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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/qoNOtohlH48/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-09-24 14:54:302026-09-24 14:54:53The Social Media Ban Illusion
During recent Estimates hearings, I questioned officials from the National Water Grid (NWG) and Minister Murray Watt on critical water infrastructure and supply issues amid Australia’s surging population and rising demand.
I asked for an update on the Paradise Dam works, noting that the Crisafulli government is still evaluating the business case. I also asked questions regarding the Urannah irrigation project, highlighting that the detailed business case was withdrawn by the proponent and the Queensland government in late 2022.
Citing Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data showing a 12.9% rise in water demand (including a 6% increase in household water and a 14% jump for food production), I enquired on how the government plans to meet this massive resource pressure. I pointed out that this surge equals the volume of a new Warragamba Dam every 18 months, asking where the infrastructure is to support record immigration levels.
While Minister Watt argued that the federal government funds regional water infrastructure, efficiency programs and buybacks, he maintained that state governments hold primary responsibility for drinking water supply.
I questioned the actual yield of the $210 million WISER program (Water Infrastructure for Sustainable and Efficient Regions) and asked why cancelled initiatives like the Hughenden irrigation project (HIPCo) remain active on the NWG’s website rather than being moved to a history page. These questions were taken on notice.
— May | Senate Estimates
Transcript
CHAIR: Senator Roberts.
Senator ROBERTS: First, could you update us on the Paradise Dam works. When we last spoke, you indicated that the Crisafulli government was still evaluating the business case and had not made a request for funding. Has there been any change to this?
Mr Southwell: No, we don’t have a business case from the Queensland government. I don’t believe the Queensland government has a business case from Sunwater either.
Senator ROBERTS: I also asked about the reason the project sponsor had pulled out of what is a project of national significance, the Urannah irrigation project. Mr Darrough took that on notice. It wasn’t, however, placed on notice. I’m trying to understand why the sponsor pulled out before asking the Crisafulli government why they aren’t proceeding with this project. Can you give me a simple rundown, please?
Mr Darrough: Pardon me, Senator, can you repeat the question about the question on notice. The response was provided.
Senator ROBERTS: ‘Mr Darrough took that on notice’, is what I said.
Mr Darrough: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: It wasn’t, however, placed on notice.
Mr Southwell: We did table a response.
Mr Darrough: The Urannah Water Scheme detailed business case is publicly available on the Queensland government website. I provided a link for that as well. On the environmental impact statement material, the Queensland Office of the Coordinator-General published the terms of reference for the EIS on 31 March 2021, and it records that the EIS process was withdrawn in December 2022. This is a matter between the proponent and the Queensland government.
Senator ROBERTS: Do any of the projects in your project list include recycling sewage and/or grey water and directing the output into drinking water, including into a storage dam from which drinking water is drawn?
Mr Darrough: I would suggest that the answer is no, but I will take it on notice.
Senator ROBERTS: I’d be particularly interested in South-East Queensland.
Mr Darrough: I don’t have the—
Senator ROBERTS: No, I’m just saying. What is your target for water consumption per person, per day? How much water do you actually have to provide to keep water up to people, stock, station, irrigation, more people, more food and industry. We’ve got record immigration. What’s your target per person, per day?
Mr Darrough: That’s not a question for National Water Grid.
Mr Southwell: We don’t have a specific target from the National Water Grid Fund.
Senator Watt: Senator Roberts, remember that most of the responsibility for providing water, especially drinking water, if that’s your focus, rests with state and local governments. We have a role in funding some of that infrastructure.
Senator ROBERTS: I’ll just remind you of this from your website: ‘The National Water Grid Investment Framework ensures funding decisions guide long-term, responsible investment in water infrastructure. It also helps the government plan for future challenges, including climate change, population growth and rising demand for water in farming.’ According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, water demand in Australia rose by 12.9 per cent from 2022-23 to 2023-24. A rapidly increasing population creates demand for more household water, up six per cent in that period. Also, from demand for food, water use is up 14 per cent. In actual terms, that represents another 1,965 gigalitres. In one year, that’s a new Warragamba Dam every 18 months. Where are these Warragamba dams coming from? Where are the plans for more water to meet the needs of the last million new arrivals, let alone the one million more due by 2028?
Senator Watt: I know that it would be your party’s policy to link all of these issues to migration. You just talked about the increasing demand for water for food production. That’s not necessarily about feeding the Australian population. You would remember, I’m sure, that the vast majority of food produced in Australia is exported. The demand for water is also partly about supporting the trade and businesses of farmers who produce the food.
Senator ROBERTS: Senator, I know you want to weasel out of it, but the fact is that immigration is up, food production is up, for whatever reason.
Senator Watt: Immigration is actually coming down under our government.
Senator ROBERTS: It’s up compared to three years ago. It’s up compared to five years ago.
Senator Watt: It’s coming down under our government. I know you don’t accept that, but it’s coming down.
Senator ROBERTS: It’s 750,000 for each of the last three years.
