Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Help to Buy Bill 2023. The housing issue is not an issue new to this parliament or previous parliaments before it. In fact, it was there in the time of Sir Robert Menzies, who was PM for more than 18 years in this nation and was made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports by Her Majesty the Queen after his retirement. In the 1961 election campaign, at a public meeting, a gentleman called out to Sir Robert Menzies, 'What are you going to do about 'ousing?' And he said, 'I'm going to put an H in front of it, before I start.' And there lined up the 1961 election, which was won by one seat, I believe.

In the housing policies that emanated from there, from Menzies to prior to the election of this government, the coalition, as the member from Mallee has told us, has had a direct eye on getting people into homes. In fact, the nation's wealth from the Menzies years and his direction of bringing everybody into the housing market made the big difference in this country in getting us to the point where nearly 70 per cent of homes were owned by people who were workers, who were small-business people, who were managers. It was a direction of the egalitarian nature of Menzies to say: 'No, we are not going to have a class society where we've got the rich and the middle class and the poor. We're going to have the middle class getting all the strength that we can give them so we can look after the poor and so that the middle class can earn money, pay tax and own their own home.' That was the trust and that was the world that I grew up in.

Now, when people my age talk about paying up to 18 per cent interest rates, it means we always have an eye on the market and can say that interest rates, as you've seen them prior to the pandemic and post the pandemic, are not real. Of course, I've been wrong for a long time; they have remained low for a long time. Small businesses back in the nineties were paying 22 per cent interest, but, remember, at that time, my loan was $30,000. I was stunned a few years later, when Priscilla Ruffolo—who was a great help to me in the 2004 election campaign and worked with me and Senator Judith Troeth at that time—and her husband, I believe, went out and got a $400,000 loan. I nearly fainted! I didn't realise until then that that was the normal loan for people to go out and get.

I recently learnt of a couple that borrowed $1 million—well, it was probably five or six years ago—to buy their home and pay it off. Now, the problem with that is that one Reserve Bank governor said, 'We're not going to increase rates until 2024.' But 2024 came very quickly. Small interest rate rises, when you're on four and you go to six per cent—that's a 50 per cent increase in your outlays that you need to find out of your household budget. They say, 'It's only four to six.' No, it's a lot of money if you've borrowed a lot of money. Every intervention that I know of that governments have done since I've been around this place—in and out of it since 1990—has increased the price of the home by the value of the intervention.

I believe this policy from this government, the Help to Buy Bill—and it was stated by the member for Mallee, by the way, that programs like this already exist in each state. So why would you say, 'We're going to do that federally,' unless all you wanted out of a policy was something to talk about at a public meeting—so the Prime Minister can turn around and say in a public meeting, 'But we've got our Help to Buy Bill, which is going to help people to get into the housing market.'

What you've got to do to get people into the housing market, in my view, is get out of their lives as much as you can and get out of taxing them the way that you do. And don't forget state governments. The federal government can say, 'We'll give you a helping hand. We'll give you a first home buyer's grant. We'll find ways to get you into housing because it's very important for your wellbeing over your life span. We'll help you, and we're the best government to do it for you.' But then the state government comes along, and I think I've added up between five and nine new property taxes or interventions.

When I talk about interventions in the housing market, I'm talking about rentals as well, because a lot of people rent, and they choose to rent. They choose to rent. People that rent out those homes to those renters, the landlords—so condemned in this country so many times—have had restrictions put on them by state governments that mean their house has to meet a certain standard before they can rent it out. Some of those standards are onerous for an old home. The cost of renovating that house to bring it up to that standard may be too great—to conform with the new paradigm put in by the Victorian state government. Therefore the landlord has a dilemma, and so has the estate agent, because they can't break the law by renting out that house that hasn't got the facilities required.

The renter can't make a decision and say, 'No, that house will do me, it's fine, because the rent's cheaper and I can get into that house. I'll supply my own secondary heating source; I'll supply my own solar power or whatever is required by the Victorian state government. I'll do that and I'll have that house.' The problem is the estate agent is in trouble and the landowner is in trouble if they rent the house to the renter.

