Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to coalition senators' questions.

Inadequate is how I would describe the Labor government's response to question 2, about the Administrative Review Tribunal overturning a decision on visa cancellation. The first job of any government is to keep its people safe, to protect its people and, mostly, its most vulnerable people. It should not be after harm; it should be to prevent harm. A preventive approach is what's necessary. I refer to the article in the Australian by Paul Garvey and its headline:

Man convicted of touching girl wins right to stay in Australia.

This article was about a Lebanese man who inappropriately touched a 15-year-old girl less than three weeks after arriving in Australia on a tourist visa. He's now won the right to remain in the country. The article states:

The Administrative Review Tribunal last week overturned the Albanese government's decision to cancel the partner visa held by 32-year-old Lucien Daher after taking into account the interests of his wife and three young children.

A reading of the report suggests the courageous girl, a 15-year-old girl, made it clear the advances by him were unwelcome, let alone unlawful. The reporting says that the tribunal took into account the protection and expectations of the Australian community and the upholding of the cancellation of his visa but gave weight to the strength of his ties to Australia and the best interests of his three children.

The ART ruled that it was a one-off:

The applicant has not reoffended and has matured by reason of his marriage and children. The applicant's life circumstances reflect stability, which provides a robust protective influence against recidivism and deterioration in the applicant's mental health.

I say, what about the protection of the victim-survivor? What about her life circumstances after this experience? What about stability for her? What about her, as a child, and what about her family? Victims-survivors should always be at the forefront. That shouldn't be negotiable, and we shouldn't have to think about that at all. This is just another example of the Labor government's incompetence. Australians saw that in the government's ability to prepare for and respond to the NZYQ cohort, and it's clear they have not learnt their lesson to do everything possible to protect Australians. When will this government stop falling asleep at the wheel when it comes to the security of Australians? Enough is enough. Australians expect their government to put the community safety ahead of everything else, yet we see time and time again examples where visa holders convicted of serious offences against children are allowed to remain in Australia. How is that even a thing? What about the child victim-survivor—a 15-year-old girl?

Labor turned this into something that appeared to be an attack on the coalition. The only entity that should be under attack here is the government. And attacking means making sure something is being done about it now. The priority must always be about protecting children and victims, not finding reasons to allow offenders to stay. There have been multiple controversial tribunal decisions overturning visa cancellations involving serious offenders in recent years, and it begs the question of what the government is actually doing. What are you doing to protect Australians not after the fact but before the fact? I look forward to hearing a minister come back into this chamber with an explanation not just of what's happened here but of what you will do about it. That's what's important to the Australian community—their safety, national safety and putting the community first. (Time expired)

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take questions that were raised by Senator Bragg but also the questions regarding the economy. What Senator Bragg failed to mention in his comments about the economy and his comments regarding the Reserve Bank is a very important report that was on 2 March 2026, this year. Shane Wright, in the Sydney Morning Herald, exposed what the consequences were for Tim Wilson to turn around and prioritise inflation rather than inflation and employment. The Reserve Bank said in a report by Sarah Hunter, the chief economist from the bank—I'm using my words—that, on the basis of battling inflation the way that Shadow Minister Wilson was suggesting, there would be over 200,000 more people that would be out of work and mortgage holders would be hit with much higher repayments as it more aggressively hiked up interest rates. Here we've got the Reserve Bank calling out the shadow Treasurer for a proposition that would have had 200,000 more people lose their jobs and interest rates actually be higher. That's the recipe that those opposite have. That's the strategy they have to deal with the cost of living: throw people out on the scrap heap and have no effect except a negative effect by driving interest rates up.

When you start looking at the sorts of things that the opposition have with regard to cost of living and the sorts of issues that they raise on cost of living, you see not only that they want more people sacked, not only that they want more mums and dads without jobs, not only that they want to have ghettos across our economy, but the consequences of what they want on a whole series of other fronts. When it comes to the cost of living, you have to look at some of the comments. I'll use what the Leader of the Opposition, Angus Taylor, told David Speers and the ABC. He said—and we'll all remember this one:

The best indicator of future performance is past performance.

