Sam Birrell's recent appearances (OpenAustralia.org)
Cost of Living | Matters of Public Importance | House debates
Let's have a think about what has happened this week as a result of inflationary pressure—the uptick in the inflation numbers. Interest rates have risen. What does that mean for people? It...
Let's have a think about what has happened this week as a result of inflationary pressure—the uptick in the inflation numbers. Interest rates have risen. What does that mean for people? It means their mortgage repayments have risen, and it means the cost-of-living crisis just got a lot worse. That's a serious problem for people out there who live in the real world—not in the chamber, where sometimes people are more interested in talking about political games than what actually matters to people. There's a lot of duck and spin in parliament this week about why this has happened, but I want to put some points together and try and link them logically; try and follow with me. Firstly, the government's failing energy policy is putting the retail cost of energy power up. It's going up because the policy's a dud. It's based on ideology, not reality—and if you want to know that, talk to RepuTex. In an attempt to paper over this failure, with sleight of hand the government gives out energy rebates—one of a very great number of government spending measures by this Labor government that thinks fiscal responsibility is an optional extra. The Treasurer thinks: 'That's okay; we'll give out energy rebates and that will reduce the headline rate of inflation. No-one will notice and everything will be rosy for the economy.' The issue for the Treasurer is the RBA are a bit smarter than that, and they take into account the trimmed mean inflation number as well; therefore, interest rates have gone up. Before people talk about criticising us about the rebates: we wouldn't have had such a ham-fisted energy policy that increased prices in the first place. What does this mean? It means it's getting more expensive to get a mortgage. If you're already paying one off you're paying a lot more, and the cost-of-living crisis is now affecting you even more than it was. If you aspire to buy a house, it just got a lot harder because you're going to need a lot more in your repayments. Not only is that an issue; business is getting harder and harder to do in Australia. I go around my electorate of Nicholls, which has the Goulburn Valley, one of the great entrepreneurial places in Australia. We have a high proportion of private sector economic activity as opposed to public sector. You go out to those farms and to those factories, and you can see what's driven Australia and why so many migrants over many years, as soon as they get off a boat in Sydney or Melbourne, come to Shepparton—because it's the land of opportunity. It's inspiring to see what those people have done and will continue to do. But all those people who run these businesses are telling me it's getting harder to do business. Why? Because the imports are getting more expensive. There are so many examples of that. If you run a farm, fertiliser is more expensive because of energy prices. If you're running a business, wages are going up because there are people who don't understand that if you put too much energy into the public sector there's a rise in the costs for the private sector. It doesn't mean we don't want higher wages across the board, but there's got to be that balance. Keating understood there had to be a balance and Costello understood there had to be a balance, but I'm not sure this Treasurer does. I'll quote Judith Sloan from the Australian, who said yesterday in the paper: … it is becoming increasingly clear that Chalmers doesn't understand how the economy works. I don't know when that has been said about a Treasurer in the past. I also want to just touch on, in the minute that I've got left, and address some of the dishonesty in the debate about what Labor inherited. I wasn't in this place during the last term of the coalition government. I was out working in the private sector. I can tell you that when COVID hit it was very frightening for those people who had businesses. They thanked Josh Frydenberg for looking after them by introducing JobKeeper. That did put some pressure on the budget, and it did put some pressure on inflation. But I remind those opposite that they wanted to spend $81 billion more for JobKeeper and other measures during COVID. So how much worse would it have been coming out of that absolute crisis had Labor occupied the Treasury benches then? I think it's a really important thing to remember when people are saying, 'What we inherited.' They have very short memories, and I remember how difficult that time was for the private sector and the fact that the previous coalition government actually looked after them during COVID.
Copyright Amendment Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
I, too, rise to speak on the Copyright Amendment Bill 2025. By its nature, it's a rather uncontroversial bill. As the member for Deakin said, it's supported across the chamber. It makes a lot of...
I, too, rise to speak on the Copyright Amendment Bill 2025. By its nature, it's a rather uncontroversial bill. As the member for Deakin said, it's supported across the chamber. It makes a lot of technical changes. These reforms are the result of several years of consultation, roundtables and review work commissioned by the government in 2023. I just want to say that I and a lot of us are strong supporters of copyright. Creators—whether they're artists, musicians, writers or photographers—should be paid for the reproduction or use of their works and should be acknowledged for those things. Copyright has become very topical in the last 10 to 15 years. My own artistic endeavour is music, and when I was a wannabe rock star, back in the day, I was in a band called The Hunted and I co-wrote a song called 'The Ballad of the Aimless Artist'. I always want to make sure that the ideas that I put forward are protected in some way. It's interesting to see the way the music industry has evolved, particularly with a number of claims. One famous one was by the American guitarist Joe Satriani, who had a piece of music called 'If I Could Fly'. The melody is remarkably similar to Coldplay's 'Viva La Vida', and, when that was challenged, it was settled out of court. Of course, there's also the famous Australian example of the Men at Work song 'Down Under' and 'Kookaburra' about the Kookaburra who sits in an old gum tree. It's become something that courts and, indeed, legislatures across the world and in our own country have had to grapple with. What is an original idea? When has someone else used it, even if they didn't mean to breach the copyright? If the idea existed and then someone else gains from it, there does need to be some clarification and restitution for that artistic idea. I've also had a keen interest in looking at this bill through a regional lens, particularly as there are a lot of implications for distance learning. The Copyright Amendment Bill 2025 amends the Copyright Act 1968. Have a think. That's a long time ago for a law to be updated. The bill introduces an Australian orphan works scheme, and I support this. It clarifies the scope of section 28 of the Copyright Act, relating to the performance and communication of copyright material in the course of educational instruction. This is an important change for regional, rural and remote education, from early childhood through to tertiary, as I'll explain. An orphan work is basically copyright material for which the owner cannot be identified or located to seek their permission to legally reutilise it. Permission is ordinarily sought from the copyright owner before using copyright material in a way that engages the rights of the owner of that material under the act. But, if the copyright owner is not known or cannot be located after reasonable effort, the orphan works scheme would facilitate the use of these works as long as reasonable efforts have been made and notice is given in a clear and prominent manner that the work is being used for the purpose of the orphan works scheme. The intended outcome of this is a very good outcome, particularly in the realm of education. It means that a larger collection of cultural, historical and educational works held by our cultural and educational institutions will be available for the benefit of researchers, educators, students, family historians, creators and the wider Australian community. The bill also amends section 28 of the act. Section 28 offers an exemption where a literary, dramatic or musical work is performed in a class for the purpose of education. It's not deemed a public performance, which would enliven the copyright, if the audience is limited to persons who are taking part in the instruction or are otherwise directly connected with the place where the instruction is given. The bill modernises the act to take account of the modern methods of learning, and that's really important. Music should be something that people can make a living out of, and that's getting harder and harder with the proliferation of music-streaming programs. It's been made harder after COVID, which had a really significant effect on the live music scene. But, having said that, I note that music is a really important part of education, and we want to make sure it's there for young people to use, to be inspired and to learn not only about music but about the art of creation and the release of endorphins and, as a former prime minister