MARK DREYFUS MP

Censure is the appropriate response to the findings by the Honourable Virginia Bell AC that the Member for Cook, while Prime Minister of Australia, appointed himself to administer five additional departments and failed to inform the Cabinet, failed to inform the relevant departments, failed to inform the House of Representatives and failed to inform the Australian public.

The Public Interest Disclosure Amendment (Review) Bill will implement key recommendations of the 2016 review of the Public Interest Disclosure Act by Mr Philip Moss AM (the Moss review) and parliamentary committee reports to deliver immediate improvements to our public sector whistleblowing scheme. These reforms are long overdue.

For many Australians, religion forms a central part of their personal identity and value system, and it helps guide how they want to raise their families. The central themes of law and justice in both Jewish religious and secular traditions have great meaning for me and have helped to shape my worldview.

The Government is committed to ensuring a strong regulatory framework to protect people’s right to privacy and ensuring the security of their personal information.

My university years coincided with the Whitlam Government, and the wave of social change it would bring inspired in me my passion for politics and its potential to improve lives.

That experience stayed with me all my life, that a progressive government can change the country. That experience that politics is a worthwhile activity has never left me.

It’s why I left the law to become an MP, and now, as Commonwealth Attorney-General have the great privilege to speak with Australia’s next generation of legal practitioners.

The Albanese Government is delivering on its promise to tackle corruption and restore trust and integrity to public institutions.

While law enforcement methods have evolved, we continue to grapple with new and innovative technologies that facilitate and hide the sexual abuse of children.

It was a Labor government that established the foundations of the anti-discrimination framework underpinned by international human rights law. The Albanese Government will build on that proud tradition of strengthening anti-discrimination law.

This Bill sends a clear message that the Albanese Government takes privacy, security and data protection seriously.

It is a great privilege, on behalf of the Australian Government and the Australian people, to welcome your Honour as a Justice of the High Court of Australia.