Garth Hamilton
Groom · Liberal National Party · Australia
“Every parent wants better for their kids. That's why we turn up to work. That's why we save. That's why we drive them to piano lessons, take them to sports and put effort into their lives—because we want better for them.”
“I think these are terribly challenging things when we consider that. But part of the solution to dealing with these issues about making the future brighter is positioning our policy around our kids' future and reminding ourselves of the hard work that not only parents must do but governments must do to prepare that better future.”
“I don't blame that, because the thrust of the conversation was good jobs and good pay and finding the balance between those who wanted to invest and those who wanted to invest their labour, and then, between that, finding that balance to say, 'I want you to have your job; I want to protect your job, but I want to make sure that business i…”
“I talk to young kids about the impact of social media and what they see on a regular basis, what my kids see on a regular basis, and how that impacts them. We hear the challenges of social cohesion right here in Australia, let alone what's happening around the world.”
“on indulgence—With reference to the incident in the chamber yesterday, I would like to withdraw my statement. I would like to apologise to the House and to you personally, Mr Speaker. I would like to thank the member for Hunter and others opposite for their kind friendship during this period.”
“1 message I got back from them was that they were concerned about what was laid out in their future; they could not see the pathway to prosperity that had been laid out for previous generations—the way that they could have the same things that previous generations had. They didn't want to take it away from those who'd got there.”
The complete record
Every one of 208 lines we hold for Garth Hamilton, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 3 of 5.
“He blamed those farmers, those families, those truck drivers for causing the issue. He said it was panic buying. Minister, you cannot panic-buy from an empty servo. That's what we're experiencing. This minister needs to get out and see this. How could he have handled this differently? Do you know what he could've done? He could've followed our blueprint from the AdBlue crisis of 2021. He could've followed what we did. Instead, he's been distracted. He's more concerned about being president of COP31. He's more concerned about his international commitments and looking good on the grand stage. He is not on the ground, experiencing what Australians are experiencing. It's an absolutely disgraceful performance from this minister, and I will call him out.”
“It's an absolute delight to get out of the Canberra bubble and go home to my wonderful electorate, but the stories I bring back are not great. I spoke to a farmer who had to stop mid-harvest because the price of petrol meant that he was no longer going to receive a profit from continuing on with his work. I spoke to a family in Toowoomba who could not afford to make the hour-long drive back and forth to Millmerran to see their elderly grandparents because the price of petrol made it unaffordable. I spoke to a truck driver who was having fuel stolen from his truck while he slept. The clash of two worlds—what's happening out there and what's happening in the bubble—could not be more stark. We had a minister here, telling us there was no fuel supply issue in Australia.”
“My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. Fuel supplier Transwest has told the Courier Mail, 'We currently have zero petrol supply at Newcastle and Brisbane. This means that, once our servos run out of petrol, that's it. There's no more.' Can the minister assure Transwest that there are no fuel supply shortages in Australia?”
“It's long been my view that this minister is more focused on trying to be the president of COP than he is on delivering as the energy minister for Australia, getting on the ground and understanding the issues that we have to deal with, particularly in regional Australia. Energy is the economy, and this economy runs on diesel. That's the truth of Australia's set-up. The longer this goes on, the more concern there will be in communities like mine, like many of my colleagues' and, I'm sure—as we heard today—even in Western Sydney, where there are fuel shortages, right next to the seat of the minister for energy. I suggest he goes out and puts his feet on the ground and sees what's happening in his own patch.”
“We worked with the ACCC to relax some of the provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act to make sure we could work together, across Australia, to get that AdBlue where it was needed so that our farmers and our truckers had what they needed to keep Australia moving. We did that, and Labor supported it. Labor said it was a sensible option to take. But now, when Labor find themselves with the weight of government on their own shoulders and a very similar problem in front of them, with the blueprint laid out for how to respond to a crisis just like this, what do they do? They freeze. They freeze—hands off—and blame Australians for panic buying, when there is so much that this minister can do to address the concerns in my local area.”
