Michael McCormack
Riverina · National Party · Australia
“She told the local newspaper, the Daily Advertiser : He shared his personal story and he was just such a brave, compassionate man— and we heard that from the member for Chifley a moment ago. She continued: He was the most warm, caring, generous man.”
“He knew that he was going to succumb to the diseases that were afflicting his body, and yet he used his final months, weeks, days and hours to send a message to the nation about what can be done, what should be done and how we should act.”
“The coalition has concerns from the sector itself about the consultation process, including but not limited to the fact universities had not seen the bill before it was tabled. There are elements of the drafting surprising the actual sector.”
“My thoughts and love and condolences go out to Katie and his children, Emily, Matthew and Lucy. It is a profound loss that they have suffered. I listened closely to the words of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Minister for Health and Ageing yesterday before question time.”
“There are a lot of Australians out there at the moment who are very angry, and, when there is anger, there is unfortunately a race to the bottom when it comes to healthy debate. I don't need to remind the House about the sovereign citizen movement and what that can do to Australia and the nature and discourse of debate.”
“I do believe that children should be allowed to be children. We saw it in the veterans legislation, where there is now going to be a $5,000 cap on allied health for veterans to access important services. The Labor Party said: 'Trust us. We'll do the consultation over the next 12 months.' It's not good enough.”
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“This company's collapse meant another 300 employees were out of work—140 trucks and 170 trailer trucks annually covering 22,000,000 kilometres. They're not isolated examples. Ron Crouch Transport in Wagga Wagga has been going for a long, long time. It's a generational family trucking business. This is due in no small part to the issues around fuel supply, the issues of the cost-of-living crisis and the issues of getting business done. The issues of false and sham contracting is playing a big part as well. The government will say it's doing some work in this space, and I commend it for that, but there's much more that can be done, that should be done, that must be done.”
“That's Australia's transport, postal and warehousing sector. That's our truckies. Without our truckies, nothing gets anywhere in this country. When the trucking sector grinds to a halt, so does the nation. We should be ever so thankful that our truckies do a mighty fine job for and on behalf of this nation, because no food gets on the table of anyone in Australia without a truck. It doesn't. They're under the pump. XL Express, with a fleet of 193 vehicles, stood down its 200 employees, and, a couple of months later, creditors vowed to wind up the 17 companies associated under the XL group. It was burdened by debt. It shows a worrying, alarming and growing trend in Australia. We had the Don Watson Transport and Coldstores group, after 77 years of delivering in Australia, in trouble such that it announced it was finishing up.”
“I don't think city people always get the fact that we drive far greater distances. In the fortnight away from parliament, I was averaging about 400 kilometres a day just travelling around my huge electorate. I could throw my handkerchief over the electorates of some of these city MPs and still have room to spare. They just don't understand the hardships faced by their country cousins. If they did, they'd do more to protect the transport sector and the trucking industry, just as one example. ASIC figures show that of trucking companies in 2021-22—remember, Labor took over in May 2022—196 went to the wall in that period. In 2022-23, 347 went broke, with 495 the following year, and, as of 6 April this year—so the figures are a little bit dated, but the argument remains the same—535 insolvencies had already been recorded.”
“They do care about making out as if they're doing the right thing by Australians, hence an extension to the fuel excise rebate, but at a smaller discount. The federal government is winding back its discount to the fuel excise over the next month—the 32c per litre fuel discount is dropping to 16c per litre—and the heavy-vehicle road user charge will go up from free to 16c per litre. Motorists have had three months of relief, as they should have. The coalition called for this and brought the Labor government kicking and screaming to the table to do what we'd asked and to do what our constituents said was important so that our farmers could plant their crops and so that our regional families in particular could take their children to sport and other activities they enjoy.”
“There were many farmers—it was the start of sowing season—who could not access diesel to sow their crops, to plant their winter crops so that they would have a harvest at the end of the year. And there were farmers who could get some access to diesel but they could only half-fill their tanks and, inexplicably, they had to pay cash for it. That goes against every measure of fair play. It's probably an issue that should have been raised with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. This was the reality of life in regional Australia when the Strait of Hormuz was initially blocked. This was the lived experience. I suspect this government doesn't care all that much about farmers. They do care about polls and polling and pollsters.”
