MARK DREYFUS MP

The first immediate political challenge to reform is to ensure that Scott Morrison and his Government understand that the Fourth Estate is a foundation of all healthy democracies, including ours.

Ensuring that all Australians are able to have their legal rights upheld is especially important for families and children under threat of violence, to the victims of financial fraud and other crimes perpetrated against them by banks and other large companies, to Indigenous Australians and communities, to the sick, to the elderly, to rural Australians who don't have easy access to lawyers or to the courts, to our new arrivals, and yes to those accused of serious crimes.

Labor strongly agrees that farmers and those in other agricultural businesses should not be subject to intimidating and unlawful actions by activists trespassing on their land.

This government is not serious about integrity or tackling corruption. If they were, they would establish a National Integrity Commission now.

It should be a matter of great concern to all Australians that the now-Member for Chisholm, the Treasurer of Australia and the Liberal Party sought to mislead Chinese-speaking Australian voters with their shamefully deceitful signs.

This Liberal government should focus on putting its own house in order before it lectures others on matters of integrity, because this Liberal Party has an uneasy relationship with the concept of integrity.

It is long past time for the Prime Minister to show people with disabilities the respect that they deserve,

Every debate about national security legislation in this country should begin with a recognition that the powers we have given our security agencies in Australia are broader and subject to fewer restrictions and less oversight than the powers that have been given to agencies in any similar country anywhere in the world. There are no greater examples of this than ASIO's questioning and detention warrant powers. No comparable jurisdiction in the world - by that I mean Western democracies - gives such powers to its intelligence agencies.

The Medevac Laws should not be necessary but this Minister and this Government makes them necessary and they must not be repealed.

When Labor stands up for parliamentary oversight and scrutiny of legislation to ensure that laws operate as intended and do not result in unintended and undesirable consequences and are subject to proper safeguards, the Liberals resort to cheap smears and questioning of allegiance.