The SPEAKER ( Hon. Bronwyn Bishop ) took the chair at 09:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.
BILLS
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bilateral Agreement Implementation) Bill 2014
First Reading
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Hunt.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr HUNT (Flinders—Minister for the Environment) (09:01): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Today I am announcing a major step forward in the government's commitment to reduce red tape. Duplication in environmental regulation between the Australian government and states and territories adds an unnecessary burden to business, increasing the administrative and compliance costs and delaying projects. We are lifting that burden where it achieves the same environmental outcome, providing faster approvals and a simpler process which will deliver productivity benefits for the country.
Approval bilateral agreements have always been a feature of the EPBC Act since it was first passed in 1999. This government are now implementing the efficiencies envisaged when the EPBC Act was first drafted. We are now delivering on the original intent, construction and structure of the EPBC Act.
The government has been working closely with states and territories to negotiate the approval bilateral agreements that will implement this policy. When the policy is fully implemented, state and territory governments will, for the first time, be able to make a single approval decision that accounts for both state matters and matters of national environmental significance. This will dramatically simplify environmental approvals and remove unnecessary bureaucracy, while maintaining the high standards set out in the EPBC Act.
Today, I announce I am releasing draft approval bilateral agreements with New South Wales and Queensland for statutory public consultation. I would like to thank the Queensland and New South Wales governments, who recognise that ensuring swifter decisions will have a positive impact on investment and jobs, and that maintaining high environmental standards is a priority.
The government agrees that decision making should be the responsibility of the most appropriate level of government. State and territory governments have responsibility for land and water management in Australia. They have processes in place for evaluating the environmental impacts of development proposals consistent with the principles of ecologically sustainable development, and this is also consistent with the constitutional principle of subsidiarity, that decisions should be taken at the closest possible level to those who are affected by those decisions.
Where state and territory processes meet the high standards set out in national environmental law, I can accredit them under the EPBC Act. There is more than one way to deliver efficient processes that protect the environment. It is only sensible that bilateral agreements be tailored to reflect state processes, while still providing for the outcomes sought by this government and expected by the wider community.
The Australian government remains responsible for ensuring that the objects of the EPBC Act are met and environmental standards are fully and completely maintained. We have developed an assurance framework that will give us, and the Australian public, complete confidence. The framework is built on accreditation standards under the EPBC Act. It is given effect by approval bilateral agreements and accreditation of state processes. The reform will also improve our ability to track and report on matters of national environmental significance and the environment by making more information publicly available. The reform is good for the economy and even better for the environment.
Consistent with our commitment to improve the economic climate for business while protecting the environment, we will continue to work with states and territories to bring all processes up to the national standard, and deliver increased strategic approaches that continue to streamline regulation.
Better standards, faster processes, streamlined regulation—this complements our wider environmental regulatory reform policy agenda such as our audit of environmental regulation, and the work of the House Standing Committee on the Environment.
The one-stop shop policy is breaking new ground in improving the way that Australia ensures the protection of our environment and a more productive economy.
Amendments
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bilateral Agreement Implementation) Bill 2014 (the bill) amends the EPBC Act to facilitate the efficient and enduring implementation of the Australian government's one-stop shop reform for environmental approvals.
This bill makes amendments to clarify the existing provisions of the EPBC Act to help ensure the durable operation of the one-stop shop and provide certainty for business. None of the amendments change or reduce the standards that state and territory processes must meet in order to be accredited under bilateral agreements, and indeed in appropriate cases, states are actually lifting their standards either through procedural steps or legislative steps to be in accord with the highest of Commonwealth standards.
Water Trigger amendment
This bill includes an amendment that will allow me to include the 'water trigger' in the things state and territory approval decisions can cover under bilateral agreements. We are keeping the water trigger but we are simplifying its assessment.
Currently, the EPBC Act does not allow for the accreditation of a state or territory process for the purpose of approvals relating to large coalmining and coal seam gas developments that are likely to have a significant impact on a water resource. This means that at the moment coal seam gas and large coalmining developments must go through two separate approval processes and often need to comply with two sets of conditions. My experience to date has been that this has been an overwhelming case of duplication without adding to the environmental benefits or outcomes. This bill will remove this restriction on single processing. Importantly, it will not remove the water trigger itself. The same environmental standards remain. It will create a consistent approach to all matters of national environmental significance: where state approval processes meet the high environmental standards, they can be accredited.
Including the water trigger in approval bilateral agreements is important for establishing a one-stop shop for environmental approvals. With these amendments, based on past projects, it is anticipated that almost all large coalmine and coal seam gas projects would benefit from streamlined approvals under the one-stop shop whilst maintaining the highest Commonwealth standards.
Providing a single approval process for the water trigger will reduce the dead-weight regulatory burden on business while ensuring that high environmental standards are fully, completely and absolutely maintained. Robust environmental assessments of these actions will continue to be required. It is fundamental. But they will be delivered through a single assessment and approval process by the states. This will provide more certainty for investors with a simpler, streamlined regulatory system which is good for Australia's international investment reputation.
Under the current regulatory framework, there have been delays between the granting of state and territory and Australian government approvals. Delays are typically between 30 and 40 days, but can be longer. I have to inform the House that when I came into office I found 50 water-trigger decisions in the bottom drawer, which had simply been put aside after the law was changed by the previous government and not progressed, not processed, not assessed and not concluded. We dealt with those within the first week of coming to office. I applied the water trigger to 47 out of those 50 processes—in many cases, over the disagreement of the proponents. But I had no hesitation in upholding and applying the Commonwealth standards. What I did reject was the practice of changing the law, requiring a process and then simply filing it in the bottom drawer. These delays, which we have seen, can result in a significant gap between the state and the Australian government approval decisions with real, genuine and profound economic consequences. They affect the long-term viability of a process, a program or a project by reducing the net present value.
If this project were covered under the one-stop shop, this type of delay would be avoided. Streamlined regulation is good for the economy, with lower costs and fewer delays for industry.
To ensure that the states and territories have the best available scientific information when making approval decisions for these projects, I am also proposing what I consider to be an extremely important amendment to allow all states and territories to request advice from the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development. This will ensure that comprehensive environmental assessments can continue to include robust and independent science. The Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development has been a genuine improvement and addition to the assessment process. It is something we believe in. It is something which we have supported and which we will continue.
The community can then have confidence that the impacts on water resources from large coalmining and coal seam gas developments will continue to be subject to rigorous assessment and approval processes.
I also want to deal with technical amendments to facilitate the implementation of bilateral agreements.
This bill also makes a number of technical amendments to provide certainty about the operation of bilateral agreements under the EPBC Act. These amendments will ensure that bilateral approval agreements are robust and durable and that they provide long-term certainty for business and the community.
The bill will provide certainty for proponents about the practical operation of the bilateral agreements. It will remove the need for proponents to make unnecessary referrals to the Commonwealth.
The act currently provides for agreements to be suspended or cancelled in extreme circumstances. In the unlikely event that this occurred, the amendments will ensure that the Commonwealth can follow the most efficient process to progress projects already being assessed, without duplicating state or territory processes. In short, there is an assurance mechanism where if the Commonwealth minister of the day is not satisfied that due and proper process and consideration has been followed that there is an effective right to step in to deal with impropriety or failure to adhere to appropriate standards.
These amendments also recognise that states and territories have set up their processes in ways that best reflect the circumstances in their state or territory. These technical amendments will ensure the focus of accreditation is on the process meeting the highest environmental standards, rather than on technicalities. The amendments also clarify that, in addition to the terms of the bilateral agreement, I can take into account all matters, such as state or territory policies and plans, that I consider relevant when deciding whether to accredit a state or territory process.
In addition, a new provision to provide ongoing certainty to the community about the operation of the agreement will allow bilateral agreements to remain in force when state and territory governments make small changes to legislation and processes, where the substance of the arrangement or process continues to meet the highest Commonwealth environmental standards. The amendments will also allow bilateral agreements to refer to and incorporate documents, such as policies and guidelines, which change over time. This is particularly important to ensure that environmental decisions reflect the latest science and best practice.
Conclusion
This bill demonstrates the government's commitment to implementing genuine reform to deliver more effective and efficient regulatory processes while maintaining the highest Commonwealth environmental standards. It gives effect to the joint commitment of the Commonwealth and each of the states and territories for greater cooperation in environmental approval that will deliver productivity improvements and other substantial benefits for all Australians. The reform is good for the economy and good for the environment. It is precisely the sort of step and agreement which was contemplated when the EPBC Act was formed in 1999, and what it does is redress a regulatory creep, a legislative creep, which was never intended, which was never part of the initial conception of the act and which has seen duplication and the loss of time replace the original intent of efficiency.
In providing for a streamlined and outcomes focused approach to environmental approval, these refinements to the EPBC Act will reduce regulatory burden and remove the red tape that currently restricts our ability to realise the long-term ecologically sustainable economic, business and infrastructure development opportunities from which we will all benefit, but it does so against a guarantee that the highest national environmental standards will be maintained and enforced and implemented.
I commend this bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Cost Recovery) Bill 2014
First Reading
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Hunt.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr HUNT (Flinders—Minister for the Environment) (09:18): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Cost Recovery) Bill 2014 (the bill) amends the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Commonwealth) (otherwise known as the EPBC Act) to allow for cost recovery for environmental assessment activities under the EPBC Act. The EPBC Act already includes cost recovery for some permitting activities.
The purpose of the bill is to allow for cost recovery for environmental impact assessments, including strategic assessments, under the EPBC Act, consistent with the Australian Government Cost Recovery Guidelines. The underpinning principles and the steps taken in advancing this bill were part of the last budget of the previous government. The commitments made were accepted prior to the election by the then opposition and now government.
Environmental assessment activities are appropriate for cost recovery because the activities deliver a clear benefit for a particular beneficiary by enabling them to undertake an activity approved under the EPBC Act. Cost recovery will also improve the department's ability to meet statutory time frames by providing a sustainable source of resources to improve the efficiency of the assessment process. It will also provide incentives to industry to undertake early engagement and incorporate the most environmentally acceptable outcomes into their business planning, as this may reduce the level of assessment required and therefore any costs payable. The relevant fees will be specified in the regulations, except the fees in relation to assessment by an inquiry or strategic assessment. The bill will also allow the regulations to specify administrative requirements for applications, processes for payment, and for refunds, exemptions and waivers.
I would note that, in response to a specific inquiry from the member for Wannon, the waiver capacity will be available in relation to public institutions, such as local governments carrying out activities such as prescribed burns in areas where they may have to make an environmental assessment. It is an important recognition that public entities will carry out activities which may be covered by the EPBC Act, which should be treated as for the public benefit and for which exemptions will be available on a case-by-case basis. I thank the member for Wannon for raising this point, and I can confirm that his concern will be met and will be accommodated within the act.
The regulations can also specify a method for calculating fees—for example where a fee will be calculated with reference to the complexity of an action. The bill provides a process for proponents to apply for a reconsideration of the way in which a method may be used to calculate fees. My department will shortly release a cost recovery impact statement, approved by me and the Minister for Finance, which details the fees payable and the methods for calculating variable fees. We will, of course, consult with industry and the community in the process of so doing.
Fees in relation to inquiries or strategic assessments will be made through a ministerial determination, due to the wide variations in the complexity and scale of such assessments. Some strategic assessments which deliver a public benefit will continue to be budget funded. Cost-recovered strategic assessments would be considered appropriate where the outcome of the strategic assessment delivers a clear private benefit to an identifiable beneficiary (or identifiable group of beneficiaries), and charging would be efficient and effective. Costs could be determined on a case by case basis. Where the one-stop shop process is in place, it will be a matter for states to make their own determinations within this space. They will have the capacity to do so.
The bill also allows for cost recovery for the assessment and approval of action management plans submitted after the minister has granted an approval under the EPBC Act, and for the variation of those plans. Action management plans are plans for managing the impacts of the action on a matter protected by a provision of part 3, such as a plan for conserving habitat of a species.
The preparation of and approval of action management plans is a common requirement of conditions of approval. The bill allows for cost recovery for these activities by allowing a person to elect to submit a management plan for approval after the decision is made approving the action. The regulations can then specify that a fee can be charged for the assessment and approval of the plan when it is submitted.
Action management plans allow the minister to have flexibility to specify required environmental outcomes or management strategies as more data becomes available or new technologies are developed for environmental management. If proponents choose to submit action management plans prior to approval, there will be no additional fee for assessment of the plan, providing a cost incentive for proponents which can provide the plan up front to do so. Once an approval has been issued, the approval holder would be charged for assessments of variations to the plan.
The Australian government is also committed to delivering a 'one stop shop' for environmental approvals that will accredit state planning systems under the EPBC Act through approval bilateral agreements, to create a single environmental assessment and approval process where such state processes meet the highest of Commonwealth standards.
The cost recovery arrangements will only apply to Commonwealth assessment activities and, as I said, they will not apply to state assessment activities. But states will have the option of cost recovering for their assessment activities. It will be a matter for each of the states to determine.
The introduction of cost recovery by this bill will provide an incentive to businesses proposing to take activities which require approvals under the EPBC Act to engage early and actively with my department to reduce costs. Cost recovery will also drive efficiencies in the environmental assessment process. The introduction of cost recovery complements the government's commitment to streamlining environmental approvals under the one-stop shop process by ensuring Commonwealth assessment activities are as efficient and effective as possible.
I would note again that we are implementing a matter announced in the Labor government's last budget. It was their measure, which we have accepted. We did so prior to the election, during the then opposition leader's budget in reply speech, and so I would hope that the ALP will show the good grace to accept the very measure which they proposed, which they announced and for which they budgeted.
I also wish to thank all of those departmental officers involved not just in the preparation of this legislation but in the arduous task of negotiating the agreements with the states and territories—although the states and territories have been remarkably cooperative, because they see the benefit of high environmental standards and efficient streamlining of what would otherwise have been duplicated process. In particular, I wish to thank my departmental deputy secretary, Kimberley Dripps, and the relevant officer, Rachel Bacon, who has led the process of negotiating with the states. I also want to thank Rachael de Hosson from my office and all other officers who have committed to this process. It has been quite a dramatic transformation, in a faster time than we had expected, and I commend this bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
COMMITTEES
Human Rights Committee
Report
Mr LAURIE FERGUSON (Werriwa) (09:27): On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights I present the committee's sixth report of the 44th Parliament, entitled Examination of legislation in accordance with the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011: billsintroduced 24-27 March 2014; legislative instruments received 8 March-25 April 2014, and I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.
Leave granted.
Mr LAURIE FERGUSON: I rise to speak to the tabling of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights' sixth report to the 44th Parliament.
It covers 18 bills introduced in the period 24 to 27 March, three of which have been deferred for further consideration, and 175 legislative instruments received during the period 8 March to 25 April. The report also includes the committee's consideration of 10 responses to matters raised in previous committee reports.
Of those considered in this report, I note that the following bills are scheduled for debate this week:
the G20 (Safety and Security) Complementary Bill 2014;
the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Bill 2014; and
the Tax Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No. 1) Bill 2014.
The report outlines the committee's assessment of the compatibility of these bills with human rights, and I encourage my fellow members to look to the committee's report to inform your deliberations on the merits of this proposed legislation.
I would like to draw members' attention to one bill which raises an issue of particular interest and relevance to the committee's task of assessing legislation for compatibility with human rights.
The G20 (Safety and Security) Complementary Bill 2014 is intended to clarify the interaction between provisions of the G20 (Safety and Security) Act 2013 (Queensland) and existing Commonwealth legislation at the Brisbane Airport during the G20 summit, which is to be held in November this year. In simple terms, the bill will allow the provisions of the Queensland act to apply in certain areas of Brisbane Airport in the lead-up to and during the G20 summit. Commonwealth laws that would otherwise apply at Brisbane Airport, which is a Commonwealth place, will effectively be 'rolled back'.
As noted in the report, the application of the provisions of the Queensland law to areas of Brisbane Airport amounts to the enactment of Commonwealth law in those places. Given this, to the extent that those laws may engage and limit human rights, the report notes that any such laws should be subject to a human rights assessment in accordance with the committee's usual expectations for new legislation. As the statement of compatibility for the G20 bill did not provide an assessment of the provisions of the Queensland act that will be applied in the Commonwealth areas of Brisbane Airport, the committee has requested further information from the minister on this matter.
More generally, the committee notes that the G20 bill is a specific instance of the application of state laws to Commonwealth places as provided for by the Commonwealth Places (Application of Laws) Act 1970. This raises the wider question of how state laws applied to Commonwealth places can be systematically assessed for compatibility with human rights. The committee will, therefore, undertake a human rights assessment of the Commonwealth Places Act, and has requested that the Minister for Justice prepare a statement of compatibility to facilitate the committee's consideration of the act.
I encourage members to consult the full discussion of the G20 bill in the report, which provides a more detailed account of the issues raised and the interesting background to the practice of applying state laws to Commonwealth places.
Finally, in relation to responses to matters previously raised by the committee, the report contains consideration of 10 such responses, and the committee's concluding remarks on these matters.
With these comments, I commend the committee's sixth report of the 44th Parliament to the House.
BILLS
Tax Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No. 1) Bill 2014
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (09:32): I move:
That all the words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"While not declining the bill a second reading, the House notes that the Government's economic policies are having an adverse effect on jobs and growth and condemns the Government for failure to deliver assistance to drought affected farmers in a timely manner."
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): Is the amendment seconded?
Mr Feeney: I second the amendment.
Dr LEIGH: Labor will not be opposing the measures in this bill, which go to farm management deposit accounts and the repayment of overpaid GST. But it is vital that we see this bill in the context of the broader picture of taxation reform, or lack thereof, and last night's budget. I want to do this by commencing with a few stories.
Patrick Cerato is a young man who lives in a supported residential home after suffering the effects of a brain tumour discovered at the age of 21. His parents have said:
There is no guarantee there's going to be a disability pension when our guys grow up. It was a constant worry about how we were going to finance their future.
Paul Midson is a 48-year-old builder's labourer. He has worked for 20 years as a builder's labourer, at least 60 hours a week and often longer. He has developed crook knees and shoulders from the manual labour and he has had numerous operations on his knees. Paul says:
I reckon I will be lucky to last [in work] to 60.
Imagine how Paul feels being told that he might not get the pension until age 70.
Alan Blevin, a 47-year-old crane operator, says:
My left knee is already giving in because I'm bending down, loading gear from trucks and guiding cranes all day. But I can't afford to just stop. I have to keep paying the rent and bills.
Asked about working till age 70, he says:
It's unthinkable … There is no chance I will be able to work till I am 70.
Dr Soo Koan, who has a three-year-old daughter and a 19-month-old daughter, says, 'I think that everyone should be entitled to health care, and not have to worry about choosing between a doctor's visit and dinner for the kids.' Asked about a GP co-payment, Dr Koan says, 'I would stop and think about it'—that is, going to a doctor—'a lot more.'
I should mention that when I was at university, GP co-payments were something I thought were worth considering. But I have changed my view on this since university—in fact, I would be surprised if there is a member of the House who has not changed their mind on a matter since university—and I have done so by looking at the evidence: by speaking to GPs, to people with chronic disease and to bodies like the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, who have today come out opposing GP co-payments because of the concern that we will end up with more people in emergency rooms, and add to total health spending rather than reduce it.
I mentioned yesterday the broad context in which this budget is being delivered: that of a rise in inequality unprecedented in Australia for over 75 years. We have seen an increase in the top one per cent share, which has doubled; and the top 0.1 per cent share, which has tripled. CEOs' salaries have gone up twice as fast as average wages, and three times as fast as the minimum wage—and yet the CEO-dominated Commission of Audit thinks the wages problem in Australia is with the minimum wage. That, after a generation when the wages of the top 10 per cent have grown three times as fast as the wages of the bottom 10 per cent; a situation where the combined wealth of the richest three people in Australia is now more than that of the bottom one million people. Deputy Speaker, this is a budget which hits the unemployed—which takes away supports from unemployed people, including those with disabilities. It takes away support from students—
Mr Buchholz: I rise on a point of order on relevance. I was under the understanding that the tax laws amendment bill was to speak of farm management deposits, and an amendment to the GST. If I could just bring the speaker back to relevance to the bill that is currently before the House. There are provisions in the House, under appropriations, for him to elaborate.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): I thank the member for Wright. The member for Fraser has the call.
Dr LEIGH: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I would hate to say that the member for Wright was wrong! But it does appear that on the issue of second reading amendments, he and I have some talking to do.
The budget will hit people in developing countries—some of the world's poorest people, and it will benefit mining billionaires—some of the world's richest people. When this government came to office, it doubled the deficit. The four-year deficit between PEFO and MYEFO literally doubled—it increased by $68 billion. And so you would expect that, having doubled the deficit, the Treasurer might at least have come in here last night and halved it—taken it back to where it was when he took over, as judged by the Charter of Budget Honesty. But he did not do that. Last night's budget failed to halve the four-year deficit, and left it higher than it was when the coalition took over. If last night's budget had been honest, it would have shown the return-to-surplus trajectory under PEFO and compared that under this budget. That would have shown that—according to the secretaries of Treasury and Finance—we were going to be back in surplus in 2016-17 when the government took over, but now that is projected for 2017-18.
This is a budget where Australians are not asking, 'Which promise has been broken?' but, 'Which promise has been kept?' What is it that this Prime Minister thinks that he needs to keep faith with the Australian people on? 'No changes to pensions'—that pledge from 6 September last year does not seem to have been kept. The pledge by the Prime Minister that 'we are about reducing taxes, not increasing taxes,' from a doorstop on 20 November 2012—well, that has not been kept. What about, 'no cuts to health,' from an interview with the Prime Minister on 6 September last year? No, that promise has not been kept. 'No cuts to education,' from an interview with the Prime Minister on 6 September last year—no, that promise clearly has not been kept. And we can see the results from the budget papers last night, which show a distinct flattening of the education spending line outside the four-year period: the end of the Gonski reforms and the end of the National Plan for School Improvement that was put in place. The pledge, 'No cuts to the ABC or SBS'—well, that has been broken. That was a pledge again made by the Prime Minister on 6 September 2013. Again the pledge made by the Prime Minister on 4 May 2011, 'A dumb way to cut spending would be to threaten family benefits or to means test them further,' has been broken. The pledge by the Minister for Education on 26 August 2012, 'The coalition has no plans to increase university fees,' has been broken. That promise has been broken.
We see a litany of cuts across the board: the destruction of cultural programs—the Creative Australia programs; cuts to legal aid, which will see many vulnerable Australians unable to access legal assistance; and cuts to foreign aid, which will see some of the most vulnerable people in the world unable to access sanitation programs and vaccinations. Australian foreign aid saves lives and it will save fewer lives as a result of the decision made in this budget.
The fact is that when this government took over it inherited an economy where unemployment was among the lowest in the developed world. That was thanks to the stimulus that Labor put in place during the global financial crisis that saved 200,000 jobs and tens of thousands of small businesses. No-one at that stage thought we should have adhered to a two per cent spending cap. No country in the world did that. Of course, we did not either, but following the global financial crisis we put on a two per cent spending cap and, better than stick to it, we kept spending growth to 1.35 per cent. So when the coalition talk about reckless spending they are talking about the fiscal stimulus that they in part voted for and, let us face it, when we had the debate over the global financial crisis response those opposite were in many cases saying that what we needed was permanent tax cuts rather than temporary stimulus. Just imagine what state the books would be in if we had listened to that advice.
I spoke earlier about the decisions made by this government in the MYEFO statement, which included scrapping the $700 million measure on multinational profit shifting, a measure that would have seen a crackdown on companies using offshore banking units and debt shifting as a way of avoiding taxation. Australians are pleased to have the investment and the opportunities that come from multinationals in Australia. All we ask is that those multinationals pay a fair share of tax, but the government scrapped that $700 million measure and is instead pursuing cuts to some of the most vulnerable Australians. Yet last night there were still further decisions that will benefit those multinationals: not proceeding with changes to multiple entry consolidated groups, costing $140 million; deferral of offshore banking unit changes, costing the budget $180 million; deferral of the start date of legislative elements of the measure to improve tax compliance through third-party reporting and data matching, costing the budget $113 million—
Mr Robb: Mr Deputy Speaker, I have a point of order again on relevance. The speaker is not even addressing his own second reading amendment, which is about jobs and growth. It is a litany of gripes about a budget that is trying to fix the mess left by those on the other side. Mr Deputy Speaker, I think you should pull the speaker into line and bring him back to the subject matter.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): I thank the honourable minister. The honourable member for Fraser will be relevant.
Dr LEIGH: The total effect of these decisions on last night's budget, an effect that will resonate through the economy and impact on jobs and growth, is to lose $430 million over the forward estimates. That is a cost that has to be paid by some of the most vulnerable. The impact on jobs and growth is going to be manifest because when you ask multinational firms to pay their fair share of tax that does not have an adverse effect on Australia's economic growth, but when you cut back on supports for pensioners and when you cut the pension that does because those who are at the bottom of the income distribution spend everything they have got and that goes back into boosting demand and boosting jobs. If you cut back on supports, then you are going to be hurting the most vulnerable Australians.
The Prime Minister said before the election: 'We will be a no surprises, no excuses government.' He said:
We are about reducing taxes, not increasing taxes. We are about getting rid of taxes, not imposing new taxes.
Yet the budget last night did precisely the opposite: it is cutting back on supports for vulnerable Australians today and cutting back on investment for tomorrow. We on this side of the House are all for infrastructure investments. We are proud that we took Australia from 20th in the OECD to first in the OECD for infrastructure investment.
But good infrastructure investment requires cost-benefit analyses and requires investment in urban rail, if it passed a cost-benefit analysis, not simply investing in the favourite boondoggle project of the National Party. We are going back to the days of the Roads to Recovery rorts and the like with the government clearly picking favourite projects, rather than allowing expert cost-benefit analyses to guide it.
We are seeing a lack of investment in another critical form of infrastructure, the National Broadband Network. Fibre-to-the home is fundamental to productivity of businesses and individuals, and to jobs and growth in the future. If we cut back on that form of infrastructure, future Australians will be the poorer for it.
Future Australians will be the poorer too for the budget's inability to tackle climate change. The Treasurer talked a lot last night about the importance of intergenerational equity and thinking about the future. Yet the budget is going to be a risk to the future growth prospects of Australians, because it utterly fails to deal with the single challenge of climate change—trashing an effective, efficient, cheap means of dealing with carbon pollution, an emissions trading scheme, in favour instead of command and control direct action, which no serious economist believes can do the job.
The cost to jobs and growth of not dealing with climate change down the track will be significantly higher as a result of this government's decision to not address climate change. As the developed country with the highest carbon emissions per head, we cannot simply put our heads in the sand on this one.
This really is a budget for the cigar-chomping plutocrats, rather than for the battlers. If you are a mining billionaire, you have done well out of the budget. If you are a millionaire family expecting a child, congratulations to you: your new age of entitlement is just beginning.
If you are a person like 42-year-old Genise, who has tunnel vision and learning problems, including dyslexia, and receives a part-disability support pension and rent assistance, this is a budget that is not doing much for you. Genise works sorting mail and used to work in a childcare job. She is a great Australian. She won three gold medals for swimming in the 2007 Special Olympics, but cuts to pensions will affect Genise directly.
Meanwhile somebody with a name close to Genise, Gina, will do very well out of this budget, thanks to the cut to the mining tax which is projected, according to the Treasurer, to raise $1.8 billion in just 2016-17 alone—a larger amount than the special levy on high-income earners is expected to raise in that year.
I am deeply concerned that, after a generation of rising inequality where the billionaires have done much better than the battlers, this budget will only serve to widen the gap. Australians need serious tax reform, not the piecemeal reforms being put forward by this government. They expect fair tax reform in which everyone will play their part, rather than slugging the poorest and the most vulnerable in order to not even manage to get the budget into the situation it was in when this government took over.
Mr PORTER (Pearce) (09:49): I rise to speak on the Tax Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No. 1) Bill 2014 and the member for Fraser has put an amendment to the motion before the House. The bill does two things: in schedule 1, there are three components that improve the operation of the Farm Management Deposits Scheme; and in schedule 2, there are provisions which will allow taxpayers to self-assess entitlements for refunds for overpaid GST either by virtue of mischaracterisation of the nature of the transaction or indeed a miscalculation of the transaction itself.
In this contribution, I want to focus on the first part of the bill before the House and those components that improve the Farm Management Deposits Scheme. We have had from the member for Fraser an attempt to draw into the debate on this bill a whole range of other budgetary matters; I might allow myself the indulgence of addressing some of those very briefly after I have made a comment about the Farm Management Deposits Scheme component of the present bill. Because the Farm Management Deposits Scheme is a very important scheme to my electorate of Pearce, and notwithstanding the member for Fraser's attempts to draw in other matters to this debate, the purpose of this bill warrants some time and some analysis and some statement about the importance of this bill because of the importance of the Farm Management Deposits Scheme.
I represent the electorate of Pearce, which is a 14,000 square kilometre electorate that has not only outer urban areas but also a very large part of Western Australia's Central Wheatbelt. It has a large farming community in broadacre agriculture as well as other agricultural pursuits, and the Farm Management Deposits Scheme has been a very, very important scheme for the people of my electorate. The improvements to that scheme that are contained within this bill are also going to be, likewise, very, very important to the people of my electorate. It has been said in some of the briefing papers that exist on this bill that the Farm Management Deposits Scheme is important because, and it is described in this way, 'an income from agricultural production is inherently subject to fluctuations due to variability of supply and demand', which is a fairly nice bureaucratic way of saying that farming is dependent on two things: firstly, the price of commodities, as is evidenced from month to month and day to day on the Chicago exchange, and, secondly, the weather. Farming depends on the weather, which in itself is quite undependable. An economist might describe the reason for the Farm Management Deposits Scheme as the fact that income from farming is lumpy. It surges and it hits troughs in various years depending on a range of things, but predominantly prices and weather as that affects your ability to actually produce the goods that you are selling at any given price.
There is probably no better illustration of those phenomena that create the lumpy cycle for income for farmers than exist in my electorate of Pearce. The WA Central Wheatbelt is a very significant part of agriculture in Western Australia, and indeed in Australia; it is some of the most productive arable land that exists in the country. In WA the grain industry is a major contributor to the agrifoods sector and to the entire Australian economy. The grains industry in WA is the largest agricultural sector in WA. Wheat is the dominant crop throughout the south-west. There are about 4,700 grain farms—primarily family owned and operated businesses—that produce on average 12 million tonnes of grain per year. Farm sizes range from 1,000 to 15,000 hectares. The value of WA grain exports in 2012-13 was over $3.1 billion with 70 per cent of that coming from wheat crops. So the value of grain exports from WA is $3.1 billion. It is a very, very large industry.
What is most intriguing about that industry is that, even in times where there have been droughts and adverse weather conditions, the ability of the industry to grow its productivity, even in short-term periods that have been inclusive of periods of drought and adverse weather events, has been very strong. Some of the data that suggests that is the case comes from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Looking at Western Australia, and particularly the areas in my electorate of Pearce, from 2000-01 to 2004-05 there were two severe droughts in those five years. Notwithstanding that, the value of agricultural production in WA increased from $4,387 million to $5,149 million, which was a rise of 17.4 per cent and $762 million. There was considerable fluctuation in agricultural production from year to year over the period, but there was, as I noted, a 17.4 per cent overall increase. And that is in a five-year period where there were two droughts. What it does go to show is that even when there are very significant adverse weather events in a relatively short period of time, those weather events seem not to, in good arable land in Australia, affect the overall productivity of the industry. That is a phenomenon that is repeated throughout Australia and throughout Australian agriculture.
There is a very good Productivity Commission research paper called Trends in Australian agriculture. It notes that agriculture's share of the Australian economy has declined significantly from the turn of the century when it was around the 30 per cent mark. It is far lower than that now. But that is not a measure of the failure of the industry; it is a measure of its success. The dramatic increase in the productivity of the agricultural sector has facilitated the release of resources to other sectors of the economy. Like many modern economies, as the Australian economy has become more sophisticated over 100 years, the proportion of people engaged in agriculture has decreased but there has been a rapid increase in agricultural productivity. So, in that sense, the declining share of agriculture is a reflection of success rather than any systemic weakness. There has been a very strong inverse relationship between per capita income, GDP and employment share as accounted for by agriculture. That having been said, Australia's agricultural sector's share of output remains one of the highest in the OECD.
The decline in agricultural output is always a relative phenomenon. Real output in agriculture has increased around 2½ times over the four decades to 2003-04. Over the four decades to 2003, we have had a 2½-fold increase in agricultural production in Australia. That in itself is remarkable when you consider the very rapid decline in agriculture's share of the economy and the number of people engaged in agriculture. But what is absolutely remarkable about that 2½-fold increase in agricultural production is that it has occurred at a time when there have been dramatic shifts in the Australian climate for arable land, particularly in the south and the south-west.
Using the example again of my seat of Pearce, there has been a phenomenon in the central wheat belt which we dealt with at great length at the state government level where since the 1960s rainfall has decreased by 20 per cent. The south-west of Western Australia is prime arable land. This rainfall decrease since the 1960s is well documented. Yet, as some of these statistics have demonstrated, we have had radical increases in the productivity of that land while it has been subject to a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall. That has to do with many things—agricultural techniques, farming management, technology, hard infrastructure technology and technology applied to fertilisers, and the types of crops we are using.
Throughout this incredibly productive region of the central wheat belt, a region that has been productive since the earliest times of the colony, we have had very radical decreases in rainfall since the 1960s accompanied by radical increases in productivity. Inside that, there have been these short-term periods of five to seven years where there have been some very good years, some not so good years and sometimes some quite poor years. When that is smoothed out there has been quite significant growth in agriculture.