“Resources rich, politically poor—that is Australia in 2026. We are arguing the merits of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Fuel Excise Relief No. 2) Bill 2026. The opposition is not going to stand in the way of consumers getting a cheaper tank of fuel, even if it is only $11. We are not going to stand in the way of people, particularly in regional Australia, being able to fill up and get about their daily business. During the early stages of the fuel crisis, when Iran was first being bombed, there were regional people who were choosing whether or not to stay at home, whether to take the children to their weekend sport or dancing or whatever the case might have been. We heard from the government, over and over, that supply was not an issue. Well, I can tell you it was. In Batlow, in my electorate, there was no fuel available.”
“But we have to be sensible when it comes to making sure that we can grow the amount of food available to such partnerships as this. Australia and the EU, we know, share values. We share heritage and history. There's a common commitment to democracy and to human rights. The member for Reid mentioned Ukraine. I support her 100 per cent in that regard. The EU, along with the UK, has been a leader in supporting Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression. But we have to be sensible. We have to make sure that we've got better water policy. Not only will I always talk this up; I will make a plea to the government to ensure that more money is put into infrastructure as far as water is concerned and not water buybacks—$340 million again last week. Buying water out of productive use doesn't make sense.”
“The plan, this group that I just met say, is 'destroying our nation's important economic staple food production capabilities and failing to protect our rural communities'. What the EU trade arrangements do is build on the work of the coalition. The partnership builds on the framework agreement signed in 2017 under the coalition government. The coalition has long championed deeper Australian-EU cooperation on security and defence. I appreciate we've had some important visits lately—not just political heads. There are also, obviously, always those negotiations between key stakeholders, between government and those captains of industry, that are going to enhance these arrangements and ensure that they are put in place.”
“Whilst Labor might crow about trade and making sure that trade is what it should be, you're not going to have continued and expanding trade opportunities if you don't provide the water policy that is going to enable our irrigators to grow the food and the fibre to ensure that we have balance of trade and balance of payments. We just need to be using more common sense in this regard. I've just come from a meeting with a group of southern connected irrigators. The theme of the meeting was 'Food for thought: can Australia protect both its environment and its food security?' When it comes to trade, food security equals trade security equals national security. At the moment, we don't have balance in the Murray-Darling Basin and with the plan.”
“With the United Kingdom, our two-way trade is approximately $31.2 billion annually; our exports are metals, lead, coal and meat. With France, our two-way trade is about $14.4 billion; our exports are coal, canola, aircraft parts and seeds. With Italy, our two-way trade is about $12.37 billion, and Australia's exports to Italy are predominantly hot-rolled iron steel, wool—very valuable at the moment—gold and agricultural products. Services such as education and recreational travel also make up a significant portion. With the EU, at least with Germany, France and Italy—and of course the UK, but we're talking about the EU here—in each of the two-way trade references I gave, I referred to agriculture. You can't have agriculture if you don't have good water policy.”
“On the member for Reid's contribution about the European Union and trade, to her analogy with the World Cup football being played at the moment, there are also referees. When it comes to trade, we need good, strong referees; in the instance of trade, it's the World Trade Organization. When countries want to go and slap tariffs on you, and, also, when there are examples of countries not playing by the trade rules by which they are bound, then we need a good strong referee, an arbiter, to make sure that fairness is prevailing. What we also need, and what any football team needs, is common sense. With the European Union, Australia's two-way trade is valued at $110.7 billion annually. I'll just give you four examples of this. With Germany, our two-way trade is about $29 billion annually; Australia exports coal, canola and copper ore.”
“I understand that, but the government needs to have a far better response to this growing crisis. If this growing crisis remains in place, there will not be a legal cigarette sold in this country in the years to come. There will not. And this is on Labor's watch.”
“But I'll tell you what—when some of these bikie gangs, laden with baseball bats and the like, come a knocking, you do feel for those shop owners who are just trying to do the right thing in a legal environment and in a legal way and method and who are being heavied by these thugs, these nefarious characters. This bill is a partial, belated and wholly inadequate approach to a crisis that has exploded on Labor's watch. I feel for our hardworking patrol officers, such as my friend in the highway patrol, because they should be catching people who are speeding and breaking the road rules. They should be monitoring road safety, not babysitting this government, which has to be doing more at the border. I realise that you can't go through every 20-foot container.”
