Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee
25 October 2026
Speaker dots
- Speakers in the chapter
- Colour: political group
- Grey: no group
Tap or click a chapter's dots to see names and groups.
Contents updated on 26 Oct 2026
Legend
Transcript markers
- text Sentence being played
- text Search result
- text Intervention cited by the link you opened
Click a sentence to play the video from that moment. Select text to quote it with the speaker, timestamp and link.
More options
Official source
Offset
Transcript offset
0s
Text size
Export
Live capture
Versions of this video
Transcripts may differ slightly from one version to another.
Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee Australian Parliament
11:54 - 14:26
Speaker 1
I open this hearing of the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee of the Senate into 2026-2027 budget estimates.
I open this hearing of the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee of the Senate into 2026-2027 budget estimates, and I begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet and pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. At this point, I'd like to speak on behalf of the committee in sending our thoughts to our colleague, the member for Indi, Dr. Helen Haines MP, her family, her team, and her community as she continues to recover in hospital. The attack against Dr. Haines on Monday last week was horrific, and I know that many, including myself, have come to this place distressed by that attack and also in shock at what has happened to our colleague and our friend, and Helen remains in all of our thoughts.
Dr. Haines is much loved as a colleague here, a strong advocate for her community in Indi and as a robust, civil and kind participant in our democracy. Contributions will be made in the House of Representatives today from 10:00 AM and the committee will suspend to enable senators to attend the first of these statements as a mark of respect for Dr. Haines. I do note that there are a number of matters under investigation by the Victorian Police, Australian Federal Police and ASIO and I ask senators to please be mindful of this during hearings. Dr. Haines is known to all of us as a person of integrity, of warmth and as I said before and of kindness and someone who conducts public debate in a robust but respectful manner.
As chair, I will be taking this context for our hearings here today and tomorrow, and I'm sure my fellow senators join with me in this spirit and with Dr. Haynes in our minds. The committee has fixed Thursday, 17 December 2026 as the date for return of answers to questions on notice. Before I commence today's proceedings with the corporate matters and general questions of climate change, energy, environment and water, in an unusual move, we are in a position this morning to release the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner from their attendance at estimates today, and they go with our thanks. We now proceed to corporate matters and general questions of climate change, energy, the environment and water portfolio. Under standing order 26, the committee must take all evidence in public session, and this includes answers to questions on notice.
The rest of the transcript is for Pro customers
Unlock the full transcript, chat, and every analysis feature with Polyfact Pro.
Start a free trialAsk anything about this video — I analyse its transcript to answer.