said, the chemical reaction that happens in a brain when they hear a certain piece of music, I'm referring, of course, to Mr Keating, who was a big fan of the works of Mahler and Debussy and other classical works from that period. This also clarifies the education exemptions that apply to instruction delivered in person, in online or hybrid classes, or via real-time digital technologies. It reflects the modern and connected world we live in and, importantly, acknowledges the reality of delivering remote learning and distance education. Remote learning has been happening in Australia for a long time. I think back to the School of the Air and what that meant to so many remote families, with the way that children could get an education through the School of the Air. That's obviously become more of a reality in the age of the internet and the web. It's enabled better educational facilities and facilitation for people who live in those rural and remote areas. An example of that is my own experience where I was able to complete an MBA at the Shepparton campus of La Trobe University. A lot of the time, there were five of us with a facilitator in the front room of the La Trobe University Shepparton campus at night, receiving the lecture that was coming from Melbourne. That was broadcast to us, and we were able to get, in real time, the lecture that the students at the business school in Collins Street, Melbourne were getting. That will be further enhanced by this legislation, because there won't be the copyright problems that existed with broadcasting some of that material. There have been some sticking points. I've been informed ahead of this debate that a clarification will be made to ensure that the remote learning exception works even when the technical equipment being used to deliver a remote lesson is being operated by someone other than the teacher, such as an IT support person. That's just common sense. The bill as drafted had an unintended consequence: that teachers could not use the orphan works scheme for works and broadcasts. But I'm assured that that will be addressed. That brings me to one last sticking point, and I hope that there's a way through this and that common sense can prevail. The exemption applies to live instruction but not on-demand or catch-up learning. So, for remote educators, that's going to be difficult and limiting, because they'll give a lecture—they'll use this material—to students and broadcast it live, in real time. But there will be students, of course, who can't get to that lecture or can't get to that class—they may be sick; they may need to catch up—and, if they can't watch a recording of that, it's going to limit the teacher's or the educator's ability to deal with that situation. I think it's just one little piece that the government could look at to try and see if there's a commonsense solution to that, moving forward, so that, without breaching copyright or keeping something indefinitely recorded, there is a way that, within a certain period of time, there could be a catch-up lesson used without breaching those copyright requirements. A sensible approach would be to allow for that on-demand or catch-up—as long as it meets the dominant purpose test in section 28, and that is educational instruction. So I support the modern, practical copyright laws that balance the user access with creator protection. Those wonderful artists, musicians and people who are creating all sorts of things need our protection and need to continue what they're doing. But I think the change to the law, which I commend the government for, that allows educators to be able to use some of this material, and the orphan program, are positive steps. I just would urge the government to see if there's a workaround where we could get the educators to be able to record that, hold it for a very short period of time and only use it for the students that missed the class and can watch it within the week or something like that and get the benefit of that education. But otherwise I commend the bill to the House.
Energy | Questions without Notice | House debates
My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. How many Australians received the $275 reduction in their energy bill that Labor promised by the end of last year?
Victoria: Bushfires | Statements by Members | House debates
Earlier last month large areas of my electorate and the member for Indi's electorate were ravaged by bushfire. Fires that started around the Longwood area were pushed by a north-westerly into...
Earlier last month large areas of my electorate and the member for Indi's electorate were ravaged by bushfire. Fires that started around the Longwood area were pushed by a north-westerly into farmland and bushland, devastating more than 140,000 hectares. In addition, there were fires up in the north of my electorate in a place called Yarroweyah. Many houses have been lost. Many businesses have been affected, including farms. The iconic Fowles Winery has lost vineyards, and farmers have been forced to go out there with their rifles and put down livestock. I want to give a big shout-out to the state member for Euroa, my National Party colleague Annabelle Cleeland, who has gone above and beyond to help her community with fodder drives and other support. The member for Indi and I met with the Strathbogie Shire Council, which is the council that was most affected. They are saying, 'We have had so much infrastructure damage and we have such a small rate base; how are we going to build it back?' I thank the Minister for Emergency Management for coming to visit with them, but the issue we have is the Strathbogie shire is still awaiting funding for infrastructure that was damaged in the 2022 floods—namely, Kirwans bridge. They're worried that they're not going to get the government support to fix the infrastructure that they've lost in this natural disaster. I ask the Minister for Emergency Management and Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories to come to the party and help the Strathbogie Shire Council.
Bondi Beach Attack Victims | Condolences | House debates
Sunday 14 December 2025 will go down as a day of tragedy and infamy for our nation. It was a day when thousands of people who were peacefully and gracefully celebrating the festival of Hanukkah...
Sunday 14 December 2025 will go down as a day of tragedy and infamy for our nation. It was a day when thousands of people who were peacefully and gracefully celebrating the festival of Hanukkah were attacked—attacked for being Jewish. Fifteen of them—not them, but fifteen of us—were killed. It's hard to find words to describe how despicable, cowardly and evil this act and the people who perpetrated it are. Aussies at a beach, embracing faith—epitomised by Matilda, a 10-year-old with so much good in her, so much potential and with so much to offer our community—were cut down by hatred and an ideology with nothing to offer. The Jewish community has got a proud history in my electorate, in Shepparton and in the Goulburn Valley. As refugees and migrants coming over many years, they've set up the fruit farms, the dairy farms and—most famously—the packing technologies that drove those industries forward. There was a synagogue; it's no longer there, but there's a memorial stone on Poplar Avenue in Shepparton where the synagogue was. After the terrible events in Bondi, the Shepparton Interfaith Network, a group of all faiths—Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Jewish people—all gathered for a candlelight vigil and to talk about the way that faiths have been able to exist together in the Goulburn Valley in a peaceful way. There was no radicalisation, just faith in a culture that says, 'We respect your right to your faith as long as you respect ours.' It's a culture that's eroding in parts of Australia. So where to from here? What are the norms in our society, and what do we want them to be? Do we have the courage to call out the antisemitism in our nation—wherever it resides? Examples of where it resides were articulated so well earlier today by the Member for Berowra. A precious part of our Australian community was attacked in December, and we need to have their backs and give them the support they need. My heart goes out to those whose lives were cut short and the families who grieve. I also give thanks, from a grateful nation, to the amazing heroes who intervened and the first responders who went running towards those people who were injured and subsequently died, many of them, at Bondi that day. We saw the best of Australia in them. Australia will never be the same. This is an absolute tragedy. It is critical for us, as a parliament and as a nation, to look inside ourselves and not just make legislative change—that we'll debate, as we do in this place—but embrace the more challenging question of cultural change. It is the cultural change that we need, to right the ship that is Australia at the moment. It's going to take difficult conversations, it's going to take honest conversations, and it's going to take us all looking inside ourselves to ask what this nation is, what we want it to be, and why we have drifted to a point where something like this can happen in such an iconic place in our nation. We owe that to the victims, to their families and to our beautiful country.
Roads, Veterans | Constituency Statements | House debates
In the Nationals we often talk about bringing common sense to Canberra, and I can tell you that this is needed more than ever. The Albanese government doesn't seem to get regional Australia....
