David Shoebridge's recent appearances (OpenAustralia.org)
National Anti-Corruption Commission | Questions without Notice: Take Note of Answers | Senate debates
I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Attorney-General (Senator Farrell) to a question without notice I asked today in relation to the...
I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Attorney-General (Senator Farrell) to a question without notice I asked today in relation to the Attorney-General's response to the national anti-corruption commissioner. It was pretty extraordinary that we had a prominent story today in the ABC detailing the correspondence that went between the current Attorney-General and the NACC commissioner which set out in detail the series of concerns the Attorney-General has with the NACC commissioner's failure to properly disclose conflicts of interest—failure to disclose them to her predecessor, failure to disclose them to herself and failure to disclose them to the Senate in questions that were asked in committees. That letter was, I think, properly characterised as a bombshell, because up until then there has been this wall of silence, this pretend wall of solidarity from the government around Commissioner Brereton. It didn't matter how appalling his behaviour, how many times he couldn't see a conflict of interest that whacked him in the face like standing on a rake. It didn't matter how many times that happened, we got this mantra from the Albanese government, 'The NACC commissioner has our full confidence.' We now find out that that response is absolute rubbish, because this letter from the Attorney-General shows that at least she's been watching. Maybe she's not allowed to say anything in public because the Prime Minister is gagging her from making any public comments, but this secret letter written in October made it very clear just how real the concerns are that the Attorney-General has with the NACC commissioner. As I said, he couldn't see a conflict of interest if it ran up and whacked him in the face. So what does she do? She says, 'I want a detailed response from you.' The Attorney also noted in her correspondence to Brereton that in his public statements—I'm going to quote here from the Attorney-General. She said this in her letter to the NACC commissioner: 'In your declaration you note that if a matter comes before the commission affecting the interest of an individual or entity with which you have an affiliation, you will consider if an actual or perceived conflict arises and, if necessary, take steps to mitigate it. I would suggest it would be preferable for you to declare all relevant affiliations and interactions to the CEO. If an actual conflict of interest arises, it should always be mitigated through non-participation in decision-making.' Reading through the lawyer speak, that is the A-G schooling the National Anti-Corruption Commissioner on how you deal with a conflict of interest. Commissioner Brereton, or Major General Brereton, was saying: 'If an actual conflict of interest turns up, I'll have a think about what to do with it. I might do something with it, maybe, kind of.' What the Attorney-General said is, 'If there's an conflict of interest, get out of the bloody room! Don't be anywhere near it.' She is no doubt saying that because Major General Commissioner Brereton is the bloke who sat in on all the key decision-making about the robodebt referral until the final meeting, even though he had a rock-solid conflict of interest because he knew people who were the subject of that referral. Again, he was told how grossly wrong he was by the inspector, but I still don't think he accepts the inspector's reports, because the arrogance of the man is extreme. Brereton still doesn't accept that the inspector got it right. He accepts that he's been overturned, but he still thinks the inspector is wrong. Even though the inspector schooled him on the conflict of interest, the Attorney-General then has to say to him, 'Mate, if you've got a conflict of interest, get out of the room,' because he failed to do it on robodebt, and it looks like he was keeping the door open to do it going forward. If you want to be depressed, have a read of the nine-page response that Commissioner Brereton gave to the Attorney-General, an essay in self-justification for why his failure to disclose time after time was justified. One of my favourites, in the middle of his essay to the Attorney-General, was when he was answering the complaint that the Attorney had about Commissioner Brereton failing to disclose all the work he did for the IGADF in questions that I put to him in the Senate. He goes around and says, 'No, I was only asked questions about my role as a major general,' even though he needs to be a major general and a reservist in the Defence Force to do the IGADF work. He then tries to squirm out of that and says: 'No, I wasn't being asked questions about my role in the IGADF; that's why I didn't tell you anything about it. I was only being asked questions about my role as a major general.' The guy couldn't see transparency if it bit him on the bum. He couldn't see a conflict of interest if it whacked him in the face, and he doesn't deserve to be the NACC commissioner. (Time expired) Question agreed to.
National Anti-Corruption Commission | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
Minister, you don't know if he's actually still the assistant IGADF. You've got no advice from the Attorney-General about her bombshell letter, where she panned him for failure to disclose. The...
Minister, you don't know if he's actually still the assistant IGADF. You've got no advice from the Attorney-General about her bombshell letter, where she panned him for failure to disclose. The ongoing failure of Commissioner Brereton to deal with his own perceived and actual conflicts of interest and his failure to come even close to transparency with your government or the parliament is rapidly eroding the trust of Australians in the NACC. Why can't you see that, and why can't you do the right thing and sack him? Bring on the motion and sack him.
Well, that says a lot, doesn't it? They have no idea whether or not he has resigned. Minister, a bombshell letter from the Attorney-General to Commissioner Brereton, sent in October of last year,...
Well, that says a lot, doesn't it? They have no idea whether or not he has resigned. Minister, a bombshell letter from the Attorney-General to Commissioner Brereton, sent in October of last year, pointed out repeated failures of Commissioner Brereton to disclose his moonlighting with the IGADF to the Senate, to the former A-G and to the current A-G. Given this, does Commissioner Brereton seriously have the confidence of the Albanese government to head the National Anti-Corruption Commission?
My question is to the Minister representing the Attorney-General. On 12 June 2023, Senator Watt, representing the Attorney-General, told the Senate that then justice Brereton would resign his...
