Milton Dick

The question is that the bill be read a second time.

Pat Conaghan

At the request of the member for Farrer, I move opposition amendment (1) as circulated in her name:

(1) Schedule 2, item 65, page 60 (line 3), omit "may", substitute "must".

Anika Wells

The government does not support this very technical amendment. I can confirm for the member for Farrer that the government is drafting rules related to this bill which will be released for consultation next year.

Milton Dick

The question is that the amendment be agreed to.

Andrew Gee

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the private Members' business order of the day relating to the Doctors for the Bush Bill 2024 being called on immediately and being given priority over all other business for final determination of this House.

This bill needs to be debated urgently. There is a crisis unfolding in rural and regional Australia. It's a health crisis. It's a disaster unfolding before our eyes, and its consequences are absolutely devastating. This is an urgent matter. My Doctors for the Bush Bill actually does something about this.

All over central-western NSW and around country Australia, doctors are leaving the bush and they are not being replaced. Around the Calare electorate, the rural doctor shortage crisis is being felt in communities big and small. Gulgong had four doctors but now doesn't have any doctors at all, and this is putting pressure on larger towns like Mudgee. It has two medical practices and they are both no longer accepting any new patients. Practices in communities like Canowindra and Molong have also lost doctors and they are also closing their books to new patients or adopting a locals-only policy for appointments. In Wellington, it now takes two months to see a GP. The impact this crisis is having on the health of country people is very concerning and very shocking. It was only recently that I spoke to one local doctor, who said that they recently met one patient who had advanced cancer and had not been able to get in to see a doctor and had therefore missed out on vital treatment.

The rural doctor shortage crisis has been made much worse because country areas no longer have priority for overseas trained doctors. Before July 2022, if an overseas trained doctor or international medical graduate, as they are known, wanted to practise in Australia and bill Medicare they had to work in a country area for 10 years, unless that was reduced because they worked in more remote areas. These country areas were and still are known as distribution priority areas. For many rural areas, this policy was a lifeline, providing badly needed access to GPs and basic medical services. But all that changed in 2022 when the Labor government upended the Distribution Priority Area system and, for the first time, allowed outer metropolitan areas to become distribution priority areas.

For the Australian public tuning in now, all parts of Australia are classified according to what is called the Modified Monash Model. There are seven categories, ranging from MM 1, which is a major city, to MM 7, which is very remote. Previously areas MM 3 to MM 7 were distribution priority areas. To give people context, large regional centres like Bathurst and Orange are classified as MM 3; Lithgow and Mudgee are MM 4; Molong, Gulgong and Canowindra are MM 5. The government has now declared MM 2 areas as distribution priority areas, therefore destroying the priority for overseas trained doctors that country areas once had. This means that areas such as Fairfield, Hornsby and Warringah and the outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne now have the same priority as country areas for overseas trained doctors.

When you look at the map, it's quite clear that the whole state of New South Wales is basically one big Distribution Priority Area except for the inner suburbs of Sydney. People in the country cannot understand how this could possibly be, but the Doctors for the Bush Bill, which I introduced today, remedies this blatant unfairness by restoring the priority that country areas should have by legislating that Modified Monash Model areas MM 1 and MM 2 can't be classified as distribution priority areas. It will mean that country areas and country Australia once again has priority for international medical graduates. This restores the Distribution Priority Area system to that which existed before the last election. I would therefore expect that every single coalition MP would be lining up to support this bill. It will be very telling if they don't, and I would be very surprised and disappointed if their support isn't forthcoming.

In terms of the urgency of this matter, you only need to speak to the residents of the Calare electorate to hear what they have to say about the urgency of this issue. Carlo Nazeti writes:

A lack of consistent GP services has left many residents in distress. For example, some have shared their experiences on social media of running out of critical medications, such as thyroid medication, because local doctors are either unavailable or not accepting new patients. This level of neglect is putting lives at risk, and it is unacceptable in a country like Australia.

Mr Nazeti also writes:

It is critical that the government steps in to address this crisis before more lives are put at risk.

I have received correspondence from Ian Marsh, who is the president of the Gulgong RSL sub-branch. He is worried this shortage will mean, and he puts it bluntly, that people will die:

… from not being diagnosed or treated for conditions if they cannot get a GP appointment or a misdiagnosed through telemedicine or a subject to haphazard management of chronic conditions through lack of continuity of care.

He says:

I am sure you would not accept this in your home city or town and nor would you like to see your loved ones being treated in this system.

Helen Chisholm has written to me. She has said that she spoke to a local doctor in the Mudgee area and:

… he advised me that the GP shortage is now putting extra strain on the Mudgee Hospital as many people can no longer see their GP in a timely manner, if at all.

And it does not stop there. Sue Stanmore has written to me. She said:

I'm writing to you in regard of the sub standard health system we have here in the Mudgee District.

She goes on to state the surgeries in the Mudgee area have 'closed their books' and:

… Gulgong has no Dr's at all. With the growing community what are we expected to do, it's a joke in this day & age.

