ADJOURNMENT – Murray-Darling Basin
The New South Wales Minister for Primary Industries, Katrina Hodgkinson, has slammed the revised Murray-Darling Basin Plan, saying that it has not given due consideration to any of the issues raised in the New South Wales government’s submission, which detailed a sensible and practical way forward.
Appropriation Bill – May 23 2012
Driving around my electorate of Riverina, the third largest by size in New South Wales and the 14th biggest in Australia, has given me plenty of thinking time in recent months. This is because the mobile telephone coverage is not what it ought to be and certainly not even what it once was.
BILLS: Corporations Amendment (Future of Financial Advice) Bill 2011
The coalition has sensible and timely amendments to the Corporations Amendment (Future of Financial Advice) Bill 2011 and the Corporations Amendment (Further Future of Financial Advice Measures) Bill 2011. The shadow Assistant Treasurer and shadow minister for financial services and superannuation, Senator Mathias Cormann, is doing a terrific job on this.
ADJOURNMENT: Rural Doctors Association Parliamentary Breakfast
‘If rural practice was a patient, I would say that its condition would be critical.’ Those were the words of Dr Maxine Percival as she addressed the third annual Rural Doctors Association of Australia parliamentary breakfast on 29 February.
BILLS: Electoral and Referendum Amendment
The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Protecting Elector Participation) Bill 2012 questions the integrity of the electoral roll. Surely this goes to the essence, the very core, of what we are about here in this parliament and who we represent. This bill could potentially result in electors being put on the electoral roll without their knowledge.
STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE: Stynes, Mr Jim
Today that flag, that emblem, is very much at half-mast. Today all Melbourne supporters, Australian Football League followers, the sporting world and people right across Australia and Ireland are mourning the passing of Jim Stynes.
CONDOLENCES: Whitlam, Mrs Margaret Elaine, AO
‘Margaret Whitlam was a great human being and she and Gough were a formidable couple.’ That is how the president of the Wagga Wagga branch of country Labor, Glenn Eliott-Rudder, described the late Mrs Whitlam, who died in a Sydney hospital on Saturday morning aged 92 years.
PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS: World War II: Internment
I rise tonight to acknowledge the many people who were interned in Australia during World War II. Many of those interned were dinky-di Aussies who had contributed greatly to Australia. Last month the South Australian parliament unanimously accepted a bipartisan motion, moved by Labor member for Light, Tony Piccolo, to acknowledge the internment of Italian […]
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS: Food Production
Australia’s farm and fish food production is worth $37 billion a year. Annually, $24 billion is made through exports, particularly of grain and meat to Asia. We are the No. 2 exporter of meat to the world market. Australian farmers feed 60 million people a day. This morning, at the CSIRO’s first Science for Breakfast […]
STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE: Anniversary of the Japan Disaster
It is 12 months since Japan was devastated by a nation-changing disaster that rocked the country to its very core but did not dent the will of its people. Japanese people are proud, resilient and strong. They have needed to be over the past year as they pick up the pieces of broken lives and shattered cities, as they mourn for those who never came home and as they look to the future with expectation and with hope.