Monique Ryan
Kooyong · Independent · Australia
“I second this motion and commend the member for Curtin's motion to refer the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 to the House Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs. This should not be a controversial request.”
“What about the clinicians, the researchers, the public health experts and the community organisations who have spent years documenting the devastating impact of gambling addiction? Some of them have been given days to review this complex legislation and provide feedback on it to a very limited extent.”
“After this sort of delay, the government has no excuses for not getting this legislation right. But it's rushing to introduce legislation that has been denied input from the public.”
“They're special relationships, the glue that holds us together. For Emily, Matt and Lucy, Noah and Maia, Millie and Rory—I know you share those special relationships and I know that they'll continue. I know that Rich knew that too. Parkrun is something we all do together. It's really symbolic of Rich.”
“We were fortunate to have people in our lives who gave us a sense of what was possible—doctors, engineers, teachers and scientists. We learnt the importance and the wonder of learning and science. There was always plenty of sport. We participated in everything, but particularly footy.”
“The government has not responded to that recommendation appropriately. Its proposals fall well short of that. There are ongoing and serious questions about the extent to which this legislation will provide any support or any protections for children and for vulnerable Australians.”
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“They are too limited in scope, and they won't take effect for two years. The amendment I put in front of the House now requires the government to provide annual reporting on the effectiveness of existing hate offences under the Criminal Code—those reported to the police, those referred to prosecutorial agencies, those finalised with and without court proceedings—and the details of any sentences imposed. With this I call for anonymised reporting on the substance of those alleged or prosecuted offences and the reasons why some may fail to result in a prosecution. To date, the convictions, prosecutions and sentencing of crimes committed under the hate regime of the Criminal Code have not reflected the broader community's view on the seriousness of these crimes. I expressed this concern in this place in February 2025.”
“There has been a lot of misinformation about these offences, how they operate and whether they're successful in the prosecution of serious instances of hatred within our communities. To have respectful, fact driven conversations about hate crimes and about how well we are addressing them, we need clear and regular reporting about the incidents, nature and outcomes of those crimes in this country. That data can then guide assessment of the effectiveness of interventions such as the legislation that we are debating today. At the eleventh hour, earlier today the government agreed with the opposition to include reporting on new aggravated offences for hate preachers and listings of prohibited hate groups within this legislation. Those additions are welcome. But they relate to only two new hate provisions.”
“(2) Without limiting subsection (1), the report must include the following matters: (a) the types and number of alleged offences reported to police; (b) the types and number of alleged offences referred to a prosecutorial agency; (c) of the alleged offences referred to a prosecutorial authority, the types and number that were finalised without court proceedings; (d) of the alleged offences referred to a prosecutorial authority, the types and number that were finalised by a court, including whether a conviction was recorded; (e) in relation to matters finalised by a court, details of any sentence imposed. It's clear that the Australian community has insufficient evidence based information in relation to existing hate speech offences.”
“I move the amendment circulated in my name: (1) Schedule 1, page 42 (after line 10), at the end of the Schedule, add: Part 8 — Reporting Criminal Code Act 1995 65 At the end of Subdivision C of Division of the Criminal Code Add: 80.2DA Annual report (1) The AFP Minister must, as soon as practicable after the end of each financial year, cause to be prepared a report about the operation of this Subdivision, and the rest of this Part to the extent that it relates to this Subdivision, during the financial year.”
“The government has further watered down the bill overnight to ensure it can be passed today, but we don't have to pass this law today. We could consult with our communities, faith groups and human rights and legal experts and get this right. The government is letting politics be the enemy of policy. If the legacy of Bondi is a memory of division and inadequacy, then we will have failed this country. Yesterday so many of us spoke in this House of our great sadness at the tragic loss of 15 Australian lives. We have a unique opportunity with this legislation to make the greatest of differences on their behalf. If we don't do that, it will be a moment of darkness for this country, and it will reflect poorly on us all.”