All that means that there is a particularly lumpy system of revenue for farmers. The Farm Management Deposits Scheme must be one of the better examples of successful policy—and it has bipartisan support in the House. To illustrate its success, you can look at the figures for the Farm Management Deposits Scheme's holdings at 30 June each year from 1999 to 2012. For my own state, in 1999 there were $32 million in such schemes and $463 million in 2012. For Australia, in 1999 there were $279 million in these interest-bearing accounts and $3,532 million in 2012.
The reason the schemes are so helpful for farmers is that the economic income derived from farming is of a lumpy nature. In addition, whilst the prices of commodities might change and weather variations will affect the nature of crop productivity year to year, the time that is available for a farmer to expend their labour on other income-gaining activities—non-farm income-gaining activities—remains relatively constant from year to year. If you are a farmer that has the ability to go out and derive an income of $80,000, $60,000 or $30,000 in any given year, the time that you have available to do that does not vary with commodity prices on the Chicago futures exchange or with whether or not it has been a good or bad year for agriculture. That is because often the same sort of effort is required in a drought for a minimal crop as is required in a very good year for a very good crop.
This piece of legislation, which had a large amount of bipartisan support—indeed its first drafting was under the previous government—is incredibly important for farmers. Being able to move money in and out of these accounts and being able to consolidate them without any taxation penalty is a massive benefit to farmers. Increasing the threshold from $65,000 to $100,000 is of incredible benefit to farmers. The take-up figures that I just cited from the National Rural Advisory Council report show that this scheme has become an integral part of the productivity of farming and making farming successful. The ability of farmers to go out and earn an income from other sources and effectively delay the tax payable on that income in bad years when they need to draw on that income means that we have been able to smooth out revenue sources for farmers in a very elegant, clever program that is now being substantially improved by virtue of these provisions—provisions which appear to have bipartisan support and which the farmers in my electorate will be very pleased about.
Matters which did not generate as much bipartisan support were mentioned by the member for Fraser. I just wanted to touch on three of those very briefly before closing out this contribution. Whenever it is the case that you have a budget, the first thing that most people do to try to suggest either the worthwhile nature of the provisions in your budget or their calamitous nature is to look at individual examples. The member for Fraser raised three or four at the beginning of his contribution and I wanted to just look very briefly at three of those—because if these are the best examples that you can provide to discredit a budget, they need some analysis.
The first was the notion of the assessment criteria changes that the government is proposing to the disability support pension. The member for Fraser mentioned a constituent who had a brain tumour and left us with the inference that that person is in jeopardy from the government's changes. That is patently ridiculous. The difficulty that we all understand with the DSP is this: at present, there are well in excess of 800,000 Australians on the disability support pension—that is, one in 15 Australians of relevant working age is on the DSP. The difficulty is not the people who have brain tumours and genuine difficulties. The difficulties are at the margins. Having some reasonable system of greater scrutiny and assessment for those margins is absolutely and fundamentally appropriate. In fact, I think it is beneath someone of the intellectual calibre of the member for Fraser to suggest that people with brain tumours are in jeopardy from this system.
The second example was a gentleman with crook knees who said that he would be lucky to manage to 60. What view did he take about Labor's change in the pension age to 67? He is still seven years short of that. What this goes to show is not that the problem cannot or should not be tackled—it must be—but that we have to change the attitude of employers to people in their 60s and leading up to 70. That is one of the reasons we have the $10,000 payment.
The third example—I believe her name was Sue—said that the co-payment might make her stop and think about her next visit to the doctor. Well, of course! When you have clear evidence that there is a level of overservicing, that is what you must do. The member for Fraser said that in his university years he agreed with a co-payment. There was another measure in this budget that he agreed with, but we will hear about that later. (Time expired)
Mr FITZGIBBON (Hunter) (10:04): It is a pleasure to follow the member for Pearce, who largely made a very thoughtful contribution on agriculture. It is obviously an area in which he has a great degree of knowledge and a strong interest, as you would expect from someone representing a Western Australian seat. It is true that, despite drought challenges, WA did enjoy a bumper wheat harvest. That has done wonderful things for the majority of farmers, at least in his state.
I have often said that if I can do one thing in this portfolio, it will be to nurture and encourage a bipartisan approach to agriculture. Agriculture is a sector that is all-important to the Australian economy and our export opportunities. That is something that the Minister for Trade and Investment will agree with. Really, in ideological terms, there should not be all that much between the major political parties in this place as we strive together, I hope, to make the most of the opportunities presented to us by global food demand and, in particular, the food demand out of Asia.
There will be limits to my bipartisan spirit, because the member the Pearce then wandered more widely onto the budget more generally, as did the member for Fraser, I understand. While I will return to specific agricultural matters in the budget—which in many ways was a business-as-usual budget for agriculture, but I will qualify that later—the broader budget will affect farming communities in the same way as it will affect communities right around this country. I think it was my 19th budget in this place and I must say it was the harshest budget I have seen. It was a double whammy for Australian families and elderly Australians because it hit them both on the income side of the equation and on the cost-of-living side of the equation. In other words, it hit the purchasing power of pensions and family budgets, while at the same time driving up the cost of living through things like the increase in the fuel tax and the affordability of health care.
Those things tend to fall disproportionately on people living in rural and regional communities. For example, fuel taxes are embedded in the transport of goods, including food. In regional and rural Australia, we have greater challenges in attracting GPs, although we have made some improvements in that area in recent years. The co-payment for GPs will hit disproportionately in rural Australia, where people are already challenged in securing bulk-billing services because of the shortage of doctors.
This is a bad budget for rural and regional Australia. In terms of agriculture, as I said, it is largely a business-as-usual case for agriculture, although the four per cent reduction in departmental staff will have impacts in policy development, in service delivery and, most importantly, in areas like quarantine which safeguard our clean, green, safe image as a food exporter to the rest of the world. There will be consequences from those cuts—make no mistake about that. On the other side of the ledger, I note the government has fulfilled its commitment to increase R&D expenditure by $100 million, although I think few in the agriculture sector expected that to be over a four-year period at $25 million a year. It is not smoothly spread over the four years; and it is a very modest increase, particularly when it is aggregated with those cuts made to other areas of agricultural R&D, including cuts to RIDC—one of the more important research and development corporations in the sector. It was a bit of a double whammy.
I should say very quickly that this bill broadly does two things: it tidies up some GST arrangements—I will let the member for Fraser articulate those matters—and it amends the farm management deposit scheme, as the member for Pearce said. The member for Pearce is right in saying that these changes were initiated by the former Labor government—good and welcome charges. For the uninitiated, the farm deposit scheme is probably the most effective drought preparation initiative we have seen in this parliament. It allows farmers to put money away in good times to spend in bad times, particularly those driven by the effects of dry weather conditions. We use the tax system to give them incentives to do so: for example, they do not pay tax on income until that income is drawn; it is put away in good years, when the tax rate tends to be higher, and withdrawn in tougher years, when the tax rate for the farmer tends to be lower. These are tidying up of those arrangements, allowing farmers to consolidate accounts, for example. These are good things, and I am very pleased to see we have a bipartisan approach to the measures before the House today.
This leads us to drought, one of the biggest challenges facing the farming sector. I am disappointed that the government pins so much of its promise to agriculture on its coming agricultural white paper. There is nothing on climate change or, indeed, natural resources sustainability in the terms of reference for the white paper. I do not say that to make a political point; I just say that to express disappointment, because I do not understand how you can ignore the greatest challenge facing agriculture and hope to have a strong and credible policy document at the end of that process. Going back to the budget last night, there are further cuts to Landcare, which is a retrograde step that will not help us meet the challenges of soil fertility, land degradation, salinity, et cetera. Drought is a huge challenge for us and FMDs are an important part of that approach to drought.
What do we do about drought more generally? We saw the Prime Minister and the agricultural minister announce a new drought policy in February in great fanfare and some of it was around income support for farmers in need. Of course, we support that with its more relaxed assets test. There are other initiatives, but the centrepiece was really the extension of Labor's farm financing package to drought affected farmers. The government said it would spend $280 million over a four-year period, yet here we are three months on and not one cent of that assistance has been delivered to struggling farm families, I understand. That is disappointment to the opposition and it is why we felt compelled to move the second reading amendment today. I would prefer not to use the word 'condemn', although that it is the usual form of words used in this place for such an amendment. We are very concerned that three months after the Prime Minister's well-covered drought tour and his significant press conference—where he announced that he had learnt so much from the tour and, as a result, would allocate all that money—we have not seen that money flow to farmers, which says something about the government's capacity to administer this scheme.
Perhaps of greater importance, we are on track to having a bipartisan view of drought policy in this parliament. It is obvious that we all agree on the need for some form of social safety net—or a welfare payment, for want of a more appropriate word—to farmers in real need; a welfare payment that is temporary, is appropriately means tested and has a component of restructuring incentives for people to broaden their skills in drought. We agree on all of that. At the moment we are focused on a bipartisan view of farm financing—a Labor initiative—which I expect everyone would see as a temporary measure to deal with the temporary crisis at hand. What do we do beyond that? Is there more we should do as a parliament for farmers facing drought? Let us make no mistake about it: these dry events will, sadly, become more regular and more protracted. I think we do need to do more because our farmers are subjected to Mother Nature more than any of the sector in the economy. It is not possible for farmers in every instance to sufficiently ready themselves for drought. When you get one-in-50 or one-in-100 events, it is just not possible to do so. These are the people who give us our food security, put our food on the table and earn very significant export income. I think they are a special case and there are more things that we need to do. The challenge is avoiding the mistakes of past policies, which in effect—to put it not too subtly—rewarded farmers who were not doing enough on the drought preparation front at the expense of those who were doing significant work on that front. We have to be careful not to have perverse incentives in the public policy approach. I think it is fair to say that things like interest rate subsidies of yesteryear contributed some of those perverse outcomes. On a bipartisan basis we need to think harder about where we go beyond what we are doing for drought.
We are spending a lot less money now than we were before under the exceptional circumstances arrangements, so I think there is scope for both of the major political parties and, indeed, the crossbenchers in this place to think about reinvesting some of that money at some point in more long-term and well-considered drought responses. I said in something I recently wrote for one of the Fairfax blogs that I am a little surprised that the market has not responded to drought as it has to so many other areas where there are going to be challenges in not just the local economy but the global economy. I have suggested that, in the medium term to long term, farmland prices are only going to head in one direction, and that is north, given the coming supply-and-demand equation for food in the global market. So I think there is some scope for more innovative and broader thinking about drought policy.
I have written about the idea of some form of reverse mortgage where investors would take a stake in struggling farms, with an opportunity to take some of the upside of increasing farm values while providing some much needed cash relief for farmers during difficult times. Are these sort of schemes without risk? No, they are not. No economic investment is. But I do believe there is an opportunity for the private sector to do things in the drought policy space that governments have not been able to do over many years, with initiatives that do not pass some of the tests I spoke about earlier and certainly do not pass the Commonwealth budget test in terms of the great expense some of those have cost the budget bottom line. These would not be investments in individual farms, necessarily. These would be investments in bundled securities and an aggregate of farms in the farm sector. Given the supply-and-demand situation of the global market, I think there are very significant opportunities for the private sector and markets generally.
Why hasn't this happened? I think there has been a lack of attention to and understanding of the farm sector in the boardrooms and the equity houses of those around the world who invest. But I think if we start having this conversation we just might alert people to some of the opportunities in the agricultural sector. We have seen these things play out with Warrnambool Cheese & Butter and the very heavily contested play for a stake in that company. We are now seeing it slowly but surely happen in other parts of the agricultural sector. I am hopeful that in the not-too-distant future the equities market and others will start taking an interest and will look at our agricultural sector and farmers in trouble and say to themselves, 'We can have a win-win here. We can take an interest in these farms. We can provide much needed cash flows through some of these difficult periods. We can even help with consolidation and producing economies of scale for farming enterprises and make those farming enterprises more productive and more profitable, both for the farmer and for us as external investors taking a stake in that farm enterprise.'
These might be radical ideas for some people, but I believe they are worth investigating. I encourage the private sector to start taking an interest. While they might be radical for some, they cannot be any less effective than our very real and genuine attempts to address the drought in the past. It has been expensive in the past. Our attempts have contained those perverse incentives that I have talked about. You would have to say, given that here we are in 2014 talking about drought in the same way as we were at the time of Federation, the government has not been all that successful in dealing with this question. So we should be partnering with the private sector to see whether it cannot do better than governments have been prepared to do or able to do. As I said in the article I wrote for Fairfax, there might even be a quid in it for them too.
I welcome these changes. As I said, they were initiated by the former Labor government. I am very pleased that the change to the farm management deposits scheme is now being supported by the government of the day. I think the outcome will be a very significant win for the farm sector.
Mr BUCHHOLZ (Wright—Government Whip) (10:19): I welcome the opportunity to follow the speaker from the opposition, the shadow ag minister—thanks, Joel—who is probably one of the few members on the other side of the House who understands the complexities of this bill that is before the House today. The Tax Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No. 1) Bill 2014 quite simply has two parts to it. There is schedule 1, which speaks to the farm management deposits scheme which the previous speaker went some way towards addressing. He spoke about the bipartisan spirit that exists in the House around farm management deposits schemes. For that, I thank the member. It was a far cry from the speaker before him, who had absolutely no content in his speech that spoke to farm management deposits schemes. The second schedule in the bill basically speaks to overpaid GST by mischaracterisation. I will speak to both parts of the bill in due course.
Firstly, my electorate's major revenue source is predominantly agriculture, horticulture and cattle. Farm management deposits schemes are a tool used across a number of sectors in my electorate. It gives me great pleasure to stand and support the tax law amendments here today in the House because they go a long way towards assisting people in a real fashion. This is a sector that has continually said that it does not want handouts; it just wants a level playing field. This is a sector in regional and rural Australia that unfathomably has some of the toughest competitive restraints in the way it has to do business.
First, they have to battle weather conditions. If you could forecast when the rain was going to come or when labour forces were going to arrive at your place to pick vegetables and know that you were going to be unencumbered by weather conditions, you would be an extremely rich man. But unfortunately we as humans do not have an exact science for predicting the weather.
In addition, there is the uncertainty that they have with their market prices. Once they have gone through the arduous process of planting a crop there is no guarantee that they will receive their yield. They take that yield—whether it is a crop, a litre of milk or a beast—to the market, but they are not able to know at the time of the planting of that crop or the starting of that entrepreneurial chain what the final dollar amount will be. What happens in this sector is that they are subjected to price taking. Those prices are determined not by local markets but by global commodities. The prices are driven by supply and demand. In addition to that, on occasion growers in my area then compete against other nations who have some of the most heavily subsidised agricultural industries in the world. When you take that into consideration, our farmers in Australia, without a doubt, are a most resilient mob, fighting weather, fighting commodity prices and competing in a global market against industries that are heavily subsidised. We should bow down every day and thank our agricultural sector in regional Australia for the contribution that they make, for finding the energy every day to get out of bed and putting food on the table for our nation so that we can grow and become a stronger nation. The unsung heroes are the farmers of this nation, and I am proud that in my electorate I have multiple farming sectors.
I will put into context the value of the Farm Management Deposits Scheme across the sector. In totality, we are looking at $3.2 billion currently being tied up in farm management deposit schemes. Before I take you there, I may as well for the Hansard record give you a bit of an overview of what a farm management deposit is. It is about volatility in revenue. Most people in this place get paid weekly, fortnightly or monthly, but on the farm the only source of revenue for your enterprise in some circumstances may only arrive once a year or sometimes in extreme circumstances twice every three years—it could be a cattle enterprise or a horticulture enterprise. With a cereal crop, where you are relying on a summer crop, you may only get paid once a year. If you are lucky enough and live in an area where you have suitable rainfall, you may be able to put in a summer and a winter crop, giving you two revenue streams. If you are a smaller grower in agriculture, with more intense farming, you may get four cheques a year. You need to fathom this: every week you are having to eat, every week you are still having to service your standard household expenditure, plus put fuel in your tractors. So, to put it into perspective, the expense side of your operation still has to be serviced, but your revenue side can be sparse from one cheque every two years to a cheque every quarter. In the case of the dairy sector, it is a little more fluent with the cash flow; they can get cheques on a monthly basis.
There is $3.2 billion currently tied up in the Farm Management Deposits Scheme. In the horticultural sector, in my state, we have got just over $109 million. In the grains and cereals sector, we have about $66 million tied up in the Farm Management Deposit Scheme. The largest area where the money is consolidated is in the beef sector. There are about 2,000 participants, or 2,000 management schemes, totalling just over $200 million. In the dairy sector, it is around the $21 million mark. Predominantly, these guys, with bipartisan support—support from both sides of the House—take the opportunity to utilise farm management deposit schemes, because not every year is going to be identical to the one that preceded it; not every year is identical. If it were, it would be considered easy and everyone would be doing it. The fact is that it is not an easy sector to compete in for the reasons that I outlined earlier. What these guys do is when they have the opportunity in a good time they take some of that revenue and, without paying a tax increment on it, the government provides this instrument whereby they can place that revenue into a farm management deposit scheme. There is no tax liability. In the case of a grain operator whose crop may have failed but who is still incurring all the expenses—the diesel cost and the fertiliser cost for putting in the crop—those expenses still need to be met. So the premise of a farm management deposit scheme is that in the good year you put the money away and, in the times when things are tough, you are then able to go into that specialised bank account, pull that money back out, actualise the tax on it for that year—not the year in which it was earned—as revenue, bring it into your system and pay your expenses. It is not a new phenomenon.
What this amendment seeks to do is to increase the cap from $65,000 through to $100,000 for all farm income in terms of access to a farm management deposit scheme. Most farmers are trying to offset risk management. They may have a warehouse or a shop that they lease in town. They might own a farm out of town or own several pieces of real estate in a nearby town. These are referred to as off-farm investments. If the rent on those reaches in excess of $65,000, it would not allow a farming operation, a primary industry operation, to take advantage of a farm management deposit scheme. What the amendment seeks to do is to increase that revenue cap from $65,000 to $100,000. That is not clear. That is not net gain; that is gross. If the revenue on your warehouse is $65,000 and you still have to make payments to the bank for $65,000, it is neutral. Where you get your rent and you make your payments to the bank on it, that precludes you from getting access to the farm management scheme. It is not the net gain; it is the gross gain. I need to make that clear. This amendment allows us to go from $65,000 to $100,000.
The bill also seeks to allow you to consolidate farm management deposits up to a total of $400,000. For example, if you had a good year and put $100,000 away—and you may have been able to lock that in at five per cent—and the following year you had another good year and put away another $100,000—and locked that up in a term deposit and you may have got six on that—previously they would have all been treated separately. What this bill seeks to do now is allow consolidation of that and work on an amortised value of up to $400,000.
The second schedule speaks about overpayments of GST by mischaracterisation. Predominantly, in a nutshell, if I as a business have purchased something and paid the GST at the point of purchase and if, inadvertently, the person I have made the payment to is unable to claim the GST, this provision does allow me to claim that back from the tax department because that money is not subject to GST. It is a housekeeping measure. Again, I suspect that this has bipartisan support. In fact, I am more than confident that it has because I believe that the Treasurer and the Assistant Treasurer announced in a joint media release that the government would proceed with the previous announcement measures with some amendments. I think the Labor Party did some earlier work on this in the last parliament, to stand corrected. I do not suspect for a moment that we will have any problem pushing these very logical and measured amendments through the House.
The previous speaker, the member for Hunter, who I regard as well grounded in the area of agriculture, spoke about ways that he could assist the sector, particularly the agriculture sector. He spoke about reverse mortgages and how he genuinely thought that would assist the sector. If he and the opposition truly wanted to help this sector, if they truly wanted to understand the hardship that this sector wake up and face every day of every year and if they truly wanted to assist then they should have thought a lot longer and a lot harder about their actions and performance. When they were in government they woke up one morning and had an absolute brain-snap and decided to shut down the entire live cattle export system and decided to shut down the entire protein source to—
Dr Leigh: Weren't you talking to me about relevance?
Mr BUCHHOLZ: Oh, you stop it! I take the interjection from the first speaker who had absolutely nothing to say about the bill and when I—
Dr Leigh: I moved a second reading amendment.
Mr BUCHHOLZ: Nevertheless, if you wanted to help this sector the first thing you would not have done was shut down the live cattle export. Ramifications will be felt through this sector as a result of Labor's mismanagement relevant to this bill and to farm management deposits. Why is it important? You should always have farm management deposits on hand because one day when Labor get back in, rest assured, they will single-handedly go about destroying the agricultural sector in regional and remote Australia, not by choice but by default. This opposition are so disconnected from the agricultural sector that when their speaker got up and spoke he was unable to link more than two sentences together that had any relevance to the two amendments in these schedules presented to the House. By contrast, the coalition, through this budget, is the only government that will restore confidence not only to the budget but also to this sector and hopefully start rebuilding Australia after the calamity that we have been left with.
Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (10:34): It is an absolute delight to stand here this morning after the budget was delivered last night: a budget which is in the national interest, a budget which provides hope and a future for our children, a budget which did not burden them with debt, a budget which provided an honest path back to surplus. We are here this morning looking at the Tax Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No. 1) Bill 2014 with a great sense of pride and understanding of the job we now face as a government of making sure we implement and deliver on the budget, which was so excellency delivered by the Treasurer last night.
This is an important bill. Obviously it comes in two parts. The first schedule refers to the farm management deposits scheme, which has become the most effective drought-proofing financial measure that farmers have today. The second schedule allows self-assessment in GST overpayment refunds. This was introduced by the previous government. It allows individuals to self-assess their tax refunds due on overpayments of GST. It will have an expected cost of $4 million over the forward estimates, but it is something that lapsed at the last election and something that this government is happy to move ahead, with the support of the opposition.
When it comes to the farm management deposits scheme, there is a little bit more detail on what is being proposed. I must say that what is being proposed is a simplification and also takes away a lot of the unnecessary regulation which farmers are burdened with under the current system. The idea of the farm management deposits scheme is that it teaches self-reliance, and it teaches self-reliance to our farming sector. This is something which comes naturally to farmers because they are used to being self-reliant. In enhancing this scheme in this chamber today, we are doing farmers credit and we are also doing the nation credit in recognising what farmers contribute to this nation and what they will continue to contribute to this nation.
I stand here proudly in this parliament as the representative of the electorate of Wannon. Wannon contributes significantly to our agricultural sector. We produce more wool than any other area in the country; we produce more lamb and sheep meat; we produce more dairy products than any other electorate in the country. I stand here proudly on behalf of my electorate in saying that the agricultural sector contributes to this nation, and my electorate does so as well. It is why we need to help our farmers. They have to run businesses, but, because these businesses can be hit by events outside of their control, farmers need the tools to be able to deal with those events. Through the Farm Management Deposits scheme, we are giving them the tools to deal with such events.
I saw firsthand the difficulties that farmers can have when they are hit by unseasonal conditions. In the summer before last, the dairy sector in my electorate was hit by unseasonably dry conditions. That had untold ramifications for those dairy farmers because, particularly when it came to purchasing grain to feed their dairy cattle, it was costing them up to $10,000, $20,000 or, in some cases, $30,000 a month to buy the grain to keep those cattle fed so that they could keep producing milk and keep an income flowing. The Farm Management Deposits scheme enables farmers to prepare for those types of occurrences.
We also have to be mindful—and I must say, once again, both sides have done this in a bipartisan way—that there are also those circumstances, such as if we get 10-year droughts or even droughts of longer periods, when Farm Management Deposits schemes will not be enough. This is where we have stepped in with the Farm Finance package. It is something which is being rolled out, especially in Queensland and New South Wales at the moment, to help in those situations where farmers are not just dealing with one, two or three years of bad seasons but looking at prolonged periods. The Farm Finance package has shown that there is an understanding and a realisation in this place that there are circumstances that our farmers will face when, even if they are prepared through having put savings away for those non-rainy days, drought and severe drought will hit and there will be a need for us to say, 'We understand the contribution you make to the nation and the income that you provide us. Therefore, we, as government, need to be able to step in and give you the assistance as necessary.'
What do the measures being introduced today mean? The first measure is an increased non-primary production threshold. The first enhancement will increase the non-primary production income threshold from $65,000 to $100,000. Therefore, the off-farm component—that income test—increases from $65,000 to $100,000. This is a sensible recognition of how more and more farmers, or their partners, are earning off-farm income. It is a sensible recognition of how important that off-farm income is to the business and how the farming business is planned. Therefore, it is a very sensible reflection of where current farming practice is at.
The second measure is around the consolidation of accounts. This will enable farmers with multiple FMD accounts to consolidate them without affecting their ability to access them when needed. Under the current arrangement, it is common for farmers to hold FMDs in several accounts with the same or different institutions. Obviously, being sensible managers of their money, they have gone looking around for the best deals that they can get from their banks, and that does not necessarily mean that they go to the one bank and have the one account. What we are doing now is making it easier for those farmers so that they will not face tax implications if they withdraw any funds from an account within the following 12 months. This is another very practical and sensible approach to doing this.
We are also taking measures around the unclaimed moneys exemption. We all remember that, because they got the budget into such a precarious state, the previous government had to go about trying to find measures to put revenue back into government coffers. In one of the ways that they came up with to do this, where money lay idle in accounts—it used to be that, if it was there for seven years, the Commonwealth would become the owner of that money—the previous government reduced this. They reduced it for no sensible policy reason. It was just, basically, a pure revenue grab. This obviously has implications for the Farm Management Deposits scheme, because farmers, in many instances, are putting this money into those accounts and leaving it there. The new measures, basically, exempt the Farm Management Deposits scheme from the unclaimed moneys exemption, which is another practical and sensible response to some of the measures that had to be put in place by the previous government to fix the catastrophe which was their management of money. Another aspect of this program is that it delivers on the commitment made by the Australian government through the Intergovernmental Agreement on National Drought Program Reform. This commitment will ensure farmers have access to a range of measures to build their resilience and provide effective risk management tools. This fits with the agreement between the Commonwealth and the states on how we should prepare for drought and how we can help farmers deal with those severe one in 10 or sometimes one in 20 events.
This is good sensible law-making. That is probably the best way to describe it. It is terrific to see that both sides can come together and put together proposals like this which will be of benefit to our agricultural sector. It will reduce red tape and it will make it easier for farmers to plan for their future. That is what the philosophy of this government is all about. We saw it last night in the budget that the Treasurer delivered. The budget was all about enabling families to plan for their futures and it was all about making sure that future generations would not be burdened by us trying to maintain our current living standards. Today's enhancing of tools for our farmers is all about that as well. We are saying to our farmers today that we want to make it easier for you and we want to give you the tools to plan for your future and plan for those non-rainy days, in a way that secures your future and the future of your children.
The amendments dealing with self-assessment of GST overpayment refund claims and farm management deposits obviously have the support of this side of the House. When it comes to the agricultural sector in particular I look forward to working with members both on this side and on the other side to make sure that we can secure the future of agriculture in this nation for the next 20 to 25 years. The agricultural sector is vital to our economy. It has been recognised by this government as a key pillar for our future economic growth. It is a sector which has the potential to continue to help grow employment in this nation. We continue to see value adding to our primary production, and more jobs will result if this can be sustained over the long term. The sector is also an incredible source of export income to this nation and, as everyone knows, export income means real jobs. This government will continue to pursue measures that will enhance our agricultural sector. We have seen it through free trade agreements that have been delivered and we will see it through the ones that will be delivered. They will provide future opportunities for us to grow the sector. In summary, I commend both of these tax law amendments to the House.
Mr HUNT (Flinders—Minister for the Environment) (10:49): I would like to thank all of those members who have contributed to this debate from both sides of the House. Schedule 1 of the Tax Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No. 1) Bill contains improvements to the Farm Management Deposit Scheme which will enhance the scheme's effectiveness as a financial risk management tool for farmers. As set out by the member for Wannon, it is a sensible and practical way forward. The three amendments to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 and the Banking Act 1959 that comprise this measure are: firstly, allowing consolidation of multiple farm management deposits; secondly, raising the non-primary production income threshold; and, thirdly, removing farm management deposits from the unclaimed moneys rule. These will allow the Farm Management Deposits Scheme to better achieve its primary objective of assisting farmers to run a sustainable business with a steady flow of income.
Schedule 2 amends the GST law to allow taxpayers to determine whether they are entitled to a refund by reference to objective conditions rather than having to rely on the commissioner to exercise a discretion to refund an excess amount of GST. Schedule 2 to the bill also amends the GST law to allow taxpayers to determine their entitlement to a refund of an overpayment of GST irrespective of whether the overpayment arises as a result of a mischaracterisation or miscalculation of the GST payable. Schedule 2 also amends the Taxation Administration Act 1953 to restore taxpayers' review rights under existing refund provisions, following the recent decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The provisions are intended to prevent taxpayers from receiving a windfall gain of overpaid GST and encouraging suppliers to refund their customers for overpaid GST. The government does not support the pious amendment moved by the opposition. I would also, on behalf of the parliament, thank all of those officials, both within Parliament House and within the department, for helping to progress, consult on and deliver these sensible changes. I commend this bill to the House.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Mitchell ): The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Fraser has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to.
Question negatived.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.
Third Reading
Mr HUNT (Flinders—Minister for the Environment) (10:52): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Bill 2014
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (10:53): I rise to speak on the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Bill 2014 and, in doing so, I say from the outset that the Labor Party will be supporting this legislation.
The purpose of the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Bill 2014 is to prevent the unauthorised commercial use of certain indicia and images associated with the following three sporting events: firstly, the Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup of 2015, with matches scheduled to be held from 9 January to 31 January 2015; secondly, the International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup 2015, to be jointly hosted with New Zealand from 14 February to 29 March 2015; and thirdly, the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, to be held from 4 April to 15 April 2018. These are all very important events, not only for Australia but for sporting followers around the world and particularly with respect to the Commonwealth Games, an event that I have no doubt most Australians will be keenly looking forward to. There is a great deal of interest with respect to all of these events—not surprisingly—and I will return to some of those matters later on.
This bill is, in many ways, similar to previous legislation that was used for the Sydney Olympics and the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne—that is, the Sydney 2000 Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 1996 and the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 2005. The most significant difference between this bill and the previous legislation is that the 2014 bill is designed as a generic piece of legislation which can be amended to apply to future sporting events by insertion of new schedules if and when required. Each of the three schedules in the 2014 bill have limited dates of application, so they will cease to have effect one year after the relevant sporting events have concluded. The legislation itself will not be repealed. In contrast, the Sydney games act and the Melbourne 2006 act were drafted to apply to just one event, with a sunset clause repealing the legislation 12 months after the respective games. That is a significant difference inasmuch as there will be no need to repeat this kind of legislation every time there is a major sporting event in Australia; you simply change the relevant schedules which apply to it. I believe that that is sensible; it saves the parliament time and it also provides, in my view, a degree of certainty for future events when they are being negotiated by all of the different parties.
Australia has a well-earned reputation for hosting major sporting events. I thought that was very much on display in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and also in the Commonwealth Games in 2006 in Melbourne, where there was no doubt in my mind that the hosting of those games did Australians proud. The games were certainly a credit to all of those people who were involved in any way whatsoever. It is a reputation that we need to maintain if we are going to continue to bid for future games, and I have no doubt that we will. In order to maintain that reputation we need to ensure that all of those parties who have an interest in putting money towards the hosting of those events are properly and rightfully protected.
Labor understands the significant risks posed to the ability of organisers to attract commercial partners from what you might refer to as 'ambush marketeers'—that is, those people who would seek to profit from creating an impression of being associated in some way with these major events when in fact they have no direct association whatsoever. Labor therefore supports the sensible protections in the bill provided by the commercial benefit test that applies to the use of material. Restrictions will of course apply only to unlicensed commercial use of the protected indicia and images. The aim of this test is to prevent an unauthorised user from applying the protected indicia and images to suggest a formal association with the events, which would allow them in turn to gain a commercial benefit. Labor also supports the exceptions in the bill that will, for example, recognise existing commercial arrangements, allow the use of indicia and images for the purpose of criticism and review and allow an athlete to make factual statements about their own achievements.
I want to talk more broadly about the importance of these events to Australia and, indeed, to any country that has the opportunity to host major world events. Today there is no doubt that these events are considered to be big business. They not only generate billions of dollars; they also cost billions of dollars to host. Therefore, there is a great deal of risk attached to them. They are important to the communities and the cities that host them, because those cities inevitably get some kind of economic benefit from the event itself, whether it is in the form of increased tourism or in the form of additional expenditure with retail businesses. In fact, the events create a flow-on effect, with money flowing through to the entire community. So, not surprisingly, there is considerable competition between countries and between cities to host those events. We have seen in recent years that the events are not only better organised and better run than they might have been in the past but the facilities that are provided to the athletes themselves are much better than they might have been in years gone by. Athletes expect to have modern, up-to-date facilities that enable them, in turn, to perform at their best. So the competition for hosting these events is very fierce—and understandably so.
In order to pay for all those events, for the facilities that go with them and for the infrastructure that is required by the cities at the time, as we saw with both Sydney and Melbourne, considerable funds are required. Those funds come not only from the hosting governments but also from sponsorship that is paid by people who wish to be associated in one way or another with those events. For that sponsorship, obviously, something is expected in return. What is expected is the right to exclusive use of certain logos and images that will then be able to be marketed by those people who put the money up-front or, in the case of the media, for exclusive televising and broadcasting of those events. That in turn enables them to generate funds through their advertisers and so on. The bottom line is that considerable money is required—there is no doubt about that.
If people are going to put their money into a venture, regardless of what it is, they need to have certain rights and protections. This is no different to when someone puts a product out there and they have protections under our trademark and copyright laws. The sponsorship, however, is essential, because governments cannot do it alone anymore, and we know that without the influx of the money that is brought into these events by the private sector, it would not be possible today to host the kinds of events that we are referring to. These are not just national events but international events. If we are going to ask sponsors and partners to put money into the events, then those certainties have to be provided and that is exactly what this legislation does.
