2006-08-10
41
1
7
REPS
0
0
2006-08-10
The SPEAKER (Hon. David Hawker) took the chair at 9 am and read prayers.
FUEL PRICES
1
MISCELLANEOUS
1
09:01:00
Fitzgibbon, Joel, MP
8K6
Hunter
ALP
0
0
Mr FITZGIBBON
—I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Treasurer from coming into this place and providing a full and proper explanation as to why he refuses to provide the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission under s95ZE(1) with a direction that would enable the ACCC to:
-
formally monitor petrol monitor terminal gate, wholesale and retail petrol prices;
-
obtain all information from refiners, wholesalers and major retailers in the transport fuels sector relevant to fuel prices, including costs, profits and margins; and
-
conduct all other inquiries relevant to the spiralling fuel prices.
We all know oil prices are high. That is all the more reason this government’s—
Mr ABBOTT
(Warringah
—Leader of the House)
09:02:00
—I move:
That the member be no longer heard.
Question put.
2
09:11:00
Hayes, Chris, MP
ECV
Werriwa
ALP
0
0
Mr HAYES
—I second the motion, Mr Speaker. This is a disgrace. The government comes into this place—
Mr ABBOTT
(Warringah
—Leader of the House)
09:11:00
—Mr Speaker, I move:
That the member be no longer heard.
Question put.
09:12:00
The House divided.
(The Speaker—Hon. David Hawker)
85
AYES
Abbott, A.J.
Anderson, J.D.
Andrews, K.J.
Bailey, F.E.
Baird, B.G.
Baker, M.
Baldwin, R.C.
Barresi, P.A.
Bartlett, K.J.
Billson, B.F.
Bishop, B.K.
Bishop, J.I.
Broadbent, R.
Brough, M.T.
Cadman, A.G.
Causley, I.R.
Ciobo, S.M.
Cobb, J.K.
Costello, P.H.
Downer, A.J.G.
Draper, P.
Dutton, P.C.
Elson, K.S.
Entsch, W.G.
Farmer, P.F.
Fawcett, D.
Ferguson, M.D.
Forrest, J.A.
Gambaro, T.
Gash, J.
Georgiou, P.
Haase, B.W.
Hardgrave, G.D.
Hartsuyker, L.
Henry, S.
Hockey, J.B.
Hull, K.E.
Hunt, G.A.
Jensen, D.
Johnson, M.A.
Jull, D.F.
Keenan, M.
Kelly, D.M.
Kelly, J.M.
Laming, A.
Ley, S.P.
Lindsay, P.J.
Lloyd, J.E.
Macfarlane, I.E.
Markus, L.
May, M.A.
McArthur, S. *
McGauran, P.J.
Mirabella, S.
Moylan, J.E.
Nairn, G.R.
Nelson, B.J.
Neville, P.C. *
Pearce, C.J.
Prosser, G.D.
Pyne, C.
Randall, D.J.
Richardson, K.
Robb, A.
Ruddock, P.M.
Schultz, A.
Scott, B.C.
Secker, P.D.
Slipper, P.N.
Smith, A.D.H.
Somlyay, A.M.
Southcott, A.J.
Stone, S.N.
Thompson, C.P.
Ticehurst, K.V.
Tollner, D.W.
Truss, W.E.
Tuckey, C.W.
Turnbull, M.
Vaile, M.A.J.
Vale, D.S.
Vasta, R.
Wakelin, B.H.
Washer, M.J.
Wood, J.
57
NOES
Adams, D.G.H.
Albanese, A.N.
Beazley, K.C.
Bevis, A.R.
Bird, S.
Bowen, C.
Burke, A.E.
Burke, A.S.
Byrne, A.M.
Corcoran, A.K.
Crean, S.F.
Danby, M. *
Edwards, G.J.
Ellis, A.L.
Ellis, K.
Emerson, C.A.
Ferguson, L.D.T.
Ferguson, M.J.
Fitzgibbon, J.A.
Garrett, P.
Georganas, S.
George, J.
Gibbons, S.W.
Gillard, J.E.
Grierson, S.J.
Griffin, A.P.
Hall, J.G. *
Hatton, M.J.
Hayes, C.P.
Hoare, K.J.
Irwin, J.
Jenkins, H.A.
Kerr, D.J.C.
King, C.F.
Lawrence, C.M.
Livermore, K.F.
Macklin, J.L.
McMullan, R.F.
Melham, D.
Murphy, J.P.
O’Connor, B.P.
Owens, J.
Plibersek, T.
Price, L.R.S.
Quick, H.V.
Ripoll, B.F.
Roxon, N.L.
Rudd, K.M.
Sawford, R.W.
Sercombe, R.C.G.
Smith, S.F.
Snowdon, W.E.
Swan, W.M.
Tanner, L.
Thomson, K.J.
Vamvakinou, M.
Wilkie, K.
Question agreed to.
09:16:00
The House divided.
(The Speaker—Hon. David Hawker)
57
AYES
Adams, D.G.H.
Albanese, A.N.
Beazley, K.C.
Bevis, A.R.
Bird, S.
Bowen, C.
Burke, A.E.
Burke, A.S.
Byrne, A.M.
Corcoran, A.K.
Crean, S.F.
Danby, M. *
Edwards, G.J.
Ellis, A.L.
Ellis, K.
Emerson, C.A.
Ferguson, L.D.T.
Ferguson, M.J.
Fitzgibbon, J.A.
Garrett, P.
Georganas, S.
George, J.
Gibbons, S.W.
Gillard, J.E.
Grierson, S.J.
Griffin, A.P.
Hall, J.G. *
Hatton, M.J.
Hayes, C.P.
Hoare, K.J.
Irwin, J.
Jenkins, H.A.
Kerr, D.J.C.
King, C.F.
Lawrence, C.M.
Livermore, K.F.
Macklin, J.L.
McMullan, R.F.
Melham, D.
Murphy, J.P.
O’Connor, B.P.
Owens, J.
Plibersek, T.
Price, L.R.S.
Quick, H.V.
Ripoll, B.F.
Roxon, N.L.
Rudd, K.M.
Sawford, R.W.
Sercombe, R.C.G.
Smith, S.F.
Snowdon, W.E.
Swan, W.M.
Tanner, L.
Thomson, K.J.
Vamvakinou, M.
Wilkie, K.
84
NOES
Abbott, A.J.
Anderson, J.D.
Andrews, K.J.
Bailey, F.E.
Baird, B.G.
Baker, M.
Baldwin, R.C.
Barresi, P.A.
Bartlett, K.J.
Billson, B.F.
Bishop, B.K.
Bishop, J.I.
Broadbent, R.
Brough, M.T.
Cadman, A.G.
Causley, I.R.
Ciobo, S.M.
Cobb, J.K.
Costello, P.H.
Downer, A.J.G.
Draper, P.
Dutton, P.C.
Elson, K.S.
Entsch, W.G.
Farmer, P.F.
Fawcett, D.
Ferguson, M.D.
Forrest, J.A.
Gambaro, T.
Gash, J.
Georgiou, P.
Haase, B.W.
Hardgrave, G.D.
Hartsuyker, L.
Henry, S.
Hockey, J.B.
Hull, K.E.
Hunt, G.A.
Jensen, D.
Johnson, M.A.
Jull, D.F.
Keenan, M.
Kelly, D.M.
Kelly, J.M.
Laming, A.
Ley, S.P.
Lindsay, P.J.
Lloyd, J.E.
Macfarlane, I.E.
Markus, L.
May, M.A.
McArthur, S. *
McGauran, P.J.
Mirabella, S.
Moylan, J.E.
Nairn, G.R.
Nelson, B.J.
Neville, P.C. *
Pearce, C.J.
Prosser, G.D.
Pyne, C.
Randall, D.J.
Richardson, K.
Robb, A.
Schultz, A.
Scott, B.C.
Secker, P.D.
Slipper, P.N.
Smith, A.D.H.
Somlyay, A.M.
Southcott, A.J.
Stone, S.N.
Thompson, C.P.
Ticehurst, K.V.
Tollner, D.W.
Truss, W.E.
Tuckey, C.W.
Turnbull, M.
Vaile, M.A.J.
Vale, D.S.
Vasta, R.
Wakelin, B.H.
Washer, M.J.
Wood, J.
Question negatived.
09:06:00
The House divided.
(The Speaker—Hon. David Hawker)
84
AYES
Abbott, A.J.
Anderson, J.D.
Andrews, K.J.
Bailey, F.E.
Baird, B.G.
Baker, M.
Baldwin, R.C.
Barresi, P.A.
Bartlett, K.J.
Billson, B.F.
Bishop, B.K.
Bishop, J.I.
Broadbent, R.
Brough, M.T.
Cadman, A.G.
Causley, I.R.
Ciobo, S.M.
Cobb, J.K.
Costello, P.H.
Downer, A.J.G.
Draper, P.
Dutton, P.C.
Elson, K.S.
Entsch, W.G.
Farmer, P.F.
Fawcett, D.
Ferguson, M.D.
Forrest, J.A.
Gambaro, T.
Gash, J.
Georgiou, P.
Haase, B.W.
Hardgrave, G.D.
Hartsuyker, L.
Henry, S.
Hockey, J.B.
Hull, K.E.
Hunt, G.A.
Jensen, D.
Johnson, M.A.
Jull, D.F.
Keenan, M.
Kelly, D.M.
Kelly, J.M.
Laming, A.
Ley, S.P.
Lindsay, P.J.
Lloyd, J.E.
Macfarlane, I.E.
Markus, L.
May, M.A.
McArthur, S. *
McGauran, P.J.
Mirabella, S.
Moylan, J.E.
Nairn, G.R.
Nelson, B.J.
Neville, P.C. *
Pearce, C.J.
Prosser, G.D.
Pyne, C.
Randall, D.J.
Richardson, K.
Robb, A.
Ruddock, P.M.
Schultz, A.
Scott, B.C.
Secker, P.D.
Slipper, P.N.
Smith, A.D.H.
Somlyay, A.M.
Southcott, A.J.
Stone, S.N.
Thompson, C.P.
Ticehurst, K.V.
Tollner, D.W.
Truss, W.E.
Turnbull, M.
Vaile, M.A.J.
Vale, D.S.
Vasta, R.
Wakelin, B.H.
Washer, M.J.
Wood, J.
57
NOES
Adams, D.G.H.
Albanese, A.N.
Beazley, K.C.
Bevis, A.R.
Bird, S.
Bowen, C.
Burke, A.E.
Burke, A.S.
Byrne, A.M.
Corcoran, A.K.
Crean, S.F.
Danby, M. *
Edwards, G.J.
Ellis, A.L.
Ellis, K.
Emerson, C.A.
Ferguson, L.D.T.
Ferguson, M.J.
Fitzgibbon, J.A.
Garrett, P.
Georganas, S.
George, J.
Gibbons, S.W.
Gillard, J.E.
Grierson, S.J.
Griffin, A.P.
Hall, J.G. *
Hatton, M.J.
Hayes, C.P.
Hoare, K.J.
Irwin, J.
Jenkins, H.A.
Kerr, D.J.C.
King, C.F.
Lawrence, C.M.
Livermore, K.F.
Macklin, J.L.
McMullan, R.F.
Melham, D.
Murphy, J.P.
O’Connor, B.P.
Owens, J.
Plibersek, T.
Price, L.R.S.
Quick, H.V.
Ripoll, B.F.
Roxon, N.L.
Rudd, K.M.
Sawford, R.W.
Sercombe, R.C.G.
Smith, S.F.
Snowdon, W.E.
Swan, W.M.
Tanner, L.
Thomson, K.J.
Vamvakinou, M.
Wilkie, K.
Question agreed to.
09:12:00
The House divided.
(The Speaker—Hon. David Hawker)
85
AYES
Abbott, A.J.
Anderson, J.D.
Andrews, K.J.
Bailey, F.E.
Baird, B.G.
Baker, M.
Baldwin, R.C.
Barresi, P.A.
Bartlett, K.J.
Billson, B.F.
Bishop, B.K.
Bishop, J.I.
Broadbent, R.
Brough, M.T.
Cadman, A.G.
Causley, I.R.
Ciobo, S.M.
Cobb, J.K.
Costello, P.H.
Downer, A.J.G.
Draper, P.
Dutton, P.C.
Elson, K.S.
Entsch, W.G.
Farmer, P.F.
Fawcett, D.
Ferguson, M.D.
Forrest, J.A.
Gambaro, T.
Gash, J.
Georgiou, P.
Haase, B.W.
Hardgrave, G.D.
Hartsuyker, L.
Henry, S.
Hockey, J.B.
Hull, K.E.
Hunt, G.A.
Jensen, D.
Johnson, M.A.
Jull, D.F.
Keenan, M.
Kelly, D.M.
Kelly, J.M.
Laming, A.
Ley, S.P.
Lindsay, P.J.
Lloyd, J.E.
Macfarlane, I.E.
Markus, L.
May, M.A.
McArthur, S. *
McGauran, P.J.
Mirabella, S.
Moylan, J.E.
Nairn, G.R.
Nelson, B.J.
Neville, P.C. *
Pearce, C.J.
Prosser, G.D.
Pyne, C.
Randall, D.J.
Richardson, K.
Robb, A.
Ruddock, P.M.
Schultz, A.
Scott, B.C.
Secker, P.D.
Slipper, P.N.
Smith, A.D.H.
Somlyay, A.M.
Southcott, A.J.
Stone, S.N.
Thompson, C.P.
Ticehurst, K.V.
Tollner, D.W.
Truss, W.E.
Tuckey, C.W.
Turnbull, M.
Vaile, M.A.J.
Vale, D.S.
Vasta, R.
Wakelin, B.H.
Washer, M.J.
Wood, J.
57
NOES
Adams, D.G.H.
Albanese, A.N.
Beazley, K.C.
Bevis, A.R.
Bird, S.
Bowen, C.
Burke, A.E.
Burke, A.S.
Byrne, A.M.
Corcoran, A.K.
Crean, S.F.
Danby, M. *
Edwards, G.J.
Ellis, A.L.
Ellis, K.
Emerson, C.A.
Ferguson, L.D.T.
Ferguson, M.J.
Fitzgibbon, J.A.
Garrett, P.
Georganas, S.
George, J.
Gibbons, S.W.
Gillard, J.E.
Grierson, S.J.
Griffin, A.P.
Hall, J.G. *
Hatton, M.J.
Hayes, C.P.
Hoare, K.J.
Irwin, J.
Jenkins, H.A.
Kerr, D.J.C.
King, C.F.
Lawrence, C.M.
Livermore, K.F.
Macklin, J.L.
McMullan, R.F.
Melham, D.
Murphy, J.P.
O’Connor, B.P.
Owens, J.
Plibersek, T.
Price, L.R.S.
Quick, H.V.
Ripoll, B.F.
Roxon, N.L.
Rudd, K.M.
Sawford, R.W.
Sercombe, R.C.G.
Smith, S.F.
Snowdon, W.E.
Swan, W.M.
Tanner, L.
Thomson, K.J.
Vamvakinou, M.
Wilkie, K.
Question agreed to.
09:16:00
The House divided.
(The Speaker—Hon. David Hawker)
57
AYES
Adams, D.G.H.
Albanese, A.N.
Beazley, K.C.
Bevis, A.R.
Bird, S.
Bowen, C.
Burke, A.E.
Burke, A.S.
Byrne, A.M.
Corcoran, A.K.
Crean, S.F.
Danby, M. *
Edwards, G.J.
Ellis, A.L.
Ellis, K.
Emerson, C.A.
Ferguson, L.D.T.
Ferguson, M.J.
Fitzgibbon, J.A.
Garrett, P.
Georganas, S.
George, J.
Gibbons, S.W.
Gillard, J.E.
Grierson, S.J.
Griffin, A.P.
Hall, J.G. *
Hatton, M.J.
Hayes, C.P.
Hoare, K.J.
Irwin, J.
Jenkins, H.A.
Kerr, D.J.C.
King, C.F.
Lawrence, C.M.
Livermore, K.F.
Macklin, J.L.
McMullan, R.F.
Melham, D.
Murphy, J.P.
O’Connor, B.P.
Owens, J.
Plibersek, T.
Price, L.R.S.
Quick, H.V.
Ripoll, B.F.
Roxon, N.L.
Rudd, K.M.
Sawford, R.W.
Sercombe, R.C.G.
Smith, S.F.
Snowdon, W.E.
Swan, W.M.
Tanner, L.
Thomson, K.J.
Vamvakinou, M.
Wilkie, K.
84
NOES
Abbott, A.J.
Anderson, J.D.
Andrews, K.J.
Bailey, F.E.
Baird, B.G.
Baker, M.
Baldwin, R.C.
Barresi, P.A.
Bartlett, K.J.
Billson, B.F.
Bishop, B.K.
Bishop, J.I.
Broadbent, R.
Brough, M.T.
Cadman, A.G.
Causley, I.R.
Ciobo, S.M.
Cobb, J.K.
Costello, P.H.
Downer, A.J.G.
Draper, P.
Dutton, P.C.
Elson, K.S.
Entsch, W.G.
Farmer, P.F.
Fawcett, D.
Ferguson, M.D.
Forrest, J.A.
Gambaro, T.
Gash, J.
Georgiou, P.
Haase, B.W.
Hardgrave, G.D.
Hartsuyker, L.
Henry, S.
Hockey, J.B.
Hull, K.E.
Hunt, G.A.
Jensen, D.
Johnson, M.A.
Jull, D.F.
Keenan, M.
Kelly, D.M.
Kelly, J.M.
Laming, A.
Ley, S.P.
Lindsay, P.J.
Lloyd, J.E.
Macfarlane, I.E.
Markus, L.
May, M.A.
McArthur, S. *
McGauran, P.J.
Mirabella, S.
Moylan, J.E.
Nairn, G.R.
Nelson, B.J.
Neville, P.C. *
Pearce, C.J.
Prosser, G.D.
Pyne, C.
Randall, D.J.
Richardson, K.
Robb, A.
Schultz, A.
Scott, B.C.
Secker, P.D.
Slipper, P.N.
Smith, A.D.H.
Somlyay, A.M.
Southcott, A.J.
Stone, S.N.
Thompson, C.P.
Ticehurst, K.V.
Tollner, D.W.
Truss, W.E.
Tuckey, C.W.
Turnbull, M.
Vaile, M.A.J.
Vale, D.S.
Vasta, R.
Wakelin, B.H.
Washer, M.J.
Wood, J.
Question negatived.
BUSINESS
3
BUSINESS
3
09:20:00
Abbott, Tony, MP
EZ5
Warringah
LP
Leader of the House
1
0
Mr ABBOTT
—I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended to enable proceedings as specified below to occur during government business on Thursday, 10 August 2006:
-
in relation to proceedings on the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006—at the conclusion of the second reading debate, not including a Minister speaking in reply, or at 12.30 p.m., whichever is the earlier, a Minister to be called to sum up (for a period not exceeding 15 minutes) the second reading debate and thereafter, without delay, the immediate question before the House to be put, then any question or questions necessary to complete the remaining stages of the bill to be put without amendment or debate and any Government amendments that have been circulated for at least two hours shall be treated as if they have been moved together; and
-
any variation to this arrangement to be made only by a motion moved by a Minister.
The issues covered by this bill have been well and truly canvassed both in this parliament and elsewhere over quite a few weeks now. We have had the discussion. Let us move swiftly to the decision. I commend this bill to the House.
4
09:20:00
Burke, Tony, MP
DYW
Watson
ALP
0
0
Mr BURKE
—Mr Speaker, they spent weeks listening to the Indonesians and now they want to silence the Australian parliament.
Mr ABBOTT
(Warringah
—Leader of the House)
09:21:00
—I move:
That the question be now put.
Question put.
09:25:00
The House divided.
(The Speaker—Hon. David Hawker)
82
AYES
Abbott, A.J.
Anderson, J.D.
Bailey, F.E.
Baker, M.
Baldwin, R.C.
Barresi, P.A.
Bartlett, K.J.
Billson, B.F.
Bishop, B.K.
Bishop, J.I.
Broadbent, R.
Brough, M.T.
Cadman, A.G.
Causley, I.R.
Ciobo, S.M.
Cobb, J.K.
Costello, P.H.
Downer, A.J.G.
Draper, P.
Dutton, P.C.
Elson, K.S.
Entsch, W.G.
Farmer, P.F.
Fawcett, D.
Ferguson, M.D.
Forrest, J.A.
Gambaro, T.
Gash, J.
Georgiou, P.
Haase, B.W.
Hardgrave, G.D.
Hartsuyker, L.
Henry, S.
Hockey, J.B.
Hull, K.E.
Hunt, G.A.
Jensen, D.
Johnson, M.A.
Jull, D.F.
Keenan, M.
Kelly, D.M.
Kelly, J.M.
Laming, A.
Ley, S.P.
Lindsay, P.J.
Lloyd, J.E.
Macfarlane, I.E.
Markus, L.
May, M.A.
McArthur, S. *
McGauran, P.J.
Mirabella, S.
Moylan, J.E.
Nairn, G.R.
Nelson, B.J.
Neville, P.C. *
Pearce, C.J.
Prosser, G.D.
Pyne, C.
Randall, D.J.
Richardson, K.
Robb, A.
Schultz, A.
Scott, B.C.
Secker, P.D.
Slipper, P.N.
Smith, A.D.H.
Somlyay, A.M.
Southcott, A.J.
Stone, S.N.
Thompson, C.P.
Ticehurst, K.V.
Tollner, D.W.
Truss, W.E.
Tuckey, C.W.
Turnbull, M.
Vaile, M.A.J.
Vale, D.S.
Vasta, R.
Wakelin, B.H.
Washer, M.J.
Wood, J.
59
NOES
Adams, D.G.H.
Albanese, A.N.
Andren, P.J.
Beazley, K.C.
Bevis, A.R.
Bird, S.
Bowen, C.
Burke, A.E.
Burke, A.S.
Byrne, A.M.
Corcoran, A.K.
Crean, S.F.
Danby, M. *
Edwards, G.J.
Ellis, A.L.
Ellis, K.
Emerson, C.A.
Ferguson, L.D.T.
Ferguson, M.J.
Fitzgibbon, J.A.
Garrett, P.
Georganas, S.
George, J.
Gibbons, S.W.
Gillard, J.E.
Grierson, S.J.
Griffin, A.P.
Hall, J.G. *
Hatton, M.J.
Hayes, C.P.
Hoare, K.J.
Irwin, J.
Jenkins, H.A.
Kerr, D.J.C.
King, C.F.
Lawrence, C.M.
Livermore, K.F.
Macklin, J.L.
McMullan, R.F.
Melham, D.
Murphy, J.P.
O’Connor, B.P.
Owens, J.
Plibersek, T.
Price, L.R.S.
Quick, H.V.
Ripoll, B.F.
Roxon, N.L.
Rudd, K.M.
Sawford, R.W.
Sercombe, R.C.G.
Smith, S.F.
Snowdon, W.E.
Swan, W.M.
Tanner, L.
Thomson, K.J.
Vamvakinou, M.
Wilkie, K.
Windsor, A.H.C.
Question agreed to.
09:31:00
The House divided.
(The Speaker—Hon. David Hawker)
83
AYES
Abbott, A.J.
Anderson, J.D.
Andrews, K.J.
Bailey, F.E.
Baker, M.
Baldwin, R.C.
Barresi, P.A.
Bartlett, K.J.
Billson, B.F.
Bishop, B.K.
Bishop, J.I.
Broadbent, R.
Brough, M.T.
Cadman, A.G.
Causley, I.R.
Ciobo, S.M.
Cobb, J.K.
Costello, P.H.
Downer, A.J.G.
Draper, P.
Dutton, P.C.
Elson, K.S.
Entsch, W.G.
Farmer, P.F.
Fawcett, D.
Ferguson, M.D.
Forrest, J.A.
Gambaro, T.
Gash, J.
Georgiou, P.
Haase, B.W.
Hardgrave, G.D.
Hartsuyker, L.
Henry, S.
Hockey, J.B.
Hull, K.E.
Hunt, G.A.
Jensen, D.
Johnson, M.A.
Jull, D.F.
Keenan, M.
Kelly, D.M.
Kelly, J.M.
Laming, A.
Ley, S.P.
Lindsay, P.J.
Lloyd, J.E.
Macfarlane, I.E.
Markus, L.
May, M.A.
McArthur, S. *
McGauran, P.J.
Mirabella, S.
Moylan, J.E.
Nairn, G.R.
Nelson, B.J.
Neville, P.C. *
Pearce, C.J.
Prosser, G.D.
Pyne, C.
Randall, D.J.
Richardson, K.
Robb, A.
Schultz, A.
Scott, B.C.
Secker, P.D.
Slipper, P.N.
Smith, A.D.H.
Somlyay, A.M.
Southcott, A.J.
Stone, S.N.
Thompson, C.P.
Ticehurst, K.V.
Tollner, D.W.
Truss, W.E.
Tuckey, C.W.
Turnbull, M.
Vaile, M.A.J.
Vale, D.S.
Vasta, R.
Wakelin, B.H.
Washer, M.J.
Wood, J.
59
NOES
Adams, D.G.H.
Albanese, A.N.
Andren, P.J.
Beazley, K.C.
Bevis, A.R.
Bird, S.
Bowen, C.
Burke, A.E.
Burke, A.S.
Byrne, A.M.
Corcoran, A.K.
Crean, S.F.
Danby, M. *
Edwards, G.J.
Ellis, A.L.
Ellis, K.
Emerson, C.A.
Ferguson, L.D.T.
Ferguson, M.J.
Fitzgibbon, J.A.
Garrett, P.
Georganas, S.
George, J.
Gibbons, S.W.
Gillard, J.E.
Grierson, S.J.
Griffin, A.P.
Hall, J.G. *
Hatton, M.J.
Hayes, C.P.
Hoare, K.J.
Irwin, J.
Jenkins, H.A.
Kerr, D.J.C.
King, C.F.
Lawrence, C.M.
Livermore, K.F.
Macklin, J.L.
McMullan, R.F.
Melham, D.
Murphy, J.P.
O’Connor, B.P.
Owens, J.
Plibersek, T.
Price, L.R.S.
Quick, H.V.
Ripoll, B.F.
Roxon, N.L.
Rudd, K.M.
Sawford, R.W.
Sercombe, R.C.G.
Smith, S.F.
Snowdon, W.E.
Swan, W.M.
Tanner, L.
Thomson, K.J.
Vamvakinou, M.
Wilkie, K.
Windsor, A.H.C.
Question agreed to.
09:25:00
The House divided.
(The Speaker—Hon. David Hawker)
82
AYES
Abbott, A.J.
Anderson, J.D.
Bailey, F.E.
Baker, M.
Baldwin, R.C.
Barresi, P.A.
Bartlett, K.J.
Billson, B.F.
Bishop, B.K.
Bishop, J.I.
Broadbent, R.
Brough, M.T.
Cadman, A.G.
Causley, I.R.
Ciobo, S.M.
Cobb, J.K.
Costello, P.H.
Downer, A.J.G.
Draper, P.
Dutton, P.C.
Elson, K.S.
Entsch, W.G.
Farmer, P.F.
Fawcett, D.
Ferguson, M.D.
Forrest, J.A.
Gambaro, T.
Gash, J.
Georgiou, P.
Haase, B.W.
Hardgrave, G.D.
Hartsuyker, L.
Henry, S.
Hockey, J.B.
Hull, K.E.
Hunt, G.A.
Jensen, D.
Johnson, M.A.
Jull, D.F.
Keenan, M.
Kelly, D.M.
Kelly, J.M.
Laming, A.
Ley, S.P.
Lindsay, P.J.
Lloyd, J.E.
Macfarlane, I.E.
Markus, L.
May, M.A.
McArthur, S. *
McGauran, P.J.
Mirabella, S.
Moylan, J.E.
Nairn, G.R.
Nelson, B.J.
Neville, P.C. *
Pearce, C.J.
Prosser, G.D.
Pyne, C.
Randall, D.J.
Richardson, K.
Robb, A.
Schultz, A.
Scott, B.C.
Secker, P.D.
Slipper, P.N.
Smith, A.D.H.
Somlyay, A.M.
Southcott, A.J.
Stone, S.N.
Thompson, C.P.
Ticehurst, K.V.
Tollner, D.W.
Truss, W.E.
Tuckey, C.W.
Turnbull, M.
Vaile, M.A.J.
Vale, D.S.
Vasta, R.
Wakelin, B.H.
Washer, M.J.
Wood, J.
59
NOES
Adams, D.G.H.
Albanese, A.N.
Andren, P.J.
Beazley, K.C.
Bevis, A.R.
Bird, S.
Bowen, C.
Burke, A.E.
Burke, A.S.
Byrne, A.M.
Corcoran, A.K.
Crean, S.F.
Danby, M. *
Edwards, G.J.
Ellis, A.L.
Ellis, K.
Emerson, C.A.
Ferguson, L.D.T.
Ferguson, M.J.
Fitzgibbon, J.A.
Garrett, P.
Georganas, S.
George, J.
Gibbons, S.W.
Gillard, J.E.
Grierson, S.J.
Griffin, A.P.
Hall, J.G. *
Hatton, M.J.
Hayes, C.P.
Hoare, K.J.
Irwin, J.
Jenkins, H.A.
Kerr, D.J.C.
King, C.F.
Lawrence, C.M.
Livermore, K.F.
Macklin, J.L.
McMullan, R.F.
Melham, D.
Murphy, J.P.
O’Connor, B.P.
Owens, J.
Plibersek, T.
Price, L.R.S.
Quick, H.V.
Ripoll, B.F.
Roxon, N.L.
Rudd, K.M.
Sawford, R.W.
Sercombe, R.C.G.
Smith, S.F.
Snowdon, W.E.
Swan, W.M.
Tanner, L.
Thomson, K.J.
Vamvakinou, M.
Wilkie, K.
Windsor, A.H.C.
Question agreed to.
09:31:00
The House divided.
(The Speaker—Hon. David Hawker)
83
AYES
Abbott, A.J.
Anderson, J.D.
Andrews, K.J.
Bailey, F.E.
Baker, M.
Baldwin, R.C.
Barresi, P.A.
Bartlett, K.J.
Billson, B.F.
Bishop, B.K.
Bishop, J.I.
Broadbent, R.
Brough, M.T.
Cadman, A.G.
Causley, I.R.
Ciobo, S.M.
Cobb, J.K.
Costello, P.H.
Downer, A.J.G.
Draper, P.
Dutton, P.C.
Elson, K.S.
Entsch, W.G.
Farmer, P.F.
Fawcett, D.
Ferguson, M.D.
Forrest, J.A.
Gambaro, T.
Gash, J.
Georgiou, P.
Haase, B.W.
Hardgrave, G.D.
Hartsuyker, L.
Henry, S.
Hockey, J.B.
Hull, K.E.
Hunt, G.A.
Jensen, D.
Johnson, M.A.
Jull, D.F.
Keenan, M.
Kelly, D.M.
Kelly, J.M.
Laming, A.
Ley, S.P.
Lindsay, P.J.
Lloyd, J.E.
Macfarlane, I.E.
Markus, L.
May, M.A.
McArthur, S. *
McGauran, P.J.
Mirabella, S.
Moylan, J.E.
Nairn, G.R.
Nelson, B.J.
Neville, P.C. *
Pearce, C.J.
Prosser, G.D.
Pyne, C.
Randall, D.J.
Richardson, K.
Robb, A.
Schultz, A.
Scott, B.C.
Secker, P.D.
Slipper, P.N.
Smith, A.D.H.
Somlyay, A.M.
Southcott, A.J.
Stone, S.N.
Thompson, C.P.
Ticehurst, K.V.
Tollner, D.W.
Truss, W.E.
Tuckey, C.W.
Turnbull, M.
Vaile, M.A.J.
Vale, D.S.
Vasta, R.
Wakelin, B.H.
Washer, M.J.
Wood, J.
59
NOES
Adams, D.G.H.
Albanese, A.N.
Andren, P.J.
Beazley, K.C.
Bevis, A.R.
Bird, S.
Bowen, C.
Burke, A.E.
Burke, A.S.
Byrne, A.M.
Corcoran, A.K.
Crean, S.F.
Danby, M. *
Edwards, G.J.
Ellis, A.L.
Ellis, K.
Emerson, C.A.
Ferguson, L.D.T.
Ferguson, M.J.
Fitzgibbon, J.A.
Garrett, P.
Georganas, S.
George, J.
Gibbons, S.W.
Gillard, J.E.
Grierson, S.J.
Griffin, A.P.
Hall, J.G. *
Hatton, M.J.
Hayes, C.P.
Hoare, K.J.
Irwin, J.
Jenkins, H.A.
Kerr, D.J.C.
King, C.F.
Lawrence, C.M.
Livermore, K.F.
Macklin, J.L.
McMullan, R.F.
Melham, D.
Murphy, J.P.
O’Connor, B.P.
Owens, J.
Plibersek, T.
Price, L.R.S.
Quick, H.V.
Ripoll, B.F.
Roxon, N.L.
Rudd, K.M.
Sawford, R.W.
Sercombe, R.C.G.
Smith, S.F.
Snowdon, W.E.
Swan, W.M.
Tanner, L.
Thomson, K.J.
Vamvakinou, M.
Wilkie, K.
Windsor, A.H.C.
Question agreed to.
MIGRATION AMENDMENT (DESIGNATED UNAUTHORISED ARRIVALS) BILL 2006
6
BILLS
R2559
Second Reading
6
Debate resumed from 9 August, on motion by Mr Robb:
That this bill be now read a second time.
6
09:33:00
Thompson, Cameron, MP
84C
Blair
LP
1
0
Mr CAMERON THOMPSON
—The change that is proposed by the government is essential. It is essential to preserve equal treatment of refugees so that we can give priority to the most needy. The position being advocated by the opposition is a flawed policy currently in place which has proven to have the following main consequences: (1) it kills people by luring them or encouraging them onto the high seas, where they will drown; (2) it condemns the most needy refugees to rot and die in African detention camps while we give priority to others comparatively safe and well in Indonesia.
Twelve months ago the government was stampeded into supporting changes that have this effect. The 43 Papuans who came from Jayapura and risked their lives and the lives of their children on the high sea were coming, they said, to the mainland of Australia. Why did they do that? Why did they come to the mainland? Because the ill-advised law rushed into place in Australia told them that such a course would give them a better outcome than crossing safely into Papua New Guinea or going to a Torres Strait island. They brought children with them. Why? Because those same ill-advised laws ensured that, if they took that risk and they put that risk to their children, they would be released into the Australian community—and that is exactly what has happened. They have been released into the Australian community.
We often focus on that one boat of 43 refugees from April this year. We talk about that one boat that left from Jayapura, but in fact, as I illustrated earlier on in my speech last night, there were two boats that left Jayapura. Boat 2 sank. People drowned. There were bodies in the water. Although no-one can say for sure that that boat was following directly in the wake of boat 1—it may have been going somewhere else—it certainly was carrying asylum seekers. If that was the case and it was following directly in the wake of boat 1, I say that those deaths can be put down directly to the flawed policies now being urged on us by the opposition.
These policies, these laws, must be changed, because we cannot continue to give that kind of incentive to desperate people to take to the sea in boats, particularly when it is a matter of fact that, from Indonesia or from other locations, people can apply to seek refugee status in Australia. Even if you are in West Papua and you are a freedom fighter—or whatever you might want to say about your position over there—you can cross the border into Papua New Guinea and you can make an application for refugee status in Australia from there. That is still a lot safer than taking to the sea in a canoe. Last night I gave the quotes from the people on that boat that successfully arrived in Australia about how they ran out of food, how the motors on the boat conked out and how they were crying and in fear for their lives when the high seas hit them.
We cannot continue to endorse that kind of policy. We cannot continue to give support to policies that will (1) kill people by luring them onto the high seas where they will drown and (2) condemn the most needy refugees to rot and die in African detention camps while we give priority to others comparatively safe and well in Indonesia. I gave two examples of that last night. I spoke about the 43 West Papuans and the circumstances of how they came to be on the sea and the risks that they faced. I also spoke about that one poor soul from the Sudan who was bombed and strafed as a child and fled over the border and across the desert to Ethiopia and was then bombed and strafed there and fled across to Kenya. He was in a refugee camp there where raping and killing was going on all the time. He was bombed and attacked there and then made it to Australia by what he thought was basically a fluke, a whim or an act of God. That guy is now in Australia and he is what I would say is a very needy man, someone whose case needs to be considered by this government and not pushed back by people who jump to the front of the queue, who come here in a boat, who risk their own lives and put the lives of their children at risk just to jump that queue and give themselves the priority they otherwise would not have and which they do not deserve in the worldwide scheme of things.
I want to say one thing that I feel very strongly about in this circumstance. If we do not make these changes, there will be other boats and there will be other deaths. We can heap them up and keep a total of these deaths but, if we do not make these changes, more people will die on the high seas and it will be down to the flawed and wrong policies that are currently in place and that are luring people onto the sea in this way and causing them to die. We need to make changes to ensure people are equally assessed across the world. The most needy must get the best chance. People who are safe but still want to apply will get the opportunity to apply, but they will not get the kind of rolled gold, red carpet treatment that is being urged on us by the opposition to the detriment of the most needy. It is shameful, it is deceitful, it is wrong and it is unprincipled for them to do that.
7
09:40:00
McMullan, Bob, MP
5I4
Fraser
ALP
0
0
Mr McMULLAN
—I rise with my colleagues to oppose the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006. This legislation, notwithstanding some attempts to ameliorate it, cannot be saved. It shows clearly that the government never really believed in the reforms they proposed in 2005 to seek to accommodate the rebels in their midst. If anything proves that, it is the speech by the member for Blair which we have just heard. It is stunning. I know the member for Blair and I do not regard him as a bad man, but I do not know if he appreciates quite how callous those remarks that he just made were and the implications of them. I am not quite sure. He is implying, of course, that people deliberately put their children at risk to advance themselves in the queue not because they are in genuine fear but for self-advancement. He is implying that the legislation he voted for last year was appalling and unprincipled. The double standards are almost breathtaking.
It does not really matter what the member for Blair thinks—the member for Blair thinks whatever the government thinks. It matters that the government came in here preaching high virtues last year, saying: ‘We won’t incarcerate children. We won’t put people in circumstances where they lose the right to have their cases reviewed. We will no longer detain people indefinitely.’ It was applauded by me, amongst others, and I congratulated the member for Kooyong for it at the time as a step forward; but what we have now is a great leap backwards. It is the government saying, ‘We absolutely repudiate our 2005 reforms now in the face of pressure from international friends.’
I agree with the remarks made by those on this side, and some on the other side, who have called this bill profoundly disturbing and draconian in its implications. I hope that those who have spoken up from the government side can carry the burden of the pressure that is being put on them and I hope they can bring enough senators with them to defeat this bill. I know to some extent how they feel because I have been somewhat of a recalcitrant on this side—
SD4
Cadman, Alan, MP
Mr Cadman
—You’ve never crossed the floor.
5I4
McMullan, Bob, MP
Mr McMULLAN
—in my party with regard to this matter. I have never had to face the challenge which my colleagues on the other side face because my party never introduced a piece of legislation like this and the issue has not arisen in the periods in which we have been in government to confront me in this manner. I am not saying we did not do anything wrong when we were in government, I think we did, but they were not on matters of controversial legislation while I was in the parliament. It is not easy.
I welcome the fact that on this occasion—and I am glad that he is in the chamber—the shadow minister for immigration, the member for Watson, has given a lead on this matter which has been strong and principled and which I have been comfortable in supporting and endorsing. I thank him and congratulate him for that.
Let us go to the essential character of this legislation. The three principal characteristics of it that I find totally unacceptable are those which effectively overturn the 2005 legislation as it relates to the incarceration of children, the denial of review and indefinite detention. There has been some attempt made to pretend that this legislation does not have that effect, but we all know that it does and it will not achieve the purpose that the member for Blair was lauding unless it does. If people in Nauru are to be treated exactly the same way as they would be treated in Australia, the legislation could not do what the member for Blair claimed. It can only have that effect if we treat them worse, and it is deliberately designed to do so. It cannot be both. It cannot be both what I heard my ACT colleague Senator Humphries saying it was on radio this morning—merely a continuation of the existing policy with regard to these matters—and the deterrent that the member for Blair is talking about. It cannot be both those things.
This matter does not occur in isolation. It is part of a long history in Australia of the easy appeal to fear. Australia has had a long history of seeing ourselves under threat: that somehow or other the force of gravity is going to make people sweep down from the north into our country. It goes back to the White Australia policy and the formation of the Labor Party, when our party was very much committed to the White Australia policy on the ground of fear as to what would happen as the hordes came sweeping in. It took a long time for all of the major parties to change their policies and fundamentally they all have, but, because of that underlying element in Australia about the hordes that may come flooding down, it has always been the easy political option in Australia to appeal to fear and it has always been the hard political option to resist that and appeal to the better angels of our nature.
That is always harder politically, and in recent history the easy option has been a temptation to which the government has succumbed with enthusiasm, particularly since 2001, when we had images of a flood, which was of course minor by international standards. But most significantly, given this bill before us, the number of people, even in that so-called flood, who were coming by boat always was a very distinct minority of asylum seekers. If the intent of government policy had been to deter asylum seekers, everybody seeking asylum would have been treated the same way. But it was only those who were seeking asylum and were on the front page of the Daily Telegraph who were treated this way. It was not a policy about border protection. It was not about protecting Australia from people seeking asylum; it was about protecting the government from the Daily Telegraph. It had bad photos on the front, so something had to be done and we dealt with the minority who come by boat with draconian legislation but kept exactly the same rules for other people who sought asylum.
The government’s own figures show that in the last four years boat arrivals were three to four per cent of all unauthorised arrivals. In 2003-04 they were about 1½ per cent. In fact, in 2004-05 there were no individuals seeking asylum arriving by boat. But, even at the peak of the political controversy in 2001, slightly more than 25 per cent but less than 26 per cent—almost exactly a quarter—of asylum claims were by boat arrivals, yet we had draconian legislation about those people and nothing about the rest. I do not think we should have done about the rest what we did about the boat people, because I did not agree with what we did about them. It was the height of hypocrisy; it was double standards of the first order, compounded by the fact that the high point of the debate was that the people concerned ‘would never set foot in Australia’.
What is the result? About a year ago we got to the situation—and I cannot tell you the exact situation today, because my latest data is almost a year old—where, of the 958 refugees processed on Nauru, 559 had been resettled in Australia, some of them in my electorate. I am very happy to have them. I met here in this building a young man who was not the last person to leave Nauru, because some of them were single individuals, but was in the last family to leave Nauru. He was learning English at the Secondary Introductory English Centre, which is in my electorate. He was with people who came to the parliament for a familiarisation course. I spoke to them in the public gallery. He is a very fine young man who is very welcome in my community. But in the election he was never going to ‘set foot in Australia’—and I can tell you that he is living in Watson and is doing very well. So all of that was a political stunt for the times, because the legislation would have had to have other character and other consequences had it been genuine.
I have another concern, which is the implications of this legislation for Australia’s standing as it relates to the refugee convention. I am a bit of a critic of the refugee convention. I think it is out of date and needs fundamental review. I certainly do not think that Australia should implement bad laws merely because an international convention says we should. I am not one of those who think we should be a slavish adherent. There are some elements of some international treaties which I would not wish to see in Australian law. If it were up to me, I would be seeking internationally to review the refugee convention.
But there are some bedrock elements of the refugee convention that must not be changed, and they are put at threat by this legislation, in particular article 33(1), which says you do not return people who may face human rights abuses. That is at the very core of the refugee convention; without that you do not have one. There are elements about how it should be dealt with that I think are out of date. They were written for the Cold War period and are no longer as relevant to the nature of the refuge that people seek as refugees these days. But those concerns which I have do not go to this legislation, because this legislation goes to the core of what the international community, including Australia—including this government, which says it adheres to the refugee convention—say that we think that the fundamental principles of the refugee convention are: the fundamental humanitarian obligations of every nation and that we should never return people who may face human rights abuses. I do not say that the government would deliberately set out to do that; I am sure that it would not. But this legislation removes the protections for people who may face that.
I will go now to the detail. We have had a controversial report from the Edmund Rice Centre about concerns with regard to people who might have been sent back to hazardous circumstances in Afghanistan and Iraq. What have they got for their troubles? Abuse. I know some of the people associated with that organisation. I do not agree with everything that they say, but they are fine and principled people and they would not have made that allegation lightly. I hope those allegations are examined seriously. Even if you do not accept the concerns they have expressed, let us have a look at the consequences for people who are denied—as people under this legislation will be—access to the refugee tribunal.
The Refugee Review Tribunal has overturned decisions by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to send 3,200 people back to Iraq and Afghanistan. Those 3,200 people would have been sent back had they not had access to an appeal. That might make some people unhappy—they might wish that they had gone back. But what that means is that an independent tribunal appointed by this government concluded that those people would be genuinely at risk if they were sent back to Afghanistan and Iraq. Let us say that the tribunal is 90 per cent wrong—I do not think that they are, but let us say that they are. That then means that 320 people have been saved from being sent back to the risk of persecution. I would not support a law that sent one person back. I am not saying that other people in this House would callously do that. I know many of the people speaking on the other side of this debate and they are people of goodwill, but they have to look at the consequences of what they do, whatever the motivation. And the consequence is that in the future the next 3,200 people, were they to be subject to this law, would not have access to that review and would be sent back. That goes to the very heart of why we offer refuge: so that people will not be sent back if they may face human rights abuses. There are allegations that we have done so. In this legislation there is a removal of the protection that will prevent us from doing so in the future.
What this shows is that the process concerns that people on this side of the House, people on the other side and people in the public debate have been raising are not just the technical legal obsessions of lawyers about process. The checks and balances of our legal system and our system of administrative review are not there for fun; they are there because, although Australia is very well served by its public service, we all know that public servants, like everybody else, can make mistakes, and we need a process of review. It is especially important here because in this area of administration the consequences of getting it wrong can be tragic. To consciously set out to deny review of a decision can have profound consequences. To put it generally, the consequence could be being sent back to human rights abuses—but it could be more stark than those mere words ‘human rights abuses’ indicate; it could mean torture or death, as in the allegations raised recently here in Australia.
My concern is that the legislation is profoundly unfair. It is totally unnecessary. The amendments that are being contemplated cannot save it. I say to the government and to the people who are considering how they might vote—not just the four who have said so but also the others who are considering how they might vote—do not go down this path. The parliament and the processes of government in Australia are under challenge. This is happening not just in Australia but in every Western democracy, because people think that opportunism is sometimes prevailing over their interests. Sometimes people think that and I think they are wrong, sometimes people think that and I think they are right; but it does not matter. We need here to take a stand. This is an important stand. I welcome the fact that the opposition has taken it. I welcome the fact that the minor parties are supporting it. I hope Family First does too. I particularly congratulate on their courage the people who have taken the decision to say that they will not support this legislation. I hope they are joined by others, because I profoundly wish that Australia does not go down this path and that we seek a positive role in the future review of refugee arrangements, not the negative role which we have played in recent years and which is reflected in this legislation.
11
09:58:00
Cadman, Alan, MP
SD4
Mitchell
LP
1
0
Mr CADMAN
—I completely refute the statement that Australia has played a negative role in the settlement of refugees. Australia leads the world with its settlement and compassionate programs, and the Labor Party are vile and contemptible in trying to paint the picture in any other way. Let us have a look at what the Labor Party did when they were in office. They established a program of humanitarian care. There was no refugee test or UNHCR test; there was something that the minister declared to be of interest to the Australian government. They did not observe any international covenants or processes; they took anybody that the minister designated as important under the special humanitarian program. That is not a humane program. That is a political program.
This government has looked around the world for those most in need and taken people in large numbers. Proportionately we have one of the largest programs in the world for the size of our nation and for our capacity to settle refugees. I am proud of the programs that we have introduced because they are based on need. I invite members of the opposition to have a look at what is happening outside Australia’s borders and to have a look at the human rights issues in Indonesia—and they are not perfect, I acknowledge that. Let us have a look at Darfur and Sudan and see whether or not you are willing to compare the people that Australia is bringing from those nations to the boat people who happen to get here because they have paid somebody or because they are inventive enough to get hold of a canoe and paddle to Australia. There is a huge difference between these two classes of people, and if we lose sight of that then we lose sight of a humanitarian program to support those in most need around the world. I think this opportunistic approach to what is need and to refugees is just a wrong and an inhumane approach.
The reports I have from international organisations such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide are that, in Sudan, 1.6 million people have been displaced, 20,000 have fled to Chad and 70,000 deaths have occurred since February 2003. That is just in one area. If you look at the surveys of what has gone on in those places, you will see that in September last year the World Health Organisation revealed that between 6,000 and 10,000 displaced persons were dying each month in the camps. These are refugee camps—humanitarian refuges—and people are dying in them at the rate of 6,000 to 10,000 a month.
Are the Labor Party serious when they say we need to give preference to people who can get here by boat or pay someone to come to Australia? There is a huge difference between the needs of those people and those dying at those rates in what are supposed to be places of refuge—they are called refugee camps—for people who are displaced. Why are they dying? They are dying of malnutrition, of disease and because the armies of the Sudanese government are bombing refugee camps—something that has never occurred before in the management of displaced people. The targets are actually the refugee camps.
The stories are particularly appalling, and the UN has documented them. Female displaced people risk being robbed, abused, threatened, beaten with whips and gang-raped as they undertake the traditional female task of seeking firewood. Sudanese authorities deny these reports, often claiming that their soldiers are disciplined and follow strict sharia. That is absolutely proven to be wrong. The Australian Labor Party, rather than deal with the issues that confront the world and that should confront Australia, would rather play games with people who can get into canoes and who can seek a better way of life in Australia.
If I were in their position, I admit I would do everything to improve the way of life for my family. I would want to escape from an area that was oppressive. I would want to escape to something that offered me greater economic prospect. I would want to seek a better way of life. But that is not the same as being a refugee. A refugee, according to the United Nations, is very specific, and the way in which they should be managed is also specific. If we are going to stray outside that, we will go back to the old days of a Labor minister declaring areas of special humanitarian need, declaring on a political basis without any objective test what areas in the world we are going to take people from, with neither rhyme nor reason. That is the way you lose community support for immigration. That is the way you lose community support for refugee programs. That is the way you despoil and wreck the rationale, the compassionate basis, that should be the very root of our immigration policy.
That is the game the Labor Party want to play. They want to go back to those days where the minister declares areas of interest—no rationale, no reason: ‘Get here on a boat and we’ll declare you a different class of refugee to the type of refugee that the international community is looking at.’ This government has a fine record of compassionate support for refugees. I do not want to see that change, because I think it is impeccable, I think it is reasonable and I think it needs to have a solid basis. We are not talking about a solid basis here today; we are talking about changes to the act that will allow those who can approach Australia a different class of refugee status. They will have hot and cold running lawyers to attack Australian law.
Tell that to the people in the camps in Sudan. Tell them that they will have right of appeal by Australian lawyers flying into those camps to defend their claims! They will not see a lawyer; they will not even see a review. There will be one interview and the decision will be made about whether they come to Australia or not. That is not a fair way of treating people who claim to be refugees: two classes of asylum seekers—one in need and dying in camps; the other strong enough to paddle a canoe or to pay someone to bring them here. They are two different types of people, and they would be treated differently if the Australian Labor Party had its way. It wants to say, ‘If you can arrive on Australian shores, you’ll have hot and cold running lawyers and, not only that, you’ll have numerous appeals through the courts—but, if all that goes wrong, let’s put the ombudsman onto them as well, for the sake of parliament.’ Tell that to the people in Sudan! Tell that to the people in the camps suffering around the world. Tell the genuine refugees we are taking that we will send the ombudsman there to see whether or not they have had a fair deal. You are creating two classes of refugees—a completely intolerable situation when you look at the humanitarian need of the situation.
The government has changed its processing to deal with people who do come onshore, but this proposal is aimed to keep people offshore, deal with them as objectively as possible, search out real need, establish the true refugees and then allow them onshore, with settlement or settlement in a second or third country. What the Australian Labor Party appears to skate over and ignore completely is the international convention on the settlement of refugees. The first goal of settlement is to create a political solution to the conflict and settle people back in their own land. That is the No. 1 goal of the United Nations, endorsed by Australia. The second goal is to have them settle nearby so they may return easily to their country of origin and reclaim their homes, their farms and their land. That is the second option adopted by the United Nations. This is sensible stuff. This is common sense. This is the way refugee management should be handled. The international community recognises it, but it appears that the Australian Labor Party does not want to recognise it. It wants to make up a whole bunch of new rules as we go ahead about how refugees are dealt with worldwide.
The third option, according to the United Nations, is a country of settlement remote from the area, where people will be safe. Australia often gets into the situation where we take people from all around the world as part of our refugee program of 13,000. It is a big program, I would remind the House, for the size of this nation: year in, year out, we take 13,000 people. It does not matter what the economic circumstances are in Australia, we take them. That is our compassionate program, that is our internationally sound program and that is why we can hold our heads high in international fora. Year in, year out, we take 13,000 people, based on these principles: (1) can there be a political settlement?—often there cannot be; (2) can there be safe settlement in a nearby country? I have read to the House the circumstances of refugees from Sudan who fled into nearby countries, dying at the rate of 6,000 to 10,000 a month and then being bombed for the pleasure of the Sudanese government. That is how safe those settlements are. The third option is the least preferred option, according to the United Nations—this is not an Australian conservative government making these rules; these are the United Nations rules on refugees. The United Nations said, ‘Only if those two measures can’t be met should we consider third country settlement some distance from the source of the conflict and the reason for people becoming refugees.’
How are we going to look at these so-called asylum seekers, these refugees that come to Australia by boat? We are going to give them first-class accommodation. There will be water, schooling for the kids, electricity and regular food. There are no threats to their lives, no bombings, no starvation, no ill-health, good medical services—everything that they could want for their safety, security and good health. Compare that with what is going on in the camps, where people have one interview: ‘Yes, you’re in to Australia,’ or ‘No, you’re not.’ What do these people get? They get security, safety, care, good health, good food and a good existence, compared with, in many instances, where they have come from, but not what they ultimately desire.
What they desire is settlement in Australia. Who would not want to settle in Australia? I do not blame them for that; I cannot criticise them for that. I would do that myself for my family, to get a better way of life, but I can understand why any story would be invented, why any tale would be told to achieve that. Compare the situation of a tale told, or a story invented, to the factual reality of what is occurring around the world that you want to turn your back on in order to rescue who you think are genuine people. They may or may not be genuine. Let us have an objective test and put them up against the rest of those claimants and see how they stack up. That is the way we should make the decision and that is the way the government is making the decision, with all of these added things thrown in: hot- and cold-running lawyers, safety for the children, schooling and clean water, which allows people to live a healthy life and one reason why there has been such a large increase in longevity around the world. They can live in those circumstances, have review after review and have lawyer after lawyer. They can even send the Commonwealth Ombudsman to check whether it is real and then we will make a decision about whether they should be settled here or elsewhere.
There has been some protest about whether people should be settled here or elsewhere. There seems to be a theme running within the Labor Party that, automatically, whatever their condition they should come and settle here. That is not the way to run a refugee program. If you want to call it something else, call it that and be honest about it. But this is not a refugee program. With refugees, you look for the best outcome for those families and, sometimes, it just happens that settlement is not Australia. Sometimes it is New Zealand, sometimes it is elsewhere in the world, but this government has always done everything possible to ensure the safety and security of those people whom it has found should not settle in Australia.
Why should people be in detention? The simple fact of the matter is that every country that has tried to let them go has found that they never turn up again. Tony Blair tried it and lost 98 per cent of everybody he said could move around in the community. Britain has since adopted many Australian rules and laws regarding the handling of refugees and asylum seekers. People have tried that process. I ask the opposition and my colleagues: what would you do in those circumstances? If you were let go and you thought that you had a chance of escaping and not being found again, that people were confused by your appearance and your name, wouldn’t you take that chance? Wouldn’t you seek to escape the officialdom that will declare whether you are a refugee? If you could disappear into the community and say, ‘I am now a resident of the country in which I am seeking to gain residency,’ wouldn’t you take that risk? Of course you would. It is human nature. You try to get the best you can for yourself and your family, and that is what this is about. It is about preservation, aspiration and a new lifestyle. That is what people are on about. The problem is that we need to sort out who is under the hammer, whose life is under threat—those who have faced torture, whose homes have been bombed, whose houses have been burnt down and who have had traumatic experiences. One only has to read some of the stories, both from the UNHCR and other agencies, to realise how serious the circumstances are.
A report prepared in July this year by the United Nations Refugee Agency says the insecurity in the rule of law—the very thing that we seem to be debating here today—in these areas of refugee population has changed dramatically: It states:
On one hand, refugee-populated areas may be the target of direct military attacks …
… … …
A number of different examples can be cited in this respect: attacks on Sudanese refugee settlement in northern Uganda …
Outside Sudan, in Uganda, people have been attacked by the Sudanese army. That is what we are looking at. You cannot compare that with people paddling their canoes to Australia; these are quite different things. We ought to be focusing on these things if we are going to call it a refugee program and a settlement program for refugees. If you are going to reinstall the special humanitarian system, call it that. Let us see your policy. Let us know what you are on about. I do not believe you are really saying that. I believe the Australian Labor Party wants to play games with this issue. Not having a policy is a privilege that oppositions have. The United Nations Refugee Agency report goes on to describe ‘incursions by the armed forces of Burundi into refugee-populated areas neighbouring Tanzania, intended to apprehend combatants and “subversives” living amongst the Burundi population’ in refugee camps.
I do not think the Labor Party or my colleagues have a case. I will go into bat every time for those people whose lives are at risk, whose children are being tortured and raped, whose homes have been destroyed and bombed, whose crops have been destroyed, whose cattle and livestock have been taken by invading armies. That, to me, is a refugee program. This program that the government has put in place is a type of refugee program. People are being given extraordinary support and assistance to make their claim—a claim that is not given to anybody else. The only reason they are given this claim is that they can pay somebody or paddle a canoe—one or the other. In anything that I have read about refugees, whether from the United Nations or from anywhere else in the world, those are not among the criteria that are necessary to establish the needs or the refugee status of anybody.
15
10:17:00
Bowen, Chris, MP
DZS
Prospect
ALP
0
0
Mr BOWEN
—In 1951 the United Nations convention for the protection of refugees came into force. The world realised the mistakes of the 1930s, when many Western nations turned their backs on Jews fleeing persecution in Germany. Collectively, we said, ‘Never again.’ I am sure that all of us involved in public life would like to think that we would have done the right thing in those circumstances and stood up for those facing the worst of circumstances, regardless of whether it was popular or unpopular. If the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 passes the parliament today, it will be the day that Australia turned its back on the refugee convention and on refugees escaping circumstances that most of us can only imagine. This is a bad bill with no redeeming features. It is a hypocritical and illogical bill. If it is passed today, it will be a stain on our national character. The people who will be disadvantaged by this bill are in fear of their lives, and we should never turn our back on them. They are people who could make a real contribution to Australia.
This bill represents an extension of the so-called Pacific solution, in which we saw individuals who were processed offshore being treated differently from those processed in Australia. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs said in his second reading speech that the offshore processing system had preserved ‘Australia’s strong commitment to refugee protection’. He is wrong. Let us take a look at how the Pacific solution has worked in practice. This bill extends the Pacific solution, so it is legitimate to look at how it has worked up until now. Firstly, we have seen families of refugees broken up—callously and in contravention of the refugee convention. Spouses of people who have been recognised as refugees in Australia received correspondence from the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, which has been reproduced by Michael Gordon in his excellent book Freeing Ali. It states:
Your claims have been assessed separately from your husband’s claims because you travelled at different times. Under the conditions of your husband’s stay in Australia he is not able to sponsor you. Like all refused asylum seekers you cannot remain in Nauru indefinitely. You should consider voluntary repatriation now.
What a callous piece of correspondence. I agree with Michael Gordon, who said of that letter:
There was only one conclusion to draw: if you wanted to be reunited with your husband, whose fear of persecution if he returned had been judged to be well founded, your only choice was to return and to convince him to leave Australia and confront the very danger he had fled.
Of course, several asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru have had their applications rejected three, four or five times, only to have the government eventually accept their claims. Unlike people processed onshore, people processed offshore have no access to professional assistance. It is hard enough for a well-versed Australian native to understand Australia’s immigration system, let alone somebody with obvious language difficulties who is attempting to come to grips with the massive change in their circumstances. Of course, asylum seekers offshore have no right of appeal to higher authorities. McAdam and Crock highlighted the importance of this in an article in the Australian on 15 May. They said that between 1993 and 2006 the refugee tribunal overturned 8,000 determinations by departmental officers to refuse asylum. Asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat will not have this right of appeal if this bill is passed.
Asylum seekers have been encouraged—pressured—to return to the nation they are fleeing when their applications are rejected. The government made it very clear to asylum seekers that, if their application were not successful, they would be involuntarily returned to the country they were fleeing. Some stayed and fought and eventually had their applications approved. Others were returned to their homeland. The results of this are outlined in a report by the Brotherhood of Saint Laurence entitled Return to danger and in a report by the Edmund Rice Centre, which other honourable members have referred to. I cannot vouch for those examples—I am not qualified to say whether they are true or not—but if just one of them is true it damages Australia as a nation.
The biggest problem is that, even if an asylum seeker overcomes all these obstacles and has their application for refugee status accepted, there is no guarantee of a visa to settle in Australia. Someone who makes it to the Australian mainland and has their case as a refugee accepted may not be able to gain a protection visa in this country, and that is a national disgrace. This is something that the government wishes to gloss over; there was no mention of it in the second reading speech to the bill. I must say, for such a major and important piece of legislation to receive the cursory treatment that this bill did in the second reading speech by the parliamentary secretary is an insult to the parliament and to the Australian people. The lack of speakers on this debate from the government side is also insulting.
I also note that this morning the government gagged this debate—the most important debate that we have seen in many years. The government has gagged the debate such that every government member wishing to speak on the bill was given the opportunity to do so but while there are still many opposition members wishing to speak. I am sad that Liberal members on the other side voted for that gag motion.
The parliamentary secretary did at least acknowledge one point in his second reading speech. He acknowledged that this bill was brought about by the granting of asylum to a group of refugees from West Papua. While the government recognised the link, they have not admitted the full story. The government first embraced the Pacific solution for crass electoral reasons, but they are extending the Pacific solution for reasons of crass international appeasement. I happen to think that our relationship with Indonesia is one of our most important. I have spent time in Indonesia. It is a wonderful country and it has made remarkable democratic progress in recent years, but our relationship must be one of mutual respect. In Australia that means respecting the Indonesian legal system, even when we do not like the way some of our own nationals are treated, but Indonesia must respect our system of dealing with asylum seekers. The Howard government changing our system to suit the concerns of another nation is nothing short of a disgrace. The Prime Minister is selling out our national sovereignty. This tragic and discriminatory policy does not come cheap. Taxpayers are paying for the maintenance of offshore detention centres at the cost of $3 million to $4 million a month. They are much more expensive than detention centres in Australia. We have the worst of all worlds—an expensive, discriminatory and tragic policy.
Let me turn to the illogical and hypocritical nature of this bill. In his second reading speech the parliamentary secretary stated that it is ‘incongruous’ that asylum seekers who arrive by boat to excised areas are treated differently to those who arrive by boat to the mainland. But he did not say that it is incongruous that asylum seekers who arrive by boat are treated differently to those who happen to arrive by aeroplane. The government is claiming that the whole rationale of this bill is to fix an illogical outcome—that asylum seekers should be treated the same regardless of where they land. We say that asylum seekers should be treated the same regardless of how they land. We say they should be dealt with fairly, swiftly and on Australian soil.
The government has not changed the situation for asylum seekers arriving by means other than boat, because that is how, in almost every circumstance, asylum seekers from Indonesia arrive. In his contribution, the honourable member for Mitchell talked about the different ways asylum seekers are treated depending on where they are. His contribution suggested that this bill would end that situation—that now asylum seekers in camps in Africa would be treated the same as those who arrived on the Australian mainland. Of course he is wrong. They will not be treated differently if they happen to arrive by aeroplane—if they happen to be able to afford an aeroplane ticket.
The convention on refugees says clearly:
The Contracting States shall apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin.
This bill contravenes that convention because it treats people differently in Australia depending on what part of the world they have come from and how they arrive. In 2003-04, 1.5 per cent of people seeking asylum in this country arrived by boat. On 9 May 2006 Minister Vanstone stated that unauthorised boat arrivals in the last four years represented three to four per cent of all unauthorised arrivals. So this bill, which the government claims is so necessary to protect our borders, will deal with a maximum of four per cent of unauthorised arrivals in Australia. It is so clearly a sop to international appeasement that I cannot believe government members can come into this House with a straight face and argue otherwise. Far from removing illogicality, the government has embraced it.
In the wake of the Tampa incident, the then Minister for Defence gave instructions that asylum seekers should not be humanised. He instructed that no images be presented, no stories told and no facts relayed which gave a human dimension to the people in such desperate circumstances as the Tampa asylum seekers. He did not want the Australian body politic infected with the view that these people were somehow normal human beings escaping persecution. But, of course, they are human beings and the government cannot stop their stories being told.
I suspect there are government members in this House who will vote for this legislation today but have never met a refugee or talked to them about what they have been through. Of course, some government members have acknowledged great empathy for refugees, and I acknowledge their courage, but I suspect that there are some opposite who have never looked a refugee in the eye. There are few more uplifting experiences than to meet a refugee who has made their home in Australia and is making a contribution to this nation. I met a young Vietnamese woman at the Education Week celebrations in Fairfield a few weeks ago. She came to Australia by boat with her family in 1993. When she arrived she did not speak English. She is now studying medical science at the University of Sydney. She gave a speech at the Education Week celebration about what Australia and its public education system has done for her. She will be giving back to Australia much more than what Australia has given her.
There is also the young man, Zaya Mohamed, who escaped from Afghanistan and attended Holroyd High School in my electorate. He did not know whether his family was dead or alive; he escaped alone. When he arrived, he did not speak English. His schooling had been interrupted and he was hardly literate in his own language. But Zaya did the HSC last year with a view to studying information technology, and a more delightful man you could not hope to meet. It is people like this to whom the government is trying to send a message—the message that they are not welcome.
Not all people seeking asylum in Australia are genuine. Not all deserve to have refugee status, and not all deserve to be granted visas. But what they are entitled to is a fair process, and they are entitled to a swift process. They are entitled to have their claims considered in Australia, and if they are granted refugee status, they are entitled to a refugee protection visa from Australia. This bill denies them those rights.
If this bill is passed, the so-called softer edge which the government put into the detention regime last year, under pressure from a few members opposite and from this side, of course, will be replaced by an edge of barbed wire. Children will be back in detention. The amendments proposed by the government do not stop that. The amendments are, in my view, particularly weak. The amendments talk about taking all reasonable steps to encourage other countries to provide suitable accommodation for children. The amendments call for all reasonable steps to work with another country to uphold the principle that children should be in detention only as a last resort. This parliament cannot pass a law that tells Nauru what to do. Amending this bill is like putting lipstick on a pig. You can put all the lipstick you like on it but it will still be a pig. You can amend this bill all you like but it will still be a bad bill.
What future is there for children in detention? We hear a lot about how important it is to read to our children, to ensure that they are nurtured and to ensure that they have access to resources for a much better chance at life. What future are we delivering to these children? What message will we be sending to them? How will they feel about Australia—an Australia that kept them in detention in their early years? We can only hope that they realise that it is this government that is making them unwelcome, not this nation.
I appeal to the better angels of the nature of those opposite. Some have already expressed their unwillingness to support this legislation. Labor alone cannot defeat this bill. Labor, together with a principled and courageous stand by some members opposite in this House and in the other place, can defeat this bill. It is, as I said, a bill with no redeeming features. We will oppose this bill, and I call on members opposite to join us. If it is passed, it will be repealed by an incoming Labor government. Decency and self-respect as a nation would demand nothing less.
19
10:33:00
Crean, Simon, MP
DT4
Hotham
ALP
0
0
Mr CREAN
—I rise also to oppose the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006. Labor opposes it outright. There is nothing you can do to this excision bill that will fix it. We do not seek to amend it; we will oppose it in its entirety. The bill is shameful and xenophobic. It is cast in denial and reeks of appeasement of the Indonesian government. It is also another broken promise by the Prime Minister of this country—this time to his party colleagues, none of whom are sitting in here at the moment. We have seen some of them with the courage to come into this place and say they oppose it, but we now have a government that is gagging debate. So embarrassed is the government of this debate that it wants to stop it. John Howard ditched commitments he made to his own colleagues last year to make the immigration laws more compassionate. If he cannot be trusted by his own colleagues, he cannot be trusted by the Australian people.
I congratulate those members on the other side who have shown courage in this debate—the members for Kooyong, McMillan, Pearce and Cook—and Senator Troeth for the way in which she is still standing firm against pressure. These people are not rebels. They only want the Prime Minister to honour his promise to them last year. What is wrong with that? Why should people be accused of rebellion simply for insisting on a man honouring his word? He is not any ordinary man; he is the Prime Minister of the country. Peter Costello knows that the Prime Minister breaks his word. We now know that the Prime Minister breaks it in a serial way to his colleagues, just as he has betrayed the trust of Australian people so many times over the years.
In the past, Labor have opposed excision as a solution to our immigration issues. We opposed it as part of the so-called Pacific solution back in 2002. That Pacific solution has been shown to be a costly and ineffective failure. This legislation, in response to the West Papuan refugee issue, will perpetuate that failure of policy. The bill in effect surrenders our borders in the name of protecting them. It is a ludicrous proposition. It says that we defend ourselves by shrinking ourselves. The original excision bill, introduced by the then Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, Mr Ruddock, sought to excise all of Australia’s outlying islands—if you like, the islands beyond the mainland. When it was introduced in June 2002, both the minister for immigration and the Minister for Foreign Affairs refused to rule out excision of parts of the mainland from the migration zone, because we said that it was possible to do that. At the time, the minister for immigration took umbrage at our suggestions that you could excise Tasmania, for example. The Prime Minister of the day in fact said that that was a ludicrous proposition.
I remember, in this House, on 17 June, asking the Prime Minister whether he would rule out excising parts of the mainland. This is what the Prime Minister said then:
I want to make it clear that there is no intention—and there never has been—to excise any part of the Australian mainland. That is an absolutely ludicrous proposition.
That is what the Prime Minister said on 17 June 2002. It was ludicrous then and it is ludicrous now. But this bill legislates for the ludicrous. It excises the Australian mainland, the big island, and Tasmania, the little island. The only thing left after this bill is Macquarie Island.
00AMV
Hunt, Gregory, MP
Mr Hunt
—And Heard.
DT4
Crean, Simon, MP
Mr CREAN
—And Heard and McDonald Islands. The parliamentary secretary is joining in the joke. It would be a joke if it was not so serious.
Now, Labor is totally committed to strong and effective border protection, but you do not protect your borders by surrendering them—and that is what this legislation does. Surrendering the outlying islands in 2002 was a strategic mistake. The Labor Party said so at the time. We said it would encourage the people smugglers to aim for the mainland. It was an invitation to them to get to the mainland. Now that we have been proven correct in that analysis the government’s response is to excise the mainland. When the government’s response to xenophobia is to surrender it loses all credibility. And that is what has happened with this legislation.
At the time of our response to the 2002 excision we were very supportive of other measures to stop the people smugglers. We called for deterrence in the form of a coast guard—a cop on the beat to patrol those islands. We called for laws which, by developing international agreements on processing and location, dealt with asylum seekers in the country in which they first landed, not the last country that they headed to, so that they could not country hop. That is what we proposed then.
We also proposed solutions to stem the flow of people whose misery was being exploited by unscrupulous and illegal smugglers. We proposed urging the eight countries in the pipeline of the people smugglers to sign the protocol of the refugee convention, and we proposed that the Prime Minister use his good offices, through CHOGM and other international forums, to get those signatures. We urged the government to get Indonesia and other transit countries to make people-smuggling a crime under their domestic laws. We accepted, as part of the people smuggler deterrent, that it was appropriate to support the special treatment of Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands because of their distance from Australia and their proximity to Indonesia.
This bill continues to ignore all of those constructive solutions. Instead, its solution is to excise Australia from Australia, pretending that none of Australia is Australia. It is absurd. This is a response to a circumstance in which we were not confronted by people smugglers but by genuine West Papuan refugees—genuine, as determined under Australian law. The government has resorted to a solution—a solution that the Prime Minister said was ludicrous—to deny the very operation of that same Australian law.
We believe that the government did the right thing in accepting the West Papuans. But the government could not stand the heat of the Indonesian response so it rolled over, and this is the solution. So we are having this debate today, until the government brings the gag in to stop the debate, on this bill to appease Indonesia. In it we are asked to accept that ‘designated unauthorised arrivals’ may be removed to a declared country outside Australia—namely, Manus Island or Nauru. They are to be removed there for the processing of any claims for refugee protection—not under our law, but under the refugee convention.
Just understand the hypocrisy of that dimension of this issue. Can you remember that the government in this place, time and time again, said they were never going to cede Australian law to international authorities and that we would determine the law that would apply here and we would not have it determined by international bodies such as the UN? They bagged the UN left, right and centre when it suited them over that misplaced, misguided involvement in the war in Iraq. They bagged the UN, but this proposal adopts the refugee convention as the alternative to Australian law for the processing of these refugees.
In this proposal the law is made more ridiculous because it only applies, as was mentioned earlier, to those people arriving by boat. What about those who arrive by air—those who can afford to pay the ticket? They will be processed here. Think of this: 43 West Papuan people arrive by boat and the law is changed to stop them coming in in the future. In the meantime, last year alone, over 1,600 people arrived illegally by air. And of those, 40 people applied for protection visas. So here we have the same order of magnitude, the same number of people. How is the government going to explain this dimension of inconsistency in its policy? It is worse than that; it is blatantly discriminatory, because if you can afford to fly to Australia you get Australian law but if you are too poor—if you are escaping repressive regimes where you have no means and you are so desperate to make the rush for asylum that you go in a leaky boat and take all those risks—then you do not get the protection of Australian law. What is fair about that? How does the government justify that? You could understand it if it had a consistent position. It does not. It is a reactive position. That is why we are in this mess today.
The effect of this legislation is to put the kids back behind razor wire. Australian law, which now prevents it, is inoperative. The laws of other countries will apply. All of those so-called ‘softenings’ of the legislation—the assurances from Minister Amanda Vanstone about this harsh legislation, assurances that they have had to give to try and placate those on the other side of this chamber to prevent them from crossing the floor—are no substitute for retaining control of the situation ourselves. How can they be? If you believe in humane treatment, then use your own laws to ensure it. Do not shift the responsibility and abrogate the control. This bill loses that control. In so doing, this country loses its compassion and its obligation to protect the rights of refugees. This is a bill which appeases Indonesia at the expense of people fleeing persecution. Australia should not change or, in this case, abrogate its laws just to please Indonesia or, for that matter, any other country.
Last year we saw some welcome changes to immigration policy by the government. Those changes brought the government’s policy closer to that which Labor had been advocating for many years beforehand. We wanted the government to go further last year but, as far as they went, we supported the changes. Last year, led by John Howard, they agreed that children would no longer be placed in detention, that indefinite detention would cease and case managed mental health care would be introduced, and that the Commonwealth Ombudsman would also become the Immigration Ombudsman and gain independent oversight of people in detention. They were important concessions. They dealt with concerns which were eventually—and I say ‘eventually’—raised by people in the Liberal Party.
This bill reverses all of those reforms. If asylum seekers are to be sent offshore to centres such as Nauru, this bill reverses all of those reforms. That is the broken word I talked of earlier. Asylum seekers will be out of the reach of Australian law if they arrive by boat. If the bill passes, once again children will be in detention; they will be behind razor wire. No wonder there is disquiet in the government ranks. No wonder they want to gag this bill. Razor wire and detention is no place for children, as Australian law now acknowledges. This bill denies that protection. Our fundamental position is that if asylum seekers land in Australia, they should be assessed under Australian law as it now stands and which we want to further amend. If they are found on the high seas escaping an alleged place of persecution, they should be taken to Christmas Island for assessment.
I want to take the opportunity to point out the efforts Labor has consistently made to get reforms in this very important area. On Australia Day 2002 in my first major speech as Leader of the Opposition, I spoke of the riches that migrants to this country had brought us: economic, social and cultural. I believe fundamentally in multiculturalism in this country. I believe it has made Australia a greater place. I said that Australia had successfully settled millions of people, rich and poor, and refugees, while becoming a diverse but united and peaceful people.
This immigration policy, I might add, has essentially always had bipartisan support. It needs it in a country such as ours. That bipartisanship gave us the confidence to build a diverse, tolerant and harmonious nation: a country that we could be proud of; a country that was looked to and held up as an example overseas. That bipartisanship was shattered under the leadership of John Howard. He trashed the bipartisanship in this country. Think about it: no other Liberal leader in this country has done that—not Menzies, not Fraser, not Peacock and not Hewson. And remember this: it was John Howard who lost the Liberal leadership in 1989 because of his anti-Asian remarks. That bipartisanship has essentially been trashed under his leadership, and this bill is in part a reflection of that fact.
Following the Australia Day call to get the kids out from behind the razor wire, in February of that same year I called for a number of measures, including bringing detention centres back under government control, not the privatised rabble that we have seen in existence under this government. I called for the closure of the Woomera detention centre and for media access to detention centres to be allowed. In April 2002, we opposed, as I have said before, the original excision bill which excised parts of Australia’s territory from the migration zone. That was when we heard the Prime Minister’s ‘ludicrous’ statement. In June of that year I reaffirmed Labor’s commitment to strong border protection but pointed out the futility of protecting our borders by handing them over or surrendering them. That is what we are doing further today.
In December 2002 we moved amendments to the Migration Legislation Amendment Bill to get the children out from behind the razor wire. Subsequently the member for Gellibrand moved a private member’s bill to get the children out before Christmas. All these attempts in parliament failed—all of the attempts that we proposed. Not one member from the government side supported any of those humane and sensible solutions. In policy development in a broader sense, Labor worked through 2002 to get the balance right—the balance between protecting our borders but responding in a human, compassionate way to genuine refugees.
In December 2002 the then shadow minister for immigration, Julia Gillard, and I, as leader, announced a series of measures to protect our borders while treating asylum seekers with decency, respect, compassion and in a timely way. We believed then and we believe now that treating them decently does not come at the expense of national security. We proposed abolishing the so-called Pacific solution—a costly and unsustainable failure. This bill is a complete antithesis of the positive, constructive and humane proposals that Labor has advanced over a number of years. It seeks to legislate away a problem by creating a legal fiction: excising Australia from Australia by pretending that for asylum seekers Australia does not exist—terra incognita indeed. This is a foolish nonsense. It is worse than that though. It is a vindictive and vicious measure to take against unfortunate and desperate people. It does nothing to secure our borders and returns to the government’s old policy of deterrence and punishment based on fear. It is a bill that should be opposed.
23
10:53:00
Hoare, Kelly, MP
83Y
Charlton
ALP
0
0
Ms HOARE
—Labor will be opposing the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 for many reasons, many of which have already been articulated by colleagues both on this side and the other side of the House. This bill proposes to amend the Migration Act 1958 to effectively excise the Australian mainland and Tasmania from Australia’s migration zone for people arriving by sea without a visa. The so-called designated unauthorised arrivals may be removed to a declared country outside Australia for processing of any claims that they are owed refugee protection under the refugee convention as amended by the refugees protocol.
