Tony Burke
Watson · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“People smugglers want there to be footage of Australian voices claiming that people smuggling will work, and those opposite are providing it. The second thing that people smugglers want is access to information.”
“I think it's fair to say that that sort of respect is ordinarily there regardless—it's nothing to do with the gravity of the issue. It's just an acknowledgement that each of us is one out of 150, to make sure that we are conscious that, if everybody acted the way we might want to act in a particular moment, the House could itself become u…”
“on indulgence—When the government seeks to have a debate management motion, there's always discussion in the House as to whether or not that is reasonable. In order for us to make sure that we can respect all 150 members of the parliament, there are a number of things that members ordinarily do.”
“Let me start with this: anyone who saw last night on the news that a number of people had tried to enter our country without a visa should know that, by the time they woke up this morning, every single one of them had been removed from Australia—every single one.”
“I thank the member for Leichhardt. I acknowledge the strong role that the member for Leichhardt has had in combating foreign fishing and, in particular, in calling for the work of Border Force that's up there now in Operation BROADSTAFF.”
“This is an amendment about who the deputy chair should be and whether they should be a member of the opposition. The deputy chair of the committee is a member of the opposition; it's Senator Dean Smith.”
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“Don Henry from the Conservation Foundation used to refer to the meeting with Graham where the environmental groups were explaining that they really wanted to save the Daintree and maybe add some of these other forests to it as well, and it was Graham who leant back and said, 'It's an easier campaign just to do the lot at the start.' It was a controversial campaign. While the Daintree had its incredible significance of being that spot where rainforest and reef meet, you had some communities who were very angry of it.”
“And, eventually, when I joined the Labor Party, at my first branch meeting, the person who followed me up the street after I left thinking, 'I might never go back to that again,' was someone with a mullet, in jeans and a black T-shirt, by the name of Morris Iemma, who had just started working as a speechwriter for Graham Richardson. I saw a series of issues I'd been passionate about being delivered by Graham—the Daintree Rainforest and wet tropics. We all talk about the Daintree, but the world heritage listing went across the whole wet tropics.”
“Both his parents died relatively young. Graham was always in a rush and always had a sense that he might not always be around. On my political formation, a big part of it—some of it happened through my paper run and some of it happened through my concern about a series of environmental issues. But of those environmental issues the one that I was most passionate about was the Daintree Rainforest. I had posters of the Daintree in my bedroom. I was writing to the then prime minister, Bob Hawke, as a kid still at school.”
“I rise to pay tribute to a former minister, former senator and dear friend who we've recently lost, Graham Frederick Richardson. I use his full name because Frederick was the name of his dad, and the experience of his father and the battles that happened within the postal workers union formed a very significant part of Graham forming a view of the importance of winning on the notion of how personal political fights can be and, effectively, a big part of his formation and decision to be involved in the Labor Party. People would know that Graham had been ill for some time, but his death was still unexpected when it came. Some years ago, he had some very major operations, but that was not the beginning of the challenges with his health. At the age of 16, there was a very serious car accident, and Graham had last rites twice.”
“I move: That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent no more than six Members immediately making statements of no longer than five minutes each. Question agreed to, with an absolute majority.”
“I would have liked to have been able to give members certainty earlier today, but, as soon as I had all of this information confirmed, I privately contacted the Manager of Opposition Business. We passed a message through to the crossbench and, obviously, to yourself, Mr Speaker. I will say that that means we still got an extra day of sittings, so that's good!”
“I know that people were scheduled to speak on the adjournment debate, so what I'll do in a moment is move a suspension of standing orders to allow that debate to occur as it would have, only it won't be a debate about adjourning the House; it'll just be five minutes on whatever you want. The speakers who were rostered to speak will get the opportunity to do so. Once that's concluded, Mr Speaker, it would suit the convenience of the House if you would then suspend the sitting, vacate the chair and return at the ringing of the bells at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. That's presuming that, at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning, the Senate's finished and we've had transmission, but I think our odds are much better than they would be tonight.”
“For the information of members, the Senate, before question time, looked like it was tracking really well, but the Senate has slowed down considerably. Whenever they finish, it'll then be the case—we have the environment legislation, and there's another package of legislation that comes on at about at item No. 5 in debate that also requires amendment, which will have to come back to the House. That being the case, the most sensible thing for us to do will be to not stay too much longer today. We will come back tomorrow, which will almost certainly be at 9 am.”
“I move: That standing order 31 (automatic adjournment of the House) and standing order 33 (limit on business after normal time of adjournment) be suspended for this sitting. Question agreed to, with an absolute majority.”
