Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

In making my remarks here in the chamber this afternoon, I want to specifically focus on the answers from the government in relation to questions about the Voice and this government's failure to be honest with the Australian people about what they plan and what they are trying to quietly implement without telling Australians. We've seen yet again today the Labor government's inability to answer very straightforward, simple questions about what the Voice will mean for Australians. Time after time, they have chosen to dodge scrutiny when the Australian people are asking for the government to be honest and upfront. Over the past few months, we've seen the Albanese Labor government repeatedly and falsely try to claim that the Voice will not be having a say on issues which many of its supporters have claimed that it clearly would be expressing a view about. These questions asked today go directly to this issue of the government saying one thing to Voice supporters and an entirely different thing to the Australian public.

In the last few weeks, we've seen the Minister for Indigenous Australians claim that the Voice will apparently not express a view on changing the date of Australia Day. I don't think anybody in this country believes that statement to be true. We've also heard the government claim that the Voice won't be expressing a view on monetary policy or on defence, yet the government's own proposed amendment makes it clear that it certainly can. Now we have the Prime Minister telling us that the Voice isn't about a treaty, when clearly many of the supporters of the Voice—indeed, the Indigenous affairs minister herself—see it playing a central role in exactly that proposal. In fact, the government poured millions of dollars in funding into the new body funded in last year's budget which the coalition was asking questions about today, the Makarrata Commission. We know that this funding and this body must have been envisaged by the government to have been working with the Voice. Why do we know that? Because a media article from earlier this month says:

Anthony Albanese has branded it "dumb" to suggest outcomes for Indigenous Australians can improve without a voice to parliament in the constitution …

In the Prime Minister's own words, it's apparently 'dumb' to expect this new body and this $6 million in new taxpayer money to achieve anything unless we also change the Constitution. If that's the case, what was this money doing in last year's budget? What is it being spent on now if the Prime Minister now says that it's dumb to expect it to achieve anything?

This government and the Labor Party are dodging every question and hiding every detail about their plans for the future of Australia. They know what they intend this body to look like, they know how it will be elected and they know the breadth of everything that can be captured by this proposal. But they are deliberately not telling Australians the truth about what it will involve, because they know that if Australians were told the truth they simply wouldn't vote for it. Senator Nampijinpa Price is absolutely right to be asking the questions she asked in this chamber today, just as she is right to be using her voice here in this parliament and out in the community to raise the wide breadth of concerns that Australians from all walks of life have with this divisive proposal. But we've seen the Prime Minister and the Labor government responding to every question by saying that Senator Nampijinpa Price and all those other Australians with genuine questions about the operation of the Voice shouldn't be asking those questions; all they should be doing is listening to this government's slogans.

It was this government's choice to ask Australians to place a new bureaucratic advisory body in Australia's Constitution. It was their choice. The onus is on this government to explain exactly how that body will operate and exactly how it will work with all of the other pre-existing bodies, committees and agencies that we have in this country that are seeking to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians. The government needs to explain all of this in advance of the referendum, whenever it is going to be held this year, and they need to stop dismissively and arrogantly telling Australians that it's none of their business to ask questions about this because, apparently, the government will sort it all out afterwards.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I note we have an opportunity to take note of and discuss all topics raised in question time today. I intend to use this time to speak about the questions raised around aged care, but before I do so I want to respond to the contribution from Senator Chandler. We have before us in coming months a tremendous opportunity to unite our country, to walk together hand in hand towards a more united and more reconciled future. It's an opportunity that comes from a generous and simple offer: voice, treaty and truth. It's an opportunity that comes out of one of the most significant consultations ever held in Australian history. I have been deeply heartened by the sentiment in my local community and right across our state, in the city and in our regions, of South Australians who want to take that step forward together, hand in hand, towards a more united future. I'm excited and heartened by that opportunity before us. And the Uluru statement is not, of course, just about Voice; it's about truth and treaty as well.

In question time today we opened with questions on aged care. Our government's aged-care agenda is something I'm very happy to have an opportunity to talk to further this afternoon, because we make absolutely no apologies for that agenda and the ambitious nature of that agenda. We make no apologies because for over a decade our aged-care sector and aged-care system have been in crisis, letting residents down, letting their families down and letting aged-care workers down. The previous government oversaw an aged-care system which was described in a royal commission report by one word: 'neglect'. How could any government of good conscience respond to such a report with anything other than the utmost ambition?

