David Gillespie's recent appearances (OpenAustralia.org)
type: channel
language: en-gb
creator: OpenAustralia.org, mprss.php script
date: 2025-09-07T23:05:14+00:00
items: Regional Australia | Matters of Public Importance | House debates
items: Nuclear Energy Select Committee; Report | Committees | House debates
items: Petition: Renewable Energy | Statements by Members | House debates
items: Nuclear Energy | Statements by Members | House debates
items: Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
items: Lyne Electorate: Australia Day Awards, Lyne Electorate: Community Events | Constituency Statements | House debates
items: g34.1
items: Valedictory | Parliamentary Representation | House debates
items: Petition: Nuclear Energy | Statements by Members | House debates
items: Rural and Regional Health Services | Private Members' Business | House debates
items: Aged Care Bill 2024; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
items: Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2024; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
items: Nuclear Waste Management | Adjournment | House debates
items: Lyne Electorate: Community Events | Constituency Statements | House debates
items: Cost of Living | Matters of Public Importance | House debates
items: Tibet | Private Members' Business | House debates
items: Gralton, Mr Cliff, Cordery, Ms Dorothy | Statements by Members | House debates
items: Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water Committee; Report | Committees | House debates

Regional Australia | Matters of Public Importance | House debates
type: item
description: As these sun sets on this sad 47th Parliament, what have we got to show for three years of parliament? We have more debt, deficits as far as the eye can see and over $1 trillion in debt. Regional...
encoded: As these sun sets on this sad 47th Parliament, what have we got to show for three years of parliament? We have more debt, deficits as far as the eye can see and over $1 trillion in debt. Regional Australia is also a lot worse off. There has been this passive-aggressive attack on agriculture, food bowls, food and fibre production, with cuddly sounding names like 'restoring our rivers', which is code for taking 750 gigalitres out of the Murray-Darling Basin. We have got this idea that nature repair involves putting covenants on good productive land and letting it turn back to native bush, putting covenants on land for lazy farmers, usually based in capital cities, who don't want to farm but think they are going to fix nature by letting productive land go back to bush. We have got the threat of methane pledges, which will reduce so-called bovine methane. We've seen what has happened with those sorts of policies in Ireland, where they suggested a 30 per cent cull of their dairy herd—same in Holland. Also, we have had passive obstruction to our energy system, and they have abandoned a lot of regional and rural road programs, putting in place amorphous road and bridge programs which, funnily enough, favour metropolitan Australia. We've had passive aggressive behaviour towards gas and oil exploration, yet the nation runs on diesel. When has there been an oilfield struck in this country? There hasn't been one in decades. We have survived off the Bass Strait, and we are now dependent on imported oil and gas. Long gone are genuine changes to Medicare. This government is making out that it's saving everyone by having these Medicare urgent care clinics everywhere. Well, in regional Australia, we're not seeing them. They're all in metro Australia. There are no new buildings, no new doctors, no new nurses; there's just a block grant and new Medicare stickers over existing clinics. I've looked through the website. They're all based in existing clinics. All these big super clinics …
date: 2025-03-27T16:08:00+00:00

Nuclear Energy Select Committee; Report | Committees | House debates
type: item
description: I rise to say a few words about some of the comments made about this report. I gather there was a lot of work done, but I don't agree with all the conclusions. I just want to repeat a few reality...
encoded: I rise to say a few words about some of the comments made about this report. I gather there was a lot of work done, but I don't agree with all the conclusions. I just want to repeat a few reality checks. A lot of people are concerned about the cost, the delay in building them overseas, that it's not the answer, that it's a stalking horse to keep coal and gas in the system, that it uses way too much water and that renewable energy is very affordable and cheap. I just want to place some corrections on that. First of all, the states of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland are already relying on coal and gas, and they are subsidising the power stations to stay in. It's not a secret plan of the coalition; it's just a reality that 60 per cent of the energy in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales—roughly; if you follow the AEMO live generation, it's still 60 to 65 per cent—comes from coal. You can install all the gigawatts that the former member for Bennelong talked about, but the fact of the matter is they are all low capacity, randomly generating and often generate nothing or next to nothing. Capacity factor is how often an installed capacity actually generates. Everyone thinks Australia is so sunny and we'll have heaps of solar power. There is light for half the day, so it's at least 50 per cent. But actually, averaged over a year, it's 24 per cent. When it's light in the early morning, it's not generating, although it's light. In the dusk it's not, because the sun is not going straight onto the solar panels. When it's cloudy, it stops. When it's raining, it stops. When you have wet weeks and months, it stops. So you can install as much as you like and, because Australia is part of a world that has a north-south axis for the biggest part of the national electricity market and because of our native weather patterns, all these renewable generators are highly correlated. That means they all generate at the same time and they generally, over vast distances, stop at …
date: 2025-03-26T17:45:00+00:00

