Tom French
Moore · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“I rise to speak in support of the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026. At its centre, this bill is about whether a kid growing up outside capital cities can look at university, TAFE or any form of tertiary education and see a real path rather than a distant idea.”
“That is not always an exciting word, but it is a necessary one. For too long, parts of the higher education policy have been pulled towards short term politics, institutional competition and funding settings that do not always meet national needs.”
“It can go to academic support. It can go to scholarships and grants. It can help meet the higher cost of operating campuses outside the major cities. In this bill, the base equity amount is $1,535 and the base regional amount is $1,398.”
“That is why I'm less interested in reciting every number in the legislation and more interested in what those numbers mean when they land in a family living room in a regional town. They mean a student in Merriwa does not have to see university as something for other people.”
“I know the value of a trade, and I know that university is not the only path to a good life, and it should never be treated as the only respectable path. A good tertiary system is not university versus TAFE. It is not degree versus trade.”
“In plain English, that means we're moving to a system where growth in university places is planned and funded more sensibly. The Australian Tertiary Education Commission will have a formal role in allocating Commonwealth supported places.”
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“In Moore, I often speak about the basic expectation that government should deal with the problems people can see in front of them, and this is one of those problems. People do not need a 40-page explainer to know something is wrong when the illegal tobacco shops are operating openly in our streets. They do not need a lecture about customs law to know that the law should already apply in practice, not just on paper. They want the law enforced. They want the illegal profits pursued through proper legal processes. They want young people to be protected. They want legitimate businesses treated fairly. And they want the rules to apply consistently. This bill will not solve the whole problem by itself, and no serious person would claim that. We still need the cooperation of the states and territories. We still need broader enforcement.”
“A parliament should not expand coercive powers without asking hard questions. Enforcement powers must be justified. Safeguards must be real. Warrants must not become rubberstamps. Privacy should not be treated as a decorative extra, nor should we pretend the current position is acceptable. It is not acceptable for legitimate businesses trying to compete with illegal operators. It is not acceptable for communities dealing with intimidation and criminal activity. It is not acceptable for parents to worry about illegal vapes being sold to kids. And it is not acceptable to the public health system that it bears the cost of tobacco related illness. Doing nothing has consequences, too, and those consequences are already visible.”
“There are businesses in our community that follow the law. They pay tax. They meet their obligations. They deal with the inspections, compliance costs, licensing requirements, employment obligations, insurance, rent, wages and all the other realities of running a business. They should not be expected to compete with operators selling illegal products at unlawful prices. That is not competition. It is cheating. The same principle applies in workplaces, procurement, taxation and small business. Rules only work if they are enforced with enough seriousness that compliance is not treated as a mug's game. This bill is part of restoring that seriousness. I also acknowledge that scrutiny committees have raised issues about increased penalties, privacy impacts and search warrant powers. Those questions should be taken seriously.”
“The bill also removes the requirement for a preliminary unexplained wealth order before a court can consider the main unexplained wealth application. That might sound technical, but technical steps matter. Anyone who has spent time around litigation knows that process can be used properly, and process can be used as a fog machine. If a procedural step adds work without adding fairness, then it is not protecting justice; it is protecting the person with the better lawyer and the longer runway. This bill sensibly removes that duplicated step. The bill also deals with protective orders, closed court orders, equitable sharing arrangements and service of documents including electronic surveillance. These amendments are designed to make the system work more effectively. I also want to say something about legitimate businesses.”
“The bill also allows information obtained under proceeds of crime powers to be shared with other Commonwealth authorities for specified regulatory purposes, including such regulators as AUSTRAC, ASIC and APRA. That is sensible. Illicit tobacco is not just moved through the ports and shopfronts; it is moved through accounts, businesses, financial services and professional structures. If a regulator has a role in protecting public revenue, monitoring obligations, licensing or enforcing regulatory standards, relevant information should not sit uselessly in a silo. Government agencies are very good at creating silos. Sometimes we even give them acronyms so they look more official. But illegal markets do not respect administrative boundaries.”