This highlights the urgency of this matter and of addressing the rural doctor shortage crisis. There is a Change.org petition we have started, which already has 13,000 signatures or thereabouts, which basically calls on the government to end the rural doctor storage crisis. So this bill that I have put into the House today is very important, because it actually takes action to do something about it.

As I said to this House earlier today, it's predicted that, in Australia, we will be short 10,600 GPs by 2031. At the same time, demand for GP services is expected to increase by 58 per cent over the next decade.

There is a fundamental unfairness and inequality in access to health services in this country. Out in the Central West of New South Wales, we call the Great Dividing Range the 'sandstone curtain', but it is a great divide in so many other ways as well. We need to actually take action, because the cold hard truth is that the further away you live from the city the shorter your life expectancy will be. That's the truth of the matter. With close to one-third of the Australian population living in the regions, how can this possibly be? The answer is simple: country people have less access to doctors, such as GPs, who are often the first point of contact when someone feels sick or has a health problem. This crisis is adding more strain onto an already overstretched hospital and emergency department system. We need to take action on it straightaway.

I commend this motion to the House, and I commend the Doctors for the Bush Bill 2024, to achieve better health outcomes for country patients. This situation is urgent. It's at crisis point, and it's critical that the House deals with this issue without delay.

Maria Vamvakinou

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Bob Katter

Yes, I second the motion. It's not entirely germane to what we are proposing here, but there were three Katter boys—my father and his two brothers. Their parents had gone out to their region in a stagecoach in the 1870s. Two of the boys died as a result of the tyranny of distance. My uncle was injured in a football match—and this is where the story does not really pertain to doctors in the bush. By the time the Qantas aeroplane—and my grandfather was a major shareholder in those days—came back from Longreach to Cloncurry and then took him from Cloncurry to Brisbane, it was too late. Sadly, he died. If the aeroplane had been at Cloncurry, he'd have been alright. So he died as a result of the tyranny of distance. My father had cancer. He should have gone down for the operation, but the airline strike came. He wouldn't jump the queue and he was in no condition to drive down. By the time he got down there, 3½ months later, it was too late; the cancer had got away. So he also died as a result of the tyranny of distance.

There are people dying every day in Australia because there is no local doctor. The actual statistics that were done some years ago indicated that, where you've got a thousand people in a town without a doctor, there will be a death once a year. So there's an actual figure that we can put upon this.

The honourable member quite rightly pointed out, when he moved to call on this legislation, that—and I could not believe this—when the very special help was given to country areas to help them to attract doctors, that included Cairns! It's one of the most salubrious places in the world to live. And it's isolated? Heavens! If Cairns is isolated, God help the rest of Australia! The honourable member is pointing out that most of Sydney is in the same category as far western New South Wales. How can that be? The government, whatever government it was, with good intentions, moved the legislation, and some serious lobbying by vested interests got them to change the legislation. So the minister quite rightly brings his attention to bear upon this fact.

For six or seven years of my life, I carried the names of six doctors around with me because, every time we lost a doctor in Julia Creek, I would ring up England or, I don't know, America. There was a place in the Middle East where a doctor was available. He's a good bloke. I had six doctors overseas that I could call to come in because I was determined that Julia Creek would not be without a doctor. Julia Creek had over a thousand people in those days and now it's got very much under a thousand people. One of the reasons people leave is that there are no doctors there. Yes, they send a doctor out for four or five days a week from Mount Isa or Townsville or somewhere, but that's not having a doctor there.

In our day, though we didn't have many doctors coming through the Brisbane university, which was the only university in Queensland, those doctors were, for two years, bound to go where the government sent them if they wanted to become qualified to practise in Queensland. We should return to that. I wouldn't say for two years but I'd say for a year and a quarter. The government puts a million dollars into you. If you graduate as a doctor, the government has put a million dollars into making you a doctor, and it will give you the right to earn a squillion dollars a year. If you've got the right to practise as a doctor, you'll be a very rich person. If the government gives you that right and gives you a gift of a million dollars to get that right, then I think you owe something to the people of regional Australia.

I say regional Australia because it's not just the Julia Creeks that we're talking about here. We're talking about the Mareebas. Mareeba's only 30 kilometres from Cairns, yet their situation is grim. (Time expired)

Long debate text truncated.

Steve Georganas

I understand that it is the wish of the House to consider the bill immediately. The question is that the bill be now read a second time.

David Coleman

I want to speak about section 43A of this bill, which seeks to say that the NBN must always stay in public ownership. It is a completely farcical piece of legislation that this government is seeking to put before the parliament. It contrasts this section—and indeed the whole bill—with many, many statements by members of the Labor Party about the NBN over a period going back some 14 years, when the government introduced the legislation in relation to the ownership of the NBN.

You know who actually introduced the legislation that this government is seeking to overturn? It was the member for Grayndler, the Prime Minister, who stood at the dispatch box over there and made a number of statements about the bill, which this section 43(a) seeks to overturn. He said the bill:

… sets out arrangements for the eventual sale of the Commonwealth's stake in the company once the NBN rollout is complete, including provisions for independent and parliamentary reviews prior to any privatisation, and for the parliament to have the final say on the sale.

