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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“There's no reason why taxpayers should be subsidising research and development that exacerbates serious health risks, addiction and associated harms. In developing these reforms, the Treasurer himself conceded that it is problematic that gambling companies are still receiving these incentives. That is a pretty significant admission from a government which has, for far too long, looked the other way when it comes to this country's addiction to gambling. If we are acknowledging the harm caused by gambling, and we are legislating the removal of subsidies to the industry, why is the government still refusing to act on gambling advertising? Advertising works to normalise gambling behaviour. It is constant, it is pervasive and it is designed to influence.”
“This is why, in the 2024-2025 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the government announced that activities relating to gambling and to tobacco would be excluded from R&D tax incentive eligibility after 1 July 2025. Schedule 4 of this bill delivers on that commitment. Specifically, it amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to exclude activities related to gambling services, gambling and gambling-like practices and activities related to tobacco, nicotine products and vaping goods. That exclusion extends also to nicotine products to capture new and emerging nicotine devices. However, the legislation still provides for a narrow exemption. Where activities are solely for the purpose of harm reduction, such as reducing addiction, these activities remain eligible to receive support. It is my position that this exemption should be removed.”
“So, under our R&D tax incentives, these predatory gambling companies are being permitted—encouraged, even—to deduct at least 38.5c for every dollar that they spend on eligible activities. That's a pretty substantial incentive. In a cost-of-living crisis, with Australia's gross debt at about $1 trillion, we have to ask ourselves why the government is subsidising predatory industries which are causing harm to Australians. Why are we, as a country, supporting the gambling industry to develop ever more sophisticated tactics to target our young people and to cause them harm through more harmful products and more effective ways to keep people addicted to gambling? Because that's what R&D in the gambling industry aims to do. It aims to increase engagement, to increase losses and, as a direct result, to increase harm.”
“Taxpayer dollars should not ever be used to promote industries or activities that exacerbate addiction, create public harm and pose serious health risks. The Australian Taxation Office's R&D t ax i ncentive t ransparency r eport 2021-22 , published in October 2024, revealed the scale of R&D support received by an industry whose products and services cause significant harm—the gambling industry. In 2021-2022, slot machine makers Aristocrat and Ainsworth claimed $22 million and $15 million in R&D expenses, respectively. PointsBet, BetTube and Betting Technologies Australia all claimed more than $1 million, and Tabcorp claimed nearly $40 million. In 2022-2023, that grew to nearly $44 million.”
“Tax incentives for research and development activities are designed to back businesses to test new ideas and to innovate. These concessions encourage investment, help Australian companies to compete internationally and foster the kind of innovation that drives much-needed productivity growth throughout our economy. At their best, R&D incentives support breakthroughs—in medicine, technology and advanced manufacturing—that can improve lives and strengthen our national capacity. As a medical researcher, I know the value of research and development, particularly R&D that improves the health and wellbeing of all Australians. That's what research and development should do, but supporting innovation should never be confused with subsidising harm.”
“A youth housing supplement to help young people access secure housing wouldn't just be good social policy; it would be good economic policy. I urge the government to take action to improve access to social and affordable housing in the forthcoming federal budget.”
“While organisations like Servants Community Housing provide specialised support and subsidised rent for adults, many at-risk young people continue to miss out on social housing opportunities. Despite significant investment through the Housing Australia Future Fund, subsidised rents can still exceed what many young unhoused Australians can afford. It's a disgrace to this country that nearly a quarter of Australia's homeless population is aged between 12 and 24 years. Further targeted HAFF rounds and a youth housing supplement would bridge that gap, give young people better access to existing social housing and make it possible to build more homes specially designed for young people. Stable, affordable housing is a prerequisite for employment, education and training.”
“Many residents have lived through significant challenges—mental illness, domestic violence, disability, trauma and homelessness. Servants doesn't just give them a home; it gives them a community. I'd like to sincerely thank Amanda, Donald, Jayden, Mikyla, Jordie, Grace, Mark and the rest of the Servants Community Housing team for inviting me to be part of that community. Visiting Servants Community Housing reminded me that, while over 20,000 Victorians live in community housing, demand still remains unmet for affordable, social and community housing. Homelessness is a cycle in which too many Australians are caught, with too many in our communities only one bad month or one missed pay cheque away from a crisis.”
