Mehreen Faruqi's recent appearances (OpenAustralia.org)
International Relations: Australia and the United States of America, Social Cohesion | Adjournment | Senate debates
We are living in dangerous times. Fascism is building right before our eyes, and it is no accident. In the United States, a country built on violence and exploitation, state violence is moving...
We are living in dangerous times. Fascism is building right before our eyes, and it is no accident. In the United States, a country built on violence and exploitation, state violence is moving out of the shadows and becoming normalised as explicit policy. We have seen ICE agents kill with impunity, children forcibly removed from their families, and protests met with escalating police brutality rather than accountability. What once would have been unimaginable is now ordinary, daily news. Trump now deploys military power with no regard for due process or for human dignity. The chaos and horror are relentless. Yet the Albanese government embraces this terrifying regime. By cosying up to Trump, Prime Minister Albanese signals the type of leader he is willing to align with, one who thrives on cruelty and domination. The government clings to this myth that giving in to power makes us safer, stronger and more prosperous. It does not. Just yesterday it was revealed that the Albanese government may be quietly preparing to hand US authorities, including ICE, direct access to Australians' biometric and identity data. We found out only through the media. This government just keeps bowing to billionaires, to energy giants, to weapons manufacturers, to corporate lobbyists and to the endless demands of the United States. We cannot pretend that these patterns are confined to distant shores. The disease of fascism is taking root here too. Governments crack down on political protest and criticism of policy is treated as subversive. Every measure, every law, that limits dissent—every instance of ignoring injustice—is a warning sign of democracy is being hollowed out. Here at home we face real consequences as well. Cost-of-living pressures are rising, housing insecurity is worsening, climate chaos is intensifying and inequality is growing. Racism is thriving and fear is spreading, and the Albanese government is leaning into it. Laws have been rushed through that validate false narratives about Muslims, excluding them from protections. Neo-Nazi rallies are met with near silence, and First Nations communities are attacked while the state offers little accountability. The racism and scapegoating are not fringe; they are mainstream. This is why we cannot rely on billionaires, war profiteers or authoritarian leaders to save us. We cannot rely on governments that kneel before power while ordinary people struggle. We must reject alliances built on cruelty, greed and domination. Australia can and must choose a different path, one grounded in human dignity, in global justice and in environmental survival. We must demand leadership that stands with those fighting oppression and not with those profiting from it—leadership that protects communities rather than punishes them, leadership that speaks truth to power, even when it is inconvenient and dangerous. That is the courage that our times demand. So the choice is clear. We can continue to follow fear and submission and watch a democracy continue to be dismantled by those that sow division and hatred, or we can stand together, insisting that morality, justice and human dignity guide this country's decisions.
Perth: Attack | Statements by Senators | Senate debates
Since the first colonial ships landed on this continent, First Nations people have been sent a very clear message: that their lives are not valued, that their safety doesn't matter and that their...
Since the first colonial ships landed on this continent, First Nations people have been sent a very clear message: that their lives are not valued, that their safety doesn't matter and that their fear and trauma are not worth listening to. That message was solidified last week when, in Boorloo, a bomb was thrown into a crowd of First Nations people and their allies on the day of mourning, and the government, politicians and the media barely batted an eyelid. Let me repeat that: a bomb was thrown into a crowd of First Nations elders and children and their allies. It was an attempted terror attack, and yet there was no outrage. There was no mass media coverage. There were no urgent statements made about community safety. There were no calls for action. If a bomb had been thrown into almost any other crowd, the response would have been deafening, but when First Nations people are targeted, exercising their right to mourn, to protest and to speak truth about this country's violence, there is silence. These double standards are not accidental. This hate is cultivated and stoked. It is used as a distraction from billionaires holding wealth, from fossil fuel corporations destroying the planet and from a system that exploits workers and communities alike. First Nations people have a right to live in safety. They have a right to protest. They have a right to exist without fear. We can't change history, but we can—and we must—tackle all racism head on, remembering that there can be no racial justice without First Nations justice.
Cost of Living | Matters of Urgency | Senate debates
I must say it is pretty rich of the Liberals—the party most closely aligned with the one per cent—to talk about the cost of living. I am really sick and tired of the Liberals, the...
I must say it is pretty rich of the Liberals—the party most closely aligned with the one per cent—to talk about the cost of living. I am really sick and tired of the Liberals, the Nationals and Labor lecturing people about a cost-of-living-and-housing crisis that their governments created and their governments continue to perpetuate. It is hypocritical, it is hollow and it is cruel. When ordinary people are suffering, the Liberals turn up like charlatans in the town square, claiming to have answers, but they are selling the same snake oil they always do: racism, fear, hate and blame. They talk about solutions but offer only scapegoats: migrants and minorities. And Labor is cut from the same cloth, just with different marketing. Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals all claim to stand with ordinary Australians, but their actions tell a different story. When it comes time to act, relief flows in one direction only—upwards to the big banks, to landlords, to coal and gas giants, and to billionaires. They protect corporate profits and refuse to tax obscene wealth. This is not an accident. These parties defend a broken housing system, which lets speculators pocket millions while first home buyers and renters suffer. Today's interest rate rise is pure profit for the big banks while mortgage holders and renters are being pushed deeper into pain. None of the big parties can claim the moral high ground while fanning the flames of hate and blaming migrants, exactly like One Nation does, and making matters worse for ordinary people. We need structural change to overhaul an unfair economic system so that it starts working for the 99 per cent. (Time expired)
International Relations: Australia and Israel | Questions without Notice: Take Note of Answers | Senate debates
I rise to take note of the minister's response to my question. The Labor government have now stopped even pretending that they care about Palestinians or international law or even international...
