Can independents create change at the ACT election?
With a record number of independent candidates running at the ACT election on 19 October this is your chance to get to know them better and what they can offer our community.
I’ll be hosting my fellow federal crossbencher the Member for Mackellar Dr Sophie Scamps MP for a chat about what independents can do and how we work constructively together. This will be followed by an in-depth Q&A with ACT independent candidates Thomas Emerson, Peter Strong and Fiona Carrick.
So finish your long weekend with some Politics at the Pub, from 6pm Monday 7 October at Capital Brewing.
Tickets are free but space is limited so please reserve your place today at this link - we’re already getting close to capacity, hope to see you there.
Housing book launch with the Hon Kevin Bell AO KC
Tonight Tuesday 1 October from 5.30pm at Paperchain in Manuka I will also be doing a local launch of former Victorian Supreme Court Justice Kevin Bell’s new book Housing: The Great Australian Right.
Kevin argues that Australia’s national housing disaster is changing the fate of our population and the distribution of wealth in ways that will reverberate for generations. He says that the first step is rethinking housing law and policy on the basis that having a decent home is a fundamental human right.
There’s so much to talk about in housing policy at the moment and with the Saturday Paper’s Chief political correspondent Karen Barlow moderating, I’m looking forward to canvassing some big ideas.
More information about the event is available here.
Grasslands restoration work party
On Saturday 19 October 2024 at 9.00am, Friends of Grasslands and Team Pocock are joining forces to remove woody weeds from the shore of Lake Burley Griffin.
ACT and Federal Government lands in central Canberra are home to critically endangered Button Wrinklewort and Box-Gum Grassy Woodlands. Unfortunately the area is in a poor state due to neglect and mismanagement.
There are four main tasks that we will undertake: mulching, cutting and daubing small cotoneaster shrubs, clearing dead woody weeds and rubbish removal.
Sign up on the event website.
Housing policy update
As you may have seen in the news there are huge debates happening around housing - as there should be. It is consistently one of the top concerns raised with me by Canberrans and people right around the country.
Politicians in the major parties keep talking about Australians “doing it tough” but they need to match this recognition with action.
Report after report, like this one from the Everybody’s Home campaign last week, shows just how bad the situation is. They found that those relying on the Age Pension, Disability Support Pension or working full-time on the minimum wage would likely be in severe rental stress in almost every part of the country.
More than two-thirds of the country is in housing stress. Food pantries and financial counselling services are seeing not only a spike in demand but more requests for help from working families than ever before.
In the Senate last week, the Greens and the Coalition teamed up to delay a vote on the government’s Help-to-Buy Bill. A vote on their Build-to-Rent Bill wasn’t brought on either. These bills aren’t perfect and they won’t solve the housing crisis but they will help. I’ve put forward a range of amendments to improve both bills and will keep doing whatever I can to see that they pass while continuing to push the government to do more.
In some welcome news, given the decline in our social and public housing stock, the ACT was strongly overrepresented in the first round of the Housing Australia Future Fund announced recently, with 757 new social and affordable homes out of a total of 13,742. Negotiations in the senate on this bill set a floor of 1200 homes per year for every state and territory, including the ACT as well as a minimum $500m a year national spend. But with so much need in the community and more than 50,000 dwellings applied for in the first round I will continue to push the government to expand this scheme and do more to invest directly in new social and affordable housing, alongside other measures.
Potential reforms to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount on investment properties are also in the news again with Treasury modelling a range of different options. Senator Lambie and I already commissioned the Parliamentary Budget Office to do this work back in April. It is clear from this work that there is a sensible, middle path for reform that protects existing investments but uses tax concessions to incentivise new supply going forward and increase government revenue that can be reinvested in new social and affordable housing. I asked the library to do some further analysis last week showing the impact of such modest changes would be minimal, while the benefits could be significant.
Environment Protection Australia negotiations
Shortly after the Albanese Government was elected, it released the ‘Nature Positive Plan’, which promised real reform of our failed national environmental laws. But earlier this year, the government announced that it is breaking that promise.
Instead of reforming national environment laws, the government has proposed relatively weak environmental regulators, including Environment Protection Australia (EPA). I have been working hard with the Senate crossbench to improve and pass legislation that will strengthen the regulator and remove loopholes that prevent it doing a good job.
Frustratingly, the Government has been unwilling to negotiate at all on the Environment Protection Australia - so far they are unwilling to even entertain improvements to its independence through an independent board and CEO.
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The crossbench has offered them a path through the Senate for the EPA if they are willing to give the agency integrity and fix our national environmental laws to allow the EPA to:
Consider the impact of native forest logging under federal environmental laws; - Consider the impact of climate change in environmental assessments and decision-making; and
- Greater inclusion of First Nations ecological knowledge in environmental governance and decision-making.
