Andrew Wilkie
Clark · Independent · Australia
“Now, with the avalanche of gambling addiction from online and sports betting, we can safely assume it's hundreds of thousands of Australians either addicted to gambling or at serious risk of developing an addiction.”
“From 2010 to 2013, my first term, I had a written contract with the Prime Minister that there would be widespread and deep gambling reform in the country. But, of course, the gambling industry applied the blowtorch to the government, and I assume the factions applied the blowtorch to the Prime Minister.”
“It has completely ignored that there be a phased out but ultimately complete ban on gambling advertising, which three quarters of Australians desperately want.”
“While governments continue to pledge their commitment to ending family violence and femicide, victim-survivors need to see tangible reform. Perpetrators must be held accountable, removed from their victims' lives, and our system must prioritise community safety. Australia can, and should, do better.”
“It was one of the significant factors among a complex set of factors as to why the Labor Party lost power in 2013, and here we are again—an opportunity for a Labor government to enact very meaningful gambling reform and implement the 31 recommendations of the Murphy report, which is without doubt the best blueprint for gambling reform thi…”
“Last month, I met with a group of victims-survivors of family and domestic violence from my community, and I'd like to use my time today to read some of their experiences into the parliamentary record.”
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“They were said with a tone and gravity that indicated, at best, an indifference to the dignity and wellbeing of the removed cohort, and, at worst, an active desire to cause them serious harm. I came to understand that those responsible for overseeing the removed cohort had a fundamental lack of respect for the humanity and rights of the cohort. The threats included comments that those removed were quote 'absolute (blank) pieces of (blank)', who, in Nauru, would be mistreated in such a way to make quote 'very clear how they are going to be managed for the rest of their lives.' This threat was made by someone who I understood was contracted by either the Australian government, or the Nauruan government with Australian funding, who was directly involved in the management of the removed cohort.”
“I have a statement here from a new offshore immigration detention whistleblower, who says: I make this statement anonymously because I am fearful that being identified would have an impact on my employment or even my safety. Through my employment, I am involved in the process which sees individuals removed from Australia and taken to the Republic of Nauru. I have come to hold grave concerns about the physical safety of individuals removed to Nauru. Those concerns arose following firsthand conversations with other individuals directly involved in the Australian-Nauru program of removal and management of these individuals once in Nauru. These concerns relate most acutely to the NZYQ cohort. In numerous conversations, serious threats of physical violence were made in relation to those removed to Nauru. These were not idly-made threats.”
“We're one of the richest countries in the world—I think we're the 14th-biggest economy in the world—but we've allowed our housing arrangements to devolve to the point where we have all these homeless people. People are couch surfing. I was on the Gold Coast not that not that long ago, helping my daughter get into some accommodation; she's at uni. She and her friend are paying $800 a week for a modest two-bedroom apartment with two bathrooms in a reasonable location. It shouldn't be this way. So I do support this bill, and I will support future reform to make housing available and affordable.”
“But, heavens, there are a lot of blended families where one partner or the other must be wondering, 'If I drop off the perch, what happens in 10 or 20 years time when my surviving spouse meets that scoundrel who fleeces her or him?' That's an example of where I think the next bill will run into a real brick wall. It might be amended adequately that I can support it. But, as I stand here now, I certainly won't, and I look forward to joining the debate about that. In closing, can I just say: I welcome changes to make housing more affordable. Hobart is a beautiful little town, but I've never seen homeless like it. I've met people holding down steady, reasonably well-paying jobs living in their car. This is just bizarre.”
“That's an appalling proposition by the government. I probably don't need to go into any detail here and detain the House. We've heard so many examples in the last week or so about all of the good and sensible reasons people need to have such trusts protecting their estate, particularly if their beneficiary might be a child with disability, a child with a gambling addiction or a child who they are concerned might fall into a relationship with a scoundrel who ends up fleecing them. There are countless reasons why testamentary trusts are a sensible and good idea to protect your family. I'm in a blended family myself. Clare and I love each other, and I don't doubt that we will always do the right thing by each other.”