I rise to take note of the minister's response to my question. The Labor government have now stopped even pretending that they care about Palestinians or international law or even international aid. The Labor government want us to believe that they rushed through their reckless, divisive, dangerous and antidemocratic laws in the name of unity, protection against racism, and social cohesion, but the Albanese government are hypocrites, banging the drum of unity while doing the most divisive thing possible by laying out the welcome mat for Isaac Herzog, head of a state committing genocide. You don't fight racism by rolling out the red carpet for war criminals. Isaac Herzog is a man found by the UN commission of inquiry to have publicly incited genocide. This is a man who autographed bombs used to flatten hospitals, murder children and destroy entire apartment blocks indiscriminately, yet Labor and Liberal politicians are falling over themselves to justify his visit. We are now officially a state that not only appeases but welcomes war criminals, a state that no longer believes in international law. Labor's deceit and dishonesty are there for everyone to see. While pretending to crack down on selective racism and hate, they do nothing to stop the ultimate expression of racism—genocide and apartheid. We are now a country where the political class would rather destroy our democratic civil and human rights and make a mockery of international law than take meaningful action against genocide, war crimes, hate and racism. Israel has massacred and dehumanised Palestinians for decades and is on a genocidal mission to erase them. Labor has refused to sign a statement with Canada, the UK, France and other countries, condemning Israel for demolishing UNRWA headquarters in East Jerusalem. The Prime Minister hasn't yet ripped up Trump's invitation to join his farcical and imperial Board of Peace, but people in this country—people who take their moral responsibilities seriously, unlike the Labor government—will not let Herzog's visit go unchallenged. We should be arresting Herzog when he sets foot in this country, not rolling out the red carpet. Labor: it is absolutely disgraceful what you are doing, and you should be ashamed of yourselves. Question agreed to.
International Relations: Australia and Israel | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
Minister, tens of thousands—likely hundreds of thousands—of Palestinians have been killed, over 500 since that farce of a ceasefire. These actions are by a country that you continue...
Minister, tens of thousands—likely hundreds of thousands—of Palestinians have been killed, over 500 since that farce of a ceasefire. These actions are by a country that you continue to call a friend and to trade weapons with and whose president you invite here. Minister, have you stopped pretending to care at all? Will you next be rolling out the welcome mat for Putin?
Minister, you have refused to join the UK, Canada and France in condemning the Israeli government's demolition of UNRWA headquarters in East Jerusalem. You have remained silent as Israel bans...
Minister, you have refused to join the UK, Canada and France in condemning the Israeli government's demolition of UNRWA headquarters in East Jerusalem. You have remained silent as Israel bans Doctors Without Borders from Gaza. Under your watch, we have become a country that has made a mockery of international law. Can you explain how anyone can take your government seriously on human rights ever again?
My question is to Minister Wong. Minister, late last year, you told the Australian Institute of International Affairs: Australia will always make our contribution, as part of multilateral efforts...
My question is to Minister Wong. Minister, late last year, you told the Australian Institute of International Affairs: Australia will always make our contribution, as part of multilateral efforts to protect civilians and uphold international law—because living in peace shouldn't be contingent on where you were born. Yet you are now rolling out the red carpet for Isaac Herzog, the President of Israel—a state committing a genocide that has killed at least 70,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, journalists, aid workers and health workers—a man the UN commission of inquiry said incited genocide. Why are you inviting war criminals to this country, and will you rescind your divisive invitation to President Herzog—something members of your own party have called for?
Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026; Limitation of Debate | Bills | Senate debates
I ask that the amendments on sheets 3613 and 3616 be put separately.
Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
What happened at Bondi Beach on 14 December last year was an appalling and horrific act of hate and violence that has shattered our Sydney community and the country and no-one more than the...
What happened at Bondi Beach on 14 December last year was an appalling and horrific act of hate and violence that has shattered our Sydney community and the country and no-one more than the Jewish community. We continue to stand in solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters in their grief. Yesterday, in this chamber, we were able to pay our respects and condolences to those whose lives were taken. From today our job as public representatives is to do everything in our power to stop this kind of violence from ever happening again. The Greens have long pushed for strong gun laws. This is an evidence-based, tried and tested response that reduces gun violence. We were pleased and proud to support the gun reforms that passed today, and we made them even stronger. We will always work to get dangerous weapons off our streets. I have never been silent on what needs to be done to combat hate, racism and extremism. I've spent my political life focused on antiracism and on fighting extremism and the far right, but this bill is not the way to do it. This bill is not a responsible response. The sham process that the government has undertaken on this bill is as appalling as the bill itself. That there wasn't even a pretence of consultation for some of the most extreme changes to our criminal laws shows just how little the government thinks of the community. From the beginning the draft bill was quickly exposed to be deeply flawed, divisive and dangerous. It was clear that these laws were designed to protect some and not others. With this bill the Albanese government has thrown Muslims and migrants under the bus. After Labor was forced to back down on the dangerous vilification section of this omnibus bill, they made a terrible, last-minute deal with the coalition to make other parts of this awful, rushed bill even more divisive and more dangerous. Labor did a deal with the coalition—the coalition who want the right to be bigots. This bill will have a chilling and draconian effect on political debate, on protest, on civil rights and on people speaking up against human rights abuses perpetrated by Israel or by any other nation-state. This is not social cohesion. This is not unity. This is not equality. This is deeply disappointing but not surprising, and this is not the first time that Labor has betrayed communities. Over the past month, the Bondi tragedy has been politicised by large sections of the media and politicians. The anger, frustration and sadness at the weaponisation of this attack have been reiterated to me countless times by many of my Jewish friends. In what should have been a time