Rowan Holzberger

I rise in support of the Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill 2025. I am just looking around the chamber. I am not sure that anybody who is here this morning had the absolute experience of sitting through the member for New England's speech on this bill last night. Even people who have been here for a long time, who are used to the long rollicking performances that the member gives, may have been a little bit stunned by some of the things which he mentioned. Apart from the fact that it could be characterised as an impassioned speech against multiculturalism, it managed to somehow drift from the Inca empire to calling Australian workers 'lazy'. But I think, fundamentally, he missed completely the point of this bill, which is: it is not about saying which employers are good or bad but about saying whether or not an employer is accredited to be a sponsor for a skilled visa. Hopefully, that might allay some of the concerns that the opposition has about this bill. I would urge them to reconsider their opposition to this bill and support it.

Or maybe it was the member for Riverina, who very typically said people in the city don't understand what it is like to work in the bush. But I know, Deputy Speaker Claydon, that you and I both worked in the bush, we both worked on farms and we spent a lot of our time out in there in the sticks. And we know that, by and large, farmers are really just trying to do their best and that most of them are trying to do the right thing. But as is always the case with government programs—with immigration in particular—the public needs to have some sort of comfort that we have control over how it's working. So allowing the public to know that employers out there are being held accountable for their part in the arrangement gives some sort of comfort to the whole community that the system works. Because, as the member for Mallee said in her contribution, migrant workers aren't an option; they're essential. In order for that to proceed, you would think that the opposition would support this bill to give the sorts of guarantees which people in the Australian community are looking for.

Ultimately, despite all of the other contributions, it was the member for Nicholls who really belled the cat on where the opposition are coming from in this, when he criticised us raising the TSMIT—which, at a quarter to 10 in the morning, might be a little bit more of a conversation than it was going to be at 7.30 last night when people were ready to go home. The TSMIT sounds all very complicated, but it really just means 'temporary skilled migration income threshold'. It may have been replaced now, but it means that that's the amount which an employer has to pay in order to bring in a skilled migrant. From 2013 to 2023 it remained at $53,000, and the member for Nicholls criticised the government for lifting it. We lifted it to where it would've been had it kept up with CPI to about $70,000, and he said that it had soared. He characterised that it had somehow got out of control and had now made it uneconomical for companies to bring in overseas temporary migrant workers. I think that really does show where they are coming from here.

I would hate to characterise it as a deliberate feature of their economic architecture to keep wages down, but they said it themselves. And it makes me think that maybe they want to use temporary migration as another part of the architecture to keep wages down. Because, if you're keeping the TSMIT down at $53,000 and if you're saying to employers that they can bring people in from overseas to work for $53,000, you are keeping wages down and you are suppressing wages. It makes me think that they are deliberately trying to do that in so many areas, but in the most despicable way. They are out there causing division and beating their chests about migration while, at the same time, wanting to bring in workers so that they can be, effectively, exploited in order to drive down the wages of all Australians.

The reason why this issue is so important for the Labor Party is that, in many ways, this is the history of the Labor Party. This is our origin story—combating migrant exploitation. The member for Moreton said it much more eloquently than I could when she described the process of bringing in South Sea Islander workers during the late 1800s. She said that the people not only lost their wages but lost their lives. I could be corrected, but I think she also said something like 30 per cent of the people who were brought into that unthinkably horrible operation lost their lives due to European diseases. So it was from both stopping that outrageous practice out of the sense of justice that working people have but also protecting the wages and conditions of Australians that the Labor Party was formed. That was our birth. And here we are 150 years later still fighting the same fight against forces that are more concerned about the dollar than they are about justice or Australian workers. It is in our DNA to stand up for workers who have been brought to this country, for two reasons: (1) some employers are just trying to get that cheap labour and (2) the opposition will do anything they can to drive down wages and conditions.

Here we are, 155 years later—the latest example is a young woman who came into my electorate office, having been exploited at work. She had come here to work in aged care and had become involved in a dispute regarding the workplace treatment, and, acting as a union delegate, she was dismissed. She believed that her dismissal was related to advocating for her workplace rights and is now pursuing a claim in the commission. She was somebody who was working 12 hours a day and being paid for six hours a day. It is like a modern horror movie. It's something that—I'm sure none of us here can imagine what it is like to be in Australia on a temporary visa, working as a virtual slave for an employer that is humiliating you, that is degrading you and that is hanging over your head the threat of whether or not they remove your visa and kick you out of the country that you have come to love and that you want to make your life in. None of us can appreciate what that is like. It must surely be terrifying.

When we came to government in 2022, like in so many areas, we inherited a burning wreck of a migration system—a burning wreck that had failed in family reunion and that had failed in skilled migration—and the government commissioned the migration review, which I was very happy to be a part of. Having worked in the community for years, making a statement like 'burning wreck' doesn't really convey the pain and pressure that people were placed under because of a poorly resourced department and also because of poor policy. It was that awful mix of poor legislation and poorly applied legislation.

The migration review, which I was very happy to be a part of locally—I remember we organised local businesses and community leaders and local multicultural leaders to feed into that process. Arising out of more than just that process and arising out of Labor's deep commitment to protect the rights of migrant workers and to protect the rights of us all—protecting the rights of migrant workers protects the pay of everybody in the community, which might sound self-evident to us, but those on the other side know that, if you undermine the wages of migrant workers, you undermine the wages of the whole community. Coming out of that philosophy, we commenced that migration review, and, coming out of that, here are some of the measures, in this bill.

There are two things here particularly—the whole point of this legislation is to create a register so people like the young woman that came into my office will be able to easily search for another employer who is able to continue to sponsor her. That's essentially what this bill does. This bill also builds on previous bills which crack down on unscrupulous employers. This is where I think—I really do want to be bipartisan as much as I can in this place, but here there is a fundamental difference of values and philosophy. This is probably the best example of the hypocrisy of the opposition—they beat their chest a lot about law enforcement, but they don't fund it. On a slightly different topic of the NDIS, the measures that we've introduced around the NDIS to crack down on fraud mean that we are now reviewing more claims every day in the NDIS in one day than the previous government did in a year, which is an example of the sort of chest-beating that we've come to expect from the opposition, who talk a tough game but are completely missing on the field. Just as it is with migration, they are out there constantly beating their chests, but they totally underresourced the Australian Border Force. They totally undercooked the legislation to allow the Australian Border Force to crack down on unscrupulous employers. Yet again that burning wreck, that smoking wreck of a migration system left to us—it's in their DNA to turn a blind eye to the companies that are doing this. It's left to us to fix it. In fact, that 2019 report from the Migrant Workers' Taskforce recommended tougher penalties and a better resourced Australian Border Force—and what did you think they did? Absolutely nothing. They sat on their own report and left it to us to clean up the mess.

