Tim Watts
Gellibrand · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“Consider all of this growth that we've experienced: this happened after the previous government did nothing on EVs and left Australia's renewable energy policy empty, on a dead battery. Since 2022, the Albanese government has not only caught up, but has completely recharged renewable energy policy in Australia.”
“In my community, 1,600 households have already made the switch using the subsidy. Many of these households have slashed up to 90 per cent off their energy bills, and we've already had over 20,000 solar panel installations in my electorate, in Melbourne's west.”
“In this year's budget, we announced that we are supporting the single biggest boost to Australia's main energy grid, with new renewable energy projects, and by 2030 these projects will supply enough electricity for four million Australian households. We've also been delivering the Albanese government's Cheaper Home Batteries Program.”
“Four years later, our reforms mean that it's now cheaper than ever to make the switch to electric, and we're seeing the consequences of our reforms. When we came into office, Australians bought an electric vehicle once every 45 minutes; now it's once every two minutes.”
“On top of that, we've discounted EVs further by making them fully exempt from import tax. Our government's new vehicle efficiency standard incentivises car companies to supply more efficient vehicles, and this includes hybrid, plug-in hybrid and more-efficient petrol and diesel vehicles.”
“EV models available for under $40,000 have grown from just two in 2022 to more than 10 today. It's no wonder there's been this 2,482 per cent growth in EVs in my electorate in Melbourne's west—in an outer suburb in Melbourne's west—and it'll only go up from here.”
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“I want to briefly recognise the contribution that he has made as a long-term member of my office, who finished up with me shortly after the last election. Stevie Le has worked with me since I started as a member of parliament 12 years ago. He's the only staffer who's done the full journey. We've gone through five elections together and seen thousands of volunteers and staff come and go through our office and our campaigns. During that time, Stevie has been the foundation stone of the work of my office. He's been a mate, and he's been a personal rock for me. We've been through a lot together over the last 12 years. There's been a lot of joy. Steve's had a wedding and three kids while working in my office. Steve won ABC's Hard Quiz with his expert knowledge of S Club 7.”
“I also want to thank our state members, Mat Hilakari, Melissa Horne and Sarah Connolly. It was a team effort. Thank you for giving us all your early mornings at train stations, your voices at doorknocks, prepolls and polling booths, your time scrutineering, and for coming together to celebrate on election night. Thank you to all—it really means a lot. Can I also say thank you to my staff, some of whom were experiencing their first election campaign working from an electorate office. I should assure them that they're not all like this one! Thank you to Lachlan, Priya, Arth, Alex, Annabel, Laura, Mel, Francis and Archita. I do want to single someone out here, and that is, of course, Stevie Le.”
“I also want to share our gratitude with all the locals who volunteered on the doors, at train stations and at voting booths: Amar, Ken, Noel, Mel, Peter, Narelle, Isaac, Dylan, Myles, John, Effie, Andy, Houssein, Kifeh, Raha, Claire, Ahmad, Ghassan, Milad, Micheel, Olivia, Ehsan, Amany, Khaled, Louay, Kemal, Wajid, Tefera, Meserat, Matiebie, Catherine, David, John, Peter, Daniel, Dan, Margie, Craig, Marguerite, Lucien, Mark, Muffy, Chandni, Nadia, Tilak, Kazim, Israel, Abdi, Azhar, Abdul, Lorraine, Robin, Dean, Peter, Dan, Enchalew, Di, Lance, Andrew, Rajash, Palak, Solomon, William, Hasan, Julie, Kiran, Rubay, Tekeste, Alula, Neha, Jeeva, Aymart, Rashmi, Mac, Vinesh, Eva—but, wait, there is more—Rabindra, Mita, Ravi, Amit, Ivo, Kay, Gavin, Matt, John, Tom, Greg, Nahida, Rayane, our third Rajneet, Greg, JP, Katherine, Reena, Anagha, Niharica, Nick, Abnash, Ali, Trish, Sumit, Nick, Maryam, Ian, Kerry, Kevin, Molly, Maria, Justin, John, Linelle, Patsy, Ralph, Carrol, Trevor, Kai, Joel, Sandy, Scott, Jane, Kate, Ken, Sam, Andrei and Bill.”