“Last Friday, I had the great privilege of attending the Local Sounds music event at Carrical House in Hawthorn. For 40 years, Servants Community Housing has provided people on low incomes with safe, affordable, endless-lease community housing. Servants Community Housing was established in 1986 when members of the Hawthorn West Baptist Church decided to do something about the closure of a local rooming house in Hawthorn. It has since evolved into one of Victoria's most respected community housing providers. Servants Community Housing has a unique model which empowers its nearly 100 residents. With shared meals, live-in house managers and opportunities to engage with social enterprises, Servants Community Housing provides residents with dignity and hope.”
“As these changes are implemented, the government has to continue to engage closely with all parts of the sector to ensure that these reforms do not affect participant dignity, fairness or access. Above all else, the people who access the NDIS have to remain at the centre of it. While we no doubt need stronger action against bad providers, that always has to come with stronger safeguards for participants.”
“That means participants need and should and deserve to know when decisions can be changed, on what basis and how they can challenge such decisions. The NDIS only exists because Australia has made a collective commitment, a significant collective commitment, that people who are living with a disability will not be left to navigate fragmented or inadequate systems alone. That commitment will not end, should not end and cannot end simply because it's become too complicated or too costly to deliver on it. The bill before the house contains measures which do strengthen the NDIS, but it also contains others that place significant weight, perhaps too much weight, on administrative discretion without sufficiently explicit safeguards.”
“NDIS reform which focuses support on functional needs, which builds strong foundational supports and which addresses waste and exploitation to preserve resources for those who rely on them is critically important. All of us in this place recognise that. As a former participant within the system and now someone who has from this place sought to improve it, I have been supportive of changes in that respect and of this nature in the past, but I've always been clear in my previous professional life and in this one that those reforms can't erode the rights of participants. The independent NDIS review and the disability royal commission have both found and emphasised that trust in the scheme depends on its transparency, its fairness and its accountability.”
“And so I support the calls of People with Disability Australia for stronger protections, specifically their recommendations for plain language reasons for decision-making, that Administrative Review Tribunal review rights be required where plan variations reduce the total funding that recipients are receiving and that all recipients should be able to access independent advocacy when they need to contest such decisions. It's only fair. It's only reasonable. I urge the minister and the National Disability Insurance Agency to approach the implementation of these changes with the sort of care that, wherever practicable, will err on the side of participant protection.”
“I know that I and many of my colleagues in this place are hearing from affected individuals within the aged-care system every day that that tool is not working for them. I think that we have reasonable grounds for concern that this similar tool may not work well within the disability space. I hope to be wrong on that, but I have some concerns regarding it. When we combine this new tool with new statutory powers to reduce support without a new assessment, there has to be a risk, whether that is intentional or not, of a new system in which reassessment outcomes and administrative discretion interact in a way that could well disadvantage NDIS participants.”
“Each of those areas is scored on two scales—how often support is needed and how intensive the level of support that is required is. However, reducing individual participants with sometimes extremely complex care needs, which can sometimes be multifactorial, to a single binomial score can present some significant complexities. The reality is that a score does not reflect a lived experience and that an assessment tool is only as fair as the system that we put in place to interpret it. If we put garbage in, we will get garbage out. We can't necessarily equitably and effectively reduce people with very complex medical and physical needs to binomial scores. We're already seeing this play out with the integrated assessment tool in the aged-care system.”
“For example, how will assessment results translate into budget decisions for participants? What additional evidence will be considered when medical reports are no longer required to inform the planning process? What will inform the planning process? How will consistent, transparent and fair decisions be applied by differing assessors over time? We've seen in the past that inconsistency has been a consistent bugbear for many individuals operating within the NDIS and that individuals with very similar support needs have on innumerable occasions received very different support packages. The I-CAN should measure support needs across 12 areas of daily life, including mobility, self-care, communication, relationships and physical and mental health.”
“The current system places an unfair burden on participants to gather medical evidence for assessment that's time consuming and can be costly. It can really slow the process down. Both the independent review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme and my own personal professional experience of having worked within it for many years as a paediatric neurologist testify to the fact that the existing system evolves inefficient, duplicative and inconsistent evidence gathering which can, on some occasions, very much undermine the participant experience and can create an unusual and unreasonable workload for healthcare professionals who are trying to assist individuals in securing appropriate supports under the NDIS. But, as University of New South Wales researchers have pointed out, the move to I-CAN raises some pretty important questions.”
