Alex Hawke
Mitchell · Liberal Party · Australia
“I asked Telstra, and I do say to the government we need to start taking quite seriously the ongoing arrangements between NBN Co and Telstra—whether this is denying reasonable service to everyday Australians.”
“The reason why I'm raising it to the House's and the government's attention today is that, when the original NBN Co was created by the previous Labor government, there were these contractual clauses written into the legislation about denying Telstra the ability to offer the same services as NBN Co and, indeed, denying Telstra—and I spoke…”
“I rise today to take up the series of complaints in my electorate about the Telstra coverage and ongoing service-related issues in relation to mobile phone reception in the Hills District. I remind the House that my electorate is in a major metropolitan city, Sydney, in the middle of a really urbanised area.”
“Indeed, Telstra has been recommending to them—and I'm going to go through this specifically for one case in my electorate—the purchasing of an additional antenna at their own cost. It doesn't sound too unreasonable when you think about it for a moment.”
“As the Co-Chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Motor Neurone Disease, I rise to recognise Global MND Awareness Day, which just passed. It was a powerful symbol of hope for sufferers and their carers, who are showing the resilience of the blue cornflower every single day by caring for those with motor neurone disease.”
“This has helped draw attention to the national conversation about the realities of living with MND, the realities of the sufferers and their carers and the great urgent need for support.”
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“I asked Telstra, and I do say to the government we need to start taking quite seriously the ongoing arrangements between NBN Co and Telstra—whether this is denying reasonable service to everyday Australians. The idea that a person is told to spend $2,500 on an antenna at their property to get mobile reception in the middle of a major city is, really, I think, unacceptable to most members of this House. The idea that you'd have to stand in the back corner of your property in the middle of a major centre as well and still receive weak service—this simply isn't good enough. So I do say to Telstra again—in the parliament, before we take this further—this matter is serious. It has many people affected in a major urban centre, and I'm sure this is happening in more parts of Sydney. This is a cause we will continue to raise.”
“The reason why I'm raising it to the House's and the government's attention today is that, when the original NBN Co was created by the previous Labor government, there were these contractual clauses written into the legislation about denying Telstra the ability to offer the same services as NBN Co and, indeed, denying Telstra—and I spoke about this at the time—the ability to research or upgrade or do certain things which conflict with the NBN. I wonder what's happening, because, as service degrades in urban centres—and this is not the only constituent. We've tested it even in my own electorate office. We get a single bar—and I've raised that directly with Telstra as well—in the middle of Castle Hill, in the middle of an urban area. We're seeing degradation of service across the board.”
“Indeed, Telstra has been recommending to them—and I'm going to go through this specifically for one case in my electorate—the purchasing of an additional antenna at their own cost. It doesn't sound too unreasonable when you think about it for a moment. However, this antenna has a minimum cost of $2,568 over 24 months—the Telstra GO G41 Stationary Yagi and Panel Antenna Bundle. The other advice my constituent received was to move to the north-eastern corner of his less-than-700-square-metre property to make his phone calls—or to buy a $2½ thousand antenna for his service. I remind the House that this is in the middle of suburban Sydney. We need to explore why this is happening.”
“I rise today to take up the series of complaints in my electorate about the Telstra coverage and ongoing service-related issues in relation to mobile phone reception in the Hills District. I remind the House that my electorate is in a major metropolitan city, Sydney, in the middle of a really urbanised area. This is an ongoing concern, because, in spite of my—as the federal member—and others' raising this directly with Telstra, we're receiving a series of inadequate responses about very low and unacceptably weak signal in the middle of urban Sydney. My constituents have raised with me these matters, and they've taken up the complaints with the telecommunications ombudsman, and other matters, as they're entitled to do.”
“I ask the government to continue its good work on supporting people with MND, their carers, friends and families and making those priority pathways available to people.”
“This has helped draw attention to the national conversation about the realities of living with MND, the realities of the sufferers and their carers and the great urgent need for support. I want to thank the member for Mayo for asking a great question and putting pressure on the government, leading to the announcement of a priority pathway for aged care for MND sufferers, something that should have always been there. While finding a cure remains critically important, people living with MND and their carers need compassion and practical support right now through the aged-care system and the NDIS—and everything else that we can do. These are the most vulnerable people in our society.”
