Mary Aldred
Monash · Liberal Party · Australia
“It's a privilege to rise for my 100th contribution to this place. In doing so, I want to address a barbeque-stopper of a conversation topic in my electorate of Monash, and that is homeownership. I'm deeply concerned. Building approvals dropped in May for the third consecutive month. This is an impact of the budget's housing tax changes.”
“You can measure the budget deficit of this government in numbers, but nothing compares to the deficit of trust it has created in Australia. We need to unlock supply and enable local infrastructure like Weebar Road in Drouin, in my electorate of Monash, which I've been fighting very hard for.”
“This Friday is 3 July, and it is the 12-month anniversary of the swearing-in of the class of 2025. It is a momentous occasion for that class among us.”
“I've got a constituent right now who's living with her abuser in fear because leaving means she will be separated from her special needs son and pets, and she cannot afford to move out. There are a couple living in a tent in a stranger's driveway in my electorate, and they cannot afford anywhere to rent on their $450-per-week budget.”
“Our wonderful CFA volunteers in Victoria answer the call in the middle of the night and step away from their work in the middle of the day to protect our community year round. As the daughter of someone who was a CFA volunteer, I know this very well.”
“For all the smirking and the back-patting and the preening that this prime minister carries on with, Australians right now deserve so much better from their government. Look at health.”
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“This is not just at a federal level—don't even get me started on the Victorian state Labor government, because spending other people's money is the Labor way. Victoria's debt is out of control. It's more than the states of Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania combined. The Victorian Labor government is paying $21 million a day in interest payments, and that is projected to climb to $29 million a day over the next three to four years. Labor have demonstrated an absolute collapse of fiscal discipline, and everyday Australians are wearing the consequences. These figures are mind-boggling. You could build a new West Gippsland hospital within one week on the amount of money we're talking about.”
“But the demand on those services is at unprecedented levels and is showing no sign of slowing. The reason I raise this is food banks are the canary in the cage for how the rest of the economy is travelling. Right now, it's a very bleak picture. Labor have presided over the biggest collapse in living standards in the developed world, and they're continuing to spend. You won't see any fiscal discipline or budget control from this Treasurer. Labor are well and truly on their way to leaving a $1.2 billion debt bomb for the next generation—for young people who already see owning their own home as a dream that gets further and further away into the distant future. Every minute, Australians are paying $50,000 on the interest payments of this federal Labor government.”
“I completely associate myself with the remarks of my good friend and colleague the member for Casey, who highlighted the impact of the declining health of our economy on families, small businesses and the broader community. Australians are suffering right now. Many people in my electorate of Monash are doing it incredibly tough. Just last week I was volunteering at Frankies Community Kitchen, who do a terrific job of looking after people in need. I cracked a few hundred eggs during my shift, and the volunteers there enjoy good tunes and good company as they do incredibly important work. Frankies Community Kitchen are preparing 1,230 meals a day for people in need, and that need is continuing to rise. Frankies Community Kitchen supports a number of other food banks in the area, like Longwarry Foodbank.”
“I ask the Prime Minister: can he tell anyone in Monash that they are safer today than before this government came to office? The Prime Minister offered cheaper power prices, and he's let us down on that as well. Australians deserve better.”
“As Anthony Galloway in the Australian reported: While Maloney was convicted of one state charge and two commonwealth offences—the production and transmission of child abuse material—the commonwealth charges together attracted a sentence of just six months. The coalition has offered the government the opportunity to fix this with draft legislation, to make sure it never happens again. The shadow Attorney-General, my colleague Julian Leeser, wrote to the Attorney-General. He said: … we have an opportunity to act at the commonwealth level to prevent similar outcomes in respect of commonwealth child sex offences. Mr Leeser's bill would have included mandatory sentences of five years for the production and transmission of child abuse material.”
