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.”
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“That is very difficult to follow. Continuing the Christmas theme, it is Christmas time all over again, so it is time for me to thank the wonderful people of the Lions Club of Toowoomba West for running the Toowoomba Christmas Wonderland. They do it every year in Queen's Park. This has become part of Toowoomba's way of life since 2003 when the Burstow family first ran their lights festival. It has now become a huge event. We get thousands of kids from across the region come through and see the same installations every year. But seeing them all over again as a parent and watching your kids grow up in that lovely community is a wonderful thing.”
“My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. Whilst working part-time as a minister, the full-time COP president signed Australia up to an international agreement which would see crucial industries phased out of existence. The Minister for Resources has previously said: … Australia's coal and gas resources are essential for energy security, stability and reliability both domestically and across the Asia-Pacific and will be needed for decades. Whilst working as a part-time minister, did the full-time COP president consult the Minister for Resources before signing this executive order?”
“Momentum Mental Health is a wonderful provider of mental health services in our community. They've been doing so for decades now. They are the absolute leaders in mental health in the Toowoomba region. Recently, we saw a change in funding mechanisms provided by the local PHN, which means that Momentum are facing that really difficult decision of who they can keep on and what services they can continue to provide to our community. Again, I want to thank Minister McBride for agreeing to meet with Momentum Mental Health, hear out their story and, hopefully, find a way to keep them providing the services that my community absolutely need. There's a time and a place for us working together, and I'm so happy that both these ministers are meeting their obligations. Thank you.”
“I want to speak to a couple of issues that are of importance to my region. Firstly, Kim Sutton is a wonderful advocate for aged care in our community. What drives her is that she doesn't want anyone to go through what her father went through in his last days—he passed in excruciating pain at a local aged-care facility. I've spoken about John many times. He was a firefighter, he was 86 years old, and I want him to be remembered for the great life he lived. Kim is fighting for his legacy. It's a promise I made to Kim that I would never politicise this issue, and I'm so pleased to say I'm grateful to Minister Sam Rae for agreeing to meet with Kim. I think it's excellent to see a minister reaching out and trying to do the right thing, regardless of where someone comes from, and I congratulate him on that.”
“For anyone who has worked in management consulting or seen restructures in recent years—goodness me, in my 20 years of engineering, the changes that have occurred have been significant in that period.”
“Recently, my dear friend, Senator Glenn Sterle, and I undertook a delegation to the United Nations, where both of us were very keen to understand how we could explain to our constituents why the UN matters to them directly. There was a time when the UN's purpose was very clear. Following the Second World War, the decolonisation of Africa and maintaining peace in Europe was their No. 1 focus. Having spoken with so many people at the UN, it was very clear that their focus is now towards reform of the UN itself. That is an important reform to be done. One of the observations I'd bring back—and it's important for us to understand—is that the structure of the UN is largely the same as it was in the 1950s.”
“As good as that award session is, it's important to point out that Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce does a great job advocating for businesses in our region. They've got a great philosophy that, if we work together, we get better outcomes. I want to take a moment to thank President Myf Rigby for all she's done, and the two vice presidents, Sam Wright and Barton Castley. I think that by continuing to work together we're going to get better outcomes for our region. Clearly, as was the conversation throughout the evening, the economy is getting tight. We are seeing changes in the economy. We're seeing different businesses struggle—some adapting, some not so well. But together we can work through those processes, and I think it's really important that the Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce continue to raise the voice of Toowoomba businesses.”
“On Saturday evening, I was very proud to be able to attend the Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards, a great event sponsored by Little Pig Consulting. There were some wonderful awards all through the evening. There are a couple I want to mention because they are very special to our community. The Business of the Year went to E&E Waste, a great organisation who has built up over a long period of time. The Innovation and Technology winner was TUFF Australia, and there were so many people happy to see Anton and Ally take home that award. But my favourite, of course, was the Hall of Fame, which went to Fitzy's hotel. Lots of good things happen at Fitzy's hotel in Toowoomba. Everyone's got a great story, and I'm sure that in just a couple of minutes it will be filled with people getting very excited about the cup.”
“The government should, first, own up that they have failed and then, second, lay out a clear plan on how they are going to drive down these costs. That is what they said they would do for the Australian people, and they have absolutely failed to do so.”
