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.”
The complete record
Every one of 182 lines we hold for Alex Hawke, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 4.
“So a person who has been appointed to the NRFC Board without, according to the Auditor-General, due diligence checks having been conducted is also a member of the union of which the minister is the former national secretary. That is a coincidence that we would certainly want to know more about. Despite this advice being present on the appointment briefs, the minister still signed off. So clearly there are questions for the government and the minister to answer over the appointment of a member to the NRFC board that the Auditor-General found was appointed without due diligence checks having been conducted by respective departments. This is not the careful and strategic deployment of taxpayer funds that ought to constitute industry policy in the 21st century.”
“But this is not the only serious governance blind spot that we found at the NRFC. In the same report, the Auditor-General found that the ninth member of the NRFC Board, Mr Glenn Thompson, was appointed without due diligence checks having been conducted by the ministers' respective departments. I ask the House: who is Glenn Thompson? Mr Glenn Thompson is a former long-time assistant national secretary to the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union, someone that you probably would want to do due diligence checks on, just like any other member of the board. This is the very same union, of course, regrettably, of which Minister Ayres is a former national secretary.”
“Labor wants the NRFC to double down on its investment pipeline in the full knowledge of the fact that there isn't a finalised investment or financial strategy—a small problem. It will be without such plans until after its September board meeting. But the government is saying to the fund, 'Hurry up and spend the money,' without the plan and without the investment strategy. Is this a recipe for disaster, Deputy Speaker Scrymgour, I ask you? It sounds like a recipe for disaster. 'Hurry up and spend, hurry up and invest, but don't hurry up and set up your investment plans to actually fund the money that the taxpayer has given you.' It's little wonder that the federal budget is heaving with debt and debt has increased under the Labor Party if this is the approach.”
“In other words, the fund has no plan—not to fund its own expenses and certainly not to deliver a return to government. But the Prime Minister and the industry minister are promising the taxpayer that there will be a return from this money. That's very difficult to imagine without a plan for a return and where the funds aren't being deployed to produce a return. It will barely even cover its expenses. What action has the government undertaken to address this serious mismanagement? Last week Capital Brief reported that Minister Ayres and Minister Gallagher issued a joint statement to the NRFC to accelerate its investment. In layman's terms, that means 'hurry up'. Get on with it, because there isn't a return coming.”
“In plain language, the Labor Party has been splashing taxpayers' money around without a care in the world. How surprising! This is an astonishing government failure and governance failure, as the Auditor-General found, because it's directly at odds with what the government has said the rationale for the NRF is. Minister Ayres has said: … the NRFC is required to deliver a positive return to the Government over time … And no less than the Prime Minister, when visiting China early last month, said of the NRF: … we expect it will produce a return to the Government through increased revenues … Well, then, how does that correlate with the Auditor-General finding that the 'NRFC's investment targets are not supported by formal plans to deploy investments in a timely manner to generate returns to fund operating expenses'?”
“Today in question time we had the Minister for Defence Industry trying to make a valiant defence of Labor's flagship National Reconstruction Fund. Members might wonder why the government felt this was necessary. I want to address the fact that last month the Auditor-General handed down its report D esign and establishment of the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation . This report found that the NRFC Board was yet to finalise a financial or investment strategy. This is despite more than $400 million having been invested by the NRF to date. That's $400 million invested without a financial or investment strategy, which is required. I quote from the report: NRFC's investment targets are not supported by formal plans to deploy investments in a timely manner to generate returns and fund operating expenses.”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. On the front page of the A ge today, it is reported that multiple CFMEU officials received gold bracelets as kickbacks from underworld crime figures. Also today, on the front page of the Courier-Mail , the CFMEU is openly threatening the Queensland parliament. Can the Prime Minister advise the House what instructions his government has given to his hand-picked CFMEU administrator, Mark Irving, regarding the lawless conduct of this union and its members across the country?”
“However, on this one occasion we agree and we accept the advice from the government that there is an urgency to this matter.”
“I just want it known, for the House's benefit, that the coalition has agreed to this unusual procedure—and I hear what the manager has said. We have accepted the advice from the government that there is an urgency in relation to the education bills and clearly in relation to the childcare bills. The Leader of the Opposition has indicated that we'll be constructive on these sorts of matters, and we will be. I would add to the manager's speech simply that the nature of the election timing and where we are now is another reason we have agreed to this unusual process for these two very important first bills that have come before the parliament. That wouldn't normally be the case. There's obviously an important reason, and I hear what you say about the gag.”