“As the Co-Chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Motor Neurone Disease, I rise to recognise Global MND Awareness Day, which just passed. It was a powerful symbol of hope for sufferers and their carers, who are showing the resilience of the blue cornflower every single day by caring for those with motor neurone disease. Today there are around 2,752 Australians living with MND, and with modern techniques diagnosis is getting higher and higher, and there is more recognition of this terrible disease. We're also seeing increased investment in research, care, advocacy and support services as we work towards better treatments and, ultimately, a cure. This year we marked the very sad passing of Neale Daniher, a great Australian, and also the diagnosis of the rugby league player spoken about by so many here in this House, Jai Arrow.”
“We don't care about the diversity of actual economic life.' Testamentary trusts are a prime example of the vulnerable using financial mechanisms available in incentives to make sure they look after vulnerable people. I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister said—newsflash for the members opposite—he's going to exclude vulnerable people. Vulnerable people need to be excluded, and testamentary trusts need to be excluded from this budget.”
“This means groups like—let's go through this again—widows, who will be primarily women because women live longer than men; orphans, both single and double orphans; minors raised by grandparents; retirees; and a lot of disabled people who now being looked after by testamentary trusts because, as we know, the NDIS cuts out. The government has no plans to include older people or older people with disability into these NDIS arrangements. I think the government needs to look at this. When they say rich people are going to suffer and ordinary people are going to benefit, nothing could be further from the truth when you look at testamentary trusts. In fact, the changes that the government is making across the board are blanket, typical socialist policy. 'We're just going to give everybody more tax.”
“So if a man dies and their female spouse inherits all of them under a testamentary trust, under the government's changes a fixed trust would be included in new divorce and family law proceedings, whereas a discretionary trust cannot be. This is critically misunderstood by this government, and we have a lot of female members from the other side here. They should be paying attention to this. The beneficiaries of testamentary trust in Australia to people earning less than $45,000 from other sources—these people stand to lose access to the tax free threshold and the lower marginal rates that you get from the current arrangements.”
“They are primarily used by and advantage low-income people, and the changes that the government is proposing to tax these trusts threaten vulnerable people, children, people with disability, women and haven't taken into account the issues. You get some odd looks and some faces from people over there, but let me tell you a little about testamentary trusts and some of the problems that the government is creating here. They are not exclusive vehicles. You cannot introduce new assets into these trusts; they are very different from family trusts. The government was saying that discretionary trusts are no longer available and that they have to be fixed, and that isn't taking into account the law that fixed trusts, under the tax commissioner's rulings, will be in family law proceedings.”
“The Australian public are now aware that they are being fleeced by their government to the tune of $77 billion in new taxes. But the moral case that the government has been making is that this is somehow 'pro-aspiration' or that the taxes are for the benefit of ordinary people. Nothing could be further from the truth when we look at the example of testamentary trusts and the actions of the government in imposing a 30 per cent tax of testamentary trusts. Sometimes people confuse these trusts with other forms of trusts, but a testamentary trust is obviously something that lays dormant until a person dies and the executor sets up the trust after the person's death.”
“The billionaire Harry Triguboff, whom the Prime Minister has quoted about 10 or 12 times as supportive, has now said he's worried that none of these new applicants are coming through and we could have a 40 per cent reduction in the property market. Did Labor model such a thing on stamp duties? Did they think about the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that they put onto the five per cent deposit scheme moving into negative equity? What will happen to one of these new people if they move into negative equity and they lose their jobs? What will Labor do? What will Labor do to protect them? Don't believe what Labor is spinning. Look at what they are doing. More taxes does not mean more prosperity.”
“Labor is pushing one of the biggest tax increases in a single budget on Australians under the justification that they're somehow helping housing, but look at the numbers—$77 billion of increased revenue out of people's pockets and out of their savings and out of their investments into the government's coffers. What they're offering you as Australians is $250 back from them. That is a really insignificant amount given the $77 billion. But when you look at the housing argument—and we hear it from Labor members every single day—it also doesn't make sense. We've heard the Prime Minister now quote in this House several times the billionaire Harry Triguboff about how much he endorses the government's housing changes in an early rush of applications for new properties. He's now changed his tune today.”