“This morning I supported measures to improve the control of firearms in this country. But there are things that we're not debating today that we should be talking about. We're not protecting all Australians from serious vilification based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other characteristics. Hatred doesn't discriminate based on those characteristics, and neither should the law. The need for these protections was agreed on by the Jewish community, the Australian Human Rights Commission and Equality Australia, but the government has caved on this issue to a coalition that is in ethical and political freefall. The removal of racial vilification elements from this legislation renders it less likely to be effective in its aim of banning hate groups.”
“The concern from many in our community, and in the findings of the parliamentary report that was released this morning, is that the speed with which this bill has been drafted and the potential broad application of many of its provisions could have a chilling effect on legitimate debate on political, social and religious issues. The speed with which this legislation has been developed means that legal inconsistencies and unintended consequences seem inevitable. The bill does include measures that I and my community support. I support the government's move to include tougher penalties for hate crimes. I commend the government on taking action to constrain the radical hate groups that divide and harm us. I welcome new aggravated offences for community leaders who choose to incite violence.”
“Australians want us to get this right. Poor policymaking will not reassure our electorates. It won't make our constituents safer. Terrorism is not just an attack on our lives; it is an attack on our confidence, on our idea that the democracy we live in can remain both secure and free. Legislation on the run will never engender confidence in our processes or our government. In the last week, I've heard from many constituents who are rightly concerned that this legislation has been introduced and moved too quickly, with insufficient opportunity for community consultation or parliamentary scrutiny. They want us to undertake careful, rights based, non-reactive lawmaking. They want clear definitions, robust scrutiny and protections for democratic freedoms, including those for protest and advocacy.”
“The government initially vacillated on the need for a royal commission and then proposed broad, sweeping legislation on critical areas—the Criminal Code, migration law and gun control—without the judicious consultation and review that would ensure the confidence and support of our constituents. Civil liberty and community groups were given 48 hours to provide, to the parliamentary committee, submissions on a 144-page bill, with the final report being released just this morning. While I consulted constituents on the bill last week, the government decided to fold to pressure over the weekend, announcing wholesale changes without including our communities. The legislation now before the House was first seen by us less than an hour ago. We have been given five minutes to speak to it. This is unacceptable.”
“The terrorist attack in Bondi on 14 December 2025 shocked our country, and it utterly traumatised the Australian Jewish community. In its wake, our country needed our leaders to stand together with resolution and unity. Instead, our leaders have largely failed us in the last four weeks. The immediate politicisation of a mass murder, by the opposition, which attacked the Prime Minister and which immediately chose to punch down on immigrants, disgusted many people in the community that I represent. The opposition's strident calls for the immediate return of parliament, followed very soon after by complaints about the early return of parliament, were confounding.”
“Acts of senseless destruction will never overcome our determination to defend the strength, beauty and generosity of Australia's democracy. Our unity as a country is our greatest strength. We mourn those lost at Bondi because they are our own, and we mourn the loss of innocence that we've all experienced because extremism and terrorists have brought hatred to our home. Let the memory of the 15 lives lost at Bondi be a blessing. Let our home again be the Australia that they chose to live in and to immigrate to, and let their light shine brightly in this hour of darkness.”
“Together we thank those who had the extraordinary courage to protect others, sometimes at their own cost—those who thought not of race or religion, not of themselves, but only of the humans around them. We thank the police officers, first responders, surf lifesavers and healthcare workers who saved lives while risking their own. We know that no-one who was there at Bondi on 14 December will ever be quite the same again. If we are divided by these acts of terrorists, the terrorists have won. We can't let them close our hearts against each other. We have to stand together—arm in arm, hand in hand—to mark our loss, to express our grief and our desire to protect all Australians from acts of hate, and to support all members of our communities so that they will always know that they are respected, valuable and equal.”
