"A lot of people will find it frustrating that we’re excluding teens, rather than forcing platforms to be built safer and better for everyone. If you feel that way, too, you’re not alone."

The Greens will stand up for the rule of law, and for people on income support, and will be opposing this power grab today so people on income support are not further punished and demonised.

Labor could be doing the right thing and increasing payments so that 2.5m people in this country are not living in poverty. They could be following the Robodebt Royal Commission and putting in a 6yr limit on debt recoveries. Instead, its more criminalising welfare recipients.

“This punishes people who are legally innocent, directly contradicting the presumption of innocence, a fundamental principle of Australian common law”

“This could force her (and any dependants) to return to the violent situation or become homeless, compounding the danger she faces. (...)

“Her income would be cut off at the most dangerous time in her life, without any opportunity to explain the circumstances, present evidence of the abuse she suffered, or seek legal advice. (...)

“If police issue a warrant for her arrest and she cannot be located because she is in hiding or in the process of fleeing, Schedule 5 would allow police to request cancellation of any social security payment(s) she receives. (...)

“Schedule 5 would create a dangerous mechanism for this misidentification to have immediate and severe consequences. A woman fleeing domestic violence could, for instance, be misidentified by police as a perpetrator rather than a victim” (...)

Here’s what the experts have warned today (and might have told the government had there been any of the usual scrutiny on this dodgy amendment):

Labor stuck this amendment onto an unrelated bill at the last minute. We had a whole inquiry looking at the bill which didn’t get to interrogate this change because Labor kept it hidden and now are trying to ram it through today. Why hide from scrutiny?

Minister Gallagher refuses to answer basic questions from @davidpocock.bsky.social about whether they got legal advice that giving cops these powers to cancel welfare payments is constitutional

"This is extraordinary that the government won't even confirm"