make is taking on this emerging trend of singling out Indian diaspora communities in anti-immigration rhetoric on the right. She should nip it in the bud now in the interest of a modern Australia.
Deputy Speaker | Parliamentary Office Holders | House debates
It is a true pleasure for me to second the nomination of my friend the member for Newcastle as our deputy speaker. The member for Newcastle and I were both elected to this place in the 2013...
It is a true pleasure for me to second the nomination of my friend the member for Newcastle as our deputy speaker. The member for Newcastle and I were both elected to this place in the 2013 election, an election which produced a parliament which, I must say, looked very different from the chamber before us here today. I don't want to make you feel old, but, in the 12 years since then, 60 per cent of the class of 2013 has already left this place, and those of us who were elected in that year have now been here for twice as long as the median MP, which is to say that the last 12 years have been a tumultuous time in this place—a tumultuous time to serve. But, through this period, the member for Newcastle has become an MP held in the highest regard across the chamber. She is the kind of parliamentarian that you measure yourself against; the kind of MP that you feel proud to serve in this place with; and the kind of friend that you go to for advice on the most difficult issues, including, on one occasion when we were both serving on the inquiry into social media, trying to work out how to manage Craig Kelly on that committee. I would say to the new members in this place that you'd do well to follow the example of the member for Newcastle as you begin your time in this place. But, in saying this, I know it's ironic, because new MPs are perhaps the worst placed in this chamber to understand the impact that the member for Newcastle has had on the work of this parliament. I said earlier that this chamber looks very different than it did in 2013, and I should say also that it feels like a very different place to work in than it did back then. There have been days over the past decade when, frankly, I've finished the day as an MP in this building feeling that I need a shower, or have gotten to the end of a sitting week desperate to get back home to my community to feel like a human being again. The member for Newcastle has played a central role in the processes of change that have helped bring the norms and the values of modern Australia into this place. New members will take much of this for granted, but it wouldn't have happened without the work led by people like the member for Newcastle. We still have work to do in this regard in this chamber, but, if we want to continue the job, there is no-one better to have as our Deputy Speaker than the member for Newcastle. A jillaroo, a camp cook and an anthropologist before coming to this chamber, she's been uniquely suited to doing the hard work necessary to drive cultural change in this place. Since 2013 the member for Newcastle has been in all of the rooms with the hard labour needed to do the work necessary to make sure this place's work is done. Outside of the public eye, she's always put her hand up for the hard job. She's been on the Speaker's panel since 2015 and has been Deputy Speaker since 2022, as well as being a member of the privileges and members' interests committee. As chair of the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Standards, she led the inquiry that produced the first cross-party code of conduct for MPs and staff that was endorsed by this House in February 2023. I know that all members of parliament, from across the chamber, who worked with her during this process know the inclusiveness, the judgement and the diligence that the member for Newcastle displayed during this process. It's no small feat that, on an issue that was so vexing for successive parliaments that they had failed to address it for 50 years, a consensus report was delivered through a committee that the member for Newcastle chaired, with 16 recommendations that were endorsed by all parties and Independents in this chamber. She's left a legacy that will improve this place for generations of parliamentarians to come and will improve the ability of this place to deliver for all Australians who elected us to this place. I want to note that the member for Newcastle has also been a powerful example of how every member can use this institution to deliver real action for people in our community who need it the most. As deputy chair of the Joint Select Committee on Implementation of the National Redress Scheme, her tireless work helped give a voice and deliver a measure of justice to some Australians who deserved it the most. And in everything she's done as an MP she's done it in a way that's strengthened rather than undermined this institution. She understands that this institution does not exist for all of us but we exist as stewards of this institution for those who follow and for the Australian people. In everything she's done in this place she's acted in a way that has left the institutions of our parliament and our democracy in a better condition for everyone who followed and the Australian public. So, with the greatest respect to the Speaker, and as a forewarning to all new members, the member for Newcastle is not 'Mr Speaker'. Instead, she is the best Deputy Speaker that any of us could imagine, and I'm proud to nominate her for the role.
Pacific Banking Guarantee Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
Let me say what a serendipitous privilege it is for me to be able to follow the member for Moreton in this debate for his last contribution in this chamber. Let me put on the record my deep...
