ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT – BILLS – Aged Care Bill 2024, Aged Care Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 – Second Reading
I have here the Aged Care Bill 2024. It is quite a tome. But in this volume you can’t get the feeling and the emotion and the hurt and the angst and the despair and the anxiety of regional people, for whom aged care is so important. I understand it is important for everybody, but […]
ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT – BILLS – Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 – Second Reading
Between 1991 and 2002 I edited a daily newspaper in Wagga Wagga. That newspaper first published on 10 October 1868, at which point, above its editorial comment piece of the day, it used these words: ‘This is true liberty, when freeborn men, having to advise the public, may speak free.’ It is a verse attributed […]
ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT – CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS – Riverina Electorate
As I drove to work in Canberra some months ago, I noticed, at the intersection at Manuka Circuit, which intersects with Canberra Avenue, going into Captain Cook Crescent—it’s a wonder they haven’t changed the name of Captain Cook Cresent; they probably will, knowing that we’re in Canberra—there was a crash. The windscreen was all over […]
ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT – BILLS – Migration Amendment (Strengthening Sponsorship and Nomination Processes) Bill 2024 – Second Reading
It’s not often I find myself in furious agreement with the Greens leader, the member for Melbourne, but the points he made towards the end of his contribution were quite correct. People who come to this country to work, under whatever visa arrangements, should be treated every bit as fairly and equally as Australian workers […]
ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT – STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS – Melbourne Cup
Starters are locked away for the 2024 Melbourne Cup of politics! Election promises—scratched! The Greens are fractious in the stalls and appear unwilling to race! The field is now settled. The gates crash back, and they’re off! The Greens head sharp left and burst through the fence and right off the course! The teals, still […]
ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT – BILLS – Veterans’ Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Bill 2024 – Second Reading
Much of what the member for Moreton just spoke about I agree with, but I will clinically go through the legislation and some of the points he raised in relation to the Veterans’ Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Bill 2024. This is, as the member for Moreton correctly pointed out, important legislation, and […]
ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT – STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS – Agriculture Industry
The unrealised capital gains issue—call it a Labor threat—still hangs like the sword of Damocles over Australian farmers. Whilst abroad last week I was interested to read an editorial in the Daily Mail for 1 November which read: Many will have no option but to sell up to pay the bill, destroying businesses held by […]
ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT – PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS – Pesticides
My late father, Lance, left school after his primary school years and went straight to the farm. I can remember, when I came along and Dad took me up to the paddock, we used to pour chemicals and liquids into water in the boom sprayer and then make sure we did everything we could to […]
ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT – BILLS – Treasury Laws Amendment (Fairer for Families and Farmers and Other Measures) Bill 2024 – Second
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina) (12:25): As an amendment to the motion for the second reading, I move: That ‘now’ be omitted with a view to substituting the word ‘not’. Labor, as always, is late to the party on this. We’re on the last day of the scheduled sittings for 2024, and Labor comes into this place, […]
ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT – – BILLS – Aged Care Bill 2024 – Second Reading
Last sitting week, the Albanese Labor government introduced its new Aged Care Bill 2024 to the parliament. We, as the coalition opposition, think that the bill ought to go to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry. As you can see, there are a lot of pages to it. There is a lot of […]