Early childhood reform

My work revealing systemic issues in early childhood education and care has been ground-breaking and agenda-setting. By building majority support of members in the Legislative Council, I was able to use parliament’s processes to obtain government information that revealed shocking stories of abuse and exploitation within this increasingly-privatised sector that has become focused on profit at the expense of education and child safety. 

Image: Abigail with Adele Ferguson, holding the Gold Walkley, December 2025

For over a year I worked alongside investigative journalist Adele Ferguson and the Four Corners team to produce two Four Corners documentaries and five separate 7.30 episodes that brought the crisis engulfing the early childhood sector to national attention. I then used that public focus as part of my strategy to achieve meaningful reform. 

On the back of the first Four Corners episode I was able to secure and Chair an inquiry into the sector in NSW. I hauled the regulator and the CEOs of the major providers into hearings to grill them on their performance, and both the head of the regulator and the CEO of one of the worst providers, Affinity, lost their jobs as a result. This inquiry inspired a similar inquiry in the Senate and another in Victoria.

Working with a range of major media outlets, I strategically released information over the year to keep the story going as we pushed in parliament to secure change. When the Government finally acted to introduce modest legislative reform, I secured over twenty amendments to close Working With Children Check loopholes and strengthen protections against profit-seeking behaviours to improve child safety. 

The work I have done with early childhood professionals, academics and child safety experts culminated in a national summit of early childhood professionals in February of this year, where we put forward a set of demands for reform. Those demands include limiting the role of large for-profit corporate providers in the early childhood sector. My focus now is to ensure these demands are heard - until teachers and educators are given a voice, we won’t be able to return the early childhood sector to one that is safe for children and workers and trusted by families.

The Four Corners work has won multiple awards, including a Logie and the Gold Walkley. Adele Ferguson in her Logies acceptance speech:

“Thank you to Greens MP Abigail Boyd for cracking open the regulatory system.”

Adele Ferguson in her Gold Walkley acceptance speech:

“So I went to Abigail Boyd, an MP in NSW … and she agreed to work with us, and she's been working with us all year … So I'd like to say thank you to Abigail Boyd.”

I was also named by the Daily Telegraph in November 2025 as the 6th ‘most influential education figure’ in NSW:

“Greens Member of the Legislative Council Abigail Boyd has been steering the public agenda on early education and care all year. As chair of the education portfolio parliamentary committee, Ms Boyd is responsible for grilling the minister and departmental bureaucrats in budget estimates, and will have the VCs of Sydney’s universities in her sights amid a newly-established inquiry into the university sector. However, her most significant role this year has been unearthing a trove of thousands of hidden files detailing horrendous abuse and failures to keep kids safe in childcare settings, working in tandem with journalists to expose the “systemic” flaws in the sector. Her work has forced the government’s hand to introduce major reforms.”

Treasury and economics

I have been unrelenting in my progressive economic vision for a better world and, with my law and finance background, not easily dismissed by the major parties. My detailed Universal Wellbeing Payment plan, a form of universal basic income developed in consultation with our membership, has attracted global attention. Similarly, my fully-developed proposal for a Public Bank for NSW has been met with support from both sides of politics. My work on Wellbeing Indicators and a Wellbeing Budget Bill pressured Labor to implement NSW’s first ever wellbeing budget in 2025.

I have achieved significant wins in campaigning to reduce poverty and increase people’s access to basic needs. I was successful in getting period products installed in public schools, removed unfair fines and introduced hardship provisions in transport legislation. I have also worked to reduce the ability of corporations to exploit individuals in numerous areas - for example, by ending predatory banking products in NSW schools, winning protections for residents of retirement villages and securing compensation for taxi drivers pushed out by rideshare operators. I successfully amended the 2023 NSW Budget - a Greens’ first - to defer application of electric vehicle taxes for 3 years.

I have opposed privatisation, exposed ‘privatisation by stealth’ and called out sham accounting by the Government time and again. I chaired an inquiry that exposed just how damaging privatisation of our buses has been and another inquiry into the disastrous privatised road tolls system - both of which led to commitments for reform - and embarrassed the Government as they’ve attempted numerous budget tricks (including those involving the Transport Asset Holding Company and the WestInvest program).

