Barnaby Joyce's recent appearances (OpenAustralia.org)
Budget | Questions without Notice | House debates
My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer please inform the House of the cost to the Commonwealth budget for 2025-26 for the Commonwealth's Capacity Investment Scheme? To assist the...
My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer please inform the House of the cost to the Commonwealth budget for 2025-26 for the Commonwealth's Capacity Investment Scheme? To assist the Treasurer, I believe they should be noted within the quantified contingent liabilities.
Translating and Interpreting Services Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
There is one strong point of difference I have with the previous speaker, and that is that I don't believe in multiculturalism. I believe that there overwhelmingly is an Australian culture and...
There is one strong point of difference I have with the previous speaker, and that is that I don't believe in multiculturalism. I believe that there overwhelmingly is an Australian culture and that the Australian culture itself provides guardrails that temper what, in some instances, might be alternative views that work at angles to what is acceptable in Australia. I think that, if you believe all cultures have an equivalence, then, of course, you condone a whole range of things that I and many would find completely and utterly noxious. Being part of the Australian community means that you have to comply with the mores and edicts of what we see as acceptable behaviour. So I come at this from a slightly different position. Part of complying with the Australian culture is the necessity to understand English. It is essential. There are no problems with being bilingual. There are no problems with your faith, your creed or your colour. They're absolutely and utterly part and parcel of the egalitarian nature of Australia. But, to maintain that egalitarian nature of Australia and to give people the greatest opportunities, it is essential that they are able to speak English. So many people isolate themselves from all the protections that are warranted in the Australian system because of their inability to speak English. I won't refer to who they are, but there are people who have worked especially on trying to deal with sex slaves in Sydney, and one of the greatest problems they had was that they couldn't speak English and so they couldn't convey the issues that were before them. So, although we must have a mechanism to assist people who struggle with English, the absolute emphasis must be on speaking English. You must get to a point where you can speak English. If I'm to go to France, I must get to a point where I can speak French. If I'm to go to Thailand, I must get to a point where I can speak Thai. And if you come to Australia, you must get to a point where you can speak English. Sometimes people have romantic views about people in remote Indigenous communities where it's essential that they keep their language, but they think there's something good if they can't speak English. That is terrible, because you've completely ostracised them from the opportunities of Australia. Without the capacity to speak English, there are such limitations. Also, in Australia, we have to ask the question on this: regardless of the attributes of a person, they must have the capacity to come to Australia and to become part of it—to be an effective, taxpaying member of this nation. We have two things that we must rely on, as we get ourselves into more debt and as we have more problems in regard to supply constraints on things such as housing: a person who becomes part of the Australian community cannot be in the crime pages and cannot be on social security. We must focus on that. Otherwise, rather than an asset, they become a burden. To become an effective part of the Australian community, it's essential that they have the capacity to communicate with the Australian community. Therefore, English becomes a part of that. Madam Deputy Speaker Haines, I also want to bring to your attention something that has been brought to mine, and those are the requirements under the Public Service Regulations. I want to go to the Public Service Act 1999 in the Federal Register of Legislation. There is nothing in this that says that you have to speak English. You have to be polite, but you don't have to speak English. This means that, in certain areas where people, taxpayers, have to rely on or be serviced by people who represent the government, there is actually no requirement in the act for them to speak English. Now, I thought that that was bunkum when it was brought to my attention, but I've now found out that it's not. I think that this issue that was brought to my attention is a valid issue that needs to be resolved. It has also been brought to my attention that the wording of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 in the Federal Registration of Legislation leaves out the requirement to speak English. So imagine if you're in a position where you are in need of a service and the person who you are dealing with—even though they are paid by the taxpayer—cannot communicate with you. There's something wrong about that. So what do we have to do if we want to eliminate this? It goes both ways, in the provision of service. We need, in Australia, doctors. We need, in Australia, builders. We need, in Australia, teachers. But we need, in Australia, people who have the capacity to come here and immediately segue into the requirements of the services we wish them to be part of. There is definitely a strong correlation between a key person's inability to speak English and sections who have been exploited, because they can't avail themselves of the protections that are required. Yes, for that you need a translation service, and that's essential, and I'm not saying that, for one section, we don't. But I'm saying that the impetus has always got to be that, in Australia, there has to be a drive for a common language that everybody has. It also has to be part of delivering a unity of purpose in Australia around what we are doing. If we go to an authentic multiculturalism, that, in its authenticity, will also state that you don't have to speak English, because culturally in some areas it's not appropriate. If you want to hold fast to a purist form of your culture, then it doesn't require you to speak English. What this leads to is enclaves. It also leads to Balkanisation. It leads to misunderstanding. It can lead to friction. Friction can lead to hate, and hate leads to hurt. In Australia, more and more we have to have these discussions, because we can go on this train of saying marvellous things—of saying things that we believe will warrant accolades in this building. But I'll tell you about one commonality between everybody in this building, in this chamber and in the red one across the road, downstairs, is that they all speak English. Every attendant speaks English. Our communication to Australia is in English, and we know that it would be pointless and irrelevant if you couldn't. So if that's what we think is essential for us to do our job, why don't we believe that's essential for anybody else? I think there's a real sense of conceit where we say we'll basically look after you forevermore speaking another language because that's nice. No; that's actually hurting them. What you've got to do is say, yes, you have an issue, and we've got to help you. But the goal is not for you to stay in the language of where you came from. It's absolutely essential that you get to the language of the country that you now live in. A fascinating thing and one of the great gifts of so many people is people who are multilingual and bilingual. I can say not so much now, because people pass on. At my Christmas dinner in the past, when the family got together, 10 languages were spoken around the table when everybody was there. And that is marvellous. But when you have other relatives turning up from other parts of South-East Asia, being part of the community and the family just doesn't work if you can't communicate with them. I saw this bill, and it was something that had been brought to my attention by a constituent that said, 'When you get the opportunity, you must bring to the Australian public's attention that in sections of the public service—and I've quoted to you to the act—there is no requirement to speak English.' They said, 'I have been in that position where I've had a requirement for the person who's serving the government to speak the language of the nation, and they couldn't.' And when the person followed this through, they said, 'Surely there must be a requirement for them to speak English.' And they said: 'No, there's not. They just have to be polite. They have to be courteous.' This person said: 'How would I know? I can't understand what they're saying.' That this is something that needs to be brought. When I saw this piece of legislation come up, I couldn't help it, but I thought, well, now I'm going to have to ventilate that issue and make sure that, in further requirements in both state and federal acts, if you serve the government and you're paid for by the taxpayer, it is absolutely explicit that you must be able to speak in a form of English that is understandable and that gives you the capacity to do your job and serve others. I don't want to delay the chamber, but I'll close where I started. Australia has to more and more realise that multiculturalism is a great idea, but an Australian culture is essential. Australian culture by its very nature does not ask what religion you are, what creed you are or what colour you are. But it asks that you comply within guardrails of how people act in this nation, and the things that are outside the guardrail you cannot make excuses for on the premise of your religion, your previous culture or filial lines. If you're outside the guardrails, you're outside the guardrails. We don't have to go into the graphic side of it, but I think we can all relate to sections of alternative cultures throughout Australia where things are completely and utterly applicable, completely and utterly acceptable and completely and utterly anathema to what this nation represents. I have to comply with certain things I might disagree with, but I must comply. I must be tempered. I must accept what might be not my views, but it is part of that egalitarian nature of Australia that I leave other people alone to live their lives. I live mine. There's also the expectation that people who come here have to comply with that as well. You cannot say, 'Well, what I want in Australia is a culture that reflects where I came from.' No. If you come to Australia, you must have a culture that reflects where you are not where you came from. It is swayed by different views. It is accepted. It is moved by different ingredients, but it cannot be holistically changed into something that's entirely different. I put that before the chamber. It is an item, a sort of caveat on this, that we have to take on board, because the last thing we want in Australia is the Balkanisation, the friction and the heat that come where people, by basically the language aspect of what they want, end up in an enclave. It remains in an enclave. It does not have the capacity to engage in a wider form with the Australian culture. Therefore those people within that enclave are sort of diminished in the rights that they have. For the Australian view in public, the nation is diminished in the reward that they can give back to us.