So what happens? The house sits vacant or is sold to someone who's going to live in that house, so it goes off the rental market. In fact, in one agent's area—a fairly large agent—150 homes have gone off his rent roll. A hundred and fifty homes disappeared off the rent roll for two reasons. One is that the owners of those homes were people investing in the property market. I've never been a big share investor. My family are not share investors; they're property investors. We always bought property. That was our focus. So these mums and dads, like me, would buy a property. They'd borrow to do it. But the recent increase in interest rates means that their costs have gone through the roof and they've got to hand that on to renters, so you're getting a higher cost of rental. I heard in the Federation Chamber today from the member for Groom that in his electorate, in the town of Toowoomba particularly, the rental opportunity is only 0.9 per cent. That means there are practically no houses at all in Toowoomba to rent. Therefore, when there is a home to rent, what happens? You actually have a line-up of people bidding higher to gain opportunity to have that home as a rental. So they're paying more out of their income for their rentals because of the failings of governments previously, state and federal and local, that have held up property development, slowed down the opening-up of new land and slowed down planning permits. So people are struggling to get into the market.

There are a whole lot of pressures outside of what government's trying to do. It's like having a bucket full of holes. The federal government, with Help to Buy, wants to stand there with a hose and pour water into a bucket with a whole lot of holes in it. The holes are everywhere. That intervention by government at a local, state and federal level means costs and charges put on for every inspection of a new home. A friend of mine building his own home in the city said he couldn't believe the number of charges he had to face up to for every inspection on the home. Every time there was a stage completed in the home, the inspector came in and it was another $400, another $700 or another $1,000 for an intervention that, in the past, we wouldn't have had. My generation didn't face the property taxes we face today and a generation of developers didn't face the taxes they face today. So there are all sorts of barriers being put in place by government in the interests of the government's income.

I believe—I'm not sure, as I haven't checked with the Parliamentary Library ; I'd like to check with the library—that 60 per cent of Victoria's state government income is now coming from property taxes. Our generation didn't pay those property taxes. They didn't pay the land taxes. They didn't pay the increases in land taxes. There has been dramatic land tax increases in Victoria over the last three years, the last three budgets, and they're putting them up again. I've even had a member of parliament in this place who inherited a property from her parents complaining about the Victorian land tax bill that she has to pay and how it's risen. She has terrific tenants in there that have been there for years. She can't put up the price on those people. They're family to her.

So this bill, I believe, will not be a help-to-buy bill. I have a fundamental problem with government intervention. I hope I have made this point in this address—that is, when the government encourages a couple or an individual—

Dr Webster interjecting—

Mr BROADBENT: I hear from the member for Mallee that it's 52 per cent women. That's great. That never happened in my day. It's great women have the opportunity. But every time there's an intervention it puts another increase on the price that the individual pays either as a renter or as a builder. You can be encouraged to be in an arrangement that the Australian government is involved in where increases in interest rates or costs will leave you out of pocket and out of a house. The house will go back to the bank. For any of you who have never been here at a time when banks have gone to people and said, 'You can no longer afford to live in that house because we own more of it than you do and you're out and we've going to sell it off,' they have the right to do that. Anybody my age and a little bit younger would remember those days of people losing their homes. They'd remember the mortgagee auctions. You know who benefits out of that—only the wealthy. I pray that this bill does not lead people into an arrangement that will cost them dearly in the long run. A house and a home is very important to every family, from all the way back to Sir Robert Menzies. Put an 'h' in front of housing—that's what we have to do to concentrate our efforts on our next generation. Thank you for the opportunity to address the House.

One coal fired power station closes and no replacement.

A second coal-fired power station closes and no replacement.

A third coal-fired station power closes and no replacement. And then our biggest generator at Loy Yang fails at a critical moment.

The rest of the world laughs at Australia when it comes to our energy markets. We produce over three times the amount of energy consumed in our country, but still - prices remain unjustifiably high.

The vulnerable of Australia are the ones who feel the pinch of energy prices first, they can't afford renewable ideology. And frankly, neither can the rest of Australia.

The government is unable to develop these projects, they are at the mercy of private investment giants. And they are only here because of the multi-million-dollar subsidies that the government throws their way. What's stopping these investors from walking when they notice that their counterparts no longer want the political and legal liability associated with so called 'environmental and social investing'.

An article in The Australian by Chris Mitchell highlights the action the rest of the world is taking while Australia sits on its hands, still trying to fit into club global.

Every two weeks, China is building brand new and all-time efficient coal-fired power stations as well as increasing its use of gas. Yet at the same time, they are building the wind and solar components for Australia, using their own effective coal-fired electricity to do so.