“I would argue that it has to actually be rendered transparent, and I would argue that it has to include an opportunity for participants to request review and appeal of those changes. Reforms that rely on discretion rather than explicit safeguards risk shifting the balance of power in any situation away from participants and towards administrative control. This is fundamentally inconsistent with the intent of the NDIS as a participant centred insurance scheme. These concerns come into sharper focus when they're placed alongside the new I-CAN assessment tool. In the coming months, NDIS participants will begin to be assessed using a structured interview process conducted by NDIA appointed assessors using the instrument for the classification and assessment of support. The objectives of this reform are understandable.”
“Advocates who participated in the Senate inquiry into this bill also expressed the reasonable concern that this provision could be used in ways which are actively harmful or could have unintended consequences, in particular, if and when participants are not involved or consulted on variations to their plan. We have to remember that, for people whose independence and wellbeing rely on stability of support, a NDIS plan is not an abstract budget. It can be the difference between being able to live at home and not being able to live at home. It can be the difference between experiencing consistency and security of care and experiencing a personal crisis. Any power that allows support to vulnerable individuals to be altered in what appears to be a non-transparent fashion has to be accompanied by clear limits.”
“The explanatory memorandum further claims that these changes do not 'impact on or change the circumstances in which the CEO can vary a participant's plan', but I have to note that for participants, for advocates and for Australians in the broader disability community this change feels consequential. Their very justifiable concern is not that plans can occasionally be adjusted since there are clearly circumstances in which increases to total funding amounts are essential. The concern is that this amendment codifies the power to single-handedly reduce supports without a fresh assessment of participants and without the sorts of procedural safeguards that participants should reasonably be able to expect when their support funding is at stake.”
“This bill will help install some of those guardrails, but it's concerning that this bill also gives the chief executive officer of the NDIA the ability to vary a participant's plan, including increasing or decreasing the total funding amount available under both the old and new framework plans. This power can be exercised unless the act or the NDIS rules expressly provide otherwise, and it can be exercised without the need for a reassessment. The explanatory memorandum for this bill states that this amendment codifies, for the absence of doubt, an existing practice within the agency. It is described as a clarification rather than a change in the substance of how the NDIA operates.”
“Strengthening the powers of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to detect abuse, to prevent exploitation and to enforce accountability is important, and they're overdue measures. This bill also strengthens the framework to ensure fit-for-purpose penalties for offences, which should deter providers from doing the wrong thing and which should also ensure that unsuitable people can be excluded from providing services under the auspices of the NDIS. NDIS participants have to be kept safe by our system, and providers who do the wrong thing must face consequences.”
“The NDIS, National Disability Insurance Scheme, is one of Australia's most significant social reforms. While the significance of the NDIS means that we have to protect its ongoing financial sustainability, it's important that we in this place always remember that reforms must not come at the expense of participants rights, fairness, dignity or access and that all changes to the NDIS have to strengthen the scheme for the long term whilst keeping those who access it and whose lives depend upon it firmly at the centre of any changes to its design. This bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2026, contains measures that respond to real and serious problems which confront the NDIS.”
“Ensuring Australians benefit from the sale of resources that we own is acting in the national interest. Securing a fair return from our gas exports should be an immediate priority for the government.”
“Over 80 per cent of our national emissions would be covered. We could achieve 100 million tonnes of additional annual abatement after the first 10 years alone, which is more than twice that forecast under our current policies. Taken together, the two reforms proposed by the Superpower Institute would raise an average of $35 billion a year of additional tax revenue through to 2050. That revenue could be used to ease cost-of-living pain, to resolve funding shortfalls in our schools and in our hospitals and to increase our energy and our manufacturing sovereignty. These measures would help us prepare for and protect ourselves against the next inevitable global energy crisis. At a time of profound global geopolitical instability, demanding a fair share for Australians from our gas exports is sensible. Pricing pollution is necessary.”
“Alternatively, two permanent and responsible reforms proposed by the Superpower Institute could also improve our energy security and economic resilience. The first is a fair share levy on gas exports to ensure that, when gas prices surge, Australia receives a guaranteed return. This is not just a short-term solution. A fair share levy would be a permanent mechanism offering market certainty and stability alongside higher tax revenue. The second is a 'polluter pays' levy, which would recognise that industrial emissions impose real costs on our economy in the form of health costs, disaster recovery costs and infrastructure damage. A simple 'polluter pays' mechanism would charge large polluters—there are fewer than 60 of them at this point—for the carbon pollution that they generate through fossil fuel extraction or importation.”
