Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

Good morning.

I begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are meeting and pay my respects to elders past and present.

I also acknowledge:

•    Professor Stephen Fogarty, President of Alphacrucis University College 
•    Rev Assoc Prof David Perry, Chair, Independent Higher Education Australia (IHEA) 
•    Shiekh Shadi Alsuleiman, Australian National Imams Council (ANIC) 
•    Associate Professor Gil Davis from the Australian Catholic University
•    Senator Dave Sharma 
•    Mr Peter McKeon, Chair, Australian Christian Higher Education Alliance 
•    Ms Margery Evans, Association of Independent Schools of NSW (AISNSW) 
•    Mr Graham Catt, Independent Schools Australia 
•    Mr Sai Paravastu, Hindu Council of Australia 
•    Mr Dallas McInerney, Catholic Schools, NSW 
•    Mr Ian Liney, Christian Schools Australia 
•    Mrs Vanessa Cheng, Australian Association of Christian Schools

And can I thank the team at Alphacrucis for bringing us all together.

At times like this, that’s really important.  

We are the best country in the world.

I really believe that.

And a big part of that, I think, is because we are made up of people from all around the world, all different backgrounds, all different faiths.

Living in harmony.

That makes us different to most other countries.

It sends a message to the rest of the world about what is possible.

We haven’t always been like this.

If we jumped in a time machine and went back to when I was born in the early 70s we would barely recognise the Australia we found.

The White Australia Policy still hadn’t been completely dismantled.

Only about 1 per cent of Australians came from somewhere other than Europe.

Today more than 4 million Australians were born in Asia – or their parents were.

The number of Indian Australians has doubled in just the last decade.

After Christianity, the next biggest faith practiced by Australians is Islam.

The fastest growing religion is Hinduism.

We are a different country.

Education has also made us a different country to the one I was born in.

In 1972 only 18 per cent of Australians finished school. Today’s it’s about 80 per cent.

Back then less than 10 per cent of young Australians had a uni degree. Now it’s almost one in two.

That’s nation changing stuff.

And the truth is religious institutions have done a big chunk of that work.  

Professor Paul Oslington from Alphacrucis College has made the point that faith-based education was here before our first public universities.

St James College on King Street was teaching children and adults before the first brick was laid at the University of Sydney.

Across the country now there are almost 3,000 Catholic, Anglican, Islamic, Jewish and other religious schools.

That change that I talked about, that’s happened in the last 50 years hasn’t stopped. We are still changing.

And if we get into a time machine and take it to 2050 it will look a lot different again.

This is why the Universities Accord is important.

To help us get ready for that future.

What it says is that by 2050 we are going to need a workforce where 80 per cent haven’t just finished high school, we are going to need a workforce where 80 per cent have finished school and they have gone to TAFE or university as well.

That’s a big shift.

Some of that will happen organically.

Just because the fastest growing jobs are in professions that require a uni degree or a TAFE qualification.

But some of it will require reform.

Reform to our education system.

To help us get there.

I said a moment ago about one in two young Australians have a university degree today.

But it’s not one in two everywhere.

But it’s not one in two in our outer suburbs. It’s not one in two in the regions or the bush.

And if we are going to hit that 80 per cent target, we have got to change that.

That’s what the Accord says. And that’s what the reforms I am implementing are all about.

Things like:

•    Wiping $3 billion of HECS debt for more than 3 million Australians. 
•    Paid prac – financial support for teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students while they do their prac.
•    Massively expanding fee-free uni ready courses – those courses that act as a bridge between school and uni.

All of that is in the Parliament right now.

It’s just the start.

The Accord also recommends a new funding system, needs-based funding and a new Australian Tertiary Education Commission to steer reform over multiple governments.

And I hope to provide you with more detail on all of that before the end of the year.

There is also another Bill in the Parliament.

That’s the one that sets up a National Student Ombudsman.

An independent body to investigate and resolve disputes and give students a stronger voice when the worst happens.

It will also have strong investigative powers, similar to those of a Royal Commission.

It is a long overdue response to the appalling evidence of sexual violence and harassment on campuses and in student accommodation.

But it’s not just about that. Its scope will be broad.

That includes complaints about antisemitism and Islamophobia or any type of racism or discrimination.

The bottom line is I want students to be safe and feel safe and if something really bad happens they have a place to go to get action.

Something else I want to talk about today is this.

Institutions here in this room help train teachers, nurses, counsellors, lawyers, care workers.

And you also train pastors and priests and ministers. But we don’t train Rabbis or Imams in Australia. Not yet.

I’ve spoken a number of times to leaders in the Jewish community and Islamic community and others, like Murray Norman, CEO of Better Balanced Futures, about this.

