Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2025-2026, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2025-2026, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2025-2026

Mr HILL (Bruce—Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs and Assistant Minister for International Education) (12:53): I'm going to start with three good things. Firstly, this week we've seen new data which confirms the biggest jump in quarterly bulk-billing statistics in over 20 years. In just the last three months we've seen a recovery of the bulk-billing rate—GP visits that are bulk-billed—to 81.4 per cent.

There are now more than 3,400 bulk-billing practices in Australia—and that's growing every week. The maths says that's a more than 50 per cent increase in the number of bulk-billing practices because of Labor's investments in strengthening Medicare. This growth has been seen in every state and territory right across the country, and it means that more than 96 per cent of Australians now live within a 20-minute drive of a fully bulk-billed practice.

We promised at the election that we would take real action to turn around the decline in bulk-billing rates that we inherited from the former government, who froze the rebate for nearly their whole decade of dysfunction, decay and division in office, and that is the promise that we are delivering. The second bit of good news is that free TAFE celebrates its third birthday this month.

More than 725,000 enrolments in free TAFE have seen more than 210,000 course completions already. Hundreds of thousands of Australians have been trained and are now workers in essential areas, building Australia's future in nursing, in construction, in aged care, in early childhood education and in the tech sector. Don't forget that those opposite, including today's Leader of the Opposition, said it was a waste of money.

If you don't pay for something, you don't value it, apparently. Well, hundreds of thousands of Australians say otherwise. They valued the opportunity to upgrade their skills, whether they're school leavers or people retraining to re-enter the workforce or make a career transition in areas of skills shortage.

The other bit of good news is that cost-of-living delivery remains the government's No. 1 focus, with tax cuts for every taxpayer, including another top-up tax cut this July, which those opposite opposed, and another top-up tax cut next year. The genius, the then shadow Treasurer, now the putative soon-to-be Leader of the Opposition, maybe, if he's got the numbers—maybe he hasn't; we'll find out in the next few days—went to the election promising to increase taxes.

There have been pay rises for minimum and award wages—because cost of living is both money in and money out—taking the total increase under Labor to over $9,000 for lower-paid workers. Paid parental leave has been expanded to 24 weeks. Super is now being paid on all government paid parental leave, something that they said could never be done.

There is more energy bill relief, with $150 off power bills for every household and around one million small businesses nationwide. There is the $10,000 bonus for housing apprentices, which is paid on top of their wages to help with those costs, and the payments are staggered now to help with retention and help support apprentices to complete and get into the construction industry.

There is 30 per cent off home batteries to permanently cut power bills with Labor's Cheaper Home Batteries Program. There is paid prac, transformative for nursing students, teaching students, social work students and midwifery students, who previously were basically pushed into poverty, being forced to complete these compulsory hours as part of their qualification but not being able to be paid for them.

It's alright if you're from a wealthy family, but, for millions of Australians, that would not be an option given their economic circumstances. There is the boost to Medicare—$1.8 billion in extra hospital funding, helping Australians get the quality, affordable health care that they deserve—and the news—I think last week—of a record increase in hospital funding to the states and territories over the next five years.

We are providing more choice, lower costs and high-quality care for Australian women. The focus on women's health under this government—the first government in Australia's history in which a majority of the members are women, reflecting the population—has seen a focus on issues that matter for women and have been too long neglected. We are expanding the five per cent deposits for all first home buyers, delivering another pay rise to aged-care nurses following the first instalment in March and freezing the draft beer excise indexation for two years—a small cost-of-living measure but particularly aimed at helping small independent breweries in the hospitality sector.

We are cutting student debt by 20 per cent. Wiping that student debt means repayments are made earlier, and we are raising the income thresholds at which people are being forced to repay their student loans. The average saving is $5½ thousand.

There are also more Medicare urgent care clinics. So those are three bits of good news, relating to Medicare, free TAFE and cost of living. It's a bit of a contrast, though, and the contrast has never been sharper or starker with the collapsing coalition clown show—the chaos and the circus that those on that side of the chamber have become.