My question is to the Minister representing the Attorney-General. On 12 June 2023, Senator Watt, representing the Attorney-General, told the Senate that then justice Brereton would resign his appointment as Assistant Inspector-General of the ADF 'before taking up his role as the commissioner of the NACC'. On 5 June 2025 the NACC CEO told a Senate committee that Commissioner Brereton had resigned his appointment with the IGADF in or about May 2023. However, on 3 December 2025, the actual IGADF, James Gaynor, in an answer on notice to another Senate committee, said Major General Brereton never provided written confirmation of their May 2023 conversation in which he stated he would resign as an assistant IGADF, effective 1 July 2023. So, Minister, has Commissioner Brereton resigned as an assistant IGADF, and, if so, when and how?
Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025; In Committee | Bills | Senate debates
I move Greens amendment (1) on sheet 3472: (1) Schedule 1, item 2, page 8 (after line 30), at the end of section 110ABB, add: (4) To avoid doubt, this Part is not intended to limit or prevent in...
I move Greens amendment (1) on sheet 3472: (1) Schedule 1, item 2, page 8 (after line 30), at the end of section 110ABB, add: (4) To avoid doubt, this Part is not intended to limit or prevent in any way the performance of a function, or the exercise of a power, otherwise than under this Part by an entity other than the Committee. This amendment would say, for abundant clarity, that whatever amendments are made through this bill to parliamentary procedure and oversight would have no impact on existing parliamentary oversight procedures. I can already see the near future, and I can tell you now that, if this bill is passed, we'll be in Senate estimates, asking questions of Defence about why on earth they're spending $45 billion to buy six boats in Adelaide that are undergunned, won't arrive for a couple of decades and will only enrich their mates, and we'll be told: 'You can't ask that question in Senate estimates. We have our secret Defence committee, where they have robust discussions about this in dark rooms, away from the public gaze.' When we ask questions like, 'How many billion dollars are you giving to Donald Trump today for AUKUS, what on earth are we going to get for it and is there a promise we might actually get a boat at the end of it?' we'll get the answer from Moriarty mark 2 along the lines of: 'Well, Senator, you know full well that this would seriously impact national security.'
I have heard some remarkable statements in my life, but to suggest that the PJCIS has robust debate—there was a landmark moment some time last year when, for the first time in 20 years,...
I have heard some remarkable statements in my life, but to suggest that the PJCIS has robust debate—there was a landmark moment some time last year when, for the first time in 20 years, there was actually a dissenting opinion. I think it's only happened once. Everyone thought the sky would fall down, because the members of the PJCIS had been in agreement and had had unanimous recommendations every single time—for two decades! That's the kind of robust debate you get in North Korean politics. That's the kind of robust debate you get in Donald Trump's America. If you speak out against him, you get sued. That's the kind of robust debate that Labor wants in this committee. To suggest that that is robust debate is genuinely embarrassing.
I move the amendment on sheet 3471: (1) Schedule 1, item 2, page 6 (line 22) to page 7 (line 6), omit subsections 110ABA(2) and (3), substitute: (2) The Committee is to consist of 13 members: (a)...
I move the amendment on sheet 3471: (1) Schedule 1, item 2, page 6 (line 22) to page 7 (line 6), omit subsections 110ABA(2) and (3), substitute: (2) The Committee is to consist of 13 members: (a) 7 Government members, including at least: (i) 2 Senators; and (ii) 2 members of the House of Representatives; and (b) 6 non-Government members: (i) 2 Opposition Senators; and (ii) 2 Opposition members of the House of Representatives; and (iii) 1 Senator who is not a member of the Government or the Opposition; and (iv) 1 member of the House of Representatives who is not a member of the Government or the Opposition. Note: For more detailed provisions on the appointment of Committee members, see Division 5. This amendment would expand the membership of the committee to expressly include crossbench membership from each of the Senate and the House of Representatives. I know there's a separate amendment being proposed by One Nation that has a different formula for extending crossbench membership on the committee, but I'll speak to the Greens amendment. It was extraordinary, what we heard in the contributions from both Labor and the Liberal Party in this debate, in a denial of pretty much every basic principle of democracy, which is meant to be a robust exchange of views where you're not scared of disagreements. A robust debate where disagreements are played out is actually how our democracy is designed to work. You test ideas and you allow people into a chamber who have a contrary view to yours, and you have to win the contest of ideas. That's what our democracy is meant to be. But what we heard from both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party is that they are deliberately establishing this committee so that anybody with a contrary view on either the strategic direction for Australian defence or on which particular international grifter should be favoured with the next arms deal—you could name the former Liberal or Labor defence minister who is out there selling weapons to any taker. Anyone who objects to the latest Christopher Pyne enrichment program will be excluded from this committee because the Liberal and Labor parties don't like their opinions or views. It's directly contrary to how democracy is meant to work. It just sums up how little valued this committee will be at the end of the day. This amendment won't fix it entirely. It will still be dominated by the war parties. They will still be patting each other on the back, thinking about which mate to give a contract to, and working out how much they can bow and grovel to Donald Trump. They will still be the majority of the committee. But at least there might be one voice in there testing them—I hope it won't be me; it could be Senator Stewart—and actually suffering through the insufferable on behalf of the Australian people, to at least put some contrary voice in that space.
Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
I rise on behalf of the Greens to oppose the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee—'secret boys club'—on Defence) Bill 2025. This is a bill that just goes to show how...
