Tim Wilson
Goldstein · Liberal Party · Australia
“Now, we see even more immoral leadership as the Prime Minister and his ministers refuse to audit whether federal money has found its way into the hands of organised crime through the CFMEU Labor cartel.”
“The silence that we heard from our prime minister and our national leaders every step of the way led to horrific incidents like, on 10 November, the protests at the front of Central Shule in Caulfield South in the Goldstein electorate. It led eventually to the most horrific terrorist incident on our most famous national beach.”
“The idea that you would put the social solidarity of the most marginalised section of our community on a ballot paper knowing it would fail is an abrogation of leadership and responsibility and something I do not think this prime minister will ever be able to shake.”
“I've recently been spending a lot of time thinking about what moral government is and what type of government seeks to divide citizens, feed corruption and break trust within the community. The short and sharp of it is that it's an immoral government.”
“But to engage in citizenship stacking, where they deliberately went around and targeted electorates and got people to become Australian citizens on the eve of a national poll, is absolutely disgraceful.”
“There is hope. We can have a moral government again that's focused on uniting Australians and building trust and taking Australia forward together. But the only way we can do that is by seeing a change of government and the end of the Albanese government.”
The complete record
Every one of 1,081 lines we hold for Tim Wilson, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 16 of 22.
“What we're actually doing is empowering our agencies—whether they're Federal Police or other intelligence organisations or whether they're working across international borders—to be able to go into places like the dark web and discover the deep, dark realities and the shortcomings of humanity. This legislation is very important because it's a tragedy that, when you engage in some of the responsibilities that you must engage in in this office that we all hold in our different capacities, you see what humanity is capable of. More importantly, you see how people will treat the most vulnerable, in particular children—whether it's sexual crimes, abuse or sexual violence—the content people will create, capture or distribute; and the different mechanisms by which they connect with other people who find satisfaction through such crimes.”
“When we find those dark depths and when our agencies that are charged responsible for making sure those people are held accountable, we need to make sure that they have the laws and tools available to them. We need them to be able to go into those deep, dark recesses, particularly online and through telecommunication platforms, to find them; to make sure the content they are producing, what it is they are doing and the harm they are doing, particularly against those who are vulnerable, can be exposed and brought into the sunlight; and to make sure that there's a full pathway for prosecution. That's why legislation like this matters.”
“I will have served in this parliament now for six years in about five months, with a little bit of a gap in between some of that tenure, and have served on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, including with the current Minister for Small Business, who is sitting at the table opposite me. One of the challenges you confront—and it's a difficult thing to confront—is that, because we have an enormous amount of faith and hope in our country and our fellow citizens, sometimes some of our fellow citizens fall short. I don't just mean fall short. Sometimes they fall short in a very large way, and we see the dark depths of humanity.”
“In the era of national security, all legislation is, of course, enormously important, but it's also equally important that we scrutinise all pieces of legislation to make sure there is not needless overreach and to make sure this parliament is always getting the balance right. We all believe in the importance of human freedom and dignity but also in making sure that we have a secure environment and making sure that we have appropriate crackdowns on those people who wish our community and our society harm—particularly those who are most vulnerable, children in particular—and those who want to perpetrate sexual violence and harm. That's the basis on which this legislation, the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, has been put forward to this parliament.”
“Because history has shown us, time and time again, the cost of silence. Rabbi Jacqueline Ninio in 'And still we dance' said: It takes great courage to believe that there will be a better tomorrow, that we will dance again in freedom. (Time expired)”
“They took two inconsistent positions, one involving justification of what happened and the other denial. … Men were the violators; women were the victims of horrific sexual violence. It was not so long ago that rape in war was recognised as a war crime, as the world is reminded annually on the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. But, according to some of my feminist ex-friends, 'rape is resistance'. Somehow the women who were abused, deserved it. In her chapter 'The woman in the arena', Simonne Whine wrote of how it has inspired her. She wrote: One thing I have realised is that the true arena isn't a place you enter deliberately, for glory. The arena chooses you. … I will continue to fight, not just for myself, but for my children, for my people, for our future in Australia.”