“The proceeds of crime changes are also about keeping pace with how criminal wealth is held and moved. Once upon a time, evidence might have been in a filing cabinet, a ledger or a shoebox full of cash. Sometimes, I suspect, it still is, but criminal innovation is not always as glamorous as television makes it look. Increasingly, relevant information is on a phone, in an app, behind a login, in cloud storage, in account based data or connected to digital assets. The law cannot pretend that all evidence lives in a drawer. Financial arrangements linked to serious offending are often deliberately difficult to untangle. They may involve layers, nominees, businesses, relatives, cash, property or other arrangements designed to separate the person directing the conduct from the money being made.”
“There is limited value in seizing a few boxes of illegal tobacco if the people organising, financing or benefiting from the trade are left untouched. If we are serious about disrupting this market, we have to make it less profitable. The bill amends the Proceeds of Crime Act to make it easier to pursue the proceeds, instruments and benefits of crime. It expands search warrant powers, including person-search warrants. It updates provisions dealing with electronic devices, account based data and cloud based material. It expands examination orders. It improves information-sharing with Commonwealth regulators. Put more plainly, it helps law enforcement follow the money—not just public statements, not just seizures and not just activity at the shopfront. The financial structures behind the trade also have to be addressed.”
“That means agencies will be able to seek telecommunications interception warrants when investigating these networks. That is a significant power, and it should be treated as such. No parliament should casually expand enforcement powers and then hope for the best. There should be warrants, there should be thresholds, there should be accountability, and there should be scrutiny. But, if illegal networks are using sophisticated communications to import, distribute and profit from illicit tobacco and nicotine products, then lawful enforcement must be able to investigate that conduct lawfully and effectively. The third part of this bill strengthens the proceeds of crime regime. There is limited value in only catching the person at the counter if the proceeds continue to move through the broader network.”
“By increasing penalties for illicit tobacco offences, the bill allows law enforcement to use tools such as surveillance device warrants, computer access warrants and tracking capabilities across a broader range of offending. That is important because this trade does not operate through one person at one counter. These are networks. They use phones, encrypted messages, bank accounts, corporate arrangements, storage sites, drivers, shopfronts and people whose role may be to keep others at a distance from the day-to-day offending. If we want law enforcement to deal with that properly, they need the tools to match the conduct. The bill also amends the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act so that specified illicit tobacco offences are treated as serious offences.”
“The profits are substantial, and the consequences are manageable. Penalties risk becoming part of the cost of doing business. Illegal markets respond to incentives like any other market. This is not about imposing heavy penalties for the sake of looking tough; it's about matching the law to the scale of the conduct. When an illegal market is generating billions of dollars, penalties have to be more than an inconvenience. The second part of this bill gives law enforcement better investigative tools. Under the Surveillance Devices Act, some powers are only available where the relevant offence carries a sufficient maximum penalty.”
“That is what this bill does. The bill has three main parts. First, it increases penalties for illicit tobacco offences. Second, it improves the investigative tools available to law enforcement. Third, it strengthens the proceeds of crime regime so agencies can better pursue money and assets connected to this trade. The first part of the bill increases criminal penalties offences for the importation, possession, buying, selling, supply, production and manufacture of illegal tobacco. That includes increasing the maximum penalty for intentional importation of tobacco to defraud the revenue from 10 years to 15 years imprisonment. It also significantly increases the financial penalties attached to this offending. That is necessary because the current risk profile is simply not enough.”
“When illegal vapes are cheap, colourful, easy to get and plainly attractive to young people, we are dealing with what is already in front of us. A young person who might never have smoked a cigarette can be drawn into nicotine addiction through a vape that should never have been sold to them in the first place, and I do not accept the argument that the answer is to surrender the field to the illicit market and cut the tobacco excise because illegal operators have found a profitable gap. That is actually a very strange argument. It's basically saying that, because the system has been exploited, the sensible policy is to weaken the system. I do not think that is the lesson we should be drawing. The lesson is that, where an illegal market becomes too profitable and too low risk, the law has to change the calculation.”
“While the public-facing end might look like a small shop with blacked out windows, behind it sits something much more serious: illegal supply chains, unlawful importation, storage facilities, cash movements, money laundering, intimidation and significant criminal profit. There is also a public health issue here. Australia has spent decades reducing smoking rates. Plain packaging, advertising restrictions, public health campaigns and tobacco excise have all played a role. Those reforms are not perfect, but they worked. Fewer people smoke. Fewer people start smoking. Fewer people die from tobacco related illness. But, when illegal cigarettes are being sold for a fraction of the lawful price, that work is undermined.”