Let me say what a serendipitous privilege it is for me to be able to follow the member for Moreton in this debate for his last contribution in this chamber. Let me put on the record my deep affection and admiration for GP. This is a man who has made a contribution across so many different aspects of our nation. Importantly to me, he has been a consistent voice for Australia's relations with Africa, a cause that I have spoken about a lot in my time and a cause that needs more voices in this chamber speaking up for it. GP and I have been able to travel all the way to north-western Kenya to the Kakuma refugee camp, which so many members of the Australian community have travelled through on their way to Australia, to really see the impact that our work through both ODA and other arrangements has had there. Travelling with someone in an environment like that you get a sense of the kind of person they are. I won't share with the chamber everything that happened on that trip, GP! But I have to say it is a genuine tribute to the calibre of GP and the regard in which he's held in this chamber that he can inflict so much pain on so many members of this chamber on the sporting fields of Parliament House and still be so beloved. The member for Fremantle and I have both been personally affected by GP's enthusiasm on the sporting field! Good luck, mate. I know you owe it to your family. Let me put on the record our thanks to them for sharing you with us during this time. Good luck in retirement from this place, mate. I am pleased to be able to speak on the Pacific Banking Guarantee Bill 2025 today. Since the election of the Albanese government, we have committed to a new era of Australian engagement in the Pacific. We have worked hard to deepen the social, cultural and economic connections between Australia and our Pacific family. We have really worked to enmesh our nation with the Pacific family. The foreign minister visited the Pacific on just her fourth day in the role, travelling to Fiji to discuss how we could best secure our region and help to build a stronger Pacific family. The foreign minister visited every member of the Pacific Island Forum in the first year of this government. It was a clear demonstration of the new energy and focus that our government would bring to Australia's Pacific relationships. This was replicated across our government, with visits to the Pacific by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, the Treasurer, the Attorney-General, the Minister for Home Affairs and other ministerial colleagues. When we say we are part of the Pacific family, we mean it. We share an ocean and we share a future. The connections that Australia shares with our Pacific family—our mutual understanding, common purpose and cooperation—have never been more important. We face the most challenging strategic circumstances of the postwar period. There are major changes reshaping our region and the world—climate change, technological innovation and disruption, geostrategic competition and demographic change. These circumstances demand that Australia work more closely with our international partners to shape the kind of region that we want—a region that's peaceful, stable and prosperous, a region that operates according to agreed rules, norms and international law, where sovereignty is respected and where individual countries are free to make their own choices, and a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated. We can't achieve a region like this on our own. We have to work with others, and it is only becoming more challenging. How we work together with our international partners, with our neighbours, with our Pacific family to meet our shared challenges today will have a great effect on future generations. The Pacific is at the front line of many of the environmental, geopolitical and economic challenges we confront. Our Pacific neighbours are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, increasing their need to work with us. They also need to look to us first to support their development and economic needs, which can be acute. Responding and providing support is what good partners do. As the Foreign Minister has said, we are now in a state of permanent contest in the region. We need to work harder to be the partner of choice in the Pacific. Our opportunity to be the only partner of choice was lost to us over the previous decade, when those opposite were in government. The former coalition government cut Australia's overseas development assistance program to the Pacific. They cut official development assistance by $11.8 billion in their time in office—and perhaps later tonight we will see further commitments to cuts in the budget reply speech. This was a drastic drop that made our region less safe, and it left a vacuum in the Pacific for others to fill. Australian security continues to pay a price for the coalition's neglect in government. We now have to compete to become a partner of choice. We have to work at it. That's why the Albanese government has been hard at work implementing our vision for stronger engagement with the Pacific, with our nearest neighbours, with our family. On that note, I will cede the floor to my colleague the member for Fremantle, in anticipation of this evening's budget reply speech. Debate adjourned.
Cost-of-Living Measures | Constituency Statements | House debates
The Albanese government's No. 1 priority is taking pressure off households and helping people in Melbourne's west with the cost of living. Over the last two years we've already delivered tax cuts...
The Albanese government's No. 1 priority is taking pressure off households and helping people in Melbourne's west with the cost of living. Over the last two years we've already delivered tax cuts for every Australian, provided $300 in energy bill relief to every household, revived bulk-billing and saved Australians $1 billion through cheaper medicines. Next year we're committed to going further. A re-elected Labor government will cut student debt by 20 per cent—that's 20 per cent for everyone with a HECS debt, Australia wide. This will be additional cost-of-living relief for the three million Australians who have student debt, including more than 21,000 people in our community in Melbourne's west. Our changes will put $680 a year back in the pocket of the average graduate who has a HECS debt and cut $5,500 off the average debt. Labor wants Australians to earn more and keep more of what they earn and to reduce the debt they owe. These changes don't just help young people who are considering study or those who are currently at university; they help anyone who has a HECS debt, regardless of when they last studied. The impacts are tangible and mean more money in the pockets of more people in Melbourne's west. Labor will also raise the repayment threshold and lower the rate of repayments, because you shouldn't have to start paying off your student debt until you're earning a decent wage. This plan to slash student debt will work alongside other Labor measures to help make housing affordable for working people. We know that home loan lenders can take student debt into account when determining how much they can borrow, and this can hold people back from buying a home. By reducing existing debt levels and repayments, we're improving the ability of young Australians to save and to break into the housing market. The Albanese government's plan is about pragmatic change to take pressure off households in Melbourne's west and remove barriers to homeownership. These HECS changes sit alongside our $32 billion Homes for Australia Plan. This includes build-to-rent accommodation. In addition, our Home Guarantee Scheme will support people from Melbourne 's west to buy a home with a smaller deposit. Labor is also locking in fee-free TAFE, something we know well in Victoria, and making it permanent right across Australia, to deliver the skilled workforce and well-paid jobs of the future—more tradies and construction workers to build more homes, more nurses and healthcare workers to care for our loved ones in our community, more tech engineers to support and build a modern Australia, and more opportunities for people in Melbourne's west to gain the skills to get ahead and to find a secure, well-paid job. Labor's changes are about putting intergenerational equity and fairness back into the system. It's about education unlocking economic opportunity. It's about giving people a fair go. This is what Labor governments do—helping people under pressure while also building Australia's future. The Albanese Labor government is about ensuring that no-one is held back and no-one is left behind, and our student-debt reforms are delivering on this promise.