“That is such a complex area. You just can't have a 'one size fits all' approach. It just doesn't work. It basically comes from a place of demonising anyone who's got a trust as—I can't be unparliamentary, but you know where I'm going with this, Deputy Speaker Boyce—a rich person who's just dodging tax, and that's not the case. I had a family trust when I had a small business in a previous life. It was the most effective structure for me in order to run my company. I wasn't dodging tax. Heavens, with the little business my wife and I had, we were lucky to take home $80,000 a year. Nothing was being dodged. It was just a sensible structure for our little business. What jumps out at me as the most ridiculous aspect of the trust proposals is that we would put a 30 per cent tax on the disbursements from testamentary trusts.”
“I've been asking questions of them, and they've been asking questions of me, and I'll tell you what—I've lost count of the number of times my colleagues have said, 'Oh, I don't know about that,' or, 'I'm not sure about that; I don't know what that means.' We pulled out the bill today in my office, and we tried to make sense of one particular point of detail. There were three of us, and I think our six eyeballs all glazed over trying to make sense of it. It's not the way to do big reform. I did mention the subsequent bill, on trusts. I've been to a series of elections campaigning for tax reform for at least residential property, so I will honour my promise to my community and support this bill, but I'll warn the government that I'm not going to extend the same support as it stands to the next bill, which will go into the detail of trusts.”
“We're going to talk to everyone, from people in the bush on their properties right through to the captains of industry in the major capital cities, and we're going to come up with a reform that works and is fair.' Then they might have created that exposure draft and circulated that and asked, 'What do you think?' There might have been more consultations. They might have carefully drafted a bill, and then we would have come to the parliament knowing exactly what we were voting for. I've been talking to quite a few backbenchers this week from the government, the opposition and the crossbench.”
“'As sure as night follows day, we will consult after this becomes law, and we will change it in your favour.' Well, excuse me. No wonder people are sceptical that that will be done right, particularly with these reforms increasing pressure on the minister to make adjustments and bring down subregulations or whatever. No, we should do this properly. We should have proper process. The proper process, by the way, starts with making an election promise and then, once you're elected, saying: 'Okay, we're going to go through this. We're going to have an effective consultation process with the community, with industry groups and with other peak bodies.”
“That is actually markedly more than if they were simply paying, for example, personal income tax. So the settings on this aren't right, and one of the reasons the settings aren't right is that it was never socialised. There was never a public consultation. There was never an exposure draft. There was never, or never will be, a detailed parliamentary inquiry into these changes. There will never be the opportunity for the government to adjust the exposure draft and get it 'just right'. You don't just suddenly drop this sort of change on us and say, 'There you go,' and then, when you come under media pressure or political pressure, say, 'Oh, don't worry about the lack of detail'—or the settings between $100,000 and $200,000 I described. 'Don't you worry about that' sounds like Joh Bjelke-Petersen!”
“I think that's very unfair. In fact, I'll quickly jump to that point of trusts. They say that an age pensioner will be exempt from the 30 per cent tax on a disbursement from a trust in retirement. Well, they'll only be exempt, of course, if they're receiving at least $1 of income support payment from Services Australia through the age pension. But, of course, you don't get any age pension for a couple if your income is more than about $100,000, in rough figures. So what happens to a couple who are living off their investments and getting somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000 income? They will be paying 30 per cent tax on the disbursement from the trust, or—looping back to simply a capital gain—they'll be paying at least 30 per cent tax on the income from that capital gain.”
“It's coming from people who are accusing the government of dishonesty, but the scare campaign is equally dishonest. But, of course, the devil is always in the detail. When I look at this minimum 30 per cent, I think, 'Well, what happens to someone who is living off the income of capital gains and is getting less than about $200,000 in capital gain from that investment?' If that were just taxed as normal income, they would be paying markedly less than 30 per cent tax. In other words—and this will be even more pronounced when we debate the next bill, which goes to the detail of trusts—the problem with setting a minimum of 30 per cent is that anyone who's getting income from investments or a disbursement from a trust of less than about, I think, $192,000 or $195,000 will actually be paying more tax than they were before.”