I rise on behalf of the Greens to oppose the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee—'secret boys club'—on Defence) Bill 2025. This is a bill that just goes to show how broken the war parties and the status quo parties are in this parliament. They're setting up yet another dark, smoke-filled cigar room where those who get the tick of approval, from Washington and from the likes of Richard Marles, maybe, or our security heads, can sit in their little private circle and furiously agree on how we should spend even more money buying US weapons to go to war with China on behalf of Donald Trump. They're the same club of people who have got us into an impossible, embarrassing mess on pretty much everything they've touched in defence. This same club of war-hungry, war-mongering war parties, who call themselves parties of government, are the ones who have secret oversight of our security agencies. How's that going? That is now the subject of royal commission review and repeated criticism—the failure of ASIO to get out and communicate with the state police and the failure of state police to talk with the Federal Police. That's all oversighted by the private club that is the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. That's a disaster zone, a complete mess. Nobody thinks it works. So what do the geniuses in parties of government decide to come up with? Let's take the secret, dysfunctional club for security oversight and let's make it part of a secret, dysfunctional parties-of-government oversight of defence. Then we get the representation from Labor: 'Do you know why this is great for democracy and why this is great for parliament? The real magic sauce in this thing is that it will all be in secret and nobody will see it happening.' That's the magic sauce in this oversight. It's a secret meeting of people who already agree, who want post-politics careers in the defence industry, who love Washington and who love Donald Trump. It will all happen in secret, and secrecy is the magic. In secret, in a room where everyone agrees, you can ask the hard questions. You can ask the hard questions and get the likes of Defence Secretary Moriarty to give you the hard answers, because that's going to work in secret. You couldn't make this stuff up, right? It's a joke. The pretence that a secret club of people who agree, who are looking for their post-politics career in a Defence contractor is going to hold Defence to account is an embarrassing joke, and the country can see it. They can see that this shrinking part of the parliament, who wants to hold onto the status quo, who wants to keep shovelling endless billions of dollars into US defence contractors, nuclear submarines, the world's most expensive frigates on the planet, drones that can't defend themselves and US weapon systems that get sold by some tech bro in an afternoon spiel, doesn't work. They can see that Defence is a mess. They can see that the club is taking Australia in the wrong direction, and that's why more than a third of the country and a growing part of the country are voting for anybody but the war parties and the status quo parties. But I've got to tell you this. This is a bill that says: 'We're going to set up a new secret committee. It's going to be dominated by the government. We're going to let the opposition in, but only the opposition. It's going to operate in secret, and that's going to fix Defence.' One of the questions I'm asking is: who are the parties of government now that are even going to sit on this? They used to occasionally invite a Nat in, but I suppose they're on the outer now too. So it's just going to be the Labor Party and the Liberal Party—just the Labor Party and the Liberal Party furiously agreeing on how to screw up our national budget on Defence, and then getting the patsies from Defence to come in and say: 'Yes, we need this new weapon system. We haven't tested it for value for money, but we think you should spend $8 billion acquiring this new weapon system, because we want to press a button and see it go whoosh, and our friends in Washington would like it because it makes us more interoperable with the US military, and we can be part of the next US war in Eurasia. So actually we should buy this for $8 billion. I don't think we need to tell the public anything about this. I don't think we need to trouble the great unwashed with the reasons why we're doing these dumb decisions. We'll just do It quietly amongst ourselves. We already agreed before we came into the room. We agree even more now. Let's just spend the money on this next US UK weapons system.' It is such a gross misrepresentation to say that this is about oversight. It's just getting the club to give another big rubber stamp on their war plans and upon their complete and utter surrender to Washington. That's what it is. Why do we even pretend to have parliamentary oversight anyhow? Why don't we just set up a small approval process in the Washington embassy? We could just do that. You could just set up a small desk. You could have a proposal. It wouldn't have to originate in Canberra. It could easily originate in Washington. You could then send it over to the secretary of Defence. Minister Marles could add his usual value to it, with no doubt a very insightful analysis of whatever's come from Washington and the Defence secretary! Then you could send it to the desk in Washington, and they could invite whoever Vice-President Vance wants to send in, and they could just approve it. It would be much more efficient! You wouldn't have to go through the pretence of a sovereign process. Why don't you just do that? Or you could set up a secret committee amongst yourselves which you don't tell the public about, and you could just do it here anyway. You've chosen the secret committee path. What have the war parties—sorry, the parties of government—delivered? What have the parties of government delivered so far for Defence? We're in the middle of spending $9 billion to build the United States a nuclear submarine attack base just off Perth to make Perth a nuclear target and to ensure that Australia will be involved in a US war with China. You've done that. I personally think that making Perth a nuclear target by spending $9 billion of Australian taxpayers' money to build the US a nuclear submarine attack base is probably a bad decision. I think that's a misspending of money, but you guys agree on it, and you can agree on it in secret now. Terrific! You've decided to spend $375 billion on some speculative gamble to get nuclear submarines. Well, that's a disaster zone. The US has no spare submarines. We just heard today that the US will only supply submarines to Australia if we guarantee to use them in a US war on China. Otherwise, you know, we can go whistle! Currently, we're