Car manufacturers across the board are trying to delay or get out of any emission agreements because they also understand; the forecasts are inaccurate, the agenda can't be trusted and the infrastructure just isn't there.

In my own electorate, I have heard of shocking stories where people on life support couldn’t depend on their power. We have the resources, and we used to have the infrastructure - and it will be too late when Australia experiences blackouts as a result.

In the long run, we need to be thinking about sustainability in its former meaning - the ability to maintain productivity, and that is not possible if Australia is left in the dark.

That's justice as I see it.

What a marvellous member for Lingiari you have proved to be! You had big shoes to fill and you've done a great job. It's obviously your experience and your ability that has led you to this place and to you making a great contribution. Congratulations!

Regions, and particularly my region, supply the water, the milk, supply the exports and supply the electricity. The regions deliver for Australia. You've heard from all the speakers that we're not getting a fair share of the pie, and that's been argued by government since I came here in the Hawke-Keating years. But let me say this to you. Under the earth in the Latrobe Valley we have thousands of years of supply of brown coal and yet we closed Hazelwood without a replacement. We'll close another power station without a replacement shortly, and we'll close another power station after that without a replacement. If we think that wind and solar are going to do it then every report that I read and everything that I've seen says that we can't do that; the technology isn't there.

What's happening in the regions overseas? China is more than happy, as said in Chris Mitchell's article in the Australian today, to profit from countries which are willing to sacrifice themselves at the altar of the church of carbon. And they're even happier to recycle those profits in securing coal at prices lower than they would otherwise be if so much international demand hadn't been removed voluntarily from the market, like we're doing. In fact, every discussion I've had here today or listened to, especially from government members, has been the government kicking themselves in the foot. That's except for the member for Lingiari who said: 'We're not going to get these big companies. We have problems in our region because of the very make-up of the seat of Lingiari.' I think that anyone who has a regional seat knows about those difficulties of transport and opportunity—even needing to have a licence to have a job. There are all those issues, and they're the ones which become extremely important.

I can't understand why a nation such as this, with the resources that we have—like those exposed in the Latrobe Valley—can't do what the Germans have done. The Germans have said: 'We can't rely on this renewable energy; it's not working the way we thought it would work. So we have built the very best efficient coal-fired power station that we could.' It's brand-new—the Germans, in Europe, building a new station. The Chinese are building the capacity of our whole power system every week—every week! And Australia is closing ours down and we produce approximately one per cent of the world's emissions. Some say it's three per cent and some say it's one. I don't know if it's one or three, but it's minute compared to the rest of the world. The rest of the world is getting on and doing what they need to do on behalf of their people. All I'm asking for the regions is that we have the resources to fulfil the energy needs of this nation and yet there are lots of barriers—whether that be for nuclear power or new coal-fired power stations—because state governments decide what they will do with those resources and not the federal government. We can give a lead and say, 'We'll help you to pay for it,' but we have no control.

If companies have sold off their power stations and aren't fixing the existing power stations to make them last then once again Australia is kicking itself in the foot. My experience tells me that there will be blackouts, and that's when the Australian people, when they have their backs to the wall, will say: 'No, sorry, enough! We want power and we wanted today.' There are two gas-fired power stations in Victoria, and they'll be running full-time. Everyone will say hooray except for the people who haven't produced the amount of gas in the ground which we could use. There is gas in the ground in Victoria, but we're not allowed to mine it. That's because the state government says we have a moratorium on gas mining. I think that's a shame, and I think the fact that we aren't using the coal in the ground in the Latrobe Valley is a shame. It will be detrimental to this nation in the long run, and we need to do something about it.

That's an interesting address from the member before me. I was here for the Hawke-Keating government. I was here for a number of incoming governments, including the Howard government, the Rudd-Gillard governments and now this government.

Going right back to the Hawke-Keating regime—they opened up the labour market. They did a deal with the unions for the betterment of this nation, and they put flexibility into the labour market. John Howard and his team were great supporters of small businesses and families, and they endeavoured to open up the labour market as Keating and Hawke had done, following in their footsteps. And along came the Rudd-Gillard governments. The Gillard government, particularly, brought the curtain down on industrial relations and started to stifle the labour market completely. Now this government has gone right over the top on those changes and made doing business more inflexible for people who want to engage.