“I do think that the idea of trying to achieve some sort of equivalency between the tax on income earned from investments and the tax on a similar amount of income earned from wages is a good idea as a matter of principle, and it is achieved to some degree insofar as, in this bill, the minimum capital gains tax will be 30 per cent instead of the old 25 per cent. I would say, though, that that increase of five per cent, particularly when it's offset against the effects of inflation, means that people who are paying capital gains tax after 12 months probably won't actually be paying that much different an amount. They might even be paying a little bit less with this reform. I think the scare campaign around this minimum 30 per cent capital gains tax is quite dishonest.”
“I'd say to the opposition: when you have big reforms in the future, take it to the election, because, whether it be Tony Abbott reneging on his promises before and after the 2013 election or the current government reneging on its promises before last year's election, all it does is feed that cynicism about the political class in the community. It's no wonder emerging parties are enjoying record popularity, because the old political class is letting the community down and the community want to ventilate that dissatisfaction and that displeasure. So it feeds into that. I will go back to a positive, though, for a moment. By the way, if you think I'm a bit all over the place, it's because I think this bill is a bit all over the place. It's got some really good aspects and it's got some really lamentable aspects.”
“I don't feel that I'm letting my community down by supporting this bill But it does bring me to the criticism of the government by the opposition and others that they went to the election promising not to do this. Well, do you know what? To some degree I'll associate myself with the opposition's criticism here, because this is one of the biggest tax reforms that I can think of—certainly in my adult lifetime—and it would be proper process for something this big to have been taken to the election. So, although I will support it and I won't feel guilty about doing that, because I campaigned on such a reform, I would say to the government: you should have taken it to the election.”
“The decision to halve the capital gains tax after 12 months might have been well intentioned, but I'm hard pressed to find one decent economist, one good economist, in this country who thinks that the halving of the capital gains tax—that so-called discount—was a good idea. You can see where I'm going with this, Deputy Speaker. I obviously support—in fact, I applaud—the government for deciding to do something about the tax arrangements regarding residential property. I will support the bill, and I will do it with honesty, because I went to the last election campaigning for tax reform of residential property. So I feel quite pure about this.”
“What I am criticising, though, is the succession of governments, over decades, that quite deliberately put in place the policy settings to turn homes into investments and to take away that fundamental human right. One, of course, was negative gearing. In fact, it wasn't just the introduction of negative gearing; I think the thing that made negative gearing worse was the change that allowed property owners to deduct property costs against their gross income, including their personal salary. That change, from when you could only deduct against the costs of the property, was, I think, a very significant and a very detrimental change in turning property from a human right into an investment. Then there's capital gains tax. Of course you should pay some sort of capital gains tax when you have a substantial capital gain.”
“But, at some point during the last two or three decades, especially in the last half a dozen years or so, housing stopped being a fundamental human right in this country and became an investment product: in some ways, no better or worse than a parcel of shares or whatever someone might invest in—maybe cryptocurrency, these days. So no longer was a home a fundamental human right and something that regular people could aspire to and achieve; it became an investment product, for those who could afford to, to try and make a buck from. I don't criticise the people who have made a buck, and I've traded a few houses myself over the years.”
“Our country is slowly flipping from a country of homeowners to a country of renters, and that's a terribly sad thing to observe and to live through. You know, you've only got to go back two or maybe three decades, and the normal course of events was that a normal sort of person, a regular Joe—he or she—would get a job, work hard, save up a house deposit and could afford to buy a modest cottage for the family to grow up in. Then they might upgrade it and sell, to move up to something grander, a decade or a couple of decades later, when they could afford it. I don't want to go back to the white picket fence of John Howard, but I do want to go back to a day when a regular person had it within their capacity to own their own home.”
