Charlotte Walker (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the following address-in-reply be agreed to:

To Her Excellency the Governor-General

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY—

We, the Senate of the Commonwealth of Australia in Parliament assembled, desire to express our loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign and to thank Your Excellency for the speech which you have been pleased to address to Parliament.

I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of this sacred and ancient land, and I pay respects to elders past and present. I also want to especially recognise First Nations emerging leaders from across the more than 250 nations of this continent. I look forward to the day when more of you join me in this place. Diversity in our parliament is fundamental to building a stronger and fairer society. I am so proud and genuinely humbled to be able to bring a new, young voice to the Albanese Labor government. I am the first parliamentarian born in this millennium, and I am joining a government which, for the first time in Australian history, has a cabinet made up of more women than men.

In May this year the Australian people overwhelmingly rejected the politics of hate and division which have been on the rise in many countries across the world. Together they gave expression to the core Australian value of a fair go, the touchstone of our Australian labour movement. This fair go underpins every policy this government took to the people and Her Excellency outlined in her opening address to this parliament. Analysts and commentators have told us how influential younger Australians were in this election, and, whilst this is not my first speech, I am honoured to be able to move this motion and take this first opportunity to say to all young Australians we hear you. We hear your demands for a fair go in the face of a world of growing uncertainty, and we will work with you to build a country that is socially, environmentally and economically progressive and successful.

In moving this motion, I want to highlight just some of the critical policies that will make a real difference to my generation and will deliver that fair go in areas of housing, education and climate change. Our policies to combat the housing crisis will make Australia economically fairer. Our policies to improve access to education will make Australia socially fairer. And our policies to tackle climate change will work towards intergenerational climate justice.

Many Australians—but, disproportionately, younger Australians who are just starting out—feel the real strain of cost-of-living increases. The previous Albanese government worked hard to ease this pressure, and in this term our actions on the cost of living will make a real difference to many Australians.

I want to speak about the cost-of-living monster that everyone my age talks about—housing. It's what keeps us up at night. When will I be able to move out of my parents' home? Where can I find a rental property I can actually afford? How far away from work will I have to live? And then, crucially, if we want to climb that property ladder, how on earth will we be able to save up enough for a deposit on a home? The great Australian dream has always been synonymous with buying your own home, but, if you don't come from a rich family, that now feels well out of reach. That is unfair and we are going to change it.

We will make lower deposits accessible to all first home buyers. You will be able to buy your first home with just a five per cent deposit, and the government will stand as guarantor so you don't need to pay expensive lenders mortgage insurance. There will be no income caps on this scheme and no maximum number of guarantees. This will be a universal scheme. Saving a 20 per cent deposit to get into homeownership whilst paying rent is an unscalable mountain for most of us. The median home price in Australia today is $820,000. Five per cent of that is $41,000. The last time $41,000 covered the 20 per cent deposit for a median home was in 2002. I wasn't even born in 2002. The day this policy was announced, before the election, my partner and I looked at each other and said: 'We might have a chance now.' And for those on lower incomes we will be implementing our Help to Buy scheme, where the government will provide up to 40 per cent equity in a new home, so 40,000 Australian families can pay a lower mortgage.

We are tackling housing supply too, with a target of building 1.2 million new homes in the next five years. As part of that target, we will put $10 billion into building 100,000 homes reserved just for first home buyers. We're partnering with state and territory governments to accelerate land release and planning approvals for these homes. My home state of South Australia is already running a similar program and we know it's working. It has been only a dream for many of my generation to own their own home. Now it can become a reality once again.

If we want to create a fair and equitable future for Australia, we need to be investing in young people today. Many of my colleagues in this chamber have benefited from policies introduced by past Labor governments. During your lives, you've had the benefit of tertiary education that was free or had no upfront fees; you've been able to see a doctor for free, through the mighty Medicare; and soon some of you will be reaping the benefits of the revolutionary superannuation guarantee scheme as well. These policies weren't just financial assistance. They unlocked real opportunities for generations of Australians. They placed trust in the potential of every Australian. They declared that this country believes in a fair go. But the benefits of some of these policies have been gradually eroded by those who did not share that same vision of equity. This government is working to fix that.

Young Australians tell us that they are now struggling to take up vocational and educational opportunities because of the rising cost of living. We hear you, and we want to relieve the pressure. We can't let the story of tertiary education be one of crippling debt. So the government's first bill in this term will slash 20 per cent from HECS debts. We are declaring that the investment young people make in their education matters for the collective future of us all.

Free TAFE is part of this declaration. Around 40 per cent of the jobs created in the next decade will need a VET qualification. Now you can get many qualifications for free. Our prospective new tradies must not be scared off by the cost of their training. These workers build our hard infrastructure. They build the new houses we so badly need. Apprentices in the home-building trades now receive $10,000 of financial assistance while training, and we are increasing the living-away-from-home allowance so it's easy to take up an apprenticeship away from home. This is so important for young people from the regions, like me. To get an apprenticeship you might need to move away from home, but the wages apprentices earn often don't pay the bills. These policies will make that move so much easier.

We are also supporting students who will work in our critical social infrastructure jobs. Our nurses, midwives, teachers and social workers are the people we trust to look after our children and care for us when we need it most, but these students are required to do their unpaid placement to qualify, and many simply can't afford it. Now those nursing, midwifery, teaching and social work students who need support while doing their placements will be able to get weekly financial assistance so they can get their qualifications and pay their rent at the same time.

Truly fair access to education actually starts way earlier. It starts with great care and early learning. Our government will guarantee three full days of child care each week. This creates flexible support for families while helping children build strong foundations in learning and social development. We will fully and fairly fund public schools. No parent should feel the pressure to live in the right area just to secure a good start for their child. I know people who are paying rent they really can't afford to get into a particular school zone. We want to take that pressure off by raising the bar for all of our public schools. A strong, inclusive public education system leads to better opportunities throughout life. It gives young people more career choices. When we invest in our schools across the board, it won't matter who you are or where you live—everyone will have the chance to succeed. We are laying the groundwork so that your life chances are not determined by postcode, income or circumstance but by potential and passion.

And now for a topic that will define the future of my generation: climate change. We lost a decade of action when climate-change deniers dominated this place, and this global emergency will not wait. We are seeing the devastation caused by the increase in catastrophic weather events across the country which are taking lives and causing billions of dollars in damage. We are seeing the damage from warmer seas to our precious coral reefs. Back home in Yankalilla, where I grew up, warmer oceans have caused an algal bloom which is killing sea life in areas that up until now have been virtually pristine.

The vast majority of young Australians do not talk about climate sceptics versus climate believers. To us, climate change is not a matter of faith or belief; it is purely a matter of hard fact, and this government is determined to do everything we can to meet our goals of the Paris Agreement, including holding the increase in average temperatures to well below two degrees Celsius of warming. This government's net zero plan is delivering on the legislated target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

A large part of our path to net zero is renewables, and we are determined to reach 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030, so we're investing in renewables in ways that also provide real economic benefits and cost-of-living relief. Australians are enthusiastically moving to renewables. We already have more than four million rooftop solar installations across Australia. One in three Australian households now have solar panels on their property. This level of uptake has been aided by the Small-scale Renewable Energy scheme, which cuts the upfront cost of buying solar panels that significantly reduce power bills. As it stands, only one in 40 households has a battery which allows them to store that power and use it when the sun isn't shining. Our Cheaper Home Batteries Program will mean more homes have batteries to store that power, and more homes will have reduced costs for their everyday electricity. By dropping the cost of a typical battery installation by 30 per cent, we expect to have one million new batteries in Australian homes by 2030. If a household installs a new program with both solar panels and a battery, they could save up to 90 per cent off a typical family electricity bill. We are all currently paying the price for an energy system built on unreliable, ageing energy infrastructure and a decade of inaction.

As well as increasing renewables home by home, we are also working on big-scale generation projects. The Capacity Investment Scheme is right now seeking tenders so we can make sure that enough renewable electricity will be introduced to the grid in time to meet demand between now and 2030.

The global climate crisis was caused by previous generations. It will be up to my generation and the ones that come after me to keep fighting for this planet with determined optimism. We will build on the groundwork done by governments of today to build a better environment for tomorrow. We know we can meet this challenge. The state that I represent, South Australia, is a global leader in energy transition. In the last 16 years, our state lifted its net electricity production from one per cent renewables to more than 74 per cent. An optimistic determination for a better and fairer future underpins the vision of the Albanese government for the term ahead.