“When you've got a situation where you can pay $50 a pack for cigarettes or $20 a pack for cigarettes and when you've got a cost-of-living crisis, when you can't put food on the table and when you're struggling to pay your power bills, it's very tempting to justify not spending $30 more on a packet of cigarettes and do it under the counter—chop chop—than it is to do the right thing and pay the excise. I understand why the shop owners and, indeed, their customers are, unfortunately, faced with this situation. There's no condoning anybody breaking the law.”
“Woe betide if they come knocking on your legal tobacco store and if you are a legal shop owner attempting and trying at every step of the way to do the right thing by yourself, by your family, by your customers, by your community. Cigarette selling is still a legal activity, but, in a cost-of-living crisis, bikie gangs are strongarming, in many cases, these shop owners, and the shop owners are going out backwards if they don't comply. The other thing is that so many of the people who are buying this illegal product are in the lowest socioeconomic section of the community. They are doing it tough, and this government is not doing anything, or very little, to help them make ends meet.”
“The member for Cowper—I've got a lot of time for him—brought before the parliament and to the notice of the public a better way to deal with this issue. I respect him greatly, not just because he's somebody who often thinks outside the square but because he's also a former officer of the law, a former New South Wales policeman. This legislation before us now does not have the same teeth. They are needed. As I said at the outset of this contribution, it is too little, too late. The government is playing catch-up. What this bill contains isn't, quite frankly, doing the job. Right across our suburbs and cities and towns and regional communities in particular we've got bikie gangs. This is their method of making money. This is their way of conducting their nefarious activities.”
“That's a lot of money and a lot of cigarettes. It's a lot of illegality—but not according to New South Wales District Court Judge Jennifer English. She found the decision to search the pair's associates involved racial profiling before ordering 'no further proceedings'. Go figure! What do you think the New South Wales police think when they read a judgement like that. They're doing their job. They're pulling up crims. They're charging them. They're bringing them before the courts, and we get some woke judge who throws it out. The cops must shake their heads. It's just bizarre. I was on the public website of the police the other day, and the reading is horrendous. These vehicle stops are seizing more and more cigarettes and vapes.”
“It's also a corridor of illegal activity when it comes to drivers whose vans and vehicles are full of illegal vapes and illegal tobacco. We had that bizarre case that went through the courts. People were pulled up, but the case was thrown out because the court found that those who were appearing had been racially profiled. Well, I would argue that these two men who were in a truck full of illegal cigarettes and who were pulled up by the police were not, in fact, racially profiled at all. They were breaking the law. They were both 38-year-olds, and just because they weren't of Caucasian appearance the district court judge threw the case out. Just listen to this. They were stopped in Gundagai. Officers found 2,135,200 Double Happiness cigarettes weighing 1,379 kilograms with an excise worth $2,539,822.54.”
“People who smoke just crave it, and it's very hard to kick the habit. It's also very expensive. Four out of five cigarettes being smoked in Australia today are illegal cigarettes, and the amount of excise being lost by Labor, which has done nothing, you could argue—they will argue—until now is costing the economy. It's costing money that could be otherwise used on public health campaigns in public hospitals on just about anything that might be and would be good for society. On the public NSW Police website, on Friday 19 June, the headline was: Traffic and Highway Patrol seize more than $4.5m in tobacco, vapes in three separate vehicle stops. This just goes on and on, particularly along the Hume Freeway between Melbourne and Sydney. It is a corridor of commerce.”
“In one sense, I feel for some of the shop owners because they are being heavied by very nefarious people, bikie gang thugs, to sell illicit tobacco. If they don't, then they are at risk. Their families are at risk. We've seen all too often in Melbourne Molotov cocktails being thrown not just into the tobacco shops and the vape shops but indeed the shops on either side, so much so that insurance companies are refusing to insure stores right next door to tobacco shops—tobacco shops which to all intents and purposes are legal entities. I don't smoke—never have, never will. My late father, Lance, did. It probably put him in an early grave, it's sad to say—very sad to say. I miss him every day. I feel for those people who have an addiction, because there's no worse addiction than tobacco.”