Gun Control, Freedom of Speech, Australian Society, Renewable Energy | Constituency Statements | House debates
This is my first constituency statement since coming back after the Christmas break, and there are a range of important issues that I want to convey to my electorate and to the Australian...
This is my first constituency statement since coming back after the Christmas break, and there are a range of important issues that I want to convey to my electorate and to the Australian parliament. Overwhelmingly, people are very angry about the changes to firearms legislation. They can't understand why their freedoms have yet again been intruded upon when they have never committed a crime. No farmer, no sports shooter, no recreational shooter was part of the outrageous massacre at Bondi Beach, yet we are the people they've come to as they try to placate those who require something to be done. People say, 'Why do you need more than four firearms if you're a recreational shooter?' Well, why do you need more than one bathroom? You've only got one neck—why do you need 12 ties? You have only yourself—why do you need three cars? We have our right. It's a private right. It's a right of ownership. It's been intruded upon. People really have a problem with the censorship laws, which are masquerading as hate laws, because they see it as the creep of censorship. We know that what would end up being censored is, basically, right-wing views against a left-wing socialist government. We could see this coming, and we didn't want to have these censorship laws placed on us. We will back antisemitic policy 100 per cent. We'll be at the forefront, but we've got to be focused on the antisemitic issues of fundamental Islamic terrorists against Jewish people and not draw in this net of other things. We've had an enormous requirement in our office for new flags, because people believe that we should have an Australian culture. It's not a multicultural nation; it's an Australian culture. Many cultures may be part of it, but overwhelmingly the guardrails are for the Australian culture. The rollout of intermittent power—the wind turbines, the solar panels—continues to be at the forefront. One Nation has come forward and said, 'Let's build the coal-fired power stations and go back to what actually works.' We now have the BESSs, the battery energy storage systems, and there are fire risks and problems associated with them. Once more, these have been placed in regional areas, not in urban areas, so we do the penance for an urban desire for climate policy, and that is completely unfair. Telecommunications also remains at the forefront. I'd also like to say that this weekend I'll be going to Victoria. We'll have a packed-out room full of farmers, and we're going to make sure that these issues and others are covered with the people of Victoria. I look forward to getting down there and making sure that we take their message back to Canberra and fight for them.
Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures No. 2) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
I acknowledge that obviously you, Deputy Speaker Wilkie, served. Obviously it runs in families a bit. Both my grandfathers served; my father served, and I served in the reserves. Veterans affairs...
I acknowledge that obviously you, Deputy Speaker Wilkie, served. Obviously it runs in families a bit. Both my grandfathers served; my father served, and I served in the reserves. Veterans affairs was such a fundamental part of the iconography of the family—a bizarre anger sometimes and an attachment to their service. My father was repatriated during the Second World War; he was smashed up. He became a very successful person in business, but I remember he would spend an inordinate amount of time arguing about his pension. At the time he'd become a little bit serious. He wasn't easy going, but things never fussed him. But he would get a little bit angry when he was arguing about his pension. I can't remember the exact form of the conversation, but it was something like: 'Dad, you've done so well in life. You're turning over places worth millions of dollars. Why would you worry about whether it's $40 or $60?' And I remember him abruptly saying, 'You give me back my leg, and I'll give you back your 20 bucks.' It was something that he'd held on to. When he passed away, we found an account that had all his pension money in it; he'd never spent a cent of it and had just put it in an account. I don't know why. It was something he argued about but never actually used. What it shows is the depth of feeling—you've got to understand that—that veterans have about their service. They get a sense that, in many instances, they were just sort of kicked out the door. You sign on the dotted line to offer your life for your nation, and then, at the end, it's, 'See you later.' Dad always said, 'When I got out of hospital'—after his fifth or sixth or 10th operation—'they literally just parked my wheelchair on the side and said, "Well, if your family can come and pick you up, that would be great."' With the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures No. 2) Bill 2025, you've got to understand that this is seminal. Veterans' Affairs is something that most people know nothing about, but, for the people who are involved with it, it's absolutely core, because it's a reflection of gratitude by the nation for the service they have offered. If you don't have service men or women, you don't have a defence force, and if you don't have a defence force, you don't have a nation. You will lose it. The world has not changed. Reference point 1 is Vladimir Putin and what's happened in Ukraine. Reference point 2 is the growth of totalitarianism, as exhibited quite clearly by communist China. Reference point 3 is the Middle East. Reference point 4—and on you go. Human nature has not changed. You're always going to need a strong defence force, and, if you want a strong defence force, you've got to put all the promises out there at the start to exhibit a sense of, 'Show your patriotism; sign up.' There's a quid pro quo to that, which is, on the way out, gratitude for your service. We look after you. It is not beyond the pale. It's not that everybody has to bow and scrape and you get everything for free. No, I don't think any returned service men or women or ex-service men or women want that. They accept that, if you're back on civvy street, you're back on civvy street. But, if there are afflictions and things that need to be dealt with, they want it dealt with respectfully and promptly. That is what this bill is about: dealing with things respectfully and promptly. There were a range of recommendations when I was shadow veterans' affairs minister, and I, on behalf of the coalition, was doing my very best to work hand in glove with the minister, because we wanted this to be non-contro. We wanted this through. But we're still talking about it. This has been going on now for years, and it should already be done. It should be finished. It should be complete. What are we in? 2026. So this is something that's got to be prosecuted. I don't know who the shadow minister is now, but it has to be prosecuted in a form that says we've got to expedite this thing and bring it to a conclusion. Just in passing, I'd like to apologise. I did not attend the last post ceremony last night, because I was still in my electorate. I just want to put an apology in for that. I most definitely would have been there if I had not been tied up somewhere else. What we also have to acknowledge in this bill is: What is the timeline now for finishing this off? When does this actually come to a conclusion? We have concerns about the processing of claims and the mechanism whereby they process them, where they say, 'Oh, we're getting