I want to thank Her Excellency for detailing the agenda in her address to the parliament. I will leave it to my many more-experienced colleagues to speak about the great depth and breadth of this government's policies, which I have only barely touched on. In closing, I say this to my fellow young Australians: we hear you and we will act on your demands for a better future. The legislation we will pass in this parliament won't just be laws and regulations; they will be practical, people focused solutions for our future.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the Governor-General's address at a time when this parliament opens under the weight of deeply troubling revelations. As we turn our minds to the priorities of a new term, we cannot look past the urgent failures exposed in our childcare system, failures that enabled multiple people now accused of crimes against children to work across childcare centres, undetected, for years, a failure to protect our children. Over recent weeks, Australians have been confronted with horrifying allegations of child sexual abuse in Victorian childcare centres, resulting in the accused being charged with more than 70 offences relating to eight alleged victims aged between five months and two years of age. In my own state of New South Wales, two childcare workers have been charged with assaulting a 17-month-old boy in their care. In Queensland, a 21-year-old man has been charged with one count of indecent treatment of a four-year-old child at a Brisbane childcare centre. This is a systemic failure of child protection, and one we must not turn away from. It deserves not just our outrage but our action.

To the victims and their families, no words will ever be enough to account for what has transpired here. You deserve more than words; you deserve action—action that ensures that no child and no family is ever failed in this way again. We as a parliament are compelled to ask: how can this happen in a system overseen by both state and federal regulators with multiple layers of supposed safeguards? How could a person alleged to have committed such acts be allowed to work across so many childcare centres? Where were the flags, the checks and the safeguards? What must now be done to ensure that this can never happen again?

I want to acknowledge the Leader of the Opposition, Sussan Ley, for her clear and unequivocal commitment to putting the safety of children above politics and partisanship. As she said at the National Press Club, children's safety must come first. That commitment was reinforced in a letter to the Prime Minister offering the opposition's full cooperation in developing and assessing any legislative changes the government may bring forward. Our shadow education team, led by Senator Jonathon Duniam, and Zoe McKenzie in the other place, are ready to work with the government to ensure our child protection systems are as strong, transparent and accountable as they must be to prevent such things ever happening again. I commend Senator Duniam and Zoe McKenzie for their swift and measured response to these deeply disturbing revelations, acknowledging the scale of trauma involved and calling for an urgent review of our national safeguards. Their leadership has been clear-eyed and focused on solutions. I also wish to acknowledge Senator Leah Blyth, one of my newest colleagues in this place and an already passionate voice for building safer and more resilient communities. In her new role as shadow assistant minister for stronger families and stronger communities, she brings a sharp focus to the systems that are meant to protect our most vulnerable and a deep commitment to ensuring that those systems are worthy of the trust placed in them by Australian families.

One of the most urgent questions before us is whether our current reliance on state based working-with-children checks is truly fit for purpose. These checks must be more than a bureaucratic box-ticking exercise. They cannot be treated as a shield that in practice allows perpetrators to move undetected between centres and jurisdictions. There is scope for government to consider whether these checks should form part of a nationally consistent framework, one that incorporates real-time alerts, mandatory prevention training and seamless interjurisdictional data sharing. While the regulatory responsibility of working-with-children checks rests primarily with states and territories, the Commonwealth is uniquely placed to lead national coordination and drive the changes needed to make early learning centres genuinely safer. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse gave us a clear road map. It is time that we acted upon it. The government should also give serious consideration to the recommendations of the Australian Childhood Foundation, which has called for mandatory child abuse prevention education to be embedded in the working-with-children check itself.

But child safety is not just about vetting workers. It is also about how our systems are structured and whether they are capable of identifying risks, responding to red flags and prioritising the safety of children above all else. This moment demands a broader examination of how the current childcare model is functioning. The system as it stands channels government subsidies almost exclusively towards formal, centre based care, a model that has grown rapidly but not always with sufficient oversight. An investigation by the ABC earlier this month revealed that the childcare worker now charged with serious offences was employed by one of Victoria's largest providers despite previous incidents being reported. These were missed opportunities for intervention at an extraordinary cost to these children and to their families. This is not about casting blame on a provider. Many for-profit and not-for-profit providers do outstanding work. But it is a reminder that rapid growth, fragmented oversight and inconsistent enforcement can create gaps in which serious risks go unnoticed. It is the responsibility of state and federal governments to ensure that no provider, regardless of their structure, is able to operate without meeting the highest standards of safety and accountability.

In light of recent events, a growing movement of Australian parents is calling for meaningful reform. One such group, ForParentsAU, has launched a petition now signed by more than 9,000 Australians urging the government to expand the childcare subsidy to cover a broader range of childcare options, including nannies, au pairs and co-working spaces that support parents and even grandparents. That's because the current system forces families to fit the model rather than building a model that fits the reality of families. At the heart of this is a truth that we don't acknowledge often enough—that much of our economy is sustained by unpaid care labour, most often by women and most often invisible to policy. It's grandparents who adjust their lives to care for their grandchildren, and it's parents who forgo work because the only available child care is so unaffordable or unsuitable. It's the sandwich generation, who juggle their lives to care not only for their own children but also for their ageing parents. These are contributions that our country relies on, but we rarely value them as we should.

Expanding the subsidy in the way these families are calling for would not only deliver flexibility; it would begin to recognise in a tangible way the value of informal care and the unpaid labour that holds up our economy and our communities. This is not about tearing down formal childcare centres. This is about recognising that families deserve choices; that children deserve care arrangements that are safe, trusted and suited to their individual needs; and that policy should reflect the diversity of modern Australian households. This is a reform that deserves serious and urgent consideration by this government.

The evidence is clear. This is not just a call from advocacy groups. This reflects the real preferences of working parents and families, who want change. Polling by YouGov commissioned by the Centre for Independent Studies found that two-thirds of working mothers would accept a lower childcare subsidy if it meant they could use it for informal care from a relative or perhaps a trusted nanny. Nearly half said childcare costs affect how many hours they are able to work. Sixty per cent listed the warmth of caregiving among their top priorities, ranking well above early learning programs or staff credentials. It is worth asking whether our current policy settings reflect what parents truly value and what our children actually need.

As it stands, the childcare subsidy is one size fits all, but Australian families are not. It is time we trusted parents to decide what is best for their children. It is time to recognise that child care, in all its forms, plays a vital role in supporting workforce participation, especially for women. But for too many families the current system is not just expensive but rigid. A more flexible approach to childcare funding wouldn't undermine workforce participation; it would empower women. Women returning to work don't all follow the same path, and children don't all thrive in the same settings. We need a model that allows parents to choose the care that suits their working hours, their cultural context and the individual needs of their family and their child.

As we discuss safety for children in child care, we cannot forget the safety of children at home. Today the ABC reported that homelessness rates, particularly for women and girls, have worsened under the Albanese government's first term due to service underfunding and the lack of affordable housing. The issue has reached its worst levels in living memory, Homelessness Australia said, with analysis of data from homelessness services across the country showing that women and girls fleeing domestic violence are the most affected. The number of people accessing these services each month has increased by 10 per cent since Labor was elected in May 2022. But for women and girls, the data shows that that increase has been 14 per cent. A government that says it stands with women must deliver more than words. It must deliver homes—safe, secure, affordable housing. But for many women the security of safety and a roof over their head is the first act of child protection.

These issues—child safety, childcare choice and housing security—are not peripheral. They go to the heart of what kind of society we are and what kind of future we are building for our children. As the shadow assistant minister for child protection, I know we cannot legislate away evil, but we can and must build robust systems that are worthy of the trust that parents place in them every single day. The government must move swiftly and decisively, but it must also move wisely, with eyes wide open to the lived experiences of Australian families. The opposition stands ready to work constructively on these reforms, but we will not hesitate to speak when the government falls short or when it ignores the voices of parents crying out for change for their children.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in reply to the Governor-General's address to parliament. In doing so, I want to acknowledge the fabulous kids in the gallery here today as well. I will begin my reply on a topic that is of real importance to literally millions of Australians, and that is the NDIS. While senators and MPs were off having a little break post election, the NDIA decided on its annual price guide changes. Back on 1 July, the agency's pricing arrangements and price limits came into effect, and what a treat they had in store for NDIS participants and allied health providers! In case you hadn't heard, the agency has reduced, without consultation, the amount that physiotherapists, occupational therapists, support coordinators and many other allied health services and supports can charge for their essential services. In a cost-of-living crisis, this decision effectively reduces the amount that allied health and disability support providers are being paid. Yes, you heard that right. In a cost-of-living crisis, the agency that runs the NDIS, under this Labor government, has reduced the amount of money paid to allied health services and disability providers, and this puts disabled people further at risk.