“We heard today that the minister intends to take a very hands-off approach to dealing with this issue. He's not going to do anything more. He's saying that this is just panic buying—and I join with the concerns around panic buying—but why is the panic buying happening? It's because people are seeing closed petrol stations. They're driving past signs that say it's capped at 60 litres. They're seeing it. That's why the panic buying is happening. And we saw the minister today standing there, saying, 'Tell me what to do. What do I do?' There's lots that the minister can do. The first thing he can do is look back to 2021, when we had the AdBlue crisis. When we were in government, we saw there was a shortage of AdBlue playing out in certain parts of Australia.”
“Sadly, my office has received multiple reports of fuel supply shortages throughout our area. Two petrol stations on Taylor Street are no longer serving. In Wyreema it's capped at 60 litres per customer. I just heard Chris Smith on the radio saying that Dalby is out of diesel. I have to confirm that, of course, but this is a real concern for us. We've got the sorghum harvest just around the corner, about to get started. People are trying to secure the fuel they'll need to do that, to recover their costs and, hopefully, make a little bit more. It's a huge issue in my electorate. My electorate is one of the electorates, one of the areas, that the minister for energy couldn't identify today, in question time, when he was asked where the fuel supply shortages are. He couldn't identify it.”
“A very similar thing happened. It wasn't available anywhere. People were hoarding. Prices went up. What did we do? Did we stand back and say, 'We're going to take a hands-off approach to this, and Australians are the problem?'”
“He wants to focus on those big, fantastic things that a role like that brings. He can focus on international commitments. He can play on the grand stage, but he's not on the ground in Australia, seeing the problems that we're seeing, and this matters. What we heard today was a minister who's taking a completely hands-off approach to dealing with this issue. In fact, he was playing the role of Johnny Fontane in The Godfather : 'Tell me what to do. What do I do, Godfather?' He wants to know how to do the job. The great thing is we had a wonderful contribution from the member for Wright, a transport professional, who actually spoke to the details of the issue. They've been very helpful. The minister could look back just a short way in history to see what to do, back to 2021 when we had an AdBlue shortage around Australia.”
“I'm very happy to rise to speak on the government's failure to manage fuel supply, amongst a great many other things. During question time today, we saw the minister asked multiple times if he could identify the regions in Australia, the areas in Australia, the cities in Australia, where we were experiencing fuel supply shortages, and he couldn't answer the question. He wasn't across his brief. He couldn't tell us where those were. He turned around briefly, to his backbench, looking for a bit of help. Someone shouted out, 'Mildura.' He said, 'Mildura.' So we got one answer out of him. As it turned out, under questioning from the member for Lindsay, there were fuel supply shortages in Western Sydney, right near the minister's own seat. But he wasn't aware; he's not across the brief. This is a minister who wants to be president of COP.”
“There's a lot of work to be done in taking care of our environment and in making sure that Australia has the cheap and reliable energy that it needs. We are out of balance at the moment. The approach we are taking right now, today, is out of balance, and we must correct it. Sitting suspended from 13:30 to 16:01”
“But we do get one thing, and it's something that this minister prides himself on: ambition. We saw that in the minister's ambition to be the president of the next COP meeting. It's a fine thing, no doubt—a great thing to have on one's resume. While that is happening, we are seeing energy prices go through the roof. As I stated earlier, we saw a 40 per cent increase in energy costs in just one year. We need a course correction. We must rebuild our economy around industry and not around emissions accounting, and that means restoring cheap and reliable energy as the foundation of national prosperity and strategic strength. Energy policy should not be an excuse to weaken ourselves economically or burden future generations with unnecessary costs.”
“Technology will take us forward. It will reduce emissions by reducing the amount of fuel required to do the same amount of work. This is happening, and it's a wonderful thing. Engineers around Australia play their part in that, and they should be very proud of doing so. When we rush through this and when make decisions on timetables that are not in alignment with where industry is, we leave taxpayers holding the bag—not just once but permanently. This is not transition policy; it's a subsidy treadmill designed to satisfy a target rather than deliver affordable and reliable power to Australians. This is what happens when energy policy is driven by symbolism, as it has been under this minister. Instead of outcomes, we end up paying more for less reliability. We get weaker industry and lower real wages.”