Having nurses 24/7 in aged-care services will make a substantial difference to access to clinical care services and to quality of care. Of course, where there are reasonable issues that make that hard, exemptions will be available. But just because it might not be possible to meet that ambition in some services doesn't mean that you throw the entire ambition out. If we do that, then we are saying to the Australian people, we are saying to Australians in aged care and we are saying to everyone who loves them that we don't think the highest of ambition is important, and we don't think responding to neglect deserves the highest of ambition.

Later this week there is an important day for aged-care workers. It's our opportunity on Aged Care Employee Day to thank those workers for the contribution they make to our country and for the care they provide to some of our most vulnerable citizens. Throughout the pandemic, we heard lots of thanks for our most essential workers. But what we were told time after time is that those workers wanted us to show our thanks not just with words and sentiment but with action—action which valued them for the work they do and which valued them for the contributions they make. So, in addition to our ambitions in aged care, we have also, of course, funded a 15 per cent wage increase for aged-care workers, a wage increase which says to those workers: we see the work you do, we value the work you do and we understand that you have been doing it in the most trying of circumstances. Of course, the pandemic absolutely amplified all of that, but we are saying we value you and we thank you.

There is a lot of work which needs to be done in the aged-care sector to make it the location of choice in our health system for people who have prioritised caring and care for others in their careers and in the way they want to make a contribution to our community. I absolutely value those workers. In the lead-up to the election, I heard time after time from aged-care workers that they love their work and they love the sector they work in, but they didn't feel valued or they couldn't afford to stay in that sector and provide care to loved ones.

If that is our loved ones, and we know that people who want to be in the sector and provide care are walking away because they are not valued, that is a shameful thing. We have a high ambition in aged care—for aged-care workers and for the sector; 24/7 nurses is part of that, and I'm very proud of it.

Alex Antic (SA, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers given in relation to the recent statement about the Daniel Andrews government banning new gas fittings to houses by 2024.

I heard the statements made by Senator Smith. Of course, we all place the greatest importance on those who do these hard jobs like aged care. I heard the statement about a 15 per cent wage rise, but wouldn't it be great if we could give workers all over the country, like the Australian Labor Party used to purport to do, the benefit of cheaper everything, rather than having to constantly look at these sorts of government-interference-type actions, like increasing wages artificially like this? I say that because we are living in the middle of an enormous era of high prices, of high inflation, of exorbitant mortgage repayments and—probably most tellingly and the one that drives it the most—high energy prices.

There seems to be an aura of almost dismissal in this place about what's actually driving this. It's not the range of factors that are brought up in this place by those opposite. What's driving this is this reckless rush to renewables, and we see that everywhere. If we want to really make ends meet for working families across the country, what we would be doing is: drill, baby, drill. Get back into the energy market and get those projects pumping. With this gas ban, just when you think that a government can't be any more reckless, along comes the Andrews Labor government to prove us wrong. Right in the middle of a period of high energy prices and high inflation, the worst thing you could do is start to make these kinds of announcements, which have nothing but a deflationary impact on confidence an inflationary pressures on the costs of energy, which are already skyrocketing. This is almost like the canary in the coalmine—the icebreaker for further reckless energy policy.

Of course, we know that this isn't where it'll stops. All across the country we're seeing these policies being rolled out by Labor governments. There are far too many Daniel Andrews fan boys in this place to accept that we won't end up in a similar situation federally. These actions are terrifying enough for the Victorians who have to endure it but are even more terrifying for those in the rest of the country who know that this policy is something which is going to be rolled out at a federal level any time soon. While the federal Labor government is doing everything it can to undermine gas investments in this country, this decision to ban gas connections by 2024—that's less than two years away, I might point out—for new homes in Victoria can only serve to tighten the screws further on household budgets. This is all at a time when Australians can afford it the least.

As I said earlier, there needs to be a reality check in this place as to what's actually driving this. I had the opportunity this week to speak to a notable expert in the area, Dr Bjorn Lomborg, who told me in no uncertain terms that this extraordinary climate hysteria we're in the grip of has nothing even remotely to do with anything other than the rush to renewables. He made the observation to me that the high price of solar and wind and the fact that those renewables don't operate when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow is the primary factor in high energy prices, and yet there's almost a cognitive dissonance in this place—a wilful blindness, if you will—to accept that that is the case.

