Allegra Spender
Wentworth · Independent · Australia
“Estimates are between 0.5 per cent and two per cent of all abortions over 20 weeks. They are generally because of late diagnosed anomalies, genetic syndromes or severe fetal growth problems.”
“The bill is useful, it is technical, it's incremental, it has useful schedules, it has 'tell us once', it has streamlining and it has technical fixes. These are all good things, and I do not underestimate the effort that goes into getting useful changes like this.”
“Across Australia, we're seeing rising threats to women's access to abortion care. We see it in bills in state parliaments. We see it in the way some politicians talk about this issue, using misinformation and scare tactics to drive divisions, tools straight out of the Trump playbook.”
“They're saying they're waiting up to 18 months for the ATO to make a decision on how an investment would be treated, so the foreign capital just goes away. We need to change the culture here, and this is why—while I support this government's actions in this space—I urge the government to go further. This isn't about bad people.”
“I've seen firsthand how drone technology is at the forefront of some of these problems because government is slow to make decisions. There's no accountability from many government departments in terms of the speed of their decision-making.”
“I support the government's work on the fund, but I think it's currently around one tenth the size of the original 1990s National Competition Fund. If we expect that to move the dial, as it did back in the 1990s, we are going to have to put more firepower behind it.”
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“I move: That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House: (1) notes that: (a) the Government has signalled that it prioritises right-sizing regulation and this is welcome; (b) but successive governments have repeatedly announced regulatory reform agendas, yet the burden of regulation continues to grow; (c) the number of restrictive terms in legislative instruments has more than doubled since 2006, according to the Productivity Commission; (d) the cost of complying with Commonwealth regulation has grown from $65 billion in 2013 to $160 billion today; and (e) the incentive structures facing regulators and legislators reward visible new action over the harder, less visible work of removing existing regulation, and that this dynamic will persist unless directly addressed; and (2) calls on the Government to: (a) implement crude but measurable regulatory reduction targets and strategies including offset requirements; (b) introduce senior accountability within regulators and departments for deregulation including measurable KPIs; (c) require government departments to prioritise faster decision-making and make ministers accountable for achieving these targets; (d) strengthen the role of Office of Impact Analysis, including greater independence, such that this process is more than simply a box-ticking exercise; and (e) consider expanding the impact of the National Competition Policy through greater funding for the National Productivity Fund".”
“I support the government's work on the fund, but I think it's currently around one tenth the size of the original 1990s National Competition Fund. If we expect that to move the dial, as it did back in the 1990s, we are going to have to put more firepower behind it. That is why I'm moving this second reading amendment standing my name—not to block this bill but to put on record that admiring the problem for the third or fourth year running is not a strategy. We need these changes. We need senior accountability. We need the government to further embrace what it has identified as real problems but start to change the incentives as well as build on the significant and I think useful work that the government has already done.”
“Every new regulatory burden should be matched by removal elsewhere, with the same discipline already applied to budget spending proposals. We need to change the culture and incentives by making senior public servants and responsible ministers directly accountable for rightsizing regulation. Rightsizing regulation should be an explicit KPI. Dynamism should be a measured, accountable consideration for major regulators, not just risk avoidance. New regulatory instruments should include sunset clauses. And the Office of Impact Assessment should have greater independence, such that regulatory impact is actually evaluated, not just box ticking. Finally, I urge the government to expand the National Productivity Fund.”
“The bill is useful, it is technical, it's incremental, it has useful schedules, it has 'tell us once', it has streamlining and it has technical fixes. These are all good things, and I do not underestimate the effort that goes into getting useful changes like this. But it is the second bill in a year, and the cost curve is still climbing regardless. Nothing in this bill or in any of the bills we've had to date fundamentally changes the incentives around regulatory burden, either in this place, amongst the politicians, or among the regulators or the departments. That is where I think the government needs to go. So my second reading amendment is trying to put forward ideas that would actually move the dial. We need to introduce crude but measurable regulatory reduction targets and strategies.”