through the claims,' but then we found that what they're actually doing is duck-shoving things sideways. If a claim's rejected, it goes back to the start, but it's noted as being processed, even though it's really just amended and it's back in the pile again. We need clarity on exactly where this is and where this processing attachment is at. I acknowledge that it has certainly picked up a lot of the slack that was there—100 per cent. But I don't think it's reached the high notes that we needed it to. As to the streamlining of DRCA, MRCA and VEA, I think that in the end we ended up not with three acts but with four, because DRCA, MRCA and VEA still continue on, and then you've got basically MRCA 2.0, which everybody's going to be part of. Now you've got four. You've got the residue of the previous acts and now the new one that's encompassing them. I hope that we can understand that our nation, unfortunately, lives in a time when we are going to have stresses placed on us that we've never experienced in our lives, and I don't believe our nation is prepared for them. Obviously, with an assertive China pressuring you into a sort of vassal state relationship, it's going to need resilience for you to stand up against that and push back. You have two approaches to doing that. You can rely totally on the United States of America and believe that your defence policy is them sending their sons and daughters over to our hemisphere to die on our behalf because we weren't ready for it. I'd be very, very worried about that defence policy. That is not a very secure defence policy; that is a very foolish defence policy. The other approach is that you become resilient in your own nature in such a form that you'll never be as strong as the totalitarian power that wishes to put you into a vassal state but strong enough that they wouldn't bother trying. There's too much concern if they try. We are not there. We are not even close to there. We are a thousand miles from there. It's in so many forms that we are weak. For instance, our Collins-class submarines are basically—well, at times, we can't get one into the water. That's your whole platform, and you're not able to basically get one of your ships into the water. Spare parts—we don't make them. So, if you lose a spare part from one of your platforms, it basically becomes defunct. There are fuel supplies and things you don't even think about. We do not have the storage of fuels to maintain a conflict over a sustained period. If the supply lines are cut—people just have to cut your supply lines and wait for you to run out. That will happen pretty quickly. The big thing is that we seem to have lost the culture of people going into the services. I'll give you a classic example. In the past, high schools had cadet units. They were everywhere; now they're not. There's only a handful of places with cadet units. Sometimes people think, 'Oh, well, you know, we don't have to worry about that.' You do. To go into the Defence Force, as you would understand clearly, Deputy Speaker Wilkie, is quite an experience, especially when you first walk through the gate. You hear people just screaming at you and throwing your stuff around everywhere and making a noise which is apparently 'left, right, left, right' and marching people here, there and everywhere. How do you break the ice into that? For a lot of people, it's just in your family. There's a family culture. There's an awareness of it because your family has all done it. Unfortunately we had deaths in the family of people that served in wars. But a lot of people just have no connection to the Defence Force whatsoever. Maybe movies would be as close as they get. If we're going to reinvigorate our nation's capacity, it's this holistic view of getting cadet units going again. Cadet units break the ice for people to go into reserve units. We used to have reserve units in regional towns. They're not there, depots. That's how I got into it, going to my local. I used to drive 200 kilometres to parade at Roma—200 at night and 200 kilometres back home, so a 400-kilometre round trip to parade on a Tuesday night—and then go away to do the things you've got to do. But in the end they moved the depot out of Roma. The depot was going to be on Queen Street, Toowoomba. That's 450 kilometres away. That's basically where it all stopped. I was still enlisted, but I couldn't parade. We've got to move those depots back into regional towns. Places like Parkes or Forbes should have a reserve depot. It should be culturally applicable that people who've been to high school continue on and say, 'You know, I'll just continue on with my service at a reserve depot.' Also it's very important, as I used to say for Veterans' Affairs, that, when you get out of the services, you should step down not out. 'Stepping down' means still having a connection to the culture of the Defence Force, which reserve units gave you. It's also so good for people coming through to be mixing with regs—to be mixing with people who have been in regular service in the Defence Force. That was done by depots. When I was there, there was Sergeant Brett Field; he'd been in Somalia. I had the great honour of being trained by people such as Warrant Officer Perry, who had been a forward scout in Vietnam and was an Aboriginal gentleman. You wouldn't meet these people unless you had a reserve unit. They still utilise that as their connection. I think that gives people a great sense of psychological attachment to, strength in and resilience for the job they've got to do. Finally, of course, if you've got reserve units, you get regs because people can make the switch over. I just had a gentleman up the other day who was a very distinguished returned servicemen with his son. They were going shooting on our place. I got into discussions with him, as he was camped on our place: 'How'd you get in?' It was via reserves. Then he did a number of tours of Afghanistan. He'd been in East Timor. He's still in the services now, actually, but he got in via the reserves, and that is something we've got to reinvigorate. I might just say in closing—I know this is tangential, but it's important—that the firearm legislation that was passed the other day is an infringement on this person's rights. These people are good people, and I don't have one; I have a number who come onto our property to go shooting. That's what they do. They bring their families with them—their sons predominantly. We've brought in laws that are going to start putting caveats on their capacity to stand on the land they love and have served and have offered their lives for, and I think that's wrong. I don't agree with the firearms legislation at all, but there should at least have been an amendment in there for ex-service men and women who don't own properties—they're not wealthy people—but go shooting on properties. These are people who have shouldered arms in defence of our nation and have taken on the terrorists in Afghanistan. We shouldn't be querying why they need firearms. They do it because it's their recreation. They're showing their kids. I was looking at this gentleman's kids and I was saying, 'If there was ever a person who's trained to be in the Defence Force, it's that man's son, who no doubt will follow his dad and do an incredibly good job.' Obviously, we need the bill. I'm not certainly not going to hold this up. My whole issue with this bill is that it should have been expedited and already completed by now.
Excise Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025, Customs Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
Yes, 'queen of the desert'. Yet we are doing our very best to try and put them out of business, and we will successfully put them out of business, even in my area such as Urbenville or Drake. In...