In summary, this bill is the latest in a long line of measures the Albanese Labor government has undertaken to put out the bin fire that is our migration system. The hypocrisy of the opposition is exposed the most when it comes to migration. While they are out there stoking division and people's fears, they benefit from a system where people come in and get exploited because they can drive down the wages and conditions of Australian workers.

These changes are the latest in a long line of Labor Party initiatives stretching back 150 years, where the Labor Party has stood up for Australians by standing up for the Australians who come here to work and who come here to make a life. This government has brought in new measures to crack down on dodgy employers. We've raised the income threshold under which you can come into Australia on a skilled visa. This bill makes it easier now for that young woman who came into my office, desperate to stay in Australia but also desperate to fight for the rights of the workers she left behind when she was sacked, to find an employer who is properly accredited and who is going to sponsor her dream.

The opposition are out there talking about mass migration. They're out there marginalising already marginalised communities. They're out there punching down on some of the most vulnerable people in our community. They should take a good hard look at themselves. The result they got at the last election will be the result they get in future elections because they are now talking to the fringe. The real Australia out there that believes in justice and the Labor Party that has always believed in justice is the community that won't tolerate an opposition that washes its hands of looking after the most vulnerable in our country.

Long debate text truncated.

Tony Burke

I move:

That the business of the day be called on.

Milton Dick

The question is that the business of the day be called on.

Alex Hawke

I move:

That the Deputy Speaker's ruling be dissented from.

Chris Bowen

I rise to defend the chair, and I rise to defend you and your ruling, Madam Deputy Speaker Claydon. I rise to defend, Madam Deputy Speaker, your right to make rulings.

Sharon Claydon

I need to check that the motion for dissent has been seconded. Who has seconded it? We need to follow the procedure correctly, and then we can deal with it.

Alex Hawke

The minister doesn't know what he's talking about.

Sharon Claydon

No-one's got the call. You do not have the call, Manager of Opposition Business. You're moving a dissent. We need to follow the procedure, which means you need to have it in writing with a seconder. Have you got that? I haven't seen it.

Alex Hawke

Are you asking me? I have moved the motion. I have submitted the motion. It has a mover and a seconder.

Sharon Claydon

Thank you. Now the debate can take place.

Alex Hawke

We are in the incredible situation today where the minister at the table is defending his new role as president of COP31 and saying our attempt to say to the Australian people that he will be part time as he will be busy overseas, serving interests there rather than working on the power prices of Australians and Australian businesses, is unparliamentary. It is outrageous that, in this parliament, you can't make the case that members or ministers are not full time in the interests of the Australian people. Why not? Why can't that argument be made to the Australian parliament?

Let me remind the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, who should remember this, that the Prime Minister who sat in this chamber and said that his ministers would be part time was his predecessor Paul Keating. He made that case. It was a serious topic of debate in this House—part-time and full-time ministers. There would be a rotation where ministers only turned up on the days that Prime Minister Keating said they would turn up. It was such a disgrace that Prime Minister Keating had to back down and, under pressure from the opposition, return ministers to being present every single question time.

Let's look at the record of the member for McMahon, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. He missed one day of scrutiny from the opposition or the people of Australia in this parliament because of his new role. So we have the perfect right to mount a case to Australians—the perfect right in debate, in general debate, to use the term 'part time'. It's perfectly okay. It is not unprofessional. It is not unparliamentary. It has real meaning because he is part time. He wasn't here to face the questions of the opposition or the Australian people. The minister was in the job overseas that we have been complaining about, not focused on Australians' energy prices.

In question time today, we heard from so many people here in opposition about what they're hearing from their electorates, such as business owners whose power bills are up 70 per cent—if you're listening at the moment, Minister. We've heard from individuals whose power bills have gone up substantially since this government got elected. And, yes, we have made the case that the minister's new role will mean that he is not fully occupied with fixing a 70 per cent increase in the power bills of certain businesses. We are making the case that part time is absolutely legitimate in this case—that he won't be fully engaged in the interests of Australians whose power bills are going through the roof. In fact, it's not only fair debate; it's an essential provision of democracy that we be allowed to say: 'This minister wasn't present to answer questions. This minister wasn't available on a parliamentary sitting day—when we had these questions on Monday.' We had them today. We were not sure if he would be back here today, but he slipped back into the country. The president returned! We asked him questions. If we are to make the case that his full-time role at COP31—and it is a full-time role, let's be honest. It's a role that will require money from Australian taxpayers to fund the staff that he will need. It will require bureaucrats to give him advice. It has real public and finance issues, and it's for the minister to defend his position, not the Speaker. It's for the minister to defend his position, not the Deputy Speaker. It's for the minister to say, 'My role is full time; my role is part time. Here's why. When I'm missing from parliament, it's okay.'

Prime Minister Paul Keating made the case that his ministers didn't need to be here every single day in question time. That's the case he made, and it went very badly in front of the Australian people. Paul Keating stood here and said that it's okay to roster on a minister and roster them off. Now we have Prime Minister Albanese telling us that it's okay for Minister Bowen to not be here because he is the    President of Negotiations in COP. Minister, we say that it's not okay. We say it's okay to mount a case part time or full time. We say that it's okay to use the language 'part-time' or 'full-time'. There is a slippery slope that we are on, and I know that the Leader of the House knows this. If we start banning 'part-time' and 'full-time' from our lexicon, we will be banning a lot of words. There will be a slippery slope of speakers from this day until every day of this parliament banning a new term and banning a new procedure for debate.

Every instinct of parliamentary democracy since Athens says you can use language in debate. Free speech says it. We know where free speech doesn't occur, don't we? The Prime said it today. 'We've got one view,' said the Prime Minister. Of course, you've got one view. There's no point looking at me and laughing or pointing and carrying on. You're not allowed to have a view. None of you on the backbench is allowed to have a view; we know that. Free speech requires language. Language is important. 'Part-time' is not offensive. It isn't unparliamentary. We're not making the reference in reference to his title. The opposition is making—

Sharon Claydon

Order! I need to bring you back to your dissent from my ruling about holding the Speaker's ruling. So just come back to that, and I will ask all members opposite also to just calm this down a little bit while we discuss sensibly this ruling.

