Speaking in support of the ACT Self Government Amendment Bill 2023, I commend Senator Canavan for introducing this bill. I strongly support pushing for an inquiry into the ACT government’s seizure of the Calvary Hospital in Canberra. This is a blatant attack on religion in healthcare. It cannot be dressed up as anything else.

The issue that is being tiptoed around is the clash between religious principles that stand against abortion of a living, viable foetus. Those same principles stand against ending life through euthanasia of a person who may make a different decision, free from coercion or momentary despair, on a different day. The ACT has legislated abortion and euthanasia whilst the Catholic Church insists on putting humanity around those rules.

This has inflamed the ACT autocrats who have decided that there is no place for religion in healthcare. So much so that they planned this takeover for 12 months without telling Calvary who continued to negotiate on a new Northside Hospital in good faith.

These are the same mindless, hypocritical zombies that push for drag queens to expose themselves and read adult porn to young children in libraries and schools. Their answer to the uproar against this perversion is “if you don’t like it, don’t go”. This works both ways. If you don’t like religion in healthcare, aged care or education, the remedy is simple. Don’t go. Freedom of choice! Except the Canberra autocrats don’t like freedom either. They’ve embraced a totalitarian agenda since COVID normalised such behaviour in Australia.

Federal Parliament has precedence over ACT law and this matter is rightly within the Senate’s purview. My message to the Canberra Health Bureau autocrats is this: God decides who lives or dies. Not you.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia I speak in support of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Amendment Bill 2023. Senator Canavan is quite correct to want an inquiry into the ACT government’s seizure of Calvary hospital. I commend him for introducing this bill to the chamber. I was the first senator to speak out against this takeover—on 27 May 2023 at the March for Life rally in the Rockhampton Riverside Precinct. Senator Canavan was in attendance as well. I commend him for taking it up. 

This is a blatant attack on religion in health care. It cannot be dressed up as anything else. I note that the Catholic archbishop has avoided using those words. That may be because the archdiocese is reliant on government funding across many health and welfare areas and does not want to ruffle feathers. It wants to protect that funding. What has happened to churches in this country is that they’ve been captured. I consider the Catholic archbishop’s decision a poor decision. Bending in the wind is not what religion is about. Defending religious theology is a central function of the Roman Catholic Church. 

This issue is a clash between religious principles that stand against abortion of a living viable fetus and health bureaucrats that would kill such a fetus, a human. It’s a clash between religious principles that stand against ending life through euthanasia of a person, who may make a different decision free from coercion and momentary despair, and health bureaucrats seeking to use euthanasia as a device to balance their budget. The only god autocrats respect is the god of power. 

The ACT has legislated abortion and euthanasia. The Catholic Church insists on putting humanity around those rules. That has inflamed ACT autocrats. The common reply repeated verbatim from a legion of social media bots and mindless zombies is: ‘There’s no place for religion in health care.’ It seems to me that this is the most hypocritical statement. When religious groups protested drag queens exposing themselves and reading adult sex stories to kids in libraries in drag queen story time the religious groups were told, ‘If you don’t like it, don’t go.’ Well, let me direct your argument right back at you: if you don’t want religion in your health care, don’t go to a Christian-managed hospital. While we are at it, if you don’t like religion in aged care, go to another aged-care facility. If you don’t like religion in education, don’t send your children to a religious school. See how it works? Freedom of choice. That is what is irking the Canberra autocrats—freedom. We know how much autocrats have embraced totalitarian agenda since COVID normalised such behaviour in this country. 

Calvary hospitals have treated millions of Australians who are happy to be treated in a religious hospital and who are grateful for it. We know from many media reports the enabling legislation was prepared a year ahead of this takeover. Calvary were not informed of this and continued to negotiate on a new northside hospital in good faith. We know the ACT government just had its credit rating reduced. There has been no progress on negotiations over the cash compensation the ACT government must pay to Calvary for the seizure of its assets. I wonder if they have the money to pay? 

Federal parliament has precedence over ACT law. This matter is rightly within the Senate’s purview, and I am strongly in support of this bill. I said this before and I’ll say it again: my message to Canberra health autocrats is God decides who lives or dies, not you.  

At a recent Senate Banking Inquiry I spoke with Michael Lawrence, Chief Executive Officer of the Customer Owned Banks Association.

