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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“And there are a lot of questions to be asked in the Defence portfolio in the veterans' affairs space. Our veterans at the moment have white hot anger. They have white-hot anger about the cap on allied health services—a $5,000 cap on those services which were once uncapped. The veterans are going to be consulted, or so the government tells us. They're going to be asked about what they feel and the changes that they might think are necessary before the allied health cap comes into place on 1 July 2027. But we know that this government whitewashes everyone who questions the veracity of its policies, we know that this was a budget of broken promises and we know that the veterans who do put forward quite reasonable suggestions as to what changes should be made won't be listened to, because that is the Labor way.”
“I have every respect for those members opposite—the member for Sturt, the member for Gilmore, the member for Swan and the member for Spence, who is actually a veteran of three years as Australian Army reservist, Puckapunyal, and I certainly thank you for your service, Member for Spence. But this is about consideration in detail for the Defence portfolio. The member for Sturt didn't ask a question, but, if she had, there's no minister here to answer any such questions. I appreciate that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence is not in the parliament today, but the Minister for Veterans' Affairs certainly is and so is the Minister for Defence Industry. Why are they not in this chamber, respecting the process and the protocols long held and answering questions that the opposition rightly asks?”
“This budget only provides for a low-incentive economy—the LIE budget that unfortunately the Treasurer will probably tell us we had to have. Well, we didn't have to have it. There is a better way. The better way is to make sure we put in water policies, housing policies, migration policies and farming and agriculture policies that will work for and on behalf of the national interest and protect those regional Australians who protect this country. I haven't even gotten to the veterans, who have been absolutely deserted by this government, but I will certainly have more to say about that in future speeches. We need to protect those who protect us.”
“We saw equity. I know because I was the person responsible for making sure that infrastructure was spent for regional people, not just regional people who happened to be in National Party seats, not just regional people who happened to reside in Liberal Party seats, but regional people, whether they were in a Labor-held seat or whether they had an Independent as their member. And that is the way it should be, because regional people keep the lights on. Regional people provide the hard work and the perspiration. They roll their sleeves up. They do the right thing so that we have our public schools and our public hospitals funded, and that is the right way. There are priorities. This Labor government has missed all of those priorities. That's why I say that this budget is a budget of broken promises.”
“I hear so often, to the point where I'm sick to the back teeth of hearing about it, about colour-coded spreadsheets. There were colour-coded spreadsheets when the coalition was dealing with infrastructure spending. But those colour-coded spreadsheets were there to make sure that there was fairness and equity across the board. We do also see colour-coded spreadsheets from Labor. But, the trouble is, they only have one crayon and it's red in colour. The round of mobile telecommunications infrastructure spending after the 2022 election was all red, all Labor. The only seats that gained better mobile coverage were those seats which happened to be represented by Labor members. This is so wrong. We saw during our terms in government—those wonderful glory years of the coalition government, of the Nationals and Liberals running the show—fairness.”
“If we don't, no-one will, and that is the truth of the matter. At the moment the members for Ballarat and Eden-Monaro are failing in their jobs, failing in their duty, and regional Australia is suffering as a result. It's so sad and it's so wrong. When you look at the infrastructure spending, the Labor government will pat itself on the back and say, 'Well, the inflation rate is down.' Well, yes, it is, but only on the back of the fuel excise being halved, a provision which was demanded by the coalition opposition. It generally takes a whole lot of public outcry and the opposition standing up for what is right to get the government to do what's right for and on behalf of people in this country. Then we see $21.4 million cut from regional communications funding—that is, mobile phone communication, mobile towers.”
“What I want to see from the member for Ballarat, who also happens to be the infrastructure minister, and what I want to see from the member for Eden-Monaro, who is the regional development minister, is for them to go in to the cabinet process and shake those city-centric frontbench members up and say, 'Where is the fairness for country Australia, for rural, regional and remote Australia?' Because it's not there at the moment, and it's their job to represent the people who send them to Canberra to do a job. If they don't do that, the city-centric frontbenchers will always ride roughshod over them. They will. It doesn't matter what political persuasion the government is, the regional members have to stand up and defend the fairness of funding for country people, because, if we don't, who will?”