“The Chair of the Productivity Commission recently wrote an article making the same point: that every new problem gets a patch rather than a rewrite, and the patches on patches, on top of each other, are making Australia's regulatory burden extremely high and making Australia a less attractive place to start and grow and invest in, which is a problem for all Australians. The truth is that governments and regulators are monopolies. In market terms, markets discipline firms through exit, but you cannot exit. We have no choices. We have no choice to exit regulators. We have no choice to exit governments. What we end up with is the costs of the government's monopoly being borne by people. So I support this bill, as I said.”
“They're saying they're waiting up to 18 months for the ATO to make a decision on how an investment would be treated, so the foreign capital just goes away. We need to change the culture here, and this is why—while I support this government's actions in this space—I urge the government to go further. This isn't about bad people. There are many good people, both in this House and across Australian government departments and regulators—people who want the best for the Australian people. The problem is structural. The system rewards visible new action—more rules, more money, more strategy—and almost never rewards the quiet, harder work of removing what is unnecessary, which doesn't create value and which is not making the difference that it is intended to.”
“I've seen firsthand how drone technology is at the forefront of some of these problems because government is slow to make decisions. There's no accountability from many government departments in terms of the speed of their decision-making. When I have spoken to innovative drone companies, drone companies that we should be trying to support and grow in this country, they're telling me they cannot compete with things like helicopter companies, because they have no certainty about how long it will take for the government or the regulator—CASA, in this case—to actually make an approval of their applications. They have no certainty, and this is something I hear time and time again. I speak to businesses looking for foreign investment.”
“However, I do think the government needs to go further, and, on this basis, I'm going to be moving an amendment to the motion for the second reading of the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill, because I think that we need to go significantly further. Let me tell you why. The cost of complying with Commonwealth regulation is growing. It was estimated at $65 billion in 2013. It is estimated at $160 billion today. The time that boards spend on risk and compliance has gone from 24 per cent in 2015 to 55 per cent in 2025. In Brisbane, it takes 31 separate approvals to open a cafe. Medical researchers who I speak to are spending up to a quarter of their time writing grant applications rather than engaging in medical research.”
“I rise in support of the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026 but also to urge the government to go further on it. I welcome the fact that this government recognises that regulatory burden, including unnecessary regulatory burden, hampers the dynamism of our economy. From a productivity point of view, we know that we need to make change here. We also know that, if we don't improve productivity, we do not improve real wages and we do not improve the lives and prosperity of Australians. So I welcome the government's work in this space, I welcome the government's bill in this space, and I welcome other actions the government has taken, including the EPBC reform and moves such as to pause the housing construction code.”
“Estimates are between 0.5 per cent and two per cent of all abortions over 20 weeks. They are generally because of late diagnosed anomalies, genetic syndromes or severe fetal growth problems. Hospital advisory committees and multidisciplinary teams are already consulted through this process, so, contrary to misinformation, third-trimester abortions are incredibly rare and never taken lightly. They typically relate to the immediate health and safety of the mother or the viability of the fetus. I am proud to support access to abortion in this country. It is an important part of our healthcare system. It is the choice of the woman. We need to protect it. I've thought about whether silence is wiser here, but I believe this is the time that we need to step up. Silence is not neutral. The time to step up is now.”
“Across Australia, we're seeing rising threats to women's access to abortion care. We see it in bills in state parliaments. We see it in the way some politicians talk about this issue, using misinformation and scare tactics to drive divisions, tools straight out of the Trump playbook. Australians don't want that sort of rhetoric or politics here. There is no evidence that there is a problem that needs solving. Our medical system already has robust safeguards built in, including those for rare instances of late-term abortion with strict clinical oversight. For instance, in New South Wales, if you're past 22 weeks and seeking a termination, you need the approval of two medical practitioners, who consider all circumstances and whether they meet sufficient grounds. These are incredibly rare.”
“All of this speaks to his bravery, his composure under extreme pressure and his humility. I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that Charlie is a hero, and I want to thank him for the courage and selflessness that he showed, which no doubt saved Leah's life. To Leah, I want to send my best wishes for your recovery and send those wishes to your family and friends, who must have been absolutely terrified by what you went through. I hope you know that the entire eastern suburbs community is behind you and your family and your loved ones, each step of the way as you heal.”