for solidarity and kindness, this horrific tragedy was seized upon to clamp down on, demonise and silence a movement of peace and justice. The vile murderers who perpetrated the attack had no connection to Palestine, were not Palestinian and had no link that we know of to the pro-Palestine movement, but politicians and the media saw the perverse opportunity to remove a thorn from their side. There seems to be a concerted effort to force some kind of sick binary, as if one cannot both be against the terror attack at Bondi and show solidarity with Palestine. This is a disgusting lie meant to smear and silence. Let me say this clearly and unequivocally: standing against a genocide is not antisemitic. Being outraged and protesting the killing, starvation and torture of hundreds of thousands of people is not antisemitic. Calling for this government to combat racism in all its forms is not divisive. Calling for this government to end its complicity in genocide is not divisive. However, it is divisive to pretend to care about international law while inviting the President of Israel, a state committing genocide in Gaza, to this country. It is divisive to design laws that say to all but one community, 'Your safety does not matter.' It is divisive to celebrate multiculturalism and then to introduce laws that blatantly scapegoat and demonise migrants. We know that these laws are not being introduced in a political vacuum. They come after over two years of Israel's genocide in Gaza, after two years of draconian crackdowns on protestors. The absolute lengths that have been gone to to silence Palestinian and Palestine solidarity voices have been immense, aided by a predominantly right-wing and pro-Israel media and political class and also by the Labor government. This bill is yet another example of the Albanese government's authoritarian crackdown on supporters of Palestine. This censorship was on full display in recent weeks with the Adelaide Festival board uninviting Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah from Adelaide Writers' Week, with her mere existence as a Palestinian apparently a problem for them. This was a racist decision that has resulted in the entire festival being cancelled and the board finally being dragged to issue an unconditional apology to Randa. These are, indeed, dangerous times, when there is a whole-of-government assault on basic human rights. The laws that we are debating today are flawed, fraught and near friendless. The NSW Council for Civil Liberties has said the laws will irreparably damage our democratic and legal system. The Human Rights Law Centre has stated that the bill risks crystallising and perpetuating an invidious public discourse which casts migrants and refugees as a presumptive threat to national security. The Jewish Council of Australia criticised both the process and the content of the bill, noting that the fight against antisemitism is not served by rushed legislation, which is not evidence based and which may lead to the targeting of religious and migrant communities. The Islamic Council of Victoria has stated that the bill risks exacerbating existing patterns of overpolicing, racial profiling and disproportionate public, media and police scrutiny of Muslim communities under the guise of countering hate and extremism. Community groups and legal experts have been near unanimous in their assessment that these laws are fundamentally flawed. They provide for extraordinary ministerial powers, with limited guardrails and protection. They provide a clear pathway for governments to shut down protest and political dissent. They rely almost exclusively on criminal penalties that decades of evidence tell us do not succeed in combating hate. They unfairly and inappropriately target the Muslim community while at the same time exceptionalising one form of hate for protection and ignoring other forms of hate such as that faced by LGBTQIA+ people, disabled people and other marginalised groups. We cannot work backwards to amend a bill that is so fundamentally messed up. One of the most concerning aspects of the bill is the proscription of hate groups—the provision by which the minister does not need to provide an individual or a group procedural fairness, dispensing with the rules of law and natural justice. Greg Barns SC spoke today, describing this provision as 'the sort of stuff you get in authoritarian countries'. The retrospectivity of this provision is terrifying—allowing the consideration of conduct that occurred before this bill will even commence, which could result in imprisonment for 15 years, when the conduct at the time wasn't even illegal. The provisions can and will easily be used to shut down protest and political activity that the government does not support. We have seen in the UK the danger and absurdity of misuse of proscription and terrorism laws, with thousands of people arrested for engaging in peaceful demonstrations against genocide and in support of Palestine action. I am yet to find a single legal expert, academic or human rights expert in favour of these provisions. It is clear from the context of the bill, and the speeches that were made here yesterday, who these laws will protect and who they will target. Some of the things that were said in here yesterday about Muslims and Islam were shameful, disgraceful and vile. Of the faith groups consulted prior to the bill being provided publicly, it was only the Australian National Imams Council that was not shown the bill—knowing full well that Islamophobia has risen drastically in recent years, with Muslims being physically attacked, spat on and verbally abused in public with increasing frequency and ferocity. I know firsthand that this hate has reached new levels for the Muslim community. The government's briefing records very clearly show that the Muslim community has been left out in the cold—but then, we have always been the government's lowest priority. Extremism in any form should never be tolerated. Exceptionalising one form of bigotry over another does not make anyone safer. My friend, Barbara Bloch, a member of Jews Against the Occupation 1948, told me: I would like this parliament to mourn the loss of these lives, investigate the circumstances that allowed these heavily armed men to make their way to Bondi, undetected, and commit those acts of savagery. Then, please take a deep breath and also consider the impact of these laws not ONLY on Jewish lives but also on others—and remember that for Palestinians both in Australia and in Palestine/Israel, their struggle is also not over. At the end of the day, we cannot criminalise our way out of hate and racism. Expanding the carceral system is not the way to keep people safe. We know this system is used against First Nations people. We know how the system has been used against activists and protesters. We know who this legislation is going to target if it is passed. Discrimination and racism are institutional and structural in our country, and we must root them out as such. It is not just about one individual here or another one there; it is about overhauling the system and changing society. The National Anti-Racism Framework provides a road map to move towards an anti-racist society. It does so in a way that acknowledges the deep roots of structural, institutional and systemic racism, including antisemitism and all forms of racism in this country, and it rightly places truth-telling and First Nations justice at the heart of anti-racism work. This framework has been gathering dust on the government