Tim Wilson's recent appearances (OpenAustralia.org)
type: channel
language: en-gb
creator: OpenAustralia.org, mprss.php script
date: 2026-02-10T22:05:32+00:00
items: Jonceski, Mr Ljupco (Luch) | Condolences | House debates
items: Goldstein Electorate: Awards and Honours | Statements by Members | House debates
items: g16.1
items: Small Business | Private Members' Business | House debates
items: Iran: Human Rights | Private Members' Business | House debates
items: Jones, Ms Bianca Adrienne, Morton-Bowles, Ms Holly Jayne | Adjournment | House debates
items: Small Business | Motions | House debates
items: Small Business | Questions without Notice | House debates
items: g29.8
items: g29.6
items: g29.3
items: Goldstein Electorate: Infrastructure | Constituency Statements | House debates
items: Economy | Matters of Public Importance | House debates
items: Economy | Statements | House debates
items: g28.1
items: Translating and Interpreting Services Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
items: Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
items: Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates

Jonceski, Mr Ljupco (Luch) | Condolences | House debates
type: item
description: I remember at the end of last year, as I left the building at the end of 2025, on the way out I said goodbye to Luch. Like everybody else in this chamber, when we said goodbye at the end of last...
encoded: I remember at the end of last year, as I left the building at the end of 2025, on the way out I said goodbye to Luch. Like everybody else in this chamber, when we said goodbye at the end of last year, I thought we were saying goodbye for a couple of months. I never thought that my passing reference and good wishes for the holiday season and Christmas would be the last time that I would see him. I remember, as the previous speaker did, when I was first elected. It was in 2016. It was one of those experiences. You're brought into the House of Representatives. You get shown by the Speaker the parading of the chamber. The enormity of the flowing eucalypt walls is overpowering. When I was talking to people, this fellow started chatting away to me and I asked politely, 'What's your job?' And he introduced himself: 'I'm Luch. I'm the guy who kind of runs the show.' From that moment on, he was not just charming, endearing and warm throughout my entire parliamentary service—iteration 1 and iteration 2—but a permanent fixture of this place. This institution will endure well beyond any of us. We are a temporary beings that come and go. We have the great privilege of representing electorates. The building itself, since 1988, has been a symbol of and a testament to our democracy. It's a symbol of what makes this country great. But sitting beneath the surface of the physical structure are the people who work in this building every day, who bring it to life. Luch was one of those people who bridged the divide between the perpetual and the temporary in this building, and who celebrated our great democracy. He was as much a part of the institution, and his commitment to the democracy that we all love and participate in was not just a temporary thing: it was enduring. To pass away at only 59 years of age really is one of the most devastating things, I'm sure, for him and his family because he gave his life over to service of our great Commonwealth and its democracy. He represented th…
date: 2026-02-10T17:27:00+00:00

Goldstein Electorate: Awards and Honours | Statements by Members | House debates
type: item
description: The Goldstein medal acknowledges the incredible efforts of so many young residents in the Goldstein community who embody the values of their school, stand up and take responsibility and most...
encoded: The Goldstein medal acknowledges the incredible efforts of so many young residents in the Goldstein community who embody the values of their school, stand up and take responsibility and most importantly show leadership at a young age. We established the medal in 2016 to acknowledge young Australians in our community who stand up and take responsibility for themselves and others, but more importantly it's a pathway to recognise them and encourage them to keep going. Of course the Goldstein medal is named after the electorate's namesake, Vida Goldstein, who was a suffragist who stood up for the right of women to vote, to buy property and to enter marriages in the same terms as men. Last year we had an incredible array of local students who got the Goldstein medal: Abby Larsen of Beaumaris North Primary School; Zoe Bond of Beaumaris Primary School; Ruth Sharma of Bentleigh West Primary School; Allie Howard from Black Rock Primary School; Rose Muirhead of Brighton Beach Primary School; Anastasia Tsikaris of Caulfield Primary School; Gabriella Perdikis from Caulfield South Primary School; Julian Tyler of Caulfield South Primary School; Frank Bokser of Gardenvale Primary School; Isla Fox of Hampton Primary School; Joanna Szeto of McKinnon Primary School; Chloe Lightfoot of Moorabbin Primary School; Lachlan Warfe at Ormond Primary School; Milla Bade of Sacred Heart Parish School; Scarlett Williams of Sandringham East Primary School; Darcy Tolmer of Sandringham Primary School; Jack Askew of Southmoor Primary School; Leona Cunningham of St Catherine's Moorabbin; Skye Pullman of St James Catholic Primary School; Freya Bradley of St Leonard's College, primary; James Lockhart of Stella Maris Catholic Primary School; Zoe Eccles of Tucker Road Bentleigh Primary School; Lily Gorvett-Page of Beaumaris Secondary College; Isabella Kyrebel of Brighton Secondary College; Mary Lazar of Firbank Grammar School, secondary; Maleesha Dharmadasa of McKinnon Secondary College; Sarina Azad of O…
date: 2026-02-10T16:36:00+00:00