“Charlie is a volunteer lifeguard at North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club and was paddling from Bondi to Maroubra on the morning of Saturday 13 June when a shark attacked a woman, Leah Stewart, in the water off Coogee Beach. Despite the clear and present danger, with the shark still in the water, Charlie stayed with Leah and helped her get to the safety of the shore, where she was able to receive urgent medical attention. I have no doubt that this was an utterly terrifying experience, but Charlie stayed calm and focused, doing what he could to help. The other thing that struck me about Charlie is how even now. in the aftermath, he is using his platform on social media to encourage people to donate blood to aid in more life-threatening situations like the one Leah was in.”
“He has consistently spoken about protecting our natural environment and of building bridges between faiths, and he officiated Australia's first religious same-sex wedding. Over the last few years, during which the Jewish community has endured so much pain, he has been a pillar of strength. To Rabbi Kamins directly, I say thank you. To have known you is one of the great privileges of my role over the last few years, and I genuinely feel I'm a better representative for my community because of your example. I wish you nothing but peace and happiness in your next adventure. I also want to take a moment to pay tribute to Charlie Verco.”
“Today I want to pay tribute to two incredible humans from Wentworth, people who have shown unwavering community spirit and courage. The first is Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins. Rabbi Kamins has been the senior rabbi at Emanuel Synagogue since 1999. In that time, he has led the community through periods of both transformation and adversity. He's now stepping away from his active service to become the synagogue's inaugural Rabbi Emeritus, with his mantle taken up by the wonderful Rabbi Ninio. There is so much that I admire about Rabbi Kamins. He's got great wit and charm, but he matches his good humour with a deep commitment to Jewish values of egalitarianism and inclusion. Someone who leads from the heart with open arms, Rabbi Kamins has been an advocate of First Nations and refugee rights.”
“I think we need to work out how to incentivise them. I hope that these laws help drive those companies to develop what we need, as well as help to just ban them outright among our 16-year-olds. I will continue to support this legislation, but we will have to see how it goes. I think clear reporting on its success or not is absolutely critical if we are going to deal with online harms and manage the impact on our young people.”
“But I urge the government to move more swiftly and decisively on not just a digital duty of care for our young people but also to combat extremism and to combat polarisation—and to keep our adults safe as well, including from online radicalisation. I think that is absolutely critical. I still raise questions as to whether this is going to deliver what we want. I believe that we need to work out how to incentivise our social media companies to provide safe places—to provide safe types of social media. If they are incentivised to innovate in that space, we may get better outcomes. I do hope that this sort of ban that is in place will help these platforms and others develop safer types of social media structures. I think we need to get there too, because otherwise we'll always be playing whac-a-mole.”
“But we need a broader framework: a digital duty of care that this parliament has been waiting for. The government has said it's forthcoming. The government has been slow to the party. It has been in government for four years now. The online harms are not new and its not that they are not yet understood. We are completely aware of them, and this legislation should have been in the parliament before now. Holding technology companies accountable for building safety into their platforms by design is desperately needed—for our children and for our adults. In conclusion, I am hopeful that this legislation will aid the work of protecting our young people from social media harms. I recognise the challenges and imperfections of trying to do this work, but I still think it is worthy. I do support the government's actions and work in this space.”
“Those for whom the ban has been effective will log on for the first time as 17-year-olds with no transitional support. Adults, too, continue to experience real harm from these platforms. This includes people in their 20s and 30s who are being radicalised online by extremists, terrorists and misogynistic content, as ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess shared in his annual threat assessment just last week. I have long advocated for greater transparency and stronger regulation of the algorithms that quietly determine what content we see and how much we are shown. An opt-out system like Teach Us Consent's Fix Our Feeds initiative would put choice about what they see and when they see it back in the hands of every single Australian, and I do support that.”