“By not abolishing that income tax bracket, Labor have absolutely locked in more revenue permanently. By taxing all the capital vehicles people have had access to for their own money, to invest in the economy and to make sure that that is used productively—in claiming it for the government, everyone will get poorer. To say to young people today that, when rents will go up because of these changes, when housing will go down, they will somehow have easier access to a house because the government will give them 250 bucks is a direct insult to every young person in this country. I can tell you, they will not buy it when they look closely at this.”
“And the government has decided, in this war on capital, that the movement of capital in our economy is the problem. Capital is vital. It's not piles of wealth or gold; it is hard-earned capital that belongs to individuals and households that they have the right to invest and reinvest, to have more productive assets in our economy. That makes everybody wealthier. The only people getting wealthier out of this budget are the government. The government is getting the money. If anyone in this economy thinks that the government having $70 billion more is going to make them better off, make their small business easier or make their income better, they've got rocks in their head. I believe Australians aren't buying it. I know my electorate aren't buying it because they are hardworking people. They do the sums.”
“We see in this budget a war on shares and equities, a war on ETFs and a war of increased taxes. Remember, this is the socialist government that told you that, by keeping a tax bracket, they would be making you better off. In fact, that bracket means the government gets more revenue and you are poorer, and you struggle against the income—and they have the hide to tell you they are arguing for intergenerational fairness. The only take-out of the $70 billion of increased revenue that you get is $250. You would have to be a barking moron to believe that $250, as a return of the government claiming $70 billion of revenue, is somehow intergenerational fairness or equity. We have the highest income tax rates in the world. We have the most regulated labour market. We have the lowest productivity.”
“I say to my electorate: I believe in you and your aspiration. Mitchell has always been an aspirational electorate—hardworking, working families, parents looking after their kids, young people getting ahead, all in work, all producing or creating businesses and all innovating. That's why I'm against this budget from a Labor government which has decided to have a war on capital and a war on aspiration. We already have a war on productivity going on in this country by the Labor Party. We have the worst and most onerous industrial relations regime in the world, mitigating against all productivity that we know of in our economy. In this budget, the government has decided to declare war on capital—your capital. A budget which claims $50 billion to $70 billion more for the government is in no way making your life easier.”
“They have lifted up the ladder of opportunities. Negative gearing is scaled back. Capital gains tax now applies even to the savings account of young people for first homes—the money that they are trying to make work for them to save a deposit to buy a house. This is a war on aspiration. This is a war on all generations and on the movement of capital to generate some wealth for individuals. Why is this so? Because this is a Labor government, and a Labor government has one founding principle: your money is their money; what belongs to you belongs to them. When the government collects $70 billion more dollars, this is not a time to cheer. And, when they give you 250 bucks back, you should realise the government is taking more of your money.”
“It's a strange day when the government has a budget that has losers and losers, not winners and losers. Given that they marketed that there would be an intergenerational win for one generation and a loss for another, even stranger are the outcomes that the government has managed to produce with this high-taxing budget. Not only does this government claw $70 billion more, it forecasts that housing will go down. The number of houses will go down. It forecasts that rents will go up. These are the government's own forecasts. Not only is it a war on the older generations who have accumulated wealth and put their capital aside to look after their retirements and look after themselves, and people who are earning their way in Australia; but they've also simultaneously made it harder for a young person to get ahead.”
“We talk about it here in pubs and we've heard members here talking about pubs. Well, beer is virtually unaffordable for the average Australian right now. This is freefall declining productivity. The Treasurer said it was his No. 1 challenge and then he dropped it like a lead balloon within five minutes. We haven't heard this government speak about productivity since. I give this example of my constituents struggling directly. They're genuine, great, import-exposed small businesses. They cannot get their products off the docks. Everyone's trying to help, but no-one's doing anything about the problems with productivity. We must be able to do better as a country, or our prices and our inflation will continue to increase the cost of all basic goods and services, which is a disaster for our economy.”