“In fact, many are suffering right now. We have never been less united. We have never been more divided. I ask the Prime Minister: can he tell anyone in Monash that they are members of a stronger community today than before this government came to office? Recently, the Australian newspaper revealed that a child sex offender, anonymised in court records as Hilary Maloney, received a sentence of four years and nine months, with a non-parole period of two-and-a-half years. Maloney was arrested for filming the abuse of a girl inside a Melbourne home in 2023, producing 77 separate files of child abuse material. This is the most horrendous offending. This is a five-year-old child victim who will wear these scars for the rest of her life.”
“I ask the Prime Minister: can he tell anyone in my electorate of Monash that they are better off under his government than before they were three and a half long years ago? This government is not doing a good job, and that is showing up locally. From the power station worker taxed so high that there is a disincentive to take on some extra weekend overtime because there's literally no reward for effort, to all of the farmers who are forgotten and the volunteer organisations regulated to the ends of the earth, these things matter in Monash. From Wonthaggi to Moe, Drouin to Korumburra, Inverloch to Cowes, Leongatha to Warragul, people are raising the human consequences of the government's mismanagement of our economy every day of the week with me. Beyond just my electorate of Monash, Australians are not thriving.”
“These provide the authority for the federal government to spend your money on what has been budgeted for and what has been promised since. Budgets and spending are, ultimately, revealing of the priorities of a government, and what the people of Monash have seen from this Prime Minister is a man who has all of the wrong priorities. Having reviewed his budget and all of his promises, I ask the Prime Minister: is he spending for the future prosperity of all Australians, including those I have the honour of representing, or is he spending only for the future prosperity of his own prime ministership? Budgets are a helpful way to assess the performance of a federal government because they are very real and direct in the consequences they have for families, small businesses, farmers, volunteers and sporting clubs in my electorate of Monash.”
“In the fourth year of his government, we see a prime minister who says he's focused on delivering for all Australians and repaying and rebuilding the trust they placed in his government at the election. We have a prime minister who also says that many of the economic opportunities our nation has begin in regional Australia. The politest thing I can muster about these empty platitudes is that Moe is a long way from Marrickville. I'm here to speak and ask questions on behalf of the people of Monash, whom the Prime Minister has disappointed and ultimately left feeling let down by a government that understands neither them nor their aspirations for themselves, their families, their community or their businesses. Today in the parliament we are considering the appropriation bills.”
“On top of that, it draws people into our pubs and bakeries, spending money at our local petrol stations—all of the things that are just so important to our local economy. We've got some marvellous things in Monash, so come and visit, come and spend your money, and come and enjoy. House adjourned at 17:00 The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Boyce ) took the chair at 09:29.”
“In a cost-of-living crisis like this, households understandably might not have the means to go out and take their family to the local pub, and that has a flow-on impact on the rest of the wonderful regions like mine. There's so much to do in the Monash electorate. Just last week, I had the privilege of speaking at the launch of ArtConnect 2025 at the Meeniyan Art Gallery in South Gippsland. Meeniyan is a wonderful town, and it's a gateway to the Prom and towns like Walkerville and Foster. ArtConnect is a great initiative. It provides locals and visitors to our region with a connected map and a direct invitation to open studio days across South Gippsland. It brings together over 80 local artists across 24 studios to come and have a look at some of the incredible things we've got on offer.”
“Monash small businesses are champions of our local community. Right now, it has never been harder to own and operate a small business in Australia. Small-business owners have never worked harder for less and faced more risk and red tape than under this government. And small-business owners are voting with their feet. There are nearly 34,000 fewer employing small businesses now than when Labor came to office. It's an epidemic of closures. Small businesses look after everybody else before themselves. Right now, because the rest of the community is hurting, many of these small businesses are feeling it too. When you effectively cut someone's disposable income, you cut the flow-on economic benefits to small-business owners as well.”
“My community sure hasn't seen it. The rest of Australia has not seen it. I'm proud to come from a region that generates wealth for the rest of Australia, and they're getting no support from this government to continue doing that. Their grocery bills are going up. Their rent is going up, if they can find a place to rent. I heard a terrible story from a local woman in Drouin last year. Her son is a truck driver. He's a single dad with a couple of young children. He could not find anywhere to rent locally. He was nearly homeless, and he has now moved back in with his mum to make sure he and his kids have a roof over their heads. That's the sort of thing we're seeing every day of the week because of the cost-of-living crisis in this country. Many small businesses in Monash are seeing the impact of Labor's cost-of-living crisis.”