“But I think not seeing this is going to be a continued weakness, and it is a concern I have in this space. There are also gaps that the bill does not address. Children can still view social media content without logging into an account at all. Platforms like Roblox sit outside the current framework in ways that warrant greater scrutiny. I also remain concerned about generative AI chatbots, which can offer unfiltered advice to young people on their lives, their schoolwork and their mental health, with no safeguards in place. I've said that the government needs a clearer plan on how children are interacting with artificial intelligence, and that remains true today. It is also worth remembering that these harms do not end at age 16.”
“Once again, I outline that I remain concerned with how this regime will be enforced in practice and believe that the eSafety Commissioner may need greater resourcing to be able to make full use of these powers. There are other concerns I have with this bill. The bill does not clearly define what constitutes 'reasonable steps'. There is a balance to be struck here. We want to encourage platforms to innovate in age-assurance technology while ensuring there is a clear, measurable standard the commissioner can rely on when bringing enforcement action once she has obtained the relevant documents. Again, I'm not sure that we really have the incentives right yet to get these companies to innovate on age-assurance technology. There's a distance to go there. Perhaps, with changes around the world, that innovation will step up.”
“This could include internal emails, implementation directions to company branches or board minutes—material that would allow the commissioner to properly assess whether reasonable steps are genuinely being taken, rather than relying solely on the limited monthly reporting that platforms choose to provide. Secondly, the bill doubles the civil penalties under sections 63D, 63DA and 63DB, lifting the maximum penalty from 30,000 to 60,000 penalty units. That's from $49.5 million to $99 million. I support both these measures. I do, however, hold reservations that even the double penalty represents sufficient financial disincentives for platforms at this scale.”
“Firstly, the bill expands the eSafety Commissioner's information-gathering powers. The existing section 63G is repealed and replaced with a broader provision allowing the commissioner to compel any relevant party—meaning not only platform providers—to produce information or documents relevant to compliance with the minimum-age obligation. This will capture the securing of evidence from third parties such as age-assurance providers and app store operators, something the commissioner has directly requested. Entities that fail to comply face penalties of up to $1.65 million.”
“It is important that we regulate social media. It is important that we protect our children. And it is absolutely critical that we ask and, frankly, demand social media and digital firms to take responsibility for the harms that they facilitate through their platforms. Even if they don't direct or create that content, it's certainly facilitated and exacerbated through the algorithms and the business models these businesses undertake. It is time to step up. I support this part of this legislation for what it does. But, again, I come back to the point that it needs to go further. We need to have a digital duty of care that protects all Australians and protects, in particular, against the online hate, vitriol and extremism that we see on our online platforms today. Why do I welcome the bill?”
“For children in my electorate, it is deeply personal. Despite the best efforts of the eSafety Commissioner, young people are still encountering this material. This goes to the hatred that is spread through social media, the radicalisation that goes on through social media and the polarisation that is driven through social media. This is why I support the ban for under-16s. This is why I think this is important, despite the genuine challenges of its implementation. I have seen the hate that is spread about different parts of our community and the vitriol that is directed towards the Jewish community. I have seen the antisemitic attacks that are directed online and how that drives hate and polarisation. I have seen this in my community and in other communities of other faiths and different backgrounds.”
“These are the young people who are intended to be protected by the legislation and their lived experience tells us that enforcement to date has fallen well short of the policy's intent, and that, because of this weak enforcement, it actually reduces the community support for the legislation because it's seen as too easy to get around and therefore not really making the difference that it wants to, or only punishing certain people but not being consistent. The overwhelming feedback was that they do want this to work. Separate from these general harms, our community has also lived through profound tragedy. Graphic footage was livestreamed and shared online during and after the Bondi Junction attack in 2024 and two years later in Bondi Beach. Children across the country have been exposed to this content.”
