Veterans Ahead of Politics

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Veterans are winning because they’re refusing to stay silent.

Two years after the Royal Commission, too many veterans are still being failed by bureaucracy, delays and broken promises.

I’ve seen firsthand the incredible work being done by veteran-led organisations across Australia. They are saving lives, restoring hope and delivering results while governments drag their feet.

There is no doubt that this progress has come because, after fighting for our country, veterans kept fighting for each other.

One Nation was proud to stand united with Senator Lambie and colleagues across the chamber to put veterans and their needs ahead of politics by voting down the $5,000 cap.

Transcript

We’re winning. On this issue, we are winning, thanks to the veterans who are standing up. Thank you so much. You are winning. I’m honoured to support you. I’m honoured to sign this motion from Senator Lambie. 

Minister, you opened the door, and I thank you for that. But at the moment they’re only words, and words mean nothing. It’s the intent. You can talk about spending billions of dollars, but it’s the intent and the efficiency with which it’s spent. The backlog of claims under your government has increased. Veteran suicides remain so high that government action cannot wait another day. We need to see concrete details. How many vets need to die? I’m feeling a mixture of feelings at the moment, which I’ll get onto in a minute. But let me just read into the Hansard clause (a) of Senator Lambie’s motion that I co-signed: 

notes that today marks two years since the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide handed down its Final Report, yet many veterans and their families continue to face barriers to accessing timely care and support 

That’s one reason I signed this. 

And I have a mixture of feelings. I’m feeling afraid for the vets who are hanging by a thread. I’m feeling downright angry at the same time. I’m feeling sad, I’m feeling grief and I’m feeling shame—shame that we’re part of a parliament that has a history of ignoring veterans. I have all those feelings. But I can’t help the depth of the feelings in veterans at the moment. What do they need? What do we need? We need justice. We’re not getting it. We need fairness. We need truth and honesty—not getting it. And veterans need to be heard. The fact that you’ve accepted this motion and allowed it by leave means we’re winning and we are getting to the point where you are acknowledging indirectly that you’re listening or that you’ve heard. 

This Labor government, like the coalition before it, has taken the position of treating veterans with disrespect and abuse and has failed to provide them with the support they deserve. Why? Because your government is under pressure—self-inflicted pressure: your waste, hypocrisy, deceit. Everyone in Australia can feel the pressure—through inflation, through skimping of services—but we don’t need to include the veterans in that, and that’s what we’re doing. Your self-inflicted waste of taxpayer funds leaves you with the shortage. Now you’re penny pinching—the cap comes in, the spending on DVA decreases this year and then increases in the future—because you’ve got budget pressures that are self-inflicted. Why should the vets pay for that? Why? 

Placing a cap on allied health care will reduce the vital care that many veterans need and deserve. Why should travel be part of the cap? We’ve got Mr Farley in the lower house, representing Farrer, saying that a big portion of the cap is chewed up in his electorate by travel. Why should travel be included? But there are so many other things that I’ll talk about in a minute. 

Veterans have served their country at massive personal risk and massive personal cost. Yet, upon their return or discharge from service, they’ve been ignored and hurt by this Labor government’s penny pinching in the knowledge that their actions abandon their vets. You know this is going on—or maybe you don’t, because listening is not one of your strengths. Is it deliberate? Is it incompetence? Is it dishonesty? Is it fear—running away from issues? The three keys that mark this Albanese Labor government, in my opinion, are dishonesty—we were able to use the word ‘lies’, but we’re not allowed to now—waste and hypocrisy. 

Last week, I had the pleasure and the honour of joining Wounded Heroes in Townsville—a support group that’s received no Commonwealth funding despite the valuable support they’ve provided and continue to provide for our vets. They’re a crisis intervention centre. A veteran calls and says he or she hasn’t got a home. They need medical treatment, they’re about to commit suicide or they talk about one of their mates. Wounded Heroes springs into action. They receive no government funding. They raise money through their own business and through donations. I must give them a plug for the marvellous work they do and point out that they’ve got a fundraising event at Castle Hill in Townsville on the 20th of this month. Government, you’re wasting billions, and you’re not concerned about veterans. Martin and Kim Shaw—Martin turned away from a career as a merchant banker in which he could have made millions, because he was so concerned about veterans. Martin and Kim Shaw; Dave, their manager; the volunteers in their businesses; the volunteers in their op shops—what an amazing group of people. That’s what I call commitment and service. 

It was so refreshing to meet retired Lieutenant General Greg Bilton. He’s retired, and he’s volunteering as the chairman of Wounded Heroes. His eyes were alight as he discussed his love for the military, his love for veterans and the fact that he’s got something really important to do in his life. But the government doesn’t help Wounded Heroes. It does not help Wounded Heroes at all. It’s so refreshing to hear Greg Bilton talking about the inadequacies of the DVA and the inadequacies of the top brass of our military. And there’s some sadness, but he’s alive because he knows he’s contributing. Associated services like Veterans First Consulting—and Kevin Chapman, who I met—are such wonderful people. They’re data driven. 

Speaking of being data driven, I’ve just come from Senator Whitten’s office, where we’ve got two representatives from Trojan’s Trek, Dan and Tim. They’re pushing an evidence based approach to caring for veterans and providing them with the necessary mental and physical health support. Evidence based! That’s something I’ve noticed so much with veterans. As I’ve said before in the Senate, the best conversations I’ve had since being a senator have been with veterans. They’re disciplined and self-disciplined, they can use data, they can speak profoundly well and they’re just basically marvellous people. Trojan’s Trek showed me graphs with data backing them that shows they are indeed taking an evidence based approach. Dan, as he’s talking to me about his own condition, tells me he was told he’d never walk again, but watching a young lady in the gym pounding through weights inspired him, and he’s now living a normal life, but he’s got the evidence. Trojan’s Trek is having success but no funding. So many veterans organisations are having success with no funding. 