“I'm going to read a quote from the press release, because it points out something very important to this debate. It says: "We are … frustrated that Minister Butler has repeatedly boasted that GP appointments will be 'free' under the program and that patients will 'only need their Medicare card, not their credit card'. "We have had many practices tell us that this is simply not true because the changes will not cover … staff, rent, electricity, consumables, insurance and other costs— which are all going up. The rising costs of electricity are playing out across our economy. This is not just in small businesses or big businesses or home; now we're seeing the AMA talking about the impact that it's having on GPs as well. Everyone is feeling the rising pressure of these costs.”
“So not only have the government failed during the last 3½ or four years, they have also set us up for further increases. We know that. We know that the minister has received a brief from his department saying exactly that. That's what is to be expected. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed structurally. Our power bills have gone up, and they will continue to go up—that is the trajectory that we find ourselves on. I want to raise how this failure to manage our economy and the impact of electricity prices is spreading right across Australia. We see today a press release from the AMA. The press release is about—it's titled 'Bulk Billing changes miss the mark'. It's showing how the changes the government is proposing or making to bulk-billing will not affect bulk-billing rates.”
“I think the key step here is for the government to acknowledge that they have failed on the mandate they sought. They have not delivered cheaper energy prices. We are seeing that discussion now being realised around the country. Just last week, the AFR I'm going to quote them. They're talking about the recent inflation figures. They said: 'Other factors, including the sharp nine per cent jump in electricity prices, have played a part. This is partly due to the winding up of the energy rebate payments in three states, and now foreshadows the expected financial squeeze when the federal government's $150 cost-of-living power bill handout expires in December. Fundamentally, this reflects the structural reality that the renewable energy transition is expensive.' That was in the AFR .”
“This is a point that he describes as breaking point. These costs continue to rise. At one point in his career, he said, these were costs that you just absorbed and that you understood would be there. Now he makes key decisions on future investments on the basis of his electricity costs, they have risen so much. They are rising in businesses; they are rising in homes. And if we are all honest here, we are all hearing this. The electricity bill that arrives in your letterbox, in your email, those prices are going up, and Australians are feeling it and we're hurting. I'm not the first to have raised this. I acknowledge other members in this place, including you, Deputy Speaker Sharkie, have talked about integrity as being a key part.”
“When the Prime Minister went and said, 'I am going to reduce energy prices by $275,' on 97 occasions, this was not dipping his toe in the water of this subject; this was a prime minister seeking a mandate to drive down electricity prices in this country, and he won that mandate. Sadly, what we've seen since then is a complete policy failure, where energy prices have not gone down by $275. In fact, they've gone up on average by more than $1,300 around the nation. This is a spectacular policy fail. In my heart, genuinely, I hope the Prime Minister can turn this around, because I have constituents like Tom, who owns the National Hotel in Toowoomba, who regularly reaches out to me. He has provided me with his most recent energy bill, once again showing that, over the last two years, the energy costs for him to run his hotel have doubled.”
“I am very happy to support the member for Wannon on this fine motion. I remember well, Deputy Speaker Georganas, as I'm sure you do and others here, the lead-up to the 2022 election when then leader of the opposition—now prime minister—very successfully won a mandate on electricity prices. It was a very important conversation that he brought into the national narrative, and I believe very much it was a change he did want to see. Australians were hurting, he was hearing it, his members were hearing it on the government benches at the time and we were hearing it. This was an important conversation. Electricity prices were rising and looked like they would rise for some time. We needed change on that front.”
“I like doing things that I can see in my local area—clean rivers, clean beaches, clean cities and clean forests. I've got the Toowoomba escarpment, which is full of lantana and wild dogs. I've got wonderful conservation groups trying to keep the koala populations alive in those areas. These are the things we should be investing in. I'm glad to be joined in this argument by such luminaries as Bill Gates, and it's going to be hard for those opposite to argue that I'm speaking to my base. Actually, I'm arguing on the same lines as Bill Gates right now. It's a good place to be.”
“We're told that's a huge blowout in costs for the Inland Rail, and yet we could pay for it in 1½ months with what we're spending on net zero. This is a significant amount of money, and we need to get the public's attention on exactly what that cost looks like. Australia cannot control global emissions. This policy requires every country in the world to do the same thing at the same time, and they are not. That is not happening. For every tonne of emissions that we have reduced in Australia, China has increased its emissions by 35,000 tonnes. This policy is not working.It takes 12 days for China to emit the same amount that Australia does in a year. This policy is not working. What can we do? I'm a child of the nineties. I remember 'Think global, act local'. I like acting on pollution.”