“The rhetoric around the Hamas attacks and the Israeli response has been like screams in my face … In her chapter 'North of the river', Siana Einfeld wrote explicitly about the betrayal she has experienced. She wrote: On December 18 2023— shortly after the attacks— Darebin City Council, which has never once passed a motion about any other foreign conflict, pushed through a motion solely condemning Israel for the war it did not start. … The motion did not once mention the killing spree of October 7. It did not acknowledge the plight of the hostages nor the mass sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli girls and women. In her chapter 'The crack and the light', Melinda Jones wrote: It was particularly painful to see how the feminist movement, including many of my friends, responded to October 7.”
“Jemima Montag wrote in 'Nana's bracelet': … I had made an active decision to conceal my Jewish identity to protect my safety and mental health … Other contributors, like Noa Gomberg, wrote: Frankly, I'm still not sure why or how the queer community grew so vulnerable to Hamas propaganda—considering they routinely slaughter us in Gaza—or how it has become popular to accessorise keffiyehs with pride pins. There is this deep sense of betrayal. In addressing some of the issues of re-traumatisation, particularly from the Holocaust, Dani Valent wrote in her chapter 'Open hiding': I used to feel the same as my brother: we did not suffer intergenerational trauma. But I have realised it was waiting in my blood. My cells seized with it and they have not eased.”
“To those Australians, I recommend reading the book Rup tured : Jewish W omen in Australia R eflect on L ife P ost - October 7 , edited by Lee Kofman and Tamar Paluch. I recommend it because so many people are trying to make sense of these events and understand the impact that they've had on Australians. It brings home how our fellow Australians have felt in the months and years since October 7. In her chapter 'In case I ever get kidnapped', Tamar Paluch wrote: I have never felt my identities as a mother and a Jew activated as powerfully and urgently as in these times. The world in which I was once fluent and comfortable feels alien and untrustworthy.”
“Shortly after that we had intimidation in Princes Park outside Central Shule in the Goldstein electorate. Left unchecked, the crisis of antisemitism has spread across Australia and is lived by Jewish Australians—from abuse and graffiti to firebombings. There's no place for antisemitism in Australia, nor should international conflicts become the basis for targeting our fellow citizens. Since then, we have had an aggressive and, we need to acknowledge, at times successful global propaganda effort to delegitimise Israel defending its national security and defending the interests of its citizens from the terrorist organisation Hamas. Many Australians of good intention, of course, are looking at the situation overseas and are disgusted at the rise of antisemitism at home, struggling to understand these events and the impact they've had.”
“On the morning of 7 October 2023, young men and women danced at sunrise at the Nova dance festival and farmers awoke at the kibbutzim in southern Israel. But the peace was broken by Hamas terrorists who abused the trust of those they had deliberately built that trust with to launch attacks, horrific attacks, that are now counted as the biggest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. Women, men, children and babies were murdered. Women were raped, mutilated and paraded. Two years on, 48 hostages remain in Gaza. Among them is a 19-year-old woman; others are as old as 85. It's quite simple: bring them home. October 7 should never have happened. It certainly should have been the end, but it was the beginning. On 8 October, we had protests on the steps of the Sydney Opera House celebrating the attacks.”
“He was supported by an incredible team: Bill Wang, Gianlucca Stavros, Darsh Shah, Max Henley, Jack Tan, Reggie Cooke and Sam Hevey. I say thank you also to their support team of family, friends and sponsors, in particular the teachers Jamie Watson, Thivi Athipar and Mathew Steed; their adviser Jenson Galvin; and their headmaster, Ross Featherston. We're immensely proud of your achievements and everything you've done to put Goldstein and BGS on the map and to make Australia successful.”