I have heard from hundreds of NDIS participants and professionals, who have detailed the very dire impacts of the NDIA's pricing decisions. One person in WA shared: 'Almost all of my colleagues have reported unpaid work and unpaid overtime in trying to ensure a client is supported. The hardest thing is telling clients in need that we cannot see and we cannot help them—not because we don't want to but because we are part of a system that does not value us or our work. People with disabilities are being abandoned.' Another, who worked in the disability sector throughout their career, emailed me to say: 'I am disappointed. I am burnt out, devalued and now looking at financial stress due to the actions of the NDIS with the support of this Labor government.' From where I am sitting, it is clear that the NDIA failed to adequately consult providers and participants, and they have demonstrated a clear lack of understanding of how their decisions have harmful, immediate impacts for disabled people.

Let's talk about some of those impacts. Whether the NDIA like it or not, the reality is that, for many disabled people, we need to access therapies outside of a doctor's office. Research and our lived experience show that accessing therapies at home, at school and at our workplaces has much greater outcomes for our wellbeing. To be frank, it is pretty difficult to get access to an OT to assess what your needs are for supporting you to pack your kids' lunches in your own kitchen or what assistance you might need to have a shower when the OT is not able to travel to your home.

For those outside the major cities, some people simply don't have the means or adequate support to travel into the city or the next town to have the therapy. Many regional and remote communities don't have local providers who can meet all the needs of those communities. However, these latest cuts mean that a physiotherapist who travels from Perth to regional WA to see participants once per week is no longer paid enough to provide that support. Rural, regional and remote loadings have been removed, and travel time has been cut to a maximum of 30 minutes. That is, I guess, in the agency's view, too bad for WA participants in beautiful Gingin, which—and this is just their reality—is over an hour from Perth by car. Their physiotherapist will no longer be able to provide weekly outreach services unless they do the travel for free, which nobody should be required to do in a cost-of-living crisis.

Telehealth to get physiotherapy isn't possible, and now we are hearing it is practically impossible, thanks to the NDIA, for a physio to travel from the city to your place. The outcome? No access to physio. Therapies like physio, occupational therapy, podiatry and the like are critical for disabled people's daily functioning. But here we are, living in a world where the NDIS is no longer willing to put out a pricing agreement that enables access to this support locally. So now either disabled people will go without those supports altogether or the NDIS will have to increase participant plans to cover more transport costs and support worker hours to make those appointments possible. Devastatingly, it will cost the agency more when all of this comes out in the wash. The NDIA says it is committed to improving services for people in the bush but, in reality, the agency is putting up more and more barriers for participants to access support.

I've heard from plan managers and support coordinators that many participants are having to find new support coordinators and plan managers because some smaller providers are closing as they can no longer absorb these increasing costs. These professionals—and they are professionals—haven't seen a pay increase in seven years. Again, let me underline that: in seven years there has not been an increase to the price that the NDIA is willing to pay these professionals. Think about how much the cost of living has gone up in that time, and yet they are having to absorb increasing costs and having to perform more and more hidden administrative functions. They are having to do these administration processes in the context of the IT system, known as PACE, and anyone out there familiar with this system knows the problems with that particular program.

In a sector that is already under stress, we are very likely to see many highly qualified and compassionate people leave because they simply can't make ends meet as the NDIS changes so many of the goalposts and expectations over and over. We've already seen a report of one provider who has announced their closure in August directly as a result of these pricing arrangements. This will mean that more than 100 NDIS participants will no longer have access to speech pathology services.

The NDIS minister needs to demand that the NDIA review its pricing arrangements immediately. Then we must have a full and proper review of the pricing arrangements process to ensure they are independent, transparent and fair. This Labor government has gutted the NDIS in so many ways since it first got elected in 2022, and every single time disabled people and community are ultimately the ones who suffer. We must not forget all of this is happening because of the cuts to the NDIS that were underpinned by agreements and financial sustainability frameworks that the Senate was first told didn't exist; we were then told that they did exist but that we couldn't see them. So, again, in conclusion, I call for the government to release the financial sustainability framework, which the Senate has been demanding.

Now, I was only able to make that observation because of my re-election to this place. I want to conclude by thanking the many people who helped build our massive campaign across WA. Together we had tens of thousands of conversations, from Esperance to Broome. Firstly, I'd like to thank our lower house candidates. There were our metro candidates Sophie Greer, Clint Uink, Amy Warne, Kitty Hemsley and Eric Hayward. Our outer metro candidates were Matthew Count, Scott McCarthy, Jody Freeman, Abbey Bishop, Adam Razak, Jordan Cahill, Tamica Matson and Nicholas D'Alonzo. Our regional and rural candidates were Brendan Sturcke, Georgia Beardman and Giz Watson. Additionally, I extend my thanks to the WA Senate ticket candidates and acknowledge the hard work undertaken by the Greens WA staff and volunteer team, who worked tirelessly to achieve such an amazing result. To my incredible staff team: you are intelligent, creative and compassionate. Thank you for your dedication to working every day so that we can best represent our community in this place. We are so committed to supporting people when they need it, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to work, learn and shake things up together.

Some of my highlights of this campaign were conversations with people who had chosen to join their local Greens team at a polling place, on a doorknock or at a community stall event, and I'd like to thank everyone who took the time, perhaps for the first time, to volunteer with the Greens this election. Together, we heard from the community that they are feeling let down by the major parties. Election campaigns take their toll. It would have been easy for cynicism to overcome hope, but our team of volunteers led a strong, joyful and hopeful election campaign that was focused on building links between different communities to make us all more powerful and capable of achieving what we want to see.

The cost-of-living crisis and the climate crisis are creating some of the most trying times for our community. People in WA and across the country are doing their best in the face of these challenging circumstances. I believe that politics, including in this place, must be a force that changes the world for the better. We must take action every day, driven by the principle that life can and must be better for everyone in our community. I know that achieving this will take all of us. No senator or MP can single-handedly change the world for the better. It is here in the parliament, and it's out there on the streets, going door to door. It's protest action. It's success built together. It takes a movement of people working together to achieve change, and, while doing so, push back against the corporate interests that drive the decisions of the major parties and which, by extension, loom over our parliament, casting a shadow.

Our priority in this place must be to act on what the community has sent us here to do: dental and mental health into Medicare and strong action on the climate crisis and a transition to clean energy, and for them to be able to see a GP for free and not to rack up tens of thousands of dollars in student debt. Labor has one of the biggest majorities in history in the lower house. The Australian Greens have the balance of power in the Senate. Now is the time to start the bold and progressive reform that will actually help our community. We can and we must.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is not my first speech. The May 2025 election was a resounding endorsement of this Labor government's overwhelmingly positive agenda put forward to the Australian people, and conversely it was an emphatic rejection of the poverty of ideas and relentless negativity peddled by the so-called alternative government. Our principal offering—I would say it was the centrepiece of that offering—to the Australian people in this historic election was around Medicare. I sit on this side of the house because of Medicare. Medicare is a proud Labor legacy. It was introduced in 1984, which, incidentally, is the same year that I immigrated to Australia as a child. Is there a coincidence? Maybe. I remember as a child watching Bob Hawke on TV. I grew up to become a doctor, and, before I entered parliament in 2022 in the other place, I served for 26 years in our public hospital system right around the country. I have worked in regional communities and I have worked in big city hospitals—those hospitals that suck patients up from everywhere. If it takes a village to raise a child, then it takes a city to treat a patient. That's what these places are like. And underpinning all of that is Medicare.

But, over the 26 years I worked, I saw increasingly worse outcomes in patients. I saw far too many patients with severe chronic diseases, like diabetes that led to blindness, like kidney disease and serial amputations. I saw patients with advanced heart failure who were literally drowning on dry land. I treated patients with severe mental health illnesses and suicidality in young people who had no business being in a major hospital. I also managed drug and alcohol dependency, perhaps the most stigmatised part of mental health, and one that we need to shine a light on in this parliament and destigmatise. I dealt with homelessness every single day. I kept patients in hospital just so that they could have a feed, a wash and a bed, and so that they didn't feel threatened on the streets.

There wasn't a week that went by in that nearly 30-year career when I didn't make a cancer diagnosis. How easy do you think it is to tell a woman my age and who has children my children's age that the pain in her hip is actually due to a cancer deposit and I don't know where the primary is? I saw a Jewish Orthodox patient and I was told, 'Michelle, she's got cancer in her skull and we don't know where it's come from.' I went to the bedside and I examined her. I exposed her breasts, and I could see the lump on her breast. I could see the lump. Why is it that this even happened? You don't think gender bias is real in the health system? You can't tell me that when patients present with advanced cancer they haven't seen a healthcare professional sometime in the last five years, two years, one year. What was going on? There are blind spots in our health system. I was literally the ambulance at the bottom of that cliff. In this place we, this Labor government, become the menders of the fence at that top of the cliff, and the name of that fence—say it with feeling—is Medicare.

