Parliament

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales) (12:19): I rise to speak to the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020. I want to be clear from the outset: the only correct cost of a student's degree is zero dollars. University staff, research and teaching should be protected. Our universities should be fully funded, and this bill achieves none of those aims. This bill is cruel. This bill is punitive. This bill is an irredeemable mess.

It's good to see that the government has seen some sense in having an inquiry. But you have been dragged kicking and screaming to the table, embarrassed with your tail between your legs.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Safe, secure, affordable housing is a human right, but decades of neoliberal policy in housing and homelessness has made speculative assets of what should be homes. Federal governments have worsened inequality by being more concerned with preserving tax breaks for investors than ensuring that people have somewhere to live. The basic human right to shelter takes a back seat to the market. Australia's housing system has weak rental protection laws. It has years-long social housing waiting lists.

The government don't care about workers. They don't care about the economy. They don't care about protecting the planet for future generations. Their vision for the future is one of low wages, of job insecurity, and of profits over people. They want to use the COVID-19 crisis to enrich their corporate donors and fight culture wars, and not much else. Rather than creating the jobs of the future, they are pushing a so-called 'gas-fired recovery'—a totally backwards idea, brought to you by the government's mates in the gas industry.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment (Minister Birmingham) to questions without notice asked today.

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales) (14:17): My question without notice is to the Minister representing the Minister for Education. Minister, happy Early Childhood Educators' Day! But perhaps it is not so happy for the educators. The United Workers Union has come to parliament today to meet with the Minister for Education and to deliver a petition of more than 30,000 signatures.

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the consideration of the Fair Work Amendment (COVID-19) Bill 2010, as circulated in the chamber.

Leave not granted.

Senator FARUQI: Pursuant to contingent notice of motion standing in the name of Senator Waters, I move:

On 15 March last year the lives of Muslims across the world changed forever. Our worst fears were realised as an Australian man walked into two mosques and massacred dozens of Muslims at Friday prayers. It was horrific, devastating, and it was completely and unspeakably tragic. At the sentencing hearing of the Christchurch terrorist last week, the court heard testimonies from the families of the targets. Aden Ibrahim Dirye provided a statement about his three-year-old son Ibrahim, who was killed. He said, 'I don't know you. I never hurt you, your father, mother and any of your friends.

I rise to take note of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade report Inquiry into PFAS remediation in and around Defence bases: second progress report, which evaluates the government response to the initial inquiry that we had a couple of years ago. The PFAS subcommittee, of which I am a member, was re-established after the federal election last year, when the 46th Parliament resumed. It was re-established precisely with the purpose of scrutinising progress on the recommendations of the parliamentary inquiry into PFAS and the government's response to it.

For decades we've seen our TAFE system ripped apart by successive federal governments and state governments through neglect, through lack of funding and through privatisation. This is incredibly short-sighted and destructive. TAFE educates and trains the skilled workers that communities, businesses and industries across the country depend on. TAFEs will be at the centre of rebuilding after the bushfires and the pandemic as we transition to a renewable energy future.