“When we have the world's highest wages and we have people on the waterfront increasing wages constantly, we have no link to productivity. Why can't we demand more productivity from our waterfront? Why can't we get those things out of the cargo containers and to the businesses so they can keep their businesses going? No-one answers that. That's not a crisis. We're dealing with other crises. Well, I can tell you that freefall declining productivity over time is the biggest economic crisis we face, because the cost of everything is going up. For God's sake, rents are unaffordable for ordinary people. Beer is unaffordable. Let's have a look at that. Historically speaking, beer is one of the cheapest staples in world history. It is now almost unaffordable for Australians.”
“Have a think about all the small businesses in my electorate who tell me now that to get something off the docks—off the waterfront—for import exposed businesses is now a three-month wait. Now, I've contacted the minister, and his staff are very helpful. My former agencies in Home Affairs have very helpful people. But our lack of productivity on the waterfront means that these businesses have faced three-month waits, and that's still not the resolution. They don't know if they will have their goods off the docks after three months. Declining productivity in Australia means directly that, for each of those small businesses and services affected in my electorate—three of them have contacted me just this month, desperate to get those supplies off the waterfront—their viability is under severe threat. And nobody treats that like a crisis.”
“I rise with great concern over the recent fuel and oil shocks that are causing an increase in inflation and cost-of-living crises for Australians. What is most important for Australia to remember is that we can only control what is inside our control as a country, not be blown about by things that are happening overseas. Yes, we have a war in Iran. Yes, we have a war in Ukraine. Yes, we now have an oil shock and a fuel crisis. But the consequences of the government abandoning the productivity challenge—from the day they got re-elected, they said productivity was their first concern—and giving it up so easily has ongoing effects for our economy. Have a think about Trevor in West Pennant Hills in my electorate, who emailed me and said his year-on-year electricity bill that he just got just went up 33 per cent.”
“We stand with you in this terrible war, and it is necessary to do whatever we can to support the long-held aspiration of the people of Iran for a better life, a better society and a freer society.”
“Why did we set up 15-year penalties, if we cannot tackle the most basic hate speech being preached in mosques in Sydney right now under the guise of religious speech? Those laws need to be now put into practice. The government needs to enforce them. Our agencies need to take the actions. That's what our security agencies and other agencies need to focus on in this, because we must preserve our own society first. That means removing the dangerous influence of foreign hate preachers and those who would preach hate to our young minds. We know the effects that that has. But I say this to the people of Iran and the Australian Iranian community: Australia stands with you.”
“The government needs to do a thorough review of anyone who is here on a temporary visa, especially those who are foreign preachers within Australia and preaching at mosques. Any of these individuals who preach hate to young Muslim men within Australia need to be deported. Their visas need to be cancelled. It should be routine. It should be happening already, yet the evidence that is coming out of some of the mosques in Western Sydney is that people are lamenting the death of Ayatollah Khamenei and that some of the preachers are preaching hate speech. I ask a question of this government and of this parliament: why did we pass hate speech laws so recently following the Bondi terrorist attack in Australia, which was again ISIS inspired, terrorist inspired?”
“But let's be frank, the embassy here in Australia was acting against citizens of Australia because of their background, and that had to be stopped as well. Welcome as well was Australia's listing of the IRGC as a state sponsor of terrorism. Again, it was too late by all governments and, frankly, an admission that our own government didn't act fast enough or strongly enough. The Albanese government could have acted faster on what was compelling evidence that the revolutionary guard corps was a state sponsor of terrorism. It's a lesson for all of us. What should we do now? Obviously we should support the United States. We should support our allies. We should support the gulf states who understand and live with Iran as a menace and a danger to their daily lives every single day. But we should also take action within Australia.”
“What unites most countries in the world today is an understanding that Iran is a terrorist actor and a terrorist state and is against those gulf states, those Arab states, as much as it is against Australia and the United States. Thus we find ourselves acting in concert to act against a terrorist state like Iran. I highlight again for the House, as my community and the people in Western Sydney who've come here from Iran have told me repeatedly, intelligence agencies from Iran have been monitoring and acting against people here in Australia for decades. With the amplification of those efforts, we saw that Australian intelligence linked the state of Iran with arson attacks that occurred in late 2024—one in a cafe, one at a synagogue in Melbourne—which led to the Israeli ambassador being expelled.”