“That's still hard to visualise. It's still hard to understand what that looks like. How many hospitals, schools, aged-care facilities and road upgrades is that? These are things we need pressingly urgently in regional communities across the nation, as we just heard. In Toowoomba we're building a state-of-the-art hospital. It's going to cost about $1.9 billion, so, on these figures, we could build around 10 hospitals a month with the cost that we have to spend on net zero capital works. That's extraordinary. The Toowoomba range crossing was $1.2 billion. It was the single-largest road infrastructure project at the time. Goodness me! How many of those could we build across the country at the same time? The Inland Rail has blown out to $30 billion.”
“Fortunately, the University of Queensland, coupled with the University of Melbourne and Princeton University, got together and had a go at working out what that cost might be. There's a little bit of fudge factor they had to put in, but they got to a figure somewhere between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion in capital costs for us to reach our 2035 targets. Amazingly, three outstanding universities—two great Australian universities—put their work together, and the minister accuses this of being misinformation. What a disgrace. What a shameful disgrace. Anyway, that can be dealt with later on. Let's have a look at what those universities got together and did. If you look at what $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion comes down to, in a figure that we can understand, it's about $20 billion a month between now and 2035.”
“I raised the issue of costs back in 2021, and I've continued to raise it all the way through. I'm hopeful that the debate within my side of politics will come to an end, and reasonably soon. The issue of cost is very important. We sit here in question time and see the line-up of ministers on the front bench, talking about their portfolios. Every single one of them can tell us the costs that are being undertaken in their various portfolios. Just today we heard '$43 billion for housing' proudly expressed by the minister. We heard very clearly what the cost was, and if we went through everyone else we could find the same. But when we ask, 'What is the cost of net zero?' we get no answer.”
“I will praise the previous speaker for being a regional member, and a tall regional member! He is a little bit taller than me, Mr Speaker, and I'm a little bit taller than you. The members opposite know the benefits of being tall in this game. I rise, as I often do in this place, to speak on the issue of net zero, a topic that I've spoken on with furious abandon for quite some time. The first time I spoke on it was in September 2021, and I was quoted at the time as being one of only three MPs who raised their concerns about the implementation of this particular policy—quoted, I would say, as having absolutely no issue with acknowledging man-made climate change. I'm not denying anything, not questioning science; I'm simply questioning the ability of government to manage a budget on such a large and extensive policy setting.”
“At $2.5 billion per hospital, which is our going rate, that gets you eight hospitals a month. I'd ask Australians across the country: Are you seeing ambulance ramping? Are you seeing services out of date? Are you seeing overcrowding? These are things that can be fixed if we get our priorities right. When we started down this path of net zero, I think we all believed that it was free—that there was no cost. But there is a cost. It's significant. It's $20 billion every month. It's time we started asking more questions about what the real cost of net zero is.”
“Net zero comes at a cost, and we need to talk about it. In doing so, I want to be very clear: I am criticising policy settings, not criticising the phenomenon of climate change. I am not questioning the science; I'm questioning the government. Despite constant requests of the government asking what the full cost of net zero might be, they've refused to answer at every opportunity. However, some very smart people at the University of Queensland, the University of Melbourne and Princeton University have got together and come up with some costs. They have come up with a cost estimate of between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion just for us to get to our 2030 targets. That's a lot of money. It's very hard to picture what that looks like. To break that down, it's $20 billion a month, every month. What does that look like?”
“It was the Voice. They got it right then. I'm sure they've got it right this time too. I'm very happy to stand beside the Nats on this issue as well as the members of the Libs who have joined me, because I think it's an important issue for Australia's future.”
“We can see that in increased emissions. We can see, when we break down where emissions have changed in Australia for the last 20 years, is that the only place they've changed is where we've changed land-use conditions and stopped farming. That's what's happened. In an electorate like mine, transport industry emissions have gone up over the last 20 years, manufacturing industry emissions have gone up over the last 20 years and intensified agriculture emissions have gone up. These are the bedrocks of my local economy. All of those emissions have gone up. The only thing that takes it down is when we close off farming. I'm very happy to acknowledge members of the LNP who were with me on the weekend and voted against this bill. We're a great grassroots organisation when we listen to our members. I remember the last time we did that.”
