Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That leave of absence be given to every Member of the House of Representatives from the determination of this sitting of the House to the date of its next sitting.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We often hear that there is an energy transition that has been going on across Australia over the last couple of years. And that is true. But that transition has been won from a low-cost environment, where Australians have enjoyed some of the lowest-cost electricity in the world that has given our nation an enormous competitive advantage. We have transitioned that to having one of the highest electricity costs in the world, putting our nation at a significant competitive disadvantage.

In a war, the first thing you do when you attack your enemy is take out their base load electricity-generating power stations. That is what has happened throughout history, from World War II to the recent Gulf War. Yet this is exactly what we have been doing to ourselves—our own nation—by taking out one coal-fired power station after the other, with the most recent one to close down, of course, being Hazelwood.

We have seen the effect of that in today's papers. With the closure of Hazelwood Power Station in Victoria, analysts are forecasting a 10 per cent to 20 per cent increase in household bills. That is a 10 per cent to 20 per cent increase in everyone's electricity bill on top of what we were paying already. And the Greens were actually cheering about this. It is not only the cost; it is further unreliability. We have heard that next summer, with the closure of Hazelwood, there will be a 75 per cent chance of blackouts in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria.

Of course, the overall cost to our nation is staggering. Our nation's total electricity bill at the moment is around $50 billion. If we were able to match the electricity prices that they have in the United States, and where we were just a few years ago, that would be a $25 billion saving to this nation annually. That is $100 billion over four years extra that this nation is paying in electricity.

That hurts the poorest and less well off in this nation. We know we have record numbers of Australians who have had their electricity disconnected. Thousands of Australians are now living in homes without any electricity because they could not afford their bills. We know that this coming winter there will be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Australians who will be sitting in cold homes, unable to afford to turn their heaters on. And the effects on their health will be significant.

But the real cost is the loss of our international competitiveness. If we are going to create wealth in this country, it is quite simple: we need human ingenuity and low-cost electricity. You combine those two things together and that is what creates the wealth of this nation. That is what creates the wealth to pay for our pensions, aged care, care for kids with disabilities, schools and childcare facilities—everything we hear that members from both sides of the parliament would like to spend more on. But we have to create that wealth, and we cannot create that wealth in this nation if we are going to have some of the highest electricity prices in the world. So I call on members of the Labor Party: please put aside your ideological zealotry on this issue. Think about the welfare of your fellow Australians first. Think about the importance of having a competitive nation. I call on you to abandon the 50 per cent renewable energy target that you are pursuing. If you have any questions about what happens under a 50 per cent renewable energy target, just look at the unmitigated disaster in South Australia—some of the highest electricity prices in the nation, jobs being lost, chaos and unmitigated hardship and suffering in that state because of their ideological pursuit.

So we have a choice in this nation. If we want that 50 per cent renewable energy target, we know where it heads us—down the road of South Australia. Graham Richardson has said to pursue it is an open display of arrogance and stupidity. I call on the Labor members: please abandon your 50 per cent renewable energy target. (Time expired)

David Feeney (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question being asked again and again in our body politic is: how has a seemingly smart man made such stupid strategic decisions over and over? The Prime Minister's conduct of the 18C debate reveals the true character of the government and the true character of the Prime Minister—powerless within his own party; pandering to an ideological right-wing that regard the Prime Minister as an outsider, even an imposter; pursuing an issue that appeals to a tiny rump of hard-line ideologues but not the great majority of Australians; pursuing legislative changes that seek to solve a problem that does not really exist. It consumes the political capital of a government that has none to spend; it consumes momentum of a government that is already in paralysis; it mobilises key parts of the community against the Liberal Party, parts of the community from whom a smarter, more centrist Liberal Party may have hoped to draw support rather than such fierce opposition; and it ensures that this government continues to talk about issues that are irrelevant to ordinary Australians, to talk about boutique alternative right causes.

I cannot believe that we are here again, having once again to fight this fight to stop the government weakening protections against hate speech. We first had to fight this fight during the reign of Prime Minister Tony Abbott. You might recall on that occasion that the Attorney-General, George Brandis, famously made the argument for change based around the notion that 'people have the right to be bigots'. At that time, it was primarily about protecting their mate Andrew Bolt and showing that he was hard done-by at the hands of a vast politically correct conspiracy, a conspiracy that haunts the dreams and populates the nightmares of conservative politicians.