I know that many of our supporters hold the belief that more regulation will bring the banks under control. The truth is that the banks will always have smarter lawyers than the government. Regulation becomes a barrier to entry of new or small players wanting to compete with the big banks. At the same time, the big banks do whatever they want with only the occasional penalty that is clearly not enough to stop them.

The answer to this dilemma is a Government-owned bank that provides the existing banks with real competition by running the bank for the benefit of the customers and shareholders equally, rather than entirely for the benefit of shareholders, as the banks are doing at the moment. The difference will be especially noticeable in the areas of customer service and ethics.

Suncorp is the 6th largest bank in Australia. It is on the market for a bargain price of $4.9 billion. My proposal is for the government to buy Suncorp Bank outright using the Future Fund and re-purpose it to provide the full range of banking services through Bank@Post.

This would offer real competition to the big banks. By running the Post Office Bank using a modified Code of Practice it guarantees the customer a bank that will not behave like greedy, immoral, profiteering crony capitalists.

That would be a refreshing change.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you, Mr Lawrence and Ms Elliott, for returning today. You made some comments about regulation, Mr Lawrence. Would less regulation lead to more competition and better service?

Mr Lawrence: We don’t advocate for less regulation, because we need to be regulated in the same manner as any bank. What we ask is that it be targeted at the objective. It needs to take into consideration business models. It needs to take into consideration the size and the complexity, rather than a broadbrush—Senator ROBERTS: Are the big four banks hiding behind excessive regulation that is really a barrier to entry for your smaller banks?

Mr Lawrence: I can’t speak for the big four banks. What I can say—

Senator Roberts: I am asking you for your opinion on the regulation of the big four banks, not to speak for the big four banks.

Mr Lawrence: The big four banks are facing the same regulation, but it gets magnified because of their size and complexity. They do have more resources to put towards that regulation and compliance. As I said, it comes back to the size of ours. You only have to go back to October 2021. In one month, we had design and distribution obligations land, we had open banking time lines to be met and we had three recommendations of the royal commission. If you are a customer-owned bank with 20, 50, 100 or 1,000 staff, that’s a significant amount of regulation that takes you away from focusing on your customer. It’s that proportionality.

Senator Roberts: Did you see my questioning of the CommBank chief executive, Mr Comyn, this morning?

Mr Lawrence: Yes, I did.

Senator Roberts: I put it to him that the regulations are a barrier to entry for anyone outside the big four banks.

Mr Lawrence: My opinion is that the complexity of regulation that we have today would be deemed to be somewhat of a barrier for new entrants.

Senator Roberts: I go to your letter which accompanied your submission. You say:

Solutions that help, not hurt
Two policy solutions canvassed by stakeholders—a Government-owned bank and a community service obligation—would be anti-competitive interventions detrimental to our sector’s ability to provide services for regional communities.

On page 10 of your submission you say:
The attractiveness of an Australia Post Bank with an explicit government guarantee for customer deposits would almost certainly reduce deposit flows to privately owned banks…

Are you aware that all bank deposits of COBA members are already covered by the government’s Financial Claims Scheme bank guarantee?

Mr Lawrence: Yes, they are covered.

Senator Roberts: Yes. It says so on your website. Are your words, then, an acknowledgement that the Financial Claims Scheme is underfunded and never likely to be used?

Mr Lawrence: I am aware of the Financial Claims Scheme. Do I think it will ever be used? I think if you look at the people who are funding it, they are not necessarily the ones that are at risk. It could well be used.

Senator Roberts: Could you explain that?

Mr Lawrence: I don’t have the list of everyone who is funding the Financial Claims Scheme, but there are organisations that aren’t as heavily regulated that could be the recipient.

Senator Roberts: Of the Financial Claims Scheme guarantee money?

Mr Lawrence: Not of the deposit guarantee, if that’s what you are referring to.

Senator Roberts: Yes; not of that?

Mr Lawrence: Not of that. To have a guarantee on deposits, you have to be an authorised deposit-taking institution, and therefore you are fully regulated.

Senator Roberts: The proposal One Nation has raised is to ask the Future Fund to purchase Suncorp bank and operate the bank commercially, under a modified Banking Code of Practice that guarantees face-to-face service, cash availability and the provision of service guarantee—a code you would be free to use as well. Then Suncorp could expand its services through Bank@Post. I note your objections to a government-owned bank and to Australia Post becoming a bank. Which, if any, of these objections would relate to the Suncorp proposal that I just outlined?

Mr Lawrence: We haven’t taken a position on the Suncorp merger, if that’s your question.