The government has indicated at this time that Nauru will be used as the declared country with Manus Island and Christmas Island as contingency locations. Asylum seekers would be prohibited under this law from instigating any legal or appeal proceedings in Australia following any determination of their protection claims. To excise the Australian mainland and Tasmania from Australia’s migration law is an absolutely ludicrous and flawed proposal. We know that, for the purposes of Australian migration law, there are islands off northern Australia which have already been excised so that if asylum seekers arrive on those islands, they do not have access to Australian migration laws.
After those excision laws were passed in this parliament there were only two islands left: Tasmania and the mainland. This legislation excises those two final islands from Australia’s migration law. What this means is that if an asylum seeker reaches our country by boat without a visa then they will be declared as not being on Australian soil for the purpose of the migration laws. They will be shipped off to Nauru, a country which, coincidentally, is not a signatory to the 1951 convention on refugees. What this means is that these asylum seekers who have come in leaky boats, in canoes and by whatever means they have in fleeing from their country of origin will find themselves, on reaching Australia, shipped off to Nauru and processed there under the international conventions.
The background to this is that on 18 January 2006, 43 West Papuan asylum seekers arrived on the Australian mainland. These asylum seekers feared for their lives and the lives of their children. They spent four weeks in canoes in the ocean between West Papua and Australia. They risked their lives coming here. We can only imagine what they feared back in their own country. They put their own children at risk, putting them into canoes to flee what they feared in their own country. Can you imagine, as a parent, putting your child at that kind of risk? As a parent, I cannot imagine what desperation would cause me to do that but there was that desperation for these 43 West Papuans.
The decision was made fairly early this year that 42 of those asylum seekers were found to be refugees and were granted asylum. Just last month the 43rd asylum seeker had his refugee status approved. At this time the Indonesians were unhappy with Australia. They believed that the 43 West Papuans did not face persecution and believed that Australia should send them back to Indonesia, notwithstanding Australian law and Australian migration law processes. The Indonesians withdrew their ambassador from our country. What did our government do? The Prime Minister could have explained our system of migration to the Indonesian President. He could have explained the way that our processes work and explained that the fact that these 43 West Papuans seeking asylum were granted refugee status did not mean that the Australian government agreed with the ideological position that these 43 people have taken in West Papua. The Prime Minister did not do that. He could have gone through those conversations with the President of Indonesia and explained those processes rather than taking a knee-jerk reaction in proposing this legislation that we have before us today.
If we take a step back, last year, as has been explained here before, we had a group of government members who were concerned about the immigration processes in relation to asylum seekers who arrived in Australia by boat without visas. They were also concerned about the processes of detention in this country and, along with Labor, forced changes to the migration laws, particularly in relation to children. They forced changes so that we would no longer see children arriving in this country by boat placed in detention behind razor wire when they were found to be asylum seekers. They made changes to the length of time people could be kept in detention, which led to the effective abolition of indefinite detention of asylum seekers. We saw the introduction of case managed mental health care, a major recommendation which came out of the Cornelia Rau inquiry as well. We have all seen the examples of how an individual’s mental health suffers while being in detention for an indefinite period. We also now have the fact that the Ombudsman is also the Immigration Ombudsman and that the system can be overseen by that person. This legislation overturns all of those changes.
Australian law only applies in Australia. Australian law does not apply in Nauru. While we saw Australian law changed or softened around the edges last year, that law cannot be applied in Nauru, so we are going to have, for example, children being locked up in detention behind razor wire. We are going to have people’s mental health affected. We are going to have a system where people may be held indefinitely in detention. A point that also needs to be made is that, under this legislation, an asylum seeker arrives in Australia and Australia ships that individual off to Nauru and locks that individual up. If under the UN processes that individual is found to be a refugee, they can still languish in detention in Nauru until a third country decides to take that particular individual so that that person can get on with their life. There is no time frame for that detention, even if the person is found to be a refugee.
Indeed, it was reported in June that the member for Pearce reminded her colleagues at a party room meeting that, at the time that they were discussing this bill, it had been 12 months since their party room had agreed to those changes that I have already listed. A lot of people in this place, on both sides, would agree that children should not be held in detention behind razor wire for any reason at all. There is no reason that anybody could conceivably understand as a good reason for that to happen.
There has been a recently published report called Seeking asylum alone, by Associate Professor Mary Crock of the University of Sydney. It found a significant increase in the number of child asylum seekers who arrived in Australia without a parent or guardian in the last few years. Between 2000 and 2002 there were 197 children travelling to Australia seeking asylum alone, of whom 154 have been found to be refugees and granted asylum. However, as recently as February this year 56 of these young people remained in immigration detention. Adele Horin’s opening paragraph in last Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald illustrates this. She says:
They were smuggled out in the dead of night in the backs of trucks under hay or bags of flour. They were children from Afghanistan whose relatives were desperate to save them from the fate of older brothers or fathers, killed or kidnapped by the Taliban. Most of the children had no say in the decision, did not know where they were going, and had never heard of Australia.
What is it that could possibly drive a young person from the security and comforts of home to undertake a perilous journey through strife-torn countries and across the water in vessels of questionable seaworthiness? If you think about this as a parent, as a human being, it is beyond the imagination of most of us Australians, who really take the comforts we have very much for granted.
The case of Sayed Reza Moussawi, who was interviewed on Radio National’s Law Report on Tuesday of this week, is telling. Reza left Afghanistan unaccompanied as a 14-year-old. His brother was kidnapped and murdered, his bloodied body dumped on the front door of his family home almost three weeks after his abduction. Following his brother’s brutal murder by the Taliban, inquiries were made around Reza’s community as to whether there was another son in the household. Reza recounted what his dad said to him:
My Dad turned his face to me and he started crying. I saw the tears in his eyes, and he said, ‘Reza you should leave Afghanistan because your life is in danger, and I don’t want you to be killed like your brother and in front of us like a kind of a sheep or a horse or goats’.
Reza’s father insisted that he flee. Can you imagine the pain and torture a parent would experience in sending their adored child away, with only hope that they may be given a chance of survival better than the one they have at home? I remind the House that yesterday Australia committed further troops to Afghanistan to keep the Taliban at bay. We obviously recognise that this terrorist organisation is determined to kidnap and murder, and yet the government does not understand that it is not right to treat those victims who have fled this regime and its remnants as animals, leaving them to languish in detention for indefinite periods.
Upon his arrival in Australia after a harrowing journey in which the 14-year-old Reza was exhausted and sick, he was questioned by the authorities. He was petrified. He had fled a country where authority is to be feared with one’s life. Reza did not understand what was happening at first but was granted his freedom after 45 days in a detention centre. Whilst 45 days may not sound like an extended period, we must remember that Reza was still an unaccompanied child. He describes the detention centre as ‘a horrible place for all the immigrants and especially unaccompanied people and for the children’.
In her report, Associate Professor Mary Crock describes where Australia’s treatment of refugees in immigration detention continues to be inadequate and she makes it clear that the passage of this legislation will make things much worse. Unaccompanied children are not provided with any effective support while awaiting the determination of their applications for asylum. Under the measures proposed in this legislation, which is abhorrent to Australia’s obligations under international law, they will not even have the slim protections available to them under Australian law. This legislation proposes to send these asylum seekers offshore to places like Nauru to languish until their applications are processed. Mary Crock’s report found that unaccompanied children detained in Australian immigration centres were identified and placed in separate compounds with families. However, the report made the important point that such niceties were not extended to those children detained in Nauru and that they were treated as adults. It must be noted that, of those unaccompanied children detained within Australia, either they were all granted visas or their status was resolved. But, according to statistics provided to Mary Crock’s report by the International Organisation for Migration, of the 55 unaccompanied young people who arrived in Nauru, 32 were returned to the ravages of Afghanistan. This underscores the point that those seeking asylum who will be transhipped out to Nauru like freight by the Australian government under the measures proposed in this legislation will not have the protections of Australian law.
I would like to get some figures into perspective. Asylum seekers who arrived by boat in 2003-04 were approximately 1.5 per cent of the total number of so-called unauthorised arrivals, the rest of them arriving by aeroplane. The so-called unauthorised boat arrivals in the last four years, as has been indicated by the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs herself, represented only three or four per cent of the total unauthorised arrivals. In recent history, 2001 represented the highest number of asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat. In that year, 12,355 claims for asylum were lodged by individuals already in Australia, while 4,137 asylum seekers arrived by boat—only one-quarter of the total number of asylum seekers that year. To add to those figures, almost 70 per cent of the 1,547 people intercepted between August and December 2001 and assessed offshore under the Pacific solution turned out to be genuine refugees. Add to that again the total of 130 Afghans on the Tampa who were given immediate sanctuary by New Zealand and the approval rate for refugee status rose to 71.1 per cent.
I congratulate all the speakers in this debate who are opposing this legislation who have brought their personal, humane values and principles to this discussion, including the member for Pearce, the member for Cook, the member for Kooyong and the member for McMillan. These people have stood up against fierce bullying within the Liberal Party and we saw an example of that this morning by the member for O’Connor, who is renowned for his bullying tactics. It has been fierce bullying. These members of parliament have bravely, humanely and with principle stood up against it.
I encourage them to further support their comments in this discussion by voting with Labor, voting against the bill. Do not be bullied by your leader; do not be bullied by the Prime Minister when he says you need to abstain from this vote, not vote against it. To further support the statements that you have made publicly and in this place you need to cross the floor, leave the Liberal-National Party coalition, vote with Labor and oppose this abhorrent legislation that will end in tragedy for many families who come to our country seeking asylum. It must be opposed, it must be defeated and that can happen in the Senate and, hopefully, it will.
26
11:13:00
Tollner, David, MP
00AN4
Solomon
CLP
1
0
Mr TOLLNER
—Thank you to members opposite for persevering with me this morning. I know that we have a line-up of people who want to speak and I want to thank members opposite for allowing me this opportunity to stand up. As most people in this place would know, I am a pretty simple country boy at heart. I do not profess to be a moral crusader or to have any sort of monopoly on moral or ethical thought, but I find this debate on the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 interesting, as I do the way it is panning out. People talk about compassion for people who arrive in this country illegally. People obviously have different views on what is the right moral position to take on these matters. I enormously respect the member for Cook, the member for Pearce, the member for Kooyong and the member for McMillan for having the strength of their convictions. They have obviously put a lot of time and effort into pondering this bill and they have been very public about their views on it. I note, reading the front page of today’s Australian, that they are out there telling people exactly what they think about this legislation. I do not share their views on the legislation, but I do admire their strength of conviction and their character in doing that.
But when I go around my electorate, those in it wonder what all this is about and why there is so much opposition to this sort of stuff. We in Darwin are at the leading edge of illegal boat arrivals in Australia—there is no doubt about it. I remember that some years ago, when I first arrived in the Territory, they were a regular occurrence: people lobbing onto our beaches and looking around for taxis to find their way to the nearest police station so that they could hand themselves over to the authorities and involve themselves in long, drawn out legal processes, which inevitably led to their permanent entry into Australia. That has changed in the last 10 years. We do not have people lobbing onto our beaches like we used to and I think the majority of people in my electorate are happy that is the case. Darwin is of course a multicultural city. People who have turned up from other countries and settled in Darwin have done it the hard way. They have done all of the processing correctly and they have come in the front door, and I tend to think that they are a little bit peeved and miffed that there is a debate going on that would allow some relaxation in respect of people who come to this country in unauthorised and illegal manners.
I look at that issue in respect of my electorate and I see that is the view of my constituents. I wonder what the members on the other side are saying to their constituents and how they are selling this line. Does the member for Lilley tell his constituents in Sandgate and Shorncliffe, as they have beaches there, that boat people could be lobbing onto their beaches and wandering around their streets, looking for the authorities, trying to find somewhere to hand themselves in? What does the member for the wonderful multicultural electorate of Watson tell his constituents who went through all of the processes and came here legitimately and are worthwhile and wonderful members of the Australian community? Does he tell them that he is trying to make it easier for people who want to get here illegally? Does he tell them about the examples that we see in England, where they have got 60,000 unauthorised arrivals? They have no idea whom these 60,000 people are, where they have come from, how they intend to make them fit into the country, whether these people are criminals, whether they have criminal backgrounds, whether they are carrying diseases and whether they have gone through various health checks.
Does the member for Brand tell his constituents that there is a possibility that if we continue to further relax immigration laws we will see people coming down between the coast and Garden Island in his electorate and landing at Point Peron, Becher Point and Golden Bay? Does he tell his multicultural constituents, people who have come here legally, that this is what his goal is, or does he—like other members—hide behind the skirt of the member for Pearce? Do these members just stand there and watch the member for Pearce, the member for Cook, the member for Kooyong and the member for McMillan take all the heat in this debate? Do they stand there and laugh at them? The greatest dog whistler that we have in this parliament is the member for Brand. I am sure that what he says to his backbench and his party is something completely different from what he says to the constituents of Brand. Does he actually tell them that he is going to sit there and hide behind the skirt of the member for Pearce and try to water down our immigration laws? I think not.
The point that I want to make this morning is that I find it quite reprehensible that members opposite sit there and hide behind the courage and conviction of the members for Cook, Pearce, Kooyong and McMillan. It is an appalling situation. I will be waiting to see the division on this legislation, because they will all be sitting there whistling and saying, ‘Come on! Come over to our side!’ yet none of them have the courage of their convictions to go out into their electorates and tell them exactly where the Labor Party is coming from on this issue: that they want to water down our immigration laws, that they have absolutely no compassion whatsoever for the millions and millions of refugees around the world who want to come to this country in a legitimate way and that they are all there to support illegal smugglers and illegal immigrants. We do not hear any of that from the other side, and to me that is the sorry part of this whole debate.
28
11:21:00
Adams, Dick, MP
BV5
Lyons
ALP
0
0
Mr ADAMS
—I would like to point out to the honourable member who has just resumed his seat that the Australian Labor Party does not support any smuggling of people anywhere in the world and we do not support the weakening of our immigration laws in any way. Forty-three people in a leaky canoe—this is what this legislation is about. It is about 43 people from Papua in a leaky canoe fleeing persecution, landing in Australia and the government getting out its 10-tonne hammer to crack a nut. This legislation is a farce. What sort of invasion is this? How much of a threat are a few terrified people in a canoe?
Time passes and the memory of this event is supposed to have faded since the autumn sittings of parliament. But I doubt it has. Accounts of returned Afghanis are now coming through. How many of them survived their repatriation? It seems they have been sent back to an unstable and dangerous land where the war still rages and the Taliban are beginning to make themselves felt again. The Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 can mean children in detention again. Indefinite detention will return. Case managed mental health care is over. The Commonwealth Immigration Ombudsman will also lose oversight of asylum seekers when they are sent to a remote foreign island for processing. Earlier this year the government did the right thing in issuing more than 40 protective visas to asylum seekers from Papua. The visas were issued on the grounds that these individuals had a well-founded fear of persecution. When the government made this decision, we on this side congratulated them on it. This latest legislation, if it is passed, will guarantee that the government will never again treat asylum seekers with the decency that they saw earlier this year.
The bill means that if in future people fleeing persecution arrive on Australia’s mainland in a canoe, they will be sent to Nauru to be processed and Australia will act as though it has no obligations. Under this proposal, children will be in detention again. We will see indefinite detention come back. Case managed health care will be stopped. The Commonwealth Immigration Ombudsman will also lose oversight of asylum seekers when they are sent to a remote foreign island for processing. The latest idea to come to light has this government suggesting we accommodate the would-be asylum seekers in prison hulks before they are processed. That would really be offshore! My ancestors were convicts and spent time in those miserable, rat-infested prison hulks on the Thames before they came to this country. Are we going back to those days? What exactly are we trying to achieve by punishing those who believe that Australia is a safe and decent place to aspire to live in?
There is no way of amending this bill to make it just. If one government senator crosses the floor in parliament and votes with Labor in opposing this bill, it can be stopped. This issue should be above politics. If this goes through, it means that anyone who comes to Australia’s shores by boat, ship, canoe, sailboard or bathtub—anything that floats on water—will not be deemed to be in Australia. Suddenly we have no boundaries—if they do not have papers, they have not arrived in Australia. What if someone gives birth and that baby is deposited on Australian soil? What country are they in? It certainly would not be in the country of the mother’s birth; they may have been through several countries since then. It seems they are stateless and forever bound to spend their life in Nauru. They will have to go through the process of seeking assistance and be sent off to Nauru for processing. They are assessed by a single officer and if that person deems them not to be refugees, they can appeal to another officer—once again one person—and then that is it. If there is no sympathy there, they are off to Nauru to try and find another country to take them. This virtually means anyone arriving by sea without papers has little or no chance of gaining asylum in Australia, whether they are eligible or not.
What about the visiting ships? Or luxury yachts? Are they going to be banged up in a prison hulk or asylum camp just for daring to cross the country’s sea boundaries and set foot on Australian soil somewhere? It starts becoming a nonsense when you think of it like that. More potential illegal immigrants come to this country by air than by any other way. They go through the normal processes of visas, false or real, and walk happily off aeroplanes all round the country. Is this the way we want them to turn up instead? It just means we get the rich illegal immigrants, not the poor ones, who really are the asylum seekers fleeing persecution, with only the clothes on their back and a few trinkets of memories.
With this legislation I get the feeling I am living in a country run by the Red Queen out of Alice in Wonderland. You know what she used to say? She said, ‘Off with his head, off with his head’, when someone displeased her. So if whoever it is does not approve of this legislation or disagrees with our leaders, and it annoys the leaders that there is dissent, then their views are dismissed summarily. ‘We cannot possibly be wrong,’ seems to be the sentiment here. The arrogance of this government comes through. Yet there are many on the government side of the House, as well as in the opposition, who are concerned about this legislation. These people do not believe it right to lock up women and children. They believe that we should have a firm but just and fair process for all who seek to come here by whatever means. Whatever happened to the tenet that all are innocent unless proven guilty? It is a sad world in which we are making our own citizens suspicious of all other citizens of other nations. We are all one people under the sun—all part of the human race—and we do not have the right to subject them to this undoubted persecution.
The introduction of this bill appears to demonstrate that our refugee laws are being determined and rewritten by a foreign state. This is not an initiative of the responsible department seeking to improve the quality of our asylum processes. There is no doubt that the proposed law is in direct response to Indonesian anger over the granting of protection visas to the 42 West Papuans. Australian law should not be enacted at the dictate of a country which itself falls significantly short of democratic and human rights standards yet rejects any criticism of its own justice system, particularly its criminal justice system.
The introduction in this way of foreign policy considerations into an asylum determination process giving effect to Australia’s treaty obligations under the refugee convention will render these obligations meaningless in practice. As a member of this parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I find this extraordinarily stupid. We should be ensuring that we have some consistency in our approach to treaty making and are abiding by those that we have agreed to—otherwise, why do we bother to engage in this process? I do not believe this legislation is needed, nor should we support it. The next thing will be that Tasmania is annexed and becomes that ‘prison offshore island’—not much different from how it was in the 1800s when my ancestors finally arrived there at His Majesty’s pleasure. That experiment did not work. It did little to change the behaviour of many of the inmates; it only deprived them of their liberty and hope, which sent so many of them mad or even to an early grave.
If we want migrants with skills to become part of our nation, we would be better off accepting some of these desperate people who want to learn from us and who want to work and improve life for their families and for communities of which they are a part. We are all capable of learning, and many of those people would be already halfway there with many skills. So why take temporary overseas workers when we can take people who really want to be here and be part of our communities?
This legislation is to appease the Indonesian anger at the acceptance of some of their people who arrived by sea from West Papua. The argument is that they are refugees and they need to be assisted under the international obligations that the world accepts as due practice—for example, they are being persecuted and, if they return to their country, they will be harmed. Those are the grounds to grant them the status of refugees. Fortress Australia was never a way of solving the issue of boat people coming here. The work we do to help other countries improve the conditions of their people and their workers would be far more useful than trying to keep people out of Australia and, in doing so, wasting vast amounts of money. I oppose this legislation and reject the reasoning behind it.
30
11:32:00
Entsch, Warren, MP
7K6
Leichhardt
LP
1
0
Mr ENTSCH
—I rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006, coming, if you like, from the perspective of a member who represents a constituency in which all too often constituents find people basically knocking on their back doors. Those people have arrived in this country, unauthorised, through various means, walked up to constituents’ family homes and knocked on their doors in some of the most remote areas of Australia. By that I am talking about the western Cape York communities and in the Torres Strait. We had no idea who they were. They had no background checks and no health checks. It was not so many years ago that we actually had a vessel land at Holloways Beach in Cairns with quite a number of very well-dressed gentlemen from China, I think. They dispersed very quickly—some of them catching cabs and others racing to the railway station to buy tickets to disappear because they had bought a ticket over.
What the member for Lyons said in the introduction to his contribution is actually quite correct. This debate is about 43 people in a leaky boat. The problem we have is that those 43 can very quickly become 430 or 4,300 because, even in this case, there were many lined up to come after if they had seen that these people had got a successful outcome. You can see no better example of that than what happened prior to the Tampa, where we started to see twos, threes, fours and fives turning up in places like the Torres Strait, in the member for Solomon’s electorate in the Northern Territory and those areas. Because of the system that we had, which was far more generous than anything that they could expect through any of the United Nations conventions, those couple of handfuls of people became literally thousands. Thousands arrived here but we have no idea of the number that did not—because, like those 43 I talked about and that the member for Lyons talked about earlier on, many of them were in leaky boats. Many of them were in boats that were totally unseaworthy. I can remember going to Christmas Island about the time when large numbers were arriving, and people in the Christmas Island community were complaining about the numbers of unidentified bodies that were being washed up because their vessels had sunk.
It is very easy to sit back and attack the government and say that we are not compassionate, but I would challenge anybody that has that argument. By creating opportunities and expectations that people are going to get an outcome that they are not entitled to under normal circumstances, it encourages people to get into these leaky boats. Of course, we see many women and children perish as a result of it. I think that any action that we can take that will prevent people from making that decision and trying to bypass the system is something that we need to consider.
I am elected to represent my constituency of Leichhardt, and the Leichhardt constituency extends to within three kilometres of the mainland of Papua New Guinea. My constituents on Saibai Island, Boigu Island, Dauan Island, Badu Island or in Aurukun in the Western Cape communities are no less important and no less significant to me as an elected representative, nor should they be any less important to the Australian government and the Australian people. They are Australian citizens and they have every right to be afforded the protection that we can give them and their families to ensure that they are not exposed to unnecessary risk.
I wonder how many on the other side, who argue that we should be allowing these illegal migrants to come through these channels at will, would change their position if suddenly, in the middle of the night, they woke up, walked out and opened their front door and found a total stranger standing there, knowing that they had no health checks, no migration checks and no background checks. We have had them come through the Torres Strait, where we discovered that they were special security guards for Saddam Hussein. These are the sorts of people who have come through. They have bought their way through and have been knocking on the door of my constituents. We have had people up there with tuberculosis and Japanese encephalitis. There is no screening and it puts a lot of Australians at risk. I believe we have a strong obligation to ensure that we protect, in the first instance, the rights of our Australian citizens. That is why we are elected to this place and I think that has to come first.
For that reason, I am strongly supportive of any sort of measure that is likely to act as a serious deterrent to people coming through in this way. We have many people languishing in refugee camps around the world. We are a very generous taker of refugees—about 14,000, as I recall—including people from Sudan and places such as that. There are horrific stories. I am very proud to have Sudanese men in my community in Cairns. When you talk to them about their difficulties, it brings a tear to your eye. They could never have come and had the opportunities if we as Australians did not have the generosity of spirit that we have.
I do believe we have to discourage people from taking risks by buying an outcome, particularly those coming from Papua New Guinea, through Irian Jaya, given that over the border they could have got asylum in Papua New Guinea. We have to take into consideration those Australians whose lives are impacted by this situation. So I strongly support this legislation. In closing, I would like to say that I respect the opinion of my colleagues the members for Pearce, Kooyong, McMillan and Cook. As a member of the Liberal Party, I think one of the great things is that we are able to have a different opinion and, while I totally disagree with their views, I respect their right to have that opinion and I admire their courage in standing up for their convictions. I support this bill.
32
11:41:00
Albanese, Anthony, MP
R36
Grayndler
ALP
0
0
Mr ALBANESE
—I wish to speak in the strongest possible terms in opposition to the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006. This government has a policy that is built on sand. It shifts with the wind, it shifts on the basis of what is in the political interest of the government in terms of its preparedness to promote fear, to promote hatred and to vilify some of the most vulnerable people in the global community. It is no way for this parliament to provide the leadership that we have been entrusted to provide by our respective communities.
Last year, pressure from the Australian public forced the Howard government to make some minor changes to the Migration Act. These changes finally saw an end to the detention of children. The government committed Australia to processing asylum seekers within 90 days and they introduced the oversight of the Commonwealth Ombudsman in cases of prolonged detention. These reforms were a very small step in the right direction. But now we have a case of one step forward, two steps back. Today this parliament is debating a bill that reduces us as a parliament and as a nation.
This bill is based on a number of falsehoods. We just had the member for Leichhardt again introducing fear of diseased people and people who were Saddam Hussein’s bodyguards coming through on this basis. What is this about? It is about 43 people who were found to be genuine asylum seekers, the Indonesian government being upset by this decision and the Australian government saying that they were prepared to put the interests of the Indonesian government before the interests of the Australian people and before Australian sovereignty.
In guillotining this bill, we have seen a government that is prepared to even silence Australian parliamentarians. This bill is wrong in principle and it is wrong in motivation. It cannot be improved by any amendments, so we are not moving any. I pay tribute to my colleague the member for Watson—who is here in the chamber—who has taken a principled stance and who has shown that, in taking a principled stance, we can appeal to people’s better nature. I think that the Australian people are essentially warm and generous people. We have taken people from countries all over the world and, with the exception of our Indigenous people, we must remember that all of us are migrants or the sons and daughters of migrants. Yet we have, because of 43 people, this promotion of fear and a bill that is prepared to excise the entire nation.
You do not protect your borders by giving them up—and that is what this bill does. We need to put this into perspective. As of 28 April, there were 803 people in immigration detention in Australia—18 of them were unauthorised boat arrivals. During the first nine months of 2005 Australia received around 2,400 claims for asylum. This compares with 23,000 claims in Britain and 38,000 in France. The USA received 38,000 claims, but many times that number of people simply arrived in the USA without applying. During the past five years approximately 80,000 migrants and asylum seekers have reached the Italian peninsula by boat. More than 6½ thousand Africans have arrived, by sea, on the Canary Islands archipelago this year alone. The Australian government is removing our borders because of 43 asylum seekers whom it has found to be legitimate. This continues a campaign of fearmongering and vilification of asylum seekers.
The Labor Party supports border protection but does not accept that excising the whole of Australia is an effective means of border protection. You do not deal with boat arrivals by pretending that you do not have sea borders or by pretending that, if you arrive by one particular mode of arrival—boat—you do not arrive in Australia at all. In a statement on 19 April the UNHCR expressed serious concerns about the Australian government’s announced changes to the processing of boat arrivals. It said:
If this were to happen, it would be an unfortunate precedent, being for the first time, to our knowledge, that a country with a fully functioning and credible asylum system, in the absence of anything approximating a mass influx, decides to transfer elsewhere the responsibility to handle claims made actually on the territory of the state.
This bill is a disgraceful shirking of responsibility by Australia and it must be rejected. The Australian Labor Party rejects it. Australia’s 43 Catholic bishops have rejected it. As of 8 August 2006 almost 88,000 Australians had signed Get Up’s online petition rejecting the bill. I reject the bill as being fundamentally abhorrent to everything I believe in and all the reasons why I want to represent my electorate in this great parliament. The government would have us believe that these changes are small and the concessions great. The government would have us believe that the end justifies the means—that is, the temporary appeasement of Indonesia justifies the offshore detention of asylum seekers who have reached Australia by boat. We know that that is not the case. You cannot achieve peace by undermining human rights. If Australia’s relationship with Indonesia is built on such a flimsy foundation it is doomed to fail. I believe our relationship with Indonesia is much stronger than that. Our relationship with Indonesia needs to be built on mutual respect. I would like to quote Justice Michael Kirby:
Every diminution of freedom takes us in the wrong direction. Every act of discrimination by our parliament and governments dishonours our nation.
That is certainly the case with this bill. Our perspective on the 43 who arrived by boat is very different from our perspective on the majority of people who illegally arrive in Australia—who, of course, are on planes. Surely, that dichotomy is entirely inappropriate. As a result of this bill, asylum seekers arriving by boat will be processed by countries such as Nauru or PNG. The Pacific solution was created to deter the secondary movement of asylum seekers who, before they entered Australia, had bypassed other countries in which they could have sought asylum. We need to bear in mind that this whole thing is motivated by the 43 people from West Papua. I wonder what country they could have gone to between West Papua and Australia to seek asylum.
The bill will affect everyone arriving by boat in Australia, even those who have arrived directly from a state in which they face persecution. The government argues that this is the next logical step—that people arriving on mainland Australia should be processed as if they had arrived on one of the currently excised areas. This argument is patently absurd. The government is trying to pretend that, if you seek asylum in Australia and arrive by sea, you never actually arrive in the nation.
This bill also reaffirms the government’s commitment to prolonged detention. We all remember when the Pacific solution was established. We remember the Prime Minister’s grand statements that none of these people would ever set foot on the Australian mainland. We know that a majority of those people, considered under Australian law and UN conventions, were found to be legitimate asylum seekers. We know that, despite the Prime Minister’s rhetoric, many of them are now settled in Australia and making an outstanding contribution—as generations of migrants before them have done. But we know it was all about politics.
Who were most of these people? Most of them were people fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan—an abhorrent, fundamentalist regime that persecuted Christians, women and people who questioned the regime—and the abhorrent regime of Saddam Hussein. These refugees are understandably confused that the Australian government says that these regimes are so abhorrent that we will risk the lives of the brave men and women of the Australian defence forces to combat those regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and yet those people who fought courageously for democratic change and human rights in those countries and were persecuted as a result arrive in freedom-loving Australia only to be locked up and sent away to Nauru for processing. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot say that the regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were so evil and yet we will persecute the victims of those very same regimes.
Through this legislation the government has committed to providing migration assistance for asylum seekers at offshore processing centres, but a number of questions are raised. Who will provide the assistance? Will the migration agents be chosen by the government? If so, how will their independence be ensured? Will this assistance even be guaranteed? Will journalists and lawyers be given access to detainees in the centres? So far only one journalist has been allowed to visit, and that was in April 2005. Access is also a problem for the Ombudsman. Further, this bill gives asylum seekers arriving by boat no access to the Refugee Review Tribunal or to Australian courts for judicial review if their applications are refused. This bill not only physically removes Australia and its borders and excises the whole country; it also excises the values of our country. It excises our law. It excises our upholding of human rights. It excises our dignity.
We know that wrong decisions can often be made on refugee status. Between 1993 and 2006 the Refugee Review Tribunal overturned 7,885 departmental decisions rejecting applications for asylum. This means that more than 7,885 refugees were not returned to countries in which they feared persecution when the department had previously refused them a protection visa. Just this week the Edmund Rice Centre released information concerning the subsequent death of asylum seekers that has resulted from bad decisions by the government in sending back asylum seekers who legitimately feared persecution in their country of origin.
We know that there is a mental health aspect to this. We know about Cornelia Rau and the horrific circumstances of the failure in her case. But these failures have continued. On 22 May this year Dr Fiona Hawker, a very senior and highly respected psychiatrist who had been treating detainees at Baxter, revealed that at least six detainees who had been hospitalised with severe psychiatric conditions had been returned to detention against the specific advice of their treating psychiatrist. As a result they had to be returned to acute psychiatric care.
This undermines the global framework of the 1951 refugee convention. Why was the refugee convention developed by the United Nations in the post-World War II period? It was because of the experience of Jewish citizens fleeing Nazi Germany and the other fascist persecutors in Europe. These Jewish refugees were pushed back offshore in their boats, in many cases sent back to their deaths. The world said: ‘Never again.’ By adopting the refugee convention the world said that humanity is better than that, that we are part of a global community and that we do have a responsibility to stop that occurring again. Of course, Nauru is not a signatory to the 1951 convention, which is one of the reasons why that country has been chosen to house detainees. Papua New Guinea is a signatory, but it has not passed domestic legislation implementing a refugee status determination.
I watched with some amazement Minister Vanstone’s cold dismissal on television earlier this week of the allegations made by the Edmund Rice Centre. It is no wonder that there is not a single church organisation in this nation which is supporting this legislation. I say to Senator Fielding, who will have to consider his vote on this bill, that you are a representative of the Family First Party, not the ‘Australian Families First Party’, and kids being locked up behind barbed wire in what is essentially a prison camp on Nauru is just unacceptable in 2006, regardless of their origin, religion, race, gender or colour. It is simply unacceptable. Article 31 of the UN convention makes it very clear that asylum seekers arriving in a territory directly should not be penalised for their mode of arrival. It is no wonder the UN High Commissioner for Refugees stated on 14 May 2006:
It’s a pretty dramatic solution to the situation ... They’re penalising people arriving in Australia by boat, as opposed to people who arrive by plane. Other countries deal with boat arrivals in much greater numbers than Australia.
I will conclude my comments by saying that this is a test of this parliament and this government. It has been a test of the Australian Labor Party and we have risen to the occasion, and that is why we are rejecting this legislation. But we have to bear in mind how future generations will look at what we are doing here. The kids in the schools in my electorate who saw Ian and Janey Han Hwang taken out of Stanmore Public School have seen, at that level, the persecution that can occur. But to take children offshore and lock them up behind barbed wire is something that should be completely unacceptable to all Australians. We need a government that is prepared to promote hope over fear, and we need a government that is prepared to respect the human rights of all individuals. I urge the House to reject this abhorrent legislation.
35
12:01:00
Danby, Michael, MP
WF6
Melbourne Ports
ALP
0
0
Mr DANBY
—I support the view of the shadow minister for immigration, my good friend the honourable member for Watson, that this is a bad and unnecessary piece of legislation. I agree with you absolutely, member for Watson. The Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 is also a piece of legislation that contradicts the government’s own statements last year after the debacle of the Cornelia Rau and the Vivian Solon affairs and after the Palmer inquiry into the administration of the immigration program that it was going to turn over a new leaf in policy and practice on the treatment of asylum seekers. It violates the agreement that the government came to with its own members, led by the honourable member for Kooyong. As the honourable member for Watson has said, we will be opposing this bill at every stage. I am pleased to see that some of the members opposite—the members for Kooyong, McMillan, Pearce and Cook—agree with us. I commend their adherence to principle on this matter and hope other coalition members and senators will also agree with us.
Before examining the specific provisions of this bill, I would like to reflect on some of the events that brought it about. This bill is a reaction to the Indonesian government’s anger at the decision by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to recommend the granting of protection visas to 43 people from the Indonesian province of Papua, who arrived in Australia by boat in March. The arrival of these people created a difficult situation for Australia. Indonesia is one of our most important regional neighbours and a vital partner in the war against terrorism in our region. Indonesia’s national sentiment is strongly opposed to separatism in Papua, and some Indonesians suspect that Australia is conniving to detach Papua from Indonesia.
Australia is clear that we respect the territorial integrity of Indonesia and that we do not support Papuan separatism. Now that Indonesia is a democracy, in which the rule of law and respect for human rights are being established—I am not saying that they are fully established, but great progress has been made—I do not believe that there is a case for separatism in Papua. In fact, the evidence of last year’s free election in Indonesia is that the majority of people in Papua do not support separatism. It is true that violations of human rights are still taking place in Papua, but I do not believe that the solution to this problem lies in support for an independent Papuan state.
As the recent peace agreement in Aceh shows, the Indonesian government is willing to come to agreements with separatist forces in the outlying regions of Indonesia, and I commend both sides in Aceh on that settlement. I think Australia’s policy should be what it has been for a long time, particularly set out by the member for Griffith: to encourage a similar agreement on a ‘special autonomy’ status for Papua within Indonesia.
Nevertheless, so long as there is separatist agitation and repression in Papua, Australia will have to deal with the problem of small numbers of Papuans seeking to come to this country. The 43 people who came to Australia earlier this year were judged by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to be people genuinely in need of protection, and they were duly granted visas. As the honourable member for Watson has pointed out, Labor did not take a position on whether or not these people were genuine refugees. That was a matter to be determined by the department in following the correct procedures, and that is what happened. If the decision was made by two junior officers, that is a reflection on the competence of ministerial arrangements.
The displeasure of the Indonesian government should have been anticipated. Now that Indonesia is a democracy, Indonesia’s governments have to respond to domestic political pressure just as we do—just as all democratic governments do. President Yudhoyono responded to nationalist anger in Indonesia by withdrawing his ambassador to Canberra. This was unfortunate, but I think the correct response for the Australian government was to continue with patient explanation of Australia’s position—that Australia does not support Papuan separatism, that Australia supports the strengthening of human rights in Indonesia, including Papua, and that Australia supports a negotiated autonomy agreement in Papua along the lines of the one in Aceh.
The government should also have defended its own immigration policies and the integrity of its own immigration department. It should have said that the 43 Papuans were not judged by politicians but by an independent process based on objective criteria. That would not have satisfied the more outspoken anti-Australian elements in Indonesia, some of whom have a broader anti-Western agenda, but it would have eventually satisfied the Indonesian government, which is an essentially moderate government trying to carry through extensive reform programs in its own country and which has no desire to have pointless disputes with its neighbours, particularly neighbours such as Australia, which is so well disposed towards Indonesia.
But what did this government do instead? It reacted in a blind panic, determined to ensure that no further asylum seekers from Papua would be allowed into Australia under any circumstances. In reacting in this way, the government has trashed its own procedures, repudiated its own public servants, undermined the process of reform in the immigration department and broken the undertakings it gave last year to implement the recommendations of the Palmer inquiry, in both letter and spirit. No wonder the government’s own backbenchers, who thought they had the Prime Minister’s word on this, are so angry.
It is notable that this bill did not have its origin in the immigration department. It emerged from a meeting of the cabinet National Security Committee. In other words, it is a bill designed to fix a foreign policy problem, rather than a bill designed to improve our immigration system. Once again, as it did in 2001 at the time of the Tampa episode, this government has dealt with an immigration issue with a quick political fix rather than with a coherent policy. At the time of the Palmer inquiry, after the shameful treatment of Cornelia Rau and Vivian Solon were revealed, we were promised that immigration decisions would no longer be made on the basis of crude politics. Now we can see how long that promise has lasted—less than a year.
It is hard to see how this legislation has any rationale other than as a quick fix for a political problem. The Papuans who came to Australia in March were not brought here by people smugglers. There is no evidence of an organised attempt to gatecrash our immigration system as there was in the 1990s. In recent years the situation in Afghanistan has become more settled and, as a result of improved cooperation between Australia and Indonesia in cracking down on people-smuggling operations, there have been many fewer attempts to bring people to Australia illegally by boat.
The most deplorable aspect of this bill is that it revives the discredited Pacific solution. All unauthorised arrivals by sea will now be dispatched automatically to Nauru, where they will have to stay while their claims are assessed. Even if they are found to be genuine refugees they will have to stay in Nauru until a third country is found that will accept them. Maybe a third country will be found but no other country is obliged to accept asylum seekers that Australia has refused to accept. The government says that such people will only be dispatched to places were their safety and wellbeing can be protected, but Australian law does not apply in foreign countries. We cannot really guarantee that asylum seekers sent to Nauru or any other place outside Australia will be properly treated.
I am sure those managing the detention centre in Nauru will do their best—although events in the past give us cause to doubt even that—but Nauru is a very small island with a small population and many problems of its own. It has a tropical climate, an acute shortage of water and very limited amenities. With all the goodwill in the world, prolonged detention there cannot be but psychologically harmful, especially for families with children but also for single people separated from families.
Last year the honourable member for Kooyong and his colleagues ended their rebellion on the basis of four promises from the Prime Minister. These were: an end to indefinite detention; an end to detention of children, except as a last resort; more attention to the mental health of detainees; independent oversight of detention arrangements by the Commonwealth Ombudsman. Now we discover that these concessions were phoney concessions because they only applied in Australia, not to the offshore detention centres, which the government is now reviving as receptacles for all the unauthorised arrivals by sea.
Under this bill we once again have de facto indefinite detention, because even genuine refugees will be stuck on Nauru until third countries agree to take them on. Under this bill children can once again be detained. They can be detained on Nauru indefinitely. Under this bill detained people will once again be denied adequate mental health care, which is impossible to provide on Nauru, an environment almost guaranteed to cause mental health problems. Under this bill detainees will be 5,000 kilometres from the Commonwealth Ombudsman, who will need a Nauruan visa even to visit the people he is supposed to be protecting, and who will be operating in a country where Australian law does not apply. This bill is a disgrace to Australia and a disgrace to this government. It is an attempt to fix a foreign policy problem at the expense of vulnerable and friendless people.
I think anyone who knows my record knows that I am in favour of good relations with Indonesia. Indeed, I have written many articles in the Jakarta Post arguing for good relations between our two countries. I am in favour of any reasonable steps to reassure Indonesia that Australia respects Indonesia’s territorial integrity and does not support separatism. But this bill is wrong, unprincipled and unnecessary. The spectacle of this government reneging on its promises and undertakings from last year and returning to the failed policies of the past—and all because of 43 Papuans in a canoe—is a truly shameful one. I hope there are enough coalition senators with a conscience who will share the scruples of the honourable member for Kooyong and his colleagues, and who will defeat this bill in the Senate. They will have the thanks of the Australian people if they do so.
38
12:11:00
Hall, Jill, MP
83N
Shortland
ALP
0
0
Ms HALL
—The Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 excises the Australian mainland and Tasmania from the Australian migration zone for people arriving by boat without a visa. Nauru will be used to detain asylum seekers, and asylum seekers arriving by boat will have no access to legal or appeal proceedings in Australia. I think that is rather horrendous.
Australia’s history in relation to refugees and asylum seekers has been somewhat sullied over the last few years, and I think it is very important to look at who asylum seekers are and why they are seeking asylum on our shores. For a start, asylum seekers are men, women and children who have the same feelings and needs that we do. They are people who have been subjected to the most horrendous conditions: war, and many forms of torture. They face death and persecution on a daily basis. That they hop into leaky boats and come across the seas to Australia shows just how desperate they are. They are not criminals. They are not people who are trying to circumvent systems. They are people with real needs who are suffering. They come to Australia in this way as a last resort.
Unfortunately, the Howard government’s record in this area is something that is less than we, as a nation, can boast about. They have politicised the whole process—something that previous governments had moved away from. There is always political gain to be made in blaming victims, particularly in this area. Previous governments have recognised the need to work together to provide asylum to people who come to our country seeking solace. This government has been very inept in the way that it has addressed the issue of asylum seekers and, as I mentioned, has politicised it at every level.
The government’s 2001 election strategy revolved around the Tampa. The government is on the record as publicising the event where women and children jumped from a boat to save their lives by saying they were thrown overboard. They have vilified asylum seekers and refugees in a way that would make Goebbels blush. To be quite honest, I see asylum seekers and refugees as some of the most vulnerable people in the world. I am very ashamed to have been part of a parliament that has adopted this approach.
We have a fairly interesting history when it comes to refugees. The first people of English descent who came to Australia were refugees from the prison system in the UK. From 1838-39, hundreds of German Lutherans came to Australia. From 1938-39, there were 6,500 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. From 1941-45, we had thousands of Asians fleeing Japanese aggression. From 1945-53, 170,000 European victims of war and oppression came to Australia. In 1975, there were 1,800 East Timorese, following the Indonesian invasion. From 1975-85, there were 95,000 Vietnamese refugees. There was concern in the community at that time, but the approach by the government and opposition of the day was very different from the approach that we have seen under the Howard government. That was a time when people came in boats to Australia and Australia recognised their needs, embraced them and took them into our society. And some of those refugees are some of the most successful people in Australia today. In 1989, we had 20,000 Chinese students who were permitted to stay after the Tiananmen Square massacre. In 1999, we had the 4,000 Kosovo refugees who were given temporary sanctuary in Australia and whom we have spoken about in some detail in the past. I feel that as a nation we have suffered because of the Howard government’s actions. We have been a compassionate nation in the past, but this will be seen as a very dark era in our history. History will judge the Howard government’s actions in this area very poorly.
I will go to the main points of the debate. We should not be appeasing Indonesia. That is exactly what this legislation is about: appeasing Indonesia. We should respect Indonesia. Indonesia is one of the countries that are very important to Australia. It is a country that we need to have a strong relationship with, but that relationship should be equal; it should not be subservient. This legislation, I believe, found its roots in the fact that 43 Papuans arrived in Australia on 18 January this year by sea, and 42 of those were later found to be refugees. In response to the immigration department’s decision to grant visas to the 42 Papuans, the Indonesian government promptly withdrew its ambassador from Australia. Following this, the Australian government released the proposed legislation being debated today.
We are an independent nation. We need to look at these issues on a basis that is in line with our culture, our laws and our history. We should not be adopting the approach that we have in this legislation. It is a very short-term approach that fixes a diplomatic, foreign affairs situation, rather than a long-term approach—one that is considered, will benefit Australia and will raise our standing in the world and our recognition as a nation. Our immigration policy should be based on Australia’s interests and obligations to international law. Our immigration policy should not be based on appeasing Indonesia. Labor will not support a policy motivated by this at the expense of fulfilling our international obligations and humanitarian responsibilities. That is why we are not supporting this legislation. We realise we have international obligations. We realise that there are humanitarian responsibilities. We know who those asylum seekers are and we know the issues that have forced them to flee their countries.
Asylum seekers who arrive by boat should have the right to access the same Australian legal system as asylum seekers who arrive by other means. Just because you come into Australia on a plane does not mean that you should be treated differently to asylum seekers who hop into leaking boats and are so desperate that they are prepared to come to Australia in that way. Asylum seekers on Nauru will not have access to the Australian legal system provided to asylum seekers detained at our airports or to people who come to Australia on another visa, overstay the visa and apply for asylum once they are here. Asylum seekers who arrive by boat should not be punished and discriminated against.
Members on the other side of the chamber have talked about people who come on boats as queuejumpers. I do not accept that in any shape or form. If I was in a situation where I was as desperate as many of these people who are hopping on those leaking boats are, I would do exactly the same. Do not tell me that a person who arrives at an airport and seeks to circumvent the process deserves to be treated any differently. That is a non-argument.
Labor believes all asylum seekers should have the right to access Australian appeal processes, the Refugee Review Tribunal and Australian judicial review. To deny this is to deny basic human rights. Women and children should not be put in detention. The government recognised last year that children should not be kept in detention, and legislated accordingly. At the time, I would have liked the government to have gone a little bit further. There were some issues that I did not think had been addressed fully, surrounding the impact of detention on mental health and the ability of somebody in detention to know that they need to have an independent medical assessment. But, in comparison to this legislation, the previous legislation was a golden piece. A little over 12 months ago, in that legislation, we moved that children be removed from behind barbed wire. Here we are, 14 months later, putting them back again.
Every single piece of information that I have read on the impact that keeping children in detention has on their psychological wellbeing and their development is negative. I do not know how a government can legislate to treat children in this fashion. These children will be crippled by the time they are released from detention. They will not be allowed to develop in the same way as the young people who are in the gallery today. They will not learn in the same way. When and if they are released, they will not be able to be integrated into our society in the way that we would like them to be or that they would like to be. The Howard government has gone back on a promise. This legislation will once again condemn children to live behind barbed wire, to indefinite detention and denial of basic civil liberties. In 2004 a Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission inquiry into children in immigration detention centres found that the government’s policy of detaining children:
... failed to protect the mental health of children, failed to provide adequate health care and education and failed to protect unaccompanied children and those with disabilities.
Detention is no place for child. They are not criminals; they have not done anything wrong. The government have acknowledged that in the past but now, to appease Indonesia, they will once again immorally detain children. I will not support policy that denies basic human rights and liberty to children.
This legislation amendment means that asylum seekers will, once again, be sent to languish in limbo, indefinitely, on Nauru. Under the new policy, asylum seekers granted refugee status on Nauru cannot automatically apply for Australian visas and can be resettled in a third country. That is what this government wants. They want them to be settled in a third country. Are we not abrogating our responsibility? If these asylum seekers are identified as genuine refugees, should we not be welcoming them into Australia rather than locking them up behind barbed wire or asking another country to accept them as refugees? The government’s policy has shown that genuine refugees have been left to languish on Nauru in the past, and under this policy it will be much worse.
The new legislation means that case managed mental health care will not be available to asylum seekers on Nauru. There has been case after case of detainees suffering mental health problems, including numerous cases of self-harm and suicide attempts. That is what we, as a nation, will be sanctioning when this legislation is passed. This government needs to rethink the legislation and what it is about. It is not about a political quick fix. It is not about winning the next election. It is not about appeasing Indonesia. Rather, it is about offering asylum to people who are refugees. These are people who are fleeing atrocities.
Revelations about the botched handling by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs in the past have shown the unbelievable detention of Australian citizens such as Cornelia Rau. The deportation of Vivian Solon, an Australian citizen, proves that it is necessary for the Commonwealth Ombudsman to oversee asylum seekers on Nauru. This legislation will deny this. This is bad policy designed to appease Indonesians at the expense of human rights for asylum seekers who have arrived on our shores. The Pacific solution is an illogical policy. It is a policy to which we are returning. It is a policy that has cost taxpayers more than $240 million since its implementation in 2001. This money would be better spent on services to resettle these people in our community after initial processing on the mainland.
The government is abandoning our international obligation to the 1951 refugee convention and our responsibility to offer protection and humanity to asylum seekers seeking our protection. It is a mean-spirited, poll driven government that lacks moral integrity and the backbone to be independent and stand up for Australia. It is a government that kowtows to Indonesia rather than approaching Indonesia as an equal partner and negotiating so that both nations are held in respect. The government’s latest initiative to holding people in detention when they enter Australia reverts back to the treatment of the first European Australians.
10000
Somlyay, Alex (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Hon. AM Somlyay)—Order! It being 12.30 pm, in accordance with the resolution agreed to earlier this day, the debate is interrupted and I call the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs.
42
12:30:00
Robb, Andrew, MP
FU4
Goldstein
LP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs
1
0
Mr ROBB
—in reply—Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Somlyay. I acknowledge your status as, I believe, the only MP to come to Australia as a refugee, back in 1949. I thank members for their contributions to the second reading debate on the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006. For 60 years Australia’s proud migration and refugee settlement record has been built on three crucial foundations: a firmly regulated and planned immigration program, an effective border control system and programs to effectively integrate migrants into our community.
This bill is necessary to maintain the strength of our border control measures. It is necessary to maintain the integrity and honour associated with our nation’s longstanding success in integrating people from the four corners of the globe. It is necessary to prevent Australia from being used as a staging post for political protests. In other words, this bill will act to protect Australia’s sovereignty, not diminish it. In contrast to the weakness and the opportunism of the Labor position, this bill will strengthen our border controls, not weaken them.
This bill is also about consistency between those who arrive by boat at an excised offshore area and the mainland. It removes the distinction based on where a person lands and ensures all unauthorised sea arrivals have their asylum claims processed offshore. While removing the incentive to reach mainland Australia, we have also significantly enhanced arrangements for processing asylum claims in a humane and compassionate way, and we have preserved Australia’s very strong commitment to its protection obligations under the refugees convention and other relevant human rights instruments.
This bill is also about ensuring that Australia’s limited capacity to provide places for refugees is filled by those most in need. Every year Australia welcomes thousands of refugees from camps in some of the most desperate parts of the world, many of whom have been waiting many years for resettlement and none of whom would have any chance of reaching Australia as unauthorised boat arrivals.
In 2004 Australia ranked second in the world for numbers of refugees resettled, with 14,122 visas granted, and that is not a new trend. Historically Australia has ranked third, behind the US and Canada, in terms of humanitarian intake—a very proud record over 55 years. Importantly, this bill protects our ability to maximise our intake of these refugees, whom we as an independent nation choose to resettle and who enter our country lawfully.
In 2001 this government made a promise to the Australian people that we would take all reasonable steps to ensure that unauthorised boats did not arrive, did not land on our shores. The measures we took in 2001 to excise certain islands—measures supported by the opposition—discouraged people from getting into boats and embarking on highly dangerous journeys. As a consequence, we have avoided loss of life and we have avoided unauthorised boat arrivals until recently.
Those excision measures, together with other steps taken by the government, worked and have been very effective. The 2001 measures discouraged people smugglers from manipulating our migration entry arrangements. At the time, the government’s response asserted Australia’s sovereignty to be able to deal with those issues. It is not a dereliction of Australia’s sovereignty to prevent people from manipulating our migration entry arrangements. In fact, it is an act of asserting Australia’s sovereignty.
The suggestion has been made that these changes before the House are at the behest of Indonesia. Let me make it very clear: Indonesia does not determine our policies. The Australian government determines our policies, which are in the best interests of the Australian people. Part of the design of this legislation is to ensure our system cannot be manipulated by those seeking to use our system for political advantage. It is quite clear that some people in West Papua and Australia decided that asylum seekers would make the hazardous canoe journey to Australia rather than walk to Papua New Guinea, as they had in the past, with the deliberate intention of fostering tensions between Australia and Indonesia.
The government has decided to have such future claims processed offshore rather than give these people the opportunity to manipulate our migration entry arrangements to create a staging post for political protest. The changes allow genuine refugee claims to be determined and dealt with without the risk that our system will be used to suit the political purposes of others. Surely, in not leaving our system open to be used in this manner, as the Labor Party would have it, we are very clearly asserting our sovereignty and, in the process, we are maintaining the strength and integrity of our migration and refugee settlement program.
The refugees convention does not prescribe how states must give effect to their international obligations. The convention allows a host country to restrict the movements of a refugee who is unlawfully within the country until the person’s immigration status is regularised or they are admitted into some other country. The new arrangements contained in this bill draw on this flexibility. They ensure that all people continue to have access to a reliable refugee assessment process. Refugees will also be protected from involuntary return to their homeland if they are found to be refugees.
Designated unauthorised arrivals will only be taken offshore for processing of their asylum claims to a declared country, and a country may only be declared by the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs if it meets significant protection and human rights standards.
Unauthorised arrivals taken to Nauru, a declared country, will be processed by officers of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. Applicants will be able to seek a merits review of their refugee status determination in line with the non-binding international guidance on standards for refugee status determination procedures.
Historically, figures for processing in offshore processing centres have compared favourably with onshore figures in terms of positive determinations. The overall refugee approval rate for people in offshore processing centres who chose not to voluntarily return to their homeland was 94 per cent. This compares favourably with the 89 per cent approval rate under Australia’s onshore protection visa process for unauthorised arrivals who applied for protection visas between mid-1999 and mid-2005.
This bill includes mechanisms for scrutiny. There is a requirement that the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs report to the minister on arrangements for designated unauthorised arrivals who make asylum claims. These arrangements relate to accommodation, health—including mental health—education and processing of their asylum claims. The secretary must provide details of the number of asylum claims processed and the numbers granted refugee status in the financial year. The minister is required to table this report in both houses of parliament within 15 sitting days.
Other checks and balances to ensure the integrity of the arrangements and the fair treatment of asylum seekers include: merits reviews; independent legal advice to claimants; 90 days for the initial refugee status decision; an independent review within 90 days of that decision; ministerial powers to intervene and grant a visa; Ombudsman’s powers to investigate actions and report to parliament; an independent review of the legislation in two years time; a five-year sunset clause in the provisions which extend the offshore processing regime to all sea arrivals, including those to the mainland; and women and children not to be detained—they will be housed in residential style community accommodation.
So, far from being regressive, this bill in fact essentially implements the changes that were seen last year as progressive for onshore processing. It would in fact implement a system far better and fairer than that experienced by thousands of asylum seekers around the world.
Our opponents have sought to bring down this bill. They have tried to suggest it will weaken Australia’s sovereignty. Nothing could be further from the truth. This bill is about protecting Australia’s sovereignty. It is about deciding who can come here. It is about giving thousands of people waiting in refugee camps around the world their chance to come to Australia, not leaving them waiting in the queue while others who come here illegally take their places in our humanitarian program. It was none other than the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Brand, who said in this parliament nearly five years ago:
It is in the national interest of all Australians to have our borders effectively protected. It is in the national interest of all Australians that our generous attitude towards refugees is not undermined by people who seek to flout that generosity by placing themselves ahead of others in the queue who are determined by an orderly process to be more deserving.
It is sad that weak political opportunism fogs the memory of the member for Brand in 2006.
This bill marks an important strengthening of Australia’s border control measures by providing a single and consistent set of rules to apply to unauthorised boat arrivals who unlawfully enter our migration zone—whether that be around islands, such as Christmas Island or Cocos, or the mainland. It is wrong, or disingenuous, to assert, as Labor does, that the migration zone has been changed in any way through this legislation. It has not. The bill merely defines what rules will apply if you unlawfully enter the migration zone by sea. It is the sovereign government that determines those rules. We have never abandoned sovereignty. We are making the decisions about who comes here. We are maintaining control of our borders while preserving our very strong commitment to protection obligations under the refugees convention. As a country, we are strong and fair on these matters and generous to a fault. I commend the bill to the House and table the supplementary explanatory memorandum.
Question put:
That this bill be now read a second time.
12:46:00
The House divided.
(The Deputy Speaker—Hon. AM Somlyay)
78
AYES
Abbott, A.J.
Anderson, J.D.
Andrews, K.J.
Bailey, F.E.
Baker, M.
Baldwin, R.C.
Barresi, P.A.
Bartlett, K.J.
Billson, B.F.
Bishop, B.K.
Bishop, J.I.
Brough, M.T.
Cadman, A.G.
Causley, I.R.
Ciobo, S.M.
Costello, P.H.
Downer, A.J.G.
Draper, P.
Dutton, P.C.
Elson, K.S.
Entsch, W.G.
Farmer, P.F.
Fawcett, D.
Ferguson, M.D.
Gambaro, T.
Gash, J.
Haase, B.W.
Hardgrave, G.D.
Hartsuyker, L.
Hockey, J.B.
Howard, J.W.
Hull, K.E.
Hunt, G.A.
Jensen, D.
Johnson, M.A.
Jull, D.F.
Katter, R.C.
Keenan, M.
Kelly, D.M.
Kelly, J.M.
Laming, A.
Ley, S.P.
Lindsay, P.J.
Lloyd, J.E.
Macfarlane, I.E.
Markus, L.
May, M.A.
McArthur, S. *
McGauran, P.J.
Mirabella, S.
Nairn, G.R.
Nelson, B.J.
Neville, P.C. *
Pearce, C.J.
Prosser, G.D.
Pyne, C.
Randall, D.J.
Robb, A.
Ruddock, P.M.
Schultz, A.
Scott, B.C.
Secker, P.D.
Slipper, P.N.
Smith, A.D.H.
Southcott, A.J.
Stone, S.N.
Thompson, C.P.
Ticehurst, K.V.
Tollner, D.W.
Truss, W.E.
Tuckey, C.W.
Turnbull, M.
Vaile, M.A.J.
Vale, D.S.
Vasta, R.
Wakelin, B.H.
Washer, M.J.
Wood, J.
62
NOES
Adams, D.G.H.
Albanese, A.N.
Andren, P.J.
Beazley, K.C.
Bevis, A.R.
Bird, S.
Bowen, C.
Broadbent, R.
Burke, A.E.
Burke, A.S.
Byrne, A.M.
Corcoran, A.K.
Crean, S.F.
Danby, M. *
Edwards, G.J.
Ellis, A.L.
Ellis, K.
Emerson, C.A.
Ferguson, L.D.T.
Ferguson, M.J.
Fitzgibbon, J.A.
Garrett, P.
Georganas, S.
George, J.
Georgiou, P.
Gibbons, S.W.
Gillard, J.E.
Grierson, S.J.
Griffin, A.P.
Hall, J.G. *
Hatton, M.J.
Hayes, C.P.
Hoare, K.J.
Irwin, J.
Jenkins, H.A.
Kerr, D.J.C.
King, C.F.
Lawrence, C.M.
Livermore, K.F.
Macklin, J.L.
McMullan, R.F.
Melham, D.
Moylan, J.E.
Murphy, J.P.
O’Connor, B.P.
Owens, J.
Plibersek, T.
Price, L.R.S.
Quick, H.V.
Ripoll, B.F.
Roxon, N.L.
Rudd, K.M.
Sawford, R.W.
Sercombe, R.C.G.
Smith, S.F.
Snowdon, W.E.
Swan, W.M.
Tanner, L.
Thomson, K.J.
Vamvakinou, M.
Wilkie, K.
Windsor, A.H.C.
Question agreed to.
12:57:00
The House divided.
(The Deputy Speaker—Hon. AM Somlyay)
79
AYES
Abbott, A.J.
Anderson, J.D.
Andrews, K.J.
Bailey, F.E.
Baker, M.
Baldwin, R.C.
Barresi, P.A.
Bartlett, K.J.
Billson, B.F.
Bishop, B.K.
Bishop, J.I.
Brough, M.T.
Cadman, A.G.
Causley, I.R.
Ciobo, S.M.
Cobb, J.K.
Costello, P.H.
Downer, A.J.G.
Draper, P.
Dutton, P.C.
Elson, K.S.
Entsch, W.G.
Farmer, P.F.
Fawcett, D.
Ferguson, M.D.
Gambaro, T.
Gash, J.
Haase, B.W.
Hardgrave, G.D.
Hartsuyker, L.
Hockey, J.B.
Howard, J.W.
Hull, K.E.
Hunt, G.A.
Jensen, D.
Johnson, M.A.
Jull, D.F.
Katter, R.C.
Keenan, M.
Kelly, D.M.
Kelly, J.M.
Laming, A.
Ley, S.P.
Lindsay, P.J.
Lloyd, J.E.
Macfarlane, I.E.
Markus, L.
May, M.A.
McArthur, S. *
McGauran, P.J.
Mirabella, S.
Nairn, G.R.
Nelson, B.J.
Neville, P.C. *
Pearce, C.J.
Prosser, G.D.
Pyne, C.
Randall, D.J.
Robb, A.
Ruddock, P.M.
Schultz, A.
Scott, B.C.
Secker, P.D.
Slipper, P.N.
Smith, A.D.H.
Southcott, A.J.
Stone, S.N.
Thompson, C.P.
Ticehurst, K.V.
Tollner, D.W.
Truss, W.E.
Tuckey, C.W.
Turnbull, M.
Vaile, M.A.J.
Vale, D.S.
Vasta, R.
Wakelin, B.H.
Washer, M.J.
Wood, J.
62
NOES
Adams, D.G.H.
Albanese, A.N.
Andren, P.J.
Beazley, K.C.
Bevis, A.R.
Bird, S.
Bowen, C.
Broadbent, R.
Burke, A.E.
Burke, A.S.
Byrne, A.M.
Corcoran, A.K.
Crean, S.F.
Danby, M. *
Edwards, G.J.
Ellis, A.L.
Ellis, K.
Emerson, C.A.
Ferguson, L.D.T.
Ferguson, M.J.
Fitzgibbon, J.A.
Garrett, P.
Georganas, S.
George, J.
Georgiou, P.
Gibbons, S.W.
Gillard, J.E.
Grierson, S.J.
Griffin, A.P.
Hall, J.G. *
Hatton, M.J.
Hayes, C.P.
Hoare, K.J.
Irwin, J.
Jenkins, H.A.
Kerr, D.J.C.
King, C.F.
Lawrence, C.M.
Livermore, K.F.
Macklin, J.L.
McMullan, R.F.
Melham, D.
Moylan, J.E.
Murphy, J.P.
O’Connor, B.P.
Owens, J.
Plibersek, T.
Price, L.R.S.
Quick, H.V.
Ripoll, B.F.
Roxon, N.L.
Rudd, K.M.
Sawford, R.W.
Sercombe, R.C.G.
Smith, S.F.
Snowdon, W.E.
Swan, W.M.
Tanner, L.
Thomson, K.J.
Vamvakinou, M.
Wilkie, K.
Windsor, A.H.C.
Question agreed to.
Third Reading
45
10000
Somlyay, Alex (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Hon. AM Somlyay)—In accordance with the resolution agreed to earlier today, the question now is that the remaining stages of the bill, including the government amendments as circulated, be agreed to.
The government amendments read as follows—
(1) Clause 2, page 1 (lines 7 and 8), opposition member it the clause, substitute:
2 Commencement
Commencement information
Column 1 Provision(s)
Column 2
Commencement
Column 3 Date/Details
1.
Sections 1 to 3 and anything in this Act not elsewhere covered by this table
The day on which this Act receives the Royal Assent.
2.
Schedule 1
The day after this Act receives the Royal Assent.
3.
Schedule 2
On the day after the end of the period of 5 years beginning on the day on which this Act receives the Royal Assent.
Note: This table relates only to the provisions of this Act as originally passed by the Parliament and assented to. It will not be expanded to deal with provisions inserted in this Act after assent.
Note: The Minister has the power to direct officers of the Department to take all reasonable steps to work with any country in respect of which a declaration is in force under subsection 198A(3) with a view to having this principle upheld.
(i) seeking to enter the migration zone; and
(ii) a person who would, if in the migration zone, be an unlawful non‑citizen; or
Note: See also sections 84A and 195A, under which the Minister has non‑compellable powers to grant visas to certain people (whether or not the people have applied for the visas). Subdivision AA, this Subdivision, Subdivision AF and the regulations do not apply to the Minister’s powers under those sections.
84A Minister may grant visa to designated unauthorised arrival, transitory person or refugee
People to whom section applies
Minister may grant visa
Minister not under duty to consider whether to exercise power
Minister to exercise power personally
Tabling of information relating to the granting of visas
Note: The Minister has the power to direct officers of the Department to take all reasonable steps to encourage countries in respect of which declarations are in force under subsection (3) to provide suitable residential accommodation for people who are taken by officers to those countries.
Part 8E—Ombudsman investigations in relation to designated unauthorised arrivals, transitory persons and refugees
486S Referral of actions
Note: The Commonwealth Ombudsman may also investigate action, which relates to a matter of administration taken by a Department or a prescribed authority, regardless of the geographical location of the action (see the Ombudsman Act 1976, particularly sections 3C and 5).
Department has the meaning given by subsection 3(1) of the Ombudsman Act 1976.
prescribed authority has the meaning given by subsection 3(1) of the Ombudsman Act 1976.
486T Commonwealth Ombudsman to investigate and report
486U Minister to table statement from Commonwealth Ombudsman
486V Application of the Ombudsman Act 1976
(1) The Minister must cause an independent review of the operation and effect of the amendments made by this Act to be undertaken by a person who, in the Minister’s opinion, possesses appropriate qualifications and experience to undertake the review.
(2) The review must be undertaken as soon as practicable after the second anniversary of the commencement of this item.
(3) The person carrying out the review must, within 6 months of commencing the review, give the Minister a written report of the review that includes an assessment of the operation and effect of the amendments made by this Act, and alternative approaches or mechanisms as appropriate.
(4) The Minister must cause a copy of the report to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after its receipt by the Minister.
(5) Before the copy of the report is tabled in accordance with subsection (4), the Minister may remove information from the copy of the report if the Minister is satisfied that the inclusion of the information is contrary to the public interest or adversely affects the privacy of any person.
Schedule 2—Amendments commencing 5 years after Royal Assent
Migration Act 1958
(i) entered Australia by sea (see subsection (8)); or
(ii) entered the migration zone by air (see subsection (9));
Question put.
12:57:00
The House divided.
(The Deputy Speaker—Hon. AM Somlyay)
79
AYES
Abbott, A.J.
Anderson, J.D.
Andrews, K.J.
Bailey, F.E.
Baker, M.
Baldwin, R.C.
Barresi, P.A.
Bartlett, K.J.
Billson, B.F.
Bishop, B.K.
Bishop, J.I.
Brough, M.T.
Cadman, A.G.
Causley, I.R.
Ciobo, S.M.
Cobb, J.K.
Costello, P.H.
Downer, A.J.G.
Draper, P.
Dutton, P.C.
Elson, K.S.
Entsch, W.G.
Farmer, P.F.
Fawcett, D.
Ferguson, M.D.
Gambaro, T.
Gash, J.
Haase, B.W.
Hardgrave, G.D.
Hartsuyker, L.
Hockey, J.B.
Howard, J.W.
Hull, K.E.
Hunt, G.A.
Jensen, D.
Johnson, M.A.
Jull, D.F.
Katter, R.C.
Keenan, M.
Kelly, D.M.
Kelly, J.M.
Laming, A.
Ley, S.P.
Lindsay, P.J.
Lloyd, J.E.
Macfarlane, I.E.
Markus, L.
May, M.A.
McArthur, S. *
McGauran, P.J.
Mirabella, S.
Nairn, G.R.
Nelson, B.J.
Neville, P.C. *
Pearce, C.J.
Prosser, G.D.
Pyne, C.
Randall, D.J.
Robb, A.
Ruddock, P.M.
Schultz, A.
Scott, B.C.
Secker, P.D.
Slipper, P.N.
Smith, A.D.H.
Southcott, A.J.
Stone, S.N.
Thompson, C.P.
Ticehurst, K.V.
Tollner, D.W.
Truss, W.E.
Tuckey, C.W.
Turnbull, M.
Vaile, M.A.J.
Vale, D.S.
Vasta, R.
Wakelin, B.H.
Washer, M.J.
Wood, J.
62
NOES
Adams, D.G.H.
Albanese, A.N.
Andren, P.J.
Beazley, K.C.
Bevis, A.R.
Bird, S.
Bowen, C.
Broadbent, R.
Burke, A.E.
Burke, A.S.
Byrne, A.M.
Corcoran, A.K.
Crean, S.F.
Danby, M. *
Edwards, G.J.
Ellis, A.L.
Ellis, K.
Emerson, C.A.
Ferguson, L.D.T.
Ferguson, M.J.
Fitzgibbon, J.A.
Garrett, P.
Georganas, S.
George, J.
Georgiou, P.
Gibbons, S.W.
Gillard, J.E.
Grierson, S.J.
Griffin, A.P.
Hall, J.G. *
Hatton, M.J.
Hayes, C.P.
Hoare, K.J.
Irwin, J.
Jenkins, H.A.
Kerr, D.J.C.
King, C.F.
Lawrence, C.M.
Livermore, K.F.
Macklin, J.L.
McMullan, R.F.
Melham, D.
Moylan, J.E.
Murphy, J.P.
O’Connor, B.P.
Owens, J.
Plibersek, T.
Price, L.R.S.
Quick, H.V.
Ripoll, B.F.
Roxon, N.L.
Rudd, K.M.
Sawford, R.W.
Sercombe, R.C.G.
Smith, S.F.
Snowdon, W.E.
Swan, W.M.
Tanner, L.
Thomson, K.J.
Vamvakinou, M.
Wilkie, K.
Windsor, A.H.C.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
PETROLEUM RETAIL LEGISLATION REPEAL BILL 2006
51
BILLS
R2532
Second Reading
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Debate resumed from 30 March, on motion by Mr Ian Macfarlane:
That this bill be now read a second time.
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13:01:00
Ferguson, Martin, MP
LS4
Batman
ALP
0
0
Mr MARTIN FERGUSON
—As I rise today to speak on the Petroleum Retail Legislation Repeal Bill 2000, I think we all appreciate that Australians are more concerned than ever about record high petrol prices. Reform of the petrol retail industry, including the repeal of the two acts dealt with in this bill, has never been more important.
The Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Act 1980 and the Petroleum Retail Marketing Franchise Act 1980 are outdated. They serve no useful purpose in today’s petrol retail industry, and I will tell the House why. Well over 50 per cent of the industry by volume of sales is not covered by these acts, including the supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths, and the rules for market participants are inconsistent and unfair. That is bad for industry and, perhaps far more importantly, that is bad for the Australian consumers, who are doing it tough at this point.
The Oilcode, which will be introduced as a mandatory industry code under section 51AE of the Trade Practices Act 1974, will finally and appropriately bring the whole industry into a common regulatory regime, with better protections for market participants and better protections for consumers. The Oilcode will improve the protections available to commissioned agents and independent operators, who currently do not have the protections available to franchisees. Both franchisees and commissioned agents will also appropriately have access to a low-cost dispute resolution scheme for the first time.
The Labor Party’s view is that section 46 amendments to the Trade Practices Act are necessary to address outstanding concerns about the potential for abuse of market power. I call on the government to bring these forward as a matter of urgency. In that context, I also indicate to the House that we are taking the government on trust with respect to these very central and important amendments. I expect the minister to confirm in his reply undertakings given to the opposition that the government is keen to introduce legislation, the Trade Practices Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006, to implement its response as soon as the Trade Practices Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2005, the Dawson bill, has passed through the parliament. In essence, we have shaken hands on the importance of this amendment. It is therefore very important that the minister, in replying to the debate, confirms on the public record his undertaking given to the opposition with respect to the importance of those amendments and their urgency.
Nevertheless, the introduction of the Oilcode to cover the entire petrol retail sector is an improvement over the existing situation, where more than 50 per cent of the industry by volume is not regulated at all. Petrol retail reform is a good step forward to give consumers more confidence that the petrol prices they are paying are as fair and as competitive as we can make them. But reform, we also accept, has been a long time coming.
Interestingly, petrol reform has been on the Howard government’s policy agenda since 1996. In 1998, the opposition appropriately said that it would support petrol reform as long as the Oilcode was agreed to. But it has taken this government another eight years to get to that point. As in many other policy areas, reform under the Howard-Costello government has stagnated over 10 long years. The Australian government, led by the Prime Minister, John Howard, simply cannot keep up with the changes that are necessary to encourage investment and maintain competitive markets and affordable prices in petrol, electricity, transport and telecommunications. Look at the debacle, for example, that confronts the Australian community on the issue of broadband this very day.
The Howard-Costello government has also failed completely to keep the reform momentum of the Hawke and Keating governments going. That was when tough decisions about reform in the Australian economy and opening it up to competitive pressures were actually put in place—the foundations of economic growth that we now experience. But we are starting to pay the price. We are paying the price for neglect—if anything, absolute negligence by the Howard government—on the need for ongoing reforms so as to keep Australia competitive. I refer to labour shortages, erosion of our skills base, choked infrastructure which is holding back exports, inflation pressures, productivity stagnation and higher interest rates.
It is most worrying of all that the Howard-Costello government’s answer to everything as we appreciate it—as is reflected in the recent budget—is simply ‘spend, spend, spend’. Unfortunately, all the indicators now show that that short-term approach to economic management has hit a brick wall. The budget is no longer sustainable. If anything, the chickens are coming home to roost. What are the indicators? Let us deal with a couple of those indicators. Interest rates are rising and the government seeks to deny that they have an impact not only on business in Australia but also on ordinary households trying to make ends meet from week to week and day to day and pay their mortgage payments. The high level of debt held by Australians continues to rise disproportionately to the increase in their incomes and cost of living in Australia.
Then we go to the issue of prices, which is central to this debate. Prices are going through the roof. Wages—that is an interesting debate. The government are in so much trouble handling the industrial relations debate today that they now have a junior minister, the member for North Sydney, Mr Hockey, to try to assist the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations to sell their message. That is interesting because the truth is that they know it is very hard to sell. I will tell you why it is very hard to sell. Wages for those already struggling are under pressure because of the government’s extreme industrial relations changes, which not only open these wages and conditions to attack but also create a major sense of uncertainty in their minds, in their household’s minds, in their families and in Australia at large.
Then we go to the issue of tax cuts. We heard the Prime Minister and the Treasurer waxing lyrical about the impact that the tax cuts were going to have, only a matter of months ago on the second Tuesday of May. The facts show that they have been swallowed up because of mismanagement by the Howard government on a broad range of other fronts. We have the issue of competitiveness and our capacity to survive in a tough global market. Foreign debt is through the roof.
All these indicators suggest that unfortunately the Howard government approach of buying or spending their way out of trouble is no longer appropriate. Tough decisions and leadership are required. Let us go to the issue of the petrol debate. Back in 2001, when they were having difficulties, they decided to cut petrol excise. They have used tax cuts, family payments, baby bonuses and any number of handouts to buy off the electorate, but eventually, as we all appreciate, the patience of the Australian community runs out just as the government coffers are starting to run dry. They have no options left on petrol prices. One of the reasons is that petrol reform has taken 10 long years.
Excise cuts are no longer an option because we simply cannot afford them. This government has still done nothing to address the real issue. The real issue is Australia’s security. This is the guts of the debate that Australia has to have in the lead-up to the next election, because if we do not get this debate right we not only worsen the potential situation confronting Australian consumers but also put at risk Australia’s economic future. The principal reason is that the Prime Minister has sat in the oval office and accepted that basically we should place our future, in terms of where we go on resource security and the energy debate on transport fuels, on foreign oil from—guess where—unstable parts of the world like the Middle East. What a gamble. It is not a gamble that the Labor Party is prepared to take.
I say that because it is obvious to everyone except the government that, if you do not have home-grown fuel industries, Australia is at risk. We will always be hostage to foreign oil. We will always be hostage to unstable areas such as the Middle East. These are very serious issues that Australian consumers understand and appreciate. They are very serious issues that Australian industries speak to me about regularly in terms of my portfolio responsibility as the shadow minister for resources—a portfolio that includes energy, forestry and tourism. This is about what is going to rule the future and our capacity to have energy to drive the Australian economy.
I think we have to accept that there is no longer a capacity for short-term fixes. We need a national transport fuel policy that guarantees supplies for the long term and gives Australia options to deal with global fuel supply and price emergencies. That is the debate in Europe; that is the debate in North America; that is the debate in Asia; but unfortunately it is not the debate that the Prime Minister wants in Australia, because it requires tough decisions and leadership. I believe that we can no longer ignore that debate because, if other countries accept that this is the new Cold War and that the new cause of tension in the international community is who supplies the energy, then it is also part of what we have to face up to in guaranteeing our future as a nation. I will tell you why. It is pretty simple. It is about supply and demand. Who supplies the energy and who has influence over the energy supply of the world has economic power in the world. We want the Australian economy to go at full bore. We want to guarantee the creation of further training and apprenticeship opportunities for the Australian community. That requires a few tough decisions.
We have to lift our productivity and we have to try to make it easier for Australian workers to survive from week to week and day to day with all the added cost pressures that are imposed on them because of neglect and negligence by the Howard government. That simple debate goes like this: when supplies are short or demand is high—or both, as is the case right now—guess what? Prices go up. Prices are going up at the moment. As you as a former teacher know, Mr Deputy Speaker Hatton, it is simply economics 101. Unfortunately the Treasurer does not understand it and nor does the Prime Minister. They are not really interested in economic reform in Australia; they are merely interested in political survival: who occupies Kirribilli House or who might occupy Kirribilli House in the future. That is what occupies the minds of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer from sun-up to sundown each day—not where Australia goes but who occupies the Lodge and Kirribilli House and who might occupy the Lodge and Kirribilli House in the future.
We can no longer accept the contempt shown by the Australian government for these hard issues that have to be fronted up to now. The solution has to be embraced by the Australian community, with leadership from government in partnership with the private sector. The solution is home-grown fuel industries in Australia. That requires that we accept that there are policy options available to ensure that the wheels continue to turn for Australian consumers and Australian industries, to ensure that Australians can afford fuel and to ensure that Australian industry can afford energy. That drives job growth, apprenticeships and higher education opportunities. In doing so, it creates the social dividend which enables us to have a decent healthcare system and to look after the elderly in their aged years, and it also gives us the capacity to create opportunities for families experiencing stress at the moment, to manage the family difficulties of child care. So I would have thought the debate is pretty simple. It goes from A to B and C: make the hard decisions, embrace the policy options and get on with implementation. But unfortunately this is where the Howard government is remiss.
Federal Labor, alternatively, has always supported the oil and gas and alternative fuel industries. Let us deal with a few facts of modern history in Australia, because these industries are strategically important to Australia, strategically important to the region in which we live and strategically important to the world. I remind the House that Labor supported the proposal to extend the effective excise-free period for biofuels and LPG by three years to 2011. It supported legislation to introduce mandatory cleaner fuel standards that should benefit environmentally friendly fuels. So it is not about having economic growth without paying attention to environmental considerations; it is about doing both.