“It is not hard to look for the impact of what is the biggest collapse in living standards in the developed world while driving a spending addiction that is chaining the next generation of Australians and those yet to come with intergenerational debt. And it's no small figure; it's a $1.2 trillion debt bomb. Tell me—has anyone said to you over the course of the last three years, 'Gee, I'm really better off right now than I was under the last coalition government'? No-one can say that. They can't. This government has presided over cost increases across the board. Amidst a couple of modest mortgage cuts, we've had the experience of 12 mortgage increases on the trot from this government. Power prices are up. Remember the grand promise about a $275 energy cut? It was based on the government's modelling. Where is it? I haven't seen it.”
“Australians are not thriving; in fact, many are suffering right now. We've never been less united. We've never been more divided. This week was the anniversary of the atrocities of October 7, the single greatest, deadliest attack on Jewish life outside of the Holocaust. Has this government learned nothing in the two years since? Here at home, our Jewish community is terrorised on a daily basis. We have seen businesses owned by Jewish Australians attacked, staff intimidated and harassed, synagogues firebombed, children racially vilified on the street. Where has the government been on this? They've been nowhere to be seen because keeping Australians safe, all Australians safe, is not a priority for them. This government is not looking after Australian families.”
“Whether rallying hundreds of students to watch the Olympic torch relay or polishing shoes in the red dust of Central Australia, he inspired those around him to live life with joy, purpose and big dreams. I know many families connected to Marist-Sion are deeply mourning his passing. To quote the mayor of Baw Baw Shire Council, Danny Goss: Chris Holt is one of the finest men I have ever met. It was both a pleasure and extraordinary experience to work with Chris. Never a fan of authority, his allegiances always lay with the students he taught. On behalf of the Monash electorate, I extend my sincere condolences to his partner, Dawn, his family and the Marist-Sion College community. Vale, Chris Holt.”
“I wish to acknowledge the passing of Christopher Holt, the former principal of Marist-Sion College in Warragul who led the school with great distinction from 1993 to 2006. Chris Holt was a man of many callings—author, farmer, soldier, principal, husband and father—and was a mentor to many. He was also the great-nephew of former Liberal prime minister Harold Holt—a connection he carried with quiet pride. During his 13 years as principal, Chris oversaw the development of the music program, the college hall, the Marian Theatre and the village classroom clusters—a legacy that continues to shape the Marist-Sion College today. Chris was known for his warmth, eccentric charm and sense of fun.”
“The changes in the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 provide essential clarifications to ensure that the agencies that keep our nation safe can continue to do so in an era of rapid technological development. The coalition will always support sensible reforms which ensure men and women serving in intelligence and law enforcement roles have the tools they need to take down criminals, no matter where they are hiding, and the coalition will be supporting this bill without amendment.”
“The amendments will clarify that the authorising officers must consider the direct and reasonably foreseeable consequences of controlled conduct when authorising or varying a controlled operation. Schedule 5 also provides clarity around legal protections for officers involved in undercover operations targeted at taking down insidious sexual abuse syndicates. In the 2024-25 financial year, the ACCCE Child Protection Triage Unit received 82,764 reports of online child sexual exploitation. This equates to an average of 226 reports per day. The need for strong action against these predators has never been more acute. These amendments ensure the law is fit for purpose in addressing the most abhorrent online crimes where persons under investigation are anonymised, including on the dark web and encrypted communications platforms.”
“The amendments clarify that interception orders issued to Australian law enforcement and national security agencies may be used to obtain prospective content data from communications providers in a country with which Australia has a designated international agreement regardless of the technical method by which that prospective data is sent to an agency. Schedule 5 amends the Crimes Act 1914 to clarify the threshold for authorising and varying controlled operations and the circumstances in which a participant is protected from criminal responsibility and indemnified against civil liability. The anonymous nature of online crime means law enforcement may lack information to assess potential risks when deciding whether to authorise or vary a controlled operation.”