“In public health, rules exist because harm does not fall evenly; it falls hardest on the people with fewer choices and fewer resources. The illicit tobacco market is not just a bit of tax avoidance. It is not just a few cartons being moved under the counter. It is a large, profitable and increasingly visible illegal market. The basic point is this: illicit tobacco is now estimated to make up at least half of the tobacco market in Australia. The profits are counted in the billions. The revenue lost to the Australian community is counted in the billions. Almost every vape sold in this country is estimated to be illegal. It is happening in suburban shopping strips, near schools, near legitimate retailers, near families and in communities like mine.”
“It is not about chasing someone for a minor mistake at the counter. It is about a growing illegal market in tobacco and nicotine products and the need for Commonwealth law to respond properly to the scale of that market. Australians are not naive. They know illegal markets exist, but what concerns them is when the whole thing starts to look open, normalised and almost casual. That is why this bill is necessary. Before I came into this place, I was an electrician and then a lawyer. Neither trade leaves you with much patience for people who think the rules are optional. On a worksite, rules exist because people get hurt when they are ignored. In employment law, rules exist because power gets abused when they are ignored.”
“There is a particular kind of shopfront that people in my electorate know well. The windows are blacked out, the signage is usually doing a lot of the work, the product range is not exactly subtle and the whole operation has the unmistakeable feel of a business that would prefer nobody asked too many questions. People in Moore see these shops. They see the cheap cigarettes. They see the vapes. They see the young people going in and out. They see legitimate businesses trying to do the right thing, while other operators appear to be making their own rules, and they ask, 'How is this still happening?' That is the practical question behind this bill. The Combatting Illicit Tobacco Bill 2026 is not a lecture about smoking. It is not about making life harder for small businesses that comply with the law.”
“There will always be information that must be protected—national security information, intelligence information, personal medical information, sensitive commercial information and material given to the government on a confidential basis. But secrecy laws should not be broader than necessary, they should not be scattered across the statute book in a way that makes compliance harder, and they should not use criminal liability where other remedies are sufficient. The people of Moore expect government to protect sensitive information. They also expect the government to be accountable. Those expectations are not inconsistent. A mature legal framework should be able to do both. This bill moves us closer to that position. It is careful. It is practical. It is overdue. I commend the bill to the House. Sitting suspended from 13:30 to 16:00”
“They should be scrutinised carefully. This bill is not the final word on all of those questions. There is still work to do, particularly on whistleblower protections. Recent cases have shown these issues are not theoretical. They affect real people; they affect public servants, journalists, agencies and the public's confidence in the government. But this bill is a substantial step. It removes unnecessary criminal liability, it replaces a temporary and broad provision with a more targeted offence, it better protects public interest journalism, it implements important recommendations from recent reviews, and it makes the Commonwealth secrecy framework clearer than it is now. That is the point. Government needs secrecy in some circumstances, and nobody seriously disputes that.”
“That bill extends the sunset date for section 122.4 from 29 June 2026 to 29 December 2026. That is a short extension. It allows the parliament to consider the broader reforms before the existing provision sunsets. That is sensible. There is no point pulling down the temporary structure before the permanent one is ready, and anyone who has spent time on a worksite understands that sequencing matters. Parliament, occasionally, is no different. I also note that the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee is due to report on the repealing offences bill by 19 June 2026. That inquiry provides an opportunity for stakeholders to test the detail. That is appropriate. Secrecy laws sit at the intersection of public administration, national security, press freedom, privacy, accountability and criminal law.”
“That is important because a classification label should not, by itself, do all the work required for criminal law. The bill reduces the maximum penalty for offences by nonofficials from five years to three years. It repeals aggravated offence provisions, except in narrow circumstances. It requires the Attorney-General's consent for prosecutions, regardless of whether proceedings are committal or summary. These are not headline-grabbing amendments. They are the kinds of amendments that make the law more precise, and, in criminal law, precision matters. People should be able to understand what conduct is prohibited. Prosecutors should have clear thresholds. Courts should not be left with provisions broader than they need to be. The bill sits alongside the Secrecy Provisions Amendment (Sunsetting Provision) Bill 2026.”
