Overnight David Attenborough has addressed hundreds of delegates at the UN’s conference on climate change in Poland and this is what he had to say: He said “Right now we are facing a manmade disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change”. And in making those remarks - and they were very powerful remarks - David Attenborough named the challenge and he is on the same page as the tens of thousands of school children who marched on this issue just a few days ago.

Well through the evidence that’s been presented to us it has become very clear that in the current form the bill is not able to be supported. Now that’s not unusual we’ve had plenty of pieces of legislation where people have presented problems to us and we have been able to work through those in a bipartisan way through the committee process. That was so under Mr Abbott when he was Prime Minister and it was so under Mr Turnbull, but under Mr Morrison the approach is very different and whilst we did think we were making progress within the committee it’s just today the Government has indicated they are just not willing to keep working through the process.

Labor is announcing today that we will move to give ASIC new powers to protect consumers by including ‘buy now, pay later’ providers in the scope of new design and distribution obligations and product intervention powers.

A Senate Committee has recommended greater tax transparency for for-profit aged care providers. The Senate Economics References Committee report into Financial and Tax Practices of For-Profit recommends that for-profit aged care organisations that are in receipt of large sums of public money should be subject to more rigorous transparency protocols. Australians have the right to know the tax practices of large corporations.

I wanted to make a few remarks about Mr Fletcher and his administration of the Department of Social Services Grants. The Minister has completely bungled this process and it is becoming clearer every day that he is entirely out of his depth. Yesterday, he confirmed a fifth backflip in just a fortnight.

The Government has backflipped on yet another of its decisions in the rollout of Financial Capability and Wellbeing grants. Reports yesterday that Minister Fletcher has further extended existing Financial Counselling grants from three to twelve months to organisations who recently had their funding cut add to a fortnight of chaos. In an incredible display – the Minister has backflipped on his own backflip after realising that his initial extension was rebuked by the sector.

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak with you in my relatively new capacity as Shadow Assistant Minister for Families and Communities. That is a lot of words, but amongst other things it means I’m responsible on the Labor side for thinking about the work done by the part of the community sector that are funded by the Department of Social Services.

The Government has back flipped on yet another of its Financial Capability and Wellbeing grant decisions. The announcement today to extend funding to emergency relief services is further indication that the Minister has bungled the roll out of community services grants. Mr Fletcher is clearly out of his depth and has spent the last seven days plugging holes of his own making.

The Government has bungled the rollout of yet another of its Financial Capability and Wellbeing grant decisions. Reports today that Minister Fletcher has extended existing Financial Counselling grants for an additional three months to organisations who recently had their funding cut add to a week of chaos. This time, Mr Fletcher had no intention of announcing this to the public and instead tried to hide it on the DSS website in the dead of night. 

The Government has back flipped on another of its uncaring and illogical funding decisions. Reports of the Government’s backflip on National Debt Helpline funding have exposed its chaotic management of social services. The National Debt Helpline provides free financial counselling to Australians who are facing financial hardship. This is a vital service particularly at a time where trust in financial institutions is so low.