g16.1
type: item
title: National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People Bill 2026, National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People (Transitional Provisions) Bill 2026; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
description: There is no ambiguity about the support that I would hope comes from all members of this chamber on the importance of making sure the next generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander...
encoded: There is no ambiguity about the support that I would hope comes from all members of this chamber on the importance of making sure the next generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children has the same economic opportunities and advancement that every other Australian child has. We want them to go on and get a good education, to grow up in a healthy and safe environment and, more importantly, to then mature in a way that enables them to live out the best of their lives. There are many institutions that seek to do exactly that, from the many social support organisations in cities and rural and regional areas throughout schooling—I know this has been a big focus of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy for a long time. In fact, without wanting to verbal him, my good friend Mick Gooda says that if we do something to make sure we address the challenges of the next generation—even if it means recognising the limitations of what we can do today for those alive—we will materially improve the future for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people hereafter. I agree; he is a good friend of mine. The Tudor family established the Melbourne Indigenous Transition School to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children have a pathway to live the best of the opportunities of our country. That is central, but one of the things that's clear is that the best way to deliver change, the best way to advance the interests of the next Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander generation, is to work on the ground and in the community. The thing that disappoints me about these bills, the National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People Bill 2026, and the National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People (Transitional Provisions) Bill 2026, is that—as with so many of the things this government seeks to do—they create another bureaucracy. Rather than looking at empowerment in the commu…
date: 2026-02-10T13:25:00+00:00

Small Business | Private Members' Business | House debates
type: item
description: I move: That this House: (1) condemns the Government for presiding over the insolvency of 41,749 small businesses since being elected;...
encoded: I move: That this House: (1) condemns the Government for presiding over the insolvency of 41,749 small businesses since being elected; (2) notes that: (a) 2025 was the worst calendar year for business insolvencies since records began in 1999, with more than 14,649 businesses collapsing; and (b) this Prime Minister now has the worst record of any Prime Minister for business insolvencies with an average of 2,938 businesses going under each quarter; (3) further condemns the Government for its failure to recognise the scale of the small business crisis and its lack of urgency in responding to record insolvencies; (4) acknowledges that behind every insolvency statistic is a family, an employee and a local community bearing the cost of the Government's policy failures; and (5) calls on the Minister for Small Business to urgently review the Government's policy settings that are focused on increasing costs, complexity and uncertainty for small and family businesses. Small business, family business, sole traders and the self-employed are the backbone of the Australian economy. They're more than just that, though. They are the people who stand up and back themselves to be able to get ahead to support themselves and their families. They are the employers of the nation. They are the people who take risks and who should enjoy the reward and responsibility that comes with those risks. But we know very well that things are not alright in the land of small business. Under the Albanese government, we have seen the highest number of small business insolvencies on record. We have seen 41,000 small businesses go insolvent under the Albanese government. Last year, we had the highest number of small business insolvencies in Australia's history on record. Never have more small businesses collapsed than under this government, and it's pretty clear the reason why. We have a cost of small business crisis in this country. We've had recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics which cl…
date: 2026-02-09T12:44:00+00:00