“It's unparliamentary to be called a 'lunartic', but today it's a badge of pride. Last year, Team Lunar from Brighton Grammar School came third at the world STEM racing championships in Saudi Arabia. STEM racing is a global multidisciplinary challenge where teams test a miniature F1 car powered by CO2 canisters. Last week, Team Lunar made Australia proud, beating 1.8 million participants and 83 teams worldwide to win the 2025 Aramco STEM Racing World Finals in Singapore. Led by team manager Leo Jansen, Team Lunar included CAD engineer Ollie Chernikeeff, CAM engineer Liam Jones, engineer director Max Zylberman and enterprise director Max Zhou. Congratulations, lunartics. Ad Astra from BGS also competed, making the semifinals in the knockout round, led by manager Ethan Davis.”
“Their job goes beyond just facing the immediate challenges but to inspiring us towards a better future, to give us a sense of hope about what we can achieve together to be able to realise a better future shared, because Australia can be a great nation. That is what it means to leave people behind, that is what it means when we have a country that does not appeal to our best selves and that is the challenge we face right now. This government will end, and there will be hope.”
“The story of Australia has never been written in despair; it has always been a story of hope, and so it shall remain. That is the great task of this parliament, but it is not what is being delivered by this government. What we have seen from the speeches we've heard during question time and the answers that have been given in this MPI today is a government that is simply uninterested in the focus of the issues and concerns of Australians right now. For the people in the suburbs all the way through to the rural and regional centres of this country, they've had a complete disregard for not just the urgency of the needs these people face but, more importantly, the need to take all of us forward together.”
“We can have an economy built on aspiration, where reward flows from effort and where every Australian can advance through their enterprise. We can have a society of unity, where diversity is celebrated not as a dividing line but as part of the great tapestry of our nation. We can have a resilient nation where we stand tall in the world, confident in our values, secure in our alliances and ready to shape our destiny. We cannot outsource this responsibility. It's the responsibility of every Australian and the duty of every parliamentarian in this chamber to lead with courage, to govern with humility and to restore the belief that the best days of our country are not behind us but ahead. Hope is not given; it is built. Together, we can build it—brick by brick, business by business, family by family.”
“Hope means a nation where small business is not burdened by red tape but lifted by opportunity. Hope means harnessing our resources and ingenuity to power the world not with fear of decline but with confidence in Australian innovation. Hope means that, no matter who you are or where you start, your children can dream bigger than you dared and achieve more. Our forebears understood that Australia's greatest asset is not coal or the abundance of sun, not even our beaches or bush, but our people—industrious, fair minded, determined, coupled with a sense of a fair go. The Liberal tradition has always believed in the dignity of the individual, in the community that supports them and in the responsibility that we owe each other. This government will end. There is hope.”
“But, around the kitchen tables of the nation, it feels like Australians have a better sense of the challenges for our nation than our current government does. They are asking hard questions: Can I afford to raise my family here? Will my business survive another storm? Do my children have a future in this country or must they seek it elsewhere? Hope must be grounded in reality, and the reality is that Australia faces challenges, from global uncertainty to rising costs of living to an economy in transition. Yet in every challenge lies opportunity and in every setback the chance for renewal. Hope for Australia isn't just naive optimism. It's the conviction that, when people are empowered, when the government serves rather than smothers and when enterprise is unleashed, we can transform adversity into achievement.”
“The beauty of the morning is not just the rising of the sun but the opportunity of a new day. As I walk the streets of Goldstein, fresh after the night's rest, I meet Australians brimming with a sense of optimism—young families building their first home, retirees who gave their best years to this country, small-business owners taking a risk on their dream. What unites them all is a simple but profound desire: hope for the future—hope that tomorrow will be better than today and hope that their children will inherit a nation of not just wealth but wisdom, resilience and opportunity. But we all know hope doesn't sustain itself. I wish I could say that our current government are calling us to a common purpose or that they are encouraging us to lean into the future with optimism.”