“For a diaspora of people, for a population like the Iranians, who have for decades struggled and protested—who in January of this year were massacred in record numbers at a protest rally—this is really the only answer anyone can think of. The mullahs in Iran, who have deliberately suppressed the freedom of the population for their own religious purposes, are some of the most evil clerics on the planet today. This has been a grand struggle of the Iranian people for a long time. While this comes at a great cost, you can see we are not alone. When you see that almost all of the gulf states unanimously oppose Iran, you have to think, 'What's going on?' Peace in the Middle East is one of the most elusive goals for the world.”
“Mahsa Amini is a symbol—a poor Kurdish woman beaten to death by the morality police for violating dress codes. Other women have stood in their tens of thousands—while bullets have been fired at them—to stand up for their basic freedoms and rights. This is what unites us in the west. This is what unites us in multiculturalism—that we have a rights based society that respects people as individuals, attaches human rights to them and does not take those rights away. No-one may take those rights away in our rights-respecting society. But these things do not exist in Iran. So, when we act, when we support the United States as the Albanese government and Australia are now doing, we are supporting the right action even though it comes at a great cost.”
“We saw the expulsion of the Iranian diplomats from Australia because of planned terrorist attacks and terrorist activity within our own country. But we are not alone. There have been hundreds of these incidents over decades. In France, there have been convictions of terrorists sponsored by Iran. Iran is the single greatest sponsor of terrorism of any state in the entire world today. It has taken too long for the world to do something about it. For too long, countries have put up with Iran, this 'grey zone' actor, deliberately undermining the peace and prosperity of free countries all around the world. Australia has not been immune to these actions. It's why we saw the bravery of ordinary Iranians—let's be frank, the bravery of Iranian women, who over many decades stood up to the regime at great personal risk.”
“Of course, it is with great sadness that we see that war is necessary. But war is one of the few solutions when Iran, which is one of the greatest terrorist states and one of the grey zone actors in our world today, has attacked our own country. I want to do something unusual and commend the Albanese government for the stance they've taken and the moral clarity that they've shown—Prime Minister Albanese has shown moral clarity on Iran—and I do welcome the Australian government doing that. It's important that we stand together with the Albanese government as an opposition, and we do, to support Prime Minister Albanese taking a very strong stand on the destabilising and terrorist state that is Iran, not only because it has attacked Australia.”
“You can read the words of our own Kylie Moore-Gilbert who, in her piece today in the SMH , really spells out the circuit breaker that the death of Ayatollah Khamenei represents for ordinary Iranians—decades of murder, torture and rape of people. But the morality police—imagine that. Imagine if we, in our country, said we were establishing morality police. As Moore-Gilbert says, they control the lives of everyday citizens in Iran in granular detail, down to who they can marry and who they can hold hands with in the street. The morality police control whether citizens can wear shorts and whether they can play sports. They control things like food and drink, funeral rites, child custody, the inheritance of property and permission to leave the country. Everything is controlled by the regime. Imagine life under such a regime.”
“It isn't the United States imposing it from the outside. We have to remember that the population of Iran have struggled peacefully in every way they can think of, for decades and decades, to their own detriment, to fight their own government. We, in the West and in free societies, know that the government can be our best friend, but the government can also be our worst enemy. And we see the case of the worst enemy in the Iranian regime—of their own people. When you hear the stories from the Persians who've come here, the Iranian citizens who've fled, of what happens back home, it's just like an Orwellian nightmare. And you don't have to listen to me today.”
“It's because of the political, social and economic freedom that our country affords and the rights that we give every one of our citizens—attached to their individuality and to who they are—through our constitution and our laws respecting society. So today I join the Iranian Australian community in welcoming the moves of our ally and friend the United States in directly removing the head of one of the most evil regimes in world history: the Ayatollah Khamenei, one of the most evil figures in Australian history. Pezeshkian, of course, is one of the most evil presidents in Australian history ever to grace the world's history. We welcome it not because we see bombs falling in the country. We welcome the fact that those people that are oppressed under the Iranian regime, the Iranian people themselves, now have a chance for freedom.”
