Kevin Hogan
Page · National Party · Australia
“Deputy Speaker, you know and we all know on this side of the chamber that Australian families, Australian businesses and Australians generally are despairing right now. We've had 15 interest rate increases under this Labor government. The average mortgage costs have gone up—not total, they have gone up—by $30,000 a year.”
“As I've said earlier, every member over on that side of the chamber should hang their heads in shame by deceiving every single one of their electorates at the last election. You know that, Speaker, and I know that.”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, you said that families will be better off under your government, but, under Labor, interest rates have increased 15 times, meaning an average new mortgage holder is around $30 a year worse off.”
“We have always been the country that has driven trade deals, and we have been very successful at it. Members have been talking about fuel security. I want to remind everyone in this chamber right now that we sell about $650 billion worth of stuff overseas every year, and there are four big ones: coal, iron ore, gas and food/agriculture.”
“This is not me saying this; this is actually in the budget paper, so I assume it's Treasury saying this. Why do you think it's a good idea, when we don't have enough housing stock, that tax proposals you announced on budget night will mean that 35,000 fewer homes will be built over the next 10 years?”
“I have about three or four questions to the government and to the minister, and the first one is: why did you deceive the Australian public? There's an issue of integrity that's really important here. I understand that people might have opinions on certain policies and might want to do stuff.”
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“Because of this dedication and support of local trainers and the community, the Casino greyhound club continues to thrive as a hub for racing. Congratulations to the committee, the staff and the volunteers over a remarkable 90 years. I'd like to acknowledge and congratulate the Country Women's Association Casino branch for their 100th birthday. For a century, the women of Casino CWA have been at the heart of our community. From establishing vital health and welfare services to their participation in Primex, the Casino Show, community fundraising stalls and the Casino Golf Club markets, the group have provided ongoing support for community organisations in Casino.”
“I'd like to acknowledge and celebrate the 90th birthday of the Casino Greyhound Racing Club. The first race meeting was held at the now Queen Elizabeth Park in 1936. The Northfield family are notorious in our local greyhound community. Pop Northfield was a key driver behind greyhound racing in the northern rivers. His son Billy trained champions like Pretty Short, which won 58 races in its career. His grandsons, Mitch, Charlie, Brad and Glen, along with the wider family, have carried on this legacy. I'd particularly like to acknowledge Mitch, who is currently the president, Secretary Donna Pezet and past employees with significant contributions such as Don Waldron, Bruce Knight and Ronnie Herd for their leadership and service to the club.”
“My question is to the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors. In my electorate of Page, community transport providers are warning that, without urgent fuel cost support, they will have to reduce services to more than 2,000 vulnerable people. What is the minister's plan to ensure recent rising fuel costs do not result in the loss of these essential services?”
“So, again, the coalition supports this bill, but we're calling on the government to deliver the reforms outlined by Ms Michelle Levy to rebuild the adviser workforce, reduce the cost of advice and ensure every Australian can access affordable, high-quality financial advice.”
“The conclusion is that, ultimately, it's Australians that are paying the price of fewer advisers, higher fees and reduced access to affordable financial advice. When financial advice becomes too expensive to access, people don't stop seeking advice; they just look elsewhere, and they may get it from people who are not properly qualified. That's why the coalition commissioned the Michelle Levy Quality of Advice Review, and that review set out a clear pathway to simplify regulation, reduce costs and improve access to advice. Again, the government have stalled their response.”
“We understand there are some genuine administrative challenges with the current system, but we think these changes reflect a broader trend to reduce parliamentary scrutiny. While the coalition supports this schedule—as Australia must meet its international obligations—we encourage the government to resist additional pressure from new levies, including the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort, which would further increase the cost of staying in the profession. While there are some bad eggs, like in any profession, too often, government has painted all advisers with the same brush, but good financial advisers are the best tool at any Australian's disposal to protect themselves from bad advice.”