This is why we are strengthening Medicare, committing $8½ billion to finally deliver what Australians want, which is to see a bulk-billed doctor again. That's what it's about. We believe that nine out of 10 GP visits in the next five years will be bulk-billed. Now, there are detractors among us who say it's never going to happen. In fact, there was a report yesterday in one of the broadsheets that said only three in four GPs are going to bulk bill, meaning one in four aren't. Well, I say to those one in four who aren't that three in four is pretty good. I'll take that. I guarantee you your patients will vote with their feet. Australians are not stupid. They get it. There are plenty of great doctors in this country. Do your homework. I say to those clinics who are considering this: do your math. The incentive is huge.

It restores what the AMA actually asked for when the coalition, a decade ago, froze rebates in general practice, and this is why we now have seen what has been described as a freefall in bulk-billing. I don't use that language casually. That language was actually put by the president of the college of GPs. She said in 2022, when we came to power, that bulk-billing was in freefall. That's why we pulled an emergency handbrake. We tripled the bulk-billing incentive. I can see today the gallery is full of the people who this incentive was designed to help—pensioners, concession card holders and children under the age of 16. What did we find? We found an uplift in bulk-billing. It's effectively restored bulk-billing to this group. Now nine out of 10, or 11 million, Australians in that category are receiving bulk-billed care. That happened because of one well-designed incentive. Now imagine us rolling that out for every single Australian.

I challenge anyone who tells me that this is not going to work. I know for a fact that when I visited a GP practice—one of the few GP practices in Warrnambool in western Victoria—they were genuinely surprised about this. They didn't really know the detail, but it means that their consults will go from being about $40, rebated, to $80, rebated. That means that, across the thousands and thousands of patients they see, they're going to get more money and they can then employ more doctors or nurses and so on. It's a game changer. It's also not lost on me that Warrnambool is in the seat of Wannon, an electorate which is held by a Liberal member. Those communities need Labor governments.

A year on from the tripling of the bulk-billing incentive, we saw a rise in bulk-billing of two per cent. It doesn't sound like much. It translates to around 100,000 additional bulk-billed visits per week. But here's the thing: the national average was two per cent one year on, but the effect in regional communities was way outsized. For example, in regional Tasmania the rate went up 5.7 per cent; in regional Queensland it was four per cent; and in parts of regional Victoria, principally Bendigo, bulk-billing went up eight per cent. I pay tribute to the member for Bendigo, Lisa Chesters, who did a lot of work promoting this policy.

What if you are too unwell for your GP but you're not unwell enough for an emergency department? Where do you go? We have recognised that we need a halfway house for people with non-life-threatening injuries to attend. They may have a sprain or sporting injuries, are perhaps running a fever, have gastro or a cough and cold. Maybe the child's got a rash. Where do you go? You don't want to spend half a day in an emergency department, right? That's why we rolled out 50 urgent care clinics when we first came to power, but then we decided we'd go further and roll out 87. In fact, we overdelivered. These are open from early till late, they are walk-in—you do not need an appointment—and all you need is your Medicare card. It's hard to believe, but you do not need your credit card. Put it away.

Interestingly, here we are—two years on, we have hit a new milestone. One and a half million Australians have used these clinics. They have been a roaring success. A third of patients who attend these clinics are, in fact, children aged less than 15. Imagine that. We have had no problem recruiting GPs. They're local GPs, and they have flocked to this clinic model. But we're not stopping there. We are going to be rolling out another 50, taking this up to 137. It means that nine in 10 Australians—can you imagine that, in this huge continent land of ours?—will be within a 20-minute drive of an urgent care clinic. This is a game changer. Victoria will get 12 urgent care clinics, including one in my former seat of Higgins, and, to those of you who say it's too wealthy an electorate, it actually has the lowest rate of bulk-billing in Victoria. It will be going into east Stonnington, which is now in the seat of Chisholm. It is a new element in our repertoire—I welcome it—somewhere in between primary care, which is still the backbone of the healthcare system, and hospital care. We also know that it saves money.

You can't be serious about strengthening Medicare without addressing women's health. Women make up over half the population, right? But our problems have been shrouded in stigma and in secrecy for too long. I don't think that when I went through med school we ever talked about periods, pelvic pain, endometriosis, menopause or contraception. It was really something seen as being in the too-hard basket and that we will have specialists deal with. The problems have come home to roost. Women consume 60 per cent of all health services, but they face a range of barriers, from cost to institutional bias. It is baked into the walls of our hospitals and our health system. This Labor government, which is a female-dominant government, is levelling the playing field. We committed nearly $1 billion to women's health in the last election.

I want to focus on a few key areas. One is contraception. Around two-thirds of all Australian women of childbearing age use contraception. Traditionally this has been the oral contraceptive pill—that is what has been around for decades, since the sixties—and condoms. But we listed for the first time in 30 years—can you believe it took 30 years for this to happen?—new oral contraceptives on the PBS, bringing their costs down to currently $31, but from 1 January next year all general scripts will go down to $25, saving Australians more money.

But here's the thing. The oral contraceptive is old tech. There are newer contraceptive devices around now—IUDs and birth-control implants, like the Implanon. These are called LARCs—long-acting reversible contraception. They have a much, much lower failure rate. In a perfect setting, the oral contraceptive will be 99 per cent effective. That's pretty good. But we don't live in a perfect world. In the real world, it's about 91 per cent. Why? Because it is user dependent, which means that it's prone to error. People forget. Things happen. You might be on meds that interact with the oral contraceptive. You might not absorb it if you have diarrhoea or something like that. So I would urge Australians to look seriously at and have conversations with their GPs about the LARCs, the long-acting reversible contraceptives. We have put these on the PBS. Now Australian women can go and have that discussion and save approximately $400, or maybe more, in out-of-pocket costs. It's a game changer.

In Australia, only one in 10 women use LARCs, whereas in Sweden it is one in three. Get this: the less effective use of contraception, meaning our overreliance on the pill, has led to a high unintended pregnancy rate in Australia. It is estimated to be around 40 per cent, and it's much higher in rural areas. What are the consequences of that? When you have an unintended pregnancy, it leads to a few things. It's stressful. If you want to have a termination, it is medical or surgical. We all know the problems with accessing surgical abortions in this country. It's really, really hard. So why have this problem in the first place? Please, women of Australia, go and have this conversation with your GPs.

We do know that there are barriers to care and that many GPs do not know how to insert these devices. We are working on that, with $25 million going towards centres of excellence around the country to train up our workforce—not just GPs but nurse practitioners. Again, we have untethered them from GPs so that they can work to full scope of practice. That's what this means. It means women providing care to women anywhere in the country. It is the most highly effective care, and it has taken a Labor government to deliver that.

I could keep going, because I love this stuff, but I might need to leave this for another day. I was going to talk about menopause. I will park that for another day. I was going to talk about endometriosis, but time is short. I am just so proud to be part of a government that has pulled back the veil on some of the problems in health that have been in the too-hard basket. We understand that this is going to be a long road of reform. But Labor created Medicare. Labor will always defend Medicare.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Congratulations, Deputy President Brockman, on your election. I congratulate all returning senators who have been re-elected by their constituents. It is good that we can acknowledge the skills and talents of other senators. Senator Ananda-Rajah has just given us a very good example of someone who brings great expertise into the Senate and is able to speak in detail on matters of great importance to the Australian people. I know that the senator will give great service to the people of Victoria, as I'm sure we all endeavour to in our roles here in this parliament.

It is a great tradition that the Governor-General is able to give an explanation of what the government is seeking to achieve over the next three years. It is an opportunity for us now to consider what exactly has been alleged or committed or promised, and that of course is an important part of our democracy.

It is no great surprise that the Liberal-National coalition had a very disappointing and regrettable election result, so this has been a period of perhaps humiliation and embarrassment, and ultimately reflection. It has certainly been character building! I guess what I would say at the outset is it's clear to me that we have to do a better job of being constructive. We have to be constructive, and we need to work with other members and senators to give the Australian people better value—better value for the taxpayers. But it's also critical that we understand our constitutional role as the opposition. We must hold the government to account, not because we want to be mean or nasty but because that is our duty in this Westminster system that we have inherited from Britain. The opposition does perform a critical role working with other Independents and minor parties, particularly here in this Senate, to ensure that the government's promises are held up to the light, that there is scrutiny on the vast expenditure of public funds, that programs are administered competently and professionally and that the Australian people can look at us and say, 'Yes, the parliament is functioning, because the government is doing its job and the opposition is being constructive where it can while ensuring that, where there are failings in public administration, those are properly investigated and examined.' That is our job. So that is what we propose to do over these next three years.