“I rise today to add my voice to that of the Iranian Australian community—to speak about the war in Iran, the preconditions that have caused this conflict and the situation that now emerges and faces the Middle East. I think it's a good segue to add that the member for Bennelong is correct about multiculturalism and Australian values, but he did not name those Australian values. And that evasion is very important. Why do people want to come here from all different parts of the world? Why do people want to flee conflicts and war zones? Why do they want to flee hideous theocracies like Iran to come to our country?”
“The forgotten families and their businesses and everyone from the bottom up get more red tape, more debt notices and more liquidations. The deeper problem is the signal this sends. When you tell investors that losses don't matter, you break the market's compass. When the government tries to subsidise things that are failing already, in fields that are failing structurally, taxpayers' money is wasted, capital is distorted and the government gets deep into debt—and every one of us has to pay back that debt anyway. I say to the Labor Party: reconsider your National Reconstruction Fund, understand public finance and understand what structural inflation you are causing with this mess.”
“Sounds worthy, but $600 million for 600 workers is $1 million per job in a bailout. That's one million dollars per job saved. Compare that largesse to the record 41,000 small businesses that have collapsed into insolvency under this government. The local builder and the corner cafe that have gone out of business at record rates don't have lobbyists in Canberra. They don't have bailouts coming from a government. What they get is an ATO debt notice, and what the Minister for Small Business announced this week is a helpline for their debt. It's a failure; there's no rescue for them. There's a two-class economy being created by this failure to understand finance and what crowding in public sector money does to public-sector finance. The people who are too big to fail get huge government bailouts.”
“They're borrowing money we don't have to invest in companies that lose money to generate a lower return than the cost of borrowing the money in the first place. Imagine if we gave Warren Buffett $5 billion and said, 'Could you go and make a return for us instead?' The taxpayer could pay down some of our debt and lower taxes. Instead, structural losses—now one per cent below the bond rate. The minister calls the two-class economy that Labor is creating world-leading finance. I call it reckless gambling. As a lifelong Liberal, it is reckless gambling with taxpayers money. It's borrowed money on borrowed time. We've seen massive heavy industry bailouts—billions for Whyalla steelworks from the public and millions for smelters. The last one was Glencore's smelters in Mount Isa.”
“Private lenders were lining up to fund Arnott's. The NRF—the government funded, the taxpayers, NRF—didn't crowd in investment. It crowded out the private sector to refinance a snack-food company. How is that investing in sovereign capability? It isn't. Worse still is the financial vandalism. In 2023, Labor promised that the National Reconstruction Fund would return the bond rate plus two to three per cent. That is a pretty worthy goal. But last week they announced a $5 billion net zero sub-fund that will explicitly target a return of one per cent below the bond rate. In two years, Labor's turned a $15 billion investment of taxpayers money, public money, into a guaranteed loss-making machine—structural loss.”
“These bankruptcies were screaming market signals about these businesses, yet the government's response wasn't to reflect on these market signals or understand them, or attempt to understand them, but to announce a $500 million Battery Breakthrough Initiative. This is an investment in the zombification of the economy using taxpayers money to raise the dead. It will not work. Nowhere is this arrogance clearer than through the National Reconstruction Fund. We were told the National Reconstruction Fund would build sovereign capability. It sounds like a worthy goal. Instead, it uses $45 million of taxpayer funds to refinance Arnott's biscuits, and let's not be romantic about Arnott's biscuits. It's a company owned by a US private equity giant with hundreds of billions in assets. Why does it need $45 million of taxpayers money?”
“But we are witnessing what is happening with the inevitable unravelling of the government's 'net zero at any cost' agenda, and we do see the cracks of this idea of public finance rescuing industry and innovation coming to the fore. Let us have a look at the graveyards of Labor's manufacturing dream. Redflow, the champion of zinc-bromine storage, entered administration in August 2024. It had everything the Labor Party loves: grants from California, millions from Queensland Labor and US defence contracts. It had state support, but it lacked market viability. Energy Renaissance, the pride of New South Wales's lithium manufacturing, collapsed in 2025.”