“That funding will deliver duplication on Central Avenue to Point Cook Road to ease congestion. We're also developing a business case to duplicate Point Cook Road between Jamieson Way and Dunnings Road. I'm proud that we're delivering meaningful action for some of Australia's most diverse and fastest growing suburbs. Scores of people turned up to help throughout the campaign and on election day to share our message for the voters in Gellibrand. I want to thank our booth captains: Tully, Melissa, Felix, Gary, Bill, Japinda, Jason, Anne, Rajash, Alison, Archita, Gary, Nathan, Sean, Catherine, Rajash, Sean, Scott and Aidan.”
“It brought together people from all possible backgrounds in pursuit of a common cause: to build a stronger and fairer future for Australia. I want to name many of these people individually here for the benefit of the Hansard . I want to give special thanks to Alison, Catherine, Freddie, Victor, Azhar, William, Jason, Greg, Leon, Clovis, John and Nitika, who showed up throughout the entire campaign to deliver our Labor government's vision for building Australia's future. Alison and Victor showed up for all the usual events, joining me for doorknocking, prepoll and election day, but also went so far as to indulge me in that very Queensland practice of wobbleboarding on Point Cook Road and Central Av, where our government has committed $58.5 million to get our community where they need to go faster and safer.”
“They all conducted themselves with, I think, very real respect and dignity, and I was proud to spend many, many hours standing next to them at prepoll and on election day. But, of course, the most important group that I need to thank here in this chamber are the Labor true believers and my supporters, who made the election win in Gellibrand for the Labor Party possible. We couldn't have achieved the result we did without the volunteers who shared our vision for building Australia's future, including those who, without complaint or ego, showed up in a common cause to support our Labor campaign. I'm proud that our campaign in Gellibrand was as diverse as the place in which we live and work. It reflected modern Australia and won the endorsement of modern Australia.”
“In this traditional first debate of the parliament after a federal election, it's always been my practice to begin by saying thank you. Thank you to the voters in my electorate in Gellibrand in Melbourne's west for their trust and confidence. Thank you to them for choosing the things that unite us and seeing that the things that we have in common are bigger and more important than the things that divide us. Thank you to the outstanding, professional and independent staff of the Australian Electoral Commission, who undertook a very well-run election in Gellibrand in Melbourne's west. Thank you to the other contesting candidates who ran in Gellibrand at the last federal election.”
“They're fair, they expand opportunity, and they let more Australians have access to that ladder of opportunity—the opportunity to improve yourself, to aspire to something better, to back yourself to develop those skills—but they do it in a fair way. That's what this bill that we have passed this week is all about. It's delivering on our commitment to young Australians, to support them to improve their own skills without being burdened with a crippling debt in the future. This is just the start, though. This government has a big agenda in education policy. It's one that we will continue to work on through the life of this government. The member for Gippsland is on manoeuvres at the moment! I'll be finishing my speech in some seconds, and, if he wants the call next, he can get back to the chamber. Thank you.”
“They will benefit nurses. They will benefit engineers. They will benefit social workers. They will benefit doctors. They will benefit scientists. They will benefit researchers. They will benefit all Australians who've backed themselves by going to university to improve their skills to build our nation. This is betting on Australians who have bet on themselves. This is a bill that rewards aspirational Australians. And it comes on top of a suite of educational reforms that we made under the previous government and that we took to the last election, like fee-free TAFE and prac payments, expanding opportunity in the education system for more Australians. There's an enormous legacy in this country of pioneering reforms to our education system made by Labor governments. They have a few things in common.”
“For someone on an income of $70,000 a year, it will reduce the amount of compulsory repayments by about $1,300 a year. Australians will only start to pay off their studies when their studies start paying off for them. We're also replacing the current repayment system with a new marginal repayment system. Instead of the amount Australians pay being a percentage of their entire wage, it is a percentage of their wage above the minimum repayment threshold of $54,435. It is a structural change and it's a fairer change that will benefit people with a student debt now and in the years ahead. In the debate about this bill, particularly during the election, there were some ignorant and smart, snarky comments from conservatives about who these changes would benefit. I'll tell you who these changes will benefit. They will benefit teachers.”