“There are members in this chamber who weren't here and are now, bright eyed and bushy tailed—some elected in 2025 and some that were elected before then—sitting on the government benches, proudly wearing the moniker of the Australian Labor Party—”
“That is why I've always been so excited about technology and excited about the potential not just of things like internet, of course, and telecommunications but also of what artificial intelligence can do. But we're also mindful of the human impact, and, of course, that's where law comes in to maintain standards and ethics but also to make sure that, where there's an overstep or a breach, government does its proper job to secure safety, dignity and security. And that's a constant balance for all of us. But another thing we have to look at is how law can be weaponised by government to seek to silence or censor people. So I look at this bill—and we're going to support it—but I do so, frankly, with caution. I'm old enough—and I'm not that old—to remember the last time we had a Labor government.”
“It's to do with ACMA regulations in the context of making sure there are appropriate standards in place and extending them beyond carriage providers, and I get that, for a lot of people, this may not be a very exciting or enthusing topic. Of course, it's very important. When legislation's drafted, particularly for telecommunications or technology—technology will always outpace regulation and the law. In one sense, that's actually a good thing. Technology is moving at a pace that is faster than government. Government should be slower because it is calm, it is methodical, and, when it seeks to impose a standard, it is universal, whereas technology, by its nature, is dynamic, it is exciting, and it seeks to move faster, because it's reflective of human need.”
“I'd like to start by acknowledging the previous speaker and the sentiment that she finished with, which is that the bill is focused on there being no standard, for an Australian, where anybody is above what is right or wrong. It's a point that we in this parliament, and those who have had the great privilege of serving in parliament, should all reflect upon and is perhaps something that the former premier of Victoria should be thinking about at this important moment in the context of his behaviour in Beijing in the past 24 hours. Getting to the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025, this legislation, on the surface of it, is not one that should necessarily quicken the blood or excite many of the members in this House.”
“It was played in good spirits, and it was moving to watch St Joan of Arc run onto the ground supporting the brother of one of their former teammates who lost their life this week. Of course, it's a reminder of the importance not just of physical health but also of the benefits to mental health of physical exercise. It's particularly important for men as they enter their 40s and 50s. Just remember: if you need help, don't be afraid to ask for help, because it's important to take care of your physical as well as your mental wellbeing throughout all stages of your life.”
“It was also a day of friendly rivalry and fun between friends and families and over a few bottles of bubbles on the sideline—I saw a few! It was also an important day to remember the importance of physical activity for us blokes who have to balance busy family and professional lives. We also saw, at Williams Street Reserve in Brighton, the dads of St Finbar's Primary School, captained by James Adams, take on the dads of St Joan of Arc School, captained by Troy Legudui, in their annual grudge match of physical prowess and performance to see who could claim victory on the ground. This year St Joan of Arc reigned supreme on a tough ground surrounded by hundreds of families and supporters, all keen to cheer the dads on in their varying degrees of fitness.”
“Now rebuilt, on 8 August the community held a birthday party to celebrate the 170th anniversary, which included a history of the school, performances, cake and the opening of a time capsule by Principal Louise Neave. It was a wonderful celebration connecting the school's long history with the present, with a lot of singing, more cake and a lot of high fives from students. Happy 170th, Sandy primary. On Saturday at Hurlingham Park in Brighton East, the dads of the Brighton Beach Primary School Boomers, captained by Jay Pavey and Hugh O'Brien, valiantly took on the dads of the Brighton Primary School Lions, captained by David Mason and Nik Kemp, in an epic footy contest that tested both teams. The annual contest, which has seen a roundabout of winners in different years, saw the Brighton primary Lions claim victory against the Boomers.”