“In the appropriations that the government wants to put in place, there is not the infrastructure spending that we desperately need in regional Australia. The roads are crumbling. They are actually unsafe, and we've seen money stripped away from the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program—money for safer, better roads. Certainly in my electorate, I'm yet to see the $140 million promised by the member for Eden-Monaro before she entered parliament during the by-election. She is now the regional development minister.”
“I'm told we have a big problem with mice at the moment in Western Australia, and it's coming to an eastern state near you! What did we see last time there was a mouse plague? Well, we had the Greens running around saying—wait for this—that we should rehome these little rodents, rehome these furry little pets. The member for Bruce laughed. I'm not kidding! That's what they said. That is the Greens way of controlling mice. Of course, they were getting in grain bins. They were getting in the beds of farming children trying to sleep at night, and I'm not exaggerating. Then we have the Greens wanting to rehome the little critters. I mean, this is the Greens attitude. And when the Greens get anywhere near economic policy, you know you're in trouble. You know that anything that they say can't be held up as common sense. But it gets worse.”
“When we talk about pest eradication, we talk about carp, which make up around 80 per cent of the biomass in the Murray-Darling system. We also talk about rabbits. They are infesting communities in my electorate. I visited the Junee cemetery the other day to take a look for myself, and many of the century-old headstones are in danger of toppling over because of the rabbits that are burrowing beneath. We're also talking about pigs: there are more pigs in Australia than there are humans. But the government is taking away the money to control these feral pests, including foxes and blackberries—you only need to talk to Carlie Porteous of the Murray Region Forestry Hub, in New South Wales, to know what a problem the infestation of blackberry is—and mice.”
“That's what it does. It distorts the water market. Interestingly, the CEWH, the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, holds 72 per cent of the available water in the Murray-Darling Basin—all but 28 per cent. It is the largest irrigator in the country, and it does not have to equate and be accountable for every single drop of water it uses. But our farmers do, and our farmers do because they pay for it, and they are held to strict requirements that the CEWH is not. I have nothing against Simon Banks and nothing against the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, but what they are doing needs to be held to account. At the moment I believe it is not so. There is a better way. This government in this budget stole $191.6 million from pest eradication.”
“They can't push the water that they've bought out of the mouth of the Murray fast enough, and it is a concern. Well, we have a better way. We have a much more improved way of dealing with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, a plan to which I moved a disallowance motion in 2012. I have not changed my position from that day to this. The coalition's principles are that we will end further reductions to the amount of water available for farming jobs and productive use, targeting an increase in the amount of water set aside for farmers, towns and businesses to use in the consumptive pool to deliver a future for basin communities and reforming the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder to return surplus water not required to meet priority outcomes to the temporary consumptive pool for farmers, towns and businesses to use, to lower prices.”
“Hundreds of kids are now no longer being educated at Coleambally. Why? Because, people from that New South Wales irrigation community, which was set up for irrigators in the 1950s, have deserted the area, and why wouldn't they when we've got a government that doesn't believe in Australian made and grown food? Obviously they don't, because they continue to buy water out of the consumptive pool. Well, we will stop that. Water for the environment is important. I'm the first to admit it, and the river communities will say that too. Without a healthy river system, they have nothing. But all this government believes in doing is buying more and more water out of the system. For what? Much of the policy will lead to some of those low-lying areas around those river communities being flooded.”
“The difficulty with the water situation is that much of the infrastructure around the Hume Dam, Burrinjuck and the great Snowy Hydro scheme—a scheme set up for irrigation not necessarily producing electricity—is now near a century old. You would think that a sensible, practical government with a vision to the future would be investing in water infrastructure. No, not this government. What this government wants to do is to buy water out of productive use, take it away from the farmers. Yes, it will compensate the irrigators for doing so, but in the process it will distort the water market. Who are left high and dry out of all this? Well, it's the baristas, it's the hairdressers, it's the motor mechanics in those river communities. Student enrolment at Coleambally Central School in the past decade has almost halved.”
