SA School Cuts - 12/02/17

February 12, 2018

South Australian schools have been betrayed by this government, which, with the disgraceful support of the Nick Xenophon Team, tore up a clear written agreement promising never to touch funding, taking $210 million from South Australian schools over just two years, 2018 and 2019. In my electorate of Port Adelaide, the cuts to public schools alone total more than $14.6 million over the coming two years. Two schools in my electorate, Woodville H...

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Tet: Year of the Dog

February 07, 2018

I honour the Vietnamese community across Australia, particularly the passionate women and men in my electorate, in their contributions to our great nation.

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CAMBODIA MOTION - 5/02/18

February 05, 2018

Cambodia is reaching a point of political crisis. I am sorry to say that since this motion was submitted in October that the situation in Cambodia has only deteriorated.

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The Future of Unions in Australia and the Implications for Labor

February 02, 2018

Shortly before Parliament rose last year, the Reserve Bank Governor, Philip Lowe, again drew attention to the poor rate of wages growth in Australia and its impact on the broader economy. While he was at pains to stress that he wasn’t – in his words – ‘calling on the workers of the world to unite to rise up against the evil capitalists’, he has on a number of occasions recently urged workers to muscle up for a pay rise. Over the past couple of...

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Grasping the Nettle on Democratisation of the ALP

January 22, 2018

Back in 2015, I had the privilege of being elected National President of the Labor Party on a very clear platform of wanting to contribute to reforms that would see our great Party become more democratic and participatory, and substantially bigger and better organised. More than two years later, most of the meaningful changes that were discussed by Party members during that ballot have been blocked by factional leaders at the National Conferen...

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Cambodian statement - 7/12/17

December 07, 2017

I again rise to express my very deep concern at the abuse of civil and political rights in Cambodia by the Hun Sen regime. Since the 2013 election, there has been a concerted campaign by the regime to crush civil society and press freedom and to neutralise its political opposition, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, the CNRP. The closure of The Cambodia Daily and Radio Free Asia is just one example of the oppression of a free press.

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