Senator Roberts: No. My proposal is for the Future Fund to purchase Suncorp bank and to operate the bank commercially, under a modified Banking Code of Practice.

Mr Lawrence: The question to us is?

Senator Roberts: Have you got any objections to that?

Ms Elliott: It is something we would need to consider. We have fantastic banks in Queensland ready to serve the public. We wouldn’t be looking for a government-backed intervention that would be to the detriment of the existing competitive market that involves customer-owned banks.

I’ve been raising the issue of the exploitation of miners for years. Miners and small businesses need to be heard because they are the losers in this ongoing rort. We need an extensive inquiry into it now.

The Fair Work Act is designed for the “industrial relations club,” not for workers and not for small businesses.

I’ve written twice about this issue to the previous member for the Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon. I’ve also written and hand delivered a letter to Dan Repacholi’s office. I asked them to get involved. Both have failed to respond, yet they stand up and talk in this chamber about closing the loophole.

There is no loophole! There is only people not doing their job and letting down miners and small businesses.

When will these people find it in themselves to care, or at least do something about the fact that everyday Australians are being ripped off and the authorities are enabling it?

Transcript

Thank you, President, Senator Birmingham. For four years, I have been raising the issue of the exploitation of the permanent-casual rort in central Queensland miners and Hunter Valley miners—four years!

I have written twice to the previous member for Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon. I have written once and hand delivered to Daniel Repacholi’s office a letter asking them to get involved. They both have not replied. They never replied. They stood up and spoke in this chamber about closing the loophole. There is no loophole. We know what the cause of this is. There is no loophole; it is people not doing their jobs.

Four years and Labor has not done a thing. They put the crow bar through the spokes to stop me. This is an insult to miners. We need an inquiry that is going to have hearings in Central Queensland and in the Hunter because these miners need to be heard.

We’ll show you where the loophole is. There’s a huge loophole but it’s not the loophole the Labor Party is talking about. This bill has an Explanatory Memorandum 520-something pages long because it’s a cover-up bill. The bill itself is up to 240 pages.

I’ve been talking in this chamber on many occasions about how the Fair Work Act is already complex, intricate and designed for the IR club, not for workers—and not for small business. This will make it far worse. We need to have a complete and thorough inquiry of it, and extensive scrutiny.

I will not be supporting the government’s amendment of the coalition’s amendment.

Miners need to be heard and small business, in particular, need to be heard because they’re the two losers from the Fair Work Act, due to its complexity and its prescriptiveness.

So I will not be supporting the Labor government’s amendment of the coalition amendment. I will support the coalition amendment.

This is my latest letter to Tony Burke, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations.

I’ve been pursuing an outcome and accountability in this horrific labour hire case for over three years now. This is the immoral saga of a mine owner in bed with the union, which has its claws into superannuation, and the government is deliberately turning a blind eye. Workers are getting swindled. Simon Turner was done out of his entitlements, his health, his job and his life. There is an $8 billion black hole hiding in plain sight. 

You might think it won’t affect you. It’s just mining companies wanting cheaper labour. The union’s are happy to comply and they get a cut on the side. This rip-off needs a thorough investigation. People are no longer protected by the government, their unions, industrial relations laws, and certainly not by these corrupt foreign companies.

If this can happen to Simon Turner and hundreds of others in the Australian coal industry, it can just as easily happen to you.

It was a pleasure to join Bruce, Julie and Jared at Skeleton Glass in Molendinar on Tuesday, 19 September 2023.

They want students to know that there are viable options to attending uni that will give them skills and a good income, and I couldn’t agree more.

We need more of our young people doing trades, especially when it’s often a better income than what some university graduates can achieve with less relevant degrees.

Glazier apprenticeships are an underrated and important part of our construction industry.

The Queensland government is proposing a highway through pristine wetlands that could make flooding on the Logan River even worse.

As the residents of Eagleby showed me on Tuesday19 September 2023, an alternative route is available just a few kilometres up the road. That option wouldn’t require filling up the Eagleby Wetlands, host to migrating birds and the rare Latham Snipe, with soil.

Government likes to pretend they care about the environment, yet they’ll completely ignore it if it means a flashy press release.

Questions have to be asked whether Transurban has influenced the route and connection point to maximise customers to their toll road.

Media

The government is compulsorily resuming land and literally filling in wetlands for the Coomera connector when an alternative is available just up the road.