“At a junior school forum I ran with students around the ages of 11 and 12, the response was more positive. Twenty-three students supported the ban, eight did not. Those in favour shared positives about communicating more with friends in person, feeling more included and a reduction in cyberbullying. One of my favourite comments was from an 11- or 12-year-old, who didn't have social media on her phone. She said, 'But my older brothers now talk to me more, and that is a good thing, and I appreciate that.' That was probably the most heartwarming story I heard. Those opposed to the ban pointed out how easy the restriction was to get around and the difficulty it created for friends who lived further apart geographically. That was a real concern for students who board. I raise these voices because they matter.”
“Among those opposed, the concerns were consistent and specific—that the ban is easy to circumvent, that age verification doesn't work and that new accounts can be created in minutes. Enforcement felt inconsistent. A 15-year-old was blocked, while a 14-year-old in the same friendship group was not. One student described how a single student in a friendship group was banned from their social accounts, leading to that student's social exclusion. Another had run a campaign against the ban and met with politicians directly, telling me he believed that the intention was right, but the execution was poor. Several made the point that the ban, as it currently operates, targets a minority who are already addicted or being bullied while restricting everybody else and question whether this is the right way to design the policy.”
“At a senior school forum of students aged between 15 and 17, opinion was genuinely split, with nine students still supporting the ban, seven opposing it and several remaining undecided. Among supporters, the common view was that the ban came perhaps too late for their own cohort because they were already on social media, so it was harder to get off, frankly, and they were able to get around it. But they did see that a real opportunity lay in protecting the next generation of 13-year-olds coming through. Several noted that parents were already shifting younger siblings onto basic non-smart phones without access to social media apps, and that this approach seemed to be working well for that age group.”
“One school in Wentworth ran an internal survey of students in years 8 to 10, receiving 142 responses. Of these students, only just under half—49 per cent—reported losing access to at least one social media account because of the ban. Of the rest, 45 per cent said their social media use stayed the same; 37 per cent said it had decreased; and a small number said it had actually increased. Sixty-five per cent of students believed it remained easy for under-16s to access restricted platforms. Only a quarter thought the ban had reduced social media use overall. So students were not sure that it had worked significantly at all. There has been a shift, but nowhere near what a ban would imply. I've also run leadership forums across my electorate to hear directly from young people on this issue.”
“Meta and Google were recently found liable in a US trial for deliberately designing addictive products and for misleading consumers about the safety of their platforms. We do not allow people to put unsafe items on our supermarket shelves—physical products. We should not allow that. We should expect safety in our digital products as well. But we should also be honest about how this first phase of the ban has gone. The eSafety Commissioner has raised serious concerns that Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat are not properly complying with the minimum-age restrictions. Research from the University of Newcastle found that more than 80 per cent of under-16s in Australia were still using social media three months after the ban took place, and I have seen this reflected closely in my electorate.”
“The social media ban was a significant step towards addressing the concerns about social media impact on our young people: the addictive design of these platforms, exposure to extreme and distressing material and a growing sense of disconnection among young Australians. In the lead-up to that legislation, I spoke with countless parents and families who are genuinely frightened about what social media was doing to their kids: the bullying, the threats, the abuse and the sheer volume of harmful content these platforms had consistently failed to remove. We had seen this play out as close to a game of whack-a-mole, with platforms removing harmful material only after the damage was done. That concern has since been vindicated.”
“I rise to speak on the Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026, which strengthens enforcement of the social media minimum age. This reform is overdue, and I do support it. In 2024, I spoke in support of the original minimum-age bill, which restricted access to social media for those under 16. I commended the bill then and I do support again the intent of the bill today, though I will continue to reserve judgement on its effectiveness until it is implemented and I continue to urge the government to move on duty of care, because, until it moves on an online duty of care, these are just bandaids and are not dealing with the broader ecosystem and protecting not just our children but others from online harms.”
“It is time for Australians to be able to permanently turn off their algorithms and choose when they are turned back on so that they have control over their social media. That's what I want for my kids as they grow up and what I want for my community, and it's what they want as well. Our businesses want a way to resolve issues with social media companies in an appropriate dispute resolution forum.”