In the Governor-General's address, there was an introductory mention of the economic settings, which, according to the government, are very good. I would say to you, Deputy President, that the economy isn't so flash, and, in fact, you can dress it up in any address you want, but the fundamentals are not good. We have very anaemic growth. We've had stubbornly high inflation. The private economy is shrinking, perhaps dying. Productivity is in the toilet. Now, after having put the country through three years of its economic management, which I would say is more about serving the vested interests that are close to the government rather than about serving the Australian people, the government says to us, 'Well, we need to raise taxes on superannuation and on personal income in order to pay for our decade of deficits that are now projected.' The Treasurer wants to talk about his tax reform record. After the election, the Treasurer gave an address to the Press Club where he talked about the government's fantastic tax reform efforts so far. They've done a great job! They would be the only government in living memory to have reintroduced a tax bracket and brought bracket creep back into the Australian tax system.

The Australian people pay the price of bracket creep. That is their money being stolen by the government because of inflation, and that is providing a huge base for this Treasurer's budget. He reintroduced a tax bracket which was abolished in the 46th Parliament. That's his tax reform record. What's his tax reform agenda for this parliament? Well, it is a tax on unrealised gains. It is unprecedented in Australian history that there would be a tax like this. If you have a paper gain, you pay the tax, even though you haven't sold the stock or realised that investment. The next year you might lose, but you won't get a refund. This is a crazy idea that will, in the long run, destroy one of the government's favourite things, which is compulsory superannuation. So far the tax reform record, I would say, is a big negative.

The question is: what will the government actually do on this productivity front? We are open for business. We are open to suggestions. But it's very important that we remind the Australian people that the record so far, from their first term, was 5,000 new regulations—5,000 new pieces of red tape; 400 bills through this parliament. Now they say they are zealots for cutting red tape. They want to see productivity. Well, we've seen negative productivity growth over the last year. One of the reasons for that is because the private economy is dying. The market in this country is being subsumed by the government.

We see today that half of the Australian population is now relying on the government for its dominant source of income. We are becoming an unrecognisable country, where you see the non-market sector, which is subsidised by the government, eat the market. That's where we are. It might be very popular in the short term, but in the long term the chickens will come home to roost because, ultimately, this will all be paid for through higher taxes. We're looking at 10 years of massive deficits and we're looking at productivity in the toilet. We're looking at, potentially, higher and higher wage claims, which are not linked to output. So this all ends in tears.

If the government is serious about productivity, it will be prepared to be honest with the Australian people and say that there are certain things that are being undertaken by the government today which cannot be afforded. We have to be honest about the limitations of governments because the government has no money of its own. All the money that is expended by governments is taxpayers' funds. The reason that Mr Chalmers is lodging a new tax on unrealised gains, on money which doesn't even exist—there has never been a tax in Australian history on money which doesn't exist. The reason we're having this ridiculous debate is that the government has run out of taxpayer funds. That's why it needs to pursue new revenue streams. It may be true that most Australians have nowhere near $3 million in their super account. That is true. Over the long run many will, but that is not the point. The point is that once you insert a crazy precedent like taxing money which isn't real, then that will be applied to other parts of the economy. We're getting towards a position in which Australia is becoming unrecognisable.

One of the major components of the Governor-General's speech dealt with housing. Housing is, of course, one of the key issues, particularly for younger Australians who feel that the deck is stacked against them. In the last parliament the government built, on average, 170,000 houses a year, which was down from almost 200,000 houses, on average, under the last coalition government. The government have a target to build 1.2 million new houses. That has failed alongside its failure to build more houses. What has it built? The government has built bureaucracies and not houses. They have built bureaucracies in Canberra with billions of dollars invested in them, which doesn't build houses. The Housing Australia Future Fund has $10 billion. It's acquired 300 houses and it has built 17 houses. It's a great return, I would say in a sarcastic fashion. For $10 billion, 17 houses and buying 300 is pretty bad. I mean, who could imagine that the government would be competing with Australians to buy houses, thereby making the supply problem worse? This will be a central issue for the next three years.

In her address, the Governor-General mentioned the Help to Buy scheme put in place by the government in the last parliament. This is a scheme in which the government gives up on the idea of individual ownership of houses and owns 40 per cent of your house. You'll be sitting around at Christmas dinner with mum and dad and the kids, and Mr Albanese and Dr Chalmers. It's not the Australian dream.

Their other scheme, build to rent, gives a tax cut to foreign fund managers, so they can own houses for 15 years—houses that Australians will never own. The government is prioritising socialisation of housing alongside institutional ownership of housing. Foreign fund managers, foreign governments and their sovereign wealth funds, and superannuation funds—these are the people and the institutions that the government thinks should own Australian houses. It's a pretty sick perversion of the Australian dream.

Perhaps the key charge against the government is on competence. During the election campaign Mr Albanese announced two more housing policies. There's a policy to build 100,000 houses. A government that couldn't build more than 17 houses in three years with $10 billion now wants to build 100,000 houses. It also wants to insure all mortgages with lenders mortgage insurance issued by the Canberra insurance company—'Acme insurance' maybe! And this insurance company is not going to be subject to any means testing; Clive Palmer's children could use the Labor Party's mortgage insurance scheme.

This is the kind of country we're becoming, where the government is now so large and doing so many things it doesn't need to do and charging taxpayers for them. These are not points that I enjoy making, other than to highlight that their record on housing has been an embarrassment. The Housing Australia Future Fund would probably be the greatest failure of public policy in my lifetime. Who could imagine that you could have a $10 billion fund that would build 17 houses in the ACT and acquire 300 houses, thereby making the housing problem worse? These are issues that will be of great public interest over the next three years.

I look forward to engaging in a constructive way which holds the government to account, even if it makes them squirm from time to time. That is a key role of this Senate. I look forward to working with the crossbench. They have an even more important role to play as we undertake our constitutional obligations. I would say to my own party and to the coalition that we need to do a better job to ensure that we look after all Australians. Australia is a diverse and wonderful country, and, I think, too often we have not done as well as we could in protecting minority interests. That is something that I look forward to working on with all of the senators over these next three years, as sensitive issues arise from time to time. Thank you very much.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a great honour and a privilege to stand here today as a re-elected Greens senator for Queensland and as the fifth parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. I'd like to start by acknowledging the First Nations owners of this land, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people. Wherever we are in this nation, we're living and working on stolen land; it's unceded land. We've got a long way to go before we can achieve any semblance of First Nations justice, which is sorely needed.

It's been 34 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and we haven't seen all of the recommendations implemented. Earlier this month, the Northern Territory coroner handed down her findings in the coronial inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker. My heart remains with his family and the community of Yuendumu, who endured more than five years of pain and unanswered questions. First Nations kids are 26 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Indigenous kids are. First Nations women are 33 times more likely to be hospitalised for violence than non-Indigenous Australians are. It's 2025, and we still don't have a truth-telling process in this country. The Voice referendum campaign clearly showed that there is a compelling case for truth-telling and treatymaking to deliver hope and justice and pathways towards healing for this ancient nation.

We're at a precipice as a nation and as a planet. We're facing concurrent crises that will impact us for generations if we don't make changes here and now. We know the climate and environment crisis is the defining issue of our generation. The climate wars were supposed to be over, but the major parties just can't stop approving coal and gas projects. I know I wasn't the only one who was disappointed when the newly re-elected Labor government kicked off its second term with the approval of Woodside's disastrous North West Shelf gas plant expansion.

Woodside's North West Shelf project will release more carbon pollution each year than all of Australia's coal-fired power stations combined and it will now run for 45 more years. This approval will haunt future generations. Approving fossil fuel usage out to 2070 will haunt future generations. Young people today are seeing the climate crisis getting worse, and they're worried about their future, but Labor's North West Shelf project will be heating the planet until 2070—long after their grandkids are born. But it is never too late to make positive change, and, with the coalition in the electoral weeds, arguing about whether or not to even have a net zero 2050 target, there has never been a better time to be ambitious.

Labor have got a large majority in the other place and they've got our support here in this chamber to take real action to protect the climate and to protect the environment. The Greens have made it clear we want to see meaningful climate action in this term of government. That's why the first thing we did this morning was put forward a bill for a climate trigger to force Labor to consider the climate impacts of fossil fuel projects. If passed, the bill would automatically reject climate bombs like Woodside's North West Shelf project and the Beetaloo gas project. Right now, the government can completely ignore climate impacts when it's approving new coal and gas projects or any other project.

The Greens have been put in the balance of power to get stuff done, and the Prime Minister knows that Australians want climate action. Nature cannot be put last like it has been for so long, and a really easy first step is to stop approving coal and gas projects. Right now, in South Australia, we're seeing the devastating impacts of a marine heatwave caused by climate change. An area twice the size of the ACT is now being choked by a toxic algal bloom that has killed tens of thousands of marine animals. Beaches are shut down—it's been happening for months, and scientists have warned us that this would happen. Now the crisis is here, and there's no end in sight. Coal- and gas-fuelled climate change is strangling the planet, communities and wildlife now.