At huge expense to the taxpayer, this plan needs attention and questions asked.

Courier Mail Article: read here at https://tinyurl.com/mszmkb3d

Senate Estimates | 12 February 2024

Infrastructure Australia

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: And if the first answer is positive then it will be even quicker! Thank you for being here so late as well. Are you familiar with the Coomera Connector stage 2 in Brisbane? 

Mr Copp: Yes. 

Senator ROBERTS: You are—thank you. Are you in possession of the business case for the Coomera Connector stage 2? 

Mr Tucker: We assessed the business case for stage 1 of the Coomera Connector but we haven’t received a business case for stage 2. 

Senator ROBERTS: Why hasn’t the stage 2 business case been published? 

Mr Tucker: That would be a matter for the Queensland government. 

Senator ROBERTS: Have they discussed it with you at all? 

Mr Tucker: I would have to take that on notice. We have regular engagement with Queensland, but I don’t recall a recent conversation on that particular project. 

Senator ROBERTS: Could you do that, please? My understanding is that the Commonwealth government may be tipping hundreds of millions of dollars into this project, so I’m wondering why the public can’t see the business case. 

Mr Tucker: I’m not aware if a business case has yet been finalised. We will assess it once it’s submitted to us. 

Senator ROBERTS: So you haven’t received it at all? 

Mr Tucker: No. 

Senator ROBERTS: No requests for funding? 

Mr Tucker: No. 

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. We’re very concerned about flooding of human habitat, and flooding and destruction of wetlands—triggers to the EPBC Act, and for migratory birds in particular. That’s all I have, thank you, Chair. 

Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for being here tonight. My questions are to do with the Coomera connector stage 2 freeway project in Brisbane. What is the status of the Coomera connector stage 2 with the department under the EPBC Act? 

Mr Edwards: At this stage, that project hasn’t been referred to us for assessment under the EPBC Act. 

Senator ROBERTS: Where is the public environment report for Coomera stage 2? 

Mr Edwards: Again, I’m not able to comment. I don’t have the project referred to me for assessment. 

Senator ROBERTS: You’ve had no contact at all with the state government on this project? 

Mr Edwards: That’s not what I said. 

Senator ROBERTS: I know it’s not what you said. I’m asking you. 

Mr Edwards: We’re certainly aware that there’s some work being prepared. 

Senator ROBERTS: By the Queensland state government? 

Mr Edwards: By the state government. We expect that there may be a referral sometime soon, but, unfortunately, I don’t have details of that. 

Senator ROBERTS: What information does the department have in regard to the impact of Coomera connector stage 2 on the estimated 299 bird species in the Eagleby Wetlands? 

Mr Edwards: I don’t have any information about that. 

Senator ROBERTS: None at all? Our information is that Coomera connector stage 2 has seven potential EPBC triggers in terms of sensitive fauna and flora. What triggers or potential triggers has the department been made aware of? None at all? 

Mr Edwards: The only contact we’ve had is a pre-referral meeting. There would have been a conversation, in general terms, about the types of impacts that may be in a referral document. What we do in those meetings is refer people to the relevant statutory guidelines and other things that they’ll need to consider in preparing the referral. 

Senator ROBERTS: In preparing their submission to you? 

Mr Edwards: Yes, that’s right. It’s more of a general exploration conversation about how to set up a good referral when it does come. 

Senator ROBERTS: Did they mention migratory bird species? 

Mr Edwards: I don’t have any information about the content of that meeting, but, if it were a likely impact, we’d generally run through threatened species, migratory species and Ramsar if that were relevant. 

Senator ROBERTS: Flooding of humans? 

Mr Edwards: Sorry? 

Senator ROBERTS: Flooding of humans? 

Mr Edwards: No. I don’t regulate impacts from— 

Senator ROBERTS: Diversion of rivers? 

Mr Edwards: No. 

Senator ROBERTS: Is there any chance of getting the contents of the discussion on notice? 

Mr Edwards: We would only have been talking about the controlling provisions under the EPBC Act. It includes threatened species, migratory species and Ramsar if that were relevant. 

Senator ROBERTS: Are there any minutes for that meeting? 

Mr Edwards: I’ll have to take that on notice. 

Senator ROBERTS: Please see if we could get a copy. 

Mr Edwards: Of course. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you very much. 

On Tuesday, 19 September I visited Oz DIY Electric Vehicles: Electric Conversions at their invitation to have a look under the hood at the nuts and bolts of electric vehicles. EV’s work for some niche applications.