“From small beginnings, Sandringham Primary School recently celebrated its 170th anniversary in August. Originally a Church of England school located in what was then known as Gipsy Village, it started in 1855 with just 11 boys and nine girls. With the evolution of public education, it became a state school in 1875, and in 1911 it exchanged flags with the Sandringham school back in merry old England. After the Second World War it grew to 800 students, but it's closer to 500 now. In early 2020 and coinciding with the arrival of a new principal, most of the school sadly fell victim to arson. I remember the day well because, like many other community members, I helped move furniture to temporary facilities so students didn't have an interrupted education—though COVID took care of that.”
“It has become clear to me that neither our prime minister nor his government will provide this leadership. He is more comfortable getting Australians to turn on each other than to each other. That is why the defeat of this government is no longer a political imperative; it is a moral one. It can be done. It must be done. It will be done.”
“The Prime Minister should start by believing in us, not by bullying us. When Australians exercise their voice, he should listen, not sneer at them with his how-dare-you quiver in his lip. He should be respecting that every generation has wanted sustainable migration to conserve a decent standard of living for citizens today and for generations to come. It is not too much for Australians to want our government to be in control but not our master. As our security environment deteriorates, as our energy base declines, as our social cohesion fades and as households fall further behind, now is a time that compels leadership, and our prime minister should be calling us to a common future. Now is a time that Australia needs leaders who rally our nation to cock our heads higher, look to the horizon and call us as one people to a common destiny.”
“There has never been a time when our national yearning for leadership has been so misaligned with the offering of our institutions. Australia's Prime Minister should never hesitate to say that they love our country or its people; that we can look to our past with open eyes, be proud of our Indigenous heritage and our European settlement, acknowledge blemishes of the past as part of a continuing journey of improvement, and be proud of our achievements; or that our modern nation was founded in a cultural faith worth fighting for if we're to have a cohesive future. Our prime minister should thread a national story that new Australians want to integrate into and that celebrates us as a people. Our story must believe that individuality depends on a unifying culture based on a commitment to dignity and respect.”
“On the cost of new projects, on the cost of new houses for first home buyers—it doesn't matter where it occurs; the cartel tax hits. The cartel tax is corruption. To stop the cartel tax, we must remove the cartel. The cartel is led by this Prime Minister, and he must go. The authority of the prime ministership is more than being the head of government. It is a secular pulpit to rally our nation to a higher calling. I don't know where this prime minister or this government is taking our nation, but it has never felt so weakened spiritually, economically or morally. The insiders who sit on the government benches seem deaf and blind to people's concerns. Australians are rightly anxious. The world that surrounds us is becoming less certain. Those in charge seem disinterested in steering Australia on a clear course.”
“Federal Labor governments compel workers to pay more of their wage into a super fund that a union controls. These funds shower your super, as marketing expenses, back onto unions. State Labor governments commission projects using industry super funds to finance them and compel union workers to be employed on them at inflated prices. Taxpayers and their super funds get left with the bill, and the public and future generations get left with the debt. The cartel tax flows through the economy, increasing prices for everyone, but the few who collect it are quite happy to finance the campaigns of Labor governments to get re-elected to keep the cartel going. Based on the CFMEU's impact in Queensland, it could push up the costs of construction by 30 per cent.”
“It's time to cut out the cartel tax. What is the cartel tax? The cartel tax is the uplift we all pay when Labor governments entrench favour to union bosses. In return, unions repay graft so Labor can stay in government and keep the cartel going. This cartel hides in plain site between Labor governments, industry super and the unions, and the premiums are all paid for by us. Don't think workers get any benefit. It's largely about those at the top getting to the front of the trough. For example, the CFMEU's own reports show that, from 2019 to 2024, their officials got a 26 per cent salary increase while construction workers' real wages went backwards by nearly five per cent. The cartel tax is trickle-up economics. Unions campaign to get state and federal Labor governments elected.”
“This bill will no doubt go through this parliament, because there's an important administrative matter to address, but it is not the end of either the conversation on the substantive issues that are raised by it or the broader conversation on what we need to do as a country. It will go through. My hope is that it will go through in a way that raises the legitimate issues that need to be addressed and that this government will rise to that challenge.”
