Anne Webster
Mallee · National Party · Australia
“The government's first duty is to protect its citizens and, arguably, its most vulnerable citizens—in this case, children. Today that duty extends into a digital world, where the playground has actually moved online and where too often it is unpoliced and unsafe.”
“We know that, despite the ban, large numbers of children are still accessing these platforms because enforcement has been weak and the regulator has not been given the tools it needs.”
“They worry about exposure to violent content; harmful algorithms; cyberbullying; scams; predatory, paedophilic behaviour; and the relentless pressure that social media can place on young people's mental health. These concerns are real, and they deserve to be taken seriously.”
“For many young Australians, social media is where they access news, educational content and creative learning. It's where they stay connected with friends and family. It is where they participate in their communities and engage in public debate.”
“My constituent asks that there be some sort of agency or protocol where these accounts can be collated, investigated and closed where applicable.”
“Labor rejected it and then, in the 2024 budget, accepted it. We pledged in June 2024 that we would deliver the under-16s social media ban, which Labor, thankfully, copied.”
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“It has been taken up by rate rises and the rising cost of living. This is tellingly obvious at the supermarket checkout. Families are making hard decisions about how to keep their budgets sustainable, cutting back on anything extra for kids—music lessons, sport and other extracurricular activities. Going out for a meal—that has gone through the roof—if you can find a restaurant still open. And that's if families can continue to service their mortgage or rental property at all.”
“Economists warn that Australians' living standards will continue to erode—this is not good news—putting more pressure on the federal government's deteriorating budget. The latest central bank forecasts show that the economy is expected to grow just 1.6 per cent over the year to June 2028. Mortgages are up by an average of $1,800 a month after 14 rate rises since Labor came to office. Mortgage holders have paid at least a $23,000 increase in interest on their mortgages since Labor came to office. Households are paying 16 per cent more for food, 18 per cent more for health, 22 per cent more for rents, 39 per cent more for insurance and nearly 40 per cent more for electricity. So much for $275 in savings! Households have burnt through all the fat they may have had in their budgets.”
“It comes because Labor has an addiction to spending which is driving up the cost of living. We have a $1.2 trillion debt bomb that future generations—our children, our grandchildren—will be paying for. Who knows how long it will take to come down? It will certainly be a lot longer if Labor stays in power. Australians are paying more for their mortgages. They're paying more, as we've already discussed, for their power bills and for their groceries. Every time you go through the checkout, every Australian knows, it is so expensive. You can almost see it on people's faces. Let alone rents, which seem to rise at 10 per cent levels on a very regular basis. Australians will pay the price tomorrow as Labor locks in decades of deficits and intergenerational debt. The Reserve Bank of Australia forecasts the worst medium-term economic growth ever.”
“It was very refreshing to hear the member the Forde and his arguments throughout that discourse, particularly that he sees reward for effort as a noble and good thing and that energy is the economy. Those are just two pieces that I took out of his speech. They're very true, and there is a reason we are not into all renewables—because it is not sound policy, as we are discovering with electricity bills around Australia. Every person who gets an electricity bill knows that it is bad policy. Anyway, that's a conversation I will take up at another time. It was very good to hear from you though. I want to speak about how, when Labor spends, we pay. The biggest collapse in living standards in the developed world—that is a statement no Australian is proud of right now.”
“I want to give a shout-out to the passionate community advocates driving change in this area: Wimmera Mallee Environmental & Agricultural Protection Association, Across Victoria Alliance, Southern Wimmera Renewables Research Association and the Wallaloo & Gre Gre District Alliance. Their voices are embedded in this bill, and it is their livelihoods this bill seeks to protect.”
“Yesterday in the House, the member for Lyne, my colleague, put forward a private member's bill built on years of work consulting with farmers and regional communities, proposing the best protections for prime ag land on the planet. The bill proposes comprehensive national mapping of our agricultural land and categorisation by value. The bill proposes the Commonwealth must not fund future projects that reduce the farming productivity of tier 1 and provides ironclad protections for social licence via independent reporting and assessment by a national agricultural commissioner.”