Ongoing veteran care is disgracefully underresourced. It’s a blight on the Labor-Liberal coalition uniparty. When they’re in opposition, they promise all the support for veterans. ‘It’s a really shameful approach to the veterans,’ they say the government is taking. But then when they get into government they don’t do anything, correct? They hide, and they forced veterans to jump through hoops to access care for service related injuries and conditions. That’s cruel and heartless. We can have veterans coming up against their allied healthcare cap in a matter of five months into the new financial year, and then they stop. This is what they’re afraid of. They stop, and that interrupts their healing, especially if it’s a mental health treatment, and they fall backwards. This Labor government’s approach and the coalition’s approach before it are a contributing factor to serious mental health issues for many of our returned servicemen and servicewomen. They deserve far better. 

Action needs to be taken now. Stop the delays. Cut the red tape. Cut the crap, and support these vets now by adopting the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. This is not only affecting the vets who have returned from service or been discharged from service. This is affecting the future service of the Defence Force in this country. It’s dramatically affecting retention and recruitment, because it’s eroding the concept of mateship, which is the strategically most important concept in the Australian Defence Force. 

It’s not just the future of the ADF that’s at stake here. It’s the security of 28 million Australians who rely on the ADF for their security. Right now, the Chinese Communist Party would be watching. They can see what I can see. They can see what Senator Lambie can see. They can see what so many veterans can see—the deterioration of our armed forces under the current top brass. They’re spending money for DEI initiatives, money for woke policies, money for transgender. You can’t change gender, but here we are. We’re getting people are getting paid to change gender or claim they’re changing gender and paying for dresses for them. These are warriors. They cannot change their sex. No-one can change their sex. This is happening for two reasons. The senior brass has been politicised, and the senior brass—the defence department, the politicians in Labor and Liberal who’ve been defence ministers and the senior brass-is weak, not providing the right leadership. 

Right now on the other side of the Pacific in the United States, we’ve got an administration that’s calling its soldiers warriors. It’s going well for the members of the military. I’m going to read clause B, the second clause of Senator Lambie’s motion, ‘calls on the Albanese government to urgently implement evidence-based’—your veterans are doing it—’policies and action the accepted recommendations from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, recognising that further delay is placing veterans’ lives and wellbeing at risk’. This is not too much to ask. This is basic respect for veterans who have treated our country with respect. 

In concluding, I take it that, because you’ve accepted this motion, you can see the vets have really put on a very, very strong case in the last few months, and we’re proud to support them. It’s the least we can do. Veterans, you’re winning because these people are allowing us to speak. 

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Labor’s Employment Spin

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Truth be damned with this government!

Labor says the private sector is creating jobs. The numbers tell a different story.

While government-funded employment grows, private businesses are being crushed by rising costs, red tape and net zero policies.

Australians need lower power prices, stronger wages and an economy that rewards productive enterprise, not government dependence.

Labor’s lies aren’t going to pay the bills.

Transcript

I thank Senator Collins for this motion, which One Nation supports. Labor elder Bill Kelty has warned that Australians cannot pay their bills with the Treasurer’s spin. Last week, the Treasurer indulged in spin yet again when he said that six out of seven jobs created during the Albanese government were in the private sector. No, they were not. Seventy per cent of the jobs created under Treasurer Chalmers are in the care economy, which is government funded, not the private sector. This did not stop the Minister for Finance, though, repeating the line yesterday in question time. Truth be damned with you lot! 

The Labor government is running up deficits to directly fund jobs to keep the economy from going into a recession. We are already in a per capita recession! Net zero madness and insane regulations are destroying huge numbers of private sector jobs. Mosaic Brands lost 950 jobs; Fortescue, 700 jobs; and Telstra, another 650 jobs. The Whyalla steelworks lost 600 jobs yesterday, although Minister Bowen’s $1.9 billion handout of taxpayer money to fund a green steel arc furnace powered using weather-dependent solar and wind is still trying. Taxpayers can kiss that money goodbye. The Tomago smelter stood to lose 1,000 jobs until the government bailed them out with $2.5 billion of taxpayers’ money to secure heavily subsidised, expensive power in the Hunter. It’s a shame local residents didn’t get the same deal. They’re really struggling from high electricity prices and high petrol prices, after the Labor government reversed the fuel excise cut and put fuel up 32c a litre yesterday. 

Under Treasurer Chalmers, Australian wages have gone backwards by five per cent. Headline inflation is at three per cent and rising, outpacing wage rises, forcing mortgage rates up and trapping many people who signed up for the Treasurer’s five per cent deposit scheme in negative equity. ‘Spin’ doesn’t come close to expressing the anger everyday Australians are feeling towards the Albanese government. 

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Australia’s Manufacturing Future

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Australian retail and manufacturing are in the grip of a severe crisis, marked by a recent wave of business collapses, including Cue, Veronika Maine, Lincraft and Barbeques Galore. There has also been a sharp rise in retrenchments – over 257,000 in the 12 months prior to February 2026.

Unemployment has risen to 4.5%, record numbers of businesses are facing insolvency, and hundreds of thousands of Australians are either unemployed or underemployed and are struggling financially.

Planned immigration is expected to increase job competition and financial strain, and many employed citizens are now relying on government assistance, creating a population dependent on the state.

Government bailouts for manufacturing, such as the Tomago smelter and the former car industry, are temporary measures that ultimately precede the end of local production.

We don’t need cheap labour to manufacture in Australia. What is needed is capital, proximity to raw materials – and cheap energy that is not reliable on the weather.

We have $4.5 trillion sitting in superannuation funds looking for safe, profitable investments. We ship our iron ore and coal to China and India, only to buy the finished steel back because unreliable energy policies have crippled our heavy industry. The closure of our steel mills and smelters means hundreds of Australian jobs lost – all caused by successive governments choosing ideology over enterprise.

American industry is moving manufacturing back home by securing cheap power. If they can do it, so can we.

Transcript

I thank Senator Blyth for this matter of urgency, which One Nation supports. Last night I read a list of large job losses from the last few months here in Australia. Today there’s one more to add. The retailer Cue, or Veronika Maine, has now gone into receivership. They may be saved, and I hope for the sake of their 69 stores and hundreds of people that they are. Other retailers in administration or liquidation recently include Betts, Lincraft, Barbeques Galore, Aussie Disposals, Stateside Sports, AH Beard, Harold’s and regional retailer Proud Poppy. These are names familiar to all Australians. I’ve shopped at them. This is personal. These are people in their communities that are now out of work. 