“In the frontispiece, the very first paragraph says: How little we really know of other people's lives and their jobs becomes acutely obvious as we read this story, Men of the Murray . It's fascinating to see. On page 199—when I picked this wonderful little publication up, it was the first page I opened—it states: In the years before the creation of the immense storage at the Hume Reservoir, the Murray occasionally stopped running completely. Once was in 1914, and I saw it near Swan Hill in 1923, when we stepped across a trickle three feet wide and four inches deep, "flowing" from a stagnant pool held back by a clay bar.”
“There is also a breach of faith when it comes to the capital gains tax situation—something that the Prime Minister, quite angrily and quite vehemently at press conference after press conference, said he would not change, on around or more than 50 occasions. He was quite vociferous about this point, and, now, with the budget, he has turned his back on those people, those aspirational middle Australians. I refer to a 1966 publication called Men of the Murray . It's a book written by Gordon Wentworth Broughton, who was born in Deniliquin in that southern Riverina country in 1888. It's a fascinating book. The author served Australia in both world wars. He is a fine Australian.”
“This Labor government promised so much more when it first came to office in May 2022 and then, three years on, made a series of promises which have now been broken—a breach of faith with the electorate which placed its trust in the government. We talk about trusts. We look at how many farmers have their arrangements and their farms wrapped up in trusts, which will now be raided and which will now be absolutely torn apart by this Labor government. When it comes to trusts, it comes to farming succession plans—farms which go from one generation to the next—and that is a breach of faith, when the government had said it wouldn't look at trusts and at changing the rules around them.”
“This federal budget brought down by the Treasurer, the member for Rankin, will be remembered for all time as the broken promises budget, the low-incentive economy, or LIE, budget. This budget has let so many people down. Whether in the regions or indeed the cities, so many people feel so badly represented by this government of broken promises. I want to focus on the regions because that is where the resources that keep the lights on come from and that is where the agriculture that keeps the food on our tables and the fibre on our backs comes from. It is the regions which have been neglected, which have been deserted and which have been overlooked by this Labor government.”
“I always love the way that the Labor government words its legislation and the titles thereof, like 'Treasury Laws Amendment (Delivering an Efficient and Trusted Tax System) Bill 2026', as though the public needs to be hoodwinked into thinking that there is trust involved in this budget—well, there's no trust if you're a farmer, if you're a small-business owner, if you're the average, everyday, ordinary Australian family trying to pay the cost of living, your energy bills, your grocery bills, your fuel costs. For them and for many, many others, the trust has been taken away, has been stripped clear away, in this budget. I'm glad that the Minister for Climate Change and Energy is at the table.”
“They will continue to fight the good fight against MND so that his name is never forgotten—not that it ever will be. There's no danger of that. But, to Neale Daniher, vale. May you rest in peace, champion. You have been a wonderful son, brother, father and husband and a magnificent Australian. There is no better than Neale Daniher, and I think we probably should even give him an AC posthumously.”
“But the big freeze at the G—we all should get behind it. We should. It's on the June long weekend. It has become synonymous not only with the Danihers but with raising funds for the fight against MND. The fact that Neale has passed away has really set this nation into a pall of grief I've not seen for a long, long time. I know that the Big Freeze at the G this year will be a special occasion, a sobering occasion and a sombre occasion but also a celebration of life, because Neale fought the good fight for 13 long years. That shows the inspiration of this family. It shows the resilience of this family. It shows how much he was loved by all Australians and his wife, Jan; his children, Bec, Lauren, Luke and Ben; his grandchildren; and his many nieces and nephews.”
“They were very, very good at netball. Some still are. His sisters, Neale's sisters, Colleen, Angela, Julie, Nerolee, Estelle and, as I mentioned, Dorothy—seven sisters—are such wonderful human beings as well. They have put Ungarie on the map, that family. Indeed, there is a big Sherrin in the main street of Ungarie, synonymous with the big things that Australian towns just love to erect and talk about and visit. What other town would even think to put a Sherrin in their main street? The ground at Ungarie—I've worn the black and white for Ungarie. I'm certainly not right up there with the Danihers, but Chris asked me one day when they were very short of players, horribly short of players—if I press up here hard enough, I can still feel the three broken ribs I copped in one of those games.”
