Ellie Whiteaker's recent appearances (OpenAustralia.org)
type: channel
language: en-gb
creator: OpenAustralia.org, mprss.php script
date: 2026-02-05T22:06:05+00:00
items: Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
items: Picton, Mr Tim | Condolences | Senate debates
items: Housing, Interest Rates, Economy | Questions without Notice: Take Note of Answers | Senate debates
items: Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
items: Cost of Living | Matters of Urgency | Senate debates
items: Health Care | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
items: Bunbury: Australia Day | Statements by Senators | Senate debates
items: Bondi Beach: Attack | Condolences | Senate debates
items: g22.1
items: Critical and Strategic Minerals Industry | Statements by Senators | Senate debates
items: Answers to Questions | Questions without Notice: Take Note of Answers | Senate debates
items: Albanese Government | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
items: Health Care | Statements by Senators | Senate debates
items: Western Australia: Infrastructure | Statements by Senators | Senate debates
items: Housing | Matters of Public Importance | Senate debates
items: Environment | Matters of Public Importance | Senate debates

Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
type: item
description: I rise to add my strong support to the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025. This bill represents an important step forward for this parliament. It strengthens...
encoded: I rise to add my strong support to the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025. This bill represents an important step forward for this parliament. It strengthens our ability to scrutinise some of the most serious, complex and consequential decisions any government can make—decisions about defence policy, military capability, major procurement and, in the gravest of circumstances, the commitment of Australian forces to conflict. These are no ordinary policy questions. They involve immense public resources and consideration of long-term horizons, strategic risk and, most importantly, the lives and the wellbeing of the women and men of the Australian Defence Force and the civilians impacted by these decisions. It is entirely appropriate that this parliament equips itself with the right structures to examine those matters with care, depth and seriousness. The creation of this committee responds directly to the recommendations of the inquiry undertaken by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade into international armed conflict decision-making. That inquiry identified a clear gap. While parliament debates defence policy and scrutinises defence expenditure through existing processes, it has not had a dedicated mechanism to examine defence strategy, capacity and operations in a way that allows access to important classified information. That gap matters. In the strategic environment we face, many of the most important questions about defence cannot be meaningfully examined using only publicly available information. The details that shape capability choices, operational risk, contingency planning and the conduct of operations are often classified for good reason. Without access to that material, parliamentary scrutiny is necessarily partial. This new committee is designed to address that reality. It is modelled on the established and respected framework of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Securi…
date: 2026-02-05T10:34:00+00:00

Picton, Mr Tim | Condolences | Senate debates
type: item
description: It's an honour to speak tonight about my friend and our comrade Tim Picton. When I first heard that Tim Picton was going to be the next state secretary of WA Labor I was a little wary; I'll be...
encoded: It's an honour to speak tonight about my friend and our comrade Tim Picton. When I first heard that Tim Picton was going to be the next state secretary of WA Labor I was a little wary; I'll be honest. I thought, 'Here we go: another bloke from the east coast Right coming to WA to tell us what to do!' Tim would have stopped me here and insisted that he was not from the east coast; he was a South Australian—and he would have wanted that clarified in the Hansard. But, as far as I was concerned, he wasn't from WA, and I really didn't want to like him. But it took all of about five minutes for him to win me over, because that was Tim. He could easily win just about anyone over. It's one of the things that made him so successful—in government, in campaigning and in the private sector. Tim's sharp intellect, his strategic brain and his unending commitment to Labor values made him a brilliant state secretary and an exceptional campaign director. Tim was meticulous. He would spend days writing campaign ads. He'd obsess over them and he'd tweak them and he'd tweak them again and he'd tweak them again. His best work was what we referred to in the party office as the Mark McGowan movie trailer. It was really long—much longer than it needed to be and much longer than a campaign ad should be. It gave everyone who watched it goosebumps, which is pretty weird for a campaign ad. It was meant for the campaign launch, but Tim insisted that we just 'chuck it up online and see how it goes', despite our protests that it was far too long and far too soppy. But of course it ended up being our best-performing ad in the campaign. I've been trying to find some pictures of us all together, the team on election night in 2021 and 2022. We took so many, but Tim is barely in any of them, because he was still at the computer in the tally room obsessing over the numbers and hoping we'd get just one more seat over the line. Tim was one of the hardest-working people I've ever worked with. He never sto…
date: 2026-02-04T18:41:00+00:00

