Charlotte Walker:

Just in case you missed it, those internet trolls won’t stop me from demanding that we act on climate change.

Young people today are more informed, more passionate and more determined than ever. We care deeply about our future, and we demand a seat at the table where decisions are made. In parliament,

I sit alongside colleagues who are dedicated and experienced, but they weren’t born in this millennium.

They didn’t learn in digital classrooms.

They didn’t grow up with social media. They didn’t come of age during a COVID lockdown or a climate crisis.

And they can’t fully understand what it means to be a young person right now—and that’s okay; no one generation can fully understand another.

But what we can do is listen to each other. The voices of young people are not a threat to experience; they are the next step forward

Charlotte Walker gave her first speech in the senate last night, and being Australia’s youngest ever senator, her age played a very big role:

As the youngest ever Senator, I have received a lot of media attention about what I have said and what others have said about me, including some who really haven’t liked what I’ve said. They say I don’t have enough life experience.

I replied that I have 21 years of life experience. What I bring to this parliament is the experience of young people today, and I know what a privilege it is to do so.

Young Australians aren’t a side issue. We aren’t a future issue. We are Australians now. It’s hard to explain what it feels like to be a young person today, not because we lack the words or the insight but because so often, when we speak, we’re told we’re too sensitive, too entitled or too distracted by our screens.

We are told we spend too much time looking at our phones—although sometimes the person saying it has only just stopped looking at their own phone!

We’re told that we’re too young to understand how the world really works. But we do understand, because we’re the ones living in this world others built and we’re facing a very different set of challenges than any generation before us.

Homeownership, for instance, is increasingly out of reach. A dream once seen as an expected milestone of adulthood is now something many of us feel we may never achieve. And renting is now a lottery. I have friends who still struggle to find properties they can afford and others who have submitted over 50 applications before being accepted to just get a home.

We’re told the solution is to cut out smashed avocado toast or skip a daily coffee—or, in my case, a daily hot chocolate. But no amount of budgeting advice will fix a system where the price of a home
has completely outstripped wage growth.

The uncomfortable truth is that we live in a wealthy country but that that wealth is not being evenly shared between generations.

The right to disconnect laws which have applied to employees of large and medium business for the last 12 months will now also apply to small business employees.

Despite claims of the end of work (and the world in some quarters) being able to finish work and have the right to not check your email or respond to late work calls has not ended the world.

Now people working for businesses with 15 or less employees will have the same rights – they can negotiate terms over out of hours contact expectations and boundaries, without those boundaries being used as a reason to sack someone.

When the laws were passed the Coalition said they would repeal them, but who knows where they have landed now.

In just the third sitting week of the Albanese Government’s second term, the Parliament is spending a fair chunk of time debating climate change.  

Not a bold new plan from the government. Not ambitious new targets.  

But rather, a private member’s bill from a backbencher from the Opposition’s junior party, the Nationals, that would abandon Australia’s already inadequate climate target.  

So why is the Parliament spending precious time debating the bill? Because the Labor Government sees political advantage in doing so – to further divide the Liberal–National Coalition and accelerate its slide into irrelevancy.  

What are private members’ bills?

A bill is a proposal for a new or changed law. Most bills are introduced by the government. That doesn’t guarantee that they will be supported by Parliament and become law, but it certainly helps.  

A private member’s bill comes from someone else: from the Opposition, from a government backbencher, or from a crossbencher.  

Often, these bills do not even get debated, let alone voted on. In the House of Representatives, the Government controls the debate schedule – and it is rare that they choose to hear other politicians’ proposals for anti-corruption watchdogs, truth in political advertising laws or fairer elections.  

Should the Parliament spend its time debating private members’ bills?

Yes. Private members’ bills often include good ideas that have been neglected by the government.  

And while it’s rare that the specific bill becomes law, it can spur change. For example, after independent MPs Cathy McGowan and Helen Haines and the Greens put forward private members’ bills for an anti-corruption commission, Labor committed to a similar model.  

