Andrew Willcox
Dawson · Liberal National Party · Australia
“I recently was honoured to visit the wonderful Domenica in the Burdekin, who celebrated her 100th birthday. To hear her deeply moving story of her arrival in Australia as a nine-year-old was amazing.”
“We all know Whitehaven, the best beach in the world, was completely robbed, but we'll let them off the hook this time with a cheeky warning. If you head further down south in Dawson to Yalboroo in the Mackay region, you can find Hold It Flats, which took out a well-deserved second place for the best camping and four-wheel-drive spot.”
“In our local businesses where you can get warmed up, Mal's Pies and Pastries in Oonoonba took out silver, fuelling an army of tradies for 30 years with beaut pies while also backing our community.”
“As a former tomato farmer, I know firsthand that the agricultural sector would be completely lost without the visas that allow international workers to fill critical gaps. Without them, crops would literally rot on the ground.”
“Giving a family a $5 weekly tax cut when their mortgage has skyrocketed by thousands of dollars is like tossing a glass of water onto a roaring bushfire. By continually fuelling government spending, the Albanese Labor government continues to stoke the inflation fire. Let's be real; $5 in this economy doesn't even cover a cup of coffee.”
“Under the Albanese Labor government, this delicate balance has collapsed into chaos. Labor's migration numbers have been far too high, and the entry standards have been far too low. The government allows unmanageable numbers to flood our capital cities, putting immense pressure on housing and infrastructure.”
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“Our law enforcement needs tobacco-specific asset forfeiture laws that allow police to seize the cash, the luxury vehicles and the properties of anyone involved in this trade, hitting the syndicates where it hurts the most—their wallets. Thirdly, the government must finally swallow its pride and look at the pricing signals driving this crisis. There needs to be an honest, independent review into how tobacco excise settings are impacting the black market, guided by law enforcement and economic reality rather than bureaucratic stubbornness. Lastly, this government must actively support our frontline state and territory enforcement officers. We cannot expect local police forces to bear the brunt of a federal border failure without direct financial and logistical assistance from Canberra.”
“However, the coalition will support the bill, because we believe some tools are better than none, but this government must implement a far more comprehensive strategy to restore the rule of law. A serious response to the crisis must move beyond paper penalties and focus on actual disruption, confiscation and closure. This government should coordinate with the states to introduce immediate nationwide store closures and lease termination provisions. If a business is caught selling illicit tobacco, authorities must have the power to padlock the doors, cut the utilities and cancel the commercial lease immediately. This government must make it physically and financially impossible for these illicit shopfronts to operate. This government must also shift its focus from penalties to the complete confiscation of revenue streams.”
“We have all seen the ridiculous spectacle of an illegal tobacco shop being shut down by state health officials, only to reopen 48 hours later under a different name with a new frontman. This bill provides no mechanisms to break that cycle. Even the government itself admits the legislation is a lightweight response. In the explanatory memorandum, they concede that the financial impact of the bill is small. They are introducing a signature bill to solve a multibillion dollar national crisis, and their own official documentation admits they cannot quantify a single dollar of criminal disruption. That tells you everything you need to know about the substance of this plan.”
“There is no reconfiguration of the disastrous excise settings. The government refuses to even look at the pricing signals they are sending to the economy. They are so wedded to their policy pride that they would rather see suburban shops boarded up with police tape than admit their tax experiment has backfired. There is no significant new investment for our frontline enforcement agencies, no major funding boost for the Australian Border Force at our container terminals, no new support for domestic compliance operations to help local police raid illicit warehouses and zero explanation of how government intends to solve the practical street-level hurdles facing our communities.”
“Cartels do not look at a sentencing schedule before they plan a firebombing. They look at the likelihood of getting caught. And, under this administration, that likelihood is remarkably low. The Australian Border Force made an incredibly blunt submission to the Senate inquiry on this very issue. They noted that we cannot simply seize our way out of this problem. They explained that their frontline officers are running themselves ragged trying to mop up a flood while the Labor government keeps the taps turned on full blast. This bill ignores the tsunami entirely and just gives the Australian Border Force a slightly larger mop. What is missing from this bill tells us everything you need to know. This legislation does absolutely nothing to address the core structural drivers of the crisis.”