Petition: Renewable Energy | Statements by Members | House debates
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description: Twelve thousand, one hundred and thirty-seven people have signed this petition from around Port Stephens in the Lyne electorate and the Paterson electorate opposing the proposed wind farm...
encoded: Twelve thousand, one hundred and thirty-seven people have signed this petition from around Port Stephens in the Lyne electorate and the Paterson electorate opposing the proposed wind farm development off Newcastle and Port Stephens. That's 12,137 people. As has been found out around the world, offshore wind farms are highly unpredictable and hard to maintain. They can be a barrier to navigation on the surface and confuse radar and submarine sonar. It's adjacent to one of the busiest ports in the country, the Port of Newcastle, as well as Port Stephens. There's a huge marine industry based around food security, with food supply coming from that area, as well as bluewater economy. It is also an incredibly expensive way to provide baseload energy. It requires gas backup, pumped hydro backup, batteries, coal plants and gas plants—you name it. If you're going to rely on a bit of wind, that's the consequence. You just get more build and more intensity. This offshore wind farm is proposed as the source of energy for Tomago, but it would be better to have a highly efficient baseload energy system. I commend this petition, which will go to the Petitions Committee. I'd like to thank all those people that signed the petition, because it's a major issue for the whole state. (Time expired)
date: 2025-02-13T13:33:00+00:00

Petition: Renewable Energy | Statements by Members | House debates
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description: No, not yet, but we're running out of time to do that. I seek leave to table it.
encoded: No, not yet, but we're running out of time to do that. I seek leave to table it.
date: 2025-02-13T13:33:00+00:00

Petition: Renewable Energy | Statements by Members | House debates
type: item
description: I seek leave to table a petition from the members of the Lyne electorate.
encoded: I seek leave to table a petition from the members of the Lyne electorate.
date: 2025-02-13T13:33:00+00:00

Nuclear Energy | Statements by Members | House debates
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description: I would like to give a great shout-out and a thank you to Grace Stanke, a US-trained nuclear engineer and nuclear fuel specialist who took leave from her job as a nuclear engineer in America to...
encoded: I would like to give a great shout-out and a thank you to Grace Stanke, a US-trained nuclear engineer and nuclear fuel specialist who took leave from her job as a nuclear engineer in America to go on a tour of Perth, Collie, Port Augusta, Adelaide, Sydney to tour a waste facility, Melbourne, Brisbane, Parliament House, Lithgow and Gippsland. She spoke with Australian nuclear specialists in nuclear law and nuclear engineering—Lenka Kolla; Adi Patterson; Robert Barr; Helen Cook; Kirsty Braybon; Jasmin Diab; and Will Shackel, the prolific teenager who set up Nuclear for Australia. People are hungry for cheap, reliable and clean power, and nuclear delivers that. All those stereotypes about people being afraid of nuclear—once it's explained to them, they are very keen to know more and look forward to Australia embracing it. I'd like to thank Grace so much for taking time out. Americans don't get many holidays, and it probably means she used up all her annual leave to come and educate us about the massive expansion, the safety and the reliability of nuclear power.
date: 2025-02-10T16:15:00+00:00

Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
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description: This Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill is a really important bill because it's addressing a fatal and disappointing development in Australian society. That is the rise of antisemitism,...
encoded: This Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill is a really important bill because it's addressing a fatal and disappointing development in Australian society. That is the rise of antisemitism, which has grown exponentially since the Hamas terrorist invasion of Israel and the kidnapping and killing of many innocent people. That was a day of murder, torture, kidnapping, brutal sexual violence and the massacring of children and innocents. It was cruel, it was barbaric and it was unbelievable. Yet in Australia we saw, on the steps of the Opera House no less, in the middle of Australia at one of Australia's iconic landmarks, ranting and chanting by supporters of Hamas that went unpunished. The law was not enforced by the New South Wales police. I could not believe it at the time. It is an offence to incite people to violence, let alone to give aid to declared terrorist organisations. Then, this acceptance or turning of a blind eye— A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 17:02 to 17:21 As I was saying, there was a failure to enforce the law in failing to prosecute and in attempting to arrest people who were inciting violence based on the criteria of religious belief. Blatant antisemitism has been uncovered. I'm a big believer in free speech and the right to protest but it's not legal to incite people to violence or to spray-paint businesses' cars and torch them, attack places of religious worship, firebomb children's daycare centres or vandalise people's houses. That is not legitimate political expression; that is illegality. The current government have been asleep at the wheel. They have failed to prosecute or—not necessarily the act of arresting; that would be up to state police. But they have failed to condemn. They have failed to condemn universities tolerating the occupy movements plastering universities with antisemitic graffiti, allowing discrimination and the ostracising of both academics and students in universities…
date: 2025-02-05T17:00:00+00:00

Lyne Electorate: Australia Day Awards, Lyne Electorate: Community Events | Constituency Statements | House debates
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description: I acknowledge and pass on my best wishes to the multiple Australia Day award winners of the Medal of the Order of Australia. My first congratulations goes to Trish Nicholls, a Forster local, for...
encoded: I acknowledge and pass on my best wishes to the multiple Australia Day award winners of the Medal of the Order of Australia. My first congratulations goes to Trish Nicholls, a Forster local, for services to basketball as an accomplished statistician, including the statistics involved in the Sydney Olympics and other many world events, and to Laurieton resident Adele Whelan, with over 50 years experience in services to Little Athletics through administrative roles. I'd like to recognise Great Lakes local Julie Brady for her service to the community through social welfare organisations, particularly establishing a women's shelter and providing a safe haven for women and children escaping domestic violence. A posthumous award went to the late Roger Lynch, who passed away in 2021, for his services to the Great Lakes region, not only as an accountant and businessmen but also in many community sports. It was a well-deserved award, and the award was accepted by his wife, Jan. I also recognise Ken Cameron of Marlee for his contribution of services to the Rural Fire Service and the Marlee community over many years. The Emergency Services Medal was awarded to Julie Wilcox of Forster. In the Military Awards, a Conspicuous Service Cross has been awarded to Wing Commander Benjamin Sawley of Luskintyre for his outstanding service as commanding officer of the No. 1 Flying Training School of the Royal Australian Air Force. I'd also like to congratulate Wauchope Bowling Club President Rick Simpson and all the members for their $1,000 donation supporting the Wauchope District Memorial Hospital, and the Kendall Tennis Club, who supplied another six ball kids for the prestigious United Cup, an international teams tournament held from 27 December until 5 January in Sydney and Perth. Trevor Coles, 76 years young, is the most senior competitive cricket player in the Camden Haven, and he played for the New South Wales cricket over-70s division second side when they won national championshi…
date: 2025-02-05T09:54:00+00:00

