Alison Penfold
Lyne · National Party · Australia
“I rise to speak on the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026. I acknowledge the member for Moore and his time he spent in the wonderful community of Dungog. It is a terrific place and I know that the teachers and educators in that town do a wonderful job. Well done.”
“They can often live with their families while they study. For a young person growing up in Dungog, Taree, Wingham, Gloucester, Harrington, Tea Gardens, Bulahdelah, Forster, Tuncurry or the Manning Valley or the many other small towns and hamlets in my electorate—”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. Isn't it true that the Albanese Labor government's 70c-a-day tax cut has already been eaten up by inflation, unlike the coalition's tax-back guarantee, which is protected from inflation and would provide a typical Australian worker a far bigger, $400 tax cut this year?”
“My question is to the Treasurer. Yesterday the Treasurer was asked about his plan to force thousands of widows and divorcees to pay more tax by removing their access to grandfathering for capital gains tax and negative gearing.”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. A new report shows the Prime Minister saved around $200,000 on the sale of three investment properties under existing capital gains tax rules. In last month's budget, the Prime Minister broke his promise and changed those rules.”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. A new report shows the Prime Minister saved around $200,000 on the sale of three investment properties under existing capital gains tax rules. In last month's budget, the Prime Minister broke his promise and changed those rules.”
The complete record
Every one of 616 lines we hold for Alison Penfold, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 9 of 13.
“I'm incredibly disappointed that, yet again, Labor governments, state and federal, are attacking another legitimate primary industry, attacking the workers and their families who rely on the timber industry and attacking regional communities by killing jobs and industry.”
“In the New South Wales government's own words: The final creation of the park is dependent on the successful registration of a carbon project under the Improved Native Forest Management (INFM) Method, which is currently moving through the federal government assessment processes. I note that, on the draft method, there was less than supportive feedback from the Carbon Market Institute taskforce, and I also note that the Australian Forest Products Association is urging the federal government to withdraw support for the New South Wales government's proposed method due to validity and integrity concerns. I urge the Albanese government to reject the methodology, and I urge the Minns Labor government to remove the moratorium on native timber harvesting, to come clean on its real agenda and to rethink the size of the park.”
“We also know that koala density is mostly similar between state forests and national parks and that, if these forests are not well managed by regular fuel reduction, they'll become raging infernos on hot windy days—a far bigger threat to koalas. The heart of this matter is not koala conservation; that's the spin. At the heart of this decision is a deal between the New South Wales and federal Labor governments to deliver on its extreme net zero policy—a deal that sees the Minns Labor government lock up state forests in exchange for funding from the Albanese Labor government through earnings from Australian carbon credit units.”
“I want to acknowledge the Timber, Furnishing and Textiles Union for taking it right up to the New South Wales government. In addition to the worker and industry compensation, the New South Wales government has committed $80 million for the park and an extra $60 million for the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. It's going to be an expensive new park. But for what? The people on the ground know that there is absolutely no additional conservation value in this park—in protecting koalas or other species—and that the threats to koalas are more from urbanisation, vehicles, dogs, disease and wildfires.”
“The New South Wales Labor premier and his ministers are tearing up timber mill contracts, and workers are losing jobs as a result. In my own electorate, workers have lost jobs at the Herons Creek timber mill. I went to the mill last week and spoke to the workers who'd just been sacked. They were gutted, destroyed, bewildered. These were good jobs held by good men in a good industry, a sustainable industry and an Australian industry focused on looking after our forests—not to destroy what provided their livelihoods. What did they do wrong? They don't deserve this. Communities in my electorate and up and down the New South Wales north coast don't deserve to have good jobs destroyed by the stroke of a government pen. Efforts are underway to get these workers a decent redundancy package.”
“Take, for example, the announcement by New South Wales premier Chris Minns on Sunday 7 September—yes, Father's Day—to create a great koala national park out of 176,000 hectares of state forest on the New South Wales north coast. That was a day when dads who work in the north coast timber industry were told that their jobs were in jeopardy. What a low blow. Government should be looking to grow jobs and industries, not cancel them. When trees grow and are harvested, they grow jobs, careers, communities, industries, housing and infrastructure and provide real carbon solutions. As trees grow, particularly younger trees, they absorb and lock away carbon and, after the harvesting and processing, store carbon away in the array of timber products. The cycle is then repeated with regeneration. This is climate action in action.”