“When their own state colleagues are publicly begging this government to fix a mess, it is definite proof that they have completely lost control of the nation. The government tells us that this bill will solve everything by increasing maximum penalties, expanding investigative powers and targeting criminal profits, but, when we actually read the text, this bill is all show and no substance. The legislation is obsessed with increased maximum penalties on a piece of paper rather than providing the resources to improve actual enforcement on the street. Anyone who understands the courts knows that doubling a maximum penalty means absolutely nothing if the judiciary system isn't imposing the current limits and if financial penalties are rarely enforced against underground networks.”
“Labor state governments are completely frustrated by the incompetence in Canberra. The New South Wales health minister, Ryan Park, has publicly and repeatedly slammed the Albanese Labor government's failure to act. He has rightly pointed out that the state authorities are being left to play an endless, futile game of whack-a-mole, trying to shut down illicit shops while the federal government's high excise continues to pour high-octane fuel on the fire. New South Wales Labor premier Chris Minns has shown the type of leadership that the Prime Minister lacks. He has called for a total rethink of the excise strategy, acknowledging that current settings are completely unsustainable and actively counterproductive.”
“Labor did not fix smoking; they accidentally became the chief marketing managers for the black market cartels. And what has been the result for the budget? The Parliamentary Budget Office has revealed that these failed tax settings have blown a massive $20 billion hole in the Commonwealth revenue base. At the exact moment local families are staring at electricity bills stuck to their fridges, wondering how they're going to buy groceries, billions of dollars in tax revenue are being diverted from our healthcare, our education and our roads straight into the pockets of underground syndicates. It is a spectacular double failure, a law-and-order catastrophe and a fiscal disaster all rolled into one. This is not just a coalition critique. The anger and frustration has reached boiling point inside the Labor Party itself.”
“Labor serves the business model on a plate. When the Albanese Labor government handed down its 2023-24 budget, they rammed through massive compounding increases to tobacco excise. They did so ignoring the warnings from law enforcement and retailers. They genuinely believed that, if you keep raising the price of a legal packet of cigarettes, demand will magically vanish. But they forgot the actual first rule of market economics: if you tax a legal product into orbit, you do not stop people smoking; you simply hand the entire market over to organised crime. When a legal packet of cigarettes costs over $40 and a criminal syndicate can sell an illegal imported packet under the counter for $15, you create an absolute gold rush for thugs. You make illicit tobacco more profitable than trafficking cocaine with a fraction of the legal risk.”
“It falls on the family run bakery next door, it falls on the first responders rushing into a burning building at midnight, and it falls on local residents forced to flee their beds. The coalition will support the passage of this bill because any weapon, no matter how blunt, is better than leaving our police empty-handed. But let's be completely honest. This bill is too little, too late. It is a desperate attempt by a government that has lost control of our borders and lost control of our streets. The profits from this black market are funding bikie gangs, international syndicates and cartels. The government's own figures admit that the illicit market is worth up to $6.9 billion annually. That's nearly $7 billion in cold, hard, untaxed cash flowing straight to the worst elements of society, and that's how they get so rich.”
“The hardworking owners, the electrical business—they did absolutely nothing wrong. They didn't deal in tobacco. They didn't deal in contraband. But their livelihood was reduced to ashes anyway because the out-of-touch government has allowed the legal criminal empire to run rampant on our doorstep. The assailants, caught on CCTV, were two adults in balaclavas wielding flaming Molotov cocktails—a targeted and deliberate attack. This is not a regulatory issue; this is gang warfare playing out next to our schools, next to our cafes and inside our communities. Unbelievably, there have now been more than 285 firebombings across this country linked directly to this illicit trade. The syndicates might be aiming at their rivals, but the collateral damage falls entirely on the innocent.”
“And look right here in Canberra, where fires have forced families out of their beds as nearby apartment blocks have had to be evacuated. The underworld is fighting for market share, but the public is carrying the terrifying risk. If anyone in this chamber thinks this black-market warfare is a crisis confined to the big cities, they are wrong. You only have to look at the suburb of Andergrove in Mackay in my electorate of Dawson. Just after midnight on 28 February, the Andergrove Village shopping complex became a war zone. For the fourth time in two months, a local tobacco shop was targeted by arsonists. But the fire didn't stop there. It ripped through the walls and completely gutted Bauer Mackay, a brilliant family-run electrical business next door, destroying over $160,000 worth of their equipment.”