“The minister has acknowledged that, but that figure doesn't include the far larger cost: the taxpayer subsidies needed to produce the hydrogen in the first place and to underwrite its supply indefinitely. The private sector has already walked away from large-scale green hydrogen en masse because it cannot be made at a competitive cost. I'm an engineer. I love technology. I have no doubt that there are wonderful, brilliant minds—Australian minds—working towards new technologies, and so they should. They should be encouraged by government to do so. This is one of the things that has dragged us forward. I remember my first car—an XD Falcon. It used to run at about 17 litres to the 100 kilometres. I thought that was OK. I was a student. I didn't have any other options. My Prado now weighs twice as much and runs at about seven litres.”
“This was conceived as a reliability backstop for New South Wales—a sensible objective—but it has been burdened with a mandate that defies engineering, economics and common sense: a requirement to operate on 30 per cent hydrogen by 2030. Hydrogen at that scale is not commercially viable, nor is it even foreseeably available by that date. Every engineer knows this. This is not a revelation I'm laying out before you; this is the common, accepted view of engineers around Australia. Hydrogen at that scale is not commercially viable nor will it be available by that date. Hydrogen is expensive to produce and transport, difficult to store and inefficient to burn. Retrofitting the Kurri Kurri station to meet this target will require at least $700 million in capital works alone.”
“Cheap energy is also the best wages policy there is. Energy is a core input to almost every product and service. When power prices rise, businesses face higher costs long before workers see higher pay packets. Those costs are passed on through prices, squeezing real wages and living standards. No amount of industrial relations reform can offset an energy system that structurally drives up production costs, yet, instead of confronting this reality, we have layered ideology on top of dysfunction. Nowhere is this clearer than the federal government's approach to firming generation. Take the Kurri Kurri gas power plant as an example.”
“Aluminium, steel, cement, fertiliser, chemicals and food processing all demand large volumes of cheap and firm power. As energy prices rise and reliability falls, those industries don't adapt; they leave. They go to greener pastures, places where energy is cheaper, and once they're gone they do not come back easily. This matters far more than just jobs or GDP. In the current geostrategic environment, industrial capacity is a first-order national security consideration. The ability to produce, repair and scale physical goods is a deterrent in itself, as there is no military industrial complex without an industrial complex. Nations that hollow out their industrial base in pursuit of ideological goals, a path the minister has chosen to lead Australia down, those nations become strategically brittle.”
“Every successful modern economy is built on abundant, reliable and cheap power. When energy is cheap, businesses expand, wages rise, and industries cluster. When energy is expensive, everything else becomes harder as manufacturing leaves, household budgets tighten and governments scramble to paper over the damage with subsidies. Australia lost sight of this when we signed up for net zero. In doing so, we didn't just set an emissions target; we committed to rebuilding the entire economy around emissions reduction as the primary organising principle. That decision came with enormous costs, profound trade-offs and long-term consequences that were never honestly or fully explained to the public at the time. The most obvious casualty of this has been industrial capacity. Manufacturing is energy intensive by definition.”
“The Minister for Climate Change and Energy has failed at every metric that matters under his portfolio. He promised the Australian people cheaper power and delivered a 40 per cent increase in power costs in just a single year. He promised emissions reductions, but emissions are flatlining. He promised 82 per cent renewables and is on track to miss that by a mile. He has legislated for a 43 per cent reduction in emissions, which he'll miss by a thousand miles. He promised reliable supply and instead is delivering blackouts, grid instability and human suffering. He promised secure gas supply and delivered shortages. He promised a $122 billion transition, but we are staring down the barrel of at least a more than $500 billion bill that we cannot pay for. Energy is the economy.”
“You get to march with people and you get to wear some cool shirts. Kids, get out there. Learn the issues. Find the policy levers that you need to pull to make change happen. Build a mandate. Learn how to go and converse with people who disagree with you and work together with them. Kids, get out there and understand how democracy works and how you can make a change. This is such an important thing. Politics is about doing the right thing. Kids, don't be afraid of the appearance of conflict that you're going to see in a few minutes here, in QT; across the chamber, there are strong bonds between people who want to get things done and want to make good things happen for the Australian people. You should believe that. Watch that, and believe that.”