The meltdown has reached new proportions. As I speak, there's a conga line of them still lining up to quit the frontbench. We haven't seen too many House members—presumably they'll do that after question time today—but the senators have been lining up to rip down the first woman elected to lead the Liberal Party in Australia's history.

The truth is that she was never given a chance. From day one, when the member for Hume lost the ballot, they were split in two. She won by a couple of votes.

From day one, he's been out there undermining, making sure that she could never succeed. The truth is that Liberal Party members, mainly men who mainly wear the same blue suit—sometimes it's hard to tell them apart—have never accepted the fact that a woman was elected to lead their political party. Ms McKenzie interjecting— Mr HILL: Well, under standing order 76(c), on debating public affairs, it's very relevant to what's happening today.

They are ripping down the first woman to lead the Liberal Party. They've never accepted that a woman could lead the Liberal Party. I've said, on many occasions, that the opposition leader, many days, looks utterly hopeless, but, honestly, what chance did she ever have?

What chance was she given? To be fair to her, all the alternatives are worse. At least she looks somewhat normal some days, but she's always been at her worst.

Her worst days in the job of less than a year have been when she's been forced to do things by the conservative men on the backbench. The real mystery in this—watching it unfold, unedifying, over the last few weeks and months—is for what? For why?

Why are they trying to rip down a centrist woman who's leading their political party? There's no policy. There are no ideas.

There's no vision. There's no articulation of values, just an assertion they have some. The guy who's apparently going to challenge—he's just 'born to rule' entitlement.

Apparently, it was his destiny to lead the Liberal Party from when he moved from Sydney, from his mansion, to Goulburn—was it?—to stand for the vacancy in the electorate of Hume. And it was going to be his destiny to lead the Liberal Party—just 'born to rule' entitlement. This woman has been doing the best that she can.

She's been trying to govern from the centre. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr Freelander ): Order! Refer to the members by their position.

Mr HILL: The opposition leader, who is the first woman to lead the Liberal Party, has been trying to drag them to the centre—where most Australians are—but, instead, the member for Hume says, 'No, it's my turn.' He couldn't even wait a year now. He lined up last night. The whole building was waiting—the journalists were literally starving; people were bringing them food—waiting and waiting and waiting, until out he wandered to the cameras, which had been set up there since after question time.

It's getting late in the night. There was dew all over their equipment. They brushed it off, and there he was with all his friends.

For those who didn't see the visuals, he was by himself. Honestly, it was like an episode of Utopia. He actually looked like Rob Stitch standing there.

He had absolutely nothing to say. There was not a single shred of substance except 'oh, well, people don't like us because the polling is really bad'. Here's a clue—actually have a policy apart from defining yourself by what you're against.

All Australians have heard from the opposition is all of the things they oppose. There's not a single shred of a policy that they've managed to put out, and Australians see the division. They're sick of it.

No wonder, when you ask an opinion poll, a snapshot of public opinion at that moment—it's not a predictor of how people will vote at a future election. It's a scream in the dark. It's a cry for help from Australians to say, 'Please, would you do your job as a functioning opposition?' But, if the member for Hume is the answer, it's a pretty dumb question.

If the member for Hume is the answer, then God help Australia and God help the Liberal Party. He's Peter Dutton's right-hand man. He was there at every step.

Seriously, ask yourselves how on earth that is going to help the predicament that you're in—electing the bloke who is further to the right than Peter Dutton. But what do his colleagues think of him? As the Treasurer said yesterday, half of them support him and the other half have met him.

The most bizarre aspect of this is his truly terrible record. Objectively, if you were interviewing for a job with a key selection criterion and you had the panel out, you would literally pick anyone else. As one of his colleagues said in the paper on the weekend, everything he touches turns to the little brown emoji—we'll say custard in here or Mr Hankey, for those who remember the screensaver back from the nineties.

Everything he touches turns to custard. As shadow Treasurer last term, he had a genius record. This was their policy.

He actually went to the election with higher taxes, bigger deficits, scrapping work from home—that went well; that was very popular—sacking tens of thousands of frontline workers and contracting them out to the private sector and labour hire firms and his old mates at McKinsey and the consulting firms (there's how to blow a few billion), and the $600 billion risky nuclear reactor scheme.