“Labor thought they were taxing a habit. Instead, they subsidised a syndicate. Criminal syndicates don't deal in statistics; they deal in terror. Let's look at the real victims of this policy. A 27-year-old woman, Kate Tangey from Melbourne, is dead. Her family is shattered. Their lives are completely destroyed. Why did this happen? Because a criminal tobacco gang firebombed the house she was in, targeting the wrong place in the dead of night. She paid the ultimate price for the gang warfare that has continued to run rampant. The syndicates might be targeting their rivals, but everyday Australians are the ones being dragged into the inferno. Look at the Gold Coast, where a late-night attack gutted a neighbouring laundromat and suburban cafe.”
“The real debate today isn't happening inside the comfort of this chamber. It's happening to the sound of midnight sirens, the shattering of storefront glass and the pungent smell of smoke in our suburbs. Follow that smoke and it leads directly to the police tape stretching across local shopping centres, to the charred ruins of family businesses and into the lives of everyday Australians, who no longer feel safe walking down suburban streets. I rise in this chamber today not to debate a piece of public health regulation but to confront a national security crisis. This multibillion-dollar criminal empire didn't just emerge from an unforeseen global shock. It was built, brick by brick, under the watchful eye of the Albanese government because of a failed tax policy that has created the most lucrative black market this country has ever seen.”
“Young Australians trying to build security through modest investments are being heavily punished by Labor. The truth is simple: a confusing policy is a bad policy. The saddest reality facing families is there'll be nothing left to carve, because Christmas is already out of reach for many. This government's spending crisis means families are having to choose between keeping the lights on and buying their groceries. For those people, there will be no festive joy, only economic misery served cold by Labor.”
“If you incinerate the Christmas ham, it does not matter how neatly you try to carve it; you cannot save it. It belongs in the bin, just like Labor's budget—broken, unpopular and completely unfit for purpose. This government's tax carve-outs have become messier than grandpa hacking the Christmas ham with a chainsaw. Instead of making the clean cut to axe it, Labor has butchered its toxic tax policies to pieces. It's now a chaotic mess that will create new compliance costs, hitting Australians during this Labor-created cost-of-living crisis. Every day, Australians are watching inflation decimate their pay packets. Carve-outs have turned toxic taxes into an administrative nightmare and finance experts have exposed the truth. This budget punishes the people with ambition who are just trying to have a go.”
“This budget is big-spending, high-taxing and full of broken promises. This budget is an attack on our farmers. Are there any farmers among those opposite? Have any of those opposite actually been to a farm? Oh, this is tough! Have any of those opposite driven past a farm? Have any of those opposite driven past, or known anyone who's driven past a farm?”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday, in a rare moment of honesty from the Albanese Labor government, the member for Forde confirmed Australians are worse off after four years of Labor, confirming: 'living standards have gone backwards in this country'. When will the Prime Minister show the same honesty and admit that his economic strategy has failed all Australians?”
“They are the young, hardworking Australians this government should be rewarding. They are the hardworking young Australians that the coalition will be there to support.”
“To the total shame of this government, it's their son's swimming lessons that have had to be cancelled. Is this the Australia we want for our future generations? Our young people to be struggling just to get by? Jen and Mike are being penalised for the crime of hard work. They were promised a fair go; instead, they've been stripped of all their savings and are at risk of having to sell the house they've spent a decade saving for. Shame, shame, shame on those opposite! This government claims to stand for workers, yet they have turned Jen and Mike into victims of their own success. Because Jen and Mike earn slightly more than the minimum wage, there was no pay rise for them yesterday. They have to watch real wages fall while they work harder to take home less. Jen and Mike said there is nothing in the budget for them, and they are right.”
