Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

As members know, I have done a lot in the online safety space and the cybersafety space for children in schools and for the community more broadly. So I am quite concerned that in the budget I saw Labor commit just $6 million to online safety in schools when, prior to the election, we committed $23 million to an esafety schools program. That was a wonderful package, a trusted esafety program for schools and a grants program for third-party providers, giving every school in Australia materials to raise awareness of the services provided by the fantastic eSafety Commissioner—the first in the world—that we set up while we were in government so that parents, teachers and students know where to turn for help.

We were going to put additional resources into: training for schoolchildren on emerging online safety and mental health issues, particularly the body language concerns that I hear so much about in the sessions that I do; in-person teacher training to help educators support students and become esafety teacher champions in schools; delivery of the safety animal series, building on the long-term success of the Healthy Harold model for five- to eight-year-olds; and providing every school in Australia access to a free expanded version of the eSafety Commissioner's successful online eSafety Toolkit. We also committed to parental control software; an additional $10 million for the eSafety Commissioner to deliver improved services and supports for victims; $2 million for the Online Safety Grants program for women and girls in CALD communities; legislated the social media antitrolling laws to hold social media companies to account; and legislated the Online Privacy Bill. They were all part of what we were planning. That was a $23 million package.

We do know how important the role and the work of the eSafety Commissioner is. For the first time, on the back of our legislation, the commissioner has been able to issue legal notices against big technology firms requiring them to disclose what they are doing to find and report child sex material being shared on their platforms. This was made possible by our Online Safety Act 2021, a signature reform of the former coalition federal government. This is so important. The eSafety Commissioner has noted that some of the most harmful material online today involves the sexual exploitation of children and, frighteningly, this activity is no longer confined to hidden corners of the dark web but is prevalent on the mainstream platforms that we and our children use every day. That is absolutely true. The eSafety Commissioner reported that the commission in Australia had handled over 61,000 complaints since 2015, the majority comprising child sexual exploitation material. The budget needs to respond to that and to provide what is needed for our young people online. I was significantly concerned after the group of young people recently told me about the videos that are being shared and available for very young children through Omegle. I thank them for their frankness with me.

I was also concerned to see in the budget the cuts for rural and regional infrastructure. For those of us who don't live in cities, they were nation-building projects and vital to production in rural and regional Australia. The regions produce the wealth in this country. Mining and agricultural exports have underpinned and supported Australians, whether it was through the Global Financial Crisis, through COVID or through what we are currently facing. These major rural and regional projects for roads, rail, bridges and ports are critical.

We will see further impacts with the $24 billion in the budget to be spent through on renewables and on the 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030 target. We do know that under a particular scenario there will be 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines and 22,500 solar panels needed to 2030. That is 60 million solar panels and 47 megawatt wind turbines needed to be built every month. That really is going to be a critical issue in rural and regional Australia. The social licence is going to be such an issue in our part of the world.

I read an article that said for solar and wind to deliver the global demand for green hydrogen by 2050, 25 per cent of Australia's total land mass will be covered. When you add to that Labor's 30 per cent of land mass to be locked up for threatened species, together, that would be 50 per cent of Australia's land mass. Department officials confirmed that fulfilling that by 2030 will involve locking up millions of additional hectares. So what does this mean for rural and regional areas, for our farmers and graziers? We are yet to hear any of that from Labor. When we add to that the 30 per cent cut to methane by 2030, I suspect very strongly this will become a tax either directly or indirectly. The government is signing up for this and has no idea how it is going to be done. Labor stood by the coalition to not signing up previously. Well, this will have a major impact on rural and regional areas.

We have heard talk about seaweed and other additives. We are a long way from that. We have 1.5 million dairy cattle in Australia, one million cattle in feedlot, and the cost of wild harvest for that would be huge. You are talking about 365,000 tonnes of dried seaweed a year for that, according to Trevor Whittington in the article in Western Australia. Perhaps, if it is produced in-ocean, it will require 18,250 hectares of ocean water.

This policy decision also ignores the feral animals that we see so many of in Australia—pigs, goats, horses, deer, kangaroos and so on. I am really concerned about that approach and the impact on rural, regional and remote parts of Australia.

Again, rural and regional regions are the wealth producers in this country and enable us to meet our obligations. They are the regions that provide the funding for health, the NDIS, pensions and growth projects. I've seen some wonderful projects through the BBRF, despite what those opposite say. I saw an aged-care facility in my part of the world funded through the BBRF. What a great use of taxpayers' money that was. We saw the Ngilgi Cave upgrade. The South West was in line for support under our Regional Accelerator Program, given it's one of the fastest growing and most vibrant electorates in Australia. That was to support businesses and universities. It was for specific infrastructure that is needed to grow the region further.

We also introduced the very popular local roads and community infrastructure grants program. That has been enormously successful and very welcome by local governments. We saw some cuts from the mobile blackspot program, which concerns me. I look at some of the spending that has been really attacked by those on the opposite side. There is the Bunbury outer ring road, which we funded, and the Bussell Highway—that desperately needed a dual carriageway and which it got under our government. I've spoken about local roads and the Roads to Recovery Program. That is so important. There is the blackspot program for roads as well as communications. We introduced the fabulous mobile blackspot tower program, the Bridges Renewal Program, the Stronger Communities Program, and the financial assistance grants programs. They were all there.

I was very proud, in our time in government, to be part of the first ever national action plan for endometriosis. We had committed $58 million more to this in the last budget to roll out pelvic pain clinics. And then there is what we've done with the new university departments of rural health—there is one in ECU in Bunbury—to will help train the wonderful people we're going to need in the health and aged-care sector.

We were funding adult Head to Health centres, and there was one for my part of the world. We were expanding headspace. We had put so many resources into headspace. They are so important in rural and regional areas.

Then there are the cost-of-living issues that affect all Australians at the moment. That's backed up with changes to the ag visas. We need action on the labour shortages that we see in rural and regional areas. The ag visa was part of that. I'm concerned particularly, as I have articulated in other speeches, about the changes to industrial relations and what it will do to our ports in particular. There is the potential of industrial action on construction sites or our ports. This will seriously affect food and perishables getting in and out of our ports, and these are a lot of our exports and imports, which are critical to what we do in rural and regional areas.

I'm also supportive of the Collie to the Coast irrigation scheme and the critical desalination pumping and piping project in our south-west. This is irrigation and fit-for-purpose water.

I understand there is a speaker to follow me. I understand there are some remarks that the speaker after me wants to make, so I will complete my remarks at this point.

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