“It is a part of making sure that property can be used in a way that can enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to use the full value of their assets to recognise the important role of culture and languages as part of the enduring connection not just to land but to celebrating history, culture and achievement, and as part of the connection into the future of our country and weaving it in as part of the enduring connection and culture of our country. But it's to actually recognise, and start to understand that there's a need to recognise, the damage that was done as well.”
“It's the silence of so many Indigenous Australians who still don't talk about these issues and still don't know what their place is on our national stage as a legacy of that. The scars are not healed, and it is up to this government to show the leadership to fix them. My hope is that they rise to that challenge, because it's not going to be done just through government expenditure—that would be part of it, of course. It always must be part of making sure that good work is done.”
“At that point, that was the moment where the Prime Minister had the moral responsibility to turn around and say to the Australian people, 'I don't think that this can go ahead because I don't think it'll get up.' That's what a leader does, because he doesn't govern for just one section of the community; he governs for the entirety of the Australian community. But, instead of being a leader, standing up for the type of country we want to be and steering a nation through difficult times, the Prime Minister went full throttle ahead because he saw it as essential to his own political survival and his own political achievement, and in the process he did huge damage to the social solidarity and reconciliation for this country to come together. Now, I'm not the best person to speak about that; I'm the first person to say that.”
“But one of the things they can do is redress the damage that they did in the last term of this parliament, because, when it comes down to it, after the election of 2022 when the Prime Minister stood up on election night and made a commitment to have a referendum on an Indigenous voice in the Constitution, what he did was set an aspiration for so many Australians—whatever your view on the issue was—that the government would achieve something for our country that would change the character of the country in a way that would enable some people's dreams and visions to be realised. What we saw, through a mixture of a failure of leadership, an arrogance and an unwillingness to listen to the human consequences of the proposals that he was entertaining, was that, over time, support progressively declined.”
“We have a government that lacks a sense of clarity and purpose about who they are and what they want to do. They might have fallen over the line and they're seeking to figure that out, and they still have a couple of years to decide that sense of purpose. But the nation are looking on, and they're wondering when it is that the government are going to stand up. No matter how many times they carry on in question time, it isn't being realised in their legislative agenda or the policy agenda they're seeking to drive.”
“But, in the way that this government is conducting itself, it isn't rising to that challenge. I've spoken many times about the great gift this government has been afforded. This government has been afforded a supermajority on a scale that has rarely been seen in this nation's history. When you are gifted such enormous privilege, responsibility and trust, you have a responsibility as a government to use that trust—yes, with caution—but, more importantly, to help steer the future direction of this country in a way that your children and grandchildren would be proud of: to use it to define the future of the country and to build Australia's future. It is very hard to say at this point, at this time, that this government is doing anything other than squandering that opportunity.”
“This is not just something that relates to the issues in the context of this bill but that relates to the context of the soul of the country, where we've had more and more Australians turning against each other rather than to each other. At the end of the day it's incumbent on everybody in this place, but particularly those who have the great privilege of sitting on those benches opposite, to call our country to that greater sense of purpose and to stand up for the type of country we want to be—to lead, to call people to a greater sense of moral purpose about who we are to and to stare into the future with a sense of clarity, direction and leadership so that we do so as a people without fear. I'm not going to try and suggest that this legislation alone is going to solve that problem. It isn't.”
“Too often in the space of the journey towards a greater reconciliation so that this nation can have one destiny and one future together—and we still have a way to go on that; there's no argument about that—and have that one sense of unity, destiny and purpose, we need more than the talking points and the signalling that we have had from this government to date. We need a sense of moral commitment as a people towards a shared destiny. What we've seen too often is that Labor has promised much but delivered little. We have seen this across lots of different areas of policy, but there has never been a time—sadly, I say—where it felt like this country had ever been more divided.”