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in the 12 months prior to February 2026, nationwide retrenchments rose to 257,900 people. That is more than a quarter of a million people—Australians who no longer have a job, families without a breadwinner. Every community is suffering. Every retailer is feeling it. Unemployment has risen under the Albanese government from 3.4 per cent to 4.5 per cent. This follows on from the 14,152 business insolvencies last financial year—the second highest on record after the all-time high of 14,700 recorded under Treasurer Chalmers the year before. Australians having a go to provide for themselves and people we know in our communities keeping our local shops in business? No longer. There are 691,500 Australians without a job and looking for one. 

Another million Australians on top of that are working and not getting all the hours they need to keep their heads above water. Imagine how hard that will be with another one million planned new arrivals to compete with thanks to Labor’s mass immigration program. Those still with jobs are increasingly classified as the working poor, dependent on government handouts to survive, which is exactly how totalitarian governments throughout time have wanted their citizens: desperate, broke and totally reliant on government. The bailout offered to keep Tomago aluminium smelter in business will, in my experience, only be temporary. Labor and the Liberals did the same thing with the Australian car industry. Remember when we made cars? Remember all those union jobs? Subsidies were used to keep the car industry alive long enough to transition from local manufacturing to a fully imported supply chain. Then the subsidies ended. They were pulled. 

With modern, computerised, AI driven automated assembly lines, cost-efficient manufacturing is possible here in Australia and has been for years. Modern manufacturing does not need cheap labour. It needs proximity to raw materials, which we have, and capital to build our facilities. We have $4.5 trillion in capital stored in superannuation funds looking for profitable, safe investments. It needs a regulatory environment to free up that investment. A One Nation government will deliver that. 

American industry has worked all this out. In the last few years, Apple, GE, Samsung, General Motors, Eli Lilly, Intel and Micron have all moved manufacturing back to the United States. Why? Because they’re on a track back to cheap power. If they can do it, so can we. Of course, this does need steel, and this Labor government just allowed our steel mill in Whyalla to close, with 600 jobs lost. That’s 600 jobs gone. That’s another heavy industry facility where subsidies were used as a bridge to allow the plant to be hollowed out and then replaced with imports. The LIBERTY Bell Bay manganese smelter closed in July—another 250 jobs gone. Instead of encouraging investment in manufacturing and heavy industry to bring jobs home, this government is growing the Chinese economy. When did unions stop worrying about Australian workers and start cheering on the Chinese Communist Party? Or was the $15 billion ripped out of Victoria’s Big Build a pay-off for silence? Who knows? 

India is emerging as a major source of steel, using iron ore and coal. Where do they get theirs? Oh, that’s right! They get their iron ore and coal from Australia, of course. Australian workers are wondering how it could be possible to ship iron ore from Western Australia and coal from New South Wales and Queensland to China and India, make the steel using automated production and then ship it back here. I’ll tell you. It’s a one-word answer—energy. It turns out weather-dependent-power windmills can’t sustain manufacturing and heavy industry and can’t sustain an economy. This government’s insistence on advancing ideology over enterprise is costing everyday Australians their jobs, their homes, their marriages, their families and their dignity. The next election can’t come soon enough. 

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A Gift to Crime Gangs

The message couldn’t be clearer – high tobacco taxes are a gift to organised crime.

Why won’t the government listen?

Cut the tobacco excise and put criminals out of business.

Transcript | Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Shopping Centre Council of Australia

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing today. You have both been pretty comprehensive in your comments and your submissions. Could you tell me briefly and in detail about some of the solutions that your members are advocating and that you would like to pass on. Especially, do they have any comments or much comment about cutting excise rates in legal tobacco?  

Mr Nardi: As per our principal recommendation in our submission, the key solution from our role in helping to address illicit tobacco trade is ensuring that all jurisdictions have strong and effective closure order and lease termination powers, and that ultimately means that any landlord is just given that express right to terminate a lease with being immune from any damages or the tenant having any mediation rights, just so that tenant can be moved on and we can actually lease the premises to someone else and get on with our business. That’s our principal solution that we are commending to the committee.  

Ms Bitsis: We certainly don’t disagree with Angus on that point, but, to the substance of your question around excise, there is a particular situation here in Victoria relating not just to tobacco anymore but also to alcohol. We did recommend in our submission that excise rates are looked at, and we have done that really as a means by which we can address the significant penetration of organised crime into both of these industries and the impact that is having on the business community, which I have just outlined in terms of what those costs are.  

Senator ROBERTS: Let me just clarify and maybe summarise. High excise rates on tobacco and alcohol create fertile ground for illegal businesses’ crime. Is that correct?  

Ms Bitsis: From our perspective, the evidence of that is very clear now in Victoria, unfortunately.  

Senator ROBERTS: I appreciate your clarity. Thank you, Chair. 

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One Nation’s Immigration Policy

One Nation are committed to a net-negative migration plan during the first three years of a One Nation administration.

We will slash over 750,000 temporary visas.

Because of how broken the current system is, a period of adjustment is necessary.

Every day Aussies are having to grapple with the consequences of mass migration. Consequences that the career politicians running the country are entirely insulated from.

One Nation are determined to end mass migration.

There is only one party in Australia with credibility on this issue.

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Fair Trade, Not Free Trade

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Let’s talk about the EU-Australia Free Trade Agreement. One Nation supports fair trade, not free trade. This agreement is a sellout driven by globalists in Labor, the Greens, and the Teals.

This Agreement “sneaks” in powers over climate, gender, and social policy, bypassing our Constitution and giving foreign, “woke” NGOs (like George Soros’s Open Society Foundations) power to monitor Australian businesses.

It wipes out $1.5 billion in Australian tariffs, lets foreign companies bid on equal terms for government contracts and bans our producers from using traditional names like “feta.”

It also targets essential diesel fuel refunds for farmers and miners, mislabelling them as “subsidies.”

While Labor keeps the public in the dark about the details of this deal, One Nation’s stance is clear: Australians must decide our own future.

We need to exit foreign agreements like UN Net Zero and the Paris Accord, cut the fuel excise in half, impose a royalty on gas exports and protect our local industries.

Transcript

We’re living rent free in the Labor Party’s head. All you can hear from the Labor Party is, ‘One Nation this, One Nation that,’ because they lost voters to One Nation in the South Australian election. 