“Not only would a government minister have to be prepared for a question; they'd have to be prepared for a follow-up question, which can only be a good thing, especially on the complexity of the operation of government in today's society. We have the ability to ask any minister any question, but if they don't answer the question we have no ability to follow that up. This is a sensible reform that will return supplementary questions to this chamber, and I welcome the proposal. In the previous parliament, the conduct of the government was, as I've highlighted, antidemocratic. In relation to the standing order changes to committees, I—”
“(3) Insert sessional order 49A: 49 A Moving a motion of condolence A motion of condolence may only be moved immediately following Prayers. We only gave short notice of the amendments I'm moving today ourselves. I apologise to the House for the notice I've given. If we get 20 minutes notice, unfortunately you will get no notice. The amendments I'm moving do something important in relation to 65A. They return something that has been here before and is in operation of the Senate; that is, they allow for supplementary questions to be asked both by the opposition and the crossbench. This would increase transparency in this parliament. I know many of my crossbench colleagues would support the operation of supplementary questions.”
“197 Return of matters to the House The Federation Chamber may return a matter to the House before its consideration is completed: (a) A matter may be returned to the House on a motion moved without notice at any time by a Minister— That further proceedings be conducted in the House. The motion shall be put without amendment or debate. If the Federation Chamber agrees to, or is unable to resolve, this question, the bill or order of the day shall be returned to the House. Consideration in the House must continue from the point reached in the Federation Chamber and the House must resolve any issues that the Federation Chamber reports. (b) The House may at any time require a matter to be returned for further consideration, on a motion moved without notice by a Minister. The matter must be set down for consideration at a later hour that day.”
“183 Establishment of Federation Chamber The Federation Chamber shall be established as a committee of the House to consider matters referred to it as follows: (a) proceedings on bills to the completion of the consideration in detail stage; (b) orders of the day for the resumption of debate on any motion; (c) subject to paragraph (a), private Members' notices and other items of private Members' and committee and delegation business referred in accordance with a Selection Committee determination pursuant to standing order 222 ; and (d) further statements on a matter when statements have commenced in the House.”
“(b) A point of order regarding relevance may be taken only once in respect of each answer. (c) The duration of each answer is limited to 3 minutes. The duration of an answer to a supplementary question is limited to 90 seconds. 105 Replies to written questions (a) A Minister's written reply to a question must be delivered to the Clerk. The Clerk shall provide a copy of the reply to the Member who asked the question, and the question and reply shall be published. (b) If a reply has not been received 60 days after a question first appeared on the Notice Paper, the Member who asked the question may, at the conclusion of Question Time, ask that the Minister concerned present reasons for the delay in answering. The reasons shall be presented by the Minister at the next sitting.”
“(f) The duration of each question is limited to 45 seconds. The duration of each supplementary question is limited to 20 seconds. 101 Speaker's discretion about questions The Speaker may: (a) direct a Member to change the language of a question asked during Question Time if the language is inappropriate or does not otherwise conform with the standing orders; (b) allow up to five supplementary questions to be asked, per question time, to clarify an answer to a question asked during Question Time—one from the Leader of the Opposition, one from any Opposition member, two from government members and one from a crossbench member; and (c) change the language of a question in writing if the language is inappropriate or does not otherwise conform with the standing orders. 104 Answers (a) An answer must be directly relevant to the question.”
“(c) For questions regarding persons: (i) questions must not reflect on or be critical of the character or conduct of a Member, a Senator, the Queen, the Governor-General, a State Governor, or a member of the judiciary: their conduct may only be challenged on a substantive motion; and (ii) questions critical of the character or conduct of other persons must be in writing. (d) Questions must not contain: (i) statements of facts or names of persons, unless they can be authenticated and are strictly necessary to make the question intelligible; (ii) arguments; (iii) inferences; (iv) imputations; (v) insults; (vi) ironical expressions; or (vii) hypothetical matter. (e) Questions must not refer to debates in the current session, or to proceedings of a committee not reported to the House.”