Senator Watt: That’s not correct. We can produce the figures that show—
Senator ROBERTS: Three years ago it was 750—
Senator Watt: This is not really the committee to get into this—
Senator ROBERTS: Correct. Where are the future Warragamba—you’ve got a water crisis cabinet.
Senator Watt: But net overseas migration is falling.
Senator HENDERSON: It’s at a record high.
Senator ROBERTS: You’ve got a water crisis coming; what are you doing about it?
CHAIR: Senators, I think there’s a bit of talking over each other. We’re getting to the end of the evening. Let’s do this as clinically as possible: question then answer.
Senator Watt: In general terms, from a federal government perspective, what we are doing to meet the demand for water across the country is helping fund certain infrastructure projects.
Senator ROBERTS: Which ones?
Senator Watt: The projects that the National Water Grid has funded, which we’ve said we’ll come back to you on notice about. There are many of them. We are encouraging water efficiency and investing in water efficiency, including on farms. We are funding voluntary water buybacks. There are a range of activities that we are funding. But when it comes to restrictions on water consumption, that is generally determined by state and local governments or the owners of that infrastructure.
Senator ROBERTS: When is the next Warragamba Dam coming? Where is it? We need a new Warragamba Dam every 18 months. Where are they? They’re not there.
Senator Watt: That would generally be a matter for states.
Senator ROBERTS: You’ve got your WISER program, water infrastructure for sustainable and efficient regions, which sounds nice. Let’s describe it: plugging leaks, building local pipelines and improving recycling facilities—$210 million in total. How much will this water add up to, from the WISER program? Will it be a Warragamba Dam every 18 months?
Mr Darrough: I need to take that on notice.
Senator ROBERTS: Last question on this bracket: your website still lists projects that have been killed off by the Albanese government, including the Hughenden irrigation project, HIPCo. Why are cancelled projects not removed or moved to a history page? Is it to give the impression the National Water Grid is actually expanding when it’s not?
Senator Watt: There were no announcements made about that project in the budget.
Senator ROBERTS: Previously?
Senator Watt: Not that I’m aware of.
Senator ROBERTS: Will you check? Take that on notice?
https://img.youtube.com/vi/igHGqVrqIi4/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-09-17 15:58:012026-09-17 15:58:06Where Are the Dams?
I brought up the deeply distressing case of Mr Jae Jang, highlighting striking similarities to the Clarke case. I noted that after years of protracted legal battles, criminal charges against Mr Jang and his employees were dropped because the prosecution had no evidence to offer. I pointed out the devastating human toll — Mr Jang spending time in jail and his sister dying by suicide after her bank accounts were falsely frozen by the ATO— leading me to state that the ATO has blood on its hands, and asking whether these cases reflect a broader pattern of behaviour.
Ms Owen confirmed she had concluded a review of Mr Jang’s case, finding some of his allegations substantiated, and noted she is now conducting a systemic review examining whether historical issues like bias or prejudice in decision-making could still happen under current protocols, with a report due to be published the following month.
I pointed out that systems drive behaviour, noting that unlike in the United States where investigation and prosecution are separated, the ATO handles both, creating an institutional incentive not to drop flawed cases. Ms Owen observed that the ATO does implement some separation of duties between audits and criminal investigations, which her inquiry was also examining.
I then asked if she saw parallels between these cases and the robodebt scandal, specifically regarding the ATO providing unreliable data, though Ms Owen viewed them as separate. While she acknowledged that both the Clarke and Jang cases resulted in major financial, emotional, and business harm, she clarified that her investigation found no direct causal link between the ATO’s actions and Ms Jang’s tragic death, though she strongly criticised the ATO’s failure to acknowledge notification of her passing for five years.
When I asked if the commissioner would give undertakings to compensate Mr Clarke and Mr Jang, Ms Owen stated that compensation is outside her remit and a matter for the commissioner. Finally, I asked whether the Jang and Clarke cases add weight to the Falinski inquiry recommendations, particularly regarding shifting the burden of proof from the taxpayer to the ATO, to which she replied that it was a policy matter outside her remit.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware of and familiar with the case of Mr Jae Jang?
Ms Owen: Yes, I am.
Senator ROBERTS: It was reported on A Current Affair on 14 July and again on 15 July 2025. The Jae Jang case has similar patterns to the Clarke case that I just discussed. The ATO caused criminal charges to be brought against Mr Jang. His case dates back as far as 2011. After protracted legal activity, the case against Mr Jang was dropped because ‘the prosecution had no evidence to offer’. Similarly, charges against employees of Mr Jang were dropped because there was no evidence to offer. Yet in this period Mr Jang spent time in jail and his sister suicided after her bank accounts were falsely frozen by the ATO. That means the ATO has blood on its hands. Are these two cases one-off aberrations by the ATO, or do they reflect a broader pattern of behaviour by the ATO?