shelves for over a year now while racism has been getting worse and worse. The Prime Minister should today announce funding for the framework and begin its implementation. Combating hate and extremism must be work that is grassroots and community led, with significant commitment to and investment in community to change hearts, minds, behaviours and attitudes. Let me say this: despite what many of those in here would have you believe, hate and extremism is not some problem that is imported here from afar. We saw that clearly and devastatingly in the Christchurch mosque massacre, where 51 Muslims were murdered in cold blood while praying by an Australian white supremacist who was radicalised right here in this country. Violence, too, is not imported from far away. Australia was built on the genocide of First Nations people, with colonialism and oppression continuing today. We also know that a woman is a murdered by an intimate partner every eight days in this country. The inclusion of migration law changes in this legislation does nothing but demonise migrants and feed far-right, white supremacist rhetoric that migrants are the problem. The utter hypocrisy of the Labor and Liberal parties is here on full display. To pretend to celebrate multiculturalism, praise migrants when it suits them and then propose laws like this is just disgusting. The Bondi attack has devastated the nation. Our response to it should be carefully considered to show compassion, care and solidarity at a time of crisis. We should, as a society, try to achieve the structural and cultural change needed to reject hate and extremism and weed it out at its roots. This legislation definitely does not do that. Scapegoating migrants does not make anyone safer. Undermining the right to protest does not make anyone safer. Criminalising those who raise their voice against injustices is just plain wrong. Saying that one group is worthy of protection while others are not does not make anyone safer. The Greens vehemently and strongly oppose this bill. Do you know what? This is the last thing I will say. No matter what you try and do, we will not be silent in the face of genocide. We will continue to call out hate and racism wherever we see it, and we will continue to fight against injustice, inequality and an imperial system. (Time expired)
Bondi Beach: Attack | Condolences | Senate debates
I rise today to pay my respects and remember those whose lives were mercilessly taken on 14 December and those who were injured by the antisemitic attack that terrorised the Jewish community in...
I rise today to pay my respects and remember those whose lives were mercilessly taken on 14 December and those who were injured by the antisemitic attack that terrorised the Jewish community in Bondi Beach. Today we again bear our heartfelt condolences to the 15 people whose lives were taken and the families, friends and loved ones, whose sorrow is unfathomable and immeasurable. This act was not only heinous; the place that it was perpetrated at also matters. Sydneysiders know that Bondi Beach is an iconic location, recognisable across the world, which meant that this terror and violence too reverberated around the world. After my family migrated to Sydney 34 years ago, Bondi Beach was a must-do once a week. Sitting on the sand, looking out on the Pacific Ocean, while hearing the waves break on the rocks was a new pleasure for Lahoris from a river city. It will never be the same again. Some wounds will always be felt. Worlds have felt and continue to feel totally inadequate. The grief of the community is immense. The grief of the nation is immense. The shock is profound. The brokenness of the world seems overwhelming, but we stand alongside our Jewish brothers and sisters, who are reeling in the wake of this senseless violence. We mourn with them and we grieve with them. The day following the attack, I went to Bondi Beach with my colleagues to pay my condolences and my respects. It was deeply important for me to pay tribute and to pay my respects to the victims of this violence and especially to my husband's colleague who was brutally murdered on that day. What happened on that day was an appalling and unforgivable act of terrorism and antisemitic violence. As a Muslim woman, my faith teaches me that silence is not an option in the face of suffering. It calls on me to feel the pain of others and to respond with compassion, care and love. It reminds me that nothing is more important than our shared humanity. This humanity was shown by our frontline services and ordinary people on the scene who ran towards danger to save, to help and to support those in need and try and stop the terrorists. Without any hesitation, they put their lives on the line trying to protect others. They must be commended as heroes for their courage and humanity. I do hope that it is this spirit of solidarity and of service that we will long remember and aspire to as a society. This attack is, for our society, our Christchurch movement. Just like our neighbours in Aotearoa New Zealand, where 51 Muslims were murdered by an Australian white supremacist in mosques as they prayed, we have now seen hate up close. How we respond, how we honour the dead and how we make sure that this never happens again to any community is a heavy responsibility for this parliament and one we feel deeply—because, even in moments of deep grief, there are voices that seek to divide us, to politicise loss, to police grief and to sow further hatred. We must reject that path. We must refuse to allow tragedy to be weaponised and turned against one another. Many of my Jewish friends and comrades who have been shocked and devastated by the Bondi antisemitic terror attack have also expressed to me their distraught and their anger at the politicisation of these horrors and at their grief being exploited by powerful forces to achieve narrow political ends. This should not be the way. The legacy of this appalling violence at Bondi cannot be the undermining of basic civil and political rights or laws that can be used to weaponised racism and hate against everyday Australians who follow their conscience and speak out against injustice and genocide. Our safety, our dignity and our humanity are bound together. We are not safe until everyone is safe. We are not free until everyone is free. Hate directed at one community threatens all of us. In Christchurch, the world saw leadership that met horror and trauma with compassion and met violence with unity. That is the path we must choose here as well. That is the path needed to make sure that something like this can never happen again. My deepest and heartfelt sympathies and prayers are for the families, friends and loved ones of those whose lives were taken and those who continue to deal with the wounds, seen and unseen, of 14 December.
Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, National Environmental Protection Agency Bill 2025, Environment Information Australia Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Customs Charges Imposition) Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Excise Charges Imposition) Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (General Charges Imposition) Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Restoration Charge Imposition) Bill 2025; In Committee | Bills | Senate debates
The Greens have worked hard to improve a pretty cooked and a pretty crappy Labor bill, to start off with. We've done this to better protect our native forests and our bushlands. We have taken out...
