Zali Steggall
Warringah · Independent · Australia
“These amendments don't prevent the government from reforming the NDIS. They don't prevent the government from managing costs and they don't prevent the government from improving sustainability, but they do ensure that participants can seek reassessment when their plan no longer meets their needs.”
“The NDIS was built on a simple promise that Australians with disability would have access to the reasonable and necessary supports they needed to live with dignity, participate in the community and exercise choice and control over their own lives. The NDIS must be sustainable. It must be well governed.”
“If a decision has a practical effect of cutting a participant's support, then it should be treated as it is: a decision that affects that participant. Put simply, if your funding is significantly cut, you should have review rights. The third amendment deals with the review rights where funding is significantly reduced.”
“I rise to recognise the incredible work of some incredibly passionate women at the Arise Foundation and to call for greater investment in recovery and healing for women leaving violence. For too many women, the crisis does not end when they leave.”
“Reform must not mean that people are pushed away from work, study or volunteering because the supports that make participation possible have been overlooked by a system that has become more and more automated. The first amendment deals with plan reassessment.”
“by leave—I move amendments (1) to (4) as circulated in my name together: (1) Schedule 1, item 21, page 9 (line 22), at the end of subsection 48A(1), add: ; and (e) alternatively to paragraphs (a) to(d), the participant demonstrates that: (i) the supports are no longer available; or (ii) the plan is insufficient to meet the participant's r…”
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“Some of the residents were, in fact, receiving treatment for the very first time. The Army was also there upgrading and constructing critical infrastructure which helps them to develop their skills and also delivers something the community is calling for and needing. As you can imagine, it was so incredibly remote that the logistics of planning for this—where everything, including all of the construction materials, had to be taken to these remote locations—was an incredible logistics exercise. I'm deeply grateful to the defence personnel who generously shared their time, their stories and their expertise with me, and I'm grateful for their contribution to this program, because it requires many of them to be away from their loved ones for over four months of the year.”
“While I was there, I had the opportunity to meet with local council members and understand their challenges and frustration around housing and accessing a lot of services. There are very real challenges for them. I also had the opportunity to visit the 51st Battalion, Far North Queensland Regiment, based on Thursday Island. Again, we hear a lot about our closest land border being with Papua New Guinea. It was incredibly interesting for me to go and visit. In one community on Warraber Island, the Defence Force personnel—dentists and two nurses—are providing over $50,000 worth of dental care to community members who in some instances, had not accessed dental care for over 10 years. It's incredibly important to understand the value of that for that local community.”
“It was such an incredibly eye-opening experience, and it's one we should all really participate in to appreciate the value of the work being done. AACAP delivers vital infrastructure, health and dental services, and vocational training and education to remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, as well as giving our defence personnel an opportunity to do a deployment and practice the logistics and the skills that are so essential for their role. I spent time with the health and training teams on Warraber and Erub islands, and on Horn Island and Thursday Island as well. They are all so incredibly remote. Being there gave me a real firsthand appreciation for just how remote these communities are and how difficult it is for them to access the services that we take for granted.”
“Earlier this month I had the privilege of visiting the Torres Strait Islands with Senator Tammy Tyrrell as part of the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program, which enables MPs to experience life and work alongside our incredible ADF personnel. It was such an amazing experience, and I feel so incredibly privileged and lucky to have had the opportunity to participate and see firsthand the incredible dedication and the sacrifice that is made by our Defence Force personnel. I joined the Army Aboriginal Community Assistance Program, AACAP, a partnership between the Australian Army, the National Indigenous Australians Agency and the 19th Chief Engineer Works. If you haven't heard about it—especially the new members in this place—please go and find out.”
“By essentially using its numbers to just flick things through without proper debate, it means that second reading debates and the consideration in detail stage are curtailed—and then we are given the luxury of being able to come and make a statement in relation to legislation that will impact so many people in our communities. So I urge the government to be mindful of its procedure. So many new MPs come to this place shiny and full of ambition and good principles. Let's make this a chamber of debate where we genuinely look at legislation. If the government needs more time to do its job, then allocate more sitting days to this place so that we do provide the scrutiny and debate necessary for good legislation for the benefit of Australia.”