Getting back to the topic, the EU has published the European side of the free trade agreement between Europe and Australia. One Nation does not support free trade; we support fair trade. Past agreements make us right because they’re hurting Australia. This agreement still must go before the joint standing committee on trade and tariffs and then the parliament. Given Labor, teals and Greens are full of globalists, I’m certain it will pass after a period of theatre to pretend it’s being scrutinised when it is not. Scrutiny is important. 

This agreement creates a raft of new measures around sustainable development, gender equality—what’s that got to do with a trade agreement? We get woke, they get cheap products—environmental and climate matters, and responsible business conduct. Including these in this agreement means the federal government is giving itself powers it has never had before and which are effectively an end run around our Constitution. They want to get around our Constitution. The agreement also offers civil society organisation an active role to monitor the implementation of the entire agreement, opening up scrutiny of the Australian government and Australian companies to people like George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. Wow. 

The agreement will remove almost all Australian tariffs on European Union products, at a cost of $1.5 billion. In return, the EU is scrapping tariffs on some Australian goods, value unknown. We hear the Labor party extolling the virtues of this agreement, yet they won’t tell us the details. Australia will allow European Union companies to tender on an equal footing with local companies for contracts with 60 government entities. Equal footing with Australian companies? Come on! To Labor, an Australian does not deserve any special treatment over a European. Good to know. 

The agreement regulates Australian producers’ ability to use the real names of 300 products, including feta cheese, which can still be called feta if the Australian producer has been calling it feta for five years; otherwise they have to change the name. The public are going to be so confused. Some feta will be feta; other feta won’t be feta. 

From the agreement: 

The EU and Australia recognise that certain subsidies may distort the proper functioning of markets and to that end agreed that in principle no subsidies that negatively affect competition or trade should be granted. 

They’re talking about the refund farmers and miners get on the road tax components of their diesel machines where these machines are not used driving on roads; they are used outside of that. This includes tractors, cool rooms, milking machines and so on. These are not subsidies; they’re refunds. 

This agreement gives the government huge new powers, sells out the bush, allows woke organisations powers over the Australian government and corporations and creates a whole new world of woke governance. Will it make the lives of everyday Australians better? No, of course not. The Labor party do not cover for you; they govern for woke foreign agendas. 

I want to make a few more points. The European Union commissioner was here to sell the free trade agreement just two days ago. She’s here to sell it, but we still don’t know the details, because the Labor Party is excluding them from public reach. Why? Because the government won’t release the detail. 

By the way, people may not know that the same minister for Labor pushing this free trade agreement is pushing something else. He’s pushing an extra 45 federal politicians at taxpayer expense. Expand the Senate, expand the House of Representatives. We’re opposing that too. We don’t need any more politicians; we need fewer politicians in Canberra. They’re pushing that for their own benefit. 

One Nation’s position is clear. Australians decide what we do, not unelected Brussels bureaucrats. We need to abolish UN net zero. We need to get out of the UN Paris Agreement and the UN Kyoto protocol. We support fair trade, not free trade. European Union and American farmers are subsidised heavily. We need to protect our farmers from exposure to free trade because it’s not free except in one way, and that’s hurting Australia. One Nation will cut the fuel excise in half and impose a royalty on export gas at last. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Polley): The time for the discussion has expired. 

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Rejecting All Extremism

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One Nation calls out all forms of extremism.

One Nation rejects all radicals who seek to divide Australians, whether they come from the Left or the Right.

Let me be clear – we do not reject Australians who proudly identify with their nation and want to preserve our sovereignty, freedoms and culture. That’s patriotism, not extremism.

Australia belongs to ordinary Australians, not ideological activists.

Young Australians deserve better than to be exploited and radicalised by political movements. They deserve leaders willing to confront extremism wherever it appears, not politicians who turn a blind eye when it suits them.

One Nation won’t look away.

We will call out extremism in all its forms. Even when it’s not politically convenient.

https://youtu.be/VyUV3LpKll0

Transcript

Immigration is the question of our generation. How we answer it will determine what sort of Australia moves into the next era. The majority of Australians believe we’re headed for disaster—at least half want immigration paused entirely. Will we continue to be a Western democracy with European roots, with Western Anglo-Celtic heritage and Aboriginal cultures, and a robust dedication to principles of freedom, faith, enterprise, democracy, fairness and equality? Are we to retain the echo of Christian values in our laws and culture? Young people are the ones preparing to live in the Australia that we leave behind. Many fear the character of Australian is being lost under the dual forces of mass immigration and multiculturalism, creating resentment and anger. To be put last in your own country is a crime. 

The government’s digital duty of care is an assault on democracy, attempting to brand One Nation as radical, fringe or even dangerous would bring us under the pending social media duty of care bill. It’s Orwellian. It’s a self-defence reflex from parties with no idea of how to fix their plummeting polls. Why else have those opposite branded us populists if it weren’t for the unpopularity of their party? A populist, simply described, is a politician who accepts our role to serve the people. The Left spit the word ‘populist’ out of their mouths like poison; I quite like the taste. 

When was the last time Anthony Albanese and Angus Taylor spent the week on public transport? Have they ever feared for their safety, coming home at night or sitting on a packed bus without a single word of English? Anthony Albanese purchased a cliff-top mansion. Does he know what it’s like to stand in line behind 50 people for a rental, knowing the process is hopeless? 

Young people’s lives are getting smaller, poorer, lonelier and more foreign. This is not integration; it’s abandonment. The emergence of lost, angry and disillusioned young people is not a surprise; it’s inevitable. Many have been swooped up and radicalised into communist, socialist and Islamist aligned movements. From cradle to degree, they fed a lie that protesting is the same as productivity. No-one is coming to rescue them because their outrage is useful for government policy.  

Existential terror about the planet helps keep Canberra able to give green grants to big business and foreigners and creates thankyou jobs for politicians who wrote their Green election slogans with the tears of children. Many young people have achieved spiritual purpose from being part of something grand—a literal fight against supposed evil, without understanding the historical horrors of the movements they’ve joined. Activist ringleaders exploit the emotional vulnerability of futureless young people to manipulate them into being ideological soldiers. And they’re not the only extremists employing this abuse. The Neo-Nazis do it too.  