The Greens have worked hard to improve a pretty cooked and a pretty crappy Labor bill, to start off with. We've done this to better protect our native forests and our bushlands. We have taken out the terrible aspects of Labor's proposed disgraceful environmental reforms which would have fast tracked the destruction of nature. That is the job of the Greens in the parliament. But the real questions here to ask are these. Why did Labor bring in a bill that would damage rather than protect the environment? Why did they write laws for coal and gas corporations and big mining to start off with? Why would Labor even contemplate a deal with the climate denying environmental vandals that are the coalition? Because Labor is too cowardly, too compromised and too beholden to big money, to corporations and to the fossil fuel lobby and their dirty donations. They don't give a damn about the environment. They care about corporate profits much more than environmental protection. And we are here to hold them to account. It took arduous negotiations to get Labor to remove the 30-day fast-track approval for coal and gas projects that they had in the original bill. Why? Because, again, they don't give a damn about the climate crisis. If they did, their first act after winning this election would not have been the approval of Woodside's climate wrecking expansion of the north-west shelf gas project, which will be a disaster for the priceless Murujuga rock art. So, yes, we have put a spanner in the work of the native forest logging industry and ended a legal carve-out that forest campaigners have been fighting for, for decades. That's a good thing. It improves protection for native forests. And we have removed the worst aspects of Labor original, dreadful bill to destroy nature. To be frank, it is shameful that the Labor Party that was elected, the first time, in the climate election had to be dragged back to the status quo and then dragged to improve environmental protections for our forests and bushlands. That tells you all you need to know about this Labor government. They would go backwards on climate and the environment if they had their way—if we weren't here. They were prepared to do a deal with the coalition. It's a clear indication of the work that we have cut out for us here. It's a clear indication of the fight that we have on our hands. We've stood shoulder-to-shoulder and hand-in-hand with climate activists and forest campaigners for years. With the changes the Greens have pushed for, we do have some more tools to fight to protect native forest, and we will be with climate activists and with forest campaigners. We will be with them on the streets, we will be with them in the forest and we will be with them at the Rising Tide blockade in Newcastle this weekend.
I seek leave to move a motion relating to the consideration of general business notice of motion No. 300, on Israel's genocide in Gaza, as circulated. Leave not granted. Pursuant to contingent...
I seek leave to move a motion relating to the consideration of general business notice of motion No. 300, on Israel's genocide in Gaza, as circulated. Leave not granted. Pursuant to contingent notice standing in the name of Senator Waters, I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion relating to the consideration of general business notice of motion No. 300.
Australian Constitution | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
Minister, people in this country are deeply, deeply uncomfortable about Andrew Mountbatten being in the line of succession. I hope you are aware of that. When is your government going to move to...
Minister, people in this country are deeply, deeply uncomfortable about Andrew Mountbatten being in the line of succession. I hope you are aware of that. When is your government going to move to a republic so that there is not even a remote possibility of this happening?
Prime Minister Albanese has been a long-term advocate for an Australian republic and just last week said that an Australian republic is common sense. If that is the case, why did your government...
Prime Minister Albanese has been a long-term advocate for an Australian republic and just last week said that an Australian republic is common sense. If that is the case, why did your government get rid of the role of assistant minister for the republic?
My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister. Minister, more than two centuries since the violent colonisation of First Nations land, we still remain subjects of a British head...
My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister. Minister, more than two centuries since the violent colonisation of First Nations land, we still remain subjects of a British head of state. The monarchy has hit headlines again in recent weeks over disgraced former prince Andrew's relationship with child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A majority of Australians want him removed from the line of succession, and 43 per cent of Australians indicated their support for a republic—the highest ever. Your government's former attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, said last week that it is past time for Australia to break its ties with the monarchy and encouraged you all to renew the republic campaign. Will the government acknowledge the surge in public support for a republic and take steps to cut ties and apron strings with the British monarchy?
Crime | Statements by Senators | Senate debates
In the latest assault on black and brown kids, the Allan Labor government wants to lock up 14-year-olds for life. This announcement came soon after the Australian Youth Representative to the UN,...
In the latest assault on black and brown kids, the Allan Labor government wants to lock up 14-year-olds for life. This announcement came soon after the Australian Youth Representative to the UN, Satara Uthayakumaran, published her report which said: Young people describe Australia's youth justice system as punitive, not rehabilitative. First contact is often punishment, not protection: handcuffs before help, cells before care. The testimonies in this report include a child stating: They stripped me in my cell. The moment they pulled my pants down—that's when I stopped feeling like a human. Another said the detention centre 'locked up 14-year-olds with disabilities for 23 hours a day—then wondered why they broke'. While kids in detention centres wrote letters to the Prime Minister pleading with him to look out for them, crying out for protection, Prime Minister Albanese stood side-by-side with Premier Allan, praising this latest move as evidence she is doing an excellent job. How dare the Prime Minister! And how dare Premier Allan sign with one hand the treaty for Victoria, while her other hand writes laws that can jail First Nations children for life. Adult time for adult crime is a harmful, inhumane and racist policy to grab new scope to control votes, while throwing kids under the bus. It does nothing but have devastating consequences for children and families. In the words of Monique Hurley from the Human Rights Law Centre: Children deserve care, not cages and adult prison sentences. The Allan Government's proposed laws will condemn children as young as 14 to irreversible harm and an incredibly bleak future behind bars. These laws are reckless and shameful, and they should be scrapped.
Albanese Government | Statements by Senators | Senate debates
If 2025 has proven anything, it is this: our political system is designed to fail ordinary people. Instead of fixing that broken system, the Albanese Labor government has spent the past year...