“We need bold, ambitious reform to build an equitable, future-ready education system. Students deserve more than just short-term relief; they deserve a fair, accessible and supportive education system. There's a lot we need to address regarding education reform and cost-of-living relief, but, unfortunately, that's not all going to be achieved during this debate. I have to also raise the process around this bill. Whilst I agree that this is urgently needed and I want to see this relief flow to young people and everyone that it will apply to as fast as possible, I cannot commend the process the government has followed in this. We have passed this legislation and now members of the House are been given the opportunity to make statements in relation to it. This means the government is at risk of making a mockery of this parliament.”
“We need to make sure that they are ready and that the workforce has the future skills we know it needs. Ninety per cent of new jobs in the next five years will require tertiary education, so we need a robust and healthy university sector to make sure that we can deliver on that. We know we face shortages in the teaching, nursing, engineering and climate transition sectors, to name just a few. We must invest in education now or we risk falling so short as a nation. There is a global race on for talent and skills. We need to be at the forefront of that race and to attract the smartest and brightest here but retain them as well. Not only must we educate them; we need to make sure they have opportunities here. As much as I commend the government for this bill, we need further reform, not just relief.”
“All in all, we have to be focused on young Australians and how they are facing rising debt and fewer opportunities. We have to make sure there is adequate public investment in higher education to meet the skills demands we know we have. To summarise, we need to repeal the Job-ready Graduates scheme, fix the HELP loan indexation, lift the youth allowance and improve student welfare. It's quite interesting that in opposition Labor talked a lot about raising the rate of youth allowance, but we saw minimal changes to it during the 47th Parliament, and it's really urgent that it be addressed in this parliament. We need to secure long-term funding for universities and we need to make student housing more accessible. There's no doubt, as the Treasurer heads into his productivity roundtable, that our best assets are our people.”
“I've had a lot of contact from ANU students lately in relation to the changes at ANU and the impacts they are having on students. The ANU restructure is gutting courses, overworking staff and sidelining students. External consultants, instead of students and academics, are making decisions. Education quality must be paramount. If the university needs to make cuts or changes, it must not be at the expense of students. Funding gaps are an issue. Government contributions per student are down six per cent on pre-JRG levels. The universities over-rely on international student fees, which is problematic, but we saw prior to the last election during the last term of government the use of international students as a political weapon to try and point-score, in the process undermining our university sector and its fiscal sustainability.”
“The repayments are held throughout the course of the year and then not applied in real time. When I took the time during the election campaign to explain that to people, they were shocked and horrified. All too often they don't realise that is what's happening. So, if the government really wants a big tick of having acted on this generational inequity and the issue of student debt, then it has to address the issue of timing of indexation. The ATO says it lacks the resources to fix it—with respect, I don't buy that. Where there is a will, there is a way, and it's a question of prioritising the resourcing and correcting this design flaw. University governance is an issue that is brought to bear for me quite frequently: the integrity we need in university structures. It's all too relevant here in Canberra because of the situation with ANU.”
“To me, it was unconscionable that we were changing the dial and making it so much more difficult for students to achieve their goals and to be able to contribute back and that it would make their degrees so much more expensive. The Universities Accord recommended it be scrapped, but the government has not yet acted. So, before there's too much patting on the back and congratulating itself for this move, it also needs to focus on the rest of the recommendations to make sure they are enacted without delay so that more people are not being crushed by debt. There's no doubt that the job-ready graduates scheme entrenches inequality and devalues democracy. It's enriching disciplines, and it should be repealed. As I said, the other issue is that indexation of 1 June.”
“In fact, I was in this parliament during the 46th parliament, when the job-ready scheme was introduced by the Morrison government. I spoke out loudly against that, because it was so fundamentally unfair to move the dial and to change the payment system—to try and pick winners in that way—and impose on a whole cohort of students an absolutely unreasonable fee structure. The job-ready graduates scheme is a completely failed policy. It doubled the fees for arts, humanities and social work. It unfairly targeted critical degrees and pushed students into higher debt. Personally, I have two degrees. I have a Bachelor of Arts in media and communications and a Diploma in Law.”
