Month: October 2024

The Greens will scrutinise the Albanese Government’s NBN Bill to ensure reliable internet is affordable and accessible for all Australians. In addition to seeking a Senate Inquiry, the Greens will consider moving amendments to cap executive bonuses after NBN executives received multi-million dollar packages last year.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is Greens spokesperson for Communications:

“The Greens will consider the NBN Bill introduced by the Government this morning and we will seek a Senate Inquiry so it can be examined in detail.

“Last time there was a minority government it was the Greens who protected the NBN from being sold off by securing amendments that have kept the NBN in public hands.

“The NBN is a critical piece of infrastructure that should be affordable and accessible for everyone and it’s why the Greens have long fought to protect the NBN from privatisation.

“The Parliament has an opportunity through this bill to examine accessibility of the NBN, the quality of the service and affordability. We need to ensure the digital divide is not growing and everyone can participate in our digital economy.

“The Greens also want to see the exorbitant bonuses paid to NBN executives reigned in. It’s outrageous that in a cost of living crisis the NBN CEO was paid more than $3m in executive bonuses last year while the households the organisation services can’t afford to pay the rent let alone pay for high speed broadband.”

Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Deputy Greens Leader and spokesperson for Higher Education, has condemned the Labor Government’s decision to charge ahead with its disastrous student caps, following the release of the Senate Inquiry report into the Education Services for Overseas Students (Quality and Integrity) Amendment Bill 2024.

In a dissenting report, Senator Faruqi calls on the Government to withdraw this Bill, go back to the drawing board.

 Senator Faruqi’s dissenting report can be found here. 

Senator Mehreen Faruqi:

“Despite overwhelming opposition, Labor is charging ahead with their politically-motivated international student caps that will devastate the tertiary education sector.

“The government is crushing higher education in a bid to look tough on migration before a federal election. International education, international students and universities will become collateral damage as a result of their mess of a policy.

“We know these caps will lead to job losses, we know these caps will trash Australia’s international education reputation, we know these caps will lead to dire consequences, and yet Labor is still persisting with this wrecking-ball of a policy.

“Labor needs to stop demonising international students for their own housing policy failures. They’ve been long used as cash cows to make up for funding cuts to universities, and now they are disgracefully being scapegoated too.

“The decline in university rankings is another dire warning in the long list of warnings of the terrible consequences of these caps. If Labor has any sense they would heed these warnings and scrap the caps.

“The international student caps just show that Labor is willing to strangle an entire sector and throw international students under the bus to win a racist dog-whistling competition with Peter Dutton. That’s how low the standard of governance is in this country.”

Labor’s proposed merger law reform is a missed opportunity to take on the market dominance of supermarket and airline corporations, and far from enough to address the real issue of corporate power in Australia, the Greens say.

“Labor has missed the chance to take the bold action needed: create the power to break up duopolies and oligopolies through forced divestiture,” Greens Economic Justice Spokesperson Senator Nick McKim said.

“Big corporations already hold too much power, and simply trying to prevent them from getting bigger won’t fix the problem.

“What we need is to create competition by breaking up corporations when they misuse their market power.”

“We need to give the courts and regulators the power to force the divestiture of corporations that have monopolised industries, including supermarkets, airlines and energy companies.”

“Without these powers, we’ll continue to see price gouging, rising costs of living, and Australians paying the price for unchecked corporate greed.”

“We’ll work our way through the detail of the proposed reforms, but we’re going to keep fighting to make sure Labor does more than just fiddle at the margins.

The Prime Minister should be condemned for his comments today in Question Time, as he mocked Tourette’s Syndrome for his own political point scoring.

Mocking a disability is no laughing matter.

For the Prime Minister to do so is not only reprehensible, but it sends a concerning message to the entire disability community.

The Australian Government should stand as a pillar of support for those who need it most, including Australians living with serious conditions like Tourette’s Syndrome.

Australians living with Tourette’s deserve the Prime Minister’s respect, not his ridicule.

The Prime Minister must immediately apologies to all Australians living with Tourette’s Syndrome and the entire disability community for his insensitive and insulting comments.

Today, the Coalition has secured the support of the Senate to stand with Israel and affirm its inherent right to defend itself and protect its citizens.

In a remarkable 24 hours, the Albanese Labor Government has once again changed its position, reinforcing its internal confusion and division over Labor’s position on Israel.

In accepting significant Coalition amendments to the motion forced through the House of Representatives yesterday, the Albanese Government has only added to the confusion, inconsistencies and weakness in its positions.

The Coalition’s successful amendments included Israel’s right to defend itself as well as the condemnation of those committed to the destruction of Israel, and the actions of those seeking to celebrate and promote the actions of terrorists.

However, Labor’s decision to reject other Coalition amendments which confirmed Australia’s long-standing support for a negotiated two-state solution continues its record of trashing decades of bipartisanship on the issue.

Without a negotiated two-state solution, which addresses critical issues of security guarantees, agreed borders and rights of return, Labor is instead doubling down on Minister Wong’s ill-conceived arbitrary timeline for a recognition that resolves none of the issues of dispute.

Foreign Minister Wong’s further remarks about international consensus were a significant misrepresentation of the US position in a stunt that was either naïve or deliberately misleading.

Labor’s inability to sustain a firm position on Israel continues to put Australia at odds with our major ally and security partner in the United States.

The ceasefires we should all be supporting are where all hostages are released, while both Hamas and Hezbollah surrender their terrorist infrastructure, capability and leadership. That would give Israelis, Palestinians and Lebanese people the best chance of peace.

The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics building activity data has confirmed there is no end in sight to Labor’s housing crisis.

2023-24 saw the lowest home building commencements in over a decade, dropping 8.8 per cent to just 158,690 new starts.

Australians know Labor’s promise to build 1.2 million homes over five years has ground to a halt, with industry leaders confirming the Coalition’s predictions of a shortfall by more than 400,000 homes.

This is far less than what was built under the former Coalition government, where the number of dwellings commenced during the last full five calendar years from 2017 to 2021 was 1,028,703.

Additionally, trade apprenticeship numbers have also declined, with completions down 8.6 per cent and commencements down 11.8 per cent, further impacting the construction sector.

To put Labor’s housing crisis into more perspective:

• The number of loans provided for the purchase or construction of new homes is at a 15-year low.
• Net permanent and long-term arrivals in the 12 months to July 2024 was 463,150, almost 60 per cent greater than the 293,860 net arrivals in the equivalent year before the pandemic.
• Since the election, national median rents have increased by 23 per cent to $632 per week from $512 in May 2022.
• The National Housing Accord envisages 240,000 new homes each year, however, the past 12 months have seen only 166,200 new home building approvals across Australia.
• One new home needs to be built every 2.2 minutes to keep up with Labor’s promise to build 1.2 million homes.
• The twelve-interest rate rises since the election has added at least an extra $20,000 per year to a family with a $750,000 mortgage.

Under Labor, housing will never be a priority, maintaining mortgage and rental repayments has never been more difficult, and home ownership has never been further out of reach.