“Their families crossed the world to find safety and security but now find themselves vilified in our streets, their schools defaced and their synagogues and cars torched. I've also heard from dozens of constituents who are not Jewish but who want me to convey on their behalf in this place their profound grief at what happened at Bondi. They've asked me to acknowledge on their behalf the pain and tragedy of the lives lost, to express shame that this happened to our own on our own beach and on our own shores. They want their leaders to express their grief and sympathy without qualification and without partisanship, and they want us in this place to demonstrate sensitivity and respect for all as we seek to heal our communities and our country.”
“A central promise of our liberal democracy has always been that Australians should never have to live in fear of violence or intimidation because of who we are. In our most challenging hours as a nation Australians have drawn together. We've always been united against hate, against terror and against division. In moments as dark as these we are confronted by how much our society has changed in recent years. Antisemitism has accelerated. Racism and bigotry have become more virulent, their proponents more vocal and more violent. For many Jewish members of the Kooyong community the events of 14 December exacerbated their increasing fears that they're not safe here, they are not valued here and they do not belong here. I've heard from many of their devastation and their anger. Many are the children or grandchildren of Holocaust survivors.”
“The terrorist attack at Bondi on 14 December 2025 changed our country. What should have been an evening of sunlight and laughter, of faith and community, became a moment of national trauma. We lost 15 of our own to acts of senseless violence, and we lost some of the confidence we had as a country in our safety, our freedom and our generous diversity. In this place today we honour those lost by saying their names, and we say them with love, with respect and with grief: rabbi Eli Schlanger, Boris Tetleroyd, Boris and Sofia Gurman, Reuven Morrison, Edith Brutman, Marika Pogany, rabbi Yaakov Levitan, Peter Meagher, Tibor Weitzen, Alexander Kleytman, Dan Elkayam, Adam Smyth, Tania Tretiak and Matilda, the 10-year-old girl who broke Australia's heart.”
“My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. In the last three months the government has signed a secret MOU to pay Nauru at least $2.5 billion to house an undisclosed number of asylum seekers. Allegations of corruption have been made against multiple members of the Nauruan government, and it's been reported that Australian bikie gangs have won contracts to manage security on Nauru. Minister, is it your position that the opacity, wastefulness and cruelty of these arrangements reflect well on this country?”
“While we await the government's strategic examination of research and development, the CSIRO is cutting jobs and programs; ANSTO is losing facilities and staff; the Medical Research Future Fund is underspent, while the financial capability of one in five medical research institutes is on the line; and grants from the Australian Research Council and the NHMRC have declined by 27 per cent over the last decade. Australian research and development is at risk of being stifled in the present and sidelined in the future, while we lose the talent and infrastructure that drive jobs, national security and technological strength. We have a choice: vision and transformation, or failure and loss. A defining decision awaits this government, and I urge it to choose wisely.”
“Australian scientists invented medical ultrasound, wi-fi, Aerogard and the cochlear implant. Our medical researchers developed penicillin, spray-on skin, cardiac pacemakers and vaccines against HPV. But in 2025, the Albanese government lacks the vision and commitment required to maximise yield from Australia's remarkable science, technology and medical research sectors. As inflation and the cost of computational requirements and cybersecurity rise, we are undersupporting science and medical research, and our institutes and research organisations are suffocating.”
“The young people who are now undertaking tertiary studies are the generation which in the middle of a compounding cost-of-living crisis, housing crisis and climate crisis are being burdened with unprecedented levels of personal debt simply through their desire to train and to equip themselves with the skillsets that they need for their adult lives. This is a generation which understands that Australian university students contribute more to government revenue than the oil and gas industry do in resources tax. What does that say about our government, what does that say about its principles, and what does that say about its priorities? I call on the government to recognise this education crisis for what it is. We owe it to the next generation to do better for these students.”
“I've heard from young women who are being forced to sleep in their cars, to skip meals and to then defer their studies so that they can save for a year so they can complete their prac placements. Some give up because of the stress and the financial burden; they never go back to study. Those young people will be left with debt and regret, but no diplomas or degrees. That is a failure of policy and it's a failure of government. Prac placements are also a question of gender equity because more students in the care sector are female than male, and it's a question of intergenerational equity.”