However, while Labor supported this approach, the House should be reminded that the overwhelming reason was—and this has always been the key to running a business in Australia—to provide some level of certainty for the alternative fuels industry and for the refining industry. It was the Keating government which introduced an 18c a litre production bounty for ethanol in the 1993-94 budget and, in addition, the zero excise rating for the product.
Perhaps the member for Blair ought to pay a little bit of attention to the history of why ethanol has gone backwards while the Howard government has been on watch. The record shows that the Howard government abolished the bounty scheme one year early, in the 1996-97 budget. It has consistently undermined the industry by changing the playing field on a regular basis over the last nine years. In the last parliament alone, the Howard government changed its mind not once, not twice but on three occasions with respect to the excise regime, not only for ethanol but also for the LPG industry. Despite his May 2002 view that applying an excise to ethanol and LPG was a bad idea, the Treasurer announced in the 2003 budget that he would do just that. He announced that biofuels and LPG would be subject to an excise from July 2008. In December 2003, guess what? He changed his mind again, announcing a new excise regime to apply from July 2011.
For those reasons, we will be moving today a detailed second reading amendment which stands in my name, to be seconded by the member for Hunter, Mr Fitzgibbon. This goes to the future of the ethanol industry. I challenge the member for Blair, who likes to interject, to have the guts to cross the floor like other members of the government if he wants to stand up for his local community and to vote for this second reading amendment, because it is about guaranteeing the future of ethanol and biofuels in Australia. I will tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker: I have no doubt that he will dog it. He will go missing in action when it comes to putting up his hand. He has form on that front.
These are important issues, because, between May and December 2003, the LPG industry was in turmoil. Many of the small business operators involved in LPG conversion and maintenance suffered from serious business downturns due to the uncertainty about the excise regime. Similarly, the biofuels industry suffered during this period because there was simply no certainty for investors in the industry. It has taken time for the industry to recover. That is mainly because record high prices have meant that consumers are more willing to set aside their concerns about fuel uncertainty than they would otherwise have been and that biofuels are now more price sensitive and attractive to refiners and marketers. In fact, let me say at this point that Caltex is to be commended for its announcement today that it will discount E10 petrol by 3c per litre. We await the other refiners.
The history of the Howard government’s double backflips on alternative fuels is in stark contrast to the stability Labor provided through its 13 years in office when it maintained the LPG excise exemption introduced in 1979 for fuel security reasons. The other stark contrast—
84C
Thompson, Cameron, MP
Mr Cameron Thompson
—You’re a comedian!
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Hatton, Michael (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Mr Hatton)—The member for Blair will get his go.
LS4
Ferguson, Martin, MP
Mr MARTIN FERGUSON
—is just how interested in fuel security the Prime Minister was, back then in 1979, compared with his complete lack of interest today as Prime Minister, when fuel security has never been so important and petrol prices have never been so high. As I have said before, this government treats tax cuts as go-away money for motorists worried about petrol prices.
I therefore remind the House of some facts I have raised many times in this place. The fact is that, without developing large-scale alternative fuels industries in Australia, we will increasingly be hostage to supplies from the Middle East, West Africa and Russia. This is the debate about security. I do not need to spell out the implications of that fact for energy security and for the security of Australia’s economic future. Australians around the kitchen table each night want to know that their governments and the companies with stewardship of their resources have a plan to secure their energy supplies for the future at prices affordable to Australians.
I raise this because it is important. At the moment there is no plan. Unlike Uncle Arthur would have them believe, they should be relaxed and comfortable. Have we heard the Prime Minister talking about being relaxed and comfortable? They are not relaxed and comfortable about our energy future. Creating the right fiscal and regulatory regime to convert our natural gas and coal to clean diesel as a new industry option and a new fuel supply source for Australia is unfortunately not on the Howard government’s radar. Mr Howard was thinking about it, interestingly, in 1979, but it is not on his radar in 2006 when he is the Prime Minister and it is more important. Unlike with other alternative fuels, the Prime Minister has done nothing to provide any industry framework to encourage the establishment of industries in Australia to convert our vast local coal and gas resources to clean diesel. This is the future debate. This is the key to transport security in terms of energy in the future.
Alternatively, the Labor Party has always been a great supporter of both gas to liquids and coal to liquids, which is integral to the commercialisation of clean coal technology for power generation in Australia and which is part of the environmental debate. We actually achieve on both fronts—energy security and environmental progress. I recall that a former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, as resources minister, was a great advocate of gas- and coal-to-liquids technologies. That was more than 20 years ago. This is a debate that has been ongoing. It is about time the Howard government actually got serious about it.
My colleague the member for Hunter was also a great advocate when he was shadow minister for resources in the last parliament—and we continue this tradition because we believe that establishing new nation-building industries is not easy and requires, more than anything, sustained leadership and focus at a national level. For that reason, over the last couple of weeks I have had the pleasure of dealing with two innovative proposals in the private sector, both looking at coal gasification and conversion to diesel, one in Queensland and the other in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria. Unfortunately, the Howard government has waxed and waned on both coal to liquids and gas to liquids. It should pick up the challenge and run with it.
Once again, let me remind the House that it is now almost five years since Senator Minchin, then minister for resources, appointed a GTL task force to investigate the feasibility and benefits of establishing a GTL industry in Australia. Five years later, no action has been taken. I suppose that is why the member for Hunter once said that in John Howard’s mind it is easier to get gas to Shanghai than to Sydney. That says it all: export it; do not worry about our own local economy. John Howard is happy to dig it up, ship it out and look after Japan, China and the United States. He guarantees their resource and energy security, but when it comes to Australia he has no plan for our energy security and our economic future.
I simply say to the Prime Minister that he needs an industry policy, a resources policy and an energy policy. We can no longer wait. Those policies will have to give us large-scale options to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. This is pretty interesting. I think it is what Australians actually believe. We cannot rely on foreign oil if the Strait of Hormuz is closed, if the Alaskan pipeline has to be fully shut down, if war escalates in the Middle East or if civil unrest shuts down West African production. GTL is the best option. It is about time the Prime Minister took up the challenge laid down by the Leader of the Opposition in October last year about the importance and urgency of this debate.
The Prime Minister’s own GTL task force noted that, while Australia could simply wait for the market to provide an incentive for a GTL industry, once gas supply infrastructure is in place and investment is sunk in other countries—not in Australia—where taxation and infrastructure incentives are on offer today, those countries will serve as investment hubs for expansion for years to come. Unfortunately, that is what is happening in Qatar at the moment while the Prime Minister is asleep on his watch.
The implication from the task force’s review was that Australia’s remote gas fields could be left stranded from markets for even longer because, by and large, it will be cheaper to expand existing projects than to build new ones here. It is about economies of scale. I am sure this is a concept Australia’s LNG industry fully understands.
The task force also highlighted the potential significance of a GTL industry to Australia’s economy, saying that it could underwrite offshore gas supply infrastructure to bring forward the possibility of further major new domestic gas pipelines to connect the national market, increase domestic gas competition and energise gas exploration. That is an interesting challenge, one the Labor Party would love to have the opportunity to implement. That is why it is going to be an ongoing debate between now and the next election. This debate can no longer be put off. The task force also said, and this is the crux of the debate:
These benefits would be of national strategic significance to Australia.
It went on to say this, and perhaps the Prime Minister should revisit the report:
The cost of any government intervention must be considered against the potential benefits.
That is simply saying that if you invest now you get the return in the future in terms of competitive energy supply in Australia, which is the key to our future. That is what attracts investment to Australia—a stable economy, stable government and energy at a reasonable price and with security of supply. The potential benefits go beyond unlocking new resources. They go beyond wealth and creating new industry, more jobs and more exports. They include the opportunity for Australia to address our most pressing problem, our future transport fuel security challenge.
It is also three years since CSIRO’s report Energy and Transport Sector Outlook to 2020 laid out its proposed strategy for Australia’s transport future—a strategy that identified gas to liquids and coal to liquids as the keys to our future transport fuel security. The tragedy is that we all appreciate the potential but the reality remains just beyond the Howard government’s grasp. It requires sustained and committed national leadership. It requires that we review the PRRT regime and consider special treatment of capital investment in gas to liquids fuel projects and associated gas production infrastructure. It requires that we have some responsibility for resource related infrastructure instead of simply saying that it is a state responsibility. Above all, it requires that the Howard government should send a clear signal to Australians that it is interested in their future fuel supply security. We should send that clear signal.
So on that basis, in order to bring this debate to a head, I will have pleasure in moving the second reading amendment circulated in my name calling on the government to immediately conduct a feasibility study into a gas-to-liquids plant in Australia. The Prime Minister needs to dust off his 2001 report, bring it up to date, move on the implementation and make it a reality. I also call on the government to review, in 2009, the proposal to introduce excise on ethanol and biodiesel, LPG and CNG in 2011 and to consider whether or not there is a case for deferring the introduction of excise depending on industry progress. I think this is a matter of such public importance that the department should report to parliament, in the period commencing next year, on the measures taken and the progress made to wean Australia off foreign oil dependence. Such a review would keep the pressure on parliament and decision makers. It would be on the uptake of alternative fuels. We have got to be serious about the implementation, given the issues raised in the opposition’s blueprint.
I simply say in conclusion, before moving the second reading amendment, that the government ought to be criticised for its tardiness in moving on petrol retail reform, for bypassing the parliamentary process in taking companies out of the sites act, for failing to announce amendments to the Trade Practices Act to implement the 2003 Dawson and 2004 Senate committee reports and, above all—and this is the crux of the debate—for failing abjectly to take action to reduce Australia’s dependence on foreign oil. I now move the second reading amendment standing in my name:
That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
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calls on the Government to require the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources to report to the Parliament annually, commencing in August 2007, on the measures taken and the progress made to:
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increase market penetration of ethanol and biodiesel, LPG and CNG, including the number and location of service stations and the names of the companies offering these products on their retail sites;
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secure new investment in biofuel, LPG and CNG production and supply infrastructure in Australia; and
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secure investment in new alternative transport fuel industries in Australia, including gas and coal to liquids;
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calls on the Government to review, in 2009, the proposal to introduce excise on ethanol and biodiesel, LPG and CNG in 2011, and consider whether or not there is a case for delaying the introduction of excise, depending on the progress made:
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in increasing market penetration of biofuels, LPG and CNG;
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in securing new investment in biofuel, LPG and CNG production and supply infrastructure in Australia; and
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towards achieving the 350 million litre biofuels target in 2010.
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criticises the Government for:
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its tardiness in moving on petrol retail reform;
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bypassing due parliamentary process in introducing a regulation to “undeclare” companies under the Sites Act;
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failing to introduce amendments to the TPA to implement the 2003 Dawson and 2004 Senate recommendations for reform; and
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failing to act to reduce Australia’s dependence on foreign oil and improve its transport fuel security;
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calls on the Government to immediately conduct a feasibility study into a gas to liquids fuels plant in Australia, including:
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consideration of Petroleum Resources Rent tax incentives for developers of gas fields which provide resources for gas to liquid fuels projects;
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examining a new infrastructure investment allowance for investment in Australian gas to liquids infrastructure; and
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developing a targeted funding scheme for research and development in this area;
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calls on the Government to immediately embrace Labor’s Fuels Blueprint proposal to:
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make alternative fuel vehicles tariff free, cutting up to $2000 off the price of current hybrid cars; and
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grant tax rebates for converting petrol cars to LPG; and
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calls on the Government to immediately embrace Labor’s Fuels Blueprint to find more oil and use more gas by;
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re-examining the depreciation regime for gas production infrastructure;
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allowing the selective use of flow-through share schemes for smaller operators”.
(Time expired)
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Hatton, Michael (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Mr Hatton)—Is the motion seconded?
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Fitzgibbon, Joel, MP
Mr Fitzgibbon
—I second the motion.
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13:32:00
Thompson, Cameron, MP
84C
Blair
LP
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0
Mr CAMERON THOMPSON
—After all that hot air from the member opposite, it is great to be able to stand up and create some of my own. Fuel is causing a lot of drama for Australians. We have got a situation of continually rising prices causing real pain, and that is even in the state of Queensland, where, as you would probably know, Mr Deputy Speaker, there is not a petrol franchise fee. That fee does not apply in Queensland; it never has. All the other states of Australia had a petrol franchise fee, which was rolled into the GST. So we in Queensland are privileged because the price of our fuel is still, on average, about nine cents a litre cheaper than in all the other states. So while we in Queensland feel the pain, it is hard to imagine how people are putting up with the incredible prices that they are paying in the southern states and elsewhere in Australia.
It is a pleasure to speak on the Petroleum Retail Legislation Repeal Bill 2006 because there is no doubt that we have come a long way down the road since 1980, when the previous bills were created. We have come a long way to where we are today. So much has gone on and there have been so many changes, particularly in the automotive industry and fuel retailing, that it is hard to see how those bills could possibly still be regarded as effective in today’s environment. The world has moved on and Australia has changed dramatically, and that is reflected in the government’s treatment within this bill of this area, with the introduction of the new Oilcode and the removal of quotas on the oil majors as to the number of sites that they can own. You would have to be Rip Van Winkle not to notice that today in Australia shopper dockets are playing a really big part in our process of buying fuel. People are religiously collecting shopper dockets to get what they regard as bargains as they try to minimise their fuel costs.
The shadow minister said that we needed to look very strongly at alternative fuels and he was roasting the government, saying the government needed to act. That was an amazing set of words to be coming from the member of an opposition that killed off ethanol quite some time ago with a whole lot of spurious nonsense about the dangers that it supposedly posed to motor vehicles. They concocted a bodgie case on that. I remember that a couple of their members were fingered in the process of doing it. They put about false claims about ethanol and its dangers and, as a consequence of that, across my electorate I still come across fuel pumps that have these hideous little stickers on them saying, ‘Does not contain any ethanol,’ as if that is a bad thing.
Ethanol actually boosts the octane content of petrol. It is a welcome addition to any fuel. I feel very strongly about this, because we could produce it so readily in Australia. Shame on the Labor Party for killing it off, given that it could have been introduced so much more effectively several years ago. Shame on them for going about Australia and telling a whole lot of untruths about the impact of ethanol on people’s motor vehicles and for continuing to maintain that for such a ridiculous period of time. They fallaciously linked it to the Manildra group and to all kinds of claims that they regarded as being politically advantageous to them to make. The result of their pursuing political ends is that the national interest has been badly set aside. We have not made progress down the road to ethanol—there has not been an uptake of ethanol—because Labor Party members have been telling everyone that they meet in the street that ethanol is no good. They have been doing that again and again, but today the shadow spokesman is trying to perform a backflip and trying to get those words out of his mouth about ethanol being good. It must be hard for him to do that, but at last Labor are starting to get with the strength and the reality of what is going on all over the world.
Ethanol is a great alternative, particularly for a country like ours which produces heaps of sugar cane. A lot of people simplistically say, ‘Oh, sugar cane is what you get your ethanol from,’ but there are plenty of other ways to get ethanol. We have lots of low-grade sorghum produced in this country that could go into ethanol. There are all kinds of other grain crops and opportunities. We have got so much land and the capacity to generate sources of ethanol; it is there all over the country.
What we need to do is to look at mandating that ethanol and saying, ‘Let’s have 10 per cent of it in our fuel.’ It certainly will not harm anything at 10 per cent. I think we could even have 20 per cent. That is certainly being done in the US. I think in the US now they are running something like 85 per cent ethanol in some cars. That brings me to the situation in Brazil. In that country they are using flex-fuel cars and they are making big savings because of the use of ethanol in their fuel. That use of ethanol is something that I think needs to be carefully examined by Australians, and I think we need to pursue it.
I would like to quote a couple of articles about the way things are going in Brazil. The first one comes from the Guardian from 23 November 2005. It traces the history of what has happened with ethanol in Brazil. The article was entitled ‘Sugar powers a revolution on Brazil’s roads’. It says:
In the 80s the then military government reacted to the oil price shocks of 1973 and 1981 by offering tax advantages to run cars on ethanol - so much so that between 1983 and 1988 up to 90% of vehicles were powered by the fuel.
It goes on to make an interesting point. It says:
The bottom fell out of the market when oil prices collapsed - and sugar cane producers jacked up ethanol prices more than 40%.
The difference now is that drivers have a much greater choice, being able to mix ethanol and petrol at will in “flex fuel” engines that Volkswagen introduced in 2003 and are being built by rivals such as Peugeot, which launches a 1.4-litre version next month ...
And it goes on to mention other producers. So fluctuations in the price of sugar and oil have meant in the past that, for example, overnight, sugar producers suddenly do not want to sell you their ethanol. When flex-fuel is the way to go, when that provides the motive power, there is no reason why those kinds of market forces will impede in any way the growth of an ethanol industry in Brazil—and there is certainly no way that it will impede the growth of an ethanol industry in Australia.
The article quotes Serge Habib, Citroen’s managing director in Brazil, as saying that in Brazil as many as 80 per cent of new Brazilian built cars are powered by flex-fuel engines. I heard a member of this parliament saying the other day that Holden is producing flex-fuel engines in Australia—or certainly one of the Australian producers is producing them here and exporting them to Brazil. So we have a ready-made source of flex-fuel cars already here in our country. We can buy locally in terms of the fuel and we can buy locally in terms of the vehicles. According to this article, Mr Habib, from Citroen, said that producing ethanol from sugar is profitable as long as oil costs more than $37 a barrel. It sounds to me like we will be producing ethanol profitably till hell freezes over, the way things are currently. That price of $37 a barrel is a price that we are probably not likely to revisit in the near future. I think we can look at this opportunity to switch to ethanol.
The article makes another point about what has happened in Brazil—and I am looking at the way this impacts on our fuel industry in Australia. It quotes Luiz Custodio Martins, president of a sugar and alcohol union in Brazil, who said:
The Brazilian economy has saved $400bn in imports since the creation of the National Alcohol Program, and that’s without mentioning interest ...
So Brazil has made $400 billion in savings in terms of imports. We are a country that has a lot of imported fuel. The opportunity for import replacement with ethanol is a very good thing.
We did not hear an awful lot on ethanol from the opposition. They still find it a dirty word. They still cannot bring themselves to recognise it as the most important option that faces us. I heard them talking about gasification—that is, turning gas to liquids—using coal to generate energy. Honestly, the member opposite quoted Paul Keating as having said that many years ago. I reckon they must have had that discussion in a telephone booth somewhere out the back of Winton, because it is not something that they have paraded down the street on. It is not something that they have brought on the cabaret for—they have not lit the lights; they have not put on their tights. They have not been out there saying anything about what to do with this gas to liquids option. It has hardly rated a mention anywhere within the Labor Party, and now we are in a position where, suddenly, it is apparently, according to them, an even greater option than the logical conclusion of a transition to ethanol.
One of the major issues that we are all discussing at the moment is the price of fuel. It is affecting people’s livelihoods and it is something that we have to address directly. This bill will modernise the legislation, remove irrelevant restrictions on the structure of the petroleum market and create a more transparent, competitive market that will be the best way to deliver cheaper fuel prices to consumers. As I said earlier, there have been significant changes in the retailing of petrol in Australia since the acts repealed by this bill were introduced in 1980. The legislation has not been able to keep pace with these market structure changes. In Australia, the retail petroleum industry provides approximately 38,100 jobs and had a turnover of about $21.7 billion in 2004-05. There are about 6,500 service stations throughout our country. It is a major part of our economy. It is also inseparable from the international economy.
This bill repeals the Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Act and the Petroleum Retail Marketing Franchise Act 1980. The Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Act sets quotas on the oil majors—BP, Caltex, Mobil and Shell—restricting the number of sites that they can own, lease and operate either directly or on a commission agency basis. In fact, going back to 1980, there were nine majors regulated in this way. It just shows you that we have now slipped down to where there are basically four and, honestly, those are divesting themselves, in these arrangements with Woollies, Coles and Quix, of their sites. The whole thing becomes an irrelevance to the way fuel is actually being retailed in our country. The only major company now hindered by quotas as a result of those retailing activities is BP. It is at its limit, with no room to compete with the other industry operators in terms of creating additional sites, because it is now the only one being limited by the sites act.
Quotas are based on the volume of fuel each company has the capacity to produce in its own domestic refineries. The act was introduced at a time when there was a lot of fuel available. Independents would be able to acquire internationally sourced fuel while the refiners could sell on their own. The abundant supply meant a potential threat to the independent operators’ viability. Because the acts have not progressed alongside the petrol retailing sector changes in the last 26 years, an effect of the acts themselves has been to encourage trading in the industry outside the coverage of the act. The obvious example of that is major companies divesting their retail operations to the supermarket chains. They have taken a large chunk of operations. This has radically altered the structure and thus the competitiveness of the market. Because of the trend, the competition that was meant to be fostered by the act has been split into those industry traders operating under the act’s coverage and those operating outside.
BP has not divested its operations and is therefore prevented by the act from increasing its number of sites. It cannot increase its competition with the supermarket traders, who are not limited by the acts. As a result, we have a two-tiered system that is, by its nature, discriminatory: applying one set of rules to one party while allowing the remainder to operate without those rules. The ability of the majors to compete with newer market entrants, such as the supermarkets, is limited. It has also resulted in advantage for small business franchisees over small business commission agents.
Since 1980, fuel quality standards have also tightened in line with global environmental best practice. Global supply capacity is stretched, with massively increased demand internationally, resulting from economic growth throughout Asia. The situation of 26 years ago, with abundant supply and lower demand, has been dramatically reversed. The acts no longer serve the industry or the public. This bill will create a fair and open competition between the oil majors, healthy independents and supermarkets. It also allows for what is sure to be major change in the industry in coming years as it finds alternative supply.
As I said before, the obvious source to consider is ethanol. There are also the biodiesel opportunities. I do not mind the opposition talking about coal to liquids or gas to liquids. These are courses that, of course, we must pursue, but I think the one that is staring us right in the face is ethanol. We should be looking at a mandate for ethanol to drive it forward. If we look at that example from Brazil, we see quite clearly that in that country it was necessary for the government to go so far as to provide special tax advantages to promote people running cars on ethanol. That is the kind of step we need to be looking at in this country. We have reached a point that, perhaps, Brazil did way back then. We have reached this point now, and we need to be looking to those positive measures to drive it forward.
009LP
Windsor, Antony, MP
Mr Windsor
—Hear, hear! Take the initiative.
84C
Thompson, Cameron, MP
Mr CAMERON THOMPSON
—I see the member for New England over there. He was the one I saw talking about E85 in the United States. That is an example of the flex-fuel opportunities we certainly need to be taking up in this country.
The bill is part of a government reform package: the downstream petroleum reform package. The aim of the package is to provide a more competitive retail fuel market. It has the potential to have a positive impact for consumers at the pump, and we can all hope for that but we must continue. We must find other ways to drive that forward, as I have mentioned. As a part of the package, the government will introduce a mandatory industry code for the oil industry called the Oilcode. The aim is to provide industry certainty and to make that regulatory environment uniform. This will encourage investment and employment in what is a major industry in this country, as well as achieve transparency and competition in petroleum pricing.
The Oilcode will cover the relationships between suppliers and retailers. The terminal gate prices provisions in the code will improve the transparency in the industry and create an even and fair opportunity for operators. All customers, small businesses or supermarkets, franchises or commission, will have access to fuel at the published terminal gate price. Dispute resolution is also covered in the Oilcode to ensure the industry participants have access to ongoing cost-effective resolution without the need for involving the courts—and I say ‘Hear, hear!’ to that.
If we look at the quotas that are allowed, the quota allowed to BP is 87 and it has 87 current sites. Caltex’s quota is 136, and it has 87 sites. Of course, it has also got its arrangements with Woolworths. Mobil’s quota is 87; current sites, one. Quite obviously, that has been divested as well. Shell’s quota is 114 and its number of current sites is 16. Quite obviously, the minister and the government have responded effectively to what is an emerging change in the industry. We have taken a major step in the way we control the operation of these retail sites, but we have got to go right down to the base of the industry and we have got to provide it with alternative solutions. The idea of import replacement using ethanol will be a bonus not only to our farming industries and not only to our motorists but to our current account as well. If we can reduce the amount of our reliance on imports of oil and replace it with ethanol, I think we will be moving in the right direction. Despite the shameful activities of the Labor Party in trying to kill off ethanol, it will survive. (Time expired)
63
13:52:00
Fitzgibbon, Joel, MP
8K6
Hunter
ALP
0
0
Mr FITZGIBBON
—I will not even do justice to the member for Blair’s weak and poorly researched speech, but I will congratulate him on speaking on a bill relating to petrol prices in this very week when petrol prices are such an important issue and are so much at the forefront of the minds of all Australians. I do note, from having a look at the speakers list, that he was the only member on that side game enough to do so, but I may return to that point.
It is a pleasure to speak to the Petroleum Retail Legislation Repeal Bill 2006 and to provide support to the amendments moved by the member for Batman and seconded by me. This is a very important piece of legislation and a piece of legislation that is long overdue. The regulatory regime which controls the petroleum retailing sector in Australia is now 26 years old. It was forged in an era when we had nine major oil companies, and of course now we have four. It was forged at that time because the then government was concerned about market concentration in the petroleum market. I repeat, then we had nine majors, now we have four.
Some people might think we would be looking at actually strengthening the act rather than repealing it but, unfortunately, it is not that simple. This act is now antiquated. It really does not mean anything much because, over the years, the major oil companies have effectively been able to circumvent the act, particularly by way of creative multisite franchise arrangements. But, just as importantly, we now have operating in the market the partnership arrangements between Coles and Shell, and Caltex and Woolworths. Of course, the Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Act, which is designed to limit the number of service stations the oil companies can run directly, does not cover Coles or Woolworths. So we have a big problem.
Labor supports the idea that we repeal the two acts—that is, the sites act and the franchise act, which supports it—to put in place a more modern and more effective regulatory regime. This should have happened at least five years ago. Why did it not happen five years ago? Because of government incompetence and the government’s failure to show leadership and to secure amongst industry and consumer representatives a new regulatory structure that was acceptable to all involved. Those involved include those at the industry, refinery, wholesale, distribution and retail levels and those who represent consumers and who are naturally concerned about the impact and the efficiency of the regulatory regime and its ability to hold petrol prices as low as possible and to protect independent service stations as best as can be achieved. Competition is everything in keeping petrol prices down. We cannot sit back and allow a few major oil companies to drive any competition out of the market. In this country we need an independent sector, as we see in many American and European markets, which keeps the major oil companies and their partners, such as Coles and Woolworths, honest. It took a lot of work to get a regulatory regime, which of course keeps all those players happy.
I am not suggesting the government is there yet, and I know there remains a lot of concern, particularly amongst organisations like the MTAA, representing independent service station operators, but I suspect the government has secured as close an agreement as it can achieve. But it should have happened five years ago. Certainly, it should have happened a long time before now. This bill is about consumers, it is about small business and it even goes to Australia’s competitiveness, because fuel in Australia is an input to production in both the manufacturing sector and the services sector. It is also about international competitiveness and it is something we should have dealt with long before now.
There is a caveat contained within the member for Batman’s second reading amendment. The opposition has indicated its support for this bill on the basis of the government’s belated promise that it will finally do something about the Trade Practices Act. I have talked about the importance of competition in keeping petrol prices down. We cannot have competition unless we have a strong Trade Practices Act. It is well known to all watchers of this industry that we have not had a strong Trade Practices Act for some time now. We have not had, in particular, a sufficiently strong section 46 of the Trade Practices Act, which of course contains the main provisions for protecting against misuse of market power, therefore protecting and enhancing competition.
We say to the government: we intend to support the bill this time around, but we want to see the whites of their eyes, we want to see the detail of the amendments they intend to finally and belatedly move to the Trade Practices Act so we can be sure that this new regulatory regime, in partnership with those changes to the Trade Practices Act, is sufficient to protect consumers and Australian small business. Make no mistake about it: Australian families, Australian small business and indeed Australian business generally are hurting as a result of high fuel prices. Australian families are hurting to the tune of between $40 and $50 a week. Australian business are hurting to the extent that they are starting to question their viability. Yet, despite that, the Prime Minister and his Treasurer say there is absolutely nothing they can do about petrol prices.
We on this side acknowledge that high petrol prices are driven largely by the high price of crude oil. We accept that. But, when crude oil is high, it is all the more urgent for governments to act in the short term, the medium term and the long term. The Prime Minister and his Treasurer can act today in a couple of ways. They can bring forward those amendments to the Trade Practices Act and the Treasurer can sign this letter, which I have with me today, which would refer to the ACCC the power it needs to properly investigate petrol prices in this country. So, Mr Prime Minister, while you and your Treasurer are present, I appeal to you on behalf of Australian families and Australian business to take that short-term action. But there is more, Mr Prime Minister, that you can do. I also appeal to you and your Treasurer to embrace the Leader of the Opposition’s fuels blueprint and start doing something about energy independence in this country, weaning ourselves off our dependence on Middle Eastern oil—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.
MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS
65
MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS
65
14:00:00
Howard, John, MP
ZD4
Bennelong
LP
Prime Minister
1
0
Mr HOWARD
—Mr Speaker, I present for the information of the House a revised ministry list reflecting the appointment of the Minister for Human Services as the Minister Assisting the Minister for Workplace Relations. This appointment is in addition to his current portfolio responsibility.
The document read as follows—
FOURTH HOWARD MINISTRY
10 August 2006
TITLE
MINISTER
OTHER CHAMBER
Prime Minister
The Hon John Howard MP
Senator the Hon Nick Minchin
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister
The Hon Gary Hardgrave MP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
The Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP
Minister for Trade
(Deputy Prime Minister)
The Hon Mark Vaile MP
Senator the Hon Helen Coonan
Parliamentary Secretary (Trade)
The Hon De-Anne Kelly MP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
The Hon Alexander Downer MP
Senator the Hon Helen Coonan
Parliamentary Secretary (Foreign Affairs)
The Hon Teresa Gambaro MP
Treasurer
The Hon Peter Costello MP
Senator the Hon Nick Minchin
Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer
The Hon Peter Dutton MP
Senator the Hon Helen Coonan
Parliamentary Secretary
The Hon Chris Pearce MP
Minister for Finance and Administration
(Vice President of the Executive Council)
(Leader of the Government in the Senate)
Senator the Hon Nick Minchin
The Hon Peter Costello MP
Minister for Human Services
Minister Assisting the Minister for Workplace Relations
The Hon Joe Hockey MP
Senator the Hon Rod Kemp
Special Minister of State
The Hon Gary Nairn MP
Senator the Hon Eric Abetz
Parliamentary Secretary
Senator the Hon Richard Colbeck
Minister for Transport and Regional Services
The Hon Warren Truss MP
Senator the Hon Ian Campbell
Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads
The Hon Jim Lloyd MP
Senator the Hon Ian Campbell
Minister for Health and Ageing
(Leader of the House)
The Hon Tony Abbott MP
Senator the Hon Santo Santoro
Minister for Ageing
Senator the Hon Santo Santoro
The Hon Tony Abbott MP
Parliamentary Secretary
The Hon Christopher Pyne MP
Attorney-General
The Hon Philip Ruddock MP
Senator the Hon Chris Ellison
Minister for Justice and Customs
(Manager of Government Business in the Senate)
Senator the Hon Chris Ellison
The Hon Philip Ruddock MP
Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts
(Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate)
Senator the Hon Helen Coonan
The Hon Peter McGauran MP
Minister for the Arts and Sport
Senator the Hon Rod Kemp
The Hon Peter McGauran MP
Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs
Senator the Hon Amanda Vanstone
The Hon Philip Ruddock MP
Parliamentary Secretary
The Hon Andrew Robb AO MP
Minister for Defence
The Hon Dr Brendan Nelson MP
Senator the Hon Ian Campbell
Minister for Veterans’ Affairs
Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence
The Hon Bruce Billson MP
Senator the Hon Ian Campbell
Parliamentary Secretary
Senator the Hon Sandy Macdonald
Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources
The Hon Ian Macfarlane MP
Senator the Hon Nick Minchin
Minister for Small Business and Tourism
The Hon Fran Bailey MP
Senator the Hon Nick Minchin
Parliamentary Secretary
The Hon Bob Baldwin MP
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service
The Hon Kevin Andrews MP
Senator the Hon Eric Abetz
Minister for Workforce Participation
The Hon Dr Sharman Stone MP
Senator the Hon Eric Abetz
Minister for the Environment and Heritage
Senator the Hon Ian Campbell
The Hon Warren Truss MP
Parliamentary Secretary
The Hon Greg Hunt MP
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
(Deputy Leader of the House)
The Hon Peter McGauran MP
Senator the Hon Eric Abetz
Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation
Senator the Hon Eric Abetz
The Hon Peter McGauran MP
Parliamentary Secretary
The Hon Sussan Ley MP
Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
The Hon Mal Brough MP
Senator the Hon Rod Kemp
Minister for Community Services
The Hon John Cobb MP
Senator the Hon Rod Kemp
Minister for Education, Science and Training
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women’s Issues
The Hon Julie Bishop MP
Senator the Hon Amanda Vanstone
Minister for Vocational and Technical Education
The Hon Gary Hardgrave MP
Senator the Hon Amanda Vanstone
Parliamentary Secretary
The Hon Pat Farmer MP
Each box represents a portfolio. Cabinet Ministers are shown in b
old type. As a general rule, there is one department in each portfolio. Except for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the title of each department reflects that of the portfolio minister. There is also a Department of Veterans’ Affairs in the Defence portfolio and a Department of Human Services in the Finance and Administration portfolio.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
67
14:00:00
Questions Without Notice
Fuel Prices
67
67
14:00:00
Beazley, Kim, MP
PE4
Brand
ALP
0
Mr BEAZLEY
—My question is to the Prime Minister and follows that excellent speech by the member for Hunter as members were walking into the House. Will the Prime Minister support Labor’s amendments to the Petroleum Retail Legislation Repeal Bill 2006 being debated today—amendments which implement parts of Labor’s fuels blueprint, including the promotion of greater oil and gas exploration in Australia—by re-examining the depreciation regime for gas production infrastructure, by allowing the selective use of flow-through share schemes for smaller operators, by promoting the use of alternative-fuel vehicles by cutting their tariffs, by granting tax rebates for converting petrol cars to LPG and by implementing Labor’s green-car challenge to get competitive value-for-money green cars on the roads?
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The Leader of the Opposition will come to his question.
PE4
Beazley, Kim, MP
Mr BEAZLEY
—Further, will the Prime Minister protect and promote the growth of ethanol, biodiesel, LPG and CNG through a review of the 2009 date of the government’s plans to apply an excise to those fuels, which will determine whether a deferral or application of the exercise is required? Finally, will the Prime Minister support our position of strengthening the ACCC’s powers to investigate petrol prices by removing the requirement that they cannot do so without the Treasurer’s consent? Does the Prime Minister still maintain that nothing can be done about these crippling fuel prices?
67
Howard, John, MP
ZD4
Bennelong
LP
Prime Minister
1
Mr HOWARD
—I have very carefully studied the amendments that have been put forward by the opposition. I read them, in fact, before I came into the House. After very thoughtful consideration, the government has decided, at this time, not to accept them.
Employment
67
67
14:02:00
Ferguson, Michael, MP
DYH
Bass
LP
1
Mr MICHAEL FERGUSON
—My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Would the Treasurer outline to the House the results of the July labour force survey?
68
Costello, Peter, MP
CT4
Higgins
LP
Treasurer
1
Mr COSTELLO
—I thank the honourable member for Bass for his question. I can inform him that today’s labour force survey showed that unemployment has fallen further from 30-year record lows. It has fallen from 4.9 per cent in June to 4.8 per cent in July, a position that Australia has not been in for over 30 years. There was a solid rise in employment, with 50,700 new jobs in July—although, as the ABS indicates, some of that could have been generated by the training of temporary staff for the August 2006 census. This is to be added to the increase in jobs in both June and May, meaning that, over the last year, 219,000 jobs have been created in Australia—and, under this government, 1.9 million new jobs have been created. In addition to that, the participation rate rose to 65 per cent in July, which is a new record high. Putting those things together, the participation rate is higher than it has ever been before, yet unemployment is now at a 30-year low.
Can I also indicate to the House an interesting statistic. Since Work Choices was introduced in March, 159,000 new jobs have been created in Australia. The Labor Party predicted there would be mass sackings and that the world as we know it would end.
PE4
Beazley, Kim, MP
Mr Beazley interjecting—
CT4
Costello, Peter, MP
Mr COSTELLO
—‘What rubbish!’ he says. Unfortunately for the Leader of the Opposition, some of us have a memory that lasts longer than 24 hours. We remember all of the doom and gloom which the Leader of the Opposition forecast in relation to Work Choices. He was wrong about that. There is no evidence whatsoever that Work Choices has led to doom or gloom—in fact, quite to the contrary. I should mention for the benefit of the member for Bass that unemployment in the seat of Bass was 11.1 per cent when the Leader of the Opposition was the relevant minister. It is now 5.4 per cent—double as good as it was under the Labor Party—because of the economic reforms which this government has put in place.
Workplace Relations
68
68
14:06:00
Albanese, Anthony, MP
R36
Grayndler
ALP
0
Mr ALBANESE
—My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware that Tristar in my electorate has an enterprise bargaining agreement which expires on 30 September and allows for four weeks redundancy pay per year of service? Is the Prime Minister also aware that the workforce has been reduced from 300 to 60 because there is no work to do and the factory is facing closure? Is the Prime Minister aware that Tristar is refusing to guarantee that it will not use the Work Choices legislation to avoid these redundancy provisions after 30 September? What does the Prime Minister say to the 60 remaining workers at Tristar, including Simon, who has 32 years of service and stands to have his redundancy of $160,000 reduced to just 12 weeks pay after 30 September? Given the refusal of the company to meet with local representatives about these issues, will the Prime Minister use his office to ensure that the Work Choices legislation—
9V5
Pyne, Chris, MP
Mr Pyne interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Sturt is warned!
R36
Albanese, Anthony, MP
Mr ALBANESE
—is not used to reduce these redundancy payouts to these great, hardworking Australians?
68
Howard, John, MP
ZD4
Bennelong
LP
Prime Minister
1
Mr HOWARD
—The answer to the member for Grayndler is: no, I am not aware of the facts and circumstances. As always, I will check what the member has said. Clearly, we will expect the obligations of this company, like all other companies, under the law to be met. You mentioned redundancies. I seem to remember you had 13 years to fix a redundancy safety net and you never did.
Workplace Relations
69
69
14:07:00
Barresi, Phillip, MP
ZJ6
Deakin
LP
1
Mr BARRESI
—My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Would the minister advise the House of the benefits of workplace reforms for Australian workers? Is the minister aware of any misleading claims about employment agreements offered to employees at Lufthansa?
69
Andrews, Kevin, MP
HK5
Menzies
LP
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service
1
Mr ANDREWS
—I thank the honourable member for Deakin for his question. I note at the outset that in the 138 days since Work Choices has been in operation 159,000 jobs have been created in Australia. That is an average of more than 1,000 jobs per day—something which the member for Deakin and I are very proud of. Despite this creation of jobs and a record low unemployment rate of 4.8 per cent, we continue to have a misleading and deceptive campaign by the ACTU and the ALP about Work Choices.
The latest of these cases in which they have been caught red-handed with misleading information involved, as the member for Deakin asked me about, employees at Lufthansa. Sharan Burrow, the President of the ACTU—and I remind the House that Sharan Burrow was the woman who, at the outset of this misleading campaign, made the infamous comment that it would be desirable to have the grieving family of a dead or injured worker to help their campaign; that is what Ms Burrow said at the start of this campaign and that set the tone for everything that has followed since in a misleading campaign—said yesterday about this matter at Lufthansa that the employees were denied the right of union representation. She said, and I quote from the transcript of her interview, ‘And refused point-blank when they asked for the union to be involved.’
This was what was peddled by the President of the ACTU yesterday, and it is simply plain wrong. The very respected legal firm Blake Dawson Waldron, one of the most respected legal firms in Australia, wrote to the Victorian Workplace Rights Advocate in relation to this matter.
YU5
Tanner, Lindsay, MP
Mr Tanner interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Melbourne is warned!
HK5
Andrews, Kevin, MP
Mr ANDREWS
—I quote from part of the letter written by Blakes, one of the most respected law firms in Australia, to the Victorian Workplace Rights Advocate:
The complaint investigated by you is not one made by an employee of GTS. No employee has sought to appoint the ASU—
the Australian Services Union—
as a bargaining agent in relation to an AWA. No employee has complained to you that the operation of an AWA has adversely affected them.
So much for the false information from the President of the ACTU that the unions were denied involvement. Indeed, Blakes go on to say:
There is questionable legitimacy in a complaint which is divorced from the opinions of employees who have the opportunity of agreeing or not agreeing to the terms of the AWA.
00AN3
O’Connor, Brendan, MP
Mr Brendan O’Connor interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Gorton is warned!
HK5
Andrews, Kevin, MP
Mr ANDREWS
—Mr Speaker, I table that letter from Blake Dawson Waldron. Beyond this, we have the hypocrisy of the ACTU—Mr Combet in particular and the member for Perth and others from the Labor Party—on the matter of penalty rates, because the member for Perth was saying, ‘Isn’t this a disaster that there is some trading of penalty rates going on in relation to this particular matter.’ Trading of penalty rates is hardly new. Indeed, let me read you a quote:
Who do you think might have said that? Who was it that negotiated these changes in penalty rates? None other than the Secretary of the ACTU, Mr Greg Combet himself. So Mr Combet is on record as saying he has been personally involved in the negotiation in relation to penalty rates, and yet the member for Perth comes in here yesterday and says, ‘Isn’t this a disaster that there was a negotiation of penalty rates.’ What is most bizarre about this particular case and this allegation is that the Australian Labor Party, once the party of workers in Australia, is actually standing in the way of employees at this particular business achieving a 12 to 13 per cent increase in their wages.
So we have got to the bizarre situation in the ACTU campaign that the ACTU and the Australian Labor Party, if they had their way, would actually deny workers a 12 to 13 per cent increase in their wages. Why is it that the Leader of the Opposition is so opposed to Australian workplace agreements? Why is it that he wants to rip them up when they can lead to desirable outcomes for workers, such as a 12 or 13 per cent increase in their wages? It can only be because of the vested interests of the union movement, who are ideologically opposed to Australian workplace agreements. I began this answer by recounting the fact that 159,000 jobs have been created in Australia in the last 138 days. There is no doubt about which parties represent the workers in this country.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
70
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
70
14:14:00
SPEAKER, The
10000
PO
N/A
1
0
The SPEAKER
—I inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon the Argentine foreign minister, His Excellency Mr Jorge Taiana. On behalf of the House, I extend to him a very warm welcome.
Honourable members—Hear, hear!
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
70
Questions Without Notice
Workplace Relations
70
70
14:14:00
Smith, Stephen, MP
5V5
Perth
ALP
0
Mr STEPHEN SMITH
—My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and follows on from his answer to the previous question. It relates to the Lufthansa subsidiary Global Tele Sales’ AWA and his reference to the performance bonus and the Victorian Workplace Rights Advocate. I refer the minister to his statement in which he said:
The Advocate reports that there has been a reduction in the base pay offered in the AWA of between 3% to 10%.
More critically he found a bonus system had been introduced that offers up to 16% per annum—enabling employees to earn up to a net 13% increase in wages.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Perth will come to his question.
5V5
Smith, Stephen, MP
Mr STEPHEN SMITH
—Minister, isn’t it the case that the Victorian Workplace Rights Advocate actually reported:
And he concluded:
In my view this does not provide employees with the certainty they should expect ... in circumstances where their base rates of pay are being reduced and penalty rates are being reduced and/or abolished.
Why won’t the minister just admit that these employees will be worse off under the government’s wages race to the bottom?
70
Andrews, Kevin, MP
HK5
Menzies
LP
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service
1
Mr ANDREWS
—I thank the member for Perth for his question. If the proposition advanced by the member for Perth were correct, the reality would be that workers would not be taking up these AWAs.
Opposition members interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The minister has the call.
83M
Plibersek, Tanya, MP
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Member for Sydney!
HK5
Andrews, Kevin, MP
Mr ANDREWS
—The workers at this particular business have a choice of taking this AWA or remaining on their collective agreement.
00AMR
King, Catherine, MP
Ms King interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Ballarat is warned!
HK5
Andrews, Kevin, MP
Mr ANDREWS
—So what we have here is another indication from the member for Perth and the Australian Labor Party that individual Australian workers should not have the opportunity to make a choice for an industrial instrument—
83M
Plibersek, Tanya, MP
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Sydney is warned!
HK5
Andrews, Kevin, MP
Mr ANDREWS
—that will make them better off. As I said earlier, this is the bizarre and twisted situation which the Labor Party has got itself into: it wants to rip up an industrial instrument that enables tens if not hundreds of thousands of Australian workers to actually be better off and to make a choice for that. But on top of that, if there was something so bad about these particular provisions, I am trying to remember when I heard a complaint from the member for Perth about, for example, the CFMEU and Dunlop Bedding Victoria enterprise bargaining agreement 2005—
5V5
Smith, Stephen, MP
Mr Stephen Smith interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Perth has asked his question.
HK5
Andrews, Kevin, MP
Mr ANDREWS
—which contains similar provisions to those in the Lufthansa agreement. Did I hear anything? Did anybody hear anything from the member for Perth about an agreement negotiated by the CFMEU which contains like conditions? No, nothing whatsoever. This again exposes the total hypocrisy of the Labor Party on this subject.
Solomon Islands
71
71
14:18:00
Entsch, Warren, MP
7K6
Leichhardt
LP
1
Mr ENTSCH
—My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister update the House on Australia’s contribution to securing stability in the Solomon Islands?
71
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr DOWNER
—I thank the honourable member for Leichhardt for his question and for his interest. I also add to your words, Mr Speaker, in welcoming the Argentine Minister for Foreign Affairs; I am delighted to have him in Canberra today.
The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, RAMSI, celebrated its third anniversary in July. I think it is fair to say that, with the strong participation of New Zealand and Pacific Island countries, it has done a great deal to help Solomon Islanders put their lives back together again after the ethnic conflict that essentially brought the country to a halt. There is no doubt that RAMSI enjoys very strong public support in the Solomon Islands; perhaps not all politicians support it or appreciate it but certainly the general public in the Solomon Islands are enormously supportive.
The Solomon Islands government now, after the upheaval of a few months ago, appears to be stable, and our expectation is that that will continue. The recent Foreign Investment Act has made the Solomon Islands a more attractive destination for investment, with palm oil and goldmining well on the way to restarting, but there still is a very long way to go. For example, we have some concerns about a commission of inquiry into the April Honiara riots, to be led by Mr Marcus Einfeld QC. We are particularly concerned that some of the terms of reference could interfere with the independence of the Solomon Islands judiciary and may impact on current court proceedings in relation to the riots. For example, a review of the arrests, charges and detention of two MPs, Messrs Dausabea and Ne’e, relates directly to the independent decision of a magistrate of the Solomon Islands judiciary.
I note that the Solomon Islands legal profession is also concerned about the terms of reference. The Attorney-General has challenged two of the terms of reference in the Solomon Islands High Court and one of the commissioners has resigned because of these concerns. I mention this simply to underline the fact that there is still a long way to go in the Solomon Islands. We should not just be complacent that RAMSI is there; the Australian Defence Force and the Australian Federal Police have done a wonderful job. The media have withdrawn from the Solomon Islands so we do not hear about it anymore, but we remain extremely focused on it and there are still some concerns about activities taking place in that country.
Workplace Relations
72
72
14:22:00
Smith, Stephen, MP
5V5
Perth
ALP
0
Mr STEPHEN SMITH
—My question is again to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and follows on from his previous answer about the Lufthansa subsidiary Global’s AWA and his reference to choice. Isn’t it the case that the internal Global documents associated with the AWA and presented to Global employees make it crystal clear that the AWA is not subject to negotiation, that, if the AWA is not accepted, access to staff benefits will be lost—a matter which the Victorian Workplace Advocate identified as possible duress—and that Global has fewer than 100 employees and is exempt from any unfair dismissal remedy? Isn’t it the case that, far from choice, this was a take it or leave it AWA—take the AWA or lose benefits, or lose your job because you have no unfair dismissal remedy?
72
Andrews, Kevin, MP
HK5
Menzies
LP
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service
1
Mr ANDREWS
—The short answer to the honourable member’s question is no. What the honourable member for Perth is arguing is that there should be no choice between an AWA or a collective agreement. What this company has offered is a choice between an AWA or a collective agreement. Those workers who choose not to take the AWA remain on the collective agreement, and that was pointed out in advice from the company to the Victorian Workplace Advocate. The member for Perth knows that very well. Why is it—
5V5
Smith, Stephen, MP
Mr Stephen Smith interjecting—
HK5
Andrews, Kevin, MP
Mr ANDREWS
—Do not get too excited, Stephen. The reality is that the Labor Party do not like Australian workplace agreements because they give workers choice and they give them the opportunity to earn more money. Why is it that the once great party of the Australian worker is abandoning the worker today?
Afghanistan
72
72
14:24:00
Johnson, Michael, MP
00AMX
Ryan
LP
1
Mr JOHNSON
—My question is to the Minister for Defence. Would the minister explain to the parliament how the deployment of troops to Afghanistan will enhance the security of Australia?
72
Nelson, Dr Brendan, MP
RW5
Bradfield
LP
Minister for Defence
1
Dr NELSON
—I thank the member for Ryan for his question. He has a very strong commitment to the global war against terror. The Prime Minister yesterday, on behalf of the government, formally announced that Australia will send another 150 Australian troops to Afghanistan, bringing to 400 those who will be working with the Dutch, NATO and other forces in Afghanistan to assist the democratically elected Afghanistan government in dealing with significant political, economic, social and military challenges.
It is important that, as Australians, we appreciate that our contribution to this is not just about supporting the Afghanistan government but also about upholding our responsibilities to be a part of the solution in relation to global terror. Australians, and too many Australian families, have been touched, if not scarred, in this decade by two Bali bombings and by the bombing of our embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. And we have seen other evidence of terrorist activity in our region.
There are a number of links between those who planned and committed these heinous crimes and Afghanistan. Samudra, who was sentenced to death for plotting the Bali bombing, testified during his trial that he had fought in Afghanistan in the 1990s, alongside Osama bin Laden. He also testified that it was his duty as a true Muslim to wage jihad against the West. The International Crisis Group in our region is headed by Sidney Jones—the respected and pre-eminent expert in Indonesian terrorism. A 2003 document to the International Crisis Group on Jemaah Islamiah in South-East Asia documented the relationship between those who trained in Afghanistan and terrorist activity in our region. Zulkarnaen, for example, who trained in Afghanistan in 1985, was a senior military commander of JI. Muklas, who was sentenced to death for the Bali bombing, trained there in 1986. Hambali, who is JI’s chief strategist and primary link between JI and al-Qaeda, also trained there in 1987.
Dr Zachary Abuza, who is head of the Department of the Political Science and International Relations at Simmons College, in a paper that was published in 2002 looking at Hambali and the relationship between those who trained in Afghanistan and global terrorism, said:
One cannot underestimate how important the Afghan connection is.
It is, he says, the basis for the al-Qaeda network throughout the world. It is extremely important for us as Australians to appreciate, particularly when five per cent of the Australian population is overseas at any one time, that the defence and security of our country, our people, our interests and our values is not just about our borders, nor indeed our region. It is about ensuring that we make a contribution, along with others, to demonstrate what the Australian newspaper describes as ‘moral musculature’ in taking up the struggle against global terrorism. There is no greater source of it than Afghanistan. We have responsibilities in this area. We are very proud of the Australian Defence Force, what it is doing and what it is about to do on our behalf and on behalf of the next generation.
Interest Rates
73
73
14:28:00
Swan, Wayne, MP
2V5
Lilley
ALP
0
Mr SWAN
—My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday that the monthly mortgage payment on the average mortgage of $220,000 is $1,430. Prime Minister, is it the case that, if the average borrower in Australia today were paying a top interest rate of 21.39 per cent that prevailed under Treasurer John Howard, they would face monthly mortgage payments of $3,922—more than twice what they are paying today?
73
Howard, John, MP
ZD4
Bennelong
LP
Prime Minister
1
Mr HOWARD
—I think what the member for Lilley is saying, and I agree with him, is that, if you were paying higher interest rates now, you would be a lot worse off—that is true. The reality is that you are not paying higher interest rates now. That is why the community is so much better off.
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr Swan interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Lilley has asked his question.
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr Swan interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Lilley is warned!
Infrastructure Investment
73
73
14:29:00
Hull, Kay, MP
83O
Riverina
NATS
1
Mrs HULL
—My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade. Would the Deputy Prime Minister outline to the House how the government’s investment in infrastructure is helping our regional exporters, particularly in my electorate of Riverina? How does the Deputy Prime Minister respond to recent calls for that investment to be scrapped?
74
Vaile, Mark, MP
SU5
Lyne
NATS
Minister for Trade
1
Mr VAILE
—I thank the honourable member for Riverina for her question. Of course the member for Riverina knows only too well that it is just as important that we continue to invest in critical infrastructure across regional Australia to support our exporters as it is to open up new opportunities in export markets for them, whether it be the wheat growers in her electorate of Riverina or the manufacturing exporters like Celair-Malmet or Precision Parts that are doing very well. They are in regional Australia, and we support them. We support their efforts of competing across the world and providing jobs in those regions in the export industries.
This year we have committed a significant amount of money to invest in infrastructure across Australia, particularly in regional Australia, through our AusLink program, in adding to the already successful AusLink program and in building it to a $15 billion investment in roads across Australia. But we have also announced a significant investment in communications infrastructure to underpin the need for modern communications across regional Australia as well as in the metropolitan areas. I instance the $3.1 billion Connect Australia package that we announced. It had two components: the $1.1 billion investment for services such as Broadband Connect to help fill in those gaps, particularly across regional Australia; and the $2 billion perpetual Communications Fund, which is going to provide the safety net for regional Australia for years to come.
PE4
Beazley, Kim, MP
Mr Beazley interjecting—
SU5
Vaile, Mark, MP
Mr VAILE
—I will come to that in a minute. So, where the market fails to provide new technology, there is going to be a guaranteed source of revenue to provide that technology in regional Australia for industries like those in the member for Riverina’s electorate.
It is well known that the Leader of the Opposition has referred to these two lots of investment in infrastructure in regional Australia. Firstly, he referred to the Roads to Recovery program as a boondoggle. In this year’s budget we have added another $307 million to local authorities through the Roads to Recovery program, and I bet that the local authorities in the member for Brand’s electorate take the money and want to keep it. They would not want it taken back and they would not believe it is a boondoggle. The Leader of the Opposition described the Connect Australia package as a National Party slush fund. I wonder if the member for Capricornia thinks it is a National Party slush fund when it helps her constituents get better communication services. People in country Australia do not believe, as the Leader of the Opposition does, that it is unnecessary and trivial. They do no believe that the Roads to Recovery program is a boondoggle. They believe that the Leader of the Opposition is unnecessary and trivial.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
74
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
74
14:33:00
SPEAKER, The
10000
PO
N/A
1
0
The SPEAKER
—I inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon members of the National Parliamentary Committee on Social Development from the Parliament of South Africa. On behalf of the House I extend a very warm welcome to the members.
Honourable members—Hear, hear!
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
74
Questions Without Notice
Interest Rates
74
74
14:33:00
Swan, Wayne, MP
2V5
Lilley
ALP
0
Mr SWAN
—My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday that the monthly mortgage payment on the average mortgage of $220,000 is $1,430. Is the Prime Minister aware that the monthly mortgage payment on an equivalent sized mortgage would currently be $1,169 in the United States and $1,234 in the United Kingdom? When will the Prime Minister admit that Australians are paying some of the highest interest rates among developed countries?
75
Howard, John, MP
ZD4
Bennelong
LP
Prime Minister
1
Mr HOWARD
—I welcome this resort by the member for Lilley to American and British analogies. I am reminded, in the context of industrial relations, of that immortal injunction of Tony Blair’s that fairness in the workplace starts with the chance of a job. I am fascinated that the member for Lilley wants this government to embrace the economic policies of the current United States administration. I wonder if the member for Lilley would like us to embrace, as one of his predecessors did—
R36
Albanese, Anthony, MP
Mr Albanese
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Apart from the fact that the member for Lilley does not want to embrace—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Grayndler will come to his point of order.
R36
Albanese, Anthony, MP
Mr Albanese
—The point of order is on relevance. It is a question about interest rates. The Prime Minister does not want to talk about that.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Grayndler will resume his seat. The Prime Minister is answering the substance of the question.
ZD4
Howard, John, MP
Mr HOWARD
—I wonder if they would like us to have a look at the capital gains tax on the family home that exists, subject to certain thresholds, in both Britain and the United States. When he asked me that question, I was reminded of that great Labor campaign in 1980, when Peter Walsh raised the possibility of having a capital gains tax on the family home. If the opposition wants—
2V5
Swan, Wayne, MP
Mr Swan interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The member for Lilley will remove himself under standing order 94(a).
The member for Lilley then left the chamber.
R36
Albanese, Anthony, MP
Mr Albanese
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. It is a question about interest rates.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I have just ruled on that point of order.
R36
Albanese, Anthony, MP
Mr Albanese
—He hasn’t mentioned interest rates.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Grayndler will resume his seat and will not debate it. I will rule on his point of order. The Prime Minister is answering the substance of the question.
ZD4
Howard, John, MP
Mr HOWARD
—If the Labor Party wants to start advocating American housing policies, including a capital gains tax on the family home, this government will be very happy to oblige the member for Lilley and, indeed, the Leader of the Opposition. Of course interest rates in the United States have been lower than they have been in Australia; that is obvious. The reason is that the United States economy was flattened a few years ago by adverse economic developments. The reason the Australian economy was not flattened is that this government managed the Australian economy better than the American administration did the American economy.
Bowel Cancer
75
75
14:37:00
Washer, Dr Mal, MP
84F
Moore
LP
1
Dr WASHER
—My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister advise the House what the government is doing to fight cancer in Australia? In particular, what recent steps have been taken to improve detection and treatment of bowel cancer?
76
Abbott, Tony, MP
EZ5
Warringah
LP
Minister for Health and Ageing
1
Mr ABBOTT
—I thank the member for Moore for his question. I thank him for the passion and commitment that he brings to all of these health issues based on his long experience as a medical practitioner in the suburbs of Perth. I regret to say that cancer will afflict one in three Australian males and one in four Australian females before the age of 75, but the good news is that Australian cancer survival rates are the second highest in the world and that our cancer survival rates have increased by 14 per cent over the last 20 years.
Bowel cancer, I regret to say, currently kills about 5,000 Australians a year, but the good news is that it is relatively easy to treat and cure if it is detected early. Over the next two years, everyone turning 55 and 65—more than one million people—will be offered bowel cancer screening as the first stage of the government’s national bowel cancer screening program. The first test kits went out in the mail this week in Queensland. Test kits will be going out in New South Wales from next week and test kits will be going out in Victoria from next month. I say to the Australian people: if you do have the chance to be screened, take it because it could save your life. It is estimated that, of the 25,000 people who participated in the trial program, some 20 lives were saved. Finally, I would like to thank the states and territories for their cooperation in establishing this important new national program.
Skills Shortage
76
76
14:39:00
Macklin, Jenny, MP
PG6
Jagajaga
ALP
0
Ms MACKLIN
—My question is to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister agree with the BIS Shrapnel senior economist who recently said in relation to constraints on the growth of the Australian economy that ‘the real, enduring problem is going to be the shortage of skilled labour’? In light of the analysis that the skills shortage is the major constraint on the Australian economy, why did the Commonwealth reduce expenditure on education and training as a proportion of this year’s budget?
76
Howard, John, MP
ZD4
Bennelong
LP
Prime Minister
1
Mr HOWARD
—I have not seen the full contribution from BIS Shrapnel, but I certainly agree that one of the problems this country faces at present is a shortage of skilled tradesmen. I agree with that. The government recognised that at the time of the last election.
PG6
Macklin, Jenny, MP
Ms Macklin
—It takes four years—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The deputy leader has asked her question.
ZD4
Howard, John, MP
Mr HOWARD
—The most significant policy in the last election, dealing with the issue of skills, was the commitment by the government to establish Australian technical colleges. I am very pleased to inform the House that 20 of the 25 technical colleges will be up and running by the beginning of next year.
84G
Wilkie, Kim, MP
Mr Wilkie
—Why weren’t they getting trained this year?
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Swan is warned!
ZD4
Howard, John, MP
Mr HOWARD
—I remind the parliament and I remind the member for Jagajaga in particular of an interview on 8 August 2006—it is very contemporary. It was an interview with Michael Costa, who is a senior minister in the New South Wales government. The intro from the ABC presenter said:
After 11 years of Labor government, the Treasurer is happy to admit to other failures.
Michael Costa: We failed to keep our apprentice numbers up—partly that was due to, you know, the focus on the balance sheet, the need to look at cost-cutting strategies—and unfortunately, it seems that apprenticeships was an easy one.
In other words, what that does is implicate the states. The member for Jagajaga talks to me about the investment of this government in skills. Let me remind the member for Jagajaga that we now have 389,000 apprentices and trainees in training. That represents a 151 per cent increase since March 1996. We are providing 167,000 additional places between 2005 and 2008. By contrast, when the now Leader of the Opposition was the Minister for Employment, Education and Training in 1993 there were only 123,000 apprentices in training.
R36
Albanese, Anthony, MP
Mr Albanese interjecting—
PG6
Macklin, Jenny, MP
Ms Macklin interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Grayndler is warned and so is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition!
ZD4
Howard, John, MP
Mr HOWARD
—I remind those opposite that, since 1995-96, the Australian government VTE funding has increased by 85 per cent in real terms. Unmet demand for VTE—vocational training and education—places has halved. In other words, the allegation that this government has cut funding for skills training is absolutely incorrect.
National Security
77
77
14:43:00
Smith, Anthony, MP
00APG
Casey
LP
1
Mr ANTHONY SMITH
—My question is addressed to the Attorney-General. Would the Attorney-General advise the House of steps the government has taken to stop Australians from joining terrorist organisations overseas?
77
Ruddock, Philip, MP
0J4
Berowra
LP
Attorney-General
1
Mr RUDDOCK
—I thank the honourable member for Casey for his question because he raises a very important question and Australians ought to be informed. It is important in the context of the conflict in the Middle East, in particular. Many in our community have strong ties to Lebanon and Israel. We understand that people are legitimately concerned about family and friends, but I would urge caution if people plan to join in the conflict or send funds to assist.
While it is unlikely to be an offence if people join or are conscripted into the defence forces of recognised governments, the same cannot be said for engagement or involvement in Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a multifaceted organisation. It has political, social and military components. There is one element, Hezbollah’s External Security Organisation, that has been listed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian government since 2003. The External Security Organisation is a distinct terrorist wing of Hezbollah and has been responsible for attacks dating back to the 1980s. It is assessed as continuing to prepare, plan and foster acts involving threats to human life and serious damage to property. The military wing of Hezbollah, referred to as Islamic Resistance, is not proscribed, nor are the political or social components.
So Australians who engage with or provide support to the External Security Organisation might be committing a terrorist offence under the Criminal Code and, equally, under the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act. But under the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act it is an offence to enter a foreign state with the intent to engage in hostilities or to engage in hostile activities in a foreign state. The foreign incursion offence does not apply if a person is with the armed forces of a government, and that would mean it would not apply in relation to Israeli or Lebanese defence forces. However, Australians who engage in hostile activities with the Hezbollah military wing or the External Security Organisation could well be committing an offence.
The whole of Hezbollah is listed for the purposes of our asset-freezing legislation, and it is an offence under the Charter of the United Nations Act to deal with its assets or to make assets available to it. I think this is a very important matter, which Australians who are thinking of dealing with Hezbollah in any way, shape or form should have regard to, because, as I have outlined, there is the potential for serious criminal acts to be committed.
Mr Gregory Andrews
78
78
14:47:00
Thomson, Kelvin, MP
UK6
Wills
ALP
0
Mr KELVIN THOMSON
—My question is to the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Can the minister confirm that, prior to his Lateline interview, Mr Andrews was subject to intensive coaching by departmental lawyers and the minister’s own office on the form and content of his Lateline presentation?
78
Brough, Mal, MP
2K6
Longman
LP
Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
1
Mr BROUGH
—No, I cannot.
Waterfront: Productivity
78
78
14:47:00
Neville, Paul, MP
KV5
Hinkler
NATS
1
Mr NEVILLE
—My question is addressed to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Would the minister update—
Honourable members interjecting—
KV5
Neville, Paul, MP
Mr NEVILLE
—Please! Would the minister update the House on the productivity gains achieved on the Australian waterfront as a result of this government’s actions?
78
Truss, Warren, MP
GT4
Wide Bay
NATS
Minister for Transport and Regional Services
1
Mr TRUSS
—I thank the honourable member for Hinkler for his question. He represents two important Australian ports—Gladstone, which is one of the big-volume ports in Australia, and Bundaberg, which receives a large number of international recreational vessels as the first port of call—so he has a particular interest in the performance of our ports and in ensuring that our trade flows freely through those ports.
WF6
Danby, Michael, MP
Mr Danby
—Tell us the cost of containers!
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Melbourne Ports!
GT4
Truss, Warren, MP
Mr TRUSS
—The reality is, of course, that it is very important for Australia to have a smoothly working port system. The BTRE, the Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics, is about to release a report in which it forecasts that the volume of non-container trade to pass through our ports in Australia will grow from 0.6 billion tonnes this year to 1.4 billion tonnes in 20 years time. A big proportion of that will be going through ports like Gladstone. In addition, it is forecast that there will be an even bigger increase, a 5.4 per cent per annum increase, over the next 20 years in the movement of containers, from 5.2 million 20-foot equivalent unit containers this year to 14.9 million TEUs in 2024—virtually a threefold increase.
When you think back to 1996, the rate of moving these containers across the port was stuck on 14, 15 or 16 containers an hour. In fact, when the Labor Party were last in office they told us that it was physically impossible to move them at a faster rate than 17 containers an hour—that was the absolute maximum rate that could be reached. Of course, we are now well over 27 containers an hour and doing very much better.
WF6
Danby, Michael, MP
Mr Danby interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Melbourne Ports is warned!
GT4
Truss, Warren, MP
Mr TRUSS
—Imagine what a crisis we would have in this country if we were trying to move 15 million TEUs a year with crane movement rates. How could we possibly get the freight across the ports if we were still operating our container terminals at the rate that Labor said was the maximum that could be achieved? The reality is that this government has made substantial reforms to facilitate trade, to get our ports working better. The bad news, of course, is that the Leader of the Opposition wants to roll back industrial relations reform. He wants to go back to 1996 and presumably 1996 container-handling rates, and that will bring our country to a standstill. Our trade will stop. Those are the kinds of policies that Labor is trying to put before the Australian people.
Whistleblowers
79
79
14:51:00
Snowdon, Warren, MP
IJ4
Lingiari
ALP
0
Mr SNOWDON
—My question is to the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. I refer the minister to his claim yesterday that the protection of whistleblowers is paramount. Can he confirm that an Indigenous whistleblower in his department, Tjanara Goreng Goreng, has been suspended and had her home raided by the Australian Federal Police? Can the minister confirm that one of the grounds for suspension included the officer’s alleged connection with the Mutitjulu community? Why has Ms Goreng Goreng not enjoyed the same protection as Mr Andrews, a man with a demonstrated connection to Mutitjulu?
79
Brough, Mal, MP
2K6
Longman
LP
Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
1
Mr BROUGH
—I thank the honourable member for his question. As he pointed out, this is a matter of investigation by the Federal Police. I do not discuss such matters in this forum or anywhere else.
Business Innovation and Competitiveness
79
79
14:52:00
Prosser, Geoff, MP
RI4
Forrest
LP
1
Mr PROSSER
—My question is addressed to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources. Would the minister outline to the House the government’s efforts to support business innovation and competitiveness in Australian industry.
79
Macfarlane, Ian, MP
WN6
Groom
LP
Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources
1
Mr IAN MACFARLANE
—I thank the member for Forrest for his question and lament his recent announcement that he will not be joining us again in this place after the next election. He has made a fine contribution on behalf of Western Australia, particularly in the resources area.
The cornerstone of the Howard government’s support of business innovation is very much the R&D tax concession program, a market driven program that responds directly to the needs of industry. We now have almost 6,000 Australian businesses, 90 per cent of them SMEs, registered for the concession. That is an increase of some 52 per cent in the last five years. That is no accident, and it is also no accident that business expenditure now is at record levels, reaching $7.2 billion in 2004 according to the latest ABS study.
Innovation is a critical part of our competitiveness for Australian industry. As I go around Australia as part of my preparation for the industry statement I will be discussing the issue of how we can further assist industry with innovation. Our international competitors are not standing still in this area, and neither can we. If we want to talk about people standing still, there is the opportunity to consider what is happening on the other side of this chamber in terms of policies or attempted policies that have recently been raised by the Leader of the Opposition. In raising for the Labor Party what he called the Innovation Blueprint, the Leader of the Opposition said that he was very attracted to the scrapping of the R&D concession in favour of loans and grant schemes.
Judging by the reaction from industry, people there are not quite so sure that the Leader of the Opposition has any idea about innovation. In fact, some of the responses that we received, particularly from industry bodies, are worth recalling. The AiG’s Heather Ridout said that the proposal would mean that ‘a board—or the government for that matter—decides what programs get up, but that under a tax concession it is a market driven scheme, which is far more accessible’. The Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies said that scrapping of the tax concession would do ‘more damage than good’. And R&D tax experts from firms like KPMG and PwC describe the proposal as ‘retrograde’, ‘unfortunate’, sending the ‘wrong message’, creating a ‘grant mentality amongst companies’, ‘picking winners’ and being ‘costly and time consuming’.
What we have here is obvious opposition from industry but obvious lack of understanding of innovation and innovation policy by the Leader of the Opposition. It is no coincidence then that he has gone completely silent on this area as his reheated ‘noodle nation’ becomes limp and soggy. It was a poor attempt at policy which exposed the Leader of the Opposition for not only being a weak leader but also having no idea on innovation, no idea on industry and no idea to help either.
Water
80
80
14:56:00
Windsor, Antony, MP
009LP
New England
IND
0
Mr WINDSOR
—My question is to the Prime Minister and relates to the role of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister in signing off on water entitlement allocations to the six New South Wales valleys involved in the Achieving Sustainable Groundwater Entitlements program as recommended by the Groundwater Adjustment Advisory Committee some two months ago. I do not want to overdramatise the urgency of this decision, but the Prime Minister and the parliamentary secretary should be aware that irrigators are making critical planning decisions relating to their cropping activities on the basis of unknown water entitlements and need an urgent decision at government level. Could the Prime Minister or the parliamentary secretary update the House on progress relating to this issue.
80
Howard, John, MP
ZD4
Bennelong
LP
Prime Minister
1
Mr HOWARD
—I will do my best. I will consult the parliamentary secretary at the end of question time. I am aware of the importance and urgency of this issue. I am also aware that there are still a number of taxation aspects that need to be resolved. They are in hand. I had a meeting with some people concerned in relation to this issue. Of course, the actual determination of the entitlements has something to do with the roles and responsibilities of the New South Wales government, as I think the honourable member for New England would be aware.
009LP
Windsor, Antony, MP
Mr Windsor interjecting—
ZD4
Howard, John, MP
Mr HOWARD
—I cannot quite pick that up. I will talk to you later. Let me simply assure the honourable gentleman that if there is anything further that needs to be done by the Commonwealth government to expedite the resolution of this matter I am quite sure that the member for Wentworth will do it.
Investing in Our Schools Program
80
80
14:58:00
Ticehurst, Kenneth, MP
00ANF
Dobell
LP
1
Mr TICEHURST
—My question is addressed to the Minister for Education, Science and Training. Would the minister inform the House how schools are benefiting from the government’s Investing in Our Schools program. Has the minister received any feedback on the effectiveness of the program?
80
Bishop, Julie, MP
83P
Curtin
LP
Minister for Education, Science and Training and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women’s Issues
1
Ms JULIE BISHOP
—I thank the member for Dobell for his question and acknowledge his keen interest in education in his electorate. The Australian government’s $1 billion Investing in Our Schools program is designed to provide funding for smaller scale projects for necessary infrastructure for schools. This program has become necessary because of the chronic neglect by state Labor governments of state government schools.
There are state government schools that have been waiting years for some of the most basic amenities to be funded. To put it in context, there are about 6,900 state government schools across Australia. Just in the first two rounds—rounds 1 and 2—of the Investing in Our Schools program there have been over 8,000 applications for funding from the federal government for state government schools. In round 3 there are now 10,000 applications from state government schools to the federal government. That is almost three applications per government school—per state government school—to the Australian government.
The sorts of projects for which they are seeking funding are things like fixing up vermin infested sports sheds, fixing up threadbare carpets and fixing up canteens that have failed to meet state government health department standards, yet state governments are doing nothing to invest in their schools. You would have thought that perhaps the state Labor governments would be shamed into doing something about it but, according to the Sunday Telegraph of 9 July, the New South Wales state government will spend more money on buying new cars for public servants than on upgrading schools this financial year. You would think that members opposite would be slamming the state Labor governments for failing to properly invest in state government schools.
DZP
Bird, Sharon, MP
Ms Bird interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Cunningham.
83P
Bishop, Julie, MP
Ms JULIE BISHOP
—But, no, the members opposite—
DZP
Bird, Sharon, MP
Ms Bird interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Cunningham is warned!
83P
Bishop, Julie, MP
Ms JULIE BISHOP
—are complaining to the coalition about funding for state government schools. The member for Charlton wrote to us about sports facilities in a government school in her electorate. She said:
The current facilities are inadequate, impractical and unsafe ...
This is in a state government school. So under round 1 of the Investing in Our Schools program the Howard government provided the $50,000. The member for Chifley wrote to us about a lack of air conditioning in a school in his electorate, a state government school. He said:
This is having an adverse effect on students’ health and their ability to concentrate.
He goes on:
The students inform me they suffer headaches, dehydration, nosebleeds as a result of the school’s lack of airconditioning.
This is in a state government school. Did he write to the state government? No, he wrote to the Howard government, and we funded it under round 2—$118,000.
83L
Gillard, Julia, MP
Ms Gillard interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The Manager of Opposition Business.
83L
Gillard, Julia, MP
Ms Gillard interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The Manager of Opposition Business is warned!
83P
Bishop, Julie, MP
Ms JULIE BISHOP
—The member for Chisholm has written to me recently about problems caused by flooding because of a leaking roof in a state government school in her electorate.
83S
Burke, Anna, MP
Ms Burke interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Chisholm.
83S
Burke, Anna, MP
Ms Burke interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Chisholm is warned!
83S
Burke, Anna, MP
Ms Burke interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Chisholm will remove herself from the House under standing order 94(a).
The member for Chisholm then left the chamber.
83P
Bishop, Julie, MP
Ms JULIE BISHOP
—But the member for Ballarat takes the cake. She is going around her electorate claiming credit for the shambles that the state—
PE4
Beazley, Kim, MP
Mr Beazley
—Mr Speaker, on a point of order: as standing orders require of me, I raise a matter of privilege straightaway. The particular program to which the minister is referring is one which every member of this House, including me and all my colleagues, was written to about by the government asking us to correspond with them—
Government members interjecting—
PE4
Beazley, Kim, MP
Mr Beazley
—We did not oppose this.
Government members interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The leader has the call.
PE4
Beazley, Kim, MP
Mr Beazley
—We were asked to correspond with them on issues and concerns amongst schools in our constituencies, particularly state schools in our constituencies, in order to raise those matters with them.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The leader will come to his point.
PE4
Beazley, Kim, MP
Mr Beazley
—It is a matter of privilege, Mr Speaker. The privilege issue is this: when a minister invites correspondence with herself—or, in this case, the government—from individual members of parliament, is privilege breached when that material is taken into this chamber and presented to it?
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I take note of the request of the Leader of the Opposition. I will take on board the comments, investigate them and report back to the House.
83P
Bishop, Julie, MP
Ms JULIE BISHOP
—But the member for Ballarat takes the cake. In her newsletter to her electorate, she lists a number—
00AMR
King, Catherine, MP
Ms King
—Mr Speaker, I wish to raise a matter of privilege with you.
Government members interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! Members on my right.
00AMR
King, Catherine, MP
Ms King
—The minister, in using both correspondence and a newsletter that I have in parliament in this way, is seeking to significantly impede my duty to do my job by communicating with my constituents.
Honourable members interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Ballarat has the right to be heard.
00AMR
King, Catherine, MP
Ms King
—She is significantly impeding my right as a member of this place to communicate with my constituents and to write support letters for government programs to which they are entitled to apply for funding and for which they would expect to be supported by their local member. She is significantly impeding my duty and my ability to do that, and I ask you to call her to order.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Ballarat, I believe, has raised a question of privilege. It is along similar lines to that raised by the Leader of the Opposition. I will investigate it and report back.
00AMR
King, Catherine, MP
Ms King
—Mr Speaker, I ask that if she continues to do that you refer this matter to the Privileges Committee.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I have responded to the member for Ballarat’s request.
83P
Bishop, Julie, MP
Ms JULIE BISHOP
—I table the very public letter to some 80,000 voters in the member for Ballarat’s electorate and, in tabling it, I point out that in this newsletter she claims credit for the $4.3 million in funding that has been directed to the Ballarat electorate for state government schools.
00AMR
King, Catherine, MP
Ms King interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Ballarat has already been warned.
83P
Bishop, Julie, MP
Ms JULIE BISHOP
—And nowhere in this newsletter is there any mention of the fact that this is Australian government funding under the Investing in Our Schools program for state government schools.
5K6
Ellis, Annette, MP
Ms Annette Ellis interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Canberra.
5K6
Ellis, Annette, MP
Ms Annette Ellis interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member for Canberra is warned!
83P
Bishop, Julie, MP
Ms JULIE BISHOP
—Members opposite ought to be ashamed of the fact that they do not publicly denounce state Labor governments across this country for failing to invest in their schools.
Honourable members interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order!
R36
Albanese, Anthony, MP
Mr Albanese interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order!
ZD4
Howard, John, MP
Mr Howard
—Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
R36
Albanese, Anthony, MP
Mr Albanese interjecting—
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The member for Grayndler will remove himself from the House under standing order 94(a).
The member for Grayndler then left the chamber.
LS4
Ferguson, Martin, MP
Mr Martin Ferguson
—Mr Speaker, on a point of order: the member for Grayndler has been removed for an interchange with the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. I would have thought your approach would have been even-handed. If one is to be excluded for that interchange, so should the other—the minister on the other side of the House. All we seek in this House is an even-handed application of the standing orders.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I will respond to the member for Batman because I believe he has raised a serious point. I remind him that the member for Grayndler was warned prior to his being asked to leave the chamber.
LS4
Ferguson, Martin, MP
Mr Martin Ferguson
—Mr Speaker, further to the point of order and your ruling: on that basis I seek your advice as to when you will be warning, in an even-handed fashion, the minister for Indigenous affairs.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I remind the member for Batman that I have not made a ruling and that 94(a) is not a ruling—it is a case of upholding the standing orders. I think I can say that at all times I endeavour to uphold the standing orders fairly.