The offer is common-sense and reasonable, particularly in the midst of an extinction crisis. All the crossbench is asking for is for the government to deliver on its commitments to reform and its goal to end extinctions.
You can read more about my concerns with this bill, and how I think it can and should be improved in a Dissenting Report I wrote to a Senate inquiry into the bill.
I will continue to push the government to deliver on these commitments.
Electoral reform, deepfakes and truth in political advertising
After promising reform for months, there’s still no sign of the electoral reform bill.
As with so many important reforms committed to but not yet delivered by the Albanese government, improving our electoral system continues to be kicked down the road. We are lucky to have one of the strongest democracies in the world, but the government must act to protect it from threats from deepfakes, dark money and growing incumbency advantages.
In March this year, I introduced the Fair and Transparent Elections Bill 2024 to deal with many of these issues, including truth in political advertising. You can find the bill here and a summary here. With the support of the senate I was also able to stand up a Senate Inquiry into AI, you can follow its work here.
Despite the warning signs, the government has been unwilling to lead and protect our democracy. In an attempt to show just how dangerous generative AI and deepfakes can be, I released deepfake videos of the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader announcing a ban on gambling advertisements. You can view the video of the Prime Minister here and the Opposition leader here.
I will continue to push the government to legislate electoral reform that works to protect and improve our democracy before the next election.
Humanitarian visas for Gaza
After more than eight months of constant advocacy it appears the federal government is finally starting to issue humanitarian visas to people who have fled Gaza and are currently here in Australia.
The visas are a temporary humanitarian visa like those that were offered to people fleeing Ukraine in 2022. It allows work, study and access to Medicare, allows for children to be enrolled at school and provides access to special benefits from Services Australia.
These visas require solid security and character checks, but not a lengthy refugee status determination process. They can be granted to people who are displaced from their residence and cannot reasonably return and who are in grave fear for their personal safety - which is pretty clear for people from Gaza.
I’ve been pressing this hard since the beginning of the year and I wish the government had moved on it a lot earlier, as it would have saved a lot of hardship for those who have fled, their families and the community organisations who have been supporting them. But I’m happy they’re starting and I’d like to see it roll out to everyone quickly.
Scams
Scams cost Australians a whopping $2.74 billion last year - equivalent to 1% of our GDP.
After concluding a consultation process at the end of January, the government has finally released exposure draft legislation to establish a national scam prevention framework and develop “industry codes”, starting with telcos, banks and social media companies.
While action on scams is urgent, I’m really concerned the government’s proposal doesn’t go far enough. As advocates have pointed out, what’s missing is a reimbursement model. What they are proposing is a prevention and punishment regime that’s missing the crucial element of protection for customers.
In the UK, banks are required to reimburse scam victims up to a capped amount in no fault scenarios. This has led to a reduction in scam losses and I think we need to see the same kind of system here.
I am really concerned that we are again seeing vested interests stopping the government from implementing world-leading, best-practice policy.
Last week I stood up with scam victims and I’ll continue working with them and consumer experts like the Consumer Action Law Centre, ACCAN, TIO and CHOICE to push the government to legislate a stronger approach to scams.
Keeping up the pressure on gambling ads
I’ve been keeping up the pressure on the government to accept in full the 31 recommendations of the Murphy Review, including a total ban on gambling advertising, rather than the partial ban gambling companies are pushing.
We know that a partial ban will not reduce the normalisation of gambling among children and young people. We already have a partial ban, and clearly it has not worked at all given that three-quarters of children and young people believe betting is a normal part of enjoying sport.
It’s been troubling to see the Prime Minister repeat some of the dodgy claims being made by the gambling companies. In particular, the claim that banning advertising would lead to more people gambling offshore illegally. There is no evidence to support this - and in fact, the founder of gambling giant Paddy Power, Stuart Kenny recently said on RN that this line is “a load of baloney” and that his industry has used it for decades to avoid reform.
This reform should be based on facts and evidence and it should also be made in the interests of Australians - not those who profit off of gambling.
I gave a speech in the Senate about this recently. It’s quite a long one, but summarises what I’m hearing are major concerns from Canberrans about the lack of transparency around lobbying in Parliament and how that is potentially impacting important reforms like this one.
If you have a chance, I would highly recommend an interview on RN Breakfast with a woman known as “Kate”. In the interview, she shares the story of her brother, who tragically lost his life to a gambling addiction. It is an upsetting interview, but I think it is a very important story that shows the impact this growing industry is having on families in our community.
Aged Care update
Last week, my team and I attended the COTA ACT Seniors Expo to talk about the Government’s proposed changes to aged care.
As you may have seen, the Government and the Opposition have agreed on some pretty big reforms that will change the way people pay for residential aged care and support at home.
