Josh Wilson
Fremantle · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“Tomorrow, every working Australian will receive a further tax cut, continuing the record of the Albanese government in delivering tax relief, especially for low- and middle-income earners. Indeed, the average worker will now have benefited annually to the tune of $2,800 in tax cuts thanks to the Albanese government.”
“This is real change. These are real measures that will make a difference at a difficult time and will build on the work we've done since coming to government in a range of areas.”
“At a time of cost pressures and a time of global turmoil that's created supply shocks and caused inflation, communities around Australia are looking to their government to help tackle those challenges, not with a magic wand but by delivering real change that makes a difference at a tough time.”
“It's a real change that takes courage and makes a difference, which is what the people that we represent rightly expect from their government.”
“I'm grateful to all the members who have contributed to this debate, this conversation, and will answer some of the questions that have been put. I'll start by saying that, in this portfolio area, as across the budget, the government is focused on resilience and reform. We know that we're living through a fuel crisis at the moment.”
“That's why we've made the biggest investment in Medicare in a generation, lifting bulk-billed GP care to 90 per cent by 2030, including through the creation of new dedicated bulk-billing clinics like the ones that have opened this year in my community in Jandakot and Hamilton Hill.”
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“In relation to the second reading amendment moved by the member for Ryan, the government won't be supporting the motion. This bill is a standalone and time critical to the EPBC Act. It's unconnected to broader reforms being progressed separately at this time. The government is committed to delivering environmental and cultural heritage law reforms in this term of government. The Minister for the Environment and Water is working in partnership with the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance and consulting with First Nations stakeholders, conservation and environmental organisations and industry. I thank the members for their contribution and commend the bill to the House.”
“I thank all members who have contributed to this debate. The government is committed to providing traditional owners with greater control over the management of their country. This Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Board of Management Functions) Bill 2025 will contribute to that goal. It will allow the boards of management of jointly managed Commonwealth reserves to continue making decisions after a management plan expires, provided those decisions are consistent with the plan. This would maintain the board's decision-making ability until the new management plan comes into effect. This bill supports participation by traditional owners in matters relating to the management of their country, continuity of decision-making and consistency of governance arrangements for Commonwealth reserve management.”
“This bill is being introduced to parliament ahead of the broader reforms to the EPBC Act to ensure the critical functioning of the board and the voices of traditional owners in the management of their land is maintained while we're working to deliver the broader reforms that are required to ensure we have a fit-for-purpose national environmental protection framework. This is a step towards delivering the government's commitment for more traditional owner control over the management of country, and it is consistent with the recommendations of the independent review of the EPBC Act that were provided to but never acted upon by the coalition government. Debate adjourned.”
“This bill will address and overcome this limitation through a minor technical amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The bill will allow the board to continue making decisions after a management plan expires, provided those decisions are consistent with the expired management plan, just as they would have been consistent with the management plan while it was afoot. This is a sensible change that will maintain the board's decision-making ability until a new management plan comes into effect.”
“The traditional owners of that land are actively involved in the protection of the environment through participation in the management of their land—spaces which both sustain and share the experience of Australia's biodiversity and cultural landscapes. These reserves are managed by the Director of National Parks under a lease with Indigenous people and through a board of management with majority traditional owner representation. Each of the boards of management is currently chaired by a traditional owner. These boards are responsible for making decisions about the management of Commonwealth reserves. However, their ability to make decisions stops when a management plan expires. If that occurs, the role of traditional owners in the decision-making processes is removed, reducing that critical involvement in the management of their land.”
“I move: That this bill be now read a second time. First Nations people have been looking after country for tens of thousands of years. They have an enduring connection to the land, sea and sky. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have cared for country and been a significant part of shaping the environment and supporting the remarkable, unique biodiversity we experience in Australia today. Their knowledge, connection to place and cultural practices have contributed to the positive environmental outcomes that benefit all Australians. Our jointly managed Commonwealth reserves—Kakadu National Park, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and Booderee National Park—are located on Aboriginal land.”