“When Australia faces significant and ongoing shortages of GPs, medical specialists and virtually all allied health disciplines and mental health supports, it is inexplicable that the government is not doing everything possible to help all students complete their training. Education and training should be an opportunity available to every Australian. It shouldn't be a financial burden, but, for too many of our students, prac placements mean stress and anxiety more than they mean engagement, fulfilment, skills development and learning. Every time I raise this issue on social media, my DMs and my email inbox are flooded with stories from students from around Australia, which reinforces that prac-placement poverty is real and it is hurting our future workforce.”
“Occupational therapy students are required to undertake 1,000 hours of unpaid placement, including regional rotations with no travel support and no accommodation support. It's similar for podiatry students, who undertake up to 1,200 hours. The Australian Society of Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy recently found that placement poverty, which they define as experiencing significant financial hardship while on tertiary placements, affects 75 per cent of medical imaging students during their 56 weeks of placement. Nearly a quarter say that they cannot support themselves. Many consider dropping out. Others have already left their courses because the financial strain is just too great, especially for those students who are juggling work, study and care responsibilities.”
“Medical students now have to cover the cost of professional registration, working-with-children checks, police checks, travel and accommodation, all while they are strictly limited in their ability to work to support their living expenses. Cost-of-living pressures mean that the proportion of students who have to support full-time study with full-time work has doubled, from one in 14 students in the 1990s to one in seven in 2023. In expecting students to undertake unpaid prac placements, we're therefore asking some of them to effectively work three full-time jobs. Medical students are required to undertake 2,000 hours of unpaid clinical placements, often well away from home in rural and regional settings.”
“The cost of tertiary education shouldn't hang over Australians' heads for the whole of their working lives, and, while they're studying, they shouldn't be anxious about where they're going to sleep and what they're going to be able to eat because they can't cover the cost of their practical placements. Earlier this year, I welcomed the introduction of the Commonwealth prac placements for nursing, midwifery, teaching and social work students, but my position has always been—as the member for Indi's has, and I thank her for moving this motion—that this payment should apply to all courses in the care sector. When I was a medical student, accommodation was free. Caffs were cheap, but those days are gone.”
“Police are called to hundreds of thousands of domestic and family violence incidents a year in Australia—as many as one every two minutes, or two since I began this speech. If we banned gambling advertising this week, we could save dozens or even hundreds of Australian women from family violence this summer. It's time for the government to stop talking and to do what it knows it needs to do. It's time to ban gambling advertising.”
“Experts are imploring the government to develop a razor-sharp focus on coordinated, accountable delivery of longstanding recommendations to prevent family violence. All are wondering why a prime minister who called family violence a national crisis now seems more concerned about protecting the revenue of broadcasters and sporting codes than protecting women and children from abuse. We don't need more recommendations. Australian women and children need action. One of the best places to start is by banning predatory gambling advertising. In the words of the late Peta Murphy: We have a culture where sport and gambling are intrinsically linked. These behaviours are causing increasingly widespread and serious harm to individuals, families and communities.”
“The committee recommended banning online gambling advertising, in part due to the serious psychological, health, financial and relationship harm that is caused by gambling: another consistent finding, and another recommendation clearly stated but, as yet, unimplemented. Last year, the Prime Minister described family violence as a national crisis. He commissioned an urgent review of preventative measures. That review recommended, amongst other things, government intervention in the industries from which family violence gets its foundations and its means of escalation—notably, gambling and alcohol. The review recommended restrictions leading to a total ban on gambling advertising—another recommendation without action.”
“Amongst the study's seven headline recommendations is the suggestion that we should tighten regulation of the gambling industry to prevent gambling related harm, including a reduction in gambling advertising—a recommendation clearly stated but as yet unimplemented. Another example, which will be familiar to MPs in this place, is the report produced by the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs into online gambling and those experiencing gambling harm. It's now 28 months since the You win some, you lose more report was released. It cited evidence from the Australian Gambling Research Centre that 69 per cent of Australians believe they see too many betting advertisements.”