I think it’s in our interest as a country to change this.

For Australian religious leaders to be able to get the training and qualifications they need here in Australia.

Without having to go overseas.

I also want to talk to you today about our schools.

We have got big challenges here too.

Think about this.

Over the last eight years the percentage of students finishing high school has gone down not up.

From 85 percent to 79 percent.

That drop isn’t happening everywhere.

In non-government schools the percentage of students finishing school is either pretty flat or going up.

Where the drop is happening is in our public schools. From 83 percent to 73 percent.

This is what we have to turn around.

This is what the reforms I am trying to implement with the States are all about.

Our non-government schools are fully funded or on a path to be fully funded.

Our public schools aren’t.

We need to fix funding and tie that funding to the reforms that are going to help students catch up, keep up and finish high school.

This not about breaking Gonski. It is about finishing it.

That’s good for the whole schooling system.

You know I am a product of public education. And proud of it.

But I hope you also know that I value what you do too.

You will never see me attacking faith-based education.

You are an integral part of our education system.

One last thing.

The reforms I am driving aren’t just in our universities or schools.

If we are serious, we have to go back further than that.

I am talking about early education.  

The child care debate is over. It’s not babysitting. It’s early education.

The first five years of a child’s life are everything.

Everything they see, everything they hear, everything they eat, every book they open, every lesson they learn shapes the person that they become.

The Government is now considering the Productivity Commission’s final report on the future of early education.

It tells us it’s children from poor families who are the least likely to go to early childhood education and care, and the most likely to benefit from it.

It will help us to build a more accessible and affordable early education and care system, which gives children the skills they need to start school ready to learn.

All these reforms will help us to continue to write the story of Western Sydney.

A story of change. A story of progress. A story of aspiration.

A story made possible by the power of education.

A story that you are helping to write every day. Thank you for what you do and thank you for being here today.

Source: Australia’s climate in 2024: 2nd warmest and 8th wettest year on record

I am pleased to announce the 22 recipients of the Australia-Japan Foundation (AJF) grant round for 2024-25.

The AJF advances Australia’s foreign and trade policy interests with Japan by supporting partnerships in areas of shared interest and increasing Australian engagement with Japan.

The grant recipients in 2024-25 include:

• The Australian Antarctic Program Partnership at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, to develop new pathways for Japanese and Australian scientific collaborations in Antarctic and Southern science.
• An Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) workshop to convene leading Pacific experts from Australia, Japan and the Pacific, focusing on improving Pacific resilience to new security challenges.
• The University of Queensland’s initiative to advance higher education on sustainable construction in Australia and Japan through teaching workshops, a public guest lecture series, and a presentation at Expo 2025, Osaka, Kansai.
• A Drift Consulting project to bring together Australian and Japanese experts to exchange knowledge and progress the use of Australian seaweed in livestock feed to reduce emissions.

A full list of successful grant recipients is available on the AJF website.

Source: Australia’s climate in 2024: 2nd warmest and 8th wettest year on record

Today I announce the appointment of Dr Scott Watkins as Chair of the Australia-Korea Foundation (AKF), as well as new board members to support the Foundation’s work.

The AKF works to strengthen economic, strategic and personal links between Australia and the Republic of Korea (ROK).

Dr Watkins has been a Board Member since 2022 and is active in forging networks between Australian and South Korean youth. He is the Chief Sustainability Officer at KISCO, a South Korean chemicals and inks manufacturer, and previously worked for CSIRO.

I am pleased to announce the appointment of three new board members who each bring extensive experience to support the objectives of the AKF:

• Professor Gordon Flake, founding CEO of the Perth USAsia Centre
• Ms Julianne Lee, Vice President of Voice of Korean Australian Businesses and Director a Rosecello Pty Ltd
• Mr Sung Ho Lee, Partner at Johnson Partners.

I have reappointed Ms Robyn Bryant, from Bryant Family Grazing in Southern Queensland, for a second three-year term from March 2025.

I greatly appreciate the efforts of outgoing Chair Peter Coleman and Board Member Ms Karen Halbert for their substantial contribution the Australia-ROK relationship and thank them for their work supporting the AKF.

Today I am also delighted to announce that grants have been awarded to 22 recipients in the 2024-25 AKF Grant Round. These are listed on the AKF website and include:

• The Australia-Korea Academic Maritime Security Dialogue in South Korea, convened by La Trobe University and the University of Western Australia, to promote discussions on maritime-related issues in our region.
• An Australia-Korea Business Council initiative to connect female leaders in Australia and South Korea through networking and panel discussions, to promote leadership skills, cross-cultural exchanges and mentorships.
• Supporting 10 Australian scientists to attend the Federation of Asian and Oceanian Biochemists and Molecular Biologists’ Young Scientist Program in South Korea, to enhance bilateral scientific ties.