“Since the election, I've been fortunate to be able to make a couple of announcements in my electorate from the social housing accelerator, where we're partnering with states and territories to get new, affordable community housing into the system as soon as we can. I was fortunate to be at the launch of a community battery in Coogee that I promised, with the Prime Minister, some time ago. We had a bit of a disagreement about the pronunciation of Coogee—”
“Minister Bowen is leading that work through the safeguard mechanism, the Capacity Investment Scheme, Rewiring Australia, Australia's first National Electric Vehicle Strategy, Australia's first National Energy Performance Strategy and the programs that support that. We know that there is an issue when it comes to housing. Housing is a human right. Housing is the basis of a safe and secure life from which people can pursue education, work and involvement in their community. For too long, affordable, safe and accessible housing has become harder and harder for young Australians and Australians facing disadvantage, and we're not going to tolerate that. We're making the biggest investment in affordable housing since the housing boom post World War II, with $42 billion worth of programs.”
“We are making a really significant investment in Australia's future manufacturing potential because, in addition to our opportunity to become a renewable energy superpower, we have the opportunity to be a clean industry powerhouse. If you ever are fortunate to be in any other part of the region, whether that's Japan, Korea, Indonesia or Singapore, they marvel at the incredible potential that Australia has to benefit from renewable energy and clean energy technology and then to parlay that into 21st-century industrial strength that is based around green metals, green hydrogen, low-carbon liquid fuels and so on. We are going to make sure that we help secure that for future Australian generations.”
“They closed the door on nine years of inaction and internal conflict that failed to produce a national energy policy, that saw a reduction of one gigawatt of energy generation in the system as a whole, that saw a completely abject failure when it came to emissions reduction. We have already seen an increase of more than 40 per cent in Australia's renewable energy. We have crossed the 45 per cent mark in terms of renewable energy in our grid. We have increased Australia's commitment to reducing emissions by more than 60 per cent. We're on track to achieve that. We're on track to deliver 82 per cent of renewables by 2030.”
“The independent reviewer made clear to the previous government years ago that the national environmental framework, the EPBC Act, was not fit for purpose, was not doing its job and was, unfortunately, really managing a steady trajectory of decline. We don't accept that. We are going to do what the previous government didn't have the resolve or the courage or the responsibility to do. We are going to implement those reforms. We're going to continue the work that we began the Albanese government focusing on with respect to climate change and energy. Of course, Australians know and support the fact that, when they elected the Albanese government in 2022, they closed the door on nine years of neglect.”
“The PBS, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, is one of the great Labor reforms, one of the great foundational building blocks of our shared wellbeing. We have moved to bring the maximum price of medicines on the PBS back to $25, a level that was last experienced in 2004. We have done those things because of our enduring commitment to positive change, because of our enduring commitment to social equality and social inclusion, because of the work of antidiscrimination and the work of environmental protection. Minister Murray Watt, the Minister for the Environment and Water, has started his work on ensuring that we deliver an effective national environmental protection framework.”
“They include public goods, like health and education and like community infrastructure—all of the things that we share and that we have a responsibility to protect, maintain and advance together. The Albanese government has wasted no time in picking up that work again with the strong endorsement of the Australian people. From the very first sittings of this parliament, we acted quickly to reduce by 20 per cent the debt owed by people who have studied at university or at TAFE through HECS. We moved very quickly to legislate penalty rates so that working people are properly compensated when they're asked to work at times that we otherwise get to spend with our families or we get to spend in our community. We moved quickly to reduce the maximum price of medicines on the PBS.”
“I'm glad, grateful and humbled to be able to continue my work as the member for Fremantle in this place, and to continue my work as a member of the Albanese government; it is resolute in its focus on working with the broader Australian community to make Australia a fairer and more sustainable nation. I do that by bringing my Fremantle values to that work. Those are things that my community has been part of working towards for a long period of time. My community has a commitment to the things that we share. They are the most important things. They include fair working conditions and the social safety net. They include proper protection for our environment.”