“All four brothers played alongside one another in the mighty Essendon Bombers football team, and that's fantastic, but it was what Neale did as a fighter against motor neurone disease—such a cruel, insidious disease—that shone a light on not only the need for awareness of but also the need for funds to fight MND. Most Riverina people are well aware of the Danihers—of course, most people in Australia are—but it does become personal. My wife, Catherine, had a coffee catch-up with Neale's sister Estelle just last Friday. I went to school with Dorothy. Most people in the Riverina, if you've been there for long enough, will have bumped into a Daniher. To know them is to love them. The Daniher boys' sisters—we talk about the toughness on the field of the boys; rest assured, I wouldn't like to face those girls in netball!”
“Neale Francis Daniher was a son of the Riverina. He was a proud son of Ungarie, and he was a much-loved son of the late Jim and Edna Daniher. You don't get a better family than the Daniher family. They are quintessentially country Australia. Edna Daniher is one of the most beautiful people I have ever known. She, in recent years, has buried her husband, Jim, who passed away after a farm accident, a tragic farm accident, in 2019. She buried her beautiful daughter Fiona in 2021. And now she is going to bury her wonderful son Neale. No mother should have to bury any of their children. No mother should. Anthony Daniher, Chris Daniher, Terry Daniher and Neale Daniher are, of course, well known because of their footballing feats.”
“From 1 July 2027, the DVA will cap allied health spending at $5,000 per veteran per year. This replaces the current 12-session treatment cycle per provider—that is, their general practitioner can recommend seeing a psychologist, and then 12 psychology sessions will be authorised.”
“It's not always right, when you are a minister, to just take on board what the bureaucrats ask you to do and tell you to do. It's not always right when the Expenditure Review Committee overrules what you take to them—Minister, I have respect for you. I do, and I know it's a difficult job you have. I do. I told you to look after yourself when you came to Wagga Wagga to visit Pro Patria, and I did, but you have to be strong when you're around that cabinet table and you're making commitments and input for and on behalf of veterans because there are people in this place—many of them are on your frontbench—who treat veterans like a number. They are real people. They have fought for this country, they have bled for this country and they deserve the very best from this government and this country when the time comes to hang up their uniform.”
“I'm so very pleased that the Minister for Veterans' Affairs is at the table and can hear this contribution because he needs to. He needs to know that certainly the veterans component of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the budget that was handed down by the member for Rankin, the Treasurer, has been met with white hot anger in the veterans community. I'm sure he is receiving the same sort of emails that I am, and I'm sure he's having some of those discussions that I am and that the shadow minister behind me, the member for Herbert, who looks after defence materiel and other things and is a veteran himself, is having. Let me tell you, the Department of Veterans' Affairs changes, the staff cuts and the changes to the NDIS in the budget with the veterans component attached are simply not good enough, Minister.”
“You don't have to drive far from here to see signs all over the Upper Lachlan Shire saying, 'No more industrial wind factories.' In the Yass Valley, people are distraught about the fact that their beautiful, serene, picturesque arable farmland, prime agricultural land, is being taken up, or potentially will be, by more wind towers. What's this government doing? It's pushing ahead with another $18 billion on its net zero fantasy, its net zero policy folly, it's net zero pipedream that is only hurting regional Australians. I say again: energy is the economy, and the government is failing on that front because it's not providing the cheap energy that our manufacturers and farmers need, want, expect and deserve.”
“I note Senator Pocock on Insiders yesterday, when quizzed by David Speers from the ABC as to the detail around his policy, said that's still to be worked out. It's always the same with these Independents, with all due respect to the members sitting behind me. They are never around the cabinet table when the hard work has to happen. They are never there when the grunt really must be made to get policy to legislation and then through the House. We're seeing the rise at the moment of One Nation again, another party that thinks it has all the answers. But, when it really comes to the crunch, it's hard work. It's hard work being a minister. It truly is. It's hard work being a government. This government has failed on the energy front. It has.”