“And that lower repayment rate does indicate a saving per year. So these are meaningful cost-of-living reliefs for millions of Australians. But let's be clear: the timing of indexation is highly problematic. It is unconscionable that the ATO can withhold, during the course of the year, the ongoing payments, the HECS repayments for a former student, without applying it to the debt prior to indexation. The student does not have the benefit of the use of those funds, but the ATO does. So there has to be something done about the date of indexation. It is unconscionable that, in every other sector of our lives, it is possible to apply repayments in real-time, but, for some reason, it simply can't be done in relation to HECS repayments. So, while this is positive, there is still so much more that needs to be done.”
“My office is full of brilliant young interns—passionate, driven, ambitious and caring—but they're struggling. They're juggling degrees, casual jobs, unaffordable rents and high HECS debts. Their story is not unique; it's the norm for students across Australia and young people. A university education should challenge you intellectually, not cripple you financially. We know this bill is very welcome, when it comes to reducing the debt by 20 per cent, as of 1 June 2025. It provides an average saving of some $5,500 for students. It does wipe $16 billion in total student debt, so I commend the government for that. By raising the payment threshold, it gives young people, in particular those starting out, the opportunity to get to better employment before having to start repaying debt.”
“I support the Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025. It's a welcome first step to cut student debt by 20 per cent and ease the cost-of-living pressures for so many of them. But let's be really clear: it's only the first step. Our education system needs much bolder reform to better support all of those undertaking further studies so that they can play a vital role in meeting the skills needs that we know Australia has for the future. They will be the ones who boost our productivity. We hear a lot, in this place, about the value to Australia of our resources and everything else. Our most valuable asset is our people. Training and educating them has to be the No. 1 priority, and ensuring they have access to those opportunities is incredibly important.”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. Young people around the world want a say in the environment they will inherit. The ICJ has now affirmed that nations have a legal obligation to prevent climate harm, and our productivity and economy are being battered by successive climate fuelled events. Despite this, the government's defining action so far is to recklessly accelerate warming by approving new gas extraction to 2070. This negates any other policy. A minimum target of 75 by '35 and methane abatement is urgently needed. Will you be ambitious?”
“I can only say that, if the government chooses not to progress electoral communication reform in this term of parliament without delay—doing it very quickly now, before the end of this year, to ensure it can be implemented and in place in time for the next election—with its large majority and its capacity to pass this legislation in both houses already, it says it wants to lie to the Australian people. It wants to keep the loopholes going so that it can do misleading and deceptive advertising to the Australian people at election time. We know this is a loophole that political parties have enjoyed taking advantage of when it is convenient, but with the erosion of trust in politics, in outcomes of elections, in policy and in policy positions it is really important that we address this. I commend this bill to the House.”
“That's why it is so important that we put these guardrails in place, because we are seeing the growth of so many other participants at our elections and they are not constrained by any provisions. There is simply no tool available to make sure they do not spread lies and misinformation. We know, for example, they don't have a candidate on the ballot paper, so they know they are not going to have any consequences or be exposed for lying. That is why it's so important that we do this. For example, too, Labor saw its own consequences in 2020 when one of Australia's first political deepfake videos emerged of the then Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, claiming the state was 'cooked' and in massive debt. That was viewed one million times on YouTube. It is really important that we have these guardrails in place.”
“We have it here in the ACT, and South Australia has it too. There is no doubt there is a consensus for this. For example, we know deepfake videos are incredibly damaging and they spread like wildfire, and so unless guardrails are put in place we are going to see a continual erosion of trust in politics and the outcomes of elections. There is no valid reason why political advertising should be held to a different standard to other advertising. We already have courts that can adjudicate on statements. And to be very clear, this does not outlaw or rule out opinions. Opinions can be expressed, but they need to be clearly identified as opinions and not fact. An excuse put forward is free speech. The High Court has said free speech is not the right to lie; it is not a right to mislead.”