“Agriculture, mining and forestry are the three industries that help build Australia and Australian prosperity. They have a special place in our history and future—that is, if governments can be kept away from regulatory meddling and, worse, using them as sources of votes. The worst lamentable example is forestry. Native hardwood timber supplies our housing, infrastructure, construction, transport and manufacturing sectors. Timber is a product we need, and it's an industry we need to look after. Its people are experienced professionals who understand the science behind healthy and sustainable resource ecosystems and work in a highly regulated and scrutinised industry. Governments of all persuasions need to rethink their orthodoxy and instead reflect on the reality of forestry, not the ideology of those opposed to it.”
“If it wasn't for the RFDS, that child, Indi, would not be with us today. I just want to say what a wonderful launch event it was—the best event we've ever had at Parliament House was what the RFDS delivered today—and to thank you all for the service that you give to regional Australians. May you prosper and support Australians for many, many decades to come. Thank you.”
“To lower the temperature in this place, I want to recognise that today we launched the Parliamentary Friends of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. I want to thank my colleague the member for Sturt for her leadership and for approaching me to be co-chair with her. We did coordinate very well today, I think, in wearing our blue suits. The RFDS is such an incredible service that regional and remote Australia has. At today's launch I noted that this time last year I was recovering from a very serious ride-on mower accident. I broke 14 ribs. I had a compressed lung. But I was only 20 minutes from a hospital. So many Australians are hours—thousands of kilometres—away. Who do they rely on? The Royal Flying Doctor Service. I also mentioned the story of a young mother who went into labour.”
“The government should not succumb to the profit focused goals and efficiency driven dividends of corporate Australia—just like Telstra is doing in Taree and the banks are doing across regional Australia—or the excitable IT technocrats thinking they are doing everyone a massive favour or officials in the bureaucracy who think they will meet or exceed some KPIs on technology adoption and implementation in the processes of government. In summary, my point is that, while technology will always be with us and we will have to adapt to using it ever more, we need to be very mindful of what is in the best interests of people from all walks of life and from all regions of Australia and not just impose a new confronting technology on them in the interests of someone else.”
“The Digital ID scheme centralises power, strips Australians of privacy, and creates the foundation for unprecedented monitoring and control over ordinary life. Linking financial access, healthcare, education, employment, and civic participation to a centralised ID system paves the way for systemic abuse. Australians will not tolerate it. The people of Lyne have spoken. That's just a sample of the emails to my office. My old rule of thumb is that, for every single person who takes the time to write, there are another 100 out there who are thinking of doing it, thinking the same thing. The government would be wise to hasten slowly—very slowly—on this project.”
“This system would give the reigning government absolute power to manipulate and control every aspect of our lives … it is historically a very bad idea to allow the concentration of too much power to be in the hands of too few people—they will eventually use and abuse it, that is just human nature. An Australia card was proposed to the Australian public in the late eighties but faced strong opposition and was abandoned, we know a digital ID would be far worse. Cheryl said: I write to you as an Australian citizen, vested with constitutional rights and freedoms that no government or corporate body has the authority to diminish, restrict, or coerce. This correspondence serves as a formal notice of refusal and non-consent to the Digital ID scheme in all its current and proposed forms.”
“This was from Mark: The federal government is rolling out digital ID on My Gov. They say it's not mandatory but I fear that it is a load of bulldust. I keep refusing to update my My Gov ID, but I fear it is only a matter of time that I won't be able to lodge my quarterly BAS statements without it; I am staying with my password login. If I have to change over I will just shut down my business and still refuse to change to the Digital ID. This was from Kieren: I am expressing my objection to any form of government digital ID and elimination of cash in Australia for any reason.”