“The Human Rights Law Centre, Transparency International Australia and others have recognised that, in the current framework, a legislated consent requirement is a pragmatic safeguard. The Australian Press Council has also argued that legislative entrenchment is stronger than reliance on ministerial direction. On balance, this bill takes the better course. It does not solve every question about press freedom, whistleblower protection or secrecy law, but it improves that position. The fourth area of reform concerns part 5.6 of the Criminal Code and the government's response to the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor. These amendments are targeted. They remove reliance on security classification alone as the basis for certain offences.”
“For a small newsroom, the risk of prosecution—or even the risk of a serious legal fight—can be enough to stop a story from being pursued, and that is not good for public accountability. This bill does not give journalists a blank cheque. It does not place them above the law. It creates a safeguard before the prosecution of a journalist or relevant news media staff can proceed. That is a sensible protection. There has been debate about whether requiring the Attorney-General's consent risks politicising prosecutorial decisions, and that concern should not be dismissed. The Law Council and the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom have raised legitimate points about the role of executive discretion in this space. But the contrary position also has force.”
“It also reports what institutions would sometimes prefer to avoid. That is particularly important at the local level. In communities like Moore local and community media do not have the resources of major mastheads. They are often small teams, sometimes very small teams—one journalist, one editor, sometimes the same person doing both jobs while probably also trying to get the website to work and chasing, for a comment, someone who has decided that 4.55 pm is the right time to become unavailable. These outlets cover local councils, agencies, community organisations and decisions that affect people directly. They are part of the accountability framework, whether or not we always describe them that way. Secrecy prosecution does not need to have a chilling effect. The threat can be enough.”
“The point is not to abolish secrecy law; the point is to make it more coherent. The third important reform concerns journalists and news organisations. The bill legislates the requirement that the Attorney-General's consent be sought before prosecuting a journalist, an editor, a producer or an administrative staff member of a news organisation for a secrecy offence. At present, that protection exists as a ministerial direction. A ministerial direction is better than nothing, but it is not the same as legislation. It can be changed and it can be revoked. It depends on the government of the day. This bill moves that protection into statute, and that matters, because journalism often involves uncomfortable information. Good journalism does not only report what institutions would prefer to announce.”
“The second major change is that this bill repeals or removes criminal liability from more than 300 Commonwealth secrecy provisions. Some of these provisions are simply no longer needed. Some of them relate to schemes that have long since passed into history. Others deal with information where civil or administrative consequences are sufficient. There is a certain charm, I suppose, in preserving secrecy obligations for institutions that no longer exist, but charm is usually not the best basis for criminal law. The bill also recognises that not every secrecy obligation should be treated the same way. A small number of duties relating to genuinely sensitive personal, commercial and healthcare information will continue to attract criminal liability, and that is appropriate.”
“That distinction matters, because most people who deal with Commonwealth information are not trying to game the system. They are public servants, contractors, advisers and officials trying to navigate a complex set of rules, and they should be held to proper standards. They should be subject to discipline when they breach their duties and they should face consequences when they do the wrong thing, but the consequence should fit the conduct. This bill keeps non-disclosure duties in place. It keeps civil remedies. It keeps administrative consequences. It keeps the capacity to protect genuinely sensitive information. What changes is the criminal liability reserved for the conduct that properly warrants it. That is not radical; it is basic proportionality.”
“It captures people who are using or communicating Commonwealth information with the intention of obtaining benefit for themselves or for someone else, or causing detriment to a Commonwealth entity or another person where a reasonable person would conclude that the conduct was improper. That is a better test. It targets the person who misuses confidential government information for advantage. It captures the sort of conduct alleged in the PricewaterhouseCoopers tax scandal: confidential Commonwealth information being used to help private clients avoid their obligations. That is the kind of conduct that should attract serious consequences, but it does not treat every mistake, every misjudgement or every technical breach as though it belongs in criminal courts.”
“Where civil, administrative or contractual remedies are sufficient the criminal law should not be used just because it happens to be available. That is a sensible principle. It's not soft on wrongdoing and it's not antisecrecy. It simply recognises that criminal law is the sharpest instrument available to the state and should be used with some care. The first major change by this bill is to replace section 122.4 of the Criminal Code with a new targeted general secrecy offence. Under the existing approach, criminal liability can be enlivened by a breach of a non-disclosure duty, even where there is no real consideration of intent or harm, or whether the conduct is the sort of thing that should be criminalised. The new offence is more focused.”