My work exposing the infiltration of consultant firms into Government work at the expense of the independence and strength of our public sector directly led to the reduction of the use of consultants and contractors and greater transparency around government tendering and procurement. I also passed amendments that closed a ‘phoenixing’ loophole in building legislation, increased the fines 10-fold for anti-competitive conduct in the electronic conveyancing industry, and ensured that corporations couldn’t avoid penalties for dangerous driving undertaken by drivers of company cars.

Gendered violence

Domestic & family violence

Over the last 7 years, I have been proud to work closely with the domestic and family violence sector (including peak bodies, individual frontline services and workers, victim-survivors, academics and other experts) to persistently push the government of the day to implement real evidence-based solutions to the domestic violence crisis in our State. While using my position to advocate for hundreds of individual victim-survivors seeking justice, I have developed a deep understanding of the systemic issues in need of reform. At every opportunity I have pushed the government on a range of domestic and family violence reforms and have been recognised as the only effective opposition when it comes to government policy in this area.

A critical part of my work in this area is the campaign to criminalise coercive control in NSW. I worked with the sector and Greens members over an 18-month period to develop what would go on to be described by academics as the gold standard for coercive control legislation. That bill, and the campaign we ran around it, directly led to the Attorney-General releasing a discussion paper, convening an inquiry (of which I was invited to be a member) and introducing their own bill which was then passed. This campaign wasn’t just about changing the law though - it was about changing the narrative around domestic abuse. With the education and training of police and judiciary, and the public campaign rolled out alongside the legislative change, we have started to embed a new cultural norm: coercive control is domestic abuse.

Another huge win I achieved in this area was to pass an amendment that ended the practice of victim-survivors being directly cross-examined in court by their abuser. I also passed an amendment to enable courts to hold proceedings in camera to ensure the wellbeing and safety of victim-survivors. This has made an enormous difference to those facing the huge ordeal of appearing in court to secure their own safety and came about through my ability to work collaboratively with the other parties to negotiate on legislation.

Sexual assault, harassment and discrimination

While wrestling with my own demons, I have been overwhelmed and honoured to have the support of a wide network of victim-survivor advocates in pushing for legislative reforms to sexual assault, harassment and discrimination. The most recent success I’ve been proud to play a part in is the realisation of the Your Reference Ain’t Relevant campaign in NSW. Since I presented the campaign petition to parliament in 2023 and pushed the Labor government at every opportunity to implement its demand that character references not be relevant in the sentencing of child sex offenders, the campaign has gone from strength to strength and is now seeing success in multiple jurisdictions including ours.

I was also incredibly proud to have carriage for the Greens in passing affirmative sexual consent laws through the Legislative Council, and have worked alongside victim-survivors, frontline workers, advocates and other experts over the years in securing funding for sexual assault frontline services and played a critical role in securing government funding for the Illawarra Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre. And of course, being a co-sponsor and lead for the Greens in the Legislative Council for the 2019 abortion decriminalisation bill that passed through both Houses of parliament was historic and unforgettable.

Sexual assault and harassment is rife across society, and Parliament is no different. I have been a member of the group of MPs and staff who have led the reforms to workplace culture in the NSW parliament, including the Broderick Review and its implementation.

Image: Abigail with Harrison James (right) and Jarad Grice (left), co-founders of the 'Your Reference Ain't Relevant' campaign, August 2023

Future plans in the portfolio

Alongside the ongoing fight for frontline services to be adequately funded, my current priority in the Gendered Violence portfolio is to eliminate bias in the police and justice systems against victim-survivors of domestic and family violence. This encompasses a focus on police using their positions to perpetrate as well as avoid consequences for their violence, and a focus on the family court system’s propensity to give custody of children to known domestic violence abusers.

Disability rights and inclusion

Working with disabled people, advocates, academics and other experts, I have been an unwavering and unceasing voice in Parliament when it comes to disability justice. Just after being elected in 2019, I used the establishment of a new Ageing and Disability Commissioner to push for secure funding for independent disability advocacy organisations. These negotiations were critical to the sector winning its Stand By Me campaign, and in the process I secured amendments to ensure the Commissioner would be truly independent, accountable and transparent and be empowered to not only investigate incidents of abuse, neglect and discrimination within the aged care and disability sectors, but also to prevent them. 