One Nation disavows all radicalism. We oppose it even at the cost of votes. These groups are not welcome. When it comes to handling extremism, plenty of ministers in Canberra have turned a blind eye to children calling for the murder of Pauline Hanson, violence against One Nation supporters and for conservatives to be imprisoned. This is radicalisation. Why have senior Labor ministers wrongly tried to imply this radicalisation is justified instead of showing moral leadership? Tell the young that these violent and fascist slogans shouted at their rallies are wrong. Left-wing activism is not harmless. Soon these children will hold a majority vote. How will Labor address the rising violence on the Left when you refuse to stand up against it now? Are you afraid you’ll lose an election? Is that how cheaply your conscience is bought?  

One Nation has no such cowardice. Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, nationalists and ethno-nationalist exist in this country. We disavow them completely. They stand in opposition to everything One Nation believes. These groups are a gut punch to the story of Australia, as is the growth in numbers of communists, socialists, Marxists, decolonisers and Islamists. We have racial land, racial taxes, racial privilege and racial parliaments all in violation of our founding principles. That’s extremism. 

There’s a growing sea of angry, radicalised young people in this country who know nothing of where their own rhetoric leads. Instead of helping them, Labor and the Greens are preying on them. Last week, I rang the alarm in a Spectator article against those conservatives who are in danger of manipulation and violence from extremists. Since then, I’ve been threatened repeatedly. That’s why I’m now doubling down. My challenge to all sides of politics is to stand up against extremism in all its forms. If you won’t, you have no moral justification for attacking One Nation, who are calling out extremism in all its ugly forms. 

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Veterans: 1, Labor: 0

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Labor tried to cap veterans’ healthcare at an arbitrary $5,000 limit. We fought back and we’re winning.

I stood with veterans, serving ADF members, Senator Lambie and colleagues across the Senate to oppose Labor’s healthcare caps. Veterans should never have to fight bereaucracy for treatment they need and deserve.

This bill puts veterans first by removing unfair barriers to healthcare and ensuring treatment decisions are made by clinicians, not Canberra bean counters.

Our veterans served us. Now it’s our turn to serve them.

Transcript

Senator Roberts This bill will ensure that eligible veterans can access treatment for accepted service related injuries and conditions based on their clinical needs rather than on the arbitrary monetary or numerical limits that this uncaring Labor government was trying to introduce. The Senate amended the government’s statute update bill last week, yet, in the House, the government deferred it. That was a big middle finger to vets, to serving ADF and to all Australians, in fact. 

The budget cuts that drove this were short-term budget cuts because of Labor’s waste. They cut veterans services and other services around the country, and they increased tax, because Labor’s waste is driving high expenditure, high spending. The people pay—always the people pay—directly or indirectly. As other senators have mentioned this morning, we are winning. The vets are winning. Thank you for your strong advocacy to the veterans. I also thank Senator Lambie for this bill and thank all senators who support it and who are supporting this campaign from the vets. Thank you. As Senator Pocock said, it is amazing what can be done when we take a united stand. 

The Labor policy driving this unfortunate situation arose out of the recent Labor budget designed to steal from and punish Australians. This bill establishes that an entitlement to treatment must not be subject to a predetermined and arbitrary limit on the cost of treatment, pitched at $5,000, being the total amount that may be spent during a particular period, or the number of times a treatment may be accessed. In David Farley’s seat, where he is representing the seat of Farrer in southern New South Wales, and across Queensland—we have some very large electorates. Vets have to travel for treatment, and the travel eats up this $5,000 limit. 

Early in my listening to serving and retired Australian Defence Force personnel and veterans during the last 10 years, I became deeply concerned about veterans not being adequately cared for under the previous government and under this government. I raised my concerns with the proposed cap at Senate estimates hearings, where it became apparent that Labor’s proposition was not thought through and had raised the levels of anxiety of returned veterans or the already vulnerable to those thoughtless threats to their receipt of treatment. 

Veterans already have a very high suicide rate that should not be exacerbated under threats of withdrawal of support. I was told that the bureaucrats in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs had developed no objective criteria to determine if funding beyond the proposed cap might be approved—none—nor had they determined what processes may be required to extend the cap nor had they developed what evidence they may need to establish a case for increased funding. No appeals processes had been created—none. That’s why there was a limit. It’s just an arbitrary slashing of care. It was not clear why this attack on veterans was devised, and I believe penny pinching was a contributing factor. It is, seemingly, the major driver.  

If issues of fraud or financial abuse are of concern, there already exist measures that can be taken to address these problems. I was told that, historically, approximately 10 per cent of veterans entitled to treatment have needed allied health care that would cost more than the $5,000 limit. This is thousands of veterans. Why punish these vets, making them jump through hoops in order to receive the care that they genuinely need and that their practitioners tell them they genuinely need? How disgusting it is to try to treat vets on the cheap with such disrespect.  

Many very distraught veterans and representative groups have approached me directly, seeking support to oppose the proposed cuts in support. I do support this bill, and I am pleased to see that the crossbench is pulling together on this worthy remedial exercise. How the Labor government could even come up with this punitive idea in the face of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide is beyond comprehension.  

Our veterans represent the best of our Australian community. The vast and overwhelming majority of veterans are honest Aussies who have genuine need for clinically identified health problems. The government is happy to send them off to fight for our freedoms, yet treats them so poorly and with disrespect—sometimes with disdain and neglect—on their return. Many of these veterans come home vulnerable and in need of nurturing care and support. They do not need to face barriers and hurdles, nor should they have to fight to receive the necessary support and treatment. This does not need to be done on the cheap or, worse, with deceit. Many of our vets have given their all and deserve to be treated well, not in a system based on minimum or even token support, with massive red tape which they have to cut, hack and slash their way through.  

This bill removes potential barriers, financial and administrative, to veterans’ access to allied health care, supporting improved health and wellbeing of our veterans, and I must say it’s well written. I call on my colleagues in the Senate and those members in the other house to support this bill as a matter of respect for those veterans deserving of the support this bill will ensure. Veterans and ADF members have served 28 million Australians and have provided us with security. We need to thank veterans with sincere care.

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Feeding the Illicit Trade

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Cheap illicit tobacco keeps smoking rates alive – and the Health Department confirmed it.

