Julian Leeser
Berowra · Liberal Party · Australia
“Third, the bill gives the minister unilateral power to impose conditions on higher education providers under the new section 36-65 of the HESA, which is introduced by this bill. The current version of section 36-65 of the HESA requires that there be an agreement in place with the provider. The new version does not.”
“Presumably, if you're a university and you get a bad decision, then your only recourse is judicial review, litigation or a constitutional writ. It's not a great option when the target of your litigation will be the minister who will make the future decisions that shape your ongoing financial viability.”
“This bill changes it from capped funding to capped places, but the places cost different amounts depending on the course. The Commonwealth contribution to a history degree is $1,316; agriculture costs $32,400. Could a university which typically teaches history be allocated 100 places and decide to convert them to agriculture?”
“I said very clearly that I understand the value of international students to Australia. I also said: We will want to make changes to the settings around international students, but I want the sector to know that we want to work closely with you to develop these policies and announce them in due course.”
“This so-called system steward, ATEC, can be bypassed at any time by a minister choosing to exercise this power. Again, this means universities are, under this bill, subject to extraordinary control by this minister or any future minister.”
“He said that Australian kids should be taught Australian values, which he defined as democracy, the rule of law, basic freedoms and a fair go.”
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“In the old days, this was built into the content requirement. Broadcasters were required to play a certain amount of local content in given timeslots. Anyone who tuned in at a timeslot would see a certain proportion of the Australian content presented to them. Prominence and local content were a package deal—you couldn't have one without the other. The subscription video-on-demand model breaks that link. Just because you commission an Australian show it doesn't mean it will be easily found. In theory, it would be possible for a major streamer to fully acquit its investment obligation under this bill by commissioning a range of Australian content and hiding it in the back catalogue where it wouldn't be seen. Let me be clear, this is not what the streamer say they would do, and I do not say that they will do that.”
“The screen producers association, for instance, has made clear there are both positives and negatives to the bill. A number of streamers have proposed amendments to the scheme that they say would make the scheme more workable, with a view to ensuring there's a sustainable industry in Australia. There are issues that the bill should include but doesn't, which should be ventilated through closer examination. One of those is the issue of a prominence framework for Australian content. In the old days of broadcast media, content requirements and prominence were two sides of the same coin. Prominence means Australian content actually being accessible to watchers—being easily found, being visible and discoverable—so that watchers can effortlessly choose Australian content if they want to.”
“He can draft transition provisions so that, even if the bill is passed in the first sitting week of next year, the obligation is taken to commence on 1 January. He can even recall the parliament if he wants to, to allow time for a committee hearing. The point is that this is a problem that is entirely within the government's hands to fix. The reason for making these points is not just that the bill may have problems—which are within parliament's power to fix—but that there may also be missed opportunities in this bill to benefit the screen production industry in Australia. We've been told by industry that the government is not prepared to consider amendments to this bill. That's a shame because it's clear that there are questions on all sides which warrant answers.”
“Minister Burke writes the sitting calendar for this chamber. He's the Leader of the House. He decides how many days we sit each year. He's the one who decides when the bill is slated for introduction, and, as the minister responsible, he's the one who decides when the investment obligation in this legislation would commence. In other words, the urgency in relation to this bill and the potential financial penalty to the screen industry have been created entirely by this government, and that is a matter of deep concern. If the parliament decides to scrutinise this legislation to ensure it's fit for purpose, Minister Burke has a range of options to ensure that the screen industry is not disadvantaged. He could draft the bill to ensure the obligation commences on the day after royal assent.”
“I'm doubly concerned that the bill has been drafted in such a way that the Australian screen industry stands to lose if the parliament takes the time to examine the bill. That's because the bill has been drafted so that, unless it is passed by the parliament in this calendar year, the investment obligation will not commence until July and those who support the investment obligation will be made to wait. The risk is that, if parliament doesn't pass the legislation now, the screen production industry stands to lose financially. That's something that we on this side of the House do not accept should be the case. There is no reason to draft the bill in that way. It's a matter that is entirely within control of Minister Burke, both as the responsible minister and as the Leader of the House.”