At five o'clock this morning, when I was having a walk, there was a guy out there obviously doing the Bidfood deliveries—whatever the company is. I've seen a few of their trucks around, delivering to restaurants very early in the morning. And I thought: 'That guy's got two jobs. He's doing one delivery in the morning, and by nine o'clock he's sitting at his next job. I reckon that guy's got two jobs, and I reckon the guys before him have two jobs.'

I read the other day that some people are now so stretched that they're going for three jobs. That's not unusual. I had three jobs when I was young too. It was sort of a normal thing for us to do. The flexibility was driven by our employers who, if you were a good employee and they wanted to keep you on, either paid us more, gave us some time or just encouraged us, as young people, to take that opportunity.

For a lot of these people in the gig economy that you talk about now, quite often it's their second job, because they want to get ahead. All this loopholes legislation does is put a real crush on that debate. It puts a real crush on their opportunities. It puts a real blanket over, especially, small- and medium-sized businesses, who will have to deal with issues they haven't dealt with before. I know people in this Labor government who know what they're trying to do with flexible working arrangements. Parents, university students and all the other people that do these jobs want the flexibility to deal with their employer as they would see fit—to suit them, not to suit a stringent set of rules laid down by a Labor government with a lot of people who've never run a business and who've never run a pizza shop. These are hard businesses to run—and the smaller the business, the harder it is and the harder the owners have got to work. It's a fact now that, if you're a casual, you get paid all your entitlements in the hourly rate. You get paid your long service leave, your holiday pay and your super within the confines of your hourly rate. If it's $20 an hour for a full-time worker, it's $30 an hour or more—$35 an hour—for the employee that wants that flexibility of working part-time. You don't have to say, 'Joe Blow, we insist that you conform to our rules.'

The worst part of this is that it's such detailed legislation—it's perplexing, it's complex, it's unwieldy and it's really hard for people in business, and startups especially, to get their heads around this. I think Australia will pay a terrible price for the legislation that the government has put before the nation now and that it's passing—a terrible price.

In the Australian today, Nick Cater wrote:

"In 2004, Australian electricity bills were the fourth-lowest in the OECD. The wind and solar caper had barely begun, and coal and gas supplied 91 per cent of the National Electricity Market. Today, after 20 years of subsidy chasing by the renewable energy industry, Australia has slipped to 10th place in the OECD rankings of end-user power prices."

In 20 years, Australia is dropping on a yearly basis by comparison with the rest of the world regarding the prices we charge our communities for their power. Who pays that price? I'll tell you who pays the price. It's the pensioners, people on disability support, single-parent households and low-income households that have paid the price for what's happened here over the last 20 years. On top of that, we have funnelled millions and millions of dollars into renewable energy projects over those 20 years.

I remember saying to a chief executive officer of a power company, 'How many wind towers would there be in Australia without a subsidy?' He went, 'Nil, none, not one.' We need to take good care of the people who are least able to pay, especially in the regions. Australia needs to turn around its approach to what we're doing on renewables.

Without warning a horrific storm ran through the town of Mirboo North. Imagine a giant wall of steel being pushed through the bush and flattening everything in sight, tearing whole palm trees out of the ground and throwing them onto the next property. When I drove into Mirboo North I couldn't believe the damage. I'd been told about it, but I couldn't believe it. Entire forests had been flattened. They closed the pool. A young boy ran off home through the forest. The whole forest was flattened, but he was unhurt. This was miracle No. 1. Sadly, one farmer on a quad bike lost his life to flying debris. If you saw the town you'd have to say that there should have been 40, 50 or 60 people killed.

The town has responded magnificently. They have put together a volunteer coordination area at the RSL, which is being beautifully run. It's matching those offering help with those who need help. They're doing that on a voluntary basis, using paper, and it's working very well. The shire responded magnificently. I've got to say that the South Gippsland shire responded magnificently to the drama that unfolded, because it was a war zone—a war zone.

This was unprecedented weather that we had never experienced before. It was a conflagration of two storms, hitting one spot at one time, flying across the ridge and then down through the gullies. It went on for miles and miles. Hopefully everyone has their power back on now, but it took days and days to get that power back on. Luckily some people had realised their vulnerability and were prepared. They had candles. They had water. Some of them had cans of beer—very important.

To give you a sense of the extent of it, one fellow, Grant, took two days to cut his way out of the driveway of his property. It was only 30 metres long, and it took two days for him to cut his way out before he was able to get out of his property. There was no communication, because when the power went down the communication went down, so nobody could talk to anybody else at all. Nobody could say, 'I need help,' until help came to them. Trees had come down straight through the middle of houses, and no-one was killed. Two 80-year-olds had their house blown away from around them, and their roof fell in, and neither of them was hurt. Miracle after miracle after miracle—praise the Lord for the miracles.