I note that, as part of the legislation, the Customs department has the authority to seize infringing goods in accordance with the Trade Marks Act 1995 and the Copyright Act 1968. One might well ask, 'Well, why don't we simply rely on those acts?' The fact is that those acts do not go far enough in terms of protecting the rights that have been agreed to between the Commonwealth and the states at the time they were putting together their submissions for the hosting of the events. They expect certain protections, and this legislation delivers on the agreements that were reached between the various parties at the time that the bids were being put into place.
The use of logos and the like is undoubtedly a problem that occurs not only when it comes to the hosting of major sporting events but also in the badging of sporting apparel and the like. We have seen examples in so many places of the world where those logos are used illegally by manufacturers in order to profit from the legitimate work of others. The same applies when it comes to the goods that are likely to be sold in conjunction with the sporting events that are referred to in this legislation. We all know from going to these sporting events that products are sold with images, logos and the like, and that have been specifically made as souvenir items for the events. The last thing we want to do is in any way allow people to undermine people who have legitimately invested in those products by sponsoring the event.
The hosting of these kinds of events has two elements to it. One is, clearly, the economic benefits that go to the hosting city—and the hosting country for that matter. The other is what it does for the promotion of sports in Australia and throughout the world. For athletes who want to participate in sports at the highest level, being able to participate in a world recognised event is probably the height of their ambitions. If they are going to do that we want to make sure that we put on an event that enables them to be properly recognised for their performance. I think Australia has done that very well in the past, but we need to continue to do that. When it comes to the peak of their performance competitions, supporting those athletes goes far beyond just making sure that we have the best event possible; it also goes to the support that they require in their journey towards becoming an elite athlete.
I note that in the budget last night there were $22.8 million of cuts to the Australian Sports Commission. I am not quite sure how this is going to flow out, because the Australian Sports Commission runs a number of programs. It will be interesting to see how this money that has been cut filters its way through our sporting communities. I have no doubt that the $22.8 million of cuts to the Australian Sports Commission will have an impact on athletes in this country. I am not really surprised that we have seen those cuts, although I am very much disappointed, because I suspect that our athletes are not overly well supported in comparison to the support that I am aware of that is given to athletes in other countries.
These $22.8 million of cuts to the Sports Commission were on top of more than $17 million in funding cuts, by the government, which on coming to office reversed sporting communities funding that had been committed to by the previous Labor governments. This was sporting communities funding that went to local sporting clubs in and around Australia for the upgrading of their facilities. I have got no doubt that members of this place would be very much aware of the importance—
Mr Dutton: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like you to draw the member back to the bill that is before the House, which bears no relevance to the nonsense comments that he is making now. I think that is entirely within the standing orders, and I would ask you to enforce the standing orders.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Mitchell ): You are introducing argument to me. You have had your point. The member for Makin will continue.
Mr ZAPPIA: In response to the minister's interjection, the bill is about the support that the government gives to sporting events by way of this legislation. If we are talking about sporting events, then I believe it is totally appropriate to talk about the support we give to sportsmen and sportswomen of this country through other measures that this government has responsibility for.
As I was saying, prior to the 2013 election, the previous Labor government had committed some $17 million by way of sporting communities funding to sporting communities around the country. This supported local clubs, particularly by upgrading their facilities, many of which are owned by local councils. My view is that it is important, if we are going to support and host events of the type that are referred to in this legislation, that we go the whole way and that we in fact support our sportsmen and sportswomen from when they are juniors right through to when they become athletes on the world stage. I am disappointed to think that not only did the budget cut $22.8 million from the Australian Sports Commission last night, but that was in addition to the $17 million that they cut from the Sporting Communities initiative.
Only on Saturday night I attended an AGM and a presentation night of the Salisbury Athletic Club in my electorate of Makin. The issue of funding and fundraising and finances of the club was an important issue to that club, just as it is to every other club that I visit on a fairly regular basis throughout my electorate. Raising funds and having good facilities for them is not easy, and they depend very much on the support that this federal government provides through the budget and on what their state and local governments also provide. But what is indeed interesting, with respect to the cuts made under the Sporting Communities initiative of the previous government—the $17 million I referred to earlier—is that they cut in some places but not in all. It was interesting that, for example, they did not cut and in fact kept the $10 million for the upgrade of the Brookvale Oval. And guess where that is? It is in the Prime Minister's electorate. They also, from recollection, did not cut the $7 million plus upgrade of the recreation centre in the electorate of the member for Sturt, the leader of government business in this place and the Minister for Education. So they were very selective where they made those cuts.
As I have said from the outset, the government supports this legislation because it is important legislation with respect to Australia's ability to bid for sporting events in this country. Our obligations to support sporting events in this country go beyond this legislation and embrace a whole range of responsibilities that I believe the government has. I have said in the past, and I will say it again, that my view is that we ought to do more for the sporting people in this country. We ought to do more for the clubs that support the athletes throughout the country, most of whom are volunteers. This being National Volunteer Week, it is a tremendous opportunity to support and acknowledge all of the tireless work that volunteers around this country do towards shaping these athletes so that they can go on to represent us in these international events. I support the direction of money into our grassroots sports to a much larger extent then we have done in the past. We will not have elite athletes if we do not get them started on the right footing from when they are young. That is why we should be committing even more money to funding our grassroots sports communities and why I deplore the cuts that have been made by this government to sporting organisations around the country.
With those comments, as I have said from the outset, Labor will support this legislation because it is good legislation. Whilst I am on my feet, I wish well not only to the organisers of the events that I referred to earlier on—the Asian Cup, the Cricket World Cup and the Commonwealth Games—that are coming up in the years ahead but also to all of the athletes who are in training for those events right now. If they are fortunate enough and good enough to compete in them, I wish them well with the events at the time.
Mr IRONS (Swan) (11:13): It is an exciting time for sport in Australia. As we cast our eyes to the immediate future we can see that Australia is about to host three major international sporting events. Next year Australia will host the Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup from 9 to 31 January and co-host the ICC Cricket World Cup between 14 February and 29 March. Then we look forward to the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast four years from now between 4 April and 15 April in 2018. Hosting sporting events is something Australia is good at and something that the Australian public enjoys. I think it is fair to say that we have a successful record in holding two Olympic Games, rugby and cricket world cups and many Commonwealth and Empire Games over the years, including in Perth in 1962.
It has been the case that hosting international sporting events has required a great deal of preparation and organisation by governments, but this has perhaps never been more true than today. There are many considerations involving many government departments covering issues such as security, immigration, infrastructure and transport that must be taken into account when bidding to host major events, and detailed commitments are made at the bidding stage in written undertakings. One such undertaking made in the case of the three events Australia is about to host concerns the protection of the unauthorised commercial use of certain indicia and images associated with each event, commensurate with the support provided to the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games.
Today the government brings before parliament the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Bill 2014 to fulfil this commitment and to fulfil an important point of the planning process for the Asia Cup, Cricket World Cup and Commonwealth Games that Australia is about to host. Given the cost of hosting major events, the investment of sponsors is incredibly important to ensuring that the cost does not fall excessively on the taxpayers of this country. Sponsors will spend big money to associate themselves with a major sporting event, and this helps to pay for new stadiums, transport links and other infrastructure that remain for the benefit of the community some time after the event is over. Sponsors certainly need to know that the terms of their agreement will be protected by the hosting country and that the exclusivity of the deal signed will be protected. As the minister said, if sponsors do not have certainty that they are the only business that can directly benefit from official association with the events, they may withdraw or reduce their sponsorship, with negative impact on the taxpayer and potential legal implications following the event.
So it is incumbent on the host country—in this case, Australia—to ensure that there are adequate laws in place to provide for the protection of these significant agreements. We are looking to protect them from ambush marketing within stadia, unauthorised use of the logos of the event and unauthorised use of images or persons associated with the event. As we have seen in the past, companies will stop at little to promote their own companies in the form of ambush marketing. During the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, authorities detained 36 female fans for their part in a stunt on behalf of the Dutch beer brewers Bavaria during a game between the Netherlands and Denmark. The 36 fans were wearing bright orange dresses featuring the Bavaria logo. The fans were removed during the match and an investigation was subsequently carried out by FIFA.
It is true that Australia already has an intellectual property regime in place, including for the protection of logos, indicia and images as well as quick access to registration and legal remedies. It is also true that there are varying degrees of legislation at the state and territory level to support commercial rights protection for major sporting events. However, the issue confronting the parliament is that the existing frameworks do not provide the level of protection that addresses the unique need of sporting events. As the minister outlined, an analysis has identified that not all event indicia can be protected under the Trade Marks Act 1995 and the Copyright Act 1968; and limited legislation exists at the state or territory government level relating to protection against ambush marketing, with no consistent approach. So the government has been consulting with various government departments to produce the best piece of legislation possible to address this issue. This has been a cross-agency matter involving the Attorney-General's Department, the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, the Department of Communications, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Government Solicitor, IP Australia, and the Treasury. Obviously, with all of those departments involved, sport is very high on the importance list for the government, and this particular bill has some weight to make sure that these sporting events survive.
The bill is based on similar special legislation for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games and will provide the pragmatic set of protections required in a way that complements the various major event provisions existing in the states and territories. There are some sensible exemptions to protect the media's right to factual reporting, which are of course necessary. To ensure transparency of the process, the legislation provides for a register that will be established and maintained by event organisers for the primary purpose of ensuring that the public is aware of the identity of those who are authorised to use each event's indicia and images. Importantly, the legislation will commence as soon as possible after 1 July but will cease to have effect a few months following the conclusion of the events. In the case of the 2015 Asia Cup, this is 30 June 2015; for the ICC Cricket World Cup, 31 March 2016; and for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, 31 December 2018.
So by enacting these laws the government will be ensuring that Australia's reputation as a go-to host of events is maintained, and it will safeguard the potential for Australia to apply for future events. My only regret is that Perth is not playing a role in the hosting of these two events, particularly the Asia Cup. There has been a view expressed in Perth in relation to the Asia Cup that, aside from the geographical remoteness of Perth, a reason could be Perth's lack of suitable stadia. This is about to change, with a new stadium being constructed at Burswood in my electorate of Swan. I can update the House that the geotechnical works to stabilise the site were completed earlier this year, ahead of schedule, which is a credit to the management of the Liberal National government and Parliamentary Secretary John McGrath, who is overseeing this process. These works are required as the site of the stadium precinct is a former rubbish tip on the Burswood peninsular. I see the member for Pearce here, and I am sure he was involved in this process as Treasurer for the state of Western Australia at the time, knowing there was a lot of work to be done at that particular site. The site is currently being allowed to settle under 740,000 tonnes of sand surcharge. On 15 April, Premier Barnett announced that a consortium led by Brookfield Financial and John Laing had been awarded the contract to design, build, finance and manage the new stadium. So, by the beginning of the 2018 AFL season, Perth will at last have a world-class stadium that will make it a more attractive place to host international events in my electorate of Swan. I see the Minister for Sport is in the chamber at the moment, and I will be pleased to be able to send him an invite to the opening of that stadium when it occurs.
My electorate of Swan will be a major beneficiary of the billion dollar package of infrastructure associated with the development, including better transport links and landscaping. It will not be forgotten how the Labor Party and the local Labor MLA member in particular opposed this stadium development. Actually, it was one of the most amazing oppositions to a piece of sporting infrastructure that I had ever seen in any campaign. It was just being an opposition, and that is all they were doing. Everyone had agreed on the stadium—it was a fantastic location, a fantastic site. The local MLA from Victoria Park actually spent time getting photos with the Premier, with the developers and with the parliamentary secretary who was charged with looking after the stadium. Then his leader of the opposition, when running up to the election, said, 'No, we won't support this stadium; we will keep it at Subiaco'. We never saw the member for Victoria Park again after that statement, up until the date of the election; he was so embarrassed.
An honourable member: He will be at the opening.
Mr IRONS: I am sure he will be at the opening, yes. The Liberal National government made a positive decision on the stadium, and this was resoundingly endorsed at the last state election. I see the member for Brand here, who I am sure also supports the stadium at Burswood and supports the move of the Eagles to Lathlain.
Mr Gray: It should be in Rockingham!
Mr IRONS: Yes. I think you have already done that through the Dockers. The new stadium will be fantastic for Western Australia and for sport. It will enhance Australia's reputation for having stadiums that can host major sporting events.
So the future looks bright for sport in WA. Maybe Perth will, in the future, be in a position to bid for a Commonwealth Games or even for an Olympic Games with its new stadium development. Also there is prospect for another bid for the big one—the FIFA World Cup—at some point in the future. I publicly proposed Burswood as a World Cup venue in 2009 and this may well be an option at some time in the future. We heard from the previous speaker, Mr Zappia, that the opposition is prepared to support this bill, but then he went into a diatribe about the budget that was delivered last night. I will have to check some of those statements because I do not agree with him. If he wants to help the budget and wants to get on with it, he should go to the Senate and tell his people in the Senate to support the repeal of the carbon tax and the mining tax. He should just get out of the way and support this bill and support the repeal of the carbon tax and the mining tax.
I commend the bill to the House.
Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle) (11:23): I rise today to speak in support of the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Bill 2014. In essence, this bill is intended to protect major sporting event sponsorship and licensing revenue from being undermined by unauthorised commercial use of event indicia and images associated with the following events: the Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup 2015, the International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup 2015 and the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.
It is worth noting at the outset that this bill is indeed consistent with the approach taken by previous governments when they legislated to protect the indicia and images of the 2000 Sydney Olympics and 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games through the Sydney 2000 Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 1996, 'the Sydney games act', and the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 2005, respectively.
The most significant difference between the 2014 bill and the previous legislation is in the drafting style. The 2014 bill before us is designed as a generic piece of legislation, which can be amended to apply to future sporting events by the insertion of new schedules. Each of the three new schedules in the 2014 bill have limited dates of application—they will cease to have effect within one year of the relevant sporting event. The legislation itself will not need to be repealed. This approach makes good sense.
Australia has a well-earned reputation for hosting major sporting events and I am sure our hosting of the Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup, the International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup and Gold Coast Commonwealth Games will only enhance that reputation. We have proudly hosted two Olympic Games, one Paralympic Games and four Commonwealth Games. We have also hosted the Rugby League World Cup four times, the Rugby World Cup twice and the Cricket World Cup once. We have an excellent reputation for hosting the very big sporting events. Who can forget the words of the then IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when he said:
I am proud and happy to proclaim that you have presented to the world the best Olympic Games ever.
My own electorate of Newcastle has also proudly hosted major sporting events in the past and is very keen to host a number of games in the 2015 AFC Asian Cup in January next year. Newcastle will host two qualifying-round matches, a semi-final and the third/fourth play-off match of the Asian Cup next year with some of the most supportive and passionate sporting fans in the country filling our fantastic Hunter Stadium, which is now capable of hosting international events like these—thanks to $10 million of funding from the former Labor government, I might add.
Novocastrians will warmly welcome the players and supporters of Japan, Oman, Kuwait and other nations as they make their way to Newcastle. It is no surprise that Newcastle was selected to host these fixtures as our sporting tradition and history of hosting successful large sporting events is as strong as the broader nation's.
We are proudly home to some of Australia's greatest sporting legends: the internationally renowned surfer Mark Richards; wheelchair athletes Kurt Fearnley and Christie Dawes; rugby league immortal Andrew Johns; and Liverpool Football Club's Craig Johnston to name just a few. We are also home to some of our next generation of sporting champions like Australian Junior Futsal representative Riley Parker, who is set to play on the international stage in coming months. I wish him and his Australian team well and look forward to following their matches abroad.
As previously mentioned, Newcastle's history of hosting successful major sporting events is rock solid. Most recently, in December last year, Newcastle hosted the Special Olympics Asia Pacific Games. This was the first time this event had been held in Australia and Newcastle excelled itself. Some 2,000 competitors from 30 nations, as well as 600 officials and coaches, called Newcastle home for a week of competition. The game's opening ceremony was attended by almost 15,000 people and the week-long competition was supported by more than 5,000 local volunteers, all of whom ensured the smooth running of the games. Everyone was made welcome in Newcastle and the capacity of sport to bring people together in the spirit of goodwill and healthy competition was demonstrated for all to see.
Newcastle has also successfully hosted the Australian Transplant Games, the Australian University Games, the Indigenous Rugby League Festival, rugby league and union international test matches and a visit from a major international soccer team, the LA Galaxy, in recent times. The success of each of these events is built from government and corporate sector funding and support. These events could not happen without funding and support from commercial partners, so it is right that these partners are protected from ambush marketers and counterfeiters. The protections offered through this bill not only support the commercial funding for the events but also help to build their lasting legacy.
Our memories of the Sydney Olympic Games are entrenched with the outstanding performances of athletes like Cathy Freeman, Susie O'Neill, Michael Diamond, Ian Thorpe and my Labor colleague Senator Nova Peris. But the games are also remembered, by children in particular, for Syd the platypus, Millie the echidna and Olly the kookaburra. Without the protections that were legislated for the games, we might have had all sorts of counterfeit and copy mascots being sold through association with the games, diluting our memories and putting at risk future commercial investment in major sporting events.
Labor supports the sensible protections in the bill provided by the commercial benefit test that applies to the use of material. Restrictions will apply to unlicensed commercial use of the protected indicia and images. The aim of this test is to prevent an unauthorised user from applying the protected indicia and images to suggest a formal association with the events. Labor also supports the exceptions in the bill that will, for example, recognise existing commercial arrangements, allow the use of indicia and images for the purpose of criticism and review, and allow an athlete to make factual statements about their own achievements.
As touched on earlier, major sporting events also rely on significant government funding and support to take place. It is not just funding for specific events, it is grassroots funding for young athletes, coaching programs and elite athlete pathways. It is government funding for stadiums, venues and governing bodies. Labor has a proud history of supporting sport through various funding arrangements and other mechanisms. Federal Labor supported the redevelopment of Hunter Stadium with a $10 million investment. Without that investment, coupled with the strategic investments of the then NSW Labor government, Newcastle would not be able to host events like the AFC Asian Cup.
While you could argue until you are blue in the face about where and how governments should fund sport, it is vital that sport is supported by government in a coordinated fashion. Last night's budget cut nearly $23 million from the Australian Sports Commission, which will no doubt have an impact on the programs they offer. The Sports Commission, established under the Hawke Labor government in 1985, is recognised as a world leader in the development of high-performance sport and sports participation. Their services are broad and include high-performance coaching, sport science, facility management, education and resource provision, as well as sports participation development and delivery of funding programs to national sporting organisations.
One of the most important community programs the Australian Sports Commission runs is the Active After-school Communities program, which provides primary school children with access to free sport and other structured physical activity programs in the after-school timeslot. I know this is a very well-loved and well-supported program in my community in Newcastle. The program has previously been provided with $39.4 million from the Labor government. It is a program that helps kids stay active, it comes at no direct cost to parents and it helps to support families that are now under siege from this government's budget.
Junior sport is not cheap at the participation or elite level and cuts to programs like the Active After-school Communities program could force children into a more sedentary and unhealthy lifestyle. A recent Newcastle Herald article said that the cost of junior sport in Newcastle for a 12-year-old is up to $800 every year. Riley Parker, the young Futsal player I mentioned earlier, competes at the elite level and is having to find nearly $3,500 to travel with the national team.
I would hope that all governments would see the value of supporting, rather than hindering, families with kids competing in junior sport. Families sacrifice a lot to enable their children to compete on the national and international stage. They deserve our support.
Last night's cuts come on top of the reversal of more than $17 million in funding for the sporting communities initiative in the MYEFO, which was to support the upgrade of facilities at local sporting clubs. It was a program with a huge impact on local communities. Interestingly, one line item of sport funding for a facility upgrade that has not been scrapped is the $10 million dedicated for an upgrade to Brookvale Oval. Brookvale Oval is the home of the National Rugby League's Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, but it also just happens to be the Prime Minister's team and in his electorate.
Notwithstanding these cuts to sport, there is bipartisan support for this bill and a bipartisan recognition of the significance of major sporting events both socially and economically to the Australian people, so I commend this bill to the House.
Mr ALEXANDER (Bennelong) (11:35): I rise to speak on the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Bill and to express my support for the work of the minister. The purpose of this bill is to protect major sporting event sponsorship and licensing revenues from being undermined by unauthorised commercial use of event images, signs and logos for the Asian Football Confederation's Asian Cup 2015, the International Cricket Council's Cricket World Cup 2015 and the 2018 Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast—for which the Treasurer announced $156 million in federal funding in last night's budget.
This bill is consistent with the approach the Australian government took when through previous legislation to protect the Sydney Olympics Games in 2000 and 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. This unauthorised commercial use includes ambush marketing techniques, which we have seen at previous events on the world stage and which have been progressively banned, as a standard rule, from major events in Australia. Major sporting event imagery and branding provides a crucial source of commercial value which helps to offset the great costs of hosting such events. Too often the debate on event hosting focuses too greatly on these costs, and not on the many broader and long-term social, economic and civic benefits received by the host city, including huge boosts in infrastructure development and associated tourism.
Across the globe, our nation has a great reputation for hosting highly successful and well-organised major sporting events. This success is wholly dependent on state and federal governments playing a crucial role in preparing a strong regulatory environment. The three events that are the focus of this bill bring representatives from over 60 countries to Australia, together with thousands of fans, officials and international media. These events present a great opportunity to showcase our country from a tourism, trade and event delivery perspective. Television rights, ticket sales, sponsorship and licensing are crucial to ensure that the event can be delivered successfully, and these commercial realities necessitate the protections proposed in this bill.
Ambush marketing provides unscrupulous businesses with the opportunity to associate their branding with the event at a limited cost, thereby diminishing the value of official sponsorship and reducing the incentive for commercial organisations to support these events. This in turn threatens the future sustainability of the event and tarnishes the host nation's reputation as a commercial, sporting and tourist destination.
In balance, it is also important to take a pragmatic approach to protect the community's rights to freedom of expression. As a result, generic words like 'cricket', 'football' and 'Commonwealth' have been excluded from protection, and state, territory and local governments will still be permitted to utilise event images to promote the festival that surrounds the event. The bill also protects the rights of existing trademark holders to use associated branding to carry out their business functions and for sporting organisations to utilise a connection to the events for reasonable needs around fundraising and athlete preparation. The bill provides various remedies to the authorising bodies and authorised persons to enforce their rights. It will be the authorising body and the authorised person who may bring an action against an unauthorised user. This will not be the responsibility of the government. Each schedule of the bill will cease to have effect within one year after the completion of each major sporting event.
Our great sporting events are now broadcast to the world and when our athletes travel their feats are broadcast live into living rooms back home. Our sporting culture has largely developed around participation, possibly because during our early development more sophisticated entertainment or cultural pursuits were not so readily available. In searching for reasons that we are not the force we once were in some sports, it is often suggested that it is because our young people now have so many other interests. This has occurred alongside a sharp decline in access to those sports that once dominated our participation landscape and which, as a direct result, we once dominated on the world stage. There has been a cultural change but the legacy of our great sportsmen and women remains. This stretches from our greatest cricketers and football teams to our greatest women athletes who are so often referred to by their first names—our Dawn or our Evonne. This great legacy continues to grow and advertises to the world our values, our character and our culture. In turn, our great events must be protected.
Sport has become big business and now so much more so because of the opportunity that is created when our great events are combined with our greatest athletes to make Australia a sporting destination for world tourism. Opportunities exist to combine these dynamic components to leverage our events to drive sports tourism; to use our great sports men and women to attract a new generation of tourists. Sports tourism is estimated to be worth $600 billion per year globally. Sports tourists are considered high-yield tourists, with Tourism Research Australia estimating their value to the Australian economy at $232 per day. Sports tourism is a natural consequence of our history of participation and the legacy of our great champions, bringing together the values of our national character to flow into opportunities of great economic value to our community. In order to best harness these opportunities we need strong events and the continuation of our reputation as one of the world's best event-hosting nations. This bill forms an important part of this process. I congratulate the minister and commend the bill to the House.
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (11:43): I would like to thank members for their contributions to the debate on this bill, including the member for Bennelong. I thank him for his continuing interest and support of young athletes, in particular, after a long and distinguished career on the court and, as importantly, in the administration of sporting services. Across the sporting world, he is widely admired; and I very much appreciate his comments today. I also thank Steve Irons, who is a legend in the AFL in the west and a great advocate for extra funding for new stadia and for all sort of investments into health in Western Australia. The member for Swan is certainly a strong advocate for such investment to flow into Western Australia from Canberra. I very much support the work he is doing—if not financially at the moment, certainly in spirit. I hope that once we are able to clean up Labor's mess that we inherited last September, we can provide more financial support to many worthy sporting causes in Western Australia and, indeed, across the country. I also wanted to quickly reflect on some of the comments—initially made by the member for Makin but repeated in contributions by others opposite—that put some incorrect facts on the record. Let me provide some clarification.
The member for Makin made reference to the so-called cuts in MYEFO of $17 million, but these were to funding commitments made by the Labor government during an election campaign. It would be without precedent for an incoming government to honour not only their own election commitments but, on top of that, those made by an opposing party going into an election. Given that Labor had not put any money aside for these in six years of government, I think people understand that they were hollow promises, to say the least.
There was also criticism around $22.8 million in cuts to the Australian Sports Commission. They build on cuts to this very area that Labor made when they were in government. We want to make sure that we can streamline the back office services. We want to provide as much support as we possibly can to athletes. Only last Friday I made announcements about the further support that we will provide to elite athletes by, again, taking money away from administrative services and putting it into direct athlete support. That was received with great praise. I am very proud of the fact that this government have been able to provide more financial support to our athletes who will compete on the national stage and international stage for our country, both those who are already household names and those who soon will be.
The government also committed in the budget last night to just over $100 million over three years for a new program, Sporting Schools, which will provide to 850,000 primary school children attending over 5,000 schools a program which will see further encouragement of participation in sports. The interesting thing to remember and in particular to remind the member for Makin of is that Labor did not commit long term to the Active After-school Communities program. Indeed, there was no funding provided beyond 31 December this year. So we are providing continuity in the support of those schools. We believe more children will receive a benefit under this program and ultimately take up sport through the support that they receive and develop an interest in sport that we hope will be held for their lifetime.
The purpose of the bill, as others have mentioned, is to protect major sporting event sponsorship and licensing revenue from being undermined by unauthorised commercial use of event indicia and images for the following events: the Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup of 2015; the International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup of 2015; and the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.
It is worth noting that the federal government committed $156 million to the Commonwealth Games in last night's budget. It is to be delivered before the Queensland government expected it to be. It will be delivered to the Queensland government for infrastructure in support of the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast before 30 June this year. There is a significant timing benefit to the government of Queensland in receiving that money early. I know that it will be applied sensibly. We will work with the state government to make sure not only that we have an amazing 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast but also that we deliver a great legacy to the people of the Gold Coast, Queensland and Australia.
This bill is consistent with the approach the Australian government took when it legislated to protect indicia and images for the Sydney Olympics and the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. The bill will protect against the unauthorised use of a range of words and expressions associated with each event. In addition, the bill provides protection against certain images that suggest or are likely to suggest a connection with these events. In providing these protections, the rights of the community to freedom of expression must also be respected. A pragmatic approach has been taken, with generic words and references excluded from any list. It is made clear in the bill that the legislation is not intended to increase the burden on businesses or affect their everyday operations. The bill fully protects existing right holders who use indicia to carry out business functions.
The bill, though, also includes appropriate measures to limit the possibility of the importation of goods that seek to ambush each event's marketing. This includes monitoring of imported goods and the ability to seize goods marked with unauthorised indicia and images at Australia's borders. This bill will protect event owners and those companies investing in the events, reducing the potential reliance on government. Importantly, this bill implements commitments made by successive governments as part of the vetting process to host these prestigious international events and will continue to enhance our outstanding reputation as a major event host.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Third Reading
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (11:50): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
to which the following amendment was moved:
That all the 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 notes the:
(1) program will be deeply flawed in its design and implementation given the poor environmental record of the current Government;
(2) bill provides insufficient protections for participants in the areas of occupational health and safety, workers compensation and rehabilitation;
(3) Government should clarify why participants do not have employee status even though they are to be removed from the social security system and paid an equivalent training wage;
(4) Government must provide assurance that the Green Army Program will not displace or reduce employment opportunities for existing workers;
(5) lack of detail of the training provisions in the program, namely specified minimum hours, provision of accredited recognised training and opportunities for ongoing training and career pathways; and
(6) importance of supporting young people to make the transition to meaningful work and further training opportunities."
Mr IRONS (Swan) (11:51): I thank the House for the courtesy of allowing me to continue my remarks on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. I will give some background on the environmental issues in my electorate of Swan and share where I think the Green Army Program can be beneficial and complement work planned for the electorate by the Liberal state and federal governments. The electorate is bound by rivers on three sides. It contains an extensive wetlands area in the south and contains lakes and swamps in the east. The aquatic surrounds and general environment of the electorate of Swan is a great asset for local residents, who can enjoy rivers, lakes and wildlife in the middle of urban Perth. But these ecosystems have to be maintained, and past actions have created problems which need to be addressed.
Some of these issues are big issues which require significant expenditure and remediation. Take, for example, the spread of the aquatic weed species hydrocotyl in the Canning River Regional Park. There are many types of invasive weeds that need to be managed in the park. There are ongoing projects being undertaken by groups such as the Canning River Regional Park Volunteers, which involve clearing areas of weeds and planting new vegetation in their place. But this hydrocotyl weed is of particular concern due to its extraordinarily high growth rate and the significant resources required to combat it. According to SERCUL Canning River restoration officer Matt Grimbly, hydrocotyl can double its biomass in a period of three days to a week. So, if left unchecked, it can grow right across a water body very quickly. Once it covers the water body, it blocks out sunlight and reduces oxygen levels in the water, making it very difficult for aquatic animals and other plants to survive. The hydrocotyl has been a problem in the Canning River for some time. As Mr Grimbly stated in the Canning Times newspaper on 4 February 2014, the weed, which is native to South America and probably introduced through the pet fish industry, has been in the river since the 1980s and caused a particularly severe problem in the summer of 1992.
I regret to inform the House that this year has been another high growth year for the hydrocotyl. This high growth rate has been noticed by the local environmental groups, which include the Wilson Wetlands Action Group, the Canning River Regional Park Volunteers and SERCUL, as well as by recreational users of the river, such as the Canning River Canoe Club. SERCUL and the Wilson Wetlands Action Group have received some funding from the State Natural Resource Management Program to stop the weed from spreading, but a Swan River Trust report estimates that the mass of weeds weighs in at 2,000 tonnes and will cost $1.2 million to eradicate. The sort of eradication that is required is clearly beyond the means of the local voluntary groups and requires some deeper funding from the federal government. That is why I have at the last two elections put forward, on behalf of the Liberal Party and in consultation with local groups, a $1 million commitment to the Canning River, of which a significant amount will be targeted at the hydrocotyl issue. This is a unique commitment for the Swan electorate, which I am proud to have been able to secure. It was a great moment to see it in the budget papers last night, and I look forward to being part of the process of seeing it delivered for the benefit of the river.
There are other challenges that are being addressed by the state Liberal-National government. A good example of this is the $2.4 million being invested by the Liberal-National government in an oxygenation plant at Langford in my electorate of Swan to reduce the impact of algal blooms and to prevent fish kills. And, on Friday, the WA state government announced a $4.8 million investment to rebuild the Kent Street Weir, which controls the movement of brackish water in the Canning River. The re-establishment of the well-used walkway over the weir will also be included in the works. And then there is the challenge of stabilising the Burswood river land, which has been used as a rubbish dump for many years. The Barnett government has just completed extensive geotechnical works ahead of schedule to prepare the site for a stadium and landscaping precinct. So these are works that require government intervention and are certainly beyond the capacity of local groups. An interesting part about the work being done on the stadium at Burswood and something that those on the other side might not be used to is the fact that it is six weeks ahead of schedule.
But, in and around these big issues, there are many problems that can be addressed on a local scale by local action groups on the ground, and this is where the Green Army comes in. Clearing land of weeds and revegetating it with native plants is a common activity of groups, and it gets results. The Prime Minister himself has helped contribute to this effort in my electorate when he got stuck into clearing weeds at Ferndale, with me and a group of volunteers. The result of the work is a safer wetlands environment, with a lower fire risk from the removal of weeds and grasses, more biodiversity, less damaging nutrients in the river, and a more pleasant environment to enjoy.
Since I have been the member for Swan, I have seen the great progress of these activities in areas such as Garvey Park in Ascot, Ferndale and Wilson. But, with the large areas of river frontage in the electorate of Swan, there is a need for more action, and the Green Army can spur this on. I am greatly encouraged by the interest already shown in the federal electorate of Swan by prospective project sponsors. The Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council, or EMRC, has applied to the Department of the Environment to be a project sponsor, with the hope of delivering at least two projects in the electorate of Swan—one at Garvey Park in Ascot and the other at Tomato Lake in Kewdale. These are two project sites that I proposed at the 2010 federal election for the Green Army Program. Having undertaken a site visit to Garvey Park, where I received a briefing on the riverbank restoration works, I can say there is certainly scope to extend the work via a Green Army project. And there are certainly important works at Tomato Lake—an iconic part of Kewdale and Perth and probably a hidden secret to many people who are not from that area.
There has also been some interest expressed by Perth Airport, which manages a large conservation estate on behalf of the Commonwealth. Many might not be aware when they fly into Perth that there are sensitive wetlands around the Perth Airport site, which Senator Birmingham and I inspected earlier in the year. So my electorate, perhaps more than any other, has the opportunity to benefit from the Green Army legislation, and I look forward to working with the local environmental groups in my electorate of Swan to hopefully maximise the opportunities of this legislation.