“In terms of the scale of the difference, we understand that most streamers easily meet that requirement already and that what this bill does is put a floor under the level of investment and provide a steer for future players entering the market. There's a three-year acquittal process for each year's obligation, which the government says helps smooth some of the lumpiness inherent in screen production expenditure. Those are the headline features of the bill. I want to turn to the process now. The way that this has finally come before parliament, with a level of urgency that's entirely within the government's power to control, means there are missed opportunities. My initial concern is that, after almost four years, the government is asking that this bill be passed in three sitting days.”
“Again, they're following the coalition's lead on the broad policy measures. There are some differences of approach, of course, and, with Labor, the devil is always in the detail. There are notification and reporting obligations, which differ depending on the size of the streamer in terms of its subscriber base, and there's a dual-track investment obligation. The default position in the bill is that streamers have an investment obligation that amounts to 10 per cent of the total program expenditure for Australia. There is an option to instead elect for an obligation amounting to 7.5 per cent of revenue derived by the service from Australia in the relevant year. This selection can be made once every three years in advance.”
“Now, after almost four years of delay, we have this bill—a bill which is a weird combination of being long in the making and rushed in the delivery. It's worth saying a few things about it. What does this bill do? There are two main parts to it. The first is a reporting obligation on major streamers called 'major subscription video on-demand', or SVOD, services. The second is an investment obligation. I'll say that again—a reporting requirement and an investment obligation. As we head into 2026, I invite you to cast your mind back to the policy papers released by Paul Fletcher almost four years ago and the commitment he made in the lead-up to the 2022 election which spoke about a reporting requirement and an investment obligation. That's a tick there for the coalition on the headline issues.”
“There was no action in the 43rd Parliament. There was no action in 47th Parliament. Indeed, by May 2024, the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications noted in an interim report on the national cultural policy that the government was still considering two different models and was progressing with different drafting. Embarrassingly for Minister Burke, a status update on the issue prepared by the Parliamentary Library records, for posterity, that around this time last year, on 5 November 2024, Minister Burke told the Labor caucus: … that the interaction of any new local content rules with the US free trade deal was a stumbling block. That is the ABC article dated 6 November 2024 entitled 'Federal government quietly shelves plans for local content requirements'.”
“He commissioned the ACMA and Screen Australia paper to develop options for supporting Australian stories on our screens. He distributed the policy papers on streaming services, reporting an investment obligation. He worked alongside industry to develop something effective and functional. Labor was left flatfooted, and, typically, Labor followed the coalition's lead. They followed us by promising an investment obligation in the lead up to the 2022 election. They backgrounded industry and media about the now minister's plans to introduce a 20 per cent investment obligation. But it was a rushed and unworkable response, and it wasn't ready to go. These days, Minister Burke will say that he's been calling out this issue since he was last arts minister in 2013, but the fact of the matter is that he didn't do anything about it.”
“Analysis in February 2022 by the Bureau of Communications, Arts and Regional Research made clear that that measure stood to generate more than $4.3 billion in production, with economic, employment and skills in the metropolitan and regional areas through to 2026-27. In February 2020, it was the coalition that first proposed an Australian content guarantee, a vision of Paul Fletcher, who was then both the Minister for Communications and the Minister for the Arts, who consulted deeply with industry and designed the light-touch framework to ensure that five per cent of the revenue that streamers derived from the Australian market went into local investment. Paul Fletcher had done the work. He had done the heavy lifting in this policy space.”
“Indeed, in 2020, the Office of Impact Analysis estimated that, as at 30 June that year, the Australian Screen Production Incentive had produced $2.9 billion to support the Australian screen industry since its introduction. It's a coalition policy that has been the backbone and linchpin of government support to the screen industry over the last two decades. It was the coalition that provided critical support to the Australian screen industry throughout the difficulty years of the COVID pandemic, including more than $100 million through the modernising Australian screen content and the Temporary Interruption Fund measures. In 2018, it was the coalition that introduced the location incentive program with funding of $140 million, which was expanded by $400 million in 2020.”