“They're well established. What we lack is coordinated action led by the federal government to implement solutions that will save women's lives. The 2020 report, commissioned by the Commonwealth Institute of Family Studies, into the relationship between gambling and domestic violence against women found a clear correlation between gambling addiction and financial abuse as well as other harms. It shared stories of women who'd had to support the family alone while their partners gambled away his wages, women who'd had their bank accounts cleaned out and their mortgage payments taken by a partner to spend on gambling, women who'd lost their homes and their assets and been coerced or defrauded into taking on debt, and women who'd been assaulted by partners angry because of their losses.”
“I thank the member for Newcastle for raising the very important issue of gender based violence and our colleague the member for Leichhardt for his very generous contribution. But I really feel that I need to draw attention to the government's failure to address one of the key drivers of gender based violence, that being gambling. Less than a month ago this parliament received the second yearly report from the independent Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission. The report noted that over the last 15 years there has been no shortage of royal commissions, inquiries, coronial inquests and reviews into the experiences of women and children facing violence. Those reports have come up with over a thousand recommendations—many repeated, many consistent, many overlapping. We don't lack solutions for gender based violence.”
“I call on the Albanese government to act—with purpose, with courage and with generosity—to fix our broken tertiary education system and to fix it now.”
“That change has not been instituted by the Albanese government. This government's one-off decision to wipe 20 per cent off student debt will make a meaningful difference for graduates who are yet to pay off their debt, but it does nothing to address the problem with the level of fees in the first place. In particular, this policy offers no benefit to new students. Universities should not be sources of revenue. They should be centres where we invest in people, in skills, in nation building and in the pursuit of knowledge. This government is overseeing ongoing damage to our education system, the hollowing out of arts faculties, the loss of language schools, the defunding of science and education, and the progressive underfunding of medical research.”
“Almost half of Australians surveyed by YouGov recently believed that a worker on an average income should be able to pay off the debt for a standard three-year degree within five years; 58 per cent believed that a student should pay $5,000 or less per year, which is less than a third of what arts students are now paying; and just under one in five Australians believed that a standard degree should be free—listen to Gough Whitlam. But this government has resiled on its position. When in opposition, it said it said it would reverse the Job-ready Graduates scheme. The Universities Accord said that continuation of current arrangements risks causing 'long-term, entrenched damage' to the Australian higher education system and that if we do not institute change then the higher education system will 'rapidly become unfit for purpose'.”
“At the same time, cost-of-living pressures are leaving many students in poverty. One in seven full-time students has to work full time to support themselves. That is too much of a burden for many, and it's no surprise that non-completion rates are rising. At the same time, arts students are still being forced to pay $55,000 for their degrees. Many of them will never earn enough to pay this off, because of their low salaries and the ongoing indexation of their debt. They are effectively incurring a debt for life. This is not the policy of a clever country. A clever country is not one where 40 per cent of year 12 students say that the cost of HECS is putting them off university.”
“Now, many constituents have told me that it was the first time that they have felt heard by the government in a way that had a meaningful and positive effect on their lives, but how we index HECS is still unfair. The cost of degrees is still far too high. We are not supporting enough young people in their practical placements—the most important time in their studies, when they get the hands-on experience which is vital for competence and quality in the care specialities in particular. We have to put a stop to back-to-front priorities, where we tax education but we subsidise pollution. For the last three years Australia has collected three times more revenue from student loan repayments than it has from the petroleum resource rent tax. At the same time, we've subsidised polluting industries to the tune of over $30 billion.”
“Australians are paying too much for their tertiary education. The recent changes to HECS by the Albanese government were welcome, but they were inadequate. We cannot condemn Australians to a lifetime of working off debt in the face of ongoing significant skills shortages. We need to be a clever country, and that has to include the foresight to support our citizens to gain the skills that our society needs. In the 47th Parliament, I pushed hard on the cost of tertiary education. My petition signed by 290,000 Australians demonstrated the significance of this issue to so many students, graduates and concerned parents. We achieved a response from the government in the form of a change to the way that HELP indexation is calculated and a reduction in existing student debt of 20 per cent, backdated to 1 June 2025.”