“We are one of the world's largest gas exporters, but we collect far less revenue from our gas than other exporting nations do—less, in fact, than we collect from the beer excise or from students' HECS payments. It shouldn't be this way, and it doesn't have to be this way. There are several rational and fair ways by which we could legislate for better returns on our oil and gas. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has raised the possibility of expanding Queensland's gas royalty scheme, which in recent years has raised more revenue for the state than the federal PRRT has. We could expand it so that it applies nationally. In doing so, gas producers would be required to pay royalties based on the price of the gas sales, allowing rates to increase as prices go up.”
“Consumer confidence is the lowest ever recorded. Australians are already feeling price pressures at the bowser and will soon feel them in power bills and at the supermarket. Yet we continue to export enormous volumes of gas without receiving a fair return for the Australians who own them. The Australia Institute has found that every week the Albanese government delays implementing a stronger tax on gas exports costs us hundreds of millions of dollars. This is revenue which belongs to all Australians. It could and it should be captured from multinational gas companies for the public good. Australia's broken resource tax system is not a market failure. It's a policy choice.”
“Australians are once again experiencing a global economic shock for which we were unprepared. Four weeks after Donald Trump triggered a regional conflict and a global energy shortage, a war that began in the Middle East is hitting Australians hard. Dr Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, has warned that this energy crisis is worse than the combined consequences of the two oil shocks of the 1970s and the gas crisis following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022—the three biggest energy shocks in modern history. The alarm bell has also been sounded by economists, industry and Treasury. Rapid price rises will reignite inflation; will drive up construction costs, freight costs and food prices; and will place further pressure on mortgage holders and renters. The ripple effects from the Iran war are everywhere.”
“The High Seas Biodiversity Bill 2026 establishes a long-overdue framework for protecting marine genetic resources, strengthening Australia's compliance with our international obligations and providing certainty for our scientific, commercial and research communities. It will contribute to advances in understanding and sustainable use of one of the largest and least understood parts of our beautiful planet. If properly enforced, it should ensure that Australia plays its part in safeguarding biodiversity and share in the benefits of those resources. I commend the bill to the House.”
“In the meantime, what the BBNJ does not do is replace existing bodies. Regional fisheries management organisations and the International Seabed Authority will continue to regulate their respective sectors. How the new treaty's conservation ambitions will mesh with those institutions remains unclear, and it seems pretty likely that we're going to have at least some disputes over authority. Finally, the bill explicitly excludes Antarctica and the convention area from key provisions. Parts 2, 3 and 4 all contain this carve-out. While there is a legal basis for this in Australia's obligations under the Antarctic Treaty System, its practical effect is that some of the most biologically important and ecologically fragile waters on Earth could well receive less protection under this framework.”
“Self-referral without independent screening mechanisms is a known weakness in environmental governance, and it's really disappointing to see the government, in this bill, committing a mistake that we've seen far too many times before. Fourthly, the ultimate test of this legislation will be what happens next internationally, not domestically. This agreement will not by itself reverse decades of damage. Whether or not governments are prepared to accept real constraints on their activities in international waters will determine whether this agreement marks a turning point or merely another broken promise. Proposals for area based management tools—the most powerful tool in this framework, namely marine protected areas—are unlikely to be considered until the second COP at the earliest.”
“I suggest to the House that this bill deserves that scrutiny. Thirdly, the environmental impact assessment regime has structural vulnerability. It largely relies on self-assessment. The first step in the process is essentially a self-assessment of whether a referral is required—whether a person proposing to carry out an activity must refer that activity to the minister if they think or believe that the impacts of the activity have resulted or may result in substantial pollution. It's pretty clear that corporate actors faced with costly assessments that may delay or prevent profitable activities have an obvious and pretty significant incentive to believe that those impacts will be minor. We've seen this dynamic play out across environmental regulation globally.”
“Firstly, the reversal of the evidential burden of proof—in plain terms, requiring individuals or companies to prove their innocence rather than having the government need to prove their guilt—is a fundamental departure from principles that underpin our legal system. When penalties exist, as they do under this bill, this matters enormously. The government owes the parliament a clear and satisfying answer on why this has been put in place. Secondly, this bill has not yet been referred to a Senate committee for inquiry. Complex legislation—especially legislation that creates new criminal offences or new administrative regimes and which interacts with multiple existing frameworks, including the EPBC Act and the UNCLOS—benefits enormously from the scrutiny that committee inquiry provides.”
