Rowan Holzberger
Forde · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“… … … "Right at the beginning, it was thought that there was an intrusion in the relationship between the doctor and their patient," AMA president Tony Bartone said. … … … At the time Medicare was introduced in 1984, the AMA was heavily influenced by developments in the United Kingdom, particularly the National Health Service.”
“During my preparation for my contribution tonight I came across an article written in 2019, at the death of Bob Hawke, by ABC journalist Norman Hermant, and I'd like to read out a bit from it. The article was titled, 'Before Bob Hawke's Medicare, a visit to hospital forced many Australians into bankruptcy'.”
“My dad met my mum in Mount Isa, and I was born in Brisbane and grew up in Broken Hill, so I'm not sure where that quite places me. I've always actually believed regional Australia should have its own state. The cities could have one state, and regional Australia could have another state—anyway.”
“Mrs Buckingham's quote on thinking twice about going to see the doctor is something that all of us in our electorates have faced and heard about from people who told us that they would choose to put food on the table and feed their kids rather than see the doctor.”
“I think that will go some way to addressing some of those shortages; 17,000 doctors is a shot in the arm to the health system. Finally, the member for Riverina talked about the NDIS, kicking the proverbial out of us.”
“Even though they gave up, I think some time after the 1993 election, realising that they couldn't do what John Howard said and stab it in the stomach, they went around and tried to stab it in the back.”
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“Much of Jess's childhood was spent in and out of hospital, and, by the age of 18, she'd undergone more than 30 surgeries, including hernia surgery, jaw surgery, cleft palate repair and the removal of tonsils that had grown so large they affected her breathing. As Jess put it to me, with a bit of humour, 'Let's just say I've had a lot of anaesthetic.' Thirty surgeries before the age of 18! But what really struck me about Jess when we spoke wasn't just the number of surgeries; it was how hard it can be for people with rare diseases to navigate the health system. Jess says there is often no clear place to go. Because the condition is rare, patients can struggle to access a multidisciplinary team.”
“As part of working with Jess, we held a community forum on rare diseases in Forde last week. From that, it has emerged how significant rare diseases are in our community. Even though each has a propensity in the community of about five in 10,000, collectively there's something like 7.8 per cent of the Australian population living with a rare disease, which means around 13½ thousand people in Forde. I'd like to read out a bit about Jess. Jess was unofficially diagnosed when she was around 12 years old. When she later sought a formal diagnosis, she says that she was told she couldn't have children and that that advice was delivered without much empathy. Six weeks later, it was confirmed that she did in fact have the condition.”
“I rise in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance and Other Measures) Bill 2025. I just can't let pass that the member for New England mentioned 105 males born, but, he said, 'Sometimes'—in a good season—'you have more, sometimes less.' Anyway, he's left the chamber, so I don't feel the need to continue that. When I was elected, I made a commitment in Forde to listen to the community, to fight for what I hear and to deliver on what the community wants. To that end, I came across a woman called Jess Short, who lives in Waterford West. Jess has a rare condition called osteopathia striata with cranial sclerosis. It is a rare disease. Jess is somebody who is a fierce advocate for people with that condition, but she is also a fierce advocate for people with rare diseases.”
“Whatever he said really inspires me to say this, which is that what makes Australia exceptional is not that we haven't had flaws; it's that we are a country which has emerged out of the enlightenment based on science and reason. While religion had an enormous civilising impact and acted as a cradle for knowledge and while the social justice aspect of the Judeo-Christian tradition is so powerful, it is a fact that Australia is a country that believes fundamentally in human rights. If you can apply those human rights across laws, across systems, across institutions, if you can always keep in mind that you've got another human being on the end of the conversation or the Facebook comment that you're going to make—that is how I think that we that we wipe out racial discrimination.”
“That's where I think the true heart of division is because in the hearts of Australians is a very welcoming and very accepting people. There's one thing, and I would like to take issue with this one. It's when people say that Australia is a Judeo-Christian culture. I went looking for the Obama quote, which I can't find. That might be good for two reasons. One is that whatever I say and however I say it are going to be nowhere near as eloquent as Obama. So you're not going to be able to compare it. You may be surprised! The other is that I can pass it off as my own quote because, if I couldn't find it, there's a chance you're not to be to find it anyway.”