“Again, we support these changes and encourage the government to do them very quickly. Schedule 3, on the multilateral development banks, changes how Australia funds its commitments to international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund. As a member of these banks, Australia contributes capital. There's a concerning shift towards open-ended financial commitments here. The bill introduces standing appropriations without a clear upper limit. This is concerning, and parliament should not be asked to sign blank cheques. While disallowance mechanisms exist, they are not a substitute for full parliamentary scrutiny.”
“They support better health outcomes. As I said, the reality is that this has been agreed to for a long time. Schedule 2 has relief for foreign financial service providers. This schedule provides long-overdue clarity for financial service providers operating in Australia. It will help ensure our markets remain open, competitive and connected to global financial expertise. Again, this is another bipartisan reform that has broad stakeholder support. We introduced legislation in 2022 and since then have been waiting for Labor to deliver this. These four years of delay—again, while there's been broad support—is not acceptable. They have real consequences as well: ongoing regulatory uncertainty, reduced confidence for international firms and risk to Australia's competitiveness as a financial services destination.”
“In September 2024, to much fanfare, Labor announced that they would be introducing legislation to ban genetic discrimination in life insurance. This announcement raised real expectations among Australians, but by the 2025 election no legislation had been introduced. That just shows that this has not been a priority. With strong bipartisan support and no opposition, there is no reason why this legislation shouldn't have been introduced in the previous parliament, and there are consequences for this. People who could have benefit from this testing may have been discouraged from doing so because of concerns about insurance discrimination. Participation in medical research could have been affected. The problem is being fixed now, and we support these reforms. They provide certainty. They prevent discrimination.”
“It supports clinicians to prevent, diagnose and treat serious conditions, including hereditary diseases and cancer. No Australian should be discouraged from undertaking genetic testing because they fear it could affect their ability to obtain life insurance. These reforms have had broad bipartisan support and strong backing from clinicians, researchers and patient advocates for years, so we encourage Labor to deliver these much more quickly. The coalition has had to drag Labor kicking and screaming to this. In 2019, while in government, the coalition supported the introduction of an industry moratorium as an interim safeguard, with the clear expectation that legislation would follow. This meant that by the time of the 2022 election a broad consensus was already built.”
“The coalition is going to support the Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance and Other Measures) Bill because it contains important reforms that Australians have been waiting for, including sensible protections around the use of genetic information in life insurance and improvements across our financial system. This bill also highlights a consistent problem with this government: reforms are delivered too slowly, even where there is broad agreement. Genetic protections are being delayed despite years of consensus. Schedule 1 prevents life insurers from using genetic test results to deny or limit cover, ensuring Australians can access medical testing without fear of discrimination. Genetic testing can be life saving.”
“I'm going to give credit to Peter Beattie, because Peter Beattie would sometimes go to a presser or go into the chamber and say, 'I got it wrong; I apologise.' He actually used to admit it occasionally, and he was quite respected for it—going into the chamber or going to a presser and saying, 'I, my government, we got that wrong.' He apologised, and people respected that. This government—it's beyond them. They have not apologised for any policy that they've ever done or for any promise that they haven't met. I think one of the most infamous ones is the $275. It would have been nice for them to say, 'You know what? We thought we'd modelled it well. We got it wrong. We owe the Australian public an apology,' but we'll never get that. This minister needs to get on top of this fuel supply issue. It's real.”
“That was of course the famous $275 cut in your power bill. That was meant to happen by 2025. What happened between 2022 and 2025? This is always a divert-and-deflect government, so of course it wasn't their fault. They blamed the Ukraine war. Of course, the Ukraine war had started before they took government. But when they didn't meet that promise, it's not their fault, if anything doesn't go right with this government. Last week we were talking about inflation. Here I'll give credit to a Labor politician.”
“Let's acknowledge that: a 2.4 per cent inflation figure in the US and 3.8 per cent in Australia. The average in the Euro bloc is 1.9 per cent, whereas our inflation rate is well over three. Unfortunately this means that Australian families are working harder for less. Should that surprise us? The minister doesn't seem to be across the fuel supply issue. He's got a really reckless policy that's putting our electricity grid in danger. And let's not forget, going back to the 2022 election, that this minister was the one who made one of the big promises. They said it was the most modelled. And these are not my words; they're the now Labor government's words. They said the policy they were announcing was the most modelled economic policy ever done from opposition in Australia's political history.”
