I rise to support the motion, and in doing so I want to place it in its proper context, which is that the government is most keen to have a debate about taxation and in particular have a debate about the GST and the role that a rise in the GST might play in plugging holes in revenue and in funding a cut to corporate taxes. 

The Prime Minister has spoken about the need to undertake reforms to deliver long-term gains for all Australians, which may create winners and losers in the near term. It was a fairly clear statement about how he sees that dynamic. 

It’s 2016. We shouldn’t be devoting an hour of time in this chamber to debating whether climate change is real. We should be devoting a month to exploring ways to address it.

Today's release by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency of Australia's Gender Equality Scorecard has highlighted the persistent and enduring gap between men and women’s wages and confirms that Australia’s workforce is as gender segregated as it was twenty years ago.

Predictions about the future tend to run to the extremes. Some people think that artificial intelligence will liberate us from work, leaving us to a life of leisure, self-driving cars, and Wi-Fi-enabled kettles. Others think robots will steal our jobs, ushering in dystopian levels of unemployment. Like all things, the reality is likely to be something in between.

I rise to speak on the Plebiscite (Same-Sex Marriage) Bill 2016. In some ways, we are in the most amazing position in Australia in relation to marriage equality.

Well good morning everyone. Day four of the estimates week. Yesterday we were treated to the unedifying spectacle of the Finance Minister preventing the Treasury Secretary from answering basic questions about the Government’s economic policy. 

Day four of the estimates week. Yesterday we were treated to the unedifying spectacle of the Finance Minister preventing the Treasury Secretary from answering basic questions about the Government’s economic policy.

We saw some extraordinary moments yesterday and I wanted to canvass a couple of those. The first of course was the Government claiming that it was unable to release the names of the Victorian MPs and Senators caught up in the Damian Mantach affair that of course saw an official of the Victorian Liberal Party defraud significant amounts of money from the Department of Finance and from state government departments.

I wanted to start by thanking you all for the important work you do as delegates. I hardly need to say that the work you do as educators is important. But that work depends on the extra work you have all taken on to safeguard the working conditions of yourselves and your colleagues.