I support anyone having the choice to buy an EV if they want, but they are still far more expensive than petrol or diesel equivalents and no government should be forcing anyone into one or the other.

I appreciate David and Graeme taking the time to show me around their workshop. The key to their success is their technical experience and competence.

Senator Roberts has slammed the Albanese Government’s toothless inquiry into COVID, calling it an effort to hide from a Royal Commission with powers to compel testimony. Senator Roberts said:

“The Albanese Labor government is running away from a Royal Commission that would actually have the power needed to investigate Australia’s COVID response.

Anything less than a COVID Royal Commission is a betrayal of everyday Australians and small business who were badly affected by our COVID response over the last three and a half years.

One of the first things the Government did when elected was call a Royal Commission into Robodebt. If that justifies a Royal Commission how can the government argue one of the most expensive and invasive responses in our history doesn’t? They can’t unless they’re trying to run a coverup.

The COVID response involved over $500 billion in printed money causing the inflation problem we are still facing, 30,000 excess deaths this year with 50% not being attributed to COVID, the largest invasion of civil liberties in modern Australia and all of it was done in secrecy.

Instead of appointing three insiders to cover up the actions of their colleagues, we need a Royal Commission with the power to peel back the secrecy that both State and Federal politicians and bureaucrats have hidden behind for years now”.

Before the end of the year I will ask the Senate to replace the Prime Minister’s Clayton’s inquiry, instead asking the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee to report and recommend terms of reference for a COVID Royal Commission to be established in the first half of 2024.

An issue that matters to many of my constituents is water. Minister Plibersek has hijacked the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to win votes in the city at the expense of the bush.

One Nation calls on the state and federal water ministers to end political grandstanding. Suspend the 450 gigalitre acquisition and provide the funds to complete stage two of the south-east drains restoration project. This is how we get the extra water to open the Murray mouth and finally reverse the last 50 years of environmental damage to the Coorong and lower lakes due to political lies.

Our amazing farmers use their water to help feed and clothe the world. Stop treating them like criminals just to win votes off the Teals and Greens in the city. It doesn’t serve Australia’s best interests to play politics with this water.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community it’s my job to raise issues that matter to constituents. Minister Plibersek has hijacked the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to win votes in the city at the expense of the bush. The minister has just announced a 42 gigalitre buyback of agricultural water—farming water—which is 42,000 million litres of water now, with the threat of another 450 gigalitres in buybacks before 2027. Originally there was never any intention to get the last 450 gigalitres of water, which was only intended to flow out to sea, through buybacks. The water was always supposed to come from measures to reduce water loss from natural and man-made constraints right across the basin.

Justifying the weaponisation of this last 450 gigalitres as the only way to open the Murray mouth is spurious. Flow from the Coorong water system can open the mouth, yet this has not occurred in living memory, because South Australia spent 140 years digging drains to divert surface flow, and with it aquifer flow, away from the Coorong catchment and out to sea. The South Australian government’s south-east drains restoration project is now correcting that mistake at last and last year returned 100 gigalitres to the Coorong.

One Nation calls on the state and federal water ministers to end political grandstanding, to suspend the 450 gigalitre acquisition and to provide funds to complete stage 2 of the south-east drains restoration project, which should eventually return at least double stage 1. This is how we get the extra water to open the Murray mouth and to reverse 50 years of environmental damage to the Coorong and lower lakes due to political lies. Our amazing farmers use their water to feed and clothe the world. Stop treating them like criminals just to win votes off the teals and Greens in the city.

New South Wales State MP Alex Greenwich has introduced two horrific anti-human bills in the NSW parliament. These bills are so bad I had to raise my concerns in a Senate speech.

In 2023 women are becoming simultaneously invisible and exploited. Women’s rights are being removed by the Left under the cover of ‘inclusive’ gender diversity and a ‘progressive’ facade. This attack on femininity is taking the women’s movement backwards, which will come at a terrible cost to our society. When public figures are too cowardly to even define what is a woman, society is in trouble.

In a nutshell, Alex Greenwich proposes legalising sex self-id, making official documents reflect the individual’s self-image rather than biological reality. This undermines the safety of women and girls in female only spaces. He also seeks to fully deregulate prostitution, removing protections for all prostituted persons.