What the Prime Minister—the member for Grayndler back then—said was that this legislation sets out processes in relation to NBN ownership. The minister for communications of the day put out a press release saying 'government committed to sale of NBN Co'. This section 43(a) seeks to overturn those arrangements.

Frankly, section 43(a) of this bill needs to be called out for the pathetic and sad stunt that it is. What matters with the NBN is the fact that, under this government, it is crashing to earth in a very bad way for Australian taxpayers. We saw the minister say last year, when huge price rises were approved for the NBN, that this was 'great news for consumers'. There were price rises of up to 14 per cent from October of last year to June this year. That was across just eight or nine months and affected six million Australians. We have seen people leave the NBN—and why are they leaving the NBN? It is because, under this government, the service is bad. The NBN satellite business is absolutely collapsing. It has lost tens of thousands of customers under this government. Does the government actually do something to focus on the success of the NBN and make sure it provides good products to Australians? No. The government's main interest in the NBN is the occasional hi-vis photo opportunity, but you don't make the NBN better for Australians by standing on the side of the road in a hi-vis vest. You just don't. But that is what this government is doing, and to say that price rises are great news for consumers is extraordinary.

We've also seen in the brownfields business of the NBN, which is the core NBN homes—this is existing homes. Guess how many Australians have abandoned the NBN's brownfields product under this government. One hundred thousand. And why are they leaving? They're leaving because prices are going up and up and because the service is poor. You know what else is happening for taxpayers under this government and the NBN? The cash losses continue to increase. In the last financial year, we saw Australian taxpayers have a cash loss of $1.4 billion, up $300 million on the previous year. NBN is losing heaps of cash, losing lots of customers and raising prices. It's a very bad situation.

Logically, what should you be doing? You should be focusing on getting the NBN back on track so it actually provides good services for Australians and Australians don't continue to leave at such an extraordinary rate. But the government instead is trying to create a silly faux debate about the ownership of the NBN in contrast to its own legislation and its own public statements about this issue, which had always contemplated circumstances in which its ownership arrangements could potentially change down the track.

What we need is maturity. We don't need silly, lame, pathetic, childish stunts. We need maturity about the NBN. We need a focus on getting the NBN back on track. We need a government that can actually successfully lead the NBN. We don't need this silly legislation.

Bob Katter

by leave—I move amendments (1) to (3) as circulated in my name together:

(1) Schedule 1, item 1, page 3 (line 7), after paragraph 3(1)(b), insert:

; (c) to ensure that NBN Co has a universal service obligation to provide the national broadband network in a way that is reasonably accessible to all people in Australia on an equitable basis, wherever they reside or carry on business.

(2) Schedule 1, item 12, page 4 (after line 22), after the paragraph beginning "Under provisions" in section 43, insert:

NBN Co has a universal service obligation to provide the national broadband network in a way that is reasonably accessible and equitable to all people in Australia.

(3) Schedule 1, item 13, page 5 (line 7), at the end of section 43A, add:

; and (c) NBN Co has a universal service obligation to provide the national broadband network in a way that is reasonably accessible to all people in Australia on an equitable basis, wherever they reside or carry on business.

The previous speaker was talking about whether we should own government assets or whether the incompetent Public Service should own and run assets. A more streamlined, foreign ownership is what he is advocating. That's his line, but you'd see it differently if you were sitting in a car that was dry-bogged to the eyeballs and you were praying with rosary beads for your survival when the ground temperature was about 200 degrees Fahrenheit and your father had third-degree burns and was suffering heat stroke and had nearly died. You'd probably see communications a bit differently than you city blokes see it. You have absolutely no concern for anything outside the cities.

To their enormous disgrace, the founders of the Country Party would turn in their graves if they saw all those banks that they set up being sold off by the Country Party, which now call themselves the National Party. They would see, in the deregulation, the protection that all of our farming industries had being removed. They would be horrified.

But you don't care how many of us die in the bush. You couldn't give a damn. There's a person dying once a fortnight in the greater Cairns region simply because of the collapse of the roads system there. The Liberals would say that it's Labor's fault. Well, the Liberals are now in there. Will anything happen?

We're talking about communications. Our honourable member here is from Tasmania. All of Tasmania, really, is a rural and regional area. They will suffer the same as the rest of us. I would say that probably every week in Australia there's an accident where they desperately need a telephone to get an ambulance there to save somebody's life. It might even be that every day that occurs in Australia.

There are 60,000 or 70,000 people living on the Atherton tableland, 30 kilometre from Cairns, and there are three highways on which it will take you about an hour and a half to get there. In spite it being only 30 kilometre, it will take you an hour and a half. Those roads are not covered by the current communication system, so if you have an accident on those roads, too bad, so sad. You just hope someone comes along and can get to a telephone somewhere or get somewhere to use his mobile and rescue you. I can go into the details of how many accidents are occurring, but we've had one death a fortnight there, I think, for the last two or three months. I use that as an example.

