Month: April 2023

Today, I announce the following changes to the Coalition Shadow Ministry.

I am delighted that Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price will take on the role of Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians.

Jacinta is a fighter and a warrior for Indigenous Australia. As a proud Territorian, a former councillor and deputy mayor of Alice Springs, and a former small business owner, she has always fought hard to improve the lives of Indigenous women and kids, and tackled immensely difficult issues like the scourge of sexual abuse, domestic violence, and the crisis in law and order in some Indigenous communities.

I am proud of her, and I know she will do an outstanding job in leading the charge for better practical outcomes for Indigenous Australians – not through the Prime Minister’s Canberra Voice Bureaucracy.

Senator Kerrynne Liddle will join the outer shadow ministry as Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence. Kerrynne had a distinguished career prior to entering the Senate, having worked as a senior business leader, small business owner and journalist. A former small business owner and senior leader in the private and public sector, Kerrynne’s extensive professional experience has led to her success in key areas including in the tourism, energy, media, tertiary education, arts, social housing and indigenous affairs sectors. I am delighted she will join my Shadow Ministry and this critical role will allow her unique policy strengths and insights to come to the fore.

I want to thank the Hon. Karen Andrews MP for her many years of fine service on the Coalition frontbench. Karen has offered to step aside from the Shadow Ministry and to return to the backbench. Karen was a distinguished and first-rate minister during the period of the last Coalition government and I am so grateful for her contribution to the Coalition team over many years.

Senator James Paterson will join the Shadow Cabinet as the new Shadow Minister for Home Affairs. As a member and former chairman of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, James has been at the forefront of many of the critical national security debates facing our country in recent years.

James has done an outstanding job in holding the government to account for its failures in cyber security, along with raising the critical issue of foreign interference in our community. He will retain his existing shadow ministerial portfolio of Cyber Security and I am delighted to bring him into the Shadow Cabinet.

Senator the Hon. Michaelia Cash will return to a familiar portfolio area for her as she takes on the role of Shadow Attorney-General.

A fierce and talented legal operator, I’m delighted Michaelia will take on this position, in addition to her existing Industrial Relations portfolio remit. With the legal uncertainty, complexity, and constitutional risk inherent in the Prime Minister’s Canberra Voice proposal becoming clearer by the day, I know Michaelia will do a forensic job in this role.

I can assure all Australians that the Coalition will continue to focus on delivering positive plans and policies for the future of our country in 2023 and in the lead-up to the next election.

These new shadow ministry appointments strengthen our team as we approach the task ahead.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will welcome the Prime Minister of New Zealand, The Rt Hon Chris Hipkins, to Australia from 22-23 April as a guest of the Australian Government.

This will be Prime Minister Hipkins’ second visit to Australia as leader.

This year Australia and New Zealand are celebrating 80 years of diplomatic representation, 50 years of the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement, and 40 years of our Closer Economic Relations Free Trade Agreement.

Prime Minister Hipkins’ visit will take place shortly before Anzac Day – a commemoration of a formative time in Australia and New Zealand’s shared history.

Prime Minister Albanese said:

“I am delighted to welcome Prime Minister Hipkins back to Australia for his second visit as leader.

“I look forward to continuing to work with Prime Minister Hipkins to strengthen the close ties and bonds of kinship between our two countries.”

Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Education spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has lashed the Government for refusing to back her bill which would provide relief to millions of Australians struggling under the weight of soaring student debt. 

Despite the vast majority of evidence received through the inquiry supporting the measures in the bill to end indexation and raise the minimum repayment income, the Committee still recommended that the bill not be passed.

Senator Faruqi’s dissenting report is here.

Senator Faruqi said:

“Labor has ignored the loud, desperate calls from students, graduates, young people, women, unions, think tanks and experts for urgent action to address the student debt crisis. The committee majority relied selectively on evidence provided by a handful of witnesses to justify what seems like a foregone, ideological conclusion.

“The committee’s recommendation is an insult to everyone who provided evidence in support of the bill, especially those individuals who gave brave and harrowing testimony of how student debt was affecting their lives.

“By teaming up with the Liberals, the Government has shown that they are completely out of touch with the reality of millions struggling with student debt. 

“The growing burden of student debt is making news every day and it’s beyond clear that urgent intervention is warranted. But Labor has elected to sit back and watch as millions of Australians are hit with a student debt avalanche on June 1. 

“The Labor Government’s priorities are all wrong. Modest measures to relieve the student debt crisis are apparently unaffordable, but Labor has hundreds of billions to splurge on dangerous war machines and tax cuts for billionaires.

“By choosing inaction, Labor  is choosing to make life harder for millions of people, especially young people and women who are on the front lines of almost every crisis we face: whether it be cost-of-living, housing, student debt or climate. 

“Corporate profiteering is driving inflation and students are paying the price. 

“An education system that traps graduates in a debt spiral and forces them to repay student loans when they are barely earning above the minimum wage is unsustainable and broken. 

“Soaring student debt is locking people out of the housing market, inflaming the cost of living crisis, crushing dreams of further study, stopping people from starting families and causing enormous mental and financial stress”

Submissions to the University Accord process show that the fee hikes and funding cuts associated with the Job Ready Graduates scheme should be scrapped.

Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Greens Deputy Leader and Education spokesperson said:

“The Job Ready Graduates scheme is a cruel, punitive mess which desperately needs a clean-up. Fee hikes and funding cuts that punish students and deprive staff of resources was a disgraceful plan from day one and must be scrapped.