“In the 1980s, it was the coalition under Malcolm Fraser who made a 150 per cent tax concession on the investment risk for Australian made film and television production. That incentive was whittled away under Hawke and Keating. In 2007, it was the coalition under John Howard that first introduced the Australian Screen Production Incentive. This was the birth of the producer offset, the location offset and the post, digital and visual effects production offset. When Peter Costello introduced that measure, he described its purpose as being to build stable and sustainable production companies aiming to increase private investor interest in the industry. These three measures are the legacies of the Howard era, and, again, Labor has followed the coalition's lead.”
“That means that we support the Australian screen industry. We back Australian content. We back the screen industry. We want the Australian screen production industry to be supported, and we don't accept that they should wear the financial hit that the government has built into the legislation if it is not rammed through in the next couple of days. Support for the screen industry in this country is in the coalition's DNA. This is an area where we have an enviable track record going back more than 50 years. In the sixties and seventies, it was the coalition under John Gorton who established the Australian Film Development Corporation, and Gough Whitlam followed in the coalition's lead with the National Film and Television School.”
“We want the Australian people to hear and see Australian stories on Australian screens. This is the cultural argument. It's about forging a unique national identity. It's about pride in our country. The coalition is the party that has never taken a step back from the pride in our country and in our identity as Australians, whether that is the ancient and living Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage, our British foundations and the institutions and structures that guarantee the freedom and equality we enjoy today or our multicultural character, a triumph that has brought to this land the gifts and culture of people from all around the globe. These are the three great strands of our history, these are the markers that make our place in the world unique and these are the stories that should be seen and heard by Australians.”
“Speaker, I want to start by directing my comments, through you, not just to those in the chamber, those in the gallery or those who are reading the Hansard for posterity but to the Australian screen industry—the producers, writers, actors, directors, camera men and women, sound engineers, postproduction specialists, set decorators, storyboard artists, costume designers, hairstylists, editors, musicians, animators, drivers, caterers, agents, publicists and everyone else who derives their living and their entertainment from the Australian screen industry. I want to say that we back you. The coalition supports you. We want your industry not just to survive but to thrive. The coalition is the party of small business, and we know that hundreds upon hundreds of small businesses work in and around the screen industry here in Australia.”
“I rise to speak on the Communications Legislation Amendment (Australian Content Requirement for Subscription Video On Demand (Streaming) Services) Bill 2025, a very important and long-overdue bill. I move the amendment circulated in my name: That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that: the Coalition has been an unwavering supporter of the Australian screen industry for decades, and is responsible for: establishing the producer offset, the location offset, and the digital and visual effect production offset, which have underpinned support for the sector for almost two decades; introducing the location incentive, which attracted billions of dollars of investment into Australia in the film industry; providing in excess of $100 million in financial supports to the Australian screen production industry throughout the COVID-19 pandemic; and first proposing an Australian content guarantee for streamers in February 2022; and after almost four years of inaction, the Government has asked that this bill be passed in just four sitting days, having taken the industry by surprise and despite significant concerns about potential unintended consequences".”
“It's become harder to see a doctor. It's become more expensive. Australians know that Labor has caused this. When Labor spends, you pay.”
“Instead, Mr Albanese and his government have abandoned them. The government can't continue to blame whoever they want for these failures. The truth is it's their policies that have failed. They cannot continue to recklessly spend, impacting inflation. Their failed energy policies keep energy prices high. They expect small businesses, including GP practices, to magically absorb those costs. They can't ignore spiralling workforce shortages and expect practices to bulk-bill just because the government want them to do so. They can't tell Australians their Medicare card is 'all they need' while delivering a system where the card is no longer getting them through the door. Labor needs to listen to patients, to doctors, to communities and to the reality that its policies are driving up costs and driving down access.”
“Another paid $44.66 for a telehealth call lasting barely three minutes. One person seeing a psychologist now faces a reduced rebate and must pay $275 per session. Another's had to cancel their mental health sessions entirely because their clinician was forced to introduce a gap fee to keep their doors open. A concession card holder is paying $109 a visit. And even last Monday, when I attended a GP myself, I was charged $96 following my consultation. Bulk-billing rates haven't just plunged in Berowra. It's happened in 32 electorates across the country, many in outer metropolitan communities like my own, where families are already under significant cost-of-living pressure. Many facing these rising fees are the ones that can least afford to pay. They're the communities Labor claimed they would help.”