Yes, 'queen of the desert'. Yet we are doing our very best to try and put them out of business, and we will successfully put them out of business, even in my area such as Urbenville or Drake. In Drake there's a hotel called the Lunatic Hotel. They're always trying to get me to have my photo taken underneath it, but I'm not game. But these places just won't exist as that centre of a community, where you organise everything from your camp drafts to your bushfire rosters. But, most importantly, what are you going to do on the weekend? You've got to do something. You can go have a beer, have a 'countery', get away from the property for a bit and just relax. If we lose our hotels in Australia, if we lose our little regional pubs, then we will be diminished as a nation. We are not going to maintain these hotels unless we remove the excise completely. Now, I believe the cost of removing the excise from hospitality venues is around about $2 billion. I can understand when people say, 'Well, where are you going to get the money from?' We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on intermittent power, the so-called renewables, the euphemism for basically butchering our power grid, so you can find the money. The money is there. They say that intermittent power renewables are going to look after regional Australia. Well, they're doing a fine job of it. They're wrecking our roads. They're destroying our communities. They're putting pensioners out of their houses. Even for construction in a lot of areas, we can't find the water for the mixing of the concrete. They're a disaster. We believe that it's not that you should slow them down. We believe the construction of them should stop. That's enough. We've got enough. If you want them on your roofs, in your cities, knock yourself out. We have no problems with that. It's none of our business. But, if you want them in our areas, it is. This goes to show you the juxtaposition of things that are relevant to us in regional areas and what actually happens now. My office had a bit of a discussion with a few of the publicans around this area, and they say a slight reduction in the excise is not going to help them. If you freeze it—it's already too high. We've got to go beyond freezing it. We've got to get rid of the excise completely. Whether it's Donny and Tina from the top pub at Stanthorpe or the Bernhards at Walcha Road Hotel—but Stephen Ferguson, the CEO of the Australian Hotels Association, quite properly says that every drink poured into a glass in the pub creates a job. The most sociable and safest place to have a drink is in a licensed premises. We need to make sure that excise does not force people to stay at home, away from their communities. And isn't that correct? How many people in country areas have had a period of their life where they worked at a hotel? I know I worked there for a couple of years. That's part of growing up. It's part of the socialisation. It also gets you a job. It's a job that's in a local community. It's a job that's proximate. You're paid at the award rates. But that opportunity also goes. We have to do something substantial, if we are going to stand behind the iconography of the local Australian hotel. We have to do something substantial, if we truly believe that, in a country and remote regional areas, they have a right to the most minimal form of social infrastructure. In cities, you have so much taxpayer sponsored social infrastructure. It's immense. The classic ones you can see, like the opera house or parks—sponsored by the state or basically subsidised by the state. We don't have that. What we do have—one focal point—is our local hotel, and we are not going to have those. They are closing down. I can go to places such as Warialda Rail. There used to be a pub there. It's no longer there. As you drive along, you can go through areas where there were pubs and now there's just a ramshackle building that's falling over. Why would that happen? If they were commercially viable, of course, they wouldn't close. But they're not commercially viable. People are making the best attempts to try and turn the hotels into restaurants and stuff like that. It works on a form, but, of course, if you turn it into a restaurant, you're going to have to employ chefs. You've got to find chefs. You've got to pay them all rates that are probably beyond the scope of the hotel to manage. And, obviously, you're finding a much higher price per patron, and a lot of families can't afford that. I'm going to move an amendment that we get rid of the excise on beer completely. The amendment as proposed has been circulated, so I move: That all words after "House" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "calls on the Government to support hospitality venues struggling under the growing burden of government regulation and growth in overheads by eliminating alcohol excise duty on any alcoholic product sold for consumption on-premises in a hospitality venue".
It was Slim Dusty who said, '… there's-a nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer.' But there is. It's to stand at the bar of a pub with no...
It was Slim Dusty who said, '… there's-a nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer.' But there is. It's to stand at the bar of a pub with no patrons. If we don't start doing something about the cost of the fundamental core reason why people go to a hotel, there won't be patrons there because the obvious place to be will be to stand at the bottle shop with the slab with no fear, rather than the pub with no beer. Where the local hotel resides is embellished in the Australian psyche. We talk about it in everything from Crocodile Dundee to 'Priscilla of the desert'—what's that one?
I rise to foreshadow an amendment to the amendment but not to move it at this stage. In so many regional areas, the issue surrounding the excise is closely related to the viability of local...
I rise to foreshadow an amendment to the amendment but not to move it at this stage. In so many regional areas, the issue surrounding the excise is closely related to the viability of local hotels, local restaurants and suchlike. I believe that, to maintain the viability of these crucial parts of local communities and to support the hospitality venues struggling under the growing burden of government regulation, we should be eliminating the alcohol excise duty on any alcoholic product sold for consumption on premises in a hospitality venue. In a local area such as Walcha Road or right out west in Thargomindah, if you didn't have a hotel you'd have nothing at all. In so many instances, you wouldn't have that fabric; you wouldn't have that community involvement. The local hotel is also the cornerstone of the local cricket club. It's the cornerstone, for many people, of any social outing. But it is beyond the scope of people to be able to recreate, commune or be part of their community with the price of alcohol as it currently is within those premises. There are other things in regional areas where we can find the offset for this. Obviously, in balancing the books, the offset can easily be found in such things as the 'intermittent power swindle', where the hundreds of billions of dollars are floating out the door to support billionaires—domestically and overseas—and foreign companies. Rather than sponsor them, we should be sponsoring local communities. If we do not solve this, another string of hotels will close down. It is just beyond the scope of a working person's budget to be able to take a family out, or to actually take themselves out, to a hotel and drink at the bar, so what they do is grab a case of beer—grab a slab—and take it home. This is a very unhealthy way to live, and it would be a lot better if people were with other people rather than taking a case of beer home, sitting on the verandah and working their way steadily through it. You're seeing this more and more and more. If you look at the difference between buying a beer at the bottle shop as opposed to buying it out of the tap in the hotel you can see why people are making an economic choice to basically move to takeaways. Our local hotel is iconic in Australia, and here in this place we have to make a statement about standing up for those local hotels. In the past, we have just kept on increasing excises to the point where the product basically became unviable. A classic example of that, to the detriment of Australia and to the detriment of many towns, is illicit tobacco. It's just everywhere. We've successfully created the new Al Capones of 2026 with the illicit tobacco industry. How have we created them? We've created them by putting the tobacco excise and price up so high. We sort of had a foot in both camps—we wanted the money from it yet we told people they shouldn't do it—and we created the criminal gangs that now operate it. If you keep on putting up the excise on beer and keep on putting up the excise on wines and think that you're not going to double up on that process, well, you will, and this is not conducive to a healthy society or to a society that allows communities to bind together at one common point. In the past in a lot of country towns we used to have post offices. They were closed. We used to have train stations. They were closed. We used to have police stations. Sometimes they get them; mostly they are closed. Many medical facilities are not there, and the one thing that's sort of been maintained is the local hotel. But what we are seeing now is a rolling of new owners into these hotels. As each one turns up, they think they are going to make a buck out of it but, unfortunately, they then have to peel out after a short period of time because the tragic reality of their commercial circumstances become apparent—that they just can't survive. You're not going to survive in a local hotel in a country town with two or three patrons. You have to have that capacity, especially during the 4.30 to 8.00 session—I used to work in a hotel—to get those customers through, who are basically working families—working men and women—who have their four or five pots then they're out; they've gone home. It's easy. It's clean. They're a great clientele, so you're happy to have them within the premises because you know that they're going to go home, that they're going to go to bed. This is their recreation. This is the time where they spend just a short period of time with their friends. But now we're seeing less and less of that because the costs have become exorbitant in this cost-of-living crisis. The cost-of-living crisis has exacerbated the pressure that's been put on these hotels. Once more, if you go out to some of these regional areas like Foxtrap—west of Charleville—or Adavale, without a hotel, there's just nothing. There is nothing there at all. A part of the cultural fabric of this nation will be removed. So, yes, this amendment is substantial. It's removing the excise in total for what's been consumed in a hospitality venue—a removal in total. I fervently believe that we have the capacity to pay for this by the offsets in other areas, such as the fanciful idea—
Standing and Sessional Orders | Business | House debates
Obviously, the issue we have is that there is no coalition. Just looking at it, if the Liberal Party have eight then obviously the crossbench will have to get eight, which means that the...