There was at that time a massive movement from the Australian community, ethnic representative groups and the Labor Party to put a stop to those changes. And, ultimately, even the then Prime Minister, the member for Warringah realised his mistake, saying:

Leadership is about preserving national unity on the essentials and that is why I have taken this position.

At that moment, Prime Minister Tony Abbott showed more backbone and a greater realisation of what it means to be leader, a greater sense of strategic nouse, than Prime Minister Turnbull ever has.

But here we are again pursuing a debate and a piece of legislation that we know the Prime Minister does not support, we know the Deputy Prime Minister does not support and we know the Australian people do not support. Once more, the 'Idaho Militia' that dominate the Liberal Party room have prevailed over a Prime Minister that has no authority in the party he stole, the party he led to near-catastrophe in 2016. In August last year Turnbull said, 'The government has no plans to change 18C. We have other, much more pressing priorities to address and they include big economic reforms.' Has he just run out of policy or, once more, has he been overrun by his right wing?

Even the Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, has slammed the Liberal Party for focusing on this issue as a political distraction. When the Deputy Prime Minister is the person making the most sense, we all know this government is close to losing its will to live! A Fairfax-Ipsos poll of 28 March found that eight in 10 voters oppose changes that would make it legal to 'offend, insult or humiliate'. The Australian people know it is wrong and it is unpopular. The Turnbull government even excluded Indigenous voices from the 18C inquiry notwithstanding the fact that 54 per cent of complainants identify as Indigenous.

The law as it is now strikes the right balance between free speech and protecting people from racial hate speech. Section 18C says it is unlawful for a person to do an act in public which is 'reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate' another person or a group of people. Offend, insult and humiliate have a legal definition which case law has determined creates a high bar, and 18D creates public interest and good faith protections which those opposite always fail to consider.

This will impact my electorate. The electorate of Batman is proudly multicultural and is among the most diverse communities in Victoria. Half of my constituents speak a language other than English and one in 10 are not fluent in English. It has the largest urban Aboriginal population in Victoria and is home to many Aboriginal peak bodies. What does this government want people to be able to say that they cannot say now? What does the government want members of my community to be able to hear that they cannot hear now? (Time expired)

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am devastated by last week's Therapeutic Goods Administration decision to continue the ban on e-cigarettes. Everyone here would know that two-thirds of Australians who smoke are helped to an early grave not just by carcinogens, not just by toxins, but also increasingly by a nation that will not contemplate alternatives where the rest of the world does. New Zealand put us to shame this week by legalising e-cigarettes. The UK has openly trialled them and even developed locations for vaping around hospitals. In the USA they are freely available, as they are across the EU.

For those in the gallery who do not realise, these are small implements with nicotine solution that recreates a sense of smoking and delivers nicotine without any of the harmful effects. I can appreciate the primum non nocere notion that we first do absolutely no harm but, surely, if you are going to ban e-cigarettes, how can you possibly collect the evidence? We have the rest of the developed world recognising that we can lower the years lost due to smoking by turning to these devices. Sixty-eight per cent of smokers will tell you they would use them if they were a similar price or less. Three-quarters of Australians in surveys say they would contemplate this as an alternative.

I am not about to tell you that there are no other concerns with nicotine solution. Surely if a child drank a litre of it, that would be a problem. Yes, if it touches your skin, it can be absorbed. This is the case with every drug that we have at our disposal—it has benefits and it has risks. But it is the Royal College of Physicians that we should perhaps be listening to. This august group in the UK, where clearly vaping is not the enemy of the state that it is in Australia, said provision of the nicotine that smokers are addicted to without the harmful components of tobacco smoke can prevent most of the harm from smoking. And, I add, it is without a single cent's cost to the taxpayer.

We spend billions trying to combat smoking, and here is a ready alternative available to the Australian public. But, no, we will suppress it and continue this ban purely on the argument of lack of evidence. The result is mislabelling of this product, selling it not on the free market but selling it on the black market and importing it from overseas. For goodness sake! We are not talking about cocaine. We are talking about nicotine. If we redesigned the system, we would have no cigarettes and no e-cigarettes, but that is not how it is. Millions of Australians who are addicted need something at their disposal other than a patch. This recreates the sense of having a cigarette. It is reasonably socially acceptable in every other wealthy country except Singapore. That is right; we are lining ourselves up with the absolute prohibition model of Singapore. Many times I have come in here and spoken about the benefits of Singapore. But we are talking about a massive public health battle. We are talking about billions being spent, not just in prevention but in trying to save the lives of people in hospital.