“The government's own budget papers admit their tax changes will increase rents. Labor are taking from young Australians at every stage of their journey, not just at the point of the purchase. I want to talk about Jen and Mike from my electorate. They are the generation that this budget was supposed to champion. Instead, they are the casualties. After a decade of savings, they finally built their new home in 2021. They thought they'd achieved the Australian dream, but now they are trapped. They've paid nearly $2,000 extra every month in additional interest alone since this Labor government was elected. That is money being forcibly extracted from their family budget. It has resulted in their health insurance being cancelled. They have to make a choice between paying their electricity bill or buying groceries.”
“This is the government's own numbers. When you tax something, you get less of it. This is an obvious economic concept to all other than those opposite. The more you tax housing investment, the less housing investment you get. This is a plain and simple fact. This Labor government's budget narrative is built around intergenerational fairness, but strip away the rhetoric and the budget papers confirm that the lower supply, combined with the government's own overshoot of immigration to the tune of 90,000, means higher demand, lower supply and higher prices. When you increase the cost of investment to investors, guess what? These investors aren't a charity. They will pass the cost of those onto the renters, and this will make it harder for people to save for a deposit. This is just common sense.”
“This is now the highest-taxing government in Australian history. The budget locks in $77 billion of higher taxes, and the Prime Minister has now confirmed $273 billion in taxes that we did not vote for, and that is over the next nine years. Debt is heading towards $1.25 trillion. The interest bill is $80,000 a minute. Today's debt is tomorrow's taxes, and it will be the next generation that will be handed the bill. The coalition opposes schedules 1 and 2, but we will support schedules 3 and 4. We are the party of lower taxes. Not only is this budget built on broken promises, higher taxes and lower living standards, but it's also building fewer homes. The government's own budget papers say that 35,000 fewer homes will be built as a direct consequence of their new taxes. This is not the coalition's number.”
“These new taxes are not designed to grow the economy. They are designed to manage its decline. Like I said before, there's a death tax, a tax on family savings, a tax on renters, first home buyers and young Australians just trying to get ahead and a tax on small business, startups and entrepreneurs. The member for Parramatta is one of those opposite, but he's a businessperson, so he even spoke about how bad this budget was. This budget is full of broken promises, and it's a budget that breaks the Australian dream. It's an assault on aspiration. Like I said before, it pulls up the ladder of opportunity. Labor's budget does not create intergenerational fairness. It is intergenerational fraud. This government's treasurer is the inflationary arsonist who pretends to be a firefighter.”
“The government paints a picture of prosperity while the people are working harder for less. It's a banquet of deception where every course is seasoned with a new tall tale, and the Australian people are sick of being force fed this steady diet of fabrications. The cold, hard truth is that the cost of everyday life is pricing ordinary Australians out of their own future. We all know that, when Labor run out of money, they come after yours. No-one voted for these new taxes. These taxes weren't taken to the Australian people. The Prime Minister promised more than 50 times before the last election that he would not introduce them. But, as we know, his word is a bond that constantly defaults. In an act of complete bad faith and disregard for the Australian people, he turned around and broke every single one of those commitments.”
“The Albanese Labor government is trying to promote this budget as a sweet deal, but beneath the sugar coating is a bitter recipe of broken promises and tax grabs. It leaves the public with a sour taste in their mouths; frankly, it is a budget that the Australian people are finding hard to swallow. Break this budget down into its ingredients, and the bitter truth is laid bare. Hidden in the fine print of this budget is a death tax, called an inheritance tax. Let's be honest—the truth on the other side is in very short supply. Those opposite are trying to dress this budget up as something that is palatable. You can't put lipstick on a pig, because if you do it's still a pig. This is certainly a swine of a budget, and those opposite are telling porkies. The Treasurer serves up tales of relief while the family budget bleeds.”
“At some point, if I can pay enough off the house and eventually own it, I might be able to give that house to my child just to help them out.' But, with all the changes now, he's saying, 'Why bother?' And that is the really big issue that I have with this budget. When someone wants to work hard in this country, they deserve a fair go. And that ladder is being pulled up from them. The ladder of aspiration is being taken away by this Albanese Labor government, and I really believe that that's sad. This isn't the Australia that we aspire to. We want a better Australia. We want people to be able to afford their own homes. This budget is dissolving faster than sugar in the North Queensland wet season.”