“Sixteen of your targeted species actually declined in population under the strategy that you didn't properly apply and you didn't properly resource. You utterly ignored the Graeme Samuel review, which you commissioned. You asked Graeme Samuel to tell you what needed to happen with our national environmental protection framework, and he told you. He said: 'It's failing. It is presiding over a trajectory of decline. You need to fix it. You need to introduce proper compliance and controls. You need to improve the standards.' What did you do? Nothing. You did nothing for nine years. You hid—”
“People need to know what the Australian government is doing on their behalf as stewards of our environment. It's the expectation the community has; it's an expectation that we will deliver upon. But they cannot be allowed to forget what happened under nine years from those opposite. Forty per cent was cut out of the department of the environment. You cut funds to the CSIRO. You presided over an approval and compliance process that resulted in nearly 80 per cent of all approved activities failing to meet the conditions of their approval. You ran a threatened species strategy with 20 target mammal species where the trajectory of 12 of those species declined. For the eight species where there was an improvement in the trajectory, four of them had an improvement in the trajectory only to the extent that they declined less quickly.”
“We are responsible stewards of one of the largest areas of ocean territory in the world, and we now protect 52 per cent of our ocean domain. That is better than any other country on the planet. We should be proud of that. We are proud of that. But we know there is more work to be done. That's why we wholeheartedly support the ratification of the new treaty to protect the high seas. That's why the Minister for the Environment and Water continues to look at new programs to support our seascape, our coastal and estuarine environments and our terrestrial environment. But we can't allow those opposite to come in here in the first week with that pointless aggression, that self-imposed amnesia, that 'Let's treat the Australian community to a little bit of the M en in Black mind-cleansing device,' because that would be irresponsible.”
“And, as the party that created the national network of marine protected areas when we were last in government, we came to government with a clear resolve and a focus to take that work further because we know how important our ocean environment is, whether it's off Queensland or Ningaloo and Exmouth Gulf in Western Australia—or in South Australia, as has been discussed today. That's why in 2023 we tripled the size of the Macquarie Island Marine Park. It was the largest act of ocean conservation in the world in the calendar year 2023. And then, in 2024, we quadrupled the size of the Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve. That was the largest act of marine conservation anywhere in the world in the calendar year 2024. Australia now protects 52 per cent of our ocean domain. We have one of the largest EEZs in the world.”
“We provided $200 million for improvements to creeks and waterways around this country through the Urban Rivers and Catchments Program. We invested $1.3 billion to double the size of the Indigenous Rangers Program, an extraordinarily successful program both in protecting country and lifting up the wellbeing of First Nations communities. We provided $230 million for 12 new Indigenous protected areas; that covers country the size of Tasmania. We stopped uranium mining in Jabiluka; instead, we added Jabiluka to Kakadu National Park. We doubled funding to look after our national parks, including Uluru and Kakadu.”
“But, because I know the Australian community are sick of us going along with that kind of pointless aggression and sick of that kind of self-imposed amnesia just for the sake of trying to score political points, I'm going to talk about the positive; I'm going to actually talk about our program and our record. I could spend another 10 minutes, if I had another 10 minutes, detailing the abysmal failure of those opposite over nine long years, but I'm going to talk about our record. We began, after our election in 2022, by reforming the EPBC Act. We strengthened and expanded the water trigger. We brought legislation in here to introduce an independent EPA; it was a reform that was blocked by those opposite and the Greens. We provided $550 million to better protect threatened species and animals.”
“The responsibility to protect our environment is an obligation to the proper care and good stewardship of country and the biodiversity that it sustains for its own sake on its own terms. But it's also an obligation to ourselves because there's no way that our human communities can be healthy and safe, and there's no way that we can maintain and advance our own shared wellbeing, separate from a healthy environment and a healthy climate. That's why it has been an article of faith for this Labor government to pick up from a period of extreme and extraordinary neglect by focusing on environmental restoration and conservation and by focusing on climate action. It is abysmal that on this topic, of all topics, there should be no capacity for honesty or self-reflection from the shadow minister for the environment about their record.”