In the Nationals we often talk about bringing common sense to Canberra, and I can tell you that this is needed more than ever. The Albanese government doesn't seem to get regional Australia. They're trying to get farmers to pay for biosecurity, trying to tax unrealised capital gains in the superannuation accounts of farmers and small businesses, and threatening the viability of small pharmacies, which are often the only frontline health services in regional towns. Those attempts all failed, but the backflips are continuing. In another win for common sense, the proposal to drop the default speed on unsigned country roads to 70 kilometres an hour has been dumped. This was a bad idea created in Canberra without any understanding of how regional communities actually live, work and travel. It ignored the realities of regional life: long distances, freight, farm work, emergency services and families who simply can't afford to lose more time on the road. It was an idea so bad there was not only pushback from regional communities; regional Labor members didn't want it either. Instead of wasting resources on silly ideas, the government must invest in money to repair and maintain our roads. Regional drivers are fed up with dodging potholes, repairing busted wheels and slowing down at roadworks only to see them washed out after a couple of months. The second backflip, another win for common sense, came with Labor abandoning its attempt to weaken the integrity of the Defence honours and awards appeals system. I want to pay tribute to my colleague the member for Gippsland, a champion of veterans, for leading the campaign against those changes. Veterans who contacted me were worried, frustrated and feeling overlooked, and these changes would have stripped rights away from the very people who have served our nation. There are a number of people who wouldn't have received much-deserved awards had these changes been in place for some years. Thankfully, they're not going to be in place at all. These examples speak to a broader pattern of misplaced priorities and missteps from this government. Meanwhile, regional funding programs that should be providing practical help in our communities have been either scrapped or starved of new funding. People are coming to me in my community, saying, 'We really need this piece of infrastructure. We really need that,' and I say, 'Well, the cupboard is bare because there's no allocation in the growing communities program.' Regional Australia deserves better from this government.
Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
I too rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill 2025. This bill will insert a new section into the Migration Act 1958 that authorises the secretary of the...
I too rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill 2025. This bill will insert a new section into the Migration Act 1958 that authorises the secretary of the Department of Home Affairs to publish a public register containing the details of employee sponsorship of skilled migrants. The bill title attempts to link this register to combating migrant exploitation. I have no issue with combating migrant exploitation or the exploitation of any workers. But particularly vulnerable people who are coming from overseas to work in our industries need to be protected. That is something that is believed on that side of the House and it is something that is believed on this side of the House. I have worked in horticultural industries for a great many years and I have seen a lot of good work on both sides from good people who want to make sure that the people who come from overseas to work in our industries are protected. I'm confident in saying many farmers and businesses in my electorate of Nicholls who welcome migrant workers feel exactly the same way. Skilled migration, whether temporary or permanent, has always been about benefiting both sides of the equation. Farms and businesses facing critical workforce shortages are able to access skills and labour, and migrants are able to access jobs, be paid a fair wage and work under fair employment conditions. We have history of this. This is basically what built the electorate I now represent. Anytime anyone turned up in Australia, even before World War II, from the Albanian community, where were they sent? They were sent to where there was requirement for what was then unskilled labour. Those people often came to the Goulburn Valley, which was a burgeoning irrigation district that had a lot of dairy farms, a lot of fruit orchards. After the war, people from the United Kingdom, southern Europe, the subcontinent, the Middle East and now from Africa and parts of Asia have been welcomed in the Goulburn Valley. We all understand that we would not have built the economic miracle that is the Goulburn Valley without them. People have come to build our industries, which become their industries. Often what happens in the Goulburn Valley is that these people who are paid a fair wage, by and large, save up enough money to buy their own farms, and that's happened over and over again. It's wonderful to see second-generation people whose parents came here with nothing becoming very wealthy people and able to educate their children in a way that they were never able to be educated because they were able to build the capital, buy their farms, and become incredibly successful business owners. I don't deny there have been instances of migrant worker exploitation, and I believe it is actively sought out, stopped and the offenders prosecuted. If there are better ways we can do that then we are happy to work together on that. But I will tell you this: since 1 July 2024, the Australian Border Force have had a prohibited employer register providing information about employers, sponsors and third parties who have seriously, deliberately or repeatedly broken the law and have been prohibited from employing additional migrant workers for a period of time. Let me go to the media release of 29 September 2025 from the member for Bruce, the Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs. The release is headlined: 'Australian Border Force names and shames business for exporting migrant workers', which sounds great and we support that. When you go to the first paragraph, it says: 'A Western Australian business has become the first in the nation to be publicly named and shamed by the Australian Border Force for exploiting vulnerable and migrant workers under the strong new laws introduced by the Albanese government.' That business is still the one and only business that has been shamed on the Border Force prohibited employer register. One business has been named and shamed between July 2024 and November 2025, and that is despite well publicised employer rights material attached to visa applications and despite clear lines of reporting breaches such as underpayment, sexual harassment, pressuring or coercing a temporary migrant to breach a visa condition or pressuring them to hand over their passport. The Fair Work Ombudsman has a wealth of information for migrant workers and offers a dedicated telephone helpline that includes interpreting services. The PALM scheme provides ongoing welfare and wellbeing support to workers throughout their time in Australia, and PALM has a dedicated 1800 number support service. There's adequate information and assistance already available to migrant workers or prospective migrant workers. There's already a name-and-shame register of dodgy employers. That register is a mandatory publication requirement in the Migration Act that triggers Australian Privacy Principle 6.2(b), which permits the Australian Border Force to disclose the personal information of an individual where a law requires it to do so. The point I'm making is that there has been a lot of good work from both sides of this chamber, when in government, to try and combat this. So what is being put in place now to help further combat exploitation of migrant workers? Under the guise of protecting migrant workers, this bill allows the publication of personal details of individuals and corporate entities, regardless of whether they've even transgressed. It will publish the sponsor's activity and track record, apparently as a deterrent against the poor treatment of migrant workers. We've already got the risk of prosecution, hefty fines, 10-year bans, and naming and shaming. But those are not enough of a deterrent. I want to emphasise this point. Employers of migrant workers—farmers and businesses like those in the Goulburn Valley—care about these migrant workers and know that their businesses can't operate without them, so why would they want to exploit them? Why should they be on a public register saying that they employ X number of temporary workers? Here's what I'm worried it will lead to—and I've seen this in my electorate. It can lead to unions deciding that they will go and harass those businesses, even if there's no evidence of anything being done wrong. I agree with the member for Riverina, who said before that unions have their place. They're an