“Now we are going further to ensure that more money is back in the pockets of more Australians, wiping another $16 billion from three million Australian student debts in the bill that we have debated this week. For the average Australian, with a student debt of $27,000, that's a reduction of more than $5,500. This bill will also help Australians with student debts who are earning lower wages to keep more money in their pockets, increasing the repayment threshold from $54,000 to $67,000 a year, a recommendation made by the architect of the HECS scheme, Bruce Chapman, who designed it with Dawkins back in the 1980s. I know from media reports that Bruce is very, very excited about that particular reform. This will reduce yearly repayments.”
“Income-contingent loans of this type have been copied by governments around the world, and it was a Labor innovation. It was an Australian innovation. But, unfortunately, over time, a series of reforms to higher education introduced by those opposite in the last decade—the wasted decade before the election of the Albanese government—broke the balance that made HECS work. The recent COVID-driven inflation spike really threw things off kilter. The spike in the indexation of loans through that period after COVID really got out of control. This bill fixes that. In the previous term of government we wiped $3 billion in student debt from Australian student loans. We fixed indexation to ensure that, in the future, debts cannot grow faster than the wages of the students who have incurred them.”
“HECS, a deferred-repayment, income-contingent loan scheme, enabled Australian students to contribute to the cost of their degrees proportionate to the expected private salary returns that they could expect to receive from their qualifications, in a way that didn't force them to pay upfront or to face crippling interest repayments on large upfront loans. It enabled students to pay back their student debts only when they were earning the kinds of salaries expected from university study, with debts being indexed rather than subject to private interest rates. HECS expanded educational opportunity, and did it in a fair and fiscally responsible way. It was a great Labor reform that the Hawke government; the Hawke government's education minister, John Dawkins; and the designer of HECS, Bruce Chapman, can rightly take great pride in.”
“After ten years, the Hawke government was able to lift the high school completion rate in Australia to nearly eight in ten—from three in ten Australians finishing high school to eight in ten Australians finishing high school—in a decade. That was an extraordinary expansion of the opportunity of education from a reforming, pioneering government. It's a great Labor legacy. But what then to do with the now more than doubling of the proportion of Australian school leavers who are now able to dream of going to university?”
“While we're in this chamber, cutting student debts this week, we should also remember that, when it was introduced, HECS was one of the great innovations of Australian public policy. Consider the challenge that HECS was designed to meet. When the Hawke government came into office, barely one in three Australians finished high school, barely one in three Australians completed grade 12. Through a decade of persistent policy effort, recognising the way the world was changing, recognising the way the global economy was changing and recognising the need for increased skills and increased levels of education, the Hawke government increased funding to secondary schools, targeted disadvantaged areas, modernised curricula, introduced vocational and applied learning pathways and made the case publicly on the need for kids to stay in school longer.”
“Young Australians are facing a housing crisis, a cost-of-living crisis and the legacy of a climate crisis. Of course, it also cut through because the coalition, those opposite, opposed these cuts to student debt when Labor announced them at the last election. They called them 'wasteful'. In this parliament, the coalition's No. 1 priority is now protecting generous tax concessions for Australians with $3 million in superannuation, which is already there for their retirement. These are the intergenerational priorities of the coalition. They still don't get it, and it's no surprise that coalition MPs have been telling journalists in the press gallery that they suspect that even their own children weren't voting for the coalition at the last federal election—and, really, who can blame them?”
“I can't tell you how many voters I met on the doors, on the streets or in the shopping centres in my electorate, at pre-poll or at polling booths on election day who I asked: 'Do you have a student debt? Do you want to buy your first home?' 'Well, vote Labor, and the first thing we'll do is cut your student debt by 20 per cent, then we'll also increase your borrowing capacity with the banks, and, to top it off, we'll enable every Australian to buy their first home with a five per cent deposit without having to pay lender's mortgage insurance.' This cut through because it spoke to a bigger intergenerational injustice. It was offering a fairer deal to young Australians who have gotten a raw deal in recent years. I agree with the member for Kooyong.”