“I appreciate that the government has done something in relation to the distribution. But it was nowhere near enough when the crisis was at its peak, and the crisis has not been averted. The appointment on 19 March of Anthea Harris as the Fuel Supply Taskforce Coordinator was welcomed by some, but it took Minister Bowen's job away from him. He should have been doing that job that Ms Harris was appointed to do. Not only that but she's also doing reviews of the Water Act. If that wasn't a busy enough task then it probably wasn't her right and responsibility to be doing Minister Bowen's job as well. But we have a situation here where Labor's also applauding itself for its gas exports domestic reservation scheme.”
“At the start of the Strait of Hormuz war in Iran fuel crisis—which is worldwide, and I will admit that—Batlow ran out of fuel. In that apple-growing community he orchardists had no diesel. Indeed, the whole community ground to a halt. When you have a country town that has no fuel, you have people there who then can't access vehicles to go and attend to their health needs. It does create quite a crisis. It is a matter of life and death—literally. We have in this motion the government patting itself on the back for its energy sovereignty and for growing fuel reserves. The biggest issue some weeks ago—and it's still an issue today in regional Australia—was the supply, the distribution, the logistics of getting diesel to our country towns and also the affordability. I appreciate that the government has done something in relation to the cost.”
“Energy is the economy. The economy is energy. We as a nation should have the cheapest energy in the world because we sit on so many of the energy requirements that other countries would be just so envious of. And yet we have this propensity in this nation to spurn anybody who wants to drill, anybody who wants to explore, anybody who wants to—dare I say—mine our resources. For too long this government has done just that. Now, I took great heart driving around last week when I saw just near the turn off from the Hume freeway a tanker going onto a farm near the Burrinjuck Dam and turn off. I thought: 'Good. There is a diesel tanker going to a farmer who is just about to sow their crop.' Two Saturdays ago I saw a tanker going into Batlow.”
“It's such a shame that Canberra cannot see it now, although we've got a Labor government in office and so no surprises there as Labor is against the regions, against infrastructure. I cannot understand why the member for Ballarat, the current infrastructure minister, isn't in there, around the cabinet table, thumping it and saying, 'I want more money for regional Australia.' She's not, but she should be. This is one project that needs to go ahead. I say to people, get out and sign the 'rescue our rail' petition. We need to get on board and tell this Labor government that this project is one that needs to go ahead for the businesses, for the Indigenous workers, for the Australian people who've absolutely got behind it. We have to leave inland Australian rail to be completed.”
“Our roads that have been neglected in this budget of broken promises. If you look at the infrastructure spend of this government, it's all metrocentric. This project was going to be such a game-changer, having double-stacked freight between Brisbane and Melbourne for the first time—a concept dreamt up in the 19th century—and it was already underway. The member for Blair talked about cost rises. Yes, there were. When I took it over it was more or less a desktop analysis, but do you know what? I took it to three state ministers. Two out of the three were Labor state ministers—Mark Bailey in Queensland and Jacinta Allan, now the Premier of Victoria. They readily signed up to it, as did John Barilaro, who was the New South Wales deputy premier at the time. They could see the value for their states.”
“That's where such an important rail hub is going to be and already is. And yet you talk about the number of businesses affected in this space. There's Austrak at Wagga Wagga, which was going to build the concrete sleepers for use right up and down the line. There are so many businesses so reliant on this project going ahead that are now so disappointed in this federal Labor government. Less than two per cent of new infrastructure pipeline projects announced in the budget are for the regions. What does Labor have against the regions? This is such a good project. Yes, indeed, National Party people, as the member for Blair quite correctly pointed out, are talking about emissions reduction. It was going to take 200,000 trucks off our roads. Our crumbling regional roads that have been neglected by this Labor government.”
“It took a coalition government to start it—that was back in 2018—and it's taken a Labor government, surprise of all surprises, to stop it, because that's what this Labor government does. It has no vision. It has no concept about the importance of productivity, the importance of logistics. Moreover, given the importance of regional Australia and this project, which started when the first lot of steel was dropped off at Peak Hill on 15 January in 2018, it ought to be completed. Yet, no, this government will stop this project at Parkes. I appreciate that the Parkes-Narromine section, the first of 13 sections, has been completed. However, it's mainly Parkes where it will stop. That's where the logistics hub is. That's where the road bypass has been built by a coalition government.”