“They want to experience genuine social licence processes, but they are not. Victorian government entity VicGrid sent letters in late February to 27 landholders within the footprint of the VNI West transmission line. These Mallee farmers have been given 30 days to comply or face huge fines. The Victorian government has given authorities the power to gain access to private farmland by force. Forget biosecurity, forget private land rights. This is simply outrageous—an Orwellian takeover of private property. Deputy Speaker, I want you to know these farmers are not for turning. They will not simply roll over and play dead. The Nationals are fighting to protect prime ag land and to stop it being sacrificed for political agendas.”
“The world's population is growing, but prime agricultural land is shrinking. Food security has never been more important. Once prime agricultural land is lost, it is almost never recovered. Last week I traversed the electorate of Mallee, and everywhere I went people were talking about the need to protect our prime agricultural land. Deputy Speaker Aldred, you may ask, 'What from?' Mallee constituents want to see a halt to the ideological renewable bludgeoning of their communities by Labor governments, federal and state, chasing unattainable emissions targets that are hurting their properties and their businesses. They want to see a halt to the division that is tearing their communities apart, risking their livelihoods, taking away their private property rights and compromising our nation's food security.”
“All the people in regional Australia are fed up with not being looked after by the Labor government and with them coming after these unrealised gains. Capital gains are, generally, not in their interests, and they are very well aware of it.”
“The Nationals will always stand up for our farmers and farming communities, and that includes their assets. In fact, I look forward to the debate on whether Labor have snuck in a cunning death tax under their revisions to the consultation draft. We are always on the lookout for Labor's sneaky ways of punishing Australians for their hard work and for putting assets away for the future or for future generations. The coalition supports the LISTO, the low-income superannuation tax offset, as it is a tax cut. However, I have to flag that it offers no immediate cost-of-living relief. The LISTO will boost superannuation balances for the future, not working families' pockets here and now, and that is a problem.”
“That's how on the nose the Labor brand is in Mallee. I could mention the sneaky con job they pulled on a $5 million childcare promise in Loddon shire when the money was going to Wedderburn for a two-year-old promise all along, but I would be straying off topic. Let me explain why the Nationals are eternally vigilant in this area of retirement taxation. The sorry tale of Labor's chase of unrealised capital gains demonstrates that, in their core DNA, Labor do not understand the regions and are coming for family trusts next. It took a sustained opposition campaign to demonstrate that the Australian public do not support hitting hardworking Australian families' retirement savings. Labor will be back chasing your assets in the community, and the Nationals will remain eternally vigilant to protect the farm and hard earned retirement savings.”
“Labor was advocating this tax grab during both a cost-of-living crisis and drought conditions in our area. Worse still, Labor couldn't coordinate whether Albanese Labor or Allan Labor would hit farmers for money during a drought, so, true to form, they both went after the farmers. Albanese's Labor was after farmers' unrealised capital gains at the same time the Allan Labor government had the idea to jack up their so-called emergency services volunteer levy from the same farmers. Country Fire Authority volunteers have said 'not in our name'—in other words, 'Don't use us, as volunteers, as a basis for tax.' There are effigies of CFA volunteers with gratuitous advice for Ms Allan all over my electorate. I might say that today we hear that the Allan government has now put on hold the ESVF tax for three years. There must be an election coming!”
“It was Shorten-esque in its brazen nature. Labor had promised it would not make major superannuation changes in 2022, yet there they were, in 2024, proposing taxing unrealised capital gains. In November 2024, I called out how the plan to tax unrealised capital gains on self-managed super funds over $3 million was a disaster, and we on this side of the House kept on the case through the election campaign and beyond. Time and again, Labor act like feudal lords, treating farmers like peasants who really don't own their assets. They entice corporate raiders to take slices of the farm for transmission lines, energy or mining projects, or they eye off the farm nest egg that farmers have set aside for tough seasons. Speaking of which, Mallee has been through some tough times of late, as has broader western Victoria.”
