Parliament

I rise to support the disallowance motion and associate myself with the comments made by my Greens colleague Senator Waters from Queensland. I will say that loud and clear: she is a Greens senator from Queensland who cares about Queenslanders, who cares about the workers in Queensland, who cares that the environment they work in is safe and healthy, and who cares about a healthy planet for everyone.

The Greens support the motion. Paid pandemic leave should be for all workers. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the profound precariousness and inequality that exists in workplaces. No-one—not a single person—should be forced to choose between protecting their health and the health of those around them and being plunged into economic hardship, yet this is the exact situation many workers find themselves in. The government needs to support workers and guarantee and fund a safety net so all workers have access to at least 14 days of paid pandemic leave. This needs to happen right now.

I rise to speak on behalf of the Greens on the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Improving Assistance for Vulnerable and Disadvantaged Families) Bill 2020. The bill makes changes to additional childcare subsidy (child wellbeing) and to the calculation method used when an individual whose relationship status changes throughout the year meets the childcare subsidy reconciliation conditions.

I rise to speak on the impact COVID has had on young people and the future they face. It's hard to overstate how rapidly and dramatically COVID-19 has changed the world for young people. But we must acknowledge that neither they nor the pandemic are the cause of the greatest challenges they face. Those have been created for them by older generations. A recent Betoota Advocate headline attributes a fake quote to the Prime Minister: 'The sooner young people understand they're effed, the sooner they'll be happy.' It's hard to argue with.

Richard, over the last few weeks I've seen you on Zoom and I've seen a few videos of yours on Facebook. I must say that you look happier, more relaxed and carefree than I have seen you look in the last few years. It's made it very clear to me that the decision you made to step out of parliamentary politics was absolutely the right one at this time. And you deserve to be relaxed and carefree after dedicating a decade of your life to our party and the broader progressive movement as a Greens senator—not to mention years of service before that to the party.

The MV Al Kuwait that departed Fremantle in June was a horrific journey. According to the Independent Observersummary report, up to 5,000 of the sheep on board experienced severe or serious heat stress, with laboured breathing, open-mouth panting and appearances of being stressed or in extreme discomfort; 28 sheep died, and many more were hospitalised. We knew this was going to happen. We knew this was inevitable.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment (Senator Birmingham) to a question without notice asked by Senator Faruqi today relating to universities.

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales) (15:01): Pursuant to standing order 164(3), I ask the minister representing the Minister for Education for an explanation as to why an order for the production of documents, agreed to on 16 June 2020, concerning support for international students, has not been complied with.

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales) (14:18): My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Education. At least 16 members of the government, including the Prime Minister, went to uni while it was free, but your latest cruel, hypocritical plan will hurt students by hiking fees and cuts up to $900 million from teaching funding, including from STEM and nursing. The experts agree it's an unfixable mess. It won't create enough new places. It punishes struggling students.

I rise on behalf of the Greens to speak to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (Prohibiting Academic Cheating Services) Bill 2019. This is indeed a serious issue. I thank the stakeholders across the sector for the time they've taken to engage with the bill throughout the process. In recognition for the need for stronger protections against commercial contract cheating operations, the Greens will not oppose this legislation.