Iran: Human Rights | Private Members' Business | House debates
type: item
description: I'm happy to support the spirit of this motion. It isn't just a motion about our solidarity with the people of Iran; it's also about our solidarity with all people everywhere who want to live in...
encoded: I'm happy to support the spirit of this motion. It isn't just a motion about our solidarity with the people of Iran; it's also about our solidarity with all people everywhere who want to live in freedom and safety, avoiding the tyranny of extremism, Islamic extremism, and oppression as occurs under the IRGC in Iran. You just need to look at some pretty brutal realities. We currently have tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people on the streets of Iran standing up for a basic thing, which is their right to be able to determine their own future, to be able to make a choice about how they are going to live out their lives free from the oppression of the government that wants to impose a radical form of religious theocracy to enforce people to conform. We know what happens to women; we know what happens to homosexuals; we know what happens to other minority groups. And it's not just those groups as the IRGC seek to export their terrorism around the world. We've seen, in the case of Australia, where they have financed directly and engaged in state-sponsored terrorism against synagogues in Melbourne. We also know they have a direct connection with the illegal tobacco trade, which they used to finance attacks on our soil. Tragically, some government policies assist them in that process of profiteering from the practice, to use it to promote things like antisemitism and violence against Australians of Jewish heritage. We know the consequences that have befallen the people who have chosen to stand up against the mullahs in Tehran; 30,000 odd people have been reported. We know full well that they continue to target people, shut down pathways to communicate with the rest of the world and stop us all bearing witness to the horrors of the IRGC. What's tragic about this situation, more than anything else, is we have known for a long time that this situation would come. We know the IRGC simply takes power through force, and that's why we wanted to list them as a ter…
date: 2026-02-09T11:24:00+00:00

Jones, Ms Bianca Adrienne, Morton-Bowles, Ms Holly Jayne | Adjournment | House debates
type: item
description: There are a number of times in this chamber when you have to give speeches that you don't want to give, and today, unfortunately, is one of those cases. As you may recall, Speaker, in November...
encoded: There are a number of times in this chamber when you have to give speeches that you don't want to give, and today, unfortunately, is one of those cases. As you may recall, Speaker, in November 2024 there were the tragic deaths of two young Australians in Laos: Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles. These two young girls, with four others, had methanol poisoning at the prime of their lives, when they had just finished school and gone for a holiday to Laos to celebrate the fresh chapter in their lives. It ended in tragedy through methanol poisoning. As difficult as, of course, it was at that time for the families, tragically I have to say that their trauma lives on because of the consequences of the failure and injustice that we have seen and we are experiencing. To the families—Samantha Morton, Shaun Bowles and Mark and Michelle Jones—we send our love. Unfortunately, today there have been media reports that the families have since found out that justice has not been delivered at all. Instead, secret court cases have been held in Laos, which led, on 29 January this year, to 10 people receiving an utterly irrelevant pittance of a fine, equivalent to A$185, for these deaths. As the families have rightly outlined, this is insulting. Even worse than that, it's made an unbearable grief even worse. For these families, who have already lived such a tragic loss, to now have to continue to fight for basic justice for their lost loved ones is so difficult. I say without any sense of partisanship but with extreme disappointment that the families found out about these secret court cases through a British family, because they were not kept informed by the Australian government. Let's be very clear about this: this is a failure of the Australian government to keep these families informed of the path for justice. We know they had a reasonable expectation not just to bring those who perpetrated this crime to justice but more importantly—because it's also about protecting the lives of …
date: 2026-02-09T19:50:00+00:00