“This approach to delivery you see in the work of the parliament—for other members of parliament, the approach to delivery would be better represented at Christmas time by the movies that people watch at the end of the year, such as the great Christmas story A Christmas Carol . I suggest they all watch a version of it—probably the Muppets version of A Christmas Carol and, in doing so, don't focus on the tragedy of Tiny Tim—”
“I thank the member for Boothby for the question, because the approach to delivery could not be more stark. We have in this 48th Parliament, since the election and because we have an Albanese Labor government, cut 20 per cent of student debt. Because we have an Albanese Labor government, we have cheaper medicines. Because we have an Albanese Labor government, we are protecting penalty rates for Australian workers. Because we have an Albanese Labor government, we have five per cent deposits for first home buyers. To add to that today, because we have an Albanese Labor government, we have long awaited environmental reforms and, I might say, Australian content obligations for streamers.”
“Almost everybody in Australia on a visa is a good guest in this country, respects this country, and is welcome here. But, when people have their visas cancelled—and there are some extraordinary levels of crime for people in that particular case load—it has to have meaning. If we can't return them to their country of origin, then I am grateful that the government of Nauru has given us a pathway for third-country resettlement arrangements, which were put through this parliament.”
“There was no mention in the question about the fact that the particular people we're talking about are people who have committed serious crimes in Australia. It's a bit of a big detail to leave out, because these individuals have had their visas cancelled for a reason, and Australia has to be a country where visa cancellation is meaningful. When we had the High Court decision on NZYQ, we had a situation where, all of a sudden, for some people it meant that, if your visa was cancelled, you would have to return to your country of origin or go somewhere else, but for others, visa cancellation would, in fact, be meaningless. They would live in the community in the exact same way, and that's not the way to run a serious immigration system. As a nation, it is right and proper that any country is able to have control of its visa system.”
“At that point, through our arrangements with Papua New Guinea and Nauru, we took the number of people who were risking their lives at sea by boat in just three months to be cut by 90 per cent. That would not have been possible without those arrangements. When I first came into that portfolio, the boats were at the highest rate they had ever been. There was a real human cost in that. I had 33 people die on my watch, drown at sea. The youngest of them was a baby. His name was Abdul Jafari. Today he should be 12. He should be 12 today, but he's not. To make sure that we have a pathway to stop that trade in misery is an important and decent thing for Australia to do, in the same way as the more recent arrangements, which were referred to in the question as being about asylum seekers.”
“I want to deal really specifically and very directly with the final part of the question about why the arrangements we have with Nauru are really important for Australia to have. On the issues that the member raises with respect to some of those contracts, when I last met with the President of Nauru, David Adeang, who I have dealt with since 2013, when I was previously immigration minister, the various allegations were taken seriously by him, and I trust that the government of Nauru is dealing with that. But why these arrangements are in place is for a very good reason. Let me go back, first of all, to 2013, when I was previously minister for immigration.”
“I declare that Federation Chamber order of the day government business No. 3, Corporations (Review Fees) Amendment (Technical Amendments) Bill 2025, is returned to the House for further consideration.”
“In saying that, I declare that, if we end up still here tomorrow and still here over the whole weekend, I'll be the one person in the House very happy about the outcome.”
“We should all work on the basis that, I suspect, we will be in a position where anything that the Senate is seeking to amend will get back here at a reasonable time so that we would, in fact, stay later today. If it gets to the point—and I don't think it will—where the Senate is sending messages back to the House, or sending them after 8 pm and we are uncertain as to when we'd actually get the messages, then we'd make the decision to come back early tomorrow. But I don't think we'll be in that situation. Needless to say, if you're planning to get on a flight shortly after five o'clock, you might want to review those arrangements. Other than that, I expect that we're in a situation where we'll be able to resolve any of the matters that we need to resolve just by sitting a little bit longer than we ordinarily would today.”
“on indulgence—Members from around the House have been asking about arrangements for today and the possibility of us still being here tomorrow morning. I will just give an indication of how today will run. The Senate at the moment is determining their order of business and their pace of business. Effectively, the critical issue for us is that any bills the Senate seeks to amend will then have to come back to the House, and there's a transmission period between the two that can easily take two hours. Looking at where we think the Senate is up to, what will certainly happen in any event later today is that I'll come back to the House to suspend two standing orders: one for the automatic adjournment and one that prevents us from receiving continued messages from the Senate.”