“Joint standing committee No doubt the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters will review the latest election, but it has already recommended something based on the previous election's inquiry should be done around misleading and deceptive political advertising. We know there is a huge problem. The question is: is there a political will to fix it? There really is no excuse. There are three years ahead of us and there is an opportunity for the government to make good its promise to do this. Other jurisdictions We already know that around the world it is increasing. In the UK there is already an organisation pushing for there to be guardrails around misinformation in political advertising. We know the Welsh parliament has also seen the introduction of legislation. It exists in New Zealand.”
“Yet, 89 per cent of Australians, when surveyed, support truth in political advertising law. They support that political advertising should be held to the very same standard as all other advertising. On top of that, we're now seeing the growth of AI and deepfakes in political advertising. We saw in 2022 the use of AI in depicting and changing imagery. We know you can create an ad through AI and deepfakes alleging that someone has said something that is completely false and fabricated, and there are no protections for voters. Again, to put up some guardrails and to protect our democracy, I call on the Albanese government to support this bill—this is their very own bill from the last parliament. We know that there is a huge amount of need for this because it has been recommended.”
“We know that we protect consumers from being scammed out of their money from misleading and deceptive advertising. It is time for political advertising to be held to the same standard. Over the past three elections, we've seen a huge rise in misinformation and disinformation at election time, but we've also seen a rise of third-party organisations and external campaigners involved in our elections. All too often it is this astroturfing that leads to a huge amount of misinformation. These organisations are running a huge amount of advertising that is misleading and deceptive, but there is no accountability for these players. There is no doubt this type of advertising influences voters, and yet there is no public accountability for them because there is simply no provision in our laws, which people are astounded to find out.”
“But now I would argue that by introducing this bill today, and passing it without delay at the beginning of this 48th Parliament, it provides enough time for the commission to implement it prior to the next election. So I do call on the government to make good its very own promises and its pledge during the 47th Parliament to do this very action. This is the very first opportunity, so by putting it forward now we are really saying to the government there is no excuse but to get on with the job of putting guardrails around misinformation and disinformation in political advertising. We know misinformation and disinformation in political advertising is a loophole that has been taken advantage of for too long. Politicians need to be held to the same standard as consumer laws.”
“I move: That this bill be now read a second time. This bill that I present today, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Communications) Bill 2025, reflects the government's very own bill that was introduced in December last year. I introduce this bill now to ensure that there are no excuses in relation to delay, that the provisions to ensure we have guardrails around truth in political advertising can be in place in time for the next election. We know that when it was introduced last term, the government, at the request of the Australian Electoral Commission, included a delay on implementation, arguing it would take time.”
“There is a growing recognition around the world of the need for this kind of legislation and these guardrails. We have to act decisively and with urgency to protect children from exploitation in all its forms. So I commend this bill to the House for the government to act urgently to close this loophole.”
“These provisions are necessary and urgently needed to close a very dangerous gap in our criminal law and ensure that our justice system keeps pace with technological developments. Regulating AI is challenging. No-one disputes that. Australia has to get the right legislative framework in place to adequately address the complexities of these rapidly-evolving technologies. We know the current national framework for child exploitation, for example, drafted in 2021, is already out of date when it comes to the threats of AI. We know the UK and the EU are already introducing similar provisions to ensure that they protect children from this kind of material. Australia will fall behind unless the government acts. That is the warning of this bill today.”
“Artificial intelligence offers significant benefits for productivity and innovation; we don't dispute that. It is set to reshape the economy, transforming how we work, create and interact. But those tools that offer so much promise are now being misused to exploit and harm children. This bill as introduced provides a new offence to criminalise the downloading, supplying and enabling access to technologies whose sole promise is to create child abuse material. It's a very particular type of AI, designed to create on-demand materials and then delete them to avoid detection. It also targets the collection and distribution of data intended to train such technologies. These provisions acknowledge that AI abuse starts with real children for these tools to be trained on. In that way, a child is always harmed in the process.”