“97 Daily Question Time (a) Question Time shall begin at 2 pm on each sitting day, at which time the Speaker shall interrupt any business before the House and call on questions without notice. (b) The business interrupted shall be dealt with in the following manner: (i) if a division is in progress at the time, the division shall be completed and the result announced; or (ii) the Speaker shall set the time for resumption of debate. (c) Question Time shall not conclude until at least eight questions have been asked by opposition Members. 100 Rules for questions The following general rules apply to all questions: (a) Questions must not be debated. (b) A question fully answered must not be asked again.”
“I move the amendments to the motion moved by the Leader of the House as circulated in my name: (1) Replace proposed sessional order 65A(a)(i) and (ii) with: (a) During Question Time, priority shall be given to a crossbench Member seeking the call on the fifth, thirteenth and seventeenth questions; (2) Amend standing orders 1, 45, 97, 100, 101, 104, 105, 183 and 197 as follows: 1 Maximum speaking times The maximum time limits that apply to debates, speeches and statements are as follows. 45 Order of government business The Leader of the House may arrange the order of notices and orders of the day for government business on the Notice Paper as he or she thinks fit.”
“Overall, the average number of questions will go down, opposition questions will go down and crossbench questions will go down. How does that help the operation of this parliament? Our view is that it does not and our view is that this is an antidemocratic measure. That's my criticism. I will now be constructive; the pendulum is going to swing, and we're going back to 'constructive'. We have some solutions.”
“So there won't be more opportunity for the crossbench to get more questions because, on a normal given day, or when things are going badly for the government, the Prime Minister routinely guillotines question time—as is his right. So there will be fewer opposition questions in this parliament, as there were last parliament, and there will be fewer crossbench questions in this parliament, unless the Prime Minister—it's up to him, of course—decides that he's having a good day and extends question time a little bit longer. That, in our view, is a sneaky attempt to rewrite this to, over time, slowly—not under the scrutiny of anyone who pays a lot of attention except for the most ardent watchers of this place—reduce questions bit by bit.”
“The average number of questions overall fell from the 46th Parliament to the 47th Parliament, and question time ended before 3.10 pm more often in the 47th Parliament, 29 times compared to only 17 times in the 46th Parliament. We know on many occasions the Prime Minister urgently cut off question time because, simply, it wasn't going very well for the government. These changes that are proposed by the Leader of the House do something very sneaky. I am sad that he mentioned it but didn't say what this would mean. The heading for these changes is 'more opportunities for crossbench questions'. But the crossbench is under no illusion that the reordering of the numbers is after the cut-off that the Prime Minister usually uses.”
“That's the point of being in the parliament, and the parliament has an important function on behalf of Australians to say to the executive: 'What are you doing in government? Can you explain to the Australian people what your legislative and political agenda is?' And you have to defend it in the scrutiny of an open, democratic forum. In its first term, this Labor government under Prime Minister Albanese reduced the number of questions that we have in question time. The average number of questions asked by the opposition went from 10 in the 46th Parliament, the one that we heard was antidemocratic and not transparent, to just seven in the 47th Parliament. That's a big drop.”
“To move along, sessional order 65A is of course the real meat of what the government is proposing to change in these standing orders. While government members will be disinterested because they now have a supermajority in this place, the whole purpose of having a question time is scrutiny of the executive, not of the government. It's not of you on the backbench but of these people on the frontbench. The leader referenced that ministers will be happy because they'll be able to get out of here quicker. That isn't the principle of effective, transparent government. In fact, if you're a government minister—and I have been—you should know your brief, you should welcome questions and you should be able to answer those questions.”
“On the veneer of increased transparency and democratic operation, we have some antidemocratic measures that the government is proposing in its first action. I will say upfront that, as a lifelong constitutional monarchist and a great supporter of our constitutional monarchy and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, while we are still, in my view, in the official mourning period for Her Majesty the Queen, we do accept reluctantly the changes to remove all references to 'the Queen' from the standing orders and replace them with 'the Sovereign', which is the bulk of the work that the leader has put forward in today's standing orders. It's a reluctant but necessary change, so, there you go, we have supported you on something. Even as a constitutional monarchist, I've agreed to that.”
“Indeed that is what democracy is all about. The whole tradition of democracy is about the rights of minorities—always has been; always will be—and it should be in a rights based society. That has always been a Liberal principle. I think the Leader of the House has belled the cat. That all sounds very lovely when you listen to it—how democratic and smooth everything will be and how lovely the parliament will function with these changes to the standing orders. However, taking my leader's instruction, I think we can be constructive on certain machinery changes that the leader has proposed, but then unfortunately I feel like we must be critical about some other changes that the Leader of the House is proposing here.”