Alex Hawke

We know this is a government with a 50 per cent majority. We understand that. That does not give them the right to be a dictatorship. That does not give them the right to trample on parliamentary democracy. It does not give this arrogant minister the right to say that, if we criticise him for being a part-time minister when he has been absent from this parliament, that he will be defended from the Speaker's chair—yes, I'm speaking to the dissent—because that should not be the case. The executive has enough protections. The minister has enough in place to protect his honour—the president's honour. The Speaker is not required to defend the minister's part-time or full-time nature. He should do it himself. So should members of the government. That's fair debate. It's fair debate in this place to use the term 'part-time'. It's fair to use 'full-time'. It's fair to say that a minister is part time or full time, and I think that will stand.

There can be no argument that you can make that says 'part-time' or 'full-time' is unparliamentary. There can be no argument that says this is an abuse of the standing orders. I regret that this has happened. I regret that we are here, but if we are here, we will not shirk from the debate every single day that, if you have a full-time role overseas serving other interests, you will not be in the service of Australians and their power bills. Households and businesses are struggling and require a minister who is full time. I think that if fair-minded members of this parliament, wherever they sit, were allowed to have a view, they would say, 'Maybe this shouldn't have happened.'

The rules for questions are not the rules for debate. The separation in the standing orders is very clear. Rules for questions do not include the standing orders that cover the general provisions for debate. It is an attempt by the Albanese Labor government to cover up the fact that they have a part-time minister. It is nothing else but that.

A government member: You are reflecting on him again!

No; I am reflecting on the government. We do disagree with the Deputy Speaker. We do disagree with this ruling. We accepted the Speaker's ruling in relation to question time, but we will not accept a ruling that says it is unfair for a part-time member of the executive who turns up only when they get back from an overseas trip and who might be away 10 or 20 days next year—we don't know—from the parliamentary schedule. We want you to be here to face these questions. It's fair to say you're working part time if you're not here to answer questions, and it should be fair, in reasonable debate in this place, to be allowed to say that a member like the COP President of Negotiations is absent from question time when he should be here.

Ted O'Brien

I second the motion. If the Leader of the Opposition uses a descriptor about a minister being part time, there is no reason why that would be unparliamentary or out of order. It was not a title bestowed upon the minister by the Leader of the Opposition; it was a descriptor. It begs the question of what else we should use in its place. Should he be the 'intermittent' minister—when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining, the minister isn't working? Is that how we should describe this minister? Maybe the 'irregular' minister—one who relies only on batteries? The battery only works for two hours, and then there's nothing.

Angus Taylor

The dispatchable minister!

Ted O'Brien

Is he the 'dispatchable' minister? I think not. But I can tell you what I cannot call him. He is not the 'base-load' minister. He's not the minister that's on 24 hours a day. He's not the minister that's providing affordable energy to the Australian people. He's not those things.

I would have absolutely no concern if our side of this House were brought to order for actually calling him 'competent' or saying that he was doing Australia a favour in his role. But he is not. He is occasional, he is irregular, he is intermittent and he is incompetent, and this side of the House should have every right to speak freely not on the part of the coalition but on the part of the Australian people—on the part of the senior citizens who will go to Christmas without knowing if they can feed themselves or heat their house. That's on whose behalf we speak. We speak on behalf of the small businesses who are closing their doors because this government cannot manage the electricity grid and because this minister is intermittent. That is the problem. Yet we are told that we are not allowed in this House to call him a 'part-time' minister.

What I think is revealing here is—do you know who jumped to his feet? Guess who jumped to his feet to complain? The intermittent one himself! 'Oh, dear! They called me something,' he said. It's not very presidential, is it? It's not very presidential of him. He's very proud of his role. He's already spoken publicly—he's spoken from the dispatch box—about how important he is and how much power he has. He doesn't deliver any power, but he's spoken about how much power he has. Now he's excited because it's about him. I don't know how many times we have had MPIs in this chamber while he's been the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, but he's never turned up—not once! He's as reliable as his energy system is! But, then, there's a new topic, the topic is him, and here he is! We now know how to get him. He's not part time when it's about him, is he?

Sharon Claydon

Member for Fairfax, you're actually debating why you're dissenting from my upholding of the Speaker's ruling.

Ted O'Brien

All of these are reasons why we should be able to describe this minister as working only part time.

I don't know what's worse here. Is it the fact that he only works part time? It could be worse. Can you imagine how bad it would be if he were full time? Maybe we've got this wrong after all. God help us—can you imagine if he actually tried harder with the Australian energy system? Oh deary! God knows we wouldn't have any electricity at all. We'd all become candlestick makers.

I second this motion because this chamber deserves not just freedom of speech but the freedom to speak the truth, and the truth is this minister is part time and incompetent.

Sharon Claydon

I give the call to the Leader of the Opposition—the Leader of the House.

Tony Burke

I knew they were looking to change. I didn't know it went that far.

Hon. Members

Honourable members interjecting—

Sharon Claydon

A little bit of order please. I'm stating the question, which is that my ruling to uphold the Speaker's ruling is now being dissented from.

Long debate text truncated.

Andrew Gee

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring immediately:

the Member for Calare presenting a Bill for an Act to protect Australia's prime agricultural land, and for related purposes;

debate on the second reading of the bill proceeding immediately for a period of no longer than one hour; and

any questions required to complete passage of the bill then being put without delay.

Today is a historic day for Australia. Today I bring to this House our country's first bill to protect Australia's prime agricultural land. It is legislation that is crucial to the future of our country. This bill will secure and safeguard not only Australia's prime agricultural land but also our nation's food security. It's hard to believe that a country which relies so much on agriculture to sustain it has never before passed legislation to protect the land that is the source of such bounty and prosperity. The member for Kennedy and I are committed to bringing this legislation before the parliament because this matter is urgent. Our prime agricultural land is at serious risk.

The gross value of agricultural production has increased by 34 per cent in the past 20 years to $82.4 billion in 2023-24. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences has forecast that the gross value of agricultural production will be $95 billion in 2025-26. Agricultural exports were valued at $71.5 billion in 2023-24 and accounted for more than 10 per cent of all goods and service exports. In 2024-25 the value of Australian agricultural exports surged to $77.2 billion, or 15.1 per cent of Australia's total exported goods. These statistics demonstrate how important agriculture is to our country and also to the future of regional Australia.