Obviously, the issue we have is that there is no coalition. Just looking at it, if the Liberal Party have eight then obviously the crossbench will have to get eight, which means that the government will have to get 16. That's 32 questions. So what are we looking at? About 112 minutes. And with the condolence motions and everything else, that means question time is going for around two hours every day. And then, after that, you're going to have the MPI. You're starting to tie things up quite considerably. The one thing you don't want to draw attention to is exactly what's happening. Staying here for two hours with the cameras focusing on what inevitably will be sorted out, but currently is a total fiasco, is probably not the best thing for the Australian people. It's a little bit of an indictment. I ask the coalition to just get it together and get us back to a normal parliament.
Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026; Consideration in Detail | Bills | House debates
by leave—I move amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 2, as circulated in my name, together: (1) Schedule 1, item 13, page 12 (lines 18 to 27), omit subparagraphs 114A.3(2)(a)(ii) and (iii). (2)...
by leave—I move amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 2, as circulated in my name, together: (1) Schedule 1, item 13, page 12 (lines 18 to 27), omit subparagraphs 114A.3(2)(a)(ii) and (iii). (2) Schedule 1, item 13, page 12 (line 32) to page 13 (line 4), omit subsection 114A.3(3). I believe that it is incredibly important that we understand that in the division, in the bifurcation of this omnibus bill, we now have a complete change in what went before the committee for inquiry. As that is the case, I have seen an enlargement of the scope and the net of what this bill now brings about. I bring your attention to this section and this amendment because a hate crime is also conduct whether engaged in before or after this section commences, as would constitute an offence and provision of a law of the Commonwealth. We can understand that. We're in the Commonwealth parliament. We have the authority, and that is our remit. It also goes on to say that it would constitute an offence against a provision of a law of a state parliament. It would constitute a provision of a law of a territory parliament, enforced at the commencement of this section, and if engaged before a provision referred to in subparagraph 1 or 2 commenced, would have constituted an offence against the provision had the provision been enforced at the time the conduct was engaged in. This is getting awfully large. There seems to be an awfully large net here. We have a lot of policemen and a whole range of people who can now get caught up in this. We can have dualling views of what hate crimes are by respective parliaments and respective territories. They could actually take retribution against another person's view by deeming something a hate crime in their state parliament and then relying on the Commonwealth to enforce it. At the end, an aggravated form of this has 15 years in jail. This is way beyond anything discussed at the inquiry that was rightly held. This issue has only just appeared. If I had had a little bit more time than receiving this at around 10 o'clock and now having a guillotine, I suppose, for the next half hour, we could have probably gone through this with a little more depth. I don't intend to divide on this, but I will be calling a division on the third reading to vote against the bill. This is incredibly dangerous and goes way beyond what we were supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be dealing with antisemitism, the hatred of Jews, and people who murder people of the Jewish faith. That was where it was supposed to be. It could have been succinct, clear and focused, but we've now opened this net up so wide that it has become quite dangerous. I think it's hard enough that we have to come up with legislation in this chamber, which we know a future parliament may change or do with as they wish, but we're now saying that we're willing to take on the risk of not only future federal parliaments but future state parliaments and future territory parliaments. That is just beyond the breadth of something that can be tolerated. So I ask my colleagues here to truly consider how wide you want the police force to go. How far do you think this legislation should reach? I think you are all happy to say, 'This will favour me on a certain area,' but just imagine the person who's the political polar opposite of you and the fun they could have by being able to go to a state parliament and bringing forth a section, which they deem to be hate legislation, and then taking you off to court. It won't be too hard to prove; they've got their own state legislation. You'll definitely have a criminal offence. If they can find it's aggravated, there is the potential that you'll go to jail for 15 years. How did you come up with that complete lunacy of legislation?
Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
I rise to say that we have been absolutely jammed in consideration of this. The first bill, which was part of the omnibus bill, arrived at 7.09 in the morning and was guillotined at 10.00. This...
I rise to say that we have been absolutely jammed in consideration of this. The first bill, which was part of the omnibus bill, arrived at 7.09 in the morning and was guillotined at 10.00. This bill arrived sometime later. It's substantially different to what was in the omnibus bill, and now we're about to be guillotined again. I might just take you to one section of it that really concerns me. It concerns me that a hate crime, as of now, would constitute an offence against provisions of a law of a state or territory. What we are now relying on—and this is very concerning—is that you will come under the remit of the Commonwealth for a hate crime in aggravated circumstances, punishable by up to 15 years in jail, premised on what a state or territory might deem to be a hate crime. We're starting to get an awfully wide net on what was supposed to be succinctly dealing with the issue of antisemitism. If we had had a clarion focus on antisemitism—that is, the hatred and attacking of the Jewish people, which has been done in this instance by fundamental Islamic terrorism—then this would be so much cleaner, but you have broadened this in such a form that stapled to a very noble cause is a whole range of peripheral issues. That really causes great concern. When people vote against this—and they will—it has to be understood that it is because of the mischievous nature of attaching other circumstances to the bill that it has to be voted down in bulk. This bill has not been to a committee. There's an omnibus bill that has, but this section of that omnibus bill is substantially different. It has not been to a committee. It has not had the proper transparency. A bill that has not been to a committee is nonetheless going to be guillotined. Why are you voting for something that, might I suggest, you haven't even read? What other things that you haven't even read are you now going to just vote for? You definitely haven't read the 89 pages of this. I have to admit there are not a lot of differences in this, but there certainly are in the other one. If you want to have the jurisdiction of the federal Crimes Act being administered by a territory and then the legal act of a territory determining the penalty you will have under the Commonwealth act, then this— (Time expired)
Bondi Beach Attack Victims | Condolences | House debates
We all will remember the time that we found out about this. I was at Danglemah. I was just coming in from work, and Vikki came to the fence crying and saying: 'They are murdering people at Bondi....