Small Business | Motions | House debates
type: item
description: I move: That so much that the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Goldstein moving the following motion immediately: That this House: (1) notes that: (a)...
encoded: I move: That so much that the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Goldstein moving the following motion immediately: That this House: (1) notes that: (a) during the matter of public importance discussion on 5 February 2026, the Minister for Small Business suggested that the 33,426 small businesses which have closed under the Government did so because "maybe they were dodgy"; and (b) the Minister for Small Business told the House she would take the opportunity to correct the record about these disgraceful comments but that she is yet to do so; and (2) therefore, requires the Minister for Small Business to present a formal apology in the House, apologising to the thousands of small business owners and their staff whom she slandered, before the House rises today. We know very well we are all sitting here during the matter of public importance last week, when the Minister for Small Business, in response to talking about the 40,000 small businesses that have gone insolvent under this government, said, 'Maybe they were dodgy.' Never has there been a more contemptuous response from the Minister for Small Business—the person whose job it is in this parliament to advocate for their interests—to slur and denigrate them and the hard work of Australians who are standing up and fighting for the future of not just themselves, their families, their communities but the millions of people who work for small business all across this country. We are at a crossroads as a country. We have a private employment crisis in Australia right now. The government is responsible for eight in 10 jobs either being created directly or indirectly because we are seeing such a crisis in confidence in private investment and private employment. What we have now, when those businesses are trying to get ahead, when they're drowning under the problems and the pressure of inflation, is nothing but contempt from the Albanese government. To say to people who have saved an…
date: 2026-02-09T15:36:00+00:00

Small Business | Questions without Notice | House debates
type: item
description: My question is to the Prime Minister. Treasury has said the small-business incentive has failed, with a 23 per cent take up rate. Meanwhile, last year we had the highest number of small-business...
encoded: My question is to the Prime Minister. Treasury has said the small-business incentive has failed, with a 23 per cent take up rate. Meanwhile, last year we had the highest number of small-business insolvencies on record, with 41,000 collapsing under your tenure. In response to that, the Minister for Small Business mocked and ridiculed those losing their livelihoods and called them 'dodgy'. Does the Prime Minister support the Minister for Small Business's disgraceful slur that insolvent small-business owners are 'dodgy'?
date: 2026-02-09T14:44:00+00:00

g29.8
type: item
title: 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
description: I can suspend at any time, Deputy Speaker.
encoded: I can suspend at any time, Deputy Speaker.
date: 2026-02-09T11:58:00+00:00

g29.6
type: item
title: 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
description: Sorry, Deputy Speaker, but we haven't commenced with a speaker.
encoded: Sorry, Deputy Speaker, but we haven't commenced with a speaker.
date: 2026-02-09T11:58:00+00:00

g29.3
type: item
title: 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
description: I move that so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving the following motion immediately: That the House (1) notes that, during the...
encoded: I move that so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving the following motion immediately: That the House (1) notes that, during the matter-of-public-importance discussion on 5 February 2026, the Minister for Small Business suggested that 33, 426 small—
date: 2026-02-09T11:58:00+00:00

Goldstein Electorate: Infrastructure | Constituency Statements | House debates
type: item
description: After the 2022 election the federal Labor government ripped $100 million of infrastructure funding out of the Goldstein community for worthy and important projects, particularly those to promote...
encoded: After the 2022 election the federal Labor government ripped $100 million of infrastructure funding out of the Goldstein community for worthy and important projects, particularly those to promote our use of public transport and to green our community. It was devastating because that money then had to be filled by councils—who simply don't have the resources—when federal Labor came after Bayside and Glen Eira's cash. As a consequence, we have less community infrastructure in Goldstein than we need, particularly a lot of sporting facilities that simply don't have the changing room facilities for women to be able to play games like sport and cricket. I can't believe that a federal Labor government, with a choice between its priorities chooses to take back money from the community, from women's cricket and women's footy and other important social infrastructure. Despite $100 million being ripped out of the Goldstein community, the then member simply waved it through. Well, in the 2025 election the community made a different choice, which was to make sure they had a member who stood here in Canberra and fought for the community and for the infrastructure. That's why we submitted a community budget submission to the budget process. I implore the federal Treasurer to start to return some of the $100 million for the community that we desperately need, because our community budget submission steps through some really basic information. The federal Labor government provided an MRI licence to Sandringham Hospital, but what they haven't got at Sandringham Hospital is an MRI machine. In fact, from freedom of information documents, the community has been engaged in a hoax by this federal Labor government, claiming that services would be available to them which were not delivered, because they didn't have the equipment to do so. The first thing we ask for is around three million bucks so we have an MRI machine for a community hospital. We know of the rise of antisemitism over the p…
date: 2026-02-05T10:07:00+00:00