As the population of the world continues to increase, so too does the importance of food and water resources. Their social, economic and strategic importance can't be underestimated. This being the case, why hasn't anyone made any effort to safeguard our prime agricultural land? Other countries, like Canada, are way ahead of us. British Colombia, for example, has been protecting its best agricultural land for many years. As the Australian population grows, the footprints of our cities, towns and villages continue to grow as well. Around our country, including regional Australia, residential developments and urban sprawl are encroaching onto some of our finest agricultural land. This is the land that feeds and nourishes us, yet we're building houses on it. It's wrong, and it must stop.

It's not just residential development that poses a threat to prime agricultural land. Across regional Australia, foreign corporations are rolling out renewables projects, some of which are on prime agricultural land. I'm not against renewable energy, but at some point our national interest has to be the paramount consideration. To be clear, we should not have foreign corporations or anyone else effectively deciding how our prime agricultural land is used. Our prime agricultural land should be off limits. Residential and industrial developments need to go elsewhere. Our prime agricultural land should be preserved for agriculture. I should haven't to spell it out, but food security is a key part of national security. A nation which can't feed itself is a vulnerable one. It would be a national tragedy if we continued to squander this extraordinary resource by building residential and industrial development on top of it.

The Protecting Australia's Prime Agricultural Land Bill provides that, if a person, which includes a corporation, is in possession of prime agricultural land, the person must not use the land for a purpose other than agriculture or permit another person to use the land for a purpose other than agriculture. It also provides that, if a person purchases prime agricultural land, the person must ensure that the land is not used for a purpose other than agriculture. The bill also makes it a requirement that a person in possession of prime agricultural land that is being used in part for a purpose other than agriculture at the date of commencement of this proposed act must not expand or extend such usage. The bill further requires that, if prime agricultural land is being used for a purpose other than agriculture as at the date of commencement and such non-agricultural use ceases, the prime agricultural land must once again be used for agriculture.

The House needs to urgently consider this bill because our prime agricultural land is under threat and it can't be taken for granted. The general public listening to this debate may well be asking: 'How has this been allowed to happen? How come nobody has stood up to protect our prime agricultural land?' The truth is that there has been a shocking failure of politicians at all levels of government to do their jobs—lazy local councils prepared to rubberstamp developments regardless of their impact on agriculture, lazy and derelict town and city planning and lazy state governments failing to pass planning laws to properly protect our prime agricultural land. At a federal level, the major parties have also been asleep at the wheel on this issue since the time of Federation.

Where have the so-called guardians of the bush, the National Party, been on this? They claim to be the protectors of agriculture, but in 12 years in New South Wales government and nine years in federal government they utterly failed to live up to one of their founding tenets and very reason for existence—not one piece of legislation. They have completely and abjectly failed to protect our vital and irreplaceable prime agricultural land. And let's not forget that it was the National Party that created renewable energy zones in New South Wales and which also passed laws to put wind farms into state forests and then abrogated its responsibility to properly regulate them. They've created chaos, pitting neighbour against neighbour, failing to ensure that there is genuine consultation between developers and communities and failing to properly protect the rights of neighbouring landholders. The failure has been epic. It's been of epic proportions.

Since being in opposition, instead of getting on with the job of formulating legislation like this, the National Party have spent their time fighting each other and their coalition partners. Who could forget the attempted forced retirement of the members for New England and Riverina. Well, the member for New England has taken the hint, and they may well live to regret it. I don't think he's going to go quietly into the night. Then they split from the Liberals over what they said was a matter of extremely high principle, only to call it off two days later when they realised they would lose staffing positions, take a pay cut and have Liberals running in their seats. In the spirit and tradition of the English cricket team, they still claim to be the victors in the seat of Calare, despite that not being reflected on the score board. Things are so bad that they are going to be out of power for years, and yet the country is crying out for effective opposition. The public is sick of the petty political power plays and the back-stabbing.

Because of the chaos, the grandstanding, the veritable bonfire of the vanities on the opposition benches as they scrap over the spoils of defeat, it falls to the crossbench to do the heavy lifting for Australia, and that is what this bill is all about. Australia's farmers are the best in the world. Our prime agricultural land is a precious gift that must be protected. It defies belief that we continue to build houses, parking lots and industrial developments on it. If we don't act now, it will continue to disappear before our eyes. I urge members of the House to come into this chamber and support this bill right now. To the National Party: don't just say you support agriculture. Come in and vote for it. This bill is the Independents doing your jobs for you. To those Liberal and Labor Party members and, indeed, to all members, I say to you: remember where your food comes from. It doesn't just magically appear on supermarket shelves. To all members of this House: I remind you that our nation's ability to feed itself comes from the great food baskets of country Australia and its prime agricultural land. It's also where the fibre comes from that makes the clothes we wear. To all members of this House: this is your moment to stand up for agriculture, to stand up for our nation's food security. Come into this chamber and support the Protecting Australia's Prime Agricultural Land Bill.

I commend the bill to the House and I seek leave to table a copy of the bill and the explanatory memorandum.

Leave granted.

Lisa Chesters

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Rebekha Sharkie

I second the motion because it is imperative and it is urgent that we debate this bill today. The reason why is that God's not making any more land but in Australia we act like he is. We continue to concrete over our best farmland in our nation. We don't value our farmland. We think that there will just be more of it, and there won't. It is a finite resource that belongs to all Australians.

Look at South Australia, my state. Only 11 per cent of our land is considered arable, only nine per cent is under production and only four per cent of the total land area of South Australia is considered highly arable farmland, where you have 500 millimetres of rainfall a year on average. And yet it is that four per cent that is under the most threat in my state, and it's under threat from the expansion of housing—the continual urban sprawl. We are going to get to a point in our nation where we have nowhere to farm, nowhere that has quality land, because it's all going to be housing. What are we going to eat?

These decisions that we make in this place today affect generations to come. The decisions that we make in this place today are decisions about which in 100 years time fellow Australian are going to say: 'What on earth were you doing? Why did you not protect our most important resource?' That is why we must debate this today.