“Somehow, during a cost-of-living crisis, the Treasurer thought it would be okay to tax farmers on paper gains only. Had that idea proceeded, farmers would have had to sell off parts of their farm to meet their unrealised capital gains tax liability each year. Farmers use self-managed super funds to prepare for the future, yet Labor—as they love to do—were planning to shift the goalposts to raid retirement nest eggs. That's one reason the coalition is vigilant about elements of this bill that might unfairly punish those who worked hard to prepare for their retirement. The Nationals have been on the case for years. The first time was when the Treasurer came up with this thought bubble during 2024. I called it out in January 2024 as a broken promise from before the previous election. It was a new tax grab.”
“Indeed, Mr Keating had said that people contributing 12 per cent compulsory superannuation from 1 July 2025 would have balances over $3 million at retirement, which 'would reduce the call by the age pension on the Australian budget to two per cent of GDP in the 2050s.' On that front, I note the Association of Superannuation Funds estimates that, by 2050, half of all Australians will be fully self-funded in retirement, which, they estimate, keeps the pension burden at 2.1 per cent of GDP. Is the Treasurer that out of touch with cost-of-living concerns and so desperate for money for a flailing budget that he persisted, until taken to task last year, with unrealised capital gains and refusing threshold indexation? Is he so out of touch he had to be taken to task by his leadership team, the Prime Minister or both?”
“One big bone of contention with Labor's retirement tax grabs was also the lack of indexation of the $3 million threshold. At long last, after a sustained campaign from the coalition, the thresholds will now be indexed. Again, Mr Keating had noted that a young person today on average earnings would easily have more than $3 million in their retirement. The failure to index the figure was an affront to aspirational Australians.”
“The government knows best. What did George Orwell call it? Oh, yes—Big Brother. In the Treasurer's economy, the government manages everything and has its fingers in every pie. Arguably, the Treasurer has strayed from the teachings of his political master, Paul Keating, who built the compulsory superannuation system. Perhaps it was the former treasurer's intervention opposing unrealised capital gains that sealed the deal—that the idea was in fact a very bad one. Another realisation that my Mallee constituents know all too well is that Labor loves to run a consultation while everyone's on holidays or, indeed, while southern cropping farmers are busy with harvest. Consultation on this bill occurred over December and January, true to form, almost as if it's designed to garner minimal opposition and sail through parliament.”
“I asked this question in Mallee's biggest survey last year: are you worried about higher taxes and the taxing of unrealised gains on retirement savings or superannuation? Guess what? Over 86 per cent of my voters said yes. My theory is that Labor just don't believe in private property ownership. Everywhere you look, they're attacking personal assets. How do the Marxist sayings go? Seize the means of production. The proletariat seizes the property of the bourgeoisie. Labor think they're so clever, masking socialism in tricky marketing and salami-slicing away property ownership and retirement nest eggs slice by slice by slice. Everywhere you look, when you look at those opposite, there is faith in government and nothing else. There's no faith in our farmers, no faith in small business, no faith in families, no faith in individual liberty.”
“Even the Democrats baulked at the idea in the USA. Straight after the election, the Treasurer said Labor's unrealised capital gains tax grab was 'an important way that we fund some of our other priorities'. Let me digress for a moment to say that those priorities are not in Mallee. About $87 million in grants, about one-third, have been stripped from Mallee over a comparable three-year period of coalition government versus the Albanese Labor government. Labor tried to pretend their unrealised capital gains policy was modest, but the Parliamentary Budget Office belled the cat. The first year of their policy was going to yield $300 million, but within 10 years Labor would have been rolling in $7 billion per annum taken from retirement nest eggs—Australians' hard earned super. Speaking of realisation, Mallee voters are an intelligent bunch.”
“An increase in farm value does not mean you are earning more income. I just have to repeat that for those opposite, as they are slow to understand. Unlike residential property in metropolitan areas, it may not be practical, necessary or desirable to soon realise a capital gain purely because the land prices have gone up. Generational farming doesn't think or act like playing the property market. Yet again, Labor could not care one iota about how their policies play out in regional Australia. But then, maybe through the Prime Minister's office or maybe thanks to polling, the realisation dawned on the Treasurer that taxing unrealised capital gains was actually a dopey idea. Had the Treasurer had his way, Australia would have been the first nation in the world to tax unrealised capital gains in this way.”
