Please come along for my second Town Hall of 2025 to talk about priorities for our community ahead of parliament resuming on 22 July.
Quarterly town halls are part of my ongoing commitment to being accessible: providing updates, getting feedback and listening to your concerns.
We will record the event and stream the town hall live at this link.
We’ll kick off with a special guest presentation from Dr Andrew Hughes reflecting on the federal election then jump into a meaty policy debate on some critical issues, followed by a Q&A.
As always I want to hear from you as part of these events so please submit and upvote your questions on slido at this link.
While all questions and topics are welcome, this town hall will focus on a few key areas:
University Governance - The ACT is a university town. With our higher education institutions under growing financial pressure, there’s been mounting concern from the community about how change is being managed. In the last term of parliament a senate committee inquiry into University Governance was established, alongside an expert council on University governance. It’s something a huge number of Canberrans have written to me about and this forum will be an opportunity to talk about this more. I’ll also be launching a community survey to better consolidate your feedback.
Higher Education is set to be a big focus early on with the first piece of legislation to be introduced in the new parliament being a bill to wipe 20% of student loan debt. While welcome, this doesn’t go to the root cause of issues facing higher education like indexation timing, the failed ‘Job-Ready Graduates’ scheme and how we fund universities and research going forward
Environmental reform - I know many in our community were hugely disappointed by the returned Albanese Government’s first act approving the North West Shelf - an enormous fossil fuel project that won’t meaningfully help domestic prices or supply (check out my new petition on ending the great Aussie gas scam here). Reform of the EPBC Act is unfinished business from last term and we need strong new laws that actually protect Nature.
Health, Aged Care, Disability, Housing and Integrity update - these are all things Canberrans told me were a priority heading into the election and that I’m working hard on this term. I’ve been pushing on housing, including for the divestment of the CSIRO Ginnderra site for more social and affordable housing. Already we’ve seen the delayed implementation of Aged Care reforms so we’ll unpack what that means and where foundational supports are up to, talk about advocating for one of the new Youth Specialist Care Centres based in the ACT, and there’s A LOT to chat about on integrity - from whistleblowers to strengthening the NACC, truth in political advertising to lobbying reform and transparency.
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Please RSVP so we can let you know if there are any last minute changes.
I am dedicated to ensuring that these events are inclusive and safe spaces that can be attended by anyone. If there’s anything I can do to facilitate your participation, or if you'd like to suggest a venue for a future mobile office event, please email [email protected].