My work for individuals seeking a better outcome from government when it comes to disability rights and inclusion has not only highlighted systemic issues requiring reform, it’s led to real outcomes for so many who couldn’t get help elsewhere. Whether it’s the countless families whose children have been refused a place at school, or the children whose reasonable requests for adjustments have been unmet, or the people who have asked me to intervene to reduce everyday obstacles, the work my office has done has provided these people with a voice and a path for redress. The train station ramp at Tempe train station was made permanent after I raised it in parliament on behalf of the community campaign, I secured funding for the Westmead Hospital One-Stop Shop for people with complex disabilities, and I have named and shamed countless agencies and organisations into removing ableist barriers.

Within Parliament, I initiated the first ever Australian parliamentary inquiry interpreted live into Auslan and secured a commitment for Auslan to continue to be used in future inquiries of particular interest to people with disability. I established and Chaired an inquiry into experiences of children and young people with disability in NSW educational settings which, in addition to Auslan interpretation throughout, was the first inquiry to have an easy read option for its final report.

Image: Abigail with Greens MPs and Greens members advocating for the Stand By Me campaign, February 2019

Energy and environment

A key focus of my work in parliament has been to shine a light on the toxic legacy of coal-fired power stations in NSW and their impacts on environment and health. Coal-fired power stations not only pump harmful toxins into the air as they burn coal, they also dump toxic coal ash into poorly regulated repositories that then leech into ground water and wash into waterways. As one of my first actions in parliament, I set about drawing attention to this issue with a call for papers revealing the extent of contamination and the government’s complicity in covering it up, and then established a parliamentary inquiry that found conclusively, for the first time in Australia, that coal ash was a toxic hazardous material with serious environmental impacts and health effects from its poor regulation. That inquiry delivered a number of recommendations that forced the government to conduct further studies, engage with the community and foster a coal ash reuse industry. I also introduced a bill to force the coal-fired power stations to install pollution-reduction technology on their stacks - legislation that was publicly supported by Labor when they were in opposition, but rejected once they took government.

My work in Parliament was critical to the community campaign to defeat the Wallarah 2 coal mine on the Central Coast. I introduced and debated two separate bills to protect Central Coast’s water from the proposal and brought hundreds of Coasties in to the Parliament to eyeball politicians during the debate. This work saw me invited to speak at a huge Climate National Day of Action rally at Sydney Town Hall in 2020.

I worked with the community to defeat PEP-11, a proposal for seismic testing and drilling for oil off the NSW coast - including convincing the major parties to support my motion to oppose the project. I have also been critical in carrying into Parliament the voices of my local community opposing the proposed seawall at Wamberal. 

By exposing the dodgy energy privatisation deals both major parties were involved in through several successful calls for papers, I have been steadily building the case for renationalisation of our energy assets. I’ve also been a strong voice pushing back against nuclear power, advancing the case for renewables, and calling for measures to reduce energy poverty (including subsidies for lower income earners, community benefit schemes and a focus on tenants rights to electrify and make their homes more energy efficient).

Image: Abigail rallying with the Newcastle community against coal-fired power station emissions, December 2021

Industrial Relations 

I have built deep ties with the union movement that have helped cement the Greens as the genuine alternative for working people. As a result, I am regularly asked to speak at union rallies and events and work closely with unions across various sectors to advance legislative reforms.

I've advanced a more democratic economy by negotiating and securing amendments to put worker representatives onto billion-dollar clean energy funds and industry shaping advisory boards like the Maritime Advisory Council. I inserted requirements for all projects invested in by the NSW Government’s Energy Security Corporation to have to comply with best practice labour standards, minimum local content requirements and best practice First Nations procurement.

I secured amendments to the legislation that placed the CFMEU into administration, that power prevented the government from placing more unions into administration, which the government had previously left open as an option.

Working with sex worker advocates and groups, I introduced a bill to prohibit discrimination on the basis of being, or having been, a sex worker. I brought these advocates into Parliament to meet with MPs to dispel myths and break down stigmas and build support for the legislation, and tabled in Parliament over 7,000 signatures supporting the Bill. I successfully negotiated with the Opposition and cross-bench members to win majority support for a motion giving the legislation in-principle support.

I’ve been relentless in applying pressure and exposing the government’s hypocrisy and failure to act on their obligations to properly fund community preschools. I’ve done this work alongside the Independent Education Union and United Workers Union who have been pursuing a supported bargaining application in the Fair Work Commission.