“Now, I know those opposite are saying, 'Oh, you're only looking after your big businesses.' That's absolutely ridiculous, because the bigger end of town will already have money for a deposit or they will have the money, potentially, to pay cash for a house. It's going to affect the everyday battlers, and that is the bad thing about this budget. Flying down here, I was talking to a guy on the plane sitting next to me. He said: 'Andrew, I hope you're going down to try to breathe some common sense into the Labor government about this budget. Mate, I'm a battler. I've got a small business; I employ three guys. We do shutdowns. I'm travelling away from my family now to do this. I've bought a house and I've got a child.”
“But I think we need to get to the crux of it. This isn't about homeownership. This is about Labor control. Labor don't want people to be aspirational, to own their own homes, to independently think. They want people who have spare money to invest in bigger corporations, larger businesses, that they can then unionise, because that's how they get their money. It's simply not fair. With the $77 million extra in tax, this is the highest taxing budget in history. It's certainly not the gold medal that I'd want to aspire to. As I said before, Prime Minister Albanese didn't have the guts to take these proposals to the election. This won't hurt the big end of town as much as it will hurt the little guys.”
“And there's negative gearing, the other broken promise—well, it's not the other; there seem to be broken promises after broken promises. What will the negative gearing changes mean? For an investor who's going to buy a home that he could rent out, what happens when he can't have this as a tax deduction, when his numbers don't work? He has to put the rent up. For people who are trying to get into a home, more of their disposable income is used up when the rent goes up. So they then haven't got the money to buy or have the deposit to buy a house. We've all been told that these new taxes are fair and that they're what we need for more houses. But the budget papers themselves show that there are going to be 35,000 fewer homes. So how do you think that's going to work? It's making it harder and harder for all Australians.”
“For example, if someone was unfortunate enough to get divorced—they were living in a house together, and they unfortunately get divorced—then that person needs to buy another house. They move out, and they need to buy another house. They might not have the money for a deposit for that house. What do they do? The same as what young people do. They try to invest their money. They work hard. They invest their money in shares, EFTs or bitcoin, chasing a bigger return so they can then have that deposit so they can afford to buy a house. It's the Australian dream to own a house. What's going to happen now? They're going to be taxed more, so that aspiration of trying to get that Australian dream of owning the house under this Albanese Labor government is being moved further and further away. It is just simply not fair.”
“He looked people in the eye and said, 'There are going to be no new taxes,' and, when asked about capital gains tax, negative gearing and trusts, he dismissed them and said, 'For the 50th time, no,' but here we are with this budget a year later sneakily bringing these taxes in. What will these taxes mean? They're an assault on aspiration. They're an assault on the young people, the young people in this great country of ours that are simply trying to get ahead. People in my generation have had these tools—we've had capital gains tax, we've had negative gearing, we've had trusts—that we can use to help us create some wealth, but that's being taken away from our young people. It's not just the young people it's being taken away from; it's being taken away from anybody who's had their circumstances changed.”
“The Albanese Labor government's budget has gone over like a lead balloon. It's a typical Labor budget. It's big spending and high taxing, and it's full of broken promises. Actually, there are a litany of broken promises out there, and Australians cannot believe it. Those opposite at the last election in 2025 looked the Australians people in the eye and said, 'There are going to be no new taxes,' but after this budget we can clearly see that is simply not true. Those opposite have effectively been elected on a falsehood. At least the then leader of the opposition Bill Shorten took it to the election. He had the guts to take these taxes to the electorate and say, 'This is what I'm going to do.' The people voted against it, so Mr Shorten didn't become Prime Minister. What did Prime Minister Albanese do?”
“Minister, the final questions I have are: Does this government have the guts to admit its energy policy is destroying our industrial base? Will the Albanese Labor government commit to restoring the affordable power necessary to rebuild our manufacturing industry?”
“Can the minister explain how imposing arbitrary, impossible-to-achieve environmental targets on our manufacturing industry enhances our sovereign capability? Will the minister scrap these mechanisms to restore the investor confidence required to scale up our local workshops? The testimony from the manufacturing roadshow made one thing very clear: you cannot be green when you're in the red. We need to restore sovereign confidence by ensuring our tax and regulatory landscape is stable. When our large-scale players, particularly in the mining sector, have the confidence to invest, it creates a massive flow-on effect for our local manufacturers. Certainty at the top of the supply chain provides business confidence to workshops in Dawson.”