“At the last federal election, the Albanese government promised to cut student debt by 20 per cent, and this week in parliament we're delivering on that promise. We said it would be the first thing we do when parliament returned after the election, and now we are here delivering it. We're delivering real cost-of-living relief for 18,000 Australians in my electorate with a student debt, we're delivering a better deal for three million Australians across the country with a student debt, and we're reducing the average student debt by about $5,500—in one hit, in one bill. Labor's commitment to cutting student debts by 20 per cent was one of those policies that, I can tell you, really cut through at the last election.”
“All of us in this chamber should work together in this cause. I welcome the Liberal Party joining this mission. A good contribution the new opposition leader could make is taking on this emerging trend of singling out Indian diaspora communities in anti-immigration rhetoric on the right. She should nip it in the bud now in the interest of a modern Australia.”
“George is an irrelevant nobody, but this kind of singling-out of Indian migrants over other groups has more recently been taken up by Advance, a group that has actively campaigned for Liberal-National coalition candidates. Advance recently published an anti-immigration video that explicitly singled out Indian and Chinese migrants as hurting Australia by sending remittances to their families. The video even included a photo of the Prime Minister wearing a turban—an act of respect at a Sikh event. What are they trying to achieve by sharing a picture of the Prime Minister wearing a turban in an anti-immigration video? And why did they not use a picture of any other group referenced in that report? The new Leader of the Opposition says that she wants the Liberal Party to reflect and represent modern Australia, and I'm glad to hear it.”
“But tonight I want to highlight one specific trend on the right of politics that has attracted less attention and needs to be addressed. It's not a reflection of the broader Australian community but a narrow part of right-wing politics. In far-right circles around the world, there's now an emerging trend to specifically single out Indian diaspora communities in anti-immigration rhetoric. Media reports have noted a significant increase in overtly racist AI generated material targeting Indian Australian communities on social media platforms like TikTok. Former Liberal National MP George Christensen has even nonsensically alleged that the Albanese government rigged the last election in slow motion by flooding Australia with Indian migrants.”
“For the Greens, the lesson is that you can't build a political movement condemning everyone who disagrees with you. You can't build a political movement based on the premise that everyone who disagrees with you is either financially corrupt or morally evil. Unsurprisingly, this approach to politics doesn't persuade anyone who didn't already agree with you beforehand, and it makes it impossible to build a big enough coalition to actually deliver anything on the issues you care about. Speaking of coalitions, there are lessons for the LNP from the last election too. From labelling Chinese Australians participating in our democracy as Chinese spies to actively preferencing Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, it sometimes felt like the Liberal-National coalition were deliberately trying to alienate every segment of modern Australia.”
“This means engaging with each other in good faith; understanding that our fellow Australians will sometimes see things differently than we do and listening to each other with empathy and curiosity about this rather than judgement; trying to understand where other Australians are coming from and why they think, feel and act in the way they do; and using that understanding to find common ground. Unfortunately, in the last parliament, some in this place chose to exploit the challenges we faced, demonising some groups and seeking to divide the Australian community for political gain. The Australian public rejected this at the last election, and many of the most enthusiastic practitioners of this kind of politics are no longer with us in this chamber as a result. But there are lessons for those who remain and for their parties.”
“Australians have been traumatised by direct connections to international conflicts, and some Australians have disagreed strongly about how the world and Australia should respond to these conflicts. It's challenged the cohesion of our diverse Australian community. I've said before that cohesion is a verb, not a noun. It means the action of forming a united hole. It's an ongoing process, not an end state. Preserving our cohesion as a nation requires a continuing work, and Australian multiculturalism works best when we work at it.”
“At the last election, the Australian public chose a government that reflects and represents modern Australia, a diverse nation united by common values and aspirations, a nation that doesn't always agree but still comes together around the bigger things that unite us as Australians, a nation that defines itself not by our differences but by what we have in common. It is what the Prime Minister called a 'progressive patriotism'. The Australian voters voted for this at the last election, but they also voted to reject those politicians who practice the politics of division. They rejected politicians who sought to advance their own partisan interests by dividing the Australian community. The world has thrown a lot of challenges at Australia over the last three years.”