“What it will mean practically—and I think it's important to acknowledge what this means in the difference in carbon emission reductions—is that Australia will have, by 2035, about a 35 per cent reduction in carbon emissions, which will be, as we say, in line with a lot of the other countries across the globe. Their emission reductions are going to take us to 65 per cent by 2035. Again, that's why we think this is responsible. The other thing I want to talk about is that this policy and a lot of policies that have been implemented on the other side are why we have a cost-of-living crisis in this country. Why do I say that? It's not me saying that; it's the official inflation figures saying that. The inflation rate in Australia is 3.8 per cent. It came out last week. It went back up. In the US it's 2.4 per cent.”
“Are we on this side saying we should abandon carbon emission reductions? Of course not. We believe that as a citizen of the globe we should do our carbon emission reductions as well. Our plan is to match OECD average carbon emission reductions. We're taking out China's and India's, because we could keep putting emissions up and still be matching the average if we left China's and India's in. So we took them out. Our ambition is to match the OECD actual. We think that's a responsible action. We think it's a far cheaper action. We think it will have less economic cost to Australia. So we encourage the government to have a look at that plan. We believe it's a better, cheaper, fairer plan for Australia in emission reductions and energy costs. But I don't have a lot of faith in the minister that he will look at that.”
“I always remind the other side of the House when we talk about this that a lot of this is done, as we know, for an emission reduction where have to get to net zero by 2050. I think it's really important that the government and every government be reminded that the three biggest carbon emitters across the planet are not signed up to net zero by 2050. It's important that you acknowledge that. It's important that you realise that China is not signed up to net zero by 2050, India is not signed up to net zero by 2050 and the US is not signed up to 2050. They are the world's three biggest carbon emitters. Yet this government believes we should be racing ahead with carbon emission reductions. There's a cost to that. We know there's a huge cost-of-living crisis in this country, and there is a cost to that.”
“I don't like to be negative, but should we be surprised with this part-time minister? Obviously, the other thing that this MPI mentions is energy security and energy supply. The importance of fuel supply to our food supply, our energy markets and everything else does bring up our sovereignty in a whole lot of areas. I remind the House that the minister is the minister responsible for Labor's reckless $9 trillion net zero 2050 plan, which is obviously an irresponsible plan and one that we can't afford. Part of it obviously is what we know is a reckless renewable rollout that is predominantly happening through regional Australia. We know the 60 million solar panels. We know the 20,000 wind turbines. We know the fact that agricultural land—food supply—is going to be all used up with this reckless renewable rollout.”
“Even with all the great examples that are very important to farmers and to communities across this nation, we heard nothing from the minister today even though he had many opportunities to tell us about what he's doing about this. Now, I know he's a part-time minister. I know he has a really important role with COP, but he has another very important role. He needed to communicate. This is not for us. We might stay here representing and advocating for our communities. It was important for us to hear, but do you know who needed to hear this today? It was the community out there in Australia—real Australians who operate businesses, who are scared and nervous about their fuel supply. What did the minister say today to allay any fears? Nothing. He gave no information about what he's done.”
“Okay, so people have come and said, 'You should make sure people don't do this.' What did the minister say to all those really important industry stakeholders who were in his office this morning? Did he tell them to get moving? Did he tell them examples of the threats to our food security and food supply? Did he go through in minute detail and give specific examples of geographic locations of companies, of businesses who aren't getting fuel? We've been sending them to his office. Has he communicated any of that to the stakeholders? What did the stakeholders say about that? Did they say they will take action? Did they say they will change the normal course of events because of what is going on in this country right now? We didn't hear any of that.”