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; Reference to Federation Chamber | Statements on Significant Matters | House debates
by leave—I move: That further statements on Australian consular and crisis support 2023-2024 be permitted in the Federation Chamber. Question agreed to.
Cyber Security Bill 2024, Intelligence Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Cyber Security) Bill 2024, Security of Critical Infrastructure and Other Legislation Amendment (Enhanced Response and Prevention) Bill 2024; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
I'm very pleased to take the opportunity to speak on the Cyber Security Bill 2024 today. I first raised the issue of ransomware in this parliament more than seven years ago, in 2017. It has long...
I'm very pleased to take the opportunity to speak on the Cyber Security Bill 2024 today. I first raised the issue of ransomware in this parliament more than seven years ago, in 2017. It has long been an area of interest and concern to me—including during the last parliament, when I was the shadow assistant minister for cybersecurity. I should also acknowledge that it's an area of interest for others here in this chamber today. In that term, I introduced a private member's bill dealing with these issues, the Ransomware Payments Bill 2021, which would have formed a policy foundation for a coordinated government response to the threat of ransomware. As Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, I was pleased to work with the then cybersecurity minister, the member for Hotham, on the international chapter of the 2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy, launched in November last year. This recognised that the evolving challenges of cyberspace required us to work with our international partners to uphold international law and norms of responsible state behaviour in cyberspace and to impose costs on bad actors that make cyberspace less safe and less secure. The strategy sets out how we will improve cybersecurity, manage cyber-risks and better support Australians and Australian businesses in cyberspace. This includes reinforcing our cyberdefences; strengthening our resilience, or our ability to bounce back from cyber incidents; deterring and responding to malicious actors; and working closely with international partners—reducing the returns to bad actors targeting Australia with cybercrime and increasing the costs to them of targeting our businesses. This bill delivers on measures promised by our government in that strategy. It takes necessary steps to ensure that Australians and Australian businesses can enjoy the full benefit of the internet, while keeping us safe. There's an urgent need for this bill. The previous government did little to address these threats. When I introduced the private member's bill on ransomware from opposition, the Australian Cyber Security Centre had identified ransomware as the greatest cyberthreat facing Australian business, but the current Leader of the Opposition—the previous home affairs minister and defence minister—has never even used the word 'ransomware' in parliament. Last year, ransomware was still the most destructive cybercrime threat to Australians, causing up to $3 billion in damages to the Australian economy, and ransomware attacks are only becoming more prevalent in our world. This bill will lay the foundation for a co-ordinated strategy to fight ransomware. It will introduce a mandatory reporting obligation for entities that are affected by a cyber incident, receive a ransomware demand and elect to make a payment or give benefits in response to that demand. This is essential for us to be able to develop a fuller picture of ransomware attacks in Australia and the scale of the threat, enabling a more coordinated government response. Even prior to this bill, the Albanese Labor government was already taking steps to tackle ransomware. Australia has led the International Counter Ransomware Task Force since January 2023, driving international cooperation on countering ransomware, including through information and intelligence sharing, and facilitating collaboration with law enforcement. We provided an additional $75 million to the AFP to boost the Hack the Hackers program. This is an investment that will equip the police, who are responsible for fighting cybercrime, with the skills and capabilities needed to disrupt these actors and protect the community. The Australian Federal Police and the Australian Signals Directorate established Operation Aquila in November 2022 to investigate, target and disrupt cybercriminal syndicates. Ransomware threat groups were a priority, and under Operation Aquila the AFP and ASD, with other agencies and international partners, were able to link Mr Aleksandr Ermakov to the breach of the Medibank Private network. Following very substantive efforts across these agencies, in an Australian first, we used Australia's cybersanctions powers on Mr Ermakov for his role in the cyberattack earlier this year. Our cybersanctions framework was established to deter and frustrate cybercriminals, to impose costs on them for their activities. It enables us to sanction a person or entity in relation to a significant cyberincident with a targeted financial sanction and/or travel ban. This disrupts their ability to conduct their business by limiting their access to the financial system, including crypto exchanges, and their ability to travel overseas. It also reveals their identity and their tradecraft, exposing cybercriminals who trade in anonymity, and makes it more difficult for them to conduct their activities. Frankly, being sanctioned is bad for business. Cybersanctions are now a key tool for us to consider when responding to significant cyberincidents. I am pleased