“You cannot forge world-class Australian steel on the back of a passing breeze. I ask: will this government commit to reforming the energy grid to ensure industrial hubs can access stable, affordable baseload power? Australia's standing in global resource investment is slipping. We have consistently fallen down the rankings of the Fraser Institute's annual survey of mining companies, not because of a lack of resources but because of the rise of regulatory burden. Capital goes where there is certainty, and right now Australia looks to be a high-risk zone because the environmental goalposts are being moved at the stroke of a pen. Labor's safeguard mechanism is a carbon tax by stealth—a financial handbrake on heavy producers, forcing capital to flee to nations with better policy settings.”
“This government burdens Australian manufacturers with red tape while rolling out the red carpet for subsidised imports. Minister, why is this government destroying our manufacturing industry because you refuse to hold foreign imports to the same standards you mandate for Australian manufacturers? Will the minister commit to establishing a national import quality taskforce to hold foreign imports to the same standards imposed on local manufacturers? Does this government find it acceptable that Australian made goods are being priced out of the market by substandard inputs? We also know that modern manufacturing requires baseload electricity—electricity that's affordable, reliable and available 24/7, not just when the sun shines or the wind blows. Labor is so obsessed with reaching net zero that they've zeroed out on manufacturing's ability.”
“You cannot build a manufacturing sector when the basic costs of doing business are being driven through the roof—excessive red and green tape, high energy costs and difficult industrial relations laws. I recently hosted a manufacturing roadshow in Mackay, and the message was clear. Our manufacturing sector is at breaking point. We have a talented business in Mackay that produces world-class rock bolts, products that underpin the safety of our entire mining sector, yet they're forced to compete with inferior, imported steel bolts that land in Australia much cheaper than it costs to manufacture them in Australia. This is not a fair market. It is a stacked deck. Our foreign competitors operate without crushing energy costs or the heavy handed regulation that cripple our own manufacturers.”
“It's always a pleasure to follow the member for Forde—always ill-informed but very enthusiastic, so congratulations to you. I rise today to demand answers regarding the collapse of the manufacturing industry in Australia. Australia has the world's best iron ore, the world's best resources and the world's best workers. Yet, because of this government's war on affordable energy, we cannot even afford to turn that iron ore into steel. Under this government, we've become a nation that digs it up, ships it out and then pays a premium to buy it back. This is not a strategy. This is a surrender. While our competitors use Australian resources to build their empires, our local workshops are being priced out of existence by a government that seems more interested in Greens slogans than the reality of the factory floor.”
“My hat goes off to the Rotary Club of Ayr for organising another quacking success and proving that regional generosity always makes a massive splash.”
“While the North Queensland Games showcased the pinnacle of elite athletic endurance, you haven't seen anything until you've witnessed the high stakes, high drama of the Norm Perry Memorial Duck Race in Ayr. This is ducks for bucks at Plantation Creek. The competition is fierce, the sack races are brutal and the fashions on the field are judged on creativity and style. Forget the Melbourne Cup! The real race that stops the nation happens in the bountiful Burdekin, where duck No. 223 stormed down the creek to take the crown. Beyond the old-fashioned fun, this timeless tradition floats on regional heart: it's driven by community pride and is a mighty good cause. Every duck in that water was raising vital funds for Ronald McDonald House, supporting families when they need it the most.”
“The true power of events like this is found in the hearts of the athletes who clear the hardest and highest hurdles to compete. On a personal note, I was proud to watch a member of my staff return to the Masters Athletics after facing a brutal battle with cancer. Stepping back into the circle for the first time since chemotherapy, she claimed silver in the hammer throw. It was a true milestone moment, and, for the athletes like her, the bling is brilliant. But the real glory lies in the courage to get back on the field. I applaud every single athlete who came to Mackay. They didn't just compete; they showed us the very best of our regional spirit, and they proved that the road to 2032 begins in our backyard.”