The coalition's Green Army Program will encourage hands-on, practical, grassroots environmental action as a means of fixing environmental problems as well as tapping into the knowledge of local communities and encouraging them to identify and fix their own local problems. I say 'hands-on'—and when we say 'hands-on', we mean it. As I said before, the Prime Minister has been down to Ferndale, in the Canning wetlands in my electorate of Swan, getting stuck into helping with weeding in the area, demonstrating his commitment and the commitment of the Liberal Party to practical environmental action. I see the member for Lingiari in the House. I am sure he has often gone down to help out his local community groups with weeding in environmental areas. I am sure he would be able to assure me of that.
I have been a Liberal candidate for the seat of Swan three times and I have been fortunate enough to be elected three times. In those three elections, the Labor Party and the Greens have not put forward a single policy to improve the local environment through environmental action on the ground in the electorate of Swan—not one single policy. In contrast, I am proud to have taken proposals to two consecutive elections for a $1 million environmental program for the Canning River—a program that was put together in consultation with the environmental groups in the Canning wetlands. So it does not surprise me to hear that the Greens are opposing this legislation for the Green Army. I think this demonstrates once and for all that the Labor Party and the Greens are not the parties of conservation in Australia.
The Green Army Program is primarily an environmental program; that is its primary goal and it will be judged on the results that it gets. As the minister outlined in his speech, it will bring 15,000 people together, the largest environmental workforce in Australia's history, to provide real and practical solutions to cleaning up riverbanks and creek beds, and revegetating sand dunes and mangrove habitats among other environmental conservation remedial work. It will commence from July 2014 with the rollout of 250 projects in 2014-15. There are three key components to the program. Service providers will be contracted by the Australian government to engage the Green Army teams, deliver training and wage payments, manage activities to ensure projects are completed and report regularly on their progress.
The Green Army Program is a benchmark of the Liberal-National coalition government's commitment to the environment. I am pleased that we were able to provide funding to local areas in my electorate. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr SNOWDON (Lingiari) (12:01): Firstly, I acknowledge the contribution by the member for Swan. Let me assure him that, long before he was in this place, I was advocating for these issues. In fact, in 1992 I was fortunate enough to be the parliamentary secretary responsible for employment, education and training, and introduced what was then called the LEAP, the Landcare and Environment Action Program, which was terminated, unfortunately, when John Howard came to office in 1996.
This program, LEAP, introduced by the Keating government in 1992, sought to improve the long-term employment prospects of young people aged between 15 and 20 through formal training and practical experience. The program also aimed to broaden participants' practical know-how and to equip them with new skills specifically for projects promoting land care, environment, cultural heritage and conservation activities. I was fortunate, during the period in which I was responsible for that program, to be able to visit programs right across the country that enhanced the cultural and environmental amenity of communities around Australia.
For me, it was a signature program because it not only showed our absolute commitment to addressing environmental issues but also looked at how we might develop an environmental workforce from within the community, and give them an opportunity to serve and put in place quite valuable contributions to their local communities, which they did. I remember vividly going across a boardwalk outside of Darwin which was developed as a result of this program and the joy and enthusiasm of the participants who were involved.
Participants were paid a taxable training allowance that varied according to their age. The course consisted of 26 weeks of formal and on-the-job training, which was delivered by service providers contracted by DEET, the Department of Employment, Education and Training, as it then was, through a public tendering process. Service providers made available practical experience placements within projects that were focused on land care, cultural heritage or conservation. It was open to all people aged between 15 and 20 who were registered with the Commonwealth Employment Service, as it then was, the CES—which, sadly, no longer exists—but special priority was given to the long-term unemployed and disadvantaged job seekers. This was a labour market program designed to address the needs of unemployed persons and, at the same time, give them an opportunity to contribute to their communities through being involved in enhancing their local environment through a number of measures. Sadly, as I said earlier, the Howard government terminated the program in 1996.
Now we have this Abbott government introducing key elements of the LEAP. Unfortunately, the Green Army Program, as it is to be called, lacks direction and key protections for those undertaking the program. Why should we not be surprised by that? Because last night's budget made it very, very clear what this government thinks of young Australians. What this government is now telling young Australians is: 'You're on your Pat Malone. We'll give you obligations; we'll make you do things; but you're on your Pat Malone.' It is a disgraceful way to treat young Australians.
This Social Security Legislation (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014, by its very nature, demonstrates why we should be concerned about the Abbott government generally and, compounded by the budget last night, demonstrates what they think of working Australians and young Australians in particular. Under this bill, recipients of Green Army allowance cannot also receive a social security benefit or pension, with the exception of family assistance and childcare payments where participants are eligible. Income-testing arrangements will apply to the social security pension of a Green Army participant's partner, and participants in the Green Army Program who are not Green Army team supervisors are not to be treated as workers or employees for the purposes of certain Commonwealth laws. The government are actually trying to wipe their hands of any responsibility for engaging these young people in activities under this program.
In particular, proposed clause 38J, to be inserted in the Social Security Act, provides that a participant in the Green Army Program is not an employee of the Commonwealth for the purposes of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011, is not an employee within the meaning of section 5 of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1998 and is not an employee for the purposes of the Fair Work Act 2009.
This area has an absolute lack of protection for program participants as a direct result of this. We are concerned, on this side of the parliament, that this bill does not provide adequate protections for participants in the scheme—namely, in the areas of occupational health and safety, workers compensation and rehabilitation. Labor accepts that we need to do a great deal more to be satisfied that the participants in this program will be covered by relevant state legislation and insurance held by service providers and the Commonwealth. We will need to continue to audit work safety to make sure that the interests of the young Australians who are involved in this program are, in fact, properly protected—because it is clear to us there are real questions about whether or not this government has that intention. We need to broaden the nature of the debate on this bill to a much wider discussion on how participants are protected if injured and what training is or should be provided—what supports will be provided to assist people to transition into work and what risks there are for the displacement of existing workers. We are deeply concerned, on this side of the parliament, that there are insufficient protections for participants in the areas of occupational health and safety, workers compensation and rehabilitation. Why is it that these workers do not have employee status, even though they are to be removed from the social security system and paid an equivalent training wage? Why is it they are denied employee status?
We also need to make sure there is no displacement of people who are currently engaged in these activities by this new workforce. There is an absolute lack of detail about the training provisions envisaged for this program, namely: the specified minimum hours; the provision of accredited and recognised training; and opportunities for ongoing training and career pathways. We are not convinced that this program will be supporting young people to make the transition to meaningful work and further training opportunities.
We need to contemplate those statements in the context of the budget that was delivered here last night. What we know is this government, as a result of last night's budget, has sent young Australians looking for work a really strong message: that it does not give a toss, with its savage cut of $1.2 billion to income support for people under 30—the very same people who are to be affected by this legislation. From 1 January next year, people under 30 who need Newstart or youth allowance will be forced to wait six months before receiving any support. What do you expect them to live on if they cannot find a job? Are they to be at home with their parents? Do we assume they have parents who can support them? Do we assume they have a home to go to? Are they to be homeless? What strategies are being proposed in this budget to make sure that young people who are seeking work are properly cared for? Effectively denying them an income for six months—I know what that will guarantee. It will guarantee hurt; it will guarantee suffering; it will guarantee pain.
But there seems no limit to what this government will do to young Australians. It blames them for their plight. Depending on where you live, you may have no opportunity to access either training or employment. You might have no opportunity if you are in my electorate of Lingiari, where we have a dispersed population in rural communities and the population in those places is largely Aboriginal. There is little work opportunity and few training opportunities. What is to happen to those young people? There are, of course, families. You can expect to see young women, in particular, bearing children in their teenage years—so these might be young mothers, young parents, with kids and at the age of 26 you are telling them, 'Hey! Can't find a job? Not in training? No income.' What sort of government does that to the people of Australia? Yet here we have it: this is all because we are to 'share the pain'. What pain? I cannot see pain being shared by the Prime Minister who gets on radio and says, 'Look, I've taken a $6,000 pay cut.' He is earning half a million dollars—who gives a toss about his 6,000 bucks?
I care about these young Australians. The minister opposite, Minister Joyce, should care about the young Australians who live in regional and remote areas of this great country of ours, because they will be most adversely affected by the changes introduced as a result of the budget last night. I wonder what happened in the cabinet debate, or if there was a debate. Was it all just done by fiat? We know that young people under the age of 24 will be shifted from Newstart onto the lower youth allowance, making them $48 a week worse off. How can you contemplate effectively cutting the income of young Australians under the age of 24 by 48 bucks a week? What impact do you think this may have on them and their families? How do you think it might impact on their life opportunities? How do you think these young people will access medical care? After all, they will be required to pay a co-payment. Tie it all together and what you see is a recipe for national disaster; yet there are no apologies from this government.
Whatever merits there may be in the bill before us, in terms of the program which is being proposed by the government, we have serious reservations about aspects of this bill. On the one hand the government is trying to tell young Australians that it can provide them with this opportunity for training, and on the other hand the government is telling them that, once they have finished their training, if they cannot find a job they can expect to have their allowances cut. What does that tell you about the government's belief in young Australians?
As a result of the government's twisted priorities, this budget will see an unemployed 24-year-old lose almost $2,500 a year. So Tony Abbott—the Prime Minister—is paying an extra six grand in tax, and young Australians under the age of 24 are going to lose $2½ thousand in payments. How does that square up? How can any reasonable person say that that is fair and equitable? I don't think any fair and reasonable person will say it is fair and equitable. Under the Abbott government's budget, young low-income earners bear the brunt, with support for low-income earners maliciously cut. The Abbott government has slashed skills and training, which have been hit by a $500 million cut. They are cutting nearly $1 billion dollars in support payments under the Tools for Your Trade program. We cannot believe this government. They are not fair dinkum. They have targeted the most vulnerable in our community—and young Australians are among the most vulnerable. They should be ashamed.
Dr GILLESPIE (Lyne) (12:16): I rise to speak about the Green Army Program, or the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. This act amends the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, and clarifies the social security arrangements for participants receiving the Green Army allowance. The Green Army is a key election commitment of the coalition government. It plans to have a green army of 15,000 people—between the ages of 17 and 24 years old—by 2018. This army will be undertaking 1,500 environmental projects, so it is definitely an environmental program; but it is also a training program. In 2014, it is envisaged that we will have 250 projects, with 2,500 people involved. The aim of the exercise is that the trainees also develop work skills, training, and experience. It is envisaged that the programs will deliver lasting community benefits. Some of the projects destined for this program are: revegetating denuded areas—sand dunes, beaches—restoring mangrove habitat; restoring local parks; repairing riparian zones along riverbanks and creeks; and working on improvements to and conserving heritage places, particularly landscapes. The projects also include seawalls, boardwalks, paths to protect wildlife, revegetation with native seedlings, widespread replantings and propagation, and helping to clean waterways.
What constitutes the Green Army? A Green Army team will be a unit of 10 people, with nine trainees and one supervisor. External service providers will be able to bid for projects with project sponsors, and the external service provider will recruit, establish and manage the team. People are already able to register their interest in this scheme. It is not Work for the Dole; it is not forced; it is a voluntary program for 17- to 24-year-olds. They can be gap year students, school leavers, people in other fields of employment, or unemployed. It should be a major boon for people who have not had employment before. The vocational training with the registered training organisation will involve workplace health and safety training and first aid training, as well as on all the equipment. People involved in this program will be suitably trained and skilled during the process but, at the start, all the issues that were just raised earlier should be addressed. That is in the rollout. It is designed that way—so that all those issues are covered in a safe and responsible manner by the external service provider. They are responsible for workplace health and safety and for risk management.
The National Training Wage, which is based on the age and qualifications of the trainees, is the payment method for these teams. Depending on one's age and qualifications, it varies between $608 and $987 a fortnight, which is better than youth allowance and Newstart. But one is also getting the benefit of some vocational training. The teams work for a period of 20 to 26 weeks and, during that time, significant skills can be acquired. One can develop a Certificate II in Conservation and Land Management. One can get a Certificate II in Drainage, or a Certificate I in Construction. The training involves learning the basic skills that one needs to move into the landscaping industry or into construction. All the basics of building earthworks in a vegetation setting, the skills of landscaping—they are all there. In addition there is the net result of a repaired riparian zone or a boardwalk or replantings and rejuvenation of iconic landscapes. So there are an awful lot of benefits that can be accrued in a lasting fashion, for both the individual and the community.
In the electorate of Lyne we campaigned to get two of these in the initial 150 rollout sites. I am pleased to say that we have two which went through that process and were approved. The proponents of that have started the ball rolling, with the paperwork, in putting in their propositions.
These two projects are waterway areas. Kooloonbung Creek requires extension and replantings and the net result will be a lasting walkway through a beautiful nature area that can be accessed by the community. It has huge natural beauty and a mixture of flora and fauna there that will be enhanced by the project. The second project, in the Queens Lake area, is a beautiful area of natural beauty in the Laurieton region. It has an ad hoc series of trails, which can be rationalised and made into a scenic walkway, pathway and shared bikeway and be of great benefit to the community and to all those people working on it.
Subsequent to this program, two community groups have put forward further proposals to link it all together. I thoroughly support that, and we will see if they can get in applications. There are capabilities within this program for people to link proposals into one major project or to have multiple external service providers do all the various sections of it. So it is a very flexible program, which should, in communities that are active, get very good results.
It is voluntary, and I have reassessed that. It is not work for the dole; it is voluntary. People are paid. They are trained, there is workplace health and safety in place and they can still earn extra income. If they do have part-time jobs at the local Macca's or other part-time jobs, as a lot of young people in this age group do—they cannot get together a full 38 or 40 hours a week, so they have lots of little jobs—being involved in this scheme does not preclude them from doing their part-time jobs.
It is a great environmental initiative. One only has to see the outcome of the Green Army program or the similar program that the member for Lingiari alluded to. It should develop good long-term outcomes for individuals and communities. It is not as draconian as the member for Lingiari suggested. There are safeguards in place so that all those issues are addressed. There is extensive information that can be obtained now, on the website, about this proposed program, so I commend the legislation to the House and recommend it highly.
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (12:25): Before I get into the merits of the bill around the Green Army, I want to put on record how shocked I am to be standing here today hearing members of the government say the words 'key election commitment'. Of all the days to be talking about key election commitments and promises, when last night's budget broke so many key election commitments and promises—like no new taxes, no cuts to education and no cuts to health funding—they use that phrase today. To stand in here and say that they are proud to have kept this one key election commitment is something that those opposite should be quite ashamed of, not proud of.
This Green Army program is not the best program we could have in this space. There are a number of people in my local community who have provided me with feedback about their beliefs on the proposal before us. However, the fundamentals of this program build on a Labor legacy that the Keating government introduced in 1992. That program was called the Landcare and Environment Action Program and focused on work opportunities for young people, genuine work opportunities. I can remember, in high school, working with these people. I was a Landcare volunteer and worked side by side with people on this program. They were not only able to learn skills in this space but also able to teach and mentor volunteers like me in this space. That is a big difference between the legacy of this program and the program we are debating today. It is the skill that we will be introducing these young people to and the lack of training that will be in the Green Army program.
Labor has a proud record of standing up for the environment and supporting programs that will genuinely restore our country and tackle climate change. The bill before us, however, does very little to tackle the effects of climate change on our environment. This bill is an employment program, and not a very good employment program for our young people. But are we surprised that this government does not have a genuine employment program for our young people, given the budget it delivered last night? As other people from this side of the House have already said in this chamber, last night's budget is bad for all Australians but particularly bad for young Australians with its attacks on Newstart, its attacks on universities and its attacks on young people trying to get a genuine start.
We have moved an amendment on this side of the House to broaden the debate on this bill, being an employment program, to talk about how participants are protected if injured. We have also introduced in this amendment the kind of training—and have asked questions about the training—that should be provided and what support should be provided for people transitioning into work. There is genuine concern about this bill, which will replace and displace existing workers in this field. Basically, it is an employment program that could undercut the wages and conditions of people currently working in this field. That is something the people in my area, in my electorate, are genuinely concerned about. I agree we need to do everything we can to get young people into work, but programs like this undercut the workers we have. Programs like this do not ensure genuine training. Every individual who can work should be given the chance. But we know we need appropriate support and protection within any form of program to ensure that they do actually get a genuine opportunity. The Green Army bill fails to achieve this objective. There are serious questions being asked about the program and whether it will actually achieve any environmental outcomes.
As I mentioned earlier, I have asked the locals in my electorate involved in Landcare, Connecting Country and other environmental programs what they thought of the government's proposal in this area. Some of the comments that they gave me include: 'The Green Army is just another name for Green Corps but uses a military timbre, a trumpet, a twang to it.' Green Corps, a program under John Howard, ultimately failed for a whole host of reasons. There were some good outcomes which depended upon the expertise or support given by volunteers but not on the program itself. Green Corps, which of course is the equivalent of the Green Army from the Howard days, was basically a source of cheap labour, forcing young people who had little or no interest in the environment to do work the government forced them into. These are comments from people from the Bendigo electorate who were directly involved in the Green Corps program under the Howard government and who have the same concerns about the Green Army Program being rolled out in their community.
Other comments include: 'Locals involved in the environmental industry are very concerned about any programs such as the Green Army that could potentially take away jobs from those with experience, qualifications and insurance and already working in this field, especially concerning their seasonal and casual employment and issues they already face.' Another comment was: 'Under the Labor environmental programs, such as the biodiversity fund, organisations employed work crews that provided the necessary labour and expertise for landscape restoration. My concern is that the Green Army will not have these skills and therefore we will not get the landscape and country restoration we require.' These are the comments that are coming through from my community. They are concerned about the program that is before us. In other words, when Labor was in government we had a program that not only achieved good environmental restoration success but also skilled up the next people to work in the environmental industry. What we have on the other hand from the Liberal-National government, the Green Army Program, will actually achieve the opposite. I hold the same fears about this program as do those in my electorate.
This government simply has no credibility when it comes to the environment. Soon after taking office, the Abbott government began to rush through environmental approvals. One in my own part of the world, just north of my electorate, has a number of concerns. They allowed the reintroduction of cattle grazing on the high country. They argued that it was because they believed that cattle grazing reduced fire hazard. Really, seriously, it is just not true. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that reintroducing cattle grazing into the high country will actually reduce the risk of fire in the state of Victoria. It is just more nonsense from a government that is convinced by rhetoric and not actually wanting to achieve genuine environmental outcomes.
In its first few months, this government showed that the environment was now subordinate to commercial interests. We have seen that again and again every month, as more planning applications favour commercial interests over the environment. The government informed us the Climate Commission was no longer required. I am not surprised, given that the government does not want to actually achieve any genuine reform in this area. Why would it require independent, science based information and advice on climate change—particularly when some in the government are still climate change deniers. Funding for the Environmental Defenders Office, Caring for our Country and Low Carbon Communities have also been cut. Last night's budget had further cuts to this area.
It shows a very stark difference between those in government and those on this side. Funding cuts to organisations will hit my community very hard. A number of clean energy jobs will be lost in communities like Castlemaine, Bendigo and the Macedon Ranges. Despite being a regional electorate, we are an electorate that care very deeply for our country and care very deeply for our environment. This government's proposal and their plan for the environment is not one that we support. This shameful record by the government shows that we cannot trust them on a program like the Green Army Program. Whilst they stand here and say it will be a good outcome for the environment and it will be a good outcome for young people, you simply cannot trust them at their word. They are a government of broken promises. They are a government that will say whatever they can before the election and do what they like once they get here.
The program, as we have already heard, has a number of significant workplace occupational health and safety and employment issues. I share the concerns of my Labor colleagues that this bill does not adequately provide protections for the Green Army scheme, namely in the area of occupational health and safety. What happens if somebody is injured? What happens to their workers compensation? Will they actually receive the support that they need from this government if they actually have an injury whilst involved in this program? These are questions that have not yet been answered by this government, yet I am the last speaker on this bill. We will soon vote on this bill, and these questions have not been answered. Particularly when it comes to your rights in workplace safety, this government cannot be trusted.
We have seen other bills introduced in this House attacking safety at work. Whether it be on the roads or in the country, this government does not stand to ensure that people's rights at work are protected and that they have safe workplaces. We acknowledge that Green Army participants will be paid the equivalent of a training wage. These payments are similar to thousands of payments others receive in vocational training. Yet, unlike other participants like trainees or apprentices, the participants in the Green Army are under the supervision of the Commonwealth. Again, we see the trickiness of this program in avoiding responsibility. By denying them the status of Commonwealth employee this is a government keen to avoid responsibility. Commonwealth employees do actually have support if they are injured and their rights at work are protected.
The question that also has to be asked is: after creating the Green Army, which undercuts a number of jobs already existing in the environment sector, what will the government next create? Will they create a 'white-collar army' which will be responsible for perhaps filling the gap left by the 16,000 public servants that the government sacked last night, including 60 in my electorate when the government last night abolished the Australian Emergency Management Institute? That is an organisation that is responsible for ensuring that all of our emergency services are working together in emergency management. Last night the government tried to sneak that one past us and abolished this institution. We will no longer have a centre of excellence where our people can go to receive the training and the support that they need to be there for our communities in times of crisis and disaster. What will replace it? Will it be replaced at all? Perhaps they will try and create a white-collar army, pay them a training wage and say, 'You can do these jobs instead.'
Displacement and reduction in employment opportunities exist for workers and I am concerned that this government lacks the capability to come up with decent programs—programs that will actually ensure that workers get good jobs at the end of them. The Green Army program, as I have mentioned, will seek to undercut the good work that is already going on, particularly in my electorate. Connecting Country are a community based organisation who currently receive federal, state and local government funding. They are concerned that the Green Army program will see their full-time jobs be replaced with these low-paid, low-skilled trainee jobs. It means that once again the people in my community currently working in this field will find their jobs at risk. It shows that this government lacks the vision or the understanding that is needed in my electorate to tackle climate change and develop environmental programs that will see a real outcome. We have no shortage of volunteers in the Bendigo electorate ready to help out and make sure that we have a strong, healthy environment. But to lead those volunteers we need a strong and skilled workforce. Our fear is that this program, the Green Army program, will undercut the skills and qualifications that we already have in our community.
Mr RANDALL (Canning) (12:41): I am very pleased to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) bill 2014. I would dearly love to speak on this for an hour because one of my passions is the success of the Green Corps, a previous program implemented by the Howard government. I know the member for Bendigo has not been in the parliament very long, but if she were here long enough I would be able to tell her about some of the huge successes that were seen throughout Australia as a result of that program.
Just a couple need to be put on the record. Green Corps was able to produce something like 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks and boardwalks; it cleared 5,000 tonnes of weeds; it constructed more than 8,000 kilometres of fencing to protect sand dunes and wetlands; and it propagated more than 14 million trees. That is not a bad success, dare I say to the previous member, who wanted to say that the Green Corps program did not achieve anything. I will also address some of the other things she alluded to. I have had three projects committed in my electorate, which I will outline in a moment. It is fantastic that this will engage local community groups, local governments, local environment groups and young people in particular between the ages of 17 and 24, all of which are important to the vital growth of Australia.
In Western Australia we have an unemployment rate of something like 4.9 per cent, but, sadly, in the Peel region—the area that I represent around Mandurah—youth unemployment is heading towards 20 per cent. One in five young people is still struggling to get a job in a resource-rich state like Western Australia. This program will definitely help young people like that. This is evidence of our commitment to the environment, young people working in the environment and the career prospects of those young people. Contrary to what was said by the member for Bendigo, under this program there are training certifications and there are outcomes that young people involved in these programs can transfer to other jobs. The success of this program saw a lot of people that I was engaged with in the electorate go on and get substantial jobs. Unbelievably, this 26-week program started off with 10 young people and sometimes before the program had finished they had been poached or headhunted by the local council, a nursery or an environmental repair agency to go and work for them because they saw how talented and dedicated they were in doing their jobs.
May I also say that all my local governments involved themselves in the previous Green Corps programs: the City of Armadale, the Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale, the Shire of Murray, the Shire of Waroona and the City of Mandurah. The City of Mandurah was a standout star. It had 22 Green Corps programs and the legacy of those 22 programs is now that many wetlands in the Peel region are protected and enhanced. For example, along the Murray River in North and South Yunderup, the wash from the boats had started to see the erosion of the river banks and the degradation of that whole environment, where the reeds and sedges are basically the lungs of the river—they clean and cleanse and enhance the water quality. The young people were involved in the replanting programs in those wetlands and that river was restored. Man does have an influence and a footprint on our environment and quite often we are obliged to repair it, and that is what these young people did in these programs.
There were so many programs. We were involved with Alcoa, who is the largest employer in the Peel region. They have a large refinery and mining operation in Pinjarra. Alcoa engaged with the local people at Fairbridge to repair a number of rivers and wetlands in that area. I can go on. Coastal dunes were protected from blowouts by putting boardwalks in so that people would not traipse through and further erode them.
The program was an outstanding success. Why did that program fall in a hole? Because the Labor Party took over in 2007. Philosophically they did not agree with this program. They did not agree with Work for the Dole. I will give you examples of the tragedies that stand as a legacy of failure from the Labor Party cancelling this program in 2012. The brook that runs through Jarrahdale—an area famous obviously for its jarrah trees—had been overrun by weeds and needed rock walling, and the Green Army was doing that. The Work for the Dole program was involved in repairing the former mill manager's residence, a cottage with heritage values. The Labor Party cancelled that program because they do not like mutual obligation—we know how they railed against it when it was introduced—and that cottage stands half finished. The legacy is a crumbling cottage that is half repaired.
The Labor Party decided to fold Work for the Dole into the Green Corps program and those proud young people aged 18 to 25 years old in their new uniforms, including boots and protective gear, were joined by long-term, recidivous unemployed who said: 'You don't have to turn up for work. Truancy is just a part of our way of life.' They would turn up drug affected or alcohol affected. Some of them had mental illness issues and should have been in professional care instead of being put on a Work for the Dole program. But Labor rolled all these older people into the Green Corps program and destroyed it. Then they said, 'It doesn't work,' and cancelled the whole thing. That was one of the tragedies that happened previously.
This program is now going to reinstate and reengage young people into community programs that are going to help the whole electorate. The member for Bendigo said that these people are not going to get paid properly, be looked after properly or be able to sustain themselves. They will. They actually will get paid more than the job search allowance. As the previous speaker from Lyne said, they can maintain their part-time work. If they are working after hours or on weekends they can maintain two jobs. At the end of it they will get a certificate that is transportable into a new job.
None of these programs would have existed without the necessary workplace and duty of care obligations in terms of occupational health and safety. They are insured. The member for Bendigo said she was the last speaker on their side, although I see another speaker. The answer to her question is: yes, they have all the insurances that anyone in a workplace should have. We would be irresponsible as a government to set up a program where they were not insured. They get more money and they are looked after and insured. If they get ill or hurt on the job they will receive those entitlements through the set-up of this program.
I want to talk about the programs that are going to be rolled out in the electorate of Canning. As an aside, the age has increased from 17 to 24 and that will include in this program a lot of young people who are volunteers. They are not dragooned or press-ganged; they are volunteers and they proudly involve themselves and engage themselves in the program. Many of them from the previous programs come back to see the results of their handiwork and the work they have done to repair the environment.
Three priority Green Army projects are in the electorate of Canning: the Peel-Harvey Catchment project, the Len Howard Conservation Park project and the Birriga Brook project. The Peel-Harvey Catchment is one of the largest wetlands in Western Australia. It is under stress from nutrients coming down through three rivers: the Harvey River, the Serpentine River and the Murray River. They carry a huge nutrient load from the farming areas and the tributaries go right back into the wheat belt. People put superphosphate on their paddocks and that comes down with the water and you get massive algal blooms and degradation of the waterways in the Peel-Harvey Catchment. As a result, it needs special management.
I digress slightly to say that one of the achievements that we committed to and has been confirmed in the budget is to now have the Peel-Harvey as a stand alone NRM. It is being hived off from the South West Catchments Council, the SWCC. The South West Catchments Council went from Albany right through to Perth. The Peel-Harvey Catchment area obviously starts largely in Harvey and goes north. It is a smaller area but it is a very large, sensitive wetland area and it needs specific management. Minister Hunt should be congratulated on seeing the merits of creating a stand-alone NRM to look after this very sensitive and highly valued wetland and environmental region. It is part of the Ramsar wetlands. The thrombolites, an ancient life form, are in some of those areas there. That shows how valued, how old and how pristine this region is that needs to be looked after. There we have the Green Army program looking at environmental repair projects around Peel-Harvey Estuary.
Also, the Len Howard reserve around Mandurah is an area that needs specific looking after. This wetlands area is in the north-west corner of the Peel Inlet in an area called East Erskine. The park is named after Len Howard, a true champion of environmental causes in the Mandurah and Peel region. The majority of the park is a wetland area which includes walking trails and a number of birdwatching areas, or hides—both of which are popular amongst locals and visitors throughout the region.
Over the past few years, however, these areas have become inundated with fallen trees, debris, rubbish and invasive weeds. The build-up of debris poses a serious fire hazard, especially considering the park ' s borders are near residential areas around Willoughbridge Crescent et cetera. In addition to this fire risk, residents on these streets have also had to deal with trespassing trail bikes . I am sure that anyone in an outer metropolitan electorate has the scourge of trail bikes chopping through everyone ' s backyards and nature reserves. They have begun to utilise parts of this reserve and are not only disturbing its sanctity and ambience but also further damaging this valuable wetland area.
The Department of Environment and Conservation manages this park, and the area is located within the city of Mandurah. This is potentially a great tourist attraction, but it is a problem for the region because of its degradation. We are going to fix this up under the Green Army project. We are going to repair the trails; we are going to put bollards in to stop those motorbikes coming through and terrorising not only the residents but also, more importantly, the animal and bird life. We are going to make sure that the area is less invaded for people observing many of the migratory birds in that area by repairing the hides and general access to the area to enhance the area ' s integrity.
Another project in my electorate is the Birriga Brook project. All of the paperwork has been done for that one. It is ready to go—as they say, it is 'shovel ready'. I congratulate Keith Ellis, the new President of the Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale. They have all their formal agreements in place, and I will be meeting with Keith Ellis and his shire people shortly to get on with this area in Darling Downs. Darling Downs is an area with large blocks where people keep horses, generally. Also, there are bridle trails, walk trails and a fair wetland. The problem with Birriga Brook is that some of the people further up the stream decided that they did not like it going through their properties or wanted to keep the water, so it has been blocked and chopped all the way through. We are going to restore the environmental flows to this brook. We are going to clean out all the weeds and all the rubbish that has been coming down there for ages. At the moment, the stream does not run. It is dead. We want to get it back flowing so that it adds to the environment in the Darling Downs area.
This is a great story. This is a story that should continue so that the young people can repair and enhance the environment. I commend the bill to this House.
Mrs ELLIOT (Richmond) (12:56): I rise to speak on this bill before the House, the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014, and the second reading amendment. This bill is to amend the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 to enable a payment of a Green Army allowance. The bill provides for a commencement date of 1 July 2014 and provides for the insertion of a definition of both the program and the allowance. The bill asserts that participants of the Green Army program cannot receive a social security benefit or pension but, rather, will be paid an allowance. This allowance is aligned with the national training wage.
However, participants in this scheme are not even considered workers or employees under the Work Health and Safety Act, the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act or the Fair Work Act, as the bill provides for exemptions from all of these acts. On this side of the House, we find it rather grave and concerning that these particular protections are not in place. I am further concerned by the potential risk of job losses or cost shifting within organisations that successfully tender for this program. Whilst in principle the opposition do of course support programs that provide young unemployed Australians an opportunity to gain work experience, and of course we do support a program that has environmental benefits, there are still many wide-ranging issues and concerns that we have about this program. Indeed, many of these concerns were outlined much earlier in the amendment moved by the shadow minister, the member for Port Adelaide.
This program also exposes that the government do not understand or have in place feasible employment and training strategies and plans. We saw that highlighted last night in the budget, with some of the many cuts that were announced. In particular, we saw, in relation to younger people, that the government are slashing a further $1 billion in investment in skills and training by abolishing a whole range of very important programs for our young people. These programs were particularly around apprenticeships, as well. So we know they are not concerned about effectively training young people. This also exposes the fact that the government completely lack a coherent environmental policy. I will deal with that later, but in the budget we also saw a whole range of programs that were cut, funding that was cut and a whole lot of promises that were broken in the area of environmental programs.
On the other hand, the Labor Party has a proud history of protecting both the environment and the economy by creating jobs and protecting longstanding working conditions. Balancing these important factors, indeed, can be a difficult and challenging task—a task that the Abbott government clearly struggles to understand with this Green Army program legislation.
If we look at the Green Army program, it is essentially designed to act as a work experience program. It is a program containing no opportunity for real skill advancement. It lacks training provisions and there is no recognisable certification upon completion. No job search requirements will apply to this program and there are no adequate training components to really enhance long-term employability. It is a work experience program that lacks any assurances that participants will be working or training in safe and regulated environments. Of course, under this bill, participants will not be afforded adequate protections. They will not have the right to seek compensation under federal law for workplace injuries. Make no mistake about this. This is not a program designed to protect the environment; it is not a program designed to combat climate change; and, certainly, it is not a program designed to offer effective and proper training, particularly for younger people.
The first rendition of the Green Army program was originally instituted by the Howard government in 1997 as Green Corps. It was a Work for the Dole program for the long-term unemployed. The Green Corps program included a provision for volunteers. This program did not require legislation and participants received standard unemployment payments and all associated contingent benefit payments. The program required 134 hours of accredited training and participants also had access to a $500 payment during the six months post-participation for additional training. The program has been changed at various points from 1999 to 2007, including the early removal of the $500 additional training payment.