“Speaker, I extend my congratulations to you for your continuing service in this important role. The results of the last federal election said something about the kind of nation we are, and we have seen it in parliament this week. On Tuesday we saw new MPs being sworn in on Bibles, on Korans and on the Bhagavad Gita. We saw gender equality in the members and the senators sitting on the government benches during the Governor-General's address, and in members' first speeches we've heard beautiful stories encompassing the glorious diversity of modern Australia.”
“She understands that this institution does not exist for all of us but we exist as stewards of this institution for those who follow and for the Australian people. In everything she's done in this place she's acted in a way that has left the institutions of our parliament and our democracy in a better condition for everyone who followed and the Australian public. So, with the greatest respect to the Speaker, and as a forewarning to all new members, the member for Newcastle is not 'Mr Speaker'. Instead, she is the best Deputy Speaker that any of us could imagine, and I'm proud to nominate her for the role.”
“She's left a legacy that will improve this place for generations of parliamentarians to come and will improve the ability of this place to deliver for all Australians who elected us to this place. I want to note that the member for Newcastle has also been a powerful example of how every member can use this institution to deliver real action for people in our community who need it the most. As deputy chair of the Joint Select Committee on Implementation of the National Redress Scheme, her tireless work helped give a voice and deliver a measure of justice to some Australians who deserved it the most. And in everything she's done as an MP she's done it in a way that's strengthened rather than undermined this institution.”
“As chair of the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Standards, she led the inquiry that produced the first cross-party code of conduct for MPs and staff that was endorsed by this House in February 2023. I know that all members of parliament, from across the chamber, who worked with her during this process know the inclusiveness, the judgement and the diligence that the member for Newcastle displayed during this process. It's no small feat that, on an issue that was so vexing for successive parliaments that they had failed to address it for 50 years, a consensus report was delivered through a committee that the member for Newcastle chaired, with 16 recommendations that were endorsed by all parties and Independents in this chamber.”
“We still have work to do in this regard in this chamber, but, if we want to continue the job, there is no-one better to have as our Deputy Speaker than the member for Newcastle. A jillaroo, a camp cook and an anthropologist before coming to this chamber, she's been uniquely suited to doing the hard work necessary to drive cultural change in this place. Since 2013 the member for Newcastle has been in all of the rooms with the hard labour needed to do the work necessary to make sure this place's work is done. Outside of the public eye, she's always put her hand up for the hard job. She's been on the Speaker's panel since 2015 and has been Deputy Speaker since 2022, as well as being a member of the privileges and members' interests committee.”
“I said earlier that this chamber looks very different than it did in 2013, and I should say also that it feels like a very different place to work in than it did back then. There have been days over the past decade when, frankly, I've finished the day as an MP in this building feeling that I need a shower, or have gotten to the end of a sitting week desperate to get back home to my community to feel like a human being again. The member for Newcastle has played a central role in the processes of change that have helped bring the norms and the values of modern Australia into this place. New members will take much of this for granted, but it wouldn't have happened without the work led by people like the member for Newcastle.”
“She is the kind of parliamentarian that you measure yourself against; the kind of MP that you feel proud to serve in this place with; and the kind of friend that you go to for advice on the most difficult issues, including, on one occasion when we were both serving on the inquiry into social media, trying to work out how to manage Craig Kelly on that committee. I would say to the new members in this place that you'd do well to follow the example of the member for Newcastle as you begin your time in this place. But, in saying this, I know it's ironic, because new MPs are perhaps the worst placed in this chamber to understand the impact that the member for Newcastle has had on the work of this parliament.”
“It is a true pleasure for me to second the nomination of my friend the member for Newcastle as our deputy speaker. The member for Newcastle and I were both elected to this place in the 2013 election, an election which produced a parliament which, I must say, looked very different from the chamber before us here today. I don't want to make you feel old, but, in the 12 years since then, 60 per cent of the class of 2013 has already left this place, and those of us who were elected in that year have now been here for twice as long as the median MP, which is to say that the last 12 years have been a tumultuous time in this place—a tumultuous time to serve. But, through this period, the member for Newcastle has become an MP held in the highest regard across the chamber.”