Image: Abigail speaking at a Start Strong Pay Fair rally in support of fair funding for community preschool teachers and educators, October 2025

I secured amendments that extended portable long service leave to workers in sexual assault services.

I achieved cross-party support endorsing the campaign by Baby Priya’s parents that resulted in an amendment to industrial relations laws, Baby Priya’s Law, that protects parents from losing their employer-funded paid parental leave in the event of a stillbirth or neonatal death. This law ensures that grieving parents can retain their leave entitlements during such difficult times, providing them with necessary support and financial stability.

I’ve worked alongside the Combined Rail Unions to pressure the NSW Government to cease their campaign of lawfare against striking transport workers, and ultimately helped them secure a significantly improved Enterprise Agreement.

I worked to help secure gender equality considerations in the NSW Industrial Relations bargaining framework, which will hopefully result in improved pay and conditions for nurses and midwives.

I’ve been advocating for years in support of a repeal of the Members of Parliament Staff Act, which prevents staff employed in NSW MPs offices from having any workplace protections or industrial rights. I’ve been pushing hard for the NSW Government to accept the demand from the PSA for staff to be covered under an Award, which would give them the right to bargain and organise for better pay and conditions.

Work Health & Safety

One of the most rewarding but heart-breaking parts of my role has been in assisting injured workers to get justice in what has become a thoroughly-rotten workers compensation system. I have taken their voices directly to Ministers, who have then intervened to prevent some of the worst hardships, and used their stories to advocate for systemic reform. Over the last year I was the only consistent voice standing up for injured workers in their battle to prevent the Labor Government cruelly cutting away support from some of the most severely psychologically-injured workers in our State. I worked with Unions NSW and individual unions to uncover the government’s secret plans, unravel illusory budget justifications and use the media to reveal the true impact of these cuts on individuals. I negotiated with the Opposition and the cross-bench to secure two inquiries and worked hard to keep them on board with opposing the cuts for as long as I could. While ultimately we lost the battle, by stifling the government’s plans for a full year I won the support of the union movement and medical experts and showed how powerful my work as a cross-bencher can be. I will continue to do whatever I can to reverse those cuts and restore the system to one with workers not profits at its heart.

I have been successful in passing a number of critical amendments to work health and safety legislation, including one that will force the Parliament to hold an inquiry into WHS laws every 4 years and require the government of the day to engage with unions, injured workers and other experts in how to make NSW workplaces safer for workers. I also secured agreement from the government to establish an advisory group of injured workers to the workers compensation scheme’s icare board, to ensure that the voices of injured workers are directly heard by decision-makers.

In numerous areas, I have forced the Labor government to do better on WHS laws. 

Australian laws are failing to protect workers from intrusive and unreasonable surveillance, algorithmic management and artificial intelligence. It’s being used by management to exert greater control over workers, driving work intensification without any corresponding improvement in pay and conditions. These practices are experienced by workers as demeaning. They create anxiety and stress, and pose a risk to workers’ mental as well as physical health. After my long-running campaign to give workers more rights and protections against the use of digital surveillance and digital work allocation systems, including securing national coverage of the issue in a 7.30 episode in 2024 and working with the unions to craft legislation, the government finally legislated provisions based on our work this year. This is landmark legislation that is nation-leading, and possibly the first of its kind in the world. What it means is that now, companies must ensure that the algorithms and digital work allocation systems they use are not creating unsafe working environments, and importantly, gives Work Health and Safety entry permit holders including union representatives the right to access and inspect workplace algorithms and digital systems to ensure they are not allocating work in a dangerous way.

I proposed amendments to legislation and worked with the union movement to apply strong pressure to the Labor government that resulted in the government being forced to change the laws to finally restore the ability of trade unions to prosecute breaches of Work Health and Safety laws, and recover legal costs where successful. This is a major step forward for worker safety in this state and will result in a far more robust workplace safety compliance regime.

I worked with unions, stakeholders and the government to help pass Industrial Manslaughter laws in NSW, applying pressure to make sure Labor didn’t water down the legislation and holding the line against conservative amendments that would have undermined the laws and protected bosses.

I worked closely with the firefighters union to push the government to add 10 additional primary site cancers to the presumptive firefighter cancer list in the Workers Compensation Act. This included working across the parliament to apply strong procedural pressure on the government, holding up the passage of other legislation, until it was passed, which we succeeded in doing.