important part of Australian cultural history and an important part of Australian economic history. But I have seen them behave in really disappointing ways. They have come into the Goulburn Valley and tried to stir up a lot of trouble where there was no offence or exploitation happening. I think there are areas of migration that it would be better for the Albanese government to focus on. The temporary skilled migration system is failing regional businesses, and a lot of those regional businesses are agricultural businesses. On 11 December 2023 Labor's migration strategy, outlining reform directions for Australia's skilled visa programs, was released. The promise was to 'fix' a 'broken system' and streamline visa processes so they'd better support industries that required temporary workers from overseas to plug workforce shortages. Key to the reforms was the introduction of the skills in demand visa. It replaced the temporary skill shortage visa. This skills in demand visa would have three target pathways: a core skills stream, a specialist skills stream for high earners and an essential skills stream focused on addressing lower income labour shortages. The essential skills stream is especially important for regional businesses because it replaces the labour agreement stream which so many industries rely on in my electorate of Nichols and across regional Australia. Currently, there are labour agreements covering horticulture, dairy and meat. These are all key industries for the Australian national economy—but particularly for regional Australia. Those labour agreements are still being used because, while the core and specialist streams are operating, the essential skills stream has not yet being implemented. We don't know what the conditions of the essential skills visa will be, but I do hope it creates a pathway for employers who are currently priced out of the migration system to recruit the workers they desperately need. Why have so many employers been priced out? For most migrant workers, their visa has to meet the temporary skilled migration income threshold. When the Albanese government came to power, it was $53,900. On 1 July 2023, it soared to $70,000. But it is also indexed. In July 2024, it was $73,150 and, in July this year, it's $76,515. And dairy, horticulture and meat operate under labour agreements, which means they have to pay workers equal to or greater than 90 per cent of the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold. So, if we follow the same path from 2023, the minimum payment under a labour agreement has gone from $48,510 to $68,863 and, accounting for indexing, by July next year it will be around $72,000. I have businesses in my electorate that desperately need workers and they have migrants who want to come on a temporary visa, but the mandated pay rates are well above what their Australian workers earn and are unaffordable for the employer. Not having workers is a big problem, because the businesses can't grow and they can't employ other people. And this is not just for farms; this has happened in the auto industry and it's happened in all sorts of industries. We need much greater flexibility in the visa program. Instead, we get this bill, which seems, at best, to be a replication and, at worst, a serious overreach. No-one in this place wants to see migrant worker exploitation. Where it happens, it needs to be rooted out and prosecuted. I believe, as I said earlier, that both sides have done some good work over the past 20 or 30 years to strengthen that. I just want to finish with an anecdote about what the common experience in regional communities is. A couple of years ago, a very prominent fruit grower from a fifth- or sixth-generation family passed away. It was of great sadness to the community, and I went to his funeral. He had been using the PALM scheme, employing Pacific workers and making sure that he had a vibrant business so that money could be sent back to those communities over generations. When that man died, and I went to his memorial service, there were over 30 Pacific workers and their families who attended and sang the most beautiful songs and music in unison that I've ever heard to honour a person who had put together a business, employed them, treated them so well and provided so much money and work. It was a real combination of capital and labour that worked for both the capital and the labour, and went on. The respect that was shown by him to those workers, and then, when he passed away, by those workers to him, was truly moving. If there's exploitation, it needs to be rooted out. But, more often, these schemes are very good for Australia and very good for the migrant workers who come here. I don't think this bill helps that. I think this bill creates division. I think there are already some great things in place to assist the continuing combating of migrant exploitation. If there are serious proposals that can be put forward to further address that problem, I think that people on this side of the House would be very interested in working together with the government on it. But I don't think this is serious. I think it's a half-baked solution that doesn't address the problem, and it will lead to further division and harassment by some unions of regional businesses. Therefore, I won't be supporting the bill.
Gnarly Neighbours | Statements by Members | House debates
I make this 90-second statement today as part of Gnarly Neighbours' Gnarly90 campaign, which raises awareness of youth mental health and encourages everyone to take action. The campaign, run by...
I make this 90-second statement today as part of Gnarly Neighbours' Gnarly90 campaign, which raises awareness of youth mental health and encourages everyone to take action. The campaign, run by Jayden Sheridan of Seymour, from my electorate, invites people to get involved in their own way with 90 minutes, 90 actions, 90 skate tricks or even just 90 seconds to support young people and show they are not alone. Jayden grew up without stability or support, and he built Gnarly Neighbours so that young people today don't have to face the same struggles he did. Gnarly Neighbours gives kids a safe place to go—a place where they can learn to skate, be creative, talk to mentors and feel part of the community. Their neighbourhood space in Seymour includes a cafe, a print shop, a skates store and an indoor skate park, with every dollar going straight back to free youth programs. They also run an employment program that gives young people real jobs, real skills and the confidence that they can build a life for themselves. Disconnection and isolation put young people at serious risk, and suicide is now the leading cause of death for Australians aged 15 to 24. That's why supporting programs like Gnarly Neighbours matters. They create safe spaces where young people can grow, connect and find their way. I sincerely thank Jayden Sheridan and the whole Gnarly Neighbours team for their incredible work. Their dedication gives young people belonging, opportunity and a chance to thrive.
Excise Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025, Customs Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
She's a wonderful saxophone player, and our coalition will not be torn apart, Member for Wannon. We need to raise more than just a glass to the brewers. The Australian beer industry generates $16...
She's a wonderful saxophone player, and our coalition will not be torn apart, Member for Wannon. We need to raise more than just a glass to the brewers. The Australian beer industry generates $16 billion a year for Australia's economy and supports nearly 176,000 jobs. Of those jobs, 126,300 are in hospitality. This bill is important, and we support it, because beer is a good part of Australia's culture. When Mick Dundee was in a bar in New York, an American came up and said, 'Hey, what's going down?' His reply was: 'Oh, yeah, mate. I'm just blowing the froth off a couple.' There are people blowing the froth off a couple all around Australia and, as much as that's a fun thing to do, it generates economic activity for a lot of people and for a lot of industries. But I think we can do more to help industry generally. For the farming industries that supply to the brewing industry, the people who are supplying infrastructure such as Furphy tanks to the industry and the people who are out there marketing and selling the beer, we can do more to help them. We should do that by reviewing how we tax alcohol in general, whether it's fair and whether there are unintended consequences, and what we can do to stimulate Australia's art scene, and get back to more socialisation—from before the pandemic, back in the old days—stimulate the industry and particularly stimulate the hospitality industry, because those jobs, those people and those businesses are hugely important to Australia's economy and culture.
I rise to speak on the Customs Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025 and the associated bill. From the outset, I make it clear that the beer relief offered by these bills is a bit of a...