shovelling billions of dollars to the United States to increase their industrial capacity to make more nuclear submarines so they have some spare for us. That has not worked. It has not shifted the dial. The United States is still producing about 1.2—in a good year—nuclear submarines a year out of their industrial capacity. Unless they produce about 2½ a year for the next decade, going forward there will be no spare submarines for Australia. We won't get any submarines. That money is lost. Well, it's lost to us—again, by the United States. That first part of AUKUS, about getting some spare second-hand US nuclear subs, is a disaster going badly—billions being wasted, a big black hole—but you could meet in secret and agree on how good it is. That might be nice. You won't have to persuade the public—you can just persuade each other—about what a great deal that is, in secret. That might be nice for you. It's bad for taxpayers. It's bad for Australia. But it might be nice for you. You've already handed countless billions of dollars off to the UK for their nuclear submarine industry. Most of it's gone to Rolls-Royce because, you know, Rolls-Royce obviously deserves it. Those poor people in Rolls-Royce suffer a lot. Defence Minister Marles and Prime Minister Albanese, with the support of the Liberal Party, have found a way that Australian taxpayers can give billions and billions of dollars to Rolls-Royce. That money is rolling out now, to Rolls-Royce, to produce nuclear reactors for the AUKUS submarine project. Meanwhile, the UK's own audit office says that that program, which we're putting billions of dollars into, is in a terminal spiral of failure and will not produce nuclear reactors. It's been red, red, red, red, red for the last five years. We're pumping billions of dollars into the UK for nuclear reactors and an AUKUS nuclear submarine project that will not happen. Then we have the Barrow-in-Furness project in the UK, which is where they're going to be—allegedly—producing the reactors and the next class of AUKUS submarines. When the head of the delivery agency for the Barrow-in-Furness project, Lord whatever-his-name-is, says, 'Actually, it's not working. We haven't got the infrastructure. We're not going to be able to build this stuff here. We don't have a solution to the multiple infrastructure bottlenecks. We're not going to have the workforce ready to produce the nuclear submarines,' what does Australia say? Australia says, 'You can ignore all that!' Ignore the fact that the audit office has said the reactors won't work. Ignore the fact that the head of the delivery agency in Barrow-in-Furness says it won't work. Ignore the fact that the entire UK budget is in a meltdown and they don't have the money to build submarines. Ignore the fact that they can only put one of their current nuclear submarines in the water because they can't afford to maintain—and don't know how to maintain—the rest of them. You can ignore all that, because it's all on track. It's all on track! And we can keep shovelling them billions of dollars. The good news about your secret committee is that you can agree on that in private now. You can meet together in private, slap each other on the back and say, 'It's all on track!' You can ignore reality. That's the great thing about a secret committee. Why don't you go and meet about the Hunter frigates and agree on what a great job you guys are doing on the Hunter frigates! There's a lot of talk at the moment about 67 Defence sites, which are prized and cared for by the community, which have beautiful green open spaces and heritage sites, which are great spots for public housing. But no—Defence Minister Marles and the supporting cheer squad in Defence have decided to flog them all off, to sell them all off, for property development. They think that, over the next five to 10 years, they could net $1.8 billion from selling all of this prized public land all across the country. The good news about that is, for $1.8 billion, you could almost build one fifth of one Hunter frigate in Adelaide. You could probably get the bit that has the helicopter landing pad on it. You could almost get one-fifth of one of those for selling off 67 prize sites. The same club that wants to meet in private and agree in this committee has signed off on the $45 billion Hunter frigate deal, which is before the NACC on a corruption inquiry and is producing the most expensive warships, pound for pound, on the entire planet. When we asked the defence department, 'Is there any more expensive warship on the planet than these Hunter frigates that we're making in Adelaide?' they hemmed and hawed and then they said, 'Maybe a US nuclear powered submarine is more expensive.' They found one—a US nuclear submarine. India produces entire aircraft carriers and fits them out for less than what we're paying for a single Hunter frigate. The same bozos who are in charge of that and have sent us down that corrupted, hopeless process for Hunter frigates can now meet in private and secretly agree on what a great idea it would be to do that again. Maybe we could have the same people who met in secret and agreed to produce another class of boats, which of course Defence cannot find a purpose for—maybe they could agree to put billions more into that project as well. Right now we have a defence department that is hollowing itself out to pay for nuclear submarines we'll never get, that is shelling out billions of dollars overseas for projects that won't produce reactors or nuclear submarines, and that means that there's no money left to buy things for the rest of defence. We have a defence department that's building a handful of the most expensive warships on the planet in Adelaide, and they want to do more of that. We have a defence department that's had a recruitment crisis forever—it turns out people don't much like joining a defence force which is led by such a bunch of bozos and directed by a bunch of noddies in the parties of government. We have a defence force that is designed not to defend Australia but to be part of US deployments around the world and not have an independent sovereign capacity. We have a defence force that is probably a global leader in the failure of procurement and the failure of strategic thinking. You want the same bunch of people that have got us into this mess to now oversight it in secret while they agree with each other in a quiet, smoke-filled, private cigar room. This will surprise you: the Greens say no.
Housing, Hanson, Senator Pauline, Tamil Oppression Day, Kurdish Community | Statements by Senators | Senate debates
If you haven't already bought a house in Sydney, it's basically impossible to do it now. Even with two wages, most families can't manage the obscene mortgages required for what used to be called...