Ms Owen: What I can say in response to that question is that I think it’s on the public record that I have conducted a review of Mr Jang’s case. He did complain to me about the case that you’ve just described there, and I’ve recently concluded my review of that case. That was, obviously, reported recently in the media. I found some of his allegations to have been substantiated, but not all of them, from the evidence that I’ve reviewed. Mr Jang has my report and my full findings, as does the commissioner of tax. That review is of a particular taxpayer. As you say, it’s an egregious case, particularly in relation to suicide. Every loss of life to suicide is a tragedy, and I have paid my condolences to Mr Jang and his family. But my role is to ensure that this isn’t systemic, and I think your question, generally, is one that ties those two cases together and asks whether there is a systemic issue here in the ATO. Following my review of that individual tax case, I’m now conducting a systemic review that looks at whether those matters, which were historical—as you say, from several years ago—could or would happen now, under current protocols, whether there is a systemic issue within the ATO and what controls they have in place should there be individual instances of bias or prejudice within their decision-making. That report will be published next month.
Senator ROBERTS: Systems drive behaviour. Some systems are the most powerful drivers of behaviour. In the United States, so I’m advised—I might not be perfectly correct on this—the arm that identifies a case of tax cheating or fraud or whatever hands it over to another, separate group to prosecute. This is not so in the ATO; it’s the same group, which would mean, I think, an incentive to not drop a case, even if it was found to be not correct.
Ms Owen: Again, that’s probably more a question for the ATO. But my observation would be that the ATO does put a separation of duties into some of those duties—for example, the difference between an investigation, as in audit, and a criminal investigation. The teams that select the cases for audit are separate from the teams that conduct the audit. So some of that pattern that you’ve described from the USA—I have to say I don’t have that knowledge of the USA system—is in effect in the ATO. And part of my questioning is: is it effective?
Senator ROBERTS: Yes, and I’m in touch with someone in Australia who’s helped a lot of small businesses where they haven’t had that separation of powers—and their victims wrongly so. Do you see any parallels between these two cases and the behaviour of the ATO in the robodebt scandal? Specifically, the false income assessments by Social Services were based on incomplete and arguably misleading income data provided to it by the ATO, and the ATO knew or should have known their data was unreliable for the robodebt exercise. Are there any parallels?
Ms Owen: I don’t see a parallel between the investigation that I have made in the case of Mr Jang and the systemic review I’m undertaking on how the ATO controls for bias in its decision-making. From what you’ve described in terms of robodebt, I think they are separate.
Senator ROBERTS: They provided sloppy information on robodebt. You’ve already acknowledged that both these cases have incurred or resulted in major financial, emotional and business harm to the people that the ATO had in it’s sights.
Ms Owen: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: You’ve acknowledged implicitly—correct me if I’m wrong; I’m not trying to put words in your mouth—that Mr Jang’s sister’s suicide is arguably linked to the chasing of his business and employees by the ATO.
Ms Owen: I should put on the record that my findings—as I said, in looking into somebody who has committed suicide, there is a very tragic event in a set of very complex circumstances. In the investigation that I undertook, I found no causal link between the actions of the ATO and the tragic loss of life of Ms Jang.
Senator ROBERTS: What did you say that you found?
Ms Owen: I found no causal relationship between the actions of the ATO and the tragic loss of life of Ms Jang. What I did comment on was how the ATO had treated Ms Jang and, in particular, the very sad consequences of how they failed to acknowledge notification of her death for five years.
Senator ROBERTS: In the case of Clarke and Jang, would the commissioner give undertakings to compensate Clarke and Jang for the harm done to them?
Ms Owen: That’s a matter for the commissioner, I think.
Senator ROBERTS: Do you have any role in undertaking, for example, a compensation process?
Ms Owen: That’s outside my remit.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s the commissioner?
Ms Owen: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Now that I have a better understanding of your role, some of these questions don’t apply. In the Jang case, the ATO is apparently cooperating with the tax ombudsman on an investigation into the matter. Will or should the investigation be confined to the specifics of Jang and not draw broader conclusions? What are your broader conclusions?
Ms Owen: Just to be clear: the review that I’ve undertaken is in two parts. The first part is specifically in relation to the taxpayer Mr Jang and his personal circumstances. Because of privacy reasons, that is a report that is now concluded. It’s gone to Mr Jang as the original complainant and it’s gone to the commissioner. That will not be published. I put a short statement on my website to explain what I’ve done in that position on that particular case. Phase 2 of the review is to look at the systemic issues, which, again, I think is where you’re coming from. Is there a pattern of facts here? Is there a theme emerging of things that we should be concerned about in the conduct of the ATO? That review is where I’m looking at whether there are instances of bias or prejudicial decision-making within the ATO and the controls the ATO has in place to prevent that happening, given that it’s a known risk in all tax authorities. That report is the report that we’ll probably publish in July, next month.
Senator ROBERTS: I assume you’re familiar with the Falinski inquiry?
Ms Owen: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: That was conducted by the House parliamentary and tax committee and made recommendations for changes to the tax act. I understand that one recommendation was to shift the burden of proof on tax debt allegations from the taxpayer to the ATO. Do you consider that the Jang and Clarke cases add weight to the Falinski report recommendations?
Ms Owen: I think that’s a policy matter and probably outside of my remit.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/o7lOE_MdAPQ/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-09-17 09:51:242026-09-17 09:51:30Will the ATO Pay for Its Mistakes?