“In many ways, I tend to think that, though you see the rise of One Nation, at its heart, it is not because Australia is a fundamentally racist country. I think that most of the division that we see comes about from the economics that governments have got wrong over the last couple of decades. I think it's been an agenda of privatisation and economic rationalism. It has been a failure to build public housing. It has been a failure to share equitably the wealth which Australia has undoubtedly created over the last couple of decades. To refer back to the member for Swan, that's where people see a threat to our egalitarian society—that Australia, which prided itself on egalitarianism, sees such economic challenges.”
“You've got communities like mine with the name of Holzberger, where my ancestors got off the ship somewhere around the 1870s and set up to work around Beenleigh, where they set up thriving cane farming and dairy and timber businesses. Also you have in Logan in the northern Gold Coast one of the most multicultural communities in the world. The local mayor, Jon Raven, always makes a joke that there's only one city with more cultures in it than Logan, and that is a little place you might have heard of called New York. We are one of the most diverse and vibrant communities that you could hope to find. Forde very much is, to me, ancient Australia and old Australia and modern Australia. It is that community that I think of today when I talk about eliminating racial discrimination. I think there is a lot of division in Australia today.”
“The stories that she told about being excluded in the playground conjured up an image for me of this little girl being bullied and excluded as a five-year-old. If you could hear it from her, it would break your heart. At the heart of this is remembering the truly corrosive nature of racism on an individual and also the dehumanising that it does to the abuser as well. At the heart of this, there are individuals to be considered. In Forde, the seat that I have the great privilege of representing, you've got the oldest continuous culture in the world, the Indigenous culture, that has been there for tens of thousands of years.”
“Even though these are not designed to be like this, this is the end result. There is no way that you could describe them other than as being institutional problems. Where I think racism is at its most destructive, on a personal level, is when people treat you differently because of the colour of your skin or where you've come from or your name or whatever. I haven't discussed this with her, so I don't want to say who it is—if you could hear her words, you would cry. Her father was an African man who came out to Australia on an educational program to do a degree in the seventies and met a white Australian woman, so she was born an African Australian dark-skinned girl in Australia in the 1970s. From her earliest memories, she encountered racism.”
“In Australia we value that equality. The other thing that I want to reflect on is the member for Warringah's comments regarding institutional racism. Racism is not just words, slights or offensive comments. It is where laws lead to that discrimination. Obviously, the biggest example is where this day comes from, where the laws related to apartheid resulted in the Sharpeville massacre. In Australia, more practically, they result in, as the member for Warringah pointed out, disproportionately high—jeez, what an understatement that is—incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It's also in the access that migrant communities have to government services, such as the NDIS. It's pretty obvious, when you look at the numbers, that there are barriers to multicultural communities' participating in the NDIS or in aged care.”
“Whenever I'm trying to explain Australian politics to people, I refer them to that video of former prime minister Scott Morrison trying to hold a press conference out the front of somebody's house. You may be familiar with it. It was when the guy came out and said: 'Oi! What are you doing? Get off my lawn. I've just reseeded it.' The former prime minister had to apologise as he shuffled back with the media gaggle behind him. I think there is no better description of what Australian politics and Australian society is than that short clip. A young Afghan friend of mine told me about how, when the Afghan community saw that video, they were horrified that it could happen. They were horrified for the guy's safety. If that person had said that in Afghanistan, then he would have been carted off for some serious re-education.”
“I appreciate this opportunity to talk today about the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. As a white guy in society, this is one thing I can say I have never personally experienced—maybe a little bit as a kid with the name of Holzberger, but it's nothing compared to a story that I want to tell in a second about somebody very close to me and the experiences that she had growing up in the 1970s in Australia. I would like to respond to a couple of things that were brought up while I was present during this session. The member for Swan talked about Australia being a country that values not having a well-established hierarchy.”