In a bid to make it easier for the gay community to become parents, Alex Greenwich’s proposed bill also seeks to remove bans on commercial surrogacy if it happens outside NSW. Although it’s an understandable goal for gay couples to parent a child, this would make it legal for NSW residents to use foreign baby farms.

Such a bill would encourage the exploitation of poor, vulnerable women. It reduces them to the status of a womb for rent and turns children into products for sale. We’re living through the beginnings of a modern day handmaid’s tale. Bills such as these would remove many of the protections in law women have worked so hard to achieve.

This attack on women’s rights is also an attack on society’s values and religious freedoms. The final thing this bill seeks to introduce is that religious belief will no longer be an acceptable employment criteria for religious schools. If someone from the LGBTIQA+ community wanted to infiltrate a religious school then woe betide that school for turning them down. It’s clear that those responsible for the moral decay of society see Christianity as the resistance and want it destroyed from within.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I draw the Senate’s attention to the New South Wales parliament, where independent MP Alex Greenwich introduced two bills, the Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Bill 2023 and the Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2023. Both bills are anti-women and anti-children. The proposed changes include, firstly, introduction of sex self-ID, allowing anyone to change their legal sex on official documents such as driver’s licence and birth certificate. These documents will no longer represent physical reality; they will show mental self-image. Men will be able to legally identify as women and access female-only spaces including bathrooms, changing rooms, refuges and prisons, undermining the rights and safety of women and girls. Women and children escaping domestic violence will be forced to share emergency accommodation with men. Imagine the additional trauma this will create. A recent Victorian event in Dame Phyllis Frost Correctional Centre shows the danger of these laws. A biological man convicted of violent assaults against women was transferred into a female prison. Female prisoners unsuccessfully petitioned to remove him. A wider public campaign raged for weeks before the transfer was eventually reversed.

Many women in jail have suffered abuse from men that lowers women’s self-esteem and then they go on to drug abuse, crime and illegal behaviour. To TIGA+ campaigners, the mental and physical effect on female inmates from having men in with women seems irrelevant. It appears that many in the TIQA+ community believe women are only to have rights that do not compromise men’s rights.

Secondly, fully deregulated prostitution will remove protections for prostituted persons, mostly women, as well as the wider community. While many may enter this line of work willingly, prostitution is the world’s oldest form of slavery and exploitation. To remove penalty based regulation is an insane idea that will remove the rights of exploited women to enjoy the protection of law. This is despite the global movement to combat, not foster, this abhorrent form of sexual exploitation, violently making women’s bodies commodities.

Thirdly, removing bans on commercial surrogacy if it takes place outside New South Wales, legalising the actions of New South Wales residents using foreign baby farms. This bill will encourage the exploitation and commodification of vulnerable women who will be reduced to the status of a womb for rent, and children reduced to products for sale. This is a modern-day form of human trafficking that’s broadly opposed among human rights defenders. I understand that the homosexual community want to parent a child, and the research on this issue is generally supportive. Yet allowing poor women in Third World countries to be exploited for the benefit of gay couples in the West is an outrage. Women are more than just uterus owners and chest feeders. Women have the right to be protected from exploitation, not to have exploitation enshrined in law.

Fourthly, this bill removes religious protections in current antidiscrimination laws. It will be illegal for religious schools to discriminate against an LGBTIQA+ person, allowing an openly trans person to apply for employment and to prevent discrimination against their employment. Religious belief will no longer be an acceptable employment criteria for religious schools. It seems that people responsible for society’s moral decay see Christianity as resisting that moral decay and therefore they want to destroy Christianity.

Turning to the second bill, the Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2023, this bill criminalises medical professionals and parents trying to help those suffering with gender dysphoria in a way that doesn’t simply affirm a person’s gender identity. As one constituent, a qualified psychologist, said to me recently, ‘If a child presents to me believing they are a giraffe, I must treat them as though they are a giraffe.’ In the TIQA+ world, this masquerades at health care. This bill ignores mounting medical evidence that the affirmation-only approach is causing gender dysphoria, harming children through irreversible medical transitioning leading to shattered lives filled with regret, regrets the 7NEWS Spotlight show brought to mainstream Australia last Sunday.

Women’s Forum Australia has launched a campaign to protect women, children and our community from these harmful measures. One Nation supports that campaign. Every person deserves respect, equality and care under our laws. Alex Greenwich’s measures are counterproductive to these principles. In 2023, women are becoming invisible handmaidens, servants, with their identity as women being taken from them. One Nation stands opposed to this antihuman agenda. (Time expired)