In 2009, following amendments under the Rudd government, the scheme became known as the National Green Jobs Corp. The program provided 130 hours of accredited training, assisting participants to gain a qualification. Workers received standard unemployment payments and the associated contingent benefit payments they were entitled to. Labor agrees that environmental-based work and training programs can be an effective pathway to work for many job seekers as well as potentially providing some environmental benefits. However, it is not in any way a substitute for sound and protected employment strategies. As was highlighted by the budget last night, these are strategies which this government is lacking. Workplace training programs should be targeted, effective and measurable.
We, on this side of the House, know that we should be doing everything we can to get people into work. That requires providing effective training, particularly for our young people. Everyone who wants to work should be given the opportunity to work and to get effective training to enable them to better access those employment opportunities. We know that that can only happen if you have appropriate support structures in place. Labor believes in helping people get a job through the right training and incentives and, most importantly, through an appropriate level of support and workplace protection. As I mentioned, the bill proposed by the government omits much of the detail required on workers' rights, benefits and protection. For instance, access to formally recognised training delivered by a registered training organisation under the Australian qualifications framework is an optional component of the proposed program, to be negotiated with each participant. This does not give us in opposition or the participants in the program any confidence that people will gain access to training.
There are a great many questions that remain unanswered by this government regarding the Green Army. For instance, how will the program support participants moving into mainstream employment? Will there be minimum training outcomes? If so, what are they? Will there be minimum training hours? What protections will there be to ensure no paid jobs are lost due to the Green Army programs and no cost shifting takes place within the Green Army units?
Overall, this bill provides an example of what the Liberal and National parties do best. They rip away awards and protections for employees and trainees and do nothing to ensure long-lasting realistic measures to protect our environment effectively. The government will have you believe that this is an environmentally sound jobs initiative designed to combat climate change. However, the fact remains the Abbott government completely lacks any environmental credibility. The Liberal-National Party has a very long history of cutting environmental protection legislation. For example, it has actively pursued the destruction of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, it has looked to abolish the Climate Change Authority, it has voted against putting a price on carbon, and it has voted against and worked to remove the Commonwealth Marine Reserves Network, which was expanded in 2012 to create the world's largest network of national parks in our oceans—a great achievement which has been undermined. We know that the federal Liberal-National Party government are looking to pursue the expansion of coal seam gas mining in New South Wales. This is a very big issue in my electorate that I will touch on later on.
We know that there is this long history of environmental vandalism from this government at the federal level, but that is the case at the state level as well. This is reflected in my electorate of Richmond through the concerns its residents have. The New South Wales state government has failed to act on environmental matters and has failed to protect our environment. They are allowing shooting in our national parks, an issue of major concern to many people in my electorate on the North Coast. They are also removing marine parks and failing to protect important coastal reserves like Lot 490 at Kingscliff that I have spoken about before. There is a lot of concern in my electorate about the lack of environmental credibility and the acts of what people refer to as environmental vandalism by the state government. One of the biggest environmental issues showing the lack of awareness of this government is the expansion of coal seam gas mining in my electorate. State National Party MPs are actively pursuing the expansion of the coal seam gas industry by unconventional gas mining on the New South Wales north coast. The community has many concerns about this. Particularly, we feel that it is unsafe. The impact on the health of residents and the environmental impacts are unsafe. We are also concerned about how it will affect us economically through the growth of an industry like coal seam gas mining or unconventional gas mining.
We have a current situation of grave concern at a place called Bentley, which is just outside Lismore. It is the site at which a company by the name of Metgasco is seeking to undertake some exploration of unconventional gas mining. We have hundreds and sometimes even thousands of locals who are camping just outside of there. They comprise a cross-section of people: farmers, retired people, younger children, and mums and dads. They come from throughout the area. There are hundreds of people camping on private land right near the site, all very concerned about the fact that Metgasco may start drilling there. Of greater concern are reports that the New South Wales state government, under the direction of the National Party, intend sending 900 riot police over the coming days to break up a peaceful blockade of people who are on a private farm and are very concerned about what is potentially about to occur there. These people are committed to staying there and making their voices heard. I have grave concerns if these riot police are sent there as the new New South Wales Premier is insisting he will do.
Dr Stone: Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order, I ask you to draw the member's attention back to the bill in front of us. This is not relevant.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Broadbent ): It has been wide-ranging discussion so far.
Mrs ELLIOT: It is indeed typical of the coalition. When it comes Labor raising concerns about environmental matters they try to shut us down. This is of grave urgency to our community. The National Party is about to send 900 riot police to break up farmers and children. I would like to place on record that the state National Party members for Tweed, Ballina, Clarence and Lismore will be held personally responsible if one person is hurt when they send their riot police into Bentley over the coming days. It is the most shameful act that I have seen this state government pursue. There have been quite a few shameful acts since they were elected but this is absolutely horrendous. It really highlights the lack of environmental credibility the coalition have at both the state and federal levels. We are discussing here the green army, and they have shown their lack of environmental credibility. That certainly extends across the federal government and onto the state government right through all of those issues that I have talked about. In my area I think it is best highlighted by the fact that the National Party actively pursued the expansion of coal seam gas mining—and, when they do not get their way, they send in riot police. So we will be watching very closely what happens over the next few days.
I would like to talk about Labor's proud tradition of protecting the environment.
Mr Nikolic: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I accept the wide-ranging nature of the discussion, but having coal seam gas discussions during a debate on the Green Army Program and volunteer impacts in local communities appears to be straying from the subject matter of the bill.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Broadbent ): There is no point of order.
Mrs ELLIOT: I would like to talk about Labor's very proud tradition of protecting the environment, which many speakers have highlighted. Indeed, it was the Hawke Labor government which moved to protect the Franklin River from being dammed, it was a Labor government that stopped mining in Antarctica and it was a Labor government that knew we must have action on climate change though a carbon pricing scheme. So whilst we can acknowledge that there may be some minor environmental benefits of a program like the Green Army Program, which I was speaking about earlier, it is simply not a long-term response to tackling very complex environmental issues.
There is still grave concern within the community about climate change. During the election campaign the Liberal and National parties were asked about their inaction on climate change. Their response was—and we have heard it here today—'the green army'. That was it. That was all the response they had, no more. It was just: 'the green army; more magic trees.' That was how they approached it, and unfortunately I think that is what a lot of them still feel about it today.
On this side of the House, we have outlined our position to take serious action not just on climate change but on a whole range of very serious environmental issues. We understand how important it is that we do that. We have also outlined our concerns about the need to have effective employment strategies in place. Planting a tree does not train a person; it does not give them skills for future employment. And it certainly does not combat climate change effectively.
This bill really is a reflection of this government's lack of credibility on environmental issues. As I mentioned before, you only have to look at the budget to see some of the really harsh actions of this government: the budget ripped funds from grassroots environmental programs, from CSIRO and from the Bureau of Meteorology as well as from renewable energy initiatives. The budget broke promises not to cut Landcare funding, ripping more than $480 million out of Landcare and conservation programs. It cut $10 million from the Bureau of Meteorology and $2.8 million from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. Of course, it also scrapped climate science research programs across government agencies. So, what happened last night was indeed a reflection of the Abbott government's woeful environmental record. It compounded that record and indeed it compounded the cynicism and distrust that exists in the community when it comes to the coalition and any of their environment related programs.
As I have said, right throughout my area we find examples in a whole range of programs. There is a lot of well-founded cynicism in terms of not only the environmental benefits but also the training benefits of this program. In my area, like many regional areas, we have a very high number of unemployed youth. These youth are always wanting decent, accessible training programs, which of course have been severely slashed as of last night. This program does not provide decent, accessible training and nor does it provide protections for participants. Young people looking for training have very little faith in programs like the green army. So whilst in principle parts of the program could potentially be worthwhile, I just do not trust this government to carry it out because of their record of a lack of employment strategies and a lack of environmental policies. They just do not have any of those effective policies at all. We see that across the board—at the state level and with the current federal government.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank the member for Richmond for her wide-ranging contribution and I call the member for Murray.
Dr STONE (Murray) (13:11): I too rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014, which amends the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999. I will stick to the bill. I think it is an insult to the constituency of the member for Richmond that she dismissed one of the greatest youth employment programs that this country has ever seen, particularly given this is a second iteration. I had the privilege of being responsible for the old Green Corps program, which was brought into being under the Howard government. It was a stunningly successful program, which dealt with environmental degradation, supporting biodiversity and a whole range of initiatives right across the country, and it also dealt with cultural heritage. I will never forget the teams I saw employed in the main street of Bendigo helping to rebuild the old iron lace which is a feature of the very old goldfield buildings of Bendigo.
I think it was very sad and cynical that the member for Richmond tried to use this opportunity to bolster up, I guess, her Green party support credentials. After all, she did only receive 33.5 per cent of the primary vote in the last election and she needed the preferences from the Green candidate's 17 per cent of the vote to get her over the line. She spent a lot of time in her speech being critical of the National Party and suggesting that the National Party is the enemy of the environment. Need I remind her that the National Party candidate won the highest number of primary votes in that Richmond campaign. Quite clearly, her locals had a different opinion about the policies and the calibre of the National Party team who had wanted to look after the people of Richmond. I am sure those constituents now regret the final outcome of that election.
Let me also say that the previous speaker got it very wrong. I am not sure whether she has not read the details or whether it was just part of her whole cynical approach of saying that this government does not have at its core a profound understanding of the needs of the environment, to sustain the environment and to protect our internationally-acclaimed biodiversity. Among other things, she said that this Green Army Program would have no safety protections, that there would be no health and safety measures for participants engaged in the program and that it would not be subject to any special regulations, by-laws and requirements of state and territory governments in respect to their work health and safety laws. Well, that is just rubbish. It is, of course, totally wrong.
As was the case in the old Green Corps, the project sponsors will have to share responsibility for providing a safe workplace, safe access to worksites—all of the measures in Australia that are an appropriate response to people working out of doors or in a heritage location. The member for Richmond was also wrong in claiming that there would be no training outcomes, no certification, or no understanding or acceptance of the efforts made by participants during their training. If the member for Richmond had taken a couple of minutes to read the details of this program, she would have seen that the people who are to undertake this program—it could be for up to six months—will have all of the competencies that they achieve recognised under the Australian National Training Framework. They will get a certificate I or II, depending on what they have done. So her comments are just a nonsense. I hope the member for Richmond is listening to my remarks, so that she does not go on misleading her own young people, who I am sure are lining up—in particular those who are looking for a gap year, are currently unemployed or are not sure if they might want to pursue a full-time career in natural resource management. I hope they get some better support from her if they want to participate in this fantastic new Green Army Program. She really needs to reassess her current response to this program, or her constituents are going to be even more dissatisfied when it comes to the next election.
We have a situation in Australia where unless we have a government sponsored program like the Green Army we are not going to have the work done in places like the great Barmah forest, the biggest red-gum forest in the world. The forest is in my electorate of Murray, so, not surprisingly, I am very concerned about the weed infestation there, the feral animals and the loss of Indigenous heritage values in that place.
The previous speaker, the member for Richmond, said, 'This is a shocking program, because it is going to mean that all sorts of people will go and substitute paid workers for these young people undertaking a Green Army project.' What rubbish! Clearly, she has to get out more and understand the current neglect of national and state parks or public open places, where none of this work is being carried out, because the local council or the state government has other priorities or they do not have the funds. This program moves into those spaces and places in Australia where we do not have any permanently paid workforce doing the job.
We do not have anyone at work continuously or even part time in places like the great Goulburn riverine precinct where, unfortunately, because of new environmental water-holder flows that are being pushed down from the Eildon reservoir, we have massive bank erosion and gouging. Where once the Goulburn River rose and fell according to the seasons, because of the massive flushing through the releases of the Commonwealth environmental water-holder we have destruction of our riparian zone such as we have never had before. So we need replanting of the understorey and the canopy trees all along the Goulburn River. We need to reinstate a lot of the bankside herbage. There is no-one to do that, other than a group like the Green Army. This is going to be a fantastic program in that it offers 17- to 24-year-olds up to six months in a project which has been put forward by their own community. It could be put forward by the local government, it could be a Rotary club or it could be a group of individuals.
The projects, of course, will be carefully assessed on their value, on whether they are real work. We are not talking about painting white rocks; we are talking about real environment and heritage protection work. The projects will require skills and will include training. There will be about nine members in each group and they will have one supervisor. I would hope there would be a fifty-fifty split of young men and women in these groups. In my area I already have a lot of interest from our local Indigenous communities. They see this as a fantastic opportunity for young Indigenous men and women, who are starting to get more of a sense of their own cultural inheritance and their own responsibility for managing the biodiversity in some of their own places like the Cummeragunja old mission station.
This is going to be, following on from our old Green Corps, one of the best opportunities a young person has to try out a career in natural resource management or simply to have a sense of what it is like to get up every day, join a team, do real work and actually do work that is going to give them a sense of contribution to their community. In my area, I am very sad to say, we have up to 20 per cent youth unemployment, particularly in places like the fringes of Shepparton. Many of the unemployed young people are looking for work, but it is not there, or they are so disengaged that they have simply given up. Their lives are spent in a cycle of boredom, helplessness and hopelessness. As a result, we have a huge ice epidemic in my area and also a huge problem with binge drinking. A government like ours understands that putting a six-month program in front of these young people as an option is an enormously valuable thing to do.
It was so disappointing to hear someone carrying on as the member for Richmond did. I know she was desperate to get her green credentials in front of the Greens party to thank them for their support for her in winning her seat. But to misrepresent this program as she did was such nonsense. She said that it would not lead to training credentials, that it was not going to have properly managed occupational health and safety measures, and she suggested that it was going to be about the substitution of other people already employed in full-time or part-time work. I want to reinforce that this program will be the biggest youth environmental program that the country has ever seen. It will give such a boost to the young people who are lucky enough to become a part of it. I do not think you can put a value on work experience of this type for a young person whose alternative is not to be employed at all or not to know precisely if an outdoor job in natural resource management is for them.
This is a superb program. It will, of course, cost us. These young people will be paid the equivalent of a training allowance and the supervisors will be paid appropriately, so there is a cost involved. While there is a cost to us, the benefits and the payback to the environment and the community are enormous. I commend the minister for making sure that this was not only a campaign commitment from us but is being pushed along at a very fast rate. We have a number of projects ready to go right now. In 2014-15 we expect 250 projects, with 2,500 young people engaged. Already in my area projects are queuing up and young people are asking, 'How can we be a part of this great new program?'
I also want to make the point that this is about cultural heritage conservation as much as it is about the more traditional habitat protection, improving water quality, and foreshore and beach restoration. I will never forget a cultural heritage combined foreshore and beach restoration project I went to see when I as managing this program under Green Corps. It was along the foreshores of the western district, around the Warrnambool area. Beach erosion was exposing a lot of Indigenous kitchen middens and tool chips, a lot of great implements and examples of the culture of the people who had gone before. A lot of Indigenous young people were part of that Green Corps team. Can you imagine the excitement of that young team, who were being engaged first of all in identifying and then in protecting and learning about the cultural heritage of their ancestors? It was a stunning project, and one that was not just a six-month on-and-off experience for those people, because the protection of those foreshores went on long after the project had ended.
I remember being down in Tasmania and walking along the kilometres of walking tracks and boardwalks that had been built through some of Tasmania's magnificent wilderness, some of it quite close to places like Hobart. These public places had been inaccessible to individuals in wheelchairs or people pushing prams or using walking frames. Through the building of these boardwalks and walking tracks, we are now able to access some of the most magnificent vegetation and ecosystems in the world. This was the work of a local Green Corps team, as they were called in those days. It was hard work. It was not easy. These young people had to build the tracks, cart a lot of timber in and learn how to construct long-lasting timber structures. They built bridges over steams. It was an extraordinary effort, and those boardwalks and the walking tracks associated with them are still there and they are a major tourism boon and benefit to the people who visit.
This business of Green Corps, now called the Green Army, fosters teamwork, local ownership and a community spirit. One of the sad things that comes with unemployment for a young person is isolation, a sense of being friendless, a sense of being completely alienated from the community where you live. Young Green Army people are able to step into a team that is like-minded and is training together. They wear the same uniform, they travel together to the location of the work, and they eat their lunch together. They also engage with the volunteers who have often put up the project in the first instance. One of the things that impressed me most with this program, in its first iteration, was that—say it was a Rotary club or a Lions club that had put up the project—they did not just simply leave the team to it and come back when it was finished and say that it was okay and then move away. They would actually engage with the young team—perhaps have a barbecue. They would get stuck into it and work alongside the team. They would be saying: 'Thank you. Alone we could not have built the new walking track, done the weeding, or regrown the vegetation, or completed the clearing of the olives in the swamp. We have a team of young people from our own community doing the hard work and we thank you for it.'
I commend this program. I think it is magnificent. I think it covers all the bases when it comes to what we need to do to re-engage some of our youth and to give an opportunity to other youths who may simply want to try a new career direction. This program is for them. It is going to deliver many real outcomes for communities that need feral animal work or heritage protection, so I strongly commend this bill to the House, and I say 'shame' to the previous speaker, who either misunderstood or deliberately misled us about this program.
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (13:26): I am very pleased to speak in favour of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. The great thing about this legislation and the program is its practical environmental benefits. In a moment I will come to some of those practical environmental benefits within my electorate. But I think it is important to reflect on the context in which this takes place. Our approach on this side of the House is to pursue initiatives that have a practical benefit to the environment. You would think that would be self-evident, and something that would be shared on both sides of the House. But what we see on the other side of the House is an ideological approach that favours big government interventions in the economy and the resultant disastrous impacts on small businesses and families. Nowhere is that more clear than in the different approaches on emissions reduction.
There is a bipartisan goal of a five per cent reduction by 2020 in year-2000-level emissions. But where there is a very clear contrast is in the method of achieving that goal. Those opposite, of course, favour the carbon tax—the world's biggest carbon tax, a tax that is costing families $550 each year in my electorate and around the country. A total of 75,000 businesses are paying it and it is having a very practical impact. I was at a dry cleaning business in my electorate the other day where they no longer run their machines past two o'clock in the afternoon because of the impact of the carbon tax on their electricity bills. There is a similar situation down at a local swimming pool. Swimming pools are of course so important for young people. Many of our young kids train there each week. Again, his power bill has gone through the roof, so much so that he is having to consider cutting back on the hours of operation of the pool.
In contrast to that approach, our Direct Action plan, which provides clear incentives for businesses to reduce their carbon footprint, will achieve the same goal of a five per cent reduction in emissions by 2020 on 2000 levels. So the question is this: if you can achieve emission reductions with minimal impact on the economy, why would you actively choose a mechanism that results in a substantial negative impact on the economy? On one hand you can achieve a similar outcome with a low impact footprint on the economy and on the other hand a very substantial negative impact. The only reason you would do that is if you had an ideological desire to punish certain sections of the economy and to drive up the cost of living, and that is not the way we approach environmental issues on this side of the House.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with Standing Order 43, and the debate may be resumed at a later hour.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Youth Connections
Mr GILES (Scullin) (13:30): In the lead-up to last night's budget, my office was inundated with correspondence and personal representations from people worried about the possibility that the Abbott government would cut the Youth Connections program. So I met with local service providers like Kildonan, Whittlesea Community Connections and Crossroads. I was impressed not just with the passionate and committed staff but also with the results the program is delivering on the ground. Six months after exiting Youth Connections, 94 per cent of the young people were still engaged in education or employment. Of course, their statistics do not tell the full story. I think also of the human impact, of lives transformed. In particular, I think of one young woman, a refugee from Iran, who will make an extraordinary contribution to our community thanks to the intervention of this program.
Despite this, the community's worst fears were realised as last night's budget of broken promises axed Youth Connections along with the Partnership Brokers and the national career advice programs. Just $130 million was needed to maintain these programs, and, if this funding had been maintained, 100,000 young Australians would have benefited—a small investment for a big return in our future. With youth unemployment more than double the average unemployment rate, Australia needs a plan for job creation which must involve preventing youth unemployment and supporting at-risk young people. The Abbott government is punishing instead of supporting young Australians who are most at risk of falling into youth unemployment in Scullin and around the country.
Fashion Industry
Mr LAMING (Bowman) (13:31): There has recently been shock with the assessment by many in the media and in the lay public that there were overly skinny models on display at a recent fashion show, and I want to highlight the point that clearly the voluntary code of conduct in the fashion industry is foundering. This is a really important health issue, and I know that the causal links are very complex. But we know that up to a quarter of a million messages about body appearance, attractiveness and selling products are seen by females by the time they reach their teen years, and it is increasingly specifically a female issue. We know that models were eight per cent lighter than the average female in 1970; they are now 23 per cent lighter. More than 50 per cent of all advertisements now target physical attractiveness when marketing towards women, while zero per cent of advertisements marketing towards men do so. There is a complete difference.
We are asking the fashion industry to look more carefully at the image they are portraying, keeping in mind the power of these images. We do not want to rule out people having a career in modelling, but clearly a more realistic portrayal—including BMIs that are somewhere near the more normal range—would be one way of ensuring that more models of different shapes and sizes can have a career. Obviously, this is about selling clothing, and I accept that. I cannot get into the minds of the producers who put these events together, but surely having more realistic portrayal of modelling would be extraordinarily helpful, particularly with young girls. Up to 80 per cent of 10-year-olds now contemplate dieting, and in some cases bulimia, anorexia, or taking up smoking, to be lighter. For all of those reasons, we ask the modelling sector to do more.
Budget
Mr STEPHEN JONES (Throsby) (13:33): Mr Deputy Speaker:
The fundamental test of a budget is how it improves the wellbeing of the Australian people.
These were the words of the then Leader of the Opposition in his first budget in-reply speech in 2011. Clearly he has failed his own test, and he has failed the people of the Illawarra, because this budget is nothing less than a kick in the guts for the people of my electorate—and I would say for everybody who believes in a country that has a fair go for all.
The $7 GP tax is a declaration of war on Medicare, using the patients as its victims. It is a clear attempt to force doctors to axe bulk billing. Pensions: more than 50,000 local pensioners in my electorate are going to have their benefits cut. The unemployed are not going to be spared. In an area where we have two per cent above the national average unemployment rate, they are going to be left to fend for themselves for more than six months, but with nothing—absolutely nothing—to help job creation in the regions. Students: well, you have cigar-chomping snobs thinking that affordable education sullies the graduation hall with people who do not deserve an education. The answer? Uncap student fees. The message to Australia is clear: do not grow old, do not lose your job, do not dream of going to university, and do not get crook. And if you do, you had better take your credit card, because your Medicare card will not get you in the door.
Barker Electorate: Pinnaroo Wetlands Project
Mr PASIN (Barker) (13:34): On Sunday 4 May I had the great privilege of representing the Deputy Prime Minister at the opening of stage 2 of the Pinnaroo Wetlands. Pinnaroo is in the heart of the Southern Mallee, and as the member for Barker I know and appreciate the great productivity and agricultural outputs of the Southern Mallee and the value of these outputs to the South Australian and national economy. The Pinnaroo Wetlands project is a wonderful reflection of these same attributes. This project reflects the courage, vision and leadership of rural and regional Australians and is an ideal example of what makes Australia great. The resilience of the residents of the Southern Mallee is demonstrated every day as they pursue their dryland farming and horticultural endeavours in the driest state of the world's driest continent. The drive, energy and vision of Friends of the Pinnaroo Wetlands to volunteer their personal time to conceive this opportunity and to engage and work with other groups and organisations to bring this project to life is a credit to all involved.
The Australian government, through Regional Development Australia, was pleased to have contributed $110,000 to facilitate the building of the capital works required to bring stage 2 to life. I know that the Southern Mallee community values and appreciates this generous contribution. I offer my personal congratulations to those involved, particularly Friends of the Pinnaroo Wetlands, without whom this magnificent project would never have come to fruition.
Canberra Electorate: Public Service
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (13:36): Last night's budget underscored the Abbott government's complete disdain for Canberra and its complete disdain for the Public Service. In his budget speech the Treasurer paraded the fact that at least 16,500 public service jobs would be cut—and he wore it almost as a badge of honour. It is almost as if he had no idea that those 16½ thousand job cuts were actually people—people with families, many of them in my electorate of Canberra. However, I fear that the total number of Public Service job cuts from this budget may be much higher than 16½ thousand. In addition to these cuts, the government is increasing the efficiency dividend by 0.25 per cent. It is cutting 230 programs, It is abolishing 70 government bodies. And all of those decisions will see more job cuts.
I ask those opposite to imagine for a minute that they are a 27-year-old public servant who has been made redundant as a result of these job losses. They cannot access Newstart for six months after they have lost their job. So what do they do? How do they live? Perhaps, if they are lucky enough, they can move back in with their parents. But their parents are already struggling with the higher cost of living—thanks to the fuel tax and the GP tax—and they are worrying about their retirement as their property investments in Canberra lose value. This 27-year-old will try to get another job but the indefinite hiring freeze in the Public Service means it is not an option. This is not a pretty picture for Canberra.
Acton, Mr Graeme
Mr O'DOWD (Flynn) (13:37): Australia, Central Queensland and the cattle industry will mourn the loss of a true gentleman, cattle king and first-class sportsman, Graeme Acton, who passed away on Friday, 9 May. He was 63 years of age. He died competing in the sport he loved—campdrafting. Unfortunately, he succumbed to injuries he suffered competing at the Clarke Creek Autumn Classic when his horse rolled upon him. In true Graeme Acton fashion, Graeme fought for his life for a week in Royal Brisbane Hospital following the accident but, sadly, never regained consciousness.
Graeme was a larger than life personality, an inspiration to all who knew him. He was a great advocate for the cattle industry. He had an unwavering passion and talent, which will be sorely missed. He was one of the most well-respected people I ever had the privilege of knowing. Graeme, along with his family, achieved a great deal for the cattle industry and for the rural industry alike from his property at Paradise Lagoons in my electorate. Our thoughts and condolences are with Graeme's wife, Jennie, his children Tori, Tom, Hayley and Laura, his
brothers Evan and Allan, his sister Elizabeth and their families.
Budget
Ms MacTIERNAN (Perth) (13:39): I want to strongly protest the shameful treatment in last night's budget of young Australians who stand to lose their jobs. I support the need for strong work tests and strong work for the dole measures but here we have something completely different. Here we have a total abandonment of the social safety net for Australians under 30 when they lose their jobs.
If you are a 28-year-old who is laid off from your job and you are desperately, earnestly, trying to find work, you will have no entitlement for unemployment benefit for up to six months, nor will you be entitled to access work for the dole programs. So how do you support yourself? How do you pay your rent? How do you eat? Not everyone has a large family home where they can seek refuge or a large parental income.
Many 28-year-olds would have left home more than a decade ago. We are not told the full extent of the waiting period. There is no information on what the minimum waiting period will be. Leaving a cohort of young with no legal means of support will have to see a rise in crime levels. Some young people may have to steal to feed themselves or have to deal in drugs to pay the rent. If we want to make sure people are not bludging, let them work for the dole; do not leave them absolutely penniless.
Budget
Ms GAMBARO (Brisbane) (13:40): Following the Treasurer's delivery of the budget last night, the Abbott government will invest close to $50 billion across Australia over seven years to deliver vital transport infrastructure for the 21st century. In my home state of Queensland, we will invest $10.3 billion from 2013-14 to 2018-19, plus an additional $3.1 billion from 2019-20. Our investment also includes $6.7 billion over 10 years to 2022-23 to fix the Bruce Highway—a much-welcomed move. One such remarkable piece of infrastructure is the Legacy Way project in Brisbane, which I inspected in January this year with the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, the Hon. Jamie Briggs. The Abbott government has maintained the $500 million commitment to this project. It will deliver the much-needed infrastructure into the 21st century for the City of Brisbane.
Legacy Way will provide a 4.6 km tunnel connecting the Western Freeway, Toowong, with the Inner City Bypass at Kelvin Grove, making it a quicker journey for the hundreds of thousands of Brisbane people who travel every day between the western suburbs and the CBD. All works are expected to be completed in 2015 and the Legacy Way project is becoming a reality. The construction of Legacy Way will support around 5,100 jobs over the life of the project and a further $10.5 billion in flow-on benefits for the Greater Brisbane Region.
Budget
Ms BURKE (Chisholm) (13:42): Over Easter, we usually look out for the road toll. Sadly, this Easter we looked out for the death toll through domestic violence. Tragically, there were six tragic deaths over the Easter period, all of them related to domestic violence, all at the hands of a family member or a friend. This is a blight on our society, a blight we should be doing something about, but tragically this budget has actually cut the funding towards assisting people in this insidious situation of domestic violence.
In my electorate alone, the Eastern Community Legal Centre, which has been doing phenomenal work in this area, is going to lose $200,000 per year over the next several years. Much of this money was going towards programs to alleviate and assist in the domestic violence issue. Over one in five women make their first disclosure of domestic violence to their GP. These are the same vulnerable women who will probably put off a GP visit because of the extra $7 they are going to have to pay. This will not assist people in this cycle of violence. We will see more deaths. We have seen too many already. Surely Senator Brandis's first priority—he is our first law officer—should be protecting women and children predominantly. Men have also died as a result of domestic violence. Money should be put towards assisting in this area, but no: we have seen cut, cut, cut—cuts particularly to the Legal Aid Commission and cuts to our legal community service. This is a blight on our society.
National Volunteer Week
Mr IRONS (Swan) (13:44): Tomorrow night in Perth the WA Volunteer of the Year awards will be presented at the National Volunteer Week gala dinner at the Hyatt Regency Perth. An article in the Southern Gazette on 6 May 2014 says the award nominee gives all the credit to his team. It states:
EVEN though Kensington's Frank Parker has been nominated for WA Volunteer of the Year award, he says it's the work of his team that deserves the recognition. Mr Parker has been involved as marquee co-ordinator with Mission Australia's annual Christmas Lunch in the Park for many years and has assisted in CLIP evolving from a volunteer-run, low-profile lunch, to an event that attracts over 2000 guests and 500 volunteers.
The article went on to say:
"It really does come down to great team we have," Mr Parker said. "It just runs so smoothly, and all the volunteers have such big hearts and they will roll up their sleeves and do all the hard work."
Each year on December 25, Wellington Square Park in the heart of Perth's CBD is transformed into a home for people who find themselves lonely, isolated or without family during the festive season.
"It's so surreal, if only everyday could be Christmas Day," he said. "It is such a magic event."
He said he was happy to be nominated as it would raise the profile of Mission Australia but he knew he could not take all the credit for the success.
"It is a huge team effort and everyone's role is important."
I have attended that lunch on three separate occasions on Christmas days. All congratulations to Mr Parker and his team. They do a fantastic job for those who need help on Christmas day.
Budget
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (13:45): South Australians have once again been dudded by the Abbott government. In yesterday's budget, the Abbott government axed the supplementary local roads funding that had been made available to South Australia since 2004 because the current road funding formula has been acknowledged as being flawed. South Australia receives 5.5 per cent of the local roads funding, yet has 11 per cent of the roads and over 7 per cent of the population.
Last year, almost $18 million of additional funding was provided to South Australia as supplementary local roads funding. It is an issue that I raised in this House on 24 March only this year. South Australian councils are understandably angry because they know they will now have to either increase their rates or cut important local roads spending in their council area.
The Abbott government has turned its back on South Australia by not supporting Holden, it turned its back on South Australia by not supporting all the aspects of the Murray-Darling river plan that the previous Labor government had brokered and it is now turning away from South Australians by turning its back on the urgent local roads funding that is required. They are taking away this vital funding.
This is a government of broken promises and of twisted priorities. It is a government that simply cannot be trusted.
Norco Rural
Mr HOGAN (Page) (13:46): I rise in the House to tell of great news from my local electorate. I have a co-operative called Norco. It is 119-year-old cooperative. They are owned and operated by local farmers. They employ, across the cooperative, over 650 people. Not only do they do that but they buy milk from many dairy farmers in my wider community.
They have just announced a trial shipment of fresh milk to China through new export protocols. This has reduced the time to get fresh milk onto the shelves from a time that would not work—14 to 21 days—to less than seven days. I congratulate Greg McNamara, the chairman, and Brett Kelly, the CEO, for this achievement. This pipeline has the capacity to deliver more than 20 million litres of fresh milk in the first 12 months. This obviously has the potential to be great news not only for the employees of Norco but also for the farmers who may start to get a higher farm gate price, which is necessary for their survival.
It also highlights the importance that this government has placed on trade agreements. We have already done two in our first seven or eight months, with Japan and Korea. We are now moving to do one with China, which will again help companies and cooperatives, like Norco, in my electorate.
Mid West Academy of Sport
Ms PRICE (Durack) (13:48): I recently had the pleasure of attending the official launch of the Mid West Academy of Sport in Geraldton and have been following the progress of this fantastic initiative ever since. Under the stewardship of CEO Chris Darlington and chair Graham Greenaway, the academy has the important task of supporting and promoting young, talented sportspeople in the midwest region and helping them to fulfil their dreams without having to leave home.
The academy achieves this by bringing together training and expertise to provide development scholarships to athletes, coaches and officials in all sports. Seventeen athletes, six coaches and one official, from nine different sports, have already received scholarships this year alone. The athletes are provided with services such as sports science, nutrition, coaching, sports psychology and other forms of athlete education. The academy is also supporting 11 additional coaches, through the coaching effectiveness program, to develop the many different skills and attributes that coaches require to retain and develop athletes.
The academy is an excellent example of the determination of people outside of the cities that young regional sports men and women should not be disadvantaged due to geography. I look forward to further promoting the good work of the academy.