We all will remember the time that we found out about this. I was at Danglemah. I was just coming in from work, and Vikki came to the fence crying and saying: 'They are murdering people at Bondi. There is someone; there is a gunman. They are murdering people.' She's a tough lady, but it was devastating. We all knew at that point that something evil had occurred. We think about that evil. Who sowed that foul seed? Where did this hate come from? Who tended it? Who watered it? Did we ever see that malignant pest, that malignant bush, that burr that grew up? Did we walk past it? Was it too difficult for us to deal with? We have to show the resolve now to deal with this issue. On that day, Boris and Sofia showed resolve. As an older couple, they decided to do something about it, and they died for it. Ahmed al-Ahmed decided to do something about it. He stood up and put his own life on the line. He walked forward when others were rightly taking cover. He sought out and closed in on the person who was murdering people. And, if he hadn't, more would've been murdered. But we have to be honest about exactly what is going on. We are having a condolence motion today for the mass murder of innocent people at a park at a beach in Sydney on a Sunday by Islamic fundamentalists. Did we ever think that day would happen in Australia? Did we ever believe that day would come? On that day, 14 December, 15 people were murdered; 40 people were injured, some critically; and our nation was torn apart at the fabric of how we saw ourselves. We felt sullied. We felt there was something dirty that had happened in our country—because this was not inspired by rage; it was not inspired by drugs. It was done coldly and calculatedly by a father and his son, who planned it and walked out of their flat like they were walking out for a morning jog. We have to do something about this. We've got to ask ourselves: How did they come to that view? How did they justify it and reconcile it in their own minds? If we don't do something about it—and that's hard; that's tough—then all we are doing is saying, 'Sorry. We empathise with you,' but we're not changing anything. You've got to think, the next time—we hope this doesn't happen. But that foul seed did not self-propagate. I do not believe for one second that this happened in some form of isolation. There is an issue, and it needs to be dealt with. If we don't, what do we expect—that that was the only weed in the wheat paddock? If it happens again, we'll all be partially responsible for it because of our inaction now. So this is a call to all of us to make the hard decisions and to ask the questions. We have got to understand that we have to have stronger oversight of the basic principles that get you entry into our nation. The reality is this was a father and son. We have to ask the questions: Did we get any idea that this was an essence of what his belief was when he got that incredible gift of Australian citizenship? How did he manage, without anybody asking questions, to indoctrinate his son? When the son was going to William Haddad, formerly Wisam Haddad, with that putrid hate that emanates from that school—why didn't we do something about it? Why did we just stand back and look at it? Australia—egalitarian, easygoing, beach, bush, barbecue, bravery, family, friends, compassion. It's all these things. They're such an incredible gift. But make no mistake. If you don't stand up, even belligerently, for your beliefs and the tenets of this nation, then you can sully them and, at the very worst, you can lose them. May those who have departed rest in the Lord.
Member for New England | Statements by Members | House debates
There's no doubt about it: this is the ejection seat. It's about as far away as you can get from the dispatch box. If you're sitting here, they want you out there. In the past, I was asked to...
There's no doubt about it: this is the ejection seat. It's about as far away as you can get from the dispatch box. If you're sitting here, they want you out there. In the past, I was asked to leave twice by Peter Dutton. I suppose, when they talk about generational change, it's pretty clear what people want. One of the biggest things, though, is that, after five weeks—I announced this about five weeks ago—apart from a 90-second phone conversation with the Leader of the Nationals, I've had no communication with either the leader or the Deputy Leader of the Nationals to try and resolve this, and that's disappointing. So, after 30 years with the National Party, I am resigning from the party. That really leaves me with a heavy heart. I apologise for all the hurt that that will cause other people. I really do. But it's not the most important thing. What is really important is that we understand those dealing with the cost-of-living crisis and that we go in to bat for them. What is really important is that they're still building intermittent power precincts and swindle factories in regional areas and destroying communities such as my own. What is really important is that the Chinese communist government are breathing down our necks and each day become more provocative. What is really important is that we have regional hospitals without doctors in them. What I have to do, if I'm going to continue with that fight, is get myself into a better position than the ejection chair at the back bench of the coalition in opposition.
Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
I concur with some of the remarks and disagree slightly with others that have been made. A large section of this revolves around the insertion into the Migration Act of section 140GD by the...
I concur with some of the remarks and disagree slightly with others that have been made. A large section of this revolves around the insertion into the Migration Act of section 140GD by the Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill. One of the issues there is that it comes with an assumption that all could be bad when all is not. There are times where—I've worked as an accountant in areas of labour hire—you have to call people to account and say, 'I do not believe that you have a person working for you called Jim Bean, nor do I believe you have a person working for you called Johnnie Walker or Evel Knievel.' Yes, of course, this has to be dealt with because, especially in some areas, it becomes a vessel for a collection of people who are basically absconding from oversight and being exploited by people who can make money out of them. Okay—go out, catch the criminal and do what you've got to do. But don't presume everybody is a criminal. That's one of the things that is happening too much. We use a virtuous message—'We've got to catch those who are breaking the law'—but we cast a net that impinges on every person's right as if they were criminals, and they're not. We are losing more and more in this nation—the right to be anonymous when you have done nothing wrong. It's no good to say, 'If you're doing nothing wrong, you don't have anything to worry about.' I just don't want to be watched all the time. I just don't want the government watching me all the time. Part of my freedom as an Australian is for people to have the presumption that I'm doing the right thing. I don't need observation. This is another exercise—in the inclusion of section 104GD—where we get the government saying, 'It's just to catch the baddies.' Well, everything these days apparently is 'just to catch the baddies'. On an issue that has been brought up a number of times that, when we use the word 'multicultural'—every person in this building can connect themselves somewhere to an immigrant. Unless you're basically 100 per cent of Indigenous heritage—'Aboriginal' they call themselves in my area—then you've got, somewhere, an immigrant. I would say the vast majority of Aboriginal people are part immigrant. My father was an immigrant, and obviously, if you go back—the first person came to this country is on the memorial outside St Mary's Cathedral. Her name is on the glass. She was an orphan from Ireland. Her parents starved to death in a hedge. They could both read and write. We all have a connection somewhere to an immigrant past. It's just that the timeframe changes. But I call into question people who say 'multicultural'. We have multilingual, multiethnicity, multiracial and multifaith, but be careful, when you start saying multicultural, that that is a statement that implies absolute virtue and can never be argued against. I can assure you there are some cultures that are not virtuous. There are some practices, even in Indigenous culture, that, if you brought them in today, you would find abhorrent. Virtue does not revolve around the fact that, because you can use the word 'multicultural', all things can be applied. It's a ridiculous example, but I'll give it nonetheless. The Incas had a culture. It's not without a shadow of a doubt that they had a culture—a very, very defined culture. It involved the beheading of people and pulling out their heart to appease the sun. That's a culture, but