“The coalition are on the verge of abandoning their grudging commitment to net zero as we speak; they are going up into the Sky studios and tearing each other apart as they try to find ways to abandon climate change action and return to their natural condition, which is climate denialism. Nothing would be more dangerous for Australia than for that to occur. It is a core responsibility of the Australian government to protect and conserve Australia's unbelievably precious environmental condition and biodiversity. We are, all of us, and especially everyone in this place, the stewards of a remarkably diverse continent nation with one of the largest ocean domains of all countries—a landscape and seascape that's home to ecosystems and species that are present nowhere else on planet Earth.”
“It follows the $25 million we invested, in the previous term, in science that is specifically dedicated to the restoration of environmental conditions in the Great Southern Reef, and the $5½ million we committed through the National Environmental Science Program. We know that that algal bloom is influenced by climate change. We are a government that takes climate change seriously. We are a government that increased Australia's emission reduction commitment by more than 50 per cent the very instant we were elected in 2022. One of the first things we did in the new parliament in 2022 was to legislate net zero by 2050.”
“I waited for 10 minutes to hear the shadow minister say anything about their commitment to taking action on climate change and their commitment to net zero—and we know that, all week, parts of the coalition have been tearing themselves apart in a desperate attempt to throw that commitment into the bin. But we got 10 minutes of nothing. I was glad to hear that the shadow minister for the environment is concerned about the algal bloom in South Australia. That's a concern that is entirely shared by the Australian government. That's why the Minister for the Environment and Water went there as a priority. That's why we've already committed $14 million; that's been matched by the South Australian government.”
“Deputy Speaker Claydon, congratulations on your return to that role. It's good to be back in the first week of a new parliament. We come to the new parliament with a hope, on behalf of the Australian community, that all of us return here with a commitment to work with a sense of shared purpose, and there's no more important area for us to apply that shared purpose than the protection of our environment and action on climate change. I waited for 10 minutes to hear a commitment from the shadow minister to reforming Australia's national environmental protection framework.”
“The reform we're making with this bill, which was recommended, as I said, by three separate ministerial council processes to the previous government, will enhance Australia's energy market governance arrangements, allowing the AER to be responsible for its own resources and administrative arrangements and contributing to a strong and independent energy regulator that will ensure energy consumers across Australia are better off for many years to come. It will literally make sure that Australian energy consumers have cheaper, more reliable and more affordable energy. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.”
“It is hard to hear someone talk about the dignity of human beings when they were a member of a government that inflicted robodebt on the poorest and most vulnerable Australians and when they were part of a government that led to the share of income for ordinary working Australians falling to the lowest level in Australian history, and they now propose to inflict the most expensive form of energy on all Australians, paid for entirely by taxpayers, in a way that will put serious imposts on precisely the people that the member for New England claims to represent. It is a bit hard to hear that lecture.”
“It's an utterly sensible reform that the previous government didn't manage to deliver. As I say, what it will mean is that the AER can do an even better job when it comes to delivering energy security, reliability and affordability for energy consumers. To pick up on the contribution to the debate made by the member for New England, the member took the opportunity to range widely on a whole series of aspects of—I don't really know what, to be honest—energy, perhaps, to some degree, the economy more broadly and various other things.”
“I thank honourable members for their contributions to the debate on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Australian Energy Regulator Separation) Bill 2024. The bill seeks to establish a legally separate Australian Energy Regulator, the AER, as distinct from the ACCC to provide greater management and financial autonomy for our energy regulator, enhancing its ability to manage resources and set its strategic direction. This will allow the AER to respond with agility to changing energy consumer needs and to focus with greater clarity on energy security, reliability and affordability for energy consumers. It's a reform that was supported by three separate ministerial council processes or inquiries during the time of the previous three-term, nine-year coalition government.”