We have seen in recent times broken promises on energy bills. We were promised electricity bills were going to come down by $275, but prices continue to rise. They're continuing to spiral out of control, increasing by something like 28.7 per cent across the country, which will be an additional $564 a year that families are going to need to find just for the simple purpose of getting back to where they were the previous year. Just to keep the lights on, families are having to find this extra money—money they simply cannot afford. This is a crisis. This decision will ripple through the country, and it cannot be afforded by Australians.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

The theme of some of the questions that were put today seemed to focus quite clearly on a total lack of understanding of the difference in the roles and responsibilities between state and federal governments. It is alarming that we have an entire chamber full of senators and there's such a high-level lack of understanding. But that's what we've seen. Particularly we've seen our coalition comrades over there misunderstanding who's responsible for various sporting decisions with the Commonwealth Games. We've also seen them focus on Victoria but not understand the domestic gas moves of the Victorian government. We know that our comrades over here, the Greens, have also got a very strong blind spot in determining the difference between state and federal governments, particularly when it comes to the issue of rental policy.

Let's just be quite clear. When we're talking about the Victorian government's decision about no further gas connections in new builds, the key clue as to who's responsible here is absolutely in the title: the Victorian government. Regarding some of the hoo-ha that's been going on and the overinflated statements from colleagues across the chamber, this is a Victorian government decision. This is not a federal government decision. So this idea that it will ripple across the country is not true. The federal approach is not to impose any sort of mandate like this at all. Our approach is to provide families with more choices, to provide more options and to provide the support to take up those options and make a transition. Our approach is to provide the opportunity to access energy upgrades and energy efficiencies that address cost-of-living pressures and are about choice. As people out there are feeling the pinch and finding life difficult, our approach is about moving to a more energy-efficient future that relies on solar and wind, when we know those resources will be much, much cheaper into the future.

The situation we have ourselves in at the moment, with significant energy prices, has been debated in this chamber ad nauseum over the last year or so, and the key things that are driving it do not include Dan Andrews. What we are doing as the federal government is providing options. Some of those options that were put through in the budget this year include $1.3 billion in financing for household energy upgrades. Part of that that I'm particularly excited about is the fact that $300 million is for social housing energy upgrades, something that we have not seen before. It has never been an option for people in social housing to avail themselves of these kinds of services, these kinds of programs. It's always been about homeowners. So I'm delighted to see that come forward, because it will make a difference for people who are genuinely doing it tough on the ground.

Then we also have $310 million to help small and medium-sized businesses with tax deductions, to get them on board for changing some of the ways they use energy, for looking at some upgrades that will make a significant difference to their bills. These are the kinds of things that we are doing. What the Victorian government is doing is up to Victoria. What we are doing is building a structured policy framework to promote investment, to build towards a cheaper, more secure energy future. That is what we will continue to do to make things cheaper, more accessible and more sustainable into the future for households.

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) | Link to this | Hansard source

The extraordinary thing this afternoon has been the complete disconnect between the Albanese Labor government and the realities of the world. We've heard crippling cost-of-living increases referred to as 'feeling the pinch' and 'doing it tough', when I know that people right across Australia are having to make tough decisions in their family budgets. They are fixing it firmly on a couple of things. The first is this Albanese Labor government's heedless, reckless rush to renewable energies at prices that are going to be borne by Australians. The Victorian government's decision not to put new gas connections in new homes from 2024 is another example of that complete lack of understanding of how the real world works. They have not reflected that per-unit electricity prices are 2.6 times higher than gas prices and that electricity is 5.84 times more emissions intensive than gas. These are two very compelling reasons why the Victorian government's decision is wrong, and this federal Labor Albanese government is complicit. We've heard, 'We don't support Victoria; that's not what we're doing,' yet, at a time when they're trying to drive down emissions, when they're sheeting the cost of emissions home, through the safeguard mechanism, to our big employers, our big businesses, in Australia, the Labor government in Victoria is actually making the problem worse.

But I want to turn to some of the comments made by Minister Gallagher when she specifically talked about the ACT government and their changes. I would ask that the Senate ask Minister Gallagher to return to this chamber to clarify her comments. She said that electricity prices are actually going down this year. I have referred to a couple of sources this afternoon—actewagl.com.au and the ACT Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission—which both very clearly outline that the cost of electricity in the ACT is going up by 4.15 per cent and ACT gas prices are increasing by 14 per cent this year. That is clearly not what the minister said. I ask that she return to the chamber to clarify her comments.

Question agreed to.