we're not going to start saying, 'That's a culture, therefore I can condone it, and therefore there's a space in Australia for it.' That's ridiculous. There has to be a temperance in this. There has to be an understanding that you've got to be part of a wider body of Australians. In doing so, there are certain things you've got to remove from that cultural identity. I think all of us, if we went back into our DNA and into our heritage, would find things that are most definitely part of our historical ethnic culture that are completely and utterly unapplicable to Australia today, and you just have to let that section go. If you don't then unfortunately you deliver Australia to a form of friction, a form of heat, and you create problems for our nation. I'll give you a classic one from mine. Like most of us, I've got a vast tapestry of people that make up my history. It goes all the way to Gypsies in one section. They're from everywhere. But let's go to the Irish section. Ireland at a certain point in time had two different, very strong cultures, and they didn't get along. They really didn't. It took a long time, even in the seat of New England, for those cultures to reconcile with one another. If you said that both those cultures could live by their initial creed, you'll go right back to where we were. We're talking about people who look the same and talk the same. It's just that they pathologically hated each other. We don't want to revisit that. They both had their cultures. There was Catholicism and Protestantism. I suppose, in a way, I grew up at the tail end of it. It was toxic, completely toxic. I don't want it. One of the big things for me is growing up and saying: 'Let's cut that loose. Let's let that go.' I'm not interested in someone's interests in the IRA. I really am not. I don't want to have anything to do with it. That's why I say you've got to temper it. Don't just say that multiculturalism is the absolute good. No. You've got to be a little more discerning than that. In a place like Tamworth, this is very evident. Even in Tamworth, we are growing flat out. The latest subdivision is seeing 5,000 new houses going in. That's about 12,000 or 13,000 people. The makeup of Tamworth is so dramatically different, and I revel in it—it's good. It's dramatically different to what it would have been even 10 years ago. I'm not a good but a practising Catholic. When I go to mass on Sunday at St Nick's, it's the Indian community that go. And it's huge. They're all there. They use that as a mechanism to then go out and have a meal. That's all good. That's great. In other parts of Tamworth, it's the Filipino community. Then there are Nigerians. Overwhelmingly, it's great. It's all good. These people have been essential for the economic growth of Tamworth—absolutely essential. There are so many jobs—I hate to break it into the Australian culture—which Australians just don't want to do. Especially around certain areas and in abattoirs, you just cannot get people who will see a day through. It's the reality that good people who work are at work, and people who don't want to work—in some instances, it's because they are, wait for it, lazy. They don't want to work. You can bring people onto a shift, and they literally don't make it to smoko, to 9 o'clock. They just can't handle it; they're gone. But people come in from the Philippines, and they're—bang—focused all the way through and doing it with a smile on their face. It's the same with boilermaking and fitting and turning. As I said, the locals who want to work are working. Often, they're in higher management positions because they start at the bottom and fly through. In our area, they would be terrified. If you said: 'We're not going to have any more Filipinos come in. We're not going to have any more Pacific Islanders come in. We're not going to have any more backpackers come in,' they would lose their minds. They would get very, very angry with me. I would say that they would have big meetings about how they could get rid of me. Genuinely, there's no form of racism about any of this; it's a clear understanding that what you deliver to the nation is important. When we have citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day, I always say to people that there's a contractual obligation in getting citizenship of this nation. It's the greatest gift you will ever have, to become a citizen and come to Australia. It is incredible. You have won the lottery if you get to Australia, but it comes with a contract. You have to understand that the focus of people will be more intent on you than it might be on others. So you have an obligation to your kin—to your family, your brothers and sisters—that you never end up in the crime pages, that you are not unemployed and that you are seen as an asset to the nation, not an encumbrance. No-one ever has a problem with that. That seems to make abundant sense. That is also part, we hope, of the Australian culture itself, which is egalitarian and gives people a fair go but also says: 'You have got to contribute back to the nation. You cannot be an encumbrance. You cannot bludge off other people. You have to put your shoulder to the wheel, otherwise other people have to work harder for more of their lives to cover the cost for you, and that is not fair on others.' I want to go to one area we really need to focus on, and it's something that's close to my heart. It's people who come into Australia and end up—by reason of organised crime—in prostitution. It's the most insidious, evil thing, where young ladies come in on the premise that they've got another job—as a cook, a whole range of things—and they end up in prostitution. The people who have oversight over that are some of the baddest individuals you will ever unfortunately come across. This is still going on. It is still present. If you go down to Sydney, you don't need to have much curiosity to be able to find where they are. You can have a look at some of the sites, ask yourself some questions, maybe turn up and say: 'Is this person really a masseur? Did this person actually know what they were getting in for when came to Australia?' That's an area we really should be focusing on. What worries me about this, in this section 140GD, is that, so many times, there are things that are self-evident, and you say, 'Surely you understand that, without too much effort, you could find those people and arrest them and do something about them.' Well, why don't we? It's like, in a way, the illegal tobacco shops. You see people going in, going out and buying illegal tobacco. Everyone talks about it. Then they come up with the idea that, to deal with illegal tobacco, they will say to the people who might own the premises—who had been told their tenants were going to rent it out for a shop but are now selling illegal tobacco and are also in organised crime—that they're going to fine the owner of the premises, not the participant in the building. This is where you say, 'I think you've got this mixed up.' On this one here, the balance is not quite right. I believe that, if there was further work done on this, it would have the capacity to get through. I think on some issues it just ignores other problems that are screaming at you in your face. Other people know about them or talked about them, but no-one wants to do anything about them.
Member for Indi | Statements by Members | House debates
We had a rather remarkable issue this morning with the Repeal Net Zero Bill 2025 in the main chamber. The member for Indi, Dr Helen Haines, came in—I just want to congratulate her for...
We had a rather remarkable issue this morning with the Repeal Net Zero Bill 2025 in the main chamber. The member for Indi, Dr Helen Haines, came in—I just want to congratulate her for actually turning up to the bill—and had some remarkable statements which I want to take her to task on. She said that, if we repeal the net zero bill, it will threaten thousands of jobs. Where are these thousands of jobs? Where about? What town? If you can just nominate where these jobs are, I'd like to hear it. She said there's an opportunity to make Australia's path to net zero deliver substantial, tangible, lasting benefits to regional and rural communities—while dividing them down the middle by putting in transmission lines, swindle factories, solar panels, wind towers. And I thought about it. I thought: 'Isn't VNI West in Victoria? Does Dr Helen Haines, the member for Indi, support VNI West? I wonder if Andrew Wiedemann and all these people know this.' They've got such a great supporter, and it's up to the people of Victoria to understand they actually have a champion for VNI West, a champion for the swindle factories, a champion for the Chinese state-owned enterprises that are involved in the capacity investment scheme, the domestic billionaires, the foreign multinationals, the division of the communities. Their champion, ladies and gentlemen, is the member for Indi, Dr Helen Haines. So go out, give her a bell and say: 'Thank you, Doctor. Thank you very much.'