They admitted that illicit cigarettes are cheaper because they avoid excise, and that cheap cigarettes encourage people to smoke.

When criminals flood the market with excise-free cigarettes, people keep smoking. It’s that simple.

Yet the government refuses to reduce the tobacco excise, clinging to the claim that high prices are the key to lowering smoking rates.

Make that make sense.

Transcript

CHAIR: Thank you very much. Senator Roberts.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing today. We are all agreed that smoking is very, very harmful to human health. Let’s put that aside. We are not agreed that the low price that people face when it comes to buying tobacco illicitly is overwhelmingly attractive to people. We know of policemen and policewomen and public servants who are buying illicit tobacco. The barriers to entry are very small. How much do you allocate to the quit smoking campaign? Isn’t it true that in recent years the decline in smoking rates has stopped and it’s been flat in Australia? It’s continuing to decline in other countries but it is flat in Australia.  

Ms Clancy: Thank you for your question, Senator. I will take the second part first, if I may, and then come back to the first part. Smoking prevalence has trended downwards over three decades, with some occasional flattening or plateaus as we go. Recent studies have shown that this decline continues. Our highest quality data is brought out every three years. At the moment, our most recent is 2022 data. One in 10 adults, 10.6 per cent, were current daily smokers. That is a steady decline from 22.4 per cent in 2001. More recent national representative estimates support this trend. In 2022-23, 8.3 per cent of people aged 14 and over smoked daily. In 2023, approximately one in 10, 10.8 per cent of representative adults, were current daily smokers in the HILDA study, which is a slightly different cut or set of data. The next high-quality data release will be at the end of this year, which will look at 2025 rates. We are very much anticipating those rates and will use those to tweak our policy settings as necessary. There are also a number of other data sources we use in the intervening years that tend to show that we’re still on a downward trajectory, although we are concerned. Our job is to be concerned about smoking rates.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I agree with you that the data shows that, over decades, smoking rates did decline. But the data I’ve seen shows a graph that clearly shows that in the last few years it has been flat, whereas in other countries it has continued declining. How much is budgeted for the quit smoking campaign? How much has been paid?  

Ms Brown: I don’t have the expenditure amounts here. The government has committed, since 2023-24, $78.7 million over a four-year period. That’s invested in the Give up for Good smoking, vaping and tobacco public health campaigns. That’s at the Commonwealth level. As I mentioned in relation to other measures, there are also campaigns implemented through the states and territories to varying levels.  

Senator ROBERTS: Is the total spending around about half a billion dollars over four years, the total projected spending? 

Ms Brown: On the campaign, no, Senator.  

Senator ROBERTS: On all the campaigns.  

Ms Brown: I am not sure that the Commonwealth has the total figure of investment in all campaigns across all states and territories. The federal government has committed $78.7 million over four years, since 2023-24.  

Senator ROBERTS: Do you agree that the low price of cigarettes through the illicit tobacco industry makes it attractive to smoke?  

Ms Clancy: We know that price is a determinant of whether people smoke and how much they smoke.  

Senator ROBERTS: Is the driver of the cheap price of illicit tobacco the fact that it is illicit tobacco and is not paying excess?  

Ms Clancy: Sorry; can you repeat the question?  

Senator ROBERTS: Is the driver of low priced illicit tobacco the fact that it is escaping paying any excise, so we have very low priced cigarettes illicitly?  

Ms Clancy: Yes.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.  

Ms Clancy: Criminals are bringing tobacco into the country without paying the excise they should pay and therefore their products are cheaper.  

Senator ROBERTS: We have got, as Senator Colbeck tried to establish, a low-price cigarette/tobacco industry; it’s illicit but it’s still there.  

Ms Clancy: Yes, illicit tobacco is available and it is evading the excise.  

Senator ROBERTS: It makes it very attractive to smoke because the price is low. This is an issue for the department of health in terms of preventing people smoking, because it is encouraging people to smoke because of illicit tobacco.  

Ms Clancy: Cheap cigarettes do encourage people to smoke. We, along with all of our partner agencies in the Commonwealth and the states and territories, are looking at a range of measures—some of which you’ve heard about this morning and in previous hearings—to tackle the illicit market and reduce their ability to sell in this country.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. These questions are for the ATO. The revenue decrease has been around about three-quarters of the revenue it was a few years ago, which is a big impact on the ATO revenue and a big impact on the people. Could you walk us all through the process of how the excise rate is set and particularly what is the minister’s role? Do you consult the department of health?  

Ms Hawkins: Thank you for the question. As I mentioned earlier, the excise rate is legislated through government. A change would be a policy issue for Treasury. That is set and then the ATO’s role is to administer it. It’s important to recognise, though, that it’s been illegal to grow or manufacture tobacco in Australia without a licence. There are no current licences. What that means is that all tobacco sold in Australia that’s legal is imported. As such, there is actually no excise collected on domestic tobacco. The Department of Home Affairs is responsible for the administration of the Customs Act and the Customs Tariff Act, from which customs duty is applied to imported tobacco at rates which are equivalent to excise duty. It is a policy issue. It is legislated through government and it is not a rate that is determined by the ATO.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for that clarification. That’s understood. Could you tell me what consultation is asked of the ATO? Do you provide advice in that process? What is your role in the process of developing the excise rate? You don’t have responsibility for it. I accept that’s the government and the Treasury. But how do you get involved in that? Do you get involved in it? Are you concerned about losing $12 billion in tax revenue?  

Ms Hawkins: The ATO are involved in that discussion, when it comes to Treasury, in providing any input that they seek from us, but we do not have direct control over what that rate is set at. We are always open to providing information, as requested, and being part of discussions where we can provide intelligence or information that would be useful in the process.  

Senator ROBERTS: What advice have you given over the last four years?  

Ms Hawkins: There was a question which I took on notice previously which was asking about whether the ATO was in direct discussions with regard to where the excise rate landed. I said I would take that on notice because I am not privy to, at that point in time, exactly what discussion we would have contributed to. I am more than happy to take that on notice. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Could you specifically mention in the answer on notice the advice that the ATO has given to the government. I understand that the government sets the excise rate. Could you give us the advice you’ve given to the government?  

Ms Hawkins: I am happy to take that on notice.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. 