g34.1
type: item
title: Future Made in Australia (Guarantee of Origin) Bill 2024, Future Made in Australia (Guarantee of Origin Charges) Bill 2024, Future Made in Australia (Guarantee of Origin Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2024; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
description: This is a very interesting bill, to say the least. I hate to disappoint listeners and members in this chamber, but I can't support it, because of the reasons I'll outline. The Future Made in...
encoded: This is a very interesting bill, to say the least. I hate to disappoint listeners and members in this chamber, but I can't support it, because of the reasons I'll outline. The Future Made in Australia (Guarantee of Origin) Bill 2024 and associated bills are really quite extensive, but, on reading an analysis guided by the investigative powers of the Parliamentary Library, it has confirmed my worst fears. This is another renewable subsidy boondoggle. We all know that the current renewable energy subsidy scheme will come to an end at the end of 2030. The hope then was that everyone would just be paid for electricity, not paid for generating large-scale renewable energy target-induced large-scale generation certificates, small-scale renewable energy schemes developing small-scale technology certificates, and energy efficiency certificates and energy savings certificates—at least in New South Wales, Victoria and the national electricity market. There is a cost to all these certificates that we have in our system now. The value of these gets paid for by retail and wholesale customers. That's included in the price that people pay for their electricity. They sound really innocuous—large-scale generation certificates, small-scale technology certificates, energy efficiency and energy savings. They're all innocuous, but basically it's about $4 billion every year just to meet the 2024 targets. The LGCs from large-scale wind and solar are $1.6 billion. There are 33 million of these certificates floating around already. Similarly, the cost to retail customers of small-scale technology certificates to meet the 2024 target is $1.516 billion. The Victorian scheme is $788 million and the New South Wales Energy Savings Scheme is $108 million. These LG and ST certificates will come to an end at the end of 2030, but this new Guarantee of Origin scheme is all about carbon emissions accounting and more certificate generation. The whole system is going to create registered holders of eith…
date: 2024-11-27T11:55:00+00:00

Valedictory | Parliamentary Representation | House debates
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description: (): It has been truly an honour and a privilege for me to serve the people of Lyne in this House in the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia. First and foremost, I would like to thank...
encoded: (): It has been truly an honour and a privilege for me to serve the people of Lyne in this House in the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia. First and foremost, I would like to thank the people of Lyne who have continued to send me here since 2013. For nearly 12 years I have given my best, but many of you who know me better than some of the others who know me okay realise that I haven't been my best during this past term. I have had my annus horribilis and I was not able to perform at my peak. Starting at the top, I'll give you a quick run through: vaccine side-effects followed by a serious bike accident—fractured ribs, sternum, vertebra, amnesia for a day or two, pneumonia then pleurisy, kidney damage—and then the ignominy of injuring myself playing cricket. I now have the experience of driving a four-wheel buggy. It's a bittersweet moment for me to be leaving now as I have really enjoyed my time as an MP in this House, and I will enjoy it to the day this parliament rises. But serving here in parliament as a politician in a big country electorate comes at a cost to other really important parts of one's life, particularly as this is my second career. I had a full-on 33- year career doing even longer hours as a GP, followed by these five campaigns. I have a whole lot of thank yous to people who helped me get here. Firstly, a massive thank you to my beautiful wife, Charlotte, hiding in the back there, my greatest friend and confidante through this, which is our latest journey but not our last. In fact, it's been a long journey, since 1988. Thirty-four years go in a flash like that. Charlotte has been a constant support throughout all my careers, doing all the hard yards in my junior medical years, coping with me being away on antisocial long hospital shifts by day and night and weekends, then coming home to sit in a room and study and then study again and study a bit more and keep doing exams until I passed. I did not get it the first go and that was the toughest les…
date: 2024-11-25T16:44:00+00:00