Economy | Matters of Public Importance | House debates
type: item
description: This exposes the underbelly and the motivation of this government. There is a pure contempt for those people who make the effort, strive and back themselves to the point where they create...
encoded: This exposes the underbelly and the motivation of this government. There is a pure contempt for those people who make the effort, strive and back themselves to the point where they create opportunities not just for themselves but for others. The response from the minister—we just heard it in the chamber, and then she defended her comment—was, 'Maybe they were dodgy.' The simple, broad-brush allegations and criticism of small business—the demonisation of small businesses—because of the attitude of this government are why we have seen record insolvencies. Now is the time when those small businesses and those households need Australians to back them. They need this parliament to back them, but the contempt that we have from the minister shows something entirely different. That is why Australians are feeling the very real consequences of inflation and declining standards of living. Today we heard direct warnings that inflation was going to continue to eat into the wealth of Australian households. People are going to have lower standards of living, less capacity to support their families, less capacity to go and employ others—all under this government. We have had a record of economic vandalism par excellence if you call that a standard under the Albanese government. We've had Labor's economic vandalism, where households are now paying 16 per cent more for food, 18 per cent more for health, 22 per cent more for rents, 39 per cent more for insurance and nearly 40 per cent more for electricity, and every one of those costs—every single one of those price rises—goes to a small business, eats into their profit margins and increases their capacity to find their way to the ATO and ASIC to the point of insolvency. Why would a government be so proud of shutting down the pathways for Australians? We are in the business of backing small businesses to open their doors, to welcome their customers and to grow the opportunity in the economic base of our country. Any government, state …
date: 2026-02-05T15:08:00+00:00

Economy | Matters of Public Importance | House debates
type: item
description: I will take the interjection from the Minister for Small Business, because what she said was, 'Maybe they were dodgy.' Just like the Treasurer, her response to the challenges Australian...
encoded: I will take the interjection from the Minister for Small Business, because what she said was, 'Maybe they were dodgy.' Just like the Treasurer, her response to the challenges Australian households and small businesses face is to punch down on Australians. This is not the type of country they want to be, and it is certainly not what they want to see from this parliament. Honourable members interjecting—
date: 2026-02-05T15:08:00+00:00

Economy | Matters of Public Importance | House debates
type: item
description: If you want to see the contempt that the Albanese government has for families, households and small businesses, you just need to see the arrogance of the Prime Minister in question time. Every...
encoded: If you want to see the contempt that the Albanese government has for families, households and small businesses, you just need to see the arrogance of the Prime Minister in question time. Every time we get up to ask a simple question about the survival of small businesses, he shuts down question time, and he has good reason to do so, because the simple reality is we had more small business insolvencies in the Commonwealth last year than we have had in Australian history. I hear the heckling from the Minister for Small Business on the other side of this chamber. I would be ashamed and embarrassed if I saw a record number of small businesses crushed under my administration, but the minister sits there peacocking, proudly saying that she is proud of her record, when she should be ashamed. Forty-thousand small businesses have been crushed into insolvency under the Albanese government. This is not something to be proud of. It is something to be embarrassed about and ashamed of, because sitting behind every one of those small businesses are the livelihoods, the incomes, the dignity and the pride of Australians backing themselves to get ahead. What they are living with right now is increased costs not just from the explicit increase in interest rates and inflation but from a cost-of-business crisis. Millions of Australian small businesses are struggling to keep their heads above the inflation water level. They are experiencing costs pushed down onto their small businesses, harming their profitability. This morning I met with people from the restaurant and food sector. Their profit margins have simply collapsed. The capacity for a small business to be opened to serve Australians has declined so much that one in nine Australian small businesses in the restaurant and hospitality sector has closed. It is an extraordinary record of this government and something that it should be ashamed of. But it's not just the inflation impact. With state governments indexing so many of their …
date: 2026-02-05T15:08:00+00:00