“Further, some 13,000 small-business owners would have been potentially affected by the Treasurer's initial tax plans. On the farming front, let me put it in simple terms for those opposite. I am not sure that they want to understand. If your farm value goes up, your income doesn't necessarily go up. You don't get extra income as a farmer because land prices are going up. You are dependent on the weather, on commodity prices, on input costs which have risen, on logistical shocks, as we saw during the pandemic—and, indeed, might see shortly on fuel prices; in fact, today it's true—or on the vagaries of importing countries, such as, currently, Indonesia, with their sudden reduction on quotas for the importation of globe grapes from my region, leaving many table grape growers in my region reeling, with tonnes of grapes that have no home.”
“This bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System) Bill , is about realisation. The Treasurer came to the realisation, after a strong campaign by those of us on this side of the House, the Nationals and the Liberals, that taxing unrealised capital gains is wrong. The Treasurer had it in his head that it would be okay to tax people on income they hadn't yet earned. In regional electorates represented by the Nationals, this would have hurt family farms first. The Treasurer claimed the impact on family farms would be minimal, but the National Farmers' Federation, thanks to the University of Adelaide's modelling, estimated that 3,500 farms would be affected. But critically, had the $3 million threshold not changed, another 14,000 farms would have been affected.”
“When we give so many people the opportunity to come and live a better life here in Australia, to start fresh … I ask our Prime Minister to step up and take the lead in making this illegal to burn our national flag. I am pleased to say that the Nationals have already moved a private member's bill to do just that, and I encourage the House to support it.”
“Daniel, from the Wimmera in my electorate of Mallee, wrote to me this week. He said: We have so much pride and joy within our country to protect our flag, but seeing people on the tv, burning our national flag is showing utmost disrespect to, every single man and woman who fought for us, who still continue to today, to help us live a safe and happy life … I wholeheartedly agree with Daniel's sentiments. The Australian flag represents the sacrifice of over 103,000 Australians who died in service to our country. Burning the Australian flag insults our fallen veterans, their service and their legacy. Daniel continued: It makes my blood boil, seeing these people do this to our flag. I don't understand why people do this? Why?”
“Given the government's record on 3G and triple zero, due diligence is not optional; it's essential. The coalition is serious about genuine reform that brings the USO into the 21st century and addresses complex issues, not just headline grabs and political wins.”
“Rural and remote consumers suffer through outages and periods of maintenance at present, with no requirement for a replacement service and no limits on the timeframe. Developing consumer protections for mobile services as they exist for fixed voice services under the USO is another essential action. This government, under the minister who presided over the shocking failings of the 3G shutdown and Optus triple zero failures in 2025, has no interest in broader USO reform. They have sat on a consultation about better universal services since 2024, much like they've sat on the recommendation to review the triple-zero system since 2024. This bill must go to a Senate committee. That is what the coalition will be calling for. Structural reform of this scale warrants comprehensive parliamentary examination.”
“What has happened to the Mobile Black Spot Program evaluation from January 2025? Crickets from the minister; maybe she has had trouble connecting. It needs expansion to dual focus on providing new coverage and improving the quality and reliability of existing coverage when events come to smaller towns, as I've just alluded to, or when towns grow and existing infrastructure simply cannot cope. Also, there needs to be a focus on enhancing resilience of existing mobile infrastructure to prevent outages and power failures in bad weather or natural disasters. Australians in the bush have waited for the minister since April 2025 for around eight projects of the Mobile Black Spot Program to be announced—that's nearly 12 months.”
“UOMO is supposed to be technology agnostic, yet there is nothing included to address improvements to or expansion of the terrestrial network. This is essential to meet consumers' needs in a comprehensive way. The Labor government must commit to also addressing the deficiencies of the terrestrial network. Upgrades will continue to be essential. For example, small rural towns with terrestrial coverage with limited capacity are overwhelmed when tourists arrive for special events and cannot keep pace with increased consumer demand. Some of those special events include the Wimmera field days—which are happening right now—the speed field days, the Deni Ute Muster, or the steampunk festival in Dimboola. It happens everywhere where there is a sudden influx of thousands of people but there is nothing to assist.”