If you haven't already bought a house in Sydney, it's basically impossible to do it now. Even with two wages, most families can't manage the obscene mortgages required for what used to be called a first home. Workers have been pushed hours away from their workplaces, having to start and end days with hours stuck in banked-up traffic, losing precious family time. Our city's losing the people that make it function and make it special. But now an opportunity does present, with Defence no longer needing Victoria Barracks in Sydney, and in other big cities like Melbourne and Brisbane there's some prime publicly owned land that could deliver genuine public housing. So what does Labor do? They reach for the same tired playbook of privatisation and giving a gift to their developer mates. Instead of seeing this as a chance to recycle public Defence land for other public housing and other public good, we see Labor having a national sell-off of prize Defence land and prize assets to their developer mates for private profit, not public good. Privatisation is not a successful housing policy. It's handing public assets to developer mates and hoping that a few crumbs of affordable housing fall from the table. For those being pushed out of the places they call home by spiralling costs, a tiny number of apartments are available at 30 per cent below market rent for maybe 10 or 15 years. That's not a plan for housing; it's an embarrassment. Victoria Barracks in Sydney is a beautiful public space—green open space, beautiful built heritage. That's exactly why it must be used for maximum public benefit, not to maximise private profit. Build public housing here, real public housing—hundreds of homes owned by the public for those who need it the most and kept in public hands for generations to come. But we also say this: density done right means public parklands, not concrete jungles. It means communities can breathe, children can play, families can thrive and heritage is respected. Labor keeps telling us that only private developers can deliver housing at scale. That's simply not true. Governments built hundreds of thousands of public homes in the postwar era. We did it before. In fact, there's a working model for Commonwealth public housing right now, with Defence Housing building thousands of homes for the defence community. We can do this. But Labor would rather just give developers profits than community benefit. A national flog-off of public land for private profit—it has Labor written all over it. If Labor were serious about delivering public housing, truly serious, they'd prove it here with Victoria Barracks. They'd keep the land in public hands. They'd build bold. They'd build green. They'd build for the future. Instead, they're preparing to flog it off to the highest bidder for grossly unaffordable private housing, and they call it progress. Well, we call that out. Pauline Hanson says she fights for battlers and for ordinary Australians. She says that the people to blame for the fact that you're doing it tough now are immigrants. When was the last time you flew to a party on a billionaire's private jet? Is that something your neighbour has ever done? Last October, while you were struggling with the cost of living, Senator Hanson was on Gina Rinehart's private Gulfstream G700, jetting off to Trump's Mar-a-Lago for a Halloween party. Conference tickets were 25 grand a pop. That's the Pauline Hanson's One Nation idea of struggle. She's skipped representing the community in this place so she could be there. She missed votes in the Senate on things like housing and health care. She didn't even initially declare she was off on a private jet from a billionaire. Where do One Nation get their funding? Many people, including three rich fund managers, donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to One Nation after Gina Rinehart wined and dined them with Trump on a luxury yacht. Let's be clear. Gina Rinehart cares about politics so she can use it to shift blame for hardships from billionaires like herself and the corporate profits they're reaping to migrants who are struggling right along with everyone else. It's One Nation's trick too. Housing crisis? Blame migrants. Cost of living? Blame migrants. Can't find work? Blame migrants. Senator Hanson blames migrants for problems created by billionaires, then she takes those billionaires' money and takes those billionaires' jets. It'd be a joke if it weren't real. Today, on Tamil Oppression Day, the Greens stand in solidarity with the Tamil people, who continue to endure systemic oppression and denial of their fundamental rights. It's not merely a historical tragedy; it continues today. The Tamil homeland remains one of the most heavily militarised regions in the world. Security forces occupy private land; they suppress cultural expression. Tamil political prisoners languish without charge or trial—many for decades—in jail, and journalists documenting those abuses face intimidation and violence. We see land seizures fragmenting Tamil communities. Just in recent days, large protests have erupted across the north-east against the Kivul Oya irrigation project—another development scheme that Tamil communities warn will bring further land appropriation, forced displacement and demographic change. We see families still searching for disappeared loved ones, while mass graves remain uninvestigated. They're not isolated incidents; they form a coordinated pattern that international legal experts recognise as indicators of a past and ongoing genocide. The Greens believe human rights are universal. We can't champion justice while remaining silent on genocide or promote a rules based order while ignoring these fundamental principles. Australia must not be complicit. We must suspend security cooperation with institutions implicated in these abuses, support international accountability mechanisms and protect Tamil asylum seekers here in this country, not forcibly try and return them to danger or displace them off to cruelty in Nauru. The Tamil struggle is a struggle for survival, for cultural preservation and for the right to exist on ancestral lands—principles we hold sacred. I've got to say the Tamil community in my beautiful hometown of Sydney provides so much spark, so much colour and so much positive energy there. We call on the Australian government to uphold its obligations under the genocide convention and the refugee convention. We call on this parliament to use its voice for moral authority and to demand justice, and we note today as Tamil Oppression Day for that purpose. While I am speaking here, hundreds of people from the broader Kurdish community across Australia are gathering outside the parliament. They're gathering outside the parliament, asking us to shine a light on what's happening in north-east and northern Syria. I want to note that strong Kurdish Australian representatives such as Councillor Mira Ibrahim from Liverpool; Young Greens Kurds like Baran Sogut from the Federation of Democratic Kurdish Society; Brusk Aeiveri, the Co-chair of the Federation of Democratic Kurdish Society; and Greens councillor and proud Kurdish representative Ismet Tastan, from the Inner West Council, are here in numbers. They're saying the struggle for gender equality, for religious freedom and for people to live a respectful life, regardless of their ethnicity, their gender and their religion, is a struggle that's happening right now in north-east Syria. I travelled last year to the democratic autonomous region of north-east Syria, and I saw firsthand a regime that was putting in place radical gender equality in that region. All of the key positions have co-chairs—a man and a woman. I saw, as well, that the whole rainbow of Syrian society—not just Kurds, not just Syriacs, not just Arabs, not just Yazidis—was being represented. Right now, that experiment in democracy and gender equality is facing brutal repression. We know that there are about a million people in Kurdish-majority Kobani who are being surrounded. The reports that have come to my office of some of the violence that's happening in the surrounding villages are deeply disturbing. The violence reminds that community of the appallingly violent takeover of ISIS and the fight—led in many cases by strong Kurdish women—to defeat ISIS, and they fear its return. What has the Australian government said? Not one word. In the north-east of Syria, where the Kurds and their allies have been keeping the world safe from tens of thousands of ISIS fighters—initially with the support of the United States, but recently they've dropped them like a gun—they're being abandoned again. The Kurds, the Yazidis and their friends have been on the front line of fighting ISIS, and they're asking the world not to be blind to what's happening now—to see what's happening and to ensure that their rights are respected. I join their call. Our government's silence must end. We must be a force for good and for understanding this unique achievement in north-east Syria.