“Spoiler alert! One of the following names will be the future member for Groom: Hayley, Emmy, Penny, Annabelle, Emily, Gracie and Sofie. No, I am not giving away early retirement plans! I am simply heralding the next generation of great leaders coming through Groom, who I met in the Year 12 legal studies class at Fairholme College. This is a great group of kids, and I'm sure everyone around this chamber would agree that speaking to kids about our parliament and our democracy is one of the most important things we do. I want to take this opportunity to repeat to them, and to any other kids listening, the message I passed on. It was a message that came from Ron Boswell, a good friend who we recently laid to rest. It is: no matter what your beliefs are, get involved in politics. Kids, get involved. Protesting is fun, and it's cool.”
“So, no, this is not a community that does not care about its power prices; this is a community who, like everyone else in Australia, is hurting and struggling under rising power costs. When we go further into the home battery scheme, we see how unfair and unequal it is to battlers. If you look at the top 100 postcodes by income, they get four times the investment from that scheme than the bottom 100. This is not just middle-class welfare; this is upper-class welfare. This is not helping those who are struggling; this is taking the tax dollars of those who are struggling and using them to help the upper class buy batteries above the capacity they need. It's absolutely insane.”
“I'm barely struggling to pay the bills to keep my kids fed and in school. I'm just struggling to hold it together. I need to focus on the issue of my power bills, not on some scheme separate to that.' I then went out to a local mosque. It was iftar, at the end of Ramadan. Everyone was coming out and having a feed; they're a little bit happier! I remember one gentleman who came out, and he had this great line for me. I said, 'Do power bills concern you, sir?' He said, 'Mate, I've got a big family and big power bills.' It was a commonly-referred-to joke—and I made the connection that in Toowoomba I say the same thing to my local Irish Catholic community, who have four kids on average. They have big families and big power bills, and they're feeling the pain.”
“It's about local communities like Oakey, which has a wonderful coalmine, a great meatworks and a hugely energy intensive community. I wanted to understand the minister better. I went to Fairfield and held a little forum. I walked the streets of Fairfield talking to people. There were a couple of people who stuck out. One was Taric. He's a small-business owner. He's got five employees, all from McMahon. I sat down and asked him about his energy bills—and, like with everyone else around Australia, they've gone up, by $1,500. I said, 'But, Taric, mate, what about the home battery scheme?' Every time we ask the minister about rising energy bills, he says the home battery scheme is the answer. He looked at me and said: 'Mate, I can't afford home batteries. I can't afford to put in solar.”
“The very first thing I did as the shadow assistant minister for energy, security and affordability was to go to the seat of McMahon and have an energy forum down there. Of course, that is the seat of the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, and I wanted to go to better understand the minister and what drives him, because we have such different views on the role of energy in the economy. I wanted to go and see if he is a representative of a community that does not care about energy prices. You can see it in my title; it's a very different approach that we bring to the energy space. For the minister, energy is about climate change, our international commitments and promises we've made to other countries. For me, energy is about industry. It's about jobs.”
“We have seen this time and time again. We have a Treasurer who wants to try to pretend that this private demand is existing without the government supply. As I've just pointed out, the home battery scheme is a great example of this. Yes, that is private demand—the supply mechanism is from the government. This is what is driving our inflation in our country. This is what is driving the RBA's decision-making. It's about time this Treasurer, instead of pretending to hide behind these things, actually addresses what is real. This is a spending government that is driving inflation.”
“An example of that would be the home battery scheme the government relies upon as their go-to answer whenever the $275 they promised everybody is. This is a scheme that was originally budgeted at $2.3 billion and has now blown out to $11.6 billion. The second claim that I want to pull apart is the Treasurer's claim that it is actually private demand that is driving things. Let's have a look at the ABS definition of what makes up private demand. This is what the RBA use. Inputs to this include the aged pension, JobSeeker, the family tax benefit, rent assistance, energy rebates, cost-of-living payments, NDIS payments, any wage subsidies, industry grants, production subsidies and energy subsidies. The thing with demand is it doesn't exist without supply. The supply source of private demand is government. It is government spending.”