If 2025 has proven anything, it is this: our political system is designed to fail ordinary people. Instead of fixing that broken system, the Albanese Labor government has spent the past year defending it, propping it up and polishing it. They have all this power in majority government and nothing good to show for it. This Labor government was first elected in 2022, following the climate election, with a promise to take real action on the climate crisis. What we have seen is anything but. The climate crisis is not an accident. It is a direct result of big business seeking profit at any cost and of governments too cowardly, too compromised and too entangled with big money to stop them. This year, Labor approved Woodside's North West Shelf expansion, a disaster for the climate and for the priceless Murujuga rock art. Why did Labor approve it? It's because Woodside wanted them to, because the fossil fuel industry continues to run the show, because rampant capitalism rewards destruction and because Labor refuse to bite the hand of the carbon cartel that feeds them. Then came the climate risk assessment, a document Labor tried to hide for months because it outlines the devastating consequences we are facing by utterly failing to tackle the climate crisis. Yet the government refuses to even acknowledge what is causing this crisis—the coal and gas projects that they continue to approve left, right and centre. Then there are the environmental reforms that Labor has proposed, which, in their current form, are a gift to environmental vandals. In its current form, it is a framework built around faster and cheaper approvals for fossil fuel corporations to bulldoze First Nations country and destroy the planet. This is corporate lobbying turned into legislation, and the planet and the climate are paying the price. Nowhere is the sickness of our system clearer than in the Labor government's response to Israel's genocide in Palestine. Thousands and thousands of Palestinians have been killed. Gaza has been destroyed. Children have been starved, bombed and buried under the rubble, and the Albanese government has not just looked away but actively participated. The government endorsed Trump's sham peace plan, which entrenches apartheid and denies the Palestinian people self-determination and justice. Australia continues to supply parts of weapons that will murder children. Why? It's because the United States demands loyalty, because the weapons industry demands customers and because supporting genocide is, apparently, less politically risky than standing up to colonial violence. This is what happens when foreign policy is dictated by weapons manufacturers, imperialists and warmongers, not by morality. We see the same pattern in Sudan and in the Congo, where mass slaughter, famine and displacement continue with little more than a murmur from the international community. The crisis in Sudan is not an unstoppable tragedy. It is a consequence of deliberate choices made by governments who arm dictators, who sign trade deals with tyrants and who put profit before human life. This humanitarian catastrophe demands that Australia speak up and act, and it demands that Australia commit to significantly more aid and humanitarian access. The global war machine has an endless, insatiable appetite for death, genocide and destruction, and the international system meant to restrain it has become too weak and too compromised to even try. This year, racism has dug its claws even deeper into the world we live in. State Labor governments ramped up racist policing and passed antiprotest laws that criminalise democratic dissent. Federally, they've leaned into dog whistling, blaming migrants and international students for their own failures to address the housing crisis. It has kept communities of colour living in fear. This is not passive; this is deliberate. A system built on inequity and white supremacy relies on racism to survive. It ensures demonisation of the marginalised by hate and fear while people can't make ends meet and the billionaires feast. This year, the big banks pocketed almost $30 billion in profit. Coles and Woolworths jacked up prices while working families skipped meals. Energy giants raked in tens of billions selling our resources back to us at inflated prices. Mining corporations made super profits off climate destruction and paid pennies in tax. If anyone still doubts that the system is not working, look no further than the obscene explosion of wealth among Australia's richest ultrawealthy people. While ordinary families line up at food banks, while renters are pushed into homelessness and while workers juggle two or three jobs to stay afloat, the wealth of the ultrarich in this country is growing at sickening, obscene rates. Gina Rinehart's personal fortune grew by billions in a single year. The wealth of the Murdoch dynasty, of Andrew Forrest and of the tech and property barons skyrocketed, even as the living standards of everyday Australians fell. The combined wealth of Australia's richest 200 people now sits at $668 billion. It grows faster than wages and faster than GDP. This is not a quirk of the market. This is the inevitable outcome of a system that rewards hoarding, rewards endless greed and rewards exploitation. It is a system where the rich get richer because ordinary people are squeezed harder every year. Let me be crystal clear: these billionaires are not some geniuses lifting this country up. They extract, and they exploit. Their wealth increases when someone else's hardship increases. Their gain is our loss, yet they get away scot-free. There is no super profits tax or wealth tax. There are no meaningful constraints on supermarket price gouging. The governments cut deals, offer subsidies and roll out the red carpet, because, in this system, political success is tied to appeasing the very people responsible for the suffering of millions. Responding to this is not a matter of tweaking around the edges. The entire system is failing because it was built to fail—to fail us. We do not have the luxury of pretending that this can be fixed with mild reforms or incrementalism. We must build something different. A different future is not idealistic; it is necessary. It means public ownership of essential services operated for people, not profit. It means housing as a human right. It means a public higher education system that is debt free and independent from corporate control. It has workers at the centre with strong unions, secure jobs and fair wages. It has antiracist, anticolonial governance. It confronts white supremacy instead of feeding it. It is just and caring. This is not impossible to achieve, but we do need a bit of courage to do it. We stand on the shoulders of movements that reshaped the world. The union movement won the eight-hour day, the health and safety of workers and even the weekend. The civil rights movement dismantled segregation. The women's liberation movement won reproductive rights and economic freedoms. The anti-apartheid movement toppled a system once considered unbreakable. But these victories were not delivered by compliant politicians. They were delivered by ordinary people who refused to accept the status quo of their time and who loudly and proudly protested for a better future. In Australia as well, governments once dared to build big. We created Medicare, public housing, income support and free education. We have done this before. We can do this again, but only if we confront the system standing in our way, a system that feeds off exploitation and suffering. The billionaires will not save us. The banks will not save us. The corporations will not save us. The politicians who pander to them will not save us either. We will have to save ourselves through people power movements, through solidarity and through collective power. We are running out of time, but we're not running out of hope. Hope turned into action has always been the most powerful force in history. (Time expired)
Discrimination | Matters of Urgency | Senate debates
I move: That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: The need for the Australian Government to take immediate action to tackle racism, the emboldening of the...
