Mr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (19:08): Here in Australia we’re about to have a referendum: not one just recognising Indigenous Australians as the first inhabitants of the continent—a proposition that almost everyone would support, and certainly I would—but a referendum which is proposing a new chapter in our Constitution to ensure one racial grouping has more access…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (13:33): It gives me no pleasure to tell this House, ‘I told you so,’ but: I told you so. The government has pulled the funding for the security scanners in regional airports right around Australia. I warned this place that it would affect Whyalla the worst, and it is the first one…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (13:24): It’s quite clear to me that this announcement in the budget is what I would call thought-bubble politics. It’s: ‘Hey, I’ve got a good idea. Let’s try it!’—trying it without consulting and with very little road testing or consideration of the consequences. On the face of it, we have something that…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (13:33): I commend those comments. It’s only 26 days until Anzac Day, and this will be my last opportunity in the chamber to actually say something before Anzac Day rather than after. It has become perhaps our most important national day, and I’m looking forward to 25 April and being out and…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (17:36): I’m grateful for the member’s comments. I also support the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management Reform) Bill 2023, which provides an improved card to replace the BasicsCard, it must be said. However, the tragedy is that the SmartCard is, by any measurement, a direct replacement for the cashless debit card;…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (20:43): The rise of atmospheric CO2 levels from 290 parts per million in about 1900 to 414 in 2021 is indisputable. The last time CO2 reached these levels in the atmosphere was about four million years ago. While the effects of these levels on the environment are debatable, most would agree it’s…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (09:42): I’d like to thank Senator Matt Canavan very much for his perseverance in getting the Senate’s Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee to do a year-long study into the closure of regional and rural banks. We’ve been particularly hard hit in South Australia and in the electorate of Grey.…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (12:11): Before I begin on the content of the bill, I might advise the member for Jagajaga to have a look at when Ford Australia and Mitsubishi Australia decided to pack up and leave the car manufacturing industry in this country, because it certainly wasn’t under a coalition watch. Then to come…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (16:13): Last week, I was very pleased to attend the opening of the new Balaklava pool. It was the first time that the kids in Balaklava had been able to have a swim for three years. It was funded under the BBRF—50 per cent funding, of about $1.58 million. I congratulate Mayor…
DetailsMr RAMSE Y (Grey—Opposition Whip) (11:08): I rise to speak on these three bills—the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023, the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council Bill 2023 and Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Measures No. 1) Bill 2023. The opposition have announced that we will be supporting the latter two, so I will be confining my…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (13:45): Madam Deputy Speaker, with your tolerance, I have a small book with me, a child’s book. It’s called Just Like You, Only a Little More Different, and it was written by Brook Seal, a farmer from Kimba, about his son, Ziggy. Ziggy had a cardiac arrest two days after birth and…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (16:00): From where I sit in regional Australia, all I can see is the dust from the ALP wheels as they skid back to the city. They’ve been in government for six months, and already they’ve slashed a heap of programs that were so beneficial to my electorate. In fact, I’ll point…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (13:48): Last Friday, I visited T-Ports at Lucky Bay, on the Eyre Peninsula, with a couple of parliamentary colleagues. T-Ports tranships grain from a relatively shallow port using a highly manoeuvrable small ship with a single 3,400 tonne hold; it’s quite a slick operation. They ship the grain about five kilometres for…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (16:51): Last Friday was an anniversary for me and a number of other people in this place, including the member for Parkes, who is sitting in front of me. We’ve been here for 15 years. For the entire period that I’ve been here, I have been on about the disparity in health…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (19:50): We’ve all seen the high-profile cybertheft stories regarding Optus and Medibank Private, and unfortunately that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’m receiving increasing reports from people who’ve been scammed—losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, people losing their life savings. And recently I was contacted by a service business…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (09:47): I’d like to speak this morning about Clontarf, the academy for Aboriginal boys, which uses football and sport as a tool to provide stability and purpose in their lives. It’s very good if they produce football champions, but that is not the aim of Clontarf. It was founded by Gerard Neesham…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (11:38): I thank the member for bringing this motion forward on the proposal for a Voice to Parliament. I hope that it begins to throw more light on what it is that the government is actually planning to take to the Australian people in the form of a referendum—when that they will…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (13:32): On 14 November, it was World Diabetes Day, and I stand here as one of the co-chairs of the parliamentary enemies of diabetes. As I normally do when I begin these speeches, I say diabetes is the leading cause of coronary heart disease, the leading causes of blindness and the leading…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (13:50): I often rise in this place to lament the lack of country doctors, and I must say I’m quite happy today to have a good story to tell. Dr Holly Deer from Crystal Brook in my electorate of Grey has received recognition as GP of the year for SA and NT…
DetailsMr RAMSEY (Grey—Opposition Whip) (21:52): There is a saying: ‘time to pay the piper’—and that’s what this bill, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022, is about. It’s the Labor Party paying its debt to the union movement. It gives them everything they own. The union movement owns the Labor Party; we…
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