I asked two people about this, and I think I've made reference to this before. I asked the wife of the very famous and illustrious mayor of Burketown—where a very tiny number of people live in a very big area of Australia—whose from a fourth-, fifth- or sixth-generation family in Australia, 'What do you need most?' and she said, 'Speed with my internet'. John Nelson is maybe one of the top 20 or 30 cattle owners in Australia. He owns a huge swag of country in north-west Queensland. I asked him, 'What do you want most?' and he said, 'Faster internet access. It just drives me off my head, the amount of work that you have to do and the time you have to wait for something to happen.'

This is, seriously, life and death for us, and I bring the attention of the House to my own family as an example. The Tyranny of Distance is a wonderful book by the historian Geoffrey Blainey. My family are a good example. There were three Katter brothers. Grandad had gone there in the 1870s in a stagecoach, and there were three boys, two of whom died as a result of the tyranny of distance. My father—and all of us—nearly died in that example I gave previously, but this is a separate issue.

You say that you're looking at putting in a universal service obligation. It's good you're looking at it! It would be nice if you did it. Ben Chifley, John Curtin and 'Red Ted' Theodore would turn in their grave if they saw a government making this service available without a universal service obligation attached to it. The mob on the other side want it to be saleable. Sell-off the most essential service in the country outside of water! (Time expired)

Mike Freelander

Are you seeking leave to continue?

Bob Katter

Yes, if I could. Another couple of minutes would be helpful.

Leave granted.

I just want to point out that because the Liberals allowed foreign ownership in Telstra, as they wanted, the biggest shareholder is now the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. It is by far and away the biggest shareholder. J.P. Morgan, United States; Citigroup, United States; BNP Paribas, France—these are some of the major shareholders. All the rest are less than one per cent, with one little, tiny exception of four per cent. So Telstra's completely owned by foreigners, and the major and dominant shareholder is China. That's a wonderful outcome! Is there a single person in this country that would agree with the Liberal Party on this? Maybe four of their moronic followers would. And the Labor Party needn't look cute, because they were involved in the sale of Telstra. Now the ownership of your communications systems, which is, outside of water, the most important essential service in this country, is dominated by China.

In light of those things, I can't stop you from doing that. The Australian people will slaughter you in the next election and then they'll slaughter the Liberals in the election after that, and it'll just keep going on until we on the crossbenches get the power, and that is rapidly happening of course. I moved this amendment, which would provide a universal service obligation. The government has officially informed me that it's 'all under control and they're looking at it'. Well, that's a standard joke, isn't it? Those sorts of comments are what we crack jokes about. We've moved that here and we intend to divide the House on the issue.

Long debate text truncated.

Milton Dick

The question is that the amendment to the second reading motion, as moved by the member for Ryan, be agreed to.

Kate Chaney

I am concerned about any injection of funds that could be inflationary at this time, when inflation is having a huge impact on cost of living, but childcare workers are some of the lowest paid workers in the country. In a budget of more than $600 billion, it seems reasonable that we should be able to find a few billion to pay women well and value our children's early education. I am concerned that there's no allocation of funds for this special account, despite the estimated cost of the grant program being $3.6 billion for the next few years. We'll have to wait for the annual appropriations bill to see how much money is put into this account, but the giving of grants is not dependent on funds being put into this account.

It's possible that the payments have been set up through this special account as a way of making it harder for an alternative government to take the pay rise away from childcare workers if the government doesn't win next year's election. But setting this up without allocating funds does feel like kicking the can down the road.

My last concern is in relation to the short-term timeframe. The bill is hazy about what happens after the first two years. The worker retention payment is considered an interim payment while the Fair Work Commission finalises its gender undervaluation review of priority awards and the government considers the recent ACCC and Productivity Commission reports on early childhood education and care. If the government wants to see long-term structural reform to pay feminised industries better wages and drive a long-term improvement in the quality of care, the government will need to come clean about how it would fund this in the long term. If this increase is not going to be paid through higher fees in the long term, we need to have an open discussion about the social and economic benefit of high-quality early childhood education and care. Without the support of the coalition, this may go the way of the similar Early Years Quality Fund, which was ended with Tony Abbott not supporting that program.

Another concern is the broad discretionary powers created. The government can make grants and there isn't much guidance on the use of these powers in the legislation. I am hoping that these and other issues are addressed in the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee's report, which I believe came out today.

Beyond the changes made in this bill, further reform is needed. There is some momentum towards creating universal access to quality early childhood education and care. This is obviously a big change and would require a pathway to get there, but it's the sort of bold thinking that has the potential to set us on a pathway to a better educated and are more fully productive population. I recognise that this would require nearly 50,000 early childhood education and care graduates a year by 2030, more than double recent graduating numbers. This will take time, but it seems to me to be the right direction.

The other reform needed is in relation to the activity test. The activity test is based on an assumption that early childhood education and care is a benefit for parents, not for kids. Recognising the benefits for kids, especially from lower socioeconomic families, leads to the conclusion that reforming the activity test would have long-term benefits. I would like to see the activity test removed, relaxed or substantially reconfigured in line with recommendations from the Productivity Commission, the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce, the ACCC, Thrive By Five and Early Childhood Australia.