The issue with the anti-net zero bill is that it’s been chosen for debate by the Government for party-political reasons, not because of the quality of ideas it contains. The Australia Institute’s Democracy Agenda for the 48th Parliament instead recommends a regular slot for private members’ bills to be debated and voted on. 

If that were implemented, then the anti-net zero bill could get in line behind bills that would achieve truth in political advertising, “no jobs for mates”, stopping political spam and lower university fees, some of which have been waiting years to be debated.   

New research by The Australia Institute has found that federal MPs and Senators are entitled to over $3 million in pay, resources and perks over a three-year election cycle.  

Combined with unfair changes to electoral laws coming into force next year, these threaten to make Australian elections less competitive than ever.  

Key findings include:

• Each election cycle, parliamentarians can receive at least $400,000 for office expenses, including for communications and constituent outreach, $351,000 for travel and transport, and at least $2.4 million for staff salaries and allowances, including their own annual wages starting at $234,000. 
• At the last federal election, only 16 re-contesting MPs were defeated (12% of all recontesting MPs).  
• During the current election cycle, government MPs and Senators will be eligible for collective entitlements worth at least $430 million, and opposition MPs and Senators $241 million. 
• Meanwhile, collective entitlement eligibility for minor party and independent MPs and Senators will amount to $111 million.  

“While elected representatives should be adequately resourced to do their jobs, it’s important to ensure a fair fight between incumbents and challengers come election time,” said Bill Browne, Director of The Australia Institute’s Democracy and Accountability Program.

“Competition is always healthy for democracy, and we cannot afford to make it even more difficult for new entrants to challenge incumbents.

​​“Sitting parliamentarians rarely lose elections. This is at least in part because of the enormous financial advantages of incumbency, including offices, staff, travel and communications budgets. 

“Earlier this year, the major parties united to rush through changes to Australian democracy and increase taxpayer funding of political parties by tens of millions of dollars. A parliamentary inquiry would allow these laws to be tested for fairness, and reformed where needed.” 

Hello and welcome to your second day of parliament sittings.

Yesterday was a bit of a buzzkill, with not a lot happening in the corridors of power. That is by design. Labor is sticking to its incremental softly softly approach, and very happy to keep the focus on the Coalition’s inability to find a policy it agrees on as a party room.

Like net zero. Barnaby Joyce has been running around telling anyone who will listen that the Coalition’s ‘rank and file’ are against net zero targets, which OK, sure, but the rank and file are not going to win you an election. Pauline Hanson is now ramping up her opposition to renewable energy, so it’s a nice little circle jerk of electoral irrelevancy happening at the moment.

Meanwhile the NDIS growth spending cuts are still under the spotlight, with independent MP Allegra Spender entering the chat.

Sky News reports Spender wants growth levels cut to GDP:

“Any part of government that grows as fast as (the NDIS) has, and is so much larger, to be honest, than it was expected to be, is going to get social license pushback,” she said.

“I think actually working out how to pull back NDIS spending, ideally, much more in line with how GDP is growing rather than the 22 per cent and the 8 per cent that we have had—that is where it needs to go.”

Which sounds fine on paper, but for anyone who is on the NDIS or has a child on the NDIS, sounds terrifying. And isn’t it strange that these spending rules never apply to defence? We need to always worry about spending, except when it comes to defence apparently, despite the constant cost blow outs of projects and he lack of deliverables. But helping people – well then, must think of that social license!

We’ll cover all the day’s events, as well as dip into last night after Labor senator Charlotte Walker delivered her first speech to the parliament. Walker is Australia’s youngest senator and spoke of some of the mental health and bullying battles she had already faced. Anthony Albanese visited the senate to watch the speech from the sidelines.

It’s a four coffee morning, so strap in. You have Amy Remeikis with you for most of the day, plus Australia’s experts on the economy, environment, and good things, as well as Mike Bowers who is already walking the hallways for The New Daily.

Ready? Let’s get into it.