“The Senate's scrutiny of bills committee raised concerns with the bill relating to its reversal of the evidential burden of proof, significant matters being placed in the delegated legislation, the bill's broad delegation of administrative powers, the section 96 grants to the states, and fees being in delegated legislation. The committee has sought advice from the minister on these matters, but much of the advice remains outstanding at this point. Significant matters relating to part 2 of this bill are left to delegated legislation, and that includes rules around ministerial exemptions. These are not trivial concerns, and they do remain unresolved.”
“The high seas treaty will play a pivotal role in advancing the global commitment to conserve at least 30 per cent of the world's oceans by 2030. Australia is an island nation—a maritime nation. The First Nations peoples of this continent have maintained deep and enduring relationships with sea country for tens of thousands of years. Our fisheries, our tourism and our shipping all depend on a healthy and functioning ocean. This bill is, at its heart, an act of national self-interest as much as it is an act of international responsibility. The bill has attracted broad bipartisan support, but there are some concerns with it.”
“Given Australia has one of the largest maritime jurisdictions in the world, we have both an interest in and a responsibility to steward sustainable management. Australia currently has no legal framework governing marine genetic resources taken from areas beyond our national jurisdiction. Without this legislation, Australian researchers and institutions face uncertainty about compliance and face significant risk when participating in international marine science. This bill will provide clarity, certainty and alignment with our treaty obligations. The area-based management tools framework creates a pathway to establishing proper marine protected areas in international waters. The environmental impact assessment regime should mean that, before activities begin, harm must be considered and, where possible, minimised.”
“Marine genetic resources are biological material from marine plants, animals and other organisms with actual or potential value. The ocean contains the highest functional biodiversity on earth, much of which remains unstudied and as yet misunderstood. Marine genetic resources have huge economic, commercial, academic and research potential. Deep-sea organisms often survive under extreme pressure and low light, producing unique enzymes and bioactive compounds that are increasingly being harnessed for medical breakthroughs, such as new antibiotics and new anti-cancer compounds. Marine genetic resources are also supporting innovations in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, industrial processes, new diagnostic techniques and research innovations.”
“It establishes a notification based regime for Australian entities collecting and using marine genetic resources in areas beyond national jurisdiction; it establishes a framework to recognise area based management tools, such as marine protected areas; and it establishes an environmental impact assessment regime for some undertakings within Australian jurisdiction, or by Australian entities in areas beyond national jurisdiction, that may result in impacts on the marine environment. These three pillars are complementary. The marine genetic resources regime ensures that, when Australian scientists or companies harvest biological material from the deep ocean—material that could one day underpin new medicines, materials or agricultural technologies—there is transparency about these activities and benefit sharing built in.”
“But, with the high seas and seabeds beyond national jurisdictions making up 40 per cent of the surface of our planet, they're much too important to remain unprotected and unregulated. Currently, only 1.45 per cent of areas beyond national jurisdiction of the seabed and the high seas are included in marine protected areas. As a result, much of our oceans remain exposed to overfishing, pollution, deep-sea mining and the escalating effects of climate change. They're also potentially exposed to overextraction, bioprospecting and deep-sea exploitation in the absence of robust regulation. This bill addresses obligations under three parts of the BBNJ agreement.”
“On 17 January 2026, the high seas treaty—formally known as the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, or the BBNJ—entered into force, providing a framework for the common global governance of roughly half of our planet's surface and 95 per cent of the ocean's volume. The High Seas Biodiversity Bill of 2026 is Australia's legislative response—the mechanism by which we will enshrine our obligations under that treaty into domestic law. For most of modern history, the open ocean has been treated as a place apart—governed by custom, fragmented rules and the assumption that what lay far offshore was too vast to manage and too resilient to exhaust.”
“I ask the government to accelerate the energy transition, to end our dependence on imported fuels and to increase our ability to capitalise on renewable energy from our sun and wind.”
“While the government has moved to halve the fuel excise and is lauding their national fuel security plan, we have no real security right now that this will translate into lower prices at the bowser because fuel price gouging remains completely legal and the government and the ACCC have no control over it. So I call on the government to act quickly and with authority to give the ACCC real powers to prosecute price gouging across our whole economy, to legislate a whole-of-economy price gouging offence, to cut the mining and coal industry's fossil fuel subsidies dollar for dollar with what this legislation will cost taxpayers and to move to incentivise industry to decarbonise, not continue its dependence on diesel, oil and gas.”