“Under pressure, they act impulsively. Toughening bail laws and imposing adult sentences for kids as young as 14 won't make us safer, and it won't help vulnerable children. So what will help? Prevention, diversion, rehabilitation, stable housing, supportive schools, pathways to jobs, culturally safe services for Indigenous youth, youth centres, mentors, medical assessment, drug treatment and family support. Scotland's Violence Reduction Unit cut violent crime by 60 per cent using a public health approach. Victoria's new Violence Reduction Unit, announced last week, should do the same. It should invest in people, not in prisons. Children aren't born bad. They're born into social and economic disadvantage. If we want fewer crimes, fewer victims and safer streets, we have to break the cycle.”
“The thing is, throwing the book at children doesn't work. Almost 40 per cent of young people in detention are there for violent crimes. But children aren't born violent; they're born into poverty and abuse. As many as 25 per cent of children in our youth justice system have undiagnosed foetal alcohol syndrome, ADHD or other disabilities. Prison won't fix that. It will compound harm, sever family ties and provide a criminal apprenticeship. And it's expensive: a million dollars a year to lock up a child—for what? Most are released within weeks back into the same unstable housing, disrupted schooling and domestic trauma that contributed to their offending in the first place. Local and international studies are clear: harsher sentences do not reduce crime, and prison often increases re-offending. Children's brains are still developing.”
“Victoria is experiencing a youth crime crisis. In the last year alone, offences were up 15 per cent—25,000 incidents involved children aged 10 to 17. Two-thirds of robberies and a half of our aggravated burglaries are committed by children, many from a core group of about 400 repeat offenders. Crime has hit hard in my electorate of Kooyong. I hear every week of car thefts, break-ins and aggravated burglaries in our suburbs. People are nervous, and those affected by these crimes are traumatised. The papers are baying for these children to be punished harder. The Allan state government has responded by banning machetes, tightening bail laws, reopening Malmsbury youth prison, abandoning a pledge to raise the age of criminal responsibility, and now threatening lifelong sentences for crimes committed by children.”
“It builds pathways for young Australians who dream of telling their stories on screen. But it's also about telling the world about us. It's about increasing trade and tourism to this country. Australians deserve to see themselves front and centre on their screens. We deserve shows that speak to our lives, our communities, our history and our country. Our creative workers deserve a fair share of the revenue flowing to global platforms, and because we and they deserve this, it is critical to set content production requirements that protect, promote and progress our cultural identity for this generation and for every generation to come.”
“We should double the requirement in this bill, to match the ambition of our peers and the expectations of our creatives, and we should improve the legislation so that there is no wiggle room for streaming services to apply Hollywood accounting to how they ascribe proportionate value to programs. The Senate inquiry heard from Screen Producers Australia of its concern that the legislation in this current form is unclear on how proportionate value would be calculated. The regulator needs to be able to see the platform's books. This can't be a matter of self-reporting and of self-regulation by the industry. This isn't just about culture; it's about jobs. Investment in Australian content supports writers, actors, producers and technicians. It sustains regional economies.”
“That's why I and my crossbench colleagues called on the government earlier this year to deliver on its promise and to legislate for streaming platforms to invest at least 20 per cent of Australian revenue in Australian stories as a matter of urgency. I note that a 20 per cent requirement was also proposed by the Australian Writers Guild and by Screen Producers Australia. If we want Australian stories told and Australia's creative industries to thrive, it's absolutely critical that our most popular streaming platforms serve them up to Australian audiences. We have to stand up for what we believe to be important. Australian culture is important to us all. Our creatives are bold. They're adventurous. They're challenging. But this legislation is none of those things.”