“They lose social licence. We have seen that over and over again. What we have here is net zero policy trying to force through technology before it is ready and before the market is able to take it up. The bizarre thing, if that weren't bad enough, is that we live in a time where we have a government that is blocking a proven technology at both technology- and commercialisation-readiness levels of nine—well beyond test flight—which is actually out there in the market doing what it does and that would reduce emissions. It's called nuclear. It's used all around the world. We've got one policy that is killing off technologies and another one that is pushing back on ones that are proven and can be used. We are getting nowhere, which is why this isn't working. This trial that we've done of net zero hasn't worked.”
“It's very clear to argue that that is exactly what has happened with green hydrogen. Green hydrogen has a higher technology-readiness level of nine. That's the end of the scale. It's one to nine. It's got a nine. The commercialisation-readiness level is three. This was never going to work. If you stood back, outside of the net-zero conversation, and you asked, purely from an engineering perspective, 'Will this work?' the answer would be no. For carbon capture, it's the same thing. It's absolutely low on commercialisation and high on technology. For offshore wind, it's the same thing again—high technology. It can be done. There's a cool technology there—very low commercialisation. When this happens, it's not just that we go back to the drawing board and start again. What happens is these technologies get ruled out by the public.”
“Other examples are Google Glass and the hyperloop, a transport project in the US—cool ideas and cool technology with absolutely no social licence, no marketability and a plethora of problems that they raise when you try to take them through the commercialisation process. What this is all about is, when we think about innovation and new technologies, we assign them, as they progress, technology-readiness levels and commercialisation-readiness levels. We think about it, from the first idea through to the test flight—along that pathway, technology progresses. It becomes more and more capable, and it becomes more and more commercially viable as it progresses along there. The technology valley of death kills projects and kills technologies when you push them through that process far too quickly.”
“Why is it that green hydrogen, this great promise that was made, has failed so spectacularly that almost every carpetbagger in the land has run away from it? Why is it that offshore wind has received such an emotive 'no' from everyone around it and everyone whose coastlines it's going to affect? Why does it fail that test of social licence? Why did carbon capture fail at the Great Artesian Basin? Why do these things happen over and over again? I could point to SunCable, as well, as another example of a great story that was going to happen but has failed that test. It's something that happens time and time again. It's called the technology valley of death.”
“I thank my Nats colleagues for raising this very important subject as a national debate. They often view it through a regional lens. We heard that in the comments from the previous speaker. I am going to cast an engineering lens across this policy and explain to you why I have strongly opposed it from day one, standing side by side, by the way, with the member for Wide Bay all the way through, and I thank him for his support. Before I start, let's be clear. We should be able to separate a policy like net zero from the technologies that it relies upon. Those are two very separate things. The technologies are not dependent on net zero. They have been developing for some time, and they will continue to do so. We can have a grown-up conversation separating those two things. Why is it that, under net zero, so many technologies fail?”
“My council has asked me to raise it many, many times. I think it's relevant for this. They're not responsible for upgrading a dam wall at Cressbrook Dam. This is a $275 million piece of work that a local council is supposed to fund. The changes required for that were put in place by the state government quite some time ago. The impact on this council of having to maintain that piece of infrastructure has the ability to absolutely drive them bankrupt. That's the scary situation we're in. No-one wants to see that. Why is that situation in place? There's a long history to it, but it goes back to my fundamental point: how the federal model works needs to be reviewed, because, for a regional council to have to find $275 million to upgrade a dam wall clearly shows we're in the wrong place.”
“That determination is made by the state government, and I expect the Queensland state LNP government to review that process to make sure that councils like mine get an appropriate share of that funding. At the moment, my argument is that they do not. To drop funding from $19 million to $5.5 million and expect a council to maintain the same standard of service it has provided to the people of the Toowoomba region, I think, is too much to ask. I would point out that, amongst the many costs—and it was raised earlier that costs have been increased across the country—my council has seen a $1.9 million increase in electricity costs in that time period. Not only have we lost funding—from $19 million to $5.5 million—we've had to pay an extra $1.9 million in electricity costs. Councils are struggling. I can't help but raise another issue.”
“It's not something special, because they're regional; it's simple mathematics. If you have four-acre blocks, there's a lot more road from doorstep to doorstep. When you start building that further out into the regional communities, where you have large farms—I'm thinking about the feedlots out near Nangwee—the council still has to find ways to fund the maintenance of those roads. After the most recent round of floods, I can assure you there's a lot of work to be done in our area that our council simply does not have the funding to do. In 2021-22, financial assistance grants to Toowoomba Regional Council were $19 million. This year, they're $5.5 million. I'm not going to throw this over the two sides here.”