This past May, four people lost their lives in devastating flooding in northern New South Wales. In Victoria, farmers are facing a nervous wait to see if the recent rains will continue and break the months-long drought in north-western Victoria, south-western Gippsland and north-central Victoria. In Queensland, my home state, on the Great Barrier Reef, scientists from JCU and Griffith University have found that 96 per cent of Lizard Island's reefs were impacted by mass bleaching in 2024 and only eight per cent of the affected corals survived. At the end of the country, the Great Southern Reef's kelp forests are quickly disappearing. There were once vast and thick underwater forests, but only five per cent of giant kelp forests remain—again, due to warmer waters caused by the climate crisis fuelled by coal and gas. How many canaries in the coalmine do we need before we start paying attention?

Alongside the climate and environment crisis, we're witnessing a housing crisis that has turned homeownership into a moneymaking scheme for already wealthy investors. Housing is a human right; it is not a commodity. The housing and rental crisis is deeply unfair and needs serious action. Everyone should be able to have an affordable, quality and secure home, and it is deeply unfair that an entire generation is locked out. Young people are living in fear of their next rent increase. They're avoiding reporting maintenance issues, because their landlords will end the lease or up the rent. Their only avenue to homeownership shouldn't be to rely on either asking the bank of mum or dad or receiving an inheritance.

This experience is particularly galling when we continue to hand out billions in perks to property investors, in the form of negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts. It would be a lot easier to buy your first home if the government weren't giving massive tax discounts to wealthy property investors. There are now 150 billionaires in this country, and one-third of big corporations pay no tax. Why should a nurse pay more tax than a multinational gas company? By making big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share, we can bring down the cost of living, we can reduce inequality and we can make life better for millions of people.

In my very first speech to the Senate, I said:

It is with a big heart and a passionate belief in the goodness of humanity that I undertake this journey.

That is still true. I want to see this become our most progressive parliament and show people that we can do politics with heart. People expect a parliament that works together to genuinely tackle the issues that we're all facing, because people need and deserve more than just tinkering. We're in an epidemic of violence against women and yet frontline support services are still not fully funded to help everyone who seeks help. The government could readily fix that. Successive Australian governments have underfunded services, and those services could save lives. Stopping all forms of violence against women will take systemic action to tackle the root causes and to transform the harmful social norms, but it also requires adequate funding of the organisations that do the hard work on the frontlines. While this government has made some progress, it is yet to commit to fully funding frontline prevention and response services that support women and children experiencing family, domestic and sexual violence. In a wealthy country like ours, it is obscene that women and children escaping violence could be turned away when seeking help, or forced to choose between staying in an unsafe relationship and living in their car or a tent, but that is the reality of what this funding shortfall means for people.

The Greens are ready to work together to transform people's lives for the better and to deliver real outcomes for people and the planet. We will continue to hold true to our values and work for peace, human rights, and social and economic justice, as we always have, and that includes a free Palestine. Like many people across the country, I have watched in horror as a genocide has unfolded on my phone screen. It has been difficult for me to understand how anyone in this place or outside it can see that and do nothing, say nothing. The Greens continue to respond to these horrors with compassion, with honesty and with a fierce determination to achieve a just and lasting peace. For there to be a peace, there must be an end to the State of Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and its ongoing genocide in Gaza. In recent weeks we've seen repeated humanitarian outrage, including 93 people killed in Gaza trying to access food, and UNRWA warns that Israeli authorities are starving civilians, including one million children.

Finally, after almost two years of this devastating conflict and continuing genocide, we saw our government join with other nations to demand an immediate end to the war in Gaza and for Israel to lift aid restrictions. That is a good thing, but the Israeli regime is not listening to stern words. We must sanction the Netanyahu government, end the two-way arms trade with Israel and get aid into Gaza immediately. Human rights matter. They must be respected and protected in all countries and for all people.

Our humanitarian obligations here in this place must also ensure that we're upholding our obligations to protect and promote the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and people who are stateless. In a country like ours, which has been built on immigration, we should take pride in our multicultural and migrant communities, but in the last parliament we saw both of the major parties demonise migrants and use them to distract from their own failings. The Greens remain steadfast in our calls for the elimination of mandatory and indefinite detention, and the abolition of offshore processing and other forms of punitive and discriminatory treatment. This is our time to make it happen.

At this election, like the one before it, people elected a balance-of-power Senate. It also continued the long-term trend of a collapse in support for the major parties. This Senate has been given a mandate by the Australian people to carefully scrutinise legislation, and that is what we intend to do. We need to address the inequality and cost-of-living crisis with real investment in world-class health, education and social services to make sure that no-one lives in poverty or insecurity. I know, as a mum to two marvellous children, that this will make life better for millions of people, and I want to leave this place knowing that I did everything possible to make that happen, knowing that I'm leaving the world a better place for them.

In this parliament, Labor can't pass any legislation without working either with the Greens or with the Liberals, and we know that the coalition will drag us backwards. We want Labor to be bold and to take this opportunity to make changes that really help people. I fear they won't do this without us pushing them, but I do come into this new parliament hopeful. This is a huge opportunity. Voters across this country have delivered the Greens the sole balance of power in the Senate, which gives the government a clear pathway to pass truly progressive reforms. We can make positive change. We can pass progressive reform to make this a kinder, fairer, more equitable, more sustainable place to live. We are urging the government to take this opportunity to be brave. This government has the pathway they need to do good things. They just need to have a little courage.

We can get dental into Medicare. We could wipe student debt in its entirety, not just 20 per cent of it, or eight per cent once you factor in the indexation. We could make child care free. We could end native forest logging and save what's left of the Great Barrier Reef. We could build public housing. We could make big corporations pay their fair share so that we could do all of those things and more. The only thing that could stand in the way is timidity by the Labor government. If we can't achieve these really very basic things, it will be because the government lacks the courage to face down their big corporate donors and the many lobbyists haunting the halls of this place.

People want a democracy that works for them, not one that delivers for vested interests. It is our shared responsibility in this parliament to deliver real reform that will help people in their daily lives and protect the planet. On behalf of two million people who voted Greens, we will fight to make sure our kids have a safe climate future and can afford a roof over their heads. We will fight for the millions of people who put the Greens in this important position and who have given us a mandate to hold the major parties to account and to push for outcomes and for politics with heart.

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

I rise to speak in response to the Governor-General's opening address to the 48th Parliament. In doing so, I particularly want to thank the South Australians who placed their trust in a continued Labor government. Personally, my thanks for returning me to this place.

The Labor government is a government working to deliver a better future. That is what we spent our last three years doing, and that is what we will spend this next term doing. In May this year, people in this country made a really clear decision, a clear decision to choose progress over paralysis, to choose fairness over division, to choose a government that would deliver on its promises. We saw a vote for stability, we saw a vote for opportunity and we saw a vote for a future where no-one is left behind. Australians know that we understand the pressures they are facing every single day—the cost-of-living challenges that we're all looking at, health care, housing—issues that are being addressed by this Labor government and will continue to be addressed by this Labor government. As the Governor-General said in her speech on Tuesday, the government will work to repay the trust that Australians have placed in us. That is our commitment. That is what we will do.

As we saw in the 2022 election and much more significantly in the 2025 election, the Labor caucus has expanded. With that expansion comes an expansion of the diversity of our team, a team that reflects the people across this country, a government that people can look to and see something they recognise. The backgrounds, the ages, the professions, the experiences, the cultures and the variety of different walks of life that our caucus now brings to government is what will ensure that we deliver for all Australians.

We saw just this morning my colleague Senator Walker stand up and give a very impressive first address to this chamber, talking about the importance of recognising the difference in views from young people to all ages. She also gave quite an impressive lesson on climate change to some of the older members of this chamber in terms of how the youth of our country actually view this issue. It's not the same climate wars negativity that we have experienced in here for so terribly long. Then we had another colleague, Senator Ananda-Rajah, regaling us with some excellent insights and the depth of her understanding and her knowledge into how our health system actually works, because she was a doctor in that system for 30 years. This diversity runs across the entirety of our caucus, and that brings something pretty special to this place.

We know that families across the country are doing it really tough. We know that there are pressures, including cost-of-living increases, and so the policies that we rolled out in the last term and through the election were to address those issues. One was cheaper medicines. A PBS prescription is capped at $25 a script from 1 January next year. That's the lowest it's been in 20 years. Then, for people who are on pensions or concession cards, those scripts are even cheaper, at $7.70. These are the kinds of things that make a difference every single day to how much money people have in their pockets and how they manage the pressures, many of which are global pressures, that we are facing on cost of living.