In conclusion, I support this bill as one step towards quality, accessible and affordable early childhood education and care. Early childhood education and care is important for kids and families. Like workers in many traditionally feminised industries, childcare workers are underpaid. We need to attract a quality workforce to educate and care for our kids, and paying them better is a good start. There are a few issues with this bill that I hope are addressed in the current Senate inquiry. In particular, the bill takes a short-term approach and doesn't allocate money to the special account being established, so it's kicking the can down the road on longer term reform and costs. The broad powers in the grant-making laws leave a lot to the government's discretion. So it's appropriate that the bill be reconsidered in a few years in light of a number of reviews currently underway.

While you couldn't say that the bill will have no inflationary impact, increasing the pay for our lowest-earning women seems an appropriate decision. Having more women here in parliament means that we are starting to correct the long-term gender bias in how we value different types of jobs. Paying childcare workers better is a good step, but I urge the government and the opposition to be bold in thinking about universal childcare access as a step to a better educated population and greater workforce participation for women.

Clare O'Neil

I want to thank the member for Curtin for her typically thoughtful discussion with regard to this bill, the Wage Justice for Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (Special Account) Bill 2024, that is before the parliament. It's a really important one, Speaker. You and I are Labor people who got into parliament to try to fight inequality and make sure that the quality of life of people in our country isn't defined by their income or indeed by the family that they grew up in. I think when you looked at these matters of social justice and inequality a generation ago you probably would have looked at wage justice and these fundamental things that affect the lives of Australians as adults. But the more we understand about how the life cycle of poverty continues across generations the more obvious it is that the best time for us to focus on is those first thousand days in a child's life.

We don't need any more evidence about this point. There is study after study here in Australia and overseas that show us that, if we intervene in the life of a child, we can radically reshape their trajectory just by making sure that they get off to the right start. That's got an element of health care. It's got an element of supporting parents who might be in a really disadvantaged situation. But probably the most important thing that we can do through politics and through this chamber is making sure that we provide really quality early learning to every single Australian child. They expect and deserve nothing less from this chamber and from this amazing country of ours than for us to be able to extend that generosity to young people by supporting them through those first thousand days.

What we know about early learning in our country is that we're on a real journey here. We've had some periods of time where we've had Australian governments that have thought about this as merely child care, someone taking care of your kids while the families went to work. We as the Labor Party and a Labor government have been working over a number of decades now to really switch the mindset up here. This is not just about looking after children; this is about starting their journey of education in the most positive and powerful way while they take those first steps as really young children and babies.

One of the things that really sticks in my mind in the work that I have done in this area is looking at the different ways in which children who grew up in really advantaged families and really disadvantaged families experience language. There are some studies that have been done overseas that show that there are literally 20 million fewer words heard by children who grew up in very low income and disadvantaged households versus children who grew up in different kinds of households. As Australians, we can't tolerate these things. We've got to intervene, and it is certainly the role of government to reach in and try to give every support and assistance to those children to make sure that they're standing on a platform of support of the Australian people.

The bill before the parliament is about the workers who support these incredible young Australians to get off to the very best start. I'm sure I'm not alone here, but one of the most absolutely fantastic things that we get to do in our work as members of parliament is visit childcare centres where these young Aussies are getting taught by these incredible people, who are spending every day going to work and helping children form their first words and helping them learn through active participation. I'm so lucky to see my three children have had that opportunity. These workers are as good as gold, but for too long the Australian people and the Australian government have not been giving them the rewards that they deserve. We know that they are doing essential work to help build a great future for our country, yet they are being remunerated as though that work were not important, and that's not good enough.

We are on a journey here of making sure those workers in our economy—our aged-care workers, our childcare workers and our disability workers—are getting properly recognised for the support that they give to other Australians. I've got the government whip just behind me here, who has spent her life in education. Don't get her started on the value of educators! I really want to emphasise for the parliament and for people listening at home that Labor understands how difficult and important this work is. If you're a parent of young children, as I am, you know that it is no mean feat to go to work every day and try to educate a whole classroom of three- or four-year-olds, but this is what these people do every day, and they deserve to be properly remunerated. That is what this bill is about.

I want to mention some of the gender issues that lie at the heart of this. It's not something that the parliament is always comfortable talking about, but we've got to address this. We have one of the most gendered workforces in the entire world in our beautiful country of Australia. A lot of people wouldn't believe that, but, if you look at a type of work like construction, you'll find that somewhere around nine in 10 workers in parts of that industry are male. If you look at something like childcare workers, you'll find that almost nine in 10 of those workers are female. This is really important because what we see is that those parts of our economy where women are really dominant tend to be the most underpaid parts of the economy. Of course, we all understand why that is. Historically, women's work has not been sufficiently valued. For a long time, generations of people have talked about that work as though women were going to work out of the goodness of their hearts. That's not respectful, and it's not right, and that's why our government is trying to correct it.

