ADJOURNMENT
Senator ALLMAN-PAYNE (Queensland) (17:22): Today, in this place, the war parties teamed up to strip the rule of law from Australians. The ASIO amendment bill will massively expand ASIO's coercive questioning and detention powers. This is the largest expansion of secret interrogation and detention powers this country has seen in over two decades.
Under these laws, which were rushed through the Senate today without debate, you can be locked up and interrogated on Australian soil without ever being charged or suspected of a crime. Anyone can be detained and questioned by ASIO with no oversight. You won't have the right to a lawyer in this scenario.
You won't have the right to refuse to answer questions, and, if you stay silent while questioned, you can be shipped off to prison for up to five years. If that's not scary enough, you won't even be allowed to tell anyone what happened to you after the fact, as you can also go to prison. Where is the freedom-of-speech crowd when it comes to very real questions of accountability and transparency in something as crucial as our justice system?
Make no mistake, governments will use these broad and overreaching national security powers against people who criticise the government and against people marching for freedom. One Nation, Labor and the coalition have given themselves the power to strip people of their freedoms in secret, with no ability to challenge it in court. It's very telling that this deal was struck between Labor and the coalition on the day all the news cameras were pointed at the devastating deal they struck for NDIS cuts and watered down gambling legislation.
They didn't want you to know it was coming, but now you do. Stop me if you've heard this story before: a Labor government taking isolated examples of provider fraud or overcharging, then turning around and only punishing the people who rely on these services and are victims of this price gouging. Over and over again, people's essential health services are capped and cut by this Labor government.
Allied health care is essential health care, especially for our veterans. Labor's proposed $5,000 cap on allied health services for veterans is a slap in the face. Telling veterans that they need to go through review after review while begging some bureaucrat in an inaccessible department for extra funds to see a physiotherapist or a psychologist is going to put lives at risk, and veterans have told you as much.
Veterans are still waiting for the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide to be implemented. The final report, with its 122 recommendations, was presented in 2024. The commission identified 2,007 suicide deaths among ADF members between 1985 and 2021.
That is a shameful statistic. Ex-serving males were 42 per cent more likely to die by suicide than the general male population, and for ex-serving females the figure was 107 per cent higher. How can the government sit here and do nothing or take things backwards when they're presented with these statistics?
The government needs to heed the call of the veterans community. They need to abandon its proposed annual $5,000 cap on allied health services for veterans and they must instead turn back to the royal commission and get to work on making support for veterans easier, faster and more affordable.