“In Western Australia, it is the Chichester Solar Gas Hybrid Project—a loan of up to $90 million to displace 100 million litres of diesel generation annually from the Pilbara. This is a way of not only getting more energy into our system but providing it in a cleaner way. Finally, I'd just say that there are many examples here, whether it's critical minerals, whether it's the future made in Australia, whether it's agriculture—this NAIF forms an essential part of the government's broader economic strategy and meets those broader economic goals. The idea that it continues to 2036 and the idea that its accountability measures are strengthened—I think it's going to give it the longevity that it so desperately needs and create the opportunities which are so abundantly clear. I commend the bill to the House.”
“But I just don't get why you would want to be walking away from what is the cheapest form of energy, which is renewable, which has the power to lift economic living standards. As I said, in postwar Australia, housing was one strategy which governments followed to supercharge the Australian economy. But there was another strategy as well, which was cheap public energy—wonderful government owned public assets providing cheap energy to again keep the cost of living down, to keep that pressure off wages. That then helped business. Of course, in manufacturing, the cost of energy is such a vital part of that manufacturing cost that it helped keep that cost down for business as well.”
“Projects like the housing project here are a material example of how the NAIF fits into the government's broader economic strategy. But of course it is not just that. There's also net zero. I have never seen net zero as an economic problem. Net zero is a massive economic opportunity. If anything at the moment we have seen what it means when you are reliant on international energy supplies. I don't understand why the opposition are so wedded to coal and nuclear. Well, perhaps I do. Perhaps it is because they think that they need to satisfy Sky News—I mean their base—by saying that coal and nuclear are still the way. That way, they can avoid all the arguments about climate change science.”
“That's because there's a recognition here that housing is—in my view, which is a view that I've long held—the No. 1 thing that a government can do to improve economic capacity and productivity in the community. In postwar Australia, there was a philosophy that, if we build public housing not just for the people who desperately needed it but for car workers, railway workers, teachers, police officers, aged-care workers, then we keep the cost of living down. That means that we keep rents down, which actually takes pressure off wages because they don't need to be so high. So you can maintain a high standard of living with a low cost of living. That helps business. Projects like this are providing that economic infrastructure. I guess the hint is in the name: the North Australian Infrastructure Facility.”
“This is money that will keep coming back in, so that the money can then be used again and again to grow the economy even further. This is an investment in the classic sense of the word. This will actually return dollars back into the government. So, as I say, this NAIF fund sits within a broader strategy not only of achieving net zero but of housing. For example, the government has worked with the Queensland government to invest in the Cairns Seniors Community Housing Project, providing a loan of $140 million to the Cairns Seniors Community Housing Project—working with the Queensland government and working with Housing Australia to deliver 490 dwellings, comprising 245 social dwellings, 223 affordable and 22 SDA, specialist disability accommodation, apartments, providing housing to around 690 people.”
“This is really government stepping in and providing that essential service of finance. Philosophically, I love that saying that you run a country like you run a company. That, I think, sometimes that gets thrown by the Libs as if to say we can't run the country. There are two ways to run a company. I've run a company; I know it. One is that you can invest in your plant and your people. The other is that you can delay the maintenance, you can strip out the profits, and you can run it into the ground. That is exactly what the NAIF does. That is exactly the Labor government's approach to running the country—investing in our plant and in our people. Even better, this is an investment that actually has a measurable return on its investment.”
“So it is important that something like the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility not only has an eye to developing for the North but has an eye to developing and replacing the industries which will be affected by a decarbonising world. I won't be too unkind to the opposition, seeing as they were the ones that set it up, but there was a bit of a joke at the time that 'NAIF' actually stood for the 'No Actual Infrastructure Fund'. It did take some time to get going, but it's got going now, and I understand the opposition is supportive of it continuing, which is exactly what this legislation does—it sees it continuing until 2036. I think this approach is a fantastic way for government to get in behind industry and to give it that push for a loan that may not get through the bean counters at the Commonwealth Bank or at Macquarie.”