“It was intended to operate while those non-disclosure duties were reviewed and a more settled framework was developed. In plain terms it was a temporary fix, and, as any electrician will tell you, temporary fixes have a habit of becoming permanent if nobody comes back to do the job properly. That's not a criticism of temporary fixes—sometimes you need them—but it does come to a point when you should stop pretending that a cable tie is part of the design, and this bill is part of doing the job properly. The Australian Law Reform Commission identified the issue in its 2010 report Secrecy l aws and o pen government in Australia . The principle was straightforward. Criminal sanctions should be reserved for conduct that warrants criminal punishment.”
“Some of it protects national security, sensitive personal information, commercial information, health information and the integrity of Commonwealth decision-making. But some of it is outdated, some of it is duplicated, some of it has not been reviewed properly for years and some of it imposes criminal liability in circumstances where criminal law is not the right tool—and that is the problem the main bill seeks to address. At the centre of the current framework is section 122.4 of the Criminal Code. Section 122.4 makes it an offence for a Commonwealth officer or a person engaged to perform work for a Commonwealth entity to communicate information in breach of a duty arising under another Commonwealth law. That provision was never intended to be permanent.”
“I rise in support of the Secrecy Provisions Amendment (Repealing Offences) Bill 2026 and the associated bill. The main bill is not the sort of bill likely to dominate the evening news. It is, however, the sort of bill that matters if we want Commonwealth law to be clear, proportionate and capable of being understood by the people who have to comply with it. That is not always the most glamourous work in parliament, but it is important work. The Commonwealth's secrecy framework has become too complex, too scattered and, in some places, too blunt. The Attorney-General's Department identified more than 860 secrecy related provisions across Commonwealth law—295 nondisclosure duties, 569 specific offences and 11 general offences in the Criminal Code. That is a lot of secrecy law. Some of it is necessary.”
“It strengthens certainty. It recognises digital lending. It supports authors, illustrators, translators, editors and publishers. It backs libraries as democratic cultural institutions. It helps ensure Australian stories continue to be written, published, borrowed and read because behind every book borrowed from a library is someone who did the work, someone who sat down and wrote the sentences, someone who revised the manuscript, someone who illustrated the pages, someone who translated the words, someone who edited, published and produced the book and then the librarian who placed it where the reader could find it. That chain matters. This bill respects that chain. It supports the people who make the Australian literary culture possible, and it does so in a way that keeps libraries open, accessible and central to community life.”
“There is nothing wrong with enjoying work from around the world, but we should never become casual about the importance of our own stories. Australian children should grow up reading Australian voices. Australian communities should see themselves in Australian books. Australian writers should be able to build careers telling Australian stories, and Australian publishers should be supported in bringing those works to readers. This is not about cultural protectionism. It is cultural confidence, and the arts help us understand ourselves. They help us argue with ourselves. They help us remember. They help us imagine something better, and sometimes, very importantly, they give us a much-needed laugh at our own expense. A country that cannot do that is in trouble. This bill is practical, modern and fair. It consolidates the schemes.”
“The Joondalup Festival continues to show the depth of local appetite for art and culture, and our libraries show it every week in a quieter but no less important way. This is why this bill fits within a broader view of cultural policy. It says that Australian creative work has value. It says that public access and fair payment can sit together. It says that authors and publishers should not be left behind as reading habits change. It says the Commonwealth has a role in supporting the growth and development of Australian writing and publishing. And that is the right approach. I also welcome that this bill is framed around Australian creators and Australian publishers. Australian stories matter. We live in a world where global content is everywhere, instantly available, constantly refreshed and algorithmically served.”
“That is why I keep saying, 'Culture is infrastructure.' It is not an optional extra. It is not something that should get considered after everything else is done. It is part of what makes a place liveable, connected and confident. Joondalup is increasingly recognised as Western Australia's second CBD, and, if we are serious about that, we need to think about the cultural infrastructure as part of the city we are building. That means venues, it means festivals, it means public art, it means live music, it means libraries, it means writing centres, and it means supporting the people who make the work. Laneway Festival coming to the Joondalup arena showed what is possible when major cultural events are brought north of the river.”