“I present a chart showing the proposed parliamentary sittings for 2026. Copies of the program are being placed on the table, and I ask leave of the House to move that the proposed parliamentary sittings be agreed to. Leave granted. I move: That the proposed parliamentary sittings for 2026 be agreed to. In terms of the summary, it gets us back similar to what we have had over the last decade in non-election years, which is 18 weeks, or 66 days, of sitting.”
“The impact that the Bay of Fires series has had there is phenomenal. There are some series where you get a tiny bit that's done on location and then the rest of it is done with green screens in major cities. The programs that do really invest in different communities around the country are appreciated, and it matters. That said, it doesn't change the legal situation the government is in with respect to trade laws, so, while I'm very respectful of the reasons that this is being put forward, the government is not in a position to support the amendments.”
“I thank the member for Mallee. This gives me the opportunity to acknowledge the member for Mallee as one of a number of members from her party who have a long-term investment and interest—an investment in the political sense, not the monetary sense—in making sure that Australian content is well supported on our screens. I do acknowledge that. As I said right at the start before we started the amendments, the bill that's before the House has gone through a lot of work to make sure that we are fully meeting our trade obligations and the government is not in position to be supporting various amendments. I do note the spirit of what the member for Mallee has moved. It does make a massive difference to communities when they see their stories on-screen. Only very recently, I was on the West Coast of Tasmania.”
“The government, having considered those arguments, took the view that the most important thing was to make sure the investment in the content took place, because the business demands would cause these streamers to want to make sure that what they had invested in was being viewed. As I said, the issues about prominence are around the value of the regulation versus the outcome when weighed against some of the pushback and trade issues we're dealing with. On balance, we made a decision that we were better off securing a guarantee of the investment than going down this additional path. But I completely respect the reasons the amendment is being moved.”
“I thank the shadow minister for both his contribution earlier and his contribution just now with respect to the amendment he's moved. When we started the consultation, prominence was one of the issues we put on the table to work through. The pushback from those who didn't want it was some of the strongest pushback we had, on the basis that there was an argument that we were seeking to interfere with their IP. Also, the trade complications on dealing with this were viewed as being pretty serious. But, secondly, an argument put by the streamers—which was not unreasonable—was that if they've spent a whole lot of money on a production then they are going to want to make sure eyes are on it.”
“Just very quickly—and I won't respond further—the situation we're in right now is that there is no guarantee of anything. That's the situation we're in right now. The purpose of the legislation is to start to get some guarantees on the expenditure on Australian content. Question negatived.”
“But I certainly wouldn't want there to be an impression that the government was seeking to have a situation where every single streaming service had to provide the full range. I think different levels of specialty is a reasonable business model for them. But part of what the government is wanting to achieve here is that the full range of Australian content that people love is guaranteed to be available on streaming services—in the same way that, historically, you could get it on free-to-air, on the public broadcasters and on cable television.”
“I don't, however, believe that it's essential for each individual streaming business to be providing that full range. There will be some streamers, for example, that decide that providing a serious level of children's content is important to them and go down that path. There will be others who go down a specific path, in seeking an audience, that is deliberately aimed at not having children among their audience. I wouldn't want us to be in a situation or a conversation about objects and what we're to trying to achieve here that left any ambiguity in terms of the government's position on that, which is that, no matter who it is sitting on the lounge, we want Australian content in the different varieties that have been referred to be available to them.”
“In a similar way to what I said earlier, I want to acknowledge the member for Warringah for an engagement that has been going on for some years now on this particular issue. It's important for the commitment that's been shown on this issue to be acknowledged. As I said earlier, we're not in a position to be amending the bill at all. But, if I can refer specifically to the issue of the objects proposal—you could take it either way in terms of what's being said, so I think it's important that I clarify. In terms of the different subgenres, I do want to see—across the full suite of streaming businesses that are out there—and make sure that we end up getting the sort of diversity that's just been spoken about and that's reflected in the amendment.”
“I would not want there to be a reporting obligation that in any way confused that should we end up in a situation where this is challenged, so the government will not be in a position to support any of the amendments.”
“In the comments of the member for Wentworth, there was a reference to how the producer offset was to be calculated against other obligations. Many of the free-to-air obligations, for example, relate to time not expenditure; therefore, it is irrelevant to those. The only expenditure obligation in the same way would be the NETI obligation that applies to Foxtel. In that situation there is not a discount in the form that this amendment would seek, so keeping it as is would be consistent with how the only other expenditure based obligation we have operates. In earlier consultation I had been seeking sub quotas. We have pulled right back from sub quotas, based on the legal position we have been working ourselves through in trade law.”