After years of pressure, including countless questions and rounds of grilling in inquiries, we succeeded in pressuring the government to ban silica stone benchtops. Silicosis is a terrible and preventable disease with a devastatingly high mortality rate. There is still a lot of work to do in the dust diseases scheme to make sure it is sustainable and fit for purpose. That’s why I'm still working hard to push the government to improve air quality standards and reporting requirements for tunnelling projects. Sydney sandstone is incredibly high in silica, and tunnelling processes mean high levels of silica exposure are experienced by workers, meaning we face a potential explosion in silicosis cases over the coming years. This is ongoing work for which I have a very strong focus.

Accountability, transparency, integrity

I have been responsible for establishing and chairing inquiries that have exposed serious wrongdoing, revealed systemic failures, and embarrassed large corporations. From Transurban to the consulting firms, early childhood behemoths and monopoly financial services firms, my work has made me enemy number 1 for those determined to make a profit at everyone else’s expense. Now I’ve established an inquiry into data centres, I have the large tech and AI firms in my sights.  

As Chair of Parliament’s Public Accountability and Works Committee, I have been investigating and exposing individual wrongdoing of Ministers and department officials. My accountability, transparency and integrity work has been recognised with speaker invites to public sector and public audit conferences.  

When Labor and the Coalition first ganged up to propose taking a sledge hammer to our rights to peaceful protest, I led the Greens charge to try and defeat them. I forced three separate debates to attempt to disallow harmful regulations and successfully passed a motion to force the government to produce all documents leading up to the anti-protest laws being proposed to assist those fighting charges to argue that the new laws were invalid.

I used parliamentary privilege to name and shame a cosmetic surgeon who was attempting to sue the media to prevent the release of a story about his exploitation of patients. This defence of public interest journalism earned me a spot on MediaWatch, and raising the issue in parliament led to the government agreeing to overhaul the regulation and governance of the cosmetic surgery industry.  

Image: Abigail marching with the union movement against the NSW government's anti-protest laws, May Day 2022

International work

As a teenager I joined Amnesty International and got involved in human rights campaigns across the globe. I have used my position in Parliament consistently over the years to bring attention to conflicts, human rights abuses, corruption, humanitarian disasters and oppression and to call for Australia to take more tangible action towards peace and democracy around the world. It has been my great pleasure to welcome into the Parliament a range of community groups to celebrate cultural events and to raise awareness of global issues. I have a particular place in my heart for members of the Kurdish community here in NSW, as well as the Bangladeshi diaspora, who have welcomed me and given me their trust in using my position to voice their concerns and demand Australian action. 

My support and compassion for the people of Palestine has been unwavering. I joined the parliamentary friends of Palestine as soon as I entered Parliament and have spoken publicly against the Israeli government’s oppression of Palestinian people and in favour of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement for over a decade. I have worked closely with Teachers 4 Palestine over the last two years to raise issues in parliament around the discrimination faced by Palestinian teachers and students and those who support them and the way in which the Department of Education has silenced anti-genocide voices.

I have spoken at a number of rallies against the AUKUS alliance, and drawn attention through my Parliamentary work to NSW’s complicity in manufacturing weapons that are used against civilians in foreign conflicts.

Image: Abigail speaking at a rally for Palestine on the Central Coast, October 2025

Animal welfare

The same capitalist forces that exploit human beings and ravage the planet are also responsible for so much cruelty to animals. The struggle for animal rights - to end exploitation of animals for entertainment, to curb industrial animal agriculture, to protect critical habitat for native wildlife - is part and parcel of the struggle to reclaim democratic power from big corporations and complicit governments that stand in the way of environmental, social and economic justice.

My work in the animal welfare space has broadened our support base. I introduced NSW’s first bill to recognise animal sentience, continued a long-running Greens campaign by introducing a bill to establish an independent office of animal welfare and have worked tirelessly to expose wrongdoing and cruelty in the greyhound racing industry, culminating in the Auditor-General’s acceptance of my request for them to investigate the NSW government’s spending on the industry. 

I have been running a successful campaign to ban the use of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) from retail sale and use across local government areas, products that are having a devastating effect on our native wildlife.

Image: Abigail at the Million Dollar Disgrace rally, October 2023

Abigail Boyd, Greens NSW MP