“What these amendments do is clarify that interception orders issued to Australian law enforcement and national security agencies may be used to obtain prospective content data from communications providers in a country with which Australia has a designated international agreement regardless of the type of technical method by which that prospective data is sent on. I've had a bit to say about data management recently, particularly around issues pertaining to data sovereignty. I think it's really important that we have regard for the management and security of data kept here and abroad where it concerns sensitive consumer data, such as financial records or health records, or where we're dealing with the areas of national security and our Defence Force agencies.”
“This is dealt with under an agreement between the government of Australia and the government of the United States of America on access to electronic data for the purpose of countering serious crime. I go back to my remarks about the illegal tobacco trade in Australia. While official figures show that smoking rates are declining, wastewater reports from criminal intelligence agencies show that smoking as recorded in wastewater is actually at an eight-year high. Legal retailers of legal cigarettes are reporting, I think, 50 per cent down on the last 12 months and 30 per cent on the year before that. So we have a major problem with criminal gangs. That is absolutely relatable to some of the points in this bill.”
“Schedule 3 will amend the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to permit limited access to stored communications and allow agencies to undertake development and testing activities in circumstances where they would, in other circumstances, be allowed to intercept the same communication if it were continuing to pass over a telecommunications system. The intention of these changes will be to firm up the existing framework and ensure it is able to keep pace with a continually developing and modern operating environment. Schedule 4 corrects a technical issue with the operation of the interception— No, I'm not—of international production orders in the T(IA) Act that was preventing international production orders from being given to US based prescribed communications providers in certain circumstances.”
“The Labor Party was nowhere to be seen on getting its act together on this front. At the time, the Prime Minister was quoted in the Canberra Times as saying: … the move came after challenges with information sharing … 'Challenges with information sharing' must be the understatement of the year in this case. The change was the third round of changes, by the way, that this government fiddled around with in three years as part of their machinery-of-government changes. This was, of course, after the events in January, when there was an initial discovery of a caravan full of explosives.”
“We're at this juncture because the Labor government decided, after the federal election in 2022, that it would pull apart the Department of Home Affairs. This blatantly prioritised party political mechanics above the Australian national interest. We know that, following the 2025 election, the Albanese Labor government was dragged into putting the Home Affairs portfolio back together again in its original structure, which was put forward by the coalition. That included returning the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre to Home Affairs from the Attorney-General's portfolio. The coalition was open and upfront about its commitment to this structure before the election.”
“The Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 amends the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and Crimes Act 1914 to make critical provisions operate as they are intended to. It also provides technical amendments flowing from the government's decision to reconstitute the Home Affairs portfolio after this year's federal election. Schedule 1 of the bill deals with the permitting of protected network activity and how warrants for intercepts of information are to be used, communicated and recorded to meet disclosure obligations. Schedule 2 amends the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to transfer the statutory function of the Communications Access Coordinator, the CAC, from the Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department to the Department of Home Affairs.”
“I associate myself with the remarks of my colleague, the member for New England, on the insidious rise of the illegal tobacco trade at the moment. It is causing huge issues for regional Australia, particularly in my home state of Victoria, where that was brought home just this week, with the illegal ram raid on a local grocery store in Longwarry. They're good businesspeople; they care about their staff. They had a ransom note from one of these characters. They didn't pay the ransom. They did all of the right things. They went to the police. Yet, a couple of days later, they had a ram raid attack on their business, which is totally unacceptable. So we really need to deal very, very strongly with that in a number of ways.”
“I want to affirm my very, very strong commitment to fight for new infrastructure at Mirboo North, with their sporting oval; Fish Creek, with their football club; and Moe, with their swim club getting shade cloths and solar heating, and all of the other magnificent sporting clubs right across the Monash electorate.”