“We've had many examples today where distributors, retailers and, very importantly, wholesalers are not getting their normal fuel supply. This is a huge issue. Some of the examples we got from this side of the chamber this question time are actually quite scary. We're talking about people who are feeding our country. We're talking about trucking companies who need to transport food to our supermarkets. There is a serious issue going on in our country, and they seem to be oblivious to it. What I wanted to know and what I thought the minister might communicate today—I thought, when he said he was taking action by having meetings, that that was a bit light on. Well, it would have been nice to know what he said in the meetings.”
“We all see times when we think and notice that governments have tin ears on issues and are not responsive to something important happening in our communities, but, indeed, this one is happening right across our nation. I mean, I understand that the Minister for Climate Change and Energy believes that there are enough fuel reserves in this country to combat any fuel issues we have, but what he didn't acknowledge today and what he and the other side of the chamber have to acknowledge—remember they are in government—is that there is a fuel supply issue in this country. A lot of ministers have come up. I'll quote one. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations said, 'There isn't an issue with supply when it comes to fuel.' There is. There is an issue for supply when it comes to fuel.”
“I also want to highlight that it's important to acknowledge the three biggest emitters in the world—the US, China and India—because they more than anyone will have the most impact on this. Not one of those three countries is signed up to net zero 2050. Nine trillion dollars has been modelled for the cost of that program, and that's a whole-of-economy cost, because obviously there are going to be costs in a whole lot of different sectors. Some of it will be private costs and some of it will be government costs, but that has been modelled across the whole sector. Again, I can tell you right now that that plan is not going to make the cost of living for Australians any better either.”
“They should apologise for it and acknowledge the fact that they have had some input into these inflationary pressures, which a lot of people and a lot of economists are saying stem from spending. I also want to say that this government is very dangerous in running a roulette game on our energy policy with their net-zero-by-2050 policy. I personally believe we should do our fair share of carbon emission reductions. Our better, cheaper, fairer policy is about matching OECD averages in reductions in emissions. We think we should do that. But this government is racing ahead and is going to lower emissions more than nearly any other country in the world with the reductions that they have for 2035.”
“If Peter Beattie got things wrong or made a mistake, do you know what he'd do? He'd admit it. He'd go, 'I've made a mistake,' or, 'We should have done better here.' The state of Queensland I think admired him for doing that. We haven't heard one minister on the other side of this chamber over the last four years ever admit that anything they've ever done was anything but perfect, and we know that that's far from the truth. I encourage the government to admit that they're not perfect, to admit that some of their policy failings are real, to acknowledge those and to apologise for them. They should apologise for the fact that they haven't delivered the $275 energy cost decrease which they said they were going to deliver. In fact, most people's average energy bills have gone up by a thousand dollars over this period, not down by $275.”
“When he first made that promise, there was a big announcement for it. It was a huge announcement that had the media there and a whole lot of things happening. In answering questions about it, when Labor made that announcement as an election promise, the Prime Minister actually made the claim that it was the best, most extensive modelled campaign election promise since Federation. I think that was the quote—that this wasn't just a random, made-up figure but that a lot of modelling and research had gone into it. Post the election, we never heard about it again. Again, they blame things like the Ukraine war. The Ukraine war was actually happening when they made the promise, but we'll let that one slide as well. There have been Labor politicians, dare I say it—you know one of them, Speaker—like Peter Beattie.”
“When you talk to them about the cost-of-living crisis, they like to talk about a government from five or six years ago, or they like to talk about international things, like the Ukraine et cetera. Certainly, I'm happy to acknowledge that there are things like the Ukraine that will affect the global inflation rate, but that doesn't explain why Australia's is higher than comparable countries. This government have never acknowledged it and said, 'Look, inflation is higher in Australia, and these are the reasons, we think.' They will not accept or acknowledge it. I'll mention it just in passing, but we can't not mention the fact that they went to the 2022 election promising a $275 reduction in people's power bills. They then made excuses about that. The Prime Minister, from memory, promised it something like 97 times.”