Administrative Review Tribunal and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025; In Committee | Bills | Senate debates
I note the summary provided by Senator Kovacic, and I agree with the factual summary about the effect of these amendments. Amendments (1) and (2) remove the express reference to student visas...
I note the summary provided by Senator Kovacic, and I agree with the factual summary about the effect of these amendments. Amendments (1) and (2) remove the express reference to student visas from the bill and, instead, give a broad regulation-making power to expand the types of matters that can be decided in the ART on the papers. The history shows that both Labor and the Liberal Party will use that power to expand the number of matters and the classes of cases that will lose the right to an oral hearing and be determined only on the papers. Given that both Labor and the Liberal Party are of one mind about removing the rights, the pretend protection by putting it in the regulations is no protection at all. The Greens will be opposing government amendments (1) and (2) for the clear reasons we said in the contribution in the second reading. People should have a right to an oral hearing. Oral hearings are important for justice. We keep hearing the refrain of 'faster, fairer and more efficient'. Well, it might be faster in the first place, but it sure as heck isn't fairer, and, by the time you take into account judicial reviews and the broader unfairness in the system, it sure as heck won't be more efficient at the end of the day. Amendment (3) gives some greater flexibility to the president to delegate powers. The rationale for that was set out in the report, and we don't oppose amendment (3).
I ask that, when we get to the vote, amendment (3) be put separately to (1) and (2).
Administrative Review Tribunal and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
And they would have decided some of them, too.
It was closer to 200, but we'll see next week, in estimates, the full-time equivalent gap between what they're meant to be budgeted and resourced for and what they're actually budgeted and...
It was closer to 200, but we'll see next week, in estimates, the full-time equivalent gap between what they're meant to be budgeted and resourced for and what they're actually budgeted and resourced for. Whether it's 100 or 200—even 100 members short is, I reckon, a pretty bad call. Then the government come in and say, 'Oh well, they might be 100 or 200 members short, but the problem is how the hearings happen, not the fact that we don't appoint tribunal members.' If you look closely, the problem also lies, probably even more fundamentally, with the Department of Home Affairs. Evidence given by the ART revealed that lodgements in the ART for review of Home Affairs student visa refusals have increased exponentially. As the CEO and principal registrar of the ART said, in 2022-23 there were 2,057 student visa refusal matters; in 2023-24 it was 11,668; in 2024-25 it escalated to 32,198; and in the first two months of this financial year there were 5,755 cases lodged. That surge of refusals from Home Affairs also means that student visa reviews have taken up a greater and greater percentage of the ART case load. Mr Hawkins, the CEO, said: … in 2024-25, it was about 37 per cent; in 2023-24, it was 22 per cent; and, in 2022-23, it was 4.6 per cent. I said that the wrong way around, but I'm just repeating the way in which Mr Hawkins gave evidence. So it went up from 4.6 per cent of the case load in 2022-23 to 37 per cent of the case load in 2024-25—dealing with student visas. Not only has the sheer number of student visas reviews increased, such that they now consume over a third of the ART's case load, but the quality of decisions made by Home Affairs, as measured by the overturned rate of review, has dramatically fallen. The ART's chief lawyer, Ms Haddad, told the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee: I've got the percentages for student visa refusals. For 2022-23, the number of set asides was 43 per cent. For 2023-24, the number of set asides was 46 per cent. For 2024-25, it was 47 per cent, and for the first two months of this year it's 46 per cent. What were they before COVID? Ms Haddad said: They were closer to 25 per cent. The historical norm is that one-quarter of refusals get overturned and visas get granted, but Home Affairs are now churning them through at a massive rate. They are not applying due diligence and they are often refusing matters because a document is missing. Rather than giving the opportunity for the document to be provided, they're just refusing them, in the tens of thousands, and passing the buck to the underresourced, understaffed ART. That's what's happening. From the dissenting report: It turns out that Home Affairs has decided to refuse thousands of student visas because of missing documentation. We were told that the 'common reasons for remittal in the student space include objective material—assessable items such as confirmation of enrolments, penal clearances, English assessments, financial capacities, medicals and biometrics'. If these documents are 'not provided to the department as part of the primary application … then the visa application will be refused'. So what we're seeing is Home Affairs moving their administrative problem and, rather than doing due diligence, checking for documents, giving people a chance, they just refuse it, move it on, whack it into the ART and say it's all the ART's problem, and then the government doesn't even resource the ART. To continue: So, thousands of lodgements are being filed in the ART because Home Affairs has decided to refuse the applications that are missing one or two documents. Rather than Home Affairs giving visa applicants fair notice that their applications are missing documentation, and then a chance to correct that, instead they are just refusing them— And that's what is leading to tens of thousands of lodgements in the ART, and that's why half of them are being overturned and sent back to Home Affairs— The obvious answer to this mess lies in Home Affairs reforming its processes, giving applicants natural justice and fair notice, not in stripping away rights once their bad decisions are reviewed in the ART. Furthermore, the high set-aside rate for student visas shows that proper hearings are essential. Removing oral hearings will likely lead to more judicial reviews, which would in turn create more inefficiency, not less. As the Migration Institute of Australia pointed out: 'The ART's high set aside rate of 47% in student visa refusals, suggests systemic challenges in primary decision making. Removing oral hearings would prevent affected appellants from properly challenging adverse decisions. Appellants denied an oral hearing may be more likely to seek judicial review, increasing pressure on the courts and undermining the Bill's stated efficiency objective.' Also, National Legal Aid Point out: In 2022/23, NLA supported the trial of paper-only decision-making through the Independent Expert Review program to assist with the backlog of [National Disability Insurance Scheme] matters in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. This included legal assistance prior to paper review. This trial was ended after nine months as it was not found to be an efficient way to clear the backlog of cases. So there has been a trial of paper-only reviews in the NDIS space, and it did not work, even with legal assistance. As the Refugee Advice and Casework Service said: There is no evidence to suggest that the removal of an oral hearing has a positive causative impact in reducing backlogs or increasing efficiency in processing appeals. At the core of this bill is an issue of the long wait times at the ART, which have grown significantly, and we acknowledge that. For example, the number of refugee cases on hand in 2012-13 was just under 2,000, and it has grown to some 40½ thousand in the most recent annual report. Annual reports show that the average wait time was 243 weeks, up from around 30 weeks a decade ago. If you want to know the cause of much of that, it has been both Labor and the Liberal Party withdrawing legal assistance to applicants in the ART, withdrawing legal assistance from people who are challenging ART matters. When you withdraw legal assistance, you draw out cases, you increase wait times and you get in this mess. I want to thank groups like the Migrant Workers Centre, the ASRC, National Legal Aid and others who pointed out that this bill is not the solution. That's why the Greens won't support it. You don't just punch down on migrants, you don't just take their rights away; you fix the problems. The problems here are a lack of resourcing the ART and the mess in Home Affairs.
