Sam McMahon's recent appearances (OpenAustralia.org)
type: channel
language: en-gb
creator: OpenAustralia.org, mprss.php script
date: 2022-07-10T23:05:06+00:00
items: Valedictory | Parliamentary Representation | Senate debates
items: Kitching, Senator Kimberley Jane Elizabeth | Condolences | Senate debates
items: Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve's Law) Bill 2021; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
items: Centre for National Resilience | Statements | Senate debates
items: Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority Board and Other Improvements) Bill 2019; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
items: Ensuring Northern Territory Rights Bill 2021; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
items: Industry Research and Development (Beetaloo Cooperative Drilling Program) Instrument 2021; Disallowance | Regulations and Determinations | Senate debates
items: Violence | Questions without Notice: Take Note of Answers | Senate debates
items: COVID-19: Vaccination | Statements | Senate debates
items: COVID-19: Indigenous Australians | Matters of Urgency | Senate debates
items: Australian Agriculture Visa | Statements | Senate debates
items: Infrastructure | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
items: Agriculture Visas | Statements | Senate debates
items: Northern Territory: Zoos and Aquariums | Statements | Senate debates
items: Environment and Communications References Committee; Report | Committees | Senate debates

Valedictory | Parliamentary Representation | Senate debates
type: item
description: I rise today to take this opportunity to thank the Senate and to express my gratitude in a number of areas over the last three years of my time in this place. As we all know, in June last year...
encoded: I rise today to take this opportunity to thank the Senate and to express my gratitude in a number of areas over the last three years of my time in this place. As we all know, in June last year the Country Liberal Party exercised their democratic right and selected a new Senate candidate. There have been many hours and column centimetres to discuss the merits of this decision—or otherwise. But I would like to have a few other reflections. In reflecting on my time in this place, I want to start by acknowledging those around me who have offered me tremendous support over an extended period of time. I made some initial mistakes in who I chose to receive advice from. I have acknowledged those mistakes, and they continue to follow me in this place. Personal staff, as we know, can make or break an elected member, and I've certainly experienced both. I've taken the opportunity to bring my current staff to Canberra to witness the budget and see firsthand the parliament in action, which, unfortunately, they have been unable to do over most of my term. Let me start with some of the staff that I brought with me. Helen Bateman has been with the office from the onset and, more than most, has experienced the high and lows with me. Helen has seven decades of life experience, many of those in politics, and I am grateful for her tireless work in keeping me on schedule and for her genuine and sincere engagement with constituents. Kylie Bonanni joined my office last year. Kylie swept into the office and brought with her substantial organisation skills, with her ability to connect to people and create from scratch programs and events for ministers and even the Prime Minister at short notice. I'd like to acknowledge Lance Northey, who's not actually here today. He has been my long-suffering media adviser, and, given some of the media attention I have attracted, his has not been an easy task. He has filled the shoes with all of his many years of experience, as you would expect. To you, Ho…
date: 2022-03-30T15:35:00+00:00

Kitching, Senator Kimberley Jane Elizabeth | Condolences | Senate debates
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description: I rise today to speak about our colleague Senator Kimberley Kitching. Others have detailed her achievements and outstanding contributions. I will not reiterate those, but I wholeheartedly support...
encoded: I rise today to speak about our colleague Senator Kimberley Kitching. Others have detailed her achievements and outstanding contributions. I will not reiterate those, but I wholeheartedly support what others here today have said. Kimba was, from the other side of the chamber, one of the people that I was probably closer to, and that was due to a combination of her own outgoing and vivacious personality and the fact of our mutual passion for the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, on which we both served. She was dedicated, passionate and extremely knowledgeable about many things, as we have heard today, and that certainly included the ADF. I enjoyed immensely our inspection tours, the last of which was last month, just two weeks and one day before she passed away, and I am incredibly glad to have had those two days to enjoy with her. It was a fantastic inspection tour. She had this ability to ask questions on our inspection visits and in our committee that were not just appropriate but insightful and showed her great knowledge of and interest in the subject at hand. She would ask questions that the rest of us hadn't thought to ask, but I was always enthralled by the information that she uncovered in asking her questions. On a personal note: no matter what sort of day I was having, running into Kimba would always brighten it. She was vivacious, her smile infectious and, as Senator McKenzie covered, she could be somewhat mischievous and irreverent. I will miss her, and this place is poorer without her presence.
date: 2022-03-28T14:50:00+00:00

Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve's Law) Bill 2021; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
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description: In considering the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve's Law) Bill 2021 a lot of people find it confusing. I'm a veterinary surgeon and a scientist, and even I found it confusing until I...
encoded: In considering the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve's Law) Bill 2021 a lot of people find it confusing. I'm a veterinary surgeon and a scientist, and even I found it confusing until I delved right down deeply into it. I feel that it's a little bit misnamed—'mitochondrial donation'. People equate it with organ donation. You may decide that, when you die, you want to donate your organs. The person who receives that organ gets that organ. It's donated by you. You've said, 'You can take that from me when I die'—hopefully after you die, not before!—and that person receives that organ and they have it until they pass away. Mitochondrial donation is not a donation as such; it's the taking of genetic material from one cell and putting it in another. It might seem like semantics but when people hear 'donation' I think they equate it with organ donation, which is a very-well-understood and long-practised technique. I will go into a little bit of the science of it. The mitochondria, as others might have said, are little structures in our cells—they exist in all cells—and they're often described as the powerhouse or the engine room. They're the structures which essentially take what we eat and turn it into energy for the cell to function. Mitochondrial disease is becoming better understood. This is a fairly recent thing in terms of medical research; it's becoming a more-understood disease in recent times. There are various different types of mitochondrial disease. It's basically a dysfunction of the genetic material within the mitochondria, which leads to various manifestations. They can be extremely mild—so much so that the person with the condition doesn't even realise there's anything wrong with them—or they can be quite devastating, leading to the very early death of babies or children or long-term medical effects such as Senator Lines detailed with the case of Pippa. It was very distressing to hear about that case, and I'm sure that no-one would not have sympathy f…
date: 2022-02-09T10:36:00+00:00

Centre for National Resilience | Statements | Senate debates
type: item
description: I rise today to speak about the sad decay and decline of the Centre for National Resilience, the quarantine facility at Howard Springs in the Northern Territory, under the watch of the Gunner...
encoded: I rise today to speak about the sad decay and decline of the Centre for National Resilience, the quarantine facility at Howard Springs in the Northern Territory, under the watch of the Gunner Labor government. This facility was considered world-class, gold standard, under Professor Len Notaras and his AUSMAT team. It has gone from gold standard to winning the wooden spoon. Just last week we had three people presumed to have actually caught COVID within the centre. We had one person abscond. They got out of the centre and were found hours later at a bar in Darwin's CBD. Just today we have news of three people absconding from the centre and being found in Palmerston. People are just going over the very small fence and getting out. This never happened under Professor Len Notaras. That's why it was considered to be gold standard. It wasn't the physical buildings of the facility itself; it was the management. Less than six months since the facility was handed over to Michael Gunner it has gone into absolute decline. It has gone from being the shining light of quarantine facilities around the world and around Australia. We've had people come to the Northern Territory to examine the facility and see what we're doing that is working so well. It was working well until the management of the facility was handed over to Michael Gunner. It has gone from being the shining light to a chaotic failure. It's very sad that in less than six months it has been torn apart and is no longer functional.
date: 2021-12-01T13:40:00+00:00

Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority Board and Other Improvements) Bill 2019; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
type: item
description: As I was saying last night when I opened my contribution on the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority Board and...
encoded: As I was saying last night when I opened my contribution on the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority Board and Other Improvements) Bill 2019, the importance of agricultural and veterinary chemicals and their regulation can't be overemphasised. How has this come before us? It's not something we thought up yesterday; it has been a long process. It was part of the 2015 Agricultural competitiveness white paper. The government committed to streamline access to agvet chemicals and better manage the risks they pose whilst at the same time retaining protection for the health, welfare and safety of humans, animals, plants and the environment. The Morrison-Joyce government recognises the need to better balance regulatory effort with risk and improve veterinary surgeons', farmers' and other users' access to newer and better agricultural and veterinary chemicals, including many medications. This government also recognises the need to ensure that our regulatory agencies have effective governance arrangements, with clear accountability and transparency. The department consulted on potential agvet chemical reforms between 2015 and 2018. Stakeholder feedback indicated widespread interest in reform and support for a more efficient and effective regulatory system. I can personally report that people in industry that I have been speaking to recently—as you're well aware, I'm very close to this industry, being a veterinary surgeon—have talked about how they have seen improvements in the way that the APVMA works, in the way that it approves medications and chemicals and in the time that it takes to get approvals through. That was a big thing that industry has had for many, many years. This is quite a small agency and it's often dealing with hundreds of applications at any one time. Industry has been concerned for many years about the time taken to get things approved. I am very pleased to report that under …
date: 2021-12-01T10:38:00+00:00

Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority Board and Other Improvements) Bill 2019; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
type: item
description: The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority is an important regulator. It regulates agricultural and veterinary chemicals, including medications. We all understand the importance...
encoded: The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority is an important regulator. It regulates agricultural and veterinary chemicals, including medications. We all understand the importance of agriculture. It is vital to Australia—absolutely vital. It produces our food and our fibre, and not just for us but for exports. It is really important that Australia has access to the high-quality chemicals needed to produce the quality food we do. With respect to the veterinary side of it, being a veterinary surgeon myself, all of the veterinary medications are registered and regulated by the APVMA. Now—
date: 2021-11-30T19:19:00+00:00

Ensuring Northern Territory Rights Bill 2021; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
type: item
description: Thank you to Senator Gallagher. Thank you for acknowledging the work that I have done, and I thank all of my colleagues in the Senate for hearing me out on this issue and for granting me the...
encoded: Thank you to Senator Gallagher. Thank you for acknowledging the work that I have done, and I thank all of my colleagues in the Senate for hearing me out on this issue and for granting me the opportunity to bring this legislation, the Ensuring Northern Territory Rights Bill 2021—my private senator's bill—to the Senate and to debate it. It is important. The Northern Territory is, I believe, a very unique place. Everybody probably believes that about where they live. They probably believe that it's special, it's unique and it's the best place in the world. But the Northern Territory is unique. It's a huge landmass. We've got over 1.4 million square kilometres. We don't have many people. We have a very large Indigenous population. We have a great deal of difference in our socioeconomic areas. You've got Darwin, which is quite a metropolitan, cosmopolitan city, and many people live there, as in inner-city Melbourne or inner-city Sydney. Then we have the smaller towns. Katherine is where I'm from. Katherine is the fourth-largest town in the Northern Territory, with a population of about 10,000 people—so it would count as quite a small country town in the rest of Australia. Our Indigenous communities are spread throughout the Northern Territory, often in some very beautiful but inaccessible locations. A lot of these places are not well serviced by roads, and the people live out there in very small communities and with quite a traditional lifestyle. We have our cattle stations, isolated farms, isolated properties. For some people on some of these properties, it might be an 800-kilometre trip one-way to go shopping. So it is quite sparsely populated, and a unique and different place. Some of our places are not even accessible by road for most of the year. They have to get their supplies brought in by barge or by small plane. Having such a small population, we are a territory, the same as the ACT, although the ACT is obviously geographically very small. But we are capable of …
date: 2021-11-29T10:24:00+00:00

Industry Research and Development (Beetaloo Cooperative Drilling Program) Instrument 2021; Disallowance | Regulations and Determinations | Senate debates
type: item
description: I rise to speak on this disallowance motion. It's not the first time that this has been attempted. Yes, this government has committed $50 million in grants to advance the exploration of the...
encoded: I rise to speak on this disallowance motion. It's not the first time that this has been attempted. Yes, this government has committed $50 million in grants to advance the exploration of the Beetaloo basin, which we think and we hope will be extremely productive. Why have we done this? This government gives grants to a lot of different industries that we think are going to be valuable for the Australian people and for our economy. We give lots of grants to things like hydrogen, battery storage, solar and wind, and lots of grants to business development and manufacturing. We do a whole lot of work in this space to try to advance economic development, and this is just one of those. This is to bring forward exploration of the Beetaloo basin, which has the potential to bring a huge amount of jobs and economic stimulus to the Northern Territory in particular and also to Indigenous people and traditional owners. The Greens like to talk a big game about Indigenous people, but the truth is that they actually don't care about Indigenous economic advancement, Indigenous jobs, Indigenous businesses and independence from welfare. If they did truly believe that then they would be supporting this program. This program is not only going to provide jobs—actual long-term jobs—for the traditional owners of this area but it's also going to provide opportunity for Indigenous businesses. In fact, I am engaged with an Indigenous business at the moment in the region which is looking to provide services and a whole pile of other jobs to this industry. (Quorum formed) The Greens like to talk a big game about supposedly supporting Indigenous Australians, but they actually don't. What they want to do is oppress them. What they're doing is trying to infantilise Indigenous Australians. They want to keep them down. They don't want to give them economic opportunity, because this is the biggest economic opportunity that Indigenous Territorians have had in a very long time. This will grow Indigenous…
date: 2021-11-24T19:05:00+00:00