Petition: Nuclear Energy | Statements by Members | House debates
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description: I would like to present a petition to the House that has been considered by the Petitions Committee and found to be in order: The petition read as follows— This petition of certain...
encoded: I would like to present a petition to the House that has been considered by the Petitions Committee and found to be in order: The petition read as follows— This petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House that the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998 currently prohibit the development of enrichment, fuel fabrication, and nuclear power plants in Australia. Nuclear power is a zero-emissions, baseload energy that must be part of Australia's energy mix to ensure Australians receive affordable and reliable electricity. We therefore ask the House to remove all federal legislative barriers to the development of nuclear power in Australia. from 311 citizens (Petition No. PN0627) Petition received. Over 300 people within my electorate have signed a petition to remove the moratorium on nuclear power in Australia. This petition is a clear indication of the sentiments within Australia. Not everyone has bought the government's renewables-only energy policy. Most Australians recognise that, in order to have affordable, safe and reliable energy, we must have a constant base-load source of power that can replace outgoing traditional fossil fuel plants, and that is nuclear. Labor would have you believe that nuclear is some fanciful pipedream, but this petition reveals that Australians don't think that that's the case. They recognise its invaluable role in our future energy mix. It doesn't mean we're opposed to renewables; it's not a binary choice. It simply means that we have to put our eggs in more than one energy future basket. So I call on the government to take heed of the wishes of 335 people in the Lyne electorate and start a conversation on the removal of the current prohibition on enrichment, fuel fabrication, and construction and operation of nuclear plants in Australia. The government's failure to even have a discussion on this matter is an affront…
date: 2024-11-25T13:45:00+00:00

Rural and Regional Health Services | Private Members' Business | House debates
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description: This motion is a really important issue, or it speaks to a really important issue, and that is the health workforce. My many years of experience in the medical profession—in fact, 33 of...
encoded: This motion is a really important issue, or it speaks to a really important issue, and that is the health workforce. My many years of experience in the medical profession—in fact, 33 of them—were preceded by me working in the hospital system as a hospital cleaner, a central sterilising agent, a wardsman and a med student. I saw all sorts of hospitals in my training. I have seen multiple people, 18 beds in a row, down one side and 18 down the other side, with just curtains between and none of this private room rubbish—that was the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital that was built in the 1870s or 1880s and named after Prince Alfred who got shot by somebody when he came out here on a visit the 1860s—through to the Chris O'Brien centre, at the other end of the extreme, or St Vincents in Melbourne or Sydney. The thing that makes the quality good is like with the F1. It's not the car; it's the driver. The health workforce is what makes Australia's health system great. Many places have Nobel prize winners, and Australia has plenty of them in our health workforce, but there's a uniform, high standard across Australia. Whereas with some countries it's all over the shop because they don't have a good health training system. A lot of them just get book knowledge. Anyone can be a doctor. You just go to uni and buy the books, and you get a medical degree. Germans and Italians used to come out here to get training as med students because they heard that we actually got to see patients. But, Houston, we have a problem! Australia doesn't have enough of a health workforce in rural Australia—from pharmacists, physios and OTs through to doctors, nurses and whatever. Because of its roots, the National Party feels this acutely. It's more than what would be felt in Sydney. There's an overall shortage of GPs, as the member mentioned. In the Deans survey, only about 15 to 17 per cent of medical students now want to do general practice. When I graduated—about the same time as your husband, Member…
date: 2024-11-18T18:55:00+00:00

Aged Care Bill 2024; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
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description: The Aged Care Bill 2024 is a very important bill. The aged-care industry is a huge part of Australian life and has been through huge changes over the last 10 to 15 years. We've been through the...
encoded: The Aged Care Bill 2024 is a very important bill. The aged-care industry is a huge part of Australian life and has been through huge changes over the last 10 to 15 years. We've been through the royal commission, and there's not much that's been said in the explanatory memorandum or in speeches in the second reading debate about all the things that we had already done. It's almost like this bill is meant to rewrite history. I want to put on the record that most of the recommendations of the royal commission were enacted already by the last government. There was an extra $18 billion added to the aged-care budget by Senator Richard Colbeck and Minister Greg Hunt, who were the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services and the Minister for Health and Aged Care respectively. We already had an Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission and Commissioner, although, from reading the documents, one would think this is a new position. I just want to put that on the public record. Also, we created funding for thousands more home-care places, which are part of the aged-care spectrum of care. We have many more people who are cared for at home. The plans to merge simple assistance at home with aged-care packages and put them all in one homogeneous system were a policy development of the last government. We're obviously supporting this bill because we support the aged-care industry, but I would like to make some other comments. It's all very well to say we have the new means-tested user-pays entry, but it appears that not everyone is paying more—just self-funded retirees, who again are cross-subsidising those who don't pay as much. Fortunately, due to the negotiations by our shadow minister for aged care and health, the terms and conditions are grandfathered for those who are already in or have signed up for an aged-care situation, so they won't be giving an extra amount of refundable accommodation deposit and they won't be charged more than what they signed up for, There …
date: 2024-10-09T14:41:00+00:00

Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2024; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
type: item
description: The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2024 expands the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 and aims to create a hostile regulatory...
encoded: The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2024 expands the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 and aims to create a hostile regulatory environment for money laundering and terrorism financing, which are very eminent ideals. I would just like to remind members of this House that the coalition is concerned about some of the unintended consequences of this rushed-in bill. The government's own modelling predicts that the regulatory cost to industry and to the economy will be $13.9 billion over 10 years. In rural Australia, people like accountants, car dealers, real estate owners and people involved in advising trusts and companies are really concerned that they will be left holding these costs, which will make small business in those particular fields of professional work unviable, which will just put more work back into big corporate organisations. We have a long history of supporting anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing. The actual act that is being amended and deleted by this bill was created by the Howard government. After the September 11 terrorism attacks, we really got involved with stamping out terrorism financing and the act has been very successful thus far. I'm concerned that we've got 165 pages for people to digest. There are lots of businesses that, as I said, this bill classifies as high-risk businesses, because they have a perception that all this money laundering is going through small legal firms and real estate deals in country Australia or regional Australia. They think every crook is buying a Lamborghini and then cashing it out, or bringing in money from overseas, buying Australian property and then rinsing it out on the other side. But these costs are going to be huge for people that deal in these industries. They called for the regulation of designated non-financial businesses and professions, or the so-called 'tranche 2' entities, which may be big players in money laundering…
date: 2024-10-09T12:19:00+00:00

Nuclear Waste Management | Adjournment | House debates
type: item
description: I rise to speak about the issue of nuclear waste. First of all, it is being reported by people who live in ignorance that it is a big, insoluble problem that the whole nuclear industry has never...
encoded: I rise to speak about the issue of nuclear waste. First of all, it is being reported by people who live in ignorance that it is a big, insoluble problem that the whole nuclear industry has never sorted out. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is not nuclear waste unless it's wasted. It's actually very valuable, energy dense, one-use-only fuel, with at least 98 per cent of this potential energy remaining in the first cycle of spent nuclear fuel that comes out of an electricity-producing pressurised or boiling water reactor. There are well-established international protocols, which were worked out in the 1960s, and there is huge, deep monitoring of all nuclear waste—in the Western world, at least—by International Atomic Energy Agency protocols and procedures. The waste from Australia's nuclear reactor—and we've had three—is not wasted. It's taken by France and put through their recycling plant. They filter out the reusable uranium and put it in with freshly dug up enriched uranium to power reactors. They use it time and time again. The final leftover products of fission are then transported in dry casks, which are well engineered, totally impervious and built to exacting standards to survive car crashes, truck crashes, train crashes, being dropped from height, being incinerated for an hour or more in hundreds of degrees of heat or being immersed in deep water, with all being safe and secure at the end of it. Australia also has incredible capability in managing high-level nuclear waste. We produce a lot of molybdenum, which we manage ourselves, and for all the medical isotopes we use we have developed Synroc, or synthetic rock, which is a permanent storage vehicle for intermediate and high-level waste. A factory, an industrial-scale plant, has been built by ANSTO, yet this government keeps it silent. It is world beating. I have heard professors and nuclear facility managers from around the world marvel at the capability that we've developed, yet our government …
date: 2024-10-09T19:50:00+00:00