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The Social Media Ban Illusion

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During this session with the Office of the eSafety, I requested an updated, detailed breakdown of the Commissioner’s overseas trips, including destination countries, separate trip counts and specific cities and dates for travel to the United States – which was taken on notice.

I then turned to the March 2026 compliance update that states that 4.7 million (now 5 million) accounts have been deactivated, pointing out that these likely included bots, orphaned profiles and inactive accounts rather than active users.

Despite repeated questioning, the eSafety officials admitted they do not know how many of those closed accounts belonged to actively engaged Australian children, relying instead on self-reported figures from tech platforms under compulsory notices without verifying if the accounts were dormant.

Citing public reports and industry feedback, including data showing 70% of children aged 10 to 16 are still on social media and criticism from platforms like Meta, I highlighted that the ban is largely failing to stop workarounds and bypasses.

While the Commissioner defended the figures as a useful baseline for harm reduction and pointed to a 37% overall drop in young people holding accounts, I maintain that “stating” millions of deactivated accounts misleads the public when the eSafety office cannot prove how many active under-16 users were actually removed.

— May | Senate Estimates

Transcript

CHAIR: We will keep going with the eSafety Commissioner. Senator Roberts.  

Senator ROBERTS: Moving on to travel, in previous estimates, I asked how many overseas trips the eSafety Commissioner had undertaken and I received reply SQ25-002143. This shows 22 destination countries including Canada, France, Switzerland, Ireland, Japan, United States, Germany, Italy and the list goes on. This answer, though, does not say how many trips to these destinations were made. Please update this reply on notice for recent trips and indicate for all destinations how many separate trips were made to each destination. In the case of the United States, please indicate cities visited and dates. 

Ms Inman Grant: Sure. I’m happy to take that on notice, but I try and hit as many places on one flight as possible.  

Senator ROBERTS: I note your March 2026 compliance update is still talking about the 4.7 million accounts that were deactivated at the time the under-16 ban started. I would suggest these were accounts that tech firms, preparing for the introduction, were shutting down for being mostly bot and orphaned accounts. Since you’re still claiming the win, let me ask: can you tell me how many of those 4.7 million accounts were confirmed as an active account of an Australian child under 16?  

Ms Inman Grant: There have been 300,000 subsequent accounts that have been restricted or deactivated, so a total of five million. If it gives you any comfort, it’s not like I pulled out a piece of scrap paper and wrote down a bunch of numbers.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m not suggesting that.  

Ms Inman Grant: These numbers are provided by the companies themselves through legally enforceable notices. As I mentioned earlier, we’re sending out subsequent data notices. We are interrogating those numbers to make sure that they accord with what we’re seeing through our various tools. We’ll be asking additional questions. Where our real focus is now—that was really the low-hanging fruit when we deactivated and restricted the known under 16s at that time. What we really need them to focus on is preventing any sort of reregistration or circumvention of the systems that they have in place, and, certainly, we want them over time looking at much stronger sign-up restrictions so that they’re not continuing to attract or trying to attract tweens, in particular, between the ages of eight and 12. One of the platforms said in discovery documents that tweens have a herd mentality. They said, ‘We should try and get them locked in as early as possible, so we have customers for life.’  

Senator ROBERTS: You didn’t answer my question. I asked: how many were active accounts of an Australian child under 16? It tells me that you don’t really know because the numbers were what you were told by the tech platforms.  

Ms Inman Grant: Right. We’re asking—  

Senator ROBERTS: You don’t know?  

Ms Inman Grant: We’re asking some deeper questions about the nature of those accounts. Is there anything you’d like to add, Ms Snell?  

Ms Snell: I think what we can add to that is to say that there were accounts that were registered as being held by an Australian end user under 16. That was the basis on which the platforms took action to restrict access to those. We don’t have a breakdown of how recently those accounts have been used and whether, for example, they were dormant or not. But I think what’s important to understand there is just because an account hadn’t recently been active is not to mean that the owner or user of that account couldn’t start using it again. Part of the intention of this law and all of the regulations that eSafety enforces is it’s a proactive protection. That’s about making sure that kids under 16 don’t start using these harmful services.  

Senator ROBERTS: The point is you do not know how many accounts of under 16-year-old children were shut down. Here’s an article from Tech Guide by Stephen Fenech, ‘After 100 days of the Under 16 social media ban the verdict is in—it’s a massive failure’. The article says, ‘Seventy per cent of Australians aged between 10 and 16 are still on social media platforms.’ It goes on to say: Snapchat reported it had closed down more than 415,000 accounts with its own age detection technology but parents, teens and experts are all saying it is easily and routinely bypassed— we’ve heard that a lot too— A poll on X showed 45 per cent of respondents said their child had found a workaround to the ban with a further 34 per cent saying the ban has had no impact at all. In this sample, eight out of 10 parents says there is no effective enforcement of the social media ban. Then it goes on to say: Meta—the platform that owns Instagram and Facebook—also shared its feed back after 100 days of Australia’s social media ban. “Australia had the opportunity to set a single, accurate standard for age assurance across the whole app ecosystem,” Meta said in a statement. “Instead, the Government chose a patchwork approach that’s inconsistent across services and risks pushing young people towards less regulated, less safe corners of the internet— that’s exactly what we said would happen— “If the goal is genuinely safer, age-appropriate experiences, we believe the best option is to raise the bar across the entire ecosystem and give parents a simple, consistent point of control— that’s exactly what we said before it was applied— “App-store level age assurance is the practical path that Australia missed.” Those are some comments. 