“I like the member for Blair. I do. I visited his electorate when I was the infrastructure minister, and we looked at the Cunningham Highway. In fact, I funded the Cunningham Highway. If there is a project in this country deserving of infrastructure spending, it doesn't matter the stripe or the colour or whatever political persuasion the government of the day is; it should be funded, and Labor needs to get on board with the Inland Rail Project. It is such a good proposal. It is such a good project that Prime Minister Albanese actually took credit for it himself, and, indeed, it has been on the drawing board since the 1890s. It took a coalition government to fund it.”
“This upgrade to the airport and the introduction of F-28 flights by Air New South Wales meant that the flight time from Wagga to Sydney was cut to just 50 minutes at the time, and that's the time now. As the headline screamed and reported, Wagga Wagga had entered the jet age. At the time, Mr Morris said that 'there were more than 26,000 air movements through Wagga Wagga last year'. He recognised that Wagga Wagga Airport was the gateway to the Riverina. Indeed it was then, and it still is now. Mr Morris wasn't a man of great height. Some might say he was vertically challenged—”
“The article goes on to say: He said his Government was committed to the development of aviation. I will say good on Labor at the time for that. The article then says: "We want to make sure that air services are as safe as possible, as cheap as possible, and as efficient as possible," Mr Morris said. As a good aviation minister, he would've recognised the importance of linking country people to capital cities and to other regional towns as well. Mr Morris then said: "When there is progress in the air with new planes, with better performance, we match that performance on the ground." On the same flight as Mr Morris were the former governor-general Sir Roden Cutler, who was the then chair of Air New South Wales, and officials from the Department of Aviation and the Department of Housing and Construction responsible for the works.”
“It's interesting when you read the article in my newspaper, the Wagga Daily Advertiser , as it states that he was 'embarrassingly late to officiate at the opening'. It wasn't his fault; the flight from Sydney touched down 20 minutes late. But he spoke very, very well at that event and showed a lot of grace and a lot of humility, which I'll get to in a moment. The Daily Advertiser reported: Work on the airport, which includes a new traffic control tower, new passenger terminal and upgrading of the taxiway, took about 14 months to complete. Before opening the airport, Mr Morris told the gathering it was obvious that the old terminal had its "shortcomings". And I think, if he were there to look at the terminal in recent years, he would have repeated the same thing.”
“It was the opening of the new terminal and control tower at the Wagga Wagga Airport on 26 March 1986, and the bold headline screamed 'Wagga enters the jet age!' A subsequent story was 'Airport upgrade 40 years after Wagga declared a city', and there was Mr Morris. He was opening the airport terminal, which has served the city well since then, but I would suggest that it's probably in need of an upgrade now. More's the pity. I've placed money on the table for the last two elections, but we will honour that promise eventually when we get back into government. But there was Mr Morris, with the then mayor of Wagga Wagga Alderman Ron Harris and Mr Fife, at the terminal entrance. The plaque is still proudly on the wall.”
“But I want to focus tonight, as a Nationals member, on the service that he did for Wagga Wagga and indeed the Riverina when it was served by a Liberal member of parliament: former member for Hume, the late great Wal Fife. I went through my bound volumes of the Daily Advertiser . In fact I got my wife, Catherine, to do that and then send me the material because I was in parliament when I learned of this condolence motion. I wanted to speak about it, because I remembered, having been a journalist at the Daily Advertiser at the time, that we ran a special four-page wraparound, which was unusual, but it was momentous because it was an important occasion when Mr Morris came to town.”
“I did not know Mr Morris personally or politically, but, having read his record, I pay a deep amount of tribute and honour to him for the fact that he was the minister for transport—a role I've also held—the minister for aviation; the minister for resources; the minister for housing and aged care; the minister assisting the prime minister; the minister assisting the treasurer; the minister for transport and communications support; a cabinet minister as the minister for industrial relations; and the minister assisting the prime minister for public service matters. It is a truly remarkable record of achievement, accomplishment and service. The member for Newcastle spoke fondly about what he had done in and around Newcastle as the member for Shortland and as a cabinet minister.”