“This has a really big impact on local organisations that look after people in my electorate of Monash who are really struggling. I particularly want to acknowledge Frankies Community Kitchen. I went there with my mum earlier this year to peel vegetables and to support their kitchen crew. They do an amazing job of giving unused food from supermarkets and local restaurants a second chance in our community, and demand for their services has never been so high. I also want to acknowledge the Baw Baw Food Relief centre, run by the four big Cs, the four local churches in our community, and the Corinella food bank, which I visited with Senator Jane Hume during the election. They do an absolutely magnificent job. More broadly, though, sporting infrastructure is incredibly important in the Monash electorate.”
“They've done an absolutely magnificent job of planting elm trees which link to the Drouin RSL and other local community monuments like the cenotaph. It commemorates the Centenary of Armistice for the First World War, from 2014 to 2018. There are a number of veterans that I want to recognise, including Rod McNab and Graeme Watts, who was in charge of the Drouin veterans welfare centre. He has done some remarkable work over 30 years in advocating for veterans in our community. I want to acknowledge that today the national accounts will be released. For me, it's a question of: are we better off? Productivity has been going backwards, and in the last national accounts we saw a growth rate of 0.2 per cent in the March quarter.”
“Can I associate myself with the fine remarks of the member for Dunkley, particularly in relation to her comments as we prepare for World Suicide Prevention Day. As a former board member of Lifeline Gippsland, this is an issue I'm particularly passionate about, and I want to recognise the very, very fine work that many mental health organisations in my electorate of Monash undertake. Tragically, it is the leading cause of death in Australia for those aged between 15 and 44. We still have a rate of suicide in this country that is far too high. On Sunday I had the great privilege of attending the unveiling of the Drouin military memorial, which is an amazing project that has been put together by the Drouin Anglican Church, veterans from the Drouin RSL and the broader community.”
“I wish the board of the Committee for Gippsland, who manage and auspice that program, and everyone involved all the very best for what I hope is another 30 successful years. I'm very passionate about the work that men's sheds do. It has been a real privilege to be able to visit a number of men's sheds in my electorate, including Mirboo North, who do some amazing woodwork— Debate interrupted.”
“Unfortunately, the Allan Labor government has cut funding to those regional community leadership programs, which do such a great job of identifying, fostering and developing leadership talent in our regional communities. Over its 30 years, we've had some incredible alumni come through the Gippsland Community Leadership Program, including the former Victoria Police commissioner Ken Lay, who is a Gippslander, and Senator Bridget McKenzie, who is an alumni as well. I had the great fortune of being able to go through the program in 2011. It's a wonderful opportunity. I encourage more aspiring young Gippsland leaders to put their hands up and nominate themselves for that program.”
“It was wonderful to present him with a new flag and also speak at the residents' morning tea about my new role and about our magnificent Monash electorate, as well as the story behind General Sir John Monash, which I am passionate about and committed to retelling because, in my humble view, he is Australia's greatest ever citizen. I also want to congratulate the Gippsland Community Leadership Program. They were established in 1996, and that came out of the Karpin review into leadership in regional Australia. I have to acknowledge the Hawke government for initiating that review. But there are a number of community leadership programs right across regional Victoria and regional Australia.”
“So study hard, and give it your best shot, but I know and I have no doubt that each one of those students that I engaged with is going to go on to have a really interesting, incredible career and life ahead of them. Aged care is a very, very important issue in my electorate of Monash. We've got some wonderful aged-care facilities. We've got some incredibly dedicated staff. I know, for a lot of those not-for-profit providers, there are some really challenging issues that they need to grapple with every single day. I previously served on the board of the Woorayl Lodge community aged care centre in South Gippsland. All of the staff and carers in all of those facilities do an amazing job. I recently visited the Fairview retirement home in Warragul, where the flag-bearer is 94 years old. His name is Bill, and he is a veteran.”