Ms Inman Grant: Sure. There was a lot there but let me say this is a pretty typical playbook I’ve seen many times before. The platform that doesn’t want to be regulated says that the third-party technology that they’re using isn’t efficacious, even though it’s already been tested, and it’s not getting better, so they blame the policy or they blame the regulatory guidance. They then say it should be somebody else’s responsibility to age-gate our platform. We don’t tolerate that in the real world. This would be like a bar or a pub saying, ‘Carding a child at the door is not our responsibility. We should make the brewery or the wholesale manufacturer be responsible for them getting into the bar.’ You own the risky environment. You need to own that space. Where I agree is there are things that we can and should be doing up and down the stack to help give these platforms more signals, and that’s particularly what Apple’s age range API does. Interestingly, some of the companies have taken it up and some have not. I think it’s also interesting to note you mentioned Meta, and I think they put in their blog that they had deactivated about 554,000 accounts. They were asked in court in New Mexico because they told the New Mexican government they couldn’t deactivate accounts for New Mexicans. The court pointed to the fact that in their own blog they said they were able to do this. I take a little bit of that with a grain of salt. The 70 per cent number that you mentioned came from our public compliance report and that’s accurate. Seventy per cent of kids who were on Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube were still on, and, in many cases, they were never even asked to age verify. That is precisely why we’re taking on and looking more closely at those five particular companies because what we have seen, in terms of our data, is the number of young people holding under-16 accounts on social media has decreased by 37 per cent. If you think about any other public health movement over a three-month period, that’s a very impressive reduction, and this is what we’re going for. We’re not just looking at numbers; we’re looking at realistic harm reduction. That goes alongside the reduction of young people on these platforms. That’s a really important measure, not the initial—obviously it’s impressive that those initial accounts were deactivated, but the test for the companies right now, and whether they’re continuing to improve and live up to the reasonable steps, is whether they’re preventing them from re-entering and reregistering their platforms to let them back on.  

Senator ROBERTS: With respect, there were parents quoted, surveys quoted and big tech platforms quoted. I remember all of the Apollo moonshots had a quote that was their guiding theme, and one of them was: ‘In God we trust. All others bring data.’ You are giving me no data. You’ve had three chances. You’ve given me no data that tells me anything about the number of active accounts shut down.  

Ms Inman Grant: How much does it matter to the ultimate goal of the policy which is to keep children off social media accounts?  

Senator ROBERTS: It goes to your statement that 4.7 million accounts were deactivated at the time the ban started.  

Ms Inman Grant: Yes, and we stand behind that to the extent—  

Senator ROBERTS: But they’re not active.  

Ms Inman Grant: Pardon me?  

Senator ROBERTS: They’re not active. You don’t know that. You trusted the tech platforms. You said that you didn’t have the data and you don’t know.  

Ms Snell: Can I just say, on that, that the data we have and the number of accounts the platforms have advised us—whilst you say we trust the platforms, they provided that information to us under compulsory notices. There was a penalty for them if they didn’t respond to those notices; they all did respond. There was also a criminal offence if they provided false or misleading information. At the moment we have no evidence to suggest the information they provided was false or misleading. But we also accept there are still kids on platforms, and we are concerned with the platforms’ compliance. That’s why we have ongoing investigations where we are interrogating the platforms and the steps they are taking to determine whether they are complying with the law.  

Senator ROBERTS: The commissioner told me that the tech platforms have provided the number. There’s no way you can check to see which were active. You don’t know how many active accounts were shut down. 

Mr Fleming: The legislation asks platforms to prohibit under-16s from being on that platform. It doesn’t mention active or inactive users. That’s data that is not necessarily needed for the purposes of compliance.  

Senator ROBERTS: If you’re talking about 4.7 million accounts being deactivated at the time, the public would take that as 4.7 million under-16-year-old children have had their internet accounts deactivated. That’s not what it means at all.  

Ms Inman Grant: It’s important to go back—and we can provide you further information on notice. These numbers weren’t totally plucked out of thin air. We worked with the platforms using our section 20 transparency powers a year prior to this coming into place, to ask them to give us a realistic estimate of how many under-16s they had on their accounts there. We did some of our own youth research, and we triangulated those—it was a multimethod type study. The numbers they provided us are not out of the realm of what we expected, based on that earlier set of research and transparency data. If you look at the regulatory guidance and what we’ve asked the companies to do, the first thing we asked them to do—again, the low-hanging fruit—was, ‘Let’s just start by getting rid of the under-16 accounts you know exist.’ Some of them may have been deactivated, some of them may be live, some of them may have been double. But the important part of taking the reasonable steps is exactly what Mr Fleming said: we’re trying to reduce the number of under-16s that have and hold accounts on social media. That is the measure, and then there is the harms reduction that that affords them by not being exposed to the harmful and deceptive design features on these social media platforms. I don’t want to get caught up on those particular numbers because they give us a baseline, but we’ve moved on in terms of what we’re looking at with respect to compliance and lifting that compliance.  

Senator ROBERTS: It doesn’t matter how many times you say it; the 4.7 million accounts that were deactivated at the time were not all active. We know that. You are trusting the tech platforms you say should not be trusted. You also say the person who owns the risky environment should be the one enforcing it—that’s the parents—and they have the tools. But you’ve bypassed the parents.  

Ms Inman Grant: No, I’m talking about the platform, the online space. Of course parents have an important role, but they’re not targets of compliance. We’re trying to empower them to do what they can to be engaged in young people’s digital lives. From everything we have seen in terms of the increase in visits to our website and the conversations we’re having, and even the letters we’re getting into the office, it indicates that parents have been hyperengaged—which is great.  

Senator ROBERTS: This echoes something I said before the ban came in: “If the goal is genuinely safer, age-appropriate experiences, we believe the best option is to raise the bar across the entire ecosystem and give parents a simple, consistent point of control. “App-store level age assurance is the practical path that Australia missed.” So it’s not all roses.  

Ms Inman Grant: Actually, we put some restrictions on the app stores in the context of our age appropriate design code. To me, that’s passing the buck. You’re the social media site that is building these deceptive and harmful design features to keep young people on there and to track them in the first place, and to monetise them. You have no responsibility for being the bouncer at the door to make sure that young, underage people aren’t getting in. I don’t see how any organisation could shirk that responsibility. There should be shared responsibility up and down the stack, but it shouldn’t be, in my view, primarily on the app stores or the devices. We need more protections on both.  

Senator ROBERTS: Parents are the best. We’ve undermined parents.  

Ms Snell: If I can just add one thing: it’s also important to understand that a number of these services are accessible via the web without the need of having the app. If you had the requirement only on the app stores, young people would still be able to access these services by logging into an account through a web browser—so that would not achieve the result. That’s why it’s important to have it at the level of the service itself.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m saying: give the parents the responsibility back.  

Senator Green: Parents are the ones that asked us to introduce the laws.  

Senator ROBERTS: Many opposed it. 

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