Charitable Organisations
Ms SCOTT (Lindsay) (13:49): All too often, many families across our community experience perhaps one of the most traumatic and tragic life experiences: the birth of a critically ill child or, worse still, stillbirths or infant perinatal deaths. My community of Lindsay is home to an exceptional neonatal intensive care unit and within it resides the Nepean Family Room.
This facility provides respite from the clinical hospital environment. The family rooms are a warm, homely safe haven and provide quiet time to aid the mourning process. These rooms provide a home away from home, allowing a sense of normalcy at what is such a difficult time. Families are able to take a break, have a cup of tea, have a shower or even heat up a meal.
Recently, I had the huge privilege of taking the Prime Minister's wife, Margie, to the Nepean Family Room to meet with local families. It is my great honour to have both Kathryn and Ian Garton from the Garton Group here in the chamber today. Kathryn, who has experienced the neonatal intensive care unit for herself, has been a driving force in contributing back to our community and to the establishment of the Nepean Family Room. I would like to again welcome them here today and thank them for their service to our community. That service provides so much to so many families going through such traumatic circumstances.
Wiltshire, Mr Graham, OAM
Mr NIKOLIC (Bass) (13:51): This afternoon I pay tribute to the life and work of one of the fathers of the Tasmanian wine industry, Graham Edward Wiltshire OAM. When the early history of Tasmania's wine industry is written, two names will shine out: Claudio Alcorso in the south and Graham Wiltshire in the north. Over 50 years ago, Graham realised the potential of Tasmania's latitude, matching the productive wine regions in southern Europe, and he planted his first vines at Legana in 1966. Eventually he gave up engineering and devoted himself full time to viticulture. In 1975 he established the Heemskerk vineyard and winery. His expertise with sparkling wines became so well regarded that in the 1980s he formed an alliance with the Roederer Champagne House in France, which led to the first Jansz vintage in 1989. It is quite remarkable for anyone to sell champagne back to the French, but Graham Wiltshire did it!
He was quiet and gentlemanly and shared his innovation with other fledgling winemakers. He helped form the Vineyard Association of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Pinot Noir Forum and in 2004 was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for exemplary service to the Australian wine industry. His other passion was squash and he was awarded the Australian Sports Medal in 2000 for his service to that game. I pay tribute to Graham and express my condolences to his wife Nancy and his family.
McEwen Electorate: Kings Park Commentary Box
Mr MITCHELL (McEwen—Second Deputy Speaker) (13:53): I recently had the honour of opening Seymour FM's new commentary box in Kings Park. The commentary box was built by students of Broadford Secondary College, as part of their VET in Building and Construction. The students worked collaboratively and have left a finished product comparable to constructions built by some other commercial builders.
The project began last September and is now in regular use by Seymour FM. Greg Sharp, the presenter at Seymour FM, oversaw the construction, as he has an extensive background in building and construction. Two particular students were in attendance at the official opening of the Seymour FM commentary box, Rose White and Jimmy lncorvaia. Rose and Jimmy volunteered their time out of their school holidays to work on the project, to ensure it was completed on time for footy season. Greg even remarked that, if he was still in the building industry, he would have no hesitation in giving these young people a job. As he also said: 'They're bloody good workers.'
Greg is passionate about ensuring we have more opportunities and experiences like this in the workforce. He rallies community groups undertaking a particular construction project with the funds for materials but not necessarily those for the labour. Greg enables the students to work on real construction jobs—everything from measuring out all the way through to the finishing touches of construction. The previous project that Greg and the kids worked on was the clubrooms for the Mitchell Ranges Soccer Club. I wish to commend Greg, the students and the suppliers who were all involved in putting this project together to provide an asset for Seymour.
Hindmarsh Electorate: Arnott's Biscuits
Mr WILLIAMS (Hindmarsh) (13:54): The history of Arnott's Biscuits began in 1865, when the Scottish immigrant, William Arnott, opened a bakery in Newcastle, providing biscuits to townspeople and the ships docking at the local port. Arnott's now has a number of factories around Australia, with one in my electorate of Hindmarsh as well as one in the electorate of Chifley. I know the member for Chifley, like myself, is proud of the workers and facilities of Arnott's. The Marleston factory in Hindmarsh employs over 300 people. Earlier I was with students from Immanuel Primary School; they are up in the gallery now. One of their teachers knew the factory very well. In passing I must say that I was very impressed with the interest shown by the students—Harrison, Henry and all their colleagues up there—on the their tour of Parliament House.
Arnott's has very loyal staff with many working at the factory for over 10 years. Their operations are now sophisticated and impressive. With many of our manufacturing companies facing challenges, it is important that we support local companies like Arnott's. One of the specialties of the Marleston facility is liquid chocolate that they send to other sites around Australia. Probably one of the best things about Arnott's is the Tim Tam biscuit, which turns 50 this year. Tim Tams are loved by Australians, and I encourage everyone of you to go out and buy Tim Tams in the knowledge that they are made in Australia.
Turkey: Mining Tragedy
Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (13:56): I wish to offer condolences and heartfelt thoughts to Australia's Turkish community, which woke this morning to the news of a devastating explosion in a mine in western Turkey that has left 201 workers dead and 75 injured. It is estimated that there were 580 workers underground at the time of the blast, and 200 miners remain unaccounted for. The mine is in the town of Soma in Manisa Province, about 250 kilometres south of Istanbul. Large crowds of friends and relatives have gathered near the privately owned mine—many in tears, seeking the fate of their loved ones.
Australia has a very active Turkish community. I am blessed with a great Turkish community in my electorate. Many of those are migrants from the particular province where this disaster occurred. I am told that the issue of safety in this region was raised in the Turkish parliament only last month. One of the members of parliament said: 'As Manisa's members of parliament we are sick of going to miners' funerals.' Our thoughts and condolences are with the Turkish community of Australia at this time.
Wannon Electorate: Cancer Services
Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (13:57): I rise today to say how proud I am of my community in south-west Victoria. Last week the community finished the fundraising of $5 million to go to a regional cancer centre. This effort by the community to raise $5 million to match the $10 million contributed by the federal government and the $15 million by the state government means that this $30 million regional cancer centre will go ahead. I would like to thank the Prime Minister and the Treasurer who met with the Peter's Project committee and gave their support. The Prime Minister even gave a little donation to the cause and, Prime Minister, that was recognised on the day. The Premier of Victoria was also there. It was an incredibly proud moment for south-west Victoria. We showed through local fundraising and the backing of state and federal government funds that you can deliver for your community. I would in particular like to commend Vicki Jellie, who led the local fundraising campaign on behalf of Peter's Project. She has done an outstanding job in memory of her late husband. The people of south-west Victoria applaud her.
Budget
Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (13:59): I am grateful that we have quite a number of those on the other side present today, because I wanted to ask a simple question. I do not know if any of them still have their Real Solutions booklet—we have the chief booklet holder at the dispatch box—but I was wondering if they could point out where medicines would go up, where the GP tax would come in, where the hospitals tax would come in, where they would be driving doctors out of bulk billing and starting to charge people in the electorate I represent every time they go to the doctor.
The SPEAKER: In accordance with standing order (43) the time for members' statements has concluded.
STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE
Nigeria
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:00): If I may, I will take a moment of the House's time on indulgence. The whole world—and certainly millions of Australians—have been absolutely transfixed and horrified by the hostage-taking of some 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria. The organisation responsible, Boko Haram, is reportedly responsible in addition to this for the deaths of some 300 people in north-east Nigeria in various terrorist incidents. Today I announce that the government is taking steps to commence the process of banning Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation. In banning Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation, Australia will be acting consistently with Nigeria and also with our international partners, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand.
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:01): The Labor opposition is extremely concerned about the fate of more than 200 girls kidnapped from a boarding school in northern Nigeria in mid-April. This is truly a horrific situation. It would be every parent's worst nightmare. The President of Nigeria has called on the international community to do what we can to help rescue these girls. The opposition were advised that the government was considering making this listing immediately before question time today. We offer every support possible to the Abbott government. We must do all that we can to assist. I note the government's advice that it intends to consult on whether Boko Haram should be listed as a proscribed organisation under the Criminal Code. The opposition will approach this matter in a constructive and bipartisan way.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Abbott Government
Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (14:02): My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to his admission on ABC's 7.30 last night that the new GP payment and income tax levy are taxes. I also refer the Treasurer to both his and the Prime Minister's repeated promises before the election that there would be no new taxes under the coalition government. After this deceit, how can the Australian people ever believe anything the Treasurer or the Prime Minister have to say?
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:02): I did not say that.
Mr Dreyfus: That is a lie.
Mr HOCKEY: What was that? You withdraw.
Mr Pyne: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Isaacs made a very unparliamentary intervention and I would ask him to withdraw.
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Treasurer made the comment on television last night. For him to stand up in the parliament and deny—
The SPEAKER: No, we will not be debating in question time. The point was made that the member for Isaacs made an unparliamentary comment. Will he withdraw?
Mr Dreyfus: I withdraw.
Mr HOCKEY: The interviewer asked me a question and put a whole lot of things into that question and assumed that the answer was relevant to that particular point.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: We will have some silence, please. The Treasurer has the call. The question has been asked.
Mr HOCKEY: The Labor Party left Australia in a mess. The Labor Party left the budget in a mess. The Labor Party is now in a position where not only are they opposing us keeping our election promises in the Senate; the Labor Party is opposing us keeping the Labor Party's election promises in the Senate. So I would say to the Labor Party that, at a certain point, you need to accept responsibility for your actions.
Mr Bowen: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question was about the Treasurer's and the Prime Minister's deceit of the Australian people. He should be relevant to the question—
The SPEAKER: There is no point of order. It will be a very wide-ranging answer when you ask a question in such broad terms.
Mr HOCKEY: If, as the member for McMahon says, the question is about deceit, I would ask him to explain why we ended up with a deficit of $123 billion. I would ask him why we ended up with $667 billion of debt. Why is it the case that the member for Lilley never actually delivered four surpluses in a row? Why is that the case? If we are going to have a discussion about deceit, I would suggest that the Labor Party is standing on very thin ice.
Budget
Mrs WICKS (Robertson) (14:05): My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister explain why the measures in yesterday's budget are necessary to ensure our future prosperity?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:06): I thank the member for Robertson for her question. I acknowledge that she represents decent, aspirational people who know what it is like to put aside money today for tomorrow. She represents decent, aspirational people who know what it is like to make sacrifices for their children and for their grandchildren's future.
As the member for Robertson knows and as I suspect most of her constituents would understand, this is a budget that is tough but fair. It is a budget that asks for sacrifices from everyone to secure the long-term future of our country, because we simply could not go on as we were when members opposite were in charge. We simply could not go on paying the mortgage on the credit card, because that is exactly what happened when the Labor Party was in government.
The sad and tragic truth is that when the Labor Party were in charge they brought down six budgets, and those budgets gave us the six biggest deficits in our history. Sure, they forecast surpluses. They promised surpluses, but what they gave us were the six biggest deficits in our history. They did not just give us six deficits; they gave us a further four deficits in prospect. They gave us deficits and debt stretching out as far as the eye can see—$123 billion worth of prospective deficits and $667 billion worth of projected debt. Not only did they give us that; they gave us a double-dip deficit, because in 2017-18 the deficit went up again to $30 billion.
We did not create this problem, but we will take responsibility for fixing it. We bring the budget close to surplus in 2017-18. We get the budget back under control, which is exactly what we promised we would do before the election. We are not just restraining spending; we are building for the future with the world's biggest medical research fund and with the Commonwealth's biggest ever infrastructure spend. In 1996 a coalition government brought in a budget that was tough but fair and set our country up for a decade of prosperity—and last night's budget is in exactly that tradition.
Budget
Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (14:09): My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to his previous answer and to his answer on the 7.30 program last night when asked:
You know that a co-payment, a levy and a tax are all taxes by any other name.
The Treasurer's response:
Of course they are.
Will the Treasurer now concede that his election campaign was a deceit on the Australian people?
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:09): No. I will tell you why. We went to the last election saying, as the Prime Minister said, that taxes will be lower under the coalition than under Labor. The fact of the matter is that there is a wonderful graph in the budget papers that clearly shows that, as a result of the decisions we have taken since we have come to government, tax collections are lower than they would have been if Labor were re-elected. The thing about Labor is that they are experts when it comes to tax and deceit. Exhibit A was the mining tax. That was the benchmark success for taxation reform laid down by the member for Lilley. He is a very gifted man, the member for Lilley. He manages to introduce a tax that raises no money. That is quite an achievement. In the case of the Labor Party, they promised 'There would be no carbon tax under the government I lead', and then they go and do a deal with the Greens. There was no higher purpose for introducing a carbon tax. The money was not going to go to something that was going to build a stronger nation.
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In order to be directly relevant, at some point he should refer to his answer on 7.30 last night.
The SPEAKER: There is no point of order. It was a very generic question. The Treasurer has the call.
Mr HOCKEY: The fact of the matter is that Labor only ever introduced new taxes for political purposes. That is what they did. That was their benchmark. The biggest criticism the Labor Party have—and we have had two questions now—about the budget is about the politics of it.
Opposition members: No!
Mr HOCKEY: Oh, yes! It is all about the politics. It is not about the economics of it. It is all about the politics. That is why the Labor Party was not fit to govern. That is why the Labor Party is not fit to govern.
Budget
Dr SOUTHCOTT (Boothby) (14:12): My question is to the Treasurer. Why is it important to start the hard work of repairing the budget now? What legacy did the Treasurer address as the government developed last night's budget?
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:12): We need to move now—and I thank the member for Boothby for his question. He would remember the 1996 budget. He was there with us, with a number of other members. The fact was that it was similar in one sense: a coalition government is elected; Labor do not tell the full story about what the budget is. Of course, in those days, it was a $96 billion debt and a $10 billion black hole—the Beazley black hole. But this time around Labor have exceeded their record. On this occasion, it is $667 billion of debt and $123 billion of deficits. And the Labor Party hold their hands in the air and say: 'No train crash here. There's no problem here.' The debt is going up. The deficits are continuing endlessly—'There's no problem here.' Unemployment is rising. 'There's no problem here, everything is okay, we did a fabulous job,' they convince themselves.
The problem is that someone has to pick up the bill. And do you know who has to pick up the bill? The taxpayers of Australia have to pick up the bill. They are the ones who are going to have to pay for the reckless indifference of the Labor Party towards taxpayers' money—$667 billion of debt. In the budget this year, through our decisions, we reduced that by almost $300 billion. In 10 years that represents interest savings alone of $16 billion a year. That is the equivalent of building 15 new teaching hospitals every year. And the Labor Party want to have their way. The Labor Party want that $16 billion a year not to go into some other purpose that is going to build a stronger nation. They want us to provide that money as interest to people that we have borrowed the money from. That is their idea of a priority. Our priority is to have a nation that lives within its means. Our priority is to pay our bills as we go along. Our priority is to leave the Australian people with a better quality of life—
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Isaacs will desist!
Mr HOCKEY: Our priority is not to pass the buck to the next generation, asking them to pay for our lifestyle.
Ms Butler interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Griffith will desist!
Budget
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:15): My question is to the Prime Minister. Today the New South Wales Premier, Mike Baird, said the budget last night is ripping $80 billion out of schools and hospitals. He said:
What we saw last night from Canberra was a kick in the guts to the people of New South Wales.
Why should the people of New South Wales suffer because of the Prime Minister's pre-election deceit?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:15): I am happy to take that question from the Leader of the Opposition. Obviously there were some things in the budget last night that the states liked, such as the record Commonwealth spend on infrastructure. There were other things that they probably did not like, because we are not going to be bound by unsustainable spending commitments that were made by members opposite. We will not be bound by Labor's unsustainable spending commitments. We are not going to be bound by the budget booby traps that members opposite put in. They are state government run public hospitals. They are state government run public schools. The state governments will need to take more responsibility for these in the future, as is right and proper.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: There is too much noise on my left!
Mr ABBOTT: What the people of Australia expect is grown-up adult governments in the states, just as they have now got a grown-up adult government in Canberra. That is as it should be.
Budget
Mr PALMER (Fairfax) (14:17): My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer support changes to all parliamentary super schemes so that members of parliament do not receive their superannuation payments until they reach the same age as Australia's entitlement for the old age pension?
An opposition member interjecting—
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:17): I would not go there. I say to the honourable member that there have been changes to the parliamentary super scheme. He might not be familiar with that, but there have been changes to the parliamentary super scheme. I know he is an immensely wealthy man and he might not understand and might not have looked at the documentation in relation to his superannuation scheme. I urge him to do that. The fact is there were changes made some years ago to the parliamentary super scheme and, in addition, we have made changes now to the gold card program. Everyone has to make a contribution. I understand the Labor Party has decided not to support the temporary deficit reduction levy, so the Labor Party and the honourable member obviously would prefer to see others do the heavy lifting and them make no contribution at all.
Budget
Ms HENDERSON (Corangamite) (14:18): My question is to the Treasurer. How is everyone contributing now to help build future prosperity for all Australians?
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:18): I thank the honourable member for her question. It is so important that we ask Australians to contribute now. We do so because—and I understand this is an old Irish saying—you fix the roof while the sun is shining. In this case we have $667 billion of debt. If we do not start the process now of trying to ensure that we never get to that level, then the pain associated with dealing with it in a few years time is going to be far greater. We have been very up-front with the Australian people in asking them to pay a temporary budget repair levy on incomes above $180,000. We believe it is only fair that everyone contribute. It is also the case that we are asking Australians to pay for indexation in their fuel excise and, if they contribute that excise, in law we are going to hypothecate it to road funding which is going to substantially increase into the future. In fact, in this budget we are spending well in excess of an additional $11 billion on roads, and the total excise increase would be the equivalent of just over $2 billion.
Mr Husic interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Chifley will desist!
Mr HOCKEY: There is something that we understand that I am afraid our political opponents do not—that is, if you want to spend money today, you should raise the money today. If you want to spend the money today, you should do everything you can to raise the money today. One of the challenges is that our political opponents did not do that. They spent in excess of $14 billion out of assumed revenue from the mining tax that raised hardly any money. So what happens? The government goes and borrows from the next generation in order to pay for handouts like the schoolkids bonus. Labor is still defending those sort of things even though we have to borrow money to pay for them. They do not understand. If you want to be responsible, and if you want to be responsible across the generations, it is the duty of everyone here to ensure that when we spend money we raise money and we do not go down the path of continuing to borrow money that at the end of the day our children are going to have to repay.
Budget
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:21): My question is to the Prime Minister. Before the election this Prime Minister explicitly promised no new taxes. Last night this Prime Minister smashed Australian families with new taxes on health and petrol. Why should Australian families pay for this Prime Minister's deceit?
Government members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: There will be quiet on my right!
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:22): The whole nation is paying the price of the Labor Party's incompetence.
Mr Shorten: Nonsense! You break your promises.
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition has asked his question and will desist.
Mr ABBOTT: Let me tackle the issues that the Leader of the Opposition raises absolutely head-on. Yes, there is a temporary deficit levy. No-one likes it. I certainly do not like it. But it will impact on just three per cent of taxpayers. We are indexing fuel excise. Again, it is not something that people would necessarily like, but the fact is the money is hypothecated to extra road spending, and that will cost the average family 40 cents a week in the first year.
The decisions that this government has made since September last year reduce the overall tax burden by $5.7 billion. There is all this huffing and puffing from members opposite about broken promises and about lower taxes. Well, let us keep the promise to get rid of the carbon tax because that would save every single Australian family $550 a year. This is a government which does not just talk about lowering taxes; this is a government which is lowering taxes—and it delivered that last night.
Budget
Mr HUTCHINSON (Lyons) (14:24): My question is to the Treasurer. Why is it so important that all Australians have a sustainable safety net? How does the budget ask Australians to contribute in order to build this safety net for the future?
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:24): I thank the honourable member for the question. He knows and I know that it is hugely important that we provide a well-resourced, sustainable safety net for those most vulnerable in the community. It is hugely important. Of course, welfare represents 35 per cent of the total Commonwealth budget, so we spend more on welfare than we do on health care for our citizens. We spend more on welfare than we spend on the education of our children. We spend more on welfare than we spend on the defence of the nation. Of course, whilst it is important to have a well-resourced, sustainable safety net, what matters most is that we can afford it. That is what matters most.
The fact is we do have changing demographics, and I, on this very rare occasion, will quote the former—no, the current—member for Lilley. I am sorry I made that mistake. He said in a press release with the honourable member here: 'Increasing the pension age is a responsible reform to meet the challenge of an ageing population and the economic impact it will have for all Australians. Australia must move towards a higher pension age over the next decade.'
It is quite interesting because the trajectory of our increase in the pension age eligibility to 70 follows the Labor Party's. But, obviously, given that it is going to 70 in the year 2035, I would say to you it is responsible to give people good notice that these are the issues that need to be addressed. It is easy just to put it aside. It is easy to be a critic. All of the criticism from Labor thus far has been political. None of it is about the policy.
Ms Butler interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Griffith will desist!
Mr HOCKEY: They are all politics, no economics. They are all politics, no policy. Come on and debate these things. Let's debate the issue in relation to the ageing demographic. Let's debate the issues about how we are going to continue to sustain our health system.
Ms Butler interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Griffith will desist!
Mr HOCKEY: Let's debate the issues that actually go to the heart of our economic prosperity. I would say to the honourable members: what we have laid down is a plan to ensure that what we receive in the future is sustainable—
Ms Butler interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Griffith is warned.
Mr HOCKEY: because, on the current trajectories, if we just adopt a business-as-usual line, the pain associated with rectification in the future is going to be far greater. It is going to be enormous. We do not want to get to that point. The coalition will not let it get to that point.
Budget
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:27): My question is to the Prime Minister. Before the last election—indeed, on the very last night before the election—the Prime Minister explicitly promised, 'No change to pensions.' Last night, the budget revealed that pensions will be cut. Why should pensioners pay for this Prime Minister's deceit?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:28): The Leader of the Opposition, if I may say so, should get his facts right. Pensions are not being cut, but after the next election, if this government is re-elected, pensions will grow at a somewhat slower rate because they will be indexed to CPI rather than male total average weekly earnings.
Ms Macklin: Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I seek leave to table the page from the budget that shows how much you are taking out of pensioners.
Government members interjecting—
Ms Macklin: I can do it whenever I like!
The SPEAKER: The member for Jagajaga is abusing the standing orders. You know perfectly well that you may not stand at the dispatch box simply to have an argument. You know perfectly well.
Mr ABBOTT: The most compassionate thing that we can do for the pensioners of Australia is to ensure that pensions are sustainable and that our social services budget is sustainable.
Ms Butler interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Griffith will remove herself under standing order 94(a).
The member for Griffith then left the chamber.
Mr Burke: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: do you recognise that that makes it 100 people ejected from this side of the House and no-one from the other side of the House in the time you have been Speaker? Do you really think that is the way to conduct the parliament?
The SPEAKER: I would simply say to the Manager of Opposition Business, if you had 100 members you would be in government and sitting on this side. You simply have some recurrent offenders. Believe me, I look equally to my right.
Mr ABBOTT: I reiterate the point that the most compassionate thing we can do for the pensioners of Australia is to ensure that pensions are sustainable over the long term. That is exactly what we have done. There has not been and will not be any change to pensions in this term of parliament. We have been very up-front with the pensioners of Australia about what we think should happen to pensions in 2017, and if people do not like that they will have the opportunity to vote accordingly at the next election.
Budget
Ms SCOTT (Lindsay) (14:31): My question is to the Treasurer. How will the budget assist in building the infrastructure of the 21st century that will secure growth in our economy and provide more jobs for the people of my electorate of Lindsay?
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:31): I thank the honourable member for Lindsay for her question, and I recognise that she has been a fierce fighter for Western Sydney because she wants to see construction and new jobs, and she is determined to have prosperity, in Western Sydney. As the member for Lindsay and all members know, we have now made a massive commitment to infrastructure in Australia that will lead to an investment of $125 billion of new infrastructure over the next few years. The total Commonwealth infrastructure investment in New South Wales is $14.9 billion—a significant sum of money. Why are we doing this? We inherited an economy with falling terms of trade. The mining and resources boom that we have all benefited from over the last few years had a big production phase. It sucked a lot of construction workers out of the rest of the economy and gave them an opportunity to have a well-paid job. That was terrific.
The mining industry has done and still does a great job. It represents 10 per cent of our economy and two per cent of our jobs. But, the mining industry has moved from a construction phase to a production and export phase. We should celebrate that. However, those workers who were involved in the construction phase are now moving into the other 90 per cent of the economy and looking for work. What we are doing is rolling out long-term infrastructure to give them that work. We are rolling out long-term infrastructure to lift the productive capacity of the other 90 per cent of the Australian economy. If we do not move now to build this infrastructure then there will be a fall in growth in two to three years in the Australian economy with the net result that unemployment will go higher. That is unacceptable to the coalition. There is a price that we have to pay. If Australians pay an extra 40c a week to fill their car as a result of an increase in excise, that gives us a revenue stream to move now on the infrastructure that is going to deliver us sustainable jobs into the future. That is how it works. You cannot promise things on the never-never—you need to move now. Our infrastructure program is not just about today's jobs. Our infrastructure program is about tomorrow's jobs and beyond.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
The SPEAKER (14:34): I advise the House that we have in the gallery today the former senator for Western Australia, Mr Ross Lightfoot, the former member for Deakin, Mr Mike Symon, and the former member for Petrie, Ms Yvette D'Ath. We make you welcome.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Budget
Ms MACKLIN (Jagajaga) (14:35): My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister promised before the election 'We will help families with the real cost of raising children.' Last night, the Prime Minister slashed family payments by $3,000 a year for many families. Why should Australian families pay for the Prime Minister's deceit?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:35): I do not deny for a second that many Australian families are doing it tough. The point I keep making is that in confronting the debt and deficit disaster that Australia faces we are all in it together. I imagine that the shadow minister who asked the question is sincere about wanting to ease the squeeze on Australian families. But, if she is as sincere as I think in her heart she is, why doesn't she say to her leader, 'Let's start making it easier for families by scrapping the carbon tax'? If she is seriously concerned about governments keeping commitments and making it easier for families, why doesn't she allow this government to keep its commitment and to make it easier for families by scrapping the carbon tax right away. Do it now.
Education
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Education. How is the government expanding opportunities in education for all Australians?
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (14:37): I thank the member for Ryan for her question. I am very pleased to be able to tell the member for Ryan and the House in general that the government is keeping all its election commitments in education. All of our election commitments will be met in the Education portfolio. Spending on higher education and research will increase by $900 million over the next four years and spending on school education will increase by $3.5 billion over the next four years. So, ironically, because of the cuts delivered by the previous government, by the Leader of the Opposition, we will be spending more on school education in 2017 than Labor would have if they had been re-elected. So let us not hear any of the cant and hypocrisy from the Labor side about education spending.
In this answer I want to specifically focus, if I may, on higher education, because higher education is one of the really positive features of the budget that the Treasurer delivered last night. The government is embarking on one of the greatest reforms of higher education in 30 years, which will spread opportunity to more than 80,000 Australians across Australia, who will be able to access degrees over the next four years which they would not otherwise have been able to, and to countless apprentices, who will be able to keep doing their apprenticeship and complete it because of the support that we give apprentices in this budget, announced last night.
So, we are building the skills infrastructure of the future—not just the physical infrastructure but, very importantly, the skills infrastructure of the future. We are doing it in three ways. We will be expanding the demand-driven system to diploma and associate degree courses across Australia, which means that students who do those courses—who are typically low-socioeconomic status, first-generation university goers or low ATAR achievers—will be able to use the courses as pathways into university. It is a major reform and it costs us money. We are overseeing the largest Commonwealth scholarship scheme in Australia's history so that the smartest kid from the lowest socioeconomic status background can go to the best universities in Australia. We are expanding the trade support loan program—extending it and creating it—so that apprentices can access $20,000 of borrowing from the taxpayer over four years to use for their costs of achieving their apprenticeship. We are spreading the benefits of education and skills right across the economy to apprentices, to lower income families, to first-generation university goers. We are investing in the skills infrastructure of the future and we are damn proud of it.
Budget
Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:40): My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister promised before the election, 'We will help families with the real cost of raising children,' but the Prime Minister's budget will cost families as much as $5,000 a year as a result of his cuts to family payments, plus his new GP tax plus his increase to petrol taxes. Why should Australian families pay up to $5,000 per year for the Prime Minister's deceit?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:40): This budget enshrines two great Australian values: the fair go that we preserve and the 'have a go' value that we want to encourage. They are the values that are embodied in this budget.
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Isaacs will desist.
Mr ABBOTT: I know that some benefits for families are changing and I accept that. I make the point that it is important to maximise participation in the workforce and it is important to bear down on what is sometimes described as middle-class welfare. It is important to do that, but it is important to do that in ways that are fair.
If the people of Australia want to look at the budget documentation, they will see, for instance, that if you are a single-income family, with one child under six, with $30,000 of income you are still receiving more than $18,000 from the taxpayer. If you are a single-income family, with one child, on $90,000 you are still receiving $6,000 from the taxpayer.
I say again, if the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is very anxious to ensure that this government keeps its commitments and if she is as anxious as she says she is to ease the squeeze on families then let us repeal the carbon tax straightaway. Let us repeal the carbon tax straightaway and give all the families of Australia a $550 windfall. Let us give them $550 a year straightaway.
Budget
Mr ALEXANDER (Bennelong) (14:42): My question is to the Minister for Health. How is the budget asking Australians to contribute to ensure the future of medical research in Australia and build a sustainable health system?
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (14:43): I thank the member for Bennelong not just for his question but for his commitment to medical research. He is a great supporter of medical research in this country. This morning I spoke to Professor Charlie Teo, who is one of our nation's greatest neurosurgeons.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The members for Moreton and Wakefield will desist.
Mr DUTTON: He was over the moon, absolutely over the moon, as many other researchers are about the government's commitment to medical research. Not only are we providing record amounts now to medical research, but we will increase that investment as we go forward. As a nation, we face a great threat as our population ages in relation to dementia and diseases of the brain otherwise. In fact, it is projected that by 2050, 7,500 Australians each week will present with dementia. We have to make the investment today to make sure that we can provide the opportunities for research and discovery that will assist our doctors and our scientists to make those discoveries and to implement the medications and the advice that flow from them. I am very proud of the fact that we are in this portfolio at this time able to say that we will increase health expenditure over the forward estimates in 2014-15 by 3.7 per cent. In 2015-16 it increases again to $68.2 billion. It increases in 2016-17, it increases in 2017-18, and health funding will continue to grow in this budget.
There are other people who have been complimentary of the government's $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund. Let me go to Professor Doug Hilton, who is the Institute Director at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. He says:
This investment from the government is game changing.
He also says, 'It is a fabulous time to be a medical researcher in this country.' The Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes said:
Creation of this $20 billion fund into perpetuity is amongst the most significant initiatives in the history of medical research in Australia.
We will set this health system up for the future, not just for today. We will protect it against the Labor Party into the future. This fund will have its capital protected, because it will be guarded by the Future Fund guardians. We will not allow Labor to attack the $20 billion. We will make sure that the $1 billion a year that will flow from this $20 billion capital fund will supplement the money that we are putting into medical research now—which will grow to about $2 billion a year—and we will stop the Labor Party from spending that $20 billion at any time in the future. This fund is about setting the future up for this country and that is what this government is about.
Budget
Ms KING (Ballarat) (14:46): My question is to the Prime Minister. Before the election, the Prime Minister said, 'No cuts to health.' Last night, the Prime Minister hit Australians with a $7 GP tax for every visit to the doctor. How is the Prime Minister fit for office, if he expects Australians to pay for his deceit?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:46): We made a commitment that every dollar of saving is reinvested in the world's largest medical research fund, which will be good for cures, treatment, and the health of all Australians in the years and decades ahead.
The shadow minister says that somehow I am unfit for office because I support a co-payment. There is a better way of operating a health system, and the change could hardly hurt at all. As economists have shown, the ideal model involves a small co-payment—not enough to put a dent in your weekly budget, but enough to make you think twice before you call the doctor—and the idea is hardly radical. Who said that? The shadow assistant treasurer. If I am not fit for office, neither is he, presumably, and I imagine that the Leader of the Opposition will be requiring his resignation.
Mr Bowen: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If what the member for Canberra said 15 years ago is relevant, what the Prime Minister said six months ago—
The SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. That is an abuse of the standing orders, and the member knows it. Another infringement and you are to leave us. The Prime Minister has concluded his answer.
Road Infrastructure
Ms LANDRY (Capricornia) (14:49): My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. How does the budget deliver on the government's commitment to build the roads of the 21st century?
Mr TRUSS (Wide Bay—Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (14:49): I thank the honourable member for Capricornia for her question. She, like me, would have been delighted, last night, as the treasurer outlined the biggest infrastructure program in our nation's history. It was a real commitment to building the roads of the 21st century, a commitment that went way beyond anything Labor left behind in their forward estimates and went way beyond the things that the Labor Party had promised during the election campaign. We all know that what they promised in the election campaign always had conditions attached to it that the states would not find acceptable or was going to be funded out of the proceeds of the mining tax, which produced no significant money. The reality is that this was a real change, a government committed to really building the infrastructure projects that matter so much for our country.
The member for Capricornia will be particularly pleased about the commitments to the Bruce Highway, which is so critical to her electorate and so important for getting people in and out of Rockhampton and the other parts of her electorate. The budget includes substantial new investment on the Bruce Highway. There will be funding for 16 continuing projects and for 45 new projects on the Bruce Highway. This will make a difference in getting rid of some of the flood-prone areas, like the Yeppen flood plain, south of the member's electorate, and in making sure that traffic is able to move more smoothly along that road.