“But the reality is that national multi-use identity schemes have a poor track record in Australia—and for good reason. Successive governments have presided over a string of breaches and confidentiality failures that have shaken public confidence in digital initiatives. They have done nothing to build trust regarding rights protection and limit setting. There have been a number of emails to my office over the last fortnight from constituents outlining their concerns. Michelle's centre around the potential for security breaches, saying: The people of your electorate do not want this digital ID. The federal government have already had many breaches of security. The Australian government needs to take heed of what is happening overseas with this incredibly stupid idea of digital ID.”
“Sweden, for instance, has had to backtrack on its rush to cashlessness, which financially excluded the population's most vulnerable. It doesn't matter if the number of cash payments are falling; the point is that they have not stopped altogether. While there is ever a need for cash, the government must ensure that the need is protected and enshrined in its laws and not undermined by it. The same can be said of digital ID. If the constituents of Lyne are concerned about a cashless society, they are livid about digital ID. I understand the rationale behind the government digitisation scheme. It is often touted as providing easy, high confidence verification of identity to enable millions of offline transactions to move online, which will enable a string of enhanced services.”
“We must also ensure towns have the infrastructure that makes cash payments possible, and halt the disappearance of ATMs and the closing of bank branches. Otherwise businesses will easily be able to exempt themselves from this mandate. It is clear to me why the proposal is insufficient. The government has cherry picked one recommendation from the regional banking inquiry, while ignoring the rest. It is now over 430 days since the inquiry handed down its report, and 75 days since every member of the Nationals wrote to the Treasurer seeking a response to the inquiry. The government hasn't replied to either. I urge the government to consider the attempts by other countries to embrace a cash-free economy and the disastrous effects that has had.”
“I'm concerned that these exemptions could become the rule, especially in towns with no bank or affordable cash transportation services. Without banking access, supermarkets and petrol stations could be excused altogether because they themselves don't have access to cash or the ability to safely deposit takings. That is why this proposal is inadequate. Furthermore, as it currently stands, the proposal is far too narrow, applying to just supermarkets and fuel stations. In doing so, it leaves out medicine, housing, utility bills and a host of other essentials. If the Albanese government is serious about ensuring financial inclusion and ensuring society's most vulnerable do not get left behind, then I urge them to expand the mandate to guarantee that it applies to all retailers and outlets without exemption or exception.”
“For many women of domestic violence, cash means freedom. The government has recently closed submissions for its cash mandate draft regulations. The draft Competition and Consumer (Industry Codes—Cash Acceptance) Regulations 2025 would require large supermarket and fuel retailers to accept cash for in-person transactions under $500. While this may sound like a positive move to enshrine the continuation of cash, many constituents within my electorate are extremely concerned about this mandate, with all of its exceptions and limits—it is actually a trojan horse to herald in cash death—and understandably so. Under the regulations, the ACCC will be able to grant exemptions from complying with the new regulations in exceptional circumstances.”
“And what about in emergency situations? Vast swathes of my electorate was submerged during the catastrophic flooding in May this year. Digital payments were simply not a possibility. Lou from my electorate notes: 'We've been subject to many natural disasters—flood, storms and drought—where it has been essential to purchase fuel to operate machinery, such as farm RVs and tractors. Cash always needs to be an acceptable form of payment.' Denis in my electorate stated, 'As a regional dweller, power failures are not uncommon during bushfires, and mobile towers are also subject to damage.' We saw that recently just near me at Wauchope. And what about our most vulnerable? Women escaping domestic violence often rely on cash to be able to make discrete purchases or payments without being monitored or tracked through bank transactions.”
“Card and digital payments are not necessarily convenient nor accessible to an electorate with a high proportion of older Australians and a network and grid that is becoming increasingly unreliable. Power outages are a common occurrence in parts of the electorate. I know that Nabiac and Minimbah often experience blackouts when the winds pick up. In Harrington and other coastal towns whose populations double or triple during holiday seasons, it's often impossible for businesses to use their squares because the mobile bandwidth is stretched to capacity. When this occurs, all cashless options are rendered completely useless. In these instances, cash well and truly is king. Indeed, it is the only option to ensure business can continue to operate, and ensure consumers can still purchase food, fuel and medicine.”