“Another term for inflation is 'cost of living'. The cost-of-living crisis in Australia is much worse than it is in many other countries because our inflation rate is much higher than it is in many other countries. With the inflation rate that came out recently, Australia's annual inflation rate is now 3.8 per cent. In the United States, it's in the lower half of the twos; it's around 2.4 per cent. The European bloc's actually has a one in front of it; it's 1.9 per cent in the European bloc. What does that mean for the average Australian family? That means cost-of-living pressures in Australia are worse. There's more pressure on families in Australia than there is in many other countries. The government refuses to accept any responsibility for the cost-of-living crisis in Australia being worse than it is in any other country.”
“Then, if it has upset people or affected people, you might even apologise for the fact that you've got something wrong. Then, when you do that, you can correct it. I could go into suggestions on energy policy, which I was going to, but this government has to admit and apologise to the Australian public that inflation has stayed here for higher and longer.”
“At the moment in the United States, their inflation rate is 2.4 per cent. Inflation in the euro bloc is 1.9 per cent. Inflation in Australia, as we in this chamber all know, is 3.8 per cent. Why has inflation stayed higher for longer in Australia than most other Western economies? I can tell you the answer. The answer is that side of the chamber. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer cannot blame Ukraine, they can't blame the government from four or five years ago for the way inflation is higher here in Australia than it is in a lot of other countries. What do you say to your children when they make a mistake or they get things wrong? When they make a mistake, you get them to admit—they have to admit—that they've made a mistake. They have to admit that they've done something wrong.”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, under Labor, Australia is the only advanced economy where living standards have gone backwards. Today's national accounts show the government's share of the economy growing twice as fast as the private sector, which economists and business leaders say is fuelling inflation. After four years of Australians going backwards under Labor, when will the Prime Minister finally accept the buck stops with him?”
“You don't see all this immediately; sometimes, with these legislative changes—and especially the ones made to the EPBC Act—we might not see them for three or four years. But this government don't understand the economy. They are sending companies and families broke in this country. Shame on them!”
“The other thing I also want to talk about—and it's endemic—is the changes we saw made to the EPBC Act on the last day of parliament last year. One thing this Labor government has in its DNA—especially when it has an alliance with the Greens, as it does in the Senate—is it cannot have too much red and green tape. It loves red and green tape. It loves more legislation telling people what they can do and what they can't do. Every stakeholder I talk to that is trying to export out of this country, that is trying to do stuff in this country, says that the government are making things more difficult, and therefore more expensive, in the government legislation they've done over the last four years.”
“I don't think it's hard to work out that if you stop farmers and producers in the Murray-Darling Basin from growing things, that isn't going to help the cost of those things. The Minister for Climate Change and Energy wants to talk about supply and demand. I'll tell you what: if you're growing less of something, the price of it might go up. Their obsession there is not okay. The other thing I want to talk about on their obsession with emissions reduction is that they have already instituted a ute and SUV tax. That means the cost of SUVs and the cost of utes in this country have already gone up, and not because of anything but government policy on this side. When the tradie wants to go and buy his ute or when the family want to go and buy their SUV, they have all gone up distinctly because of a blatant government policy.”
“The Murray-Darling Basin in one of the great food bowls of the world, not just Australia. The food and fibre growing in the Murray-Darling basin is quite phenomenal. Those opposite have a different ideological obsession on this one. Their ideological obsession on the Murray-Darling Basin, for some reason, is that the Murray River mouth can never close. The bizarreness of that is that before we had the lock-and-weir system built on the Murray and the Darling, the mouth of the Murray closed a lot. What those locks and weirs do is hold back water so there is a continual amount of water that goes out. In droughts, that would lock up all the time. With that ideological obsession, what they're doing now—talk about a waste of money—is spending billions of dollars buying water off food and fibre producers in this country.”