But there are major projects in every state, capital, country community, and right across the nation. There are the East West Link in Melbourne, the Pacific Highway from Sydney to Brisbane, the Western Sydney road projects—$2.9 billion to connect Western Sydney, WestConnex—and the north-south corridor in Adelaide. We will complete the gateway project in Western Australia and build the Swan Valley Bypass. There is $400 million for the Midland Highway. We will complete the Majura Parkway in the ACT. There will be significant road funding also in the Northern Territory. This is a major growth package that will deliver real results for Australia. It will make our road transport move more smoothly. It will ensure that there are jobs for Australian industry in construction—
Mr Albanese: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In order to be relevant he has to mention a single new project. He has not yet.
The SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Health
Ms KING (Ballarat) (14:52): My question is to the Prime Minister. Before the election the Prime Minister promised no cuts to health. Last night the Prime Minister confirmed that all Australians will pay more for their medicines. Why should Australians pay for the Prime Minister's deceit?
Mr Simpkins interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Cowan is warned.
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:53): I want to reiterate to the shadow minister that this is a government that has kept faith with the commitments that it made to the Australian people before the election. Every dollar of savings in health is reinvested in health.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Jagajaga will desist.
Mr ABBOTT: It is reinvested in the world's biggest medical research fund, which will find the treatments and cures we need so that our health system and the health of our people gets better in the years to come. That is our responsibility. Our responsibility is to do the right thing by the people of Australia. Our responsibility is not to make easy decisions but to make the right decisions, and that is what this budget has done. It has made the right but difficult and necessary decisions for the long-term future of the people of this country.
Border Protection
Ms MARINO (Forrest—Government Whip) (14:54): My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. What benefits are there in the budget for all Australians as a result of the government's success in stopping people-smuggling ventures?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) (14:54): I thank the member for her question. There are three big dividends that come to the budget as a result of the coalition's stronger border protection policies: an economic dividend, a humanitarian dividend and a reform dividend. There is a $2.5 billion boat-stopping dividend in this budget. And there is a bonus of $280 million in savings from our 'closing the detention centre revolution'—closing the centres that those opposite opened when their border policies failed because they were not up to the job. Also, there is a $300 million contribution to the budget as a result of a better-put-together immigration program, with a greater focus on skills, a greater focus on people who come the right way to Australia, and the removal of incentives for those who come the wrong way. The previous government created 4,000 places for family reunions for people who had come to Australia illegally by boat. We have removed those places, and it has saved the budget $260 million.
There is a humanitarian dividend, as well, beyond the fact of stopping the deaths at sea, which is this: 20,000 places have been restored to the refugee and humanitarian program this year and over the next four years, because we have freed them up in the special humanitarian program. Those places otherwise would have gone to those who had come to Australia illegally by boat.
In addition to that, there is a reform dividend in this budget through reversing the $700 million in cuts over the forward estimates to the border agencies that occurred over the previous six years under the previous government. Over the next six years we will restore that with over $700 million invested in our border agencies, including the establishment of the Australian Border Force, which brings together the combined efforts, experience and talent of our customs and immigration officers to provide one single force on our borders to pick up from Operation Sovereign Borders, which has ensured that for the past 20 weeks, or 146 days, there has not been a single successful maritime people-smuggling venture to this country. We said that we would stop the boats with our policies. Those opposite derided it and said it could not be done, but it is happening. That is what is happening.
In the budget last night we said, through the Treasurer, that we will repair the budget. With the budget handed down by the Treasurer that is what we are going to do. This is a government that says what it is going to do and then gets on and does it.
Employment
Ms MACKLIN (Jagajaga) (14:57): My question is to the Prime Minister. Last night the government revealed that it will force young people under 30 into poverty by cutting them off all forms of income support if they cannot find a job. Why is the Prime Minister expecting young Australians to bear the pain of his deceit? What does the Prime Minister expect them to live on?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:58): The difficulty with members opposite is that they want this country to live constantly beyond its means, to keep making payments that it cannot afford, with borrowed money. That is the problem with members opposite. They want this country to continue making payments we cannot afford, with borrowed money.
Ms Macklin: Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. This is about people who will have nothing to live on. How are they expected to get—
The SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr ABBOTT: We expect people under 30, the young people of Australia, to be either earning or learning.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Perth will desist.
Mr ABBOTT: We expect them to be in employment or, if for whatever reason they are not in employment, we expect them to be improving their skills and receiving the support the Commonwealth government quite rightly provides to people who are improving their skills, including youth allowance.
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Grayndler and the member for Gorton will desist.
Mr ABBOTT: And I want to make it absolutely crystal clear to the shadow minister opposite, who presumably did not look at every element in the budget—
Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Gorton will desist.
Mr ABBOTT: that we are making it much easier to go to university, to do a diploma, to do an apprenticeship or a traineeship with our Trade Support Loans.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: There is too much noise on my left, including the member for Perth.
Mr ABBOTT: I say to the Leader of the Opposition, it is not kind to put people on social security when there is an alternative.
Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Gorton will desist or leave—one or the other.
Mr ABBOTT: There is always a training or education alternative available to the young people of Australia, and if they are not in employment, we should encourage them to take it.
Apprenticeships
Mr EWEN JONES (Herbert) (15:00): My question is to the Minister for Industry. Can the minister tell us how the government's budget provides more support for apprenticeships?
Mr IAN MACFARLANE (Groom—Minister for Industry) (15:01): I thank the member for Herbert for his question, and his lack of impersonation of my answer. This government understands that the most important thing to give to young people is the opportunity to get a long-term job and a well-paying job, and the member for Herbert understands that. I have had the opportunity with the member for Herbert to visit a skills and training centre in his electorate, and his support for the young people in that electorate is palpable. You only have to talk to the member for Herbert to know that he sees the importance of getting young people into jobs. And the way to do that in particular is to upgrade their skills and to encourage them to not only take up apprenticeships but to actually complete them.
What we have in Australia at the moment is a situation where half of the apprenticeships that are started are not completed. We announced in our Economic Action Strategy that we intend to build a strong and prosperous economy, and to do that we want the young people—not just in Herbert, but right around Australia—to participate in the growth of that economy. We want to see them get a trade, go out and earn a living and look forward to a long-term prospect, and they will not do that if they do not complete their apprenticeship. So we have introduced a Trade Support Loans scheme that will give apprentices a loan of $20,000. Under this scheme we will roll out about $1.9 billion worth of loans, and when they complete their four years 20 per cent of that loan will be written off—20 per cent, $4,000, immediately discounted. Not only that, but the value of the discount in terms of repaying it over the term against a commercial loan makes this scheme worth more than double the scheme it replaces in Tools For Your Trade.
We are moving from a scheme such as Tools For Your Trade—where money was just given with no requirement to complete your apprenticeship—to a scheme where we actively encourage young people to complete their apprenticeships. Not only is it worth more than double—
Mr Brendan O'Connor: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. He is making references to young people and traineeships—
The SPEAKER: What is the point of order?
Mr Brendan O'Connor: The fact is that this government is cutting the money for Tools For Your Trade; that is what they are doing.
The SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The member will resume his seat. The Minister for Industry has the call. There was no point of order, and an abuse of the standing orders.
Mr IAN MACFARLANE: I just restate the point that this is worth twice as much in the hand of the apprentices as the scheme it replaces—more than twice as much. In fact, the repayments under this scheme are less than a third of what they would be if they used a commercial loan. This government supports outcomes. By having a scheme that encourages young people in particular to complete their apprenticeships and get the full discount on the loan, we are ensuring that they have a long-term, viable future in the workforce.
Budget
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (15:04): My question is to the Prime Minister. During this question time, on eight occasions the Prime Minister has lacked the courage to admit that he broke his promises. Enough is enough. Will this Prime Minister come to the dispatch box, look Australians in the eye and apologise for his lies?
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition will withdraw unparliamentary language.
Mr SHORTEN: Every Australian knows the truth.
The SPEAKER: I said the member will withdraw.
Mr SHORTEN: I withdraw.
The SPEAKER: So we are lacking a question; you might like to rephrase it.
Mr SHORTEN: During this question time, on eight occasions this Prime Minister has lacked the courage to apologise—
Mr Pyne: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. You very generously allowed the Leader of the Opposition to mount an argument that was masquerading as a question. He is now trying to do it a second time, and you have given him another chance. Either he has to ask a genuine question or you should sit him down and take the next question from this side of the House.
The SPEAKER: The point I was making was I made the Leader of the Opposition withdraw the word that was totally unparliamentary, and he knew it. He has now withdrawn it, so there is no question before the chair. I said he may rephrase it; it does not mean to use the same argumentative material.
Mr SHORTEN: My question is to the Prime Minister. Throughout this question time, on eight occasions the Prime Minister has had put to him what he said before the election. Will the Prime Minister now admit that he has broken his promises and apologise to the Australian people for misleading them?
The SPEAKER: 'Misleading' did not help, either. There are other forms of the House.
Mr SHORTEN: I am happy to get the thesaurus out. Australians know what it is: fabrications, untruths, guile. Before the election he did not say he was going to do what he did in last night's budget. Will he apologise?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (15:07): May I say to the Leader of the Opposition that he is all politics, no policy; all complaint, no solutions. And I might offer this thought to members opposite—that confected moral outrage is no basis for governing a country—
Mr Shorten interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition will desist. You have asked your question.
Mr ABBOTT: And it is one of the reasons members opposite are utterly unfit for government.
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The SPEAKER: And the member for Grayndler will desist.
Mr Dreyfus interjecting —
Mr ABBOTT: What this country needs is a government which is prepared to confront the reality that our country faces, the reality of debt and deficit stretching out as far as the eye can see, the debt and deficit disaster which the members opposite, the Labor Party, created. This government did not create the problem but we take responsibility for addressing it. We take responsibility for fixing the problem—the debt and deficit disaster that Labor created. I think that is exactly what the people of Australia elected us to do and I am proud to serve them in my capacity as Prime Minister of this great nation.
Mr Pyne: During the Prime Minister's answer, the member for Isaacs made a grossly unparliamentary remark and I will ask him to withdraw it.
The SPEAKER: I ask the member for Isaacs to withdraw his comment.
Mr Dreyfus: I withdraw.
Budget
Ms PRICE (Durack) (15:08): My question is to the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. How will the government's infrastructure plans boost productivity and create jobs in Western Australia?
Mr BRIGGS (Mayo—Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (15:09): The member for Durack knows that the budget, which the Treasurer delivered last night, provides a record amount of infrastructure spending in this country and Western Australia does not miss out. In fact, there will be $4.7 billion of infrastructure investment in Western Australia over the next few years. It will be investment in productivity lifting and in enhancing infrastructure, which will mean more jobs and greater prosperity for our country. This investment is $16.5 billion more than the Labor Party promised during their election campaign on infrastructure—$16.5 billion more for funding projects such as the Great Northern Highway, the North West Coastal Highway in the member's electorate of Durack, the Swan Valley bypass and the Gateway WA project. But importantly we will be funding a new project in this budget, the Perth Freight Link project—a $1.6 billion project. For this new project, $925 million is being funded by the Australian government, a 20 per cent contribution is coming from the Western Australian government and the remaining funds are made up from the private sector investment—for the first time in Western Australia.
This project will be a huge benefit for the member from Durack because all the goods from her part of the world, which are our great export lifeline, will be able to be moved more quickly through Perth, getting trucks off the major highways. This will also mean commuters can drive on the roads without competing with big trucks. This is a huge reform, thanks to the innovation of the infrastructure Prime Minister and his government, and the Western Australian government. This is not only a $50 billion program; it is a program with innovation at its heart.
The Labor Party did not support and was utterly opposed to the WestConnex—Stage 2 project. It was also utterly opposed to and did not have any idea about the East West Link project in Melbourne and the North-South Corridor in Adelaide—we are delivering both projects. The Labor Party did not have it within its wit to do so. This is the infrastructure Prime Minister driving productivity growth in our country, driven through a Treasurer who has put in place in the budget the money required to ensure that these projects get done—not just announced on whiteboards but actually done and delivered. New projects worth $50 billion is a fantastic development for Australia—that is, more jobs, more growth and a stronger Australia.
Budget
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (15:12): The day before the election, the Prime Minister promised no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions. Will the Prime Minister now apologise to the Australian people?
The SPEAKER: This question is coming very close to a previously asked and answered question but I will let it stand.
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (15:12): I stand by what I said before the election. I absolutely stand by what this government has done in last night's budget. I am absolutely confident that, when the Australian people come to judge this government and this opposition in 2016, they will vote for a government which has been faithful to its pre-election commitments. Do you know what the Australian people were looking for in the election last year? After six years of dysfunction, the people of Australia were looking for some leadership. They were looking for a government that was prepared to make not the easy decisions but the hard decisions. The people of Australia were looking for leadership. Last night they found it.
Budget
Mr IRONS (Swan) (15:14): My question is to the Minister for Education. How is the government delivering better outcomes for Australian school students through the budget?
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (15:14): I am very pleased to be able to tell the member for Swan that we are delivering better outcomes for school students across Australia through this budget. We are doing it by funding our election commitments to the letter, whether they are through teacher quality, a robust curriculum, principal and school autonomy or parental engagement. We are funding all of those commitments to the letter.
Even better, we are keeping the commitment we made before the election that we would fund the new school funding model in exactly the same way as Labor for the next four years and that is what we are doing. We have also put $1.2 billion back into school funding which the Leader of the Opposition took out when he was the ninth Minister for Education in the previous government.
The Leader of the Opposition would like the people to forget that. They would like the Australian people to have the memory of a goldfish, as the Leader of the Opposition has. But we will not forget and we will keep reminding the Australian public that the Leader of the Opposition removed school funding and we have put it back. Ironically, we are spending more in 2017 on school funding than Labor would have if they had been re-elected.
On Thursday night, the Leader of the Opposition will have his opportunity to fess up. He will have to stop being the No. 1 whinger in Australia. He will have to start having solutions rather than being all complaint and no responsibility. If No. 1 whinger in Australia were a reality TV show, there would be no point in any other contestant entering it—because if Bill Shorten entered it, he would win it! But on Thursday night the Leader of the Opposition has an opportunity—
The SPEAKER: The Manager of Opposition Business.
Mr Pyne: You're such a grub!
Mr Shorten: Madam Speaker!
The SPEAKER: The minister will refer to people by their correct titles.
Mr PYNE: I will. I withdraw. On Thursday night, the Leader of the Opposition has to do three things. He has to explain how he would address the debt and deficit disaster left by the previous government. He has to explain how he would address that. Secondly, he has to explain how he would fund the physical and skills infrastructure that Australia needs in the future without just borrowing more money from overseas, as the previous government did. He has to explain how he would deliver the infrastructure that we are delivering while reducing the tax burden by $5.7 billion over the budget. Thirdly, he has to explain how he would establish a sustainable safety net for Australians into the future, because that is what we did in the budget last night. In this budget, Australians have found that they have a government of adults who will make the tough decisions to make the safety net, which we on this side of the House all regard very highly, sustainable into the future—and not just by borrowing more money overseas. If he does not meet those three tests, explaining how he would deal with the budget, then he will not measure up as Leader of the Opposition on Thursday night.
Mr Abbott: I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
DOCUMENTS
Presentation
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (15:18): Documents are presented as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
COMMITTEES
Selection Committee
Report
The SPEAKER (15:18): I present report No. 7 of the Selection Committee relating to private members' business on Monday, 26 May 2014. The report will be printed in today's Hansard and the committee's determinations will appear on tomorrow's Notice Paper. Copies of the report have been placed on the table.
The report read as follows—
Report relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and of private Members' business
1. The committee met in private session on Tuesday, 13 May 2014.
2. The committee determined the order of precedence and times to be allotted for consideration of committee and delegation business and private Members' business on Monday, 26 May 2014, as follows:
Items for House of Representatives Chamber (10.10 am to 12 noon)
PRIVATE MEMBERS ' BUSINESS
Notices
1 MR SHORTEN: To present a Bill for an Act to amend the Australian Education Act 2013, and for related purposes. (Parliamentary Australian Education Amendment (School Funding Guarantee) Bill 2014)
(Notice given 25 March 2014.)
Time allotted—10 minutes .
Speech time limits—
Mr Shorten — 10 minutes.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 1 x 10 mins]
Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41.
2 MR WILKIE: To present a Bill for an Act to amend the Migration Act 1958 to provide greater fairness and certainty for asylum seekers, and for other purposes. (Migration Amendment (Ending the Nation's Shame) Bill 2014)
(Notice given 27 March 2014.)
Time allotted—10 minutes .
Speech time limits—
Mr Wilkie — 10 minutes.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 1 x 10 mins]
Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41.
3 MS MACTIERNAN: To move:
That this House:
(1) recognises that the maintenance of safe, sustainable rates in the trucking industry is essential for ensuring community safety on our roads; and
(2) calls on the Government to retain the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal intact, and not to allow profit-taking to take precedence over the reasonable safety of motorists and truck drivers.
(Notice given 12 December 2013; amended 11 February 2014.)
Time allotted—40 minutes .
Speech time limits—
Ms MacTiernan — 5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
4 MS GAMBARO: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes Australia's condemnation of the group responsible for the abduction of more than 200 school girls from Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria, and deep concern at reports of further abductions in north-eastern Nigeria; and
(2) acknowledges that:
(a) the Australian Government has made contact with the Nigerian High Commission in Canberra and the Nigerian Government in Abuja to express concern;
(b) Australia:
(i) is working with Nigeria on counter-terrorism to prevent attacks including the recent bombings that took place in Abuja and these abductions;
(ii) has joined other members of the United Nations Security Council in condemning in the strongest terms the recent attacks committed by Boko Haram; and
(iii) is strongly committed to empowering women and girls socially, politically and economically, by ending violence against women and girls, and improving access to health care and education; and
(c) the Australian Government continues to advise Australians to reconsider their need to travel to Nigeria given the high threat of terrorist attack and kidnapping.
(Notice given 13 May 2014.)
Time allotted—remaining private Members ' business time prior to 12 noon.
Speech time limits—
Ms Gambaro—10 minutes.
Next Member speaking—10 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 2 x 10 + 6 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
Items for Federation Chamber (11 am to 1.30 pm)
PRIVATE MEMBERS ' BUSINESS
Notices
1 MS SUDMALIS: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that the recent Strategic Review of the National Broadband Network (NBN) revealed that the:
(a) Government's broadband plan can be completed using a mix of technologies to save $32 billion, keep monthly bills lower and deliver the NBN to all Australians four years sooner than under Labor's plan; and
(b) NBN is in a fundamentally worse position than Labor ever disclosed to Parliament or the Australian public;
(2) notes with concern that the review found that:
(a) if Labor's policies are left in place, Australian households could pay up to 80 per cent more for broadband each month; and
(b) the cost of completing the NBN under Labor's plan has blown out to $73 billion; and
(3) acknowledges that the Government is delivering on its election commitment to complete the NBN sooner, cheaper to consumers and more affordably for the Australian taxpayer.
(Notice given 18 March 2014.)
Time allotted—40 minutes .
Ms Sudmalis — 5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
2 MS A. E. BURKE: To move:
That this House:
(1) recognises that:
(a) Australia has one of the highest incidences of food allergy in the world;
(b) one in ten Australian babies aged 12 months have a food allergy;
(c) the number of reported life threatening reactions due to a food allergy has doubled in the last 10 years; and
(d) in the past 20 years, hospital admissions for food anaphylaxis in Australia have doubled and increased five-fold in children aged zero to four years; and
(2) calls upon the Government to make anaphylaxis and food allergy a national health priority, including:
(a) establishing a national food allergy register to capture an accurate picture of food allergy reactions in Australia and statistics on patient outcomes; and
(b) developing a model of care for food allergy management—to provide timely diagnosis, current information and ongoing access to quality medical care for people with food allergies.
(Notice given 27 March 2014.)
Time allotted—30 minutes .
Ms A. E. Burke — 5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
3 Mrs Griggs: To move:
That this House:
(1) joins with the Prime Minister, Opposition Leader and Defence Minister in acknowledging the service of the more than 30,000 Defence Force personnel deployed in the Middle East since October 2001;
(2) supports the sentiment of appreciation outlined in the Prime Minister's speech at the welcome home parade for more than 250 Darwin-based soldiers marking the end of their deployment to Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan, during 2013;
(3) acknowledges the enormous sacrifice of Australia's mission in Afghanistan—during which 40 soldiers lost their lives and more than 260 personnel were injured;
(4) affirms its pride and ongoing support for the Australian Defence Force as one of the most highly trained, professional and respected forces in the world;
(5) pays tribute to these personnel through its support for the national day of commemoration to be held on 21 March 2015 to recognise the contribution and sacrifice of Australian troops who served in Afghanistan and the Middle East; and
(6) acknowledges the great courage and personal sacrifice of our Defence Force personnel and their families to keep our country safe and to build a better future for the people of Afghanistan and the broader Middle East.
(Notice given 6 March 2014; amended 17 March 2014.)
Time allotted—40 minutes .
Mrs Griggs — 5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
4 Mrs Elliot: To move:
That this House notes that:
(1) 2014 is the 25th anniversary of the Byron Bay Bluesfest, Australia's premier Blues and Roots music festival;
(2) Bluesfest has been acclaimed as a premier contemporary music, tourist and business event, winning multiple awards from New South Wales Tourism, the Australia Event Awards, the Australia Helpmann Awards, and the North Coast Tourism Awards;
(3) Bluesfest has also been internationally recognised for its work on environmental sustainability and minimising the environmental impact of the festival on its surroundings, being awarded the international 'A Greener Festival Award' seven years in a row;
(4) in 2013, Bluesfest director Peter Noble and Bundjalung woman and festival director Rhoda Roberts founded the Boomerang festival, which celebrates the valuable contributions of our Indigenous people through music, art, dance, film and cultural exchanges; and
(5) Bluesfest director Peter Noble received on 4 February 2014 the prestigious Rolling Stone Award recognising his outstanding career-long contribution to popular culture.
(Notice given 12 February 2014.)
Time allotted—20 minutes .
Mrs Elliot — 5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 4 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
5 Mr Giles: To move:
That this House:
(1) recognises the one year anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapsed in Bangladesh, which killed more than 1,130 people in 2013;
(2) notes the:
(a) existence of the Bangladesh Accord, an independent agreement designed to make all garment factories in Bangladesh safe workplaces; and
(b) Accord has been signed by over 150 apparel corporations from 20 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia, two global trade unions, IndustriALL and UNI Global Union, and numerous Bangladeshi unions; and
(3) calls on the remaining companies in Australia and abroad to sign and adhere to the spirit of the Accord.
(Notice given 18 March 2014.)
Time allotted—remaining private Members ' business time prior to 1.30 pm.
Mr Giles—5 minutes .
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 4 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
THE HON BRONWYN BISHOP MP
Speaker of the House of Representatives
14 May 2014
MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Budget
The SPEAKER (15:18): I have received a letter from the honourable member for McMahon proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The Prime Minister ' s plan to make Australians and their families pay for his broken promises.
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—
Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (15:18): We have heard a lot of speculation in recent weeks about how the role model for this budget was the 1996 Peter Costello budget, about how Peter Costello was the intellectual godfather of this particular budget and about how the John Howard government was the role model for this government. I do not think that is quite right, with due respect. I think it goes back further. I think the role model was the 1979 minibudget, which inspired a famous headline that could equally apply to this budget delivered by the Treasurer last night.
That is because this budget shows more effectively than anything else that the last election campaign waged by the Prime Minister and Treasurer was one of systematic and wilful deceit of the Australian people. It was systematic and wilful deceit of the Australian people, because the Prime Minister and Treasurer knew that if they told the Australian people in September what they were planning in this budget, then the Australian people would have been a lot less likely to vote for them.
On that basis, they campaigned for office on a web of deceit. They promised the Australian people cost-of-living relief. That is not what they delivered last night. They promised the Australian people they could return the budget to surplus with no new taxes and no cuts to spending over and above what they had already announced. That was always voodoo economics and we now know that it was deceit as well. It was more than voodoo economics; it was wilful and systematic misleading of the Australian people.
They told the Australian people many things. At last September's election, never before has so much been promised to so many people by so few as was promised by the Prime Minister and Treasurer and never before has so much been reneged on as there was in last night's budget. This is a budget of broken regard for the Australian people and their right to insist on political accountability in this nation. This was a budget that was cynical when it came to dealing with election promises. This was a budget that introduced new taxes, which the Prime Minister of Australia solemnly swore he would never introduce. The Treasurer of Australia solemnly promised the Australian people they would never happen. There are cuts to families, family payments, hospital funding and schools that they both said would never happen on their watch.
This budget is so fundamentally misleading that I must confess it is difficult to choose where to start. It could be Medicare, it could be family payments or it could be the fuel tax, but I am going to start on the $80 billion worth of cuts to schools and hospitals. There are $80 billion worth of cuts to schools and hospitals. This will affect frontline services that are so important to the Australian people. Australia really needs cuts to schools and hospitals at the moment. We need to close more schools and we need fewer services in our hospitals, according to the government. The Treasurer had a shocker on 7.30last night and, when he was asked about the impacts of the cuts on the service deliveries of the states, this is what he had to say—and it is very profound: that it was up to them. He said it was up to his state and territory colleagues. The premiers and treasurers of Australia have given him a free character assessment today. That well-known socialist Campbell Newman said:
I am afraid it is a non-transparent and up-front way with dealing with that and it is very disappointing. We are calling on an emergency COAG.
I have to say: when Campbell Newman says you have cut too much, you know you have a problem. There is only one budget emergency in this country, and it is the budget emergency the states and territories copped from the Treasurer last night.
He has caused the premiers of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria to condemn his budget because they know the types of cuts it will lead to in schools and hospitals. Alternatively, they will need another source of revenue. They will need a different type of funding. I wonder what that type of funding might be—maybe a Commonwealth tax that gets distributed to the states, known as the goods and services tax. As sure as night follows day, we are going to see the premiers and state treasurers calling for an increase in the rate of the GST or a broadening in its base. In the meantime, they will have to cut, and cut to the bone. We will see schools close, make no mistake. We will see hospital services reduced, make no mistake. There is no alternative. State treasurers—with all due respect to them, whether they are Labor or Liberal—could not find collectively $80 billion over the next 10 years without massive cuts to services. This is a Prime Minister who said, 'No cuts to health and no cuts to education'—that is, 80 billion broken promises to the Australian people.
Then we move to Medicare. Medicare happens to be very dear to members on this side of the House because Labor created it and Labor will defend it. We will defend it in this House; we will defend it the other place; we will defend it in the community; and we will fight and fight for universal health care in this country. The Treasurer might not think that $7 is much money—he might say it is a cup of coffee or a cigar perhaps, to pick commodities at random—for people to give up to go to the doctor, but there are a lot of families for whom $7 to go to the doctor with a sick child or sick children is a lot of money. They have to pay for medicine, too. We are seeing the medical fraternity point out the impacts of these cuts on health services right across the country. There will be Australians who decide they simply cannot afford to go to the doctor. There are two central principles here: firstly, your wealth should not determine your health; and, secondly, the health of every single Australian should be the concern of every Australian. If this government gets its way, there will no longer be universal health care in Australia. Medicare will be trashed. But we will not let that happen. We will stand in defence of Medicare, we will fight for Medicare and we will fight for universal health care. The Prime Minister says he is the best friend Medicare ever had. Well, I would hate to see an enemy of Medicare because, if he gets his way on his watch, he will destroy Medicare. Make no mistake: he will remove universal health care from Australia—but we will not let them do that.
Then we have other examples like the new taxes. We saw the Treasurer dancing through the rain drops at question time, saying, 'Oh, I did not actually say that.' There are a few million viewers who might recall that he did. We have the fuel levy, the indexation of the fuel excise. The Prime Minister, you might recall, did a bit of travelling over the last three years. He went around the country talking about the impacts of the carbon price on the cost of living and he promised to restore support for the cost of living by dealing with the carbon price. He just forgot to mention that they were going to change fuel indexation at the same time. I can see people pulling into the service station—they might choose BP—and, as they are filling up, they will be saying, 'BP, broken promises, thank you very much, Prime Minister Abbott.' It is a broken promise to every Australian and every Australian driver. The Prime Minister says: 'It's terrible to tax polluters and you wouldn't want to tax mining companies, but, jeez, taxing families and drivers, there's a good idea. Why don't we do that?'
There is a fundamental principle in politics: you hold people to their own tests. You hold people to what they say. They set the bar and then you hold them to it. The Prime Minister promised something different. He promised that he would uphold every single promise that he made. Now we have the core and non-core dance of the seven veils. He has said: 'There is an overarching promise or there are fundamental promises.' We have heard it from the frontbench; we have heard it from the backbench; we have had the pathetic denial that there are any breaches of election promises in this budget. If the government breaks a promise, just fess up to the Australian people. Just be honest with the Australian people and say: 'It was too hard; we were not up to it; it is all harder than we thought; we got it wrong.' You might at least get a bit of respect for that, but this pathetic denial of reality we have seen from the Prime Minister and the Treasurer is going down very badly with the Australian people, who feel insulted at their antics. In question time today we saw them refusing to acknowledge that they have breached promises. They have breached promises and they have effectively attempted to attack the social fabric of this nation. They have attempted to dismantle Medicare. They have attempted, after all their rhetoric, to take $3,000 from single-income families with a child of seven years. A child of seven is so much cheaper than one of six! It just shows how fundamentally out of touch this Prime Minister and Treasurer are. We will continue to hold them to account and we will continue to hold them to their promises. We will continue to point out the fundamental dishonesty—(Time expired)
Mr BILLSON (Dunkley—Minister for Small Business) (15:29): It is disappointing to hear a Labor Party who seem to have learned absolutely nothing from the election and nothing from their time in office. They are living a life of fiction where money grows on trees and where we throw it around and promise everybody everything. You fudge and you fiddle with numbers in budgets. You have assumptions that live in make-believe land. You ignore the reality of the consequences of your actions and you simply boot the consequences down the street for some responsible person to deal with.
That is the Labor way, and we have seen more of it here today. Labor should be hanging their heads in shame. They fit the nation up with six years of the most abominable governance this country has ever seen. They learned nothing from those areas of failure, mismanagement and waste. They fit up the next generation of kids through intergenerational theft, spending on the visa card for someone else to service, and then they come in here as if there is no work to be done.
It is little wonder that a once Treasurer of Australia, the member who just spoke, has not even got his time as Treasurer listed on his bio. Why is that? It is because it was one of the most lamentable periods of treasurership we have ever seen, so he does not fess up to it. He subscribed to the argument of the former Treasurer Wayne Swan, the member for Lilley, when confronted with the reality of the debt trajectory Labor put this nation on. When asked: what are you going to do about the debt limit? His response was, 'That will be someone else's problem.' Didn't that say it all? That is the Labor way. It is always someone else's problem.
The Australian public know—and they sent this message to the Labor Party at the last election—that these political problems do not just swap from one side of the chamber to the other. They are the nation's problems. They are the people's problems. They are the debt and deficit burdens that our citizens must carry. They are the impairments to our economy and people's livelihoods and living prospects. They are our problems. They are made the problems of all Australians.
The problem they also have is that Labor is failing to address this harsh reality. We have seen the populist politicking. We have seen Labor's headline hunting. We have seen the scaremongering. What we have not seen today and what Labor continue not to demonstrate is any sense of accountability and responsibility for its actions to deal with the consequences it created or the leadership needed to steer this nation and its people out of the dark corner of debt and deficit Labor has taken us into. It has no plan for the hard work that is needed to restore the great promise that we should be talking about—and that is the promise of our nation.
We have the promise of a great nation, of living standards that are envied around the world and that we want to carry forward and sustain for future generations. That is the great promise of Australia. What did Labor want to do? They wanted to trash and junk that and not even address the consequences of their actions—debt and deficit. And we have nothing to show for it. We have no improved productive capability. We have no better chance to succeed. We have no opportunities that have been enhanced. We have no infrastructure that is to be the building blocks and sinews of enterprise and commerce. We do not have that. We just have fudged numbers that Labor left to the incoming government, claiming these absolutely ridiculous revenue projections that were never going to materialise. Instead, they spent every last dollar on that fiction of revenue and then went even harder.
Do we see Labor addressing any of that? No. But this budget does. This budget is our action plan to take responsibility not for what we created but for what we understand impairs our nation and the damage it does to our citizens, the intergenerational burden it puts onto our kids and the impairment it causes our economy. The chance for us to be all that we can be—that is what drives us. That means we have to deal with the debt and deficit legacy that Labor gave us.
We saw in this parliament today shadow minister after shadow minister reframing contrived arguments about cuts, only for them to hear time and time again, 'No, there are more resources going into those areas. There is more effort going into the building blocks of our future potential. There are more opportunities that we are working to create for our citizens.' We do not ask for our people anything other than a chance for them to be their very best. But the Labor Party come in here and talk about a young person's future as if it is inextricably linked to a life on welfare. When did we give up on people? When did we give up on our potential? When did we stop striving to enable people to be their very best? When did we stop recognising that economic opportunity and prosperity needs to be won? It needs to be earned. It is not a gift that we just pull off the shelf. When did we stop saying to young people and to all of our citizens: 'Be the best you can be. Have a go.'
We will support people through targeted expenditure and by transferring consumption into investment in our future prospects by tackling the debt and having an economic management plan that says, 'We as a nation can do so much better if we all pull together and tackle the horrendous legacy that this former Labor government has left us,' and that gives us the chance to be our very best and recognises that in the middle of this century there will be three people working for every one in retirement compared to the five working for every one in retirement now.