I rise to speak on the Customs Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025 and the associated bill. From the outset, I make it clear that the beer relief offered by these bills is a bit of a 'Furphy', but it is very important; I'll come back to that shortly. I love a beer, like many Australians. Indeed, I co-chair the Parliamentary Friends of Brewing group with my good friend the member for Cunningham. We co-hosted a Parliamentary Friends of Brewing event this week. But beer isn't all about consumption; beer is good for the economy. The Australian brewing industry spends around $500 million on domestically sourced agricultural ingredients such as barley and hops. A lot of that barley is grown in my electorate of Nicholls. Some of the hops is grown in Tasmania, and a lot of it's grown in the electorate of Indi, around the Mansfield area. Agriculture is at the heart of the beer supply chain, and around five per cent of all beer is made in Australia for local consumption with wholly Australian beer supply chains. We did a brewers tour of Nicholls, and I was honoured to have people—among them the member for Casey, the member for Monash and some Victorian parliamentarians—come and visit a barley grower in a place called Dookie, the Shepparton Brewery and, very importantly, J Furphy & Sons, which makes the tanks that a lot of beer is brewed in around Australia. J Furphy & Sons has been manufacturing in Australia since 1864 and is one of Australia's oldest continuously operating family businesses. Furphy water carts are world famous, and the tank ends are highly collectible. Consistently embossed on the tank ends is a little poem: Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Till your good is better and your better best. In many ways that reflects the endeavour and entrepreneurial spirit that took root across the region as one of the world's greatest irrigation schemes breathed new life into the Goulburn and Murray valleys. The Furphy water cart also gave rise to the term 'furphy', which is slang for an erroneous or improbable story that is claimed to be factual. I've heard a few furphies in here very recently! The story goes that, during World War I, soldiers would gather around the Furphy water cart, and it was a place where rumours and tall stories abounded. Then Furphy became a beer, not just any beer but one of Australia's top-selling beers. Little Creatures Brewing built their breweries in Fremantle and Geelong and used stainless steel tanks and fermenters supplied by Furphy Engineering, in Shepparton. When they completed the Geelong brewery, they were keen to make a beer with a local connection to Victoria and approached the Furphy family about adding a new beer to their repertoire—a Furphy refreshing ale. J Furphy & Sons continues to make specialist equipment for the brewing industry, and those vessels will house ingredients grown by farmers in the same district and finish up as a refreshing Furphy ale. Why is this excise freeze a little bit of a furphy? Well, the government's two-year freeze on draught beer excise indexation sounds great, but there's not a huge amount to celebrate. It will provide modest relief to venues, saving about 18c per keg, or less than 1c per pint, even over two years. The sentiment of this is right, and the coalition supports the freeze to beer excise indexation. We will not stand in the way of a cut to the beer tax, but it is very light relief and it's temporary. Even if a drinker consumed the average of 78 litres a year and it was all draught beer, that would be an annual saving of $3.08. I'm not recommending that people consume 78 litres of beer, although I think some people around this place have attempted it! Something is better than nothing, but, if Labor were serious about alcohol excise reform, they'd have Treasury conduct a comprehensive review of the alcohol excise system. Beer might be treading water, but we are drowning in increased costs. This measure will pause indexation of the beer excise for two years, but it does nothing about inflation in the cost of everything. Just recently, inflation smashed through the RBA's target band, and that means more expensive mortgages and more expensive groceries. The freeze also only applies to on-premises draught beer, not to bottled beer, packaged drinks or wine. If Labor were serious about the issue, it would be looking at every part of the excise system. A pint that's 1c cheaper is not cost-of-living relief. Households need genuine action on the cost of living. Government spending is running at more than four times the rate of the economy and is at its highest level, outside of recession, in nearly 40 years. This reckless spending is keeping inflation higher for longer, and Australian businesses and households are paying for it. As we debated during question time, the costs of energy for Australian households and Australian businesses—including brewers and the farmers who need to get the agricultural products such as the hops and the barley to actually make the beer—are going through the roof. Despite significant efforts during question time to ask the minister responsible when prices will come down and what the government's plan is to bring prices down, we couldn't get a straight answer. This minister has made a big deal of his presidency of COP negotiations, and he's made a big deal of going to Brazil and making agreements that are not necessarily in Australia's best interest when it comes to our fossil fuel exports. But we on this side are very concerned about this minister's focus on bringing the price of energy down for people in industry. Those people include not only the people who make the beer—the brewers across Australia—and the people who grow produce that goes into that beer but also the people who operate the hospitality businesses. The shadow Attorney-General gave the example of a fish and chip shop in his electorate. I don't know whether they sell beer with their fish and chips, but I do recommend a Furphy Crisp lager to go along with a battered piece of whiting and some chips. He told that story, and the quote that stuck with me when he asked his question was that these increases in energy costs are making this business untenable. Now, when small-business people who take risk put their personal savings on the line, they don't get paid wages from the government. They have to pay themselves a wage through their toil and their hard work. They have to jump through a lot of red tape to set up a business, and that's getting worse. Small businesses are telling me that the red tape, the bureaucracy and everything you have to do to set up and operate a small business are getting worse and worse. I'll give you the example of a fish and chip shop. They say to me: 'I buy some fillets of fish and some chipped potatoes for X and I want to sell them as a lovely cooked product for Y. But in between X and Y, there is an amount of government bureaucracy, whether it be local, state or federal, that wants to take a cut. When you combine that with the increasing energy cost and it is getting impossible to run a small business.' More should be done for Australia's hospitality and alcohol industries. This measure is worth just $90 million over the forward estimates. That's a minuscule amount compared to the $8 billion collected annually from alcohol taxes. These businesses have gone through COVID, record high inflation and endless cost-of-living pressures, and we need to do more to support the ongoing viability and growth of our local industries and Australian jobs. Now, pubs and clubs aren't just places to have a drink and socialise; they are places where great Aussie music is played and created. As a musician, I know pubs and clubs are culturally important places. They foster new and emerging artists, and I've had some great moments at the Aussie hotel—even during my first campaign—playing with the legendary Mick Harrington, who appeared on The Voice. We played some great songs, including Oasis's 'Don't Look Back In Anger'. That might've been picked up by the ABC in relation to national leadership debates, but I won't go there. More recently I had the honour of playing 'Never Tear Us Apart' with my Liberal colleague at the Parliamentary Friends of Brewing.
I move: That this House: (1) notes the failure of the Government to deliver adequate aged care beds, with only 802 new residential aged care beds despite an annual need for more than 10,000 new...
I move: That this House: (1) notes the failure of the Government to deliver adequate aged care beds, with only 802 new residential aged care beds despite an annual need for more than 10,000 new beds; (2) condemns the Government for forcing older Australians to remain in hospital beds with no medical need, leaving them 'effectively homeless' due to a severe shortage of aged care placements, at the expense of other patients needing urgent care; (3) acknowledges the serious warnings from state health ministers, including from New South Wales and South Australian ministers, that this failure is blocking hospital beds, contributing to bed block in emergency departments, cancelled surgeries, and gridlock across public hospital systems; and (4) further notes that the Government claims to be investing in aged care but the current approach is clearly failing older Australians, hospital staff and patients, and demonstrates yet another example of the Government announcing big promises without delivering the necessary outcomes. The Albanese government's lack of investment in residential aged care has been laid bare. Residential aged care supply increased by just 578 beds in 2024-25, less than one-tenth of the 10,600 additional places needed per year to meet demand as projected by the department. The Boxwell & Co analysis confirms that Australia's aged-care supply crisis has reached a critical tipping point, with occupancy levels hitting 94.4 per cent and full capacity projected within three years. Three states—New South Wales, WA and Tasmania—have had no growth at all; in fact, they went backwards. They have had a net decrease in aged-care beds thanks to Labor. Already, the failure of the Albanese government to open new beds is leaving elderly people stranded in hospitals when they should be recuperating and staying in an aged-care bed. The state and territory leaders held an emergency meeting last week on aged-care beds and hospitals. The Queensland and Tasmanian premiers specifically issued statements calling on the federal government to rescue older Australians left occupying hospital beds instead of being in aged care. The Queensland health minister, Tim Nicholls, said some patients were waiting 250 to 280 days in hospital with one patient staying in hospital for more than 400 days. Elderly South Australians experience the longest wait times nationally, 253 days, for a Commonwealth aged-care bed, leading to equally high rates of hospital bed use. In Western Australia, a shortage of aged-care beds is leaving about 300 older patients stranded in WA hospitals daily, occupying beds necessary for acute care. In Victoria, there are 246 older patients stuck in state hospitals. New South Wales health minister Ryan Park said, 'The number of patients waiting for placements has surged by over 60 per cent in the past year leading to mounting human and system costs and an immediate reduction in available acute beds.' Urgent action is needed to protect older Australians who are being failed by Labor's incompetence. Only five per cent of the required new aged-care beds were provided last financial year, leaving 238,000 older Australians waiting for home-care support. We shouldn't have elderly Australians languishing in hospital beds with nowhere to go. The Prime Minister promised to put the care into aged care, but instead we have a crisis that is crippling our hospital systems, failing some of the most vulnerable people in our community and forcing the states and territories to deal with the fallout. Elderly Australians across our cities and regions deserve much better than this. Elderly Australians, particularly in regional areas, have been let down with delays to home-care packages. Thanks to coalition pressure, some of those aged-care packages—not all, but at least some of them—were released earlier. It took a lot of advocacy on our part to make that happen. Our elderly Australians deserve to age in the communities that they built. They deserve dignity. They deserve comfort, like the elderly residents at the aged-care facility called Ottrey Homes in Cobram, on the Murray River in my electorate, which I visited last week. Those elderly Australians built that community of Cobram. They built the shops, the orchards and the dairy companies. They taught at the schools. They worked in the local businesses. As they age, they have the right to age in place and to take deserved advantage of the community and the society that they have helped to create. We've got to make sure that, as a country, we look after these elderly Australians. All of the statistics and all of the facts that I've just outlined indicate that they are not being looked after. The Albanese government has got to stop with the rhetoric, get on with some action and make sure more aged-care beds are made available for elderly Australians so that they're not languishing in hospitals when they should be in aged-care facilities.