“I second the Criminal Code Amendment (Using Technology to Generate Child Abuse Material) Bill 2025. This is a really important specific amendment to the Criminal Code introduced by the member for Curtin. I really commend her for addressing this because, all too often, big reform can be difficult in this place. But when there is a very key, important area where you can see that harm is occurring it is incumbent on the government to act quickly and promptly. We here on the crossbench are providing a road map of a very clear hole that can be filled now. The bill addresses a deeply disturbing and rapidly-evolving threat: the use of AI and other technologies to generate child abuse material. This is a confronting reality, and there should be a multipartisan agreement to do everything possible to stamp out that kind of child abuse material.”
“Last month I convened a roundtable with local NDIS providers in Warringah and heard about the impact of these changes on the viability of their businesses. One mobile speech pathologist specialising in brain injury rehabilitation told me about how he may well need to reduce the service area, limiting access to care for vulnerable clients across the Greater Sydney area, due to these cuts. I urge government that any changes that impact providers has to have meaningful engagement with these small providers to ensure that any impacts can be well understood and provided for in advance. If we want a productive, sustainable NDIS, we must ensure our policies support, not squeeze, the small businesses that make it work.”
“I want to express serious concern about the recent changes to the NDIS pricing arrangements and price limits, which came into effect on 1 July with less-than-three-weeks notice on providers. The reduction in our price limits, freezes on core services and cuts to travel reimbursements have placed significant pressure on small businesses and sole traders. These providers are not large corporations; they are local, community based businesses, including speech pathologists, physiotherapists and psychologists—many of them women led, mobile and deeply embedded in the care economy. These businesses have been under increasing pressure from persistent inflation, rising costs and industrial relations reform.”
“If we are to commence this new 48th Parliament in a new tone and a new note, I would urge the government to consider this amendment to standing order 91 to make it very clear and explicit, for the benefit of the Speaker in applying the standing orders, that disorderly conduct includes intimidation, harassment and bullying. I think that in this place, as legislators, we have to lead by example. We have to ensure the workplace reflects the values we are legislating for others. We cannot have a situation where our workplace is setting a standard completely different to the one that is applied in workplaces all around Australia. I commend the amendment to the House.”
“That's why this is really important. There have been attempts to deal with this through codes of conduct, and we know the previous parliament and the parliament before that have tried to improve respect and conduct in this place. The difficulty is that the code of conduct does not apply in this chamber, because of that interrelation with parliamentary privilege, so it is a balancing act between protecting robust parliamentary debate and ensuring a safe, respectful and discrimination-free workplace. I would argue there have been instances in this place where that has not happened. I've certainly been the subject of it.”
“The difficulty is when the bullying, harassing and intimidation is oral—by way of yelling, for example, as I experienced during the previous term of parliament, where the coalition had a mob-like attitude of turning, yelling and trying to intimidate me from continuing with my speech. In any other workplace, that would be unlawful conduct. The difficulty in this place is that parliamentary privilege is seen as an override to the question of those laws applying to that conduct. So my amendment seeks to make very clear that standing order 91, which relates to disorderly conduct, includes behaviour that is intimidating, bullying and harassing. By making it explicit, it enables and empowers the Speaker to rule very quickly and promptly when intimidating, bullying or harassing behaviour is underway in the chamber.”
“We know that we have antidiscrimination laws and laws that make it unlawful to have bullying, intimidating and harassing behaviour in a workplace. We know it is unlawful conduct. The difficulty we have is how that then applies in this place, because, at the same time, we have parliamentary privilege. Parliamentary privilege protects members from defamation action for statements made in the chamber; it ensures freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings. However, parliamentary privilege does not override all legal obligations. In fact, it does not protect against discrimination law and does not exempt conduct within the chamber from scrutiny in relation to antidiscrimination principles.”
