Battles that never should have needed to be fought

The last two sitting weeks of Parliament started out with the Coalition fighting to scrap Labor’s cruel $5,000 cap on military veterans’ allied health entitlements.

It ended with the Albanese Government finally scrapping that cap - because of the pressure by the Coalition, veterans and Australians.

It was a win for our veteran community - but a battle they should never have had to fight.

And Labor cannot now rewrite history.

When the measure was announced, the Government’s own Budget material explicitly called it a $5,000 “Annual Monetary Limit”. DVA then called it a “cap”.

When the backlash grew, Labor suddenly tried to pretend it wasn’t a cap at all and rebadged it a “review threshold”.

Now they have scrapped it altogether.

First it was a limit. Then it was a cap. Then it was a “review threshold”.

It does not matter what Labor tried to call it - it was cruel.

And let us not now have Mr Albanese and Minister Keogh congratulating themselves for listening.

They did not listen. They were forced to backflip.

From the outset, the Coalition stood with veterans and fought this policy.

We raised it in Parliament.

We called publicly on the Prime Minister to scrap it.

We stood with veterans, their families and advocates as they demanded the Government think again.

And when the opportunity came in the Senate, the Coalition successfully passed an amendment to abolish it.

Labor still refused to accept it.

When veterans first warned the Government about its $5,000 allied health policy, Labor did not withdraw it.

It defended it.

When families raised concerns, Labor did not withdraw it.

It defended it.

When clinicians and advocates warned about the consequences and additional bureaucracy, Labor still did not withdraw it.

For months Labor defended this policy.

It justified it.

It rebadged it.

It changed the language around it.

The Coalition kept fighting it.

Veterans kept fighting it.

And eventually Labor folded.

That is what happened.

This was not leadership from Labor.

It was a retreat under pressure.

And it was a victory for the veterans who refused to give up and for everyone, including the Coalition, who stood beside them and refused to let the Government get away with it.

I met with a group of veterans in Parliament House at the start of the first sitting week. Their stories were harrowing but their courage inspiring. It was sickening that earlier in the day they had laid down their medals in front of Parliament in protest of the cruel cap.

Think about that. Men and women who served this country were driven to lay down their medals because their Government would not listen to them.

They should never have been put in that position. Their treatment by the Albanese Government and Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh was appalling.

Minister Keogh is not up to the job. He should be sacked.

Initially he wouldn’t meet with the veterans. When he did, he wouldn’t shake their hands. This is a Minister who even took the travel entitlements away from the parents of a dead Victoria Cross recipient. After the allied health cap, the Invictus Games, the treatment of Cameron Baird’s parents and medallic recognition, enough is enough.

Our veterans deserve better. The sooner Matt Keogh is gone the better.

The sitting weeks brought another fight that should never have been necessary - this time over whether Australian women and girls can rely on the law to protect their safety, privacy and fairness.

On 10 September the High Court refused special leave to appeal the Full Federal Court’s ruling in the Giggle v Tickle case.

That ruling now stands. So does the uncertainty it has created for women’s refuges, sporting organisations, charities and other female-only services unless the law is changed.

The courts will not fix this. Only the Parliament can.

So I moved to bring my Sex Discrimination Amendment (Restoring Common Sense and Recognising Biological Sex) Bill 2026 back before the Senate.

Labor, the Greens AGAIN voted it down. It was the second time this year they had stopped this Bill from being debated.

Twice the Coalition has tried to have this debate. Twice Labor and the Greens have shut it down.

They would rather stop the Senate even discussing the issue than explain to Australian women why they will not support clear legal protections for biological sex.

The Bill makes clear that biological sex is the basis on which single-sex arrangements, including women’s refuges, change rooms, hospital wards, correctional facilities and sporting competitions, may lawfully operate.

Organisations that restrict services to one biological sex to protect safety, dignity, privacy or equality will not be committing unlawful discrimination, and they will not have to apply for an exemption.

The Bill also extends those protections to online and digital services, closing the gap exposed by the Giggle litigation.

It does not take a single right away from anyone. It restores what ideology has taken away from biological women.

A refuge operator should not have to wonder whether offering a woman escaping violence a space with other women exposes the organisation to litigation.

A sporting organisation should not have to ask permission to preserve a women’s competition.

A woman should not have to apologise for wanting privacy, dignity or safety in a female-only space.

That should not be controversial. It should be common sense.

Anthony Albanese has had every opportunity to act.

Angus Taylor wrote to him after the Federal Court judgment.

I put a Bill before the Parliament in July. I brought it back again after the High Court decision.