“I hope that people who have engaged in that or might engage in that in the future reflect carefully because the truth is that, when there is a lot of intemperate, divisive, extreme, aggressive, adversarial language, accusations and behaviour thrown around, it actually produces exactly the kind of thing that we're trying to stop. It's incumbent on everyone who is a representative, a legislator and a leader in the community to practise peacefulness, tolerance, cohesion, engagement and civil respect. The more that we see that, the less we will need these kinds of changes.”
“As I said, we have done that in a very timely and responsive way at every opportunity over the last 18 months, and we're doing that again now. There have been people who have been part of this conversation who I think, frankly, at times have not been so much focused on the reality of the problem and the reality of the solution but have, sadly, sought to fan the flames of division, turn up the heat and create a more febrile atmosphere and a sense of argy-bargy, including political argy-bargy, because they think that that suits them. They think it suits them to create that sense of 'us and them', that sense of chaos.”
“That's why, often when we've made these changes, there've been aspects that have involved a review. There've been aspects that have given us the chance, as a parliament and as a community, to say, 'Is that, first and foremost, doing the job that we need it to do to protect Australians from hatefulness, violence and prejudice, but, on the other hand, are there aspects of it that are, in an unhelpful way, starting to transgress on other important freedoms and liberties that are core to what it means to be an Australian?' Fundamentally, at a difficult time, when the temperature is high as far as division, a lack of cohesion and a sense that there's this febrile atmosphere that puts people under threat and at risk—particularly, recently, members of the Jewish community but not just members of the Jewish community—it's right that government and parliament take responsible action.”
“But when we did them, we often said, 'This is starting to move the line when it comes to people's right to have access to legal advice or to not be searched without a warrant,' and a whole range of other things that are core to our civil liberties and core to the basic freedoms that we have in Australia. We should transgress into those areas very, very cautiously and give ourselves the opportunity to look carefully at how they work in operation. We obviously want them to be effective when it comes to combating hatefulness, the risk of violence and the application of that kind of prejudice. But, if we find that there are these other consequences with respect to people's freedoms and civil liberties, we should reflect and make adjustments as appropriate.”
“It's perhaps easy in these circumstances for everyone to lean in to the part of this kind of undertaking that is about stopping kinds of conduct and enabling law enforcement to focus on people who present harm. But I think it's responsible to remember that what is almost always involved in these kinds of measures has the potential to infringe on other freedoms that we regard, rightly, as being very precious. We have had laws in the past that were, for instance, around the threat of terrorism, and it's quite right that we took those measures.”
“While I support moves to strengthen the ability of law enforcement to combat the most dangerous form of bigotry—bigotry that leads to violence or threats of violence towards people based on their identity—I acknowledge that we should always make these kinds of changes carefully. When responding, as we should, to discrimination and hateful conduct, there will always be a risk that, in seeking to combat a particular problem, we create other issues. It goes to the point that my friend the member for Bruce was making earlier about the balance of things like freedom of speech on the one hand and people's right to live free from fear on the other hand.”
“As we bring in an arrangement that will make sure that hatefulness, the advocacy of violence and the threatening of violence through prejudicial hatefulness against people for a range of general characteristics—race, religion, nationality, political opinion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and so on—I think it's worth remembering and having the courage to be honest enough with ourselves to acknowledge that the most harmful form of that in Australia's history is prejudice against First Nations people. There's just no question whatsoever that the history of Australia involves more harm, violence and hateful conduct towards First Nations people than towards any other group. We should be able to be honest about that and apply ourselves to making sure that that kind of prejudice is called out and combatted at every opportunity.”
“As far as I can recall—and if someone has another example, they can make that part of the debate—that would be the most serious kind of prejudicially based violence and civil disorder we've seen in the 21st century. At the time there were people who didn't think that was a particular problem. I think Prime Minister Howard said at the time that he didn't think that there was any reason to be concerned about the racialism and the prejudice that was involved in those terrible events.”