Something that's particularly important to me are our regional areas, particularly regional South Australia. It means peace of mind for a family in Whyalla or an older couple in Port Lincoln who are dealing with chronic illnesses that they won't have to make a decision between the grocery bill or the medicine bill. We are lowering those costs to help people cope and deal with the pressures right here, right now.

We've also opened 87 Medicare urgent care clinics. These are a revolutionary insert into our health system. They are making a fundamental difference. People raise it with me unprompted when I'm out talking with the community. My family had cause to use the urgent care clinic in Port Adelaide just last year, where we would have normally gone to the emergency department. It was a broken bone. But we got the same service we would have got if we had gone to the emergency department, yet we didn't have the wait time and we didn't have the anxious pressure that you often feel in a hospital setting. More than that, we were not contributing to clogging up the health system. Having people treated at the right place, at the right time and in the right manner is about resizing and rebalancing our system and making sure that people get the care that they need when they need it and where they need it.

That brings me again to our regional areas. I was delighted during the campaign to be able to announce the commitment to an urgent care clinic in Whyalla. That will take the pressure off the Whyalla hospital, meaning people in the hospital are getting the treatment they need in a more timely fashion. The people who can be treated in an urgent care clinic will get that, and then, for people with their primary care, it's taking some of the pressure off that primary care system as well. Our regional areas are really important because the services that they have access to are so often much less available and accessible than we see in our capital cities.

One of the other things that we announced, which I think is going to make a big difference and I've had some really excellent feedback from, is the 1800MEDICARE free 24/7 health advice. It doesn't matter if the closest hospital is two hours away or three hours away. It doesn't matter if your doctor has a full list and you can't see them for a week and you can't drive to an urgent care clinic. You can pick up the phone and get some advice, and that advice may well be all you need. It may also be that critical piece of advice that says, 'No, you really do need to get to a hospital,' or, 'You really do need to see that doctor.' While this is going to be a great service for everyone, as a 24/7 service, for those parents amongst us, including me, when it's the middle of the night and you're not quite sure what to do, it is the perfect solution to get that advice so you know what action to take next. So I'm delighted to see that roll out into the future, and I'm pretty confident it's going to make a fundamental difference.

The other thing with the parliament now resumed is to deliver on our commitment to cut student debt by 20 per cent, saving more than three million Australians an average of $5,500 each. This includes the over 11,000 people in the electorate of Grey, where I spend a lot of my time, who have student debt. That's not just university debt; we're talking about vocational education debt as well. This is across the board.

The education system that we're seeing grow and develop across that regional area is a delight to watch. I recently visited TAFE in Whyalla and saw some of the amazing things that are rolling out there through our fee-free TAFE. Students that have never had an opportunity to undertake the training they want now have access to it. I met—and I've spoken about this in this chamber before—a group of fee-free nursing students, one of whom told me that she had been seeking to be a nurse for many years. It had been a dream, but she could never afford it and would have to travel. Putting these services on the ground where they're needed, where people genuinely are so keen to fill the vacancies we have in these industries of need but they need support to do it—that's what this government is doing. That is what the Albanese Labor government is doing. It's providing that support, be it in early childhood, primary school, secondary school, TAFE or university.

Our university hubs across the seat of Grey are going gangbusters. They are doing such a great job bringing university education to those regions, helping those people study at home, where they want to live, not having to move to the city. The expansion of our TAFE campuses and the technical colleges, the stuff that we are doing hand in hand with the state Labor government, is showing green shoots of really excellent development for the future.

And we know that South Australia is at the heart of some of the manufacturing future of this country—the green, sustainable manufacturing future of this country. We're seeing those industries, seeing the opportunities, watching our education system grow, watching people coming through our vocational systems and knowing that they can see into the future how their workforce will be developed and delivered to them. These are the kinds of things—working on all the aspects of these developments, all of the aspects that come together to mean a strong, sustainable and productive future for our country, for our regional areas, for our towns and for our cities. It will encourage businesses to invest in these areas, knowing that those services are going to be there to support their workforce, that investing in Australia is a valuable thing to do, that they will find the workforce and that there will be health services and housing.

Our housing development is starting to pay off. We are starting to see houses on the ground. Many of my colleagues would disagree with that, but, fundamentally, if anybody would like to come and visit me in South Australia, I'd absolutely love to take you for a drive and show you the vast amount of housing development going on that is being driven by the federal government and supported through the federal and state governments working together. There are so many developments in South Australia that, when I stand here and listen to people say that there's nothing happening, I wonder where they live and what they're doing. Maybe they don't get out much. But the invitation stands. If anybody wants to come and have a look at the vast amount of development that's going on in South Australia, I would be delighted to show you, because I am so proud of what the Albanese Labor government is doing. I'm very excited for the 48th Parliament and what we will achieve in these coming years by building on the strong foundations that we started through the last term. We will continue to drive that delivery into the next term of government.

Our expanded team is ready to deliver. We're ready to deliver for all Australians, as I've said. This is about bringing our entire country together. We know that there was a choice to be made at the last election, a choice of either hatred, division and fear or an Albanese Labor government. I'm delighted that the people of Australia chose the latter, and we will repay the trust that people have placed in us. We are here to deliver on our promises. We are here to make our country stronger and fairer, to knit together our economic development with our energy transition and our protection of the environment and to be a strong economy and a strong, supportive and caring community.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in reply to the Governor-General's speech in what is a very historic time in our national political history. The federal election result on 3 May was historic for many reasons. It was historic for the Australian Labor Party and the coalition. It was a landslide victory for the Albanese Labor government and for the Labor Party and its members; it was the worst loss of seats for the coalition since 1944. The election result also meant a prime minister was returned to office after a full term, the first prime minister to be elected under those circumstances since John Howard. The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, lost his seat; for the first time since John Howard, a leader of the opposition lost their seat. So did the Leader of the Australian Greens, Adam Bandt, proving that the utopian vision of the Greens had been denied by the Australian people.

I could not be prouder of the Australian Labor Party, the labour movement, the Tasmanian branch of the Australian Labor Party and every Labor Party member, our volunteers and all the union members who campaigned at this election because they knew how critical it was for this Labor government to be re-elected. We had to ensure that we were re-elected to be able to continue to build on the good work that we had done during the first term.

The Albanese Labor government wants a country where no-one is held back and no-one is left behind, a country of compassion and enthusiasm for our fellow Australians. It was an election to build our future and futureproof our nation during global uncertainty. The Australian people voted for certainty. They voted for Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Party because they knew we had a plan to address the cost-of-living challenges, a positive plan for Medicare and the cost of medicines, a plan for a modern Australia in challenging times. As the Prime Minister declared on election night, 'The Australian people voted for Australian values—for fairness, for aspiration and for opportunity for all.' Queensland is now equally represented between the two parties. South Australia's completely red in terms of seats held by the Albanese Labor government. In my home state of Tasmania we now have four out of five seats red in the House of Representatives.

We are a party of government. We have a platform. We had fully costed policies and we went through all the process of the Expenditure Review Committee and our cabinet. People had faith in us because they believed in our vision for this country: to build Australia's prosperity, to embrace the opportunities the world is presenting to us, to not shy away from challenges but to embrace them.

Labor's plan to open another 50 urgent care clinics across Australia is a bold step forward ensuring timely, accessible health care for families and individuals. By expanding urgent care, more Australians can get the help they need closer to home, reducing pressure on emergency departments and ensuring health remains a right, not a privilege.

Recognising the burden of student debt, Labor is delivering a 20 per cent reduction in student debt for millions of Australians, investing in Australia's future workforce and with a clear commitment to education as a vehicle for opportunity. We already introduced that legislation in the other place this morning.

Labor is legislating to secure penalty rates for 2.6 million Australians, ensuring workers are paid fairly for their time, especially when working unsociable hours. Investment in TAFE and vocational education is laying the foundations for a highly skilled workforce, while targeted funding in the care economy, including fair wages for aged-care workers and support for early childhood educators, reflects Labor's dedication to dignity and respect for all Australian workers.

The housing crisis is being addressed through significant investment to build more homes, making the dream of homeownership and affordable housing a reality for more Australians. We are increasing superannuation contributions to ensure that people can retire with security and dignity, while sustained funding for schools means every Australian child has access to quality education.

The stark contrast between the Albanese Labor government and those previous Liberal governments is that we work with our state and territories, because we want to put Australians first. That means delivering health care and education, because they are going to build the future of our very strong economy.

Internationally, the Anthony Albanese government is rebuilding and strengthening Australia's relationships with China and the Asia-Pacific, navigating global uncertainty with a focus on stability and robust trade partnerships. These initiatives together underpin Labor's vision for a compassionate, future-ready Australia.