“It just shows that, from an employment point of view, supercharging development in the North has an enormous benefit for people in the community that that I represent. Of course, it is not just employment. This gets back to something I'm saying earlier. We as a government recognise what a wrench it is for the Australian economy to now be in a decarbonising world economy. Coal is still Queensland's single biggest export. It provides an enormous amount of money to the government directly through coal royalties. These are the sorts of services that people in our community rely on, provided by government and effectively paid for by coal royalties.”
“There's a suburb in Forde called Wolffdene, where five per cent of the whole workforce works directly in mining as FIFO workers. I think that Logan and the northern Gold Coast communities would have to be the biggest mining commuting communities in South-East Queensland. They're the direct jobs arising out of that development in the north of Australia. Then there are the indirect jobs. Think of Hastings Deering, which is set up next to the light plane airfield out at Archerfield in Brisbane. It employs thousands of people in South-East Queensland who service the dump trucks and the loaders and that enormous mining material that then goes up to northern Queensland to work on those mines. So you've got people that work directly in the mining industry and people that work in the service and maintenance industry.”
“I come from outback Australia, and I appreciate the economic potential that exists not just below the ground and walking around in paddocks but of the people of outback Australia and northern Australia. There is a spirit of resilience, a spirit of entrepreneurialism and a commitment to have a go. If we can help people in that area, if we can help the economy of that area, it is going to have an enormous benefit for people in the rest of Australia. That's the second reason that I'd like to support this bill. I know, being privileged to represent and live in an outer metropolitan seat covering Logan and the Gold Coast, how important those northern Australian industries are to our local economy. The importance of that is hidden. In fact, I was looking at some of the statistics the other day.”
“I don't quite know why they're pursuing that policy, but I think it's because they've got an ideological obsession to prove their credentials in fighting the science of climate change. That's why they're going with coal and gas. They think that, if they can credibly pursue an argument that coal and gas is the answer, then they don't need to address climate change. I think that's why they're stuck on that loop. The government's approach is a whole approach to reduce net zero. That's why this bill is important to me both on a personal level and on a political level. Personally, some members will know, I come from the bush—not northern Australia; I'm not privileged enough to come from above that line just below Rockhampton.”
“I think the point needs to be made not only that there is a broader approach to net zero, which this government is very focused on, but also that we have to maintain a balance and that energy security is just as important. Ultimately, it is the people in the community that I represent and the communities that we represent who would be impacted the hardest if we completely shut down those industries. I think the government's approach is the most sensible approach available to us. It is an approach of renewable energy, firmed by gas and batteries. I'm not exactly sure what an alternative approach that takes out gas would look like. I know what the opposition's approach is, though. It's the most expensive approach of coal and nuclear.”
“The second thing I'd say is that, while this piece of legislation may not deal entirely with the net zero objectives of the government, it forms a part of that. You've got other measures, such as the Net Zero Fund, which recognise that. As a government we understand, and as an individual I understand, the wrench that the decarbonisation of the world economy has put in the Australian economy, particularly the Queensland economy. But I think the point should be made that, ultimately, this is not about funding oil and gas projects. This is about funding infrastructure, a lot of which will serve dual purposes. This is about unlocking roads and rail lines.”
“I rise to support this bill, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Amendment Bill 2026. I'd like to respond to a couple of things the member for Warringah brought up. We understand what you're saying and what the community is asking. But the first thing is that, on First Nations participation, I think the point should be made that financing is conditional upon First Nations communities being incorporated into procurement and employment opportunities. As of last year, NAIF financing had supported over 1,385 jobs for Indigenous people in northern Australia and at least $240 million in Indigenous procurement. The government is very focused on getting a just and equitable outcome for First Nations people through this legislation.”
“In fact, it was written in to the South Australian Housing Trust that it was there to assist in the economic development of the state—just as public housing should be now, too. House adjourned at 20 : 00 The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Lawrence ) took the chair at 09:30.”