The earlier changes can apply to protection visas; this particular part can't apply to protection visas. The government is claiming these changes are needed for efficiency; however, the...
The earlier changes can apply to protection visas; this particular part can't apply to protection visas. The government is claiming these changes are needed for efficiency; however, the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre pointed out this in its submission: … the Bill sacrifices the objectives of being fair and accessible for alleged efficiency When you look at the bill more closely, the problem with the delays and the increased backlog in the ART—which is real—is not the result of the way in which oral hearings are happening; it's not the result of that part of the ART's structure. The problem is twofold. One is that this government has failed to appoint enough tribunal members for the ART to be at full strength and able to deal with it. That's pretty shameful. The ART is wildly understrength, and no doubt we'll explore this next week in estimates. The last time I looked they were some 200 members short of what their full appointment should be.
I spoke earlier about the rationale behind this. This is Labor taking failed coalition policy for administrative review designed to punch down on migrants out of the deep freeze, whacking it in...
I spoke earlier about the rationale behind this. This is Labor taking failed coalition policy for administrative review designed to punch down on migrants out of the deep freeze, whacking it in the microwave and reheating it. It is bad policy of the then coalition, now Liberal Party, punching down on migrants in the ART and deciding to take away basic rights when it comes to challenging visa refusals and basic procedural fairness. The Administrative Review Tribunal and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 primarily seeks to amend the Administrative Review Tribunal Act to expand the circumstances in which the tribunal can make a decision on migration matters based on the papers without ever hearing from the applicant and without having the benefit of an oral hearing. Currently, the ART can only review a case on the papers if all parties consent. There may be occasions when all parties consent to something being done on the papers. There may be a clearly defined, narrow case in which you're legally represented and you know you've got a narrow issue—an interpretation issue or a narrow factual issue—that can be decided on the papers. If parties agree, then, by all means, do it. But, overwhelmingly, when it comes to migration matters, people are not represented. Overwhelmingly, there are significant cultural barriers and barriers to understanding how the legal system works. The benefit of an oral hearing, particularly with a translator, can be that people who are unfamiliar with the process and don't have legal assistance can actually get a fair go, because the tribunal has an obligation in an oral hearing to try and understand what the issues are before it, to tease them out with an applicant and to fairly decide the case. But, if you remove oral hearings, you remove that chance for fairness. This bill seeks to change it so the ART can consider any case on the papers if the tribunal thinks it can be 'adequately determined' on the papers and that 'it is reasonable in the circumstances'. That change is to all migration matters. That will be a significant change to current practice and will negatively impact the most marginalised people, as the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre made clear when they said: Our view is that oral hearings are … critical to ensure that people seeking asylum receive a fair assessment of their protection claims. And I endorse what the ASRC say. But this bill also proposes changes to the Migration Act to require—to force—the tribunal to make certain decisions only on the papers and to not permit an oral hearing. Specifically, it proposes that as a blanket requirement to review classes of migration matters that are going to be set out in the regulations, but we know it's going to start with student visas. I want to stress that it starts with student visas but it can be expanded under the regulations to any other visa class.
Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide | Motions | Senate debates
I rise on behalf of the Greens to indicate we will be supporting this motion. I want to make it clear that the timely medical care and income support veterans need but also the support families...