I have seen it for myself, as an eye surgeon treating people who, after a life of smoking, suffer cataracts, macular degeneration and even glaucoma—all of which have smoking related impacts. I do not want to see another person going blind if we can avoid it. I do not want to see another person going to an early grave if we can avoid it. These things are already on the market but are simply not available. We need a TGA that does not take an absolute no-risk approach. We need a balanced approach to this. With a black ban, you cannot even do the trials.

Having reviewed the research in the area, the Royal College of Physicians—it is great, isn't it, Deputy Speaker Vasta; they have done the evaluation, the research, for our TGA—came to the conclusion that e-cigarettes are one of the most useful aids to quitting. They also found that the hazard to health arising from e-cigarette use is unlikely and—please remember this, after I am long gone—the dangers of e-cigarettes are less than five per cent of the dangers of smoking. There is a net benefit of 19 out of 20, and we cannot get a trial in this country.

There are some very smart people in the Therapeutic Goods Administration. I am not advocating for civil disobedience. I am not telling smokers to put their packs above their heads and go down and picket the joint. But it is time we had a more open approach to data and evidence. It is time we had a trial like this, because I do not want to relive the five years when we fought against medical cannabis, only to have a Eureka moment and discover we should not have taken the attitude that the evidence was not complete. You know what? The evidence will never be complete as long as we ban something that is already broadly available. We should be more open to work with our supermarkets, with our points of sale, and through education and the public health groups to make sure that vaping is possible in Australia. It is already there. We should stop turning a blind eye and work together to beat the scourge of smoking.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What is going on with the mob opposite? What kind of government are they that seem to have lost the basic ability to count—one of the most important attributes in politics? They have advanced to the Senate a proposition on the issue of 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act that they know will be defeated. It is just like when they advanced the idiotic idea that Australians, including many of the decent people opposite, should support an extradition treaty to China, knowing that they did not have the numbers. Three weeks ago in this place I signalled, in a speech rejecting a report of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, that Labor had its doubts about passing the extradition treaty. It was reported in the newspaper, in The Australian. The government seems to have lost the ability to understand politics. Fancy tantalising our Chinese trading friends with a treaty and then withdrawing it in front of their eyes.

In a diverse, racially harmonious country like Australia—a success story—why are you abandoning something that has existed for many years? I might say, it was for 11 years of the Howard government. Sections 18C and 18D—the two provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act that have seen harmonious relations between all Australians maintained—are going to be abandoned. As the member for Batman pointed out, it is because of some ideological ginger group in the government that does not represent many of the good people on the other side. It is completely non-understandable that you would put up these resolutions and discredit yourselves, when you know they are not going to be successful.

It is not only that sections 18C and 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act were completely okay for the 11 years of the Howard conservative government. I want to give you some examples of the kinds of things that should never be seen in or supported by the Australian public. There was a case before the equal opportunities commission relating to Olga Scully, who repeatedly distributed anti-Semitic literature in letterboxes in Launceston. She sold and offered such literature in a public market in Launceston, offending and confronting many people. She said that people who were victims of the Nazi genocide were stealing people's money, that they were frauds et cetera. How many times does this have to happen under the government's proposed new reframed act for a similar judgement to be made against people like Ms Scully? As Andrew Bolt suggests, will they have to be abused five times before the cock crows?

I think the current Australian system works well. We have a great country. We have tolerance between many groups. We have the doctrine of the fair go. Of course procedural fairness at the Human Rights Commission can be adjusted so that only serious cases are considered. But if it ain't broke don't fix it, particularly when you know you are like Judean People's Front, the suicide squad pictured in the Monty Python film where they all kill themselves and they have no result at all. There is going to be no change to the law, because the Senate will block it. Why advance it? Why destroy public harmony in Australia, when we have a law that existed for 11 years under John Howard?

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank this government for investing an additional $23½ million into the health of the people of Petrie. It certainly is important to them. Support for mental health services is a priority in my area. It comes up in some of the most raw conversations that I have when I am communicating with locals. Too many people feel desperate—they feel hopeless, and at their most helpless right when they need that help the most. Intentional self-harm and suicide are overrepresented in a number of statistical divisions in Petrie. So not only is it an issue that impacts the people of Petrie, but it is also one that is immensely important to me, personally.