“Finally, why I think this is fundamentally an economic issue is that it was definitely the post-war Australian experience that governments built public housing—not out of the goodness of their heart, but because, if you build public housing, if you can keep the cost of living down and if you can keep the cost of rents down, then that actually helps the economy as a whole. It was the secret. In fact, in South Australia at the high point, of all the rental dwellings in South Australia something like 40 per cent was public housing. And public housing wasn't just there for the people that desperately needed it; it was there for car workers and railway workers and teachers.”
“One of the most striking figures is that, over their nine or 10 years in government, across the whole of Australia, they built 373 public housing dwellings—373. They just completely dropped the ball. In fact, they didn't even have a minister for housing for a large part of their tenure. In contrast, the Albanese Labor government is picking up the pieces, and right now we're building 206 houses in Logan Reserve alone—in one suburb in Forde alone, 206. So, effectively, we're building half as many public housing dwellings in Forde, in one term, as the previous government built across the whole of the country, over nine years.”
“Unless they can get on to the public housing waiting list—and, by the way, I think it's false advertising to call it a 'waiting list', because the idea is that, if you wait long enough, you'll get public housing, but that's not going to happen; you can be on that list for ages. But, unless they get themselves on that list, they're not going to be able to get the help that they need if they become homeless, as happens to so many people in my community. I've got more stories like that which I've told, and more, unfortunately, I can continue to tell. So it is no coincidence that, after almost 30 years of federal Liberal governments, we have this housing crisis. That is because—I think, for an ideological reason—they absented themselves from the field.”
“She told me that that she and Scott are on the disability support pension and the carer's pension. Amazingly—and in an economic policy like housing, this shows how heartless the LNP government is in Queensland—the LNP state government has changed the rules so that they are now facing homelessness, and, if they become homeless, they won't be able to access the emergency support that has been there in the past. That's because—and you will never believe this—even though they are on the DSP, they no longer qualify for public housing in Queensland. That means that, if they end up sleeping in a car, they're not going to be able to get emergency support to be able to stay in a motel while that house is found.”
“But the priority, and it is one of my heart priorities, that I want to talk about tonight is housing. It's probably my No. 1 priority. It is certainly true that, over the last 40 years, Australia has not built enough houses. It's no coincidence, I think, that the Liberal Party—the coalition—was in government for most of those 40 years, federally, and completely vacated the field when it came to building public housing. There's one couple that I want to talk about tonight, and that's Scott and Ann-Marie of Bethania. When I called them earlier and I said, 'How's it going?' she said, 'What—the house hunt, the mental health or the stress?' She is, at the moment, facing eviction in the next couple of months and desperately looking for somewhere to live.”
“I campaigned on three priorities, and I've come into this place to talk about those three priorities, and, as long as I'm here and I'm talking about them, I think I'm doing the job I was elected to do. Two of those are what I think of as my 'head' priorities, and those are housing affordability and energy affordability. One of them is my 'heart' priority, which is health care and disability care. Of course, sometimes it's hard to know really which one is necessarily the 'head' one and which one is the 'heart' one, because affordable health care is also a core economic need—not just in the home, where being able to see a doctor who bulk-bills is good for the back pocket; it's also good for the economy if people are able to get the health care that they need when they need it, as it saves money later down the track.”
“The frustration that my community feels and that I feel by having substandard telecommunications in the 21st century means that the industry needs to do better. The government is making sure that they are accountable. This bill goes towards that, and works in a constructive way to make sure that all Australians have access to the services that are essential in the 21st century. I commend the bill to the House.”
“It does show that this government is not just going to wait around for the perfect solution, but, as always, this government is pragmatic in its approach and is getting ahead of the curve. Ultimately, whether you've had an accident out bush, whether you've broken down, whether you need to communicate with your homestead or whether it's somebody from my electorate driving out to see a family member or a friend or going across Australia, this is the typical Australian way. This is also the typical Albanese government way. This is about making sure that nobody is left behind. Even if, fundamentally, this striking statistic we're talking about is where just one per cent of Australians live, this is about making sure that that one per cent, who deserve the same access, have access to those services that people in the city have.”