I'll make a final point. Over the last couple of days, the Prime Minister made a series of outstanding announcements about the other end of the education spectrum in making sure that young people who make the fantastic choice—a choice we want them to make—to go on to further study aren't penalised in the way that they are today, and that, for those fantastic young people who want to go into trades, we want to support you. The announcement to make 100,000 fee-free TAFE places available every single year will have transformative effects on our economy and on the lives of all of those young people who take that opportunity.

I want the parliament to know that it is not about picking out one year or one part of our education system; it's about saying that, as a government, we have a special role in helping our youngest Aussies get the right start in life, supporting them all the way through that arch and through to their TAFE training and their university education. As a government, we have an amazing offering on education. It's something that I'm very proud of as a Labor Party member and a member of this House for a long time now.

Long debate text truncated.

Milton Dick

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

Andrew Wilkie

I move the amendment circulated in my name:

(1) Schedule 1, item 41, page 57 (after line 6), after subsection 24EA(1), insert:

(1A) Without limiting subsection (1), the statement must include recommendations for any sanctions (including parliamentary sanctions) to be imposed on the respondent.

(2) Schedule 1, item 41, page 58 (after line 6), after subsection 24EB(1), insert:

(1A) If the Privileges Committee's decision is not consistent with any recommendations made by the decision-maker or review panel (see subsection 24EA(1A)), the report mentioned in paragraph (1)(b) must:

(a) be made in writing; and

(b) set out the reasons for not following those recommendations; and

(c) be tabled in the House at the time the Committee reports it decision.

The Future Made in Australia Bill is a welcome step in the right direction from the government, one which establishes strong foundations for world-leading Australian renewable energy, manufacturing and export industries. However, at present, there is a glaring loophole in the bill that needs closing—that is, that despite being touted as a game-changing investment in clean energy industries, jobs and exports, under this legislation there is no requirement for these investments to be clean and green. The Australian Conservation Foundation notes this in their submission to the Senate inquiry into the bill. I thank them for working with me to redraft this amendment which closes the loophole by ensuring that neither stream of the national interest framework can be used to invest in or support fossil fuel, nuclear power or carbon capture and storage.

My constituents in Tasmania and, indeed, millions of Australians right across the country, know we're running out of time to reduce emissions and mitigate the worst of the impacts of climate change. As I said before many times, the fossil fuel industry is rapidly strangling our planet and it is past time this government acted with urgency on the climate emergency. It is simply unconscionable that Australia is currently one of the largest exporters of fossil fuels in the world. In fact, we are currently third behind Russia and the United States. It seems all this government has done so far is double down, but most Australian know it makes neither environmental nor economic sense to continue to approve and invest in fossil fuel exploration, exploitation and infrastructure. Even the International Energy Agency tells us that oil, gas and coal demand is expected to peak this decade, which means fossil fuel projects are rapidly becoming stranded assets. At the same time, at COP-28 just last year, world leaders agreed to accelerate efforts towards net zero in a just, orderly and equitable way.

It has become all too clear that neither the climate crisis nor the economic reality leave room for continued misguided investments in fossil fuels. That's why my amendment ensures that they aren't eligible for support and investment under the Future Made in Australia framework. The same goes for carbon capture and storage. To be clear, I don't object to the technology in principle but do I hold concerns that, in its current state, it's unproven, and, in too many cases, it is used an expensive smoke screen to hide the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels.

The last issue my amendment deals with is nuclear power. It's increasingly clear that when talking about a clean net zero future made in Australia, nuclear can't be a part of the solution. We have seen report after report saying nuclear is too slow and too costly to play any significant role in Australia's transition to net zero, not to mention the risks associated with waste management. No. Instead, we need to be prioritising our efforts and seizing on our natural advantages to ensure we don't throw good money after bad. I'm optimistic about these advantages and I'm optimistic about our ability to pull off a just transition and meet our net zero commitments.

Australians know there is so much opportunity for us in the energy transition because we're blessed with abundant clean energy resources and we have a highly skilled and educated workforce. In other words, we have what it takes to be a clean energy super power and to lead the world in this economic and environmental transition. The potential benefits for job creation and skills development, local communities and the environment are obvious to anyone paying attention. We in this place need to make sure it's set up and powered by renewable energy industries and not off the back of continued investment in climate-wrecking fossil fuels or greenwashed non-solutions such as nuclear and carbon capture and storage.

I would love to believe we can trust this and future governments not to use this legislation to prop up climate-damaging industries but I've been around long enough to know that trust in government is built on solid mechanisms of transparency and accountability. That's exactly what my amendment provides for, and I urge all members to support it.

Milton Dick

The question before the House is: the amendment moved by the honourable member for Clark be agreed to.

Ms COLLINS : I move: That the debate be adjourned.

The SPEAKER: The question before the House is that the debate be adjourned.

Abstain: Spender.  

For votes:, Labor, Green  

Against votes: Coalition.