Violence | Questions without Notice: Take Note of Answers | Senate debates
type: item
description: I rise to respond to Senators Kitching and Ciccone taking note of answers from Senator Birmingham to questions asked by Senator Wong. I might be paraphrasing Senator Wong a little bit, but...
encoded: I rise to respond to Senators Kitching and Ciccone taking note of answers from Senator Birmingham to questions asked by Senator Wong. I might be paraphrasing Senator Wong a little bit, but basically her question was why we as a government did not oppose the motion that was put up. The fact is that there was no motion put. So we didn't not oppose, and we didn't vote against—there was no motion put to the Senate to vote on. If we turn to some of the comments made by Senator Kitching regarding the issue of violent protests, violence and unacceptable behaviour, we did hear from Senator Birmingham. He said, 'Of course, we oppose and condemn threatening or inflicting violence in any form whatsoever.' So he did address it. We as a government and we as individuals completely oppose threatening, violent or inciteful behaviour by anyone. Those opposite and those in the corner would have us believe that this is all right-wing extremism. It's not. Certainly, there are extremists out there—right and left wing, and other types—and we must always take action against extremist, politically motivated violence. And we are. I'm pleased to say that this year the government has made a record $1 billion investment in ASIO's most sensitive capabilities. This is to investigate, discover, stamp out, prevent and crack down on this kind of extremism and this kind of violence. So we're definitely doing a lot about the issue. The other thing that we need to look at is why we're seeing this massive rise in violence and threats—fortunately, at the moment, it's mostly threats—directed towards people in government and people in public office. None of it's excusable, but those on the other side don't care why. They don't care. We do. On this side we do, and we recognise that a lot of these people who aren't the extremists are actually pretty normal people who are behaving in a very, very abnormal way—a way that they would not normally behave in. We need to look at what's causing that. Some of the pe…
date: 2021-11-24T16:27:00+00:00

COVID-19: Vaccination | Statements | Senate debates
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description: I rise today to speak about the appalling state in the Northern Territory of the vaccine mandates inflicted upon Territorians by the Gunner Labor government. In the Northern Territory anybody who...
encoded: I rise today to speak about the appalling state in the Northern Territory of the vaccine mandates inflicted upon Territorians by the Gunner Labor government. In the Northern Territory anybody who has a job, who has contracts, who has a business cannot work unless they're vaccinated or they are someone who works from home and never sees another human being during the course of their day. Mr Gunner said yesterday that anyone who does not support vaccine mandates are antivaxxers. This means he's calling the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the entire government antivaxxers, which is clearly not the truth. He also went on to say that anyone who gives comfort or support to anybody who argues against the vaccines is an antivaxxer. This is disgusting. This is un-Australian and this is un-Territorian. This means that he is labelling people antivaxxers if they give comfort or support to anyone who does not wish to be vaccinated. This covers thousands of individuals, including people out on Indigenous communities who have chosen not to be vaccinated and other Territorians who for various reasons have chosen not to be. There are many Territorians who choose not to be vaccinated, not because they're being belligerent, not because they're being difficult but because they have a genuine fear and terror of being vaccinated. I might feel that their fears are unreasonable and unfounded, but to them they are real. Fears and phobias are not rational or logical. Most people who are terrified of planes have never been in a plane crash, most people who are afraid of spiders have never been bitten by a spider and most people who are afraid of heights have never fallen from a great one, yet their fears are just as real.
date: 2021-11-23T13:32:00+00:00