“I rise in solidarity with my electorate to speak out against the increasing push to move Australians towards a digital ID and a cashless society. As I've mentioned on a number of occasions in this chamber, the Lyne electorate is the oldest demographic in the country. Thus, the negative implications of the societal push to adopt these new systems is, understandably, greatly felt and greatly feared within Lyne. Cash has long been deemed king, but that status is quickly being usurped by card and digital payments driven by technological advancements, the COVID-19 pandemic and so-called convenience. The big banks, corporate Australia and government are among some of the greatest proponents of a cashless society and are rapidly driving the transition, but in doing so they are recklessly leaving behind a large portion of the population.”
“This gentleman who contacted my office could not believe that the Prime Minister, who theatrically waved his Medicare card and promised on no fewer than 71 occasions—throughout the election campaign and since—that all you need is your Medicare card, not your credit card, was doing the exact opposite when it came to the pathology. This decision, as my constituent warned, will deter many Australians from doing clinical tests, potentially creating more complex and expensive health problems down the track. He said, 'If I'd been made aware of the cost prior to the test then I don't think I would have had it.' Health is one of the major concerns on the mind of Lyne residents—again, the oldest electorate and one of the poorest in the country. We feel we're missing out on our fair of investment in local health services under this government.”
“And while we all hope this initiative will land in the pockets of hardworking Australians, increasingly we are seeing these savings washed away by other surging price rises created by this government's policies. Just last Friday I received a call from a constituent who had undergone a pathology test and only after the fact was told an invoice would be sent to him. This is another policy that was brought in by the Albanese government, but curiously they are not spruiking this one, which runs completely counter to their misleading narrative that they are delivering cheaper and more accessible health care. This formerly free health service is no longer, thanks to the government placing tighter restrictions on who can get Medicare funded vitamin B12 and urine specimen testing.”
“During the election I called for an urgent care clinic in Taree. Labor ran a candidate against me, so why didn't Labor match my commitment and budget for it during the election, as they did in the many others they are delivering? I note that an urgent care clinic that was committed to in Maitland will benefit many of my constituents and I'm grateful to the government for this commitment, but Maitland is almost two hours away, too far for the people of Taree and Forster and the Mid North Coast to access. The member for Deakin, when moving this motion, also spruiked the government's lowering of the maximum cost of Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme listed medicines.”
“One would think this would be good news for my electorate. Lyne is, after all, the oldest electorate and one of the poorest in the country, so surely it should be on the list to receive a federally funded urgent care clinic. Well, it's not. Surely, it is one of the 47 that is on the list to be delivered down the track. Well, it's not. Out of the 137 urgent care clinics the government will operate, not one falls within the borders of my electorate. My electorate and my constituents sit squarely in the middle of a yawning service gap that exists between Coffs Harbour and Newcastle, and despite my many calls to the minister to work with me to fix this gap and deliver an urgent care clinic in the Lyne electorate, I've been generally knocked back. My request should not be of any surprise to the government.”
“To enable 100 per cent bulk billing, many GPs insist that, if they were to take part in the program, their practice would lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, which would ultimately jeopardise the viability of keeping the practice open. I want constituents to have access to no-appointment-necessary bulk-billed after-hours care. An urgent care clinic in Taree would complement a state funded one, the Forster-Tuncurry health facility that my state colleague, the member for Myall Lakes, has successfully obtained funding for, after the Minns government axed funding for a public hospital. The mover of this motion, the member for Deakin, references a number of other policies that the government has undertaken to strengthen Medicare, including opening 90 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics across the country, with 47 more on the way.”
“Investment in Medicare is always welcome. I'm hopeful that the additional bulk-billing incentive payments will directly benefit Lyne constituents, who have seen a serious decline in bulk billing availability in the last four years. I look forward to hearing from Lyne locals that it has hit the ground. But praise has not been universal. General practice clinics and owners are already disclosing publicly that they will not be signing up to the incentives. Why? Firstly, signing up to the program is prohibitively time consuming and complex, and most GPs and practice managers—certainly in regional Australia—are already incredibly busy and do not have the time to do the paperwork. Secondly, the incentives are not sufficient to offset the soaring operational costs of running a clinic under Labor's skyrocketing energy prices.”