“Under Labor, this has fallen to just under 82 per cent. That's almost 17,000 people in my community who are now having to pay a fee to see their doctor because of the Albanese government's failed policies. What's this led to? Australians are avoiding 10,000 GP visits every single day, with 930,956 fewer services given in the last quarter alone. That's more than a policy failure; it's a broken promise from this Prime Minister. On over 70 occasions, Mr Albanese said that 'under Labor all you will need is your Medicare card, not your credit card'. But the reality on the ground tells a very different story. Let me tell you what Australians from my electorate are saying. They show up with their Medicare card and are hit with enormous gap fees. One pensioner was charged $211 for a single appointment.”
“When the Prime Minister declared that you'd only need your Medicare card, not your credit card, he told one of the greatest untruths in Australian politics. Australians are entitled to expect that, when the Albanese government pledge to help their household budgets, they'll actually follow through. Whether they're the household budgets of parents with sick children or older Australians, they're all stretched to breaking point, and the cost of seeing a GP is an added pressure families simply can't absorb. The facts are clear. Out-of-pocket GP costs have blown out to over $50 on average nationwide. That's an eight per cent jump in over one year. Bulk-billing rates have collapsed across the country. Under the coalition, the bulk-billing rate in my electorate of Berowra was over 90 per cent.”
“For the next 21 years, Nan guided a place of dirt roads and green-belt paddocks into a thriving suburb for families, with open space and amenities the community needed. During her time on council, Nan was the first and is still the only woman elected President or Mayor of Hornsby Shire Council. Nan carries a strong local story through her husband's family connection to Samuel Henry Horne, the ex-convict turned hero-policeman after whom Hornsby is named. Nan's legacy is still visible today, from Cherrybrook preschool to Greenway Park. Public life is never easy, but Nan Horne made such a difference to our community. Happy 100th birthday, Nan. Our community is the great place to live, the great place that we love, because of your legacy.”
“The Berowra electorate is what it is today because of the people who dedicate their lives to making it a better place to live. Nan Horne is one of them, and next week she celebrates her 100th birthday. Born in Albany in 1925, she grew up near Cranbrook, Western Australia. A scholarship took her to Albany High, where she found her passion for teaching—a profession which she pursued until her retirement in 1980. In 1962, Nan and her husband, Ray, moved to Cherrybrook. In the eighties, a meeting about what is now Greenway Park drew Nan into the progress association and then public life. When parents needed early learning, she also led the effort in 1987 to establish the Cherrybrook Community Pre-School. That same year, Nan was elected to Hornsby Shire Council.”
“This government does not respect that understanding. It does not respect the parliament and it does not respect the Australian people.”
“Labor has taken this silly and entirely political approach, attempting to ram 1,500 pages of law and explanatory materials through the parliament without notice and with urgency. I want to make a couple of closing comments to put the bill in context. Australians are dealing with a productivity problem. We can't afford to hardwire delay, confusion and litigation into our approvals system. The bill before the House is being sold as a productivity measure, but there are clear and present concerns that, far from improving productivity, this bill as presented would actually do the opposite. Parliament's duty is to write laws that work. Australians expect us to have genuinely considered the legislation that the government has put before us. They expect that laws are clear, proportionate and practical.”
“It is about whether the parliament should be allowed to do its job and whether all of us should benefit from the deliberations of the committee process and the weighty consideration that such a committee would give to a bill as complex and economy-wide as this. What we have, in this bill, is an arrogant government that is instead trampling all over the committee process. It's clear that, by suspending standing orders to rush the debate today, the government has abandoned the longstanding position of the importance of proper consideration of legislation. It has also abandoned due process that must take this matter through a committee process. It has ignored the community benefit and the national interest in scrutiny and transparency and the use of the parliamentary process to deliver the best possible legislation in the national interest.”