“Too little, too late. But, with so many of the policies brought forward by this Albanese Labor government, it is all too often too little, too late. The Combating Illicit Tobacco Bill 2026 is another sad example of that, and I feel sorry for those authorities whose job it is these days to clamp down on the illicit tobacco trade. I'm in regular contact with one of the highway patrol officers in the Riverina electorate in relation to this matter. He texted me just last week and said this: 'We searched a vehicle last week linked to one of the illicit Cootamundra tobacco shops and seized $5,000 cash but also their detailed ledgers. The shop does between $4,000 and $11,000 of trade a day in Cootamundra! The organised crime groups are laughing all the way to the bank.' Sadly, unfortunately, they are.”
“They're doing it at the expense of people who can't afford smokes due to the cost-of-living crisis. They're doing it at the expense of people who run small-businesses tobacconists. Indeed, many of these tobacconists find it hard to get insurance for their shops, let alone their next-door neighbours, who cannot get insurance for their shops because of the Molotov cocktails that are thrown into their stores late at night. This is a particular problem in Melbourne, as I read and as I understand. Wednesday's data showed that household spending on tobacco dropped back to 2016 levels after peaking at the end of 2020, even as tobacco consumption rose, indicating a shift towards cheaper, illicit sources.”
“According to this report, nicotine consumption grew 40 per cent in the same period, with most of the jump in the past four years. The population grew 14 per cent over that period, while tobacco taxes soared by a third. The report stated that the federal government, along with the states and territories, is spending more than $300 million on combating the illicit tobacco trade. Since the turn of the decade, this has just become out of control. But don't take my word for it. Ask any of the highway patrol officers who pull up vans incessantly on the Hume Highway and find not just illegal vapes and boxes of chop-chop and illegal smokes but bags of cash—hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is now the black market and the means that bikie gangs and other nefarious groups are making their money.”
“Just yesterday, the Sydney Morning Herald , through its reporters Britney Busch and Shane Wright, who, incidentally, I gave his first job back in September 1991 at the Daily Advertiser , had a report talking about the data that destroys the idea that Australians are quitting smoking. As I said earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has, for the first time, according to this report, assessed how the illicit tobacco trade now absolutely dominates the nation's cigarette market by using experimental testing of nicotine concentration in wastewater. According to the data released just on Wednesday—and this is really compelling—illicit nicotine products, including cigarettes, e-cigarettes, vapes and loose-leaf tobacco, comprised 80 per cent of consumption in Australia in 2025, up from just 12 per cent in 2017.”
“Up to four in five cigarettes smoked in Australia are illegal. This is a disgrace. This is an absolute disgrace. Between 2025-26 and 2029-30, the government expects to collect $15.4 billion in excise. That's compared to the $27.3 billion it had forecast for the same period in last year's budget. That is a shortfall of $11.9 billion in excise in money that could be spent in state hospitals, in money that could be spent keeping the lights on, in money that could be spent for hardworking taxpayers—”
“What we've got here is Mr McCrindle adding: They are the ones— he's talking about microbusinesses— most impacted by these suite of changes, whether it's (capital gains tax) reform or minimum wage increases. Here's an interesting statistic just to dwell on: New insolvency data shows 281 small businesses shut their doors in the five days after the federal budget alone. That's 281 people who may well now be forced to live on welfare, 281 people who've given up the dream of running their own business, 281 people potentially—probably more—who've lost that hope, who've lost that drive, who've lost that zeal, that energy, that desire to get out of bed in the morning and make this country a better one. Shame on the government for this budget. It's an absolute disgrace. It should be very much looked at and reviewed.”
“A bigger government with more control over people is how this government operates, and it's wrongheaded. It's absolutely wrongheaded. Now, Mr McCrindle had this to say: It is already a challenging environment for small and medium enterprise, and the ones doing it tough are the smallest businesses. There are 40,000 fewer of those micro businesses today than there were four years ago— 40,000 fewer! Do we think that the government, that the Minister for Small Business, that the Treasurer, that the Prime Minister no less think to themselves when they're formulating a budget: 'What can we do to help small businesses? What can we do to ensure that that engine room of the economy can prosper, can thrive?' They can barely survive with the policies that have been put out under this cruel, mean spirited, wrongheaded budget.”