“Labor spoke a big game in opposition calling the scheme beyond repair, but have done nothing to reverse the harms of this policy disaster. In government, and with a progressive parliament, they have the numbers to immediately scrap these fee hikes and funding cuts to give some reprieve to a struggling sector.

“It’s clear as day that Job Ready Graduates was a disaster and yet Labor is refusing to act. It’s a pathetic abdication of responsibility.

“Labor needs to wake up to the fact that they are in Government. They don’t have to mindlessly continue Morrison’s mistakes, whether it be the Stage Three Tax Cuts or the Job Ready Graduates scheme. 

“The intention of the Job Ready Graduates scheme was objectionable in the first place and it was a  furphy that this scheme would encourage students into the so-called priority degrees. Students should be able to study whatever they want. 

“Universities do not exist to churn out “job-ready” students. Education is not just about getting a job, it’s about learning and acquiring knowledge. 

“All the scheme has done is condemned generations of young people to decades of debt and pushed universities further into strife. It has entrenched gender inequality as women overwhelmingly study the courses which were hit hardest by the fee hikes and are incurring more and more student debt. 

“Ultimately, education is a basic human right and a public good. Higher education should be free and fully funded by government with staff having secure work and fair wages and conditions”

One Nation has a responsibility to address misconceptions and provide accurate information on important issues. Recently, Dr Bede Harris, a constitutional law researcher at Charles Sturt University, made several claims about the Voice to Parliament that we believe warrant repudiation.

We declare the Doctor’s statements to be based on left-wing bias and should be rejected by academia and all Australians. Dr Harris’ opinions appeared as an official post of the Charles Sturt University. 

First and foremost, Dr Harris argued against the notion that the Voice to Parliament would create apartheid in Australia, a comparison that has been made by many leaders, including our party leader, Senator Pauline Hanson. While Dr Harris lived in South Africa during the apartheid era, we strongly disagree with his assessment.

Apartheid in South Africa was a system of enforced racial segregation and discrimination, which denied civil rights, including citizenship, to Black South Africans. Contrast South Africa’s apartheid to Australia, where race-based laws are already enacted. Our contention is that racial segregation in Australia will only intensify after a ‘Voice’ gives racists, particularly those that hate non-Aboriginal Australians, legitimacy.

Examples of race-based legislation are laws segregating white and black Australians from accessing public lands such as recreation areas across Australia, or public funds available to Aboriginal Australians that are not available to the other various races that call Australia home. This is the exact definition of apartheid. Australians should call out apartheid-deniers at every opportunity. 

Dr Harris also dismissed the argument that the Voice would signal discrimination between Australians on the basis of race. He wrongly pointed out that race is a purely social concept with no basis in science. If he were right, then Labor’s race-based referendum legislation wouldn’t exist, and he would accept One Nation’s call to have all Australians unified as one group, one people, one country. But the Doctor doesn’t accept we’re one race. Instead, courts, the media and the elites have all used methodology (science) to classify white and black Australia into special groups, so that a small number of us enjoy privileges above and beyond all other Australians. That is the very definition of ‘scientifically’ segregating the nation based on race. It is an ideology we fully reject. 

Furthermore, Dr Harris challenged the notion that the Voice would hinder government decision-making. He wrongly argued that the objections raised by constitutional conservatives are based on confusion between the communication of views to the government and the judicial review of government decisions under administrative law. His argument has been smacked down by the more intelligent and highly regarded constitutional law experts such as the distinguished former High Court Justice, Ian Callinan.

Mr Callinan recently wrote in The Australian that he foresees the Voice leading to “a decade or more” of legal disputes. This was particularly concerning because the Australian High Court has a history of expansive interpretations of constitutional matters. There is no confusion among genuine scholars of the law at all, the High Court will likely expand the ‘Voice’s’ power, which is a grave concern for us all.

Dr Harris also mentioned the poor standard of civics education as a factor that may contribute to the misunderstanding of the Voice by the public. One Nation is committed to fostering informed and respectful debates on important national issues, including the Voice to Parliament. The intent of the comments by the misinformed academic is misplaced. Any gaps in the public’s understanding is because the Labor government has hidden, shielded, obstructed, obfuscated and misrepresented every single piece of information about the Voice since the concept was dreamed up by the Labor chosen elites.

Finally, Dr Harris argued that the Voice is the most modest proposal among those that have been considered for First Nations constitutional recognition since 2010 when former Prime Minister Julia Gillard initiated the process. Dr Harris is entitled to be misinformed in his opinions, we believe that the modesty or otherwise of the proposal is a subjective matter open to debate. As a political party, we have concerns about the practical implications, potential risks, and unintended consequences of the Voice, which we believe need to be carefully considered and addressed.

Many Aussie families with children are homeless and will continue to be, while immigration levels remain high according to all media outlets, including ABC News.

The time has come to drastically cut our immigration levels, put a break on inflation, and reduce the rising costs of buying or renting a home.  

Labor promised in their budget papers for 2022 that only 235,000 immigrants would be allowed into the country. This immigration promise was broken, and now we are facing an influx of 400,000 this year.  

Predictions are we will climb to 600,000 immigrants imminently.  

It is now time for a mass movement of people to oppose this mass migration scheme. A movement that opposes the housing crisis and demands a better and just outcome for all Australians.  

The Labor Party has disputed the immigration reality by issuing a ‘fact check’ through their local branch of the ABC.  One Nation affirms that the published government figures in budget papers on proposed migration constitute a ‘promise’.