“They're doing it to provide services to Australian citizens. It's important that we go back to that fundamental question: how do we ensure that every level of government is adequately funded to do what it's supposed to do? So I will take up the Tony Abbott point. That conversation on how the federation model works today, after all the changes it has been through, is right, and I think our councils want to hear that conversation. My local council—much like the member for Bowman, I have only one—has just given a 9.5 per cent rate rise. It is struggling, and it's very open about that and about how it continues to raise revenue in ways that are appropriate for regional council. It points out to me regularly when we talk that there are so many different challenges that regional councils face.”
“I think it's a really good topic for us to explore because at the heart of this problem is how we find ways to make sure councils like the Toowoomba Regional Council and those within the footprints of the members for Blair and Kooyong have the adequate funding to deliver the services that Australians expect. We went back 14 years; I'll go back a little bit further, to 1942, when, at the federal level, we took over responsibility for income tax from the states. Ever since then, we have seen a lot of different approaches to how we get that funding down to the local communities who need it. I would argue that today we have a situation where we have multiple overlapping responsibilities. We have all three levels of government competing for different ways to raise revenue, and what are they doing it for? They're not doing it for themselves.”
“I think this is a very important topic to be talking about. I'm not sure that what Tony Abbott did 14 years ago matters a pinch to any single man— No, you've had three years, Member for Blair. If it mattered so much, you could have dealt with it, and that's the truth. I'm not going to go down this pathway. I think you're absolutely in the wrong place if that's the argument you're going to put on the table. You know what? I'll stay on the Tony Abbott theme. In 2013, Tony Abbott got off to a very good start when he talked about having a look at the federation model and how all three levels of government work together.”
“I think we need to stop looking at things from 'left' or 'right' and see what they'd do for our nation and what they'd do for families. So that is where my attentions will be turned this term. I think it is important that we address these issues and do everything we can in this place to make Australia a better place.”
“Both he and his mother are profoundly disabled and, over time, the mother's needs have grown greater than George's. He now looks after her. The carers allowance he receives is $159.30 a fortnight. I don't think that that reflects the care and the love that he provides that relationship. That's a family. That is two people looking after each other. I think we can do better than that. These are conversations I want us to have. When I first came into this place I talked about the role of income splitting and treating a family unit as one for taxation purposes. When I raise this, one of the more vocal objections I get is that this is some far-right policy. It is actually a policy I have stolen from socialist France. It's been a policy there since 1945. They see no trouble with it.”
“When I think about the sort of tax settings I want for this country and what I hear from my constituents, I think if you are looking after each other then Australia should be looking after you. If you invest your time, your money, your energy and, if you are lucky, your love in someone else, Australia should be building its future around you. That idea of family is a powerful one. It's changed a lot over time. It means a lot of things. But, if two people are coming together and giving something of themselves to each other, they make a greater contribution to our society and we need to reflect that in our tax system. I think we should also extend this into how we care for each other. There is a man in my electorate by the name of George.”
“There were poll taxes that kept black Americans out of the democratic system in the south and tax receipts being divided by race so that black schools got less money than white schools. There was proposition 13, the famous case in California that capped land tax rates for existing landowners but allowed them to increase for new—that is, Hispanic or black—landowners and kept people out. My point in raising these is that not everyone in the US at the time under those laws was racist, but everyone under those laws had to abide by them and it shaped the country of its time. It's the worst possible example of how tax systems shape a nation, create that inequality and make a nation worse. So that's why I think it is such an important conversation for us to be having.”
“I rise this evening to take a look ahead at what I think is the most important work that is in front of us in this parliament. I am now entering my third term, and one conversation that comes up over and over again is how our national tax policies affect us. I think it's important to point out that tax policy has the ability to shape the nation. We respond to what it incentivises. It shapes our way of life. We are what we tax. If we get the settings right, we foster aspiration and social mobility and reward generosity. If we get the settings wrong, we foster dependence, enable inequality and reward selfishness. Our tax settings are very, very important. I am reminded of the tax settings in pre-civil-rights-era United States—some deplorable tax settings.”
“It's the hour of brotherly love, so I welcome to the parliament the member for Menzies and commend him for his doorknocking. Speaker, I express my unending joy at your re-election to the speakership—I think of all the good, fun times we have had together, one on either side of 94(a)! I stand with a perfectly unblemished record in this 48th parliament. Speaker, I wish to commend you on your commitment to civics education across the country and invite you to Darling Heights State School, the most diverse school we have on the Darling Downs, with 41 different cultures and around 36 different languages. The teachers there do a fantastic job with an incredible challenge in front of them. I know they would be absolutely beside themselves to see you.”