“We have heard from people such as Mark McCrindle, a social demographer, who said small businesses were being confronted with a 'war on work, an attack on risk takers and a target on the back of the entrepreneur'. Once we take away that entrepreneurial spirit, that yearning to get out there, follow your dream, take a spark of an idea and turn it into a small-business success story, we pull the rug from underneath the economy. Small business—make no mistake—runs the economy. Small business employs the majority of Australians. This government believes in a big Public Service, although they're taking away 111 Department of Veterans' Affairs staff, which is reprehensible. They believe that, because there's a bigger public service, they're doing their job.”
“The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released just this week show the economy grew by a weaker-than-expected 0.3 per cent in the March quarter amidst declining productivity. It was only on 27 June 2025 that the consultation process was opened on a productivity roundtable. Well, how did that go when we see that productivity in every shape, way and form is being smashed by this federal budget? Then we had, of course, the Treasurer out there trying to explain it away and saying: 'Nothing to see here. All is well. All is good. The economy is growing.' Well, we should be booming. Despite the worldwide headwinds, including the war in Iran, we should be, as a nation, booming, but we are being slowed by bad policies and by a bad government, and small businesses have had enough because they are copying it in the neck every day in every way.”
“We as a coalition—we as Nationals and Liberals—want people to keep more of what they earn because it's their money. The other side treat wages, superannuation and all of these things as though it is the government, the taxpayers, paying for it, when in actual fact it's the small-business owners and operators who are being slammed every day of the week. The national economy has slowed to a crawl, and the budget has not helped. You've got people who are running businesses who are saying that this government is waging a war on work and on small business. We had the small-business minister even talk about those businesses which accepted money during COVID as if somehow they were dodgy.”
“They've run picket lines out in front of them and they've run them into the ground, but they haven't actually run a small business to save themselves, and they don't understand and appreciate the complexities facing the operators of those many, many small businesses. I ran one for nearly a decade, with a couple of others, and it's tough. Often you take home less pay yourself than you are in fact paying your employees, your workers. As to workers, yes, we saw the independent commission this week give a wage rise to Australia's lowest paid workers—bearing in mind Australia has one of the highest minimum wages anywhere. But I say to those workers: do not be fooled, because once you take away the power bills, the rent or mortgage costs, the grocery bills and the fuel costs, you're taking home less.”
“It's been just 11 hours since the House rose and my contribution was interrupted by the adjournment, but, in that ensuing time, we've had many businesses face the awkward decision as to whether in fact they will continue to operate or not. Australia's small businesses are shutting at a disturbing rate: 40,000 microbusinesses lost in four years as wages that they have to pay go up. Admittedly, the workers are getting less bang for their buck, but tax reforms and calls for a three-day week just mount and small business is doing it so very tough. What I fear is that those opposite don't understand or appreciate the hardships of small business because in many cases they have not run one.”
“The Murray-Darling Basin Plan, to this end, does not mean that these communities should lose their socioeconomic status, but unfortunately they are and unfortunately the government implements lazy politics by buying water out of these communities and shelling out these communities. It's simply not right. Our river communities and our irrigation communities, many of which are based on soldier settlements back after the First World War, are being short-changed by this terrible government.”
“Our river communities are hurting, and whenever the government goes in and buys more water out of these river communities it not only distorts the water market and the price of water; it also hurts the baristas and the schools. Coleambally Central School, for example, has had its student population halve over the past decade. It hurts motor mechanics and small businesses across the board, because they don't get anything in return. It's the farmer who gives up the water who gets paid, sometimes at an inflated figure, and that farmer often leaves town, taking their family and their children with them. Sometimes, they head for the coast—and good luck to them—but it leaves a community which is a shell of what it once was.”
“It has not. So I do ask: will the Murray-Darling Basin Plan be delivered in full by the end of 2027—yes or no? If the minister cannot guarantee it, why switch off community support on the assumption that it will? That is exactly what the minister is doing with this particular initiative. Costs across the budget papers for water recovery are marked 'not for publication'. The department's own tables admit this is because of commercial sensitivities and ongoing government-to-government negotiations with the states. This is—I hate to say it—a polite way of saying there are deals being done with your money that this parliament is not allowed to see. What is being offered to sweeten those deals, what's the total value hidden behind these NFP lines and when will basin communities get to see what's been promised on their behalf?”