“But, when asked whether this was a gross figure or a net figure the minister couldn't answer and had to rely upon advisers to tell her that it was a gross figure. So when you prosecute this case a bit further, what is the net figure? What is net savings? You come up with the problem, which is that there has been $142 billion of additional spending. This is outside of indexation. This is $142 billion of new programs that have been brought in across the term of the Albanese government. So a true figure of the savings that have been achieved by the Albanese government is negative $28 billion. We can dismiss the argument that this is a saving government. When a Finance minister is able to understand the difference between net and gross, this is actually a spending government, quite clearly.”
“There has been a lot of conversation in my community and around Australia on the role of government spending in inflation and the interest rate rise we saw recently announced by the RBA. The government has told us that there is no connection between government spending and inflation or the interest rate rises, and I want to pick apart two of their claims, because I think it's important to provide facts to this conversation. Firstly, I refer to a conversation between the Minister for Finance and Senator Paterson at Senate estimates yesterday. The Minister for Finance was quite proud to proclaim that across the term of the Albanese government they'd accumulated $114 billion of savings. This is a true figure—there are $114 billion of savings.”
“No-one should ever accept that that's a call to arms in Australia or that that's something that we should accept in our country. I think it is absolutely disgraceful. It should matter to us, and we should be informed on the issue.”
“It's the idea that there's some great struggle, and we're all going to be part of it, and it's great and it's happy. It's bloody horrible. These are real people, and they're butchered and murdered in horrible ways. For someone to call for that clearly rises to the level of incitement to violence under the New South Wales Crimes Act 1900. It clearly meets that threshold. This isn't just calling for someone to steal a loaf of bread because they're hungry. This isn't calling for someone to take out an act of white-collar justice. This is a call for the most gruesome butchery of people, exactly as we saw at Bondi, and it's about time we started to call this sort of stuff out. It is right that the Prime Minister talked to us about depoliticising this, because this should not be a political issue.”
“I was driving to Bahrain to get my monthly stamp in and out, and, as I came back, I drove through the aftermath of a suicide bombing in this mosque. My memory is of black dust everywhere and intense sorrow and wailing as people were walking around, clearly trying to trying to get their bearings, having just walked out of a room that was blown up. There were blood, glass and bits of people across the road. No-one was celebrating. This wasn't something that you celebrate. These are horrible, horrible events. That is what the intifada is. And I don't think Ms Tame understands that. I think this is a slogan. I wanted to raise this is because I had to raise this conversation with my own daughter, a 16-year-old girl, describing this, because it's not taught—the intifada is some cool word.”
“But it was important to her that people understood her story and understood what the intifada meant, what it did in her region and that this was not some happy Che-Guevara-wearing rebellion. This was a bloody, horrible, violent uprising where suicide bombers really came to the fore in Palestine—rocket attacks, gunfights in the streets. There were somewhere around 5,700 Palestinian victims. Over two-thirds of those were civilians. There are about a thousand Israeli victims; about 70 per cent of those were civilians. Many of these died in horrible circumstances. I had one experience in my time in the Middle East of seeing the result of a suicide bombing. It was at the Al-Ahsa mosque on the eastern side of Saudi Arabia.”
“I arrived in Jeddah shortly after the end of the second intifada, and the scars of that conflict were felt right across the region. I remember having a young Syrian girl working for me who had scars on her shoulder. She wouldn't wear the full niqab because it was important for her to show her scars because that was part of her story of who she was. When she came into a Western office, she wasn't required to wear that and she was allowed to get away with that in that time. I remember just thinking, 'This is the bravest person I have ever met in my life,' because, as soon as she stepped outside of that office, Saudi religious police would force her to cover up.”
“I want to use this opportunity to address the comments Grace Tame made this week. In doing so, I want to acknowledge the Prime Minister's call for us not to politicise this, to have a very cold and calm conversation and, indeed, your direction, Mr Speaker, about how we talk on these things in this place. I think it's a really important conversation for us to have, and it's one that matters to me deeply. I spent the best part of 10 years of my life living in the Middle East, working in the Middle East. I have friends in Israel. I have friends right throughout Palestine and through Jordan. Mashal Ramadan I think of often in these situations. I think they'd be amazed at how much attention this conflict gets in Australia. I think they would be even more amazed to see how uneducated we are when we talk about it.”