“Instead, as the Prime Minister said, we have a rushed attempt to bring this bill into this House and have it debated today, without the benefit of a committee inquiry. The Prime Minister is standing over the Senate and saying to the Senate that they will pass the bill in the next week of parliament sitting without the benefit of that sifting and weighing process which is vital to the committee processes of this parliament and vital to the legislative scrutiny that all of us who are not part of the executive—and this includes members opposite—have an absolute responsibility to do in regard to a bill with such economy-wide ramifications as this one.”
“The all-party composition of most committees and their propensity to operate across party lines are important features. This bipartisan approach generally manifests itself throughout the conduct of inquiries and the drawing up of conclusions. Committees oversight and scrutinise the Executive and are able to contribute towards better government. They also assist in ensuring a more informed administration and policy-making process, in working with the Executive on proposed legislation and other government initiatives. So, this is what the purpose of the committee is in our system. This is why a committee inquiry into this bill has been established. This is why, because of the complexity of this bill, a reporting date for this committee has been listed as March next year.”
“It says: The principal purpose of parliamentary committees is to perform functions which the Houses themselves are not well fitted to perform, that is, finding out the facts of a case or issue, examining witnesses, sifting evidence, and drawing up reasoned conclusions. Because of their composition and method of procedure, which is structured but generally informal compared with the Houses, committees are well suited to the gathering of evidence from expert groups or individuals. In a sense they 'take Parliament to the people' and allow direct contact between members of the public and representative groups of Members of the House. Not only do committee inquiries enable Members to be better informed about community views but in simply undertaking an inquiry committees may promote public debate on the subject at issue.”
“I want to be clear: there are reform options that the coalition supports, but there are also serious issues with the legislation that we're being asked to consider. My colleagues have spoken at length to those issues. I want to talk about scrutiny in this government's approach. As I said, this bill has already been referred to committee. Those opposite should be well aware of the importance of the committee's procedures and why we have committees in this place. It's worthwhile reminding people what P ractice says about the importance of committees in the function of our parliament.”
“This government has now brought this bill into this House. The Senate, rightly, sent it to committee. Stakeholders want time to look at it. They want time to consider it. They want the chance to tell us, as legislators, how it will affect them. Instead, this government tried to rush it through. The Business Council of Australia has been clear: … without significant changes … we risk embedding a system that's even slower, more complex and lacking the clarity and certainty needed for investment. That's the Business Council, not the coalition. It's a serious concern. We should be examining those concerns in committee. Are those concerns borne out by evidence? Are changes required? What do the changes look like? Does this bill actually provide a solution to a productivity problem, or does it do the opposite, as industry has been telling us?”
“Claims of public interest immunity, a claim that is used to oppose the release of documents, have tripled among this government, and we're seeing them made every single week. We're seeing this in the malicious and petty slashing of staff from all those in opposition and on the crossbench, whose job it is to help hold this government to account. This government broke with decades of bipartisanship to reduce the number of staff. And we're not talking about electorate offices; we're talking about staff whose job it is to help us scrutinise the government. That brings me back to this bill, which, as I've said, is just one more data point in a long line of data points that illustrate this government's addiction to secrecy. It's the sort of petulant approach that, as I said, you'd expect from a toddler.”
“The government was exposed because of a leak. The document was circulated among agencies, and the involvement of the Prime Minister 's Office is very murky. This is a government that has repeatedly flouted orders for the production of documents. In fact, this government is now so egregious that the Senate has been forced into extraordinary procedural steps, like extending question time just to ensure basic standards of transparency. The Centre for Public Integrity has made clear that compliance with Senate orders for the production of documents has fallen to the lowest level since 1993. For whole generations of Australians, no government has been worse than this one in actually producing documents for scrutiny.”
“By 31 March this year the proportion of requests that had been completely refused by government had, according to the OAIC dashboard, shot up to 31 per cent. We've seen it in this government's approach to consultation, which, extraordinarily, made nondisclosure agreements a condition of participation in too many areas. We saw it in the secrecy in relation to workplace relations reforms. They gagged small business, employers and industry groups that were directly targeted. They got people to sign legal gags and tried to enforce them because they wanted to lock them out of consultation. This government should hang its head in shame. This is the same government that drafted a secret manual directing officials on how to avoid answering questions in Senate estimates, called 'Approaches to SEQoNs asked of all (or multiple) agencies'.”