I commend the member for Calare. I second this motion and commend him for this bill, for his foresight and for his insight, because right across Australia our local and state governments, through greed and through laziness, are continuing to carve up every decent bit of farmland, turn it into 300-square-metre blocks and stick a house on them. We're going to have nowhere to grow food. And what does that mean? Where do we get our food from? We're still going to need to eat as a nation. Do we import all of our food? Does our milk come from overseas? Does all of our food—everything you buy in the supermarket? It's bad enough now how difficult it is to find Australian food on our supermarket shelves. In generations to come, that will become worse. We must support this bill and we must debate this bill today, because in my electorate, whether it's down at Sellicks; at Mount Barker, outside of my electorate; out to Roseworthy; or further out, we are just carving up more and more of the nation's best farmland.

In fact, in South Australia back in 1991, the South Australian government's natural resources management standing committee did a report on the alienation of rural farmlands. They said that, if rural lands continue to be alienated at the rate and in the manner permitted in the past, the state will be faced with a serious conflict between commercial farmers and other land users and, ultimately, significant losses in primary production are likely.

That was 34 years ago, and I can tell you that, in my state, since that time, we have gone further and further. The urban sprawl just continues to go further and further. I look at where we used to grow wheat. I look at where we had cattle, where we had strawberry farms, where we had mushroom farms—just beyond. And now it's all housing, and it's going to get worse and worse. We should be making decisions in this place that protect that farmland.

As the member for Calare said, over in Canada—if anyone here travels to Europe, they will see that they value their farmland. They value their food security. But, here, we just think God's going to make more of it. Well, he's not. We know that, with climate change, we're going to get drier and drier as a continent. We know that where that line is—we have Goyder's Line in South Australia. They say that it's going to become lower and lower and that the arable land will get smaller and smaller.

In South Australia, just four per cent of our farmland is highly arable farmland. That should be protected for that purpose. It should be farmland. We need to have national leadership, and that is why this is being called on in this parliament. I would urge the parliament to act on this today for future generations tomorrow that deserve our doing something today, while we still can, to fix and address this.

Andrew Charlton

I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Milton Dick

The question is that the debate be adjourned.

Tony Burke

I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Nicolette Boele

by leave—I move amendments (1) and (2) as circulated in my name together:

(1) Schedule 1, item 2, page 7 (line 2), omit "members.", substitute "members; and".

(2) Schedule 1, item 2, page 7 (line 2), at the end of subsection 110ABA(2), add:

(e) 2 persons, each of whom is a member of the House of Representatives or a Senator but not a member of the Government or the Opposition.

In this year's federal election, Independents and minor parties received more votes than the Liberal-National coalition, achieving 34 per cent of the primary vote. While Labor would have us focus on their 94-seat so-called supermajority, only about 35 per cent of Australians gave Labor their first preference. This is no anomaly. This is a very long trend in Australian politics. In 1975, minor parties and Independents accounted for only four per cent of the primary vote. Fifty years later, the non-major-party vote of 34 per cent represents the highest recorded since the emergence of the two-party system. That's nearly a ninefold increase. This is the modern Australian political landscape—a third of the votes for Labor, a third for the coalition and a third for the rest. Understandably, the major parties do not like this trend, and, understandably, they would like the status quo to remain where the two major parties are the only voices in Australian politics, and this bill is evidence of that.

For good reason, the government is creating a parliamentary joint committee on defence, and the stated aim of the bill is to inject greater parliamentary transparency and accountability and oversight of Defence. In fact, I was very interested to hear the member for Fremantle speak on this bill last week. He seems to share my view in relation to the committee, noting it is important that, with respect to matters of national security and the national intelligence community, ordinary parliamentarians who are not members of the executive can have some visibility over these matters. These are worthy aims, and I am very much on board.

Other committees in this place have rules that not only allow but require crossbench members to be part of them. Membership of this proposed committee has no such requirement. It has no requirement that a member of the crossbench be included—members of parliament who the Australian people have entrusted with a third of their vote, the same as Labor and the same as the coalition. The bill provides only for government or non-government members. In fact, the appointment provisions are identical to the appointment provisions for the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. This means that, in practice, both the Intelligence and Security Committee and the proposed Defence Committee will never include members from the Australian parliament's crossbench.

There is something wildly arrogant about this—that when it comes to security and intelligence matters, when it comes to the defence of our nation, only Labor, Liberal and National Party members are considered qualified to weigh in; only major-party members are to be trusted to oversee these vitally important matters. This is despite the breadth of experience on the crossbench in relation to these matters—the member for Calare, for example, and the member for Clark. The member for Clark has been a lieutenant colonel in the Australian Army, has had senior management roles with an American defence contractor, has served as an intelligence officer with the Office of National Assessments and is a two-time winner of the Australian Intelligence Medal. That membership of the Labor, Liberal or National Party makes you more qualified than this to serve on a defence committee is preposterous. The defence of our country, the security of our citizens is a matter for the entire nation, not just those elected to major parties. My constituents and the constituents of every one of the 13 members of the crossbench in this place deserve to be represented. It's profoundly undemocratic. I fail to understand how it can be justified.

The amendment that I am proposing to this bill simply requires that one crossbench member from the House and one crossbench member from the Senate be appointed to the Defence Committee—simple, fair, democratic and entirely reasonable. To repeat, this is now a firmly established trend in Australia's voting patterns. At this year's election, 34 per cent of voting Australians—that's 6,150,000 people in this country—put their trust in independents and minor parties. That is 6,150,000 who wanted those candidates to represent them in parliament, in all aspects of the business of this parliament. Locking out elected members in order to protect the major-party duopoly does not pass the pub test. The duopoly ignores the reality of the Australian political landscape of the 21st century at its peril. I commend this amendment to the House.

Peter Khalil

I thank the member for Bradfield for her contribution. The government will not be supporting this amendment to the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025. The membership arrangements of this proposed committee reflect, quite rightly, the arrangements of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, and the reason they reflect those arrangements is the success of the longstanding and well-respected PJCIS. It is a key model for the parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence which allows for effective, balanced oversight of defence matters by both government and non-government members. The selection of members of parliament is made in the same way as for the PJCIS—by the Prime Minister, who will select up to 13 members, non-government and government members.

Andrew Gee

I rise to support the member for Bradfield in her comments and in her amendment. This parliament operates on the principle that every representative comes here with an equal voice. The fact that, on certain committees, crossbench members are effectively being shut out is profoundly undemocratic and shows that it's the old political parties at work. This is a case of the major parties looking down their noses and sneering at crossbench members by suggesting that somehow we can have crossbench members on some committees but, when it comes to defence and intelligence, they are going to be shut out. I think it is disgraceful, and I think the Australian public expects that everyone comes into this place and gets an equal go and has an equal say. The fact that the major parties are trying to shut out crossbench members is disgraceful. It's profoundly undemocratic and it will not be forgotten on the crossbench. At some point, our friends on that side of the aisle and our friends over here are going to need the crossbench, and we will remember the condescension and the sneering nature with which you have treated the crossbench members when it comes to this legislation. We will not forget this.