Well, as a backbencher, Angus Taylor, the opposition leader, advocated for raising the GST from 10 per cent to 15 per cent while championing a GP tax and cuts to public health funding. As energy minister, he ran the energy grid into the ground; 24 out of 28 coal-fired power stations announced they were closing, and he did little or nothing to replace them.

Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sheldon, resume your seat. Senator Canavan on a point of order?

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a time to take note of questions that were asked in the chamber today. It is hard for me to understand how this could be relevant when he's talking about the record of someone in the other place.

Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Canavan, there is generally wide latitude given in these debates. However, I will bring Senator Sheldon back to the questions asked by coalition senators, which is the matter before the chamber.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They don't want to hear about cost-of-living issues, but I respect your position, Deputy President. Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson's idea of economic management plan is to repeatedly call for higher interest rates. In fact, in 2018, in parliament, he said:

… we need to create the policy settings to progressively increase interest rates.

For those out there who want to read it, it's in Hansard, 27 February 2018. Again, in 2020, the same shadow Treasurer turned around and said:

Nobody wins from low interest rates.

Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Canavan, on a point of order?

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't want to repeat myself, but I am concerned that my colleague is almost flouting your ruling. You did ask him to come back to the question, and he moved on from one member of the other place to another member of the other place. I'm not sure he's come back to the question due to your ruling earlier.

Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sheldon, again, I remind you that, whilst wide latitude is given, it does need to be related to the matter before the Senate, which is the questions asked by coalition senators of members of the government.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy President, I'll follow that. I know those opposite don't want to hear. I'll use unnamed sources when talking about the economy because what we have had from those opposite and from their parties constantly turns around. There have been questions asked about interest rates, and this is what has actually been said by those opposite. These are the positions of those across the way about economic management, and this is how they look after the interests of all Australians. They are always undermining opportunities to make sure that the cost of living is properly dealt with for Australians. Let's not forget the previous shadow finance minister, the now deputy opposition leader, Jane Hume, calling out our tax cuts for millions of Australians as a 'travesty', or when she said that Labor investing in essential services was 'utter nonsense'.

Those are the statements by those opposite about economic management and how to manage the cost of living. No wonder they want to shut it down! No wonder they don't want to have these conversations in this place. Apparently they also say that we shouldn't be investing in essential services. (Time expired)

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we just heard there was the government's complete inability to defend its own record. They were given ample time to defend the economic situation of this country, what they've done and what their plans are to fix things, but, instead, almost all of that time was taken up by dredged-up quotes from members of the House of Reps—at least, at the end, there were quotes from someone from this chamber taken from years ago. I don't think the Australian people right now want to hear from their government about what other people said years ago about different issues. What they want to know is they have a government that understands that there is a major problem with the economic circumstances of this country and that they have a plan to fix that.

Right now, Australia has the highest inflation rate in the whole developed world, and we just heard before from Senator Sheldon who said that that's fine. His approach is to sit there in the burning room with a cup of coffee saying, 'Everything is fine.' It's the highest inflation rate in the developed world. How can the Australian people believe that they have a government that is going to fix this dire circumstance if they cannot even admit that there's a problem? The first thing you have to do to fix something in your life is admit that you have problem. You're watching too much TV or eating too much junk food. If you can't admit that you've got a problem, you're not going to fix it. This government cannot bring itself to admit that its addiction to massive increases in government spending is causing problems. It is fuelling inflation. It has left Australia facing the highest inflation rate in the developed world. It means the increase in grocery prices, fuel prices and energy bills are higher here than anywhere else in the developed world.

Instead of admitting that problem, we saw in question time that the government continues to gaslight Australians and say, 'Everything is fine.' Senator Bragg rightly pointed out that the latest economic data released this week, the so-called national accounts, which is sort of like a tape measure across the whole Australian economy about how things are going, showed that public sector demand—that is, the spending of the government—is growing at a rate double that of private sector demand, which is the spending of everyone else—that is, the private sector. That's a clear fact. In these figures this week, the facts are that public sector demand went up by 0.9 per cent, year on year, and private sector demand by 0.4 per cent. So it was double the growth in private sector demand.