“Instead of transparency, accountability and openness we've seen the approach demonstrated by this bill, where we have a government that is demanding that it be rammed through without proper consideration. More important than that, the approach to this bill is part of a very disturbing pattern around secrecy and opposition to scrutiny. There's overwhelming evidence that the resistance to scrutiny that we are seeing in the approach to this bill is endemic. We've seen it in other areas, such as the surge in FOI refusals. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the watchdog of the FOI system, said that the proportion of FOI requests being completely refused shot up to 27 per cent in the December 2024 quarter.”
“The Albanese Government is committed to integrity, fairness, honesty and accountability and Ministers in my Government (including Assistant Ministers) will observe standards of probity, governance and behaviour worthy of the Australian people. In making all the fanfare that he did in relation to his Code of Conduct, at clause 4.4, under 'Responsibility and accountability', he said: Ministers are required to provide an honest and comprehensive account of their exercise of public office, and of the activities of the agencies within their portfolios, in response to any reasonable and bona fide enquiry by a member of the Parliament or a Parliamentary Committee. That's exactly what we should be seeing with the bill. Instead, we've seen a very different tune from this government.”
“But that's not what we're seeing in the bill. What about the Minister for the Environment, who's responsible for the procedural mess we're dealing with today? What did he say when he was in opposition? He said, 'We deserve answers and transparency.' He also said it was not negotiable, and should not be negotiable, that the Prime Minister comply with the standing orders and properly answer questions. Clearly he's changed his tune in government. And what about the Prime Minister? In his foreword to a Code of Conduct signed personally by him, we get this sort of sanctimony: Australians deserve good government.”
“Those are the standards he told the Australian people he would uphold and that he wanted them to judge him by if he was elected as Prime Minister of Australia: transparency, integrity and accountability. Now we know that these standards are not the standards that the Albanese government and the ministers are holding themselves to. The former Attorney-General, the member for Isaacs, loved preaching about accountability and integrity, but his government has done the exact opposite. He said that : appropriate, prompt and proactive disclosure of government-held information informs community, increases participation and enhances decision-making, builds trust and confidence, is required and permitted by law and improves efficiency. The point they made in opposition was that transparency actually promotes better government.”
“Instead, we heard this petulant demand from the Prime Minister just a few moments ago to pass this bill—more reminiscent of a toddler than of a government acting in the national interest. More importantly, this bill says something very important about the government's approach to transparency and accountability. This is a government that talked a big game on transparency before they came to power. They promised to be so much better. Prior to the election, the Prime Minister promised the Australian people that, if they elected him and the Australian Labor Party to office, he and his ministers would deliver transparency, integrity and accountability in everything they did.”
“It's about the transparency that this government is allergic to, and it's about scrutiny. The bill, as I indicated at the start of my remarks, is the perfect exemplar of this government's approach to transparency, scrutiny and allowing the parliament to do its job. Dumping 1,500 pages of legislation sight unseen, with economy-wide ramifications, and then demanding that the parliament pass them without properly looking at them is not the action of a government that wants the parliament to do its job. Indeed, we as legislators would be failing in our job if we didn't scrutinise the legislation properly. Many of my colleagues have already made this point. The legislation contains a range of extraordinary changes that need to be properly weighed.”
“It's no surprise to anyone that Labor, in opposition, blocked them at the time. The Labor government now has presented its own model, but at what cost? Minister Plibersek attempted to make these reforms in the last parliament. They were withdrawn under internal pressure. Labor promised an environmental protection agency at two elections, and four years on it hasn't delivered what it promised. This is all too familiar from those opposite when it comes to energy and the environment. Let's not forget that they promised that Australians would see a $275 reduction in power bills. Four years on, they haven't delivered. The Prime Minister said that life would be cheaper under his government. Four years on, the government hasn't delivered. The issue I particularly want to speak about in relation to the bill is very simple.”
“Or should we look to 2019, when Minister Burke said, 'There's only one reason the government have decided that they want this legislation to be rushed through tonight, and it's because they've decided to play the game.' So, this is now the game that the Albanese government is playing: acting in the same vein that they accused the former government of doing. Today they're doing precisely what they used to decry, and on such a large and far-reaching piece of legislation from their own government. This matters because rushing this legislation will have real consequences for Australians. This bill updates the 1999 EPBC Act. As environment minister, the Leader of the Opposition commissioned Professor Graeme Samuel to undertake an independent review. The former coalition government introduced reforms, including streamlining pathways.”
“The Senate has already had to step in and refer it to an inquiry reporting on 24 March next year. According to the Prime Minister's timetable, the bill will be passed in the Senate before the Senate has had a chance to even consider this properly. This is outrageous, because 1,500 pages takes time to read, weigh and consider. The member for Watson has carriage of the bill in this chamber, and he knows this. When he sat on this side of the chamber, he regularly decried rushed legislation. In 2014, in relation to a piece of legislation, he said: The timing of this bill has precluded members of parliament from doing their job … Is the timing of this bill precluding not only the parliament but stakeholders from doing their job to ensure the final bill passed is in the best interests of all Australians?”
“It's almost 1,500 pages of legislation and explanatory materials that reaches into every corner of the economy that builds, digs, grows and manufactures. It will determine whether projects are approved in months or in years. It will determine whether capital comes here or goes somewhere else. It will determine whether Australians get a system that's workable and provides certainty to the private sector or one that is slower and more complex. What has the Albanese government chosen to do with something that's this significant? We heard the Prime Minister say it just then. They want to rush it through the parliament in one week. The bill was introduced into the parliament on 29 October. Stakeholders have immediately asked for more time to consider the bill.”
“When Barwick was president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, he commended the foundation at that time for doing a great deal to introduce a sense of balance into the consideration of the protection of the environment. Explaining what he meant by 'balance' in 1970, he said, 'We realise this generation must have access to resources and must use the technologies which are available to make the life of the ordinary man better, but resources can be used and technologies employed without doing avoidable damage to the environment.' This balance is what the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 should be about, but unfortunately it's not, and it gets the balance wrong. This bill doesn't make small changes or amendments.”
“I rise to speak on the government's latest attempt to rewrite the approvals framework that underpins jobs, investment and certainty in our economy. In 2024, I had the honour to deliver the Garfield Barwick oration. Barwick is a hero of mine, a former member of this House, former Liberal attorney-general, former chief justice of Australia and the founding president of the Australian Conservation Foundation. In my address, I spoke about Barwick's approach to the environment, which was balanced, prudent and realist. Recognising the complexities of modern life and the demand for raw materials, it envisaged that advanced development and conservation could exist peaceably.”
“Giving children a safe and practical way to express their worries isn't a small thing; it's a vital step in ensuring that every child feels safe and supported. Sometimes the biggest ideas for change come from our youngest voices. Ashleigh, you have one of those voices. Congratulations, and keep going.”
“But, when children feel safe enough to share their feelings, even through a folded piece of paper, we can continue that work to normalise conversations about mental health and ensure young people can get early support. Ashleigh's letterbox idea has the ability to be another tool for schools to help create an environment not just for education but for care, support, resilience and trust. I want to commend Ashleigh for her creativity and her courage. She saw a problem in her own world and came up with a practical solution. I told her that I would bring the matter to parliament and that I would continue to champion the need to improve mental health and resilience outcomes in schools in our community and across Australia.”
“They'd been meeting earlier today with the new CEO of Lifeline, Graham Strong, who's also in the chamber, and Emma Carr from Lifeline, to talk about the inspiring proposal. What I love about Ashleigh's proposal is that it's not just practical but it's wise. We often talk about the importance of student wellbeing and mental health. Ashleigh's proposal provides an appropriate way for people who might be too anxious to speak up but who need others to know that they're struggling to get support. As the shadow minister for education, I know that children face pressures inside and outside the classroom, and sometimes that can be overwhelming. If those feelings are bottled up, they become barriers to learning and friendships.”