STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator DAVID POCOCK (Australian Capital Territory—Independent ACT Whip) (12:51): Here in the 48th Parliament we are confronting some serious challenges. They range across many portfolios and policy areas, but they have one thing in common—they demand cooperation, actually listening to our communities and political courage to solve them. I want to touch on a few of these today.

The first is early education and care. I want to start by acknowledging the extraordinary investigative work undertaken by ABC journalist Adele Ferguson. Adele and her team have exposed absolutely chilling details of the most horrific predatory behaviour against the most vulnerable people in our community—our children.

They've uncovered wide-ranging regulatory failures. This has left parents around the country afraid and completely unsure who they can trust to care for and educate their sons and daughters. While commending the federal government, the state and territory governments, and their respective departments and regulatory bodies for the steps that have been taken, including legislation in this place to strengthen protections, I think it is absolutely clear now that we need a much bigger discussion in this country—a discussion about the model of care and who should deliver early childhood education and care in Australia.

I hear from more and more Canberrans that they want to move towards a not-for-profit model, a model that is actually embedded in schools. There are reports today that Australians have withdrawn $817 million from their super just in the last year to cover dental. This should shock all of us in this place, and it should also signal to us that we need to take action.

Last time I checked, the mouth was still part of the body. We have a health system that provides care for the rest of your body, but, when it comes to your mouth, you're in trouble. There is growing evidence showing the links to cardiovascular disease, to kidney disease, to stroke, to diabetes and to respiratory illness, and there's even research now showing that poor dental health is actually linked to dementia.

The health of your teeth and your mouth is so consequential to your overall health, yet we offer almost no support to Australians to maintain their oral health. Instead we're seeing people draining their retirement savings in order to pay for essential dental care. What is Medicare for if not for this?

What is private health insurance for if it won't even cover the full cost of a basic scale and clean, and the odd filling here and there? If you have a broken bone, Medicare, including our public hospital system, will be there for you, but a broken tooth is probably thousands of dollars or a month-long wait at a public clinic. We really need to take this more seriously as a public health issue, because it is one.

I also want to touch on the reports of inappropriate behaviour by dentists, particularly the report of a man in Western Sydney who withdrew $40,000 to fix his teeth and has devastatingly been left with no teeth. This was all facilitated by a dental practice that linked people with so-called early superannuation release agents so they could hollow out their super for the overpriced services.

This kind of behaviour is not just exploitative; it's disgusting, and if it's not criminal now then I think we should seriously consider making it criminal in the future. Stinging people $40,000 for dental treatment is a rort. The industry might say that it's just a few bad actors, but this clearly reflects poorly on the whole industry.

I urge the government to look into this closer, because when we see a predatory industry developing in the health sector, strong action is clearly required. Since being elected, I've spoken to dozens and dozens of current and former police men and women in Canberra about their experiences of working in the AFP, and I have to say that it has painted a pretty grim picture of what it is like to work in that organisation.

I have heard too often of a culture that demands a lot and demands high standards yet provides no help to its people when and where they need it. I've heard stories of people being left to battle endlessly with Comcare over injuries obtained on the job. I've even heard one story of a former cop who desperately needed hydrotherapy and was told to just swim in the pool outdoors in the middle of winter.

I've also heard stories of people who have been left with no support when they've been facing an internal investigation. I'm aware of at least one case where an officer was questioned shortly after giving birth and was not allowed to have her husband in the room for support. I have raised this at estimates and was assured it would be looked into.

This kind of treatment of AFP officers and employees falls well below what we should expect of a public agency, and it really needs to end. I've been really heartened to hear from Commissioner Barrett that one of her focuses in her new role will be staff wellbeing, and I wish her all the best in doing that and in changing the culture in the AFP. There are things we can also do in the parliament.

As police commissioners across the country have said in a letter to the PM, if the government wanted to help then it could introduce reforms to help retain police in all services across the country, including reforms to super. Police today are having to respond to increasingly complex social issues, and they're also witnessing disturbing things that many of us would hope to never see in our lives.

The work can be traumatising. We have known this for a long time, yet successive governments of both stripes have been sluggish to implement what people have been asking for—a strategy to help first responders stay on top of mental health. I want to thank the many current and former AFP personnel who have come forward to raise issues, and I will continue to listen and advocate for changes within the AFP.

I thank the AFP for the really important role they have in keeping communities across the country safe. I also want to talk about INPEX for a second. I think INPEX is a case study when it comes to gas leeches.

This is a 100 per cent foreign owned company. They export nine million tonnes of LNG from Australia every year. For a bit of context, that is more gas than is used by households and businesses in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia combined—combined!

This is the same company that turned up to a Senate inquiry in the last parliament and tried to tell us that opening up new gas projects was really important for our domestic gas security. When I asked what percentage of their gas was used domestically, they sheepishly admitted, 'We export 100 per cent of our gas.' The kicker is that they don't pay for the gas that they export, because the Australian government does not charge a royalty on most offshore gas extractions.

INPEX has never paid a single cent of petroleum resource rent tax. Earlier this month, INPEX admitted to drastically—and I mean drastically—underestimating how much benzene they're dumping into Darwin's air. We know that benzene can cause cancer, and INPEX has dumped 556 tonnes of it into the air just a few kilometres from where people live and work in Darwin.

And this came just days after INPEX reported an oil spill at the facility, with the NT EPA confirming that 36,000 litres of oil had leaked and that some had leached into Darwin's harbour. This is not the first time concerns have been raised. At an inquiry into the proposed Middle Arm gas expansion project last year, I was told by the NT EPA that there were no issues with how much benzene INPEX was dumping into Darwin's air.

They told me that it was all within limits. Now we find out that wasn't the case. What will it take for either the federal government or the NT government to protect the health of the people of Darwin?

This isn't just about the harbour or the plants and animals that live in the area; it's about the actual health of children in Darwin and their right to live free from a classroom full of benzene. To bring this to a federal level, I think this shows how important it is to have a truly independent national EPA that actually has some teeth, because so far we've seen absolutely nothing from either government to hold INPEX to account.

We've just seen deference to INPEX. And that needs to end.