“This government's obsession means that those opposite are aiming for emissions reduction in 2035 of between 60 and 70 per cent. It makes them feel good, but, as I've said, the damage that's doing to families and businesses is manifest. By our target, we'd be getting our emissions reduction to around 35 per cent, which is doing our fair share but not killing the Australian economy and family budgets at the same time. I've mentioned cost-of-living pressures. We know mortgage increases in Australia have gone up this week because of the policies of this government, but I want to just touch on a couple of other things that are doing a lot of damage to cost of living. One is very dear to a lot of colleagues of mine, especially colleagues who operate within the Murray-Darling Basin.”
“Yes, we should be committed to doing our fair share. Yes, we could contribute as a good global citizen. But nothing we do, given the size of our economy and amount of our emissions, compared to any other country, will change anything. But that doesn't fit with the ideological obsession of this minister and this government. While they might feel good, this is not good. We on this side of the House, as the opposition, do have a plan, and a responsible plan. What we've said we will do is lower emissions by the average of the OECD. Whatever they lower emissions by, we will match that—not what they say they're going to do but what they actually do. That is the target that we have committed to. That will mean a difference.”
“Three countries are saying, 'We're not going to do what Australia is going to do with emissions reduction,' and those three countries are China, India and the United States. All of those countries have said, 'We are not signed up to that.' They're not signed up to it, because they know the expense of it and they know the unattainability of it. Let's take China as one example. The emissions in China go up more every year than Australia's total emissions. I'll repeat that, because it's important to understand that: the emissions in China go up more every year than Australia's total emissions. This minister and this government are obsessed with emissions. We want to do our fair share, but nothing we do in Australia will change the temperature of the globe, because we only produce just over one per cent of total emissions.”
“You can go around the east coast of Australia and see ones like Tomago, a more recent one. All of them have either paused what they do or have asked or said that they need government assistance. What does that say? That says that something is going seriously wrong, if those businesses are unanimously saying that they need government assistance to keep going, and it all comes back to this government's and this minister's obsession with emissions reduction. We acknowledge that we should do our fair share of emissions reduction, but their obsession has us leading the world in emissions reduction. I want to highlight three countries that are not signed up to the policies of this Labor government.”
“About 50 per cent of the bill is because of some of those delivery costs, but he says it's free. He's misleading. He knows that, and he continues to mislead the Australian public on that. What we're already seeing—we can talk about families and we can talk about the fact that they get their energy bill every quarter and are shocked and horrified by how much it's going up. The other thing that's going on around Australia is that businesses are feeling it, especially big business and heavy business—businesses that are energy intensive, like the smelters around Australia or the refineries around Australia. You could go up and down the coast of Western Australia with the nickel industry and the lead industry. You go to South Australia and see the steelworks or the lead industry in Port Pirie.”
“I'm going to go to some of the costs of that and why that is so destructive, but, before I do, in regional Australia, I'm very conscious that that involves 60 million solar panels to be physically built in predominantly regional Australia and 20,000 wind turbines as well. The minister likes to get up and say that renewable energy is cheap or free. It's not, and he's very misleading in saying that. One of the major costs behind it is the new transmission system—20,000 kilometres of a new transmission system. Why do they need a new transmission system? Because all this generation capacity they're building with these 60 million solar panels and these 20,000 wind turbines—they're being built where there aren't any transmission systems, and they're being built where there aren't poles and wires. The cost of that is enormous.”
“It's commented on by most economists around Australia and the Reserve Bank themselves that a lot of this is about government policy right now. Every mortgage went up in Australia this week because of the policies of this Labor government. The damage that's going to do to family budgets and, indeed, in higher interest rates to business is not good. You can't go past the cost of living and you can't go past talking about this government without first talking about the Minister for Energy and Climate Change. They have an ideological obsession that, at the expense of $9 trillion, they should get Australia to net zero by 2050.”
“I know you're aware, I know everyone on this side of the House is aware and I know that the Australian community is aware that the cost of living is a crisis in this country. It's a crisis for family budgets and it's a crisis for small business in Australia that the cost of everything is just going up and up and up. I want to focus on a couple of things through this next 10 minutes. One is obviously the focus of this—energy. I want to talk about the failures of this government on energy policy and also want to note, too, that just this week we saw mortgage rates go up for Australian families. Interest rates around the world are going down in most countries. They're coming down in just about every country around the world except Australia.”