“We can look at this bill and say it's an opportunity for rebirth, for a relationship with traditional owners, and say how we can be better as a nation in addressing their concerns and also calling them to a greater sense of responsibility to the land that they are custodians to. Of course, we can also make sure that we look to each other and say, 'There is a great project for this country that we all need to be part of the journey of.' There is important work from this bill yet to be done.”
“But it is also an opportunity for rebirth, if we have courageous leadership, to stand up and do the right thing. Of course, this bill does have embodied in it an opportunity. It has an opportunity in it such that this government can turn around and say, 'These plans can be delivered to manage these national parks, to put them in a better position to be stewarded better by custodians for future generations.' We can turn around and call people to a greater sense of obligation and action so that our natural assets are handed down to future generations in a way that we have not always lived up to with our greatest expectations in the past.”
“That, in many ways, is one of the things that disappoints me most out of the failed referendum a couple of years ago. I wasn't in this parliament to discuss those topics, and I will have something to say about that in this parliament yet, because I consider it to be one of the greatest moral failings in this nation's history, by this government, and I really mean that. We took the social solidarity of our most marginalised communities, put it to a ballot paper knowingly and had this government burn it to a crisp. In the absence of that, the burden and responsibility on this government to address and redress the issues that are left behind, that still remain unaddressed, and the wounds that need to be healed is so great. When we look at this bill, it is, in one sense, a simple administrative kind of rollover.”
“The more we seek to get that framework of law right, the more we create the operating environment for families and communities to thrive. Unfortunately, I don't think we've been as courageous as we need to be on these issues. We've done great work between both sides of this chamber at different points in our history, but there is a long way to go. My hope is that we get to see more work done in this space and that we sometimes step beyond the traditional comforts that have dominated these discussions. That will mean having some challenging conversations in this place—to stand up and say the direct connection of Indigenous people to their land to use for economic development will be a material pathway to improvement and advancement, not just addressing their economic welfare but their social welfare as well.”
“In a former professional life as Australia's human rights commissioner, I worked with the then social justice commissioner Mick Gooda on the important work of reform around native title to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to use their land for economic development. When we talk about the great issues that confront our First Nations people today, so many of the challenges come from the disruption of connection to country, not just the physical separation but the separation from culture, connection and place, but then also ownership of land and the capacity to use it, ultimately, for economic development to improve their material wellbeing. That cascades on to their economic advancement, to being able to support families and, of course, community and create the nucleus of economic advancement for the wellbeing of people.”
“We do so because we understand that continuing connection and enduring purpose of country, in different ways to different people, but we understand our stewardship, our custodianship and our responsibility. It's so important that we get the framework of law around that custodianship right. But, in addition to that, it's so important that we also get our sense of responsibility as individuals and as community right. I'm bit of a radical on some of these things. I believe very strongly in property rights, not just in contemporary or modern concepts of fee simple but even in some issues around the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to be able to utilise their land for economic development.”
“What we see in this legislation is the embodiment of the moral and legal framework of those enduring traditions lived out in what we seek to govern for this country. Yes, it is the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Board of Management Functions) Bill 2025, but what we're actually talking about is how we care for our land. How do we make sure that those who have custodianship of it in an enduring way continue to care, to have ownership and responsibility and to use it for the betterment of future generations? Every day, we start in this parliament with a number of things, one of which is the acknowledgement of the traditional owners, and there is also, of course, a prayer.”
“It speaks of custodianship, of songlines etched into the earth and the soul and of belonging, not as ownership but as obligation. As a nation also built on other traditions, including the Enlightenment and the values of Judaeo-Christian tradition, we carry the stories of Genesis and the covenant of God, who calls humanity not to dominion but to stewardship and who asks not for sacrifice but for righteousness and justice. You could look at the Dreaming and the Book of Genesis and see that they're worlds apart. But, if you look closely, you can see that they speak to eternal truths. Land is not just geography; it is sacred. Time is not just linear; it is also moral. People are not just individuals; they are community.”