“She has a large number of people engaged in the screen industry in her electorate of Wentworth. She has publicly raised and asked about this issue in parliament and privately has sought regular briefings from me through her entire time here, wanting to make sure that not only did we get to an obligation for the streaming services but that it was as unambiguous as possible. The effect of the first amendment would effectively take us from an obligation of 10 per cent to 13 or 14 per cent. That is the impact it would have. There are particular reasons under trade law as to why we are introducing legislation at the 10 per cent figure, so we would not be able to support an amendment that departed from that.”
“I will start with the concept that is relevant to all the amendments, so will speak generally. People will be aware of the extent of the legal work and the challenges of making sure we keep this piece of legislation within trade law. Some of the pushback and back-and-forth has found its way into the media but members of the House would certainly be aware of that. For that reason and because of the level of legal work that has gone into the legislation, the government will not have an appetite to accept amendments, as a general rule, as we work our way through this. That said, I will still speak to give a position on the individual amendments as they are moved. First of all, I respect the engagement that the member for Wentworth has had with the screen industry.”
“Documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings . Documents made parliamentary papers.”
“Modern Australia and multicultural Australia are the same thing, and someone who gets involved in that sort of movement should not pretend that somehow they are being patriotic about our country. They are people who hate modern Australia. The priority of this government and, I would say, this parliament is to defend the right of every Australian to be safe and to feel safe. The Neo-Nazi who is now in immigration detention had a view that there are people who should leave Australia. Well, he can lead by example and leave by example.”
“Rows of men, evenly spaced and all clad in black with the same blank and hateful expressions, held an antisemitic banner and chanted slogans of the Hitler youth. One of the participants was not an Australian citizen. He was a visa holder, he was a guest in this country, and he is no longer welcome here. His visa was cancelled, and the Australian Border Force detained him. The man is currently in immigration detention awaiting removal from our country. There's a really simple principle where, if you're on a visa, you're a guest in the country. And, just like if you're a guest in somebody's home, if you turn up to wreck the place, you'll be asked to leave. We're setting a standard for Australia. The last thing people want is for the conflicts or hatreds from overseas to be imported here.”
“I thank the member for Hughes. It's good to have somebody so committed to bringing people together, in his own community as well. People may have seen that AFP commissioner Krissy Barrett is currently heading off to the Interpol conference. Working with police around the world, she has indicated, among other issues, that she'll work 'to ask relevant partners to share more information about hate groups, including Nazi supporters, and to provide advice from their lessons learned over the years.' As well as this being a police issue, it's been an extraordinary issue in the Australian community for scenes that we have seen recently. Earlier this month, there was a disgusting demonstration of Neo-Nazism and racism on display outside the New South Wales parliament in Sydney.”
“For the information of members, the day on which the most divisions has ever been held was an overnight sitting from 9 to 10 April in 1935, when there were 83 divisions in a single sitting of the House of Representatives. As of today, we are in second place at 40 divisions. If anyone wants to break the record and stay here for a late night, let me know!”
“The proposed amendments would also remove flexibility and limit the environmental benefits of larger strategic restoration actions—for example, increasing connectivity or creating wildlife corridors. This approach would be better for the environment and better for business. We know the current offsets regime isn't working for industry or the environment, and we need to be able to do something differently to improve the system and deliver restoration at scale. The bill strikes a balance between allowing that to happen and learning the lessons from other offsets approaches that haven't worked.”
“A new independent Restoration Contributions Holder will be able to use the funds to strategically deliver offsets to have greater environmental benefits, including through pooling funds or similar impacts. The government does not support these amendments because a new rulings power under the act fulfils the role of enabling the minister to determine that restoration contributions in all or particular circumstances are not appropriate as compensation for a particular protected matter. This mechanism does provide for flexibility and responsiveness by the minister as new information becomes available, including any advice of the Restoration Contributions Holder.”
“I thank the member for Curtin for raising this issue and I respect absolutely that the role of offsets is something where integrity is critically important. As I've said in question time, the legislation also switches the concept from no net negative to net positive, which of itself is a significant change. The reasons the government won't be supporting these amendments are similar to some reasons I gave previously, but I'll give them now in response to the member for Curtin. This government's environmental reforms will deliver better outcomes for the environment and industry. The bill's reforms will introduce new options for offsetting. Project proponents can either deliver an offset themselves or pay for the government to do it via a restoration contribution payment, or a combination of both.”