“Constituents and small businesses frequently come to my office in distress—businesses locked out of Instagram accounts they rely on to advertise and individuals shut out of their email—and they find it extraordinarily difficult to find any path of resolution. We have heard from small businesses plagued by fake Google reviews and even by fake accounts impersonating local owners to leave disparaging reviews on neighbourhood businesses. These are serious issues, and they strike at some of the largest disruptors of our social cohesion. It is crucial that this parliament deals with them dynamically, attentive to the detail and to the changing technology landscape. Algorithms matter. Children deserve protection from the harms of social media, but so does everybody else. So it is time for us to be brave. It is time for us to fix our feeds.”
“We cannot leave users to the game of whack-a-mole, waiting for platforms to deplatform one creator after another. Beyond the algorithm, there are further harms we must confront. I commend the government on beginning its work on a digital duty of care, which would shift online safety from a reactive, user supported system to a proactive, risk based model, legally requiring tech companies to anticipate and mitigate foreseeable harms with continuous safety-by-design standards across platforms, operating systems and connected devices. There is a long way to go. Part of that work is dispute resolution.”
“Research from the Global Institute for Women's Leadership ranks Australia among the most misogynistic nations in the Western world. Reports of sexual assault sit at an all-time high. Teach Us Consent's Fix our Feeds initiative offers a clear answer: put informed choice back into the hands of Australians. The European Union's Digital Service Act already requires major platforms to offer users an option to switch and opt out of personalised, algorithm driven feeds. The platforms complied. TikTok's 'For You' feed can show content popular in a region rather than content driven by past behaviour. On Instagram and Facebook, a fully non-personalized feed already exists. Under such an option, Australians could have the same experience. This sits well within the capabilities of these platforms. There is no question of that.”
“Anyone with a social media account understands a pattern: algorithms drive division, isolate users and spread hateful content. They are not transparent. They shape our way of thinking without our knowledge, normalising extremism and hate. The government has acted to protect young people through the social media ban for under-16s, and I welcome it. But the ban is still not perfect and is not fully implemented. Still, the algorithms reach everyone of all ages and stages. A poll by Teach Us Consent found that 63 per cent of respondents knew someone radicalised by the algorithms. Teenage boys are now amongst the most likely perpetrators of child sexual abuse—including 17- and 18-year-olds, who fall outside the social media ban.”
“In Burgess's February 2025 assessment, more than a year earlier, he noted that fewer than 17 per cent of the minors that ASIO had investigated were born offshore. Of those, the median age on arrival was 4½. These are our young people radicalised online, often in their own home. In his 2024 submission to the Senate inquiry into right-wing extremist movements, ASIO gave evidence that online platforms remain significant enablers of radicalisation and the spread of propaganda. This evidence is consistent. The same dynamic drives misogyny. In 2024, Burgess explained that just 10 minutes spent looking at incel material prompts the algorithm to recommend increasingly violent, misogynistic propaganda, including posts glorifying incel terrorists. We know all too well that incels have committed terrorist acts overseas.”
“Last night, in his annual threat assessment, the Director-General of ASIO, Mike Burgess, warned that Australia's rising terrorist threat is being fuelled by social media. His warning was stark. In November last year, he cautioned that platform algorithms can escalate a user from non-violent content to grotesque ISIS propaganda within a few clicks. The radicalisation he describes is happening here in Australia. As we all know, just a month later, on 14 December 2025, we saw Australia's largest terrorist attack in history—an indescribably awful attack of antisemitic terror in my community in Bondi. For years I have thought about what we can do to combat violent extremism. In the months since, that question has only grown more urgent.”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. Last night, ASIO chief Mike Burgess said social media was 'promoting discord and inflammatory rhetoric, exacerbating polarisation and creating a permissive environment for violence'. My community has experienced that violence directly at Bondi and in the antisemitic online hate directed at the Jewish community. Social media algorithms feed extremism and polarisation. Will the government make algorithms opt-out on social media as part of its duty of care bill to protect our community from online extremism?”