“We have local writers, we have musicians, we have visual artists, we have choirs, orchestras, community arts groups, school productions, festivals, exhibitions and people making extraordinary work, often with very limited resources. Earlier this year, I hosted Susan Templeman, the Special Envoy for the Arts, in Joondalup, and we brought together local arts organisations and community representatives, including people from the Peter Cowan Writers Centre, the Joondalup Symphony Orchestra , the Mirabilis Collective, Creative Edge Art Collective, the Joondalup Community Arts Association and the City of Joondalup. The message in that room was clear: there is enormous talent in our community. There is ambition and there is generosity, but there are also real challenges in sustaining creative work.”
“The companion bill then deals with the necessary transitional rights. That is the sort of thing that rarely makes headlines, and fair enough—transitional provisions are generally not where the nation goes looking for glamour. But they matter. They ensure continuity. They protect existing claimants. They make sure the system moves from the old framework to the new without unnecessary disruption. In plain terms, the machinery needs to work, and this bill makes sure it does. I also want to speak more broadly on why this matters to communities like mine. Moore is not just a place of roads, schools, hospitals, shops and sporting clubs, although all of those matter deeply. It is also a place of creativity.”
“The government expanded the schemes to include digital content through the Revive national cultural policy. This bill locks that recognition into legislation. It is important because creators deserve certainty. If digital borrowing is part of the modern library system, then digital borrowing should be part of the modern lending rights system. That is not radical; it is just keeping up. The bill also establishes a unified public and educational lending rights committee, with representation from authors, publishers, libraries and the Public Service. That is good design. The people affected by the scheme should have a role in advising on how it operates. It means the framework is not just imposed from above; it is informed by the people who understand the sector and the practical realities of writing, publishing and library lending.”
“Sometimes it is the book you pretend not to like, because you're 14 and are therefore required by law to be unimpressed by everything. Those books matter. The people who create them matter too. The second important reform that this bill recognises is the digital formats. That is essential. People still borrow physical books, and I hope they always will, but they also borrow ebooks and audiobooks. They borrow through platforms like Libby and Hoopla. They listen in the car, on the train, on a walk, while cooking dinner or while pretending to clean the garage. That is how people read now, and the law should reflect that. A lending rights scheme that did not properly deal with ebooks and audiobooks would be a scheme looking backwards. This bill looks forward.”
“The bill brings the public lending right and educational lending right schemes together in a single contemporary legislative framework that is sensible. The public lending right has had a statutory basis for decades. The educational lending right has operated administratively since 2000. This bill brings them together under one roof that gives authors, publishers, schools, libraries and government a clearer and more modern framework. It also recognises that educational libraries matter. The books that students encounter at school can stay with them for life. Sometimes, it is the book a teacher puts in your hands at exactly the right moment. Sometimes, it is the novel you were supposed to read but only appreciated later. I am looking at The Great Gatsby right now!”
“It is difficult, but it is possible.' This bill helps with that. It will not solve every challenge in the literary sector, and no-one is pretending it will. But it gives practical, concrete measures that improve the system and give creators certainty. In the 2024-25 financial year, more than 17,000 payments were made to eligible creators and publishers through these schemes, totalling more than $28 million. For some people, the payment may be modest. For many creators, it matters. It can be the difference between taking the time to write the next book and having to put the manuscript away. It can be the difference between staying in the industry and leaving it. It can be the difference between an Australian story being written and that story never existing at all. That is why this bill matters.”
“Applause is lovely, but it does not pay the rent, it does not cover groceries, and it is notoriously difficult to use at tax time. The reality is that many Australian authors do not earn large incomes from writing. The minister has noted that the average income for an Australian writer in 2021 to 2022 was reportedly $16,100. That is not a sustainable income. It is not even close. Yet these are the people whose books sit in our libraries, whose stories are read in classrooms, whose work helps shape our national imagination. We should want more Australian writers writing Australian stories. We should want children in Gwelup, Padbury, Craigie and Heathridge to pick up books that speak in Australian voices. We should want emerging writers to look at the industry and think: 'There is a pathway here.”