“And all this is for a contribution to global emissions of just one per cent. Our energy system can be cheaper, better and fairer. We can put Australians first by putting lower energy prices first. We can do this by unleashing all of our energy sources, including coal, gas, nuclear and renewables, and using technology to abate carbon. We can take practical action our way to protect and enhance the environment.”
“Labor's net zero mandate is failing Australians. Electricity prices are up 39 per cent, gas prices up 46 per cent, real wages have dropped to 2011 levels and manufacturing is retreating or seeking bailouts to survive. Over 7,000 direct jobs in heavy industry have been lost since 2020 and 73,000 more are at risk, like those at Tomago. Meanwhile, there are thousands of wind turbines, millions of solar panels and kilometres of new transmission lines popping up all over rural and forested landscapes. We've lost 7.2 million hectares of farmland as our farmers and rural industries are made to do the heavy lifting. Australia has cut emissions by 24 per cent since 2005, yet like countries have cut them by only 14 per cent. The cost of Labor's reckless renewables rollout is at least $1.32 trillion, a cost we each bear.”
“Labor members, next time you take out your green card, remember that, in fact, you are two for zero when it comes to co-payments. In terms of the co-payment, this is a wait-and-see space. Where these reforms land in one of the poorest electorates in the country is yet to be seen, but I hope the government will ensure it is agile enough to move quickly and act if it proves too much for our older Australians.”
“Medically my wife is deteriorating rapidly and may well be dead before aged care provides the care and support as defined in the proposed legislation.' From their initial contact with My Aged Care, clients in Lyne are commonly waiting 18 months before being able to access the home-care package, now called the Support at Home program. There is also very significant concern in the electorate over the co-payment requirement for personal services. Given all that this government says about co-payments—and I can hear the rebukes from the Minister for Health and Ageing from across the chamber—it is this Labor government that introduced the co-payment into aged care. In fact, in health the two co-payments required of Australians, the PBS and Support at Home, are both Labor initiatives.”
“One of my constituents, Dr Peter Ineson, wrote to me about his experience, which I would like to share with you: 'My wife, Ann Victoria, and I moved from Port Macquarie here to Wauchope for a less stressful way of life. We find that to be the case in all aspects of life, except for aged care support. In order to ensure Ann Victoria can live a comfortable and supportive life in Wauchope we have to modify the property for her needs. It would appear that we "need" the visitation and approval of an occupational therapist for any action to process modifications. Finding one of these persons is like looking for a needle in a haystack. We have already been waiting almost two months.”
“Surely the aged-care minister, too, would be ashamed of the delay. The implications of these staffing shortages are incredibly high waiting times for older Australians, whether that be waiting for an assessment, waiting for approval of a package or waiting to progress to a higher package level. An assessor in my electorate confided to me that, for home-care packages, local aged-care clients can be waiting months to have their assessments completed and, once approved, they are waiting at least six months before being assigned the funding. In addition to this, there is the issue of finding providers and health professionals whose books are not full.”
“The figure has blown out even further, with 50 per cent of applications processed in nine months but 90 per cent, the overwhelming majority, processed in 11 months. This is neither a reasonable nor acceptable timeframe. When I wrote to the government, to the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, the response I got was that a 10-month timeframe—which has now blown out to 11 months—was normal. This is an insensitive and uncaring response from a minister who seems to not understand the vital role that immigration plays in getting skilled workers for regional aged-care facilities. It is simply not good enough for the minister to have a hands-off approach to the problem. This government cannot work in silos. Has the aged-care minister, who would be well across the issue, sought the assistance of his colleague to help address this issue?”
“But there's also the NDIS, which is a massive competitor. Staff can work fewer hours, do dayshifts or work one on one in the NDIS with similar or at times higher pay than staff in aged-care facilities. An aged-care facility in my electorate told me that, to address the shortage, the vast majority of workers will have to come from overseas. The government has mandated care minute targets, which is fine, but the government has done nothing on the other side to support aged-care providers in expediting the approval of visas for overseas care workers. To the contrary, the waiting time for the processing of a 407 training visa has blown out from two to three months to 10 months plus. I checked the Home Affairs website today.”