“It's a small school, but it's an incredible school, and I pay tribute to the wonderful teachers there, who are really, really dedicated in the job that they do. I visited Drouin West Primary School with some new flags as well. At the Marist-Sion Catholic college in Warragul, I spoke to their year 12 legal studies class just a couple of weeks ago. I have to say I was just blown away by the calibre of questions. Only two students seemed to nod off a little bit during my presentation, but for a moment only. But they were such insightful questions. Those students are preparing for their VCE exams later in the year, and I wish them all the very, very best in their study and preparation. I did say to them that, when I was in year 12, it was the TER score, but, no matter how you finish year 12, it doesn't determine the rest of your life.”
“I give a special shout-out to the volunteers and also the local businesses who, although doing it really tough right now, are still the first to put their hands up to support local sporting clubs, so I give my absolute sincere thanks and appreciation to them on that front. There are a couple of other things I would like to touch on. I am really passionate about civics education in schools. We've got some absolutely amazing schools in the Monash electorate. I've had the privilege of visiting a number of them recently to present new Australian flags and also talk about our parliamentary system. Although I am a new member here, it's wonderful to be able to share my last couple of weeks in this sitting period with those students. I've been to Foster Primary School in South Gippsland, which only has a few students.”
“It's a really important opportunity, I think, to provide a regional pathway for very talented and elite junior basketball players in our community who were previously leaving our region to seek senior playing pathways elsewhere. We get to keep them in our region. We get to cheer them on, and that is just an absolutely fantastic thing for our community. We've also got Gippsland United junior teams who compete every Friday night, with many competing in the Victorian championship division. The success of the program is in large part due to local sponsors and volunteers, who come from right across my electorate.”
“The men's coach is Scott McKenzie from Korumburra, and he really has taken this team with just a dream on behalf of the community to be able to play in division 1 in the Big V league. To Scott McKenzie and his assistant coaches, I give my congratulations. There were many other players from the Monash electorate who were in the men's, women's and youth league teams through that competition. The big break that senior basketball in our region had was the re-establishment of senior Big V teams for men's and women's in 2021. Since then, the men's team have gone on to win two championships, and the women's team only narrowly lost their grand final on the same night. So I give my sincere congratulations to both teams.”
“I'm delighted to come to my first point this evening, which is on the Gippsland United basketball league men's team division 1, who were victorious in their recent premiership game by nine points. I had the absolute pleasure of attending the game a fortnight ago, and I have got a strong association with the league, having served previously as chair of the Gippsland United basketball league. It's the fastest-growing participation sport in our region, as I understand it, and it's a great team sport for young people right through to elite athletes to get involved in. There were a number of players from my electorate of Monash that I was cheering on, including Joel Winderlich from Leongatha, who was a stand-out player for Gippsland United. He scored 21 points in that game.”
“They do so much for that community, and that's demonstrative of why that quantum of heavy industry is important in regions like ours to support small businesses. I've always very strongly believed that a strong economy is the best way to support the most vulnerable people in our community, to protect our environment and to invest in education, because without a strong economy we can't achieve any of those things. Small business is a key part of that. About 44 per cent of Australian jobs are in a small business, and that's why there are considerations such as those contained in this bill. It's incredibly important that we always look after Australian small-business owners as we work our way through these legislative processes.”
“If it's towns like Noojee, Neerim South, Walhalla, Erica, Rawson and Loch, I will always do my utmost to make sure their concerns and their challenges are best represented. I'm proud to have worked in the timber industry, which is a great enabler and supporter of a broader system of small businesses. I previously served on the board of Australian Sustainable Hardwoods in Heyfield, and I acknowledge Ian Jones, the chief financial officer there, who, after many decades, will be retiring in October this year. That timber mill makes sure that it's economic for the IGA truck coming into town with groceries to return to Melbourne with a trailer full of timber. They support the timber museum and the Heyfield Lions Club.”