Lyne Electorate: Community Events | Constituency Statements | House debates
type: item
description: I rise to bring to the attention of the House a bicentennial festival that was held at Rollands Plains, north-west of Port Macquarie. It was one of the earliest agricultural centres of production...
encoded: I rise to bring to the attention of the House a bicentennial festival that was held at Rollands Plains, north-west of Port Macquarie. It was one of the earliest agricultural centres of production north of the Sydney basin in early colonial times. Two hundred years of families have lived and worked in the area, first in the sugar cane industry, which was started in the Hastings River and rapidly moved up to the Wilson River and to Rollands Plains. There were historical mementos from multiple generations and multiple families. Hundreds of people returned from around the country, as many people have moved to other places in New South Wales, Queensland and overseas. As well, there were many items of historical memorabilia. The committee put on a wonderful celebration. After that I had the opportunity of attending the wonderful Old Bar Beach Festival, which gets stronger and stronger every year. The Old Bar Beach Festival is held on the October long weekend, and I would like to congratulate the committee for all their efforts to get together a variety of displays. It's obviously well known for its kombi festival with its restored kombi vans—VW Kombis, an icon of car design—as well as many other classic cars and small bikes, all assembled. There are literally hundreds of old cars that have been restored amazingly, and the very best of them are on show at the Old Bar Beach Festival. Also there are megamarkets, fireworks and acrobatics. This year, they even had a movie festival on the Friday night, including a recent movie about kombis and an adventure. Herbie, the old beetle, was also present—the exact replica from the 'Love Bug' movies of the 1960s—and we had the latest electric kombi on display. This committee has done an amazing job. It's a not-for-profit community group. They all do it for the benefit of people who are car nuts and for the communities that live on the coast at Old Bar, west of Taree on the banks of the Manning River. Old Bar has got the nearest beach t…
date: 2024-10-08T17:06:00+00:00

Cost of Living | Matters of Public Importance | House debates
type: item
description: Everywhere I look, the cost of living is hurting families in my electorate and around Australia. All the fundamental costs that families and individuals face seem to be going up. The pressure...
encoded: Everywhere I look, the cost of living is hurting families in my electorate and around Australia. All the fundamental costs that families and individuals face seem to be going up. The pressure that families and businesses are under because of what this government has done is unbelievable. They start thinking that subsidising processes that drive the economy will make the fundamentals cheaper. But no amount of subsidy will make the fundamentals cheap if we create shortages. At the source of many things in the economy, the basics are food production, clothing production, manufacturing and energy costs. All of those are going up. You've only got to look at what our inflation figures are. The current inflation rate in Australia of 3.8 per cent is remarkably not budging, and that is because we have a lot of extra government spending subsidising industries like the energy system, which is getting huge subsidies, making our electricity system unreliable and expensive. They're subsidising more and more renewable energy. You've only got to look at the subsidy-go-round. There are certificate values for large-scale generation of $4 billion a year. Along with the small-scale subsidies we've got $19 billion of Rewiring Australia subsidies baked in. We've got subsidies for batteries. We've got subsidies, through interest rates that governments are paying, for green energy bonds. The irony of it is that we are now subsidising, in New South Wales and Victoria, coal plants to not close. Their business cases have been destroyed by the market rules which restrict them operating because of renewable energy targets. But, hey presto, people have got to realise that this mantra we've heard day in, day out that renewables are the cheapest form of energy only refers to the generation cost at the solar panel or at the wind turbine. It doesn't include the levelised full system costs of energy—the extra costs of all the subsidies, the extra costs of all the batteries, the extra costs of all the…
date: 2024-09-12T16:14:00+00:00