And Labor blocked it again.

The High Court has now closed the door on any other path.

Sall Grover spent years in court, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, defending common sense because the Parliament failed to have her back. Labor and the Greens have now failed her again.

This is not radical. It is not extreme. It is not a culture war.

Recognising biological sex and protecting women’s spaces is common sense. The Coalition will keep fighting for it. We will not let Australians women and girls down.

Labor’s migration mess

On Thursday, after weeks of delay and reported infighting between Tony Burke and Jim Chalmers, the Government finally told Australians what it plans to do about migration.

Under Labor, numbers have been too high and standards too low.

Labor has missed its migration targets at every turn, bringing in some 1.4 million people by the end of 2025, including half a million in a single year.

Net overseas migration is still running at more than 290,000.

Mr Burke boasted at the National Press Club that it is now 47 per cent below the peak. It is a peak Labor created.

You do not get credit for partially cleaning up a mess you created. Even Mr Burke admitted the numbers need to come down.

Yet Labor has kept its existing settings, including forecasts of 245,000 net overseas migrants in 2026-27 and 225,000 in 2027-28.

There has been no cut to those numbers since the last Budget.

The announcement was window dressing: a ballot for working holiday maker visas, limits on students bringing family members, and more compliance officers and detention beds.

None of it changes the number that matters.

Labor’s migration policy has been reactive, not strategic.

It was too slow to respond to the post-COVID surge, too slow to tackle visa hopping, too slow to restore integrity and too slow to be honest with Australians about the consequences.

Now, though Mr Burke’s speech, the Government has effectively conceded that it has been slowing visa processing, particularly for working holiday makers, in recent months as part of its effort to push the headline migration number down.

That is not a migration plan. It is an attempt to manage the number after losing control of the system.

Australians are not anti-migrant. They want a system that is planned, honest and matched to the homes, roads, schools and hospitals we actually have.

Labor built none of that and kept opening the door anyway.

Its mass migration has helped create a shortage of around 400,000 homes, putting more pressure on rents and making home ownership harder for Australians.

The Coalition has a better idea: net overseas migration must be capped below the number of new homes completed.

Migration should serve Australians, not the other way around.

LABOR’S ECONOMIC MESS

The same Government that can’t manage the migration program can’t manage the economy either, and this fortnight the evidence kept mounting.

Australians have endured 15 interest rate rises since Labor came to office, and families are now staring down the barrel of potentially another three.

Someone with a typical mortgage is around $29,000 a year worse off.

Families have tightened their belts.

The Albanese Government has done the opposite.

Government spending is running at a 40-year high outside the pandemic, and that is adding pressure to inflation.

There is also now more than $1 trillion of Commonwealth debt.

Labor told Australians it had turned the corner on inflation.

Jim Chalmers said the worst of it was “well and truly behind us”.

It wasn’t.

Inflation is still above the Reserve Bank’s target, and the RBA says it will not be back around the middle of the target band for some time.

Under Labor the price of everything is up: insurance, gas, electricity, rent, housing, education and health.

Every one of those numbers is a family decision: fixing the car or not, seeing the specialist or not, keeping the heater on or not.

Then came the International Monetary Fund.

Its latest report card reinforced concerns about weak productivity, rising government spending and the need for more ambitious economic reform.

First it was Labor luminaries like Bill Kelty calling out the Government’s failures.

Then Labor backbenchers leaked against the Treasurer.

Now international institutions are warning that Australia needs serious reform.

Jim Chalmers has taken Australia beyond $1 trillion of debt while Australians face higher borrowing costs and future generations inherit the bill.

Labor spins higher wages, but Australians care about what those wages actually buy.

It spins more affordable housing while first-home buyers fall behind and rents rise.

It spins responsible economic management while government spending keeps climbing.

And it talks endlessly about productivity while Australia endures one of its weakest productivity performances in decades.

The IMF’s message is straightforward: Australia needs spending restraint and serious structural reform.

Instead, Labor has chosen higher taxes on capital gains, rental properties and trusts while government spending continues to grow.

Australians do not need the IMF to tell them they are worse off.

They know it every time the mortgage comes out.

Every time they fill up the car.

Every time they open the power bill.

Every time they walk through the supermarket checkout.

Labor’s economic model is higher spending, higher taxes and higher costs.

Australians are paying the price through weaker living standards.

The Coalition offers a different direction: spending discipline, lower taxes and real economic reform that grows the economy rather than government. It is set out in Our Plan to Fix the Economy and Restore Our Way of Life.