“Aged care is a big concern in the electorate of Lyne given its demographics. One of the greatest challenges is staffing and the difficulty providers face in trying to find aged-care workers. I've been contacted by several aged-care facility managers in my electorate, stating that their situation, with respect to staffing, workers and viability, is dire. They've said to me that there is a chronic shortage of both registered nurses and aged-care workers in aged care, which has been exacerbated by the mandated care-minute requirements. I'm told that aged-care facilities have beds that are closed because they can't staff them and therefore can't open them and that there was a mass exodus of qualified, highly knowledgeable and experienced aged-care staff due to the COVID vaccine requirements.”
“I am sick of Telstra and its corporate buddies raking in billions of dollars in profits a year at the expense of its loyal customers. The government must step in and ensure that consumer rights are no longer trampled on by corporate Australia. Telstra seems to have forgotten for whom it works. Let me remind them. Telstra, you work for customers—the very people that put you in your position of unprecedented wealth and power. If you will not maintain a presence in Taree, then I'll be calling on the government to legislate that you must.”
“By Telstra's own admission, the issue could only be resolved face to face. So why are they taking away this option for the people of the Manning Valley? They expect customers like Louise to travel to the already very busy stores of Forster and Port Macquarie, which are at least 40 minutes to an hour away. And how long will it be before these locations follow suit and close their doors? If Telstra is anything like the big banks, which it is increasingly proving itself to be, it won't be long before these stores close, too. And what about the staff? While some of the employees will be relocated to other stores, not all of them have a job to go to. I've entreated Telstra to reverse its decision. As yet, I have not received a fulsome response to this request.”
“Telstra has tried to justify this move by saying that the Port Macquarie and Forster stores will remain open and that customers can continue to access support through online services, the My Telstra app or contact centres. Let's be real, Telstra: these are dismal attempts to replace face-to-face contact, particularly for a community that is the oldest in the country. Most people who seek assistance from in-store staff are there because they need face-to-face service, not an online bot or someone sitting in an overseas call centre that they struggle to understand. Louise, from my electorate, said that Telstra was unable to resolve her mobile issue over the phone. She was directed to the Taree store, where she received incredible assistance from a young man named Joshua, who, after significant efforts, was able to rectify the issue.”
“I rise to condemn the actions of Telstra, which has announced that it will shut the doors of its Taree store on Monday 10 November—as if the Taree community hasn't already been through enough! In Telstra's eyes, catastrophic floods that've left people without their homes and livelihoods weren't enough of a kick in the guts. Telstra's decision doubles down on a community already doing it tough, withdrawing a vital service that hundreds of paying customers desperately rely on. Why are they doing this? I was advised that the decision was made following an internal review of its retail store strategy, which sounds a lot like yet another attempt to shore up the bottom line.”
“Big tech and AI developers also need to step up. If business wants to use AI at scale, it needs to go beyond any regulatory responsibility in AI development; it must obtain society's explicit approval to deploy it. That means AI needs to earn its social licence—and fast.”
“I want to note, however, that the Department of Industry, Science and Resources has done some good work in its Voluntary AI S afety S tandard , which gives guidance on how to safely and responsibly use AI and outlines what legislation may look like to manage its improper use. The department has identified areas for mandatory treatment, including how to manage data quality, identify and mitigate risks, ensure regulatory compliance, enable human intervention and respond to people impacted by AI harm. It's a massive body of work, but government needs to be ahead of the game not behind it. While the Albanese government is providing some means to upskill people in the use of AI, it has done nowhere near enough to protect those people too. This motion suggests that the government is more focused on its PR than protecting the public.”
“The dissenting report from senators McGrath and Reynolds, the coalition members of the Select Committee on Adopting Artificial Intelligence, makes for chilling reading: AI presents an unprecedented threat to Australian cybersecurity and privacy; due to the recent exponential improvements in AI capability and the unprecedented level of publicly available personal information, foreign actors can now target our networks, systems and people; and existing laws do not adequately prevent AI-facilitated harms before they occur, nor provide an adequate response after they do. It concluded, in part: The Federal Government— the Albanese government— has neglected its responsibility to deal with any of the threats that the exponential growth of the AI industry poses to the Australian people and their entities.”