COVID-19: Vaccination | Statements | Senate debates
type: item
description: [by video link] I rise today to speak about the dire state of COVID vaccinations in the Northern Territory, particularly in remote Indigenous communities. In one community alone, only nine per...
encoded: [by video link] I rise today to speak about the dire state of COVID vaccinations in the Northern Territory, particularly in remote Indigenous communities. In one community alone, only nine per cent of people have received their first dose and just five per cent their second dose. There are numerous communities where the second dose is in single digits. Just last week, I spoke to an organisation that sent a medical team out to one of those remote communities. They took 400 doses, enough for every single person in the community, and they managed to vaccinate just 14 people. Some of our general population statistics are the worst in the nation. For those aged 16 and over, we have just 71.68 per cent of people having had their first vaccination. For those 70 and over, first dose is sitting at 86.4 per cent and the second dose is at 70.9 per cent. This is the worst in the country by a long way. The Northern Territory government is not addressing this crisis in some of our most vulnerable people: Indigenous communities and the aged. Instead of addressing the problem, the Northern Territory government is mandating that nearly all workers be vaccinated or be fined $5,000 and lose their jobs. Have we really come to a society where, in order to have a job, put food on the table and put a roof over your family's head, you must undertake a medical procedure against your will? And this is doing nothing to address the real crisis out there in communities. Instead, it is driving workers who don't want to be vaccinated, for whatever reason—and I disagree with that—to the unemployment queue or out of the Northern Territory.
date: 2021-10-21T13:46:00+00:00

COVID-19: Indigenous Australians | Matters of Urgency | Senate debates
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description: [by video link] The first thing that I would like to do in speaking on this matter of urgency is to say that I absolutely reject the premise of this. It talks about the need for the...
encoded: [by video link] The first thing that I would like to do in speaking on this matter of urgency is to say that I absolutely reject the premise of this. It talks about the need for the Morrison-Joyce government to stop blaming First Nations Australians and instead take responsibility for their bungled vaccine rollout. I reject all of that comment, all of that sentence. Who has said that anyone is blaming First Nations Australians—or anyone else for that matter? And why do those opposite constantly have to find blame? We talk about how we're all in this together and we're all working together and we should have a bipartisan approach, yet those opposite continually politicise this issue and continually want to apportion blame to someone. I haven't heard anyone in this government blaming First Nations Australians, yet we're accused of doing that here, and I absolutely reject that. We're not blaming anyone, yet that's what those on the other side continually seek to claim. Why does there have to be someone to blame? Can they not just join with this government in getting on with the job? Secondly, the government should take responsibility for its bungled vaccine rollout: there has been nothing bungled about this vaccine rollout at all. Yes, there have been aspects of it that may have been less than desirable, where things haven't worked out as planned, but it hasn't been bungled. Things happen. This is an absolutely unprecedented situation. We're being asked to do something that we as a nation—and we as a world—have never, ever attempted to do previously, so not everything is going to go absolutely according to plan all of the time, but that does not mean that the job is bungled. This government has been exceptionally good at dealing with it and dealing with everything that has been thrown our way. Many things have changed; this is a dynamic situation, and we have dealt with everything that has come our way and we've dealt with it practically and efficiently. The government…
date: 2021-09-01T16:55:00+00:00