“I think that, as we deal with this particular issue, it pays to reflect on other kinds of discrimination that have been present and continue to be present, and to make sure that we're going to be consistent about those things. The reality is that we have seen violence and relatively large-scale social unrest in this country in this century focused on people because of their faith or their national identity; the Cronulla riots in 2005 come to mind. This was an instance where we saw wide-scale violence and wide-scale hateful targeting of people based on the perception that they were from the Middle East or that they might be of the Islamic faith.”
“While we make these new strengthened arrangements, which are entirely consistent with the approach the government's taken—we have been moving very quickly to provide funding for social cohesion, to make sure that places of worship are properly protected, to create the envoys on antisemitism and Islamophobia, to bring in the legislation that we did earlier in the parliament in relation to hate symbology, which was a first, and now to bring along these further strengthened measures—we should remember that what we are trying to combat in general terms is not new. We should remember that we've seen at various times in Australia's history conduct that is similarly hateful and similarly prejudicial.”
“That hasn't always been the case. It concerns me that, when the events on October 7 commenced—the terrible conflict in the Middle East that went on far too long and harmed far too many people unnecessarily—at the outset of that conflict, when people stood up and called for restraint there were other people, including other people in this place, who said that calling for restraint was wrong. As if there can ever be a time when someone speaking up against violence and someone speaking up for a greater and faster move towards a cessation of violence and a return to peacefulness—as if there can ever be a wrong time for that sentiment to be expressed.”
“We've seen that in this country and we've seen it more particularly elsewhere, particularly in the 20th century in the form of the Holocaust. We need to be mindful that that kind of discrimination will never entirely disappear, and when it manifests, when it appears, we need to be clear-eyed about it and respond to it. Jewish people in Australia should not feel unsafe or threatened—and nor should anyone—as a result of their membership of a group defined by all those characteristics I just mentioned. If we are genuine in this place, and if we are genuine in our roles as representatives and, frankly, as community leaders, we have to make sure that our conduct and our words are consistent with what I said about that broader cultural peace when it comes to peacefulness, non-violence, social inclusion and tolerance.”
“As almost everyone who has contributed to this debate has acknowledged, no-one in Australia should face the fear of violence or be on the receiving end of other kinds of hateful conduct because of their race, religion, nationality or national ethnic origin, political opinion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status or disability. Nobody should face the most harmful and extreme kinds of discrimination because of their identity, because of who they are. When we see examples of hateful conduct and violence that has antisemitism at its root cause, we should be gravely concerned. Antisemitism is one of the oldest and most harmful kinds of prejudice that human beings have ever fallen prey to.”
“But we nevertheless need protections—legislative and through law enforcement, which is Australia's capacity to follow and enforce those legislative precepts—to guarantee the safety of the community and, in some ways, to reinforce what I said about the importance of culture to set those normative standards. What this bill does is take those standards and that capacity for law enforcement to provide further protection in response to the circumstances that have arisen in recent times. Those circumstances have been extremely concerning.”
“At the outset, I'd make the point—I think it's an obvious point—that the greatest protection against violence and other hateful conduct that can flow from particular kinds of extreme bigotry and prejudice will not be legislative. The greatest protection will be cultural. The greatest protection is all of us working all the time—every member of the community—to foster, build, maintain and enhance the qualities that have generally prevailed in Australia: tolerance, inclusion, multicultural acceptance and diversity, care for one another and care for broader, shared wellbeing. Those cultural elements and values of Australia are the most potent protections against discrimination and bigotry and the things that flow from them.”
“I'm glad to speak on the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024 and to follow such a great contribution from my friend, the member for Macnamara, and before him the members for Bruce and Spence. As the member for Macnamara said—I think quite rightly—none of us, as legislators, particularly want to spend time focused on legislation like this, because legislation like this is responding to something that we don't want to see in Australia. We don't want to see division. We don't want to see discrimination and bigotry. And we certainly don't want to see the things that can flow from that way of thinking and that kind of behaviour, which is violence and making people fear violence. That's unacceptable.”