“They claim also that D2D calling ability is still some time away, so why not activate text to triple zero via satellite now? A potential pilot of mass-adoption text to triple zero was recently confirmed by department of infrastructure officials. Why not include that requirement in this bill? A bill which focuses on providing mobile coverage outdoors when there is a direct line of sight to the sky will not adequately address the needs of so many rural, regional and remote consumers who want and need mobile coverage to go about their everyday lives, such as when the weather is bad, when there is smoke from bushfires, when they are in a vehicle, car, boat or tractor or when they are in a public indoor space without wi-fi—for example, doing shopping or business in town.”
“There must be transparency measures to ensure the reliability of the triple zero system, as the minister has presided over considerable failings on this front. This government cannot be trusted with emergencies. There have been two triple zero failures on this government's watch: two serious Optus outages, plus devices such as Samsung, OPPO and Apple being disconnected due to their inability to connect to triple zero. The government should expedite work to develop a scalable method of text to triple zero for mass adoption to enable increased access now to emergency services in areas with text-only D2D connectivity—direct to device, for those who are not aware. This exists in several other countries. The government may claim that UOMO is a world first, but is it if it is really a SOMO with several extension dates?”
“Why is it okay for international visitors to have this access but not Australians? A universal mobile obligation must be truly universal without escape clauses to allow the minister to exclude geographic areas where it might be all too hard, along with cars and boats. A universal mobile obligation must put the onus on telecommunications providers and the government to compensate consumers if technology shutdowns are required to implement the requirements of UOMO—for example, if 4G happens to shut down due to limited spectrum availability in the future. Let's not imagine that won't happen. A universal mobile obligation must include protections for rural and remote consumers to ensure the cost of implementing the law is not passed on to them, making services more expensive.”
“An ABC article on Saturday described the experience of Ian from Newborough in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria—I'm standing next to the member for Gippsland—who used to have full mobile phone coverage in his lounge room but now has one bar and sometimes none. We know of complaints data from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman for quarter 2 of 2025-26, which highlighted that complaints about having no phone or internet service were up by 41.6 per cent, and complaints about intermittent service or dropouts were up by 21.6 per cent. Coming back to the bill before the House—this will not result in a UOMO, a universal outdoor mobile obligation, but rather a SOMO, a sometimes outdoor mobile obligation. If the government were serious about genuine delivery of outdoor coverage, it would develop mandatory domestic roaming.”
“Thousands of regional Australians face worse coverage or no coverage at all since the 3G shutdown. Phones drop to SOS mode, medical alarms fail and farmers are left without connectivity on their own properties. Christine from Cumnock, New South Wales, had to travel even further after a car accident simply to call triple zero on a landline at a nearby house because she didn't have mobile phone reception. She's not the only one. Joe from Meckering, Western Australia, who called in while I was on Perth 6PR radio, said he has regular visitors at his home on the transcontinental highway asking to use his landline because, contrary to network indications, there is no mobile phone reception on his section of the highway. Mobile phone service is going backwards.”
“It's making into law something that the private sector was going to implement anyway, and the Labor government is taking a pat on the back for it as it goes through. That's coupled with a smoke and mirrors trick of a December 2027 start date but with the power to push it out for years if that doesn't happen to work. We can see the history of this government in the telecommunications portfolio through the failures of the disastrous 3G shutdown. I called for action on the recommendations of the Senate inquiry into the 3G shutdown late last year. But, since then, the minister has been missing in action. The inquiry recommended a program to help customers who lost mobile coverage due to the 3G shutdown and subsidies to improve service and replace obsolete devices and equipment. These have not happened.”
“I note that we are talking about the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025. As the shadow minister for regional communications, I want to assure the House and anyone who happens to be listening that I have been very involved in looking at this bill in its entirety. Having just heard the previous speaker on Labor's side of the bench, I too want to believe in Tinkerbell and fairy dust, but the reality is that this bill leaves much to be desired. While we welcome efforts to bring mobile phone service into the Universal Service Obligation, this bill does not hit the mark. This is, once again, a political headline without substance.”