“As I mentioned in my inaugural speech, I'm a passionate believer—as the Prime Minister once said many moons ago, when he was infrastructure minister—that infrastructure is a primary enabler of productivity, so roads and routes to market in my electorate to get products safely and efficiently to their destination are something I'm particularly passionate about. Around 40 per cent of my region is towns under a thousand people. Some of the small towns are tourist towns where there is a vibrant small business network. They're timber towns too, although thanks to the Victorian Labor government those timber towns and timber jobs are becoming fewer and fewer. They're very important too.”
“But there is an ecosystem of small to medium businesses that rely on all of those producers and all of those links in our region to get their products to market quickly and efficiently and to provide for consumers. Small businesses in my region have a number of other challenges they're contending with at the moment. Even though we have the best soil in Australia and are normally in a bit of a rain cloud, we are suffering a green drought at the moment, so I'm speaking on a weekly basis with farmers who are forced to sell off stock early. That is going to be affecting their liabilities in their tax bill with the ATO.”
“We also need to have regard that, when regulators are given sweeping powers over fast-moving competitive industries, parliament must have the ability to review those decisions. Those decisions have a significant impact on regional Australia, which is where my first concerns always lie and are founded in. If I think of the Monash electorate and the Gippsland region, of which I'm a part, we're very proud to grow, make and manufacture things. About 23 per cent of Australia's milk output comes from our region. About 26 per cent of Victoria's beef comes from our region. We're very proud of the clean green horticulture produce we make, which is sought the world over.”
“The coalition's position on this bill is that we support the objectives but have serious concern about the lack of parliamentary oversight over the Reserve Bank and the Treasurer's decisions in this area. Having said that, if our amendments fail, the coalition will not oppose the bill. Quite broadly, the law that regulates our payment systems is the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act 1988. It is a number of decades since it was initiated into law. The technology and systems used since that time have dramatically scaled up. About 25 years ago cheques, EFTPOS, Visa and Mastercard were the only ways Australians paid. That's changed now. We have Apple Pay, Google Pay, Afterpay, crypto and blockchain systems.”
“While the RBA is still reviewing this matter, I would also countenance that its proposal does not go far enough in properly addressing a number of factors which are live issues at the moment: insufficient reduction in costs for card users and businesses; the increased costs to users of cash; ensuring banks don't pass on forward costs incurred overseas to Australian card presence fees; failing to ensure debit card providers are not subsidising the reward schemes, as I referenced earlier, of credit card users; not mandating to require payment providers to process all transactions using the least cost route; unnecessarily high profit margins on small business transactions compared to big business transactions, which is also something that we need to have regard for; and the steady increase of merchant card fees are all things we need to take into account.”
“I'm also putting forward that a delay in the implementation of any proposed surcharge ban for 12 months is a sensible thing to do to allow time for small-to-medium businesses to switch providers, revise their contracts and look for better options. I think a number of companies have been established in recent years, and some of those include Square and Stripe. These are big tech companies that are paired with big tech providers like Apple and Google, and they're the ones profiting in these situations. The assistance is not being carried through to SMEs and consumers. I think also reducing debit interchange close to zero, which has been recommended by the Productivity Commission, is something else that needs to be proceeded with.”
“I will be raising a couple of key measures which I believe the government and the RBA should be adopting in making sure these considerations are best regarded, and that includes enforcing a separation of debit from credit card merchant service fees. This includes no blending of debit and credit. If you've got a credit card where you're earning Qantas points and a whole range of other benefits, that should be treated differently to, say, an EFTPOS card, which is a bare basic. It's your money that you're using to pay for a can of Coke or a meal at the pub, and that should be dealt with separately. I'd like to see the mandating of dynamic least-cost routing on debit card transactions.”
“So the government has announced that it will ban debit card surcharges, and that's subject to further work by the RBA. I want to have consideration in my remarks for, most of all, small businesses and consumers, because right now the cost of living is going up and up. I get emails every week from constituents that have said, 'My energy bill has gone up yet again.' Everybody is doing it really tough right now. We need to make sure consumers and small businesses are not wearing the cost impost of large organisations, especially large multinational organisations which are perhaps skimming the cream on support and subsidies that are meant to provide for those in a less profitable situation.”