New England: Honours and Awards | Constituency Statements | House debates
I rise today because of a marvellous lady who lives in Tamworth . She was selected as a finalist in the 2025 National Rural & Remote Health Awards held in Canberra. I couldn't get there last...
I rise today because of a marvellous lady who lives in Tamworth . She was selected as a finalist in the 2025 National Rural & Remote Health Awards held in Canberra. I couldn't get there last night. The reason she's a marvellous lady is because Dr Miriam Grotowski is my local doctor. Dr Miriam is the reason—she was emphatic that I had to get my prostate checked, and that's why I'm standing here. A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 11:58 to 12:03 Before I was so rudely interrupted by a division in the main chamber, I was talking about Dr Miriam Grotowski and what a marvellous person she is—as my local doctor and as a finalist for the 2025 National Rural and Remote Health Awards. It's a shame she didn't quite get there, but congratulations on getting so far. Next, we'll go up the road to Glen Innes, and Matt Dodds from Glen Innes High School was awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Secondary Schools. Matt is working in the STEM subjects, which are science, technology, engineering and mathematics. I had Matt to my office—he's great mates with Leigh Tschirpig, who works in my office. They like looking at the stars and they're obviously into astronomy as well. Matt is so dedicated to getting kids interested in those core subjects which are so vitally important for all the things that we do away from the arts. If you're looking at chemistry, you're talking about medicine. If you're looking at physics, you're talking about rockets. If you're looking at engineering, you're building dams and building marvellous things that make our nation stronger. Then there's Dr Cheryl McIntyre. She's been a rural generalist for 25 years and has been named the Rural Doctors Association of Australia's rural doctor of the year for 2025. Cheryl, as a rural generalist, is so important. So many towns don't have a GP. People get very scared when they have no local doctor. If something goes wrong—an asthma attack, you name it, or if someone comes off a horse or a bike—and you haven't got a GP, where do you go? Then we've got the AgriFutures Rural Women's Awards. There's Isabella Thrupp, Katelyn Wall out at Nemingha and Dimity Smith, who I sit with sometimes on planes, going backwards and forwards. She runs GRO Rural and GRO Events Group. The Walcha coffee shop won the New South Wales State Business Award. It's a great business. I want to close on something else. All the P&Cs, all the working bees, all these people do something for their community. If we didn't have people working for our community, our nation would be a lesser place. You've got to do more than is expected of you. One final thing for our service men and women. Do not forget, on the 11th of the 11th, so this month, at 11 o'clock to stop for one minute. You can do that. Stop for one minute in consideration of those who served.
Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
(): Just a point of order. Madame Deputy Speaker, we've just been informed recently—we thought we were going to government business, the defence amendment. I've just been talking...
(): Just a point of order. Madame Deputy Speaker, we've just been informed recently—we thought we were going to government business, the defence amendment. I've just been talking to the whip's clerk in our office to get the change in speakers. Because we've changed the order of business, we don't have speakers here who do want to speak on this. I know they've got three on the list. I can't remember the names. When was this change made, to go to this bill?
Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, National Environmental Protection Agency Bill 2025, Environment Information Australia Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Customs Charges Imposition) Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Excise Charges Imposition) Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (General Charges Imposition) Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Restoration Charge Imposition) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
More than us, I grant you that. But I'll tell you what: I would be really careful of that vote! I'd be careful of standing behind that vote. Here's another example. We were going to run out of...
More than us, I grant you that. But I'll tell you what: I would be really careful of that vote! I'd be careful of standing behind that vote. Here's another example. We were going to run out of water for the city of Tamworth. We had only 40,000 megs in the storage, and, when we applied to increase the storage—which I got—we had to break the offset laws, because of the Booroolong frog. I thought that frogs lived in water; I thought the frogs would be happy. But apparently they weren't. And it was serious. People got terribly upset, because their investment in the Booroolong frog was more important than 70,000 people in the city of Tamworth having water to drink. It is almost a sort of Kafkaesque and alternative universe that we have created—this mad type of philosophy which works at complete odds to not only the regional areas but to the rights of the farmer, to the prosperity of small regional towns and villages, to the strength of our nation and to the maintenance of what is fundamental. We talk about a housing crisis, and you shut down the timber industry. We talk about the cost-of-living crisis, and you shut down the coal-fired power stations and say you've got to use the most expensive form of electricity in the world, as shown—which is intermittent power. We say we believe in pensioners—yet you make them pay multiple millions of dollars in the small country towns for environmental offsets. Then you go to some sort of branch members' meeting and everyone's bleeding all over the place about how important this is for the environment. Go up to Denman and explain to the aged-care facility why you are taking $3.5 million dollars off them for a paddock. Why would we do this? Why do we do this? This brings us to the question of where we go from here. Once more: the timber industry is very important. It's very important for the member of Lyne's seat. It's not so important for mine, but it definitely has a role. We somehow have to get sane people to cut a deal that helps industries such as timber and allows more of a streamlining so that we are not completely tied up in red tape. But we also have to, in that process, start putting some ring-roads around the intrusion into our private property rights that you have dealt us. The member for Hunter says it's the state governments; the state governments do it to us because they don't have to pay just and fair compensation. But the Commonwealth government is the source of the primary legislation and the primary targets, with all the international targets they want to meet. They're the beneficiaries. The state governments are the implementers, and we are the poor bunnies who pay the price.
On Cooplacurripa, in the seat of Lyne, they used to have 8,000 head of cattle. Eight thousand head of cattle—they're gone. That means there's pressure coming on the jobs of the meat workers...
On Cooplacurripa, in the seat of Lyne, they used to have 8,000 head of cattle. Eight thousand head of cattle—they're gone. That means there's pressure coming on the jobs of the meat workers who used to cut up the 8,000 head of cattle. That means the trucks that used to transport those 8,000 head of cattle are losing out. That means those shops that used to make money out of the people who had cattle on Cooplacurripa will lose out—the hairdresser; the tyre business. And for whom? For the Zeitgeist. And do you offer anything back? No. You give nothing. Unless we are going to evolve into a higher form of termite, this is not much use to us. And that is happening to place after place after place. This is perverse! We are actually putting up a policy to reduce the production of food, so that, after we've absolutely butchered the electricity market, we're going to butcher the food market. Why would we do that? Hand in glove with that, we're always seeing that they no longer believe in coal-fired power stations—they're evil—and they're always, with a wink and a nod, having a shot at the coalmining industry and coalminers. It's always the case that they're running down the blue-collar workers that the Labor Party was born to look after. That is who you were supposed to look after—blue-collar workers. But you've given up on them. There's only a handful—two or three—blue-collar workers left in the Labor Party. Mostly they're bureaucrats or staffers or whatever, but they're not people who've worked with their hands; they're not people who've worked outside. They just don't exist anymore. That's an item of history—that that section of the Labor Party was there. You say you got a lot of votes. You got about 34 or 35 per cent of the primary.