“But what we had in the 2025 election was the Labor candidate announcing another $5 million for a new child care in Loddon Shire. Well, what happened? Suddenly, we have the new minister for child care saying, 'Oh, it actually wasn't a new child care'—actually, she said it was for a new child care, but we found out in this last week that it is not a new child care; it is just mopping up the mess of state Labor's lack of funding for the Wedderburn childcare centre.”
“I rise to speak about a deeply concerning and entrenched pattern of behaviour by the Labor government. In Mallee, which is over a third of Victoria, there are many childcare deserts. People have to travel—and I know one who has to travel—200 kilometres a day in order to take their child to child care. This is ridiculous. It's beyond ridiculous. What is worse is this: in 2023, the state Victorian Labor candidate claimed that there would be a $5 million new child care developed in the Loddon Shire—the Loddon Shire is important because there are actually three towns without any child care at all—and that promise was secured for a place called Wedderburn. That facility is almost complete and should be opened very shortly.”
“We heard from our side of the House today so many examples of people—these are people. It would be really wonderful if this Labor government could pay attention to the fact that these are people's lives that are being impacted by the rising cost of living, the continuing cost of living. They're paying for it. They're paying for it in their own energy bills. For renters, it's worse than anything else. We have the climate change and energy minister constantly talking about home batteries—amazing savings. No renter can afford a home battery, and no pensioner can afford a home battery. Who is paying for those batteries?”
“There's probably good reason for that. I think so because every Australian family knows, especially in my electorate, that energy prices continue to go up. Choice out in the regions is also another issue that this government is doing nothing about. You might be able to get one teeny tiny gas line, and that's it. You are at the mercy of the company that runs that gas line. The question that was asked many times in question time today was: how's the $275 reduction in energy actually going across Australia? You know what? We never hear about it. It's never actually spoken about by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. There is no apology for the fact that, in actual fact, energy prices have gone up about $1,300, nowhere near a $275 reduction. There is a 40 per cent increase in power bills. Think about that.”
“I give a shout-out to the member for Dobell, a lovely member in this House who works incredibly hard. I'm not going to be able to agree with everything that the member says, of course, because I have a different view on our side of the House. I note that the member for Dobell spoke quite a bit about medications, Medicare, clinics and mental health. I really want to focus, however, on a health check for the net zero plan of Labor. I think that it is time, after four years, that the coalition asks the questions. How is this really going? We get a lot of spin from the other side of the chamber, especially from the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. I've got to say that the experience in my electorate is nothing like the spin that the minister likes to give every question time. He won't talk about retail energy prices.”
“Interest rates are at $18 million a day. Are you joking? Victorians should not have to put up with this. This is a government that is out of control in Victoria. The fact that the Labor Party have stood side by side with the CFMEU for so long boils my blood, if that isn't apparent. It ought to boil the blood of every person in Australia because every one of us suffers under this incompetence. Worse than that is the fact that women are being exploited on these sites and nothing is being done. We have a government that is constantly lecturing us, and a crossbench that is constantly lecturing us, about kinder, gentler ways and nicer ways of speaking to one another. How about dealing with the corruption? How about dealing with the exploitation of women?”
“And yet here we have the government of Australia, the Labor Party, turning the other way, only coming out and saying, 'Well, you know, there's a problem.' Really? There's been a problem since 2015, under John Setka—as if the Labor Party knew nothing about this. This is absolutely outrageous, and every person in Australia who is suffering under the cost of living ought to be appalled, because the corruption continues to bleed into this government. The government must give answers. So far we have seen nothing, no answers at all. Let me just pass on to the House and put on record that Victoria's debt at this point in time is $192 billion net debt by 30 June 2029. It equates to at least $22,000 per capita—per man, woman and child—at current levels, rising to $25,500 by 2029. If you think it's bad now, folks, let's wait.”