I move: That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: The need for the Australian Government to take immediate action to tackle racism, the emboldening of the far-right and the rise of neo-Nazism and reject white supremacy and extremism as evidenced by the anti-immigrant 'March for Australia', the violent attack on Camp Sovereignty, and the racist rally outside the New South Wales Parliament. The far right is surging and racism is rising because politicians and the media have spent years dog whistling, scapegoating and stoking resentment. Now the consequences are erupting all around us. Communities are scared; hate crimes are rising; Neo-Nazis are emboldened. Politicians and the media cannot now pretend to be shocked that the wolves have arrived at the door. Racism is raging more openly and more viciously than I have ever seen in my time in this country, and the far right is gaining ground and not just because of their own bile; they get a free kick from the Liberal Party, which is now so desperate for relevance that it jumps to answer the calls of open racists. Just weeks after Neo-Nazis marched through our streets calling for an end to Indian immigration and the expulsion of black and brown communities from what they call 'white Australia', what did the Liberals do? They called for an 'Australian values' screening for migrants—as though the people who come here fleeing war, poverty and persecution are the ones who lack values, and not the politicians who demonise them every single day. But even trickier to confront than the open hatred spewed by the Liberal Party is the sly racism executed by a political party that claims to know better—Labor—because, while the Liberals shout their racism loudly, Labor writes it quietly into law. In Victoria, a Labor government has announced laws allowing children to be locked up for life—laws that we all know will disproportionately incarcerate First Nations and black and brown children. There is nothing more racist than designing a justice system whose default setting is to punish the marginalised. In New South Wales, the Minns government green-lights Neo-Nazi gatherings on the steps of parliament, while passing draconian anti-protest laws targeted squarely at pro-Palestine protesters calling out Australia's complicity in genocide. They have criminalised dissent rather than confronting their own failures. And the Albanese government has set a shameful national standard. The government's anti-refugee and anti-migrant legislation has been cruel, unnecessary and deeply shameful. But there is another truth that we must not shy away from. The far right grows in the cracks of inequality. It feeds on desperation. It recruits from the communities governments have abandoned. When people cannot afford rent, when they're working three jobs just to stay afloat and when the cost of living is crushing them and they see no political will to change it, the far right steps in with someone to blame. If this government is serious about change, it must tackle racism and it must tackle the economic conditions that allow racism to grow. We cannot ignore the housing crisis, the skyrocketing cost of living and rising inequality and then act shocked when the far right exploits people's fears and frustrations. We need real investment in public and affordable housing. We need a rent freeze. We need to lift income support above the poverty line. We need fair wages, secure jobs, free education and an economy built on care and community, not on extraction and exploitation, because, when people have stability, dignity and a roof over their head, they are not so easily seduced by those peddling hate. The Albanese government is failing to do their primary job—to look after people—and that failure has fed the far right, who are now marching openly on the streets in our cities. They're on the verge of forming a white Australia party. They call for a white revolution. They train. They recruit. They celebrate hate. So today I make this plea. Open your eyes. Drop the denial. Stop gaslighting people who highlight racism and the many failures of this government. Face the racism that is spilling onto the streets and dripping off the walls of this parliament. This is not a moment of political calculation. This is not a moment for more inquiries or envoys. This is a moment for courage, for truth, for justice and for action.
Higher Education Support Amendment (Reverse Job-Ready Graduates Fee Hikes and End 50k Arts Degrees) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
I move: That this bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill. Leave granted. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated...
I move: That this bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill. Leave granted. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows— I am honoured to introduce the Greens' Higher Education Support Amendment (Reverse Job-Ready Graduates Fee Hikes and End 50k Arts Degrees) Bill 2025. This bill does something very simple but very meaningful—and long overdue. It undoes the Morrison Government's cruel, unfair, and downright absurd Job-Ready Graduates package fee hikes. This bill will reverse the punitive fee hikes that have left hundreds of thousands of students saddled with higher and higher debts for simply wanting to study what they love. It repeals the fee hikes from Job-Ready Graduates. It provides that the maximum student contribution amounts for a place in a unit of study in Law, Accounting, Administration, Economics, Commerce, Society and Culture and Communications are reverted to what those amounts would have been on 1 January 2026, accounting for indexation, if the amendments made by the job-ready graduates bill had not commenced. Right now, in 2025, we still live with the ideological wrecking ball Scott Morrison's Coalition government took to our universities in 2020—and Labor has had more than three years to fix it, but hasn't. When the Morrison Government rammed through this bill in 2020, it was an act of breathtaking cruelty and short-sightedness. It came at a time when universities were already reeling from 35,000 pandemic job losses, brutal funding cuts, and years of neglect. Rather than support higher education, the Coalition used the crisis to further its ideological war against public universities and the arts. This was about punishing students. It was about punishing universities. And it was about punishing critical thinking. It was about making education serve the market, not the public. It was about turning universities into profit-driven corporations rather than places of learning and discovery. Under the Job-Ready Graduates scheme, fees for humanities, arts, law and social science degrees exploded—with students now paying over $50,000 for an arts degree. More than fifty thousand dollars to study literature, politics, philosophy, or history. These are the disciplines that help us understand who we are, why the world is as it is, and how to make it better. But the Morrison Government decided they weren't "job-ready" enough. The damage from JRG has been so devastating that the cost of an arts degree has doubled. This Bill brings down the cost of an arts degree from over $50,000 to just $24,500. This was an ideological attack on education itself—on the idea that universities should exist to expand knowledge, not serve the market. And the damage has been devastating. Universities are teaching more with less. Students are paying more for less. Casualisation is rampant, research is gutted, and staff morale is on