Communications Legislation Amendment (Australian Content Requirement for Subscription Video On Demand (Streaming) Services) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
Hansen Yuncken | Constituency Statements | House debates
I'd like to send my warmest congratulations to the incredible team at Hansen Yuncken on 100 years of continuous building excellence in Shepparton and the Goulburn Valley. For a century, Hansen...
I'd like to send my warmest congratulations to the incredible team at Hansen Yuncken on 100 years of continuous building excellence in Shepparton and the Goulburn Valley. For a century, Hansen Yuncken has bee more than just a construction company. Founded by Lauritz Hansen and Otto Yuncken with a simple handshake, the company has been a vital part of our community, shaping the places where we live, work, learn and come together. From early projects with Ardmona and Kyabram cannery to modern facilities like the Greater Shepparton Secondary College, All Saints Anglican School and the Goulburn Valley hospital accommodation project, their work has left a lasting mark on our region. Equally important is the ongoing commitment to the people of Shepparton and the Goulburn Valley. Employing local tradies, supporting local suppliers and fostering opportunities for young apprentices has strengthened our community and ensured that skills and expertise stay in our region. It's always a delight to see Hansen Yuncken signs when you drive past a building site, because you know local tradies are being employed, local businesses are being supported and our community is benefiting. The company is now visible across Australia, where you will find their projects at the centre of everyday life, from universities and schools to iconic arts precincts, commercial and industrial buildings and public buildings for Defence and the Australian Tax Office. This century is not only a celebration of past achievements but also a recognition of the values that have guided Hansen Yuncken's journey: trust, excellence and connection to the local community. On behalf of all the residents of Nicholls, I want to acknowledge the generations of Hansen and Yuncken families and the countless staff past and present who have contributed to their remarkable legacy across Shepparton, the Goulburn Valley and now, indeed, Australia. Congratulations on 100 years of success, service, commitment and making sure local kids have opportunities in trades and other jobs. May the next century continue to bring innovation, growth and pride to Shepparton, the Goulburn Valley and beyond. Thank you, Hansen Yuncken.
Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | House debates
I rise also to speak on the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025. In describing this bill and what Labor is doing, I think I'd paraphrase a Pink Floyd song called 'Shine On You Crazy...
I rise also to speak on the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025. In describing this bill and what Labor is doing, I think I'd paraphrase a Pink Floyd song called 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond'. My paraphrasing would be: Labor is saying that we'll bask in the shadows of secrecy and concealment, riding on a clandestine dream. With this bill, the Albanese government is trying to dodge scrutiny, and the bill will normalise the use of fees for freedom of information, reducing transparency and accountability. Only last week, we saw a perfect example of the government's love of secrecy. The Minister for Climate Change and Energy, under political and public pressure, finally released his incoming government brief. This brief was heavily redacted. In some sections, page after page was completely blank. It was real Watergate-era stuff. Now, energy is a critical issue for Australia, and the Australian public deserves to know the truth about Labor's energy transition. They see the outcomes in higher energy bills, but they should also be told the truth about Labor's transition, how it is going, and what advice the minister has received about the cost—the cost of energy being such a critical part of Australia's future prosperity. Instead, we get a briefing paper with massive information gaps. And this bill will make things worse. Under Labor, there's been a surge in FOI refusals. Non-disclosure agreements are used in consultations, the Senate orders for production of documents are flouted, and the Prime Minister cut opposition staffing, making it harder to hold the government to account. These changes have been rightly described as a 'truth tax'. Firstly, there's a ban on anonymous requests. This bill prohibits anonymous FOI applications, requiring all applicants to declare their identity. This eliminates the ability for whistleblowers—who may be in fear for various reasons—or vulnerable individuals to request documents without revealing themselves. There are also mandatory application fees. This bill introduces a fee for lodging an FOI request, except for those seeking their own personal information, or waivers in cases of financial hardship. Critics, of which I am one, argue that this will deter both journalists and ordinary Australians from accessing information. It seems like we're entering a period of 'cash for transparency'. There are also expanded agency powers to refuse requests. Agencies can gain broader powers to reject requests deemed vexatious, abusive or frivolous, including those considered an abuse of process. These powers may allow government departments to refuse more requests on subjective grounds. I'll just go back to that: reject requests deemed vexatious, abusive—and I don't really have a problem with those two words, but 'frivolous'? What's the meaning of frivolous? The meaning of frivolous is to not have any sensible, serious purpose or value. Who decides what has serious purpose or value? There will be a 40-hour processing cap, so a discretionary limit is placed on the time agencies must spend processing a request, allowing them to stop work once the cap is reached, even if disclosure is in the public interest. There's broader cabinet document exemptions. The bill changes the exemption for cabinet documents from those created or submitted for the 'dominant purpose' of going to cabinet to those created for 'substantial purpose'. This widens the scope for withholding documents and may lead to even more claims of cabinet confidentiality. In the bill, there'll also be a stricter deliberative document test. The amendments clarify and potentially narrow access to documents that relate to deliberative processes. What does that mean? Well, it makes it easier to withhold records of internal discussions and advice. This bill doesn't free up information; it just locks it up tighter. In its submission to the 2023 inquiry into the operation of Commonwealth freedom of information laws conducted by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, the Law Council of Australia expressed a strong view that the transparency afforded to the FOI scheme through the FOI Act is critical to the effective operation of the administrative law system and, more broadly, to the integrity of Australia's democratic institutions. What did the Law Council say about the bill? While welcoming efforts to streamline FOI processes and minimise misuse of these processes, the Law Council was of the view: A number of the proposals in the Bill extend beyond efficiency gain and weigh against the central objectives of the FOI Act… We suggest the Bill includes several amendments which may have the effect of reducing transparency around Government decision-making and hindering scrutiny of matters in the public interest, contrary to the obligations under the FOI Act to 'facilitate and promote access to information promptly and at the lowest cost'… On balance. the Law Council recommends the Bill not be passed in its current form. The Law Council is opposed to those areas of the Bill that have the tendency to undermine the core principles of FOI, implement barriers to the public accessing information, and enlarge the scope of exemptions. The Law Council aren't the only ones who have problems with this. The Centre for Public Integrity weighed in on the merits of the bill: Australia's freedom of information (FOI) laws are meant to guarantee transparency, accountability, and public trust in government. Yet the Centre for Public Integrity warns that the proposed Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 risks taking Australia backwards. The Bill weakens the FOI Act's pro-disclosure foundations by expanding Cabinet and deliberative process exemptions, introducing fees, and removing anonymous applications. These changes would make it harder for journalists, parliamentarians, and citizens to scrutinise government decisions, and could silence the voices of vulnerable or marginalised applicants. I think this government is not really interested in scrutiny. I think that got worse through its first term and its conduct during the second term highlights that, with the reduction of staff and allocations to opposition. Opposition and the crossbench are all interested in holding the government to account in the interests of the people they represent in this parliament, and they need a fair application of staff to