“My question is to the Minister for Resources. Minister, in the 1990s, whistleblower Jim Leggate blew the lid on non-remediated mine sites and foretold of an eventual cost in the billions of dollars. He was vilified dreadfully but vindicated ultimately. Minister, in a 2023 CSIRO report, you noted that 240 mines will close by 2040 at an annual cost of $4 billion to $8 billion. Can you assure us that companies have provided for this expenditure and that taxpayers won't be left to pick up the tab?”
“It was designed to allow people with disability to participate meaningfully in society, exercise choice and control, and live with dignity as valued members of their communities. I say thank you to Clare. She gives voice to countless people.”
“My son Felix will rely on the NDIS for the entirety of his life, which means I have a deeply vested interest in ensuring the Scheme continues to exist and remains viable not only for him, but for future generations of Australians living with disability. Families like mine understand better than anyone that sustainability matters. However, sustainability cannot come at the expense of the fundamental purpose and philosophy of the NDIS itself. I strongly believe the current direction risks shifting the Scheme away from one centred on inclusion, participation, independence and quality of life, toward one focused predominantly on cost containment, functional minimisation and restricting access to support. The NDIS was never intended to simply deliver the bare minimum required to keep disabled people alive.”
“Early plan reviews create significantly more administrative work, manual processing, participant communication, compliance monitoring and financial risk for Plan Managers, without any additional payment being received. I could go on and list my own concerns, like the financial inability of the Tasmanian government to fund the additional services that will be expected of it. But, you know what, I think I'll stick with Clare because she's done a better job than I ever could have done. I'll give her the last word: I fully appreciate the complexity of managing a scheme of this size and absolutely recognise the importance of ensuring the NDIS remains financially sustainable long term.”
“I believe another critical issue within the proposed reforms is the ongoing public narrative being presented about the role of Plan Managers, including statements made by the NDIS Minister which do not accurately reflect either the legislation or the operational realities of Plan Management. For example, there have been repeated suggestions that Plan Managers are driving unnecessary plan reassessments or financially benefiting from early plan reviews. However, Plan Managers cannot and have never been able to request a plan review on behalf of a participant under the legislation. Similarly, the suggestion that Plan Managers financially benefit from participants seeking earlier reassessments is fundamentally incorrect.”
“In that context, registered Plan Managers already represent a relatively small and highly regulated subset of the overall disability workforce. More concerningly, the direction of the reforms appears to be moving toward consolidation of Plan Management into a small number of very large multinational or corporate providers. From an NDIS perspective, I worry this risks fundamentally undermining participant choice and control, one of the core principles the scheme was built upon. Smaller community-based Plan Managers often provide highly individualised support, understand local services, identify emerging safeguarding concerns early, and assist participants to navigate increasingly complex systems in ways that large, centralised providers simply cannot replicate at scale.”
“Unsurprisingly, Clare also has much to say about plan management—she's a plan manager—which, regrettably, I'll need to truncate heavily here for the lack of speaking time: I remain extremely uneasy about the Government's position on Plan Management and the broader messaging around fraud within the sector. Plan Managers are already one of the most highly scrutinised parts of the scheme. We operate under registration requirements, auditing obligations, compliance standards, financial accountability frameworks and direct NDIA oversight. There are currently only approximately 1,443 registered Plan Managers nationally supporting more than 460,000 plan-managed participants across Australia, despite the broader NDIS market consisting of more than 260,000 active providers across the sector.”
“Families already under enormous pressure will no longer have the support required to safely take their children into the community. Adults with disability will lose opportunities for connection, independence and visibility within society. I worry we are slowly moving back toward a system that values segregation over inclusion because inclusion is considered too expensive. The NDIS was never supposed to simply keep disabled people alive. It was supposed to allow people with disability to live meaningful lives as visible and valued members of Australian society. Once disabled people disappear from public life again, society stops designing for them, thinking about them and including them. History has already shown us where that leads.”