“At worst, this bill risks creating the conditions for the enterprise agreement system to be a vehicle for organised crime. These risks are not hypothetical. The Watson report found that Victoria's enterprise agreement system had been thoroughly corrupted—agreements sold for cash, awarded to criminals, used to punish competitors. Watson estimated that corruption costs Victorian taxpayers $15 billion. I want to be clear: I support enterprise bargaining—”
“But this legislation creates the power to do precisely that. At best, this bill risks limiting who can deliver government objectives, reducing competition and value for money. It risks locking productive, innovative businesses out of grants and tenders. Queensland's Best Practice Industry Conditions scheme was used as a procurement policy to embed preferred conditions. It was found by its own productivity commission to have reduced construction productivity by nine per cent, increasing costs and reducing housing supply. The government should be listening to this, because they should care that construction productivity is down by nine per cent because of the actions of the government. This matters. We do care about construction productivity, because we can't deliver housing unless we get construction productivity moving.”
“Most operate under awards, not enterprise agreements, in part because negotiating an agreement and navigating the full complexity of the awards as they are currently written requires resources that many simply do not have. They comply with every legal obligation. Under this bill, there may not be enough. As I flagged in the second reading debate, the policy framework intended to govern this, the secure Australian jobs code, doesn't exist. Submissions closed in February. There is no draft. On 1 May, five weeks before this bill was introduced, the minister stated that the government had no intention of requiring employers to hold a union-covered enterprise agreement as a condition of Commonwealth construction funding and no intention of replicating Queensland's Best Practice Industry Conditions scheme.”
“I am concerned that, by creating new exceptions to the Fair Work Act's prohibition on discrimination, this legislation gives the Commonwealth legal basis to favour one business over another, not on capability, not on compliance, not on price, not on delivery but on the industrial instrument covering its workforce. These powers extend to grants and the procurement of goods and services and flow through Commonwealth contractual chains. A small business that is a third-tier subcontractor on a government funded project could find itself subject to this test without ever dealing directly with the Commonwealth. This bill is explicit about this. The businesses that are most exposed are small businesses.”
“The problem the amendments address is that part 9 of the bill hands the minister sweeping new powers with no statutory limits, no required consultation and no meaningful parliamentary oversight to determine who can access Commonwealth grants, procurement contracts and funding arrangements across an $830 billion annual budget. That is 26.8 per cent of GDP. It is a record, and this bill enables it to be filtered through an industrial relations test. My amendments would omit this part, retaining the other practical measures of the bill. Even though the government is not compelled to use these powers and has indicated it does not plan to use them for the construction industry, I am concerned.”
“My question is for the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. The government's Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Building Cooperative Workplaces No. 1) Bill 2026 would allow the Commonwealth to legally discriminate against businesses without an enterprise agreement or those without a union named. But a not dissimilar scheme in Victoria was found by the Watson report to have been used and weaponised by the CFMEU, costing taxpayers billions and supporting organised crime. My question is: how can these provisions be a good idea from the point of view of either preventing corruption or getting value for money for government spending?”
“At the same time, you exclude those businesses who, because of the labyrinthine complexity of the EBAs and the award system which the government has failed miserably to deal with, find it much harder to develop EBAs. So I will not support that, and the public of Australia deserves better.”
“But I cannot support legislation that creates the legal framework to preference union interests in the allocation of public money—not when documented corruption has turned parts of the enterprise agreement system into a vehicle for organised crime; not when the government said, five weeks before introducing this bill, that they didn't have any intention of doing what this bill empowers—or allows them, at least—to do; and not when one jurisdiction that tried a comparable scheme found it destroyed productivity, inflated costs and reduced housing supply. Incentives matter. When access to public money depends on having the right enterprise agreement, you create the conditions for the very corruption Watson documented: agreements as currency, access as leverage and corruption as the cost of doing business.”
“The level of organised crime and issues related to the CFMEU is an enormous burden on the entire country. Government should be very, very cautious about going ahead with legislation that could add to corruption in the procurement of public services, and this is quite reckless. Again, I support the elements of this bill that strengthen the Fair Work Commission, protect road transport contractors and fix the CFMEU reporting requirements; those reforms are practical and proportionate.”