be able to do that. For the Prime Minister and the government to come in and withdraw that staff—that hints to something very dangerous in the culture of the Albanese government. It's saying, 'We don't want scrutiny.' It's saying, 'We don't want an effective opposition to be able to hold us to account.' I can't remember, over the course of my life when I've had an interest in politics, another government behaving like this in relation to the fair allocation and resourcing of opposition. I'll give you another example about the avoidance of debate. Today, there was to be a matter of public importance debate. These things are important because they give members of the opposition, the coalition or the crossbench, the ability to raise matters of public importance—matters that are important to the people they, and we, represent. I think it's great opportunity. It's sort of 10 minutes, 10 minutes and then five each. It's a great opportunity, as I did last week, to be able to bring up the plight of some of the hardworking taxpayers in my electorate, and what they go through, and why I think the government sometimes wastes the tax that comes from their hard work. The government then get to rebut and explain why they're doing what they're doing. I think that's healthy. It's a good way for parliament to be able to debate issues, not so much in question time or in what we're doing now, which is debating legislation. But it's a bit of back and forth. I think the MPI is a good thing. Today, the government decided to suspend standing orders and, effectively, cancel the MPI. In the MPI, all of us in the coalition were going to talk about the government's attitude and actions towards regional Australia. I think that would have been a really good debate. I think we were going to talk about energy, taxation and agriculture. But none of that got talked about, because the government, in what I might say was a very arrogant way, stood up and said, 'We are suspending standing orders and cancelling the MPI.' Is that the way a government that is welcoming scrutiny and is prepared to defend its position behaves? I don't think so. Many Australians are concerned about these changes. Trust in government has diminished. I came into this parliament in 2022, as did the member for Curtin. The member for Monash came in the last election, in 2025. I think we all came into this place because we wanted to represent our people and are prepared to be authentic in the way we do that. If the government wants to be authentic—the member for Monash and I hope to be in government one day, so we'll have to stand by what we've said today, but I'm prepared to do that—and if people want to be authentic in this place, they've got to open themselves up to scrutiny. A good government is not afraid of scrutiny. This bill reduces transparency and creates more places to hide information. We need more transparency, not less. There are experts out there, who we agree with, who suggest this bill will erode the foundations of freedom of information, and that is a backwards step for Australia. I'll just finish—as some people do when debating politics—with the words of an episode from Yes, Minister. A good government opens itself up to transparency and open government. In the words of Yes, Minister, 'This seems to be the closed season for open government.'
Dismissal of the Whitlam Government: 50th Anniversary | Private Members' Business | House debates
I want to thank the member for Werriwa for bringing this motion on. It's very exciting for those of us who follow Australian history to talk about this, and it must be a great honour to represent...
I want to thank the member for Werriwa for bringing this motion on. It's very exciting for those of us who follow Australian history to talk about this, and it must be a great honour to represent an electorate that had such a significant person in Australian politics as one of its former members. I was seven months old when the dismissal happened. I'll give personal recollections at some point. The 1972 election was a significant moment, when the Whitlam government was elected. It had been 1951 since the coalition had previously governed. One of the notable things about when the Whitlam government came in was a sworn-in ministry of two people—a duumvirate—of Gough Whitlam and Lance Barnard passing a lot of the legislation they'd promised in those first few weeks. There's no doubt the Whitlam government achieved some significant things in modernising Australia, recognising China and having a focus on the arts, and they need to be congratulated for that. Obviously, there was a debate between the two sides of politics leading to a 1974 double-dissolution election, which Whitlam won with a reduced majority but also some very close numbers in the Senate, which was to become such a sticking point as we entered 1975. This is where the Whitlam government started to get into trouble with ministers who, with the probably noble intentions of developing Australia's resource sector, had funny ideas about how to finance that, including Rex Connor and Jim Cairns going to try and get a loan from a Pakistani loan broker, Tirath Khemlani, who promised to finance some of these projects from some pretty strange parts of the word. Of course, that was against the convention of the Treasury at the time. The loans affair did eventually start to cause the Whitlam government a lot of problems. It was said of Gough Whitlam, I think, that he was a totally honest and decent man who expected everyone else to be as honest and decent as he was, and that was to his own undoing. Anyway, he was forced to sack those two ministers—Jim Cairns and Rex Connor—and that led to the battle of wills between Fraser and Whitlam and the deferral of the money bills, or the appropriations bills, in the Senate. When that couldn't be resolved and Australia was threatened with having a government forced to govern without supply of appropriation money, obviously something had to happen. What happened will be debated for many, many years by constitutional experts and people who have a different view of things. You can only imagine how dramatic it must have been for Whitlam to drive out to see Sir John Kerr at Yarralumla, to be handed a letter by Sir John Kerr dismissing him and withdrawing his commission as Prime Minister and then, in the next few moments, to see Malcolm Fraser come into the office and be handed a letter commissioning him to form a government. They were incredible times in Australian democratic history. It's worth noting that people say—and I learned this when I was a kid—that Kerr sacked a democratically elected government, and that's true. However, I think it's worth noting the caveat that Fraser was commissioned to form a caretaker government as long as he promised to call an election, which he did, and that election was won in a significant landslide by the coalition. The Dismissal was a huge moment in Australian history and, as I said earlier, it's debated. I think the Whitlam government was an iconic government. It did some wonderful things and it governed in an irresponsible way throughout 1975. The Governor-General, whether he was right to act or not—somebody had to break the deadlock so those supply bills could be passed. It's interesting that, when Whitlam was dismissed and went back, he then failed to inform his own team. They still thought they were in government and passed the supply bills to the Senate, not knowing the government had changed. Again, those were crazy times in Australian politics. He was an iconic person, and it was an iconic moment in Australian history. We need to talk about it and celebrate, and I thank you for bringing the motion.
Energy | Statements by Members | House debates
Australia needs an energy plan that is cheaper, better and fairer. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure the prosperity of our nation. Energy is the economy, so to ensure the...
Australia needs an energy plan that is cheaper, better and fairer. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure the prosperity of our nation. Energy is the economy, so to ensure the prosperity of our nation, the government needs to focus on making sure that energy is affordable and energy is reliable. This is particularly evident in my electorate of Nicholls, which has significant manufacturing facilities, both for food and for other goods, who are very reliant on energy, both electricity and gas. Those prices are going up significantly. Electricity prices are up by 39 per cent, and gas prices are up by 46 per cent. That threatens the viability of these industries in my electorate and manufacturing industries across Australia. When the viability of these industries in Australia is threatened, they don't just stop doing what they're doing; they pack up what they're doing in Australia and they go and do it somewhere else. Emissions stay high, but Australia's economic future is damaged irrevocably. We need a plan which is cheaper, better and fairer.
Local Content Broadcasting | Statements by Members | House debates
Australia has a proud history of locally produced content. Many shows have told great Australian stories. During that golden era of serialised drama on TV, we've had favourites like A Town Like...