LS4
Ferguson, Martin, MP
Mr Martin Ferguson
—Mr Speaker, on a further point of order: if that is the case, that you seek to apply the standing orders in an even-handed fashion, I seek your advice in a similar vein as to when you will appropriately, in accordance with the standing orders and in accordance with your duties and responsibilities to all members of this House, warn the minister for Indigenous affairs.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I think the member for Batman has made his point, and I have responded to him.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: ADDITIONAL ANSWERS
83
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: ADDITIONAL answers
Water
83
83
15:09:00
Mr HOWARD,MP
ZD4
Bennelong
LP
Prime Minister
1
0
Mr HOWARD
—Mr Speaker, I seek the indulgence of the chair to add to an answer.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—The Prime Minister may proceed.
ZD4
Howard, John, MP
Mr HOWARD
—I would like to add to an answer that I gave to the member for New England. I have been informed since I answered that question that in fact agreement has been reached between the parliamentary secretary and the New South Wales minister. The parliamentary secretary has written to me and, subject to my being satisfied with the arrangement, it will be okayed and will go ahead.
PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS
83
PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS
83
15:10:00
Beazley, Kim, MP
PE4
Brand
ALP
Leader of the Opposition
0
0
Mr BEAZLEY
—Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
PE4
Beazley, Kim, MP
Mr BEAZLEY
—Yes.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Please proceed.
PE4
Beazley, Kim, MP
Mr BEAZLEY
—I have been misrepresented twice today: firstly, by the Prime Minister at a press conference and, secondly, by the Treasurer in question time. The Prime Minister repeated today, and the Treasurer joined him, that since the Work Choices legislation has been put in place I have alleged that the legislation would produce immediate mass sackings. Indeed, on a search of the parliamentary database it appears that I have been verballed on that 21 times by the Prime Minister, four times by Piers Ackerman and once today by the Treasurer. A further search of that database reveals that I have never at any stage claimed that the Work Choices legislation would produce mass sackings. The claim that I have made is, firstly, that workers are easier to sack as a result of this legislation—that is manifestly true—and, secondly, that the actions of this act on the workplace rights of Australian workers would be like an infestation of termites. That is true too.
QUESTIONS TO THE SPEAKER
84
Questions to the Speaker
Mr Gregory Andrews
84
84
15:11:00
Thomson, Kelvin, MP
UK6
Wills
ALP
0
Mr KELVIN THOMSON
—I have a question to you, Mr Speaker. In answering my question yesterday about the disguised appearance of Mr Gregory Andrews on Lateline, the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs stated that he had been informed of Mr Andrews’s appearance on the afternoon before the interview was recorded on 2 June 2006. However, the Proof Hansard of yesterday’s proceedings records the minister as saying that he was informed on the afternoon prior to 21 June. The Lateline program featuring Mr Andrews was broadcast on Lateline on 21 June 2006. I have watched and listened to a tape of yesterday’s proceedings which confirmed that the minister advised the House that he was advised of Mr Andrews’s appearance on the afternoon before 2 June.
In this matter involving a senior Commonwealth officer making an anonymous appearance on television to back claims made by his minister, the record is of critical importance. I ask that you view the tape of yesterday’s proceedings and ensure the answer actually given by the minister is recorded in the Hansard. I further ask that you investigate the circumstances of the inaccurate proof, including any requested corrections by the minister’s office that contributed to its inaccuracy, and report back to the House.
84
SPEAKER, The
10000
PO
N/A
1
The SPEAKER
—I thank the member for Wills. I will undertake investigations with Hansard and report back as appropriate.
Migration Legislation
84
84
15:13:00
O’Connor, Gavan, MP
WU5
Corio
ALP
0
Mr GAVAN O’CONNOR
—You may be aware of my vehement opposition to the government’s migration policy, both on the floor of this House and in my electorate. Notwithstanding the events of yesterday and your ruling, and the implications of that, I did note today that the government gagged debate on this piece of legislation. I would have wanted the opportunity to voice my opposition, with my colleagues, to this obnoxious piece of legislation that came onto the floor of the parliament. Mr Speaker, I am asking you whether there is any opportunity under the standing orders—
CT4
Costello, Peter, MP
Mr Costello interjecting—
WU5
O’Connor, Gavan, MP
Mr GAVAN O’CONNOR
—Well, you would know about juvenile interjections.
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! The member will come to his question.
WU5
O’Connor, Gavan, MP
Mr GAVAN O’CONNOR
—Mr Speaker, I am wondering whether there is any opportunity under the standing orders for me to register my opposition to the legislation notwithstanding your ruling, the implications of that and the fact that the government has gagged debate.
84
SPEAKER, The
10000
PO
N/A
1
The SPEAKER
—In response to the member for Corio, I do not believe there are any ways in the House in which he might do that, other than what he has just done.
Questions in Writing
85
85
15:14:00
Georganas, Steve, MP
DZY
Hindmarsh
ALP
0
Mr GEORGANAS
—Mr Speaker, I seek your assistance under standing order 105(b). Questions have been on the Notice Paper in my name for more than 60 days and I would be grateful if you could write to the ministers and seek reasons for the delay in replying to questions in writing Nos 3075, 3247, 3488 and 3578.
85
SPEAKER, The
10000
PO
N/A
1
The SPEAKER
—I thank the member for Hindmarsh for his question and I will follow up his request.
Parliament House Staff
85
85
15:15:00
Lawrence, Dr Carmen, MP
XS4
Fremantle
ALP
0
Dr LAWRENCE
—I have a question to you, Mr Speaker. On Tuesday morning, I am not sure what time but certainly around 9 or 10, two very fine women arrived here at the parliament after having spent some time walking across the Nullarbor to draw attention to the need to eliminate racism in our community—a very low-key affair, done without much fanfare, but of interest to the media. When they came into the parliament—with the approval of another member, not me—I must say they were treated with a lack of respect by the building staff and asked to remove the aprons that they had worn during that walk. The information on the aprons was very simple. ‘Steps toward healing’ is what it said on the front or the back, with a map of Australia, half black and half white, and hands reaching up to each other in relief, in reverse colour. They were required to remove that clothing before coming into the parliament and, although they did not complain greatly to me, it was clear that they were treated in ways that can only be described as officious and unpleasant. I wonder if you would investigate that matter, please.
85
SPEAKER, The
10000
PO
N/A
1
The SPEAKER
—I thank the member for Fremantle. As the member for Fremantle would be aware, the staff at the doors do operate under guidelines concerning statements, but I will certainly make further investigations on her behalf.
DOCUMENTS
85
DOCUMENTS
Mr BROUGH
(Longman
—Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs)
15:16:00
—Documents are tabled as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings and I move:
That the House take note of the following documents:
Higher Education Funding Act—Report detailing determinations made under the Act in respect of 2004.
Sydney Airport Demand Management Act—Quarterly report on movement cap for Sydney airport—1 January to 31 March 2006.
Debate (on motion by Ms Gillard) adjourned.
MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
85
MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Economy
85
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—I have received a letter from the honourable Deputy Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The failure of the Government to heed warnings from the Reserve Bank of Australia that skills shortages have created inflationary pressures in the Australian economy, exposing Australian families to the burden of higher interests rates.
I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.
More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
86
15:17:00
Macklin, Jenny, MP
PG6
Jagajaga
ALP
0
0
Ms MACKLIN
—The chickens have really come home to roost this week for the Howard government. What we have seen this week is not only an interest rate rise but another interest rate rise to hurt all the mortgage holders of this country. All the families around Australia who are finding it tough to pay their mortgages have only two people to blame: the Prime Minister of this country and his Treasurer. But this really was a watershed question time today. For the first time in 10 years, this Prime Minister refused to answer a question from the shadow Treasurer about interest rates, because he knows that Australian families are now paying more and more for their mortgages—and they are paying more because of the extremely poor economic management by this government.
We have cackling up the back from a member of the government because he obviously, like the member for Wentworth, just thinks that the reaction to this interest rate rise has been overdramatised. I hope all the families in your electorate, all the electors of Moncrieff, know that their member thinks that this interest rate rise is a big joke. Just like the member for Wentworth, the member for Moncrieff thinks this is a big joke. I hope he goes home and tells—
00AN0
Ciobo, Steven, MP
Mr Ciobo
—Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Jagajaga professes to speak on my behalf, and she is completely incorrect.
10000
Causley, Ian (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Hon. IR Causley)—The member has no point of order.
PG6
Macklin, Jenny, MP
Ms MACKLIN
—It is plain that the member for Moncrieff has not been able to tell the families in his electorate what this government has been up to for the last seven years. For seven years, this government has ignored the warnings of the Reserve Bank that go back to 1999. That was the first time that the Reserve Bank, in a statement on monetary policy, started warning this government about the serious skills shortages that existed in our economy. They reported in a survey done by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations at that time, way back in 1999, that we had skills shortages at historically high levels.
Again, in the year 2000, there was a statement by the Governor of the Reserve Bank, saying that skills shortages had emerged. Six years ago, the Governor of the Reserve Bank was telling this government how serious skills shortages were becoming and the pressure for higher wage rises appeared to be building. That was back in the year 2000. That is how long these inflationary pressures have been building in the Australian economy because of the actions of this government when it comes to skills shortages. And so it went on to 2004 and a statement on monetary policy: ‘business surveys suggest that a broad range of firms are finding it increasingly difficult to find skilled labour ... substantial increases in wages for skilled employees in construction and resources sectors and in some business service areas.’ And so it went on into 2005, when there was yet again a statement on monetary policy from the Reserve Bank. Year after year, this government has continued to ignore each of these warnings from the Reserve Bank about the higher labour costs being imposed on the economy—all due, to quote the Reserve Bank, to skills shortages that have arisen because of this government’s inaction on the training front.
In 2005 there was a speech yet again from the Reserve Bank, with the wording getting more and more serious. In 2005 they were talking about the severity of the current skills shortage. They went on to say, ‘The difficulty of finding suitable skilled labour now is as high as it has been in the last two decades.’ That was in March 2005. So it went on until the most recent statement on monetary policy, where we have the Reserve Bank again talking about tight labour market conditions, shortages of skilled labour and recognising that that is particularly the case in the construction and resources industry. It is not only the Reserve Bank that has been telling the Howard government that this is a major constraint on the Australian economy. The government have ignored the warning of the economic forecaster BIS Shrapnel that this skills crisis will impact on the capacity of the Australian economy to grow. They have said that the Australian economy will struggle to maintain growth of three per cent because of the skills crisis. They said:
While the difference between 3 and 4 per cent growth may sound minor, accumulated over a whole decade it amounts to a 10 per cent difference in the size of the economy—
and this is the important point—
… This is roughly the size of the output of Australia’s agriculture, mining and electricity sectors combined.
That is all because this government, this Prime Minister and this Treasurer have not been capable of ensuring that we have sufficient skilled tradespeople in the economy, sufficient skilled professionals so that business has the skilled people to do the job that they need to do.
How did all this come to pass? How is it that we have such a serious shortage of skilled labour in Australia? As a result of the government’s action, this country is the only developed country in the world to have seen, in the last 10 years, a cut in public investment in tertiary education—that is, to universities and technical education. There has been an eight per cent drop in public investment in tertiary education in Australia, while the average investment for the industrialised world is a 38 per cent increase. The government have cut investment in education and training, so is it any wonder that we now have a serious shortage of skilled labour—plumbers, carpenters, electricians and engineers? So the list goes on. It is because of the shortage of that skilled labour that we now have the Reserve Bank saying they have had to put up interest rates. The Australian family, who has a mortgage, is now paying for the extraordinary incompetence of the government as a result of the decisions taken, when they were first elected, to cut spending on higher education and training.
If we look at what they did when they were first elected, we see that they froze the spending on vocational education and training, after there had been a significant cut when they were first elected. They massively cut funding to universities at the same time. We know that those cuts and the freezing of expenditure—when David Kemp was the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs—have resulted in the serious shortages of skilled tradespeople that this economy is now experiencing. It takes four years to train an electrician, a plumber or a carpenter. Between 2000 and 2003 there was a decline in the number of apprentices in traditional trades. That is why now, three years later, we have the Reserve Bank saying, ‘It’s these skills shortages that are driving up interest rates.’
The minister, who represents the electorate of Moreton, and the member for Moncrieff should go and tell all the mortgage holders in their electorates: ‘The reason you are paying higher interest rates on your mortgages is that we cut the funding to vocational education and training. We cut the funding to universities when we were first elected.’ It is the case that the mortgage holders of Australia are now paying through their mortgages for the extraordinarily short-sighted decisions that this government made nearly 10 years ago.
In the most recent budget we had an extraordinary decision by the Howard government in the face of seven years of warnings from the Reserve Bank. We saw a decline in the proportion of funding in the budget going to vocational education and training, when we have an absolute crisis when it comes to the shortage of electricians, plumbers, carpenters—and so the list goes on.
The Australian Industry Group, commenting on the 2006 budget, said that this was extremely disappointing. They are the people who represent all those businesses who now cannot get the skilled tradespeople they need to meet the jobs that have to be done in the economy. What has the response been from the Howard government to this massive shortage of skilled labour? Their one response has been to bring more people in from overseas. Rather than train Australians, rather than give young Australians the opportunity to learn a trade and ensure young Australians can get a skill and a trade, this government has turned 300,000 Australians away from TAFE and, at the same time, brought in 270,000 extra migrants from overseas to fill the skills shortages.
BV5
Adams, Dick, MP
Mr Adams interjecting—
10000
Causley, Ian (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Hon. IR Causley)—The member for Lyons has already been warned!
PG6
Macklin, Jenny, MP
Ms MACKLIN
—That is exactly what has happened under this government. We know that the government has more recently got very keen on the idea of what is called a 457 visa. These are shorter term visas, where the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs allows employers to bring in temporary skilled migrants to fill these skills shortages. We understand how important it is for Australia to have skilled migration, but we do not agree with the department of immigration doing the dirty work for this government’s incompetence and allowing employers to bring in migrants from overseas to undercut the wages and conditions of Australian workers.
We want Australian kids to have the chance to get a trade. We do not want those opportunities to be taken by people coming from overseas when there are thousands of young Australians who want the chance to get an apprenticeship. Skills as a driver of productivity in this country have dropped by 75 per cent over the last 10 years. We should be making sure that skills are the main driver of productivity. But we know this government’s answer for getting productivity increases out of the Australian workforce: make them work harder for less. The Howard government’s response to productivity is: let us compete with China and India by cutting wages and making people work harder.
Labor’s answer to increase productivity is to invest in skills and the education of the Australian workforce to make sure that young Australians have the chance to get a good education and an apprenticeship—and not to give all those jobs to people coming from overseas. Labor has put forward many different policies in this area to address this government’s gross incompetence. We proposed a trade completion bonus—which, of course, this government could have picked up. We want to make sure that young people finish their apprenticeship. Forty per cent of young Australians are not finishing their apprenticeship. They are dropping out because the wages under this government are so appalling. So give them a bonus—give them $2,000 to encourage them to finish their apprenticeship. That way we might be able to address this very serious skills crisis.
That is one thing this government could do immediately. But, no, they refused to do that. Rather than addressing what the Reserve Bank says is one of the main reasons for pressure on interest rates in this economy, their approach continues to be to drive their radical industrial relations reforms to make sure that Australians are competing with China and India on wages. Until we get action from this government to address this skills crisis, we are going to see the pressure on Australian families continue to grow—we are going to see the pressure on their mortgages continue to grow. These families have only one group of people to blame for the interest rate rises they are having to pay, and that is the Howard government. (Time expired)
89
15:32:00
Hardgrave, Gary, MP
CK6
Moreton
LP
Minister for Vocational and Technical Education and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister
1
0
Mr HARDGRAVE
—I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate. The member for Jagajaga’s contribution was a curious grab bag. I noticed that less than half of the entire Labor caucus showed up and people left—in fact, so did the public gallery. In the member for Jagajaga’s efforts to secure her own deputy leadership, today is an historic occasion. She signed her letter to the Speaker today as ‘Jennifer Macklin’. I think there could be a push on. Maybe instead of losing her deputy leadership she is in fact starting to gain the momentum to try and roll ‘big Kim’, the member for Brand. We will have to wait and see.
Going to the substantial nature of this debate, there is no doubt in my mind that this is a matter of public importance. It is absolutely important that the public is fully aware of the set of circumstances Australia is in today—and they can make a set of judgments. To compare and contrast the efforts of the previous Labor government and this government alone is a very worthy way of putting the case for why this government is quite the opposite of what the member for Jagajaga has put forward in her rant to this chamber today. The Labor Party used training to hide unemployment. I remember very clearly that, leading up to the 1996 election, there was a great community debate about the amount of money used on the Working Nation program, which was a training program designed to grab the long-term unemployed—unemployment was 11.1 per cent, while today it is 4.8 per cent; that is a great compare and contrast. There were billions of dollars in funding for Working Nation. No jobs were created, but people were slipped into a training program and not counted as unemployed. A way to hide unemployment was to train people; that was the way Labor saw training.
Looking at apprenticeship completions, it is interesting to note that at the end of 1995 just 31,500 people completed an apprenticeship. How many completed an apprenticeship at the end of 2005? It was 138,700. So there were 31,500 completions in 1995 and 138,700 completions at the end of 2005. That is because this government has focused on training—not to hide people on welfare but because we believe people should have the opportunity to gain skills that are relevant to the way our economy works. We have generated an enormous number of apprenticeships. People are not only starting apprenticeships in record numbers today, but also completing apprenticeships in record numbers.
The member for Jagajaga spoke about an ‘apparent’ cut in investment in education and training in the budget of August 1996. It is important to remind people that there was a very good reason why there would have been a review of expenditure in that budget. In fact, there were 96 billion reasons—and every one of them was an Australian dollar. There was a $96 billion black hole. The Australian Labor Party, announcing the 1995 budget at this very dispatch box, said there was going to be a surplus of more than $10 billion. When we came to office we found that they were not $10 billion up but $96 billion down. There was $96 billion of debt, which had an enormous impact on Australians who were borrowing money for their homes, for other investments and, indeed, for everyday expenditure. People were borrowing at a higher rate simply because the Australian government was in the borrowing market, owing $96 billion to the world. The government took the hard decisions in August 1996 and made the changes necessary to put us in a position where we are now debt free. In fact, we are now able to take the surpluses generated from the taxes paid by Australians and, using good economic management, put money aside in the Future Fund—something the Labor Party never imagined.
What I also find amazing about the contribution by the member for Jagajaga today is that, in the previous parliament of 2001 to 2004, I think she asked one or two questions on skills. Yet today she tells me this is a crisis that has been building since 1999. It is a crisis that has not garnered any effort from the member for Jagajaga except for occasionally. Over the last six or seven weeks we in my office have been remarking about how quiet she has been—in fact, she has disappeared from the agenda. Maybe the winter recess was good to her; I was on the road talking with real Australians about real issues.
I also know that the member for Jagajaga did nothing when it came to the 2003 national training agreement that this government attempted to negotiate with the states in a cooperative federalism model. All the states walked out on that to try and create a political pressure point at the expense of people in training. They walked away and denied Australians the extra growth funds we were offering through that agreement. I find all of that lack of attention, lack of credibility and lack of record of engagement on this issue a point that needs to be put on the record. In fact, I do not believe it was until the federal election campaign of 2004 that we heard from her. During that campaign the Prime Minister said that a raft of new measures and expenditure would be announced in the 2005 budget—which were delivered on time and in full; in fact, we delivered more than we promised in the 2004 election campaign. But we do not believe we heard anything from the member for Jagajaga until we started these sorts of initiatives that the government has put in place through over $1 billion of extra expenditure.
If you want do a compare and contrast, the Australian Labor Party’s expenditure until 1996 was $1.07 billion; this government this year expended $2½ billion. On top of that there is additional money through the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and a number of other departments for training, health and other areas. There has never been a government like this as far as investing in training is concerned. As an Australian government we have sponsored the distribution of more expenditure into the national training system than ever before in Australia’s history. What is absolutely critical is that we need the member for Jagajaga, and her apparently declining but nevertheless official influence in Australian politics, to participate with us to convince state governments to also do their part.
I did not write the Constitution. It was written over 100 years ago and it was written by blokes. I often make the point that, if a few women had been involved, we might have got a few more sensible things in place. But, nevertheless, the Constitution prescribes that education and training is the responsibility of state governments. From the point of view of the Australian government, what we are trying to do is tell the states to stop standing at state borders and looking in and start looking across state borders and seeing themselves as part of an entire nation. If we start to get that sort of approach from state governments, we will not see a continuation of the stupid circumstance of a credential gained in one jurisdiction not being automatically recognised in another jurisdiction. That is why this government and this Prime Minister sponsored an enormous change at the Council of Australian Governments meeting earlier this year—to bring about a recognition of occupational licences in key nation-building traditional trades. State governments are now starting to realise the folly in their ways.
JH5
George, Jennie, MP
Ms George
—Get on with the issue!
CK6
Hardgrave, Gary, MP
Mr HARDGRAVE
—The member for Throsby interjects. This underscores how a former president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, now sitting as a member in this place, has herself sponsored the decline in the circumstances that they are complaining about. This government is actually doing something about it. The hard thing for those opposite to understand is that the state governments are starting to realise they must cooperate in this national agenda. The leadership from Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania is appreciated. The lethargy from Western Australia is lamented and the complete rallying against the way the world is going by New South Wales is pathetic.
This is where the member for Jagajaga and, indeed, the member for Throsby could play a role. In fact, they could demand of the New South Wales government that they allow trade training to commence while kids are at school. There are no Australian school based apprenticeships at any of the certificate levels, first, second, third or fourth, in the trades in New South Wales schools—none, zero. In Queensland there are about 8,000; in Victoria there is a growing number that is currently around 2,000; but in Western Australia they will not let you in the construction trades. Despite today’s announcement of a 4.8 per cent unemployment rate in Western Australia and businesses screaming out for trade skills, they are instead legislating to tell kids to stay at school until the end of year 12 and denying them the full raft of possibilities to start the elements of learning a trade while they are at school.
Instead of trying to become the Leader of the Opposition at the expense of the training opportunities of young Australians, I would ask the member for Jagajaga to get a serious contribution in mind and join with me, the Prime Minister and all the members on this side of the chamber and demand a truly national training system response from all state governments. Even Michael Costa, the New South Wales Treasurer, said earlier this week that dollars were more important than training. Mr Costa said:
We failed to keep our apprenticeship numbers up, partly that was due, you know, to the focus on the balance sheet, the need to look at cost-cutting strategies and unfortunately it seems that apprenticeships was the easy one.
The government is putting in $2.5 billion; Labor put in $1 billion the last time they were in office. That is an 85 per cent increase. We have contributed an enormous amount of additional expenditure that Labor never put into place. The state governments tell me that, for every dollar I put in, they put in three or four. So, by the state governments’ own account, if we put in $2.5 billion they must put in somewhere between $7.5 billion and $10 billion.
I think they are exaggerating their involvement but I will take them at their word. If those numbers are right, where are the priorities? The priorities are building large, fat bureaucracies in the state government departments and giving jobs to union mates who can’t do anything around the workplaces anymore because people are turning their backs on trade unions. They have to give them something to do, and they give them a big, fat pay packet to go with that and, as long they have a job, ‘It’s okay, Jack.’
I am afraid that is not the way this government sees the world. We see training opportunities for young people to start at school as a critical element of the way forward. Again, the member for Jagajaga does not understand this. It has been 12 years since we started talking about competency based training, yet here again today the member for Jagajaga is talking about the amount of time it takes. The simple matter is, if we can get units of competency being the basis for the advancement of people’s ability to earn more money, the units of competency being the basis on which they are paid more because they are worth more in the workplace, we will see people leaving a trade apprenticeship in a faster way. In fact we will also see people who have experience in other places and who have done other things getting those credentials recognised, getting that prior experience recognised, and getting them working.
That is why the Queensland government said to me—and in fact gave me a document to prove their point—that they need something like a 32 per cent increase in the number of people who know how to drive earthmoving equipment. They want to build dams and they want to build roads. They want to build all these things but they know that, because we lost 30,000 people in one year when Kim Beazley, the member for Brand, was the minister responsible for training, the recession we had to have dumped all of those people out of the apprenticeship system, which was evidenced by the fact that we had only 30,900 graduating in 1996. People dropped out. The Queensland government are saying to me that, because we lost so many people who had partly completed their apprenticeships in the early 1990s, there are people floating around this country with some of the skills but not all of the skills who are frustrated because they cannot actually do what they know they can do. They have not got the piece of paper. So I am happy to work with Queensland on that.
I would also remind the member for Jagajaga, as she is a member of the same faction of the Labor Party in Victoria, that she was a senior adviser in the failed Cain-Kirner years when the Socialist Left faction presided over the closing down of the Victorian technical schools. It might have worked well as she was sipping cafe lattes in Brunswick Street and working for David White, a key member of that disastrous party. She was a member of the guilty party, as Victorians would know, but even Lynne Kosky, the Victorian education minister, has admitted today that the Australian Labor Party may have erred when it closed down the technical schools across Victoria during the former Cain government.
So we have the member for Jagajaga trying to cover her sins and cover for the failure of the Labor Party when they were in government, and failing to understand that no government has invested more and no government has achieved more, failing to understand that never has there been more people in training, never has there been more people in the traditional trades and never has there been more opportunities for jobs, because of the strong economic management of this government. This economy is moving strongly, and as it demands more and more we will give it. (Time expired)
92
15:47:00
Jenkins, Harry, MP
HH4
Scullin
ALP
0
0
Mr JENKINS
—That was quite an intriguing contribution from the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, because he really did not at any stage defend himself on the points raised in this matter of public importance. He had a great deal of interest in the member for Jagajaga and where she has been and where she is going. I can understand that somebody would wish to follow the career of the member for Jagajaga, but that is not what we are here for today. It is not about one job; it is about many jobs. It is about the state of the Australian economy and it is about the fate of families who are confronting increasing interest rates and increasing petrol prices. I would have thought, as I understand the seat of Moreton, the electorate of the minister, that he in particular would understand that the people he represents in that area of Brisbane, the outer suburbs of Brisbane, are confronting those dual problems in their day-to-day lives.
It is clear that the increase in interest rates and the threat to the consumer price index because of increasing petrol prices affect all Australians, but there are pockets in regional areas where the effect on people is even greater. Interestingly enough, there are studies now that clearly show that families in outer urban areas, such as the electorate of Scullin, who are confronting these dual phenomena at the moment are really finding it tough. The minister ignored the fact that the basis of today’s matter of public importance was comments in a Reserve Bank document of 4 August which, as the Deputy Leader of the Opposition clearly indicated, merely iterated concerns about the skills shortage.
These concerns have been clearly identified for several years, and the member for Jagajaga went through in detail the times when this government had the opportunity to have the light globe go on and say, ‘There is a problem.’ But in defence of the accusation, which is factual, of a decrease in Commonwealth resources given to university and technical training, what does the minister say? He goes back to this 1996 black hole—the great spin doctoring of this government. But he did admit in making that contention that they did make the cut.
So the government have now had 10 years to drag themselves out of the black hole they are supposed to have inherited at the same time that the Prime Minister said they had inherited an economy that was not bad, and very good in some parts. But forget about that 10 years down the track: ‘Oh, no, it was only the way we did the accounting and what we were told—what we didn’t know until we got the blue book.’ But they have had 10 years to redress this problem. In the last few budgets the government have not been fainthearted in the way they have thrown money at problems. It is just everywhere. The member behind reminds me of a comment I first heard from the member for Rankin: ‘They have just thrown money around like drunken sailors.’
That is one of the things that the Reserve Bank is concerned about: this is a mob who, in the way they run the economy, think it runs on autopilot. When you have something running on autopilot, you have to have the gizmo that is the autopilot. They did not put in the gizmo, and they let go of all the levers. When PJ Keating, the former member for Blaxland, was Treasurer, he often said that the way in which a responsible government made sure that the economy was working in the best interests of the Australian community and Australian families was by having its hands on the lever of economic management. He decried those opposite who parodied him about that. He was no shrinking violet and would take those sorts of criticisms with a grain of salt.
I was interested in looking at some of the things that he said at that time about using the levers of economic management to ensure that the government was guiding the way forward for the Australian economy, and he made some comments about his predecessor. At one stage, back in 1988, he talked about a member of this chamber called ‘Mr Nearly’—that is a very unparliamentary term, which is beside the point as I am sure our standards have changed. I would suggest that he was referring to the Prime Minister as ‘Mr Nearly’. He said:
He nearly floated the exchange rate. He nearly deregulated the financial market. He nearly got control of the Budget. He nearly cracked down on bottom of the harbour schemes.
And those opposite want to lecture us about matters economic! Let us get this clear: if they want to enter into a dialogue about those matters then the conclusion that we could make is that they have had it pretty easy and that they have squandered their opportunities. One of the things that they have squandered is maximising the potential of our human resources.
Because of commodity prices being the way that they are, the government has tended to see economic growth continuing on the basis of what we rip out of the ground or what we are able to generate as primary producers. Regrettably, that is where coalition governments always seem to drop back to. They just do not want to say: ‘We’re working in a modern global economy. We’re acting upon an economy that has changed because of the Hawke-Keating years, and we need to recognise that. So why would we be so foolish as not to invest in our human resources and ensure that our people are skilled to the hilt when our competitors—especially countries in the Asian region such as China and India—are growing and putting out graduates in the millions while we are struggling in the thousands?’
What is really amazing is that this government says: ‘We had this bright idea. At the election we announced that we would have 25 new technical schools.’ Wow! That is spectacular, isn’t it? There is a skills shortage of about 100,000 people. When you convert the loss of resources back to the schools sector, it means a reduction of 122,000 people who could have undergone training. Then you have to factor in that the promise of 25 colleges has come out as only 20. I thought the minister was getting close to admitting what the government’s idea for the Australian technical schools was really about. It was really about ideological hatred and differences. A couple of days ago I said that it concerned all the state administrations. Perhaps I was wrong, because the minister did not seem to want to have a go at Western Australia and New South Wales today. That is just amazing. He said again today that the solution for the Commonwealth not putting any effort into a portfolio area is to say that it is the states’ responsibility. This denies that there have been nearly 15 years of full-blooded cooperation between the states and the Commonwealth in the area of TAFE colleges.
How can a minister of the Crown come before us today and say that this is really the states’ responsibility but then champion the Australian technical colleges as the only response that the government has to Australia’s skills shortage, the effect that it is going to have on families and the way that they will be able to cope with the economy? That is a duplication—a dual system. Instead, the minister should sit down and cooperate with the states and look at places like Northland Secondary College in East Preston, the VCAL and other things that the Victorian government and other state governments have done. There is no need to re-invent the wheel: just get in there and cooperate. But unless this government acknowledges the shortages of skills and the infrastructure deficiencies, we will not see families being able to tackle the economic constraints that confront them. (Time expired)
94
15:57:00
Ciobo, Steven, MP
00AN0
Moncrieff
LP
1
0
Mr CIOBO
—It has been an interesting debate this afternoon. The member for Jagajaga put forward this matter of public importance, with the central thrust that Australian households today have seen the recent rise in interest rates as a consequence of the Howard government not heeding Reserve Bank warnings. I heard all sorts of claims from the member for Jagajaga and the member for Scullin alleging to put forward the position of the Reserve Bank of Australia on the Australian economy.
We heard allegations from the member for Jagajaga that interest rate rises were a result of inflation, and that inflation was a direct consequence of a lack of investment in skills training. We heard the member for Scullin making claims that interest rate increases were a result of economic ineptitude on the part of the Howard government—another theme that was central to the argument that the member for Jagajaga put forward.
But my concern, as someone who sits on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration and having had the opportunity to sit opposite the Reserve Bank board on quite a number of occasions is that, despite what the member for Jagajaga and the Labor opposition would say, the evidence that has been put to the committee time and time again by the Reserve Bank board is in direct conflict and contrast to the allegations that the member for Jagajaga and the member for Scullin have made.
In fact, the Reserve Bank board has indicated that the Australian economy is one of the best performing economies in the developed world. The economic cycle in this country has been growing for 15 years. We know that unemployment today has dropped to a 30-year low of 4.8 per cent—the lowest level since August 1976—because of the good economic management by the Howard government. We know that the Australian people have been enjoying an average GDP growth rate of 3¾ per cent because of the good work of the Prime Minister, John Howard, and, importantly, the Treasurer, Peter Costello, when it comes to the management of the Australian economy.
Do not listen to what Labor says when it comes to its policies; look at what Labor does. When you actually look at the facts, you see that what the member for Scullin and the member for Jagajaga said is simply not supported by those facts. People should turn their minds to the facts, because they certainly do not support what the member for Jagajaga or the member for Scullin said.
I would like to quote from what the Reserve Bank governor said. Rather than simply pretending to speak on his behalf, as the member for Jagajaga did, I will quote him. He made reference to a couple of key points in respect of how the Australian economy was growing and has been growing for 15 years, averaging at 3¾ per cent GDP growth. He spoke about the need to maintain this growth. He said:
At the current stage of the expansion, there are a number of factors that might be expected to put upward pressure on inflation. The economy is operating at a high level of capacity utilisation, the labour market is relatively tight, and there have been some large increases in raw material costs. Aggregate wages growth has picked up over the past year, and businesses generally are reporting difficulty in attracting labour.
He continued:
This outlook is, as usual, subject to significant uncertainty. One area of uncertainty relates to wages growth, where there is a risk that current labour market tightness will result in higher than expected wage increases.
He spoke about the fact that we have unemployment down to 4.8 per cent today—it was at about five per cent when he made those remarks—highlighting the fact that, because the Australian economy has been growing so strongly, it is leading to some tightness in the labour market and that may push up the inflation rate.
An important and key fundamental to recognise—and I questioned the Reserve Bank governor on this—is the fact that one of the key drivers of inflation is wages growth. We saw recently, for example, that the Queensland Labor government and the New South Wales Labor government have given pay increases in the vicinity of 25 per cent to 30 per cent. Those are the kinds of wage increases that the Reserve Bank governor is directly talking about in that quote that I just read when he said that that is the kind of wages growth that will cause concern and push up interest rates.
Bear in mind as well that it is the state Labor governments that are again borrowing billions of dollars to put into their economies. At a time when we are facing the risk of higher interest rates, which are still five per cent lower than the ALP’s average, we have state Labor governments adopting Labor Party policy and again borrowing billions and billions of dollars. If there is anybody who is putting pressure on the Australian economy, it is the Australian Labor Party, by allowing these ridiculous wage increases at a state level and, furthermore, by actually borrowing billions of dollars. In addition, I would like to make some reference to what the Reserve Bank governor said with respect to labour market reform. He said:
I have made the point on a number of occasions that, whilst monetary policy can take a lot of credit for the stability of the expansion, for a long period the lift in productivity was nothing to do with monetary policy; it was to do with structural and microeconomic reform. To me, there were about five components to this, which have been occurring over the last 15 years: tariff reduction, financial deregulation, privatisation, labour market reform and competition policy. I think all five have been extremely important.
I think we want to see further reform. We will be constantly evaluating our institutions to decide whether or not they really are first best. We have one reform, which has been achieved but not implemented yet, which is the third phase of labour market reform.
He goes on in that transcript to talk about the absolute importance of labour market reform in ensuring that the Australian economy continues to grow—the kind of labour market reform which is directly responsible for this 30-year low in the unemployment rate, the kind of labour reform which the Australian Labor Party stands opposed to. The Australian Labor Party goes out there on a scare campaign and lies about the consequences of labour market reform. The kind of reform the Reserve Bank governor talks about when he fronts the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration is the kind of reform the Australian Labor Party stands opposed to.
I reassert: don’t listen to what the Australian Labor Party says but look at what the Australian Labor Party does. At a state level, the Australian Labor Party is doing nothing except pushing up inflation and driving up interest rates. It is the Howard government and the Treasurer, Peter Costello, that are working to bring these down.
Importantly, I heard the member for Jagajaga saying that the government’s approach is to cut wages. I think, to use an almost exact quote from the member for Jagajaga, she said ‘to make them work harder for less’. Apparently that is the government’s policy—very strange. In 10 years under the Howard-Costello government, we have seen wages increase by 16.3 per cent. Contrast that with the 13 years under Labor when the growth rate in real terms was a miserly 1.3 per cent. So we had a 1.3 per cent growth in real wages under the Australian Labor Party and a 16.3 per cent growth in wages under the Howard government.
It hardly seems to be the case that this government’s policy is to make them work harder for less. Quite the contrary: this government’s policy is to ensure that Australians are enjoying some of the best working conditions they have ever enjoyed, as a result of this government’s policies. Once again, we see another furphy put forward by the member for Jagajaga. We have seen furphies from the member for Jagajaga on what the Reserve Bank governor has said, we have seen furphies with respect to this policy on labour market reform and we have seen furphies by the member for Jagajaga on what the consequences will be of the Work Choices legislation.
I would like to turn to some Labor Party form, particularly with regard to their rhetoric. What we have seen is that, despite their claims, Labor actually started shutting down vocational education facilities in a whole host of areas. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, in 1987 closed down the Apprentice Training School at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation. As Minister for Defence he closed down one of the best apprenticeship training courses that there was.
In the limited time I have, I simply reassert that the Australian economy is widely regarded as the miracle economy, and it is because of 10 years of solid and sustainable economic growth under the Howard government. It stands in stark contrast with the lies we have heard from the Australian Labor Party about—
10000
Causley, Ian (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Hon. IR Causley)—Order! The member for Moncrieff will withdraw the word ‘lies’.
00AN0
Ciobo, Steven, MP
Mr CIOBO
—Out of deference to you, I will withdraw.
10000
DEPUTY SPEAKER, The
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
—Just withdraw the word ‘lies’.
00AN0
Ciobo, Steven, MP
Mr CIOBO
—I withdraw.
10000
Causley, Ian (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Hon. IR Causley)—Order! The discussion is now concluded.
PRIVILEGE
97
PRIVILEGE
97
16:08:00
Burke, Anna, MP
83S
Chisholm
ALP
0
0
Ms BURKE
—Mr Speaker, I rise on a matter of privilege. The Minister for Education, Science and Training used question time today to obstruct me from performing my proper constitutional duties. Her criticism of me writing a support letter for one of the public schools in my electorate in seeking support for their funding under the Investing in Our Schools program was a gross breach of privilege and I would like the matter to be referred to the Committee of Privileges at the earliest convenience.
10000
Causley, Ian (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Hon. IR Causley)—The Speaker indicated that he would do the same for other members, so I am sure he will do it for the member for Chisholm.
THERAPEUTIC GOODS AMENDMENT BILL (NO. 3) 2006
97
BILLS
R2528
Report from Main Committee
97
Bill returned from Main Committee without amendment; certified copy of the bill presented.
Ordered that this bill be considered immediately.
Bill agreed to.
Third Reading
97
FRAN BAILEY
(McEwen
—Minister for Small Business and Tourism)
16:09:00
—by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (EXPORT CONTROL AND QUARANTINE) BILL 2006
98
BILLS
R2582
Report from Main Committee
98
Bill returned from Main Committee without amendment; certified copy of the bill presented.
Ordered that this bill be considered immediately.
Bill agreed to.
Third Reading
98
FRAN BAILEY
(McEwen
—Minister for Small Business and Tourism)
16:10:00
—by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
PETROLEUM RETAIL LEGISLATION REPEAL BILL 2006
98
BILLS
R2532
Second Reading
98
Debate resumed.
10000
Causley, Ian (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Hon. IR Causley)—The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Batman has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.
98
16:11:00
Fitzgibbon, Joel, MP
8K6
Hunter
ALP
0
0
Mr FITZGIBBON
—Before I was interrupted by question time I was making the point, in the presence of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, that there are a whole lot of things the government could do about the impact of high petrol prices on both Australian families and Australian industry—and, in particular, Australian small business. I am happy to see the Minister for Small Business and Tourism present, because there is no doubt that she has had a lot of feedback. I hope she has had some feedback; I hope people are talking to her about the impact of petrol prices on their operations and the combined impact on small business of higher interest rates and petrol prices.
JT4
Bailey, Fran, MP
Fran Bailey
—They are also talking to me about Labor’s policy on unfair dismissal—
10000
DEPUTY SPEAKER, The
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
—Minister, we do not need a debate across the table.
8K6
Fitzgibbon, Joel, MP
Mr FITZGIBBON
—The minister interjects and she acknowledges that small business people have been complaining to her about the combined impact on their businesses of higher petrol prices and increases in interest rates. I am delighted that she has been getting that feedback.
JT4
Bailey, Fran, MP
Fran Bailey
—And I have been hearing their concern that unfair dismissals would be returned under Labor.
8K6
Fitzgibbon, Joel, MP
Mr FITZGIBBON
—I now hear her talking about unfair dismissals. I am happy to acknowledge that I have heard from some small business people who are a bit concerned about dismissal policies too. What they have been telling me is that they are not scared about unfair dismissals; they are scared about a thing called ‘unlawful dismissal’. They know that, now this government has taken away their opportunity to take the less expensive and less cumbersome path of unfair dismissal, people will be coming after their former employers under a thing we call ‘unlawful dismissal’. The minister sitting at the table must surely know—or, at least, I hope she knows—that the unlawful dismissal path will be far more cumbersome and far more expensive for small business operators. She also knows that—
10000
DEPUTY SPEAKER, The
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
—The member for Hunter might come back to the bill.
8K6
Fitzgibbon, Joel, MP
Mr FITZGIBBON
—She also knows that her government is going to fund the legal action of employees dismissed from hereon in. They will get a government grant to defend their cases against their former small business employers. She should know that this concept of unlawful dismissal is a very expensive one, if she has a look at some of the case law—and I recommend that she do that. But I will take your advice, Mr Deputy Speaker—
10000
DEPUTY SPEAKER, The
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
—I hope so!
8K6
Fitzgibbon, Joel, MP
Mr FITZGIBBON
—out of respect for you, and return to the issue at hand. I said just before question time that there are some short-term things the government can do about petrol prices. They can move quickly to strengthen the power of the ACCC to ensure that things are being done properly and fairly in the market. They can restore the Trade Practices Act to its former glory, in particular section 46, so that the ACCC has some prospect of securing prosecutions for misuse of market power. They are very simple things that the government could do tomorrow. In fact, I gave the Treasurer another opportunity today in the parliament to sign that simple letter to send to the ACCC chairman that is required to give him the power to properly investigate petrol pricing and the market—both retail distribution and wholesale distribution at the terminal gate.
I said before question time that this is a very important bill. These are very important reforms to the regulatory regime which our petrol retail market operates under. They were originally put in place by the Fraser government out of concern about market concentration and vertical integration in particular. I spoke about the way in which they have been circumvented over the last half a dozen years or so and the government’s failure to show leadership and to secure some agreement between the various parties before now to get rid of this antiquated law. I just want to reinforce the point again that the opposition support of this repeal bill hinges on the promise we have had from the government that very soon—in other words, almost concurrently with the repeal by this bill—they will be introducing those amendments to the Trade Practices Act which we have been seeking for so long.
It is very important to note that we are repealing legislation today that effectively does nothing anyway because, audaciously, some weeks ago now, the minister decided to move a regulation which undeclares each of the major oil companies under the legislation. The legislation sets up the framework, and who is covered by the legislation is determined by regulation. The four major oil companies have been undeclared, so we have a Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Act that covers no-one. So it would be nonsense for the opposition to be opposing the repeal of the legislation, but the legislation is still there and has leverage for us to ensure that those trade practices amendments come forward.
I look forward to the government producing those amendments in the next little while. We want to see 98 per cent of the Senate committee’s recommendations. We do not want half the story or some half-baked approach to restoring section 46 of the Trade Practices Act and therefore the ACCC’s ability to secure prosecutions for misuse of market power, collusion and all those other things under part IV generally.
Listening to the debate on this bill before I received my opportunity to speak, I heard a lot of talk—and it is welcome talk—about what the Prime Minister could be doing in the long term about petrol prices in this country. When the price of international oil is high, it should be a call to arms to the government to swing into action, to do something short term—and I have addressed those issues—but also something medium to long term. We accept—we are not fools—that high petrol prices at the moment are largely driven by high oil prices, but there are both short- and long-term things that the government can be doing to mitigate the impact on people, as I have said.
This should be a wake-up call to the government to finally get an energy policy together and to finally acknowledge that we have to wean ourselves off Middle Eastern oil. In fact, we have to wean ourselves off our traditional fuels. Oil is such a finite resource. We are running out of oil. On the basic laws of supply and demand, demand is going up and supply is going down, so naturally price is going up. When is the government going to realise that this is unsustainable and we are facing a fuel price crisis?
There are some solutions. People have been talking about ethanol. Let me say something about ethanol again. The Labor Party support ethanol as an important contributor to this goal—that is, to wean us off oil and to stretch our finite resources further. We started the ethanol industry in this country with capital assistance grants back in 1993. We have supported pushing out further the application of tax on ethanol. We are now out to 2012. We did not oppose the government’s total removal of import competition. We have supported all the later rounds of capital assistance grants for new plant. We have done all the ethanol industry has asked of us short of mandating.
None of us should be turning to mandating as a solution to ethanol’s challenges. We should not need to mandate. This is a good product. It is good for regional jobs. It is good for the environment. It is good for the agricultural sector. It helps the competitiveness of independent service stations, because they can blend the product—having no tax makes them more competitive. It does not need mandating. Where do we stop once we tell people they have to buy a product? Lemonade in beer next? Consumers do not expect to be told by legislatures what they should and should not buy, but if we work together and work sensibly we do not need to mandate ethanol.
We want it to play an important role in the mix. A good industry out there wants it to play an important role in the mix. The oil companies need a jab in the ribs. The government should be jabbing them harder, and we are happy to support them in providing those jabs. Ethanol is a very important mix and has our total and unqualified support. But we only make 37 million litres of it in this country at the moment. If we mandated it at 10 per cent, we would need two billion litres. What would we have to do? We would have to import it. If we could not import it, demand would outstrip supply. What would that do to the price of the ethanol? It would send it up. What would that do to the price of the petrol-ethanol blend? It would send it up. So this would be an anti-consumer measure.
We have to support ethanol, but we also have to support LPG, CNG, biodiesel and of course gas-to-liquids diesel. We have plentiful supplies of liquid petroleum gas. How amazing and hypocritical it was for the Prime Minister this week to roll out as a possible solution to growing LPG consumption the bringing forward of a rebate on installations which he planned to give anyway. This is the same Prime Minister who made LPG taxed for the first time, first with a GST. We should recall that the LPG industry took the full brunt of the GST. Petrol had its excise reduced by 7c to partly—and I underline partly—offset the impact of the GST. It did not. It was not enough to stop the GST causing petrol prices to rise, but petrol did have an excise reduction. LPG attracted no excise, so there was no excise to reduce, and it took the full 10 per cent brunt of John Howard’s GST. Now the Prime Minister plans to put an excise on LPG for the first time. This is a Prime Minister who has been working against LPG in the market rather than assisting a greater take-up of LPG, so it is entirely hypocritical of him to pose that as a weak solution to the significant issues we face. But LPG is a great opportunity for us. It is an indigenous fuel and we have plenty of it.
Our other big opportunity is natural gas—prior to getting to hydrogen as an ultimate solution. I should acknowledge hydrogen, because it will be our ultimate solution, but prior to that our next big resource is the enormous reserves of natural gas we have in this country—150 trillion cubic feet of it. The member for Batman acknowledged my statement that it is a funny Prime Minister who has no trouble getting natural gas to Shanghai when he cannot get it from the west coast of the country to the east coast. We should be getting those fuels to the east coast as liquid diesel fuels.
Our natural gas is easily convertible into liquid diesel which goes straight into diesel engines as they stand without any modification. Whatever the price of oil is—through $US25 a barrel—this is economically viable. Why aren’t we doing it? Because the government is not giving sufficient encouragement to the oil companies to get on with it. It has other plans for our gas—that is, shipping it off at bargain basement prices around the world without thinking about our future needs. What we need is an energy plan that takes into account our existing reserves, our future consumption needs and what we as a nation need in the future. (Time expired)
101
16:23:00
Hayes, Chris, MP
ECV
Werriwa
ALP
0
0
Mr HAYES
—The Petroleum Retail Legislation Repeal Bill 2006 shows that this government can actually achieve something when it puts its mind to it. With the bill before us today, the government has decided it is time to take some corrective action in the petrol retail market. It has decided that things cannot remain as they are. Sadly, I am not talking about the government taking action on petrol prices, but I will return to that a little later.
The action is supported by the Labor Party. We support the repeal of the Petroleum Retail Marketing Franchise Act 1980 and the Petroleum Retail Marketing Sites Act 1980. We do so in principle—Labor’s second reading amendment is quite a welcome contribution to this debate because it does draw attention to the tardiness and the dragging of the feet exercise that has been pursued by this government in trying to address petrol retail reform.
Despite the fact that the government has not rushed to deal with the issues facing the petrol retail industry, I do welcome the structures that the passage of this bill will allow to be put in place. It is important that, as we continue to see the march of the large supermarket chains as they purchase more and more businesses in more and more sectors of the retail industry, there should be some exercise undertaken by government to temper that approach. Those who are trying hard to compete against these massive organisations deserve a break. I welcome the fact that the Minister for Small Business and Tourism is at the table, because I am speaking for her constituency in this regard. Like her—at least, I assume like her—I have a lot of small business people talking to me in the electorate, expressing concerns about situations where they believe they need relief against some of the marauding and loss-leading practices of large organisations that seek to manipulate markets that they currently operate in.
Under the current petrol retailing arrangements, there are at least three classes of operators: the commissioned agents, the independents and the franchises. Discrimination in one form or another obviously exists between these classes. It is made more difficult because of the imposition of certain legislative requirements. One in particular is that at the moment we have a class of emerging retailers which are effectively regulation free. The acts that are being repealed as a result of the passage of this bill cover only part of the petrol retailing industry, with more than 50 per cent of the industry by volume not covered at all. Under the existing arrangements, the new force in petrol retailing—the large supermarket chains of Woolworths and Coles—are not covered at all.
The proposed Oilcode will provide protections and regulation for the petrol retail sector and will cover entities that are regulation free at present. This has got to be an important improvement for all those small business people operating as petrol retailers.
A petrol retailer in my electorate spoke to me only recently to ensure that I understood how this piece of legislation would affect him and his business. One of the things he wanted to emphasise was that things are very tough. As a franchise operator he does not get to set the price that he sells petrol for and the margins are, as he put it to me, extremely thin. Despite the fact that petrol is hovering around the $1.50 mark, his margin remains fixed, and it remains at cents per litre.
He also spoke to me about the fear that he has about the unfair competition that takes place in the industry, and he hopes that the action of establishing the Oilcode will go some way to levelling the playing field in the petrol retailing industry. He, like others, finds it difficult to compete with the entrance of the new retailers owned by the large supermarket chains, with their ability to apply discount schemes. Another thing to bear in mind, as I said, is that those large organisations, those large supermarkets, largely operate, in terms of petrol retailing, in an unregulated market at present. For them to be able to come out and offer, for instance, up to 4c a litre off the price of petrol may not seem much, but, as this operator put it to me, when you consider the difference that makes for a family, that is something that must be taken into account. That is the thing that can actually decide whether he as a franchisee can stay in business or not.
There is no doubt that, given the rapid changes in the petrol retailing industry over the last few years, the time has come to address the issue facing the industry and address the disparities and the discrimination between different classes of owners and operators within this industry. We know that the petrol retail industry is currently experiencing some significant restructures, with the number of service stations dropping from some 20,000 to around 7,000 over the last few years. This process is set to continue.
Debate interrupted.
ADJOURNMENT
102
ADJOURNMENT
10000
SPEAKER, The
The SPEAKER
—Order! It being 4.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
Middle East
102
102
16:30:00
Irwin, Julia, MP
83Z
Fowler
ALP
0
0
Mrs IRWIN
—On 12 July, at 9 am, a small force of Hezbollah fighters captured two Israeli soldiers, apparently on the Israeli side of the blue line designating the disputed border between Israel and Lebanon. The raid was accompanied by a Hezbollah rocket attack on Israeli targets. This attack was one of many violations of the blue line by both sides since the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. But, as the United Nations interim force reports, none of these incidents resulted in a military escalation, and those same reports show that Israeli military aircraft have violated the blue line on an almost daily basis. Two days after the attack, after Israeli aircraft had begun laying waste to Lebanon, Robert Fisk reported from Beirut:
... and prisoner swaps is probably all that will come of this. In January 2004 for example, Israel freed 436 Arab prisoners ... in return for an Israeli spy and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers.
But this was not to be a measured response. What followed the Hezbollah attack has been an all-out aggressive war. Less than 12 hours after the incident, Israeli bombing of civilian targets began, and the killing and destruction has continued on a scale which has appalled the civilised world. But this was hardly a knee-jerk response. The San Francisco Chronicle reported:
... more than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving power point presentations, on an off the record basis setting out the plan ...
The Washington Post says it was told by a senior Israeli official that the raid by Hezbollah provided Israel with a unique opportunity for wiping out the organisation, and, according to New Statesman, the US government knew in advance of Israel’s intention to take action in Lebanon and the British government was also informed. So it should come as no surprise that, as the carnage in Lebanon proceeded, the leading nations of the Western world did nothing to stop the killing in and destruction of Lebanon. And even today their interests ignore the welfare of the people in Lebanon.
After 28 days of war, the situation on the ground can only be described as a humanitarian disaster. Over 1,000 people have been killed, the great majority being civilians. Over one-third are children. With the destruction of homes, roads, bridges and power plants, the deliberate targeting of Red Cross and other relief agency facilities and vehicles, the targeting of fleeing civilians and the deliberate killing of UN observers, the result is a nation in ruins. Over one million people, a quarter of the population of Lebanon, have fled their homes. The Israeli blockade and the bombing of vehicles prevent the supply of food and medicines to those in need.
But the Western world seems to have its own agenda when it comes to calling for peace. The US-French proposal demands the implementation of Security Council resolution 1559 of 2004 but says nothing of the 138 resolutions ignored by Israel, including resolutions 242 and 338, which declare the ‘inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war’. Indeed, Israel’s presence in Lebanon today is in breach of resolution 1559. The Israelis also ignore the 16 July statement by the G8, which says:
... the root cause of the problems in the region is the absence of a comprehensive Middle East peace ...
But what is needed right now is an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Israel must stop its bombing of Lebanon and Hezbollah must stop firing rockets into Israel. A just and lasting peace will only come from proposals such as that of the government of Lebanon which calls for not just the release of the two Israeli prisoners but the release of Lebanese prisoners as well. Critical to peace are the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces to the blue line and the earliest repatriation of those displaced by the conflict. International assistance will be desperately needed to rebuild Lebanon. But, to address the root cause of the conflict, a just peace will require the return of lands illegally occupied by Israel since 1967, including the Shebaa Farms.
Cowper Electorate: Environment
103
103
16:34:00
Hartsuyker, Luke, MP
00AMM
Cowper
NATS
1
0
Mr HARTSUYKER
—I would like to use this opportunity to bring to the attention of the House an environmental crisis that threatens to slowly engulf the town of Coramba, which is in my electorate. This crisis has been developing since January 2002, when one resident of the town, Peter Attwill, noticed traces of petrol on his property in pools of water near the Orara River. The petrol did not originate from Mr Attwill’s land. But, more than four years later, Mr Attwill, his wife, Belinda, and his three young children are still facing the effects of the contamination. They have to cope on a daily basis with their fears of a threat to their health. Their house, which they built some 20 years ago, and their land cannot be sold. All that, you might think, is bad enough. But, as I will explain in due course, the Attwills are having to carry an extra burden in this matter, the consequences of which may well affect a large part of Coramba as well as those living downstream from the town.
As a result of Mr Attwill’s discovery, shortly afterwards investigations at the local petrol station revealed that an estimated 3,000 litres of unleaded petrol had escaped from an underground storage tank, though no explanation has been provided of how a leak of this size went undetected—and neither have investigations taken place to establish beyond any reasonable doubt that the petrol station was, in fact, the source of contamination. Though it clearly seems likely, I am told that there are other potential sources of contamination. Because of the lie of the land, it is possible that the petrol that leaked from the service station, if that is the source, has seeped not only onto Mr Attwill’s land but also in other directions and into other properties without yet surfacing. This has not yet been established or ruled out. That also applies to the other potential sources of pollution.
To sum up, the residents of Coramba do not know how much of their town is, or will be, polluted. If they do not know the source of the pollution with certainty, they do not know whether petrol continues to leak into the ground. They do not know for how much longer or how much further the existing pollution is likely to spread. I have been informed that people in the town of Coramba can no longer sell their properties. Their houses have been blighted. No-one knows the consequences for the communities downstream that draw drinking water from the Orara River. No-one knows the consequences for the livestock owners whose cattle drink from the river.
Despite being informed of the situation back in January 2002 when Mr Attwill first found petrol on his land, the NSW Environment Protection Authority, now absorbed into the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation, has done little to resolve any of the outstanding issues I have mentioned. The burden of managing this situation currently lies with Mr Attwill himself, following the decision by the department of environment to set up a trust fund managed by Mr Attwill to pay for investigations by consultants. The consultants will present their report soon. So here we have a man whose property has been polluted through no fault of his own, who is under considerable stress and whose family is under considerable stress, being asked to set up and supervise a technical study by consultants in an area in which he has no expertise whatsoever. Ironically, Mr Attwill is a petrochemical tanker driver. But he is not a chemist. He is not a geologist. He is not an engineer. He is not an ecologist.
However, I am pleased to say that there are now some hopeful signs. According to the local newspaper, the department will address the problem once the findings of the report currently under way are known. If this is indeed the case, I welcome the department’s good intentions. Mr Attwill tells me that there is little hope of redress from the owners of the service station or their insurers if the station is indeed proved to be the sole source of the pollution. What Mr Attwill and the other residents of Coramba desperately need to know, after four years of uncertainty, is the full extent of the pollution and that the relevant agencies will remove the risk to their health and properties. As I say, I am encouraged by media reports that the department is inclined to act. I have written to the federal Minister for the Environment and Heritage bringing this matter to his attention and asking him to offer what assistance he can to the residents of Coramba—despite the fact that this is clearly a state issue. In the meantime, Mr Attwill, his family and his neighbours will be awaiting the consultants’ report with some trepidation.
Millennium Development Goals
105
105
16:39:00
Ferguson, Martin, MP
LS4
Batman
ALP
0
0
Mr MARTIN FERGUSON
—Mr Speaker, this evening I will talk about the UN Millenium Development Goals. In doing so I note that Australia this year will host the G20 gathering of finance ministers in Melbourne in the very near future. This group was established in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis to bring together industrialised economies and emerging economies to discuss the global economy. Debt and poverty reduction are among key issues that are part of this ongoing dialogue. Given this, it is timely to raise with this House the importance of the 2015 millennium goals. These goals include: halving extreme poverty; universal primary education; gender equality; the reduction of child mortality, AIDS and other diseases; improved maternal health; and environmental sustainability. I believe these goals must be recognised as more than an aspiration. They are a promise from rich nations such as Australia to the poor.
With increasing wealth worldwide but growing inequality, it is more important than ever for parliamentarians across the world to confront these issues both in our own backyards—and, unfortunately, in our own Indigenous communities—and across borders. These international goals mirror aspirations we have for our community, particularly the Aboriginal communities that currently live in Third World conditions. I welcome the Leader of the Opposition’s undertaking just a week ago that as Prime Minister of Australia he would do something about Aboriginal health.
To push the achievement of these goals the Make Poverty History campaign was launched across the world in 2005. It has had widespread impact in raising awareness of the need for poverty reduction. Next door to my electorate of Batman, VCE student Mervin Ng, from Parade College in Bundoora, took his own initiative recently in support of this campaign. I commend his leadership. He collected 1,500 signatures from students and staff on a 13-metre banner which was recently tabled by my colleague, the Member for Scullin, Harry Jenkins. Thankfully, as witnessed by these actions, the next generation of Australians has a rising awareness of increasing inequality, and they are to be commended.
The attainment of these goals would have a dramatic impact on poverty reduction, and it is well within the power of the leadership in Australia to grasp this opportunity. To halve poverty in less than 10 years, signatories are obliged to increase their aid budgets. While increases under the aid white paper are welcome—from the present 0.28 per cent of gross national income to 0.36 per cent by 2010—the Labor Party believes Australia’s contribution can be greater. Britain, France, Spain and Ireland have increased their aid commitments to 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2010. Of the 22 OECD donor nations, five already equal or exceed the 0.7 per cent target—namely, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Six others have indicated they will reach the 0.7 per cent target in the next few years. They are Belgium, Finland, Spain, France, the UK and Germany. That is what leadership is about.
In addition, the EU has recently committed to collectively reaching a target of 0.56 per cent of GNI by 2010 and 0.7 per cent by 2015. I say therefore to the Australian community at large that as a nation we can, and should, increase our target. It is our joint responsibility, our collective responsibility. As the 2005 United Nations report into the millennium goals stated:
... we have the means at hand to ensure that nearly every country can make good on the promises of the Goals.
Australia can also, therefore, make a contribution to this campaign by ensuring that debt forgiveness does not retract from the all-important aid programs in health and education. We can also take a leadership role, as we did with the Cairns Group, to push for the removal of agricultural subsidies through the World Trade Organisation. As we head towards these critical deadlines, we need a greater commitment to move beyond political rhetoric and make these goals a reality.
I simply say in conclusion: where there is a will, there is a capacity to actually do something. That is the challenge to the Howard government and the leadership role it adopts in hosting the G20 gathering of finance ministers in Melbourne this year. Would it not be wonderful in the lead-up to that conference if we made an announcement as a nation that we were going to up our contribution and do something of substance in our own backyard and internationally for the general good of all people on this earth? I commend the Millennium Development Goals to the Australian community.
Stirling Electorate: Local Government Boundaries
106
106
16:44:00
Keenan, Michael, MP
E0J
Stirling
LP
1
0
Mr KEENAN
—My seat is totally contained within one local government authority: the City of Stirling. Stirling’s neighbouring local government authority, the Town of Vincent, has put forward a proposal to the local government advisory board—which is the state government body that advises it on local council boundaries—to incorporate areas that are an integral part of the City of Stirling. I am totally against this ill-conceived land grab, and I am greatly concerned that it will have negative consequences for my constituents.
I am concerned for two reasons: firstly, for the small number of electors that I represent within the affected areas and, secondly, for the vast bulk of the people who reside within the City of Stirling, who still have a legitimate voice in this debate even though they are not directly involved in this land grab. The people affected, in all likelihood, will end up paying higher rates for a lower level of services than they would expect under the City of Stirling. These families that I represent in the suburb of Coolbinia will be transferred to a local authority that does not enjoy the obvious economies of scale that they currently have within the City of Stirling. The Town of Vincent, even if this land grab is successful, is below the optimum size for the economic provision of services, and it has admitted as much. It also has a very questionable management record.
It is worth mentioning that the City of Stirling, under the leadership by the current mayor, Terry Tyzack, of a hardworking, dedicated team, is in a very strong economic position. The same cannot be said for the Town of Vincent. I recently asked the Mayor of Vincent, Councillor Nick Catania, to answer this question: ‘Why continue to waste Western Australian taxpayers’ money on board deliberations to investigate a proposal that goes against the wishes of local residents and will push unnecessary costs onto my constituents?’ He wrote back effectively saying that I should stick to my federal constituency matters and leave local government to its own processes. This pretty much accords with his standard operating procedure and that of the CEO of the Town of Vincent, a John Giorgi, when people question the merits of their land grab. Their only response is to attack anyone who dares question them and to unfairly attack the record of the City of Stirling. It is clear from this that they are completely and utterly unable to provide a positive case to support their proposal.
I would like to say this to the mayor: it is my responsibility to ensure the economic security of the families in my electorate so they can plan for the future, and it is my responsibility to listen to their concerns and act on them. It is my job to support my local community, and I will not ignore their concerns against this ill-conceived plan of the Town of Vincent. I have looked very closely at the submission provided by Vincent, and there appears to be no tangible benefit that justifies the $1 million price tag of making this change. That is an extraordinarily large bill that will most certainly be pushed onto ratepayers in the Town of Vincent, including those families that might be removed from the City of Stirling.
The views of the residents of the City of Stirling outside of the affected areas also deserve to be heard, because, if they lose a substantial part of the existing council, that will obviously put upward pressure on their rates also. The loss of this significant area is ultimately going to mean that the City of Stirling will need to make a decision to either up rates or sack part of its workforce, something that I certainly do not want to see. I know that people in my electorate feel passionately about this issue because they have contacted me about it and I have been to a public meeting that the local government authority has had, where the overwhelming number of residents were opposed to making this change.
I do not believe that the Town of Vincent has any option but to withdraw this ill-conceived proposal and find an alternative solution to its current lack of viability as a local authority. It might be more sensible for Vincent to seek to be incorporated into one of its neighbouring councils rather than limp along in its current state. It is certainly clear that there is no point in continuing to pursue its current plan against the interests of the people it purports to represent and against the interests of my constituents in the City of Stirling.
Mr Gregory Andrews
107
107
16:49:00
Snowdon, Warren, MP
IJ4
Lingiari
ALP
0
0
Mr SNOWDON
—This afternoon I would like to address my remarks to a number of issues arising from questions which were raised in the parliament yesterday and today of the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs regarding an employee of his department, Mr Gregory Andrews, who you will recall, Mr Speaker, appeared on the ABC’s Lateline program on 21 June this year. You will understand that this Lateline program made a number of very serious allegations about paedophilia and child abuse and other issues related to the community of Mutitjulu. There were a number of people who were interviewed who spoke with full identification who did not substantiate the allegations made by Mr Andrews, and what they had to say was very plausible.
However, Mr Andrews’s evidence was heavily relied upon by the Lateline program. You will recall that he described himself anonymously as a former youth worker. He was not. It has turned out, of course, that he is a senior officer of the minister’s department. He made inflammatory, sensational and totally unsubstantiated hearsay allegations about individuals within the community. He was the subject of questions in parliament yesterday and again today. But Mr Andrews is an assistant secretary in the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination and, in that role, provides advice to the minister. Lateline was aware of this when it interviewed Mr Andrews on 2 June and went ahead with the deception that he was an anonymous former youth worker. The ABC did not disclose Mr Andrews’s absolute conflict of interest. That surely must be a breach of the ABC’s editorial guidelines.
We have been told by the minister that this deception was because Mr Andrews believed that he had been threatened. You will recall, Mr Speaker, that Minister Brough said yesterday in parliament:
I was informed that Mr Andrews had decided that he would only appear anonymously as he had already experienced a number of threats ...
These apparent threats did not prevent Mr Andrews travelling to Mutitjulu on 6 June, a few days after he had undertaken the interview recorded by the ABC on 2 June. He travelled to that community freely, safely and without any police protection. It is clear that Mr Andrews’s boss, the head of the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination, Mr Wayne Gibbons, and the minister were aware of his interview and the deception. Indeed, as I understand it, he was coached, counselled and advised by the minister’s office, Mr Gibbons and other senior officers of the OIPC prior to the interview. Indeed, I am also advised that Mr Andrews’s statement was legalled by his department.
So now it is clear to me and many others that Mr Andrews’s unfortunate appearance on Lateline was part of a government-sponsored strategy. While he was in Central Australia, Mr Andrews was improperly seeking to secure access to criminal records of individuals and we know that Mr Gibbons was aware of this intention. I have here an email from Mr Greg Andrews to Mr Wayne Gibbons, dated Monday, 5 June 2006, timed at 2.50 pm and importance ‘High’. He says:
I am currently on my way to Mutitjulu—plane has been diverted and delayed due to fog. I have been using the opportunity of the delay to talk to various stakeholders by phone.
He says a number of other things and then he concludes by saying:
A source in Central Australia has agreed to provide me with a physical copy of … official criminal record. If I am able to obtain this document, I will provide it to you immediately on my return.
This raises very serious questions about the probity and propriety of Mr Andrews’s visit, the knowledge of the minister and the minister’s department about his activities and what in fact he was doing in the community. I have previously raised these issues, and I have raised these concerns with the ABC. I call on the ABC to apologise to the Mutitjulu community for the deception and the allegations which have been made by Mr Andrews, which have been unsubstantiated, uncorroborated and are all hearsay. This sort of public administration should not be tolerated in this country. Minister Brough knows much more than he has told us so far. There is a lot more to go, and we will find out.
Sir David Smith
Australian History
108
108
16:53:00
Mirabella, Sophie, MP
00AMU
Indi
LP
1
0
Mrs MIRABELLA
—I had the good fortune yesterday of bumping into Sir David Smith, a former secretary to five successive Governors-General and the last Australian to be knighted by the Queen. It was his birthday yesterday: he turned 73 and did not a look a year over 55. He is a man of immense talent, with a brilliant mind and a keen eye for accurately recording history. Recently, Sir David penned a marvellous book, a very riveting read, titled Head of State. Few people have contributed more to the important constitutional and political history in Australia than Sir David Smith. His book goes a long way to dispelling the myth-making created by those who wanted to set their own agenda and rewrite history so that any depiction of the 1975 dismissal venerates Gough Whitlam on an eternal pedestal. In his book, Sir David Smith says:
As for Gough Whitlam himself, there has grown up around him almost an entire industry devoted to polishing his image and turning him into a legend in his own lifetime. It is time we had a look at the basis of that legendary image.
One of the greatest crimes that we can commit in a civilised society is to twist and distort history so that a lie is passed on to future generations. It is this issue that is the rationale behind the groundbreaking History Summit convened for next week here at Parliament House. I commend the Minister for Education, Science and Training on facing head-on the need for a ‘root and branch renewal’, as the Prime Minister put it, of teaching Australian history in our schools. But, whilst the summit sounds good and some may even feel quite warm and fuzzy about it, it is highly imperative that we get it right, not just for us but for future generations.
Recently, I inaugurated an essay-writing competition for school students in the lead-up to the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan. Whilst there have already been some excellent entries from local school students, I was informed that a teacher at Wangaratta High School in my electorate belittled the concept, preferring not to engage their students in discovering more about a highly important military battle that illustrated the ingenuity, the skill and the courage of our soldiers in a relatively modern battle. It is this type of prevailing orthodoxy of the teacher in question that gave rise to the dreadful treatment of Australian soldiers who fought in Vietnam upon their return to Australia in the 1960s.
Another example is the landing place of Captain Cook at Kurnell Peninsula, recently placed on the national heritage register. In the monuments currently there, very little is told of the significance of the moment when Lieutenant James Cook and his crew, including Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander, first set foot on Australian soil in 1770. Even so, one of the participants in next Wednesday’s summit, Greg Melleuish, was commissioned to produce a paper that would be a discussion point starter. In it he talks about the sorts of things that students should learn, but he does say that the story of Australian explorers needs to be told ‘but not to excess, as I recall explorers as being the most boring part of Australian history when I was at school’. It is particularly disappointing that an associate professor from the University of Wollongong is so dismissive of our explorers.
The pioneering spirit of Douglas Mawson, the scientific achievements of his expeditions and not least the sheer human endurance should be an inspiring and proud part of Australia’s history. It is an integral part of the perseverance, the tenacity and the sense of adventure that makes this country the sort of nation that we should all be proud of.
I hope there will be others with very differing views at next week’s summit. A great Australian, Professor Geoffrey Blainey, who paid me a great privilege in 2002 when he gave the inaugural Indi lecture in Beechworth in my electorate, put it best when, recently, he said:
Australia is one of the oldest continuing democracies in the world, and I think the effective continuation of a democracy depends on the majority of Australians understanding a fair amount about their nation and its background.
Professor Blainey needs to be heard, unlike his time at the University of Melbourne where he was hounded from his position by the left-leaning intelligentsia. I close by wishing Sir David Smith a belated 73rd birthday and wish all of those participating in next week’s summit all the courage to be honest and not to give in to sectional interest groups. (Time expired)
Scullin Electorate: Italian Community
110
110
16:59:00
Jenkins, Harry, MP
HH4
Scullin
ALP
0
0
Mr JENKINS
—Last Sunday I joined with the local Italian community to celebrate the feast of San Donato. The Italian community held mass in Latin, conducted by Bishop Prowse at St Luke’s Church. The choir Friulano sang in Latin and Italian. St Luke’s choir sang in English. It was followed by the procession of the statue of San Donato and music provided by the Bellini band. There was then a concert in the church hall. I congratulate the organiser, Donato Polvere, and his committee. This is the 30th occasion that they have held this feast. I think it is very important that migrants have the opportunity to share with their fellow Australians things that are very important to them culturally and religiously. I also congratulate the City of Whittlesea on their involvement in ensuring that it was a successful festa.
110
17:00:00
House adjourned at 5.00 pm
NOTICES
110
NOTICES
The following notice was given:
HX4
Katter, Bob, MP
Mr Katter
to present a Bill for an Act to amend the Fuel Quality Standards Act 2000 to regulate the amount of renewable fuel in motor vehicle fuel, and for related purposes. (Fuel Quality Standards (Renewable Content of Motor Vehicle Fuel) Amendment Bill 2006).
2006-08-10
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. IR Causley) took the chair at 9.36 am.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
111
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Capricornia Electorate: Water Pipeline
111
111
09:36:00
Livermore, Kirsten, MP
83A
Capricornia
ALP
0
0
Ms LIVERMORE
—It is my great pleasure today to use this morning’s speech to congratulate the civic leadership of Rockhampton and Yeppoon, as well as the state members and other individuals who were instrumental in ensuring that the water pipeline between Rockhampton and Yeppoon will proceed. Yeppoon and the greater Capricorn Coast are increasingly popular tourist destinations, and they are also experiencing massive residential growth, mainly as a result of the resources boom that is taking place in the Central Queensland region. The Livingstone shire is in fact one of the fastest growing shires in Queensland, with scores of people choosing the idyllic lifestyle that the Livingstone area provides over the bigger cities.
This pipeline will give the Capricorn Coast sufficient water capacity to take the area to the year 2040. This is obviously a great milestone for the area. Not only will this pipeline provide the Capricorn Coast with a reliable source of water but it will also protect the pristine Sandy Creek area from potential future environmental damage caused by water extractions. The pipeline, travelling some 30 kilometres from the Rockhampton barrage to Yeppoon, will ensure that the Capricorn Coast is well prepared for the future.
This outcome was made possible by the tireless efforts of individuals such as Margaret Strelow, the Mayor of Rockhampton; Bill Ludwig, the Mayor of Livingstone Shire; the state member for Keppel, Paul Hoolihan MP; and Mr Kim Mobbs, the Chairman of the Central Queensland Area Consultative Committee. These people are the real heroes of this project. But, as the National Party see it, all the credit can go to Senator Ron Boswell and Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile, who would have us believe that they single-handedly secured the pipeline. The fact of the matter is that the project is to be funded three ways, with the state government, the federal government and the Livingston Shire Council each contributing a third of the almost $50 million cost.
I say again, had it not been for the tireless efforts of individuals like Bill Ludwig and Kim Mobbs, in particular, this project would never have gotten off the ground. The teamwork displayed by these individuals should serve as an illustration to us all that we can achieve more as a group than as individuals. As is usual in situations such as these, none of the key players are out there blowing their own trumpets, as are certain members of the National Party. All criticism aside, though, everyone involved in getting this major project off the ground deserves to be thanked for their efforts. The pipeline, which is expected to commence construction next year, will be a major plus for the Capricorn Coast residents as well as the thriving tourism industry.
Bonner Electorate: Defence Facilities
111
111
09:39:00
Vasta, Ross, MP
E0D
Bonner
LP
1
0
Mr VASTA
—I rise this morning to raise a matter of great importance to the people of Bonner and Queensland. It is an issue that goes to the heart of the effort the Howard government is making to create jobs, enhance skills, boost the potential for small to medium enterprises and foster sustainable industry development in Australia. In recent months my colleague the honourable member for Bradfield and Minister for Defence, Brendan Nelson, has provided a clearer picture of the government’s commitment to spend $51 billion on defence capability over the next 10 years. The policy settings are in place to ensure Australian industry can play its part in delivering that capability.
This is great news for Australian industry and great news for Queensland. This will be a catalyst for thousands of young Australians to join the workforce and take up apprenticeships and training opportunities in trade, engineering and technical areas. I am sure that this is something that will please my colleague the member for Moreton, the Hon. Gary Hardgrave, in his role as Minister for Vocational and Technical Education. It also underpins this government’s ongoing effort to grow the existing skills base in Queensland to develop not only defence capability but also the booming resources sector, which has seen Queensland become a powerhouse state in its contribution to the health of the Australian economy. This is of particular interest to me in that the long-established Cairncross dry dock and the expanding Brisbane Marine Industry Park nearby could well play a major role in the modular construction of two amphibious or landing helicopter dock ships if the bid by ADI Ltd is successful.
I noted with concern, therefore, a reference in the recent submission by the Department of Defence to the Senate inquiry into naval shipbuilding in Australia to the effect that a number of the facilities in Brisbane were old and would not meet the demands of modern major ship construction. The commercial future of Cairncross is a matter for the Forgacs company, but I am sure that wiser heads will appreciate the key role that the already established Cairncross dock and marine industry park could play in the construction of these LHD ships. Even more significantly, these facilities are directly within the city of Brisbane, which has a concentration of relevant skills, infrastructure and industry support already available to the ADI and its partner companies.
Middle East
112
112
09:42:00
Melham, Daryl, MP
4T4
Banks
ALP
0
0
Mr MELHAM
—Yesterday I, together with a number of other parliamentarians, received a briefing from a group called Australians for Lebanon, which has come together recently as a result of the tragedy that is occurring in Lebanon. I have also received a letter from the Ambassador of Lebanon, Michel Bitar, dated 6 August 2006. He says:
Lebanon has become a disaster area and a humanitarian catastrophe of incredible dimensions. Since the bombardment began on 12 July—
Then he details the number of deaths, now 1,000. He goes on:
-
Hundreds more people lie trapped ... 900,000 are displaced ...
-
Vital infrastructure has been decimated ...
-
An air, land and sea blockade ...
-
Ambulances, Fire-engines, Hospitals, Medics, aid workers and UN Peace-keepers have been targeted by Israeli air strikes.
The precipitation of the crisis was action by Hezbollah, which should be condemned. But my concern is that Israel, in its actions, has responded in a hugely disproportionate way and that Lebanon is paying a high price in the massive destruction of its infrastructure. As of today, there are more than a million internally displaced citizens. It is going to take a very long time for the country to recover. I do not need to cite the Geneva conventions; they are well known. What concerns me about this whole process that Israel has engaged in is that I believe it is more than just surgical strikes. Too many innocent civilians are being killed. UN personnel have been killed. Infrastructure, including roads, has been destroyed. I think there is a humanitarian crisis in that country that is going to continue to unfold. I for one would like to see Australia, America and other like-minded countries calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities in the region. That goes for both Hezbollah and Israel.
Israel is supposed to be a civilised country. With the greatest respect, I do not believe its response has been civilised. I think it has been an overreaction to send a message to the region. What worries me is that it is taking the sort of action, through the targeting of civilians, that is outlawed under international law, and one needs to take care that one is going after military objects, not innocent civilians. I would like to see a cessation of fighting, I would like to see the UN brought in sooner rather than later and I would like to see people not sitting on their hands. What is happening is unjustifiable. (Time expired)
Balaklava Eisteddfod Society
113
113
09:45:00
Fawcett, David, MP
DYU
Wakefield
LP
1
0
Mr FAWCETT
—I would like to take a few minutes of the House’s time today to draw its attention to the strengths of some of our regional communities, particularly the community in Wakefield. I speak particularly about the 10th eisteddfod of the Balaklava Eisteddfod Society, conducted this weekend past. This eisteddfod has grown to be a three-day event that involves hundreds of entrants from across Wakefield and culminates in the finale concert, which I had the pleasure of opening on Sunday afternoon, where there was a massed choir drawn from schools from the north of the electorate in places like Saddleworth and Clare; Kapunda to the east; and right down to the outer metropolitan areas. There was a large range of talent, and it was a large celebration of the value of music and performance by young people in the electorate of Wakefield.