Peter Dutton

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That this House:

(1) notes that the Albanese Government has so far granted almost 3,000 visitor visas to individuals from the Gaza warzone;

(2) notes that in question time yesterday, the Prime Minister claimed that his government has done this under 'exactly the same arrangements as previous offshore refugee and humanitarian visa grants';

(3) notes that this is not true;

(4) notes that for the Syrian refugee intake, rigorous security checks were conducted prior to arrival in Australia at a number of key visa processing points, this included the collection and checking of biometric data against Australia's security agencies and those of our international partners, these checks were supplemented by interview with Australian departmental officers, where claims and identity were assessed;

(5) notes that these measures have not been undertaken under the Albanese government's change of policy to grant visitor visas, including to people who have expressed sympathy for the Hamas terrorist organisation; and

(6) therefore requires the Prime Minister immediately attend the chamber and explain why he misled this House.

Leave not granted.

It's no surprise that the government would seek to gag this debate, because it's not a debate that they want to have. This is an issue of national significance, and the Prime Minister should be here—

Milton Dick

Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. You don't have leave. There's no motion. The Leader of the Opposition will need to move a motion rather than just giving a speech. I call the Leader of the Opposition.

Peter Dutton

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition from moving the following motion—

That this House:

(1) notes that the Albanese Government has so far granted almost 3,000 visitor visas to individuals from the Gaza warzone;

(2) notes that in question time yesterday, the Prime Minister claimed that his government has done this under 'exactly the same arrangements as previous offshore refugee and humanitarian visa grants';

(3) notes that this is not true;

(4) notes that for the Syrian refugee intake, rigorous security checks were conducted prior to arrival in Australia at a number of key visa processing points, this included the collection and checking of biometric data against Australia's security agencies and those of our international partners, these checks were supplemented by interview with Australian departmental officers, where claims and identity were assessed;

(5) notes that these measures have not been undertaken under the Albanese government's change of policy to grant visitor visas, including to people who have expressed sympathy for the Hamas terrorist organisation; and

(6) therefore requires the Prime Minister immediately attend the chamber and explain why he misled this House.

This is an egregious breach of what is in our country's best interests. This Prime Minister has one charge, the first and most important charge: to keep our country safe, and he has lost control of the national security agenda. The Prime Minister of our country came into this parliament yesterday and clearly demonstrated that he had no idea what our security agencies were doing. He had no idea how to manage the program. What we know is that this is an Andrew Giles special. Andrew Giles, the disgraced and now sacked immigration minister, brought in 152 people—

Milton Dick

Order! The Leader of the Opposition will pause. The member for Newcastle, on a point of order?

Sharon Claydon

I want to remind the Leader of the Opposition to refer to members by their correct titles.

Milton Dick

The Leader of the Opposition has the call and will use the correct titles.

Peter Dutton

The disgraced and now sacked Minister Giles was responsible for releasing 152 hardened criminals, noncitizens, from immigration detention into the Australian community when he didn't need to do so.

Government members interjecting—

I hear the cries opposite. Go and talk to the elderly lady in Perth who was attacked by one of these people who had been released by Minister Giles and to the others who have fallen victim to these hardened criminals since they were unnecessarily released by the Albanese government.

Not only was that botched, but now we know that 3,000 people were issued with visas and that 1,300 of them have been allowed into our country—not under the refugee and humanitarian program but on visitor visas. Some people have tried to equate this to the number of visitor visas that have been issued to people from Israel, which is an absolute outrage. When comparing people who come from Israel on a visitor visa, the comparable statistic is to the number of people who have come from London or the number of people who have come from New Zealand or the number of people who have come from Jordan on a visitor visa to our country. Israel is not run by a terrorist organisation. Hamas is a listed terrorist organisation.

A government member interjecting

I notice the Labor member there scoffing at that suggestion, but the fact is that Hamas is a listed terrorist organisation. The Israeli government is a democratically elected government. They are an ally of our country. They have helped thwart terrorist attacks in our country. If you look at public polling in the Gaza strip today, between 40 and 75 per cent of people have sympathy for the Hamas terrorist organisation. Imagine if the Howard government or the Morrison government had suggested that we would bring people in who are sympathisers to Saddam Hussein or to al-Qaeda or to ISIL or to ISIS. There would rightly have been public outrage and condemnation by the Labor Party. But the Labor Party has changed their policy to allow sympathisers of a listed terrorist organisation to come here under a visitor visa. It's without precedent.

I know that Minister Burke has been appointed to clean up the mess of Minister Giles, but the Prime Minister needs to come into this chamber to show the leadership and the strength of character that so far he has failed to demonstrate. The level of antisemitism in our country is at a record high. People in the Jewish community feel unsafe, and the director-general of ASIO has rightly raised significant concerns. The problem is that the Albanese government is contributing to social disharmony and to disruption in this country at a time when it's certainly not required. The Prime Minister has made a bad decision.

The Prime Minister in this chamber yesterday misled the Australian public when he said that what is happening today is akin to what happened when we brought people in from Syria. It is not. When we brought people in from Syria, we staged them in northern Iraq. We brought people in, or we assessed people who were in Jordan and Oman. I was criticised at the time as the minister because 12 months down the track we hadn't brought the full number in, and that's because we were testing people's verification of the claims that they were making and of their identity and whether or not they were on databases that the United States held. The United States held the intelligence because they had fingerprints and DNA of IEDs and the like out of Iraq and out of Afghanistan.