“Today the theatre continues under the current directors, Anthea and Paul, Tony's granddaughter and Spiro's son. The Saraton's longevity is a testament not only to the dedication of the Notaras family but also to the Grafton community that's loved and supported it for a century. Happy birthday to the Saraton.”
“I'd like to acknowledge that this year marks 100 years of the Saraton Theatre in Grafton. This remarkable milestone was celebrated a couple of weeks ago by over 400 people. In 1926 two teenage Greek migrant brothers, Jack and Tony Notaras, first opened the doors. This iconic landmark has been a place where the Grafton community has come together for entertainment, events and community experiences. Grafton loves the Saraton. Over the decades, the theatre has seen many generations of style. To preserve its heritage features, it underwent major restoration in 2010 with financial backing from Tony's sons, Angelo, John and Mitchell, and Jack's son, Spiro. Spiro, I know, donated a lot of timber from his timber mill for that renovation.”
“Cooper represented New South Wales country at a recent national carnival. Because his performances throughout the tournament were so outstanding, he was selected in the Australian under-17 merit team—an incredible achievement given he still 15 years of age. Cooper's success doesn't just acknowledge his talent. It's about hard work, discipline and commitment to his skill. Earlier this year Cooper was awarded the junior sportsperson Australia Day award by Lismore City Council. It's fantastic to see the incredible opportunities regional communities provide. I'd also like to recognise his mum and dad, Lisa and Troy, and younger brother, Jordy, for their commitment in supporting Cooper throughout his sporting journey. I look forward to seeing the great things that Cooper does in the future.”
“I'd like to recognise Marinus Philipse from Grafton for winning BusNSW's Rural and Regional Driver of the Year. Marinus has worked with Busways for close to 20 years and has built a reputation in the community for the way he treats his passengers with such kindness. People regularly comment on his kindness, especially towards older passengers or a nervous kid on their first ride. He also takes pride in keeping his bus spotless and making sure that people feel safe. Inside the depot he's known as someone who supports new drivers and helps keep the place running smoothly. Before driving buses, Marinus spent 30 years in the dairy industry. I'd also like to acknowledge his wife, Susan. Congratulations, Marinus on a well deserved award. I'd like to acknowledge and congratulate a very talented young cricketer, Cooper Williams from Caniaba.”
“The organisation of the year was the Bonalbo CWA. The business of the year was Kelvyndale Farm, proprietors Kevin and Lyn Gambley—great family. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees from Bonalbo.”
“I congratulate all the winners and recipients of Australia Day Awards in Woodenbong. Citizen of the year was awarded to David Hannant, senior citizen of the year to Glenda Compton and young citizen of the year to Ethan Green. Sportsperson of the year went to Ebony. The business of the year went to the Pitstop Cafe and the community organisation of the year to Woodenbong Cares. I had the pleasure of attending the Bonalbo celebrations and would like to acknowledge and congratulate members of the community who received Australia Day Awards there—for citizen of the year, Helen Tarte; for achievement in sport, Emerald Dean; and, for community event of the year, the Working Dog Rally Gold Coast/Tweed Motor Sporting Club, co-hosted with the Bonalbo Sport and Recreation Club, whose president is Glen Brinkman.”
“The Aussie Spirit Award was also awarded to David Cole. Catherine Yeomans received an OAM for service to the community through a range of organisations. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees from the Coffs Harbour area. I acknowledge and congratulate members of my community who received Australia Day Awards in the Kyogle Council area. In Kyogle the Citizen of the Year was Chris Olive. Senior Citizen of the Year was Tom Rogers. The Junior Citizen of the Year was Ruby Stafford. The Junior Sportsperson of the Year was Nate Walters. The Junior Student of the Year was Dakota Jane. The Senior Student of the year was Lacey Chadderton. Danielle Mulholland received an OEM for service to local government and to the community of Kyogle. Congratulations to all those winners.”