When we stand alongside one another in this place, I think we should all recognise that we do live in the best country on earth, and that Australians generally know that. We don't want American policies on our shores—which are what Mr Dutton tried to bring to the last election. It must be noted that this election result is a complete repudiation of the policies and leadership style of the Liberal Party and the National Party. Those on the other side may try to blame others for their historic hopeless results, but the truth is Mr Dutton spent 24 years in the other place and left a trail of devastation. When the Liberals were last in government for nine long years—and yes, he left us with lots of ammunition to use during that last election—we presented Australians with a plan for a future and a vision of prosperity and promise, giving Australians hope. Unfortunately, Mr Dutton's character and his record were reflected in the results of the ballot paper.

We as Australians like Americans, and we admire much about Americans, but we don't want American-style politics brought into this country. The result demonstrated very clearly that Australians want a government that puts its people first and invests in the things that Australians need and ask for.

There was a person who fanned the flames of division during this last election period. But we saw a historic victory, with Mr Dutton losing his seat. I want to congratulate the new member for Dickson, Ali France, and to say how inspiring she is. She inspired all of us, during that campaign, to never give up on what you believe in. So I congratulate the new member for Dickson. I know that Ali will be a wonderful representative, not only for the people of Dickson but for our country as a whole.

There are lots of questions, and I'm sure there are lots of discussions going on in those rooms, from those on the opposite side of the chamber. But there is a stark contrast. You can either put forward a positive economic plan to invest in your people, by investing in education, health and aged care and giving hope to young people by ensuring that we have the best education system anywhere in the world, or you can be negative and try and pull people down—and those were the alternative policies that were talked about by those opposite leading up to the last election. But the reality is that there were really no policies put up by those opposite, because they had no vision. What they did was offer the Australian people 25c a litre off their petrol, as if that alone was going to help with the challenges of the cost of living.

What we should be focused on now is ensuring that, as a government, we continue to listen to the Australian people and, in our second term of government, build on the investment that we made into our communities during our first term. But I think it's important to remember that, when the Australian people vote, I've never known them yet to get it wrong, and that's even when they've put Labor into opposition. That's a lesson that every politician and aspiring politician should learn—that you have to listen to your community on what is important to them and reflect that in your policies.

But I must admit that this was a victory that I was not expecting. I'll quite openly admit that, going into that election campaign, I knew that we had good policies and we had a lot to defend, but I did not expect the result that we had. That result gives us a lot of responsibility. We have a lot of new members in the House of Representatives. Fortunately, on our side, we also have additional senators, and I welcome each and every one of them because it just means we can share the workload and they can be part of what I consider to be a fantastic Labor government under the leadership of Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers and their fellow cabinet members and ministers.

I'm sure, coming from Tasmania, that most Tasmanians who had to go back to the polls on Saturday have had enough of elections for a while, but I want to say to them that having four out of five seats in the House of Representatives means that they are going to have a very strong voice in this government. I want to acknowledge and welcome to the other place Jess Teesdale, the new member for Bass. What a triumphant victory, with an extraordinary nine per cent swing to Jess. As a duty senator I will continue to work with her, and I congratulate her.

But I'd also like to take the opportunity to acknowledge Bridget Archer, the former member for Bass, who I worked with across various forums in this place, and to acknowledge the work she did while she was here. I congratulate her as the newly elected member for Bass in the Tasmanian parliament. I know she will continue to work for her constituency. Even though we were on opposite sides of the chamber, we did work together very well in this place and in our community.

I'd also like to congratulate the former state Labor leader, Rebecca White, who was the former state member for Lyons. She was elected as the federal member for Lyons, defeating Susie Bower. I welcome her to the Tasmanian federal Labor Party team. I also congratulate the former government whip, former senator Anne Urquhart, who defeated Mal Hingston for the seat of Braddon. She had the biggest swing in the country of 15 per cent, so congratulations to Anne Urquhart in that other place. She'll miss being here, I'm sure. I also want to congratulate Minister Julie Collins on her re-election in Franklin. I'd also like to acknowledge Senator Carol Brown for being re-elected to this place and representing the great state of Tasmania, and, of course, our new incoming senators: Senator Richard Dowling, a Tasmanian here in the chamber with me now; and Josh Dolega, also joining the Tasmanian team. It's great to have two fresh young faces, new enthusiastic senators, who will bring their own personalities and experience to this place.

There is so much more work to be done, but I want to talk about some of the things that we've done, which we will continue to build on. There is the legislation that was introduced this morning to reduce HECS debts by 20 per cent, which was an election commitment. We will continue to support TAFE because we have to ensure that we have the skills available in our workforce. We've had great achievements, including supporting lower paid workers, such as those in the caring economy and in aged care, which I've been a champion on for the entire time I've been in this place, and the increase of wages for aged-care workers and early childhood educators. These are only a couple of the things that, as a Labor senator, I'm very proud that our government is delivering.

There's so much more to talk about, such as the increase of paid parental leave, paying superannuation on that, and 12 per cent superannuation. We must never forget it was a Labor government that introduced superannuation. If you listened to those opposite, they wanted you to raid your superannuation. Instead of building more affordable and social housing, they would actually want you to raid your superannuation. There's bad policy in each way that they go. I'd also like to take— (Time expired)

(Quorum formed)

Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the address by the Governor-General, Her Excellency the Hon. Sam Mostyn, to mark the opening of the 48th Parliament of Australia.

No-one left behind and no-one held back—this is what the Albanese government is all about. It's what the Prime Minister took to the election, and it's what each of us, as members of the Albanese government, took to our constituents. It's what guides us in a second-term Albanese government. Our No. 1 focus is continuing to deliver cost-of-living relief for all Australians.

We promised cutting student debt would be the first thing we'd do in the 48th Parliament, and that's exactly what we're doing, because getting an education shouldn't mean a mountain of debt. No-one left behind and no-one held back is also what guides me in my role as the Minister for Indigenous Australians. I'm focused on delivering on our substantial commitments for First Nations people. We're delivering remote housing, we're delivering remote jobs and we're delivering remote food security. We are focused on economic empowerment and we are focused on closing the gap. We're working in partnership with First Nations people, communities and organisations as well as governments right across Australia, because closing the gap is everyone's responsibility.

Improving outcomes in remote communities is one of our biggest challenges, which is why I am so pleased the Prime Minister has created a new role of Special Envoy for Remote Communities. I'm thrilled that that position has been given to the member for Lingiari, whose electorate includes all of the Northern Territory's remote First Nations communities. I know that the member's fierce advocacy and commitment will make a difference for remote communities across Australia. It's an absolute pleasure to work with the member for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour.

One of the ways we're investing in remote communities is our new Low-Cost Essentials Subsidy Scheme, which began on 1 July. It's reducing the cost of 30 essential items in remote communities; delivering important cost-of-living relief; and reducing the cost of everyday items like rice, tinned vegetables, nappies and toilet paper so that they are comparable to supermarket prices in cities. This follows a successful trial in dozens of communities, delivering to remote residents something that those living in the cities take for granted.

I recently visited the Outback Stores warehouse in Darwin with the Special Envoy for Remote Communities so that both of us could see the products that are going out to communities. Along with the subsidy scheme, there is a new National Code of Practice for Remote Store Operations and a dedicated governance training and support package for staff. We're also investing in upskilling staff in more than 100 stores to promote good nutrition and healthy choices to consumers to help improve health outcomes in our remote communities.

The Albanese government is committed to working with First Nations people, communities, organisations and enterprises to drive economic empowerment and self-determination. We are delivering a First Nations economic partnership. We have strengthened Indigenous Business Australia by enabling investment in First Nations businesses and communities. Jobs are, of course, at the centre of our focus on economic empowerment. The Albanese government understands that having a real job changes lives, particularly in our remote regions.

Our Remote Jobs and Economic Development program will create up to 3,000 new jobs in remote communities over three years. Already there have been 650 new jobs funded with more than 100 local employers across the country, and there will soon be more jobs on the ground. I'm absolutely focused on this. Later this year we will also deliver the new Remote Australia Employment Service, replacing the failed Community Development Program. The first grant opportunity opened last month, marking another important milestone. This new program focuses on supporting jobseekers into real work, including through community projects.

One area of economic and environmental work that I'm incredibly proud of is the Indigenous Rangers Program. I've been really incredibly lucky to see the great work of rangers as I travel right across Australia, from the Arafura Swamp in north-east Arnhem Land to Groote Eylandt, from Queanbeyan, near Canberra, to Red Bay and Tamworth in New South Wales, from Cairns and back down to Healesville in Victoria. All of our First Nations rangers are doing an incredible job.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 12.15, the Senate will now move to senators' statements.