I rise on behalf of the Greens to indicate we will be supporting this motion. I want to make it clear that the timely medical care and income support veterans need but also the support families need to see that their loved one who is a veteran is getting the health care they need is a core part of the work my office does. I can't tell you how many veterans not just in New South Wales but across the country who are having enormous difficulty just getting to see a GP let alone specialist care contact my office. Indeed, the lack of psychiatric care is not only a crisis situation for veterans; it's a crisis situation for so many people across the country. But one of the things that keeps coming up when we speak with veterans and when we speak with health providers in in this space is the differential between what DVA pays and what the NDIS pays for the same service. If you come in under the NDIS, the health provider—the GP, physiotherapist or psychiatrist—gets a higher rate for providing services under the NDIS than they do for providing services to veterans. What that means is that veterans go to the back of the queue, if they can even get into the queue. This has been a long-running problem for veterans across the country. We hear it. I want to give a shout-out to my team who provide that support to the veterans who contact our office. I also want to give a shout-out to the veterans organisations and the families of veterans—that support network that has been wrapped around veterans because they need it just to navigate the system. That is a problem with the system. If you need that kind of support network, if you need the support of your partner, your kids, your parents or advocacy networks just to navigate the system, that shows there's a problem with the system. But one of the core things the government could do—and I know it's a budget cost—and must do is at least make an equivalence between the rates that are paid to medical providers under the NDIS and the rates that are paid to medical providers when they are helping veterans. That is a matter of urgency. That in and of itself could make a significant difference, and we support it. I appreciate the lived experience of Senator Lambie and particularly the experience she has told us over the last few weeks and months about veterans not having access to psychiatric beds and psychiatric care. We know that one of the risks of serving can be significant psychological trauma—PTSD and other trauma. If we are going to ask veterans to serve knowing that's a likely risk of service, there must be a commitment to providing the health supports they need when they are in service and when they end service. That should be a non-negotiable. If we ask people to do this work and know that risk is in place, the services need to be there and veterans need to know that those services are there. When it comes to (f)—calling on the government to immediately implement the royal commission's recommendations, recognising that further delay is placing veterans' lives at risk—we absolutely support the intent of that. My only minor quibble is that I actually don't think we can 'immediately' implement all of them, because they require co-design with veterans, and they require some time. I think that is important. In this space, we've seen the government previously, at the end of the last parliament, rush forward ahead of that co-design. That creates suspicion, and it creates anxiety. Absolutely the recommendations need to be implemented. They need to be implemented urgently. But they need to be implemented with the veterans' community. They need to be implemented with the advice from those support organisations, and they do need to be implemented urgently. I want to thank Senator Lambie for bringing this motion and I want to indicate our party's support for the care that veterans need. And I stress again: if nothing else comes from this motion but an urgency in the government to ensure that the same rates are paid to veterans as are paid under the NDIS, that will be a win for veterans.
Housing | Matters of Urgency | Senate debates
I know there are some in this place who are busy telling people the housing crisis is caused by migration. They tell people this easy lie and the supposedly easy solution. We expect to hear that...
I know there are some in this place who are busy telling people the housing crisis is caused by migration. They tell people this easy lie and the supposedly easy solution. We expect to hear that racist sentiment from One Nation and the Liberals, but we can't forget Labor's role in enabling it. On 4 November last year Senator Bell, from One Nation, asked a question which attempted to blame the housing crisis on migration. He asked the government when serious removals would begin. Instead of condemning or even disputing One Nation's racist dog whistle, Minister Watt from Labor said he had already outlined some of the steps this government has taken to reduce net overseas migration. When someone asks if you are going to kick out migrants who are taking all our houses, you don't accept the premise; you fight it—unless, like Labor, you have no other solutions and you're willing to join the dog whistle. Research by the Australia Institute shows that the number of dwellings is growing faster than the population. The real problem here is clear: it's tax breaks, capital gains rorts and negative gearing—not migrants—that are driving up house prices. How do we know? During the COVID lockdown, when net migration was negative, house prices went up by 20 per cent in just 18 months. It's time to get real. Bring a plan into this place that isn't handouts for developers or investors, that doesn't rely on putting people in horrifically large mortgages and that doesn't blame migrants for the greed of bankers and their political mates in this place. (Time expired)
Unlike the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and One Nation, the Greens will be opposing the Administrative Review Tribunal and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. I was on the review by the...
Unlike the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and One Nation, the Greens will be opposing the Administrative Review Tribunal and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. I was on the review by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, and I listened to multiple witnesses from a variety of different organisations who gave clear evidence about why this bill should not be supported, how it will take away important procedural rights, how it is unfairly targeted at migrants and how, potentially, it is going to give significantly expanded powers to the government of the day to remove even more rights from reviews in migration matters. I also heard, because I listened, the evidence about the real failures causing the backlog not being in the Administrative Review Tribunal—although I accept that they're underresourced and they don't have the appointments they should have to deal with the work. The real reason the backlog is happening in the ART is the poor behaviour of Home Affairs and its automatic refusal of tens of thousands of visa applications because people haven't got all their documentation together at a particular point in time. The surge of refusals from Home Affairs explains a large part of the backlogs in the ART. What I find remarkable, having listened carefully to Senator Cash and then to Senator Stewart, is that not one of them referred to the multiple compelling submissions from stakeholders and people engaged in the space who said that this bill should not be supported. Not one of them made any reference to those, so no wonder those stakeholders are asking themselves, 'What is the process for—this sham process where the government presents a piece of legislation which is largely reheating the coalition's previous attacks on procedural fairness rights in the ART?' To that extent, Senator Cash was right that this is legislation from the Labor Party trying to put into the microwave some failed efforts from the coalition previously. That part of Senator Cash's analysis was right. What Senator Cash failed to address, of course, is that the intent of the coalition at the time and the intent of Labor now, no doubt with the support of One Nation, is to remove rights from people when they say that their visa application has been unfairly or wrongly refused by Home Affairs. If the government were serious about reform to address the backlog that the ART is facing, it should do two things: it should properly and adequately resource the ART, putting in the members who are needed to do the job, and it should look to Home Affairs and its poor behaviour—its 'refuse first, ask questions later' behaviour—that is driving tens of thousands of applications into the ART. But, of course, that would require putting the hard word on Home Affairs, not punching down on migrants.
International Relations: Australia and Israel | Motions | Senate debates
Let's just ignore the genocide aspect.