Simply, going forward, the Government will pay for older Australians to access a nurse and other healthcare professionals to help them stay at home. But, people who can afford to, will need to contribute more to some services, like obtaining help from a care worker to assist with showering and preparing meals.
The Bill has been referred to a Senate Inquiry and I’m keen to participate given how many people it will impact in the ACT and across Australia. I’ll be raising how long it takes for Canberrans to receive an aged care assessment, and also how little providers there are in the ACT that can actually deliver care and support.
If you have 3 minutes, I’d be grateful if you could please fill in this survey, which will help my team and I figure out where we need to focus as we look at these proposed changes.
I’ll also be hosting a special Town Hall meeting about aged care on Wednesday 30 October at 1.30 pm at Hughes Community Centre (2 Wisdom St, Hughes). Please RSVP via this link.
A good result on genetic testing
We had another important win during the last sitting period, with the Government announcing that they will introduce legislation to stop life insurers from requesting peoples’ genetic test results.
This is a critical victory. Genetic testing has made a huge difference in the prevention and management treatment of breast cancer, and in the years ahead, it could help even more of us better predict and manage our risks of cancer and other diseases.
However, there is evidence that people are deciding not to get testing because it could impact their future chances at obtaining life insurance. We can’t allow this to go on - it is not good for our public health, but it is also now undermining medical research in Australia.
I made a submission to the Treasury consultation on behalf of the Canberra community in February in support of this change, and am pleased that Minister Jones landed on the strongest reform possible.
Costs Protection Bill
People who suffer unlawful discrimination have historically been less willing to commence legal proceedings for fear of costs being awarded against them. This has been highlighted in various reviews, including the Jenkins Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces.
However, during consultation on the bill, concerns were raised that proposed changes could have unintended consequences - particularly on small businesses. Through negotiations with the government, I was able to secure a review of the operation of the new legislation to ensure that any unintended consequences are properly dealt with.
Comcare review
When someone is seriously injured at work, we should be making it easy for them to get the support they need to recover and return to service. Instead, the compensation system can sometimes make things worse, particularly for our first responders who are often not believed, and not supported after being diagnosed with a mental health injury.
That is why I worked with Senator Lambie and the Government to establish a full, independent review of the laws underpinning Comcare, which haven’t been fully reviewed since it was first established decades ago. The Review will also capture the ACT Government’s compensation arrangements.
I’m keen for as many people to contribute to it as possible, so the reviewers can understand where the laws may be failing our federal and ACT public servants and where they need to be improved. If you know someone who has a story to share about Comcare, or accessing workers compensation through the ACT Government, please let them know to email me - as I’d love to hear their story.
Events in Parliament
In between time in the chamber I was able to get to a number of events during the sitting fortnight, here’s a quick summary:
I joined Health Minister Mark Butler and Shadow Health Minister Anne Ruston together with other parliamentarians to mark international FASD awareness day. An important opportunity to raise awareness and break down stigma.
I attended a National Survivors Day morning tea hosted by Senators Bilyk and Smith recognising & commemorating the courage and journeys of Survivors of Sexual Assault and Institutional Abuse.
I also had the opportunity to speak at a terrific Menslink Business Breakfast to help raise funds for the great work they do supporting young men in our communities. They run a number of programs so if you’re a young man in Canberra who needs support or know someone who might, I’d encourage you to check them out.
As Co-Chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Housing I was please to join Angie Bell and Josh Burns in host Everybody’s Home campaign for the launch of the findings from Australia’s first People’s Commission into the Housing Crisis.
This fortnight the Australian Sports Foundation’s also hosted the annual Pollie Dash celebrating sport and to raising awareness of the work that still needs to be done to help athletes and community clubs thrive.
A real highlight was joining with the STOP campaign, Fair Agenda and End Rape on Campus to mark a milestone in their advocacy which I was proud to support along with others on the crossbench for the introduction of legislation to establish a National Student Ombudsman.
I hosted Uniting Care CEOs from around the country briefing parliamentarians on the huge spike in demand they are seeing for services as Australians from a growing range of circumstances need help just to get by.
Allegra Spender hosted a terrific briefing from the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO) Bruce Billson about steps the government can take now to better support small business.
I joined with ACOSS and other cross bench colleagues to again renew our calls to Raise the Rate and listened to Lester share his lived experience of what it is like trying to make ends meet on Austudy in the midst of this housing and cost of living crisis.
I attended a Protect our Winters briefing hosted by Helen Haines - and you can listen to an event I did with them earlier in the year here: Saving winter — the future of snow in Australia's Alpine region
And finally I also had a thing or two to say about consecutive Australian governments giving our gas away, you can catch up on that here.
Best wishes,
David
Senator David Pocock
https://www.davidpocock.com.au/