I believe it is important to look back to what Plato said about music. He contended that we should teach music, physics and philosophy to young people, but he said that most importantly we should teach music because in music and all of the arts are the keys to learning. What sorts of keys to learning was he talking about there? Obviously there is music itself, the confidence you gain from public performance or public speaking and team work. But I think that the most important key is learning to create—to create music and to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts.
I would contend that, if young people who are currently out committing random acts of vandalism or other violence had the opportunity to participate in something like this eisteddfod, that great sense of achievement that they would have gained through creating would have stemmed any inclination to go into those more destructive areas. So I believe it is a great strength of the community that it can make the opportunity for young people to create music together. But that only happens with the strong support and commitment of people.
I would like to congratulate and thank Di Spence, of the organising committee of the Balaklava Eisteddfod Society, as well as the Balco Group, the major sponsor—particularly Malcolm and Joe May, the owners of Balco. They sponsor this not only financially but also literally, as on the day they are there acting as escorts and helping with the administration of the eisteddfod. The community helps as well: the churches provide venues and support over three days; the Mayor, Mr James Maitland, is the patron of the eisteddfod; and small businesses like McCracken Ford, which also runs a petrol station, stayed open on the Sunday just so people from outlying areas could come to the eisteddfod. I think it is a great credit to the communities of Wakefield that this eisteddfod has given these young people this opportunity.
Centrelink
114
114
09:48:00
Hall, Jill, MP
83N
Shortland
ALP
0
0
Ms HALL
—One of the issues that I think the government has not addressed properly is the chronic skills shortage throughout Australia. Three areas that particularly suffer from skill shortages are doctors, nurses and pharmacists. So you can imagine my surprise when in a very short time frame I had three constituents come and see me about the fact that they had been denied assistance from Centrelink because they had gone over their time. I will share with the House the stories of these three people, and members can judge for themselves. I believe that the rules are very inflexible and that there needs to be the ability for Centrelink to make some discretionary decisions.
The first person I will talk about is a woman who commenced study at the University of Newcastle in 1999 to become a doctor. She studied in 1999, 2000 and 2001. Her fourth year was 2002, but she did not complete it because she was ill. She had a recurrence of the illness in 2003. Now she is well, back at university and completing her degree. But she has been denied support from Centrelink. She has been forced to go onto Newstart and to look for work. She is currently balancing her study and doing some work in the hospital but finding it very difficult. That is because Centrelink only allows 5½ years to complete the degree.
Another case I would like to raise with you is that of a pharmacy student. To become a pharmacist there is no option other than to complete a master’s degree. Centrelink is saying that they will not pay the student for the final year of his studies, which means that once again we are putting in jeopardy an entrant to our pharmacy workforce.
The final constituent I would like to mention is a person doing nursing full time at the University of Newcastle. He has less than six months to complete his degree, lives with his aged grandmother and needs to extend his studies by six months. Unfortunately, once again, Centrelink is refusing to give him any income support.
If we are serious about addressing the skills shortage we need to be able to support students like these three students who are studying in areas of great shortage. Unless there is some flexibility put in the legislation, the whole of Australia and our workforce will suffer.
Casey Electorate: Croydon Football Club Past Players and Officials Association
114
114
09:51:00
Smith, Anthony, MP
00APG
Casey
LP
1
0
Mr ANTHONY SMITH
—I would like to take the time of the House this morning to recognise and pay tribute to the Croydon Football Club Past Players and Officials Association led by Mr Roger O’Brien, a past player and stalwart of the club. The association is dedicated to all of the past players and supporters of the club and is this year recognising and celebrating the club’s centenary year. Each year they have a special function, which I had the pleasure of attending just a couple of weekends ago on Sunday, 23 July.
One of the things they do is recognise and remember the past players of the club who lost their lives serving Australia in all our conflicts. Just a few weeks ago at that function I had the pleasure on behalf of the club of presenting certificates to three families whose relatives had died during World War II. They were three players who had played for the club in their 1937 premiership team and who volunteered for service in World War II and lost their lives. Those three players included John Beck, who enlisted in the Army and joined the Second 33rd Infantry Battalion, was wounded in the Middle East, twice in New Guinea and died in 1943 after being shot. The second was Jack Cowley, who joined the RAAF and was an air gunner in the South-West Pacific. In May 1944 his plane was badly shot up and the plane and the crew were never found. The third was Frank ‘Skeeter’ Black, who enlisted in the Army in 1941, saw active service in New Guinea and Bougainville, left the Army at the end of the war but unfortunately died of wounds just a few weeks after returning to Australia. These three past players of the Croydon Football Club deserve to be remembered, and I want to place on record the great work that Roger O’Brien, his wife, Dot O’Brien, and Alan Baldwin do with the past players association in remembering the important history of the Croydon Football Club.
Mr Ron Moore OAM
115
115
09:54:00
Hayes, Chris, MP
ECV
Werriwa
ALP
0
0
Mr HAYES
—As you would appreciate, Mr Deputy Speaker, it is pretty rare that an individual can come into your life and make a significant difference, but what is rarer is for an individual, a single person, to make a significant difference to their local community. Today I would like to take a little of the House’s time to talk about Ron Moore as one such person. When I moved into Campbelltown some 30 years ago, as with most young families I certainly did not have the money to pay people to do things around the house such as maintenance and improvements. This is where Ron comes in.
Ron and Joy Moore started their hardware business in Campbelltown in 1956 with a store in Queen Street, Campbelltown. They relocated in 1960 to Ingleburn and subsequently in 1977 to Minto. When you seek to make improvements, you obviously go to the hardware store and have someone help you. But, in the case of Ron’s hardware, apart from being able to sell you anything from a single screw through to paint and up to heavy hardware, he was always on hand to give technical advice. He taught a whole generation of people who became handymen solely by necessity and then went on to teach many of their kids, many of whom became professional tradesmen.
Ron and Joy have been a significant part of the Campbelltown community. Ron is also patron of the Campbelltown Historical Society. Within our community, he has received many honours. I would quickly like to name a few. He was Campbelltown’s Citizen of the Year. He was inducted into the Hardware Hall of Fame. He was a finalist in the New South Wales Hardware Industry Awards. But his most treasured award is his Order of Australia Medal, which he received in 1994.
Ron and his wife Joy together started this community hardware business and serviced a community in all our needs. We are sorry that at this stage Joy is suffering poor health and Ron has now had to close his store. After 50 years, this is very significant to my area. I wish Ron and Joy well for their future. Hopefully they will spend a little more time with their three adult children and their seven grandchildren and reflect upon what they have given to the area of Campbelltown.
St Francis Catholic Primary School
115
115
09:57:00
Neville, Paul, MP
KV5
Hinkler
NATS
1
0
Mr NEVILLE
—In recent weeks I attended an official function at St Francis Catholic Primary School at Tannum Sands in the Calliope shire near Gladstone. It was celebrating the unveiling of a plaque to St Francis and the announcement of stage 2 of the school’s development. St Francis school is renowned for caring for students’ development, and it is fitting that St Francis of Assisi should be the school’s patron saint. The legacy of St Francis was his gift of sympathy and love of nature and animals, a motto which provides direction and inspiration to all who work at the school.
From the very beginning of the planning of the school, for example, the example of Francis of Assisi, with his love of God and all creation, has been the guiding principle. The sculpture of St Francis and his beloved animals was a gift from the diocesan Catholic Education Office in Rockhampton and now sits proudly at the school’s entrance as a focal point for the school. The setting is also consistent with the spirit of St Francis, being built in rather thick bushland, complete with kangaroos and birds. I sometimes go to mass there. In the old days before the school was built the kangaroos used to come up to the windows of the church. It was quite a moving experience. In this redevelopment, which the Commonwealth is contributing $2.4 million to, we are going to put in a general learning area, provision for an interim library, a half-covered basketball court area, pupil amenities, a physical education amenity, preparatory amenities, car parking, furniture and equipment.
St Francis School opened in 2005 with 124 students. Enrolments now stand at over 200. Stage 2 will enable the school to continue meeting the demands of quality Christian based education. It will also give the people of the Tannum Sands area a choice in the education of their children. There is a very real sense of community at the school, and I am very proud of its achievements over this first 12 months. I congratulate the parish priest, Seamus McMahon, one of my favourite pastors; Principal Andy Nicholls and his staff; the diocesan director of Catholic education, Leesa Jeffcoat; and all the parents who have provided unswerving support for the school. In this day and age it has never been more appropriate that children be brought up with the message of St Francis firmly implanted in their psyches: make me an instrument of your peace.
Middle East
116
116
10:00:00
Murphy, John, MP
83D
Lowe
ALP
0
0
Mr MURPHY
—It was with a heavy heart that I read further reports this morning which only served to cast an overbearing shadow over hopes for immediate peace in Lebanon. More distressingly, there does not appear to be an end in sight to the appalling loss of innocent lives, which is concomitant with any war. To date, more than 960 Lebanese civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed; thousands have been injured; hundreds remain trapped under the weight of their own homes; and 900,000 civilians have been displaced. These are innocent lives that did not seek or deserve the punishment that has visited them.
I was dismayed to read a recent report in an Australian newspaper which suggested that civilian targets are a part of modern warfare and that we should somehow accept this reality and accept the notion of collateral damage. While it may be understandable, though not forgivable, for these comments to be made by armchair commentators from the comfort of their homes, there are many others who would understandably disagree. Perhaps these commentators could come and explain the concept to the thousands and thousands of proud Australians with Lebanese heritage who reside in my electorate of Lowe. Father Emmanuel Sakr, of St Joseph’s Maronite Church in Croydon, is one such person. Father Emmanuel’s parents are trapped in the Lebanese village of Debl. They are living without electricity or food. Father Pierre El-Khoury, also of St Joseph’s parish, has found himself stranded in Lebanon. Councillor John Faker, Mayor of Burwood, is waiting for his brother Chemel to return to Australia. We cannot be dismissive of their plight.
The lessons of history have taught us well that an emphasis on military might, rather than on dogmatic diplomacy, can only generate an equal and opposite reaction. I would hope that the war in Lebanon has done nothing to endear the main protagonists to the majority of the civilians they purport to represent. Unfortunately, as each week passes, we are still only seeing actions which serve to compound the disaster. The Prime Minister was right to suggest that we should be addressing the root causes of this disaster. However, before doing so, he must make louder international calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities by both parties, call for a peacekeeping force and provide greater humanitarian and infrastructure assistance to Lebanon—a country which we should remember has relatively recently pulled itself out of the despair created by a civil war which was not entirely of its own creating. Only then can the world make serious attempts to address the underlying tensions the Prime Minister speaks of without resorting to religious and ideological corners. Israeli, Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, who want nothing more than to live within secure borders without the constant threat of missile attacks, deserve nothing less from the international community—Australia included.
Investing in Our Schools Program
117
117
10:02:00
Baldwin, Robert, MP
LL6
Paterson
LP
1
0
Mr BALDWIN
—The education of our children is perhaps one of the most critical issues we face as a nation. Our children are the most important asset that we as parents and we as a community have. It is also said that, when we invest in the education of a child, no matter what happens to them in life it is the one thing that can never be taken away from them. I am concerned by comments by one of the state members in my electorate who says that the Howard government is dudding the schools in my electorate.
Our government has invested in a program called Investing in Our Schools, and I have been very successful: of the 54 schools in my electorate, 43 schools have received around $2.57 million, supporting their P&Cs in acquiring what is most needed for their schools. A lot of these projects could not be achieved without the investment by the federal government of up to $150,000 per school for projects. This can be for shadecloths, musical instruments, computer upgrades or books in the libraries. Indeed, the Stroud school recently opened a library. They upgraded a classroom to make a new library—a library that will provide for quality education.
One of the issues is that many of the schools, like Francis Greenway and Irrawang, have applied to put their money towards the air conditioning of their schools. However, the state education department will not pay for the electrical upgrades for the schools to be able to run the air conditioning. This is a serious situation because of some of the temperatures there.
In New South Wales, the state government announced in the last budget $120 million for a big program of upgrade and maintenance of schools. But that is $120 million over four years, or $30 million a year, amongst the thousands of schools in New South Wales. I say to the state members of parliament in my electorate, ‘Just match what we do.’ We increased our budget for educational funding of capital works by 8.9 per cent. This goes to funding approximately 50 per cent of the development of school improvements and new programs. Recently, I was honoured to be able to open the new buildings and blocks at the Anna Bay and Soldiers Point public schools. That was a program worth around $7 million, towards which this government contributed $3.4 million.
So it is not this government but the state government that is dudding the education of the most important assets of this nation by refusing to match our funding increases and refusing to meet the basic needs of education in our schools—things like computers, books and shade structures, when skin cancer is such a big issue. So I am glad that under our Investing in Our Schools program the schools in my electorate are active participants and are putting that money where it is needed. (Time expired)
10000
DEPUTY SPEAKER, The
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
—Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for members’ statements has concluded.
THERAPEUTIC GOODS AMENDMENT BILL (NO. 3) 2006
118
BILLS
R2528
Second Reading
118
Debate resumed from 11 May, on motion by Mr Pyne:
That this bill be now read a second time.
118
10:06:00
Ferguson, Laurie, MP
8T4
Reid
ALP
0
0
Mr LAURIE FERGUSON
—The opposition supports the Therapeutic Goods Amendment Bill (No. 3) 2006. It is essentially designed to streamline the application-making process for medicines, blood products and tissue. The e-business portal will enable manufacturing applicants to monitor the passage of their applications and to make amendments as the need arises. Since taking over as the shadow minister with responsibility for the TGA, I have embarked on an extensive process of meeting key TGA stakeholders. These include consumer and industry groups. To date I have received significant feedback which has reiterated the perception of the competence of the TGA. Whilst it has its critics, the TGA commands widespread respect.
The Medical Industry Association of Australia have, over the past few months, made a concerted effort to keep me fully informed of the key issues with which they have been dealing over the past few years. Given, as I say, that this bill is non-controversial and there is agreement to it from the opposition, I intend to make some broader comments. I recently had the pleasure of touring key medical devices manufacturing operations and distributors in my own and neighbouring electorates. During our meetings, the MIAA and their members raised numerous issues with regard to the industry and the TGA. According to the MIAA, the industry supported the 2002 revision of the Therapeutic Goods Act and regulations to provide a harmonised regulatory model for medical devices and in vitro diagnostics. Industry support was then based on three important factors: (1) the incorporation of a risk based approach to regulation; (2) harmonisation with the regulatory systems of Australia’s manufacturing suppliers, in terms of both the content of the legislation and the TGA’s interpretation and administration of the regulation; and (3) cost-effectiveness.
The medical devices industry’s support for the proposals was based on an expectation that harmonisation of the system would reduce regulatory duplication and shorten the approval time to allow medical devices onto the Australian market. To date, the MIAA are reporting to me that their expectations are unmet. According to them:
Australian manufacturers and importers face considerable difficulty and costs in moving to the new model. Transition of products has proved to be slow and there is a real risk of products (manufactured locally or imported) not being available to consumers in Australia.
Industry had envisaged the TGA act would be consistent with the Australian government’s public commitment to the work of the Global Harmonisation Task Force, the GHTF. Their objectives focus on providing a forum for national regulatory authorities and industry representatives from the European Union, the United States of America, Japan, Canada and Australia to promote international convergence in regulatory requirements and practice and, in particular, to promote the safety, effectiveness, performance and quality of medical devices; to encourage technological innovation; and to foster international trade. It would also serve as an information exchange forum through which countries with medical devices regulatory systems under development could benefit from the experience of those with established systems. The MIAA have publicly stated:
... the majority of current problems for industry result from the regulations’ deviation from the European framework with which they were originally intended to be harmonized. The resulting extra work for many Australian sponsors and their suppliers on top of regulatory work performed and approved elsewhere in the world, means the Australian system is currently duplicative, difficult and expensive. Even though the new regulatory system is in its early days, MIAA believes that the signs are already becoming obvious that it will negatively impact the growth of the Australian industry and ultimately affect consumer access to state-of-the-art technology.
From an industry perspective, the majority of the current problems arise as a result of losing sight of the European framework with which they were originally supposedly to be harmonised. Whilst lodging manufacturing applications may be a minor part of the delay, all the same it will aid in the process of creating greater efficiencies, especially given that the industry is looking to move more than 10,000 items into the new regulatory regime before the October 2007 deadline. Obviously, that is a mammoth task—10,000 items will be basically moved over and reauthorised, and the clock is certainly ticking.
I turn to the complementary health sector. I recently had the opportunity to visit the Symbion vitamins manufacturing plant in Virginia, Brisbane. This is one of the country’s leading manufacturers of complementary medicines, also known as neutraceuticals. Again, I take this opportunity to highlight some of the key issues which are currently affecting this aspect of the industry and their dealings with the TGA.
Treating this field as a type of drug is probably the right approach, so long as the nature of the products and the supply chain is properly allowed for. Raw material manufacturers are not subject to good manufacturing processes. This creates difficulties for the industry, as the companies involved in Australia are essentially unable to control the supply chain and guarantee product. Australian industry is relatively small, so there are limits to what we can expect overseas raw material manufacturers to undertake for the Australian companies. They are generally controlled by large US manufacturers. Australian companies report that the size of the Australian market means that they are unable to gain priority. Australian requirements and expectations tend to be a low priority for these companies.
Natural variations in raw materials are to be expected, so pharmaceutical type tolerances are not achievable. To this end, greater margins for deviation are essentially to be allowed for. The margins are much tighter, so compliance costs must be reasonable. This is especially important given that the public health risk is generally much lower. A greater risk management approach by the TGA is sought by the manufacturers. Compliance should be linked to consumer risk.
The TGA are more used to the nature of the pharmaceutical industry and prefer the greater certainties, and they tend to interpret the guidelines along pharmaceutical lines. Whilst industry recognises the need for institutionalising the highest possible standards, there is, nevertheless, a perception that these standards ought not necessarily to be those of the pharmaceutical industry. Enforcement of regulation lacks transparency and accountability in this field and is therefore often inconsistent—for example, between big and small or between Australia and overseas. Again, manufacturers require a universal standard applied to all manufacturers, regardless of the size of the operations. They also require greater transparency and consultation by the TGA. They take the view that the Pan calamity has created a very uneven relationship with the regulator, and yet the reality is that industry has moved on and now operates under a totally revised regime.
Compliance costs are probably amongst the highest in the world. I ask: is this based on evidence of any specific problems? The process to debate audit issues does not seem to be in place or is ineffective, as communication is normally restricted to the lead auditor. Contacting auditors and seeking advice on and interpretation of issues is very difficult, and the time taken for resolution is often commercially damaging. Audits are becoming longer and more in-depth. Why is this set in stone for companies with a proven track record, as against those which are perceived to have more risk, either domestic or overseas owned?
The issues raised above are contributing to a situation where domestic manufacturing is being replaced by overseas options, especially from India and China, where manufacturing is cheaper and audits are more difficult to conduct. And yet it is not likely that the standards in India and China are higher than or equivalent to the standards that we have here in Australia. Certainly, it is much more difficult to audit a plant in China or India, for that matter, than in Australia. Likewise, there is little evidence to suggest that there are any unannounced audits in places such as these countries.
I turn to concerns of consumer groups in respect of the TGA and the broad field of pharmaceuticals. In a submission to the ACCC the Australian Consumers Association argued that the objective of the regulation of pharmaceutical marketing should be to achieve a balance between the interests of pharmaceutical companies in promoting their products, the need for consumers to receive accurate and comprehensive information about medicines, and minimising the risk of overprescription or incorrect prescription. Consumer groups have expressed concern about the manner in which pharmaceutical companies target both consumers and doctors in their marketing practices. Some pharmaceutical companies have circumvented the prohibition of direct consumer advertising by a number of means, and these have been internationally exposed in recent months. Advertising is masqueraded as educational campaigning. They place stories in the media that are presented as medical breakthroughs. They sponsor high-profile events. They subsidise academics to provide favourable expert opinion, and they sponsor prizes for journalism awards.
Whilst the opposition supports the provisions of self-regulation in the pharmaceutical industry, it is also a reality that much of the abuse outlined above arises from a seemingly lax attitude to enforcement by the self-regulatory body. An example of this is the self-regulatory code sanctions, which are inadequate as they clearly pose very little deterrence to repeat offenders. The ACA argue that it is a fundamental requirement of any successful code that there be meaningful sanctions if the code is breached. Most fines imposed by the code committee are under $25,000 and only one was more than $100,000. I think we know how those sorts of penalties would be regarded in a very highly capitalised industry such as pharmaceuticals.
Abuses of the current self-regulatory system are detrimental to consumers. Advertising inflates the prevalence of certain conditions and encourages consumers to take medication that they may not need. Increased demand for new products occurs when older versions with the same efficacy are available, and that inflates the cost to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The limitations of the self-regulatory regime extend much further than advertising. Advertising can take the form of insidious incentives, as revealed two weeks ago in the press, which point to a culture of handouts and expensive functions for physicians, fully paid for by pharmaceutical companies.
Roche Pharmaceuticals were recently in the news for providing cancer specialists with a $200-a-head meal at the Opera House Bennelong restaurant. Roche argue that this dinner was simple, modest and appropriate given that it followed an education conference the company had organised and sponsored. For what purpose? For their own purposes.
The Australian Medical Association raced to the defence of its members’ right to attend such functions. It even went so far as to argue that it is part of the process of ‘oiling the wheels’. This was clearly inconsistent with the standards set by the Medicines Australia code—that is, by the pharmaceutical companies themselves—which suggests that hospitality be simple, modest and reasonable. Whilst the AMA is unable to identify fault in the manner in which its members are wooed by industry, the ACCC has taken a more critical view by reauthorising the code with an added emphasis on monitoring and publishing details of hospitality received by AMA members. Whilst the views of the AMA are held in good faith, there is mounting evidence contradicting its sincerity and sense. The online journal New Matilda last week carried an article by Dr Ken Harvey, who stated:
A large amount of research contradicts the view that no patient harm comes from such interactions between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry. Research shows that industry-doctor interaction correlates with doctors’ preferences for new products that hold no demonstrated advantage over existing ones, decreased prescribing of more cost-effective generic drugs and a rise in both and irrational and incautious prescribing.
In conclusion, I have canvassed a number of other facets connected with the TGA and broader pharmaceutical industry. The bill is supported by the opposition. It is a step towards ensuring swiftness of operation, and we endorse the bill.
121
10:19:00
Hartsuyker, Luke, MP
00AMM
Cowper
NATS
1
0
Mr HARTSUYKER
—I welcome the measures contained in the Therapeutic Goods Amendment Bill (No. 3) 2006. It will allow the Therapeutic Goods Administration to conduct a modernisation of its procedures with regard to the issue of licences and to make a further response to the report of the National Audit Office in 2004. I would like to take the opportunity to dwell on the current pressures on the health service—in particular the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the demand for alternative or complementary medicines and the response to these pressures in regional areas.
Currently, under section 37(1) of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989, manufacturers of medicines, blood and tissues have to apply in writing for the relevant licences. The passage of this bill will enable them to lodge such applications electronically. Manufacturers will be able to track easily the progress of their applications and to make necessary amendments. It should make the process rather more attractive to manufacturers and ease the passage of new products onto the market. No information additional to that required for the existing application process will be required, so there is no extra bureaucratic burden on the manufacturer. The measure will also enable the TGA to continue to address criticisms made by the Audit Office of its data management, documentation and record keeping.
I mentioned pressure on the health service. One pressure is the public’s demand for medicines in general. We are encouraged to become more health conscious, to become more aware of health risks and to take early intervention and preventative action. That is fine as far as it goes. It is clearly better for the individual and for the finances of the health service for an ailment to be dealt with quickly and cheaply at an early stage than to be left until a lengthy, expensive treatment or surgery is required. This increased level of consciousness has led to a greater knowledge of what medicines are available and a greater demand for those medicines provided under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, or PBS. This is particularly true of expensive drugs that have proved far more effective than their competitors for a limited number of patients. However, with cost pressures, it is often hard to explain to a sufferer of, for example Crohn’s disease, why they may have to pay thousands of dollars for a drug treatment which provides them with great relief and which may remove the need for complex surgical intervention at a later date. I hope we will be able to provide improved pharmaceutical support for Crohn’s sufferers at some stage in the near future.
But I acknowledge this is both a difficult area, in assessing the efficacy of drugs, and a political area. How do we administer a program such as the PBS for greatest benefit? It is also true that many drugs coming onto the market are expensive and may be suitable for a wide range of patients. This means great cost pressure, which needs to be managed carefully if we are going to ensure that our health budget delivers the maximum benefits. The current annual cost of the PBS is $6.2 billion. I would imagine there are a few who would argue that we should cap this cost and abandon our support for medicines. But I would also imagine there are a few who would argue that this process needs to be very efficiently managed so that we reduce costs wherever we can. There is a role for the public to play in this.
I am not convinced that the increasing level of consciousness of the need for personal health has resulted in a sufficient commitment to greater personal responsibility. Prevention, after all, is better than cure. Prevention lies, in many cases, in our own hands. We all know that managing our diet, avoiding cigarettes and reducing our alcohol intake can have substantial personal benefits. However, sadly, in many cases people still overindulge and fail to manage adequately their own personal health.
Let us consider the message on diet for a moment; it is clearly not getting through. Australia is one of the fattest developed nations. The percentage of Australian adults who are overweight or obese has doubled in the last two decades—that is, 67 per cent of men aged 25 to 64 are overweight or obese, and the equivalent figure for women is 52 per cent. It is a huge problem. More worryingly, 20 to 25 per cent of Australian children between five and 17 are overweight or obese. That is double the prevalence recorded in 1986. These children and adults are at greater risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke and some forms of cancer. The cost of obesity is estimated to be some $1.2 billion a year. If we could eliminate that, we could spend that $1.2 billion in other areas. I welcome the setting up of the National Obesity Taskforce but, unless we accept personal responsibility for our own health, obesity may end up as an absolute epidemic. I know that not all obesity is self-induced, but I think it is fair to say that much of that $1.2 billion could be saved. It is one-fifth of the current annual cost of the PBS.
There is another perhaps more easily attainable form of saving that will require if not personal responsibility then public acceptance, and that is the use of generic drugs. Many people are reluctant to accept the cheaper generic versions of a drug, particularly if they have been used to receiving the originally patented version for some length of time. As more patents expire, there will be more generics available. I believe we have to work hard to overcome this reluctance to use generic drugs so that the savings made in the area of generics can be put into new, innovative drugs that will potentially provide huge gains to people in our country.
I noted in Wednesday’s Sydney Morning Herald a report that the Indian pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy has secured listing of four of its low-cost generics on the PBS. Ranbaxy is the first Indian company to have its drugs listed, and the move is expected to generate increased price competition. There are clearly opportunities here not just to control the cost of the PBS but also to possibly help meet the cost of providing some of those innovative drugs I spoke of earlier. I should say that the cost is by no means the only criteria for listing on the PBS, but it would be unrealistic to operate on the basis that the PBS could be isolated from all cost pressures. I welcome the comments by the Minister for Health and Ageing, Mr Abbott, that savings from the introduction of generics can create headroom for spending on the newest, more expensive drugs. There are benefits here for patients, and we should grasp the opportunity.
I should remind members that the government have increased health spending in the area of aged care. We have spent in total on health some $48 billion, $20 billion more than in 1996-97. We are currently increasing the availability of new drugs on the PBS by providing more than $750 million for new treatments for colon cancer, breast cancer, heart failure and high blood cholesterol. More than 350,000 Australians are expected to benefit from these drugs.
It is worth noting that, while many express the view that the PBS should provide more and that they should pay less, the expert committee report Complementary medicines in the Australian health system, published in 2003, estimated that the annual turnover of complementary medicines was some $800 million. The total market in this area, including purchases made from overseas companies, is likely to be far higher than that. The same researchers reported that 52.1 per cent of the population surveyed had used at least one non-physician-prescribed alternative medicine, with an additional 20 per cent of Australian complementary medicines output being exported. This is clearly an area of medicine that holds a strong attraction for many people, who are prepared to spend a great deal of their own money. Without wishing to comment on the efficacy of the products, we need to ensure that the products of this apparently profitable industry are safe. It is right and proper that the TGA is active in this area. Insofar as this market represents an economic opportunity and provides choices the consumer clearly wants, the measure we are discussing today will make it easier for manufacturers to bring new products onto the market.
There are those who say that we should remove all cost restraints from the PBS and that, if a drug is licensed by the TGA and prescribed by a doctor, it should be available. There are many, including the sufferer of Crohn’s disease whom I mentioned earlier, who would no doubt welcome an expansion of the drugs covered by the PBS. We do have to have cost control, but I certainly would welcome an extension of therapeutic assistance to Crohn’s sufferers in the near future. However, it is easy to forget that budgets are limited. It is easy to forget that extra money spent on the PBS might mean less money to subsidise bulk-billing, which covers almost seven out of 10 consultations in my electorate. It might also be easy to divert funds from one area of the health budget, such as the Medicare safety net. That is an example of the difficult choices in health that need to be made and the importance of ensuring that we tightly monitor the costs of the PBS to derive maximum benefit for the community at an affordable cost to the government. If we were to overspend in one area of health, it might mean that worthwhile projects might not go ahead. Some new, groundbreaking areas in the health system may be retarded by a failure to appropriately control costs in other areas.
I would like to dwell for a moment on an important project, the Rural Palliative Care Program. It is currently supporting a number of pilot projects—one of which is in my electorate—and provides stakeholders with improved access to quality palliative care in a regional or rural setting. I think that is vitally important. I am pleased to have such a pilot in my electorate. Earlier this year, I was able to announce that Baringa Private Hospital in Coffs Harbour was to receive nearly half a million dollars to set up a palliative care service, increasing the number of palliative care beds and providing additional clinical and IT equipment. These measures will improve the quality of life of patients who have serious or life-threatening diseases, treating as soon as possible the symptoms of the disease and the side-effects of treatment and providing psychological, social and spiritual assistance as may be required during the time that that person and their family are dealing with that illness.
These new and innovative programs are the sorts of programs that can go ahead because we focused in the area of health very much on economic efficiency and economic effectiveness, which provided the budget to do these more innovative programs. The Baringa hospital project will ease the pressure on existing facilities and so make those resources available to other patients, as well as support the sufferers and their families. The funding comes from the Rural Health Strategy, which is providing some $830 million over four years for health and aged care services and workforce measures.
In June 2005, the Minister for Health and Ageing came to Coffs Harbour to open the $3 million Rural Clinical School, which is now training medical students through the University of New South Wales but substantially in rural and regional areas. The strategy behind the Rural Clinical School is that if we train our doctors in a regional setting they are more likely to practise there. The rural workforce is a major issue which needs to be addressed in rural and regional areas. It is one the government is very focused on. It is one that we are achieving in. It is one that the Rural Clinical School plays a major part in developing.
Last month, Minister Abbott was in Coffs Harbour to open a $1.2 million nursing laboratory, which included two four-bed simulated wards. The training of nurses in a regional area is basically done on the same principle as the training of our doctors—that is, if we train our nurses in a regional setting they are more likely to stay there. I certainly welcome the commitment by the government, which was substantial funding of some $850,000 under the Commonwealth Grants Scheme, to assist in the construction of this $1.2 million facility. This impressive project complements the government’s investment in 164 extra nursing places, which I announced some two years ago. These measures are all designed to address the issue of rural and regional workplace shortages and, as I said, train those health professionals in the area where we would like them to practise. Good health care is about planning. Good health care is about spending money efficiently. But, more than anything else, good health care is about the skills and empathy of the people working in our hospitals and clinics.
In conclusion, I would like to mention five people who received certificates of appreciation for a lifetime commitment to health when Minister Abbott visited Coffs Harbour last month. Doctors Jerry Power and Michael Ridley and nurses Helen Jones, Gay Bowen and Carol Brewster received certificates from the minister to recognise a lifetime contribution to the health system. It is professionals like them, who not only contribute their skills but also repay the investment in their training many times over, who are the mainstay of our health service. Whilst often we spend much time in the area of health arguing over the issue of money, I think there is one thing that is inarguable, and that is the commitment and dedication of the many health professionals who are the backbone of our system and who make it work year in, year out.
125
10:33:00
Hatton, Michael, MP
LN6
Blaxland
ALP
0
0
Mr HATTON
—We have had a broad-ranging debate so far on the Therapeutic Goods Amendment Bill (No. 3) 2006, based on what is fundamentally a very minor change. The amendment to the Therapeutic Goods Act in this bill allows those manufacturers of medicines, blood and tissues to make an application for a manufacturing licence electronically using the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s e-business system. That brings it into line not only with a number of other government departments which are using e-business but also with changes that have already occurred.
I want to look at a couple of aspects of this. One is the broad question of e-business and the transition from the old paper forms across government to the new electronic model. The other is the effectiveness within the department itself and the fact that the manner in which the particular matters were carried out by the department has been heavily criticised. In the background paper put together by the Parliamentary Library, there is a section—which I will deal with a bit later—with regard to an audit report done by the Australian National Audit Office on the manner in which the department had been conducting itself.
This is a tiny example of a change, but the implications are very great. The old system—one could say almost a 19th century approach but a very useful one, people just simply being able to write—specifically stated this, and that is why we actually require a specific change. That is section 37(1) of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989. It says:
-
An application for a licence must:
-
be made in writing in accordance with a form approved by the Secretary ...
You can find that in just about any government documentation you can imagine. But specifically under the Therapeutic Goods Act in order to get the licence it had to be in writing and it had to be on the right form. The change here is to say that it does not have to be in writing on a bit of paper. It can be in text form and certified text form as part of the process being introduced in e-business, and that is as good as you will get. This would be of no surprise to the Japanese, who worked it out a very long time ago. The original fax machines were developed in the 19th century and used to transport a paper written piece of work. The first fax machines were not developed in Japan but the Japanese took them up more than anyone else.
84C
Thompson, Cameron, MP
Mr Cameron Thompson interjecting—
LN6
Hatton, Michael, MP
Mr HATTON
—For the benefit of the member for Blair, the first fax machines in the world were developed in the late 1870s. They did not become a world standard. It took us about another 100 years before they became world standard very simply because there was a particular way of going about it. If you go back to about 1986, when I attempted to convince Voca Communications that it would be really smart to provide scanners to electorate offices by simply upping the dpi from 200 to 300 in the fax machines that they were providing us—it was possible to make a technological leap—Voca were able to supply the Department of Finance and Administration with fax machines at the time simply because there were worldwide standards.
In the 1870s the first fax machines were put into place. The problem was that you had to have one fax machine from one manufacturer at one end and another fax machine at the other end that was exactly the same. But it was in the late 19th century that the first images passed from one end of the globe to the other by fax. The Japanese realised that you did not have to have a piece of paper to put an application in that had to be handed mechanically to someone. Because of the nature of the currency system that they have, you could write what you wanted and then send it electronically by fax machine, because it was a facsimile.
In this legislation finally we get a realisation that it does not have to be on a bit of paper. You can send it. You can write it and then send it by fax. Legally you can do that in almost any transaction or contract in Australia and that is allowed. But we go a bit further, and in this legislation it says not just sending it by fax but sending a representation of what you originally did on paper. You can lodge it on an e-business basis. To get from there to here over time takes quite a great deal. People do this in halting steps. The government has been right, as have other governments around the world, that it is possible to do things better and to be assured that you can improve, in this case, licensing for medicines, blood products and tissue by making this change to facilitate it. If you set up your system in the right way you can be assured that people from outside are not participating in this process, as long as you get the right protocols, it is signed off and it is not people who are trying to subvert the system. You can do it in a more efficient way.
If you look at the broader question of how we move goods around and the controls there are in Quarantine, Customs and so on, there has been a slow and deliberate process of changing over to these kinds of mechanisms. So people involved in shipping, companies that are heavily involved in goods forwarding and so on realised many years ago that it was a hell of a lot smarter to do it this way than it was to use the old paper forms. Even though we have a GST that is still fundamentally designed the same way as the GST was in the 1960s—and it was introduced in Europe and elsewhere as a paper based trail—you can in fact do all of that electronically. It is a case of: if you can do it, why wouldn’t you? In terms of the operations of the act, this simple amendment:
... will remove the requirement for an application for a manufacturing licence to be made in writing, and instead permit the electronic lodgement of an application. The amendments will make section 37 consistent with other provisions in the Act.
Departments have all sorts of problems. Often they have problems with their ministers, with the people who work for them and with their systems. When there is a proposal to change the mode of work, there can be resistance from people within the department or simply due to the amount of time and effort it takes to make the changes. But it can be that sometimes there is a big impetus to get these things under way.
If you look at the work that the library has done on the Therapeutic Goods Amendment Bill (No. 3) 2006, you can see that in the relevant department there was a bit of both here. There was some internal movement. They decided to bring in what was called a ‘manufacturer information system’ to provide for more efficient processing of the different types of applications made to the various areas of the TGA. The purpose of that, they outlined, was to eliminate paper forms and to allow electronic application for manufacturing licences for medicinal natural products, certification by audit of overseas medicines manufacturers, variations to each of the above and clearance certification of overseas medicines and manufacturers by assessment of GMP evidence provided by an overseas regulatory body.
That process is fairly broad ranging. It looks like a simple thing here to say that it does not have to be on a bit of paper—even a bit of paper that can be lodged by fax—and that you can go to an electronic system. Anyone who has tried to introduce a system like this knows that it is not as simple as it might seem. It involves a great deal of reorganisation of the department. People who have done similar things at universities in trying to deal with new personnel systems and so on know that what used to be simple becomes more complex, particularly when you are dealing with a whole range of different manufacturers. Also, you have to educate people in how to use these systems, particularly if you have people using them overseas, but the benefits are clear and significant.
If you can get everybody used to the new system, not only can you be quicker but you can be smarter. You can also track what has been done in a much more efficient way than previously. An example of what happens can be seen in this parliament with its move to using less paper. We still push out volumes of the stuff and overutilise it. We have photocopiers all over the place, including in our offices. The great idea—and this may even be taken as part of it—was that we would go to a paperless office. But people think we are using more paper than we did in the past. However, there is some light ahead—and the Deputy Speaker would agree with me on this—in terms of the amount of paper that is being pushed out because, at the practical level, departments are pushing to do this sort of thing and are making those sorts of changes. There is also some light ahead because of the capacity of current computers to churn through images and because we have a bigger and broader storage capacity than we had before. We have better scanners. We are trialling a program in the electorate offices that uses networked photocopiers, which we hope will work.
We should be able to use those photocopiers as scanners, which I tried to get Voca to do in 1986. If they were used with Nuance software—which has changed its name to PaperPort—which is almost the industry standard, you could do away with most of the paperwork. Not only could you image your material and store it but you could use optical character recognition, which is now of a fairly high standard. You could make fully searchable electronic documents not only in electorate offices but also in Parliament House. The Parliamentary Library has done that.
If you want to know about the therapeutic goods amendment bill 2003, it is available in electronic form. The Bills Digest is also available in that form from the library. Any material associated with this, including press releases in which people in the industry have made comment on this or any other bill, is imaged and made into a searchable, portable document format. That means you can have a greater control over what is happening, and for people in therapeutic goods it means you can have efficiencies in running the department and dealing with the mass of paper documentation because, having made it into an electronic business system, it is searchable and more available to you. The Bills Digest sums up the benefits in this way:
The benefits associated with the electronic lodgement of manufacturing licence applications were highlighted in the second reading speech of the Bill; in particular, that the amendments will allow manufacturer’s to monitor progress with their licence applications and electronically submit requests for amendments to their licences.
I note that, even though this came out of the library, they were not able to use an apostrophe in the way that they should have. It is in fact not ‘manufacturer’s’ but the plural. One day we might march through.
The Australian National Audit Office in October 2004 brought down their report Regulation of non-prescription medicinal products. They were concerned about the whole process that had been undertaken under the Therapeutic Goods Act. The Bills Digest reads:
The audit report was critical of the information management systems and processes employed by the TGA, including its data management, documentation and recordkeeping procedures, and recommended that these systems be improved.
It is argued that, on this change we are giving legislative effect to, the message already got through to the Therapeutic Goods Administration and they brought in this system because of the investigation that the audit office had undertaken. So they have incorporated that. In the Department of Health and Ageing’s response to the audit they argued that many of the issues raised by the ANAO were being addressed and that they planned activities to address all the audit recommendations, but none had been fully implemented at that time. The challenges to a department in trying to deal with a world that is changing and with seemingly simple changes of this nature are fairly big, particularly where you are not just dealing with medicines. We have seen recent major changes in the government’s introduction of new regulations and new approaches to medicines that have gone off the protected patented areas. We have gone into generics with a major piece of legislation I spoke about in this chamber some time ago.
Trying to facilitate—for both directly Australian owned and offshore multinationals in Australia, such as Pfizer and so on—the licensing of those products and streamlining them will be beneficial in terms of the major pharmaceutical area, but there are also the fundamental issues of blood, blood products, tissues and their trade within Australia and world wide. There has been a significant attempt by the Red Cross and the authorities that are still responsible for this in Australia to boost Australian participation in donating blood and to boost the attempt to make people understand that, if you are one of the one in 10 or so people who is going to do it, you should support it and give it as much of a run as you can.
The alternative, if Australians do not do it in the numbers they have done it in historically, is that we will end up with blood products and tissue products coming in from overseas. They will add to our current account problems. They will also add to the question of whether or not those products have been effectively dealt with in terms of disease control and so on. The responsible Australian authorities in this regard are not afraid to change the licensing system to go to an e-business system, but I think they would be grateful to those members who in the past have dealt with the issues of the collection of Australian blood, its storage, the challenges in public health issues associated with our control of this. They would also be grateful that people freely and voluntarily have decided to help others in the community, that we do not trade blood as a good as other countries do and that it is one of the foundation stones of the way we see ourselves. In that area I think the most important things are (1) keeping local control, (2) ensuring that the voluntarism innate in our system is maintained and (3) that people get the message that it is very important that they join in and try to ensure this is the case.
Broadly, this change has been a simple one legislatively, if not simple at the level of the organisation that has had to deal with it. It has made a response not only to the Australian National Audit Office but to pressures within the department itself to make those changes. But the story is that 10 years on from 1996, with a government that is all about auditing and benchmarking, you have to make some practical changes to give effect to the government’s e-business strategy. I applaud the fact that in this regard it has done that. The Bills Digest says at the end:
According to the government, the amendments proposed in the Bill are expected to facilitate the speedy submission of licence applications from manufacturers and the efficient handling of these applications by the TGA. The amendments address the audit report recommendations that the TGA improve the integration of its information management systems, and strengthen its documentation procedures.
The final sentence, however, raises an issue generally but it is one that I put directly to the responsible minister or parliamentary secretary in terms of dealing with this at the end of the debate. It says:
However, in light of the Deloitte’s report, Parliament may want to confirm that implementation of all the ANAO’s recommendations has materially progressed since June 2005.
So I would put that specific issue posed by the Parliamentary Library to the relevant minister, parliamentary secretary or whoever is dealing with this at the end. However slight this bill is in terms of the legislative change that is made, the actual application here goes to something broader and deeper. So you either front up and do what the ANAO say, wherever they are housed, or you only go part way to making the sorts of changes that can really make a dramatic and significant effect and haul Australia kicking and screaming into an electronically image based world—a world in which e-business is not only possible but certified by the government taking the lead in its implementations. It needs to ensure that not only in relation to the Therapeutic Goods Act and all that it entails but across all government departments the move towards e-business is facilitated and that the mechanical needs of computer capacity and imaging are available across all sites. I point out to those in the National Party and the Liberal Party who want to abolish my seat of Blaxland, arguing that regionally people have been affected badly, you can access an electorate office by fax or image. (Time expired)
129
10:53:00
Jenkins, Harry, MP
HH4
Scullin
ALP
0
0
Mr JENKINS
—I rise to speak to the Therapeutic Goods Amendment Bill (No. 3) 2006. This bill proposes amendments to Therapeutic Goods Act 1989. Basically, these amendments will allow for electronic lodgement by manufacturers and is therefore a fairly simple and non-contentious bill. But, Madam Deputy Speaker Bishop, knowing that you are a great champion for the parliament and the House, keeping the executive on their toes, I think it is apposite to mention that the matters in this bill arise out of an audit report. We see in this bill some application of the executive’s response to that audit report, but we are not quite clear whether there has been a full commitment to all the matters that have arisen as a result of the ANAO’s audit report on the Regulation of non-prescription medicinal Products by the TGA. Hopefully, in the summing up, if anybody is going to bother summing up on this very small debate, those matters might be addressed.
As an aside, I think that it is quite interesting that, on this very simple, small, non-contentious bill, the House through the Main Committee is allowed to have a full debate. We have mustered I think four or five people to debate on it, whereas down in the main chamber on something of much greater moment the debate is going to be curtailed.
84C
Thompson, Cameron, MP
Mr Cameron Thompson interjecting—
HH4
Jenkins, Harry, MP
Mr JENKINS
—The honourable member for Blair is in the Main Committee chamber at the moment. He had his opportunity on the migration bill.
84C
Thompson, Cameron, MP
Mr Cameron Thompson
—Get back to the bill.
10000
Bishop, Bronwyn (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Hon. BK Bishop)—Order! The member for Scullin has the call.
HH4
Jenkins, Harry, MP
Mr JENKINS
—I will try to return to the bill. I was allowing myself to be provoked by the disorderly behaviour of others in the Main Committee, and I apologise. I thought that one should note the difference when it comes to these bills. To the officers of the department, the authority or whoever you are: I am not trying to belittle this bill; I am just making the comparison that sometimes we are allowed to have these full debates about minor matters whereas we have minor debates about the major matters. I think that is a little incongruous.
Others in this debate have illustrated—I think, because they have been assisted by the Bills Digest—the technicalities of the bill. I want to make the observation that this is an important area, whether it is to do with therapeutic goods or any other good. Australian manufacturers and Australian government authorities should look to ways of using information technology and assisting in the electronic transfer of information as efficiently as possible. I regret that on other occasions I have had to observe that, if there were a manufacturer in the electorate of Scullin who was involved in therapeutic goods and they were looking to take up the opportunities that this amendment will provide with regard to the process of gaining licences et cetera not in a written application but by way of electronic transfer, regrettably the broadband infrastructure in my electorate would probably not be sufficient that these manufacturers could compete. In that context, we note the decision of Telstra to suspend or to do away with their intention to roll out high-speed optical fibre broadband, which would have allowed, whether in this area or other areas, Australian manufacturers to maximise their efforts.
In many of the areas of therapeutic goods, we have allowed the manufacturers, in cooperation with the TGA, to set standards themselves. It is about a balance between the legislation regulation and what we see in other industries with self-determination practices and the like. Within the allowance of the standing orders, I want to draw attention to the front page of the Age of Monday of this week. The article is headed ‘Drug companies accused of manipulating trials’. When we have a piece of legislation like this bill before us, we have to be very careful in the area of therapeutic goods about the way we see the interconnect between the development, processing, licensing et cetera of the drug and then allowing it out into the market. This is one of the great challenges for government. The government has to use bodies like the TGA to carry this out. In the past, when it has come to therapeutic goods such as prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical companies have indicated that they believe that the processes that they have—particularly in the way they market—and the codes of conduct that they and the professions have are sufficient.
Why should this be a question that continues year in and year out? I was the chair of the House of Representatives Community Affairs committee back in the mid-nineties, when we did a major inquiry into, mainly, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, in which we went from manufacturing right through to the delivery of drugs to the consumer by the prescribing and dispensing practices of the professionals involved.
We have to have a flow of information that allows medical practitioners to be able to decide what drugs or therapeutic devices are appropriate and for the pharmacist to be able to give proper advice. In that, we rely on the pharmaceutical company representatives doing the right thing. The right thing is that, legitimately, they should ensure that those professionals are equipped with the information that enables them to be able to prescribe and dispense in a proper way and to give information to the consumer in a proper way. It is a form of ongoing education for those professionals. The problem is that there is a fine line; those practices can go beyond that information transfer into forms of incentive that move professionals to champion drugs only because of these incentives. That is why we have stories like this.
It is not just a problem that Australia confronts. Anybody who has read the Guardian Weekly, in the British context, over the last few months will have seen that it has been running similar stories. A lot of the manufacturers that gain licences for therapeutic goods under this act are multinational companies. This is a global phenomenon, and we cannot isolate ourselves from it in Australia. I think that is why we have to have a proper regime not only for the way in which we give manufacturing licences for medicinal products but also so that we can certify the audits of overseas medical manufacturers and things like that, which is the intention, in part, of this amendment to the main act. That is why it is very important that all practices in the process should be before us—not just the narrow band that this bill allows.
The main point that I wish to make is that the action being taken by the government by this amending legislation arises out of the audit report of December 2004. There is a suggestion that there are matters arising out of that report that may still need to be addressed, and that is of some importance. I welcome the opportunity to yet again speak on an amendment bill to the Therapeutic Goods Act. As I said, this may not be the most major bill that we have ever had before us, but it is important that Australia does have a regime of administering therapeutic goods that has its basis in safety and efficacy. They have been the issues that have always troubled legislators, because there are incidents where one has to decide: are these incidents just because of the actions of the manufacturer, or are they the result of us not being able to monitor and enforce the way in which the legislation operates? So, with those few remarks on this bill, I indicate my support for the legislation.
131
11:04:00
Hall, Jill, MP
83N
Shortland
ALP
0
0
Ms HALL
—Like previous speakers, I acknowledge the fact that the Therapeutic Goods Amendment Bill (No. 3) 2006 makes only minor amendments to the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989—section 37, to be exact. It allows manufacturers of medicines, blood and tissues to apply for a manufacturing licence electronically, using the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s e-business system. The amendment will make section 37 consistent with other similar provisions of the act that permit or require applications lodged for various purposes to be done electronically.
Given the broad-ranging nature of this debate to date, my contribution will be in a similar vein, although I would like to highlight a couple of aspects that this bill spends some time on. I will start with the fact that the TGA’s implementation of the new computerised system, called the manufacturer information system, to provide more efficient processing of different applications made to various areas of the TGA was introduced in 2004. It was designed to eliminate paperwork and to allow for electronic applications for manufacturing licences for medical products, certification by audit of overseas medicine manufacturers, variation to each of the above and clearance certificates of overseas medicines and manufacturers by assessment of GMP evidence provided by overseas regulatory bodies.
I think that within Health generally we need to put a lot more emphasis on streamlining the use of electronic sharing of information. Across all areas in Health, there has been a call for a greater use of electronic transfer of information using electronic systems to create much more efficient and effective ways of sharing information. When you look at the information that is shared, GPs have in place a system where they electronically transfer information between themselves and hospitals. Unfortunately, it has some problems, and also it breaks down when the information comes back the other way. But, more importantly, there is a breakdown in the transferring of medical information when it relates to specialists. Specialists have not embraced the use of electronic transfer of information in the same way that GPs have.
In an inquiry that I have been involved in with our House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing the fact that there needs to be a greater use of electronic transfer of data using electronic systems has been identified as an issue. This has been brought to the committee’s attention by a number of the health experts—people like Scotton and Menadue, who are very influential in the area of health. Doctors have pointed out to us that it benefits the patient. So, as in this area, I think that all areas of health should encompass electronic transfer of information because it benefits all Australians. All Australians use health and medical products and all Australians at some time or another have a need for information to be transferred from one health provider to another health provider. So in commenting on the electronic lodgement of manufacturing licences it is important to highlight that there needs to be a greater use of electronic transfer of medical information and data within Australia.
The next issue I would like to touch on was raised by the shadow minister. It relates to pharmaceutical companies’ use of gifts and the influence that has on the price of pharmaceuticals and, I would argue, on the health outcomes in this country. On many occasions I have raised my concerns about this issue. It has been highlighted again very recently with reports of doctors being given expensive overseas trips and expensive meals and being entertained by the pharmaceutical companies. Roche is a company that has been in the news recently, but in all fairness I do not think we can say it is limited to Roche. I think there needs to be a much more transparent approach to dealings with pharmaceutical benefits and drug companies.
The whip on the other side of the chamber, the member for Blair, pointed to the details of this legislation. I remind the whip that all other contributions to this debate have been broad ranging, even to the extent that the member for Cowper was discussing the minister presenting certificates within his electorate. This legislation does refer to medicines.
10000
Bishop, Bronwyn (The DEPUTY SPEAKER)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
(Hon. BK Bishop)—I would remind the member for Shortland that she is ranging far too widely in her comments. I remind her to come back to the bill.
83N
Hall, Jill, MP
Ms HALL
—The matter I am discussing relates to medicines, and it has a lot more relevance to this legislation than the minister presenting certificates in the electorate of Cowper, but I will continue.
10000
DEPUTY SPEAKER, The
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
—I would remind the member for Shortland I was not in the chair during that period. I have listened to the other contributions that have been made and I think it does help to mention the bill every now and again.
83N
Hall, Jill, MP
Ms HALL
—Thank you. As I was saying, the Therapeutic Goods Amendment Bill (No. 3) 2006 does look at certification by audit of overseas medicine manufacturers. When we look at the certification of overseas medicines manufacturers, it also brings to mind the fact that some of these overseas medicine manufacturers are engaged in the practice of providing medical practitioners with rewards for prescribing their medication. I believe that is something the government needs to address as a matter of urgency and that it needs to be much more transparent. It is in the interests of all Australians if the government goes down that track.
Another issue this legislation deals with is blood products. It allows manufacturers of blood and tissues to apply for manufacturing licences electronically. That brings me to an issue I am very concerned about. The government is undermining what I believe is the safest blood supply system in the world. We have a number of blood donors. I am a blood donor. I understand that the member for Capricornia is also a donor.
83A
Livermore, Kirsten, MP
Ms Livermore interjecting—
83N
Hall, Jill, MP
Ms HALL
—No? She was talking to me about becoming a blood donor. The member for Werriwa is a blood donor.
9V5
Pyne, Chris, MP
Mr Pyne
—I am a blood donor.
84C
Thompson, Cameron, MP
Mr Cameron Thompson
—I am an electronic blood donor.
83N
Hall, Jill, MP
Ms HALL
—The parliamentary secretary is also a blood donor. I think that we have the safest system in the world. Once we give our blood, the blood is then processed in Australia into blood products that people need. As well as having given blood, I have been the recipient of a donation, and I was confident of the quality of the blood that I was receiving.
9V5
Pyne, Chris, MP
Mr Pyne
—Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. I really hesitate to interrupt the member for Shortland in her address, but this is an electronic lodgements bill of an administrative nature. Ranging over the issue of whether the government is or is not abrogating the blood supply in Australia is, quite frankly, not relevant. Regardless of what other members did or did not do, I really think the member should limit herself to the precepts of this bill, and I would ask you to rule that way.
10000
DEPUTY SPEAKER, The
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
—You make a valid point of order. I have reminded the honourable member on two occasions already to return to the substance of the bill. I think that, if she cannot do that, perhaps she could curtail her remarks.
83N
Hall, Jill, MP
Ms HALL
—Yes. As I was saying, applying for blood licensing will be done electronically. If it is processed overseas, it will happen that way. I was just expressing my concern that the electronic licensing system would not be able to be administered, and we could not be sure of the same safety with blood products that we have now if that system came into play.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration has progressively implemented a major information system project in support of regulatory activities. The Department of Health and Ageing argued that many of the issues raised by the ANAO in its audit were being addressed. They were being addressed because it identified some problems. The audit report was particularly critical of information systems projects in support of regulatory activities. I need some assurance that this will be addressed. The department has said it will be addressed. Electronic data systems are very important to our health system. When it identifies issues such as data management, documentation and record-keeping procedures and recommends that these systems be improved, action needs to be taken immediately. Whilst my contributions to the debate have been pulled more into the parameters of the legislation than the contribution of any other speaker in the debate—
10000
DEPUTY SPEAKER, The
The DEPUTY SPEAKER
—I ask the honourable member to resume her seat. That is a reflection on the chair which I will not accept. The member will either address her remarks specifically to the bill or curtail her remarks and sit down.
83N
Hall, Jill, MP
Ms HALL
—I was saying that I would like to conclude my contribution to this debate. In doing so, I support the legislation that is before the parliament and all the comments made by members on this side of the House. I wish to associate myself with those comments. I will end my contribution at that point.
134
11:18:00
Pyne, Chris, MP
9V5
Sturt
LP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing
1
0
Mr PYNE
—I would like to thank the members of the House who have contributed to the debate on the Therapeutic Goods Amendment Bill (No. 3) 2006—the members for Reid, Blaxland, Scullin and Shortland for the opposition and the member for Cowper for the government. This is a very straightforward amendment of an administrative nature which allows the electronic lodgement of applications to the Therapeutic Goods Administration for manufacturing licences, which previously have only been allowed to be lodged in writing—which had been deemed to be a rather archaic hindrance on industry.
The legislation will allow a much easier and more streamlined approach to the administration of applications for manufacturing licences and other applications, which will benefit consumers in that products will get to the market quicker and will benefit industry in terms of saving costs. I know that you, Madam Deputy Speaker Bishop, have a particular interest in the complementary medicines sector, and this will benefit people in the complementary medicines industry and in other areas, as well as consumers. It will cover a number of areas.
Blood supply was mentioned by the member for Shortland. The only issue that the member for Shortland raised which I thought was relevant to the bill was the issue of the ANAO report concerning the TGA’s handling and administration of decisions. That report did not suggest for a moment that any of the decisions had ever been wrong but that they could be more efficiently handled. I am pleased to say to the House that the ANAO report’s recommendations were adopted by the TGA some time ago and have been evaluated. Private contractors have been in the TGA to determine whether the TGA has responded adequately. All the reports to me as the parliamentary secretary have indicated that the TGA has addressed all of those issues and put in place the systems that the ANAO would regard as appropriate. I can assure the member for Shortland, since she sought an assurance, that that has been the case. I am glad that somebody raised a matter relevant to this bill, albeit towards the end of the contributions by the four speakers from the opposition side. With that, I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (EXPORT CONTROL AND QUARANTINE) BILL 2006
135
BILLS
R2582
Second Reading
135
Debate resumed from 15 June, on motion by Ms Ley:
That this bill be now read a second time.
135
11:21:00
Livermore, Kirsten, MP
83A
Capricornia
ALP
0
0
Ms LIVERMORE
—I am pleased to have this opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment (Export Control and Quarantine) Bill 2006. The opposition supports the passage of this bill. While this bill is not controversial in any way, it is a significant piece of legislation because it concerns matters of vital importance to our food processing and export industries and therefore deserves serious consideration and the support of both parties. Basically the bill provides for technical improvements to Australia’s regime of export control and quarantine. It does that by closing some gaps that have been identified in the present system of export inspection and introducing a number of new offences to strengthen the integrity of the export chain.
To appreciate the importance of maintaining the highest possible standards of export inspection and quarantine in this country, one only has to recall the potentially disastrous events of the early eighties which led to the enactment of the current Export Control Act 1982. In August 1981 discoveries were made in the United States of horse meat having been substituted for beef by an Australian meat export establishment. As a result of that, the reputation of the Australian meat industry was severely tarnished. In response to the meat substitution scandal the Customs (Unlawful Exportation of Food) Act 1982 and the Meat Export (Penalties) Act 1982 were enacted. These acts were replaced in 1983 by the present Export Control Act 1982. So, while the debate today is technical in nature, the changes proposed send a strong message that we take protection of our export industries very seriously indeed. We cannot afford to take any risks with Australia’s reputation for the highest quality food exports.
Specifically the bill seeks to amend the Export Control Act 1982 and the Quarantine Act 1908 to create new offences that will apply to persons who are in control of the preparation of food products for export and who fail to ensure that the goods are prepared in accordance with legislated requirements, especially food safety legislation. The bill also seeks to provide a legal basis for the recovery of fees for quarantine services provided under the Quarantine Act to other Commonwealth bodies. It will extend the services for which fees may be charged under the Export Control Act to services provided by the secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry or by the secretary’s delegate. It will clarify the use of certain terms and definitions in both the Quarantine Act and the Export Control Act and insert a new definition of ‘fish’. The definition of ‘preparation’ will also be extended to include the catching of fish.
As I mentioned earlier, the Export Control Act dates back the early 1980s. It set up a regime for the export inspection of prescribed goods, including meat, fish, fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy produce and grains. Inspection is carried out by authorised officers of the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service in order to ensure that the goods that are to be exported meet the strict requirements set out in the regulations made pursuant to the Export Control Act. These requirements are aimed at ensuring fitness for human consumption, quality and accurate trade description of the goods.
Members on both sides would agree that the officers of AQIS do a fine job and their ability to enforce high standards is central to maintaining the integrity of our food exports and allowing us to compete for premium markets. Australia enjoys a reputation for the high quality and safety of the food products it grows, processes and exports. That reputation has been hard-earned and must be protected against any poor practices, either negligent or wilful, that could harm our standing in the world market.
I will digress for a minute to let the House know about a visit I made some years ago to Kailis Bros, a food processor in WA. It is a very successful operation, exporting all over the world. It gave me a real appreciation of the enormous competition out there in the food-processing sector and in the markets Australia is trying to break into. It highlighted to me the enormously high standards that have to be maintained by food processors wanting to export into that world market and wanting to compete effectively.
Kailis Bros provide products to organisations such as airline caterers, education facilities and health care providers, among many others. They process all sorts of seafood products, dessert products, frozen fruits and vegetables, and pasta products. The day we visited this plant, we watched the processing of lasagne, which was being put into frozen packs and exported to Japan. The owners of this food processing plant were explaining to us the stringent requirements that their Japanese purchasers placed on the products that came out of their plant. They were making lasagne this day, and it actually came down to the diced onion having to meet the specified requirements and the fact that there could not be one shred of tomato skin going into these products.
That was an example to me, and allowed me to appreciate what our food processors have to do and the high quality systems they have to have in place if they are going to compete in the international market. So, when you see the investment that was made by just one organisation, one business over there in Western Australia, to maintain their presence in the Japanese market, you understand the essential role that our food inspection service plays in maintaining those markets. If they could not let wrongly sized diced onion go into their product, we certainly have to make sure in Australia that we have the highest and most stringent standards of food quality and export control across the food processing sector.
Ever since the scandals of the early eighties, successive governments have taken a serious view of malpractice in the export food industry. Consequently, there has always been in the Export Control Act measures to deal with any such malpractice that may endanger the reputation of Australia’s export industries and jeopardise overseas markets. Currently, there are penalties for false declarations and trade descriptions, but gaps have been identified that this bill seeks to address.
This bill creates four new offences to deal with people who fail to ensure that goods are prepared for export in accordance with legislation. Two of those new provisions apply strict liability to some of the physical elements of those offences. These changes to strengthen and extend the reach of the legislation have come about because offences under the Export Control Act currently only apply to the persons actually exporting prescribed goods or to persons in possession of prescribed goods intended for export. So the focus up to now has been on persons involved in the post-production stage of the export chain. That left a gap—as the parliamentary secretary rightly pointed out in her speech, a serious gap—when it came to the actions of those people actually in control of the facilities where food products are processed.
This legislation creates new offences for persons in control of the preparation of food products for export who fail to ensure those goods meet legislative requirements, especially in relation to food safety. Two of the four new offences apply strict liability to some of the physical elements of the offence. ‘Strict liability’ means that the prosecution does not have to prove a fault element in relation to all or some of the physical elements of the offences, only that the defendant engaged in the relevant physical elements of the offence. This is necessary because otherwise persons in control of establishments preparing food for export could avoid the consequences of noncompliance by claiming that they were not aware of what was occurring in their establishment. This aspect of the bill sends a clear message that poor practices in the food-processing sector will not be tolerated. The stakes are too high to allow for any corner cutting when it comes to maintaining the standards of Australia’s food exports, even if it is unintentional on the part of the operator of the facility.
The fact that the offences apply strict liability means that there is a heavy and appropriate responsibility on the operators in the food export sector to have the best possible systems in place to guarantee the safety and quality of the food they produce for export. I think back to that example in Western Australia, where Kailis Bros had invested enormous amounts of money in setting up their plant and in pursuing that market in Japan in this particular instance. We just cannot take risks when our processors rely on the confidence of consumers in those markets to keep buying Australian products; we cannot afford to let poor practices in one area of the industry or in one particular business undermine the efforts of all those other businesses who are making those investments and doing the right thing.
The bill provides for penalties for the new offences, and the penalties are broadly consistent with existing penalties in the Export Control Act. The maximum penalty for the strict liability offences is 60 penalty units, and the other two new offences have a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment.
The legislation also clarifies the legal basis for the recovery of fees for quarantine services provided to other Commonwealth bodies and extends the range of services for which fees may be charged under the Export Control Act. Labor supports the inclusion of this measure in the bill. Labor has long supported full cost recovery for the provision of quarantine services and other services provided by government relating to the export of food products.
The other provisions of this bill make a number of definitional changes and clarify the use of certain terms within the Export Control Act. The main one of these changes is the extension of the definition of preparation to include fish, and it clarifies that the Commonwealth has appropriate legal authority to regulate the sourcing of fish for export. This is an important addition to the act because the authority to regulate the sourcing of fish for export is necessary to ensure ongoing access for exported fisheries products into overseas markets and to protect consumers by ensuring that fish, including shellfish, are harvested from areas that do not contain pathogenic organisms, biotoxins and chemical contaminants at levels that may represent a threat to consumer health.
The whole issue of food security and consumer confidence in Australia’s food exports is one of vital importance to my electorate. As members have heard me say countless times in this place, Rockhampton is proud to be the beef capital of Australia and is at the heart of the large and very successful beef industry in Queensland. How many times has the member for Batman heard me—
LS4
Ferguson, Martin, MP
Mr Martin Ferguson
—Ram it down my throat?
83A
Livermore, Kirsten, MP
Ms LIVERMORE
—Exactly.
009LP
Windsor, Antony, MP
Mr Windsor interjecting—
83A
Livermore, Kirsten, MP
Ms LIVERMORE
—The member for New England and I will have that debate another day and I am sure I will win it on behalf of the good people of Rockhampton.
The importance of the beef industry to our national economy cannot be overstated, and I am sure the member for New England will agree with me on that. Australia remains the largest exporter of beef in the world ahead of Brazil. The meat and livestock industries in Queensland contributed over $3 billion to the Queensland economy, and that represents 30 per cent of Queensland’s gross value of production from agriculture. So, when you look at that context and the significance of it to my electorate, you can see why I support the measures in this bill that strengthen our export inspection and control regime, because maintaining the quality and safety of all food products exported from Australia has an impact on what producers and processors in my electorate are trying to do.
I want to talk briefly about where this bill fits into what is happening in the beef industry. As I said, this bill focuses on the processing sector—one of the end stages of the export chain. What is being talked about in this bill—that is, putting in more stringent requirements and enhancing the ability of AQIS and the export inspection regime to enforce standards in the processing sector—complements the work being done by the grazing industry and primary producers generally to meet those stringent standards of quality and safety being demanded by our export markets.
The most obvious example of that in the beef industry is the National Livestock Identification Scheme, which has been put into practice over the last couple of years. The NLIS is a major investment by the beef industry to make sure that we can guarantee that we can track cattle through the whole production process and that we can export beef with the best possible guarantee of safety and biosecurity as a result of being able to track each animal through the chain. As I said, it is a major investment by the industry. The NLIS is estimated to cost the Queensland cattle industry $32.5 million per annum. The majority of that is actually borne by the production sector. This is where the industry itself is making sure that it does everything it can to protect its markets and to protect its reputation in those world markets.
Of course, this has been forced on Australia and on the industry by things that are happening overseas. We need to be able to demonstrate that we have the highest standards of biosecurity and food safety to make sure that we can export products that meet the very highest standards that are being imposed on us by those overseas markets. We have seen what can happen overseas when disease outbreaks occur or when food security is compromised in some way. At the moment we are in a position where we have been able to capitalise on and take advantage of some of those outbreaks and things that have hit overseas markets, particularly in the US and Canada, and we have been able to take advantage of markets opening up as a result of disease outbreaks overseas. This is about an insurance policy for our local beef industry—that we are in a position to guarantee the quality of our products and to make sure that we have a system in place to minimise the impact of any disease outbreak that might occur.
The Productivity Commission has estimated that a disease outbreak such as foot-and-mouth disease or BSE could cost the industry, through loss of export and domestic market revenue, between $5.7 and $13 billion and the impact could last for up to 10 years. You only have to look at what happened in Canada, which has a similar herd size to Australia, where after detection of a single BSE animal the livestock industry has lost an estimated $3.3 billion plus a flow-on loss to rural communities estimated at $1.8 billion. The total broader economic impact of the BSE case in Canada is estimated at $6.3 billion. They are such very sobering figures for people like me and the member for New England who represent communities that rely so heavily on our beef industry and primary industry sector.
I highlight that to demonstrate to the House what is happening in the beef industry for two reasons—firstly, to show that the beef industry is certainly doing its bit to uphold Australia’s reputation in international markets. The reason I support this bill so strongly is because I see it as complementary to what is happening at that primary production phase, making sure that the processing part of the export chain is held to similarly high and stringent standards so that, overall, our reputation as an exporter of very high quality and safe food is maintained.
It is important that Australia’s trading partners can be confident of the quality and safety of food products exported from this country. The amendments to the Export Control Act and the Quarantine Act are sensible and are consistent with the approach taken by both the government and the opposition in these areas in the past. As such, Labor supports the passage of this bill.
139
11:39:00
Windsor, Antony, MP
009LP
New England
IND
0
0
Mr WINDSOR
—I rise to speak on the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment (Export Control and Quarantine) Bill 2006. I listened to the speech by the member for Capricornia, and I was particularly impressed with the comments she made towards the end of it. I thought her speech was very good, in total. She highlighted a very important point about the broader issue of quarantine and biosecurity when she related the experiences of Canada when it had an outbreak of mad cow disease and the costs that were incurred by that economy through what was, in a sense, a lack of vigilance. The figure she cited was something like $6.6 billion having been lost to that economy and, essentially, to the beef industry, and that has had a multiplier effect on the broader economy.
I have just spent some time in Canada looking at ethanol plants and some other things. One issue that was raised when I was there was the impact of the BSE outbreak on the Canadian economy. This highlights the point that we really do need to be vigilant in relation to quarantine and biosecurity. That may, from time to time, be seen as being a little protectionist by some who would rather just open the door to the free market and let the market flow. We are seeing that with a number of products at the moment—apples, cooked chicken meat and other variations of a similar theme. Because of various trading arrangements with others internationally and talks that are ongoing with the World Trade Organisation and others about trying to liberalise overseas markets for access of our products, in some cases there has to be a relaxation of the way in which we accept other products. I suggest that, once again, we need to be vigilant in how we go about those processes. If there are any risks at all, we should not give up our greatest agricultural advantage as a nation—that of being an island, of being a clean, green producer of food and of not being subject to some of the diseases that some of our competitors internationally are. We should not enter into an arrangement if there is any degree of risk.
That leads me to the debate on today’s legislation, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment (Export Control and Quarantine) Bill 2006. I support the legislation, but you can see a number of issues across the agricultural spectrum at the moment. The New South Wales Farmers Association and the National Farmers Federation have some issues with AQIS and some biosecurity problems. We have seen in recent years the possibility of the importation of cooked chicken meat from parts of Asia. More recently, we have seen the outbreak of avian influenza and how that could possibly have an impact further down the track. A number of years ago—when I was still in the New South Wales parliament—it looked as though cooked chicken meat was going to come in from Thailand. A number of political players at the time were quite upset about that because of not only its impact on regional economies but also the possibility of disease coming in with the various heating arrangements. I cannot remember all the detail, but certain guarantees were given that the meat had been cooked to a certain temperature to prevent disease outbreaks in Australia. Then along came avian influenza.
Thankfully that issue has gone away for the moment, but those continued pressures between global trade operators will return. As I said, we have to be very vigilant in how we go about addressing some of these issues. I am a member of the House Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and I am pleased to see that other very diligent members of that committee are here today. I look forward to their contributions.
I would like to read from a few press releases. The New South Wales Farmers Association on Wednesday, 19 July, headlined a press release with: ‘Farmers call for Senate Inquiry into national quarantine system’. It reads:
New South Wales Farmers’ Association today voted at their annual conference to call for an urgent Senate Inquiry into Australia’s Quarantine System, AQIS and Biosecurity Australia in order to stimulate public debate on how a better system could be established for all Australians.
Chair of the New South Wales Farmers’ Association’s Quarantine and Exotic Diseases Committee, Peter Carter—
who is a fairly quiet individual, as I am sure that those who know him would verify—
says that an independent inquiry by the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Senate Committee is needed to ensure our disease and pest free status is not being compromised by a system that doesn’t work.
They are fairly strong words. Mr Carter is a vet by profession. He has been involved with the New South Wales Farmers Association for many years and is a man whom I respect and who I believe has some knowledge of these issues. That that organisation and that committee chair are making those comments is something this House and the parliament should take on board. The press release went on:
“Agriculture won’t stand for the government doing an internal review of the import risk analysis system—the architects of the system should not judge their own system,” Mr Carter said.
“Getting the import protocols right is far too important to agriculture—if the bureaucrats get it wrong and disease comes in, it is the farmer who has to pay to clean up the pest or the disease mess, loses market opportunities or wear the higher production costs,” Mr Carter said.
There is a hint of warning there. A similar document on 26 June has the National Farmers Federation expressing some concerns about AQIS’s operation and biosecurity, highlighting the fact that we have to make more than sure that there are no risks if we start to break down some of the boundaries and allow other product into our nation, particularly product that we can produce domestically.
An issue I have raised in the parliament on a number of occasions—and there have been a number of meetings with ministers over the years—relates to a constituent of mine who runs a business called Angora City (Rabbits) Pty Ltd. The issue concerns the importation of rabbits into Australia and the dealings between different companies. In my view—and I have mentioned this before, so it is not news—Mr Warwick Grove, who is the director of Angora City (Rabbits) and who has established a plant, Guyra, in my electorate, has been appallingly treated by the system. He has not had the concerns that he has raised over a number of years dealt with sufficiently at a ministerial or a parliamentary level. I would ask that the issues that I am about to raise are considered. I also ask that this document be tabled so that others can look at it and give consideration to it. On 1 August, Mr Grave wrote to all members of parliament, so most members would have seen this. In his letter he wrote:
Dear Member of Parliament
I refer to my previous allegations of an “illegal” US Import into Australia on 4th November 1998 that had major ramifications for my company.
The Independent Government Doolan Enquiry into this matter was “all sorted out” prior to the release of the Terms of Reference on 16 July 2003. I first met with the then Executive Director of AQIS on 30th May 2003 in Sydney. I understand she has been “dishonourably discharged” (to quote a Senator). As such, I restate, I will not be going to the Ombudsman.
I think there had been suggestion that is Mr Graves should take his issues to the Ombudsman and whomever else. He went on:
There has been no reply from the past three Minister of Agriculture, Hon J Anderson, Hon W Truss and currently Hon P McGauren. Thank you to all members of parliament and senators who took the time to reply.
I enclose recent correspondence to Hon J Howard (Prime Minister) dated 18 April 2006—and 17 July 2006 ... I enclose letter to US Embassy dated 17 July 2006.
I state there have been two distinct standards by AQIS re the same animal import—
‘animal import’ meaning rabbit—
one from the USA and one from the EU. AQIS will be held to account as QUARANTINE DOES MATTER.
The Quarantine Forum in Canberra (Old Parliament House) on Friday 14 July 2006 was by Invitation Only. I could have organised many people to tell the real story of quarantine—the total and absolute—
I cannot pronounce the word he has here and it is probably best I do not try—
... disregard for due process. Also I was advised all agricultural groups were represented—regrettably the F.R.I.A. was excluded.
I seek a fair and just resolution. I assure you all, Quarantine Does Matter. My allegations are factual and based on original government documents.
Thank you for your time in considering this matter.
Yours sincerely
Warwick S Grave
Director
He is the director of Angora City Rabbits Pty Ltd. I ask that I be able to table these documents.
Leave granted.
009LP
Windsor, Antony, MP
Mr WINDSOR
—The appropriate ministers would have seen these documents. But, if there are any members of parliament who have not seen the documents, they may find them extremely interesting in terms of an individual’s wrestle with the system—the way in which his application to import rabbits was treated, the trail of missing documents and the people who delayed things for a whole range of reasons, compared another company that was able to import rabbits at a similar time and its treatment—and also very much so that we can learn from any mistakes there may be in that process so that individuals and businesses such as Mr Grave’s who are trying to do the right thing in Australia are not treated in a shabby fashion.
I will conclude my comments with the comment I started with. In terms of biosecurity we have to make sure we are ever vigilant, that we do not allow ourselves to be compromised in any way and that we do not allow ourselves to be pressured politically by international forces in our trading relations. We saw what happened in Canada, with the massive loss of potential income when they were an active trader in the beef market. We have seen what can happen in the other parts of the world with the outbreak of some of these diseases. The one comparative advantage we have, which is that we are quite distinct from any other nation in the world, is geared around our being a nation continent. We must maintain the integrity of our food supplies both within that continent and on our borders.
We have a preoccupation to a certain extent with people coming here on leaky boats. We are debating legislation on that today and I think we will be voting on it in a very short time. At the same time we seem to be moving towards a process of relaxing our integrity in terms of biosecurity. We have to make sure that people who are involved on the ground—people like Peter Carter from the New South Wales Farmers Association—are involved in the decision-making process. It should not be left to a group of public servants. Well intentioned though they may be, they will be subjected to greater political pressure from other forces when the focus should be on the integrity of our national boundaries in terms of some of these diseases.
142
11:55:00
Ferguson, Martin, MP
LS4
Batman
ALP
0
0
Mr MARTIN FERGUSON
—I rise today in support of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment (Export Control and Quarantine) Bill 2006 and, in doing so, I endorse the remarks of the members for Capricornia and New England. We all appreciate this is an important bill, but it also goes to a wide-ranging debate—which was the case with the previous speakers. The intent of the bill is to ensure that our trading partners can continue to have complete confidence in the safety of our food exports. That is exceptionally important today in terms of our difficulties on the trade front. Offences under the Export Control Act currently only apply to those actually exporting proscribed goods or in possession of proscribed goods intended for export. This bill appropriately creates new offences for people in control of the preparation of food products for export. Importantly, offences will apply if those goods fail to meet legislative requirements, especially in relation to food safety.
The bill clarifies the Commonwealth’s authority to regulate the sourcing of fish intended for export. In that context, I remind the House that this bill is not only important nationally; it is exceptionally important to regional economies around Australia. That authority is therefore necessary to ensure ongoing access for exported fisheries products to overseas markets and to protect consumers by ensuring that fish, including shellfish, are harvested from areas that do not contain pathogenic organisms, biotoxins or chemical contaminants at levels that may represent a threat to consumer health. I am pleased to see that the Commonwealth is finally taking a lead with respect to protecting the sustainability and reputation of Australian fisheries in the international market. Obviously the opposition also believes we have to be more rigorous with respect to illegal fishing in Australia’s coastal waters, but that is another debate for another day.
I also raise in the context of this bill a broader debate going to the forest industry. This debate is also about seeking forest industry sustainability in the same way we seek sustainability of the fishing industry. I would like to see the Commonwealth, in the context of what it intends to do by way of this bill, start exercising more authority with respect to protecting the sustainability and reputation of Australian forest industries as well. This is also important in terms of our exports and potentially important in terms of import replacement in the foreseeable future. I contend that no other industry is under as much pressure from our trading partners as the forest industry at the moment.
I use this opportunity to remind the government of its responsibilities. Australia has 164 million hectares of native forests, four per cent of the world’s forests and 1.7 million hectares of plantations. About 10 per cent of our native forests are managed for wood production, with less than one per cent being harvested in any one year. That small proportion of forests harvested annually is regenerated so that a perpetual supply of native hardwood and softwood is maintained in this country. I know the Australian fishing industry is continuing to make the adjustments necessary to ensure the long-term sustainability of its resources, as the forestry industry has done for many years.