Milton Dick

The question is that the amendment moved by the member for Bradfield be agreed to.

Tony Burke

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring today:

(1) in the House:

(a) standing order 33 (limit on business after normal time of adjournment) being suspended for the sitting; and

(b) at 8 pm, notwithstanding standing order 31, the adjournment debate being interrupted and government business having priority until:

(i) business concludes, if earlier than 10 pm; or

(ii) 10 pm; or

(iii) a later time specified by a Minister prior to 10 pm;   .at which point, the debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until Wednesday, 5 November at 9 am;

(2) today in the Federation Chamber, government business being given priority until the Federation Chamber adjourns at approximately 9.30 pm;

(3) the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 being debated in cognate with government business orders of the day Nos. 5 to 10; and

(4) any variation to this arrangement being made only on a motion moved by a Minister.

To explain to the House what all of that procedure means, firstly, the 6.30 rule still applies, so after 6.30 pm people who are not expecting to speak or not rostered on in the House certainly won't be required for divisions or for quorum calls after 6.30 pm.

Secondly, in this House, if you are rostered to speak on the adjournment debate, the adjournment speeches will still go ahead, but at 8 pm the House will not adjourn. The House will return to government business and continue on government business until 10 pm. The only circumstance where a minister might ask for it to go longer than 10 pm is if we've got a final speaker and they've got a few minutes left in their speech. Other than that, it would be a 10 pm cut-off, unless we end up with fewer speakers.

Thirdly, the Federation Chamber would also be continuing until 9.30 pm tonight, and the final thing is, instead of debating the seven bills separately, we would have the cognate debate that was circulated earlier today with respect to the environment legislation.

Alex Hawke

The coalition supports working on cup day—good idea, a very Australian principle. We'll all share the productivity gains we can make here in parliament. However, the government has constructed this motion with the cognate debate, which we do not support. We think inherently that the 1,500-page bill, or the five bills, should be debated separately for good reason—policy reasons—and, for a proper consideration in detail process, we will oppose this motion on that point only. But the rest of the arrangements are agreed to.

Milton Dick

The question is that the motion moved by the Leader of the House be agreed to.

Andrew Wallace

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following:

(1) the Crimes Amendment (Mandatory Minimum Sentences for Child Sexual Abuse) Bill 2025 standing referred to the Federation Chamber;

(2) the bill being called on for debate upon resumption of the meeting of the Federation Chamber today at 4 pm, with the time for each second reading speech limited to 10 minutes; and

(3) proceedings on the bill having priority over all other government legislation, with debate concluding no later than 6 pm today, and any questions required to complete the bill's consideration in the Federation Chamber being put immediately.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following:

(1) the Crimes Amendment (Mandatory Minimum Sentences for Child Sexual Abuse) Bill 2025 standing referring to the Federation Chamber;

(2) the bill being called on for debate upon resumption of the meeting of the Federation Chamber today at 4 pm with the time for each second—

Milton Dick

Order! The member for Fisher will pause for a moment. The Leader of the House.

Tony Burke

Under standing order 45C, I move:

That order of the day No. 3 be called on.

Milton Dick

The question is that the motion moved by the Leader of the House be agreed to.

Melissa McIntosh

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That the House:

(1) notes:

(a) the Senate has passed a motion to establish an inquiry, to be conducted by the Environment and Communications References Committee, on the triple zero outages of 18 September 2025, with the committee to report by 11 February 2026;

(b) the Senate has requested that its resolution on this matter be communicated to the House;

(c) on 8 October 2025, the Government blocked a motion moved by the Member for Lindsay to establish a select committee to be known as a House Select Committee on the Triple Zero Ecosystem to inquire into and report on the health of the triple zero ecosystem;

(d) the Opposition expedited the passage of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Calling Powers) Bill 2025 through the House upon a motion first moved by the Opposition; and

(e) the recommendations of the Australian Government review into the Optus outage of 8 November 2023 (the Bean Review) have still not been fully implemented by the Government; and

(2) requires:

(a) the Minister for Communications, as a House Minister, to fully cooperate with the inquiry and appear in person to outline in full her role in the serious outages that have occurred in the triple zero ecosystem; and

(b) that the Minister provide transparency around the failure of the Government to ensure that the legal obligations of telecommunications providers to enable emergency services calls at all times are met.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Lindsay from moving the following motion immediately:

That the House:

(1) notes:

(a) the Senate has passed a motion to establish an inquiry, to be conducted by the Environment and Communications References Committee, on the triple zero outages of 18 September 2025, with the committee to report by 11 February 2026;

(b) the Senate has requested that its resolution on this matter be communicated to the House;

(c) on 8 October 2025, the Government blocked a motion moved by the Member for Lindsay to establish a select committee to be known as a House Select Committee on the Triple Zero Ecosystem to inquire into and report on the health of the triple zero ecosystem;

(d) the Opposition expedited the passage of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Calling Powers) Bill 2025 through the House upon a motion first moved by the Opposition; and

(e) the recommendations of the Australian Government review into the Optus outage of 8 November 2023 (the Bean Review) have still not been fully implemented by the Government; and

(2) requires:

(a) the Minister for Communications, as a House Minister, to fully cooperate with the inquiry and appear in person to outline in full her role in the serious outages that have occurred in the triple zero ecosystem; and

(b) that the Minister provide transparency around the failure of the Government to ensure that the legal obligations of telecommunications providers to enable emergency services calls at all times are met.

Mr Speaker, people died when they couldn't call triple 0 during that Optus outage, and the Albanese Labor government has had multiple chances to come in here. We have moved amendments. We have suspended standing orders. We have reached out to the minister and offered our assistance in coming to a solution so that this never happens again. Yet the government and the Greens have teamed up to block increased penalties for telcos who do the wrong thing. We moved amendments three times. Three times the government had opportunities to increase those penalties from $10 million. We said it should be $40 million. They did a dirty deal with the Greens and now we're at $30 million. But we gave them that chance. This could have been done weeks and weeks ago.