“There is a balancing act between robust parliamentary debate and having a safe, respectful and discrimination-free workplace. As parliamentarians, we must lead by example and ensure that freedom of speech is encouraged in our workplace but is not used to excuse harmful behaviour and disorderly conduct. This amendment seeks to clarify what constitutes disorderly conduct in this place so that, when it occurs, it's not left to an interpretation in the moment, which can be difficult, especially if it has not been dealt with in that way in the past under the standing orders—this is for the benefit of the chair—and so that it can be quickly addressed, allowing the debate to return to being productive and allowing MPs to continue with that job.”
“I move as an amendment to the motion: That standing order 91 be amended as follows: 91 Disorderly conduct A Member's conduct shall be considered disorderly if the Member has: (a) persistently and wilfully obstructed the House; (b) used objectionable words, which he or she has refused to withdraw; (c) persistently and wilfully refused to conform to a standing order; (d) wilfully disobeyed an order of the House; (e) persistently and wilfully disregarded the authority of the Speaker; or (f) been considered by the Speaker to have behaved in a disorderly manner, including behaviour that is intimidating, harassing or bullying. This amendment is to make sure that we do, in fact, have a safe and respectful chamber and parliamentary debate.”
“In the most recent budget, it was estimated that the cost of ex-Cyclone Alfred would rise to $13.8 billion. We can do so much better if we start building adaptation and resilience.”
“Premiums have risen by 32 per cent since 2022 alone. This is an unsustainable trajectory. We also can't leave local governments alone to deal with this problem. They are on the front line. When things fall apart or when events strike, it is local governments that have to deal with them. So we must put in place the capacity for local governments to build that resilience. And it can't be left to local residents to pay for it through council rates to local government. It is simply unacceptable that state governments are transferring onto our local governments a lot of these emergency-response fees and costs. And, ultimately, it is the individual residents who are paying for them. We know the economic savings. There is a resilience dividend. For every $1 invested in resilience building, we save $11 on disaster recovery.”
“Of course, it will cost—and that's why I'm calling for sustainable funding, with a $10 billion climate resilience fund, to secure that safety for our communities and to assist local government in doing the kinds of infrastructure changes that will build their resilience. That can be fully funded through the budget, by redistributing priorities so that, rather than continuing to do cream on top for mining companies through fossil fuel credits, we actually start to redirect funds to households and to local governments, so that they can be safe and lower their insurance premiums. This plan is a comprehensive plan that I have put to both sides of politics who want to form government, because we know we can't leave householders holding the bag. Currently, they are paying for incredible increases in insurance premiums.”
“Some communities will need coolrooms and opportunities to escape heat; others will need to deal with drought, flooding, coastal erosion or bushfires. The risks are different in different communities, and we must have a national plan to address that. Obviously, going hand-in-hand with that, we must also legislate for the government of the day to have a national adaptation plan, outlining strategies, policies and proposals to mitigate the identified risks, complete with an implementation timeframe and monitoring indicators. This caring about communities can't just be left to whoever is in government, because it is the marginal seats that they care about. There has to be a properly managed plan for that adaptation and resilience-building.”
“But the reality is that, as other jurisdictions and countries have found, insurers will choose to vacate a market if the risk becomes simply too high, or they will choose to just not insure for certain risks. In the wake of the LA fires, we're finding that a huge proportion of people impacted there in fact had only very recently found themselves to no longer have insurance. That leaves a huge problem, when so much damage is caused. So it's a really high-stakes road map, and ex-Cyclone Alfred highlights the urgent need for immediate action to keep communities safe against climate change. I have called for a national framework for adaptation, which means legislating an independent climate-change risk assessment every five years to identify and address significant climate risks, because every community will have different needs.”
“So every year that change is happening—whatever you want to believe as to the causes, or whether you want to believe that we have an impact on it or not—those companies look at the financial model, they cost risk and they build it into that model. So, whether you want to believe it or not, you are paying for it; whether you are directly impacted or not, you are paying for it. This is how the model works. It exposes a huge issue in economic management for Australia. We have to look at that and deal with it, and bring everyone to the table to solve it. There must, of course, always be scrutiny of insurers to make sure there is no price-gouging and that there is compliance and quick processing.”