“Over the next couple of weeks and months, I, the community and the chamber of commerce will be reaching out to everybody we can in Oakey, trying to get a feel for what they need for their future banking requirements—what they want and what they're willing to contribute in terms of helping out. We want to work together with the committee to try and find a solution. We've already had some great conversations with the Customer Owned Banking Association and with Darling Downs Bank—two of the major banks. They've reached out and said they want to look at options they can provide that will help. I've had a positive start in these conversations, but this is something that we're going to have to work together on to try and find a way to keep banking in Oakey.”
“The announcement made by People First Bank to close their branch at Oakey was a real kick in the guts for the local community. This is a great regional town. It's got meatworks, huge feedlots, an army base, the New Acland coalmine and famous transport companies—they're based all around it—but no bank. This is a huge hit. The ability of people in those regional communities to access their cash and to access banking services has been taken away from a thriving community. Dave Cooper and the Oakey Chamber of Commerce brought the community together to discuss this issue when it was raised. Whilst there was a lot of anger in the room, there was also a desire for the community to work together to try and find a solution. I want to thank Dave for his leadership on that.”
“Speaker, in accordance with standing order 105(b), I wish to draw your attention to multiple overdue questions in writing, including question 22 to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government; question 79 to the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors; question 85 to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy; questions 93, 94 and 96 to the Minister for Home Affairs; questions 83, 86 and 109 to the Treasurer; question 127 to the Minister for Defence; question 128 to the Minister for Housing; and question 129 to the Assistant Treasurer. Speaker, can you write to the ministers responsible and seek their explanation as to why they have chosen not to answer my questions in writing in 60 days?”
“That is an incredibly large increase in the cost of this program, and it has to be paid for somewhere. It has to be paid for by someone, and that someone is taxpayers and Australians suffering under this inflation crisis. But, worse, this is just a part of the largest ever budget blow-out in MYEFO history that was reported over the summer, a $48 billion blow-out, the largest we have ever seen, and our Treasurer today told us he takes responsibility for it. I would like to see him take responsibility for it, and more—act on it and actually take accountability for where this money comes from.”
“When you take that subsidy removal out of those numbers, the growth is still at 4.6 per cent, and the only other sector that beats that is housing. So we have these two areas, both of which the government has an ability to impact, and we are still seeing incredible growth in these areas. Housing demand is not being addressed, particularly when it comes to the role immigration plays in that. If we were to further interrogate energy prices and what the intent of this government is—we heard today in question time the Minister for Climate Change and Energy refer multiple times to the home battery program and how well it has been taken up. It is being taken up well, but, unfortunately, we've learnt that it has blown out from its original planned budget of $2.3 billion to over $11.6 billion.”
“Under Hawke and Keating, that growth was less than 10 per cent, it was about 10 per cent under Howard, and, throughout the term of the last coalition, it sat at about 20 per cent—excluding the COVID period. So, at 32 per cent, this is as high as we can get outside of an extraordinary period. If we look at the breakdown of what has been driving inflation, we see really clearly that the largest area, the biggest increase, has been in energy prices. There has been 21 per cent growth in energy prices across Australia. This growth is because we've now seen the removal of the bandaid subsidies that were put in place to try and artificially lower these inflationary numbers. Now that they've come off, inflation is back up to what it would've looked like more naturally, unfortunately.”
“Interest rates are up. There was a decision today from the RBA to raise interest rates after inflation had been going up. Today, headline inflation is sitting at 3.8 per cent. Today, our treasurer told us that the prime driver for inflation was from the private sector, but I want to challenge that—as have many economists—and provide some facts about it. I think it's important that we challenge these numbers. Growth from federal government spending, today, accounts for 32 per cent of GDP growth. The only time that figure has ever been higher was in the midst of COVID. To provide some context for how much federal government spending now accounts for GDP growth, I'll compare it to previous administrations.”
