Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

MAN () (): Since its introduction in the 45th Parliament, petitioners have enthusiastically embraced the House of Representatives e-petition system as an effective way of bringing their issue or concern to the House. Electronic petitions hosted on the parliamentary website allow Australian citizens and residents to easily share and gather support for their petitions across Australia and beyond. Support for electronic petitioning has increased to the point where, in the current parliament to date, more than 97 per cent of petitions presented in the House have been submitted through the e-petition system. However, some petitioners continue to choose pen and paper to bring their requests to the House. One benefit of paper petitions is that they allow petitioners to go out into their communities and engage with people face to face. The process of collecting handwritten signatures provides organisers with an opportunity to discuss the matters raised in the petition and to gauge the level of community support behind an issue.

As you can see, I've presented one that has significant community support. Today I presented a paper petition organised by the community group Grandmothers for Refugees, which is active in many electorates, including in my electorate of Macquarie in New South Wales, Fremantle in Western Australia and Higgins in Victoria. This petition, asking the House to take certain actions to support people seeking asylum in Australia, has gathered 6,556 signatures. These signatures were collected across Australia at community events, markets, shopping centres and coffee shops. I also note that a petition from Grandmothers for Refugees with around 1,800 signatures collected at events during 2022 and 2023, largely within my electorate of Macquarie, wasn't compliant with the petition rules, so I have personally written to the minister, providing details of the request to government on a range of steps the petitioners would like to see. To all the grandmothers involved in this advocacy across the country, I'd like to commend them on an incredible effort.

I thank the House.

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