Australian Agriculture Visa | Statements | Senate debates
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description: [by video link] I rise today to talk about our recently announced Agriculture Visa. This has been a long-held initiative of the Country Liberal Party and the National Party, and I am very glad it...
encoded: [by video link] I rise today to talk about our recently announced Agriculture Visa. This has been a long-held initiative of the Country Liberal Party and the National Party, and I am very glad it is going to come into effect from the 30th of this month. It will complement our existing Seasonal Worker Program, which has been so vital and so successful in the Northern Territory. It will rely on us having bilateral agreements with the countries that we are going to invite these workers to come from, and I hope that these bilateral agreements will be able to be brought into play, nutted out and agreed to very shortly to allow Territory producers and farmers to take advantage of the Agriculture Visa. The next part of the puzzle is that we need to be able to have quarantine arrangements, particularly during COVID, for these workers. It has been a struggle, even under the Seasonal Worker Program, to get the Northern Territory government to agree to quarantine arrangements. I'm very glad to see that 160 people have arrived from Vanuatu, who have gone into quarantine for their two weeks and will be available for the Northern Territory mango harvest. But it was disappointing that one of our biggest producers, Katherine based Nino Niceforo, had to have his workers quarantine in WA because the Northern Territory would not make places available for them. We, the federal government, have done the heavy lifting here. We've provided the visas. We've provided the programs. All we ask of the states and territories is that they come to the party and support their people in agriculture—their farmers, their producers—by providing places for these workers to be able to complete their quarantine so that they can go onto farms and produce vital food.
date: 2021-09-01T13:54:00+00:00

Infrastructure | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
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description: That's great news for the Northern Territory. What investments is the government making in other critical projects, particularly in regional Australia, to chart our way back from COVID-19?
encoded: That's great news for the Northern Territory. What investments is the government making in other critical projects, particularly in regional Australia, to chart our way back from COVID-19?
date: 2021-08-26T14:51:00+00:00

Infrastructure | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
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description: That is indeed excellent news, Minister. Can you inform us what infrastructure programs will improve safety and support growth and recovery in Northern Territory communities?
encoded: That is indeed excellent news, Minister. Can you inform us what infrastructure programs will improve safety and support growth and recovery in Northern Territory communities?
date: 2021-08-26T14:50:00+00:00

Infrastructure | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
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description: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Regional Development, Senator McKenzie. Can the minister inform the Senate how the Liberal and...
encoded: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Regional Development, Senator McKenzie. Can the minister inform the Senate how the Liberal and Nationals government's record $110 billion—that's a lot of money—infrastructure investment plan is helping to connect communities, create jobs and support our economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic?
date: 2021-08-26T14:48:00+00:00

Agriculture Visas | Statements | Senate debates
type: item
description: I rise today to speak about the recently announced agriculture visa—announced this week, in fact, by my colleague Minister David Littleproud. I congratulate him and everyone who has worked...
encoded: I rise today to speak about the recently announced agriculture visa—announced this week, in fact, by my colleague Minister David Littleproud. I congratulate him and everyone who has worked on this. This visa, which is to be in place by 30 September, is something that has been a long-held CLP policy and something that I have advocated for since coming to this place. We in the Northern Territory rely heavily on seasonal workers and struggle to get agricultural workers. We have used the Pacific labour solution and will continue to do so—it is a very, very important part of our seasonal workforce—but this visa will give us much more flexibility for our farmers and producers who cannot get the skilled Australian labour that they need. We, on this side, care about agriculture. We look after our farmers and our producers and those in the regions, while those on the other side, and their cronies in the Northern Territory Labor government, do not care about agriculture at all. What have they done for agriculture? I'll tell you: they have done absolutely nothing for agriculture. Why do we need this visa? We need it because we have a lot of unique agricultural enterprises in the Northern Territory, such as crocodile farming. This occurs in the Northern Territory and nowhere else in Australia, so we have no access to labourers who are used to working with crocodiles. Let me tell you: if you're not used to working with crocodiles and you suddenly start to try to farm them, accidents will happen and digits will be lost.
date: 2021-08-26T13:56:00+00:00

Northern Territory: Zoos and Aquariums | Statements | Senate debates
type: item
description: I rise to speak of the plight of zoos and aquaria in the Northern Territory. In the Northern Territory, we don't have what you would call traditional zoos and huge aquaria, but we do have several...
encoded: I rise to speak of the plight of zoos and aquaria in the Northern Territory. In the Northern Territory, we don't have what you would call traditional zoos and huge aquaria, but we do have several very unique attractions. Their tourism value is far outstripped by their ecological and educational value. Some of them are doing it extremely hard at the moment. We know that when down south sneezes the Northern Territory catches a cold. That is in fact what is happening. These attractions rely on interstate tourists and large tours of schoolchildren that come through in buses, which they're not getting at the moment. We have provided assistance to them, and that's fantastic, but they're still doing it extremely hard and are on the brink of, or are in fact, closing. I'll talk about the Alice Springs Reptile Centre, owned by Rex Neindorf. It has a fantastic, unique collection of reptiles, many of which are found exclusively in Central Australia. It has fantastic educational and ecological value. Another attraction, up in Darwin, is Indo Pacific Marine, owned by Jon and Helene, which has in fact closed. They had been there for 50 years. They have whole-reef living ecosystems in aquariums. Have they closed because of COVID? No. They've certainly been impacted by COVID, but they have closed because the Northern Territory government has kicked them out of the premises that they lease. They were kicked out and not provided any alternative premises. They're not looking for a handout, they don't want anything free and they're happy to pay rent, but they have been left with nowhere to go. This is an incredibly unique attraction, and it is now lost to the Territory.
date: 2021-08-25T13:40:00+00:00