Tibet | Private Members' Business | House debates
type: item
description: I rise in support of the motion raised by the member for Fisher and reinforce the words of the member for Macquarie. Since the invasion of Tibet in 1950 and 1951, things haven't changed, and time...
encoded: I rise in support of the motion raised by the member for Fisher and reinforce the words of the member for Macquarie. Since the invasion of Tibet in 1950 and 1951, things haven't changed, and time doesn't right the essential wrong. The Communist Party of China continues to suppress religion, tradition, Tibetan and Buddhist religious practice and language, and the Dalai Lama has been in exile since 1959 and remains in exile with a government in exile. The CCP continues to ban images of the Dalai Lama and suppresses religious practice. It has banned political expression and is suppressing cultural identity. The United Nations has identified at least one million children in forced assimilation schools, separated forcibly from their parents on a regular basis of increasing duration as they go from early years, 3 and 4, up to their teenage years and are indoctrinated in Chinese culture to try to wash away their Tibetan and Buddhist heritage. Why is China so afraid of Tibet? Why are they suppressing this? Is it the water that they hope to dam and get into China? Is it the minerals? Is it the practice of forced and illegal organ harvesting and trading? Forced assimilation, summary arrest, extrajudicial killings and torture of prisoners, as well as shooting any Tibetans that try to escape across the border, have all been documented. This really does reflect badly on China. Australia has made recommendations to have the Chinese government repeal all the restrictive legislation that suppresses the human rights and encourages more abuse. Suppressing a beautiful culture and a religion makes China look weak. If China were clever, they would remove all these prohibitions and let cultural diversity exist in their nation. There are many other cultures that they are suppressing, Australia is stronger for our heritage of many refugees and willing settlers who have come from all corners of the globe to flourish. Don't be afraid, China. You're a big nation now. You need to stop all thes…
date: 2024-09-09T19:30:00+00:00

Gralton, Mr Cliff, Cordery, Ms Dorothy | Statements by Members | House debates
type: item
description: I'd like to congratulate Tuncurry local Cliff Gralton, who has secured a place in the 2024 Australian Irukandjis para surfing team. Last week Cliff won the prone 2 class at the Australian para...
encoded: I'd like to congratulate Tuncurry local Cliff Gralton, who has secured a place in the 2024 Australian Irukandjis para surfing team. Last week Cliff won the prone 2 class at the Australian para surfing titles held at North Haven. It was the highest single wave score in the whole division, and it has allowed him to now enter the world championships. Cliff will travel with his small support team to California's famous Huntington Beach to represent his country in these world championships. Cliff and his wife, Jess, currently have a GoFundMe page to help fund Cliff and his team's journey to the US. So get out there, people, and support Cliff. What a massive achievement. Congratulations. I would also like to wish Tuncurry resident Dorothy Cordery a very happy 96th birthday. Dorothy made the move from Sydney to begin her working life. She met her husband, John, when she started working. They moved to the Great Lakes about 40 years ago and have run many hospitality businesses. She is now a much-loved great-grandmother. I hope she has a wonderful birthday. Ninety-six is a great achievement. Keep on going strong. Hopefully, we'll be standing here and wishing you a happy 100th birthday in a few years time.
date: 2024-08-22T13:33:00+00:00

Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water Committee; Report | Committees | House debates
type: item
description: Plastic pollution in Australia's oceans and waterways was the issue of our very extensive inquiry. The report is titled Drowning in waste for a very good reason—because at the moment we...
encoded: Plastic pollution in Australia's oceans and waterways was the issue of our very extensive inquiry. The report is titled Drowning in waste for a very good reason—because at the moment we have a problem with waste in Australia. We have put a ban in place, but we have a disrupted and incomplete circular economy for plastic waste in this country, and waste is building up everywhere. But the good news is that we've made some recommendations which will, hopefully, fix a lot of those problems. First of all, I thank every one of the hundreds of submitters for the very extensive submissions that were presented to the committee as we went around Australia. There are an enormous amount of community organisations and philanthropic organisations and some standout councils and state and local government organisations that are on the job. But there's much more to do. I also thank the secretariat of the committee, who managed huge volumes of information and submissions and put them into a coherent set of data. There was so much information, so to distil it all down was quite an amazing bit of work. I thank all the other committee members, and our chair, the member for Makin, who steered us through a very useful inquiry. What I'd like to do is not give a holistic, blow-by-blow description of this excellent report but talk about the things that I think are the most important and will lead to the most dramatic improvement in preventing plastic waste polluting our oceans and waterways. There is the microplastic issue, which is the small amounts of plastics that are ubiquitous in metropolitan life getting into our food chain, through fish and other marine animals, and there is the macro, or large, plastic waste, which is suffocating sea animals like whales, dolphins, turtles et cetera. Some of the microplastics and larger plastics are getting into seafood. I should acknowledge all the good things that have happened because of the National Plastics Plan. I would just like to give a shout…
date: 2024-08-21T16:07:00+00:00