“Frankly, they exposed elements of a system that relied on a best efforts approach, and sadly, in some instances, those efforts were far from the best. At a deeper level, it exposed a discordance between how the industry is regulated, and perhaps how it sees itself, versus how the public expects it to operate. We have to face reality. At the end of 2025, public opinion of the communications sector was very low. And I think, at the beginning of 2026, it hasn't improved a hell of a lot. It is important that legislation like this does show the way for telecommunications to behave when it comes to providing that universal outdoor mobile obligation. It does set some expectations on what government expects of these corporations which are providing what is an essential service.”
“Unfortunately, Nugget's not around to see that actually happening, but that is something which you can do in areas where there is appropriate technology. That technology doesn't really exist in the outback. If you were to try and use it, it would be horribly expensive. But communications really is one of those essential services that, provided properly and equitably across our vast nation, could really unlock our nation's potential and open it up. Finally, I'd just like to say that this is not about letting the telecommunications companies get off scot-free. In fact, the Minister for Communications said recently at the CommsDay Regional and Policy Forum, which I mention as an example of where the industry is letting the community down: The Triple Zero failures last year shook public confidence.”
“Just by the way, he was somebody who couldn't read or write, couldn't sign his name to a cheque, but put him in his environment and he was just an absolute legend. You could spin him around 20 times blindfolded and he'd know what direction to go in. He knew where the calf's mother was, who the calf's mother's mother was. This guy was a genius, and I do want to give him a shout-out today. Also, Simon Brown and Lionel Brown were two people I worked very closely with, who really taught me the value of having a go and hard work, but they used to have a bit of a chuckle with me at some of my some of my crazy ideas. One idea back in the 2000s was that maybe you could chuck a camera on a drone and muster sheep.”
“They're all the sorts of problems that come about from not having those communications. Ultimately, there are so many opportunities available out in the bush with proper communications. As the statistics show, more than two-thirds of Australia is currently not covered by mobile phone at all. And while this legislation is not about getting it to the point where people in the bush have the same coverage which you might expect, even though we don't receive it in metropolitan areas, it is the beginning of a process which really does begin to unlock that economic potential of the Australian bush. Just to record on Hansard , 'Nugget' Brown, who has sadly passed away, was one of the most decent human beings I've ever met, one of the smartest people I've ever met.”
“But I only say that because the one in 2010 was the first of what has been a series of natural disasters in south-east Queensland that people have had to contend with. So that was the first natural disaster where mobile phone coverage and electricity went down for a long period for a lot of people. With not being able to contact my mum, family members not being able to contact each other, people worried about being able to ask for help, there was really a sense that the difference between civilisation and barbarism are electricity and communications. I have a friend who was a refugee from Bosnia, from the Yugoslav War, war of the 1990s. She said to me that to be disconnected through your communications was exactly what it felt like in war, so that really illustrated to me how important it is to have that coverage.”
“There was another incident—and I'm reluctant to call them 'incidents', because fundamentally they are workplace injuries. But another, even more serious, occasion was when somebody called Skeet had had a heart attack and collapsed, and, tragically, his wife found him, sometime later. Again, it makes me wonder whether or not having mobile phone coverage for Skeet would have meant that he could have survived, so these are genuinely matters of life and death. Communications—it's trite to say—are not just a luxury; they are a necessity. My mum used to live in the Brisbane suburb of Oxley, which was badly flooded in 2010. In many ways it was a later flood in 2022 which was probably much more emotionally damaging than the one in 2010.”
“There are two experiences that come to mind—two stories that I knew of, which happened before my time out there but which I think illustrate the importance of having adequate communications. One was of a young guy, at the time, about my age, who'd had a motorbike accident. I can't quite remember the detail; he'd hit a kangaroo or a tree or something. Because we relied on UHF technology—and UHF is notoriously unreliable; it works over only a very limited range—he didn't have communication with his homestead. He somehow managed to get himself back home, where he was able to get treatment, but he ended up with a lifelong and debilitating brain injury. And it just makes me wonder: what would it have been like if he'd actually had a mobile phone to be able to call for emergency services at the time?”