Applications are now open for the 2025-26 Grant Round. For more information visit the Australia-Korea Foundation.

Source: Australian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry

The Albanese Government will work with states, territories, businesses and unions to design a national licensing scheme for electrical trades people.

We’re cutting red tape to save tradies time and money.

This reform is good for workers, good for businesses and will make our economy more productive and competitive.

It will help housing affordability by easing workforce shortages that are holding back construction of more homes.

The 2025–26 Budget will enable the design and implementation of the national licensing scheme through the National Competition Policy (NCP) framework.

The Government has committed $900 million to the National Productivity Fund to drive NCP reforms.

National licensing will enable people in electrical trades to work seamlessly across state and territory borders without reapplying for a separate licence or paying additional fees.

By removing unnecessary barriers, this scheme will encourage highly skilled electrical workers to go where they are needed most in the industry, like in housing construction and clean energy.

As this scheme relates to high‑risk occupations, it will address the need for high standards, while cutting red tape, delays and multiple fees for trades people.

Of all the construction trades, more workers are employed in electrical services than any other, accounting for around one in seven workers in construction.

Productivity Commission modelling shows that reforming occupational licensing across a range of industries could provide significant benefits, including a boost to economic output of up to $10.3 billion.

The Albanese Government has a big and broad economic agenda aimed at boosting productivity because we recognise this is the key to growing our economy and further lifting living standards.

The Liberals oversaw the slowest decade of productivity growth in 60 years and we’re working hard to turn that around.

The Liberals abandoned a national license scheme agreed with states and territories at their first Council of Australian Governments meeting under then Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2013.

National licensing will complement reforms previously agreed under NCP, including the development of a national screening check for workers in the care sector, streamlining commercial zoning and planning, and removing barriers that inhibit the take‑up of modern construction methods.

The Albanese Government’s five pillar productivity agenda is focused on creating a more dynamic economy, building a skilled workforce, harnessing data and digital, investing in net zero and delivering quality care more efficiently.

We’ll make our economy more productive by investing in the jobs and industries of the future and by backing our people, not by making Australians work longer for less.

Our fourth budget is all about helping with the cost of living, paying down Liberal debt and building a stronger economy.

We’ll continue to do what we can to make our economy more productive and competitive and ease the burden on tradies and small businesses.

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

Source: Workplace Gender Equality Agency

CATHERINE KING – MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT: […] Well, we’re here in Buangor today, but we’re announcing the Victorian recipients of the Level Crossing Upgrade program. There are 32 projects right the way across the state, the state of Victoria, all of them in regional Victoria, because we know across Australia, there’s over 23,000 level crossings, and it’s where this interacts with trains and cars and trucks together, we know they are the areas where people are at their most vulnerable. Train drivers and passengers are at their most vulnerable, and we want to make those safer. So today, the 32 regional level crossings across Victoria, $54 million a shared commitment between the Allan and Albanese Labor governments. The projects are funded under this program are the sort of lower cost but high priority areas. They’ve been chosen because there is a higher likelihood of an accident occurring, we know we’re seeing more frequency of train services. Thank you very much to the Victorian Government for that.

Across Ararat and Pyrenees council areas, there are eight sites receiving over $14 million in funding. And as I said, there’s, such as some of them are passive already, and they’ll be receiving boom gates and also signalling approaches as well. And this is a really important program that we’ve been rolling out across the country, and it’s great to be able to do that here today.

I’m also in Victoria, announcing the recipients of the Safer Local Roads and Infrastructure Program. This is a program where we’ve increased money to local councils to ensure that they are able to build some of the more costly roads, but really to upgrade those. And there are roads across, again, regional Victoria, from Swan Hill to Leongatha and two projects in Yarriambiack, which is a terrific community, and also one in the greater Shepparton area, as well as two projects that you’ll see in the Budget on budget night across the Princes Highway, both in Lakes Entrance and Beaconsfield. Again, that Safer Local Roads is all part of the Labor Government’s commitment to actually increasing funding for regional roads.

What we’ve done since we’ve came to office is we’ve increased, doubled Roads to Recovery funding for every single Council, not just select councils using colour coded spreadsheets, every council is receiving double the amount of money. We’ve reversed the cuts to road maintenance funding. It was pretty shocking to me when we came to office that the Liberal Party had cut road maintenance funding for our national highways, and that was a significant cut. We have not only re-indexed the road maintenance funding, but we’ve backdated it to make sure we actually filled the hole that that cut had left. So you’re seeing that work, then you’ve seen the Safer Local Roads program, the Level Crossing Upgrade program, and as well, as I said, The Black Spot Road program. So there’s been significantly more money put into those things. All of that really directed to improving our regional country roads. I’ll hand over to Martha and see if we’ve got any questions.