“That is one of the great democratic achievements of public life. But there is another side to that equation. Free access for readers should not mean unpaid work for writers, and that is what lending rights recognise. When a book is available in a public library or an educational library, that availability has value. The community benefits from it, the readers benefit from it, students benefit from it, schools benefit from it, and the author should benefit from it as well. The Public Lending Right Scheme has been part of the Australian cultural landscape since the Whitlam government approved it in 1974. That matters. It reflects a very Labor idea—that access to culture should be broad but that the people who make the culture should not be expected to survive on applause.”
“Libraries sit right in the centre of that. In Moore, the City of Joondalup libraries at Joondalup, Duncraig, Whitford and Woodvale are much more than buildings with shelves. They are community infrastructure. They are places where kids discover books they did not know they needed. They are places where parents can take their children without needing to spend money. They are places where older Australians stay connected, informed and curious. They are places where someone can borrow a novel, learn a language, watch a documentary, join a program or simply sit somewhere quiet without being expected to buy a coffee every 20 minutes. That is a fairly radical proposition in the modern economy, and it is one worth defending. Libraries make culture available to everyone, regardless of income.”
“This bill is about a simple proposition: when Australian books are made freely available through public and educational libraries, the people who created and published those books should receive fair recognition—not charity, not a pat on the head, but recognition and payment for work. That is the principle at the heart of the public and educational lending rights. It is also a principle I strongly support. I am a supporter of the arts, not because the arts are decorative but because they are part of the infrastructure of a good society. They are how we tell our stories. They are how we record who we are. They are how kids find a world bigger than the one immediately in front of them. They are how communities like mine in Moore see themselves reflected back with honesty, humour, beauty and occasionally an alarming degree of accuracy.”
“I rise to support the Public and Educational Lending Rights (Better Income for Authors) Bill 2026 and the companion Public and Educational Lending Rights (Better Income for Authors) Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions Bill. This is a good bill. It is good for Australian authors. It is good for Australian publishers. It is good for libraries. And, ultimately, it is good for readers, because if we want Australian stories on Australian shelves then the people who write, illustrate, translate, edit and publish those stories need to be able to keep doing the work. That should not be controversial, although in the arts even the obvious sometimes has to be legislated.”
“It affects people commuting across Perth's northern suburbs, small businesses trying to keep costs down and supply chains bringing goods into our community. While Moore is metropolitan, it is connected to regional WA, to freight, to agriculture and to the broader community. When fuel supply tightens, the impact doesn't stay in one place. It flows through everything. The grievance is simple: those opposite had the opportunity to strengthen fuel security, and they didn't. Now they seek to criticise the work required—”
“It's why coordination has been stepped up—because the alternative is what we saw under those opposite, a system left exposed, hoping global security would remain stable. And, as we are seeing now, that is not something you can rely on. This isn't just about fuel. This is a pattern. The Liberal Party has spent years claiming to be the better economic managers, but that reputation rested on the work done by Labor—the hard reforms, the structural changes and the difficult decisions taken under leaders like Paul Keating. Labor does the heavy lifting. These guys just inherit the benefits and then claim the title, and now we're seeing the same thing play out again. This matters in places like Moore because fuel isn't optional.”
“This is where the minister has been very clear. In a crisis, you don't just observe the market, you make sure it works. I didn't come into this place as someone who worked behind a desk. I was a sparky. I worked all across Western Australia. I've worked in the Pilbara. I've worked in Kalgoorlie. I've worked all across the state. I can tell you that the systems don't care who takes credit. They either work or don't. They either have reliable inputs or fail. Fuel is one of those inputs. And, when that input is disrupted, the consequences don't stay contained. They spread through freight, through construction, through supply chains and ultimately into the cost of living. That's why this matters. That's why fuel has been directed into regional areas. It's why supply has been increased.”
“The problem is that this is not the first time we've seen this. When they were in government, when they actually had responsibility, what did they do? They oversaw the closure of four out of the six refineries in this country, and we were told it wouldn't matter. Now we know exactly how much that matters. Once that capability is gone, you're more exposed, you are more dependent on imports and you are far more vulnerable when global conditions turn against you. They've also talked about minimum stockholdings but never delivered them. And, in what may be one of the most remarkable decisions in energy policy in this country's history, they spent close to $100 million storing fuel not here in Australia but in the United States, 14,000 kilometres away. That is not a back-up plan. That's a postcard.”