“While AI can be used to put finishing touches to a person's letter, a proposal, a project, a policy or a body of work, it's really a matter for each person to develop their own position on their AI use. Ideally, in a liberal democracy, that is not an area for government to regulate. But then there is the use of AI for villainous, deplorable or senseless purposes. This is where the government must step in.”
“In its submission to a New South Wales upper house inquiry, it noted that there are numerous threats and recommended that government should list and restrict toxic AI products, like undress AIs, unpredictable AIs, autonomous AIs and rogue AIs. It also suggested AI developers should be liable if their AIs engage in harmful, unpredicted behaviours. For example, AI technology has not just advised but instructed people on how to commit suicide. This is surely one example where an Australian developer of AI that enabled this response should be severely held accountable. I do see, however, the many benefits of AI but also the risks and how government may check it. In essence, we need to consider how this all-encompassing technology is safely accommodated into our lives, including ensuring that we have a choice as to whether we use it or not.”
“I'm pleased to note the government's decision to enshrine crucial copyright protections for musicians, writers, journalists and artists, which were threatened by big tech and their AI systems. I'd particularly like to acknowledge and thank Holly Rankin from my electorate, known to many as ARIA Award nominated Jack River, for her advocacy and leadership on this issue. In researching this topic, I came across numerous detailed papers and submissions to parliamentary inquiries published by Good Ancestors, a forward-thinking charity organisation which believes that AI is not just another technology but one that could change almost every aspect of our lives. It proposes some sensible reforms to address AI harm, including the introduction of an AI act and the launch of an AI safety institute.”
“Artificial intelligence is well and truly here. It's reshaping the world we live in, but Australians are worried. People in my electorate are worried. Trust in AI is low. With all due respect to the mover of this motion in lauding how the Albanese government is preparing the community and business and government officials to utilise and take advantage of AI, the Albanese government has not stepped up to protect vulnerable people and our institutions from its use. It's being happily used in health care, finance, defence, logistics, construction, retail and government, but the crims, the con artists and the foreign actors have it too. And big tech isn't necessarily playing with a straight bat either.”
“Marie says: It is clear in Harry's medical documentation that his disabilities are life-limiting, but instead of spending time and making memories with our family, I must waste my time fighting this David and Goliath battle that consumes and controls my life. This is a shocking indictment on the NDIS, where pleas for help are met with silence—or worse, hostility and apathy. They need to be treated with empathy and respect. Minister, will you initiate a full investigation into this case, including the failings of the NDIS and its employees and legal teams? My predecessor, Dr David Gillespie, and I have written to NDIS ministers on numerous occasions, only to be met with the same apathy that Marie and her family received. This is an urgent matter, and I ask you to have heart.”
“Marie and her husband have gradually started to implement the supports they fought for, only to be told that they must start the whole process again, as Harry is due for a plan review. Marie says that Harry is profoundly disabled and that will never change. Marie and her husband provide around-the-clock care for Harry. They get an average of three to four hours sleep a night. They monitor his diabetes every two hours. They do wound care and continence support. And they say: 'We don't mind. He's our baby, and we love him, but we cannot do it alone.' Marie's story highlights the broader systemic failings of the NDIS, showing how its processes can undermine the very people it is meant to serve.”
“Is he going to die?' Fast forward 86 days and Harry is finally released from the hospital. Marie and her husband are providing all of Harry's care around the clock, with little to no sleep, all the while still having to fight to get Harry care. Marie says that, eventually, after 2½ long years of combative, hostile belittling, soul destroying accusations and demeaning comments, and 756 pages of reports and evidence—and I can only imagine how many hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money—they were worn down to the point of settling with the NDIS after an extremely distressing conciliation, where their AAT case manager warned, 'If you proceed to court, the NDIS will remove Harry from your care.' Harry currently has an NDIS plan that is workable and almost adequate for his needs.”