“This was a drastic drop that made our region less safe, and it left a vacuum in the Pacific for others to fill. Australian security continues to pay a price for the coalition's neglect in government. We now have to compete to become a partner of choice. We have to work at it. That's why the Albanese government has been hard at work implementing our vision for stronger engagement with the Pacific, with our nearest neighbours, with our family. On that note, I will cede the floor to my colleague the member for Fremantle, in anticipation of this evening's budget reply speech. Debate adjourned.”
“Our Pacific neighbours are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, increasing their need to work with us. They also need to look to us first to support their development and economic needs, which can be acute. Responding and providing support is what good partners do. As the foreign minister has said, we are now in a state of permanent contest in the region. We need to work harder to be the partner of choice in the Pacific. Our opportunity to be the only partner of choice was lost to us over the previous decade, when those opposite were in government. The former coalition government cut Australia's overseas development assistance program to the Pacific. They cut official development assistance by $11.8 billion in their time in office—and perhaps later tonight we will see further commitments to cuts in the budget reply speech.”
“These circumstances demand that Australia work more closely with our international partners to shape the kind of region that we want—a region that's peaceful, stable and prosperous; a region that operates according to agreed rules, norms and international law, where sovereignty is respected and where individual countries are free to make their own choices; a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated. Now, we can't achieve a region like this on our own. We have to work with others, and it is only becoming more challenging. How we work together with our international partners, with our neighbours, with our Pacific family to meet our shared challenges today will have a great effect on future generations. The Pacific is at the front line of many of the environmental, geopolitical and economic challenges we confront.”
“This was replicated across our government, with visits to the Pacific by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, the Treasurer, the Attorney-General, the Minister for Home Affairs and other ministerial colleagues. When we say we are part of the Pacific family, we mean it. We share an ocean and we share a future. The connections that Australia shares with our Pacific family—our mutual understanding, common purpose and cooperation—have never been more important. We face the most challenging strategic circumstances of the postwar period. There are major changes reshaping our region and the world: climate change, technological innovation and disruption, geostrategic competition and demographic change.”
“Since the election of the Albanese government, we have committed to a new era of Australian engagement in the Pacific. We have worked hard to deepen the social, cultural and economic connections between Australia and our Pacific family. We have really worked to enmesh our nation with the Pacific family. The Minister for Foreign Affairs visited the Pacific on just her fourth day in the role, travelling to Fiji to discuss how we could best secure our region and help to build a stronger Pacific family. The foreign minister visited every member of the Pacific Island Forum in the first year of this government. It was a clear demonstration of the new energy and focus that our government would bring to Australia's Pacific relationships.”
“Travelling with someone in an environment like that, you get a sense of the kind of person they are. I won't share with the chamber everything that happened on that trip, GP! But I have to say it is a genuine tribute to the calibre of GP and the regard in which he's held in this chamber that he can inflict so much pain on so many members of this chamber on the sporting fields of Parliament House and still be so beloved. The member for Fremantle and I have both been personally affected by GP's enthusiasm on the sporting field! Good luck, mate. I know you owe it to your family. Let me put on the record our thanks to them for sharing you with us during this time. Good luck in retirement from this place, mate. I am pleased to be able to speak on the Pacific Banking Guarantee Bill 2025 today.”
“Let me say what a serendipitous privilege it is for me to be able to follow the member for Moreton in this debate in his last contribution in this chamber. Let me put on the record my deep affection and admiration for GP. This is a man who has made a contribution across so many different aspects of our nation. Importantly to me, he has been a consistent voice for Australia's relations with Africa, a cause that I have spoken about a lot in my time and a cause that needs more voices in this chamber speaking up for it. GP and I have been able to travel all the way to north-western Kenya to the Kakuma refugee camp, which so many members of the Australian community have travelled through on their way to Australia, to really see the impact that our work through both ODA and other arrangements has had there.”