“This was no communication device with the sonorous sounds of Siri; this was a rubber-coated device about half the size of my hand that was cable-tied to my bike. You'd put little waypoints in there—the homestead, or some waters—and you'd navigate. It would have a little arrow on its green-and-black screen, and it would point to where the waypoint was and tell you how many kilometres you were from it. I think it's an interesting fact that we were using that out in the bush in the early 2000s, at the same time that people in the city wouldn't have known what a GPS was, but people in the city were using mobile phones, whereas out in the bush in the early 2000s nobody had a clue what a mobile phone was. It is literally a matter of life and death—communications.”
“There's an interesting memory that I have, from the time that I came out to work on a property in my late 20s. As it was, I probably didn't know one end of a sheep from the other; I'd never been on a motorbike before; I didn't know my north from my south. I'm sure that one of the reasons that they employed me was for the comic value! They told me that I'd need to fall off my bike at least a hundred times before I'd be a good rider; I certainly fell off a hundred times, and I wouldn't say that I was ever a great rider at the end of it. As I said, I barely knew my north from my south. In the middle of summer, by the way, north is there, somehow, if you follow the sun, but it's very difficult when you're trying to follow a mob of sheep through the thick scrub. So I had a GPS. In the early 2000s, here we were, in the bush, using GPS.”
“I was in Upper Coomera the other day, and I couldn't get connection to Maps. In the relatively new suburbs of Holmview and Waterford, there's appalling mobile phone reception; people are forced to go out onto their driveway and wave their mobile phone around in the hope that they get reception. So I understand the frustration that's felt in the bush where there is zero reception. I understand that frustration because of the area that I represent and live in today, but I also understand that frustration because it is an area that, as I say, I grew up in and worked in. The time that I spent on sheep and cattle stations between Broken Hill and Bourke really brought home to me the isolation that exists out there, and the importance of communication—or, I should say, what it means to not have that communication.”
“At least this legislation does set down those guidelines clearly for industry to follow, and it does lead the way. It does focus the attention of industry to solve this problem. But, like the member for Parkes, who does represent an area where I grew up—in the town of Broken Hill—I share that frustration of being a member of an outer metropolitan seat. I know the frustration of having poor mobile phone coverage. Even though the community that I represent today and the community that I grew up in might be separated by geography, they are certainly not separated by demography. The communities that I represent are hardworking working-class Australians, committed to their families and their communities. And they have one other thing in common as well, which is poor mobile phone reception. There are many suburbs that I could mention.”
“I rise to support the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025. There has been a break in the debate from the last sitting, and I reference the contribution made by, I think, the member for Parkes, who was critical of this bill because he thought that it didn't go far enough. My question really is: what is the alternative? This is a chance either to do something or to do nothing. While it's quite an amazing statistic that something like 99 per cent of Australians are covered at the moment by mobile phone coverage, that also means that two-thirds of the Australian landmass is not covered. And so we need a practical solution that doesn't technically exist yet but we're working towards.”
“And before they start saying it is the current government, the opposition should take a look at their own record from when they were in government to what they are continuing to do now and what, heaven forbid, should happen if they got in again.”
“It's the same philosophy that actually doesn't care about the results and doesn't care about the impact it has on people's lives. They are trying to appeal to a very narrow base of people who are obsessed with fighting the science of climate change, who are obsessed with a very sterile ideology of removing the government from the economy. Those opposite are obsessed with an ideology that comes at the expense of actual results for people. And so it is, in my first grievance debate, that I would like to get that off my chest on behalf of everybody who is struggling to pay a bill, on behalf of every business that is struggling.”
“The fact is, Australia had a very strong economy post-World War II because governments did get involved in the economy. For instance, we had great publicly owned electricity assets around the country. Unfortunately, under Liberal governments we've seen them privatised or corporatised to the point now where they don't play a useful role in helping to keep the cost of living down for workers or for businesses. It's now got to the point where privatisation and economic rationalism are now having a negative impact on the economy. But it is something they want to continue for some ideological reason. It's the same philosophy that saw 24 out of 28 coal-fired power stations close down. It's the same philosophy that saw four gigawatts of energy leave the system and one gigawatt of energy come on.”