“The Sustainable Rural Water Use and Infrastructure Program collapses from $479 million this year to $357 million next year and to just—wait for this—$3 million in 2027-28. Then it's gone—completely gone. This is the program which helps farmers lift water efficiency and recovers environmental water without ripping it straight out of irrigation for river towns. Why is the government defunding the one tool that recovers water without hollowing out communities, leaving only buybacks? Lazy, lazy politics equals water buybacks. The Sustainable Communities Program, which is meant to cushion the socioeconomic hit of buybacks and water recovery, is also cut after 2028-29, justified by a claim that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan will be 'delivered in full' by the end of 2027. Good luck with that. The government has not shown how this will be done.”
“The government is reclaiming $103.9 million from the National Water Grid Fund because it's 'uncommitted', yet councils and water utilities are queued up with shovel-ready projects. Uncommitted doesn't mean unneeded; it means undelivered. This is a delivery failure. Will the minister tell us how many ready-to-go water grid projects sit unfunded whilst this $103.9 million is handed back? From that same fund, $140 million has been committed to Queensland for 2029-30 with no named project and no location. We're asked to wave through $140 million for a project that on the papers does not yet exist. Will the minister name the particular project? Where is it? What does it deliver, and why can money be found four years out for an unnamed Queensland project but not for the communities from which $103.9 million has just been taken?”
“Yass fire services are celebrating 72 dedicated volunteers who've served a combined—wait for this—1,264 years for the Southern Tablelands zone of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. A couple there, Helen and Peter Middleton from Manton in the Yass Valley Shire, shared a remarkable 122 years of dedicated, committed service to the RFS between them. That is something to be honoured. That is something to be celebrated. That is something to be congratulated. They are just quintessential country Australians. To these volunteers, who don the uniform and go out—often on Christmas Day or New Year's Eve, when everybody else is celebrating—to protect, secure and safeguard our communities, I say thank you and I say well done.”
“The Wagga Tigers returned the favour by winning against Narrandera at Robertson Oval by 11 goals, keeping the Imperials goalless. Adrian's success story stretches back 35 years to the days at the under-11s in Griffith. He's coached both women's at the highest level and men's as the Queanbeyan premiership coach. The influence he's had on so many men's and women's lives is enormous. Recently, it was good to be at Batlow for CiderFest, the annual event, where I helped celebrate one year as an anniversary for Dave and Mel Purcell's wonderful Apple Thief Cider House. That is a great little establishment. That couple are great risk-takers. They have spent millions of dollars building this wonderful eatery, which is now part and parcel of Batlow, and I encourage anybody to go there and spend a day or three there.”
“A hearty shout out this morning to Noreen Vu, one of the best general managers in New South Wales if not local government in Australia. She has been in the news in recent days and I just wanted to make sure she knew that she's got a lot of community support. Her family is one of the Vietnamese refugee migrant success stories. It truly is. She's the Chief Executive Officer of Snowy Monaro Regional Council. She was, for three years up until June last year, the very successful general manager at Weddin Shire, and I want her to know that there are a lot of people out there thinking of her and for her. I also give a hearty congratulations to Adrian Pavese, who, last Saturday, marked 700 games as an Australian football coach.”
“It will force government to respect people's money, because I don't think at the moment, with the budget that was just handed down, there is respect for people's money—$77 billion of more taxes in the budget. It is just going to hurt Middle Australia in particular. It is going to hurt those people who want to invest, those people who want to aspire to something better and those people who simply want to put a roof over their heads and make ends meet.”
“From 2031-32, the coalition will index the top two tax thresholds as well. That will fully protect all income earners from inflation. Inflation is rampant at the moment. You spike inflation with lower productivity. With the results that we saw in the gross domestic product today, business confidence is low, and this budget had nothing in there for those hardworking, low-earning, risk-taking small businesses that provide most of the employment in this country. What we're proposing is generational tax reform. What we're proposing is fair, is simple and is something that those opposite don't ever do: it's trustworthy; it's honest. It will back Australians to work hard, to take those risks that I mentioned before, for small businesses, which are hurting so much at the moment.”