I therefore go to Australia’s rigorous forestry standards. AFS has global mutual recognition under the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, the largest international sustainability recognition framework for forestry in the world. But unfortunately the environmental movement, as the member for New England and the member for Lyons are aware, is at this point running an aggressive and duplicitous campaign around the globe to undermine the status of that standard and the sustainability of the Australian industry. At the same time as the environmentalists are decrying and seeking to discredit Australia’s forest industry, they are running a campaign about illegal logging, interestingly, in Third World countries—a problem I argue they are directly fuelling because of their failure to back responsible forest industries in places like Australia. Make no mistake: these are not environmental campaigns. They are political and they are commercial, and they are starting to hurt Australia economically.
Increasingly, environmental non-government organisations around the world, with the complicity of some governments, are embedding themselves in policy and regulatory frameworks in which they have commercial interests, and they do so with no mandate from the people and with no accountability. The forest industry, I argue, represents a classic example. I will also use this debate to remind the fishing industry of similar pressures starting to emerge in our domestic and international fishing industry.
Instead of endorsing the AFS, developed in accordance with the usual rigorous standards and processes used in Australia and New Zealand to govern all kinds of industries and products, green groups have been lobbying to discredit the standard internationally and to hurt Australia commercially, which goes to the issue of making sure that we have in place appropriate export controls to guarantee the future of Australia. Instead they favour accreditation under the Forest Stewardship Council, or FSC, an organisation, interestingly, created by the WWF, with the clear intention of sidelining elected governments when it comes to forest policy. Behind its foray into the forest certification process, the WWF has a history of establishing buyer groups that effectively boycott timber products that are not FSC certified. Consequently, producers and suppliers are pressured to obtain FSC certification to maintain their businesses and their market access. The FSC’s business interests are effectively protected by the environmental NGOs, who have mounted a concerted attack over recent years on other certification schemes. The AFS is just one of these schemes.
It is instructive therefore to take a look at the membership and governance of the FSC, if there is any doubt about this. In Australia there are just 10 members, including five environmental NGOs—Friends of the Earth, the Wilderness Society, Friends of Gippsland Bush, the Western Australian Forest Alliance and WWF Australia. The executive director of the FSC hails from the WWF, and the members of the board are a very interesting group from Greenpeace, a cardboard manufacturer from Columbia, two members described as individuals from Bolivia and Argentina, and the list goes on. While there is some industry representation, it is severely limited. Multilateral organisations and governments are, interestingly, excluded, despite the fact that governments are major funding donors.
Further, it is my view that the FSC certification does not provide the guarantee of sustainable forestry that is claimed. Fortunately, both suppliers and consumers seem to be recognising this, with over 190 million hectares of certified forests now falling under the program for the endorsement of forest certification, which encompasses the Australian forestry standard. By comparison, with less than 80 million hectares of certified forests, the FSC is clearly not the global standard. Over 40 per cent of the total area of forests certified by the FSC is certified without any approved standards and over 80 per cent of the countries with FSC certification do not have approved FSC standards. Despite the fact that 550,000 hectares of plantations in Australia are FSC certified, as of June this year there was no Australian FSC standard against which to certify.
In 2003 Tim Cadman, the then FSC representative in Australia, issued a time line for 2005 for finalising national management standards so in 2006 interim certification could give way to accredited national standards. Those accredited national standards are nowhere to be seen. FSC certifications are often carried out against the requirements of a FSC draft standard or against a set of requirements developed by FSC certifiers themselves in preparation for their audit. They are not practices acceptable in any sector with international audit and certification rules.
It is my contention that the vast majority of FSC national standards and forest certifications would simply not withstand scrutiny by an international accreditation forum or the International Organisation for Standardisation, which is recognised by the United Nations. The body which recognises FSC principles, the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance, has seven full members, none of whom are national or international standard bodies but two of whom are the Rainforest Alliance and the FSC itself.
I also note that the Marine Stewardship Council is a third member, whose practices and affiliations are not unlike those of the FSC, which is very much related to the current debate. When I attended a Seafood Industry Council function in this place last night, I noted that an Australian fishery had become the first in the world to be certified by the MSC. I hope that the seafood industry is aware of the secondary boycott practices of organisations like the FSC and those behind the MSC. In addition, I sincerely hope that it does not suffer the fate of the Australian forest industry and the special impact that has had on regional communities, which very much depend on the forest industry for their economic sustainability. I also hope that the Australian government is closely monitoring artificial trade barriers in both the fishing and the forest industries of Australia. We, and especially Labor in government, took too many tough decisions not only to open up Australia to the impact of globalisation but also to seek to develop a freer trade world than to have it now undermined by an artificial set of trade barriers developed by some non-government organisations.
Interestingly, therefore, I refer to the fact that the Australian Forestry Standard—we should be conscious of this because it is about rigorous assessment—is proceeding through the very rigorous processes of Standards Australia and the PEFC towards full recognition. However rocky the road may be towards consensus, the organisation’s members are to be congratulated for their perseverance against the odds. Equally, I would welcome the Australian FSC standard, were the FSC prepared to meet the same rigors of Standards Australia, the ISO and the IAF. I make it clear that I will not support it while it makes its own standards, accredits its own people as certifiers and switches hats to environmental NGO mode when it needs to protect its business from competition.
The FSC logo can be used for woodchip and fibre products when only 17.5 per cent of the total wood fibre or 30 per cent of virgin wood fibre is FSC certified; it does not matter where the rest of the timber comes from. The FSC mixed label can be used on any wood product, even if only 10 per cent of the total material is FSC certified. Compare these low percentage requirements with the PEFC logo, which can be used on a product only if at least 70 per cent of the wood content is PEFC certified. If the FSC’s objective were truly to promote responsible management of the world’s forests, I believe that the organisation would be engaged more seriously with the forestry industry in Australia in trying to resolve some of the concerns I have highlighted today in order to protect our reputation and its reputation.
The Australian government’s priorities should be to ensure that Australia’s forest industries and, indeed, its fishing industries are managed sustainably, both today and into the future, for future generations and that they have fair market access for their products, both in Australia and overseas. I would also like to see the Australian government doing more to pursue with our trading partners the very serious question of secondary boycotts and to draw to their attention the need for rigorous international standards to apply to labelling and product certification.
The fact is that Australia is one of the few countries in the Asia-Pacific region with the land availability and capability to expand sustainable forestry through further plantation development over the coming decades. Because we are living in a historic era of global economic expansion, particularly on our doorstep in the Asia-Pacific region with China and India, demand for forest products, like other resources, is skyrocketing; therefore, the sustainable expansion of the Australian forest industry is very important to meet global demand and to contribute to our own economic prosperity. Most estimates are that already a third to a half of the world’s forests have been burnt or chopped down. That makes it more critical than ever for the world’s remaining forests to be managed sustainably for conservation, the world’s future forest product needs and the enormous environmental services they perform in maintaining global biodiversity and providing carbon sinks to manage climate change.
I therefore note that recently the Indonesian forestry minister was quoted as saying that the level of forest destruction in Indonesia has reached serious levels. There are claims that illegal logging in Indonesia destroys about three million hectares of forests every year. That is about three times Australia’s legitimate forest harvest each year. It is not just squatters but legitimate forestry companies that are contributing to illegal logging, deforestation and poor forestry practices in Indonesia.
Unfortunately, Indonesia is just the tip of the iceberg, including in our own backyard. The Solomons, Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Chile, Guatemala and a host of other developing countries feel under pressure to cut down their forests for timber or to make way for coffee plantations because this has been their only option to release their people from poverty and deliver a sense of economic future. It is estimated that almost 10 per cent of timber and wood products imported to Australia are of suspicious origin. That figure would be much higher for many of our trading partners.
The trade in illegal and unsustainable timber distorts trade, suppresses prices and causes major irreversible damage to the environment, especially in less developed countries. Dubious importing practices are already contributing to job losses in Australia, where local producers are arguably being unfairly undercut—for example, in Tasmania. I believe we cannot continue to ignore this problem. Our own environmental and economic future is in jeopardy if we do not accept measures to control importation of illegal and unsustainable timber products and if we fail to set an example in world’s best forestry practices with our trading partners.
I raise these issues because I think this is a debate that we have to become more rigorous about as a nation both domestically and internationally. If there are resources or industry or environmental policy issues to be addressed in our country, the place to address them in is our houses of parliament or through due process of our governments and institutions, including Standards Australia. The conservation movement is a legitimate stakeholder in the development of forestry policy and the implementation of forest management. But let us have an honest debate.
They have always been welcome in Australia around the negotiating table, but I think it is time they declared their hand, just as the rest of us have to. Are they representing environmental NGOs or are they representing their business interests like the FSC? It is an interesting question. I say they cannot have it both ways. At the end of the day, like everyone else we expect them to abide by the decisions of elected governments and particularly to adhere to negotiated outcomes. The Australian Labor Party knows full well that the key to a better Australia is jobs and economic prosperity for all. Australia’s forest and fishing industries are part of achieving that. They are also importantly central to sustained economic prosperity in regional Australia.
I say in conclusion, in supporting this bill and the government’s intent, that there is a lot of work still to be done in other areas encompassed by this bill. This government therefore needs to do more—a lot more—to provide fair access to export markets for those industries that are seeking to be covered by this bill. I have sought today to raise for further discussion and policy consideration an area of major weakness—the potential future sustainability of the timber products industry in Australia. I commend the bill to the House and ask the minister to take on board today the very serious issues that I have raised.
147
12:14:00
Adams, Dick, MP
BV5
Lyons
ALP
0
0
Mr ADAMS
—I rise to speak on the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment (Export Control and Quarantine) Bill 2006. They are very important issues that my colleague the member for Batman just spoke about: the certification of products and the enforcement of those certified products coming into our country. The objects of the federal quarantine and export services are to protect Australia’s animal, plant and human health status and maintain market access through the delivery of quarantine and export services. These services also have a vital role in implementing and administering strict quarantine control at Australian borders to minimise the risk of exotic pest and disease incursions. With the support of industry and the community, Quarantine responds to potential quarantine threats.
Maintaining access for Australian agricultural and food products to hundreds of markets around the world is essential. Export inspection, auditing and certification services help generate over $26 billion in exports by the meat, horticulture, grain, fish, dairy, organic and live animal export industries. The Export Control Act sets up a regime for the export inspection of prescribed goods. These goods include meat, fish, fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy produce and grains. Inspection is conducted by authorised officers of the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, AQIS. The purpose of the inspection is to ensure that the goods which are to be exported meet the strict requirements set out in the orders made pursuant to the regulations made under the Export Control Act. These requirements are aimed at ensuring fitness for human consumption, quality and accurate trade description of the goods.
The current act arose out of events in the early 1980s which I remember well. In August 1981, discoveries were made in the United States that horse meat had been substituted for beef by an Australian meat export establishment. I had just left the Meat Workers Union and gone into the state parliament of Tasmania, so I know that this issue was a live issue in the meat industry at the time. The reputation of the Australian meat industry was severely tarnished. These amendments seek to ensure that our guidelines are strictly adhered to.
Other speakers this morning have talked about the need to make sure that we do not give away the opportunities that we have of protecting our export markets. We are an island continent. That gives us the advantage of being free of many diseases that exist in other parts of the world. We need to make sure that we do not destroy that. I come from an island state of this island continent which has even fewer pests than the mainland of Australia, and we get criticised for trying to protect our export industries from disease. One prime example is the fire blight disease which occurs in New Zealand. New Zealanders would love to export their apples and pears into my lovely island. Because of fire blight it costs 30 to 40 per cent more to produce apples and pears in New Zealand than it does in Tasmania. So you can see the advantage we have by not having that pest with us.
Successive governments have taken a serious view of malpractice in the export food industry. They have argued that any malpractice that may endanger the reputation of Australia’s export industries and jeopardise overseas markets for Australian goods must be strongly deterred. The Export Control Act includes penalties for false declarations and trade descriptions, and grants extensive regulation-making powers to the Governor-General, including penalties for offences against the regulations. This bill creates four new offences, including two strict liability offences, to deal with those people who fail to ensure that goods are prepared for export in accordance with the legislation. In her second reading speech, the parliamentary secretary said:
The creation of four new offence provisions is in response to a serious gap in the Export Control Act. Currently, the offence provisions in the act focus on persons involved with goods in the post-preparation phase with the result that persons who are the occupiers of establishments where the preparation of the goods occurs are immune from the serious penalties that apply to other offenders under the act. The new offences focus on the person responsible for the preparation of the goods for export.
Other amendments remove any doubt that the Commonwealth has a level of control over the sourcing of fish intended for export. To ensure ongoing access for exported product into overseas markets and consumer protection, fish, including shellfish, must be harvested from areas that do not contain pathogenic organisms, biotoxins and chemical contaminants at levels that may represent a threat to consumer health.
I believe this is very important and that we should show that this is a part of our export regime so that those who import can be pushed to follow the strict guidelines we have here. I saw the Indonesian minister in Australia this week endeavouring to ask Australia to take more food products from Indonesia but also asking that maybe we could help bring them up to a standard where they could import into Australia. Maybe we can assist them through the aid programs we have to come to grips with the standards that will need to be met before they can import everything they want into Australia.
This act also creates four new offences in the Export Control Act to enable the Commonwealth to prosecute those people who fail to prepare goods that are exported in accordance with the act. Labor believe the amendments are sensible, and we have long supported the full cost recovery of the provision of quarantine services and other services by government relating to the export of food products. It would be nice to think that similar provisions exist in other countries trading with Australia so that we could ensure products received were similarly scrutinised and that legislation existed to prosecute those who are not so careful.
The member for New England mentioned this when he spoke in the debate about chicken meat in Australia. When we got the bottom line of that, it was discovered that some of the Asian countries that wanted to import chicken meat to Australia did not have the standard of heat cooking they were supposed to have—the standard which was needed to import into Australia. When we start to bring together and weaken standards from one country to another, where we say, ‘That’s been done there, there’s no need for it to be done here,’ or accept another country’s standards, we should be very careful and make sure those countries have the standards that we expect them to have, otherwise it will be a weakening of our biosecurity regime.
In the world of multilateral trade, it is not only food items that travel between countries; it is all the pathogens that go with that particular food. Some we already have here, many we do not. The only means of control for some of these is at our borders, and that means we must be on the lookout at all times regarding the quality of our imports. Our quarantine laws are strict, and we must ensure that Australia remains free of some of the virulent diseases that are present on continents that cannot secure their borders from disease like we can. So legislation like this can give our growers and producers the edge over others as we ensure that our produce is as healthy as we can make it.
The previous speaker, the member for Batman, spoke about certification in the forest industry. There were also some issues about biosecurity there. There have been some pilot programs set up around Australia at airports and seaports to collect bugs that come in through the air off ships. There is a new program starting up there, which I am very pleased to see, to protect the enormous forestry industry of Australia. We need to be vigilant there as well. I certainly support certification in that industry.
In the fishing industry I have long advocated ensuring that we continue to do as much as we can in the world to certify fish that come from the international seas and that countries do not import fish that are not certified in a given way in a good world certification regime. This legislation goes some way to ensuring that we continue to have the safety margin we need during export and also gives us the opportunity to ensure strict guidelines are in place for foodstuffs entering this country. I support the legislation.
149
12:26:00
Ley, Sussan, MP
00AMN
Farrer
LP
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
1
0
Ms LEY
—in reply—The Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment (Export Control and Quarantine) Bill 2006 amends the Export Control Act 1982 and the Quarantine Act 1908. Both of these acts are crucial to the regulation of Australia’s international trade in food and agricultural products. The key amendments to the Export Control Act create new offences relating to the preparation of goods for export and ensure that the act has sufficient authority to enable the regulation of the sourcing of fish intended for export. These amendments enhance the capacity of the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service to maintain market access for Australia’s agricultural and food exports. The amendment to the Quarantine Act clarifies the cost recovery arrangements from other Commonwealth bodies for quarantine services provided by the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.
I thank members who have spoken on this bill: the member for Capricornia, the member for New England, the member for Batman and the member for Lyons. The member for Capricornia certainly mentioned the need for the highest standards in food preparation along our supply chain and emphasised the importance of that. The member for New England—and I thank him for supporting the legislation—related many of his comments and remarks to the risks associated with imports. That is not what this bill is about, but they are important debates, I appreciate, in his own area. The member for Batman gave rousing support for the forest industry, and I thank him for that. The member for Lyons made the important point that this gives our producers confidence that in our own exports to other countries we are exporting food products that are all that we have declared them to be.
This bill is about preserving the integrity of our export chain. Those are key and critical things that we need to be aware of and that this bill will strengthen and enhance. I will conclude with a good example. In today’s Land it was noted that we will now see an easing of the quarantine requirements for Australian tomatoes imported into New Zealand—two million of which were exported to New Zealand between 2002 and 2004—because during that time there were no shipments in which fruit fly was detected. So New Zealand has now decided to reduce the number of inspections, reduce dip-sampling requirements and remove the requirement to label individual pallets of tomatoes being inspected. I think that is a good example of how overseas countries can have confidence in AQIS and our own supply chain. That confidence will be further strengthened by the provisions of this bill.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.
ADJOURNMENT
150
ADJOURNMENT
Mrs GASH
(Gilmore)
12:29:00
—I move:
That the Main Committee do now adjourn.
Malka Chana Roth
150
150
12:29:00
Danby, Michael, MP
WF6
Melbourne Ports
ALP
0
0
Mr DANBY
—I rise to speak briefly on a sad anniversary—sad for me personally, sad for many people in my electorate, sad above all for the wider Roth family and sad in a more general sense as an example of what some of the evil forces currently at large in the world are capable of. Five years ago yesterday, on 9 August 2001, a suicide bomber killed 15 people and injured 130 in a crowded pizza restaurant—the Sbarro pizza shop—in Jerusalem. Among those killed were a 15-year-old girl, Malka Chana Roth, whose parents, Arnold and Frimet, have been friends of mine for many years. Malki was an intelligent, idealistic and highly gifted young woman with a very bright future in front of her. She cared for her younger sister, who has a disability. She was much loved by her family and her many friends both in Australia and in Israel. I take this opportunity of again expressing my condolences to her family on their terrible loss, which I know they still feel very deeply. I also congratulate them on the positive attitude they have had in establishing the Malki Roth Foundation—Keren Malki—which assists children with disabilities with all kinds of equipment which they may not be able to otherwise afford.
Malki was the first Australian to be killed by a terrorist suicide bomber, but sadly she is far from the last. Only three weeks after her death, on September 11, terrorists struck again in New York and Washington, killing a number of Australians along with many others from many other nations amongst the 3,000 people killed in the twin towers. In October 2002 came the Bali bombing in which 88 Australians were killed. This was followed by the London underground bombings and the second Bali bombing in which more Australians died.
Today, again, the Middle East is embroiled in armed conflict, with civilians in both Israel and Lebanon losing their lives following the decision by the terrorist organisation Hezbollah to launch an attack on Israel on 12 July. Once again people in my electorate are filled with apprehension about the safety of family and friends in Israel, and I know many Lebanese Australian families have similar fears. The responsibility for the situation lies in the same place that responsibility for the death of Malki Roth, along with the responsibility for September 11, the Bali bombings and many other crimes—for all these deaths and all this fear and grief—lies: it lies with those countries that sponsor, fund and train terrorist organisations like Hezbollah, Hamas, Jemaah Islamiah and al-Qaeda. Until the vast majority of moderate Muslims, who I am still encouraged constitute the vast majority of Muslim people in the world, particularly in our near neighbour Indonesia, can debilitate those organisations, until those countries stop supporting those organisations, families like the Roths and many others in many countries will continue to suffer and the world will have no peace.
Cowper Electorate: Lowanna Public School
150
150
12:32:00
Hartsuyker, Luke, MP
00AMM
Cowper
NATS
1
0
Mr HARTSUYKER
—I wish to take this opportunity to draw attention to the state of affairs at the Lowanna Public School in my electorate, which is facing the removal of its library and a primary classroom—an action which will severely affect the school’s pupils. Lowanna is a small isolated town in the hinterland of Coffs Harbour, which is the nearest settlement of any size that can offer a full range of facilities. Lowanna is some 45 minutes drive from Coffs Harbour, much of it on steep narrow country roads.
The school currently has 16 pupils aged between five and 12. As in many small country towns, the school is a focus for the community—not just educating the children but also bringing parents and members of the community together in social activities. The library and primary classroom are currently housed in two demountable buildings. The New South Wales government intends to remove these demountables on the grounds that pupil numbers have fallen. It is my contention that the crude link that is being made between numbers and the buildings takes no account of the educational consequences of these actions, which are particularly short sighted in an isolated community such as Lowanna.
Let me start with the library. Schools not only equip our young pupils with the basic skills they need to lead their lives but they have a vital role to play in helping our children place themselves in the wider world. There is much to be said in favour of growing up in a small, secure rural community like Lowanna. There is also much to be said in favour of the learning that goes on in the broader sense beyond the hills and forests that surround Lowanna. We must ensure that our young children are not disadvantaged by having their early years of schooling in small country schools. Books can provide that sense of perspective that is needed in education. I shall come to the effect the state government’s proposal will have on the use of computers in the school shortly, but I believe books offer students a permanent, physical, extended form of another person’s views, experience or imagination in ways that computers cannot. A school without books is a school without a soul. If the demountables are removed the books will have to be stored, new shelving will have to be purchased, the books will be not on display and pupils will not be able to browse, to select what takes their fancy or to experiment with books. They will not have access to a public library or a bookshop in the small community of Lowanna. They will be deprived of part of their education.
The library is also a space that is put to other uses which enhance the life of the school. It is the only sizeable space available for reading groups, choir lessons, teaching of sensitive topics such as sex education, assemblies involving the whole school and visitors, and visiting exhibitions to which the pupils would not otherwise have access. It is used for fundraising activities by both the P&C and the student council. It has been used until now for the annual combined Orama Valley schools great debate. If the two buildings are removed, the school will no longer be able to host the event at Lowanna. It has also been used for rehearsals by the school’s primary dance troop, which for the last two years has won its class at the Coffs Harbour and district eisteddfod and performed to acclaim at other cultural festivals. Those are the consequences of the loss of the library.
The loss of the primary classroom will mean that the primary and infants classes will have to share a single room, though clearly they will not be sharing lessons, with obvious consequences for the learning experience and providing students with greater opportunities for distraction. This will limit discussion and it will limit personal growth. I am informed that the school’s computers will have to be removed to a separate room, being taken out of the children’s classroom. In the classroom they can be integrated with the lesson and used for specific purposes in a wider task—in short, used as a tool, as a means to an end. Taking them out of the classroom will, I believe, encourage the view that the computer is a plaything, a source of entertainment and an end in itself. Of course, a computer can be those things, but I think it is vital that the computer be used and integrated into the classroom situation.
The decision by the state government is mean-spirited, small-minded and, I think, illogical. The figures available from the last census show that the population in the area around Lowanna is increasing, not decreasing. Of course, the latest census figures have yet to come out, but I am sure we will see a continuation of that growth. No doubt someone in the state government has looked at the probably minimal savings and running costs, and the costs particularly involved in removing the classrooms down a very steep and winding road. I would hope that they would have thought carefully about this decision, but it does not appear that they have. I have little confidence, unfortunately, that the state government will reverse that decision, but I am working very hard with the local state member, Andrew Fraser, to try and retain those classrooms to ensure that the children of Lowanna school have the very best possible educational experience. Taking away classroom resources from a small country school such as Lowanna is unacceptable in the 21st century. Those classrooms and the library should stay with the children of Lowanna.
Interest Rates
152
152
12:37:00
Adams, Dick, MP
BV5
Lyons
ALP
0
0
Mr ADAMS
—We are living in difficult times when the prices of all essential goods are rising, petrol is becoming an item of luxury, we are hurting those on low and fixed incomes and those who have families, especially those who live in country areas. In the Lyons electorate people do not have the luxury of having a lot of public transport to their door. They do not have a selection of doctors or dentists to visit when needed. The phone system is a bit of a joke and the ABC TV reception is being stripped away as technology overtakes the country and leaves it behind. I am sure that you experience similar problems, Mr Deputy Speaker, in your vast electorate as well. On top of all this, the price of petrol is wearing away the small luxuries that many people in country areas enjoy—visiting their families, going boating or dropping into the local entertainment venue in the nearest town.
Mortgage rates may not seem to be the most worried about item on the list of bills, according to some, but there are many young people in Tasmania who have just bought their first home and with the fourth interest rate rise this year they are stretched beyond the original cost of their homes. It is more than they had bargained for, and therefore the costs of servicing the bank loans is on the edge of their income limit.
Petrol would not have been such a big deal if all those other costs had not started to insidiously move in on the family income. These days are bad for young people buying a home and are bad for many struggling small businesses out there as well. The Prime Minister has ruled over the third interest rate rise, since he took personal responsibility for interest rates 18 months ago. Eighteen months ago he promised to keep interest rates low. This is the third interest rate rise since he made that pledge to the Australian people. That pledge has been broken three times since it was made. There has been no action from this government to deal with the skills crisis and the infrastructure bottlenecks which are the underlying causes of inflationary pressures and rising interest rates.
In Australia today we have debt at record levels. There is no such thing as a small interest rate rise when people have huge mortgages and are up to their eyeballs in debt. Since 2002, the cost of an average monthly repayment on a new mortgage has skyrocketed from $800 to $1,460. That is why, for middle-income families, there is no such thing as a small interest rate rise—because there is no such thing as a small mortgage.
Interest rates in this country are among the highest in the developed world, and the Treasurer and the Prime Minister simply do not get it. They can blame the price of bananas, they can blame tropical cyclones or even tropical fruit, they can blame the price of petrol, which is a factor here of course. But the one thing that you do not do is put your hand up for someone else who is responsible for this outcome. They would prefer to hide behind the Reserve Bank and not admit their culpability for inflationary pressures and their impact on the economy. They gave away lots of money in the last budget, so they have to be held accountable.
My electorate of Lyons is suffering difficulties from all of these pressures and the more so because of the highly dispersed population and the low average income. People cannot afford to live. I have seen houses being sold because of growing costs. People have to make a choice between food and paying bills. It is not a good look, and it is the price of living under a Liberal government. Mortgage rates, petrol prices and the regimes that have been put in place by this government have long-term effects on all Tasmanians and all Australians. It is a sad day. On top of this, all of our working conditions are being eroded and Tasmanians are being asked to do more work for less money and fewer conditions. (Time expired)
A division having been called in the House of Representatives—
153
12:43:00
Main Committee adjourned at 12.43 pm
QUESTIONS IN WRITING
154
Answers to Questions on Notice
Foreign Fishing Vessels
154
154
3438
154
Price, Roger, MP
QI4
Chifley
ALP
0
Mr Price
asked the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, in writing, on 9 May 2006:
-
Has the Australian Customs Service (ACS) or AQIS developed a profile of the animals, insects and marine pests that can be found on the illegal foreign fishing boats in Australia’s northern waters; if so, what are they; if not, why not.
-
Have (a) parrots, (b) monkeys, (c) dogs, (e) poultry, and (f) mosquitos been found on board illegal foreign fishing boats.
-
Can he explain the extent of the risks to Australia of (a) avian flu, (b) foot and mouth disease, (c) rabies, and (d) striped mussel infestation as a consequence of the landing of illegal foreign fishing boats.
-
Since the increase in the incidence of the landing of illegal foreign fishing boats, what additional testing has been undertaken to detect (a) avian flu, (b) foot and mouth disease, (c) rabies, and (d) striped mussel infestation.
-
Are contingency plans in place to combat an occurrence of (a) foot and mouth disease in the feral pig population, (b) rabies in the wild dingo population, (c) avian flu amongst the bird population, and (d) striped mussel infestation in the tidal creeks and rivers; if so, what are the details including the estimated cost of implementing each plan; if not, why not.
-
What is the estimated cost to Australia of an occurrence of (a) avian flu, (b) foot and mouth disease, (c) rabies, and (d) striped mussel infestation.
154
McGauran, Peter, MP
XH4
Gippsland
NATS
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
1
Mr McGauran
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Yes. AQIS has analysed the pest and disease risks associated with these vessels and uses this analysis to target the biosecurity risks they pose.
-
Yes. Parrots, dogs, poultry and mosquitoes have been found on illegal foreign fishing vessels. There has been one recorded incident of a monkey arriving into an Australia port on an illegal foreign fishing vessel in 1998. All seized animals have been destroyed under quarantine control.
-
In a general sense the larger illegal foreign fishing vessels, such as ice boats and trawlers present the greatest quarantine risk because they routinely carry considerable provisions for crew and have cold storage facilities that enable quarantine risk materials such as unprocessed meats and eggs to be carried. Live animals such as birds and dogs may also be present on the larger illegal foreign fishing vessels. The majority of illegal foreign fishing vessels originate in Indonesia where avian influenza, rabies and black striped mussel are known to be present, but foot and mouth disease is not present.
-
In regard to the specific diseases and/or pests:
-
Avian influenza. Waste materials (eg poultry meat and/or eggs food scraps) could potentially be a source of introduction of avian influenza into Australia. However, for this risk to be realised the scraps would have to have come from poultry that were infected at the time, be unprocessed (the virus is inactivated by proper cooking of meat and eggs), and be consumed by susceptible birds while the virus is still active (virus survival in carcase material at ambient temperatures is only a few days).
-
Foot and mouth disease. Ingestion of contaminated waste material by pigs is a well-recognised method by which foot and mouth disease has been introduced to new areas. Thus, waste materials such as food scraps from pig meat that is contaminated with foot and mouth disease virus (and landed in a remote area of Australia, particularly where feral pigs may be present) poses a risk introducing this disease into Australia. Although the majority of illegal foreign fishing vessels originate from Indonesia, which is free from foot and mouth disease, in 2006 Australian authorities have seized three vessels that originated from elsewhere in Asia, where foot and mouth disease is known to occur.
-
Rabies. If an infected dog is landed in a remote area of Australia and allowed to interact with local dogs (eg. in a remote community), there is a high risk that rabies could be introduced into the local dog population (through biting) and subsequently for infection to be transmitted to humans.
-
Black striped mussel. If a foreign fishing vessel that is infested with black striped mussel lands by beaching in a remote area of Australia, there is considerable potential for biofouling assemblages, that may include black striped mussel, to be dislodged from the vessel’s hull and for the mussel to become established in that locality.
-
to (c) The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service undertakes ongoing surveillance and monitoring in northern Australia for targeted pests and diseases including avian influenza, foot and mouth disease and rabies. To date, highly pathogenic avian influenza, foot and mouth disease and rabies have not been detected in Australia during this surveillance. (d) Marine pest inspections are managed by the respective State and Territory Governments.
-
Yes. Australia’s Veterinary Emergency Plan (AUSVETPLAN) includes detailed contingency plans for responding to a range of disease threats, including (a) foot and mouth disease in feral pigs, (b) rabies in wild animals (including dingos) and (c) avian influenza in birds. (d) Australia also has a national Emergency Marine Pest Plan (EMPPlan) that includes contingencies for incursion by marine pests, such as black striped mussel, in tidal creeks and rivers.
For incursions by animal diseases, the response plan is implemented by agreement through a National Management Group (NMG) that comprises representation by the Chief Executive Officers of Commonwealth and State Departments of Agriculture/Primary Industries along with CEOs of relevant industry sectors. The cost of implementing each plan is shared by Commonwealth and State/Territory Governments and industry and varies on a case-by-case basis determined by the scale and extent of a disease outbreak and the relevant action plan agreed by the National Management Group. A national Emergency Animal Disease Response Agreement (EADRA) was established in 2004 that formalises beneficiary cost-sharing arrangements for emergency animal diseases including foot and mouth disease, avian influenza and rabies.
For marine pests, the national contingency plan is implemented through agreement by a National Management Group (NMG) that comprises representation for each jurisdiction by Natural Resource Management Standing Committee members. The cost of implementing national contingency arrangements for an incursion by black-striped mussel would vary on a case-by-case basis determined by the scale and extent of an incursion and the relevant action plan agreed by the NMG.
-
The estimated cost would vary according to the scale and extent of an incursion.
-
For avian influenza the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) is currently working on a study to estimate the costs of a highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak. The report is expected to be completed by the end of June 2006. Australian animal health authorities have previously eradicated avian influenza on five separate occasions with costs ranging between $400 000 and $3 million.
-
For foot and mouth disease, the Productivity Commission completed a report in 2002 that provides estimates for socio-economic costs associated with three disease scenarios; (i) a 3 month outbreak (ii) a 6 month outbreak and (iii) a 12 month outbreak.
- For a 3 month outbreak a total reduction in gross domestic product (GDP) over 10 years is estimated between $2 000-3 000 million.
- For a 6 month outbreak a total reduction in GDP (over 10 years) is estimated between $3 000-5 000 million.
- For a 12 month outbreak a total reduction in GDP (over 10 years) is estimated between $8 000-13 000 million.
-
For an incursion of rabies, formal cost estimates have not been established. Cost implications would be expected to lie primarily in the area of public health rather than GDP/trade.
-
For black-striped mussel, formal cost estimates have not been established. The incursion in Darwin marinas in 1999 provides an indicative cost estimate of $2.2 million to achieve eradication in that situation.
Regional Partnerships Program
156
156
3509
156
Jenkins, Harry, MP
HH4
Scullin
ALP
0
Mr Jenkins
asked the acting Minister for Transport and Regional Services, in writing, on 22 May 2006:
-
How many applications for funding under the Regional Partnerships Program, or its predecessor, were submitted from the electoral division of Scullin in 2005-2006 and what are the details of each application.
-
How many applications for funding under the Regional Partnerships Program submitted from the electoral division of Scullin are awaiting determination and what are the details of each application.
-
For 2005-2006, what are the details of the grants (a) applied for and (b) received under the Regional Partnerships Program, or its predecessor, in the electoral division of Scullin.
-
In respect of each application under the Regional Partnerships Program, or its predecessor, which was approved in the electoral division of Scullin in 2005-2006, (a) what date was the project approved, (b) on what date did the Area Consultative Committee recommend funding the project, (c) which Regional Partnerships eligibility criteria did the project satisfy, (d) what are the expected employment outcomes for the project, (e) what sum was contributed to the project by the applicant, (f) when did the project satisfy due diligence requirements, and (g) what supporting documentation was supplied with the application.
156
Lloyd, Jim, MP
IK6
Robertson
LP
Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads
1
Mr Lloyd
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
One application for funding was received under the Regional Partnerships Program from the electoral division of Scullin in 2005-06 as at 31 May 2006.
-
There are no applications for funding under the Regional Partnerships Program from the electoral division of Scullin that are awaiting Ministerial decisions.
-
Organisation Name
Project Name
Approved Amount
Origin Training Solutions Pty Ltd
Freight Train – delivering
$242,548
-
-
The project was approved on 9 May 2006.
-
The Area Consultative Committee provided comments on this project on 1 September 2005.
-
This project was assessed as eligible for Regional Partnerships funding.
-
The employment outcomes for the project are expected to be 238 employment placements (full and part time) in the first 18 months.
-
The applicant is providing $773,600 cash contribution.
-
All due diligence checks were completed by the Department in accordance with the Regional Partnerships guidelines on 21 September 2005.
-
The following supporting documentation were supplied:
-
a detailed business plan;
-
a SWOT analysis;
-
three year profit/loss and cash flow projections;
-
Etheridge Family Trust – Statement of Financial Performance 30 June 2005;
-
Etheridge Family Trust – Statement of Financial Position 30 June 2005;
-
Etheridge Family Trust – Depreciation Schedule and notes on Financial Statement 30 June 2005;
-
Independent Audit report on Etheridge Family Trust trading as Origin Training Solutions Pty Ltd for 30 June 2004; and
-
letters of support from:
-
the Member for McEwan;
-
the Member for Scullin;
-
the Director/CEO, Kangan Batman TAFE;
-
the National Manager, Strategic Planning and Business Development TDT Australia; and
-
letter from a number of industry and business groups supporting the concept and agreeing to participate on a project reference group.
Job Network
157
157
3510
157
Jenkins, Harry, MP
HH4
Scullin
ALP
0
Mr Jenkins
asked the Minister for Workforce Participation, in writing, on 22 May 2006:
What are the (a) names, (b) addresses, and (c) hours of operation of organisations that are part of the Job Network in the postcode area (i) 3074, (ii) 3075, (iii) 3076, (iv) 3082, (v) 3083, (vi) 3087, (vii) 3088, (viii) 3089, (ix) 3090, (x) 3091, and (xi) 3752.
157
Stone, Dr Sharman, MP
EM6
Murray
LP
Minister for Workforce Participation
1
Dr Stone
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
The postcodes listed are covered by Employment Service Area (ESA) North Melbourne. Job Network members are contractually required to deliver services to job seekers across the entirety of a contracted ESA. Job Network Services (JNS) are therefore delivered to job seekers who reside in all of the listed postcodes in the given ESA of North Melbourne. There are five providers who have site locations delivering JNS in the ESA North Melbourne.
Name of Job Network Service
Site Address
Days/Hours of Operation
Interact Australia (Victoria)
Suite 4, 763 High Street
EPPING, VIC 3076
Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm
Level 1, 92 Main Street
GREENSBOROUGH VIC 3088
Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm
Job Futures Ltd
748-760 High Street
EPPING, VIC 3076
Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm
Northern Migrant Resource Centre Inc
727 High Street
EPPING, VIC 3076
Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm
271 Para Road
GREENSBOROUGH VIC 3088
Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm
Sarina Russo Job Access (Australia) Pty Ltd
763 High Street
EPPING, VIC 3076
Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm
9-13 Flintoff Street
GREENSBOROUGH VIC 3088
Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm
The Salvation Army (Victoria) Property Trust
Suite 2, 763 High Street
EPPING, VIC 3076
Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm
Child Support Agency
158
158
3514
158
Jenkins, Harry, MP
HH4
Scullin
ALP
0
Mr Jenkins
asked the Minister for Human Services, in writing, on 22 May 2006:
How many Child Support Agency clients reside in (a) Victoria and (b) the postcode area (i) 3074, (ii) 3075, (iii) 3076, (iv) 3082, (v) 3083, (vi) 3087, (vii) 3088, (viii) 3089, (ix) 3090, (x) 3091, and (xi) 3752.
158
Hockey, Joe, MP
DK6
North Sydney
LP
Minister for Human Services
1
Mr Hockey
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
The number of active payers and payees in Victoria at June 2005 is approximately 335,000.
-
Postcode
Payees
Payers
Total
3074
609
650
1,259
3075
625
544
1,169
3076
745
589
1,334
3082
891
674
1,565
3083
565
469
1,034
3087
236
182
418
3088
628
464
1,092
3089
257
188
445
3090
19
18
37
3091
20
26
46
3752
259
220
479
To prepare this response it has taken approximately 4 hours and 45 minutes at an estimated cost of $290.
Crime: Statistics
158
158
3521
158
Jenkins, Harry, MP
HH4
Scullin
ALP
0
Mr Jenkins
asked the Minister for Justice and Customs, in writing, on 22 May 2006:
What is the incidence of reported crime by type in (a) Victoria and (b) the postcode area (i) 3074, (ii) 3075, (iii) 3076, (iv) 3082, (v) 3083, (vi) 3087, (vii) 3088, (viii) 3089, (ix) 3090, (x) 3091, and (xi) 3752.
158
Ruddock, Philip, MP
0J4
Berowra
LP
Attorney-General
1
Mr Ruddock
—The Minister for Justice and Customs has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:
-
According to the most recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the number of victims of offences recorded by police in Victoria in 2005, by each offence category, was as follows:
Homicide and related offences – 185 victims. These statistics can be broken down as follows:
i. Murder – 72
ii. Attempted murder – 51
iii. Manslaughter – 4
iv. Driving causing death - 58
Assault – 19,399 victims
Sexual Assault – 2,686 victims
Kidnapping/abduction – 118 victims
Robbery – 2,465 victims. These can be broken down as follows:
i. Armed Robbery – 1,223
ii. Unarmed Robbery – 1,242
Blackmail/extortion – 94 victims
Unlawful entry with intent – 51,944 victims. These can be broken down as follows:
i. Involving the taking of property – 37,215
ii. Other – 14,729
Motor vehicle theft – 18,869 victims
Other theft – 116,577 victims
Source: Recorded Crime – Victims, Australia 2005.
-
I am advised that the Australian Bureau of Statistics does not produce data on incidence of recorded crime by local area in Victoria, including postcode. However, I am advised that such information may be available from the Victorian Police.
Export Market Development Grants Scheme
159
159
3524
159
Jenkins, Harry, MP
HH4
Scullin
ALP
0
Mr Jenkins
asked the Minister for Trade, in writing, on 22 May 2006:
-
How many companies in the electoral division of Scullin have received export assistance in 2006.
-
In each case, what was the (a) name of the company, (b) sum received and (c) purpose of each grant.
159
Vaile, Mark, MP
SU5
Lyne
NATS
Minister for Trade
1
Mr Vaile
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Four businesses in the electorate of Scullin received grants under the Export Market Development Grants scheme between 1 January 2006 and 31 May 2006.
-
The name of each grant recipient and the sum received in the electorate of Scullin is provided in the attached table.
Export Market Development Grants paid in the electorate of Scullin between 1 January and 31 May 2006
Recipient Name
Street
Suburb
State
Pcode
Grant Amount
Industry
Calendar Year Grant Paid
Analytical Platinum Supplies Pty Ltd
19 Yale Drive
EPPING
VIC
3076
$7,775
Metal and Mineral Wholesaling
2006
Cat Design Australia Pty Ltd
17/350 Settlement Road
THOMASTOWN
VIC
3074
$70,000
Cosmetic and Toiletry Preparation Manufacturing
2006
FM Facility Management Group Pty Ltd
326 Settlement Road
THOMASTOWN
VIC
3074
$10,132
Clothing Wholesaling
2006
Selectrix Industries Pty Ltd
2 Merchant Avenue
THOMASTOWN
VIC
3074
$8,363
Machinery and Equipment Wholesaling
2006
Total Grants Paid: 4
$96,270
Notes:
Businesses have been determined to be located in the electorate of Scullin using Australian Electoral Commission information and, where necessary, advice from relevant electorate offices.
Information sourced from Austrade EMDG database, May 2006.
Where the ‘grant amount’ column shows an amount of $70,000, this generally indicates that the firm may be eligible for a further (second tranche) payment by 30 June 2006.
Medicare
160
160
3526
160
Jenkins, Harry, MP
HH4
Scullin
ALP
0
Mr Jenkins
asked the Minister for Human Services, in writing, on 22 May 2006:
-
How many easyclaim or other Medicare claiming facilities are there.
-
What is the (a) name of each participating pharmacy/agency, (b) its address and (c) the federal electoral division in which it is located.
-
What are the eligibility requirements for the installation of a Medicare easyclaim facility.
160
Hockey, Joe, MP
DK6
North Sydney
LP
Minister for Human Services
1
Mr Hockey
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
As at 23 May 2006, there were 1,053 operational Medicare Australia Access Points (previously known as Medicare Easyclaim sites).
-
Refer to Attachment A for a list of Medicare Australia Access Points containing their address and the federal electoral division in which they are located. The list is sorted by state.
-
Medicare Australia considers a number of factors when determining if a locality is eligible to have Medicare Australia Access Point installed.
Medicare Australia assesses potential localities using the following criteria:
-
the volume of claims lodged by customers from the potential catchment area;
-
population and demographics;
-
the availability of other Medicare Claiming channels;
-
the level of bulk billing in the area;
-
establishment and ongoing costs;
-
health services in the area such as health centres, pharmacies and medical practices; and
-
suitable site to host the Medicare Australia Access Point.
If an area is considered to have met the above criteria (1-6), a suitable site must then be selected. A Medicare Australia field officer usually visits the locality to investigate potential sites. The following criteria are then considered:
-
convenient location (in close proximity to medical centres/ doctors surgeries; easily accessible by public transport users and adequate car parking);
-
adequate space;
-
adequate privacy;
-
good site presentation;
-
adequate access to building;
-
disabled / wheelchair access;
-
provision of aggregated services, particularly Government services; and
-
business opening hours.
To prepare this answer, it has taken approximately 8 hours at an estimated cost of $399.
Medicare Australia Access Point list as at 2 June 2006
Site Name
Site Address
Town
State
Postcode
Electorate
Aberdeen Pharmacy
1 Segenhoe Street
ABERDEEN
NSW
2336
GWYDIR
Adaminaby Licensed Post Office and Newsagency
Denison Street
ADAMINABY
NSW
2630
EDEN-MONARO
The Swinging Bridge Café
70 Tumut Street
ADELONG
NSW
2729
FARRER
Main Street Pharmacy
Shop 3, 83 Main Street
ALSTONVILLE
NSW
2477
RICHMOND
Terry White Chemist
Shop 10, Alstonville Plaza, Robertson Street
ALSTONVILLE
NSW
2477
RICHMOND
Appin Pharmacy
2/75 Appin Road
APPIN
NSW
2560
HUME
Ardlethan Fashion and Leisure
32A Ariah Street
ARDLETHAN
NSW
2665
RIVERINA
Ariah Park Rural Transaction Centre
44-46 Coolamon Street
ARIAH PARK
NSW
2665
RIVERINA
Ashford Business Council Incorporated
Albury Street
ASHFORD
NSW
2361
NEW ENGLAND
Avoca Beach Pharmacy
174 Avoca Drive
AVOCA BEACH
NSW
2251
ROBERTSON
Balranald Pharmacy
107 Market Street
BALRANALD
NSW
2715
FARRER
Bangalow Pharmacy
23 Byron Street
BANGALOW
NSW
2479
RICHMOND
Barellan Post Office
108 Yapunyah Street
BARELLAN
NSW
2665
RIVERINA
Bargo Village Pharmacy
Lot 400 Hume Highway
BARGO
NSW
2574
HUME
Barham Pharmacy
16 Murray Street
BARHAM
NSW
2732
FARRER
Basin View Pharmacy
Shop 2, Village Shopping Centre
1 Tallyan Point Road
BASIN VIEW
NSW
2540
GILMORE
Batlow Rural Transaction Centre
Batlow Library
Pioneer Street
BATLOW
NSW
2730
FARRER
Bawley Point Newsagency
Shop 3, Bawley Point Shopping Centre
Murramarang Road
BAWLEY POINT
NSW
2539
GILMORE
Beechwood Post Office
733 Beechwood Road
BEECHWOOD
NSW
2446
LYNE
Bellbrook General Store
29 Main Street
BELLBROOK
NSW
2440
COWPER
Bellingen Pharmacy
70 Hyde Street
BELLINGEN
NSW
2454
COWPER
Belmont Amcal Pharmacy
Shop 25, Belmont Citi Centre, Macquarie Street
BELMONT
NSW
2280
SHORTLAND
Belmont Soul Pattinson
556-558 Pacific Highway
BELMONT
NSW
2280
SHORTLAND
Bemboka Licensed Post Office & RTC
68 Loftus Street
BEMBOKA
NSW
2550
EDEN-MONARO
Bendalong General Store
20 Waratah Street
BENDALONG
NSW
2539
GILMORE
Beresfield Pharmacy
Shop 13, Avenue Plaza
Newton Street
BERESFIELD
NSW
2322
NEWCASTLE
Bermagui Pharmacy
22 Lamont Street
BERMAGUI
NSW
2546
EDEN-MONARO
Berowra Heights Pharmacy
Shop 2a, 15-19 Turner Road
BEROWRA HEIGHTS
NSW
2082
BEROWRA
Berowra Soul Pattinsons Chemists
Shop 7-8, Village Centre
Turner Road
BEROWRA HEIGHTS
NSW
2082
BEROWRA
Berrigan Newsagency
24-26 Chanter Street
BERRIGAN
NSW
2712
FARRER
Berry Licensed Post Office
1/109 Queen Street
BERRY
NSW
2535
GILMORE
Binnaway Rural Transaction Centre
15 Renshaw Street
BINNAWAY
NSW
2395
GWYDIR
Blackheath Newsagency
245 Great Western Highway
BLACKHEATH
NSW
2785
MACQUARIE
Blacksmiths Pharmacy
97 Turea Street
BLACKSMITHS
NSW
2281
SHORTLAND
Blayney Pharmacy
112 Adelaide Street
BLAYNEY
NSW
2799
CALARE
Bombala Post Office
109a Maybe Street
BOMBALA
NSW
2632
EDEN-MONARO
Bonalbo Pharmacy
Lot 10, Sandiland Street
BONALBO
NSW
2469
PAGE
Bonnells Bay Pharmacy
Shop 7, The Bay Shopping Square
Fishery Point Road
BONNELLS BAY
NSW
2264
CHARLTON
Bonny Hills Post Office
Shop 3, Bonny Hills Shopping Centre
Corner Ocean Drive and Jungarra Crescent
BONNY HILLS
NSW
2445
LYNE
Boolaroo Pharmacy
31 Main Road
BOOLAROO
NSW
2284
CHARLTON
Booligal Post Office
Lot 8, Lachlan Street
BOOLIGAL
NSW
2711
RIVERINA
Boorowa Pharmacy
11 Marsden Street
BOOROWA
NSW
2586
HUME
Towers Drug co
34 Oxley Street
BOURKE
NSW
2840
GWYDIR
Bowning Garage and General Store
Leake Street
BOWNING
NSW
2582
HUME
Bowraville Technology and Community Centre
39 High Street
BOWRAVILLE
NSW
2449
COWPER
Braidwood Rural Transaction Centre
Palerang Council
144 Wallace Street
BRAIDWOOD
NSW
2622
EDEN-MONARO
St Mary Pharmacy
47 Bathurst St
BREWARRINA
NSW
2839
GWYDIR
Bringelly Pharmacy
Shop 4-21
Northern Road
BRINGELLY
NSW
2171
MACARTHUR
Brunswick Heads Pharmacy
14-16 Mullumbimbi Street
BRUNSWICK HEADS
NSW
2483
RICHMOND
Bulahdelah Rural Transaction Centre
63 Stroud Street
BULAHDELAH
NSW
2423
PATERSON
Bulli Pharmacy
251 Princes Hwy
BULLI
NSW
2516
CUNNINGHAM
Bundanoon Post Office
5-9 Church Street
BUNDANOON
NSW
2578
GILMORE
Bundarra General Store RTC
30-32 Bendemeer Street
BUNDARRA
NSW
2359
NEW ENGLAND
Bundeena Pharmacy
Shop 3, 32-34 Brighton Street
BUNDEENA
NSW
2230
COOK
Bungendore Pharmacy
Unit A, 40 Ellendon Street
BUNGENDORE
NSW
2621
EDEN-MONARO
Burraga Village Store RTC
Main Street
Lot 2 + 3 Section 18
Village of Burraga
BURRAGA
NSW
2795
CALARE
Burringbar Licensed Post Office
23 The Broadway
BURRINGBAR
NSW
2483
RICHMOND
Byron Bay Amcal Plaza Pharmacy
Shop 4 Jonson Street
BYRON BAY
NSW
2481
RICHMOND
Bob Lane Soul Pattinson
34a Jonson Street
BYRON BAY
NSW
2481
RICHMOND
Callala Bay Pharmacy
Bayview Plaza
Shop 2
55 Emmett Street
CALLALA BAY
NSW
2540
GILMORE
Canowindra Pharmacy
79 Gaskill Street
CANOWINDRA
NSW
2804
CALARE
Caragabal General Store and Post Office
Post Office
Wyalong Street
CARAGABAL
NSW
2810
PARKES
Cassilis General Store
11 Branscombe Street
CASSILIS
NSW
2329
GWYDIR
Cobar Paper Chase Pty Ltd
Corner Marshall & Barton Street
COBAR
NSW
2835
PARKES
Cobargo Pharmacy
62 Princes Highway
COBARGO
NSW
2550
EDEN-MONARO
Polacks Newsagency
13 Harbour Drive
COFFS HARBOUR
NSW
2450
COWPER
Marilyn’s Pharmacy
112 Brolga Place
COLEAMBALLY
NSW
2707
RIVERINA
Comboyne Rural Transaction Centre
36 Main Street
COMBOYNE
NSW
2429
LYNE
Conargo Junction Store
Jerilderie Road
CONARGO
NSW
2710
FARRER
Shortis & Timmins Pharmacy
81 Bathurst Street
CONDOBOLIN
NSW
2877
PARKES
Bill Gaffey’s
Mitchell Highway
COOLABAH
NSW
2831
GWYDIR
Coolah Pharmacy
55 Binnia Street
COOLAH
NSW
2843
GWYDIR
Wagga Mutual Credit Union Ltd
120 Cowabbie Street
COOLAMON
NSW
2701
RIVERINA
Coolongolook General Store
Lot 1-2, Bengal Street
COOLONGOLOOK
NSW
2423
PATERSON
Coonabarabran Rural Transaction Centre
71 John Street
COONABARABRAN
NSW
2357
GWYDIR
Coonamble RTC
26 Castlereagh Street
COONAMBLE
NSW
2829
GWYDIR
Cooranbong Pharmacy
Shop 2, Avondale Shopping Centre
563 Freemans Drv
COORANBONG
NSW
2265
CHARLTON
Beddies Pharmacy
105-107 Wallendoon Street
COOTAMUNDRA
NSW
2590
RIVERINA
Braybrook’s Pharmacy
200 Parker Street
COOTAMUNDRA
NSW
2590
RIVERINA
Philip Davies Chemist
214 Parker Street
COOTAMUNDRA
NSW
2590
RIVERINA
Miegel’s Pharmacy
54 Sanger Street
COROWA
NSW
2646
FARRER
Corrimal Court Pharmacy
10a Corrimal Court
Princes Highway
CORRIMAL
NSW
2518
CUNNINGHAM
Martin’s Pharmacy
256 Princes Highway
CORRIMAL
NSW
2518
CUNNINGHAM
Corrimal Night & Day Pharmacy
191 Princes Highway
CORRIMAL
NSW
2518
CUNNINGHAM
Crescent Head Post Office
3 Scott Street
CRESCENT HEAD
NSW
2440
LYNE
Harts Pharmacy
78 Goulburn Street
CROOKWELL
NSW
2583
HUME
Croppa Creek General Store
Buckie Road
CROPPA CREEK
NSW
2411
GWYDIR
Culburra Pharmacy
187 Prince Edward Ave
CULBURRA BEACH
NSW
2540
GILMORE
Culcairn Rural Transaction Centre
40 Balfour Street
CULCAIRN
NSW
2660
FARRER
Cullen Bullen General Store
35 Castlereagh Highway
CULLEN BULLEN
NSW
2790
CALARE
Currarong General Store
1 Piscator Avenue
CURRARONG
NSW
2540
GILMORE
Deepwater News and General Store
Tenterfield Street
DEEPWATER
NSW
2371
NEW ENGLAND
Delegate Rural Transaction Centre
66A Bombala Street
DELEGATE
NSW
2633
EDEN-MONARO
Deniliquin Pharmacy
289 Cressy Street
DENILIQUIN
NSW
2710
FARRER
Barlow & Weller Pharmacy
17-21 Napier Street
DENILIQUIN
NSW
2710
FARRER
Denman Pharmacy
32 Ogilvie Street
DENMAN
NSW
2328
HUNTER
Dorrigo Plateau Pharmacy
67 Hickory Street
DORRIGO
NSW
2453
COWPER
Drake Village Resource Centre
Lot 9, DP 758359
Bruxner Highway
DRAKE
NSW
2469
NEW ENGLAND
The Dunedoo Pharmacy
86 Bolaro Street
DUNEDOO
NSW
2844
GWYDIR
Dungog IGA Everyday
184 Dowling Street
DUNGOG
NSW
2420
PATERSON
Dunoon Licensed Post Office
107B James St
DUNOON
NSW
2480
PAGE
Duri Post Office Store
Railway Avenue
DURI
NSW
2344
NEW ENGLAND
East Gresford Post Office
64 Park Street
EAST GRESFORD
NSW
2311
PATERSON
Eden Community Access Centre
116 Imlay Street
EDEN
NSW
2551
EDEN-MONARO
New England Area Health
Vegetable Creek Health Service
Glen Innes Rd
EMMAVILLE
NSW
2371
NEW ENGLAND
Eugowra Rural Transaction Centre
45 Broad Street
EUGOWRA
NSW
2806
CALARE
Evans Head Pharmacy
2 Oak Street
EVANS HEAD
NSW
2473
PAGE
Finley Pharmacy
122-124 Murray Street
FINLEY
NSW
2713
FARRER
Winstanley’s Pharmacy
111 Lachlan Street
FORBES
NSW
2871
PARKES
Flannery’s Pharmacy
97-101 Rankin Street
FORBES
NSW
2871
PARKES
Forster Amcal Chemist
49 Wharf Street
FORSTER
NSW
2428
PATERSON
Ganmain Rural Transaction Centre
90 Ford Street
GANMAIN
NSW
2702
RIVERINA
Gerringong Pharmacy
113 Fern Street
GERRINGONG
NSW
2534
GILMORE
Gilgandra Pharmacy
49 Miller Street
GILGANDRA
NSW
2827
GWYDIR
Girilambone Auto Service Centre
Mitchell Highway
GIRILAMBONE
NSW
2831
GWYDIR
Timbs Pharmacy
240 Grey Street
GLEN INNES
NSW
2370
NEW ENGLAND
Glenorie Pharmacy
Shop 11, 930 Old Northern Road
GLENORIE
NSW
2157
BEROWRA
Glenreagh Licensed Post Office
46 Coramba Street
GLENREAGH
NSW
2450
COWPER
Gloucester Pharmacy
43 Church Street
GLOUCESTER
NSW
2422
PATERSON
Goolgowi General Store
1 Stipa Street
GOOLGOWI
NSW
2652
RIVERINA
Gooloogong Post Office
King Street
GOOLOOGONG
NSW
2805
CALARE
Green Point Trading Post
111 Green Point Drive
GREEN POINT
NSW
2428
PATERSON
Greenwell Point Newsagency General Store
89 Greenwell Point Road
GREENWELL POINT
NSW
2540
GILMORE
Grenfell Pharmacy
105 Main Street
GRENFELL
NSW
2810
PARKES
Gulargambone Rural Transaction Centre
39 Bourbah
GULARGAMBONE
NSW
2828
GWYDIR
Gulgong Licenced Post Office
94 Herbert Street
GULGONG
NSW
2852
GWYDIR
Gundagai Chemist
114 Sheridan Street
GUNDAGAI
NSW
2722
RIVERINA
Gundy General Store
4 Riley Street
GUNDY
NSW
2337
GWYDIR
Guyra Rural Transaction Centre
Guyra Pharmacy
106 Bradley Street
GUYRA
NSW
2365
NEW ENGLAND
Gwandalan Pharmacy
65 Gamban Road
GWANDALAN
NSW
2259
SHORTLAND
Hallidays Point Rural Transaction Centre - 3 Beaches Chemist
Shop 2, Village Centre