“That means that, when these events strike, quite a significant proportion of people in our communities stand to lose up to 75 per cent of all the net worth that they have accumulated during their working lives, because too often it is heavily focused in the family home. A recent Australia Institute report found that one in five homeowners are underinsured or not insured. That equals some $2 trillion worth of properties at risk, as the bulk of the Australian population lives within 50 kilometres of our coastline. So I think it becomes an economic imperative for anyone wanting to form government to have a focus on building that resilience. We see the price of climate change risk costed in insurance premiums. That is a really telling industry, because insurance companies price risk on a yearly basis.”
“Communities and individual households should not be left holding the bag for a national and global failure of policy over the last 20 or 30 years. That adaptation-and-resilience-building piece must become a priority. Sadly, the most recent budget completely failed to address those needs. We need to take action now to keep our communities safe today and into the future. These are really big challenges. Whilst there will be a lot of focus—and rightly so—on the insurance industry, to make sure that those with premiums are able to fully get the benefit of having paid for so many years, the reality is that one in five Australians surveyed are underinsured or uninsured.”
“The infrastructure damage is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions. The aftermath of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred underscores Australia's vulnerability as a continent to extreme weather events. I think that in the same week that we were talking about ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred we had other parts of Australia grappling with flooding and other parts grappling with bushfires. The reality is that we are incredibly exposed as a continent to these changing events. We're feeling the impacts of our warming climate, and, without interventions, communities will continue to suffer. Whilst it's incredibly important that we continue to mitigate, we cannot keep making this problem worse, so we must act in terms of the mitigation piece and be ambitious on our emissions reduction. We must build in adaptation and resilience at the same time.”
“It has to be part of our economic planning for the future. In the aftermath—this is for one event that unravelled over the course of about a week, but the cleanup will go on for much longer—we saw more than 300,000 homes losing power. There were some 644 properties with flood damage, including 112 with severe damage. Of those, 97 had been affected by flooding in 2022 and had not even been repaired yet. The idea that these are individual events that will happen from time to time is simply not the reality anymore. We know these events come successively. They batter communities. They overwhelm capacity to respond. They will overwhelm the very well-meaning volunteer workforce that comes to the aid of communities. We need to move beyond that capacity. We have to put in place more security and preparedness for these communities.”
“This highlights the importance of having that visibility, that satellite capability and that information to be able to predict when these events hit. Unfortunately, as has been established by experts, many predicted patterns are changing as our environment is changing and warming. While cyclones are predicted to be less frequent, they are predicted to be much more severe when they hit, as a result of fast-warming water temperatures, which means we have supercharged amounts of humidity in the atmosphere. This makes for much greater downpours of rain and also weather events that will hit with a severity that puts at risk the safety of communities and would devastate them economically. The aftermath of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred is telling. When you look at the budget recently delivered by the government, it took centre stage.”
“I want to start off by saying a huge thank you to the many organisations and individuals who went above and beyond in assisting the local communities impacted by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. It was the best of Australians that we saw, with so many communities rallying and services—more often than not, volunteers—coming to the aid and support of so many communities to ensure there was that level of preparedness to try to mitigate the likely severe impact of the cyclone. It was really interesting to see the role the Bureau of Meteorology played in providing that early warning and ongoing information. Of course, no-one controls nature and it has a mind of its own, so the additional time provided through that early warning process allowed for greater preparation for so many of those communities.”
“To the Prime Minister: 50 per cent of Australia's GDP is reliant on nature, yet the bill that your government is ramming through today will further weaken environmental protections by creating an exemption to national nature laws for a polluting industry. It will reduce accountability and risk pushing the World Heritage valued maugean skate to extinction. With your government and you as PM already breaking the 2022 election promise to strengthen nature laws, do you accept that there can be no trust this election in commitments on protecting the environment?”
“We know that the data shows that engagement in early child care helps development and improves learning outcomes as children go on to primary school.”