Australia, listen to me. There is a scourge that is running across this country, and it is unabated. It is scamming. In my circle alone I have one very sensible couple who were scammed of $100,000 through giving information they thought they were giving to their bank. For another friend it was $40,000. These aren't people who are elderly or frail; they are people who have common sense. They are reasonable, they are hardworking and they're losing money right across this country. For heaven 's sake, Australia, listen. The government will do all it can to help you. The bank will do all it can to help you. But please, I beg you: do not give information about your bank to people over the phone. If it is your bank, they know all the information. If it is your local branch ringing, they know all your information. They don't need more. They don't need the number of your bank account. Please. This is everywhere, and it seems to be unsolvable and that the scammers are winning. From this day on, I want Australians to begin winning and stopping the scammers in their tracks.

It's great to hear this. I commend the member for Spence for bringing this motion forward. However, I've been around long enough to have heard a lot of these discussions before. I take you back to the Rudd-Gillard government. In the run-up to the 2007 election, the person who was to become the Prime Minister said: 'We're going to drive down your grocery prices and your fuel prices. We're going to have an inquiry, and then we're going to have GroceryWatch and FuelWatch.' The minister charged with that responsibility during that government was Minister Chris Bowen, who is now the energy minister. The minister who then took over from Chris Bowen was a minister named Craig Emerson, who saw the farce of GroceryWatch and FuelWatch and knew that it wasn't working at all, and he just dropped it and wiped it away.

So it is rather interesting to consider. I have the greatest respect for the minister and Craig Emerson in his capacity and appointment. He certainly has the ability to come up with a very good inquiry. But I think also that, deep in his heart of hearts, he knows that he will not be able to make any difference whatsoever, as my mother used to say, to the price of paint. You won't make any difference to the price of groceries. What we have is a market in Australia dominated by two main players. No government—not this government, not the three governments we had, under three different prime ministers, while we were in government, or before that the two governments, under two different prime ministers, on the Labor side—have made any difference to grocery prices. No. They just keep going up and up and up. And the sizes of the products—as the shoppers who are watching this debate will know—get smaller and smaller and smaller. My wife happens to like a certain brand of marmalade, and the jar used to be about that big. Then it went to that big and got dearer. Now it's down to that big, and it's dearer again. So we're losing at both ends. We're not only seeing the prices increasing, but the size of the product and the volume are decreasing.

After all the fine speeches here today around reducing prices at the supermarket, with investment by government to do that—so we will direct—I put it to you that not one thing will change with regard to the structure of the grocery industry in Australia. Things will only change when the buyer, the shopper, decides to be very clear and concise about their shopping and, rather than taking the convenient Woolies store or the Coles store—

Mr Hill: Go to Dandenong Market!

Mr BROADBENT: goes to Dandenong Market or perhaps Aldi for this, Woolworths for that, Coles for that and IGA for something else. Me, I'm a shocker. I like to go to IGA because they're not owned by the big guys. They're not owned by the internationals. They're just us, and there are good local people working down there. I love going to IGA. This, to me, just reeks of a government saying: 'The cost of living is high. Look at us. Look at us. We're doing something about it.' No, they're not. Don't be hoodwinked. This is just all froth and bubble and will continue to be. In two years time, when this report finally comes through from Craig Emerson, and all the recommendations are there about what they might do—it is the same report that the Rudd government worked on before. I think Mr Emerson could walk into the room, write the report and walk out—just change the date. It won't make any difference until you completely deregulate.

I'll leave you with this. I spoke with an independent grocer the other day, and he said, 'There's the real price of the product, and here's the majors' price of the product—'

Russell Broadbent here, your Member for Monash.

I’m done with the lies, damned lies and misinformation peddled by our mainstream media.

If there’s a silver lining to these hideous pandemic years, hands down it’s the privilege to have met thousands of men and women who, in the face of unrelenting distress and suffering, have all displayed a unique and rare blend of moral courage, critical thinking and compassion.

One of these people is Professor Ian Brighthope – a retired medical practitioner with more than 40 years experience in the health sector.

Professor Brighthope comes from the generation that acts with caution, calm and care. So last week, when he accused our government of lying, I take notice.