Instead of accepting that that might be just a bit of a problem in a high-inflationary environment, the finance minister said, 'No, but the contribution to growth is about the same.' The reason for that is that the public sector is much smaller than the private sector. So even though it has a faster growth rate, its contribution to the overall economy is necessarily going to be less; it's always almost certainly going to be less, unless you're in a remarkable period like COVID. That defence by the government is complete gaslighting of the Australian people. It makes no economic sense to use that measure when judging whether this massive growth in government spending is actually contributing to a problem.

But we don't need to go through the weeds of the national accounts to see that there is an issue here. We can look at very clear numbers about the state of government spending in this country. The last budget before any COVID measures were put in place was for 2018-19, and I've got the figures here. The federal government, on the people's behalf, spent $478 billion that year. In this financial year that we're in now, with the latest update, the figures went up again in December. This financial year your government, on your behalf, is spending $786 billion. That is an extra $308 billion compared with pre-COVID levels of spending. It's a big number. What does that mean?

There are about 10 million households in Australia. I'm using some rough numbers here, but it's about 10 million households. And $300 billion across 10 million households is an extra $30,000 per household that the Commonwealth government is spending on your behalf. This is every year, going on our nation's credit card, because we're borrowing all this. Do you put $30,000 on your credit card every year? Do you think that would be a wise decision? That is what your government has been doing since COVID. We ended JobKeeper. This government inherited a situation where we'd spent a lot of monty during COVID. We ended those programs, and the government replaced it with more government spending, which has fuelled inflation and led to this country having the highest increase in prices of anywhere in the developed world. If we want to lower that, if we want to give Australians relief, we need to cut this obsession with excessive government spending.

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

I also rise to take note of answers to questions from Senators Bragg and Senator McKenzie that went to the issue of public spending in our economy. And I welcome the opportunity to do this, for two reasons, firstly because it presents an opportunity for a bit of context and a bit of clarity. The national accounts show that growth in our economy is now much stronger and broader, with a pace of annual growth in private demand picking up in 2025. That's what the national accounts showed us. Secondly, this presents an opportunity to reflect on the components that make up public spending and the values that underpin them. As in all matters of public policy and public expenditure, what we're talking about here is choices: values based choices about what you choose to fund and what you choose to invest in—things like the defence of our nation. Investment that underpins defence spending is, at its heart, a matter of our values regarding our own sovereignty. There are bad investments in my home state of South Australia. So when you're picking apart the quantum of public spending, you're picking apart questions like whether we invest in the defence of our nation and whether we invest in things like AUKUS.

But it's not just defence, and there's a question here for those opposite, who seek to deride and diminish public spending and investment in our economy. Which is it that you would choose to cut, if not spending the same? Would you cut the age pension? Would you abolish our cheaper childcare measure? Is it the 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators that our government has invested in? Would you see us not invest to make medicines cheaper, including a huge range of medicines supporting women's health issues? These are medicines that support women who are experiencing endometriosis, as well as contraceptive pills and menopause therapy treatments, which haven't been added to the PBS for decades. Would you cut those from public spending? Would you cut our record investment in public hospitals? Would you cut the other new medicines that we've put on the PBS, including life-saving treatments, which are now accessible and affordable to the Australians who need them? Would you cut our expansion of free GP visits by cutting our investment in urgent care clinics across Australia? Would you cut the work we did to triple the bulk-billing investment?

Would you remove paid parental leave? Would you remove super on paid parental leave? Would you oppose our investments in free TAFE? Would you unwind our investments in university reform? Would you unwind those free prac placements for nursing, teaching and social work students, which we know are keeping our best and brightest in the degrees that we need them in as the care economy grows as a part of our economy overall? Do you want to see us wind back our cuts to student debt, which are making a really significant difference to the cost of living of South Australians and indeed Australians across the country?