“They worked hard. They followed the rules. They paid their taxes, volunteered at a soup kitchen, started a business, invested in our community and employed locals. Last Monday I became aware of the extreme urgency of the case and immediately contacted the Minister for Home Affairs directly. I want to thank him and his team, particularly Ann Clark, for their prompt response. Because of that prompt response—a three-day turnaround whilst the minister was overseas—I'm very happy to report that Reyna, Karin and Kaia are still in Toowoomba. Kaia's Kitchen, their restaurant, is still open, and their nasi goreng is still excellent. I want to especially thank all of the people in Toowoomba, and indeed across Queensland and Australia, who got behind the family during this time.”
“I bring the attention of the House to the case of Reyna Nangan, Karin Yechoku and their beautiful daughter, Kaia. Reyna came to Australia in 2011 and Karin in 2014. Kaia was born here in 2017. Through no fault of their own—details of this are on the public record—the visa system has failed them. They found themselves facing deportation just last Friday. This family did the right things. They followed the right processes. But the system failed them. Last week, they launched a last-minute appeal for ministerial intervention for an extension to their visa, and I'm very proud to say that the people of Toowoomba got right behind them. This is a family whose members, since coming to Australia, have committed themselves to their community, fulfilling that great tradition of people coming here with a desire to make our country better.”
“We owe it to the victims and their families. We owe it to the generations of Australians who fought and died for this country to ensure that this never happens again. We think of all 15 victims of this terrible event. I hope that we can say that we have acted in such a way that we can look each other in the eye across this chamber and know that we have done everything we can to stop this from ever happening again. May they rest in peace.”
“That sense of particular care for the Jewish people became part of Australia's understanding of itself—an understanding I thought we all shared until Bondi. I'm glad my grandfather isn't here to see what has happened on the shores of the country that he loved and he fought for. I can still hear his voice talking about how important it was for us to be a nation that could reach out and stand up to bullies and look after those who needed our care and how that was important to him. And it's important to me. I'm glad he's not listening to the condolence motions. He and his generation would be heartbroken to think that the antisemitism that was in the hearts of those that they went overseas to fight against has found its way to Australia in the form of radical Islamic extremism. They would be heartbroken.”
“Like many who fought, in his dark hours he wondered, 'What was the point?' What was the point of that war, of all that slaughter he saw? He told me that it was only after the war, when the full extent of the atrocities of the Holocaust were laid bare to all the world, that he began to find meaning for the suffering and sacrifice that he and his mates had gone through. He needed to know that it was worthwhile—that everything that they had done and been through was worthwhile. It gave him a way to understand the horror he'd been through. I tell the story of my grandfather and of his generation now because they were proud to have been there when the Jewish people most needed them—most needed us. They were very proud that we as a nation chose to fight on the side of good against evil.”
“Listen to these speeches and judge us not on our words; judge us on our actions. Today we mourn the dead, but the work ahead of us in this parliament is to protect the living and to stop this from ever happening again. That is how we can best honour the victims of the Bondi massacre, and on that we should be judged. Like many Australians, when I first saw those images begin to trickle through, I struggled to understand how something like this could happen, how someone could live in this beautiful country of ours, with our freedoms, and yet hold that much hatred in their heart. Who could put young Matilda in their crosshairs and pull that trigger? I was reminded of my grandfather's struggle to understand what he had seen and the atrocities he'd witnessed in the Second World War.”
“I'd like to direct my contribution to the family members and friends of the victims; to the first responders, the police, the medical staff; to those who were there, who tried to stop it; and to those who stood up. I'd commend to them the many fine speeches that have been given here today, like the contribution of the previous speaker and the contribution from the member of Isaacs, which I thought was very fitting, this morning, and I thank him for that contribution. He spoke with clarity and conviction at a time when we need to hear these words. Australians should know that there are very good people from all sides of politics representing them here in the parliament. They should listen to these speeches. If they do, they will hear one message repeated over and over: we cannot let this happen again. On this we are united.”
“Over 40 different businesses each donate and support each one of the light displays, and five different businesses across our community ensure their employees are there to make sure every kid gets a chance to see what is going on, to get a free ice cream. The Lions Club do a great job of raising money. This year, all donations are going towards the Toowoomba Hospital Foundation, the Toowoomba Hospice and a couple of other charities we are bringing into it this year. The main part is how important it is for everyone to get together over Christmas. I want to thank every member of the Lions Club of Toowoomba West for what they do in making Toowoomba such a special place every Christmas.”