“However, having spent some time talking to Momentum about what they offer and what the changes are going to do, I believe this a case of trying to fix something that isn't broken. We need the minister to intervene and give the PHN some direction on this. Momentum has been in our community for 40 years. It built the foundation of mental health support not just throughout Toowoomba but right across the Darling Downs and into Western Queensland. Just in the last year, it saw over 7,400 attendances at its services. It's growing and booming. But the truth is that they will not survive a $640,000 cut to their funding. This service will go; it will die if this decision stands. I thank the ministers for their support so far. I need them to take the next step and give the PHN the guidance they need.”
“Congratulations on your re-election, Deputy Speaker Claydon. I begin my contribution to this term of parliament by reaching across the aisle and thanking the Minister for Health and Ageing and the Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention for organising meetings with an organisation in my community called Momentum Mental Health. We now need intervention from both these ministers. We need their help and their assistance. The Darling Downs and West Moreton PHN has decided to redirect funding through the Commonwealth Psychosocial Support Program away towards integrated hub models. I'm not against PHNs seeking improvements, and I think it's important they play that role in our community.”
“It might hurt both of us, Member for Fraser, to reveal to the parliament that we regularly lunched together and discussed these things. I'm not sure how that plays out for you in your electorate, Member for Fraser; it may hurt you! I'm not sure how these things work. But we wanted to get some things agreed on, and I think that was a good step that we took. I appreciate the way that we worked together. I commend these reports.”
“That's something that this committee needs to keep at the forefront. The second—and the chair raised this one—is the issue of greenwashing. I'll bring in debanking. The AFR recently ran a very confronting article showing the hoops that have been put in place for legitimate businesses working on legitimate projects in Australia that have already passed through approval levels at state, council and federal levels, yet the banks were making it extremely hard for a gas operation to get finance. I think we need to draw attention to that, and I think we need to accept that some of those hurdles are actually a response to positions that regulators hold. So these reports will form part of that future conversation. Once again, I want to thank the chair. I want to thank the secretariat.”
“It is my belief that the next term of government, whatever shape that may take and however quickly it may form a shape, will focus more on the regulators. I think that is going to be where the next Standing Committee on Economics sends its attention. There are a couple of areas that I think are brought out in these reports that I'll raise now because I think they should get further consideration. The first one is following through on how we establish a banking industry in Australia that has the level of competition that we want, the strength that we want and the ability to ensure that access to capital remains there. Whilst that is outside the scope of these reports, it does remind all of us watching the actions of APRA when talking about capital and liquidity requirements how quickly a regulator can step ahead of the public mood.”
“It shows what can happen when we find areas that we both agree on and work together to get that done. I commend the chair for that. That is an outcome that he can carry onwards. I know, having spoken to many members of the banking industry, that they see it as a great step forward. To the chair: that's something you get to carry on from this term and your role, so congratulations on that. Directly to these reports—for this term of government, the focus was always going to be entirely on the decision-making of the RBA. I think it drew so much of our attention. Our review of what was happening in insurance, particularly in relation to flood insurance, drew so much of our time and attention.”
“Question time draws all the attention in this place—the fighting. What's not shown is the amount of working together that goes on in committees. I entered into this role with the view that, where there were opportunities for us to get ahead on matters that we agreed to, I should focus my attention on those and support the chair as much as I could. Throughout these reports, I think that came through very well. This is a very important committee for the government, for the parliament and, I think, for Australia. One of the outcomes that I was most grateful to see achieved—it was through another set of reports—was the establishment of the regulatory grid. I commend the government for listening to what came through our committee, and I'm very proud that that is a result of the work of this committee.”
“by leave—Much of my statement will be very much aligned with and in support of the member for Fraser's contribution. I'll start by thanking the secretariat. The member for Fraser was quite right to point out the difficulties we went through, both in production and personally. So, Jeff, I'm very grateful to you and your team. Thank you for working so well with my staff, who I also want to thank for their work in making sure that these reports were attended to in the best way we could. I thank the committee members who are here and previous committee members as well. I will, given his warm comments, thank the chair. It's a pity that a group of schoolkids just walked out of here and probably didn't get to see— An honourable member: They're still here! They're still here? Good! There are some still here to see this.”