“I rise today to highlight to the government the importance of the right allocation of capital within the economy and the consequences of their lack of understanding of the role of public finance and the public financing of industry and innovation in our economy. I want to note that it's been a privilege to hold the role of shadow minister for industry and innovation in the opposition led by the member for Farrer, Sussan Ley, because we understand the role of capital in the economy. The government has told us for years that we've been promised a future made in Australia, which would be delivered by the government. We were told that, if enough taxpayer cheques were written, we could manufacture our way to prosperity.”
“We know that what they consider every day is actually a threat to our safety and security. We know that the pressure is high on an agency like ASIO. The capacity for error is high because it is intense, it is fast paced and it is serious. These are bad and evil actors all around the world—and, sadly, within our country—that want to do harm to other people. One of the protections we have is ASIO. We'll be supporting this bill. We commend the government on keeping pace with national security measures. We especially commend them for keeping pace with those measures in the wake of our worst onshore domestic terrorist incident. We must reinforce our security agencies. We must support the work of our intelligence agencies. For that fundamental reason, we thank the government for the introduction of this bill. Debate adjourned.”
“We know that they're actually in there protecting our national security every single day, that they care deeply about the safety of every Australian and that their work is vital. Intelligence work in the modern era is as vital as any other part of the government's function, and we must have them supported. We must have them know that this parliament believes in their mission and understands that they are passionate Australians of all backgrounds, working together to prevent strikes and undermining of our country. In short, the opposition—the Liberal Party and the National Party—and every single member of the Liberal and National parties supports ASIO. We support the work of the men and women who take on that cause every single day on behalf of our country. We know it is serious.”
“I can say to this parliament that we support the government on this because the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the National Party, the parties of government in this House and in the Senate, understand intelligence work and understand that our security agencies are dedicated to this country and our national security. I want to take a moment today after a difficult 24 hours for ASIO, after an unwarranted assault on them through the media and after some unwarranted questioning by some parliamentarians over the past few months, to say to ASIO that we know the brave men and women who work there are as brave as every frontline responder in the police and in the other agencies of government that work for our country.”
“As a society, we stood up and resisted the terrorists at Bondi, and we have said to them that they will not strike fear and terror into our hearts or on our streets or divide us further. The country has come together. But we would be naive not to understand that we are living through a period of increasingly dynamic and dangerous security risks. Our agencies need special powers to deal with that. They must be contemporary. The risks are more numerous and more acute than were under contemplation in 2001, when the first tranche of this legislation came through when we had 9/11. We now have the prospect of digital and cyber and radicalisation online almost every day all around the world. The critics who are arguing that this legislation is unjust because it could compel innocent people to undergo questioning are not thinking this through.”
“It remains the case. It cannot gather evidence for criminal prosecution. Its activities remain subject to scrutiny by the IGIS, the Administrative Review Tribunal, the PJCIS and the Attorney-General. We have layers upon layers of oversight and scrutiny, as we should. They exist, they are robust and they work. This bill also strengthens the framework governing prescribed authorities, further reinforcing independence and oversight. The opposition will be supporting the passage of this bill. We do so because the changes it encompasses are reasonable and responsive to the threats that Australia face. We've just seen the tragic attempt at Bondi to undermine national security, to directly threaten not just Australians of Jewish descent but the safety and order of our streets to strike fear and terror into our whole society.”
“Witnesses before the committee struggled to identify any evidence or abuse of these powers because there is none. They were given no concrete examples of systemic problems or that these powers are inappropriate at a moment of national crisis or when a person wants to commit serious harm against fellow Australians or against our country. These safeguards are working. They've always been firmly in place, and they would remain in place under this legislation. In the first instance, the Attorney-General must be satisfied that a compulsory questioning warrant is necessary. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security also retains strong oversight powers, including the ability to be present during the questioning and provide real-time scrutiny—another protection, a very important protection. ASIO cannot arrest, charge or prosecute.”