Housing, Interest Rates, Economy | Questions without Notice: Take Note of Answers | Senate debates
type: item
description: The Liberal Party like to talk about how the government should control spending—or, as I think Senator O'Sullivan talked about, economic reform. But let's be honest about what that really...
encoded: The Liberal Party like to talk about how the government should control spending—or, as I think Senator O'Sullivan talked about, economic reform. But let's be honest about what that really means. What do the Liberal Party really want? Well, their record tells us what they really want. They don't want us to provide cost-of-living relief for Australians. They don't want us to invest in building the houses that we need to fix the housing crisis that they left our country in. They don't want us to make it more affordable for Australians to get into their own home. They don't want us to invest in Medicare and make it more affordable for Australians to see their GP. I could go on, and on, and on, because their record speaks for itself. We should be really clear about what the Liberal Party means when they talk about the economy. They've got a lot of nerve lecturing us on the economy when they left us with inflation at 6.1 per cent and rising. Their legacy was higher spending, no savings and bigger deficits. In fact, they went to the election with promises of: bigger deficits; more debt; extraordinarily, a plan to increase taxes for every taxpayer compared to Labor's plan; and a plan to leave taxpayers, ordinary Australians, with a bill for expensive nuclear reactors because the private sector wouldn't invest in them. We are focused on the cost of living, and they are focused on themselves. Minister Gallagher has said it in this place, the Treasurer has said it and I said it in here yesterday, too. There's no doubt inflation remains higher than we would like, and we have been honest about that. We know that Australians are doing it tough. But inflation is much lower than it was at its peak under the Liberals and much lower than what we inherited. The data shows that the inflation challenge is a mix of temporary factors, like the end of energy rebates and an increase in travel costs and spending over summer, in addition to persistent pressures in areas like housing. These ar…
date: 2026-02-04T15:07:00+00:00

Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025; Second Reading | Bills | Senate debates
type: item
description: Let's be honest about what this bill, the Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025, would do. It would make it harder for first home buyers to buy their own home. This bill by the...
encoded: Let's be honest about what this bill, the Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025, would do. It would make it harder for first home buyers to buy their own home. This bill by the Liberal Party—by Senator Bragg—will make it harder for first home buyers to buy their first home and will stand in the way of the delivery of affordable housing for Australians. That's what this bill will do. There's the saying, 'I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed'—but, no, I'm actually pretty angry. I think Australians who are looking to get into their first home have the right to be angry too, because what's really clear with this bill before us is that the Liberal Party are only here to play politics. At least they're consistent. They will continue their record of doing absolutely nothing to help address the housing crisis that their government left us in. Only Labor has got a plan to build more homes. Only Labor will get renters a better deal. And only Labor will help more Australians into homeownership. Housing is one of the biggest challenges facing Australians. People are working hard, they're doing everything right, but too many still can't afford a place to call home. Young people are lining up, down the street and around the block, for rental inspections. In fact, one of my young staff told me yesterday that she and her housemate had been to 100 rental inspections between them in Perth. That is just extraordinary. Families with kids, the kinds of families who, a generation ago, would have been quite easily able to own their own home, can't get a foothold in the housing market. I hear it from young people in my home state of Western Australia all the time. They feel they will never get the opportunity to own their own home. We hear it from parents who worry they can't give their kids the stability they received as children. We know how tough the housing market is, and that is why we are throwing everything at it. We have an ambitious $43 billion housing agenda, whi…
date: 2026-02-04T10:02:00+00:00

Cost of Living | Matters of Urgency | Senate debates
type: item
description: I rise this afternoon to oppose the urgency motion moved by Senator Paterson. Frankly, I think it's extraordinary that those opposite still can't seem to remember all the great things our...
encoded: I rise this afternoon to oppose the urgency motion moved by Senator Paterson. Frankly, I think it's extraordinary that those opposite still can't seem to remember all the great things our government has done to help with the cost of living—although I probably shouldn't be surprised, because they've been a bit distracted recently. What's really clear to me and I think what's becoming increasingly clear to Australians is that, while the Liberal Party and the National Party are focused on fighting themselves, our government is the only party that is focused on delivering for Australians, the only party that has the capacity to be responsible economic managers and the only party that is committed to bringing down the cost of living. Australians are seeing support from our government at the pharmacy counter, with our cheaper medicines policy bringing the cost of pharmacy scripts down to $25, the lowest it has been since 2004. Australians are seeing support when they go to the doctor, thanks to our bulk-billing incentive. They're seeing support with their childcare bills, with our three days of guaranteed child care. They're seeing support in their pay packets, with our plan for further tax cuts, with the tax cuts we've already delivered and with the higher wages that Labor has delivered. University students are seeing support from our government, because we have cut their HECS debts and reduced the amount at which they have to start repaying them. Senator Paterson and his colleagues like to talk about housing, but they seem to forget a really crucial fact. The coalition—sorry, they're not the coalition anymore. That is my mistake. We're going to have to keep reminding ourselves of that as things change day by day. The Liberals and the Nationals have opposed every single housing initiative that we have brought before this parliament—yes, every single one. They have opposed our measures to build more homes. They have opposed our measures to get more people into their first…
date: 2026-02-03T17:08:00+00:00

Health Care | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
type: item
description: We know that delivering high-quality primary care will take pressure off local hospitals. How is the Albanese Labor government making sure that every Australian can see a GP so that they don't...
encoded: We know that delivering high-quality primary care will take pressure off local hospitals. How is the Albanese Labor government making sure that every Australian can see a GP so that they don't have to go to a local hospital?
date: 2026-02-03T15:02:00+00:00

Health Care | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
type: item
description: On this side of the chamber, we want all Australians to access high-quality care where and when they need it. How is the Albanese Labor government working to help relieve pressure on state...
encoded: On this side of the chamber, we want all Australians to access high-quality care where and when they need it. How is the Albanese Labor government working to help relieve pressure on state hospital systems in delivering high-quality care for all Australians?
date: 2026-02-03T15:01:00+00:00

Health Care | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
type: item
description: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing, Senator McAllister. Delivering cost-of-living relief and accessible, quality health care is a key priority for the...
encoded: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing, Senator McAllister. Delivering cost-of-living relief and accessible, quality health care is a key priority for the Albanese Labor government. Last week the Prime Minister secured a historic funding deal to deliver record funding to state and territory hospitals and secure the future of the NDIS. What has the government done to deliver high-quality health services for all Australians through the National Health Reform Agreement?
date: 2026-02-03T14:58:00+00:00

Bunbury: Australia Day | Statements by Senators | Senate debates
type: item
description: On 26 January I attended the City of Bunbury's Australia Day citizenship ceremony in WA's South West. Seventy-one people from 27 unique countries became new Australian citizens. It was a proud...
encoded: On 26 January I attended the City of Bunbury's Australia Day citizenship ceremony in WA's South West. Seventy-one people from 27 unique countries became new Australian citizens. It was a proud moment that reflected the diversity and strength of modern Australia—a reminder that our national story continues to be shaped by people who choose to make their lives here and contribute to our communities. The service was followed by community awards, and today I want to talk particularly about the Young Citizen of the Year nominees that were recognised at the ceremony. Each of them represents the very best of a Bunbury's next generation. Connor Barrett, aged just 10, lives with cystic fibrosis and faces daily health challenges. He has raised many thousands of dollars to support research and services for others with the same condition. His courage, positivity and determination have brought the South West community together behind a cause that matters deeply to him and many other local families. His contribution at such a young age is extraordinary. Salome Woodland was nominated for her leadership and commitment to service. Having joined the Bunbury Youth Advisory Council at just 12, she has shown great maturity and commitment to her community. Isabella Chalker was named Young Citizen of the Year. She is the founder of the Z club at Manea Senior College, a student group focused on service and gender equality. Leading projects for local and global communities, she is a great example to others in the region. Lisa Thompson was named Citizen of the Year for her leadership of Collective Connections, and Community Group of the Year was awarded to the Bunbury PCYC. I want to shout out to them and all the great advocates in the South West.
date: 2026-02-03T13:44:00+00:00

Bondi Beach: Attack | Condolences | Senate debates
type: item
description: I too rise to express my condolences; to acknowledge the lives lost and the lives forever changed after the antisemitic terror attack at Bondi on 14 December 2025; to express my sorrow at the...
encoded: I too rise to express my condolences; to acknowledge the lives lost and the lives forever changed after the antisemitic terror attack at Bondi on 14 December 2025; to express my sorrow at the loss of the 15 people who were murdered, whose lives were cut short in the cruellest of ways; to share in grief with their families, who now face the unimaginable task of life without their loved ones; and to wish strength and healing to the survivors who were injured or who witnessed the attack unfold and who have suffered a trauma impossible to fathom; to say thank you to the first responders and civilians who showed tremendous bravery and ran towards danger to help people when they most needed it; to say to all Jewish Australians, I am sorry for the hurt and the pain you have suffered before and since that terrible day and to say to them, you deserve to be able to live, to work and to worship in peace and in safety. Whether you were born here, have moved here for a better life or are visiting for a short time, you deserve to feel safe here. You deserve to be safe here. Australian beaches should be safe. Hanukkah should be a celebration, an event where people can come together in public, without risk. Children should be able to visit a petting zoo without fear of being shot at. Terrorists like the two men who perpetrated this act of true evil, those who seek to destroy our social fabric, cannot succeed in breaking the Australian spirit. Those who spread hate and stoke division must not win. In this time of absolute tragedy, at a time when we have seen the worst of humanity, we must remember we have also seen the absolute best of humanity, too. While that will never make up for the lives that were lost and the families that were shattered, it can give us some hope. Ahmed al-Ahmed, Gefen Bitton, Rabbi Leibel Lazaroff, the Bondi and Waverley lifeguards, first responders, police and ambulance workers, and so many of the Bondi community showed us true courage in the face of unimag…
date: 2026-01-19T15:52:00+00:00

g22.1
type: item
title: 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 | Senate debates
description: Today is an historic day in our parliament, and I am so proud to be a part of this Labor government, which is delivering historic reform to our broken environmental laws. This parliament has a...
encoded: Today is an historic day in our parliament, and I am so proud to be a part of this Labor government, which is delivering historic reform to our broken environmental laws. This parliament has a really clear choice to make over the next few hours: to keep the broken, outdated laws that fail the environment, that make it tougher for business and that slow down major projects, or to back a modern, balanced package of reform that delivers better protection for our environment and backs faster and clearer decisions for business. This bill, the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, responds to Professor Graeme Samuel's independent review of the EPBC Act. It delivers on the core pillars of his recommendations, and it is well overdue. The bill reflects countless hours of advocacy and hard work from many environment groups, from Labor members and branches right across the country, many in my home state of Western Australia, from community stakeholders, from First Nations organisations and from industry. I want to thank every single one of those who spent time—not just in the lead-up to this bill but over many years—advocating for these reforms. We need laws that allow us to protect and restore our environment but also to build the housing we so desperately need in this country, to take us further down the path of a renewables transition and to deliver on our promise of a future made in Australia. These laws deliver our country's first ever national environmental protection agency—a strong and independent agency that will have real teeth. It creates a definition of 'unacceptable impacts' so that clearly harmful projects can be stopped early. It strengthens penalties for serious breaches to deter wrongdoing and ensures that environmental harm is not treated as a cost of doing business. The bill also sets a more efficient and robust project assessment process to cut delays. It is estimated that this will save more than half a billion dollars across our economy, with the poten…
date: 2025-11-27T10:45:00+00:00

Critical and Strategic Minerals Industry | Statements by Senators | Senate debates
type: item
description: Acting Deputy President, I'm sure you know that, recently, Australia and the United States signed a new bilateral framework to secure supply chains in critical minerals and rare earths. It's a...
encoded: Acting Deputy President, I'm sure you know that, recently, Australia and the United States signed a new bilateral framework to secure supply chains in critical minerals and rare earths. It's a historic partnership to create a shared, reliable supply chain for the minerals needed for advanced defence technology and the clean energy transition. The purpose of this is really simple. It's to secure supply with trusted partners, bring more processing and value-adding onshore, reduce reliance on contracted, concentrated global supply chains and strengthen our economic resilience and national security. Australia has what the world needs. In fact, as you also well know, Acting Deputy President, Western Australia has what the world needs. One of the very first priority projects under this framework is in my home state of Western Australia, at the Alcoa gallium refinery project in Wagerup. This is a groundbreaking project backed by real investment and concrete timelines. The refinery will recover gallium already present in the bauxite processes of Alcoa. During construction, it will support around 200 jobs in the south-west of WA, and, once operating, it will support a few dozen, ongoing, skilled, long-term jobs. When fully operational, Wagerup is expected to produce around 10 per cent of the world's gallium. I'm really thrilled that Minister Ayres is here in the chamber now, because he visited the Wagerup site last week, along with the Prime Minister, Minister King and Assistant Minister Charlton. We were very warmly welcomed by the team at Alcoa, who hosted us and showed us the very site at their plant where this work will happen. I think Wagerup highlights WA's natural advantages in this space. We have world-leading deposits and decades of experience in responsible extraction. But the next step is really where the opportunity lies: having more processing, refining and manufacturing onshore, with workers right here. WA is well and truly on the road moving in this direction.…
date: 2025-11-26T13:15:00+00:00

Answers to Questions | Questions without Notice: Take Note of Answers | Senate debates
type: item
description: I also rise to take note of answers provided in question time. I'm just mindblown at the absolute hypocrisy from those opposite on energy and on energy prices. They are the party who had 23...
encoded: I also rise to take note of answers provided in question time. I'm just mindblown at the absolute hypocrisy from those opposite on energy and on energy prices. They are the party who had 23 energy policies. They are the party who, just last week, were led by their minority coalition partner and dropped their commitment to net zero—a commitment that was made under two former Liberal prime ministers and that was legislated under the former Liberal government. They are a party who took a $600 billion nuclear plan to the last election that was wholeheartedly, overwhelmingly rejected by the Australian people when they went to the ballot box in May. They are the party that has no plan to increase energy supply in this country and no plan for more, cheaper energy for Australian households and businesses. They are the party who, during their time in government, oversaw 24 out of 28 coal-fired power stations either announce their closure or bring forward their closure date, yet they had no plan and took no action to fix that problem as it arose. They are the party that opposed energy bill credits that our government put in place to take pressure off Australian households. Their plan is to continue to rely on aging coal-fired power stations—infrastructure that the private sector will no longer invest in. That is not a plan to reduce the energy costs of Australian households, Australian businesses and Australian industry. Our plan is a plan that is backed by Australians, backed by industry and in line with the rest of the world. We are investing in large-scale renewables in wind and solar, backed by gas, hydro and batteries. Our plan is about providing support for households in the uptake of solar and batteries both to reduce their reliance on the grid—to take pressure off the grid—and to make their energy bills cheaper over the long term. These are not plans that we've seen under those opposite, either when they were in government or now, when they sit on the opposition bench…
date: 2025-11-25T15:24:00+00:00

Albanese Government | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
type: item
description: The Albanese Labor government is focused on building on our first-term foundation to build Australia's future. This includes the need to drive down emissions while delivering cheaper, reliable...
encoded: The Albanese Labor government is focused on building on our first-term foundation to build Australia's future. This includes the need to drive down emissions while delivering cheaper, reliable energy. What progress is the government making to build on that progress, and are there any threats that might stand in the way?
date: 2025-11-24T14:14:00+00:00

Albanese Government | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
type: item
description: Australians have faced some tough challenges in recent years, particularly regarding cost-of-living pressures. Working together, we've seen the government's responsible economic management help...
encoded: Australians have faced some tough challenges in recent years, particularly regarding cost-of-living pressures. Working together, we've seen the government's responsible economic management help ensure inflation has come down, real wages have grown and unemployment remains low. What is the government doing to help Australians continue to earn more and keep more of what they earn?
date: 2025-11-24T14:12:00+00:00

Albanese Government | Questions without Notice | Senate debates
type: item
description: My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong. In its first term, the Albanese Labor government laid a strong foundation to build Australia's future. We did this by...
encoded: My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong. In its first term, the Albanese Labor government laid a strong foundation to build Australia's future. We did this by delivering cost-of-living relief, strengthening Medicare, making it easier to get a home and helping Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn. How is the government building on these foundations to continue to deliver for the Australian people?
date: 2025-11-24T14:10:00+00:00

Health Care | Statements by Senators | Senate debates
type: item
description: Last week I visited the Health Hub at Eaton Fair. It's the home to the Bunbury urgent care clinic and a GP clinic that has recently converted to a fully bulk-billing practice under our incentive...
encoded: Last week I visited the Health Hub at Eaton Fair. It's the home to the Bunbury urgent care clinic and a GP clinic that has recently converted to a fully bulk-billing practice under our incentive to encourage more GPs right across the country to convert to bulk-billing. This is part of Labor's record investment in Medicare. The Eaton urgent care and GP clinic is leading the way in providing accessible, affordable health care in WA's south-west, easing pressure on Bunbury Regional Hospital and giving families and community members the opportunity to access health care for free, as it should be. I want to thank Dr Craig Hookham, Cahleen Hookham and the team for welcoming me so warmly to the clinic last week and for showing that good, affordable health care in our regions is possible. Dr Craig said to me when I was there that he believes that health care should be free, that it shouldn't be your credit card that determines the health care you get, and I couldn't agree with him more. Labor have delivered the biggest investment in bulk-billing since we created Medicare. We've tripled the bulk-billing incentive and increased the Medicare rebate. I know the impact on families in Western Australia will be significant under these changes, but I want more GPs to take up our incentive and bulk-bill every patient, so I have begun a campaign in Perth's southern suburbs and the South West—in the electorates of Canning and Forrest—asking residents to tell me if they think their GP should bulk-bill. I will write to those GPs on their behalf and show that there is strong local demand for affordable health care right across WA.
date: 2025-11-24T13:38:00+00:00

Western Australia: Infrastructure | Statements by Senators | Senate debates
type: item
description: Acting Deputy President Ghosh, you will understand better than almost anyone in this chamber that Western Australia is the economic powerhouse of our nation, driving growth, innovation and jobs....
encoded: Acting Deputy President Ghosh, you will understand better than almost anyone in this chamber that Western Australia is the economic powerhouse of our nation, driving growth, innovation and jobs. Under the Albanese Labor government, working hand-in-hand with the Cook Labor government, we are building Western Australia's future. Our government is investing $9.7 billion into transport infrastructure across our great state, investing in the infrastructure that keeps WA moving. This includes widening the Kwinana Freeway, which is very important to many of my neighbours in Perth's southern suburbs. We are improving safety and easing congestion for more than 100,000 vehicles every single day. It's backed by $353 million commitment to get the job done. That is on top of our commitment to support the planning of the Westport project, the anchor of WA's future trade growth, with a new container port in Kwinana setting up our state for the next century. We're also strengthening WA's role as a gateway to the Indo-Pacific, granting first-port-of-entry status to Wyndham, Ashburton and Dampier. We are opening the north to new trade opportunities. That means goods can land closer to where they are needed, cutting costs, boosting productivity, supporting clean energy and green fuel industries across the Pilbara, the Kimberley and the entire nation. Through METRONET, we've delivered the biggest transformation of public transport in our state's history, connecting our outer suburbs and cutting travel time. We're securing our national defence and creating skilled work at home through our naval ship-building precinct in Henderson, supporting the local ship-building workforce and strengthening—
date: 2025-11-05T13:58:00+00:00

Housing | Matters of Public Importance | Senate debates
type: item
description: Here we are again—another day, another housing motion from Senator Bragg. To Senator Bragg and to those opposite: only Labor has a plan to build more homes, only Labor has a plan to get...
encoded: Here we are again—another day, another housing motion from Senator Bragg. To Senator Bragg and to those opposite: only Labor has a plan to build more homes, only Labor has a plan to get renters a better deal and only Labor has a plan to get more Australians into homeownership. Time and time again, day after day, we come into this place and we hear Senator Bragg and those opposite talk about housing. What they don't say—but what we know to be true—is that they don't want more Australians getting into their first home. They don't want us to build more houses. They have stood in the way. They have blocked every single effort that this government has made to get more Australians into their own home. They have blocked and stood in the way of every attempt that we have made to build more homes. They have blocked and stood in the way of every attempt that we have made to get more young people into their very first home. So, while the coalition are here to play politics and continue their long record of doing absolutely nothing on housing, Labor is getting on with the job. We know that housing is a life-defining challenge for so many Australians, and, when we came to government, what was clear was that people were working hard, doing everything right, but were still not able to get into their own home. Too many people across this country couldn't afford a place of their own. We hear it out and about. I certainly hear it in my home state of Western Australia—families who can't get into a house big enough for their kids; young people who fear they will never be able to buy their own home. We know it is tough. It's because, when we came to government, there had been a decade of neglect when those opposite were at the table. I was astonished to learn that they didn't even have a housing minister for most of their time in government. Well, no wonder we are in the position we are in. Labor have an ambitious $43 billion housing agenda, and we will not be distracted by Senator Brag…
date: 2025-11-04T17:07:00+00:00

Environment | Matters of Public Importance | Senate debates
type: item
description: I rise to speak on this motion. Australia does need environment laws that protect our environment, and that is exactly what this Labor government is seeking to provide. Senators in this chamber...
encoded: I rise to speak on this motion. Australia does need environment laws that protect our environment, and that is exactly what this Labor government is seeking to provide. Senators in this chamber have an opportunity in the coming weeks to make the right decision when our new Environment Protection Reform Bill comes before us. I remind my colleagues around the chamber that Australians voted for real action on climate change. Australians voted for a future made in Australia. Australians voted for more affordable housing. All of these things rely on us passing the environment bill when it comes before this place. Our environment laws are broken. We seek to make them stronger so we can protect and restore the environment. We seek to make them more efficient so businesses and communities can have more certainty and get decisions made faster. The Environment Protection Reform Bill will deliver modern, fit-for-purpose national environment laws that are well overdue and that will deliver big gains for the environment and, yes, for business too. The bill is centred on three key pillars: stronger environmental protection and restoration, quicker and more robust project approvals and greater accountability and transparency in decision-making. The bill delivers on the recommendations of the Samuel review, which was tabled some five years ago. These reforms are well overdue, and it is time that we pass them. Labor has been working to deliver on the recommendations of the Samuel review. These reforms will allow the environment minister to make new environmental standards—standards that will protect the environment, set out clear rules and help decision-makers be fair and consistent. We aim to protect and restore important environmental areas and species to truly make up for environmental damage and deliver a net gain for the environment. Our proposal, importantly, includes a new definition of an unacceptable impact. This will set clear and upfront criteria for impacts that cannot a…
date: 2025-11-03T17:04:00+00:00