“We've already got a rabbit infestation in Western Australia. We've got foxes running out of control in country areas. Carp are 80 per cent of the biomass of the Murray-Darling system. And this government has slashed feral pest programs. The Leader of the Opposition, in his budget-in-reply speech, on 14 May, set out a clear direction, a vision for this nation, with a tax back guarantee. What he said on that night was that from 2028-29 we—that's the coalition—in government will index the bottom two income tax thresholds to inflation. What he said was that this will fully protect 85 per cent of income earners, with relief of around $250 in year 1 for a typical worker and growing to more than $1,000 a year in year 4. In year 1, you'll get $250, comparable to the tax relief that this government is promising, growing to $1,000 a year in year 4.”
“The budget, handed down a few weeks ago, has 35,000 fewer homes being built over the next decade. That is not a budget that is going to bring hope and aspiration to those seeking to put a roof over their head. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The budget brought a sledgehammer down on aspiration, particularly for the over-65s with their private health insurance rebate. Changes in that regard are going to force older Australians to use public hospitals when they are at a stage of their life when they're needing more health care, not less. That's going to mean a cost shift to state public hospitals. In the budget we also saw so many things that are not going to help regional Australia, such as a lack of infrastructure spend, such as the Inland Rail only going to Parkes and such as the $191.6 million cut to feral pest programs.”
“There is a need for a tax back guarantee. This is so very important. What we've seen in recent times is people's real wages falling and people's standard of living declining. It is so sad when Mr and Mrs Average, ordinary everyday Australians, simply can't afford the bills. They're grappling with the prospect of heating their homes or eating; they have to make that choice. They've got families and they've got bills to meet as far as children are concerned—school fees, sporting, dancing and those sorts of activities. They're saying to their kids, 'Well, we just simply can't get you to the sorts of things that you enjoy this weekend because we can't afford it'. The state of homelessness in this country is very sad. It's real and it has to be addressed.”
“Last night on level two in the parliament, there were two vastly different events. One was held in the Channel 9 studios, and it was a celebration of the Sydney Morning Herald's 195 years of publication. The Prime Minister gave a very good speech—he did. The Leader of the Opposition gave a far better one. Indeed, about a few hundred metres along the corridors, something vastly different took place. It was the consideration in detail. As long as I've been here, ministers have turned up to the Federation Chamber to answer questions from both the government and the opposition. These are questions that people across Australia need to know the answers to: questions about the budget. And it's no wonder that ministers were absent from those discussions.”
“Why aren't you here, Minister to answer the coalition's very justified questions on behalf of the veterans of Australia, who feel very hurt and very betrayed right now.”
“We know that when there are public servants shed, they are the public servants we should have on the frontline taking calls, taking inquiries and doing the right thing by our veterans who did the right thing by us. Unfortunately, our veterans are being ignored. Unfortunately, those veterans, who now want to see a psychologist and who now need the services that were once uncapped, are now going to be capped at $5,000 per year. It's simply not good enough, Minister, and what, Minister, are you doing to rectify this error? What, Minister, are you doing to rectify taking away more than 100 public service jobs in the Department of Veterans' Affairs? You have plenty to say about it in question time. You have plenty to say about it elsewhere.”
“Are you going to legitimately and rightly do a backflip on this particular question as you have done with the Invictus Games funding, as you have done with the medallic recognition late last year—the moratorium that you and your department and your government placed on this. The veterans' affairs minister also should do a backflip as he did with Doug and Kaye Baird's travel entitlements—$3,000. I mean, it's loose change when it comes to the multibillion dollar veterans spend—a multibillion dollar veterans spend which is justified. But this is not justified. This $748 million saving is cruel. It's mean spirited and it's wrong. Is the minister going to review his decision to cut veterans' affairs departmental staff by 111?”
“That's Labor's view of consultation, but it's far short of what is needed. At the moment, these services which provide essential health care for our veterans, for those men and women who gave their all, who put their lives and bodies on the line for our nation, for our people, so that we could be safe and secure and protected and sleep at night—when they hang their military uniform up, when it comes time to have their backs, what does the government do? It ignores them. It turns its back on those who protected us, those who served us, those to whom we should say, 'Thank you for your service' but instead say, 'We're putting a cap on your allied health services.' What will the government do about this? I genuinely ask the minister in absentia.”