that since sanctioning Aleksandr Ermakov we have also sanctioned a further four Russian cybercriminals and imposed cybersanctions on three people for their involvement in the Evil Corp cybercrime group: Maksim Viktorovich Yakubets, Igor Olegovich Turashev and Aleksandr Viktorovich Ryzhenkov. They had senior roles in Evil Corp. I called for Mr Yakubets to be sanctioned during debate in this place during the introduction of the Magnitsky legislation in 2021. I said at that time: … Maksim Yakubets, the leader of the Evil Corp ransomware group in Russia, has been sanctioned by the US government. He drives a fluoro camouflaged Lamborghini with the licence plate 'Thief'. That kind of impunity needs to end. So it was particularly satisfying to see the Australian government sanction him last month. We have also sanctioned Dmitry Khoroshev for his senior leadership role in the LockBit ransomware group. We have taken clear steps to deter cybercriminals from targeting Australians. The Australian Cyber Security Centre also provides ransomware guidance to help Australians and businesses protect themselves and respond to ransomware attacks. They are available to provide assistance 24/7. One key piece of advice from the ACSC, and something that I have said here in this place before, is that you should never pay a ransom, ever. Paying a ransom does not guarantee that you will regain access to your information or prevent further disruption. It doesn't guarantee that your data won't be sold or leaked. But it does provide criminal organisations with further resources and incentivises further cybercrime, putting even more Australians at risk. This is why we need a coordinated approach to tackling ransomware. We need a whole-of-nation effort to improve the government's threat picture to inform additional protections, current incident response procedures and future policy. That is what this bill does. It will not completely solving the ransomware issue. There are no silver bullets here. But it is a critical step. We understand that cybersecurity incidents can be sensitive issues. Targets of cyberattacks may be reluctant to report them. But we need to understand the cyberthreat landscape so the government can more effectively assist organisations with their incident responses as well as providing them with the information they need to protect themselves before these incidents occur. The reporting of cybersecurity incidents by members of the public and Australian businesses is crucial in this respect. That is why this bill will establish a limited use obligation that will restrict how information provided to us during a cybersecurity incident will be used to give Australians and Australian businesses confidence that the information they provide will be used appropriately. We are committing to protect the information that these businesses and Australians share with government by using and sharing it only with the government agencies and regulators where necessary and only for the purpose of assisting the incident responses. This is because the Albanese Labor government wants to work with you to protect you. This bill will also establish the power to mandate security standards for smart devices that are internet or network connected. These devices, like smart TVs, smart watches, baby monitors and home assistants, have become integral parts of our everyday lives, and our usage of and reliance on them continues to grow. Indeed, there are estimates that there will be more than 21 billion IoT devices connected to the internet globally by 2030. We want Australians to be confident in the safety of the digital products they buy, but at the moment there aren't any mandated cybersafety standards applied to IoT products. We saw the destructive capability of these IoT products during the Mirai botnet incident some years ago. So it is essential that the government makes sure that they are safe for Australians. Australian households and businesses are bearing the financial costs and negative societal effects of persistent and preventable cybersecurity incidents. We want to build trust in digital products so we can live in a country where safe digital products are the norm, and that's what this bill will help to build. The establishment of a cyber incident review board to conduct postincident reviews of significant cybersecurity incidents will help ensure Australia is well placed to better prevent, detect and respond to incidents in the future, and that mechanism will assess what happened in cybersecurity incidents of national importance. It will improve public understanding about what occurred and, by doing so, it should encourage the rest of the community to learn from the incident and uplift all of our cybercapabilities together, proving our national cyber-resilience. Now, building cyber-resilience is a shared global challenge, and Australia's security and prosperity are linked to our regions, so our efforts do not end at our national borders. Our flagship Cyber and Critical Technology Cooperation Program works across the Indo-Pacific to help countries maximise the opportunities and mitigate the risks related to cyberspace and critical technologies to enhance the resilience of the region. Last year I announced the establishment of the Pacific Cyber Rapid Assistance for Pacific Incidents and Disasters, the RAPID teams, to help respond to cybercrises in the Pacific when Pacific governments request the assistance of the Australian government. It's been a resounding success and warmly welcomed in the region. In many respects Australia is already a leader in cybersecurity, but this bill will ensure that Australia has a world-leading, robust cybersecurity regime going forward. The time to act is now, and I commend this bill to the House.