On 26 June 2016, the coalition government committed $192 million over four years to strengthen mental health care in Australia, with a focus on new models and better support for young people and those young people who are most at risk of suicide. Redcliffe Area Youth Space has been around for almost 20 years and has become core to the group of volunteers and organisations that guard the health of our community. As result of this latest investment from the federal government, RAYS Executive Manager Amy Mayes, whom I contacted this morning, said the centre would open its first clinical service. The program's lead agency, she said, would now put another 10 staff on the ground throughout the region, including at the Deception Bay community youth program. The funding will also see a suicide prevention trial and a community-based follow-up service in the Redcliffe region for people who have recently attempted suicide or who are at a high risk of suicide.

Mental Illness Fellowship Queensland has been appointed as a community partner that will develop and deliver the program in collaboration with the Brisbane North Primary Health Network and also the Redcliffe Hospital. The purpose is to provide a short-term transitional service, with follow-up support, short-term counselling and case coordination for people who have recently attempted suicide or who are at risk.

Suicide and intentional self-harm, and mental illness as a whole, do not discriminate. There but for the grace of God go I—and it could easily be any one of us. As a community, I think we are learning. We are finding our voice and opening up about the impact and nature of mental health issues, and we keep putting one foot in front of the other. I welcome this funding announcement and thank, in advance, all those throughout Petrie who work to tend to our loved ones with great care. Government, through taxpayers, can and must provide funding, but it is the carers who make the real difference, of course, in this area.

If I might, I would like to also take the time to send all strength and best wishes to Queenslanders—to those already impacted by and cleaning up after Tropical Cyclone Debbie, and to all those back at home in my electorate. The weather, at the moment, is definitely not our friend, and I know that you, as a Queenslander, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, understand. It is a time to be alert, employ caution and take care of ourselves and one another. Schools have been closed all day, Mr Deputy Speaker, in your electorate and mine and in the member for Hinkler's—all throughout Queensland, right down to the Tweed border—and businesses have been urged to shut up shop from around lunchtime today.

The conditions are pretty well atrocious, and the latest advice is that we have not seen the worst of today's storms. In the areas of North Lakes and Mango Hill, we already have 2,000 homes without power, flash flooding and some 60 to 70 local road closures throughout the region. There are a number of sandbag collection points and evacuation centres established in Redcliffe and throughout the Moreton Bay Regional Council area. With the most inclement conditions scheduled to strike at peak hour, I urge everyone to take it easy. And of course, remember: if it is flooded, forget it.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Friday, at Mabel Park State High School in my electorate, we celebrated Harmony Day with the Bridging Cultures event, and I wanted to congratulate Access Community Services, Multilink and all of the groups involved in putting on such a successful and wonderful event. I wanted to thank Principal Mick Hornby as well, not just for letting us chop up his oval, as we did on that wet day, but really for his commitment to multiculturalism in our area.

So much effort goes into sending that important message that everybody belongs, whether it be in our schools, our community groups, our places of worship, our businesses, our sporting organisations, our peak groups or our settlement and service providers. And, while all of this work is going on to strengthen the bonds between people, the Turnbull government is going out of its way to weaken those bonds, by changing section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. On what planet should the big priority of a national government in a country like ours be to weaken protections against racist hate speech, with all of the challenges that we have to deal with as a nation? Why is it that this government wants to make it easier to run someone down on the basis of their race? That is what is being debated in the Senate today as we speak. Even if it fails, as it should, it will send a damaging, if not devastating, signal to people all around the country that, while communities are working towards one honourable, peaceful and inclusive objective, the government of their country is working against us.

I am proud and privileged to represent such a diverse, multicultural, musical and colourful community, and people from 189 different homelands who want what we want: they want to raise their kids in a safe environment; they want jobs for their children; and they want, as we all do, to live amongst peaceful neighbourhoods. The government's attempts to change section 18C run counter to those objectives; they run counter to our values; they run counter to our interests; and they run counter to what so many communities around the country, especially in mine but all around Australia, are trying to do to strengthen the bonds between us and not to weaken them.

I say to the people of my community who are doing this important work: do not be deterred by the attempts of this Prime Minister and those opposite to weaken the protections against hate speech. Do not be deterred. Your efforts and the efforts of the people on this side of the House who stand with you—our efforts—will prevail.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The motion moved by the Leader of the House was that leave of absence be given to every member of the House of Representatives from the determination of this sitting of the House to the date of its next sitting. The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Question agreed to.