Australia has a proud history of locally produced content. Many shows have told great Australian stories. During that golden era of serialised drama on TV, we've had favourites like A Town Like Alice; Bodyline, the story of that famous Ashes series; The Cowra Breakout; Anzacs; The Dunera Boys, about the amazing contribution and the prisoner of war camp in Hay. Who could forget the Aussie classic All the Rivers Run, filmed on the mighty Murray River at Echuca in my electorate? We watched them all for free on TV. Now we have choice, with endless streaming services. It's changed since you used to stay up and watch Channel 6 or Channel 3, which is all I had. But do we have more Aussie drama to watch? No, we don't. In 2022, the Albanese government went to the election saying it would promote Australian creators on streaming platforms. In 2023, the Albanese government committed to legislating local content quotas for streaming services, with commencement in 2024, but, just like gambling advertisement reforms, nothing has happened in this area to promote Aussie content. I back Australian drama. Get behind it, Labor; we're all watching.
Economy | Matters of Public Importance | House debates
In the face of some of the political rhetoric and game playing that goes on, particularly from that side, I want to talk about some real Australians, real people. Hamish is a dairy farmer in my...
In the face of some of the political rhetoric and game playing that goes on, particularly from that side, I want to talk about some real Australians, real people. Hamish is a dairy farmer in my electorate. He gets up at 4.30 every morning and milks approximately 500 cows. In the winter it's icy cold in the dairy. It's dirty. There are a lot of flies in the summer. At 3 pm he gets the cows in and does it all again. It's tough work, but he loves it. He loves producing clean, healthy food for Australia. After the afternoon milking, he goes out again and irrigates his paddocks, sometimes well into the night. Hamish is really worried that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan changes by this government will reduce the amount of irrigation water and push prices up, making dairy farming even more difficult. Hamish pays a lot of tax, and the produce earns a lot of tax for Australia when it's exported. Matt is a fruit grower. He pays a lot of tax. He works really hard, and he barely sleeps during the harvest season. The energy bills for his coolstores, required to run 24/7, are going through the roof. His employee is originally from India. He works long hours, earning good money, to get ahead in his new country, and he pays a lot of tax. Tom is from Gunnedah. He manages an engineering firm that does a lot of work for mining and energy companies. He works seven days a week and endures a lot of stress, with the price of everything going up, and that's been getting a lot worse in the last three years. He pays a lot of tax. When the government indulges in wasteful spending and threatens private enterprises, I want those opposite to think about Hamish, Matt and Tom and their employees, and all those people paying tax and doing difficult jobs that are essential to Australia's economic prosperity. The philosophy of this government is that everything is free. But nothing is truly free; someone has to pay for it, and often it's the blood, sweat and tears of Australians taking a risk, working incredibly hard in difficult conditions and paying a lot of tax. We should respect those people. Our philosophy is that you grow the economy, and to grow the economy you've got to have a competitive private sector. There needs to be a culture in this country of enabling private industry to thrive and employ people. We should not create a system where more and more people are reliant on governments distributing taxes to get by. Every day in this place, in question time, all the government seem to do is brag about spending taxpayers' money as if it is theirs, but it was earned by other people. Some of the spending we agree with. Some of it's good. A lot of it's wasteful. Who pays? And how are we looking after the industries that provide us with those tax dollars? Those industries are suffering because, when government spending gets unsustainable and it goes up four times faster than the economy is growing, we get inflationary pressures, and those put more pressure on business. The economic health of this country is in a really difficult place, and the trajectory is not good, because everything's going up. The inputs are going up, and I don't see policies to help bring them down—and energy is a classic example. Energy is the economy. And, as I've said in this place before, renewable energy is good technology. It's great technology. But it needs to be part of a diverse mix in the grid. And, as I've talked about, the Centre for Independent Studies reports that it's good at about 30 per cent, but, when it gets near 60 per cent, prices go up. If prices are going up, businesses can't be competitive. And, if businesses can't be competitive, Hamish, Matt and Tom can't be profitable. And, if they're not profitable, they're not paying tax. And, if they're not paying tax, where's Labor going to get money to hand out and then brag about during question time? I would just like you to respect and think about the Hamishs, the Matts and the Toms of this world, who do hard jobs, pay tax, create private enterprise, employ people and keep this country going. Don't waste their hard earned dollars.
Rural and Regional Health Services | Adjournment | House debates
Last week in Perth I spoke at RMA25, a conference co-hosted by the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine, and the Rural Doctors Association of Australia. I spent most of the day...
Last week in Perth I spoke at RMA25, a conference co-hosted by the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine, and the Rural Doctors Association of Australia. I spent most of the day listening—I think we could do more listening and less talking as members of parliament—to health professionals from across Australia. This is what I delivered as part of my address. In regional health, good public policy is partnership. And that partnership is really important in the regions. Regional communities are great places to live because people are connected and care for one another. Communities are invested in the health services that they have. Too often those services are very hard won and never taken for granted. But what we do have is workforce challenges. I've observed a consistent shortfall in the health workforce outside metropolitan areas. It's worth noting at this point that regional, rural and remote areas cannot always be lumped into one category. They have their own individual challenges and idiosyncrasies, and the Modified Monash Model has attempted to put a framework around this in order to prioritise areas of most need. This can work well when governments have the ethos of respecting that, but there have been examples lately where there has been an attempt to pay the Modified Monash Model lip service, and I believe this has led—and will continue to lead—to poorer outcomes for people outside regional areas. An example of this is the distribution priority area classification and the limited number of medical bonded doctors and overseas trained doctors available to be deployed into areas of workforce need. This has significantly shrunk under the Albanese government's changes to the Modified Monash Model. Automatic inclusion of MM2 as a district priority area has made an incentive that was previously exclusive to rural and remote towns available to regional centres and, perversely, to some areas that are on the fringe of major capital cities. Along with the distribution of medical professionals, there are three main ways we can increase the numbers in areas outside metro areas: we can recruit from overseas, we can recruit from Australian metro areas into the regions, and we can train people in regional areas. Bringing in healthcare professionals from overseas is essential, and this must never be lost in the necessary discussion we should have about migration in Australia. Another way is to attract people from metro areas to regional, rural and remote areas. But then you have to find a way to keep them. I was involved in an effort, before coming into parliament, called the Greater Shepparton Community Connector Program. Working with local government, we were developing a concierge service—it was based on a successful model in Canada—where new employees and their families were connected by a local representative to help them find the schools, housing, interest groups and networks they needed to make their relocation successful. A third way is to grow our own—that is, train people outside metro areas. The Melbourne University school of rural health at Shepperton is part of the broader Murray-Darling Basin medical school and a fantastic example put together by the previous coalition government whereby students can do an undergraduate Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences in the regions then graduate into a Doctor of Medicine postgraduate degree. In the case of my electorate, this is in the school of rural health at Melbourne University in Shepperton. The first lot of those graduates will graduate at the end of this year, in a few weeks. Those young people are already connected to the community. Many of them have made family connections and bought houses, and they will practise in the regions. It's a great example of moving tertiary access to people in regional, rural and remote areas so that we can grow our own health workforce. Again, in my electorate, Melbourne University and Goulburn Valley Health have developed this model to extend health education, and I would like to see that not just in medicine and general practice but also moved into other areas of applied health learning and allied health, such as physiotherapy, nursing and midwifery—the list goes on of the number of students that we can train in regional areas. I'd like to also see that training expanded beyond the Murray-Darling medical school and beyond just medicine. There's so much potential in regional areas for us to train our own. We need to move Commonwealth funded places, to not just have them in the sandstone universities of Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane but also move them out into the regions.