Ironically for this government, the Israeli government and security services would have the most significant holdings on those people who are sympathetic to Hamas and those people who would have been involved in, connected with or sympathetic to the attacks on kibbutzim and the attacks at the Supernova music festival, where 1,200 people were killed and over a hundred are still being held in the tunnel network.

That people could be brought from that region and that people could not be interviewed or that the government didn't have a process in place where there were face-to-face interviews is a complete and utter abrogation and failure of leadership of this Prime Minister. The fact that this Prime Minister has not come from his office this morning down to this chamber to answer these claims and to defend himself shows how weak he is.

The Australian public get it. They know that this country's been made less safe by Anthony Albanese. They know that this Prime Minister doesn't have the strength of character to provide the leadership to see our country through an uncertain period. For the Prime Minister now to have created this mess and not to be here to explain how he's going to clean it up shows how out of touch this Prime Minister has become and how he has failed his basic obligations as the Prime Minister of this country. Our country deserves strong leadership and the ability to make tough decisions which are in our country's best interests.

This is not against people of a particular religious belief. This is not against people of a particular political persuasion. This is about keeping our country safe, and Anthony Albanese has failed the Australian public and he should stand condemned. The fact that the Prime Minister cannot come to this chamber and provide an explanation and an apology for his misleading yesterday is a true reflection on his poor character. We deserve more as a country, and certainly every Australian deserves to feel safe but today, because of Anthony Albanese, the Australian public is less safe.

Milton Dick

Is the motion seconded?

Dan Tehan

Yes, the motion is seconded. Yesterday in question time the Prime Minister was asked a very simple question by the shadow minister for trade and tourism:

Can the Prime Minister guarantee that no individual who participated in or supported the October 7 Hamas terror attacks—the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust—has been granted a visa by his government?

In responding to that question, he said, 'Exactly the same security arrangements as previous offshore refugee and humanitarian visa grants had been followed.' Yet when the member for Flinders asked the new Minister for Immigration the follow-up question, 'Have any visas for individuals coming from the Gaza war zone been granted without an in-person interview?' the new immigration minister could not answer that question.

What he did was show that the Prime Minister had misled this parliament, because he had said all processes had been followed as they had been done previously. And they hadn't, because you did not do in-person interviews, as was the normal process that has been followed. That's why the Prime Minister should come in here right now and correct the record. This goes to his fundamental responsibility: keeping the Australian community safe. The sad reality from this government is that time and time again we have seen them failing at this No. 1 duty to keep the Australian community safe.

'Why are we asking these questions?' you might ask. We're asking these questions because the minister who was then in charge has shown that he was not up to the job. All this was taking place under the former minister, Minister Giles. We know that when Minister Giles was brought under pressure he was prepared to say things in this chamber which later FOI records have shown were not true. Now we have the Prime Minister doing exactly the same thing. We know Minister Giles didn't live up to the ministerial code of conduct that the Prime Minister put in place. Now the Prime Minister won't live up to his own code of conduct. That is why he should be condemned.

What is at stake here? It's quite clear that what is at stake here is the safety of the Australian community. If you fail to undertake proper security checks then you leave the Australian community open to all sorts of possibilities that could occur. We've seen what has happened previously when the government has failed to keep the Australian people safe. As the Leader of the Opposition rightly pointed out, we have a victim in Perth who was, sadly, a direct victim of the incompetence of those opposite. We do not want to see that happen again. We will ask questions, we will demand answers and we will keep going on this until we get reassurances from the Prime Minister that he will take this seriously.

The first thing the Prime Minister should do is come and correct the record, because, if he comes and corrects the record, he will be admitting that the processes that were followed weren't the proper processes that were followed and that he was wrong in saying that exactly the same security arrangements were followed, because we know that is not true. Until he will admit that and until he demands that the new immigration minister does a proper and thorough check of everyone who has come into this country, the security of Australia is at risk.

We have to remember that already 416 of those people who have come into Australia have sought to claim asylum. They have sought to claim asylum and they could be here for five to 10 years while that is processed. If you haven't done the security checks, if you haven't done the in-person interviews with those people, you are fundamentally putting the Australian community at risk. We say to the Prime Minister: where are you? Come in now and do your job. Keep the Australian community safe.

Zali Steggall

It's extremely concerning to see the opposition turn up today with this suspension of standing orders and the words and the rhetoric that we're hearing here. It goes directly against the advice of ASIO and the concern around the polarisation in our communities—that whipping up of a sense of fear and that inference that, for example, our services and systems are not working. What I'd like to share is the human story, the real story, about some of the people we're talking about and the lives we're talking about.

And I would ask you to be silent! I have the floor!

Milton Dick

Order! The member for Cowper will cease interjecting. The member for Warringah will be heard, just as other members were heard, in silence.

Long debate text truncated.