Shame on the government for failing every Australian in this country and not holding telcos to account for their failures. The Albanese Labor government teamed up with the Greens and blocked each and every coalition amendment on the bill that would have forced those telcos to pay for their mistakes. They blocked the coalition's amendment for a public triple 0 outage register. They have, however, instructed ACMA to change the industry standard to require the telcos to publish this data, not publicly but on their own website—so, multiple telcos publishing their own outages. Do you think that's really going to happen?

These are the very telcos, like Optus, who failed to detect an outage for almost 13 hours and then failed abysmally at every turn to provide notifications of the outage to everyone. Every update that they provided to the minister, to her office, to the Department of Communications and to ACMA, the regulator, was wrong. How on Earth can Australians have their confidence in the triple 0 network restored when the Albanese Labor government is choosing to outsource this work right back to the very telcos that have failed to uphold it?

Even worse, the reporting mechanisms created by the triple 0 custodian bill are absolutely useless. The bill requires a report to be produced every six months by the new custodian and ACMA, but the reports won't be publicly available. People won't know what is in those reports. Both the coalition and Senator Payman called for this amendment in the other place, but the Albanese government and the Greens blocked both amendments. I, along with so many Australians, am disgusted at the actions of the Albanese government on this matter of protecting Australians.

Yesterday the Senate supported the establishment of a Senate inquiry into the absolutely catastrophic Optus outage that occurred in September. I moved a motion in this place three weeks ago that would have established a House inquiry that could have already been underway. Parliament has now wasted three weeks in getting on with the job. Those on the other side of the chamber chose to block that inquiry, despite its being supported by the coalition and the full crossbench. This is despite the Standing Committee on Communications, the Arts and Sport having absolutely nothing to do, as was revealed in the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday.

Rather than have common sense prevail and put the safety and wellbeing of all Australians first, this arrogant and transparency-phobic Albanese government have tried to dodge a bullet, but they've failed. The Senate inquiry established will use all its powers to interrogate not just Optus but also the Department of Communications, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, and any other relevant and involved stakeholder.

Relevant stakeholders, I will point out, include the Minister for Communications. I expect that a request for the minister to attend a committee hearing will arrive very soon. I don't have to use any psychic abilities to foreshadow what will happen; I can guess that the minister won't be available. I think that's a pretty strong prediction. There will be some sporting event or international travel commitment that will prevent her from attending. They love scrutiny on that side of the House, which leads me to the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Calling Powers) Bill 2025. You can duck and you can weave and you can stack the numbers in this place all you like. You can't dodge the Senate inquiry on this matter. I've no doubt that the government will try.

Just the other day, there were media reports on yet another triple 0 outage in Gippsland, Victoria. According to the ABC, a 70-year-old retired nurse discovered the triple 0 network outage after she attempted to call an ambulance when she had a fall. Her call, just like more than 600 calls back in September, failed to connect. Optus have advised my office that this outage was due to a site upgrade in the area. But what concerns me is the apparent lack of communication to the community that services may be impacted. People didn't know. In the current environment, after so many catastrophic failures, failures that have cost Australia, communication outages, planned or unplanned, should be at the forefront of every telco's mind.

When it comes to the Senate inquiry, it needs to be about the full ecosystem. The inquiry needs to ask the question: how can a telco receive millions of dollars in government contracts at the same time as potentially having to pay millions of dollars in fines for letting down Australians? That just doesn't stack up. Every single Australian will be asking how they can get away with that. The inquiry needs to look at every single telco and what they do to ensure the safety of Australians.

It is unconscionable that a human error within a telco could cause a complete failure where hundreds of people could not call our most essential triple 0 service. How can a process error cause such disaster? What is happening within these companies? Where is the accountability? How can ACMA, the regulator, be the investigator in this matter when they are caught up in the failed process? ACMA knew about the outage on the Thursday. By law, Optus had to alert them. Yet, the minister didn't know about the outage until the Friday. Multiple emails went to ACMA and to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts, yet the minister didn't know. How can ACMA investigate itself? There needs to be a thorough independent investigation, which is what we on this side, the coalition, have been calling for all along.

More communication, not less, is required to ensure that every Australian is informed and can take appropriate steps to protect themselves. More needs to be done. What will it take for the Albanese Labor government and telcos to take this seriously and put the needs of all Australians first, protecting the triple 0 network from these outages? There is nothing more important, no other higher priority, for a government than to protect its own citizens.

Milton Dick

Is the motion seconded?

Anne Webster

I second the motion. There are serious questions to be answered about the triple 0 outages on this government's watch, and, if the minister and government are adamant that they did nothing wrong, why not bring the Australian public into their confidence and share, through a proper and transparent inquiry, what they knew and when they knew it? The government has commissioned ACMA to stage an inquiry, but, as ACMA is part of the failed system, how can it be held to account if it is running the inquiry? Independence is the key here. ACMA's inquiry is not independent.

We must remember the gravity of the issue at hand. We're talking about the loss of lives—four lives lost. Shirking responsibility is not an option. The Australian people deserve to understand what went on, how the system failed and how it will be rectified to ensure this does not happen again in the future. The minister, the department and ACMA must all transparently explain, at an independent inquiry, when they were first alerted to an issue with the triple 0 connectivity and what actions they took. Serious questions remain about welfare checks and whether they were quick and comprehensive enough to identify the full scope of the problem early enough. Did the minister act appropriately in leaving ACMA to investigate, rather than herself swiftly acting on 18 September?

It simply is not good enough to hide behind Optus's indication about the scope of the outage, which, it turns out, significantly understated the problem. The key issue is notification of the problem, not the estimate of the scale of the problem. If someone reports a fire on their property and tells the responsible authority, 'It's okay; it's only a small fire,' do the authorities take that on trust and adopt a small-scale response, or do they deploy all available local resources to make their own threat assessment and prevent it becoming a disaster?

It is imperative that clear processes exist to ensure triple 0 outages are managed swiftly. There must also be resilience in the system to ensure it does not rely on a single point of failure—for example, a telecommunication company's incorrect estimation of the size of an outage. Triple 0 is the service that underpins all emergency service responses, and Australians need to have absolute confidence it is working. This is not the first outage on this government's watch but the second. And remember: this government sat on a recommendation to legislate a triple 0 watchdog, as per the Bean review, for 12 long months.