Economy | Statements | House debates
type: item
description: This is a message for all of the small and family businesses, the sole traders and the self-employed. We just want to say, 'Thank you, and keep going.' We know that you're suffering directly as a...
encoded: This is a message for all of the small and family businesses, the sole traders and the self-employed. We just want to say, 'Thank you, and keep going.' We know that you're suffering directly as a consequence of higher interest rates because the Albanese government can't control spending and is driving inflation. We know you're living the consequences of red-tape inflation going up and stifling your capacity to grow your business every day. You're living the consequences of industrial relations inflation, where the costs the government is trying to push onto you as an employer are making it harder and more complex to do simple things like pay your workers. Every step of the way, people in small business in this country are facing big challenges. That's why we have seen a record number of small businesses collapse under the Albanese government. Since the Albanese government was elected, 41,000 small businesses have disappeared through insolvency—and, with those, livelihoods. Last year alone, more than 14,000 small businesses went insolvent. It is a record for Australia, and it is not one that anybody should be proud of. This is the legacy of a reckless government that simply can't control its spending but can always find a way to get its hand and shove it into the pockets of households and small businesses. Now is the time for good people to stand up and call it out.
date: 2026-02-05T13:51:00+00:00

g28.1
type: item
title: 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
description: I think about the thousands of Australian university students who have committed themselves to three-year, four-year and five-year programs, wanting to build out the potential for their...
encoded: I think about the thousands of Australian university students who have committed themselves to three-year, four-year and five-year programs, wanting to build out the potential for their participation not just in the workforce but in contributing to human progress and human achievement. They go to tertiary institutions—in particular, universities, as I did—because they want to be embodied with knowledge, skills and purpose to be a much more significant contributor not just to themselves but to the wellbeing of the entire Australian community. When you talk to those students, so often they're looking for improvement in student outcomes and minimising the size of classrooms—which are chockers, because the universities have geared themselves towards the number of students they have who are full fee paying. There is an increasing number of students who go to university with low contact hours. Even worse than that—Deputy Speaker, you're one of the people who have gone through life, let's say, learning from street cred—is that so much of our system is geared towards qualification inflation. I know the government is addicted to inflationary forces. Well, qualification inflation is no different. We have seen over many years because of the efforts of Labor governments the diminishing value of a tertiary qualification which means that people need to get more in order to distinguish themselves, to demarcate themselves and to be able to get ahead. Look at all the problems that university students have right now. Look at the problems of what they want from their education, not only if they're going on a pathway of research and through the academic pathway but also if it's industrial or commercial or simply for their own satisfaction or achievement. What we are not seeing is vision from this government to unleash universities and their potential because their focus is squarely on how they feed those at the top. The Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bil…
date: 2026-02-05T12:23:00+00:00

Translating and Interpreting Services Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
type: item
description: I'd like to follow on from the previous speaker by saying it's 100 per cent right that you do not need to speak full English to be a patriotic, committed, invested Australian. But, when it comes...
encoded: I'd like to follow on from the previous speaker by saying it's 100 per cent right that you do not need to speak full English to be a patriotic, committed, invested Australian. But, when it comes down to providing pathways so that people can be full participants in the Australian way of life, we know the foundations of people's language and capacity to communicate with their fellow citizens are not just something that is, frankly, desirable; they are also the pathway by which people can not just become citizens and full economic participants but, of course, also socially integrate into the rest of the country. We don't want to be a nation of enclaves. We want to be a nation of big citizens enlivened by their full participation in the rest of the community. That's the basis on which we're supporting the Translating and Interpreting Services Bill 2025, because we see the capacity for new Australians to become full participants in the Australian way of life as central to their success. We want them to succeed. That is why, of course, we had the Fraser government establish SBS many years ago. It made an investment in the future broadcasting potential of this country so that it didn't matter where you were, where you landed from and where, of course, you built a life in this country. You had not just a pathway to connect back to the knowledge and information that was available from your traditional homeland but, in addition to that, a clear pathway to English education and to becoming a full participant in the Australian way of life. That is liberalism lived large, and we want to see that at every point, because it's in the best interest of investing in our people. The legislation we're talking about here is nowhere near as grand as the great Liberal achievement of broadcasting for multicultural Australia. This is a much more technical one. But it still is part of making sure that, no matter how you came to this nation and whatever the cause, there's a pathway for you to …
date: 2026-02-04T17:10:00+00:00

Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
type: item
description: Of course I welcome the pathway to be able to make sure that the financial instruments that Australians use on a day-to-day basis operate with the compliance and framework of law. So in seeking,...
encoded: Of course I welcome the pathway to be able to make sure that the financial instruments that Australians use on a day-to-day basis operate with the compliance and framework of law. So in seeking, in the loose terms of the spirit of this law, to support it, I welcome the fact that the government is finally taking steps to bring about a legal framework to include cryptocurrencies and the sorts of digital assets that we need to be part of not just a modern economy but the global economy. It has taken the government an incredibly long period of time to get here, and I know their agenda has been incredibly detailed and complicated in so many different areas, of which not a single one I can name. But that's probably a reflection of the busy work and fights that go on between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. We nonetheless welcome the pathway that they're providing for a framework for cryptocurrencies. Fair enough too. When I look at cryptocurrencies—I've always been a bit of a sceptic not from a sense of opposition but from a sense of, 'What's the underlying value?' I'm in the Warren Buffett camp at the end of the day, if it's productive capacity in use. But one thing I have always given credit to cryptocurrencies for is that I think that they're a hedge against inflation and expansive monetary policy from central banks—entities that I am not very trusting of because they have successively and consistently got decisions wrong, which has led to what we now have to acknowledge is the Chalmers rate-rise cycle. We had, of course, one interest rate rise yesterday off the back of shocking inflation data. But we know this is not going to be the end. So long as you have expansive fiscal policy—borrowing from the future for debt spending for today to cover up on the economic mismanagement of this government—Australians will be at risk of higher inflation and higher interest rates. We're a stand-out, but for all the wrong reasons, on a global scale around interest rates. It's d…
date: 2026-02-04T12:12:00+00:00

Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
type: item
description: I thank the member for Wannon for his enthusiasm at the opportunity to listen to a speech characteristically to legislation before the House from the member for Goldstein—of course,...
encoded: I thank the member for Wannon for his enthusiasm at the opportunity to listen to a speech characteristically to legislation before the House from the member for Goldstein—of course, certainly better than the predecessor member for Goldstein, I'm sure, on the subject matter of which he is humbly agreeing with as well. The point of this legislation, of course, as was mentioned by the previous speaker, is straightforward, but we need to acknowledge it sits in a much broader context about the health care of this nation. We all have a natural interest in having a sustainable health system for our country. Doing so is one that supports the workers to be able to go on and deliver the primary care they need in community, and that's of critical importance. One of the things that COVID demonstrated or revealed to all of us is the health inequity that exists across our country around access to services between not just rural and regional areas but also affluent and less affluent parts of capital cities. In a moment of crisis, when people need care, it's explicitly revealed to the whole of the nation. The question is how you seek to address that and make sure that the system is sustainable and gives people the support that they need. What we've heard from this government to date around health care has been principally, as they hold up their Medicare cards, that everybody can go to the doctor for allegedly free. I now see the television propaganda that has been pushed out by this government to try and reinforce their political messaging. The problem is anybody who has actually gone and visited a doctor. And let's start with the ACT, which is not my constituency, and I can assure you it probably never will be. But, as people who live in the ACT said to me only the other day, there are no bulk-billed doctors in the ACT, the heart of this nation politically. Surely, if the government is going to achieve its objective anywhere, it is here. Yet there are no bulk-billed doctors in thi…
date: 2026-02-04T12:39:00+00:00