MARTHA HAYLETT – VICTORIAN MEMBER FOR RIPON: Perfect. Thank you so much, Minister King, and thank you for being here in Buangor today. To have $14 million just across the Ararat and Pyrenees Shires is huge for our region. So, we know that we’re adding more weekend services on the Ararat line. We’re increasing that frequency of trains, and we need to make sure that the safety of the level crossings and the pedestrian crossings are much safer. So, the fact that we’re going to have boom gates and much higher safety is a win, not just for the people on the trains, but also people driving on our rural and regional roads. So, this is what we also can achieve when we have a genuine partner in Canberra. And it’s fantastic to be working with the Albanese Labor Government on this project. So, this has had some state government funding as well, and we’ve been able to do this together. So, it’s a big, big win for our region, and we’ll just make our roads and our rail even safer.

JOURNALIST: Catherine, this isn’t the first announcement along here. There’s three projects underway in Beaufort at the moment, so you’re spending a fair bit of money on this particular line.

CATHERINE KING: Yeah, well, again, really important. We know, particularly, you know, we want to get upgrades and improvements to rail and the passenger experience, but particularly, we also want to make sure it’s safer for regional communities. We know that level crossings are the one place where you do have that interaction between, if you’re a truck driver – their workplace, if you’re a train driver – the train driver’s workplace, and we know we see too many regional Australians injured, or lose their lives in level rail crossing accidents. As I said, there’s 23,000 of them across the country. We can’t remove all of them. We just simply can’t. It would be too costly to do that, but what we can do is make all of them safer, and that means better signalling, better opportunities for people to know when a train is coming. And on this particular area, when we’ve seen increase in trains frequency, increase in passenger numbers using rail, we’ve really got to do something, and they’ve been chosen to make sure you know these are the areas where the most accidents likely to happen.

JOURNALIST: Are all of these dedicated crossings getting boom gates?

CATHERINE KING: It’ll be a mix. So some, some will have just signalling in the way that you’ve seen in this passive crossing here. Some will have the boom gates put in. But each of them are substantial commitments. Most of them are in the over the $1 million mark. So, there’s quite a substantial amount you can do for that.

JOURNALIST: Is some of the money for signalling as well?

CATHERINE KING: Some of it is for what you do, you put on the track. There’s a, I don’t know the name of it, but it says it provides the opportunity for signal to then connect to the light. So it’s actually a box that goes on the train, but the engineers and people who know trains will tell you about what that looks like. It’s called an axel something or other [laughs]

JOURNALIST: I don’t know either. [all laugh] Is this something the state government’s been wanting to work in partnership for a while?

CATHERINE KING: Yes, so in particular, here in Victoria, we have a lot of level crossings. It’s been a, you know, his history of our fabulous rail that we have in the state of Victoria means that we’ve got substantial number of level rail crossings. I don’t know if we’ve got more than any other state. I’d have to check that fact. But I certainly think, you know, the history of our state sees that happen. So the Victorian Government has helped us choose the sites they know, obviously the frequency of their passenger and freight services and other roads that are busy as well. So this has been a true partnership between the two of us to really get these crossings improved. So 32 of them. We’ve still got more to do, but that’s a pretty good batch for Ararat and Pyrenees Shires.

JOURNALIST: And when’s this likely to be rolled out Catherine?

CATHERINE KING: So the money’s available now. The projects have been identified, so it’ll be rolled out this year.

JOURNALIST: Yeah, and Martha, you’d be very happy with the new timetables out, with extra trains?

MARTHA HAYLETT: Exactly! And we’ve got some later night services as well. And it’s going to be really, a real benefit for especially those weekend passengers, uh, they’ll be able to go, go down to Melbourne, go see a show, see some of the footy, and then come back to Ararat. So I want to thank everyone locally in our at who contacted me and pushed me on that one, and we’ve been able to get some, some good wins on that.

JOURNALIST: Was there much public feedback?

MARTHA HAYLETT: A lot! Yeah, so,

JOURNALIST: I tried to help…

MARTHA HAYLETT: And from the Ararat Advocate! So a lot of people contacting me, calling me, emailing me, and they still are. So there’s lots of happy feedback about the fact that we’ve got some later night services on the weekend.

JOURNALIST: And I think the timetable comes in, you know, about a month’s time, doesn’t it?

MARTHA HAYLETT: Yes, exactly, yeah. So it’ll kick in very soon, mid next month, and be fantastic. So we’ve got two additional services on each day. So really, technically eight, eight extra services on that…

JOURNALIST: So I can hear a train coming.