“Disabled people are now visible in our communities every single day, at playgrounds, beaches, sporting events, shopping centres, schools and workplaces. Slowly, the stares from strangers have started to lessen. The whispered 'shh' from a parent when their child asks questions about a disabled person in public has started to lessen. Society has slowly started normalising disability as part of everyday Australian life, because people with disability have finally been given the opportunity to actually participate in society. My greatest fear is that these proposed policy directions risk taking us backwards. If social and community participation supports are significantly reduced, many people with disability will once again become isolated behind closed doors because participation will simply become inaccessible.”
“It is also important to recognise that the disability and care workforce is overwhelmingly female, with women making up the substantial majority of the sector nationally. At a time when governments continue to speak about strengthening female workforce participation and investing in the care economy, these reforms risk doing the exact opposite, reducing jobs, suppressing wages, and destabilising one of the country's largest female-dominated workforces. For decades, people with disability were largely hidden away from society. Many were segregated into institutions, group homes, or isolated within their own homes because they simply did not have the supports required to safely and meaningfully participate in the community. Over the past 10 years since the inception of the NDIS, we have slowly started to see genuine social change occur.”
“Whilst this is often framed politically as "slowing growth", the reality is that the NDIS is not simply a budget line item, it is a workforce. Aside from areas such as Assistive Technology (Disability Equipment), almost every dollar spent through the Scheme directly funds somebody's employment. Disability support workers, therapists, local area coordinators, support coordinators, plan managers, allied health professionals, administration staff, transport providers and community participation programs will all inevitably be impacted by reductions in funding flowing through the sector. This is likely to have significant broader economic consequences, particularly in regional communities where the disability sector has become a major source of employment growth over the past decade.”
“We have finally started seeing real progress, inclusive playgrounds, accessible beaches, community events, schools, sporting programs and councils beginning to genuinely consider accessibility and inclusion in planning and infrastructure. On the Gold Coast last week I saw firsthand what genuine inclusion can look like. Free beach wheelchairs are available for families to access without cost or complex processes, allowing children like Felix to participate in spaces that historically excluded them entirely. These initiatives matter because inclusion does not happen naturally, it requires intentional investment, support and accessibility. The Federal Government has publicly stated that the proposed NDIS reforms are expected to reduce projected scheme expenditure by approximately $35 billion over the coming 4 years.”
“We are now potentially moving toward a system where participants will be pressured to pursue extremely expensive treatments, specialist interventions or medications simply to demonstrate they have "tried everything", even where the evidence of meaningful functional improvement is limited or the treatment is not considered clinically appropriate for that individual. I am also deeply concerned regarding the proposed reduction of funding for social and community participation supports within Core budgets. Whilst these supports are often portrayed publicly as "nice to have" or non-essential, the reality is they are frequently the only mechanism allowing people with disability to meaningfully participate in their communities. The disability community has spent decades advocating for inclusion, accessibility and equal participation in society.”
“What concerns me further is that this approach simply shifts costs into other already overwhelmed systems, particularly Medicare, the PBS and the public health system, while placing enormous emotional pressure on families navigating incredibly complex decisions regarding their child's care. For many participants, therapies and interventions are intended to improve comfort, maintain mobility, reduce pain, or maximise quality of life, not cure disability. The existence of a possible intervention should not undermine recognition that a person still has a lifelong functional impairment requiring support. I also question where the line is drawn regarding expensive medical treatments, medications or therapies that may not even be fully covered under the PBS. Families living with disability already face enormous out-of-pocket medical costs.”
“For some people this may involve major orthopaedic or spinal surgeries, experimental treatments, intensive rehabilitation programs, or medications with significant side effects and limited evidence of long-term functional improvement. Families and participants should never be placed in a position where access to essential disability supports becomes contingent on undertaking high-risk medical interventions in an attempt to "prove" permanence. I worry about what this could mean more broadly for participants with Cerebral Palsy and other lifelong disabilities. Would families be expected to pursue spinal surgeries, orthopaedic procedures, or other invasive interventions in order to establish permanency? At what point does this shift from disability support into requiring families to medically "prove" their child cannot be fixed?”