“Mackay has recently proven that, when the regions are given the baton, we don't just run with it; we lead. Earlier this month, the 2026 North Queensland Games brought thousands of athletes to Dawson to compete across 40 different sports. The execution of these games was a gold-medal moment, proving that our local spirit has the stamina to host the world without breaking a sweat. Our regions are match fit for the ultimate big league: the Olympics. Should cricket be confirmed in the 2032 Games, Mackay is positioned as a leading contender. In the hunt for Olympic sailing success, the glistening waters of the Whitsundays would be the ultimate natural stadium for this event. The athletes who are representing us in 2032 will be those competing at regional events, just like the NQ Games.”
“The message from our communities is clear: stop treating taxpayer funds like an open chequebook, clean out the rorters and protect the vulnerable Australians who rely on this care. Debate adjourned.”
“For these individuals, the path only goes downhill. There is no recovery. Yet, despite being increasingly incapable of looking after themselves and despite rapidly declining, their applications for support have been consistently rejected by the NDIA. If the NDIS is already so broken that people in such genuine, desperate need cannot even gain access to the scheme, then we have a profound moral crisis on our hands. We absolutely must ensure that these proposed cuts do not place an even higher barrier in front of vulnerable Australians, completely blocking them from receiving the frontline care they require to live their lives with dignity. We need a system that is robust, transparent and completely secure.”
“These predatory operators are taking cruel advantage of vulnerable participants and treating the Australian taxpayer like an infinite gravy train. Earlier this week this chamber offered its profound condolences following the passing of an absolute hero, AFL legend and motor neurone disease campaigner Neale Daniher. For 13 years Neale fought a courageous, deeply inspiring battle against the beast that is MND, touching millions of lives and raising over $100 million for vital medical research through FightMND. He showed our entire nation what true selfless determination looks like. Rest in peace, Neale. A great shame is unfolding right now within our regional communities. In my electorate of Dawson, we're seeing multiple incidents of everyday people diagnosed with similarly degenerative neurological conditions.”
“This represents a sophisticated wave of organised crime, deliberate overservicing and false invoicing. Law enforcement agencies have warned that criminal groups are directly targeting these weak entry controls. We must remember the human cost of this failure. Every single dollar lost to a fraudster is a dollar directly ripped away from an Australian living with a disability, and they rely on the NDIS for support. We are constantly receiving deeply concerning reports in our electorate offices across Dawson about participants seeking basic help around the home, like cleaning or gardening. The second they mention they have a NDIS plan, the quote for the exact same service instantly quadruples in price. This is completely unacceptable.”
“The Albanese government has more than 10,000 people working within the NDIS scheme alone, yet they are completely failing to use these massive resources to get on top of the issue and, more importantly, act. To date, neither the government nor the agency have been able to clearly quantify the scale of the theft. The data we have is deeply concerning. The Australian National Audit Office reported that six to 10 per cent of all claims could be noncompliant, fraudulent or simply incorrect. Let us look at the true cost of this inertia. In the 2025 calendar year, $48.83 billion was spent on paid supports. If 10 per cent of that is leaking out, we're looking at a total loss of up to $4.8 billion a year. On the current trajectory, this leakage could hit a massive $8 billion annually by the end of the decade.”
“This failure is supercharged by a system that also grants complex financial control to self-managed participants who, due to profound mental challenges, simply do not have the capacity or the budget. It is a cruel administrative failure that leaves vulnerable people entirely penniless for months on end—a glaring policy blind spot that demands immediate and total reform. The coalition will always support measures that improve the integrity of the NDIS. We want genuine safeguards in place to protect participants and to stop the rampant fraud and rorting that is currently undermining the scheme. Right now, a staggering 94 per cent of providers are completely unregistered. With $50 billion in taxpayer funds going out the door, our fraud protection mechanisms are simply too weak.”
“These local businesses are forced to absorb crushing overheads, carrying immense operational risk and fighting a hostile bureaucracy that routinely denies payment for critical care. It is fundamentally unfair, and we're going to lose our very best providers if we do not stop these crooks from stealing from our most vulnerable. To top off this disgrace, these dedicated teams are trapped in a vicious catch-22: if they attempt to take an unfunded, high-risk patient to the hospital, the agency flags them and penalises them with disgusting accusations of neglect. They are forced to shoulder the entire burden of care for zero funding and are then weaponised against if they seek emergency medical help. No wonder this entire system is completely broken.”