“Last week the government rushed legislation which increased the maximum penalties for breaches of competition and consumer law. The problem with that is that the former head of the ACCC Allan Fels has said that the commission actually has no real power to do anything. Price gouging is not illegal in relation to fuel. It is only illegal in relation to supermarkets, and even that ban hasn't yet come into force. Under our current laws, successful prosecutions of price collusion are rare because evidential barriers appear too difficult to overcome, especially when retailers don't have to provide reasons for raising their prices. It's simply not good enough.”
“We have the wicked paradox in which Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospective is receiving a 52.6 cents per litre subsidy for its offroad use of diesel while truckies today are struggling to deliver groceries to our supermarkets and are still, until the bill passes the House, paying the heavy vehicle road user charge of 32.4 cents per litre. The full picture of this legislation is that the government is proposing to use taxpayer money to secure more fuel supply, supply that will then flow to the same fossil fuel giants who are already receiving billions of Australian dollars in taxpayer subsidies. Ordinary Australians are underwriting both ends of the supply chain, and when those same Australians ask why prices remain high, I'm sure the government will point to the ACCC.”
“For every dollar put forward into securing additional fuel supply under this legislation, the government should reduce the fossil fuel subsidies received by major industries through the fuel tax credits scheme. While everyday motorists and small businesses are struggling with the cost of diesel, the government's fuel tax credit scheme is costing us $10.8 billion per year. That's $300 million a day or over $200,000 by the time I finish this speech. Fuel tax credits make diesel fuel use artificially cheap for offroad users, such as in mining. Fossil fuel companies themselves—coal miners like Glencore, Peabody, Yancoal, Mitsubishi, Whitehaven and Anglo American—are significant, large and ongoing beneficiaries from fuel tax credits.”
“It's not a government agency buying and selling fuel for us on international markets. The real answer is reducing our dependence on international energy markets and improving our sovereign capacity to produce energy. Every dollar that we spend securing fossil fuel reserves is a dollar that we do not spend accelerating the renewable transition that would make these conversations and this legislation unnecessary. A country that's able to generate its own clean energy at home will not be and cannot be held hostage by wars in the Middle East, by volatile and unsafe shipping routes or by the pricing decisions of international fuel corporations. That is what Australia's genuine energy security future looks like, and this bill must not become a distraction from that goal or an excuse to delay it.”
“They carry real tail risk and require active expert governance, but the government does not anticipate a review of these measures before 2029. At a time where the EFA could be actively hedging, stockpiling and extending guarantees across international supply chains, the parliament's primary safeguard is a report that may well not land for three years or more. If something goes significantly wrong in year 1, there will be no circuit breaker, no sunset clause. By the time the review arrives, the damage may already be done. The concerns I have around this bill bring me back to my main point: the need for structural reforms and for some difficult conversations. We can't debate this legislation without saying the quiet part out loud. The real answer to Australia's energy security crisis is not stockpiles. It's not hedging arrangements.”
“This brings me to the questions that this bill has not answered: what savings or offsets have been identified by the Treasurer, and what fiscal guardrails are in place around this measure? We know that the government is appropriating $2 billion to respond to fuel security during the remaining three months of the 2025-26 financial year. But what happens beyond that? The government has not answered these questions. Until it does, Australians are being asked to approve a permanent and significant expansion of Commonwealth risk with no clear account of the ongoing cost. There's also the question of oversight. The instruments that this bill authorises—derivatives, hedging, guarantees and price support mechanisms—are complex.”
“I'm worried, again, that this government, through its potential short sighted implementation of reactive measures, can only provide a temporary prop-up to Australia's energy markets. It's also a concern that fuel markets are volatile. Prices move quickly, sharply and often without warning. Giving the EFA authority to enter derivatives and hedging arrangements means that the Commonwealth will now be exposed to those movements. If markets turn, those losses won't disappear; they'll land on the Commonwealth's balance sheet. They'll land on the taxpayer. In effect, the government could be stepping in on national interest grounds to take on projects that private markets have looked at and chosen to walk away from. We should ask ourselves: if the private sector won't touch cost- or risk-prohibitive projects, why should the Commonwealth?”