“However, another Paediatrician or Surgeon with less familiarity and clinical history of Felix may potentially form an entirely different opinion regarding whether he should undergo the procedure. That is what concerns me most about the direction of this legislation. Children and adults with disability may effectively be forced to pursue invasive and extremely expensive medical procedures with long and difficult rehabilitation timeframes simply to prove that their disability remains functionally impairing despite treatment attempts, even where there is conflicting medical opinion or significant uncertainty regarding the likely outcomes for that individual person.”
“Indeed, in a recent letter to the Tasmanian disability minister, she had this to say, at least in part: I have many concerns regarding the proposed legislation, however some of my biggest concerns relate to the increasing medicalisation of disability access and support eligibility. From my reading of the Bill and associated material, I am increasingly concerned that participants will effectively be required to demonstrate that all possible treatment pathways have been exhausted before disability support eligibility can be established or maintained. As a parent, this raises some really confronting questions for me. In Felix's case, he has Cerebral Palsy and has previously been assessed by his Rehabilitation Paediatrician through Tas Health as possibly not being an appropriate candidate for SDR surgery.”
“Every policy decision made in Canberra, every legislative amendment and every systems reform will eventually land somewhere very real, at a kitchen table like ours. It will land with parents trying to decide whether they can keep working. With carers already surviving on exhaustion. With siblings quietly adapting around systems that were never designed with them in mind. And with people with disability whose quality of life depends on whether support remains accessible, timely and sustainable. Clare's personal experience eventually led her to create Care Plus Management, a support, coordination and plan management enterprise which, along with her own family experience, makes her insights supremely valuable.”
“He's also a big brother to his 5 year old sister Lily. Like many families entering the disability world for the first time, we suddenly found ourselves navigating specialists, hospital systems, therapy providers, education supports and the NDIS, all while trying to process the emotional reality of what our future now looked like. For families like ours, there is no pause button. When therapies are reduced, children like Felix lose opportunities to build and maintain the skills that give them independence, mobility and connection to the world around them. When support worker funding is cut, families are left scrambling at the last minute, rearranging work, appointments and daily life just to keep everything functioning. When waiting lists blow out, children miss critical early intervention and families remain in crisis longer.”
“Yesterday I was delighted to meet Clare Waiss, the Tasmanian representative at the parliamentary carers event. What she had to say there was powerful and worth repeating here, at least in part: Seven years ago, when our son Felix was born, we thought we understood what parenting would look like. What we didn't understand then was how quickly parenting would become advocacy, caregiving, administration, crisis management and constant negotiation with systems. Felix lives with a rare genetic condition called ARF1, which has resulted in cerebral palsy, intellectual disability and significant support needs. He is non-speaking, requires assistance 24/7 and relies on mobility aids and AAC devices for communication. But to us, he's just Felix. He's funny, cheeky, stubborn, determined and full of personality.”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, I acknowledge your government's commitments and investments through the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children. However, in my home state of Tasmania, two women have been killed in alleged domestic violence incidents just in the past fortnight. Will you join me in Hobart for a roundtable with family violence advocates, survivors and families who have lost loved ones to domestic violence to hear directly from them about what urgent action is still needed?”
“So you can understand why I'm regularly contacted by constituents who want the Australian government to do more, much more, to hold Israel to account. I am contacted by constituents who highlight the sometimes unexpected layers to this horrid matter, like how familiar platforms such as booking.com and Airbnb continue to list properties on stolen Palestinian land, whitewashing the illegal occupation of genocide and generating revenue that flows directly into the settlements. I again implore the government to take meaningful action to hold Israel to account— (Time expired)”
“Like most people, I was appalled by the vile treatment of flotilla participants by the Israeli national security minister. The footage, showing bound and kneeling activists being taunted and harassed, is repulsive and inhumane. What it reveals, however, is not the exception but the rule of the Israeli government's brutal and dehumanising treatment of Palestinians, albeit this time deflected onto those seeking to deliver aid. The reality is that Palestinians in Israel and in occupied Gaza and the West Bank especially face this and far worse on a daily basis. The International Court of Justice again confirmed the illegality of Israeli settlements in 2024, and in their ruling stated that governments and organisations were obliged to not recognise or lend any form of support to Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.”