Environment and Communications References Committee; Report | Committees | Senate debates
type: item
description: Senator Watt seems to be pathologically obsessed by Minister Taylor. In fact, he spoke about Minister Taylor and about Minister Taylor's trip to the Northern Territory for quite some time and he...
encoded: Senator Watt seems to be pathologically obsessed by Minister Taylor. In fact, he spoke about Minister Taylor and about Minister Taylor's trip to the Northern Territory for quite some time and he cast aspersions about Minister Taylor's involvement. I would just like to point out to Senator Watt that he has the wrong minister, because Minister Taylor is not responsible for this program. In fact, Minister Taylor has absolutely nothing to do with this program. This program is administered by Minister Pitt—two completely different ministers, two different parties, in fact—and it is, in fact, Minister Pitt who has carriage and he is the sole decision-maker of this program. Minister Pitt was not even there. In fact, he's never been to the Beetaloo. I would love and I extend the invitation for him to come, but he's not even been there, so I don't know why Senator Watt is so obsessed by Minister Taylor and why he is trying to draw him in to what should be a factual report of evidence given by credible witnesses. In fact, he is using the opportunity to try to draw in a minister who is not involved in the instrument that this inquiry was about. Senator Watt, I don't know what your obsession is—I really don't—but you have definitely got the wrong minister. If you want to talk about any ministerial involvement in this program then you need to talk about Minister Pitt, not Minister Taylor. In case you need help: they do look quite different, they are from two different parties and they do look after different areas of ministerial responsibility. If Senator Watt and the Labor Party are going to try to incriminate any ministers in any of this program, I suggest they at least get the correct minister. As I said, coalition senators have a dissenting report, which we believe displays the factual evidence that was presented by credible witnesses. I ask the Senate to please take our report into consideration and to discredit some of the evidence given by Labor that implicates the wrong …
date: 2021-08-24T17:15:00+00:00

Environment and Communications References Committee; Report | Committees | Senate debates
type: item
description: I would like to point out that the coalition senators involved in this inquiry cannot support the majority report. This report is characterised by overtly political and ideological statements and...
encoded: I would like to point out that the coalition senators involved in this inquiry cannot support the majority report. This report is characterised by overtly political and ideological statements and selection of evidence. It has resulted in a quite biased report and biased conclusions, and we do not support it at all. In fact, we have a dissenting report which relies solely on scientific and factual evidence that was given by organisations such as the CSIRO and GISERA. The evidence that was picked up and presented in the majority report relied on a lot of unreliable witnesses, a lot of witnesses that didn't even seem to know why they were there or what they were saying. This is the reason we can't support this report. For the Northern Land Council, in fact, one of the star witnesses was a lady who gave evidence from Dubai, where she lives, claiming to be a traditional owner. The Northern Land Council, which is the body under the legislation that is charged with identifying and organising consultation with traditional owners gave evidence that this witness was, in fact, not a traditional owner of the area concerned. The report is just punctuated by claims such as these all through it, where these witnesses, who were supposed to be factual witnesses, giving evidence were actually activist groups, such as GetUp who were coaching a lot of the witnesses that were appearing, and a lot of the witnesses who supposedly appeared independently gave strikingly similar answers and they were the same answers as those that were given by organisations such as the Australia Institute and GetUp. My colleague Murray over there seems to be pathologically obsessed by Minister Taylor.
date: 2021-08-24T17:15:00+00:00