“There was the bombshell release of an unredacted version of the report R otting from the top note the heading—by barrister and CFMEU investigator Geoffrey Watson SC into the CFMEU Victorian branch, where Labor has done nothing to address union corruption or organised crime, costing taxpayers an estimated $15 billion in Victoria's Big Build. Now, why is that a problem? Why is that a problem for every Victorian? Why is it a problem for every Australian? It's because $15 billion—and some other suggestions are that it could be up to $30 billion—has been funnelled off into crime. That is outrageous. We are in a cost-of-living crisis. People are struggling to put food on their tables. They're struggling to turn their air conditioners on. Many won't turn their heaters on in winter.”
“Today shines a light on what so many Victorians have known for a very long time—that the Labor Party has worked with the unions and been paid by the unions—and particularly exposes the corruption of the CFMEU. The investigative report is horrifying to say the least. And I want to quote from the Age today, who have said: Major infrastructure projects funded by the Albanese and Allan governments hosted drug trafficking, systemic corruption and bribery, bikie gangs and the shocking sexual exploitation of women at an estimated cost to the taxpayers of $15 billion, according to a landmark report into CFMEU corruption.”
“Once again, I would just thank every person who serves in this House. They're not just doing a job; they are supporting the democracy of Australia. And it is a wonderful thing for us to be involved in and a true privilege.”
“I always think about the culture that is developed here, and the fact that it doesn't matter whether we're from opposition parties, or whether we're walking beside someone, or someone's coming towards us who might the cleaner for the day—everyone is friendly; everyone treats one another with respect. It is a real delight, and it's an enormous privilege to work in this House, to represent the people of my electorate in Mallee, but also for every MP—and senator, to be fair—to work in this House, for the people of Australia. I think people don't understand, and I was very interested to hear the minister say just then, that this House is 38 years old. It's still kind of feels new to me, and that has to do with the upkeep and the care, and the fact that people do take their jobs very seriously here.”
“Yes—impromptu. I do want to speak about Luch, because, when I first came to Parliament House in 2019, it was Luch, and his friendliness and his warmth, welcoming me as a new MP—Luch just had that beautiful personality that was open to everyone and friendly towards everyone and just wanted to be helpful. I agree with the minister's characterisation of Luch but also of every attendant in this House and all those who serve us. You know, we, sometimes, get a little bit precious about how important we are. We're elected; that's true. But we couldn't do what we do without the support of the people who work in this House, and every one of them is valued.”
“This is not an uncommon story in the regions, where people are literally waiting years before accessing services. My constituents just can't understand why they are being left behind. COTA, the consumer group, and Ageing. Australia have come out swinging, saying that urgent action on home-care packages is required and that no-one should ever have to wait more than 30 days for the care they need. I wish that for my constituents. Under Labor, they are waiting six months for an assessment and eight months to access services, with many waiting longer—especially, where I live. Our older Australians have given so much and deserve the dignity of support in their own home and in a timely manner.”
“It's like ringing up and not getting a call back. Amazingly, one residential aged-care provider in my electorate reports having empty beds due to the lack of assessments being done. Then we must talk about the time from approval, once the assessment has taken place, to access granted. It has doubled, increasing from four months in 2023-24 to almost eight months on average, with many waiting a year. One elderly resident from Murrayville waited for more than two years to be able to access the Commonwealth Home Support Services she was assessed as eligible for. This is a very unamusing joke on behalf of an inept Labor government. Service providers covering this lady's area have no capacity. Sadly, during that time, her husband passed away.”
“This Labor government said they would put the care back into aged care, but instead they are blithely presiding over an aged-care crisis. Every week, I am contacted by Mallee locals who are worse off under the new aged-care system that commenced on 1 November 2025. Older people in my electorate in Mallee are paying more for services and getting less out of their packages. It's not only this; distressed Mallee constituents are reaching out to me appalled that their loved ones cannot get the home care they need and deserve. The wait time for an aged care assessment has doubled in the period from 2021 under the coalition to 2025 under this Labor government, with too many people waiting up to six months just to get an assessment. It's worse than that; older people are waiting up to two months for any form of reply from My Aged Care.”