“I thank the member for the issues that have been raised. The government will not be supporting this amendment. Thousands of decisions are made under the EPBC Act every year, including things like issuing permits. Many decisions that would be published in the register are routine. Therefore, it would be undue administrative burden to require reasons to be published in every single circumstance. The current reforms, and specifically section 232 of the bill, provide that recommendation reports for approval decisions are published. This is an improvement on the current process that we have, where interested parties need to apply for a statement of reasons.”
“Documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings . If I may just give people an indication as to what we're dealing with: on our calculations, at the pace we've been going, we have about an hour and 10 minutes of government business to go. As I said earlier, we will start the MPI but we will not get very far into it.”
“The government will not be supporting the amendments. The model that the government has decided to adopt for the National Environmental Protection Agency is that of a non-corporate Commonwealth entity. This provides an optimal model for independence for matters of compliance and enforcement while maintaining democratic accountability for approvals. This model involves standard statutory appointment processes for the CEO and is ultimately accountable to the minister. A board is not complementary to this model. Instead, the CEO of the EPA can appoint advisory groups to be able to assist them and provide advice on their functions.”
“I move: That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring in relation to proceedings on the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025, National Environmental Protection Agency Bill 2025, Environment Information Australia Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Customs Charges Imposition) Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Excise Charges Imposition) Bill 2025, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (General Charges Imposition) Bill 2025 and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Restoration Charge Imposition) Bill 2025: (1) on Thursday, 6 November when the order of the day for the resumption of debate on each bill is called on: (a) questions being put immediately on any amendments moved to the motion for the second reading and on the second reading of the bill; (b) if required, a consideration in detail stage of the bill occurring, with: (i) no longer than five minutes of debate on each set of amendments moved, unless a Minister specifies an extended time for debate; and (ii) the question that the bill [as amended] be agreed to being put immediately after all amendments have been resolved; and (c) the question being put immediately on the third reading of the bill; and (2) any variation to this arrangement being made only on a motion moved by a Minister.”
“An EPO must state the purposes for which the order is issued, including by giving brief details of any alleged contravention or potential contravention to which the order relates and set out the requirements imposed by the person on the order, either specifying when the order ceases to be in force or including a statement to the effect of, 'The order will remain in force until it's revoked by the CEO.' If no timeframe is included in an EPO, the CEO must revoke an environment protection order if the CEO reasonably believes that the order is no longer necessary for any of the purposes for which it was issued. On cumulative impact, these issues are to be dealt with through the standard on matters of national environmental significance and embed landscape-scale approaches.”
“The CEO of the National Environmental Protection Agency must reasonably believe a person or body corporate has or is likely to breach legislation. The EPO can only be issued where there is an imminent risk of serious damage, it's necessary to ensure future compliance or it's necessary to manage any damage. The EPO must then be revoked if the CEO reasonably believes that it is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was issued or if a specified timeframe in the EPO has lapsed.”
“I thank the member for Warringah for the issues that have been raised. I will say this: never underestimate the commitment to the environment of the backbench members of the government. Everyone comes here from a good place, and the undermining that happened towards the end of that speech—as someone who sees how hard people on the backbench work through our committee process, the caucus process and the different processes we have, I wouldn't want to leave the comment that was made uncorrected. With respect to the issues raised by the member for Warringah concerning climate, I refer to the answer I gave previously on the amendments that were moved by the member for Bradfield. With respect to the issues on environmental protection orders, there are strong requirements that must be met before one of these orders can be issued.”
“I know how important listening to the community is, and the minister has asked me to specifically repeat that he's very keen to keep engaging with the member for Indi on the development of a standard for community consultation. But those standards cannot exist unless the legislation itself finds its way through.”
“Insofar as the issues around public consultation are concerned—and I acknowledge that the member for Indi has also raised this issue personally with me and in question time as well as in the meetings she's had with the minister—the public consultation requirements are aligned with other consultation requirements under the act. It's important that communities have their say on projects, and it's sensible to have a consistent time frame across the act. In the context of making bioregional plans, the consultation time frame in the bill relates only to the statutory consultation step. Bioregional plans will also have significant prior community consultation through processes facilitated by state and territory governments as we work with them to develop their regional plans.”
“Therefore, the constraints that are there in the legislation as presented do not guarantee an approval. That risk is borne by the proponent, and it's a practical measure to improve productivity. With respect to high-value agricultural land and drinking water catchments, I respect the issues that have been raised and acknowledge that, for the member for Indi as well, these are issues that would be regularly raised in her electorate. The EPBC Act specifically regulates significant impacts on the nine matters of national environmental significance. This amendment would overlap with matters that are appropriately for states and other legislation to regulate and matters that are regulated by the EPBC Act. It would introduce uncertainty and additional complexity into the system.”