MARK DREYFUS MP

Good governance practices are essential for the operation of our democracy.

The Rudd Labor government is serious about tackling climate change. We understand that it is one of the greatest economic and environmental challenges facing our country and indeed the globe.

Above all, this bill honours Australia's commitment under the United Nations Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, and will help preserve this place of pristine natural beauty.

These kidnappings are an impediment to lasting peace in the region. They are a crime against the laws of war and they are a personal tragedy for these young men and their families.

The use of torture is an abuse by the state of its powers, but it is worse than that: it is a denial of the humanity of the victim. It is the antithesis of those values on which we base our social and political systems. It is degrading and dehumanising, and its elimination demands international attention and action.

This amendment, though uncontroversial and highly technical, has the opportunity to change the manner and form of laws that as law makers in this place we deal with on an everyday basis. This is good progress to ensure that our statute books are gender neutral, and

With an estimated 1.2 billion people worldwide living within 100 kilometres of a coastline and 50 per cent of the world's population likely to do so by 2030, it is essential to safeguard Australian coasts with the amendments introduced by this bill, which I commend to the House.

It is the sound policies of the Rudd Labor government and the neglect by the former government that the people of Gippsland will have in their minds when they go to vote this Saturday.

In simple terms, these amendments alter section 79 of the Judiciary Act and restore to the states the protection of limitation periods in state laws which put a time limit on suing state governments to recover taxes paid under a law later found to be invalid.

Despite dramatic change and growth in Australia as a nation over the last 100 years, Australia's Constitution remains very much as it was originally drafted