“My question is to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. Minister, the Defence and Veterans Workshop, in Hobart, has supported serving and ex-serving personnel since 1980. It's an essential service and is more important than ever if the government is fair dinkum about addressing the findings of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. But, Minister, the workshop will be homeless if Derwent Barracks are sold off. So what will you do about that? Does the government commit to ensuring the workshop remains in situ or is funded to secure a new facility?”
“In closing, I call on the major parties to drop their stubborn opposition to a human rights act, and I urge all members to back this bill, because it's time we woke up, because we cannot keep accepting second-rate protections which lag behind the rest of the world, or protections that only apply from time to time like some hebdomadal ritual. Frankly, Australians deserve better, and this parliament should deliver it. I invite the member for Indi, who is seconding my bill, to make a contribution in my remaining time.”
“It would also specify that Commonwealth, state and territory laws should be interpreted so as to be consistent with the federal human rights act. Moreover, the bill allows for the Australian Human Rights Commission to inquire into any act or practice done by the Commonwealth or a state or territory government that may infringe on a right or freedom in the federal human rights act. It also allows for people to make complaints to the commission if they believe that an act or practice infringes a right or freedom outlined in the act. So there you have it.”
“It requires that core Australian values of fairness, respect, dignity and compassion must be put at the centre of every decision the parliament takes, and at the heart of the decisions and policies governments pursue. This bill would give domestic effect to a number of international agreements to which Australia is a signatory, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. In essence the bill would render invalid any Commonwealth, state or territory law that is inconsistent with the human rights detailed in the act, to the extent of that inconsistency.”
“Yes, the state-based models which exist in the ACT, in Victoria and in Queensland have helped to improve the situation in those jurisdictions, but it's beyond time we had a federal human rights act that will enshrine the rights and freedoms of all Australians, regardless of where they live—an act that protects and promotes inalienable human rights, such as the right to health care, the right to housing, the right to education, the right to a healthy environment, and the right to equal treatment within society for all. The Human Rights Bill I've introduced today spells out, in plain terms, the rights and freedoms that every Australian is entitled to. It makes clear the high standards we, as a community, should expect of ourselves and of our institutions.”
“And, of course, First Nations people face ongoing systemic racism, targeted violence and discrimination. Indeed, only four of 19 national Closing the Gap targets were on track most recently, while outcomes are worsening for adult incarceration, children in care, suicide and childhood development. It seems clear that the international agreements and obligations Australia has committed to, which one would think would provide protection to Australians, are routinely ignored. That's why I urge all members in this place to support this bill, because it is the only way to protect the rights of Australians under a single, strong and reliable framework. In other words, we need a consistent, national approach.”
“Australians' freedom of expression and assembly have also been increasingly threatened by aggressive antiprotest laws and poorly designed hate speech laws. At the same time, racism and discrimination are on the rise. Moreover, the rights of children are under threat from drives towards increasingly punitive state laws which seek to impose adult penalties on minors. The federal government still hasn't properly implemented the recommendations of the robodebt royal commission, and the Commonwealth Ombudsman recently found the mutual obligations system is being used to inflict 'high percentages' of incorrect decisions and 'potentially catastrophic penalties' on welfare recipients, with minimal oversight or consequences for those responsible.”
“They even provided an example bill, based on the Human Rights Commission's framework, which I've relied heavily on in drafting this bill. Sadly, this committee report is yet another which has sat in the government's too hard basket, yet to receive a formal response, let alone any legislative action. It's not like this is excusable because everything is chugging along fine in Australia. For instance refugee and migrant rights are under constant attack in this country, with unlawful indefinite detention and offshore processing remaining in place for asylum seekers; this government introducing laws to strip asylum seekers of due process; the opposition wanting to strip benefits from temporary residents; and temporary workers such as those from the Pacific often facing exploitation and abuse.”