HALLIDAYS POINT
NSW
2430
LYNE
Harrington Gifts & Crafts
4 Pilot Street
HARRINGTON
NSW
2427
LYNE
Hat Head General Store
24 Straight Street
HAT HEAD
NSW
2440
COWPER
Myall Pharmacy
47 Yamba Street
HAWKS NEST
NSW
2324
PATERSON
Japp’s Pharmacy
129 Lachlan Street
HAY
NSW
2711
RIVERINA
Hazelbrook Pharmacy
192 Great Western Highway
HAZELBROOK
NSW
2779
MACQUARIE
Lowcocks Pharmacy
121 Parkes Street
HELENSBURGH
NSW
2508
CUNNINGHAM
The Henty Pharmacy
26 Sladen Street
HENTY
NSW
2658
FARRER
Hill Top Village Store
11 West Parade
HILL TOP
NSW
2575
HUME
Hillston Rural Transaction Centre
175 High Street
HILLSTON
NSW
2675
PARKES
Holbrook Pharmacy
119 Albury Street
HOLBROOK
NSW
2644
FARRER
Iluka Pharmacy
Shop 1, 6 Young Street
ILUKA
NSW
2466
PAGE
Health & Beauty Shop
54 Jerilderie Street
JERILDERIE
NSW
2716
FARRER
Jindabyne Pharmacy
Nuggets Crossing
Snowy River Avenue
JINDABYNE
NSW
2627
EDEN-MONARO
Shannon’s Fine Foods
97 Urana Road
JINDERA
NSW
2642
FARRER
Junee Capital Chemist
82-84 Lorne Street
JUNEE
NSW
2663
RIVERINA
Kanwal Pharmacist Advice
654 Pacific Highway
KANWAL
NSW
2259
DOBELL
Karuah Pharmacy
20 Tarean Road
KARUAH
NSW
2324
PATERSON
Kendall Post Office
8 Comboyne Street
KENDALL
NSW
2439
LYNE
Kentucky General Store
Noalimba Avenue
KENTUCKY
NSW
2354
NEW ENGLAND
Khancoban General Store
Lot 13, Mitchell Avenue
KHANCOBAN
NSW
2642
FARRER
Soul Pattinson Chemist
68 Terralong Street
KIAMA
NSW
2533
GILMORE
The Kincumber Village Amcal Pharmacy
Shop 4, Kincumber Village
Avoca Drive
KINCUMBER
NSW
2251
ROBERTSON
Kootingal Pharmacy
12 Gate Street
KOOTINGAL
NSW
2352
NEW ENGLAND
Krambach Post Office
3733 Bucketts Way
KRAMBACH
NSW
2429
LYNE
Ken Wilson Amcal Chemist
Shop 12, Kingsway Plaza
174-178 Lang Street
KURRI KURRI
NSW
2327
HUNTER
Kurri Soul Pattison Chemist
169-173 Lang Street
KURRI KURRI
NSW
2327
HUNTER
Kyogle Pharmacy
111-113 Sumerland Way
KYOGLE
NSW
2474
PAGE
Lower Lachlan Community Service
30 Foster Street
LAKE CARGELLIGO
NSW
2672
PARKES
Laurieton Pharmacy
74 Bold Street
LAURIETON
NSW
2443
LYNE
Camden Haven Pharmacy
Shop 5, Haven Plaza
Bold Street
LAURIETON
NSW
2443
LYNE
Lawrence General Store
1 Richmond Street
LAWRENCE
NSW
2460
PAGE
Len Wade Pharmacy
76 Pine Avenue
LEETON
NSW
2705
RIVERINA
Dowley’s Pharmacy
113 Pine Avenue
LEETON
NSW
2705
RIVERINA
Lennox Head Pharmacy
2/64 Ballina Street
LENNOX HEAD
NSW
2478
RICHMOND
White’s Pharmacy
19 Morilla Street
LIGHTNING RIDGE
NSW
2834
GWYDIR
Lockhart Pharmacy
118-120 Green Street
LOCKHART
NSW
2656
FARRER
Gower Wilson Memorial Hospital
Lagoon Road
LORD HOWE ISLAND
NSW
2898
SYDNEY
Stanford’s Pharmacy
253 River Street
MACLEAN
NSW
2463
COWPER
Mallanganee General Store and Post Office
111 Sandilands Street
MALLANGANEE
NSW
2469
PAGE
The Manilla Pharmacy
161 Manilla Street
MANILLA
NSW
2346
NEW ENGLAND
Michael’s Pharmacy
297 Marrickville Road
MARRICKVILLE
NSW
2204
GRAYNDLER
Marrickville Chem Mart Pharmacy
288 Marrickville Road
MARRICKVILLE
NSW
2204
GRAYNDLER
Vinapharm Chemist
306 Illawarra Road
MARRICKVILLE
NSW
2204
GRAYNDLER
Wallace’s Blooms Pharmacy
251 Marrickville Road
MARRICKVILLE
NSW
2204
GRAYNDLER
Marulan Post Office
68 George St
MARULAN
NSW
2579
HUME
Mathoura RTC
Lot 212 DP 1040544
Moama Street
MATHOURA
NSW
2710
FARRER
Mendooran Rural Transaction Centre and Post Office
Australian Post Office
55 Bundulla Street
MENDOORAN
NSW
2842
GWYDIR
Merriwa Pharmacy
106 Bettington Street
MERRIWA
NSW
2329
GWYDIR
The Molong Pharmacy
43-45 Bank Street
MOLONG
NSW
2866
CALARE
Moonee Beach Pharmacy
Shop 1, Moonee Beach Shops
2 Moonee Beach Road
MOONEE BEACH
NSW
2450
COWPER
Vulcan Street Pharmacy
Shop 4, 4 Ford Street
MORUYA
NSW
2537
EDEN-MONARO
Moruya Pharmacy
48 Vulcan Street
MORUYA
NSW
2537
EDEN-MONARO
Moss Vale Soul Pattinson Chemist
410-412 Argyle Street
MOSS VALE
NSW
2577
GILMORE
Frank Streater Pharmacy
Shop 3, Woodville House
Clarence Street
MOSS VALE
NSW
2577
GILMORE
Moss Vale Village Pharmacy
Shop 2, 12 Clarence Street
MOSS VALE
NSW
2577
GILMORE
Mt Druitt Pharmacy
7 Mt Druitt Road
MOUNT DRUITT
NSW
2770
CHIFLEY
Blooms the Chemist
Shop 110-111, Westfield Shopping Centre
Carlisle Ave & Luxford Drive
MOUNT DRUITT
NSW
2770
CHIFLEY
Ross Trewin Soul Pattison Chemist
Shop 19, Westfield Shopping Centre
Cnr Carlislie Ave & Cuxford Road
MOUNT DRUITT
NSW
2770
CHIFLEY
Mullaley General Store and Post Office
Lot 2, Nombi Street
MULLALEY
NSW
2379
GWYDIR
Mullumbimby Health Care Pharmacy
60 Burringbar Street
MULLUMBIMBY
NSW
2482
RICHMOND
Jean Davies Pharmacy
73 Mayne Street
MURRURUNDI
NSW
2338
GWYDIR
Murwillumbah Pharmacy
108 Main Street
MURWILLUMBAH
NSW
2484
RICHMOND
Con Varela’s Pharmacy
80 Main Street
MURWILLUMBAH
NSW
2484
RICHMOND
Shortis and Daley Pharmacy
72 Main Street
MURWILLUMBAH
NSW
2484
RICHMOND
Sunnyside Pharmacy
Shop 14, Sunnyside Shopping Centre
Corner Wollumbin And Brisbane Streets
MURWILLUMBAH
NSW
2484
RICHMOND
Mapp & Hession Pharmacy
14-16 King Street
MURWILLUMBAH
NSW
2484
RICHMOND
Mylestom General Store
16-18 George Street
MYLESTOM
NSW
2454
COWPER
Nabiac Pharmacy
Shop 1, Village Green
Nabiac Street
NABIAC
NSW
2312
PATERSON
Nambucca Heads Pharmacy Chemworld Chemist
Shop 9, Seascape Mall
38 Ridge Street
NAMBUCCA HEADS
NSW
2448
COWPER
Nambucca Heads Guardian Pharmacy
28 Bowra Street
NAMBUCCA HEADS
NSW
2448
COWPER
Nambucca Plaza Pharmacy
Shop 15, Nambucca Plaza
Pacific Highway
NAMBUCCA HEADS
NSW
2448
COWPER
Soul Pattinson Nambucca Heads
24 Ridge Street
NAMBUCCA HEADS
NSW
2448
COWPER
Nangus General Store, Licensed Post Office & Bottle Shop
Kimo Street
NANGUS
NSW
2722
RIVERINA
Narranderra Newsagency
115 East Street
NARRANDERA
NSW
2700
RIVERINA
Narromine Pharmacy
53 Dandaloo Street
NARROMINE
NSW
2821
PARKES
Nelson Bay Soul Pattinson Pharmacy
18 Stockton Road
NELSON BAY
NSW
2315
PATERSON
Nelson Bay Pharmacy
71 Magnus Street
NELSON BAY
NSW
2315
PATERSON
New Lambton Pharmacy
83 Regent Street
NEW LAMBTON
NSW
2305
NEWCASTLE
Ian Gilmour Chemist
56 Cullen Street
NIMBIN
NSW
2480
PAGE
North Haven Pharmacy
Shop 4, 615 Ocean Drive
NORTH HAVEN
NSW
2443
LYNE
Nundle Shire Council Chambers
72 Jenkins Street
Cnr Jenkins & Innes Streets
NUNDLE
NSW
2340
NEW ENGLAND
Western District Supported Employment Service
22 Dandallo Street
NYNGAN
NSW
2825
PARKES
Oaklands Post Office
36 Milthorpe Street
OAKLANDS
NSW
2646
FARRER
Bearup’s Pharmacy
135 Oberon Street
OBERON
NSW
2787
CALARE
John Geddes Pharmacy
Shop 20, Ocean Village Shopping Centre
Rajah Road
OCEAN SHORES
NSW
2483
RICHMOND
Old Bar Pharmacy
Shop 1, 48 Old Bar Road
OLD BAR
NSW
2430
LYNE
Old Bonalbo Post Office and General Store
Corner Main Road and Upper Duck Creek Road
OLD BONALBO
NSW
2469
PAGE
Picton Pharmacy
147 Argyle Street
PICTON
NSW
2571
HUME
RH & MH Wooldridge
Dangar Street
PILLIGA
NSW
2388
GWYDIR
Quirindi Library
George Street
QUIRINDI
NSW
2343
GWYDIR
Donovan’s 629 Convenience Store
Boomerang Street
RANKINS SPRINGS
NSW
2669
PARKES
Robertson General Store
91 Hoddle Street
ROBERTSON
NSW
2577
GILMORE
Rosewood Store
Kyeamba Street
ROSEWOOD
NSW
2652
FARRER
Wanda Beach Pharmacy
Shop 2/261 Soldiers Point Road
SALAMANDER BAY
NSW
2317
PATERSON
Sanctuary Point Pharmacy
1/195 Kerry Street
SANCTUARY POINT
NSW
2540
GILMORE
Saratoga Pharmacy
Shop 11, Saratoga Shopping Village
Village Road
SARATOGA
NSW
2251
ROBERTSON
McDermid’s Pharmacy
37 First Avenue
SAWTELL
NSW
2452
COWPER
Scone Soul Pattinson Chemist
153 Kelly Street
SCONE
NSW
2337
GWYDIR
Shoal Bay Pharmacy
57 Shoal Bay Road
SHOAL BAY
NSW
2315
PATERSON
Shoalhaven Heads Pharmacy
3/121 Shoalhaven Heads Road
SHOALHAVEN HEADS
NSW
2535
GILMORE
Smiths Lake News & Supa Mart
Shop 2-3, Village Centre
Macwood Road
SMITHS LAKE
NSW
2428
PATERSON
Peter Needs Health Sense Pharmacy
11 Memorial Avenue
SOUTH WEST ROCKS
NSW
2431
COWPER
Blooms the Chemist
Shop 9-10
The Rocks Shopping Fair
SOUTH WEST ROCKS
NSW
2431
COWPER
Spring Hill Post Office & General Store
12 Seaton Street
SPRING HILL
NSW
2800
CALARE
St Georges Basin Pharmacy
1/134 Island Point Road
ST GEORGES BASIN
NSW
2540
GILMORE
O’Loughlins Medical Pharmacy
Shop 126, St Ives Village Shopping Centre
166 Mona Vale Road
ST IVES
NSW
2075
BRADFIELD
Stock Up
36 Hibernia Street
STOCKINBINGAL
NSW
2725
RIVERINA
Stroud Newsagency
54 Cowper Street
STROUD
NSW
2425
PATERSON
Stuarts Point Newsagency
2/16 Marine Parade
STUARTS POINT
NSW
2441
COWPER
Suffolk Park Pharmacy
Shop 8, Suffolk Park Plaza
Clifford Street
SUFFOLK PARK
NSW
2481
RICHMOND
Sussex Inlet Pharmacy
Shop 1, 192 Jacobs Drive
SUSSEX INLET
NSW
2540
GILMORE
Swansea Amcal Chemist
Shops 5, 6 & 7, Swansea Centre
Lake Road
SWANSEA
NSW
2281
SHORTLAND
Swansea Pharmacy
148 Pacific Highway
SWANSEA
NSW
2281
SHORTLAND
Tabulam Café
Court Street
TABULAM
NSW
2469
PAGE
Talbingo Supermarket
Shop 12, Talbingo Shopping Centre
TALBINGO
NSW
2720
FARRER
Taralga Community Service Centre
29 Orchard Street
TARALGA
NSW
2580
HUME
Tathra Pharmacy
61a Andy Poole Drive
TATHRA
NSW
2550
EDEN-MONARO
Telepoint Café
101 Mooney Street
TELEGRAPH POINT
NSW
2441
LYNE
Temora Capital Chemist
204 Hoskins Street
TEMORA
NSW
2666
RIVERINA
G.E. Brooks Chemist
268 Rouse Street
TENTERFIELD
NSW
2372
NEW ENGLAND
Tenterfield Chemworld Chemist
226-228 Rouse Street
TENTERFIELD
NSW
2372
NEW ENGLAND
The Rock Post Office
Cnr Urana and Ford Streets
THE ROCK
NSW
2655
RIVERINA
Smiths Pharmacy Thirroul
Shop 17 Thirroul Plaza
THIRROUL
NSW
2515
CUNNINGHAM
Thirroul Soul Pattinson Chemist
285 Lawrence Hargrave Drive
THIRROUL
NSW
2515
CUNNINGHAM
Convenient Chemist Thirroul
355 Lawrence Hargrave Drive
THIRROUL
NSW
2515
CUNNINGHAM
Thornton Pharmacy
Shop 6, Thornton Mall
THORNTON
NSW
2322
PATERSON
TJ’s Outback Trading
Silver City Highway
TIBOOBURRA
NSW
2880
PARKES
Tintenbar Pharmacy
12 George Street
TINTENBAR
NSW
2478
RICHMOND
The Tocumwal Pharmacy
34-36 Deniliquin Street
TOCUMWAL
NSW
2714
FARRER
Blooms the Chemist Toormina
Shop 23, Toormina Gardens Shopping Centre
Toormina Road
TOORMINA
NSW
2452
COWPER
Hopes Pharmacy
Shop 4, 219 Main Road
Toukley Shopping Plaza
TOUKLEY
NSW
2263
SHORTLAND
Donald Stewart Pharmacy
254A Main Road
TOUKLEY
NSW
2263
SHORTLAND
Toukley Pharmacy
237 Main Road
TOUKLEY
NSW
2263
SHORTLAND
Beachcomber Pharmacy
4/45 Canton Beach Road
TOUKLEY
NSW
2263
SHORTLAND
Aldous Pharmacy
368 Main Road
TOUKLEY
NSW
2263
SHORTLAND
Tucabia Village Store
12 Cordini Street
TUCABIA
NSW
2462
COWPER
Tumbarumba Pharmacy
23b The Parade
TUMBARUMBA
NSW
2653
FARRER
Tumut Plus Pharmacy
66 Wynyard Street
TUMUT
NSW
2720
FARRER
Tuross Head Pharmacy
Shop 12, Evans Road
TUROSS HEAD
NSW
2537
EDEN-MONARO
Tyalgum General Store
29 Coolman Street
TYALGUM
NSW
2484
RICHMOND
Ulmarra Newsagency
12 Coldstream Street
ULMARRA
NSW
2462
COWPER
Ulong Rural Transaction Centre
Ulong Post Office & General Store
72 Pine Avenue
ULONG
NSW
2450
COWPER
Ungarie Post Office
39 Wollowgough Street
UNGARIE
NSW
2669
PARKES
Urana Rural Transaction Centre
William Street
URANA
NSW
2645
FARRER
Uranquinty General Store
28 Morgan Street
URANQUINTY
NSW
2652
RIVERINA
Urunga Newsagency
17 Bonville Street
URUNGA
NSW
2455
COWPER
Vincentia Pharmacy
Shop 18, Burton Street
VINCENTIA
NSW
2540
GILMORE
Walbundrie Co Operative Ltd
Billabong Street
WALBUNDRIE
NSW
2642
FARRER
Kings Pharmacy
Walcha Shopping Centre
10n Derby Street
WALCHA
NSW
2354
NEW ENGLAND
Walla Walla RTC
74 Commerical Street
WALLA WALLA
NSW
2659
FARRER
Wallabadah General Store
19 Coach Street
WALLABADAH
NSW
2343
GWYDIR
Wallendbeen Service Station
27 Young Street
WALLENDBEEN
NSW
2588
HUME
Wanganella General Store & Post Office
Lang Street
WANGANELLA
NSW
2710
FARRER
Warragamba Post Office
29 Fourteenth Street
WARRAGAMBA
NSW
2752
HUME
Warrawong Health Pharmacy
Shop 111, Westfield Shoppingtown
54 King Street
WARRAWONG
NSW
2502
THROSBY
Night & Day Amcal Chemist
45 King Street
WARRAWONG
NSW
2502
THROSBY
Bayview Medical Centre Pharmacy
Shop 1,166 Cowper Street
WARRAWONG
NSW
2502
THROSBY
Anderson Pharmacy
128 Dubbo Street
WARREN
NSW
2824
GWYDIR
Wattle Flat General Store
3815 Sofala Road
WATTLE FLAT
NSW
2795
CALARE
Wauchope Pharmacy
26 High Street
WAUCHOPE
NSW
2446
LYNE
Wee Waa Pharmacy
93 Rose Street
WEE WAA
NSW
2388
GWYDIR
Weethalle Whistle Stop Arts & Crafts
Railway Street
WEETHALLE
NSW
2669
PARKES
Keirle’s Pharmacy
31 Nanima Crescent
WELLINGTON
NSW
2820
GWYDIR
Wentworth Post Office
60 Darling Street
WENTWORTH
NSW
2648
FARRER
Werris Creek Rural Transaction Centre
Peel Valley Credit Union Building
Single Street
WERRIS CREEK
NSW
2341
NEW ENGLAND
West Wyalong Pharmacy
115 Main Street
WEST WYALONG
NSW
2671
PARKES
Whitton Licensed Post Office
1 Hulong Street
WHITTON
NSW
2705
RIVERINA
Willawarrin Post Office and General Store
44 Main Street
WILLAWARRIN
NSW
2440
COWPER
Willow Tree General Store
20 New England Highway
WILLOW TREE
NSW
2339
GWYDIR
Burning Mountain Antiques
New England Highway
WINGEN
NSW
2337
GWYDIR
Chapman & Wood Amcal Chemist
103 Isabella Street
WINGHAM
NSW
2429
LYNE
Wisemans Ferry Local Supermarket
Shop 8
2 Old Northern Road
WISEMANS FERRY
NSW
2775
BEROWRA
Chem World Chemist Wollongbar
Shop 14
54 Simpson Avenue
WOLLONGBAR
NSW
2477
RICHMOND
Woolgoolga Amcal Pharmacy
Shops 5 & 6, Woolgoolga Plaza
Cnr Beach & Nightingale Streets
WOOLGOOLGA
NSW
2456
COWPER
Wooli Post Office
89 Carraboi Street
WOOLI
NSW
2462
COWPER
Blooms the Chemist
74 Pacific Hwy
WYONG
NSW
2259
DOBELL
Yamba Soul Pattinson Pharmacy
17 Yamba Street
YAMBA
NSW
2464
COWPER
The Yass Pharmacy
104 Comur Street
YASS
NSW
2582
HUME
Millers Pharmacy Yass
112-114 Comur Street
YASS
NSW
2582
HUME
Yeoval Rural Transaction Centre
Yeoval Licensed Post Office
Cnr Forbes and Obley Streets
YEOVAL
NSW
2868
CALARE
Yerrinbool General Store
40 Old Hume Highway
YERRINBOOL
NSW
2575
HUME
Large Chemmart Chemists
Shops 12-13, Humpty Doo Shopping Centre
Challoner Circuit
HUMPTY DOO
NT
0836
LINGIARI
Terrace Emporium
Lot 1847 Katherine Terrace
KATHERINE
NT
0851
LINGIARI
Mataranka Rural Transaction Centre
66 Roper Terrace
MATARANKA
NT
0852
LINGIARI
Tennant Creek Pharmacy
123 Paterson Street
TENNANT CREEK
NT
0860
LINGIARI
Agnes Water Rural Transaction Centre
Lot 100
3 Captain Cook Drive
AGNES WATER
QLD
4677
HINKLER
Airlie Beach Day & Night Chemist
366 Shute Harbour Road
AIRLIE BEACH
QLD
4802
DAWSON
Airlie Pharmacy
277a Shute Harbour Road
AIRLIE BEACH
QLD
4802
DAWSON
Allora Pharmacy
42 Herbert Street
ALLORA
QLD
4362
MARANOA
Amamoor General Store and Post Office
4 Busby Street
AMAMOOR
QLD
4570
WIDE BAY
Aramac Rural Transaction Centre
44 Gordon Street
ARAMAC
QLD
4726
MARANOA
Augathella Rural Transaction Centre
Main Street
AUGATHELLA
QLD
4477
MARANOA
Babinda QGAP
91 Munro Street
BABINDA
QLD
4861
KENNEDY
Ballandean Post Office
New England Highway
BALLANDEAN
QLD
4382
MARANOA
Banana Post Office
Dawson Highway
BANANA
QLD
4702
CAPRICORNIA
Baralaba Post Office
28 Stopford Street
BARALABA
QLD
4702
WIDE BAY
Barcaldine Pharmacy
91 Oak Street
BARCALDINE
QLD
4725
MARANOA
Bargara Soul Pattinson
Shop 5, Bargara Central Shopping Village
699 Bargara Road
BARGARA
QLD
4670
HINKLER
Beaudesert Prescription Centre
Beaudesert Fair
William Street
BEAUDESERT
QLD
4285
FORDE
Shay’s Pharmacy
4 William Street
BEAUDESERT
QLD
4285
FORDE
Beaudesert Medical Centre Pharmacy
Shop 3, Beaudesert Medical Centre
47 William Street
BEAUDESERT
QLD
4285
FORDE
Bell Rural Transaction Centre
8 Ensor Street
BELL
QLD
4408
MARANOA
Bellara Chemworld Chemist
Shop 9, Bribie Island Shopping
Goodwin Drive
BELLARA
QLD
4507
LONGMAN
Biggenden Pharmacy
37 Edward Street
BIGGENDEN
QLD
4621
WIDE BAY
Biloela Amcal Pharmacy
Shop 3, Biloela Square Shopping Centre
Kariboe Street
BILOELA
QLD
4715
CAPRICORNIA
Blackall Pharmacy
107-109 Shamrock Street
BLACKALL
QLD
4472
MARANOA
Blackbutt Rural Transaction Centre
Archie Muir Council Building
69 Hart Street
BLACKBUTT
QLD
4306
BLAIR
Blackwater Chemworld Chemist
Shop 8, Town Centre
Blain Street
BLACKWATER
QLD
4717
CAPRICORNIA
Boonah Pharmacy
82 High Street
BOONAH
QLD
4310
FORDE
Loose Goose Village Store
63 Laguna Street
BOREEN POINT
QLD
4565
FAIRFAX
Boyne Plaza Pharmacy
Shop 5, Boyne Plaza
BOYNE ISLAND
QLD
4680
HINKLER
Terry White Chemists Browns Plains
Shop 33, Grand Plaza Shopping Centre
BROWNS PLAINS
QLD
4118
RANKIN
Browns Plains Day and Night Pharmacy
Shop 1, Westpoint Shopping Centre
BROWNS PLAINS
QLD
4118
RANKIN
Thistle Pharmacies
Shop 13, Hibiscus Shopping Centre
44 Downie Avenue
BUCASIA
QLD
4750
DAWSON
Buderim Pharmacy
Shop 13, Buderim Marketplace
67 Burnett St
BUDERIM
QLD
4556
FISHER
Burnett Heads Post and News
39 Zunker Street
BURNETT HEADS
QLD
4670
HINKLER
Calliope Store & News
46 Stirrat Street
CALLIOPE
QLD
4680
HINKLER
Lyndon Davis Amcal Chemist
Shop 11, Cannon Hill Shopping Plaza
1145 Wynnum Road
CANNON HILL
QLD
4170
GRIFFITH
Whitsunday Pharmacy
Shop 11c, Whitsunday Shopping Centre
Shute Harbour Road
CANNONVALE
QLD
4802
DAWSON
Capella Agencies
69 Peak Downs Street
CAPELLA
QLD
4723
CAPRICORNIA
Charleville Pharmacy
20-22 Wills Street
CHARLEVILLE
QLD
4470
MARANOA
Collins Pharmacy
54 Gill Street
CHARTERS TOWERS
QLD
4820
KENNEDY
Griffiths Pharmacy
24 Gill Street
CHARTERS TOWERS
QLD
4820
KENNEDY
Isis Pharmacy & Camera Centre
60 Churchill Street
CHILDERS
QLD
4660
HINKLER
Cunnington’s Pharmacy
58 Middle Street
CHINCHILLA
QLD
4413
MARANOA
Gath’s Pharmacy
Shop 1, Currajong Court
32 Middle Street
CHINCHILLA
QLD
4413
MARANOA
Clermont Pharmacy
48 Daintree Street
CLERMONT
QLD
4721
CAPRICORNIA
Collinsville QGAP
64 Sonoma Street
COLLINSVILLE
QLD
4804
CAPRICORNIA
Condamine Post Office
Blyth Street
CONDAMINE
QLD
4416
MARANOA
Cooktown QGAP
Court House
172 Charlotte Street
COOKTOWN
QLD
4871
LEICHHARDT
Coolangatta Amcal Chemist
2 Griffith Street
COOLANGATTA
QLD
4225
MCPHERSON
Coolum Village Pharmacy
Shop J, 10 Birtwill Street
COOLUM BEACH
QLD
4573
FAIRFAX
Coominya Post Office
2 Railway Street
COOMINYA
QLD
4311
BLAIR
Cooran General Store and LPO
12 King Street
COORAN
QLD
4569
FAIRFAX
Cooroy Amcal Pharmacy
3 Emerald Street
COOROY
QLD
4563
FAIRFAX
Cooroy Central Guardian Pharmacy
26 Maple Street
COOROY
QLD
4563
FAIRFAX
Crows Nest Pharmacy
33 Toowoomba Road
CROWS NEST
QLD
4355
BLAIR
Cunnamulla Pharmacy
14 Stockyard St
CUNNAMULLA
QLD
4490
MARANOA
Dalveen Post Office
McCosker Drive
DALVEEN
QLD
4374
MARANOA
Dayboro Pharmacy
3b McKenzie Street
DAYBORO
QLD
4521
DICKSON
Bailey Road Medical Centre Pharmacy
75 Bailey Rd
DECEPTION BAY
QLD
4508
LONGMAN
Woodlands Pharmacy
Shop G, Woodlands Shopping Centre
28 Palm Drive
DEERAGUN
QLD
4818
HERBERT
Dimbulah Post Office
31 Raleigh Street
DIMBULAH
QLD
4872
KENNEDY
Dingo Post Store
Normanby Street
DINGO
QLD
4702
CAPRICORNIA
Dirranbandi Rural Transaction Centre
35-37 Railway Street
DIRRANBANDI
QLD
4486
MARANOA
Donnybrook Jetty Store
10 Alice Street
DONNYBROOK
QLD
4510
LONGMAN
Drillham Licensed Post Office
1 Sturt Street
DRILLHAM
QLD
4424
MARANOA
Dululu Store
Burnett Highway
DULULU
QLD
4702
WIDE BAY
Dysart Administration Office
Broadsound Shire Council
Shannon Crescent
DYSART
QLD
4745
CAPRICORNIA
Chris Boyle’s Payless Chemist Stockland
Shop 1, Stocklands
Mulgrave Rd
EARLVILLE
QLD
4870
LEICHHARDT
Ken Hart Amcal Chemist
Shop 13, Market Plaza
Egerton Street
EMERALD
QLD
4720
MARANOA
Highlands Amcal Chemist
Shop 2, Emerald Village Shopping Centre
Hospital Road
EMERALD
QLD
4720
MARANOA
The Esk Pharmacy
113 Ipswich Street
ESK
QLD
4312
BLAIR
Eumundi Village Pharmacy
Shop 1, 2-6 Etheridge Street
EUMUNDI
QLD
4562
FAIRFAX
Finch Hatton General Store
3 Eungella Road
FINCH HATTON
QLD
4756
DAWSON
Angelo Bertoni Chemist
Shop 4/5 Forest Fair
120 Woogaroo Street
FOREST LAKE
QLD
4078
OXLEY
Gayndah Shire Council
36 Capper Street
GAYNDAH
QLD
4625
HINKLER
Etheridge Shire Council Offices
St George Street
GEORGETOWN
QLD
4871
KENNEDY
Gin Gin Pharmacy
48 Mulgrave Street
GIN GIN
QLD
4671
HINKLER
Giru Rural Transaction Centre
9 - 11 Drysdale Street
GIRU
QLD
4809
DAWSON
Glass House Mountains Pharmacy
9 Bruce Parade
GLASS HOUSE MOUNTAINS
QLD
4518
LONGMAN
Glenden Rural Transaction Centre
Glenden Licensed Post Office
Shop 14 Town Centre
GLENDEN
QLD
4743
CAPRICORNIA
Goomeri Post Office
8 Boonara Street
GOOMERI
QLD
4601
WIDE BAY
Lees Pharmacy
95 Marshall Street
GOONDIWINDI
QLD
4390
MARANOA
Allens Pharmacy
66-68 Marshall Street
GOONDIWINDI
QLD
4390
MARANOA
Gordonvale Pharmacy
54 Norman Street
GORDONVALE
QLD
4865
KENNEDY
Amcal Gracemere
17 Laurie Street
GRACEMERE
QLD
4702
CAPRICORNIA
Devantier’s Prescription Pharmacy
Greenslopes Shopping Mall
720 Logan Rd
GREENSLOPES
QLD
4120
GRIFFITH
Guluguba Gums General Store
Leichhardt Highway
GULUGUBA
QLD
4418
MARANOA
Half Tide Rural Transaction Centre
Coalport Newsagency
4 Valroy Street
HALF TIDE BEACH
QLD
4740
DAWSON
Halifax Newsagency
16 Macrossan Street
HALIFAX
QLD
4850
KENNEDY
Harrisville Licensed Post Office
26 Queen Street
HARRISVILLE
QLD
4307
BLAIR
Helensvale Plaza Pharmacy
Shop 3, Helensvale Plaza
12 Sir John Overall Drive
HELENSVALE
QLD
4212
FADDEN
Herberton QGAP
56 Grace Street
HERBERTON
QLD
4872
KENNEDY
Home Hill Post Office
58 Eight Avenue
HOME HILL
QLD
4806
DAWSON
Community Centre Howard
56 Steley Street
HOWARD
QLD
4659
WIDE BAY
Imbil Dispensary
118 Yabba Road
IMBIL
QLD
4570
WIDE BAY
Inglewood Pharmacy
65 Albert Street
INGLEWOOD
QLD
4387
MARANOA
Injune QGAP
Hutton Street
INJUNE
QLD
4454
MARANOA
Jandowae Pharmacy
36 High Street
JANDOWAE
QLD
4410
MARANOA
Jericho Rural Transaction Centre
Lot 319-320 Pasteur Street
JERICHO
QLD
4702
MARANOA
Jimboomba Pharmacy
Shop 39, Jimboomba Shopping Centre
Mount Lindsay Highway
JIMBOOMBA
QLD
4280
FORDE
Jondaryan Licensed Post Office
16 Duke Street
JONDARYAN
QLD
4403
GROOM
Julia Creek QGAP
Court House
14 Burke Street
JULIA CREEK
QLD
4823
KENNEDY
Kalbar Rural Transaction Centre
Electricity Credit Union
78 George Street
KALBAR
QLD
4309
FORDE
Keppel Sands Licensed Post Office
14 Roden Street
KEPPEL SANDS
QLD
4702
CAPRICORNIA
Kilcoy Newsagency
55 Mary Street
KILCOY
QLD
4515
BLAIR
Killarney Pharmacy
Warwick Credit Union Building
23 Willow Street
KILLARNEY
QLD
4373
MARANOA
Chris Boyle’s Payless Chemists
Shop 8
Willows Shoppingtown
KIRWAN
QLD
4817
HERBERT
Bamford Lane Amcal
2/375 Charles Street
KIRWAN
QLD
4817
HERBERT
Koumala Store
19 Brown Street
KOUMALA
QLD
4738
DAWSON
Kuranda Pharmacy
Shop 1, Kuranda Village Shopping Centre
5 Coondoo Street
KURANDA
QLD
4872
LEICHHARDT
Laidley QGAP
Shire Council
Spicer Street
LAIDLEY
QLD
4341
BLAIR
Landsborough Amcal Chemist
Maleny Road
LANDSBOROUGH
QLD
4550
LONGMAN
Leyburn Post Office
3 Dove Street
LEYBURN
QLD
4365
MARANOA
Guardian Longreach Pharmacy
109 Eagle Street
LONGREACH
QLD
4730
MARANOA
Speir’s Pharmacy
112b Eagle Street
LONGREACH
QLD
4730
MARANOA
Lowood Pharmacy
6 Michel Street
LOWOOD
QLD
4311
BLAIR
Bay Islands Community Services Inc
Community Centre
Southside Terrace
MACLEAY ISLAND
QLD
4184
BOWMAN
Malanda QGAP
21 James Street
MALANDA
QLD
4885
KENNEDY
Hinterland Business Centre
38a Coral Street
MALENY
QLD
4552
FISHER
Raintrees Soul Pattinson Chemist
Shop 30B & 31
Raintrees Shopping Centre
1 Koch Street
MANUNDA
QLD
4870
LEICHHARDT
Amantes Pharmacy
171 Byrnes Street
MAREEBA
QLD
4880
KENNEDY
Battiatos Amcal Chemist
139 Byrnes Street
MAREEBA
QLD
4880
KENNEDY
Mareeba Soul Pattinson Chemist
241 Byrnes Street
MAREEBA
QLD
4880
KENNEDY
Meandarra Post Office
14 Sara Street
MEANDARRA
QLD
4422
MARANOA
Middlemount QGAP
Broadsound Shire Council
Middlemount Shopping Centre
MIDDLEMOUNT
QLD
4746
CAPRICORNIA
Miles Pharmacy
63 Murilla Street
MILES
QLD
4415
MARANOA
Millmerran Pharmacist Advice
43 Campbell Street
MILLMERRAN
QLD
4357
MARANOA
Mirani QGAP
20 Victoria Street
MIRANI
QLD
4754
DAWSON
Miriam Vale Post Office
25 Blomfield Street
MIRIAM VALE
QLD
4677
HINKLER
Mitchell QGAP
Corner Mary & Dublin Streets
MITCHELL
QLD
4465
MARANOA
Monterey Keys Pharmacy
Shop 5, Monterey Keys Village Shopping Centre
Corner Monterey Keys & Helensvale Road
MONTEREY KEYS
QLD
4212
FADDEN
Monto Pharmacy
44 Newton Street
MONTO
QLD
4630
HINKLER
Moranbah Pharmacy
Civic Square Griffin Street
MORANBAH
QLD
4744
CAPRICORNIA
Morven Rural Transaction Centre
Post Office
Albert St
MORVEN
QLD
4468
MARANOA
Mt Demi Pharmacy
51 Front Street
MOSSMAN
QLD
4873
LEICHHARDT
Anich’s Mossman Pharmacy
Shop 3, 8 Front Street
MOSSMAN
QLD
4873
LEICHHARDT
Mount Garnet QGAP
Garnet Street
MOUNT GARNET
QLD
4872
KENNEDY
Mt Larcom RTC
47 Raglan Street
MOUNT LARCOM
QLD
4695
HINKLER
Mount Morgan QGAP
38 Morgan Street
MOUNT MORGAN
QLD
4714
HINKLER
Mount Perry General Store
Heusman Street
MOUNT PERRY
QLD
4671
HINKLER
Moura Pharmacy
Marshall Street
MOURA
QLD
4718
CAPRICORNIA
Mudgeeraba Soul Pattinson Chemist
Shops 16-19, Mudgeeraba Market Swan Lane
MUDGEERABA
QLD
4213
MCPHERSON
Mundubbera Pharmacy
24 Lyons Street
MUNDUBBERA
QLD
4626
HINKLER
Murgon Soul Pattinson Chemist
89 Lamb Street
MURGON
QLD
4605
WIDE BAY
Nanango Pharmacy
86 Drayton Street
NANANGO
QLD
4615
BLAIR
Narangba Pharmacy
30 Main Street
NARANGBA
QLD
4504
LONGMAN
Hinterland Medical Centre Chemist
1/5 Price Street
NERANG
QLD
4211
FADDEN
Nerang Amcal Chemist
Shop 15, Centro Nerang
Station St
NERANG
QLD
4211
MONCRIEFF
Nerang Fair Soul Pattinson Chemist
Shop 8, Nerang Fair
Nerang - Beaudesert Road
NERANG
QLD
4211
MONCRIEFF
Ningi Pharmacy
1224 Bribie Island Road
NINGI
QLD
4511
LONGMAN
Terry White Chemists
Shop 20, Noosa Junction Plaza
Sunshine Beach Road
NOOSA HEADS
QLD
4567
FAIRFAX
Mount Tamborine Pharmacy
18 Main Western Road
North Tamborine
NORTH TAMBORINE
QLD
4272
FORDE
Oakey Pharmacy
108 Campbell Street
OAKEY
QLD
4401
GROOM
Ormeau Day & Night Pharmacy
Shop 2, Ormeau Centre
3 Vaughan Drive
ORMEAU
QLD
4208
FORDE
Pascoe Road Prescription Centre Chemist
Ormeau Central
Shop 7 Pascoe Rd
ORMEAU
QLD
4208
FORDE
Hamptons Pharmacy
7/5 Michigan Drive
OXENFORD
QLD
4210
FADDEN
Pacific Paradise Pharmacy
Shop 5, North Shore Plaza
722-724 David Low Way
PACIFIC PARADISE
QLD
4564
FAIRFAX
Peachester Store
24 Coochin Street
PEACHESTER
QLD
4519
LONGMAN
Peak Crossing Community Postal Agency
Shop 2A, 21 Fassifern Street
PEAK CROSSING
QLD
4306
BLAIR
Cains Pharmacy
63 Yandilla Street
PITTSWORTH
QLD
4356
GROOM
Pomona Pharmacy
8 Memorial Avenue
POMONA
QLD
4568
FAIRFAX
Port Douglas Community Services Network Inc
6-10 Mowbary Street
PORT DOUGLAS
QLD
4871
LEICHHARDT
Proserpine Pharmacy
39 Main Street
PROSERPINE
QLD
4800
DAWSON
Proston Health & Beauty
23 Blake Street
PROSTON
QLD
4613
WIDE BAY
Upper Ross Pharmacy
Shop 4, 1199 Ross River Road
RASMUSSEN
QLD
4815
HERBERT
Rathdowney Post Office
3 Running Creek Road
RATHDOWNEY
QLD
4287
FORDE
Ravenshoe QGAP
27 Grigg Street
RAVENSHOE
QLD
4888
KENNEDY
Richmond QGAP
Court House
Goldring Street
RICHMOND
QLD
4822
KENNEDY
Terry White Chemists Robina
Shop MH 4.13
Market Hall
Robina Town Centre
ROBINA TOWN CENTRE
QLD
4230
MCPHERSON
Chemworld Chemist Robina
Arbour Lane
Opposite Target
58 Robina Town Centre
ROBINA TOWN CENTRE
QLD
4230
MCPHERSON
Rolleston Rural Transaction Centre
Cnr Warrijo Street and Planet Street
ROLLESTON
QLD
4702
MARANOA
Rural Transaction Centre Rollingstone and District Community Association Inc
Lot 1 off Mystic Ave
ROLLINGSTONE
QLD
4816
KENNEDY
Barry McCabe Chemist
84 McDowall Street
ROMA
QLD
4455
MARANOA
Westlands Plaza Sunshine Pharmacy
Shop 8, Westlands Plaza
Wyndham Street
ROMA
QLD
4455
MARANOA
Samford Pharmacy
Shop 3, Corner Main & Station Streets
SAMFORD
QLD
4520
DICKSON
Craig Lawless Guardian Pharmacy
Shop 17 Sarina Beach Road
SARINA
QLD
4737
DAWSON
Centre Pharmacy Sarina
Shop 1, 15 Central Street
SARINA
QLD
4737
DAWSON
Silkwood Rural Transaction Centre
78 Victoria Street
SILKWOOD
QLD
4856
KENNEDY
Springsure Pharmacy
Lot 1, Eclipse Street
SPRINGSURE
QLD
4722
MARANOA
Springwood Pharmacy
Shop 22, Arndale Shopping Centre
17 Cinderella Dr
SPRINGWOOD
QLD
4127
RANKIN
St George Pharmacy
Cnr Victoria & Henry Street
ST GEORGE
QLD
4487
MARANOA
Stanthorpe QGAP
Court House
51 Marsh Street
STANTHORPE
QLD
4380
MARANOA
Stanwell Convenience Store
5 Main Street
STANWELL
QLD
4702
CAPRICORNIA
Studio Village Pharmacy
Studio Village Shopping Centre
Corner Studio Drive & Monroe Court
STUDIO VILLAGE
QLD
4210
FADDEN
Surat Rural Transaction Centre
70 Burrows Street
SURAT
QLD
4417
MARANOA
Tara QGAP
19 Fry Street
TARA
QLD
4421
MARANOA
Taroom Pharmacy
Yaldwyn Street
TAROOM
QLD
4420
MARANOA
Tewantin Guardian Pharmacy
112 Poinciana Avenue
TEWANTIN
QLD
4565
FAIRFAX
Macreadie’s Tewantin Amcal Day & Night Pharmacy
3/99 Poinciana Ave
TEWANTIN
QLD
4565
FAIRFAX
Texas Pharmacy
28 High Street
TEXAS
QLD
4385
MARANOA
Theodore District Health Council
The Boulevard
THEODORE
QLD
4719
CAPRICORNIA
Sterns Pharmacy
Tieri Shopping Centre
Talagai Street
TIERI
QLD
4709
MARANOA
Cooloola Pharmacy
7 Dolphin Avenue
TIN CAN BAY
QLD
4580
WIDE BAY
Toogoolawah Pharmacy
89 Cressbrook Street
TOOGOOLAWAH
QLD
4313
BLAIR
Tully Day & Night Pharmacy
8 Butler Street
TULLY
QLD
4854
KENNEDY
Tully Raycare Family Pharmacy
34 Butler Street
TULLY
QLD
4854
KENNEDY
Fullife Victoria Point Shopping Centre Pharmacy
MM4, Victoria Point Shopping Centre
Cnr Cleveland and Redland Bay Rd
VICTORIA POINT
QLD
4165
BOWMAN
Victoria Point Pharmacy
149 Colburn Ave
VICTORIA POINT
QLD
4165
BOWMAN
Healthpoint Walkerston
1/6 Dutton Street
WALKERSTON
QLD
4751
DAWSON
Wallumbilla Post Office
Chadford Road
WALLUMBILLA
QLD
4428
MARANOA
Wandoan Pharmacy
34 Royds Street
WANDOAN
QLD
4419
MARANOA
Weipa QGAP
Court House
Central Avenue
WEIPA
QLD
4874
LEICHHARDT
Winton Pharmacy
73a Elderslie Street
WINTON
QLD
4735
MARANOA
Wondai Pharmacy
64 Mackenzie Street
WONDAI
QLD
4606
WIDE BAY
Mission Beach Pharmacy
Shop 1, Mission Beach Resort Shopping Centre
WONGALING BEACH
QLD
4852
KENNEDY
Woodford Pharmacy
93 Archer Street
WOODFORD
QLD
4514
LONGMAN
Taylor Centre Pharmacy
40 Annerley Rd
WOOLLOONGABBA
QLD
4102
GRIFFITH
Worongary Soul Pattinson Chemist
Shop 3, Worongary Village
1 Mudgeeraba Road
WORONGARY
QLD
4213
MONCRIEFF
Wowan Licenced Post Office
9 Pheasant Creek Road
WOWAN
QLD
4702
CAPRICORNIA
Wynnum Central Pharmacy
97 Edith Street
WYNNUM
QLD
4178
BONNER
Ferlazzo’s Bluewater Pharmacy
Shop 2, 2 Purono Parkway
YABULU
QLD
4818
KENNEDY
Yarwun-Targinnie Fruitgrowers Co-operative Assn. Ltd.
40 Butler Street
YARWUN
QLD
4694
HINKLER
Yelarbon Post Office
Taloom Street
YELARBON
QLD
4388
MARANOA
Yeppoon Chemmart Pharmacy
4 James Street
YEPPOON
QLD
4703
CAPRICORNIA
Keppel Plaza Amcal Pharmacy
Shops 31, Keppel Bay Plaza
James Street
YEPPOON
QLD
4703
CAPRICORNIA
Hill Street Pharmacy
27 Hill Street
YEPPOON
QLD
4703
CAPRICORNIA
Yungaburra Licensed Post Office
17 Cedar Street
YUNGABURRA
QLD
4872
KENNEDY
Neil Kildare Pharmacy
Shop 12A Aldinga Central Shopping Centre
ALDINGA BEACH
SA
5173
KINGSTON
Becker’s IGA
9 Main North Road
AUBURN
SA
5451
WAKEFIELD
Avenue Range General Store
Railway Terrace
AVENUE RANGE
SA
5273
BARKER
Balaklava Chemplus Pharmacy
1 Wallace Street
BALAKLAVA
SA
5461
WAKEFIELD
Balhannah Junction Pharmacy
Shop 3/88
Balhannah Junction Shopping Centre
Main Road
BALHANNAH
SA
5242
MAYO
Barmera Pharmacy
20 Barwell Avenue
BARMERA
SA
5345
BARKER
Beachport Rural Transaction Centre
Beachport Post Office
2 Foster Street
BEACHPORT
SA
5280
BARKER
John Spick’s Pharmacy
376 Shepherds Hill Road
BLACKWOOD
SA
5051
BOOTHBY
Blanchetown RTC
2-3 Shaw Street
BLANCHETOWN
SA
5357
BARKER
Page’s Deli
Harley Street
BLYTH
SA
5462
GREY
Booborowie IGA Friendly Grocer
25 Sixth Street
BOOBOROWIE
SA
5417
GREY
Fast n Fresh Booleroo Centre
Stephens Street
BOOLEROO CENTRE
SA
5482
GREY
Bordertown Pharmacy
100 De Courcey Street
BORDERTOWN
SA
5268
BARKER
Bridgewater Pharmacy
Shop 1, Bridgewater Village
Cnr Carey Gully & Mt Barker Road
BRIDGEWATER
SA
5155
MAYO
Bute IGA Friendly Grocer
9 High Street
BUTE
SA
5560
GREY
Ceduna Pharmacy
33 Poynton Street
CEDUNA
SA
5690
GREY
Clare Chemplus Pharmacy
1/260 Main North Road
CLARE
SA
5453
WAKEFIELD
Cleve Pharmacy
23 Main Street
CLEVE
SA
5640
GREY
Coober Pedy Hospital & Health Services Inc
McDougal Street
COOBER PEDY
SA
5723
GREY
Coonalpyn IGA Friendly
33 Poyntz Terrace
COONALPYN
SA
5265
BARKER
Cowell Deli
18 Main Street
COWELL
SA
5602
GREY
Ramsey Pharmacy
Bowman Street
CRYSTAL BROOK
SA
5523
GREY
Peter Arbery’s Cummins Chemist
56 Bruce Terace
CUMMINS
SA
5631
GREY
Elliston Community Information Centre
6 Memorial Drive
ELLISTON
SA
5670
GREY
Frances General Store
1 Second Street
FRANCES
SA
5262
BARKER
Gladstone IGA Friendly Grocer
46 Gladstone Street
GLADSTONE
SA
5473
GREY
Glencoe General Store
Main Road
GLENCOE
SA
5291
BARKER
Stevens Pharmacy
95 Jetty Road
GLENELG
SA
5045
HINDMARSH
Goolwa Chemmart Extra
Shop 9-11 Hutchinson Street
GOOLWA
SA
5214
MAYO
Jamestown Pharmacy
53 Ayr Street
JAMESTOWN
SA
5491
GREY
Newberry Chemists
24 Graves Street
KADINA
SA
5554
GREY
Kalangadoo Rural Transaction Centre
Kalangadoo Post Office
6 Railway Terrace
KALANGADOO
SA
5278
BARKER
Kapunda Chem Plus
41 Main Street
KAPUNDA
SA
5373
WAKEFIELD
Mallee Financial and Information Service
11 Railway Terrace
KAROONDA
SA
5307
BARKER
Keith Pharmacy
26 Hender Street
KEITH
SA
5267
BARKER
Carrig Chemists
Shop 79-80 Centro Armdale
Torrens Rd
KILKENNY
SA
5009
PORT ADELAIDE
Kimba Learning and Business Centre
49 High Street
KIMBA
SA
5641
GREY
Kingscote Public Library
43 Dauncey Street
KINGSCOTE
SA
5223
MAYO
Kingston Pharmacy
17 Agnes Street
KINGSTON SE
SA
5275
BARKER
Kongorong 1 Stop
1 Aslins Road
KONGORONG
SA
5291
BARKER
Country Electrical and Newsagency
31-35 Herbert Street
LAURA
SA
5480
GREY
Wardell Pty Ltd
Town Centre
LEIGH CREEK
SA
5731
GREY
Lucindale RTC
Lucindale Post Office and Newsagency
Musgrave Ave
LUCINDALE
SA
5272
BARKER
Manoora Takeaway Food
Barrier Highway
MANOORA
SA
5414
WAKEFIELD
Milang Licensed Post Office
18 Luard Street
MILANG
SA
5256
MAYO
Newbery Chemists
8 George Street
MOONTA
SA
5558
GREY
Morgan IGA Friendly Grocer and Hardware
5 First Street
MORGAN
SA
5320
BARKER
Mount Pleasant Post Office
57 Melrose Street
MOUNT PLEASANT
SA
5235
BARKER
Mundulla General Store
3 Kennedy Street
MUNDULLA
SA
5270
BARKER
Southside Village Chem-plus
159 Swanport Road
MURRAY BRIDGE
SA
5253
BARKER
Nairne Pharmacy
64 Main Street
NAIRNE
SA
5252
MAYO
Warwick Greves Chemmart
110 Smith Street
NARACOORTE
SA
5271
BARKER
Naracoorte Pharmacy
100 Smith Street
NARACOORTE
SA
5271
BARKER
Nildottie I and G Brown Pty Ltd
1 Main Road
NILDOTTIE
SA
5238
BARKER
John Jelfs Chemist
85 Main Street
NORMANVILLE
SA
5204
MAYO
Chemplus Northgate
Northgate Village Shopping Centre
Shop 5A
Corner Folland Ave and Fosters Road
NORTHGATE
SA
5085
ADELAIDE
Orroroo Newsagency
16 Second Street
ORROROO
SA
5431
GREY
Owen Post Office
Cnr Main Street and Railway Terrace
OWEN
SA
5460
WAKEFIELD
Padthaway Deli
20 Memorial Drive
PADTHAWAY
SA
5271
BARKER
Penneshaw Rural Transaction Centre
99 Middle Terrace
PENNESHAW
SA
5222
MAYO
M G Williams Pharmacy
38 Church Street
PENOLA
SA
5277
BARKER
Peterborough Pharmacy P/L
211 Main St
PETERBOROUGH
SA
5422
GREY
Southern Mallee District Council
Lot 17, Day St
PINNAROO
SA
5304
BARKER
Port Broughton Rural Transaction Centre
11 Bay Street
PORT BROUGHTON
SA
5522
GREY
Port Clinton General Store
21 Cumberland Road
PORT CLINTON
SA
5570
GREY
Port MacDonnell Rural Transaction Centre
5 Charles Street
PORT MACDONNELL
SA
5291
BARKER
Port Wakefield Post Office
32 Edward Street
PORT WAKEFIELD
SA
5550
WAKEFIELD
Quorn Newsagency
5 Sixth Street
QUORN
SA
5433
GREY
Renmark Paringa Community Centre
86 Nineteenth Street
RENMARK
SA
5341
BARKER
Riverton Pharmacy
26 Torrens Road
RIVERTON
SA
5412
WAKEFIELD
Robe Pharmacy
14 Victoria Street
ROBE
SA
5276
BARKER
Saddleworth IGA
18 Belvidere Street
SADDLEWORTH
SA
5413
WAKEFIELD
Northwest Pharmacy
1 Park Tce
SALISBURY
SA
5108
WAKEFIELD
Salisbury Chemplus
Shop 8, Parabanks Shopping Centre
John Street
SALISBURY
SA
5108
WAKEFIELD
Potger Pharmacy
18 John Street
SALISBURY
SA
5108
WAKEFIELD
Sedan Collectables & Secondhand
9 Swan Reach Road
SEDAN
SA
5353
BARKER
Snowtown IGA Everyday
36 Railway Terrace
SNOWTOWN
SA
5520
GREY
Spalding Post Office
39 Government Road
SPALDING
SA
5454
GREY
Springton General Store
105 Miller Street
SPRINGTON
SA
5235
MAYO
The Green Dispensary
10/28 Mount Barker Road
STIRLING
SA
5152
MAYO
The Strathalbyn Pharmacies
21 High Street
STRATHALBYN
SA
5255
MAYO
The Strathalbyn Pharmacies
10 Dawson Street
STRATHALBYN
SA
5255
MAYO
Streaky Bay Information Centre
21 Bay Road
STREAKY BAY
SA
5680
GREY
Tailem Bend Licensed Post Office
109 Railway Terrace
TAILEM BEND
SA
5260
BARKER
Tantanoola Rural Transaction Centre
Tantanoola Post Office
3 Lane Street
TANTANOOLA
SA
5280
BARKER
Tarpeena Rural Transaction Centre
15 Morphett Terrace
TARPEENA
SA
5277
BARKER
Tintinara IGA
47 Becker Terrace
TINTINARA
SA
5266
BARKER
Tumby Bay Post Office
4 North Terrace
TUMBY BAY
SA
5605
GREY
Two Wells Chemplus
86 Old Port Wakefield Road
TWO WELLS
SA
5501
WAKEFIELD
Harbor Pharmacy
60 Victoria Street
VICTOR HARBOR
SA
5211
MAYO
Watervale General Store & Post Office
Lot 132 Main North Road
WATERVALE
SA
5452
WAKEFIELD
Willunga Pharmacy
9 High Street
WILLUNGA
SA
5172
MAYO
AMPOL Garage,Hardware,Garden & Auto Supplies
48 Main North Road
WILMINGTON
SA
5485
GREY
Wirrabara IGA Friendly Grocer
33 High Street
WIRRABARA
SA
5481
GREY
Woodside Community Pharmacy
48 Main Street
WOODSIDE
SA
5244
MAYO
Wudinna and Districts Telecentre Inc (Rural Transaction Centre)
44 Eyre Highway
WUDINNA
SA
5652
GREY
Yorketown Pharmacy
36 Warooka Road
YORKETOWN
SA
5576
GREY
Bruny Island Service Centre
Main Road
ALONNAH
TAS
7150
FRANKLIN
BP Bagdad Service Station
1853 Midlands Highway
BAGDAD
TAS
7030
LYONS
Beaconsfield Service Tasmania
West Tamar Council Chambers
West Street
BEACONSFIELD
TAS
7270
LYONS
Bicheno & Districts Health & Resource Centre
94 Foster Street
BICHENO
TAS
7215
LYONS
Boat Harbour Enterprises
17382 Bass Hwy
BOAT HARBOUR
TAS
7321
BRADDON
Elders Webster Limited
Corner Patrick and Queen Streets
BOTHWELL
TAS
7030
LYONS
Bracknell Roadhouse
23 Elizabeth Street
BRACKNELL
TAS
7302
LYONS
Bridport Friendly Supermarket
83 Main Street
BRIDPORT
TAS
7262
BASS
Bushy Park Roadhouse
525 Gordon River Road
BUSHY PARK
TAS
7140
LYONS
Southern Belle Post and Craft
27 Climie Street
CAMPANIA
TAS
7026
LYONS
Campbell Town Service Tasmania
Council Chambers
High Street
CAMPBELL TOWN
TAS
7210
LYONS
Iluka Supermarket
The Esplanade
COLES BAY
TAS
7215
LYONS
Cressy Newsagency
89 Main Street
CRESSY
TAS
7302
LYONS
Currie Service Tasmania
15 George Street
CURRIE
TAS
7256
BRADDON
Deloraine Service Tasmania
Council Chambers
8 Emu Bay Road
DELORAINE
TAS
7304
LYONS
Derby Community Centre
Main Road
DERBY
TAS
7264
BASS
Dodges Ferry Post Office and Newsagency
60 Carlton Beach Road
DODGES FERRY
TAS
7173
LYONS
Far South Community Association Inc.
Dover’s Old Schoolhouse
Main Road
DOVER
TAS
7117
FRANKLIN
Exeter Pharmacy
51 Main Road
EXETER
TAS
7275
LYONS
Holder Brothers General Store
31-33 Talbot Street
FINGAL
TAS
7214
LYONS
Forest General Store
Road Access:
526 Mengha Road
FOREST
TAS
7330
BRADDON
Geeveston Pharmacy
19 Church Street
GEEVESTON
TAS
7116
FRANKLIN
Mike Moss Georgetown Pharmacy
91 Macquarie Street
GEORGE TOWN
TAS
7253
BASS
Your Pharmacy
76 Macquarie Street
GEORGE TOWN
TAS
7253
BASS
Huonville Chemmart Pharmacy
59 Main Road
HUONVILLE
TAS
7109
FRANKLIN
Irishtown Store & Newsagency
Main Road
IRISHTOWN
TAS
7330
BRADDON
Southern Midlands Council
Council Chambers
85 Main Road
KEMPTON
TAS
7030
LYONS
Latrobe Online Access Centre
Latrobe Library
Gilbert Street
LATROBE
TAS
7307
BRADDON
Lauderdale Pharmacy
Lauderdale Shopping Centre
476 South Arm Road
LAUDERDALE
TAS
7021
FRANKLIN
Bardenhagen’s Supermarket
Main Road
LILYDALE
TAS
7268
BASS
Longford Pharmacy
19 Marlborough Street
LONGFORD
TAS
7301
LYONS
Armstrongs Pharmacy
65 Wellington Street
LONGFORD
TAS
7301
LYONS
Maydena General Store & Post Office
Corner Kalarsta & Junee Road
MAYDENA
TAS
7140
LYONS
Chemists Own New Norfolk
6 High Street
NEW NORFOLK
TAS
7140
LYONS
Healthsense Derwent Valley Pharmacy
53 High Street
NEW NORFOLK
TAS
7140
LYONS
Tasman MPS
1614 Nubeena Road
NUBEENA
TAS
7184
LYONS
Service Tasmania Shop
71 High Street
OATLANDS
TAS
7120
LYONS
Orford Island Foodmart
37 Aubin Court
ORFORD
TAS
7190
LYONS
Ouse District Hospital
6896 Lyell Highway
OUSE
TAS
7140
LYONS
Penguin Pharmacy
105 Main Street
PENGUIN
TAS
7316
BRADDON
Primrose Sands Store
129 Primrose Sands Road
PRIMROSE SANDS
TAS
7173
LYONS
Queenstown Service Tasmania
2 Sticht Street
QUEENSTOWN
TAS
7467
LYONS
Redpa General Store
Bass Highway
REDPA
TAS
7330
BRADDON
Richmond Pharmacy
37 Bridge Street
RICHMOND
TAS
7025
LYONS
General Store and Newsagency
27 Main Street
RINGAROOMA
TAS
7263
BASS
Rosebery Community Council
12 Agnes Street
ROSEBERY
TAS
7470
LYONS
Scamander Rural Transaction Centre
172 Scamander Avenue
SCAMANDER
TAS
7215
LYONS
Scottsdale Service Tasmania
Dorset Council Chambers
3 Ellenor Street
SCOTTSDALE
TAS
7260
BASS
Sheffield Service Tasmania
64 High Street
SHEFFIELD
TAS
7306
LYONS
Wraggs Pharmacy
142 Nelson Street
SMITHTON
TAS
7330
BRADDON
Fabulous Snug Pty Ltd
2215 Channel Highway
SNUG
TAS
7054
FRANKLIN
Sorell Amcal Pharmacy
2 Gordon Street
SORELL
TAS
7172
LYONS
Sorell Chemmart
31 Gordon Street
SORELL
TAS
7172
LYONS
Southport Settlement
8777 Huon Highway
SOUTHPORT
TAS
7109
FRANKLIN
St Helens Service Tasmania
23 Quail Street
ST HELENS
TAS
7216
LYONS
St Mary’s Rural Transaction Centre and Post Office
36 Main Street
ST MARYS
TAS
7215
LYONS
Stanley Newsagency
17 Church Street
STANLEY
TAS
7331
BRADDON
Strahan Supermarket Newsagency
1 Reid Street
STRAHAN
TAS
7468
LYONS
Swansea Pharmacy
28 Franklin Street
SWANSEA
TAS
7190
LYONS
Spring Bay Pharmacy
20 Vicary Street
TRIABUNNA
TAS
7190
LYONS
Ulverstone Service Tasmania
54-56 King Edward Street
ULVERSTONE
TAS
7315
BRADDON
Waratah Council Office & Postal Agency RTC
Smith St
WARATAH
TAS
7321
BRADDON
Westbury Pharmacy
82 Bass Highway
WESTBURY
TAS
7303
LYONS
Whitemark Service Tasmania
DPIWE, Main Road
WHITEMARK
TAS
7255
BASS
Dixons Pharmacy
112 Goldie Street
WYNYARD
TAS
7325
BRADDON
Yolla General Store
1586 Murchison Highway
YOLLA
TAS
7325
BRADDON
Zeehan Medical Centre
89 Main Street
ZEEHAN
TAS
7469
LYONS
Alexandra Community Pharmacy
101 Grant Street
ALEXANDRA
VIC
3714
MCEWEN
Anglesea Pharmacy
93 Great Ocean Road
ANGLESEA
VIC
3230
CORANGAMITE
Apollo Bay Pharmacy
121 Great Ocean Road
APOLLO BAY
VIC
3233
CORANGAMITE
Apsley Café
Wallace Street
APSLEY
VIC
3319
MALLEE
Avenel Newsagency
2 Longwood Road
AVENEL
VIC
3664
MCEWEN
Avoca Community Enterprise Centre
The Mill
122 High Street
AVOCA
VIC
3467
WANNON
Adam Remboulis Pharmacy
Shop 5, Darley Plaza
Gisborne Road
BACCHUS MARSH
VIC
3340
BALLARAT
Bacchus Marsh UFS Dispensary
25 Grant Street
BACCHUS MARSH
VIC
3340
BALLARAT
Harrison’s Health and Beauty Pharmacy
Shop 66, Bacchus Marsh Village Shoppng Cntr
160 -198 Main St
BACCHUS MARSH
VIC
3340
BALLARAT
Balnarring Village Pharmacy
Shop 3, 3000 Frankston-Flinders Road
BALNARRING
VIC
3926
FLINDERS
Bannockburn Pharmacy
6 High Street
BANNOCKBURN
VIC
3331
CORANGAMITE
Upper Beaconsfield Pharmacy
53 Emerald Road
BEACONSFIELD UPPER
VIC
3808
LA TROBE
Beaufort Community Resource Centre
72 Neill Street
BEAUFORT
VIC
3373
WANNON
Beeac Rural Transaction Centre
65 Main Street
BEEAC
VIC
3251
CORANGAMITE
Beechworth Pharmacy
82 Ford Street
BEECHWORTH
VIC
3747
INDI
Bellbridge Lakeview Milkbar
7 Murray Place
BELLBRIDGE
VIC
3691
INDI
Jenny Milner Pharmacy
54 Carrier Street
BENALLA
VIC
3672
INDI
Ashtons Pharmacy
83 Bridge Street
BENALLA
VIC
3672
INDI
Bridgland’s Pharmacy
55 Bridge Street
BENALLA
VIC
3672
INDI
Messenger’s Pharmacy
27-29 Bridge Street
BENALLA
VIC
3672
INDI
Berwick Pharmacy
51 High Street
BERWICK
VIC
3806
LA TROBE
Berwick Guardian Pharmacy
Shop 1, Berwick Market Place
Wilson Street
BERWICK
VIC
3806
LA TROBE
Beulah Primary Care & Community Centre
2 Bell Street
BEULAH
VIC
3395
MALLEE
Birchip Community Pharmacy
49-51 Cumming Avenue
BIRCHIP
VIC
3483
MALLEE
Birregurra Rural Transaction Centre
65 Main Street
BIRREGURRA
VIC
3242
CORANGAMITE
Tatts General Store
18 Main Street
BOISDALE
VIC
3860
GIPPSLAND
Boolarra Post Office
7 Tarwin Street
BOOLARRA
VIC
3870
GIPPSLAND
Boort Community Pharmacy
114 Godfrey Street
BOORT
VIC
3537
MURRAY
Williams & Goldby Pharmacy
Shop 49, Boronia Mall Shopping Centre
25 Dorset Square
BORONIA
VIC
3155
ASTON
Boronia Pharmacy
104 Boronia Road
BORONIA
VIC
3155
ASTON
Boyall’s Pharmacy
202 Dorset Road
BORONIA
VIC
3155
ASTON
Boronia Village Pharmacy
157 Boronia Road
BORONIA
VIC
3155
ASTON
Boronia Junction Amcal Pharmacy
Shop 9, 123 Boronia Road
BORONIA
VIC
3155
ASTON
Murray River Caravan Park
Murray Valley Highway
BOUNDARY BEND
VIC
3599
MALLEE
Briagolong Post Office & General Store
6 Avon Street
BRIAGOLONG
VIC
3860
GIPPSLAND
Mitchell Community Health Services Inc.
72 Ferguson Street
BROADFORD
VIC
3658
MCEWEN
Bunyip Pharmacy
19 High Street
BUNYIP
VIC
3815
MCMILLAN
Murray Fry Amcal Pharmacy
135 Manifold Street
CAMPERDOWN
VIC
3260
WANNON
Pepin’s Pharmacy
2 -6 Caroline Springs Blv
CAROLINE SPRINGS
VIC
3023
GORTON
Casterton Pharmacy
93 Henty Street
CASTERTON
VIC
3311
WANNON
Thomas & Chong Pharmacy
31 Mostyn Street
CASTLEMAINE
VIC
3450
BENDIGO
Ian McKenzie Pharmacy
195 Barker Street
CASTLEMAINE
VIC
3450
BENDIGO
The Charlton Pharmacy
23-25 High Street
CHARLTON
VIC
3525
MALLEE
Chiltern Newsagency
56 Conners Street
CHILTERN
VIC
3683
INDI
Clunes Pharmacy
54 Fraser Street
CLUNES
VIC
3370
BALLARAT
Cobden Pharmacy
43 Curdie Street
COBDEN
VIC
3266
WANNON
Tozer Pharmacy
69-71 Punt Road
COBRAM
VIC
3643
MURRAY
Paul Ukich Pharmacy
28 Punt Road
COBRAM
VIC
3643
MURRAY
Cohuna Amcal Pharmacy
63 -67 King George Street.
COHUNA
VIC
3568
MALLEE
Reeds Pharmacy
81 Whyte Street
COLERAINE
VIC
3315
WANNON
Coronet Bay General Store
100 Cutty Sark Road
CORONET BAY
VIC
3984
FLINDERS
Corryong Pharmacy
55 Hanson Street
CORRYONG
VIC
3707
INDI
Cowes Pharmacy
24 Thompson Avenue
COWES
VIC
3922
FLINDERS
Cranbourne Park Pharmore Pharmacy
Shop T84, Cranbourne Park Shopping Centre
CRANBOURNE
VIC
3977
HOLT
Creswick Pharmacy
56 Albert Street
CRESWICK
VIC
3363
BALLARAT
D G Grey & Burns
161 Main Street
CROYDON
VIC
3136
CASEY
Croydon Health Care Pharmacy
138 Main Street
CROYDON
VIC
3136
CASEY
Croydon Amcal Pharmacy
94-98 Main Street
CROYDON
VIC
3136
CASEY
Croydon Market Pharmacy
Shop 20, Croydon Market Centre
5-15 Kent Avenue
CROYDON
VIC
3136
CASEY
Dartmoor General Store
81 Greenham Street
DARTMOOR
VIC
3304
WANNON
Daylesford Pharmacy
39 Vincent Street
DAYLESFORD
VIC
3460
BALLARAT
Brimbank Amcal Pharmacy
Shop T51, Brimbank Central Shopping Centre
DEER PARK
VIC
3023
GORTON
Wimmera Health Care Group
Alister Hinchley Centre
Lloyd Street
DIMBOOLA
VIC
3414
MALLEE
Donald Pharmacy
62 Woods Street
DONALD
VIC
3480
MALLEE
Drysdale Pharmacy
1/19 Clifton Springs Road
DRYSDALE
VIC
3222
CORIO
Chris Walsh’s Pharmacy
Shop 5, 3 Wyndham Street
DRYSDALE
VIC
3222
CORIO
Dunolly Rural Transaction Centre
109 Broadway Street
DUNOLLY
VIC
3472
BENDIGO
Edenhope Pharmacy
69 Elizabeth Street
EDENHOPE
VIC
3318
MALLEE
Eildon Medicine Depot
5 Main Street
EILDON
VIC
3713
MCEWEN
Elmore Pharmacy Depot
74 Railway Place
ELMORE
VIC
3558
BENDIGO
Emerald Village Pharmacy
8 Kilvington Drive
EMERALD
VIC
3782
LA TROBE
The Euroa Pharmacy
26 Binney Street
EUROA
VIC
3666
INDI
Falls Creek Resort Management
Cnr of Slalom Street & Bogong High Plains Road
FALLS CREEK
VIC
3699
INDI
Fish Creek Supermarket & Newsagency
25 Falls Road
FISH CREEK
VIC
3959
MCMILLAN
Flinders Licensed Post Office
51 Cook Street
FLINDERS
VIC
3929
FLINDERS
Foster Pharmacy
2 Station Road
FOSTER
VIC
3960
MCMILLAN
Girgarre Newsagency
6 Morgan Crescent
GIRGARRE
VIC
3624
MURRAY
Raju’s Pharmacy
Shop 12 Gisborne Village,
Brantome Street
GISBORNE
VIC
3437
MCEWEN
Gisborne Pharmacy
Shops 1 & 2, 25 Hamilton Street
GISBORNE
VIC
3437
MCEWEN
Goornong General Store
40 Railway Place
GOORNONG
VIC
3557
BENDIGO
Mitchell’s Newsagency
18-20 Main Street
GOROKE
VIC
3412
MALLEE
Grantville Customer Service Centre
1504 - 1510 Bass Highway
GRANTVILLE
VIC
3984
FLINDERS
Great Western General Store
93 Main Street
GREAT WESTERN
VIC
3377
WANNON
Gunbower General Store
23 Main Street
GUNBOWER
VIC
3566
MURRAY
Harrietville General Store
291 Great Alpine Road
HARRIETVILLE
VIC
3741
INDI
Bayne and Friend Pharmacy
47 High Street
HASTINGS
VIC
3915
FLINDERS
Hastings Amcal Pharmacy
40 High Street
HASTINGS
VIC
3915
FLINDERS
Health Sense Pharmacy
Shop 3, Healesville Walk Shopping Centre
HEALESVILLE
VIC
3777
MCEWEN
Healesville Pharmacy
215 Maroondah Highway
HEALESVILLE
VIC
3777
MCEWEN
Warringal Shopping Centre -My Chemist
Shop 28 Warringal Village Shopping Centre
56 Burgundy Street
HEIDELBERG
VIC
3084
JAGAJAGA
Peter Rush Pharmacy
Shop 10, 101-111 Burgundy Street
HEIDELBERG
VIC
3084
JAGAJAGA
Grace Pharmacy
110 Burgundy Street
HEIDELBERG
VIC
3084
JAGAJAGA
Yu Pharmacy
47 Burgundy Street
HEIDELBERG
VIC
3084
JAGAJAGA
Heidelberg Central Pharmacy
119 Burgundy Street
HEIDELBERG
VIC
3084
JAGAJAGA
Heyfield Pharmacy
16 George Street
HEYFIELD
VIC
3858
GIPPSLAND
Togram Enterprises
28 Edgar Street
HEYWOOD
VIC
3304
WANNON
Mallee Pharmacy
18 Austin St
HOPETOUN
VIC
3396
MALLEE
Hurstbridge Pharmacy
7/912 Main Road
HURSTBRIDGE
VIC
3099
MCEWEN
Inglewood Pharmacy
54 Brooke Street
INGLEWOOD
VIC
3517
MURRAY
Inverloch Chemmart Pharmacy
1/12 A’ Beckett Street
INVERLOCH
VIC
3996
MCMILLAN
Kaniva Country Chemist
34 Commercial Street
KANIVA
VIC
3419
MALLEE
Katamatite General Store
25 Beek Street
KATAMATITE
VIC
3649
MURRAY
Kerang Amcal Pharmacy
28-30 Victoria Street
KERANG
VIC
3579
MALLEE
Kerang Chemmart Pharmacy
54 Victoria Street
KERANG
VIC
3579
MALLEE
Simon Yu Pharmacy
20 Sydney Street
KILMORE
VIC
3764
MCEWEN
Kinglake Rural Transaction Centre
19 Whittlesea-Kinglake Road
KINGLAKE
VIC
3763
MCEWEN
Korumburra Pharmacy
9/43-49 Commercial Street
KORUMBURRA
VIC
3950
MCMILLAN
Ian Collie Pharmacy
174 Allan Street
KYABRAM
VIC
3620
MURRAY
Kerr’s Amcal Pharmacy
155 Allan Street
KYABRAM
VIC
3620
MURRAY
R Kennedy’s Amcal Pharmacy
97 Mollison Street
KYNETON
VIC
3444
BENDIGO
Well’s Kyneton Pharmacy
107 Mollison Street
KYNETON
VIC
3444
BENDIGO
Lake Bolac Information and Business Centre
2110 Glenelg Hwy
LAKE BOLAC
VIC
3351
WANNON
Lakes Post & Printing
505 Esplanade
LAKES ENTRANCE
VIC
3909
GIPPSLAND
Lancefield Newsagency
18 High Street
LANCEFIELD
VIC
3435
MCEWEN
Lang Lang Pharmacy
Shop 3 14-16 Westernport Road
LANG LANG
VIC
3984
FLINDERS
Leitchville Rural Transaction Centre
Corner of King Albert Avenue and King Georges Street
LEITCHVILLE
VIC
3567
MURRAY
Nagel’s Pharmacy
10-14 Bair Street
LEONGATHA
VIC
3953
MCMILLAN
Hines Pharmacy
32 Bair Street
LEONGATHA
VIC
3953
MCMILLAN
Pyrenees Store Co-operative Ltd
Post Office
Goldsmith Street
LEXTON
VIC
3352
WANNON
Licola General Store & Caravan Park
Jamieson Road
LICOLA
VIC
3858
GIPPSLAND
Linton Post Office
59 Sussex Street
LINTON
VIC
3360
WANNON
Lismore Newsagency & Post Office
35 High Street
LISMORE
VIC
3324
WANNON
Loch Post Office
Cnr Smith Street and South Gippslands Highway
LOCH
VIC
3945
MCMILLAN
Loch Sport Post Office
Government Road
LOCH SPORT
VIC
3851
GIPPSLAND
Lockington Newsagency
11 Hopetoun Street
LOCKINGTON
VIC
3563
MURRAY
Lorne Pharmacy
138 Mountjoy Parade
LORNE
VIC
3232
CORANGAMITE
Maffra Amcal Chemist
110 Johnson Street
MAFFRA
VIC
3860
GIPPSLAND
Maldon Pharmacy
33 Main Street
MALDON
VIC
3463
BENDIGO
Manangatang Rural Transaction Centre & Post Office
39 Wattle Street
MANANGATANG
VIC
3546
MALLEE
Amcal Mansfield Pharmacy
37 High Street
MANSFIELD
VIC
3722
INDI
Eisner’s Pharmacy
79-81 High Street
MANSFIELD
VIC
3722
INDI
Marlo General Store - Newbiz P/L
14-16 Argyle Parade
MARLO
VIC
3888
GIPPSLAND
Millikan’s Pharmacy
131 High Street
MARYBOROUGH
VIC
3465
BENDIGO
Haywood’s & Robinson Pharmacy
101-103 High Street
MARYBOROUGH
VIC
3465
BENDIGO
Bloch’s Pharmacy
118 Whitelaw Street
MEENIYAN
VIC
3956
MCMILLAN
Keen’s Pharmacy
81 Commercial Street
MERBEIN
VIC
3505
MALLEE
Merrigum Post Office & Newsagency
130 Waverley Avenue
MERRIGUM
VIC
3618
MURRAY
Mirboo North Pharmacy
84 Ridgway
MIRBOO NORTH
VIC
3871
MCMILLAN
Lloyd Street Pharmacy
11-15 Lloyd Street
MOE
VIC
3825
MCMILLAN
Federation Pharmacy
30 George Street
MOE
VIC
3825
MCMILLAN
Monbulk Pharmacy
98 Main Street
MONBULK
VIC
3793
CASEY
Mooroopna Education and Activity Centre Inc.
23 Alexandra Street
MOOROOPNA
VIC
3629
MURRAY
Mortlake Pharmacy
110 Dunlop Street
MORTLAKE
VIC
3272
WANNON
Mount Beauty Pharmacy
11 Hollonds Street
MOUNT BEAUTY
VIC
3699
INDI
Mullers Murchison Health Depot
15 Stevenson Street
MURCHISON
VIC
3610
MURRAY
Murrayville Newsagency
Corner Reed & Gray Streets
MURRAYVILLE
VIC
3512
MALLEE
Murtoa Post Office and Newsagency
58 McDonald Street
MURTOA
VIC
3390
MALLEE
Sue Jones Pharmacy
43 Clyde Street
MYRTLEFORD
VIC
3737
INDI
Greg Robbins Chemmart Pharmacy
61 Clyde Street
MYRTLEFORD
VIC
3736
INDI
Nagambie Pharmacy
304 High Street
NAGAMBIE
VIC
3608
INDI
Andrews Pharmacy
10 Blake Street
NATHALIA
VIC
3638
MURRAY
Federation Pharmacy
27 Boolara Avenue
NEWBOROUGH
VIC
3825
MCMILLAN
Odlum’s Pharmacy
28 Rutherglen Road
NEWBOROUGH
VIC
3825
MCMILLAN
Newstead Rural Transaction Centre
45 Lyons Street
NEWSTEAD
VIC
3462
BENDIGO
West Wimmera Health Service - Nhill Hospital
45 Nelson Street
NHILL
VIC
3418
MALLEE
Louis Hamon Pharmacy
80 Melville Street
NUMURKAH
VIC
3636
MURRAY
Ocean Grove Pharmacy
1/76 The Terrace
OCEAN GROVE
VIC
3226
CORANGAMITE
East Gippsland Shire Council
179 Day Avenue
OMEO
VIC
3898
GIPPSLAND
Orbost Pharmacy
125 Nicholson Street
ORBOST
VIC
3888
GIPPSLAND
Ouyen Pharmacy
27 Oke Street
OUYEN
VIC
3490
MALLEE
Oxley Shop
1152 Snow Road
OXLEY
VIC
3678
INDI
Pakenham Pharmore Pharmacy
Shop 31-33 Pakenham Place
69 Main Street
PAKENHAM
VIC
3810
MCMILLAN
Andrew Rewell Pharmacy
Shop 1, Pakenham Shopping Centre
John Street
PAKENHAM
VIC
3810
MCMILLAN
Coastcare Pharmacies
65 The Esplanade
PAYNESVILLE
VIC
3880
GIPPSLAND
Ron Witney Pharmacy
Shop 2, Pearcedale Village Shopping Centre
PEARCEDALE
VIC
3912
FLINDERS
Penshurst Newsagency & Take Away
86 Bell Street
PENSHURST
VIC
3289
WANNON
Grampians Store
Halls Gap Road
POMONAL
VIC
3381
WANNON
Poowong Post Office
10 Ranceby Road
POOWONG
VIC
3988
MCMILLAN
McLean’s Pharmacy
35-37 Sackville Street
PORT FAIRY
VIC
3284
WANNON
Portarlington Pharmacy
90 Newcombe Street
PORTARLINGTON
VIC
3223
CORANGAMITE
Pyramid Hill Store
2 Kelly Street
PYRAMID HILL
VIC
3575
MURRAY
Quambatook Post Office and Newsagency
24 Guthrie Street
QUAMBATOOK
VIC
3540
MURRAY
Pardeys Pharmacy
52 Hesse Street
QUEENSCLIFF
VIC
3225
CORANGAMITE
Rainbow Community Pharmacy
6 Federal Street
RAINBOW
VIC
3424
MALLEE
West Gippsland Healthcare Group
Pinnacle Drive
RAWSON
VIC
3825
MCMILLAN
Raywood General Store
47 Inglewood Street
RAYWOOD
VIC
3570
BENDIGO
R J Dean
33 Indi Ave
RED CLIFFS
VIC
3496
MALLEE
Flanagan & Poole Pharmacy
53-55 Ilex Street
RED CLIFFS
VIC
3496
MALLEE
Red Hill Pharmacy
Shop 7 Red Hill Village
Redhill Shoreham Road
RED HILL
VIC
3937
FLINDERS
Riddells Creek Pharmacy
7 Station Street
RIDDELLS CREEK
VIC
3431
MCEWEN
Pisasale’s Robinvale Pharmacy
21 Perrin Street
ROBINVALE
VIC
3549
MALLEE
Rochester Post Office
38 Moore Street
ROCHESTER
VIC
3561
MURRAY
Bayne & Friend Pharmacy
3 Boneo Road
ROSEBUD
VIC
3939
FLINDERS
Waterfall Gully Pharmacy
79 Old Cape Schanck Road
ROSEBUD
VIC
3939
FLINDERS
Rosedale Pharmacy
9 Prince Street
ROSEDALE
VIC
3847
GIPPSLAND
Rushworth Pharmacy
11 High Street
RUSHWORTH
VIC
3612
MURRAY
Miegels Pharmacy
134 Main Street
RUTHERGLEN
VIC
3685
INDI
Wilson and Clavin Pharmacy
Shop 2, 2185 Point Nepean Road
RYE
VIC
3941
FLINDERS
San Remo Pharmacy
123 Marine Parade
SAN REMO
VIC
3925
FLINDERS
Sea Lake Pharmacy
100 Best Street
SEA LAKE
VIC
3533
MALLEE
Seville Village Pharmacy
658 Warburton Highway
SEVILLE
VIC
3139
CASEY
Seymour Spectacle Site
Shop 8 The Mall
SEYMOUR
VIC
3660
MCEWEN
Simpson Post Office and Newsagency
1 Barramul Street
SIMPSON
VIC
3266
WANNON
Skipton Gift & Health Care
17 Montgomery Street
SKIPTON
VIC
3361
WANNON
Snake Valley General Store
Main Road
SNAKE VALLEY
VIC
3351
WANNON
Somerville Pharmacy
Shop 23, Somerville Plaza Shopping Centre
Eramosa Rd
SOMERVILLE
VIC
3912
FLINDERS
Marc Clavin Pharmacy
61-63 Ocean Beach Road
SORRENTO
VIC
3943
FLINDERS
Springhurst Post Office
1 Silo Road
SPRINGHURST
VIC
3682
INDI
St Arnaud Pharmacy
88 Napier Street
ST ARNAUD
VIC
3478
MALLEE
Kerr’s Stanhope Depot
29 Birdwood Avenue
STANHOPE
VIC
3623
MURRAY
Stratford Pharmacy
48 Tyler Street
STRATFORD
VIC
3862
GIPPSLAND
Strathmerton Hot Bread Shop
41 Main Street
STRATHMERTON
VIC
3641
MURRAY
Streatham General Store
Campbell Street
STREATHAM
VIC
3351
WANNON
Walsh & Baird Pharmacy (Soul Pattinson)
Sunbury Square
2/24 Evans Street
SUNBURY
VIC
3429
CALWELL
Walsh & Baird Pharmacy(Amcal)
79 Evans Street
SUNBURY
VIC
3429
CALWELL
Swanpool General Store
Midland Highway
SWANPOOL
VIC
3673
INDI
Crisps Newsagency
65 Towong Street
TALLANGATTA
VIC
3700
INDI
Tangambalanga General Store
56 Kiewa East Road
TANGAMBALANGA
VIC
3691
INDI
Tarwin Lower Licensed Post Office
Shop 4, 47 River Drive,
TARWIN LOWER
VIC
3956
MCMILLAN
La Peyre’s Pharmacy
146 Hogan Street
TATURA
VIC
3616
MURRAY
Tatura Pharmacy
151 Hogan Street
TATURA
VIC
3616
MURRAY
Grant Picone’s Pharmacy
86-88 High Street
TERANG
VIC
3264
WANNON
Timboon Pharmacy
Shop 2, 15 Main Street
TIMBOON
VIC
3268
WANNON
Kerr’s Tongala Pharmacy
46 Mangen Street
TONGALA
VIC
3621
MURRAY
Toora Pharmacy Depot
38 Stanley Street
TOORA
VIC
3962
MCMILLAN
Trafalgar Pharmacy
75 Princes Highway
TRAFALGAR
VIC
3824
MCMILLAN
Trentham Newsagency
41 High Street
TRENTHAM
VIC
3458
BALLARAT
Ultima General Store RTC
6 Dillon Street
ULTIMA
VIC
3544
MALLEE
Upwey Pharmacy
38 Main Street
UPWEY
VIC
3158
LA TROBE
Simon Yu Pharmacy
Shop 1, 65 High Street
WALLAN
VIC
3756
MCEWEN
Wandin North Pharmacy
Lot 9 Union Road
WANDIN NORTH
VIC
3139
CASEY
Warburton Pharmacy
3468 Warburton Highway
WARBURTON
VIC
3799
MCEWEN
Warracknabeal Pharmacy
106 Scott Street
WARRACKNABEAL
VIC
3393
MALLEE
Wedderburn Health & Beauty
73 High Street
WEDDERBURN
VIC
3518
MURRAY
Welshpool Rural Transaction Centre
14 Main Street
WELSHPOOL
VIC
3966
MCMILLAN
Whittlesea Pharmacy
69-71 Church Street
WHITTLESEA
VIC
3757
MCEWEN
Winchelsea Pharmacy
17 Main Road
WINCHELSEA
VIC
3241
CORANGAMITE
Wonthaggi MFS Dispensary
169 Graham Street
WONTHAGGI
VIC
3995
MCMILLAN
Woodend Pharmacy
116-118 High Street
WOODEND
VIC
3442
BENDIGO
Woomelang Licensed Post Office
43 Brook Street
WOOMELANG
VIC
3485
MALLEE
James Kwok Pharmacy
Shop 6 - 7 The Shopping Centre
1585 Warburton Highway
WOORI YALLOCK
VIC
3139
MCEWEN
Wycheproof Newsagency
310 Broadway
WYCHEPROOF
VIC
3527
MALLEE
Yackandandah PC’S and Copying
14 High Street
YACKANDANDAH
VIC
3749
INDI
Yallourn North Newsagency
8 Reserve Street
YALLOURN NORTH
VIC
3825
MCMILLAN
Yarram Pharmacy
199 Commercial Road
YARRAM
VIC
3971
GIPPSLAND
Neilson’s Pharmacy
247 Commercial Road
YARRAM
VIC
3971
GIPPSLAND
Brian Nicholls Chemist
77-79 Belmore Street
YARRAWONGA
VIC
3730
MURRAY
Yarrawonga Pharmacy
54 Belmore Street
YARRAWONGA
VIC
3730
MURRAY
Alexander Heights Superchem Pharmacy
Shop 43
Alexander Heights Shopping Centre
Mirrabooka Ave
ALEXANDER HEIGHTS
WA
6064
COWAN
Augusta Pharmacy
81 Blackwood Avenue
AUGUSTA
WA
6290
FORREST
Beacon WA Telecentre
11 Rowlands Street
BEACON
WA
6472
O’CONNOR
Bencubbin Telecentre
Lot 45, Monger Street
BENCUBBIN
WA
6477
O’CONNOR
Beverley WA Telecentre
115 Vincent Street
BEVERLEY
WA
6304
PEARCE
Supa Valu Bindoon
Lot 7 Binda Place
BINDOON
WA
6502
PEARCE
Boddington Store
53 Bannister Road
BODDINGTON
WA
6390
PEARCE
Boyup Brook Pharmacy
83 Abel Street
BOYUP BROOK
WA
6244
O’CONNOR
Bremer Bay WA Telecentre
Mary Street
BREMER BAY
WA
6338
O’CONNOR
Bridgetown Pharmacy
127 Hampton Street
BRIDGETOWN
WA
6255
FORREST
Brookton Community Telecentre
89 Robinson Rd
BROOKTON
WA
6306
PEARCE
China Town Newsagency
Shop 14, Pasparley Shopping Centre
Carnarvon Street
BROOME
WA
6725
KALGOORLIE
Bruce Rock Telecentre
40-42 Johnson St
BRUCE ROCK
WA
6418
O’CONNOR
Amcal Chemist Busselton
Shop 2, Boulevard Shopping Centre Prince Street
BUSSELTON
WA
6280
FORREST
Broadwater Pharmacy
Shop 8, Broadwater Shopping Village
Corner Holgate Road & Bussell Higway
BUSSELTON
WA
6280
FORREST
Capel Pharmacy
21 Properjohn Road
CAPEL
WA
6271
FORREST
Wallaces News and Drapery
2 MacPherson Street
CARNAMAH
WA
6517
O’CONNOR
Carnarvon Amcal Chemist
Shop M, Boulevard Shopping Centre
14 Robinson Street
CARNARVON
WA
6701
KALGOORLIE
Coolgardie WA Telecentre
76 Bayley Street
COOLGARDIE
WA
6429
KALGOORLIE
Coorow WA Telecentre
Coorow Hall
Corner Bristol & Main Street
COOROW
WA
6515
O’CONNOR
Corrigin Community Resource Centre
55 Larke Crescent
CORRIGIN
WA
6375
O’CONNOR
Cunderdin WA Telecentre
Old Bakery Building
Main Street
CUNDERDIN
WA
6407
O’CONNOR
Dalwallinu WA Telecentre
3 Myers Street
DALWALLINU
WA
6609
O’CONNOR
Dowerin WA Telecentre
12 Stewart Street
DOWERIN
WA
6461
O’CONNOR
Dumbleyung Newsagency
28 Absolon Street
DUMBLEYUNG
WA
6350
O’CONNOR
Dunsborough Pharmacy
Shop 16-17 Dunsborough Centrepoint Shopping Centre
55 Dunnbay Rd
DUNSBOROUGH
WA
6281
FORREST
Guardian Pharmacy East Victoria Park
734 Albany Highway
EAST VICTORIA PARK
WA
6101
SWAN
Park Centre Pharmacy
Shop 19, The Park Centre
789 Albany Highway
EAST VICTORIA PARK
WA
6101
SWAN
Bradshaw’s Pharmacy
94e Dempster Street
ESPERANCE
WA
6450
KALGOORLIE
Terry White Chemist
Shop 6, The Boulevard Forrest Street
ESPERANCE
WA
6450
KALGOORLIE
Exmouth District Hospital
Lyons Street
EXMOUTH
WA
6707
KALGOORLIE
Gin Gin Pharmacy
8 Brockman Street
GINGIN
WA
6503
PEARCE
Gnowangerup WA Telecentre
Lot 87 Aylmore Street
GNOWANGERUP
WA
6335
O’CONNOR
Goomalling WA Telecentre
55 Railway Terrace
GOOMALLING
WA
6460
O’CONNOR
Harvey Telecentre
Shop 4
5 Hayward Street
HARVEY
WA
6220
FORREST
Hopetoun WA Telecentre
90 Veal Street
HOPETOUN
WA
6348
O’CONNOR
Hyden WA Telecentre
40 Naughton Street
HYDEN
WA
6359
O’CONNOR
Innaloo 7 Day Pharmacy
Shop 6, Innaloo Shoppers Village
386 Scarborough Beach Road
INNALOO
WA
6018
STIRLING
L & G Gianatti
674 Jarrahdale Road
JARRAHDALE
WA
6124
CANNING
Jerramungup WA Telecentre
Lot 15-16 House 8-10
JERRAMUNGUP
WA
6337
O’CONNOR
Jurien Bay Pharmacy
Shop 3 - 4, Jurien Shopping Centre
Murray Street
JURIEN BAY
WA
6516
O’CONNOR
O’Hara’s Pharmacy
39 Haynes St
KALAMUNDA
WA
6076
PEARCE
Kalannie WA Telecentre
Lot 4 Roche Street
KALANNIE
WA
6468
O’CONNOR
Kalbarri Pharmacy
Lot 37, Kalbarri Lane
Grey Street
KALBARRI
WA
6536
KALGOORLIE
Kambalda West Pharmacy
28 Salmon Gum Rd
KAMBALDA
WA
6442
KALGOORLIE
Pharmacy Help Karratha
Shop 19 Centro Karratha City Shopping Centre
Welcome Road
KARRATHA
WA
6714
KALGOORLIE
Katanning Pharmacy
92 Clive Street
KATANNING
WA
6317
O’CONNOR
Kellerberrin Pharmacy
92-94 Massingham Street
KELLERBERRIN
WA
6410
O’CONNOR
Kojonup Telecentre Incorporated
109 Albany Highway
KOJONUP
WA
6395
O’CONNOR
Kondinin WA Telecentre
Lot 3-5 Gordon Street
KONDININ
WA
6367
O’CONNOR
Koorda WA Telecentre
43 Railway Street
KOORDA
WA
6475
O’CONNOR
Kukerin Health Centre
65 Manser Street
KUKERIN
WA
6352
O’CONNOR
Kulin WA Resource Centre (Telecentre)
Johnstone Street
KULIN
WA
6365
O’CONNOR
Lake Grace WA Telecentre
Lot 65, Absolon Street
LAKE GRACE
WA
6353
O’CONNOR
Lancelin WA Telecentre
1/107 Vins Way
LANCELIN
WA
6044
PEARCE
Leeman WA Telecentre
Lot 207 Spencer Street
LEEMAN
WA
6514
O’CONNOR
Leinster WA Telecentre
Shop 3, Leinster Shopping Centre
LEINSTER
WA
6437
KALGOORLIE
Leonora WA Telecentre
Lot 25 Tower Street
LEONORA
WA
6438
KALGOORLIE
Metro Maddington Amcal Chemist
Shop 27, Metro Maddington
Attfield Street
MADDINGTON
WA
6109
HASLUCK
Kingsway Medical Centre Pharmacy
168 Wanneroo Road
MADELEY
WA
6065
COWAN
Ambassadors Pharmacy
32a Rose Street
MANJIMUP
WA
6258
FORREST
Margaret River Pharmacy
146 Bussell Highway
MARGARET RIVER
WA
6285
FORREST
Savings Plus Soul Pattinson Chemist
102 Barrack Street
MERREDIN
WA
6415
KALGOORLIE
Mingenew WA Telecentre
50 Midlands Road
MINGENEW
WA
6522
O’CONNOR
Savings Plus Soul Pattinson Chemist
Shop 100, Mirrabooka Square
Yirrigan Drive
MIRRABOOKA
WA
6061
STIRLING
Pharmacy Help Mirrabooka
22 Chesterfield Avenue
MIRRABOOKA
WA
6061
STIRLING
Morawa WA Telecentre
46 Winfield Street
MORAWA
WA
6623
O’CONNOR
Mt Barker Soul Pattinson Chemist
23 Lowood Road
MOUNT BARKER
WA
6324
O’CONNOR
Mukinbudin WA Telecentre
2 Calder Street
MUKINBUDIN
WA
6479
O’CONNOR
Mullewa WA Telecentre
8 Jose Street
MULLEWA
WA
6630
KALGOORLIE
Mundaring Pharmacy
Shop 4, Mundaring Medical Centre
5 Nichol Street
MUNDARING
WA
6073
PEARCE
Serpentine Jarrahdale Telecentre
10 Paterson Street
MUNDIJONG
WA
6123
CANNING
Munglinup Roadhouse
Tubada Street
MUNGLINUP
WA
6450
KALGOORLIE
Nannup WA Telecentre
Lot 31, Warren Road
NANNUP
WA
6275
FORREST
Narembeen Telecentre
Unit 2
19 Churchill Street
NAREMBEEN
WA
6369
O’CONNOR
Maxwells Pharmacy
74 Federal Street
NARROGIN
WA
6312
PEARCE
Newdegate WA Telecentre
Collier Street
NEWDEGATE
WA
6355
O’CONNOR
Boulevard Pharmacy
Shop 2 & 3, Boulevard Shopping Centre
Newman Drive
NEWMAN
WA
6753
KALGOORLIE
Norseman WA Telecentre
Lot 43-46 Prinsep Street
NORSEMAN
WA
6443
KALGOORLIE
Stewarts Pharmacy
124 Fitzgerald Street
NORTHAM
WA
6401
PEARCE
Northam Pharmacy
Shop 17, Boulevard Fitzgerald Street
NORTHAM
WA
6401
PEARCE
Northcliffe Postal Services and Agencies
72 Wheatley Coast Road
NORTHCLIFFE
WA
6262
FORREST
Nungarin Telecentre
Railway Avenue
NUNGARIN
WA
6490
O’CONNOR
Ongerup WA Telecentre
Lot 49 Eldridge Street
ONGERUP
WA
6336
O’CONNOR
Paraburdoo Health, Beauty & Gifts
Coles Shopping Centre
Ashburton Drive
PARABURDOO
WA
6754
KALGOORLIE
Perenjori Community Resource Centre
Lot 2, Fowler Street
PERENJORI
WA
6620
O’CONNOR
Pingelly Telecentre and Resource Centre
23 Parade Street
PINGELLY
WA
6308
PEARCE
Pingrup WA Telecentre
Sanderson Street
PINGRUP
WA
6343
O’CONNOR
Murray Community Policing
22 George Street
PINJARRA
WA
6208
CANNING
Hedland Pharmacy
Shop 9, Boulevard Shopping Centre
Wilson Street
PORT HEDLAND
WA
6721
KALGOORLIE
Wedge Street Pharmacy
Shop 12 Wedge Street
PORT HEDLAND
WA
6721
KALGOORLIE
Quairading Pharmacy
29 Heal Street
QUAIRADING
WA
6383
O’CONNOR
Quinns Centre Pharmacy
Shop 11, Quinns Rock Shopping Cntr
Cnr Quinns Rd & Tapping Way
QUINNS ROCKS
WA
6030
PEARCE
Ravensthorpe District Telecentre Inc
Lot 6 Dunn Street
“Fitzgerald Building”
RAVENSTHORPE
WA
6346
O’CONNOR
Salmon Gums Corner Store
25 Hicks Street
SALMON GUMS
WA
6445
KALGOORLIE
South Hedland Pharmacy
Shop 5, South Hedland Shopping Centre
SOUTH HEDLAND
WA
6722
KALGOORLIE
Southern Day & Night Amcal Chemist
11a Antares Street
SOUTHERN CROSS
WA
6426
KALGOORLIE
Tambellup WA Telecentre
34 Norrish Street
TAMBELLUP
WA
6320
O’CONNOR
Tammin Roadhouse
Lot 2, Great Eastern Highway
TAMMIN
WA
6409
O’CONNOR
Three Springs LPO
58 Railway Road
THREE SPRINGS
WA
6519
O’CONNOR
Amcal Tom Price
Shop 4 & 5, Tom Price Shopping Centre
Jacaranda Avenue
TOM PRICE
WA
6751
KALGOORLIE
Toodyay Chemmart
110 Stirling Terrace
TOODYAY
WA
6566
PEARCE
Varley Store
Lot 53, Pitt Street
VARLEY
WA
6355
O’CONNOR
Friendly Society Chemist of Victoria Park
553 Albany Highway
VICTORIA PARK
WA
6100
SWAN
Wagin Pharmacy
52 Tudhoe Street
WAGIN
WA
6315
O’CONNOR
Walpole Telecentre
Lot 44 Latham Avenue
WALPOLE
WA
6398
FORREST
Wandering WA Telecentre
18 Watts Street
WANDERING
WA
6308
PEARCE
Fullife Pharmacy Wanneroo
Shop 13, Wanneroo Central Shopping Centre
Wanneroo Road
WANNEROO
WA
6065
COWAN
Waroona WA Telecentre
10 Henning Street
WAROONA
WA
6215
CANNING
Warwick Amcal Chemist
Shop 16, Centro Warwick
Cnr Beach Road & Erindale Dr
WARWICK
WA
6024
COWAN
Westonia Rural Transaction Centre
Lot 425 Wolfram Street
WESTONIA
WA
6423
KALGOORLIE
Wickepin WA Telecentre
24 Wogolin Road
WICKEPIN
WA
6370
O’CONNOR
Wickham District Hospital
Mulga Way
WICKHAM
WA
6720
KALGOORLIE
Williams WA Telecentre
5 Brooking Street.
WILLIAMS
WA
6391
PEARCE
Wongan Hills Pharmacy
15 Fenton Place
WONGAN HILLS
WA
6603
O’CONNOR
Wundowie One Stop
46 - 48 Boronia Avenue
WUNDOWIE
WA
6560
PEARCE
Wyalkatchem WA Telecentre
3 Honour Avenue
WYALKATCHEM
WA
6485
O’CONNOR
Yanchep Community Centre
7 Lagoon Drive
YANCHEP
WA
6035
PEARCE
Shire of York Administration Centre
1 Joaquina Street
YORK
WA
6302
PEARCE
Airport Security
185
185
3527
185
Ferguson, Martin, MP
LS4
Batman
ALP
0
Mr Martin Ferguson
asked the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, in writing, on 22 May 2006:
In respect of the $1.5 million allocated in 2005-2006 to upgrade security at (a) Burnie, (b) Devonport, (c) Groote Eylandt, (d) Mildura, and (e) Weipa Airports, (i) for what specifically is the expenditure proposed, (ii) who owns and operates each airport, and (iii) what sum will each airport owner/operator contribute to the proposed projects to upgrade security.