In a recent article he said, and I quote:

“They lied to us. The government, media, institutions and trusted professionals, all of them spread the lies. Now it is time to have a broad-based Royal Commission to hold them accountable for their lies and misinformation”.

Well, I agree him!

In fact, I’ll go a step further.

In the absence of any other explanation - not just because of the lies, but because of the ongoing censorship and suppression of irrefutable scientific evidence, I have no option but to agree with former Blackrock adviser, Ed Dowd, who recently commented that ‘institutional silence is prima facie evidence of a crime’.

Why are governments, medical professions and mainstream media refusing to tell the truth? Why aren’t medical professions raising the alarm about all the people – relatively young and fit and previously well people - that are suddenly dying from heart attacks, cardiac arrests and turbo cancer and contracting auto-immune conditions that no-one can explain?

Why is our government allowing social media companies and global corporations like the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organisation to ride roughshod over our country’s sovereignty?

And I have to ask why my fellow parliamentarians are turning a blind eye to what I can only describe as the deliberate silencing of truth?

Our government and its agencies must be open and transparent.

Their refusal to interrogate the data and genuinely engage with Australians about the alarming rates of vaccine injuries and excess deaths is not only extremely concerning, but as Ed Dowd said recently, it’s starting to wreak of a cover up.

And that’s just as I see it.

Hello Russell Broadbent here, Member for Monash

As the Australian government ramps up its messaging for people to consider yet another Covid-19 vaccination – for some it will be their seventh shot! I encourage Australians to ask their doctor about both the benefits and the risks!

I don’t understand why the Therapeutic Goods Administration continues to insist the Covid-19 vaccines are “safe and effective”, when other countries have stopped their use?

Did you know Iceland has suspended the Moderna Covid vaccine over heart inflammation (that includes myocarditis and pericarditis)? 

Did you know Sweden has restricted the Moderna injections to older people and Finland has halted Moderna to young men?

Did you know Norway and Denmark do not recommend Moderna Covid vaccination for children aged 12-17?

Or that Switzerland no longer recommends general Covid-19 vaccination for the Swiss population? 

And that the UK no longer recommends the covid vaccinations for healthy kids under 12 years of age?

No, I didn’t either until it was spelt out to me today by Doctor Phillip Altman, a pharmacologist and well-known pharmaceutical industry drug development consultant by trade who has worked tirelessly since 2021 to draw attention to the high incidence of widely reported serious adverse events associated with the Covid-19 vaccines including heart attack stroke and blood clotting.

What I do know, is that we have unprecedented and unexplained levels of excess deaths and cardiac presentations across Australia, and no-one can tell me why!

I find it unconscionable that our government continues to promote the take up of these vaccines when there are thousands of Australians who’ve been left disabled and injured by these vaccines – their lives changed forever and abandoned by the government that mandated them.

That’s just as I see it.

Hello, Russell Broadbent here – Member for Monash.

We hear a lot about our nation’s need to improve productivity, and last week, the government received the final report of the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce.

In short, the Taskforce recommends a plan to address the nation’s financial and productivity woes by, and I quote, unleashing the full capacity and contribution of women to the Australian economy.

As if they’ve been slacking off all this time!  

In short, there appears to be a push for women to give birth to breed more taxpayers, then shove the baby into childcare so they can return to full-time paid work …the only work that’s seems valued in our society.

My friend Barbara said she couldn’t be any more productive if she tried!

She said “I work five nights a week as an emergency nurse, visit mum who’s in aged care an hour away from home, and help my son’s family with the grand kids in the afternoon. I’m exhausted! Her eyes then welled up with tired tears…This isn’t the way life is meant to be!” she said.

The implicit assumption that we can squeeze more productivity out of women to help pay off our national debt is a short-sighted, short-term fix at best and a gross miscalculation of the value of unpaid, but essential work, the majority of which is performed by women!  

What value do we put on parenting, volunteering and caring roles? Or rather what’s the cost of not putting a value on these roles?

Over the past four years, people have been pummelled like never before. You don’t have to look far to sense the deep pain and suffering of so many people …in fact there’s a palpable sense of despondency that I’ve never seen before.

As a nation we can do better – we mustdo better.

Maybe the 243 billion dollars raised from the stage 3 tax cuts could help boost Australia’s productivity instead of boosting the bank balance of people that don’t need it?

That’s justice, as I see it!