“I want to put that on the radar upfront. We welcome your ascension to speaker. You do a great job for this parliament. Convention is very important, and, indeed, the quality of debate and legislation is more important when you have a majority government. So we look forward to working with you to make sure that, in this parliament, every single individual voice is heard and that all parliamentarians have the opportunity to ensure that not only the 8½ million Australian people that voted for the government but also the seven million people that did not vote for the government are heard.”
“The reason you have so much support from the crossbench and the opposition is that you have been an ardent defender of the procedures, conventions and standing orders, and we welcome that for the coming term. Indeed, in the Australian , I noticed that you were lauded for your performance in the previous term, having, I think, managed to achieve the feat of simultaneously removing fewer members than any other Speaker in the last 30 years and yet removing more government members than any other Speaker in some time! I want to point out that, with the changed composition of the parliament and having run the numbers, your average is about 3.63—one government member every three sessions. You'll need to increase that strike rate to one government member every 2.88 sessions if you want to keep your strike rate up!”
“Thank you, Speaker. I knew that you would give me the call to give this speech. I had an instinct that you might! Given that we're going to have the most tense relationship of the coming term, I thought this would be a chance to say something very briefly. You know the Leader of the House's opinion of you, but I did want to congratulate you and welcome your ascension to the chair as Speaker of this House. You have been an authentic believer and defender of our democratic traditions, especially the Westminster traditions. Given the nature of this parliament, none of us have lived through a parliament to this time where the government has had such a majority, and I think the rights of minorities are going to be especially important in relation to the operation of this House.”
“He is an exceptional police officer and continues to ensure the wellbeing of officers in the Hills District and elsewhere in the state. Sharon Smith PSM was awarded the Public Service Medal for her outstanding service to NSW Health, especially during the COVID pandemic. With 36 years of industry experience as a chief data officer in systems information and analytics at NSW Health, we can't underestimate Sharon's contribution in what is the biggest health crisis of our time, interpreting health data in an era of data driven solutions. I thank Sharon Smith PSM for her great service to health in Australia. I commend all Australia Day award recipients in my electorate and around the country for their immense service and their ongoing commitment to our nation's cohesion.”
“He was goalkeeper for Australia at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. It was a posthumous award. His family are very proud of Ronald and his service for Australia at this level. Rob Katz OAM is a very special member of the Hills community, together with his wife. He has a passion for judo and has trained so many young people in judo in our community. He continues to serve in that role. He has competed internationally and has led Olympic teams for Australia to Seoul, Athens, Paris and Hong Kong. He is a two-time silver medallist and four-time bronze medallist at the Australian championships. He has devoted his life to this sport, but he is an integral part of the Mitchell community, well respected, regarded and loved. Chief Inspector Jenkins APM was awarded the Australian Police Medal for exceptional service.”
“Lauretta Claus AM was recognised for her significant service to education and to national and international basketball. She began teaching in 1988 and held senior roles as principal and director of educational leadership and many roles within the Department of Education. We've also seen her work internationally in basketball. She was inducted into the basketball hall of fame and became the lead statistics reviewer for the men's and women's basketball world cups. Bill Henderson OAM was honoured for his outstanding service to football. He was a member of the Socceroos from 1954 to 1956, including during the Olympic Games in Melbourne. This is something that Bill's family have great pride in, and it reflects his induction into the football hall of fame in 1999. The late Ronald Lord OAM was another Socceroo, from 1951 to 1954.”
“I rise today to congratulate my community of Mitchell on a wonderful Australia Day celebration of our contemporary Australian nation and our shared history. I had the opportunity to attend events both in my electorate throughout the Hills District and in Greater Western Sydney. In Parramatta I always speak of the great harmony in Parramatta—an ancient Aboriginal meeting place, a seat of colonial government power throughout the whole of Australia, and a modern, thriving, multicultural city. The ceremony at Parramatta in particular is a seamless example to all of us here in the federal parliament of unity around our shared history and our shared journey together between those three very important themes of modern Australia. I also want to take a moment to congratulate the Australia Day Honours recipients in my electorate.”