185
Truss, Warren, MP
GT4
Wide Bay
NATS
Minister for Transport and Regional Services
1
Mr Truss
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
In respect of the $1.5 million allocated in 2005-2006 to upgrade security at (a) Burnie, (b) Devonport, (c) Groote Eylandt, (d) Mildura, and (e) Weipa Airports:
-
The $1.5 million in funding is an Australian Government initiative that will provide assistance to airports in meeting new security requirements under the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004 and Aviation Transport Security Regulations 2005. This funding will enable the five airports to enhance basic physical security measures such as signage, fencing, surveillance, lighting, alarm systems and access control measures.
-
Burnie Airport is owned and operated by Burnie Airport Corporation Pty Ltd.
Devonport Airport is owned and operated by Tasmania Ports Corporation.
Groote Eylandt is owned and operated by Groote Eylandt Mining Corporation Pty Ltd, also known as GEMCO.
Mildura Airport is owned and operated by Mildura City Council.
Weipa Airport is owned by Comalco Aluminium Limited and operated by Weipa Air.
-
Airport owners/operators are not required to contribute money to implement approved basic security measures.
Consular Services
185
185
3528
185
Ferguson, Martin, MP
LS4
Batman
ALP
0
Mr Martin Ferguson
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in
writing
, on 22 May 2006:
-
What was the cost of a passport at 1 March 1996.
-
What increases have occurred in the cost of passports since 1 March 1996 and for each financial year since 1995-1996.
-
What sum was received from the issue of passports for each financial year since 1995-1996.
-
What sum has been spent on consular services provided to Australian passport holders overseas each financial year since 1995-1996.
185
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Adult: $106
Child/Senior $55
Frequent $159
-
1996-97
Adult: $120
Child $60
Frequent $180
1997-98
Adult: $126
Child $63
Frequent $188
1998-99
Adult: $126
Child $63
Frequent $188
1999-00
Adult: $128
Child $64
Frequent $192
2000-01
Adult: $132
Child $66
Frequent $198
2001-02
Adult: $136
Child/Senior $68
Frequent $204
2002-03
Adult: $144
Child/Senior $72
Frequent $216
2003-04
Adult: $148
Child/Senior $74
Frequent $222
2004-05
Adult: $150
Child/Senior $75
Frequent $226
2005-06
Adult: $153
Child/Senior $77
Frequent $230
2005-06 (24 October - e-passport introduced)
Adult: $172
Child/Senior $86
Frequent $258
In July 2002 I made the decision to offer a five-year passport to Australians aged 75 years and over, in response to considerable feedback from people in that particular age group. The decision recognised the needs of this group of senior Australians who wished to travel overseas at this time of their life.
In relation to passport applications, the term “senior” is a definition used by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to refer specifically to Australians who are 75 years or over. The term is not associated with the varying definitions used by other organisations in Australia.
-
1995-96 $57.655 million
1996-97 $61.481 million
1997-98 $91.053 million
1998-99 $119.457 million
1999-00 $126.731 million
2000-01 $121.943 million
2001-02 $114.010 million
2002-03 $116.360 million
2003-04 $145.671 million
2004-05 $170.810 million
-
Information on resources for DFAT’s program Outcome 2 (Australians informed about and provided access to consular and passport services in Australia and overseas) is publicly available in the department’s annual reports. However, DFAT does not deploy Australia-based staff overseas or maintain Australian posts overseas to work exclusively on consular issues. Consular work is an integral part of the responsibilities of Australia-based staff and Australian posts overseas. As such, other than the broad measure under Outcome 2, it is not possible to fully quantify the specific sum that has been spent annually on consular services for Australian passport holders overseas.
Kakadu National Park
187
187
3529
187
Ferguson, Martin, MP
LS4
Batman
ALP
0
Mr Martin Ferguson
asked the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, in writing, on 22 May 2006:
In respect of the $7.3 million over four years to rehabilitate abandoned uranium mines sites and to securely contain waste in Kakadu National Park, what projects will be funded in each of the four years.
187
Truss, Warren, MP
GT4
Wide Bay
NATS
Minister for Transport and Regional Services
1
Mr Truss
—The Minister for the Environment and Heritage has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:
The Australian Government has allocated $7.3 million, over four years, to rehabilitate old uranium mines and related sites in the Gunlom Aboriginal Land Trust area in the south of Kakadu National Park. This $7.3 million provides a historic opportunity to rehabilitate these areas to a standard befitting a World Heritage listed national park.
Planning for this work has been underway for some years and the following activities are scheduled over the next four years:
In 2006-07:
-
finalise environmental assessment and planning for the non-radiologically contaminated sites;
-
rehabilitate two of the larger non-radiologically contaminated sites (Sleisbeck and Guratba); and
-
develop an advanced draft rehabilitation plan for the radiologically contaminated sites.
In 2007-08, the program will rehabilitate the remaining non- radiologically contaminated sites.
In 2008-09, the program will finalise planning for rehabilitation of the radiologically contaminated sites, and commence rehabilitation of these sites.
In 2009-10, the program will finalise rehabilitation of the radiologically contaminated sites.
Australian Gold Reserves
188
188
3531
188
Danby, Michael, MP
WF6
Melbourne Ports
ALP
0
Mr Danby
asked the Treasurer, in writing, on 22 May 2006:
-
What is the current price of gold.
-
When did the Government sell the Australian gold reserves, what quantity was sold and what sum was received at that time.
-
Has he received advice after the gold reserves were sold that selling the gold reserves was a mistake; if so, what was the advice.
188
Costello, Peter, MP
CT4
Higgins
LP
Treasurer
1
Mr Costello
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
At the London fix on 29 June 2006, the gold price was 1 troy ounce = US$ 589.25
-
and (3) The Australian Government did not sell gold reserves. The RBA, an independent statutory body made a decision to change its mix of assets. The RBA regularly responds to questions on this issue, the most recent occasion being the hearing of the Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration (see pages 28-29 of 17 February 2006).
Prime Minister: Radio Interviews
188
188
3532
188
Danby, Michael, MP
WF6
Melbourne Ports
ALP
0
Mr Danby
asked the Prime Minister, in writing, on 22 May 2006:
-
Why has he given approximately 50 interviews to Alan Jones.
-
Will he explain why he refuses to be interviewed by radio station Triple J.
188
Howard, John, MP
ZD4
Bennelong
LP
Prime Minister
1
Mr Howard
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
and (2) I am regularly interviewed by a wide range of commercial and public media outlets.
US Strategic Bomber Training Program
188
188
3553
188
Melham, Daryl, MP
4T4
Banks
ALP
0
Mr Melham
asked the Minister for Defence, in writing, on 22 May 2006:
-
Further to the answers to question Nos 2785 and 2819 (Hansard, 9 February 2006, pp 193 & 195), when was the possible visit to Australia of United States B-1, B-2 or B-52 aircraft first raised in exchanges between Australia and United States officials and/or Ministers.
-
Which officials and/or Ministers participated in these initial exchanges and which side, Australia or the United States, first raised the issue.
-
What subsequent exchanges took place between Australian and United States officials and/or Ministers prior to the Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations in Adelaide in 2005.
-
When was the ‘Statement of Principles between the US Pacific Air Forces and the Australian Defence Organisation regarding the conduct of the United States Pacific Air Forces Bomber Training in Australia’ signed or agreed and who signed or otherwise endorsed the text on behalf of the Australian and United States Governments.
-
What is the text of the ‘Statement of Principles’.
-
Why is the ‘Statement of Principles’ not a treaty level agreement between the Australian and United States Governments.
189
Nelson, Dr Brendan, MP
RW5
Bradfield
LP
Minister for Defence
1
Dr Nelson
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
and (2) The United States Pacific Air Forces Bomber Training in Australia was first formally raised when the Defence Attaché at the United States Embassy wrote to the Chief of the Defence Force on 29 March 2004 requesting the program.
-
Working-level exchanges between the Royal Australian Air Force and US Pacific Air Force personnel and officers of the International Policy Division took place prior to the AUSMIN 2005 talks, principally in the form of planning meetings in Canberra, Sydney and Darwin in the week 19-26 June 2004. In Canberra, discussions were led by Director of the International Policy Division’s US Section, and included representatives from Air Force International Engagement and Strategic Operations Division. Officials from the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Prime Minister and Cabinet also attended these discussions. The program was also further discussed by the then-Chief of Air Force Houston, and US Generals Jumper, Moseley and Hester, at the Pacific Air Chiefs’ Conference in Guam on 21‑22 September 2004.
-
The Statement of Principles was signed for Australia by the former Deputy Secretary Strategy, Mr Carmody, on 9 June 2005, and by the former Chief Joint Operations Vice Admiral Shalders on 11 June 2005, and for the US by Pacific Command Director of Air and Space Operations, Major General Deptula on 19 July 2005.
-
The text of the Statement of Principles is classified and, therefore, cannot be released.
-
The Statement of Principles is not intended to be an agreement binding under international law. It is a written record of mutually determined policy and operational guidelines for the management and implementation of the training program.
Media Ownership
189
189
3558
189
Murphy, John, MP
83D
Lowe
ALP
0
Mr Murphy
asked the Minister representing the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, in writing, on 23 May 2006:
-
Did the Minister read the article titled “Coonan gives ground on media reform” in the Sydney Morning Herald on 16 May 2006.
-
Can the Minister confirm the report that the Minister has flagged the possibility that not all of the Government’s proposed media reforms will survive the public consultation process; if so, which reforms proposed by the Government has the Minister identified as ones that might not survive the public consultation process and can the Minister explain why they may not survive the consultation process.
-
In respect of the report that the Government has repeatedly said it wants broad consensus among industry players but that that could be difficult because of competing agendas, does this mean that the Government will not allow further concentration of media ownership in Australia; if not, why not and can the Minister explain how further concentration of media ownership is in the public interest and good for Australia’s democracy.
190
McGauran, Peter, MP
XH4
Gippsland
NATS
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
1
Mr McGauran
—The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:
-
Yes.
-
No. The Government is currently considering submissions on the media reform discussion paper released in March 2006.
-
I have nothing to add to my answers to previous questions on this issue from the honourable member.
Centrelink: Pensioner Concession Cards
190
190
3560
190
Georganas, Steve, MP
DZY
Hindmarsh
ALP
0
Mr Georganas
asked the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, in writing, on 23 May 2006:
-
Is the Federal Government pursuing a policy of ensuring all Australians have access to equivalent (a) pensioner and (b) age pensioner concessions irrespective of the State or Territory in which they (i) reside and (ii) purchase services.
-
What mechanisms are available to the Federal Government to ensure that the concessions available to (a) pensioners and (b) age pensioners are based on their pensioner status and not on the State or Territory in which they reside.
-
What has the Federal Government done to ensure that the concessions available to (a) pensioners and (b) age pensioners are based on their pensioner status and not on the State or Territory in which they reside.
190
Brough, Mal, MP
2K6
Longman
LP
Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
1
Mr Brough
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
Centrelink and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs issue a number of different types of concession cards, depending on the person’s circumstances. The Australian Government’s main purpose in issuing these cards is to provide access to Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme prescription items, and certain Medicare services, at a cheaper rate. These concessions are provided irrespective of a person’s state of residence.
Australian Government concession cards are also used by state, territory and local governments and some private providers, to target a range of other discounts on services that they provide, to selected groups of people. The concession providers themselves decide what concessions will be made available, and who can receive them.
The Australian Government has provided funding to state and territory governments since 1993 to ensure that certain ‘core’ concessions are provided to all pensioners. The ‘core’ concessions to which this payment relates are those for energy, municipal and water rates, public transport and motor vehicle registration.
Payments to state and territory governments are made through the Specific Purpose Payment (SPP) Compensation for the Extension of Fringe Benefits to Pensioners and Older Long-term Allowees and Beneficiaries.
This payment was made as compensation to the states for the cost of the extension of the Pensioner Concession card to part rate pensioners. Before this payment was introduced the full cost of funding these concessions was borne by the states. The agreement for the payment ensures that States do not discriminate between PCC holders in terms of their eligibility for the core concessions defined above. The level of the concession is at the discretion of the provider.
Professional Training
191
191
3562
191
Bowen, Chris, MP
DZS
Prospect
ALP
0
Mr Bowen
asked the Minister for Small Business and Tourism, in writing, on 23 May 2006:
-
Was she correctly quoted in the AAP report on 18 May 2006 which reported that she said “My staff and I received professional training and I make no apology for it”.
-
Can she confirm that her staff received public speaking and voice projection training as well as herself.
-
What was the additional cost of this training.
-
How many staff members received it.
191
Bailey, Fran, MP
JT4
McEwen
LP
Minister for Small Business and Tourism
1
Fran Bailey
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Yes.
-
I refer the Member to my response to his previous questions – Question No 2185 and Question No 3375.
-
There was no additional cost.
-
Three.
Trade: Projects
191
191
3563
191
Fitzgibbon, Joel, MP
8K6
Hunter
ALP
0
Mr Fitzgibbon
asked the Minister for Trade, in writing, on 23 May 2006:
Further to the answer to question No. 3191 (Hansard, 11 May 2006, page 120) in which he indicated that he has delegated powers for project approval under s.23AF of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 to Austrade, is it the case that final responsibility to approve projects remains with the Minister; if so, has he, through his delegate, approved any contracts under s. 23AF since 1 July 1999 which involved Mr Trevor Flugge.
191
Vaile, Mark, MP
SU5
Lyne
NATS
Minister for Trade
1
Mr Vaile
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
As my delegate for the purposes of section 23 AF of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936, Austrade considers applications for approval of projects in certain overseas locations.
No project involving Mr Trevor Flugge has been approved under section 23 AF of the Act by me or by Austrade.
Workplace Relations
191
191
3566
191
Thomson, Kelvin, MP
UK6
Wills
ALP
0
Mr Kelvin Thomson
asked the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, in writing, on 23 May 2006:
-
Has the Office of the Employment Advocate been objecting to workplace agreements that include union-backed safety courses on the grounds that they are ‘prohibited content’ under the Government’s Work Choices legislation.
-
Did the Office of the Employment Advocate write on 19 April to Newlands Coal in Queensland objecting to an agreement containing a reference which allowed workers to attend union-backed safety courses.
-
Do the Work Choices regulations provide for fines of up to $33,000 for including prohibited content in agreements or trying to include prohibited content in agreements.
-
Has the mine collapse at Beaconsfield in northern Tasmania drawn attention to the need for occupational safety courses to be included in workplace agreements, particularly in dangerous occupations such as mining.
-
Will the Government ask the Employment Advocate to cease objecting to workplace agreements which include occupational health and safety courses.
192
Andrews, Kevin, MP
HK5
Menzies
LP
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service
1
Mr Andrews
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Pursuant to section 357(2) of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Cth) (WR Act) it is a defence to the offence of lodging a workplace agreement or a variation to a workplace agreement that contains prohibited content, with the Office of the Employment Advocate (OEA), if the Employment Advocate (EA) has issued an advice that the agreement (or the agreement as varied) did not contain prohibited content.
Prohibited content is set out in the Workplace Relations Regulations 1996 (Cth) (Regulations).
Chapter 2, Part 8, Division 7.1, Regulation 8.5(1)(d) provides that a term of a workplace agreement is prohibited content “to the extent it deals with employees bound by the agreement receiving leave to attend training (however described) provided by a trade union”.
The EA has issued notices under section 357(2) to the effect that a term of workplace agreement is prohibited because it deals with employees receiving leave to attend training provided by a trade union.
-
No, the EA did not “object” to the Newlands Coal Pty Ltd Agreement because it contained “a reference which allowed workers to attend union-backed safety courses”.
The EA advised Newlands Coal Pty Ltd by letter dated 19 April 2006, that one of the clauses in their workplace agreement fell within the scope of Regulation 8.5(1)(d). The clause enabled union representatives to be provided with a leave of absence to attend to “bona fide union business”.
-
An employer contravenes the WR Act if the employer lodges a workplace agreement (or variation to a workplace agreement) with the EA that contains prohibited content and the employer is reckless as to whether the agreement contains prohibited content. A person contravenes the WR Act if the person seeks to include prohibited content in negotiations for a workplace agreement (or a variation to a workplace agreement) and the person is reckless as to whether the term contains prohibited content.
If a body corporate contravenes these requirements, the maximum penalty they may receive is $33,000. If a person contravenes these requirements, the maximum penalty they may receive is $6,600.
-
The WR Act does not preclude parties from including provisions in their workplace agreement that enable and/or encourage employees to attend occupational safety courses.
-
The EA is not “objecting” to agreements which include occupational health and safety clauses.
Parking Infringement Arrangements
192
192
3569
192
Bowen, Chris, MP
DZS
Prospect
ALP
0
Mr Bowen
asked the acting Minister for Transport and Regional Services, in writing, on 24 May 2006:
In respect of each of the eight airport lessees which have opted to join the Federal Government’s parking infringements arrangements under the ‘Payments to the airport lessees-parking fines’ program administered by the Aviation and Airports Business Division of his department, (a) how many parking infringements notices were issued each month from January 2005 until May 2006, (b) how many parking infringement notices were withdrawn or cancelled each month from January 2005 until May 2006, (c) how many vehicles were towed each month from January 2005 until May 2006,(d) what sum was received for the disposal of towed vehicles in (i) 2003-2004 and (ii) 2004-2005, (e) what sum was received from parking infringements in (i) 2003-2004 and (ii) 2004-2005, and (f) what sum was remitted by the department to each airport under the arrangements in 2004-2005.
193
Lloyd, Jim, MP
IK6
Robertson
LP
Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads
1
Mr Lloyd
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
, (b) & (c) see attachment.
-
Money received for the disposal of towed vehicles in (i) 2003-2004 was $1,590 and
-
2004-2005 was $5,410.
-
see attachment.
-
see attachment.
Answers to (a), (b) & (c)
Sydney Airport
Months – January 2005 until May 2006
Parking Infringement notices issued
Parking Infringement notices withdrawn/Cancelled
Vehicles towed for each month
January 2005
1032
176
6
February
2208
144
7
March
1035
183
12
April
1567
0
7
May
1410
754
15
June
1612
0
11
July
1643
748
12
August
1643
292
14
September
1164
161
14
October
1303
122
1
November
1361
242
14
December
1146
139
15
January 2006
1620
151
14
February
918
0
8
March
1149
0
8
April
946
0
9
May
820
326
19
Melbourne Airport
Months – January 2005 until May 2006
Parking Infringement notices issued
Parking Infringement notices withdrawn/Cancelled
Vehicles towed for each month
January 2005
1328
272
0
February
950
225
0
March
965
256
0
April
972
155
0
May
918
117
0
June
1114
293
0
July
897
0
0
August
801
0
0
September
670
347
0
October
676
95
0
November
659
0
0
December
725
192
9
January 2006
821
141
6
February
513
0
3
March
765
279
2
April
585
36
6
May
529
18
0
Perth Airport
Months – January 2005 until May 2006
Parking Infringement notices issued
Parking Infringement notices withdrawn/Cancelled
Vehicles towed for each month
January 2005
123
10
1
February
77
13
1
March
74
16
0
April
65
9
2
May
37
13
0
June
60
5
2
July
65
9
0
August
46
13
1
September
73
7
0
October
73
7
0
November
81
7
2
December
181
9
2
January 2006
100
0
0
February
88
113
0
March
85
191
0
April
70
20
0
May
55
11
0
Hobart Airport
Months – January 2005 until May 2006
Parking Infringement notices issued
Parking Infringement notices withdrawn/Cancelled
Vehicles towed for each month
January 2005
15
9
0
February
18
5
0
March
47
11
0
April
116
26
0
May
31
8
0
June
17
3
0
July
29
22
0
August
32
22
0
September
11
7
0
October
17
13
0
November
33
5
0
December
35
13
0
January 2006
55
11
0
February
36
21
0
March
46
14
0
April
86
18
0
May
76
18
0
Coolangatta Airport
Months – January 2005 until May 2006
Parking Infringement notices issued
Parking Infringement notices withdrawn/Cancelled
Vehicles towed for each month
January 2005
184
4
0
February
306
53
1
March
306
53
1
April
192
27
0
May
188
75
0
June
70
0
0
July
85
34
2
August
179
72
0
September
139
39
2
October
134
48
0
November
216
92
0
December
111
32
0
January 2006
82
9
0
February
128
56
0
March
90
13
0
April
91
109
2
May
64
0
0
Townsville Airport
Months – January 2005 until May 2006
Parking Infringement notices issued
Parking Infringement notices withdrawn/Cancelled
Vehicles towed for each month
January 2005
71
10
0
February
63
0
0
March
34
0
0
April
21
0
0
May
66
0
0
June
55
0
0
July
68
0
0
August
32
1
0
September
54
2
0
October
35
0
0
November
50
0
0
December
24
0
0
January 2006
43
5
0
February
26
0
0
March
40
0
0
April
54
2
0
May
16
3
0
Brisbane Airport
Months – January 2005 until May 2006
Parking Infringement notices issued
Parking Infringement notices withdrawn/Cancelled
Vehicles towed for each month
January 2005
181
52
4
February
144
37
0
March
183
21
0
April
225
40
0
May
577
76
0
June
526
105
0
July
464
79
2
August
316
117
6
September
444
88
11
October
442
101
0
November
336
69
0
December
447
50
0
January 2006
515
107
10
February
414
49
0
March
357
49
0
April
346
50
0
May
368
71
0
Answers to (e) & (f)
Sydney Airport
Month
Parking Infringement sum received 2003-2004
Parking Infringement sum received 2004 - 2005
Sum remitted by the Department to the airport 2004-2005
July
47982
49500
August
56364
205853
September
68772
42504
235565
October
102366
21516
November
67332
86062
December
34196
23628
123576
January
43962
27984
February
98869
24486
March
77616
118932
134401
April
56826
41118
May
42570
96348
June
55430
94775
183072
Total Amounts
752,285
832,706
676,614
Melbourne Airport
Month
Parking Infringement sum received 2003-2004
Parking Infringement sum received 2004 - 2005
Sum remitted by the Department to the airport 2004-2005
July
56487
60721
August
77533
105436
September
80535
96070
207061
October
92899
99437
November
99538
88711
December
74832
107880
234103
January
77200
104642
February
86784
99643
March
63807
90349
232987
April
89416
0
May
103915
175776
June
0
79097
201178
Total Amounts
903,307
1,107,762
875,329
Perth Airport
Month
Parking Infringement sum received 2003-2004
Parking Infringement sum received 2004 - 2005
Sum remitted by the Department to the airport 2004-2005
July
10472
0
August
4884
0
September
0
29647
18375
October
0
7546
November
0
2838
December
29173
2464
10180
January
0
5676
February
0
1870
March
0
4554
6960
April
0
4905
May
0
2222
June
0
40480
6220
Total Amount
44,529
65,770
41,735
Coolangatta Airport
Month
Parking Infringement sum received 2003-2004
Parking Infringement sum received 2004 - 2005
Sum remitted by the Department to the airport 2004-2005
July
7176
3968
August
4834
4292
September
4310
4826
7748
October
7182
6308
November
7028
4718
December
3284
3305
8745
January
4378
6322
February
10451
3462
March
5511
4338
8578
April
6754
9851
May
4467
4689
June
5456
5149
13031
Total Amounts
70,831
61,228
38,102
Brisbane Airport
Month
Parking Infringement sum received 2003-2004
Parking Infringement sum received 2004 - 2005
Sum remitted by the Department to the airport 2004-2005
July
26584
22641
August
27282
21067
September
28954
14263
43657
October
28132
9627
November
30546
23025
December
17317
12336
33270
January
30071
12817
February
22365
12448
March
22951
9042
24408
April
19014
15952
May
25586
12287
June
27777
7573
25929
Total Amounts
306,579
173,078
127,264
Hobart Airport
Month
Parking Infringement sum received 2003-2004
Parking Infringement sum received 2004 - 2005
Sum remitted by the Department to the airport 2004-2005
July
1430
44
August
1276
88
September
968
132
5600
October
660
0
November
748
396
December
440
2490
5600
January
968
660
February
880
264
March
748
616
5600
April
484
792
May
132
1496
June
44
1144
5600
Total Amounts
8,778
8,122
22,400
Townsville Airport
Month
Parking Infringement sum received 2003-2004
Parking Infringement sum received 2004 – 2005
Sum remitted by the Department to the airport 2004-2005
July
1452
1760
August
858
1808
September
658
1386
5600
October
682
462
November
550
898
December
1364
1188
5600
January
1320
704
February
1870
1342
March
1958
726
5600
April
1474
638
May
1606
0
June
2024
1254
5600
Total Amounts
15,816
12, 166
22,400
Parking Infringement Arrangements
198
198
3574
198
Bowen, Chris, MP
DZS
Prospect
ALP
0
Mr Bowen
asked the acting Minister for Transport and Regional Services, in writing, on 25 May 2006:
In respect of each of the eight federal airport lessees which have opted to join the Federal Government’s parking infringement arrangements under regulation 114 of the Airport (Control of On-Airport Activities) Regulations1997, how many ‘authorised persons’ who were (a) employees of an airport-operator company, or (b) employees of a contractor to an airport-operator company have been used by each of the airport-operators for parking patrol and the issuing of parking infringements as at (i) March 2005 and (ii) March 2006.
199
Lloyd, Jim, MP
IK6
Robertson
LP
Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads
1
Mr Lloyd
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
Airport
(a) - March 2005
(b) - March 2005
(a) - March 2006
(b) - March 2006
Sydney
2
65
2
65
Melbourne
0
38
0
40
Perth
41
50
42
49
Coolangatta
1
20
9
23
Townsville
3
0
3
0
Hobart
14
7
15
10
Brisbane
0
21
0
21
Launceston Airport was included in the Regulations for the purposes of landside vehicle parking in May 2005. There are no authorised officers at this stage.
Parking Infringement Arrangements
199
199
3575
199
Bowen, Chris, MP
DZS
Prospect
ALP
0
Mr Bowen
asked the acting Minister for Transport and Regional Services, in writing, on 25 May 2006:
What are the details of the parking infringement arrangements applied by each of the 14 airport lessees which have not opted to participate in the Federal Government’s parking infringement arrangements.
199
Lloyd, Jim, MP
IK6
Robertson
LP
Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads
1
Mr Lloyd
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
The Commonwealth offered the parking infringement arrangements under the Airports (Control of On-Airport Activities) Regulations 1997 for the major regular public transport airports at the time of privatisation of the airports.
The other federal airports have the option of negotiating a local arrangement with their local council(s). These arrangements are a matter for those airports and the Department is not privy to the details.
Regional Partnerships Program
199
199
3576
199
Bevis, Arch, MP
ET4
Brisbane
ALP
0
Mr Bevis
asked the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, in writing, on 25 May 2006:
-
Were funds provided under the Regional Partnerships Program to the Brisbane North Chamber of Commerce around August 2004; if so, (a) what sum and (b) for what purpose.
-
Were the funds used to employ people; if so, (a) in what capacity, (b) what procedures were followed in advertising and selecting the employees, and (c) what evaluation of the funding has occurred, in particular, (i) what new businesses have resulted, (ii) what employment opportunities have resulted.
-
Were the funds provided in response to a submission; if so, (a) in whose name was the submission made and (b) what sum was sought in the submission.
199
Truss, Warren, MP
GT4
Wide Bay
NATS
Minister for Transport and Regional Services
1
Mr Truss
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Funds were provided under the Regional Partnerships program to the Brisbane North Chamber of Commerce for the Brisbane North Regional Advancement project. The Funding Agreement for this project was executed in September 2004.
-
$99,827 (GST exclusive) was paid.
-
Regional Partnerships funds were used to partially fund the costs of employing a project officer to coordinate and direct the development of geographically based industry cluster groups in the Brisbane North region. Regional Partnership funds also contributed to marketing and communication costs and office costs, including rent and equipment.
-
The funds were used to employ people.
-
The Regional Partnerships grant included funds to partially fund the employment of a project officer.
-
The selection of a suitably qualified project officer was the responsibility of the Chamber of Commerce.
-
Three industry clusters were developed covering printing, environmental and heavy engineering industries. The printing cluster formed a legal business entity called SEAM solutions which began operation in September 2005.
-
SEAM Solutions employs four people. The environmental and heavy industry clusters have not reported employment outcomes but are cooperating to manage skills shortages and provide mentoring for school students.
-
Funds were provided in response to an application to the Regional Partnerships program.
-
The applicant was the Brisbane North Chamber of Commerce Inc.
-
The amount sought from Regional Partnerships was $99,827 (GST exclusive).
Greater Brisbane Area Consultative Committee: Project Funding
200
200
3577
200
Bevis, Arch, MP
ET4
Brisbane
ALP
0
Mr Bevis
asked the acting Minister for Transport and Regional Services, in writing, on 25 May 2006:
-
How many applications for funding of projects were received by the Greater Brisbane Area Consultative Committee in (a) 2001-2002, (b) 2002-2003, (c) 2003-2004, (d) 2004-2005, and (e) 2005-2006.
-
In respect of each application, (a) who or which organisations applied, (b) what sum was sought, (c) what was the Area Consultative Committee’s decision or recommendation, and (d) what was the Government’s decision.
200
Lloyd, Jim, MP
IK6
Robertson
LP
Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads
1
Mr Lloyd
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Applications for funding from organisations in the region covered by the Greater Brisbane Area Consultative Committee have been received under two regional programs, Regional Assistance Program and Regional Partnerships program since 2001-02 as follows:
-
10 applications for Regional Assistance program funding were received by the Greater Brisbane ACC in 2001-2002.
-
8 applications for Regional Assistance program funding were received by the Greater Brisbane ACC in 2002-2003.
-
13 applications for Regional Partnerships funding were received by the Greater Brisbane ACC in 2003-2004.
-
8 applications for Regional Partnerships funding were received by the Greater Brisbane ACC in 2004-2005.
-
7 applications for Regional Partnerships funding were received by the Greater Brisbane ACC in 2005-2006.
-
-
, (b) and (d) Attached is a list, as at 31 May 2006, of all applications for Regional Assistance Program and Regional Partnerships funding received by the Greater Brisbane Area Consultative Committee. The list also provides the Government decision on each project and where relevant, the approved amount.
-
It would be difficult for Area Consultative Committees to provide an honest assessment of projects if their advice was made public.
Program
Organisation Name
Project Name
Government’s Decision
Approved Amount
RAP
Manly Chamber of Commerce
Wynnum Manly regional Economic Development Projects
Approved
$137,500
RAP
Help Enterprises
Incite Solutions
Approved
$14,278
RAP
Retailers Association Of Queensland
RAQ Australian Fashion Design Awards National Initiative
Approved
$165,000
RAP
Redland Shire Council
Redlands Film Capacity Audit
Approved
$11,000
RAP
The Rotary Club of Forrest Lake Inc
Business Plan Inala Employment Co-operatives
Not Approved
N/A
RAP
Housing Industry Association Ltd
HIA Construction Cadets
Not Approved
N/A
RAP
Boys Town Linkup
Logan Jobs Plus Initiative
Not Approved
N/A
RAP
Redland Shire Council
Redland Horticultural Business Cluster
Not Approved
N/A
RAP
Department of State Development Queensland
Queensland Tourism Enterprise Implementation
Not Approved
N/A
RAP
Coordinators Of education and Training Inc
Brisbane Cabbage Tree Creek catchment development
Withdrawn
N/A
RAP
Help Enterprises
Special Schools Horticulture Enterprise
Approved
$237,824
RAP
Nunukal Nguhi Cultural Heritage Corporation
Marine Based Processing Facility
Approved
$181,170
RAP
Redlands Tourism
North Stradbroke Island Sustainable Tourism Project
Approved
$45,540
RAP
Logan Regional Economic Development Board Ltd
Benchmarking Logan City as an Investment Location
Approved
$44,680
RAP
Brisbane North Chamber of Commerce
Brisbane North Industry Mapping and Targeted Business Development Project
Approved
$71,472
RAP
Brisbane City Council
Brisbane Tourism Infrastructure and Product Development
Approved
$110,000
RAP
Logan Regional Economic Development Board Ltd
Business Growth in Logan through Improved Manufacturing Effectiveness
Not Approved
N/A
RAP
Redland Chamber of Commerce
Redlands Business Grow
Not Approved
N/A
RP
Sunshine Soup Incorporated
Enhancement of the ICT Industry Clusters in the Brisbane Region
Approved
$180,000
RP
Help Enterprises
Happy Tails
Approved
$125,700
RP
Jobs Association Inc.
Redlands Retail Services Audit and Promotion - `Redlands RSAP`
Approved
$29,500
RP
HELP Enterprises
Community Lifestyle Village for People with disabilities
Approved
$50,000
RP
Fly Archerfield Inc
Archerfield Aerospace Business Infrastructure Development Project
Approved
$75,000
RP
Self Help Queensland Inc
2005 Directory of Self Help and Support Groups
Approved
$39,625
RP
BoysTown
Carole Park Youth Futures Project
Approved
$69,950
RP
Brisbane North Chamber of Commerce Inc
Brisbane North Regional Advancement
Approved
$99,827
RP
Marsden Education Association Inc.
Student and Community Service Centre
Approved
$80,000
RP
The Spot Community Services Ltd
LEAN Electronic Network Project
Approved
$55,000
RP
Wynnum Manly Regional Development partnership Inc
Brisbane Bayside South Industry Supply Chain and Cluster Identification Project
Approved
$15,000
RP
Food Q Inc.
Food Q - Food Manufacturing cluster and supply chain and business development project
Approved
$25,000
RP
Wynnum Manly Regional Development Partnership
Brisbane Bayside South Business Employment Initiative
Not Approved
N/A
RP
Redland Chamber of Commerce
Film@Redland
Not Approved
N/A
RP
Redland Chamber of Commerce
Redland Sustainable Business
Not Approved
N/A
RP
Local Government Association of Queensland Inc.
Statewide Data Management System fro the Queensland Road Alliance
Not Approved
N/A
RP
New Farm Neighbourhood Centre Inc.
Urban LINC (Leadership Inclusion Networks Community)
Not Approved
N/A
RP
Brisbane North Development Forum Inc.
Brisbane North Airport City Infrastructure Development
Under Review
N/A
RP
Ridge Hills United Football Club Inc
Development of Amenities/training block
Application Withdrawn
N/A
RP
Australian Centre for Lifestyle Horticulture Inc
Lifestyle Horticulture Industry and Export Development project
Application Withdrawn
N/A
RP
BoysTown
Redlands Youth Choices
Application Withdrawn
N/A
RP
BoysTown
Youth Choices Redlands
Under Review
N/A
RP
Viking Industries Limited
Brisbane Marine Industry Park Infrastructure Project
Under Review
N/A
RP
Brisbane City Council
Richlands Community Zone
Application Withdrawn
N/A
RP
Netherlands Retirement Village Association of Queensland Inc
Redlands multicultural aged care and respite infrastructure project
Application Withdrawn
N/A
RP
Musgrave Park Culture Centre Incororpated
MPCCI
Application Withdrawn
N/A
RP
Queensland Tourism Industry Council Limited
Queensland Rural and Remote Sustainable Tourism Project
Application Withdrawn
N/A
RP
Australian Centre for Lifestyle Horticulture Inc
Strategic Lifestyle Horticulture Industry Development
Pending Ministerial Decision
N/A
Joint Strike Fighter
202
202
3579
202
McClelland, Robert, MP
JK6
Barton
ALP
0
Mr McClelland
asked the Minister for Defence, in writing, on 25 May 2006:
-
Is he aware of the most recent United States General Accounting Office report which puts a value of $US125 million per unit on each Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) unit bought this year.
-
Will he explain why the RAAF JSF Project Director-General’s figure of $100 million for its JSF variant is so much less than the US figure.
-
What is the Government’s current assessment of the upward pressure on JSF prices caused by downscaling in orders from other partners.
-
Are escalating price issues being raised in the negotiations for the Memorandum of Understanding on the JSF project due to be signed in December this year.
-
Is he aware of the US Department of Defense selected acquisition report which suggests that a Raptor unit could be purchased for $US127 million.
-
Apart from the lower original projected cost, what other significant advantages has the Government identified for the JSF program over the Raptor program.
-
Will the comparative prices of the Raptor and JSF programs be taken into account by the Government when deciding whether to commit to the JSF project.
203
Nelson, Dr Brendan, MP
RW5
Bradfield
LP
Minister for Defence
1
Dr Nelson
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
The figure of US$125 million per aircraft appears to have been derived from the General Accounting Office (GAO) report 06-356 referring to aircraft bought by the US in 2012. This figure would be referred to as an Average Unit Procurement Cost (AUPC) and includes not only the cost of the aircraft, but a broad range of other ‘system’ elements, such as spares and support systems. It should be noted that this figure also comprises an average across all three Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) variants, that is, it includes the more expensive Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) and Carrier (CV) variants, whereas Australia is only looking to purchase the considerably less expensive Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL) variant.
-
Apart from the figure above being a composite figure of multiple variants, it is also for aircraft quite early in the production run. The A$100 million is an average unit cost across the entire Australian fleet inclusive of spares, facilities, weapons etc, but excluding contingency.
-
There has been no proposed reduction in JSF numbers by any of the JSF partners. If there were a reduction in numbers by a JSF partner, the only case in which that could potentially have a significant impact on Australia is if the reduction were by the US. Even then, the reduction would be dependent on where the reduction was made: if the reduction was made at the end of the Program (that is, after Australia had bought its aircraft) it would have almost no impact on Australia. Further, any prospective reduction in aircraft numbers by any partner is likely to be offset, to at least some extent, by expected sales to third parties.
-
Maximising affordability of the entire JSF Air System, not just the aircraft, throughout its entire life cycle is a pillar of the JSF Program. As a partner in the JSF Program, Australia has detailed insight into JSF costs and is working with all other partners to maximise affordability. This is just one of many issues under discussion during negotiations.
-
The US$127 million or A$172 million quoted in the December 2005 Selected Acquisition Report is for the aircraft only. It does not include broader system costs and a range of necessary upgrades and associated acquisition costs. These costs are more than double the cost of the JSF.
-
The JSF has the following additional advantages over the F-22:
-
The JSF has true multi-role capabilities, the F-22 is optimised for air-to-air.
-
Acquisition of the more modern JSF avoids obsolescence issues associated with the F-22.
-
Partnership in the JSF Program has given Australia unique insights into aircraft capabilities.
-
Partnership in the JSF has provided considerable opportunities for Australian industry.
-
Partnership in the JSF provides Australia the opportunity to shape the global sustainment system for the aircraft and to be part of the follow-on development program.
-
Partnership in the JSF has ensured waiver of non-recurring development costs and avoidance of Foreign Military Sales levies.
-
Defence has been tasked to keep a watching brief on other fighter platforms, including the F-22. Given the F-22 does not meet Australia’s full capability requirements and is at least twice as expensive as the JSF, further evaluation of the F-22 is not considered necessary.
Australian Wheat Board
204
204
3587
204
Windsor, Antony, MP
009LP
New England
IND
0
Mr Windsor
asked the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, in writing, on 30 May 2006:
-
Will he provide an assurance that the search for a Managing Director of AWB Ltd is a fair and transparent process for all candidates who are offering themselves for the position.
-
Will he also provide an assurance that, if any members of the AWB Ltd Board or AWB International Ltd Board apply for the position of Managing Director, the recruiting process will be made public to ensure fairness and transparency.
-
Who will conduct the final round of interviews for the position of Managing Director of AWB Ltd.
-
Will all candidates for the position of Managing Director of AWB Ltd be interviewed prior to the short-listing of candidates for the interview panel, or will selection be based on written applications.
-
Does he acknowledge that, whilst the Government has no statutory control over the selection process for the position of Managing Director of AWB Ltd, it would wish the process to be of a standard that is of the highest order and fair and transparent to all, including Australian wheat growers.
204
McGauran, Peter, MP
XH4
Gippsland
NATS
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
1
Mr McGauran
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
It is a matter for AWB Ltd to determine.
-
It is a matter for AWB Ltd to determine.
-
It is a matter for AWB Ltd to determine.
-
It is a matter for AWB Ltd to determine.
-
I would expect that the Board of AWB Ltd would conduct a process that ensures the best possible candidate is identified for the position.
Defence: Medals
204
204
3593
204
Irwin, Julia, MP
83Z
Fowler
ALP
0
Mrs Irwin
asked the Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, in writing, on 31 May 2006:
-
Has your Department outsourced the assessment and despatch of certain Defence medals.
-
Will any assessment and despatch functions be carried out overseas.
-
Will the performance of assessment and despatch functions require the disclosure to overseas contractors of personal and service information relating to serving and former members of the Australian Defence Force.
204
Billson, Bruce, MP
1K6
Dunkley
LP
Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence
1
Mr Billson
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Yes. Defence has outsourced the manufacturing, engraving and dispatch of a number of medals including the Anniversary of National Service 1951-1972 Medal, Australian Defence Medal, Afghanistan and Iraq Campaign Medals and several other awards issued to current serving personnel. Defence has recently signed a contract for the provision of research and assessment services associated with the Australian Defence Medal.
-
and (3) No.
Myanmar
205
205
3597
205
Ferguson, Laurie, MP
8T4
Reid
ALP
0
Mr Laurie Ferguson
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in writing, on 1 June 2006:
-
Is he aware of the deaths in detention in Myanmar of (a) Aung Myint Thein, after being held in Insein Prison during July, (b) Min Tun Wai from Kyaikmayaw Township, during a seven day sentence in Moulmein Prison, (c) Aung Hiaing Win from Mayanggone Township, who was held for investigation during May, and (d) Saw Stanford from Taguseik Village.
-
Will he ask the Myanmar authorities about these deaths, and ensure that the high death rate of political detainees in Myanmar is pursued through diplomatic channels by Australian authorities.
205
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Yes.
-
The Government regularly makes representations, including at the most senior levels, urging the Rangoon authorities to respect the human rights of all Burmese citizens and to immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners in Burma.
Italian Republican Day
205
205
3598
205
Thomson, Kelvin, MP
UK6
Wills
ALP
0
Mr Kelvin Thomson
asked the Prime Minister, in writing, on 1 June 2006:
-
Is he aware that on 28 May 2006, at celebrations for the Anniversary of Italian Republican Day, the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs read the Prime Minister’s address to a large audience at Federation Square, Melbourne.
-
Is he aware that the speech referred to in part (1) contained references to the Parliamentary Secretary’s pleasure at being present at the Marconi Club, which is in Sydney, for the occasion.
-
What measures exist to ensure that further errors of this type are avoided.
205
Howard, John, MP
ZD4
Bennelong
LP
Prime Minister
1
Mr Howard
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Yes.
-
and (3) No, the Prime Minister’s message made no reference to the Parliamentary Secretary. However, it was the wrong message. This was an administration error, which has been rectified.
Members and Senators: Parking Costs
205
205
3606
205
Ferguson, Martin, MP
LS4
Batman
ALP
0
Mr Martin Ferguson
asked the Special Minister of State, in writing, on 1 June 2006:
In respect of parking costs incurred by Members and Senators visiting their capital cities on parliamentary business, what sum has been claimed by Members and Senators in each State and Territory for the financial years (a) 2000‑2001, (b) 2001‑2002, (c) 2002‑2003, (d) 2003‑2004, (e) 2004‑2005, and (f) 2005‑2006.
205
Nairn, Gary, MP
OK6
Eden-Monaro
LP
Special Minister of State
1
Mr Nairn
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
$6,233.38
-
$4,185.42
-
$5,622.49
-
$6,960.34
-
$6,362.78
-
$5,045.70
Please note: The amounts reported are exclusive of GST. In addition, the costs provided are for all car parking by Senators and Members, including at airports.
Aged Care
206
206
3615
206
Georganas, Steve, MP
DZY
Hindmarsh
ALP
0
Mr Georganas
asked the Minister representing the Minister for Ageing, in writing, on 13 June 2006:
-
What is the Government doing to eliminate the immediate shortage of 287 nursing home beds in Adelaide’s western and southern regions.
-
Will the Government guarantee that the shortage of nursing home beds in Adelaide’s western and southern regions will be alleviated as soon as possible.
-
What were the shortages, or surpluses, of nursing home beds in Adelaide’s (a) western region, and (b) southern region for each year from 1996 to present.
206
Abbott, Tony, MP
EZ5
Warringah
LP
Minister for Health and Ageing
1
Mr Abbott
—The Minister for Ageing has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:
-
In the 2004 Budget, the Australian Government announced an increase in the national aged care planning benchmark from 100 to 108 aged care places for every 1,000 persons of the population aged 70 and over. These 108 places comprise 88 residential aged care places and 20 community care places.
As at 31 December 2005, the operational residential aged care ratio in the Metropolitan West (South Australia) aged care planning region was 83.6 places for every 1,000 persons of the population aged 70 and over and the allocated ratio was 87.2.
For the Metropolitan South (South Australia) aged care planning region the operational ratio was 83.9 places for every 1,000 persons of the population aged 70 and over and the allocated ratio was 92.0.
Once all the allocated, but not yet operational residential places become operational, many more aged care places will be available in both aged care planning regions.
To assist in reaching and maintaining the national benchmark operational ratio, up to 210 additional residential aged care places are available for allocation in the Metropolitan West, Metropolitan South and Metropolitan North (South Australia) aged care planning regions in the 2006 Aged Care Approvals Round.
-
Additional residential places have been allocated to the Metropolitan West and Metropolitan South (South Australia) aged care planning regions in recent years and more places are available in the 2006 Aged Care Approvals Round. The Department of Health and Ageing monitors providers to ensure they bring allocated aged care places ‘on line’ as soon as practical, in accordance with the Aged Care Act 1997.
-
-
and (b) The aged care operational ratios (per 1,000 persons aged 70 years or over), as at 30 June each year, from 1998 for the Metropolitan West and Metropolitan South (South Australia) aged care planning regions is contained in the following table.
Metropolitan West - Operational Ratio
Metropolitan South - Operational Ratio
Year
Residential
Community
Total
Residential
Community
Total
1998
84.2
5.0
89.2
85.9
6.0
91.9
1999
79.3
5.4
84.7
83.3
7.2
90.5
2000
79.6
6.5
86.0
81.6
8.1
89.7
2001
73.9
16.6
90.5
81.8
13.6
95.4
2002
73.3
16.8
90.1
81.3
14.6
95.8
2003
76.0
16.0
92.0
80.9
15.8
96.7
2004
81.5
17.1
98.6
81.2
17.3
98.6
2005
82.2
18.3
100.5
82.9
17.9
100.8
NB Operational ratio data for individual aged care planning regions was not reported before 1998.
Commonwealth Dental Scheme
207
207
3616
207
Georganas, Steve, MP
DZY
Hindmarsh
ALP
0
Mr Georganas
asked the Minister for Health and Ageing, in writing, on 13 June 2006:
In accordance with its responsibility under section 51 of the Australian Constitution, will the Government reinstate the Commonwealth Dental Scheme, or introduce a comparable scheme; if not, why not.
207
Abbott, Tony, MP
EZ5
Warringah
LP
Minister for Health and Ageing
1
Mr Abbott
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
Section 51(xxiiiA) of the Constitution permits the Parliament of the Commonwealth to make laws relating to dental benefits. It does not impose any responsibility on the Government in relation to dental services.
As state and territory governments are solely responsible for public dental services, the Commonwealth Government has no plans to assume extra responsibility in this area.
Human Rights: Iran and Egypt
207
207
3620
207
Danby, Michael, MP
WF6
Melbourne Ports
ALP
0
Mr Danby
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in writing, on 13 June 2006:
-
In respect of the alleged sexual assault and forced signed confession of one of Iran’s leading pro-democracy and women’s rights activists, Roya Tolouee, is he aware of reports (a) of the incident, (b) that Roya Tolouee confessed after receiving threats that her children would be burned to death, (c) that sexual assault of female dissidents by Iran’s intelligence agency is commonplace and, (d) that sexual assault is a tactic employed by the Iranian regime; if not, why not.
-
What is the Government’s position in relation to reports that incidents similar to those described in part (1) are occurring in Egypt.
-
In respect of the reports referred to in part (1), has he raised objections or held discussions with (a) the Iranian Government, (b) Iran’s ambassador to Australia, and (c) Australia’s ambassador to Iran; if so (i) has the Iranian Government been made aware of his concerns and (ii) what response has been received from the Iranian Government.
-
Are Australia and Iran currently engaged in dialogue in respect of human rights; if so (a) what is the status of the dialogue, (b) who is involved in the dialogue, (c) what issues are under discussion, and (d) what progress has been made in improving Iran’s record on human rights.
-
Will he provide details of recent human rights dialogue between Australia and Iran.
207
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
-
Yes.
-
Yes.
-
and (d) Beyond the reports on Ms Tolouee’s detention I have not seen evidence that the sexual assault of female dissidents by Iran’s intelligence agency is commonplace or that sexual assault is a tactic employed by the Iranian regime. I would be deeply concerned should such evidence emerge.
-
The Government notes reports of sexual assault perpetrated against female dissidents in Egypt. The Government strongly condemns the use of sexual violence and torture. Australia supports the promotion and protection of internationally recognised standards of human rights including international efforts to eliminate violence against women.
-
to (c) Australia has urged the Iranian Government to stop the violation of rights of detainees in Iran. Our concerns over the human rights situation in Iran, including the treatment of detainees, were highlighted by our co-sponsoring a United Nations General Assembly Resolution in December 2005. The resolution called upon the Iranian Government to eliminate, in law and practice, the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
-
and (ii) The Iranian Government has not taken any action sufficient to alleviate our concerns over these human rights issues.
-
Australia and Iran held the first round of a human rights dialogue in December 2002.
-
It was agreed at the first round of human rights dialogue with Iran (December 2002) to hold a second round in Canberra at a time to be determined. A second round has not yet been scheduled.
-
At the first round of the dialogue, the Australian delegation was led by then First Assistant Secretary of the International Organisations and Legal Division, Caroline Millar, and included Justice Catherine Branson of the Federal Court of Australia, Australia’s Ambassador to Iran, Jeremy Newman, and officials from the Attorney-General’s Department, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The Iranian delegation was led by Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Director General for International Legal Affairs, Danesh Yazdi, and included officials from the MFA, the Justice Department, the judiciary, and the Islamic Human Rights Commission as well as academics.
-
The first round of the dialogue involved an exchange of views covering a broad range of themes: international human rights issues; our respective constitutional, judicial and legal systems; the position of minorities (including Baha'is and Jews); the position of women; freedom of expression and the role of national human rights institutions; and the death penalty. The Australian delegation also had separate meetings with senior figures from the Iranian judiciary, the clergy, women parliamentarians and prison officials. Following the first round of dialogue, a delegation from the Islamic Human Rights Commission of Iran visited Australia in 2003 to study the roles and functioning of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
-
Australia remains seriously concerned by the human rights situation in Iran. Since the election of President Ahmadinejad, Iran’s human rights record has deteriorated. Issues of the execution of minors, freedom of expression, lack of legal due process and systematic discrimination against women, girls and religious and ethnic groups are of particular concern. Iran has shown no sign of taking international concerns into account on human rights. Iran’s disregard for international opinion was evident in President Ahmadinejad’s comments last year calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map”.
-
As per (4) (b) and (c).
Human Rights: Egypt
208
208
3621
208
Danby, Michael, MP
WF6
Melbourne Ports
ALP
0
Mr Danby
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in writing, on 13 June 2006:
Is he aware of recent reports of the arrest in Egypt of democracy activists, including 39 year old Ahmed Salah, for congregating publicly in a group comprising more than five persons; if so (i) what is the Government’s position on this matter and (ii) what steps has he taken to promote democracy in Egypt.
209
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
Yes. (i) The Government takes an ongoing interest in the human rights situation in Egypt, especially in light of reported crackdowns on pro-democracy reformers and urges an increased commitment to the promotion and protection of internationally recognised standards of human rights. (ii) Our Ambassador in Cairo has outlined Australia’s support for Egypt’s political reform with local media and government officials. Australia also made joint representations with the US, UK, Canada and the Republic of Ireland in 2004 to promote the rights of Egyptian religious minorities, specifically the Baha’is.
Forest Management
209
209
3622
209
Sercombe, Bob, MP
QK6
Maribyrnong
ALP
0
Mr Sercombe
asked the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, in writing, on 13 June 2006:
-
What action, or actions, has the Government undertaken to implement its 2004 election commitment to “work with major Australian timber wholesalers and retailers to examine options, consistent with our international obligations, to encourage wholesalers and retailers to ensure the timbers they sell are sourced from sustainable forest practices”.
-
In support of the commitment referred to in part (1), what action, or actions, have been, or will be, undertaken by the Government to assist developing countries in the Asia-Pacific with the sustainable management of their forests.
209
McGauran, Peter, MP
XH4
Gippsland
NATS
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
1
Mr McGauran
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
The Australian Government has undertaken extensive consultations with industry, state and territory government departments and other stakeholders regarding the impact of illegal logging on imports of forest products into Australia. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has also commissioned a review of the volume, value and origin of illegal and suspected illegal forest products imported into Australia and a report ascertaining the policies and mechanisms utilised by Australian timber importers to determine the legality and sustainability of timber imports. Senator Abetz, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, recently announced that a draft policy paper is to be completed by the end of August 2006 for consultation with stakeholders.
-
The Australian Government is currently undertaking forestry programmes within Asia-Pacific nations, such as the Forestry Management Project in the Solomon Islands and the Support to the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Forestry Authority under the Advisory Support Facility in PNG, to improve the governance and law enforcement of the forestry sector in these nations. The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) is the agency responsible for developing and undertaking assistance programmes for developing countries.
United States Air Force Aircraft Movements
209
209
3623
209
Melham, Daryl, MP
4T4
Banks
ALP
0
Mr Melham
asked the Minister for Defence, in writing, on 13 June 2006:
For the financial years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006, on what dates did United States Air Force (USAF) aircraft visit Alice Springs Airport, and what USAF unit and type of aircraft were involved on each occasion.
209
Nelson, Dr Brendan, MP
RW5
Bradfield
LP
Minister for Defence
1
Dr Nelson
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
Specific information regarding the USAF unit operating the aircraft for each visit is not available. This information was not collected by airport operating authorities, and is not required by Royal Australian Air Force for the issuance of a military diplomatic clearance.
Alice Springs Airport – USAF Aircraft Movements for financial year 2004-05
Arrival Date
Departure Date
Aircraft type
6 July 2004
6 July 2004
KC-10
13 July 2004
13 July 2004
KC-10
27 July 2004
27 July 2004
KC-10
3 August 2004
3 August 2004
KC-10
24 August 2004
24 August 2004
KC-10
1 September 2004
1 September 2004
KC-10
4 November 2004
4 November 2004
KC-10
22 November 2004
22 November 2004
KC-10
11 January 2005
11 January 2005
KC-10
18 January 2005
18 January 2005
KC-10
25 January 2005
25 January 2005
KC-10
1 February 2005
1 February 2005
KC-10
8 February 2005
8 February 2005
KC-10
1 March 2005
1 March 2005
KC-10
29 March 2005
29 March 2005
KC-10
12 April 2005
12 April 2005
KC-10
20 April 2005
20 April 2005
KC-10
26 April 2005
26 April 2005
KC-10
3 May 2005
3 May 2005
KC-10
10 May 2005
10 May 2005
KC-10
18 May 2005
18 May 2005
KC-10
24 May 2005
24 May 2005
KC-10
31 May 2005
31 May 2005
KC-10
7 June 2005
7 June 2005
KC-10
22 June 2005
22 June 2005
KC-10
28 June 2005
28 June 2005
KC-10
Alice Springs Airport – USAF Aircraft Movements for financial year 2005-06
Arrival Date
Departure Date
Aircraft type
6 July 2005
6 July 2005
C17
19 July 2005
19 July 2005
KC-10
26 July 2005
26 July 2005
KC-10
2 August 2005
2 August 2005
KC-10
16 August 2005
16 August 2005
KC-10
23 August 2005
23 August 2005
KC-10
31 August 2005
31 August 2005
KC-10
6 September 2005
6 September 2005
KC-10
13 September 2005
13 September 2005
KC-10
20 September 2005
20 September 2005
KC-10
27 September 2005
27 September 2005
KC-10
5 October 2005
5 October 2005
KC-10
11 October 2005
11 October 2005
KC-10
18 October 2005
18 October 2005
KC-10
26 October 2005
26 October 2005
KC-10
27 October 2005
28 October 2005
GULFSTREAM 5
1 November 2005
1 November 2005
KC-10
8 November 2005
8 November 2005
KC-10
15 November 2005
15 November 2005
KC-10
17 November 2005
17 November 2005
C40
21 November 2005
21 November 2005
KC-10
29 November 2005
29 November 2005
KC-10
5 December 2005
6 December 2005
C17
6 December 2005
6 December 2005
KC-10
13 December 2005
13 December 2005
KC-10
20 December 2005
20 December 2005
KC-10
10 January 2006
10 January 2006
KC-10
17 January 2006
17 January 2006
KC-10
25 January 2006
25 January 2006
KC-10
31 January 2006
31 January 2006
KC-10
14 February 2006
14 February 2006
KC-10
21 February 2006
21 February 2006
KC-10
1 March 2006
1 March 2006
C17
7 March 2006
7 March 2006
KC-10
14 March 2006
14 March 2006
KC-10
21 March 2006
21 March 2006
KC-10
4 April 2006
4 April 2006
KC-10
11 April 2006
11 April 2006
KC-10
18 April 2006
18 April 2006
KC-10
9 May 2006
9 May 2006
KC-10
17 May 2006
17 May 2006
KC-10
23 May 2006
23 May 2006
KC-10
30 May 2006
30 May 2006
KC-10
8 June 2006
8 June 2006
KC-10
13 June 2006
13 June 2006
KC-10
20 June 2006
20 June 2006
KC-10
Pine Gap
211
211
3625
211
Melham, Daryl, MP
4T4
Banks
ALP
0
Mr Melham
asked the Minister representing the Minister for Justice and Customs, in writing, on 13 June 2006:
Further to the Minister’s answer to question 1686 (Hansard, 10 August 2005, page 250) how many Australian Protective Service Officers (PSOs) were stationed, or otherwise deployed, at the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap on 9 December 2005, and how many PSOs are now stationed at the facility.
211
Ruddock, Philip, MP
0J4
Berowra
LP
Attorney-General
1
Mr Ruddock
—The Minister for Justice and Customs has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:
On 9 December 2005 there were 44 PSOs deployed to Pine Gap.
On 13 June 2006 there were 43 PSOs stationed at Pine Gap.
Visit to Defence Facilities
211
211
3626
211
Melham, Daryl, MP
4T4
Banks
ALP
0
Mr Melham
asked the Minister for Defence, in writing, on 13 June 2006:
-
Since October 2004, what visits have been made to Australian Department of Defence facilities or establishments by members of the (a) Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (formerly the Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD), (b) Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, and (c) Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References and Legislation Committees.
-
In respect of each visit referred to in part (1), (a) when did the visit take place, (b) which members of the Committee and Committee staff participated, and (c) were members and/or staff given a classified briefing on the purpose and/or operations of the facility.
212
Nelson, Dr Brendan, MP
RW5
Bradfield
LP
Minister for Defence
1
Dr Nelson
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
The Committees made the following visits to Defence Signals Directorate facilities and establishments:
-
On 7 March 2006, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) visited the Shoal Bay Receiving Station in the Northern Territory. On 8 March 2006, the PJCIS visited the Australian Defence Satellite Communication Station in Western Australia.
-
For Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade visits to Defence facilities or establishment please refer to Table 1.
-
The Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References and Legislation Committee did not conduct any site visits to Defence facilities from October 2004 to the present time.
-
, (b) and (c)
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security
The following PJCIS members and staff participated in both the 7 March 2006 visit to the Shoal Bay Receiving Station, and the 8 March 2006 visit to the Australian Defence Satellite Communication Station:
-
Mr Steven Ciobo MP, Member for Moncrieff;
-
Mr Alan Ferguson, Senator for South Australia;
-
The Hon Duncan Kerr SC MP, Member for Denison;
-
Mr Stewart McArthur MP, Member for Corangamite;
-
Mr Julian McGauran, Senator for Victoria;
-
Ms Margaret Swieringa (committee staff member); and
-
Dr Cathryn Ollif (committee staff member).
The members and staff received a classified briefing on the purpose and operations of the facilities during both visits.
Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade
Please refer to Table 1.
Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References and Legislation Committees.
Not applicable.
Table 1 – Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Visits to Defence Establishments since October 2004
Date
Unit/location
Members
Staff
Classification
7 March 2005
Strategic Operations Division, Russell Offices, Canberra
Senator the Hon J. Macdonald
Senator M. Payne
Senator D. Johnston
The Hon B. Scott MP
The Hon W. Snowdon MP
Mr S. Gibbons MP
Mrs T. Draper MP
Mr B. Haase MP
Mr B. Wakelin MP
Mr S. Boyd
Ms J. Cochran
Lieutenant Colonel F. McLachlan
Unclassified
14 March 2005
Defence Strategy Group, Russell Offices, Canberra
Senator the Hon J. Macdonald
Senator D. Johnston
The Hon B. Scott MP
Mr M. Hatton MP
Mr S. Gibbons MP
Mr B. Haase MP
Mr B. Wakelin MP
Mr K. Wilkie MP
Mr S. Boyd
Ms J. Cochran
Lieutenant Colonel F. McLachlan
Unclassified
13 May 2005
HMAS Kuttabul: Headquarters Joint Operations command and Headquarters Special Operations Command, Sydney, NSW
Holsworthy Barracks, NSW
Senator M. Payne
The Hon B. Scott MP
Mr M. Hatton MP
The Hon G. Edwards MP
Mr B. Haase MP
Mrs J. Gash MP
Mr B. Wakelin MP
Lieutenant Colonel F. McLachlan
Mr P. Jeanroy
Unclassified
16-17 June 2005
Army Aviation Centre, Oakey, QLD
The Hon B. Scott MP
Mr M. Hatton MP
Mr C. Thompson MP
Mr S. Gibbons MP
Mr K. Wilkie MP
The Hon G. Edwards MP
Mr B. Haase MP
Lieutenant Colonel F. McLachlan
Mr P. Jeanroy
Unclassified
20 June 2005
Defence Intelligence Organisation, Russell Offices, Canberra
Senator the Hon J. Macdonald
Senator M. Payne
Senator D. Johnston
Senator S. Hutchins
The Hon B. Scott MP
The Hon W. Snowdon MP
Mr S. Gibbons MP
Mrs T. Draper MP
The Hon G. Edwards MP
Mr B. Haase MP
Mr B. Wakelin MP
Mr M. Hatton MP
The Hon R. Baldwin MP
Lieutenant Colonel F. McLachlan
Secret level briefing on Defence Intelligence Organisation roles, responsibilities and current activities
22-26 August 2005
Headquarters Northern Command, Darwin, NT (incl Joint Offshore Protection Command)
Headquarters NORFORCE, Darwin (DAR) & NORFORCE Field activity, Nhulunbuy (NBY), NT
Headquarters 1
st
Brigade, Palmerston, NT
Senator A. Ferguson - DAR
Senator M. Payne - DAR
The Hon G. Edwards MP - DAR
The Hon W. Snowdon MP - DAR & NBY
Mr S. Gibbons MP - DAR & NBY
Mr K. Wilkie MP - DAR & NBY
Mr C. Thompson MP - NBY
Lieutenant Colonel F. McLachlan
Mr P. Jeanroy
Dr M. Kerley - DAR
Unclassified
5 September 2005
Royal Military College Duntroon, Canberra
Senator S. Hutchins
Senator D. Johnston
Senator M. Payne
The Hon B. Scott MP
Mr M. Hatton MP
Mrs T. Draper MP
The Hon G. Edwards MP
Mr S. Gibbons MP
Mr B. Haase MP
The Hon W. Snowdon MP
Mr B. Wakelin MP
Lieutenant Colonel F. McLachlan
Unclassified
16 September 2005
ASC (formerly Australian Submarine Corporation) Adelaide, SA
Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Edinburgh, SA
Senator A. Ferguson
Senator D. Johnston
The Hon G. Edwards MP
Mrs T. Draper MP
Mr B. Wakelin MP
Mr K. Wilkie MP
Lieutenant F. McLachlan
Mr P. Jeanroy
Unclassified
23 February 2006
Operation Acolyte Inspection, Victoria Barracks, Melbourne
The Hon B. Scott MP
Mr M. Hatton MP
The Hon G. Edwards MP
Mr S. Gibbons Mp
Wing Commander A. Borzycki
Unclassified
27 February 2006
Strategic Operations Division, Russell Offices, Canberra
Senator A. Ferguson
Senator D. Johnston
Senator M Payne
The Hon B. Scott MP
Mr M. Hatton MP
The Hon W. Snowdon MP
Mr C. Thompson MP
Wing Commander A. Borzycki
Mr P. Jeanroy
Unclassified
2 May 2006
Royal Australian Air Force Base Williamtown, NSW (Australian Defence Force Peacekeeping Centre incl brief by Air Combat Group)
Senator M. Payne
Senator A. Ferguson
Senator C. Moore
Mr C. Thompson MP
Mr K. Wilkie MP
Wing Commander A. Borzycki
Ms S. Edson
Unclassified
19 June 2006
Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation, Russell Offices, Canberra
Senator A. Ferguson
Senator S. Hutchins
Senator D. Johnston
Senator M. Payne
The Hon B. Scott MP
Mr S. Gibbons MP
Mr C. Thompson MP
Wing Commander A. Borzycki
Secret level briefing on roles, responsibilities and current operational support activities
Aboriginal Reconciliation
214
214
3634
214
Garrett, Peter, MP
HV4
Kingsford Smith
ALP
0
Mr Garrett
asked the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, in writing, on 13 June 2006:
-
Has his department reviewed the Government’s progress in implementing the recommendations of the final report of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation; if so, will the Government adopt any of the report’s recommendations.
-
Has he, or his department, considered endorsing and supporting a National Reconciliation Convention for 2007.
-
What measures, if any, has the Government taken to develop effective performance monitoring regimes in the area of reconciliation.
-
Will he introduce legislative measures to ensure regular reporting of the progress of the reconciliation process.
-
Will he make it a statutory requirement that (a) the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, or (b) any other independent body, report publicly on the state of reconciliation.
-
Has the Government considered establishing a Joint Parliamentary Committee with responsibility for consulting, reporting and examining public reports on reconciliation and the Government’s response to the same.
-
Has he considered instigating changes to the Constitution to advance the process of reconciliation.
-
Has he, or his department, provided the Attorney-General’s Department with advice on the issue of indigenous intellectual property; if so, what was the substance of that advice; if not, will he ask his department to provide such advice to the Attorney-General’s Department.
-
Was there any communication between himself, or his department, and the Attorney-General on the Government’s decision not to implement a resale royalty scheme for artists; if so, what was the content of that communication.
-
Will he confirm that no funding was provided in this year’s Budget to support local and community based reconciliation groups.
-
Is the Government considering the provision of on-going funding for a national clearing house of research, data and publications on Indigenous issues.
215
Brough, Mal, MP
2K6
Longman
LP
Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
1
Mr Brough
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
The Australian Government responded fully to the final report of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) in September 2002. The Government’s response, which indicated which recommendations were adopted, is available at my website (www.atsia.gov.au) under “Responses and Reports”. Although a National Reconciliation Convention was not recommended by CAR, the Government has funded Reconciliation Australia to hold a convention in the form of a leaders’ forum and other national events in 2007.
The current framework for pursuing reconciliation, adopted at the November 2000 meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), identifies three priorities for governments’ action: investment in community leadership initiatives; reviewing and re-engineering government programmes and services to ensure they deliver practical support to Indigenous Australians; and the forging of closer links between the business sector and Indigenous communities to help promote economic independence.
Performance monitoring of these priorities is now undertaken via the two-yearly
Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage
(OID) report, a comprehensive suite of statistical indicators on key areas including life expectancy, education outcomes, labour force participation and hospitalisation. Also, since
2004, States, Territories and the Commonwealth have reported to COAG annually on progress against the Framework for Reconciliation that COAG adopted in 2000. Further, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner is able to report on reconciliation and has done so publicly within its legislative powers since 1999. Currently, Reconciliation Australia which the Government has funded since its inception in 2001, is examining the option of creating a “reconciliation barometer” that would provide a regular assessment of the attitudes of the Australian community to the reconciliation process. The Government considers these reporting mechanisms to be adequate and no additional layer of reporting (including from a Joint Parliamentary Committee) is required. Also, the Government does not consider it necessary to change the Constitution to progress its reconciliation agenda.
Responsibility for Indigenous intellectual property issues lies with the Attorney-General’s Department and the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. There has been no communication between me or my Department and the Attorney-General or his Department about the Government’s consideration of a resale royalty rights scheme.
Australian Government funding, specifically for other aspects of reconciliation, has been allocated to the development of Reconciliation Place in Canberra and for grants to Reconciliation Australia which is charged with promoting reconciliation at local and community levels.
A number of clearing houses for research, data and publications on Indigenous issues already exist and are supported by Government funding. They include the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University.
Convention on Biological Diversity
216
216
3636
216
Price, Roger, MP
QI4
Chifley
ALP
0
Mr Price
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in
writing
, on 13 June 2006:
-
Is Australia a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
-
Under the CBD, was a de facto ban placed on Terminator (seed sterilisation) Technology in 2000.
-
Have there been recent meetings to discuss the de facto ban referred to in part (2); if so, (a) when, and (b) did Australia participate; and if so, (i) which Australian departments and agencies participated, and (ii) what instructions, if any, were given to Australian representatives.
-
Has Australia responded to the de facto ban on Terminator Technology; if not why not; if so, in what way.
-
Has Australia placed a permanent ban on the research, development and use of Terminator seeds; if not, why not.
216
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Yes, Australia is a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Minister for the Environment’s portfolio has lead responsibility for implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
-
to (5) The matter of Genetic Use Restriction Technologies falls more directly within the portfolio responsibilities of the Department of Environment and Heritage, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Department of Health and Ageing. These questions should be directed to relevant parliamentary colleagues.
Defence: Legal Costs
216
216
3640
216
Tanner, Lindsay, MP
YU5
Melbourne
ALP
0
Mr Tanner
asked the Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, in writing, on 14 June 2006:
What sum has been expended by the Department of Defence on legal costs, including litigation and advice costs, in relation to the former Australian Defence Force member, Mary-Anne Martinek.
216
Billson, Bruce, MP
1K6
Dunkley
LP
Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence
1
Mr Billson
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
As at 30 June 2006, Defence has spent a total of $378,868 (inclusive of GST).
Ms Martinek has been unsuccessful in all these legal proceedings and was ordered in each case to pay the Army’s costs in respect of these proceedings. As at 30 June 2006, two Federal Court cost orders for a total sum of $80,330 have been enforced against Ms Martinek, who has paid those costs in full.
Human Rights: Myanmar
217
217
3653
217
Rudd, Kevin, MP
83T
Griffith
ALP
0
Mr Rudd
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in writing, on 15 June 2006:
-
When was his most recent meeting with (a) a member of the Government of Burma, and (b) the Burmese Ambassador to Australia.
-
For the years 2004, 2005 and 2006, what representations has the Australian Government made to the Burmese Government in respect of human rights.
-
Does his Department receive reports on human rights issues from the Australian Embassy in Burma.
-
Has he raised concerns about Burma in discussions with any of his regional counterparts; if so, when.
217
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
10 December 2005. (b) 11 August 2005.
-
The Government regularly makes representations to the Burmese regime, including at the highest level, on human rights.
-
Yes.
-
Yes. It would not be appropriate to provide details of confidential discussions with other governments.
AusAid: Iraq Engagement Costs
217
217
3655
217
Rudd, Kevin, MP
83T
Griffith
ALP
0
Mr Rudd
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in writing, on 15 June 2006:
What are the departmental or administered costs to AusAid of the Iraq engagement, in terms of (a) capital and recurrent expenditure and (b) funding, identifying any rollovers, for each of the forward years to 2009-10.
217
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Estimated administered expenditure for 2006-07 is $22.5m and does not include any capital expenditure. The Iraq, Middle East and Afghanistan team within AusAID comprises six officers who manage the aid programme to this area and are funded from the agency’s departmental appropriation.
-
There is no funding nor rollovers identified for the forward years beyond 2006‑07.
AusAid: Afghanistan Engagement Costs
217
217
3657
217
Rudd, Kevin, MP
83T
Griffith
ALP
0
Mr Rudd
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in writing, on 15 June 2006:
What are the departmental or administered costs to AusAid of the Afghanistan engagement, in terms of (a) capital and recurrent expenditure and (b) funding, identifying any rollovers, for each of the forward years to 2009‑10.
217
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
Estimated administered expenditure for 2006-07 is $25.8m and does not include any capital expenditure. The Iraq, Middle East and Afghanistan team within AusAID comprises six officers who manage the aid programme to this area and are funded from the agency’s departmental appropriation.
-
There are currently no estimates for administered expenditure past 2006‑07 as funding beyond mid‑2007 will depend on Afghanistan’s performance against benchmarks contained in the Compact. There is no funding nor rollovers identified for the forward years beyond 2006‑07.
Minister for Foreign Affairs: Discussions
218
218
3660
218
Rudd, Kevin, MP
83T
Griffith
ALP
0
Mr Rudd
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in writing, on 15 June 2006:
-
When did he most recently speak to his Japanese counterpart about Iraq.
-
On the occasion referred to in part (1), did he discuss (a) the deployment of Australian troops to Iraq’s Al Muthana province and (b) plans for the withdrawal of Australian and/or Japanese troops.
218
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
My discussions on these matters with my foreign counterparts, which occur very frequently, are treated as confidential and not a matter for the public record.
Minister for Foreign Affairs: Discussions
218
218
3661
218
Rudd, Kevin, MP
83T
Griffith
ALP
0
Mr Rudd
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in writing, on 15 June 2006:
-
When did he most recently speak to his US counterpart about Iraq.
-
On the occasion referred to in part (1), did he discuss (a) the deployment of Australian troops to Iraq and (b) plans for the withdrawal of Australian and/or US troops.
218
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
My discussions on these matters with my foreign counterparts, which occur very frequently, are treated as confidential and not a matter for the public record.
Minister for Foreign Affairs: Discussions
218
218
3662
218
Rudd, Kevin, MP
83T
Griffith
ALP
0
Mr Rudd
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in writing, on 15 June 2006:
-
When did the Minister most recently speak to his British counterpart about Iraq.
-
On the occasion referred to in part (1), did he discuss (a) the deployment of Australian troops to Iraq and (b) plans for the withdrawal of Australian and/or British troops.
218
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
My discussions on these matters with my foreign counterparts, which occur very frequently, are treated as confidential and not a matter for the public record.
Enhanced Cooperation Program with Papua New Guinea
218
218
3664
218
Rudd, Kevin, MP
83T
Griffith
ALP
0
Mr Rudd
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in writing, on 15 June 2006:
What is the current status of the Enhanced Cooperation Program with Papua New Guinea.
218
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
As at 30 June 2006, forty-four Australian civilian officials were working in Papua New Guinea (PNG) Government agencies under the Enhanced Cooperation Program (ECP) as advisers in the areas of economic and financial management, public sector reform, law and justice, border management and transport security.
The Government has been discussing with PNG authorities options for a revised policing component of the ECP that would be consistent with a ruling of the PNG Supreme Court on the PNG legislation to implement the ECP Treaty. The Government has offered to provide a number of Australian police as advisers to assist in key roles related to police reform, organised crime, terrorism and corruption. Discussions are also continuing on further assistance in the law and justice sector, including a proposal to fill the position of PNG Solicitor-General with an ECP deployee.
At the 2005 Australia-PNG Ministerial Forum, Ministers from both sides agreed that ECP deployees were making a valuable contribution to a range of priority areas in PNG and were helping to build the capacities of PNG government systems, strengthen governance and reduce corruption.
Media Monitoring
219
219
3670
219
Rudd, Kevin, MP
83T
Griffith
ALP
0
Mr Rudd
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in writing, on 15 June 2006:
In respect of his office’s expenditure on media monitoring, what proportion is spent on transcripts, audio and visual recordings, and media alerts of Opposition members.
219
Downer, Alexander, MP
4G4
Mayo
LP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
1
Mr Downer
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
Media monitoring in relation to Opposition members is not listed separately in the department’s electronic payment records.
Leadership coaching
219
219
3695
219
Bowen, Chris, MP
DZS
Prospect
ALP
0
Mr Bowen
asked the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, in writing, on 19 June 2006:
-
How many senior officials in the Minister’s Department have a personal leadership coach or trainer.
-
In each of the cases identified in part (1), what is the cost per hour of the leadership coach.
-
What sum has been expended on leadership coaching in the Minister’s Department during the 2005-06 financial year.
219
Truss, Warren, MP
GT4
Wide Bay
NATS
Minister for Transport and Regional Services
1
Mr Truss
—The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:
-
No senior officials within the Department of Transport and Regional Services currently receive services from personal leadership coaches or trainers.
-
Nil
-
Nil