That was his genius contribution as shadow Treasurer. The shadow defence minister for the last nine months or so—not that anyone would know it. He's literally had nothing to say.

His only contribution to public debate on Defence is 'we should spend more'. Okay, shadow minister, what should we spend more on? 'Well, I don't know; we should just spend more.' It's like the brilliant contribution the member for Hastie made at the last election. He was going to buy a squadron of F-35 fighter jets, except there were no pilots, no training, no petrol, no maintenance budget— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Wannon?

Mr Tehan: No-one is called the member for Hastie. I would ask that— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think you're quite right. Mr HILL: Yes, a good point.

I always think he's about himself, but you're right. He's the member for Canning. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: He was on a roll, but yes.

Mr HILL: I was on a roll, indeed. The shadow defence minister has had nothing to say. All he's got is an idea that we should spend more on something—he doesn't know what, but that sounds good.

He hasn't asked any questions over the last few weeks, despite seriously big defence policy announcements. His main achievements this term are (1) losing, (2) undermining, and (3) quitting. But then there's his record as energy minister.

He was investigated by the Australian Federal Police for presenting doctored documents to the media. Eventually he had to apologise for that. And don't forget the readers—you know, those left-wing communists who read the Australian Financial Review.

In 2020, the readers poll voted the member for Hume as energy minister the worst performing minister in the Morrison government. That's almost an achievement in its own right, to be the worst performing minister in the Morrison government! I mean, surely that deserves a promotion to become the opposition leader.

But they weren't wrong. He was indeed, objectively—his own record says it—the worst energy minister in Australia's history. He went to the 2019 election promising that wholesale energy prices would fall per megawatt hour to $70.

That was his promise. What he actually delivered, after his abject failure, was $286 per megawatt hour. But then, not content with that, before the 2022 election he actually changed the law, changed the regulations, to cover up the power price rises that were already baked in and coming down the pipe.

Our government inherited these when we won the election, and then we found out the true state of the mess that he left behind. There were serious questions over his conflicts of interest in his first stint as minister, around 2016, with 'grassgate'. Really it is a profound lesson in rock bottoms.

Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. Australians deserve better. But the problem is they just have not got there yet.

I almost feel sorry for the National Party being bound to this mob, the Liberal Party. The problem is not the leader; it's the party. It's not the sales rep; the product that they're selling is rotten to the core.

Changing the label on the bottle doesn't disguise the fact that the wine is sour. Their best before date is probably back somewhere in the 1950s. Their best hope, when they mutter to each other, is, 'Maybe we'll end up in some kind of a three way between the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation.' Nope.

It's not going to work. One Nation will fill the hole you are leaving. Senator Hanson lives rent free in their heads now, and that is the worst aspect.

I'll finish on this point. The worst aspect of their abject failure—because of the collapse of the coalition and their literal hatred of each other—is the normalisation: the moving of the Overton window as to what's acceptable in this country. The toxic authoritarian, extremist politics that One Nation represents is allowed to infiltrate and be normalised.

It's not normal. It's not Australian. When Australians turn on their TV and see the chaos, hate, division and at times now the violence in parts of the Americas and Europe, they don't want that here.

That's what One Nation and this extremist kind of politics represents: breaking down our social cohesion. I'm incredibly optimistic. The member for Gellibrand gave a fabulous speech on Tuesday night in the adjournment debate, pointing out the disjuncture between the increasingly extreme rhetoric in One Nation and half of that mob opposite—whatever they call themselves—and the experience of most decent Australians in the suburbs, regional cities and across the country.

The data still shows up that when there's a natural disaster, it's the hard hats, the akubras and the turbans that turn up together. Overwhelmingly migrants to this country are included. Yes, I can say the migrant word and not scream and shout and twitch.

We're a nation of migrants. They do participate. They do start businesses.

They do work. They do belong. They do feel included.

I love our country. I love modern Australia and I love its reality. Unfortunately, with where those people over there are going, it increasingly seems like they hate Australia—the country that we are.