Parliament

The cost of everything is going up but wages and incomes are going backwards. 

People are going backwards. 

Billionaires and politicians, they get a $9,000 tax cut in Labor’s Budget. Clive Palmer gets a tax cut. Gina Reinhart gets a tax cut. Everyone in this House gets a tax cut.

$254 billion of tax cuts for billionaires and the very wealthy.  

But real cost of living relief for everyone else is delayed.

I rise to give my condolences on the death of Queen Elizabeth the Second, and to extend my sympathies to her family and those who knew her personally.

Elizabeth Windsor became the Queen of Australia in 1952 and reigned for 70 years. During that time, extraordinary changes occurred in our nation, and in her empire. Many colonised nations sought and achieved independence, and many more signalled their intention to break from the United Kingdom.

Speech to the Smart Energy Expo in Brisbane

Thank you very much. I want to acknowledge the Turrbal and Yuggera Peoples, the traditional custodians of the lands we are meeting on here today, and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded. 

I’m delighted to be here with so many passionate people working to transform Australia’s energy system. I want to thank the Smart Energy Council for organising such an important and impressive expo, and for their continued advocacy.

I rise to speak this evening to the climate change bills. I note that many of my Greens colleagues have spoken to these bills and done so with eloquence, intelligence and passion. So while I wish to make a contribution to the debate on these bills, I want to focus on a few key areas. We cannot end the climate wars while opening up new coal and gas projects. It really is that simple. In the month since these bills passed the House of Representatives, Labor has opened up 47,000 square kilometres of ocean to oil and gas exploration.

We've heard a lot of rhetoric from some people in the chamber around the stage 3 tax cuts. But we need to remind ourselves that what we are talking about is people's lives.

Australians are facing a cost-of-living crisis. People are being smashed on all fronts: rising rents and mortgage repayments, rising food prices, rising education costs, rising health costs. Neither the Labor Party nor the Liberals and Nationals are interested in turning the tide around. In fact, they're actively committed to making it worse by refusing to invest in vital services, by refusing to lift income support payments and by backing in $243 billion of tax cuts for the super wealthy.

I rise to speak on this motion as a proud unionist. Unions are essential to the protection and advancement of workers' rights in this country. They ensure that the economic, social and environmental interests of workers are protected. All Australian workers should receive fair pay for fair work, but the reality is that many workers are falling through the gaps of our industrial relations system because they have been hamstrung by successive governments, who've denied them the right to collectively bargain across sectors.