“Those nations understand that local stories and local jobs matter, and that without strong protections local voices will be drowned out by global giants. Media reporting suggests the government believes that all but one current streamer already meet the expenditure requirements outlined in this bill. If that is true, it suggests that, rather than encouraging additional expenditure in Australian content, this legislation will act only to ensure that the current levels of spending are maintained. If those reports are accurate, it's inadequate and it's disingenuous of the government to project that this legislation is a step forward.”
“The interim report of the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications' inquiry suggested two models for local content requirements: a progressive model requiring up to 30 per cent obligation for services with more than five million subscribers; or a revenue model in which specified services would have to spend 10 per cent of their Australian revenue on new local drama. Many nations which we would consider to be our peers impose significantly greater levies or investment obligations than we are proposing in this bill. Compare the requirements set out in this bill to those of France, where streamers must invest at least 20 per cent of local revenue in French content. Across the European Union, catalogues must include at least 30 per cent European works.”
“The concern is that in the absence of content quotas we will see the odd big-budget production based in Australia, with lots of bucks spent here over a short time, but not the ongoing grassroots support of the industry that it so desperately needs. The government has set the bar very low in requiring a 10 per cent program expenditure or 7.5 per cent of Australian derived revenue for new Australian programs. That's not nearly enough. It's significantly lower than the level previously suggested as desirable by the Albanese government and advocated for by industry.”
“Major subscription video-on-demand services are required under this bill to meet a certain level of expenditure on new, eligible Australian programs, but there is no requirement to carry or to provide a defined amount of Australian content. This is at odds with the government's own national cultural policy, Revive, released in January 2023, which recommended the government introduce requirements for Australian screen content on streaming platforms to ensure continued access to local stories and content, and that it do so no later than 1 July 2024. This requirement is at odds with the minister's claims in this chamber in the last half hour that a content quota is absolutely critical—we do not have one.”
“We've also mandated that subscription television services providing drama channels must meet local drama expenditure requirements, and commercial free-to-air broadcasters have been subject to licensing fees, so it is by no means a novel that users of our airways pay for their use or are required to show certain forms of content. For some time, though, the outlier has been the subscription services, which are currently essentially unregulated in Australia. That is why this bill matters, but it's also why this bill is really disappointing. It sets a baseline of 10 per cent of program expenditure or 7.5 per cent of Australian derived revenue must go to the production of new Australian programs. This is not a content requirement; it is an expenditure requirement.”
“It's not because Australians don't want to see or hear Australian stories; in fact, well over two-thirds of us think it's important to have new and diverse Australian dramas and documentaries. We're not watching our own stories because the playing field on these global platforms is tilted in favour of global content. For years now, overseas streaming giants have operated here without any obligation to invest in our culture. They take billions in subscription revenue from Australian households but return only a fraction of that to Australian creators. Quotas for local content have long been mandated for commercial free-to-air television.”
“For the first time, in 2023 less than half of Australians watched free-to-air TV, where local content has historically dominated. Last year, more Australians watched subscription video on demand services like Netflix than live free-to-air or broadcast video on demand. On the other hand, nine out of ten of us use an online streaming service, where global giants like Netflix, Disney+ and Prime dedicate only a small fraction of their catalogues to Australian content. The proportion of Australian-made drama and children's programming commissioned to these platforms has been steadily falling for years. Instead, our screens are dominated by high-quality, well funded, aggressively marketed overseas content, while local stories struggle to find a local audience.”
“We recall films like Picnic at Hanging Rock , The Getting of Wisdom and Breaker Morant , which captured our unique continent and our history. Those productions didn't just create memories; they created jobs—thousands of them—in writing, acting, directing and the trades that underpin our arts sector. Those stories mattered. They told us who we were and who we could be. They gave us Australian voices, Australian artists and Australian landscapes. They built an industry that trained generations of creative professionals, legends like Jack Thompson, Jacki Weaver, Kylie Minogue and Peter Weir, and they exported a unique talent to the world. Today, that cultural foundation is under threat. Australians are consuming less Australian content than ever before.”