“We've just heard some fine and eloquent words from the member for Newcastle on behalf of the Labor Party for Peter Frederick Morris, somebody who was obviously ALP royalty. She spoke about his service to the federal electorate council after his parliamentary career, his extraordinary parliamentary service as the member for Shortland from 1972 through to 1998 and his Ships of shame report. We will be hearing later on from the member for Adelaide, who no doubt will extol the virtues of Peter Morris, the son of a Greek migrant and an inaugural member of the World Hellenic Inter-Parliamentary Association, an organisation of which both Mr Georganas and I are members. Obviously, good Greeks give good service to the parliament. Indeed, Steve and I are very good friends.”
“They did a lot of good work, particularly in giving women and girls opportunities that they would never have been able to avail themselves of under the old Taliban regime or, sadly, the new Taliban regime. I think we should acknowledge and recognise the efforts that they went to, the service and sacrifice that they gave, and the more than 40 soldiers who lost their lives. We say 'lest we forget' and I think we should absolutely mean that. It's all well and good to go out and commemorate Anzac Day, but we also should remember the constant pressure that those veterans will always be under, for the rest of their lives, for the service that they gave in Afghanistan.”
“I appreciate that they do a fine job, but, at the end of the day, the minister has to be responsible because they'll be the one who is entering the parliament. They'll be the one answering questions related to these and other matters in question time. I do worry about this part of the budget. In the Attorney-General's portfolio additional resourcing in Budget Paper No. 2, page 43 lists '$50.4 million in 2026-27 to continue the work of the Office of the Special Investigator to investigate and support the prosecution of war crimes alleged to have been committed by the Australian Defence Force in Afghanistan.' I do think that some of these provisions are sometimes going to unnecessary witch-hunts. If they prove to be that, they are going to place unnecessary and undue stress upon our veterans. Our veterans served us well in Afghanistan.”
“This schedule permits the minister, by legislative instrument, to make rules prescribing matters required or permitted by the DFDA or necessary or convenient for carrying out or giving effect to the act. I do applaud that because I think, for far too long, we've seen some powers taken away from the minister. I do think that ministers always need to have the power to make these sorts of rulings, to make these sorts of provisions and to not necessarily always just go along with what the bureaucrats down the hill tell them to do. I've always been insistent on that because I think, at the end of the day, the buck stops with the minister. The minister's going to be the one who has her or his name on the ballot paper. It's not the not the public servant. It's not the bureaucrat.”
“Schedule 5 contains 16 parts dealing with a range of other amendments, including updating evidentiary rules, aligning the grounds for termination of judicial officers, strengthening review processes, modernising the powers of investigating officers and introducing removal orders for intimate images. They also enable the provision of evidence by video link, providing for victim impact statements and allowing for the extinguishment of historical homosexual service convictions that would not be offences today. Schedule 6 establishes a transitional rule-making power to provide for the transition between the existing discipline system and the new legislative framework. This rule-making power is necessary. It deals with unintended outcomes or unforeseen issues arising from the transition from the old DFDA to the new DFDA.”
“The schedule introduces a requirement for any conviction and sentencing decision by superior tribunals or reviews to be accompanied by reasons. We've got schedule 3 part 1 overhauling how the Defence Force Discipline Act deals with accused persons suffering from mental impairment by introducing new powers to allow the dismissal of a charge where the accused suffers from a mental impairment and prosecution would not meaningfully serve the maintenance of discipline. Schedule 4 introduces measures to streamline the military discipline system, reducing delays, broadening access to elections through a superior tribunal and ensuring that minor disciplinary matters are dealt with expeditiously.”
“Recommendation 18 only focused on sexual misconduct, but this suspension power is not limited to only those offences. The new suspension power is to apply to investigations which begin on or after the commencement of this part, as well as investigations already under way at that time, and suspension decisions remain subject to existing review mechanisms. Part 2 of schedule 1 implements recommendation 20 of the royal commission, calling for service tribunals to take into account victim impact in sexual offence cases and to regard an offender's higher rank as an aggravating factor during sentencing. Schedule 2 also gives effect to royal commission recommendation 34, which requires the priority review of provisions related to court martial panels not being required to give reasons for punishments imposed.”