Australia faces a huge challenge to protect our unique wildlife. An unacceptable number of our animals such as the hairy nosed wombat and the iconic koala are vulnerable, endangered or face extinction.

Last week the Reserve Bank issued its 2017-18 corporate plan. No doubt this was marked in everyone’s calendar. It makes for interesting reading, however, because it sets out what the RBA thinks are the key risks for its monetary policy functions in the year ahead.

I’d like to start off by thanking the Diversity Council Australia for the opportunity to be here today.I’d like to acknowledge the importance of the work that you do in developing the ideas, information and strategies to increase workplace diversity & inclusion.

The British futurist and writer Alan Moore said: The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic.

The truth of this government, of course, is that it is utterly chaotic.

This government is at war with the young, from cuts to education funding through to a deliberate attempt to sabotage any meaningful action on climate change. This government shows every time that the only thing it cares about less than young people's present is their future. 

I rise to speak on the Productivity Commission Amendment (Reducing Inequality) Bill 2017. This Bill places inequality firmly on the agenda of one of our country’s most influential economic policy institutions.

I’m incredibly pleased to see so many assembled to consider women, super and wealth. It is simply unacceptable that so many women today retire with so little.

I rise to speak about the 1800RESPECT service because over the past few months there has been a real concern about this service. This is what happens when something is not quite right, because we have seen media coverage, we have online petitions, we have social media advocacy and the union has been speaking out and has been active.

The motion we are considering this afternoon asks us to debate how the federal government's housing affordability policy will fail young Australians unless it ends tax breaks for investors, removes stamp duties, and transitions to a broad based land tax. 

More than a week ago Labor made the public observation that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead. We did so on the back of the very public statements by President-elect Trump that he remains opposed to the trade deal.