Is it our affordable housing programs that you would like to see removed from public spending in Australia? Investment in aged care, perhaps—the 15 per cent pay rise for aged-care workers? That's something you may well oppose too, or maybe it's our investments in women's safety, including the Leaving Violence Program for victims-survivors of domestic violence. If you're opposed to public spending then I suppose it's the NDIS and our investment in investment disability support pensions, or maybe it's veterans' compensation and rehabilitation claims. It might even be school funding, which the Liberals want to unwind—indeed, fairly funding public schools for the first time.

Maybe, as I said, it’s the additional investments in defence which you don't want to see the federal government making, or the proper resourcing we've put into Home Affairs and the Australian Border Force, because you don't want to see our borders secure and you don't want to see Australians kept safe. Perhaps it's our investment in biosecurity which you don't want the federal government to be making. Maybe it's the natural disaster relief and recovery budget that we have or our work to improve mobile and broadband connections across rural and regional Australia.

Ultimately, when government spends, government makes a values choice and a moral choice about what we invest in and what we prioritise, and our government is investing in defence. It is supporting aged care. It is funding an increase in wages for some of our lowest paid workers in feminised industries, and I stand by those choices. Not only have you been misleading about the economic reality facing our country; you also have to answer the questions about what you would fund and what you would spend. Public spending is a values decision. I know what our values are. I know what we're funding, and I'm proud of it.

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

I remind senators in the chamber that interjections are disorderly.

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

I rise to make my contribution on the motion moved by Senator Liddle to take note of answers given by government ministers to questions from the opposition today. As we have heard through question time and through this debate, what this government does is not to address the issues that are being placed before it through question time. They just continue to deflect, talk about somebody else or blame somebody else. They never talk about the policy that is being considered by the question. They don't have the courage to stand up and talk about their own policies or what they're doing to deal with the issues that are before the chamber at the time. They have a number of reflexes. Firstly, they go personal, then they blame somebody else, and then they talk about something completely different. They don't have the courage to talk about the policies or the issues that are before them.

We saw that a number of times today during question time. We asked a serious question about the safety of Australians and the management of the borders, and all we get from the government is a whole series of rhetoric about what somebody else did, not about the safety of a young girl and how she had been treated or how she felt because of the way the government is managing our borders. It becomes about somebody else. It becomes about somebody who was in a portfolio five, six or seven years ago.

This government will never take responsibility for what it's doing in the way that it's managing these important issues. Australians deserve to feel safe in this country. They deserve to understand that this government is looking after those matters that are important to them, particularly during these uncertain times.

The government talks about social harmony. And yet the first thing that they do when they stand to talk about an issue in this chamber is to yell personal abuse across the chamber. Now, how does that set an example to the rest of the Australian community about how we should behave, how social harmony is important in this place? When a question comes to the minister about an important medical treatment in this country, the first instinct of the minister is to go personal against the shadow. That's the first instinct. It's not to go to what is a really important issue about how young children get access to a very important treatment here in this country—a treatment that has bipartisan support, I might say, and was jointly proposed by both sides of politics nine years ago.

This government has been in government now for nearly four years. They have some responsibility to take, and the Australian people deserve to hear the government addressing the issues that are of concern to them. The government won't talk about their promises. They won't talk about the commitments that they made to the Australian people. They just want to talk about somebody else or yell personal abuse across the chamber.

Let's think about those promises. They promised them cheaper housing. That's what this government promised the Australian people at the 2022 election—cheaper housing. How is that going? Does anyone in this country think they're getting cheaper housing? They promised them higher real wages. Well, the OECD says, according to the latest figures, Australia has experienced the largest collapse in living standards among all developed countries. They promised higher real wages. Higher real wages are, in fact, going backwards under this government and its policies. They promised a lower cost of living. That's not working out so well either. And, of course, they also promised to reduce our power bills by $275 by 2025, and there is no sign of that. In fact, I don't think I've heard a government member utter the words 'two hundred and seventy-five dollars' since 2022. They said it 97 times before the election—not a word of it since. It's about time this government started being honest with the Australian people and addressing the things that are genuinely of concern to them.

Question agreed to.