They also failed to adequately protect Australians from negative outcomes as a result of the 3G network shutdown, which occurred one year ago yesterday. We do not yet know the full scale of the fallout of that shutdown, with reports in the last week of the discovery of certain models of Samsung phones, which do not currently have triple 0 connectivity as a result of the 3G shutdown.

Regional Australians are acutely aware of how their mobile connectivity has deteriorated since telcos chose to turn off 3G on this government's watch. Many have been left with reduced or no connectivity as a result. No connectivity means no net zero—sorry, no triple 0, full stop. That was a very, very—

Pat Conaghan

It was on the mind.

Anne Webster

Yes, it is on the mind. Luck will not fix this Labor government's problem with transparency, timely action and responsibility. Australians want to know that when they call triple 0 they will connect; they want to know that the government understands their experience and will act to improve connectivity in the regions; and they want the minister for communications to take responsibility and take action to ensure this is the case. She needs to turn up to the Senate inquiry that will take place.

Michelle Rowland

I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Milton Dick

The question is that the debate be adjourned.

Zali Steggall

I move:

(2) Schedule 7, page 132 (line 1) to page 132 (line 13), omit the Schedule, substitute:

Schedule 7 — instant asset write-off for small business entities

Income Tax (Transitional Provisions) Act 1997

1 Section 328-180 (heading)

Omit "to 30 June 2025".

2 Subsection 328-180(1) (definition of increased access year )

Repeal the definition, substitute:

increased access year: an income year is an increased access year if any day of the year occurs on or after 12 May 2015.

3 Subsection 328-180(4)

Omit "Temporary increase", substitute "Increase".

4 Paragraph 328-180(4)(d)

Omit "$20,000", substitute "50,000".

5 Paragraph 328-180(4)(d)

Omit "and on or before 30 June 2025" (wherever occurring).

6 Paragraph 328-180(5)(e)

Repeal the paragraph, substitute:

(e) were a reference to $50,000, if the amount is so included at any time on or after 1 July 2023.

7 Paragraph 328-180(6)(e)

Repeal the paragraph, substitute:

(e) were a reference to $50,000, in relation to a deduction for an income year that ends on or after 1 July 2023.

This amendment is in relation to schedule 7, in relation to the instant asset write-off, which was first introduced as a stimulus measure some years ago. It is a practical way to boost cash flow and support investment, but, over the years, it has become a vital business planning tool. The problem is there's no ability for business to actually plan with this tool because there is no consistency. Each year it's implemented it is prey to politicking and becomes a political football. And it has changed over time. Usually it is for a limited time, and the thresholds keep changing. It's now at $20,000. When it was originally introduced, it was actually $150,000, but now it's back to $20,000 and is drip fed with the legislation every 12 months to extend the measure.

The amendment I move is to make this instant asset write-off permanent so that businesses can in fact have the certainty of knowing they can invest in their business, in innovation and efficiencies, ahead of time. The amendment increases it to an amount that is actually meaningful for small businesses to allow them to actually invest and boost their productivity. We know that nearly four million small businesses rely on this, and they want this. They want this to be at the $50,000 mark, and they want it to be permanent.

According to MYOB, who assist so many small businesses, nearly 60 per cent of small business would support a permanent instant asset tax write-off because the uncertainty undermines the confidence small businesses need to invest in their business. So if the government were genuine in their desire to assist small business, it would accept this amendment, because we have been calling on the government to make this instant asset write-off permanent for sometime. In the last two parliaments, we've seen this kicked around like a political football, and the people paying the price are small businesses. They are the ones who cannot invest in their business with certainty because they don't know whether the legislation will ultimately pass. In the last term of parliament, it passed on pretty much the very last sitting day, which was only a short period of time before the end of the financial year and which meant there was no ability for a business to genuinely look to this measure to invest in their business and boost their productivity.

There is a high-stakes roadmap. At a time when Australia needs policy settings that help to boost productivity and growth, we should be looking at ways to enhance investment by local businesses. The proposal to extend this doesn't provide the certainty that businesses need. When the amendment was before the House in the 2023-24 financial year, leading professional bodies, including the CPA, the Tax Institute of Australia and the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia, all called for the instant asset tax write-off measure to be made permanent. Permanency would reduce red tape for business, government and tax agents. While the government deserves credit for continuing the scheme, it's time to stop treating this as a temporary fix. Small businesses need long-term certainty.

Also, the current $20,000 threshold does not provide the economic stimulus needed for small businesses to have confidence to grow and invest. That's why my amendment seeks to make the instant asset write-off permanent and increases the threshold to $50,000 so that businesses have got a meaningful ability to invest in their businesses. I commend the amendment to the House.

Andrew Gee

I rise to support the amendments proposed by the member for Warringah, and I commend her for bringing these very important changes and amendments to the House. It is no secret that small businesses have been doing it very tough right around Australia but particularly in country Australia. There are high interest rates, high energy costs, inflation and too much red tape. There is red tape seemingly at every level of government. There's the stress that our small-business people experience of having to borrow money and lie awake at night hoping that they will be paid so they, in turn, can pay someone else.

It is not easy being in small business, yet our small-business people are key to driving jobs, prosperity and growth in the regions and right around the country. The instant asset write-off is a very important measure to support our small-business people. It enables our businesses to make key investments to keep their businesses thriving, which has been very difficult lately, but it could be made better. This is what the member for Warringah has put to this House. She wants to improve this key piece of legislation and this key measure for small business.

At the moment, as members such as the member for Wentworth have eloquently pointed out to this House, the instant asset write-off has been a year-to-year proposition. Businesses have not had certainty that the instant asset write-off will be there from one year to the next. Because of delays in the implementation and the passing of legislation relating to the instant asset write-off, it has meant that some businesses just haven't been aware of it. Some businesses have missed the opportunity to take advantage of it. So it should be made permanent. By making it permanent, it allows businesses to plan their investment decisions. It would allow them to steer by the stars instead of navigating by the lights of each passing ship, and that certainty is a very important thing for small businesses right around the country. So I'm very supportive of that measure in the amendments.

I'm also very supportive of actually extending the instant asset write-off and increasing it to $50,000. This will allow more businesses the flexibility to make larger investment decisions and receive the tax benefits that the instant asset write-off brings. It will drive more growth and more investment and will actually help our businesses thrive. I'm very supportive of the amendments. I commend them to the House, and I implore all members of this place to get behind the amendments and back our small businesses—the engine room of the Australian economy.

Milton Dick

The question is that amendment (2), put forward by the honourable member for Warringah, be agreed to.