the floor. This is not a system built for learning—it's a system built for profit. Labor, when they were in opposition, called Job-Ready Graduates "inequitable, perverse, and punitive." They were right then. But where are they now? They've been in power for more than three years. They've overseen multiple budgets. They even commissioned a Universities Accord that concluded, very clearly, that the Job-Ready Graduates fee hikes require "urgent remediation." Urgent remediation. Not in a few years. Not after another roundtable or consultation. And yet, nothing. Literally everyone in higher education is calling for a reversal of JRG, urgently, but Labor has kicked the can down the road. No more excuses. Labor can support this bill right here and remove some of the burden of debt on struggling students. Labor is able to find hundreds of billions for nuclear submarines, for tax cuts for the rich, for fossil fuel subsidies—but not to undo a Coalition policy that is actively punishing students every single day. The hypocrisy doesn't end there. Last year, while students were drowning in debt, the Government spent months trying to push through awful legislation scapegoating international students in a bid to deflect from their own policy failures on housing. Instead of focusing on the so-called "problem" of international students—who contribute billions to our economy and enrich our campuses and our communities—Labor should have been focused on fixing the actual problem: the outrageous fees facing domestic students because of Job-Ready Graduates. All that time in Parliament wasted blaming migrants, when they could have used it to make higher education fair again. And Labor knows it. Their own MPs are begging them to act. Just in August, The Guardian reported that a group of Labor MPs—including Louise Miller-Frost and Carina Garland—urged the government to prioritise reform of the "failed" Job-Ready Graduates scheme. They said it had created "perverse incentives," damaged equity, and urgently needed fixing. When your own backbench is calling your policy a failure—when even your internal reports admit it's broken—what are you waiting for? It's not just MPs saying it. At the end of July, more than 100 well-known Australians—authors, academics, historians, and public figures—signed an open letter calling on Labor to abolish Job-Ready Graduates. They said we need a funding system that doesn't punish students for choosing the humanities or social sciences. Tim Winton, one of our most prominent writers, said: "Earning a humanities degree was life-changing. My little arts degree has created jobs and cultural value for over forty years." And yet, if he were studying today, that same arts degree would cost him more than $50,000. What kind of country does that? A country that has forgotten what education is for. When I was an academic, I saw firsthand how corporatisation hollowed out our universities. Universities have become obsessed with branding, rankings and "revenue diversification." Vice-chancellor and senior executive salaries have exploded while staff are underpaid, overworked and pushed into insecure work. Students are treated as numbers and teachers treated as expendable. Job-Ready Graduates supercharged that shift. It decoupled teaching from research, slashed public funding, and locked in a model where students—not the government—pay the price. This bill is our chance to start reversing that. Because education should never be about profit. It should never be about producing "job-ready" cogs for a market economy. It should be about producing informed, creative, critical citizens—people who can think for themselves and shape a better world. Universities should be life-making, not profit-making. The idea that an arts degree is somehow less valuable than an engineering or business degree is absurd. And I say that as a proud civil engineer. Humanities graduates work in public service, community organising, journalism, education, research, politics, and countless other areas that hold our democracy together. We need more of them, not less. Labor's one-off student debt cut may have made for good headlines and election ads, but it did nothing for new students starting today. Nothing for high school graduates who look at those fee tables and think, I just can't afford university. That's the quiet tragedy of Job-Ready Graduates—not just the people crushed by debt, but the people who never enrol at all. The young woman in regional NSW who dreams of studying sociology but can't take on $50,000 of debt. The mature-age student in Western Sydney who wants to retrain in teaching or social work but just can't afford the fees. Education should open doors, not close them. Notably, this Bill halves the cost of an arts degree. That is how severe the damage of job-ready graduates has been. Had it not been for this cruel and disastrous plan, students starting today would be paying half of the fees they face today. And they can, if the Parliament supports this Bill. This Bill recommits this Parliament to the principle that higher education is a public good—something we gladly invest in because it benefits all of us. Because when we invest in students, we invest in our future. When we invest in universities, we invest in research, innovation, arts, science, culture, and progress. When we make education free and accessible, we build a more equal, creative, and democratic society. President, I've said it before and I'll say it again—education is a right, not a privilege. Growing up in Pakistan, I saw how transformative that right can be—and how easily it can be denied. We can't sit by while this government keeps a broken, punitive system in place. Labor's own words, their own reports, their own backbenchers, their own voters are saying the same thing: Job-Ready Graduates has failed. It's time to fix it. The Greens will keep fighting for a fully funded, free higher education system—for the abolition of student debt, for secure work for university staff, and for real democracy in how universities are run. Our vision is clear: education is a public good. It should be free, fully funded, and accessible to all. Universities should focus on changing lives, not earning profits. Governance failure after governance failure has revealed universities as places where staff and students are afraid to speak out, those who do are silenced and punished. This system must be overhauled. Elected staff and students must run unis not corporate appointees. We need a higher education system that values knowledge for its own sake—that nurtures curiosity, creativity and critical thought. One that pays and respects its staff. One that is governed democratically, with students and workers determining their futures—not vice-chancellors and corporate boards. We will keep pushing until every student, regardless of background or postcode, can study without a lifelong debt. And that starts right here—by undoing the damage of Job-Ready Graduates. I urge all senators—especially those on the government benches—to remember what they, and their party, said when this policy was first introduced. You know it is unjust. You know it is unsustainable. And you know it can be fixed. You have the power to make $50,000 arts degrees are a thing of the past. You have the power to ensure that education in this country is once again a right, not a privilege. Let's reverse the Job-Ready Graduates fee hikes and then let's make university and TAFE fully funded and free. I commend the bill to the Senate. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned.