Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, yes. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Supporting Choice in Superannuation and Other Measures) Bill 2025 is typical of what we've seen from this Labor government: a hodgepodge of issues with seemingly no connection but with a poison pill buried in it. Schedule 5 of this bill includes the addition of Equality Australia as a deductible gift recipient, a designation usually reserved for charities. As with many other far-left organisations, Equality Australia sounds perfectly harmless. Who could argue against equality? But this organisation is a vehicle for radical gender activism aimed at our children. It is focused on lobbying and influencing policy all over Australia. Right now in my home state of Western Australia, religious schools are exempt from equality laws, which allows them to protect and shield children from the harmful gender ideologies that have crept into every crevice of the public education system. On Equality Australia's website, they have an entire report around trying to overturn these protections and forcing Christian schools to accept activists who would peddle transgender ideology to children. This organisation is the agent of an ideology that refuses to allow parents to decide what is appropriate for their children to be exposed to.

The public school system has been captured in its entirety by woke ideology. We have reports of children identifying as animals and we see LGBTQI flags hanging in classrooms, while the curriculum demonises the Australian flag and teaches our kids to see this amazing country as an evil, colonial, genocidal project. It is little wonder that parents are forking out good money to send their kids to Christian schools that have resisted becoming ideological brainwashing camps. The public education system needs complete reform so that those who can't afford private education are not left behind for the delusional far left for 12 years. This is why, when I see an organisation like Equality Australia getting favours from the Labor government, it makes my blood boil. You have the entire public system singing your tune. Can you not leave parents a single off-ramp from your insane ideology so that they can feel safe that their children are not being asked what gender they are today?

But the idea that this organisation is not fit to be treated as a charity—that is, not a public benevolent institution—is not mine. It was a decision of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. The ACNC decided that Equality Australia did not qualify under any of the 53 categories of a deductible gift recipient. Their application was rejected on the basis that the group's primary purpose of the group was non-benevolent advocacy for law reform. Basically, they are lobbyists. But it didn't stop there. They appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, who also rejected the case, finding that their primary focus was on changing law and social practices. And it didn't stop there. A further appeal was lodged with the Full Federal Court, who unanimously dismissed the appeal, finding that both the AAT and the ACNC were correct in their assessment that this entity is not a public benevolent institution but a lobbyist group.

After the judiciary made these sensible determinations and rejected the notion that this lobbyist group should be subsidised with taxpayer dollars, what did they do? They went to the one group that loves to give away taxpayer dollars and promote transgender ideology to your children: Labor. Sure enough, the next thing we see is the Labor government burying a decision to promote trans ideology to children in a superannuation bill that has nothing to do with it. This is pathetic, cowardly pandering by the Labor government.

If that isn't enough, the plot thickens again. It turns out that the Governor-General of Australia, Sam Mostyn, is a patron of Equality Australia. Equality Australia's website includes the following quote by the Governor-General:

I look forward to amplifying Equality Australia's mission to build an equal Australia that is fair and inclusive for all LGBTIQ+ people, their families and their communities.

It doesn't say 'children'. The smell of favouritism and nepotism is rife here. There are so many serious problems facing Australians, and here is the Labor government wasting time doing favours—

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Order, Senator Whitten. If you would resume your seat, I have a point of order from the minister.