I hope everyone got a few days off. I got a few days off in beautiful Tasmania last week. So, thank you to Caucus members and Ministers for leaving me alone for a few days. It was good to have a break and to celebrate Jodie’s first birthday with us as a married couple as well.
Look, during the break has been pretty busy though. Conference was a fantastic moment for our movement where we brought together the 400 delegates, 400 proxies from right around the country, from branches, from cities, from regions, from unions, from the whole spectrum that make up our great movement. And what it was defined by I think was the unity of purpose that was there, the determination to ensure that we are a long-term Labor government. The determination to work through policy issues in a constructive way. And of course, it was the culmination of a whole process. It used to be, when I first started going to those conferences, people would come along with a pen and paper and write out things on the spur with 99 delegates. Now we have the 60 members of the committee that do the work, meetings in Sydney and Melbourne, a lot of the policy work done up, making sure that we get the detail right. But right across the board, I think, as a result of that conference, we have ways to move forward.
Paid prac, which we’re extending across the health sector. That’s made such an enormous difference already. We know it’s a big success. The Fair Work Court that will make sure that instead of people who haven’t got wage justice, who’ve been ripped off, waiting or going through lengthy legal processes that they can’t have the capacity to do, we’ll get things fixed in the interests of workers, but also in the interests of good employers as well. And we also looked at a range of issues that this Parliament will deal with, including in the coming fortnight as well.
I met earlier today with the Leader of the Opposition as well, to work through NDIS. I expect those changes will pass in this sitting fortnight, which will be important to make sure that it’s sustainable going forward. As a result of the work that we did at the National Conference, when it comes to the gambling legislation, further work and amendments that will be carried, I think, with bipartisan support about inducements. And making sure that those issues are dealt with in a constructive way, making sure that we get the balance right between people who want to go along and have a punt on a Saturday at the races. But also, that problem gambling is actually dealt with. This will be the strongest anti-gambling legislation that Australia has ever seen, building on the previous ones, which were also by our Government, making those changes through. And I’m confident that later in the week we’ll have the legislation, the House of Representatives, with some really practical amendments dealing with the targeting of advertising, dealing with reducing children’s exposure and dealing with as well, the full suite of measures in a really practical way. We also have the News Bargaining Incentive that we need to deal with as well. This is about media being paid for the work that journalists do. This is absolutely essential reform going forward, making sure that deals can be done between companies and media organisations for the work that they produce, but if not, there’s an incentive there for that to occur and for it to be delivered. That builds on the work that we’ve done since Parliament last met, based upon the legislation that we had already carried.
Bulk billing rates right across the country are increasing in every single state and territory, up to over 84 per cent nationally. That’s a figure we were expecting to reach a couple of years from now that we’ve reached already, saying we are well on track to that target of 90 per cent bulk billing by 2030. It’s pretty clear that we will exceed that measure. More first homebuyers getting a crack every Saturday and making sure that they get the opportunity that Australians want to see for their families. We’re now up to 800,000 enrolments in Free TAFE, of which 32,000 are construction apprentices, making a difference. The speech that I gave about setting up Australian standards for AI and when I go to the United Nations in September next month, we’ll build on that to lead the world, just like we have led the world in our social media policies as well going forward. We are investigating new oil refinery in WA, consistent with what been doing to ensure that fuel remains available here in Australia. And the fact that we have more supply here than we had on February 28 when this conflict in the Middle East began, is quite remarkable and a tribute to the hard work that Chris has done and the work that Julie Collins has done dealing with that issue and of course dealing as well in a really practical, orderly way with the challenge of bird flu as well.
During the break as well, we signed our new alliance with Fiji and our alliance with PNG came into force. Meaning that for the first 125 years, we had two alliances. We’ve had two in the last 12 months and Senator Wong, the Foreign Minister, will be making statements on that in the Parliament this week as well. In addition to that, we met with leaders from Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga as well, and hosted Prime Minister Modi in Melbourne. An event that was quite extraordinary, let me say. I don’t think anyone who saw that footage could doubt that. It was a very excited Australian Indian community who were there on that evening.
So, we continue to advance our positive agenda as we go forward. And it contrasts with the Opposition across the board, the three parties, the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation, who continue to look for grievance and look for opposition. We choose a different road. We choose progress over protest. We choose purpose over chaos. We choose unity over division. How we bring the country together. And importantly, we choose outcomes over outrage. We’re here to make a difference. The legislation that we will be having in this second half of the year will set us up to go into 2027, even stronger as we go forward. Not talking Australia down, but building Australia up, which is what we do, whether it’s here domestically or indeed internationally as well.
So, I hope you all took the advice and did have a few days off during the break, but now it’s back to work.