If that were not enough of a challenge, what do Labor want to do? They want to fit people up with the burden of debt and deficit. They have already started. Did you know $1 billion a month goes into servicing the debt that Labor created? That is right now. What could we do with that $1 billion? What new potential could we support? What enterprise investment could we make? What chance could we as a government have to provide the framework for our citizens to be their very best? What could we deploy those resources to do? There are so many things. Instead, what do we get? We get politicking. We get a fanciful creation of hardship and harm, when Labor do not even want to look at what is in the budget.
We have said to the Australian public that the great promise of our land is something that we all need to work for together. We have mapped out our economic strategy. The budget is a key part of that. We are faithfully honouring our commitment to build a strong and prosperous economy because, through that strength, we can be safe in the assurance that we can sustain the living standards that people look for and secure in the knowledge that the safety net we provide the vulnerable is not vulnerable itself because of our inability to finance it.
We said we would stop the boats, and we have done that. We said we would axe the carbon tax. Do you know what is ironic? So did Labor. We had tax rises and an expenditure explosion under Labor and, in opposition, they are still causing that. Because of Labor, the carbon tax that they promised we would not have and that they said they would terminate will go up again on 1 July. It will extend its reach to on-road heavy transport. Here is a chance for them to do something. If they believe anything that they have said today about the cost of living, they should help lift that financial burden. But they will not. Of course they will not, because it is all about politics. It has always been about politics. It has never been about anything else for Labor but politics.
Do you know what our nation is calling for? It is calling for leadership. It is saying to our parliaments and our governments: take a longer term view, realise the changes that are happening in our world and in our nation and build the economic capacity so that we can fulfil that promise—the promise of a great country, with a living standard that is envied around the world. You cannot achieve that if you hock your future on debt and deficit, on false promises, on popularity stakes, on squibbing the tough call to repair the budget. If we do not repair it, that will kill our promise for the kind of life that we hope for ourselves, for those who have already gone before us and for those who will follow us. That is what this budget is about. That is what this economic action plan is about. That is the challenge that this parliament faces and, frankly, our nation faces. Do we want more of the Labor style of politics?
Government members: No!
Mr BILLSON: I have never met anybody who wants more of this headline hunting, this crass populism or this politicking that is all about trying to win the headlines tomorrow but losing our future. Nobody wants that. That is why the government was changed, with adults in charge who have real competency and a considered measured plan to build that strong, prosperous economy, who recognise through that strength that we can be our very best. We can say to the vulnerable: 'Don't be uncertain about our capacity as a nation to meet your needs for the future.' We can say to our young people: 'Please invest in yourself so that you have brighter prospects, a livelihood you can aspire to. We will invest in you, but invest yourself.' We say to those in the workforce, 'You know this can't keep going,' and they do know. They are prepared to make a contribution. They are prepared to make a second effort. They are prepared to share in the rebuilding of our potential and the great promise of our country. We are up for that. We are on board for that. It is not easy.
Labor probably has not realised that politics and governance can be hard sometimes, because it is about principle; it is about consistency; it is about shaping a plan and helping our citizens be their very best as we are working to make our nation have the best prospects, to be its very best. So I say to those opposite: 'Ditch the Labor playbook. Get on board. This is too important for you to muck around with.' (Time expired)
Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (15:39): When the minister indicates that the country wants leadership, I dare say the country wants more. What the country wants more of is honest leadership. It wants people who are going for high office to honour and to uphold the commitments they made to the Australian people. What we have found is that a reaction has occurred across the country—a recoil has occurred—from people seeing what the government have done and contrasting it with what they committed to do when they were in opposition—and they cannot even defend themselves. When people questioned the Prime Minister about whether or not this budget is fair dinkum, legit and upholding what they said, he said that the budget was 'fundamentally honest'. It is not wholeheartedly honest; it is 'fundamentally honest'. It is like 'I'm fundamentally not guilty' or 'I may be fundamentally right.' They cannot even uphold what they are doing. The reason is that there are a plethora of quotes which demonstrate that he is going to have a problem saying that he is 'fundamentally honest'. It is sort of like 'honest John' was really honest! You do realise that when they used to be called him 'honest John' it was done tongue-in-cheek—just like this commitment about your own budget being fundamentally honest.
I was wondering why there were so many senior people who looked like they were getting a sunburn. In actual fact, they all had these red foreheads. It was from the palms that keep going up to their forehead when they read all the Tony Abbott quotes. Let us look at the Prime Minister's quotes—and I have some here, funnily enough. He said:
It is an absolute principle of democracy that governments should not and must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards.
That is what he said.
We stand for lower, simpler, fairer taxes, not great big new taxes …
That was in 2010. What about the other one on the flood levy.
Government members interjecting—
Mr HUSIC: Don't you worry about all these little boiling frogs that are starting to jump on the back bench. You will be getting a lot hotter—trust me!
The one thing that [people] will never have to suffer under a Coalition government is an unnecessary new tax, a tax that could easily be replaced by savings found from the budget."
That is Tony Abbott in 2011. People who work hard should not be 'hit with higher taxes'. He said that in 2012. This next one is a pearler. The member for Corio and I had to sit through this one in the last term of parliament. Do you remember it? This is in the 'Best of Tony Abbott' DVD:
… there can be no tax collection without an election. If this government had any honesty, any decency, that is what we would have: an election now.
Remember that one. 2011 was a very productive year for the Prime Minister. He was churning out these quotes left, right and centre. I will give you another one:
No country ever got rich by increasing taxation. No country ever built a strong economy by clobbering itself with tax after tax after tax.
The GP tax, the hospital tax—look at all the things that you have done. And there is your other tax on top of that.
Mr McCormack: Carbon tax.
Mr HUSIC: I actually welcome that interjection, because the absolute principal quote that I read out earlier, Member for Riverina, is that conservatives often say: 'What about the carbon tax?' But you built this edifice. You clobbered us for a whole term of parliament on the basis that you would be better. You said that the whole time.
Ms Marino: We are.
Mr HUSIC: You are? Oh, really, you think you are! I do not think the public thinks you are when they see 'no cuts to health'—cuts to health; 'no cuts to education'—cut education. It is an $80 billion hit that you have committed under this budget. 'No changes to the pension.' You have got pensioners shirt-fronting the Prime Minister on morning TV. They know full well that they are being hit. What is fundamental here is the fact that you have deliberately gone out and misled the public, and your chickens are coming home to roost. That is why you get this little smattering from time to time of backbenchers chipping in, because it is getting a bit uncomfortable on that side of the House—like I said, those palms are hitting the forehead—when they see the quotes from the Prime Minister and remember, 'Oh, yes, he did say that.' You have a plethora of them. The final one I want to hit is the one in Real Solutions—the one that came with the 'conditions apply' little caveat on it:
We pledge to the families of Australia that we will never make your lives harder by imposing unnecessary new taxes.
It was a shameful display through the election and it is a shameful effort in this budget for failing to honour what you said you would do. (Time expired)
Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) (15:44): The member for McMahon has some hide. The member for McMahon has brought this MPI into the chamber, completely in denial of the voters of Australia at the last election. The voters of Australia gave us the most emphatic mandate in 100 years. Labor's primary vote was the lowest since 1903. And do you know why? Because voters saw a bad government that had no idea how to manage the Australian economy.
Despite 600 promises that they were going to deliver a budget surplus, those opposite gave us world-record budget deficits—climbing mountains of debt equivalent to $667 billion over the coming decade, $123 billion of cumulative deficits and, what is worse, an interest bill of more than $12 billion a year, or $1 billion a month. You would think that, when you are handing out that amount of money, you would become popular. But in fact the contrary happened. The Australian people woke up to the reality that every man, woman and child in Australia today had been saddled with $13½ thousand of debt which, in the next 10 years, will climb to a record $24½ thousand. That is the legacy of the Labor Party.
When the IMF looked at the spending commitments that the Labor Party left us, it found that they were the highest among 17 advanced economies of the world. Our spending commitments were higher than Korea and China, more than Japan, the United States and Canada or France and Germany. That was your legacy.
So we made one fundamental promise to the Australian people, and that fundamental promise was that we would bring the budget back into balance and we would move it into surplus over time. In Joe Hockey's budget last night, he did exactly that. There were two major themes in the budget last night. The first was to start to pay back Labor's debt. Over the next 10 years, we will pay back $300 billion of Labor's debt and we will, as a result, save $16 billion in interest payments alone. That is an incredible start on the major job ahead of us. The second key theme in the budget last night was the structural reform that will lay the foundation for the future growth and prosperity of the Australian economy.
First is infrastructure. A record $50 billion is being invested in transport infrastructure; and, when you add that to the contribution of the states and the private sector, that is $125 billion. There are major road projects in every state, including the WestConnex project in New South Wales and the East West Link in my own state of Victoria. This is a massive commitment to get people into work and to make Australians' lives that much easier.
A second component of our growth strategy is to build education and innovation for the future. A medical research future fund worth $20 billion, without parallel around the world, will be the pride of the Australian educational and medical sectors. Deregulating uni fees, which the member for Fraser completely agrees with, will have a huge impact on lifting excellence in our university sector. Those who are on apprenticeships, those who are in TAFE and those who are getting sub-bachelor degrees will also get assistance, for the very first time, from this Commonwealth.
The third element of our growth agenda is to boost participation—helping aged Australians get back into the workforce with incentives for employers, helping mothers to stay in the workforce with the Paid Parental Leave scheme, helping young people move off the DSP or other welfare payments and into employment.
That is what we are on about, and it all comes back to our fundamental values of free enterprise, support for the individual and a smaller role for the state. That is what the Australian people elected us to do at the last election, that is why it is a fundamentally honest budget that the Treasurer has delivered and that is why we will continue to win the confidence of the Australian people.
Mr RIPOLL (Oxley) (15:49): This is a budget of broken promises and nasty surprises like we have never seen before. This is a budget paid for by pensioners, by the sick and by the elderly. This is a budget that was sold, hawked, on the basis of a manufactured budget emergency that does not exist. This is a budget not just of broken promises but in which every single promise that was made by this government has been broken, including the core tenet expressed by the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, when he said: 'We will not break any promises.' That was his core promise—not to break any—and he has done the exact opposite and broken every single promise.
If you listened to government members speaking on this, including the Prime Minister or the Treasurer, you would think that somehow a tax hike was a tax cut. You would think that, somehow, taking money away from pensioners and making life more difficult for the sick and elderly was a good thing for them—that this was what they wanted and expected and that this would make their lives easier. We have heard all of those nice, touchy-feely words from the government about 'being your best possible self', about giving you the opportunity to be the best you can be and making your life easier. And how are they making life easier? With a great big new tax on everything—a massive fuel tax hike. People did not expect that. It came as a bit of a surprise to me. It came as a bit of a surprise to all Australians. But who does it hit the hardest? It hits families. It hits individuals. It hits you wherever you are. The further you are in regional Australia, the harder it hits you. The sicker you are, the harder it hits you because you have to travel to hospital more often.
Who else does it hit? It hits small business. It will hit small business harder than anyone else. Small businesses, who are the engine room of this country and provide job creation, are getting hit hard and they are getting hit hard every day. Yet Tony Abbott and the members of his government go out there and say: 'We're the friend of small business, so just bend over a little while we give you a little sting. You'll be fine with it, because we're your best friend.' Just remember: every time you bend over and feel that little paddle, that little sting, that is the Liberal government being your friend. They are not the friend of small business people I know.
This is a budget that breaks absolutely every core promise that was made. This is a budget that destroys Medicare and bulk-billing. In a pernicious and nasty way, it not only hits the elderly—the sicker you are, the more you pay—but also hits doctors directly. A doctor will be penalised if they bulk-bill you; a doctor's Medicare schedule fee will come down to disincentivise them from providing bulk-billed services. Who will be the people who suffer the most? I can assure you it will not be too many of the people sitting in this chamber today. It will be the elderly; it will be the veterans; it will be people in rural and regional communities. It will be those people who have to take their children to the doctor or the hospital—and it will be not just for a visit to the GP but for your scripts, your X-rays and your blood tests every time you go. They are the people who will suffer. They are ripping the guts out of Medicare by stealth, because there was no discussion of this prior to the election. Finally, Tony Abbott gets to do what he has always dreamt he would do. He is on the public record as hating Medicare; he has always hated Medicare. He does not believe in universal health care. This is his one opportunity and he has done it. He is attacking doctors and attacking patients.
He is attacking self-funded retirees. Here are a group of people in the community who were 100 per cent behind the Prime Minister: 'Go in there and make life easier for us!' He has done just that by stinging them as well. They will lose access to their healthcare cards through means testing. Again, I did not hear about that before the election. Self-funded retirees right now will be looking over this and saying, 'When did we vote for this? Where was our opportunity to make an informed decision prior to the election?' Prior to the election all we heard was a repeated rant, like a mantra from somebody squatting in a cave: 'No cuts to health. No cuts to education. No changes to the pension. No adverse changes to superannuation.' We heard this mantra repeated over and over, until he had hypnotised everyone. I suppose there was a good reason people would believe him. He said, 'No excuses. No broken promises. We will not break our promises. We will not break our commitments to the Australian people.' Then he turns up the next day and says, 'We did not make any of those promises.' Black is white; white is black.
There is a great big new tax on everything, including a fuel tax hike. For pensioners, there is the cessation of proper indexing, which means pensioners lose and they lose today. The increase of the pension age to 70 is completely unreasonable and there was nothing about it in the pre-election promises the government made. It is a disgrace. (Time expired)
Mr COULTON (Parkes—The Nationals Chief Whip) (15:54): As I sit here today listening to the debate on this matter of public importance, and earlier in question time, I am beginning to wonder whether I am in some sort of a parallel universe. Watching the opposition today is like watching a mob of graffiti artists jeering as someone cleans up their mess. The appropriate form of behaviour for the opposition at the moment would be to sit there quietly and hang their heads in shame.
They have some sort of a hide to come in here and say anything at all. The task that has been given to the government is to fix the economy. Today we are talking about the budget. The budget outlines how the coalition is going to reposition the Australian economy and get things back on track. What is a pity and a shame, and what makes me disappointed, is that we cannot go back and fix everything the Labor Party did in government. We cannot go back and change those overpriced school halls to some sort of meaningful education program. We cannot help the people who went broke because of Labor's ill-conceived home insulation program. We cannot get those contractors in my electorate who were contracted to the federal government the hundreds of thousands of dollars they are owed because of Labor's mismanaged schemes. It is just a shame we cannot go back and repair all the damage that has been done.
What is being debated this week is the economic damage that has been done. We are trying to turn this around. The chardonnay-sipping socialists that sit there on the opposition benches are so disconnected from the Australian people that they do not know what they are talking about. I can tell you what the people are saying in my electorate. I represent people with real dirt under their nails. I represent the real workers of this country and I tell you what: they want us to fix this mess. They want an opportunity for their children to have a job and to go to university; they know what it is like to live within their means. In this budget we have seen a refocus: a focus on things that will improve the productivity of this country.
In infrastructure, we will see the inland rail finally begun after years of discussion. The great irony of this is that the interest this country is paying at the moment could build two railway lines from Melbourne to Brisbane a year. Every six months we could build another railway line. By the time we pay their debt back, we could have a six-lane railway link from Melbourne to Brisbane just on the interest.
As we set about fixing the mess of the Labor Party, we are redressing their mess in other ways. We are re-establishing our relationship with our trading partners. As we speak, cattle are being shipped to Indonesia again, despite the fact that the northern cattle industry was pretty well destroyed. They are a resilient bunch and they are coming back thanks to the work of this government. We are organising the signing of a free trade agreement with our major trading partners South Korea and Japan. We are in negotiations with China. So, as we debate matters around the budget this week and the opposition has the hide to come in here and raise a matter of public importance of such a frivolous nature, it is important to remember how we got here—how we went from a country that had money in the bank to one with a hopeless debt. I tell you what: the Labor Party might not realise it, but the people in my electorate—the pensioners and the people who actually work for a living—understand that you have to live within your means. While they may not be happy with every decision that was made in this budget they understand the need for it.
I was listening to the debate today on the Green Army project and the members of the opposition are treating this as some sort of assault on the trade union movement. The most stabilising force you can bring to a family is a job. I can tell you that people in western New South Wales and regional Australia do not think the opportunity to have a job is some sort of an imposition. They realise that to bring stability to a family, when we are talking about generational unemployment, is a real turnaround. Those people understand that you need a government that has the guts to do what is right and not just what is popular.
It is an unusual day when we have the arsonist arguing with the fire brigade. But that is what we are seeing today. I would suggest that members of the opposition go home, have a good cup of humility, sit down and think about the error of their ways.
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (15:59): I rise to speak on today's matter of public importance, which is actually about broken promises. To those opposite, who may not understand what a promise is: today's matter of public importance is about the fact that Tony Abbott said one thing before he came to government, and did exactly the opposite once elected. He broke the promises he made to the Australian people, and particularly to people in the regions, like the people in Bendigo. And when he was in Bendigo, he did not mention a word of what was in last night's budget. In fact, when Tony Abbott stood out the front of the Bendigo hospital in September 2012, he made no mention of the health cuts we saw in last night's budget. He actually said that the Bendigo hospital budget was already under pressure, and that it would only get worse under the then current government. The only problem with what the then Leader of the Opposition said was that he was about 12 months too early: the budget for the Bendigo hospital got worse on the day of the election of this government—because the Prime Minister did not keep his promise and he has cut funding to the Bendigo hospital.
On local radio in my electorate of Bendigo, a regional community, the Prime Minister also said on schools in Bendigo that they would not be worse off. He said, 'We don't want any existing schools to be worse off'—another broken promise. Last night in the budget, the government did proceed with cutting funding to schools in the Bendigo electorate. And it was not just the fourth and fifth years of the Gonski reforms; it was also the funding for students with disability. Schools desperately need this funding to help the students in the most need.
The broken promises do not stop with the Prime Minister. Last year, we also had a visit to the electorate by Joe Hockey, who dared to turn up at a manufacturer in Bendigo and walk around in his high-vis vest, shaking hands with the workers—and not once did he to talk to them about the fact that he was going to increase the petrol tax. Not once did he talk to them about the fact that has was going to introduce a GP tax. If the then shadow Treasurer had been genuine and honest about engaging with those workers, he had a chance to be up-front and to tell them exactly what he would do in his first budget. But he did not. He lied. And he broke a promise. When he said there would be no new taxes, he lied to those people in Epsom. He lied by introducing—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): Order! The member for Bendigo will desist from accusing someone of lying. I ask her to withdraw those words.
Ms CHESTERS: I withdraw those remarks, and rephrase them: he did not tell the truth to those workers when he was talking to them about the increases in tax. He did not let them in on the government's secret that it would be introducing a petrol tax.
For those who do not know much about regional Australia, petrol is a big issue. The drive from one end of the Bendigo electorate to the other takes 2½ hours. It is 150 kilometres. That is a lot of petrol required to get from top to bottom. An increase in the petrol tax hits regional Australia the hardest. For those rurally based members of parliament, good luck when you get home and have to hear the onslaught from your constituents, upset about the fact that every time they put petrol into their cars they will be blaming you and this government, because you are the ones that have increased the petrol tax.
Let's not stop at the petrol tax. When these two were in town, they did not talk about the GP super-tax; they did not talk about slugging every single person that goes to a GP clinic and every single person that accesses bulk-billing in the Bendigo electorate with an extra $7. At the moment, bulk-billing in Bendigo is at 76 per cent. It is at its highest rate in over a decade. Yet now those households will have to pay an extra $7 every time they go to the GP. And, like people in most rural areas, they are not wealthy people. Thirty per cent of the electorate is surviving on less than $600 a week—and yet in this budget, the government are asking them to pay the most. Whether it be an increase in the cost of going to the doctor, an increase in the cost of paying for their medicine, paying extra via a petrol tax, cutting funding to their schools or cutting funding to health, the government have demonstrated one thing—and that is they simply do not care about Bendigo or regional Victoria.
I am going to finish on an email that I received from a single mother who lives in Strathfieldsaye. Strathfieldsaye is one of those suburbs in the growth corridor of Bendigo. It is an area where people are just starting to get by and are doing it tough. This single mum has three children, and she is worried about the attacks in this budget. (Time expired)
Mrs MARKUS (Macquarie) (16:05): What the members opposite have failed to reflect on today are the facts. What legacy was left by the former Howard government to them and to the Australian people? What did they do with that legacy? And what legacy have they left for the Australian people, and for the coalition government? The question that we are attempting to address in the budget is: what legacy do we want to leave and invest in for the future of every Australian?
Let us just mention for a moment the former government: they left Australians with $123 billion of deficit and no path back to surplus. I have not heard one member opposite talk about how they would do that, although they made that promise too many times in the last term never to have met it.
Our budget repair efforts mean that deficits in our first four years are now projected to be $60 billion, with a surplus of well over one per cent of GDP projected by 2024-25. Gross government debt is now forecast to be $389 billion in 2023-24, compared with the $667 billion left behind by the former government. This reduction in projected debt of nearly $300 billion also assumes that we provide future tax relief to address bracket creep—I do not hear the members opposite mentioning that.
Let us reflect on the mess that Labor have left us. Let us remind both members opposite and the Australian people—I am sure many understand this—that every time Labor step in they create a mess, not just in terms of the budget and government debt but also for Australians and their opportunities. But what we on this side of politics do is get the budget back under control and, again, set a framework where Australians can prosper, and where people who are the most disadvantaged have greater opportunities.
That is something members opposite do not understand. We want to create an environment where our young people and people with disabilities have opportunities to reach their fullest potential. You sell them short when you relegate them to a life of dependency. That is not what we espouse or want for them. We believe they can achieve their best.
When Labor came to office it inherited a surplus of $20 billion, with no debt, and $45 billion in the bank. Over six budgets, Labor increased spending by over 50 per cent. In fact, the International Monetary Fund recently found that if Australia's spending were to continue in the same way it would grow faster than any of the 17 advanced economies profiled.
What are we contributing towards, for the future? This is about all Australians contributing towards building a future where young people and single mothers have opportunities to gain employment and to provide a future for their families. Contributions from the budget will enable delivery of a critical infrastructure growth package, the world's biggest medical research endowment fund and a competitive deregulated higher education system. Our future standard of living is at risk if we do nothing. But we have a plan. The days of borrowing and spending must come to an end.
It is time for all of us—every one of us in this place, including members opposite—to contribute to our future. Our future depends on what decisions we make today, whether it be our turn to contribute or our turn to build. This challenge is not of our making, but we are willing to take the responsibility and make the tough decisions for our future. Let me remind the members opposite: we did promise to get the budget back under control. We did promise to scrap the carbon tax, to end the waste, to stop the boats and to build the roads of the 21st century. That is what this budget is doing.
We are paying $1 billion of interest every month. That is $1 billion of wasted money because of the decisions of the former government. It is money that could be well spent in the electorate of Macquarie—and in many other electorates, including the electorates of those on the opposite side. We are all having to bear the brunt of this legacy. Labor got into the habit of promising and then changing its mind. The first example that springs to mind is the world's biggest carbon tax, where families are forced to pay higher electricity bills. We the coalition are setting up for the future. The commitments we have made and delivered are—(Time expired)
Mr CHAMPION (Wakefield) (16:10): This is a government that was elected on a wave of nostalgia, wishful thinking and a pack of lies. There can be no greater evidence of this than the budget, because what we have here is a budget of betrayal of those commitments given in the election campaign and the period running up to it. It is fundamentally a betrayal of the old. In an interview on 6 September 2013 Tony Abbott said there would be 'no changes to pensions'. What do we have in this budget? There are new indexation arrangements for pensions. The Prime Minister is getting rid of the male total average weekly earnings index and the Pensioner and Beneficiary Living Cost Index and replacing it with the inflation rate. He is doing the same thing for disability, carer and parenting payments. This is hacking into pensioners, after a solemn commitment was given. It is a betrayal of pensioners.
If that were not enough, it is a betrayal of taxpayers everywhere. Tony Abbott, on 20 November 2012, said 'We're about reducing taxes, not increasing taxes. We're about getting rid of taxes, not imposing new taxes.' Again, this is a betrayal of the commitment he made at that time. It is a betrayal of the young. We know Christopher Pyne said that there would be no plans to increase university fees, yet now students face the prospect of $100,000 degrees. They face the prospect of having to borrow to get a trade. They face the prospect of having no income support for six months if they are under the age of 30. That will make some people in my electorate couch surf. It will make them homeless. That is the reality of it. It is a brutal reality. It is a betrayal of the young. It is not welcoming them with opportunity; it is betrayal.
It is betrayal of families and particularly single-income families, who are, let's face it, the support base of the coalition. Yet there is an attack on them with a reduction in family tax benefit part B. Once your child hits six, you are off it. It is a betrayal of those families who now have to pay $7 to see the doctor. It is a betrayal of motorists, who will now have to pay every time they go to the bowser. Motorists in my electorate—in places like Clare and Kapunda, my home town, up the track—will now have to pay a petrol tax to pay for infrastructure in the cities. That is who will have to pay for it. If I were a rural MP from the coalition side I would be very worried about going home next week.
It is also a betrayal of the states. We saw that with the New South Wales Premier today and the Queensland Premier. It is a betrayal of every local government in the country because their financial assistance grants have been frozen—another great thing for country roads. It is a betrayal of rural Australia. They are the ones who will suffer hardest under this budget. It is a betrayal of everybody who needs a school or a hospital or expects a decent school or hospital in the future, because $80 billion is coming out over the next 10 years. That is $18 billion coming out of schools and hospitals. It is a betrayal of GPs—those GPs who do want to bulk-bill and those GPs who do want to provide a good service. Now they will be turned into tax collectors so that the Treasurer can build his research fund. It is a betrayal of the Australian people and a betrayal of straight talk, of the idea that your word is your bond. The Prime Minister lifted expectations in this regard. On 22 August 2011, he said:
Nothing could be more calculated to bring our democracy into disrepute and alienate the citizenry of Australia from their government than if governments were to establish by precedent that they could say one thing before an election, and do the other afterwards.
They are his words, not mine. Yet what we have here is a budget that can only be defended by the cynical, by the sanctimonious, by the deluded. It is a budget only Judas Iscariot could be proud of. That is the truth of it. It is a budget of betrayal of all those decent people who went out there and believed the Prime Minister and believed the Treasurer and believed the education minister and the commitments they gave. All of those people feel betrayed. If this government thinks they can get away with that betrayal with this spin and these excuses, then they have another think coming.
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (16:15): The hypocrisy of those opposite never ceases to amaze me. They came into this place seven years ago and threw money around like confetti. They racked up a deficit faster than ever before in the history of our country and left debt fast on its way to reaching $700 billion. Their legacy includes an interest bill of almost $12 billion each year. Each year, that is $12 billion of wasted taxpayers' money. After leaving a tsunami of debt in their wake, they then criticise. They moan and groan and whinge and whine when the voters call on the coalition to clean up their mess. It is as if a delinquent child has run through the family house with paint and dirt and garbage, leaving behind a monstrous, chaotic mess in their path. And when they are sent to their room as punishment they refuse. They do a dummy-spit, they drag their feet along the floor, they toss their toys and they throw a tantrum.
The Australian people recognised that the country could not afford another term of a Labor government. They voted in the coalition to clean up Labor's fiscal disaster, to get the economy back on track—promoting growth and jobs—to implement an economic action strategy that allowed everyone to get ahead and ensure prosperity for generations to come. Yet, when it comes to delivering on this promise, Labor ignores the mandate Australians gave to the coalition government. It is typical of those opposite to focus on petty politics when the real issue at hand is our nation's economy and our international standing.
Is the opposition floridly psychotic? They rack up $123 billion in cumulative deficits, introduce budgets with massive structural deficits and think that no-one will ever have to pay it back. They inherit a $20 billion surplus, and in just six years leave behind a projected $30 billion deficit, turning nearly $50 billion in the bank into a projected net debt well over $200 billion, causing the fastest deterioration in debt in dollar terms and as a share of GDP.
Australians know that the coalition would never allow our nation's finances to become this bad. But unfortunately, due to the incompetence of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments, they are this bad. Perhaps, instead of forcing the Australian people to pay back the money squandered by the previous Labor government, they would like to offer to pay it off themselves. However, sadly, history shows they simply do not care. They do not care about the hard-earned dollars the Australian people give to the government with the trust and belief that it will be spent efficiently, effectively and in the best interests of the Australian people. Those opposite took to the budget like an arsonist takes to dry bushland in the heat of summer—setting fire to it all, burning all that is standing in their sights, letting it spread and get bigger and bigger and bigger until it was totally out of control. And then in come the firefighters, the coalition government, working hard to put out the fire. And what does Labor do? They squeeze the hose, cut off the water and fan the flames. And that is where we stand today: with the fire still burning on our nation's budget and with Labor playing politics and disregarding sense and good policy, completely ignoring their responsibility to all Australians and ignoring their responsibility to future generations. Enough is enough. Let the government get on with the job. Let us act in the best interests of all Australians.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): Order! The time for the discussion has concluded.
BILLS
Migration Amendment Bill 2013
Returned from Senate
Message received from the Senate returning the bill without amendment or request.
G20 (Safety and Security) Complementary Bill 2014
Report from Federation Chamber
Bill returned from Federation Chamber without amendment; certified copy of bill presented.
Third Reading
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Minister for Communications) (16:19): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
COMMITTEES
Electoral Matters Committee
Report
Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (16:20): On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, I present the committee's interim report, incorporating supplementary comments, entitled Interim report on the inquiry into the conduct of the 2013 Federal Election: Senate voting practices, together with the minutes of proceedings.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
Mr TONY SMITH: by leave—The 2013 federal election will long be remembered as a time when our system of Senate voting let voters down.
Combined with pliable and porous party registration rules, the system of voting for a single party above the line and delegating the distribution of preferences to that party delivered, in some cases, outcomes that distorted the will of the voter.
The system of voting above the line has encouraged the creation of microparties in order to funnel preferences to each other, from voters who have no practical way of knowing where their vote will ultimately land once they have forfeited it to the parties' group voting tickets.
The current rules for party registration have provided the means and unacceptable ease to create the parties in the first place to garner primary votes above the line and then harvest the preferences in a whirlpool of exchanges.
This has resulted in voters being required to contemplate and complete a difficult to manage ballot paper a metre long. At the last election 44 parties or groups were listed above the line and 110 candidates below the line on the NSW ballot paper. At a metre long, the Senate ballot papers were the maximum printable width, which meant the printed size of the names of parties and candidates was unacceptably small. As a result the AEC was required to provide voters with plastic magnifying sheets.
Many voters were confused. If they voted above the line, the choice of where their vote would go was effectively unknown, and accordingly in many cases their electoral will distorted.
If they voted below-the-line they needed to complete preferences for each and every candidate—in many states, a very complex and time consuming exercise.
The 'gaming' of the voting system by many microparties created a lottery, where, provided the parties stuck together in preferencing each other (some of whom have polar opposite policies and philosophies), the likelihood of one succeeding was maximised.
Instead of a lottery ball popping out of a machine, in Victoria, a microparty candidate popped out as the winner of a Senate seat.
The Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party received just 0.51 per cent of the primary vote, but their candidate was elected to the Senate through 'gaming' the system. Clearly, given the circumstances, this election did not represent the genuine will of the voters.
In some other states similar outcomes almost occurred.
While such 'gaming' of the system is legal, it has nonetheless distorted the will of voters, made Senate voting convoluted and confusing, and corroded the integrity of our electoral system.
These circumstances demand reform from this parliament.
That is why for five months this committee has worked in a bipartisan way to suggest a course of action that will restore the will of the voter and ensure more transparency and confidence in Senate elections.
We have heard all the arguments, analysed all the evidence, and ensured every view has been evaluated.
We are conscious that in proposing any substantive reform the committee must ensure its recommendations are fair and effective, and will represent a significant improvement to current electoral practice. That is why we have sought to produce a considered, robust and unanimous report—and we have.
We believe that retaining the current system is not an option.
We make six recommendations for reform as guidance to the parliament and the government for legislative change.
The current system of Senate voting above the line, and its reliance on group voting tickets, should be abolished and replaced with a new system that puts the power of preferencing back in the hands of the voter.
Our considered view is that the new system should be an optional preferential voting system, where the voter decides whether to preference and how many parties or candidates to preference.
We also suggest consequential reforms to below-the-line voting to remove the need for voters to complete every box.
We also believe that party registration rules need to be enhanced to ensure that parties are real and genuine, rather than vehicles for electoral manipulation.
We have held three hearings in Canberra, and other hearings and briefings in Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart and Perth. The committee has met for many days to consider the issues.
As chair I want to place on record my thanks to the permanent members of the committee, Senator the Hon. John Faulkner, Ian Goodenough MP, the Hon. Gary Gray MP, Alex Hawke MP, Senator Helen Kroger, Senator Lee Rhiannon, Senator Anne Ruston and Senator Mehmet Tillem as well as three participating members from the Senate, Senator Bridget McKenzie, Senator Barry O'Sullivan and Senator the Hon. Ian Macdonald, who all showed a deep interest during the inquiry.
I particularly want to thank the deputy chair, the Hon. Alan Griffin MP, for his willingness to go the extra mile and work with me to gain the evidence and produce the best report we could.
The staff of the secretariat have demonstrated the very best qualities of our Public Service; appreciating the importance of the issues confronted by the committee and working tirelessly to support our deliberations with the aim of assisting to produce this report within a very tight time frame.
The committee secretary, Glenn Worthington, together with Siobhan Leyne, Jeff Norris, James Bunce, Katrina Gillogly and Jessica Ristevska worked extremely hard in gathering the evidence and liaising with the range of individuals, groups and parties making submissions. They deserve thanks and recognition, as do their colleagues who supported all of us we travelled and worked.
This report has been produced at this time not only to provide the parliament with the time to legislate change, but to enable thorough and adequate information, education and explanation of the improvements to the voting public well in advance of the next election.
It is critically important that the parliament considers these recommendations for reform—and legislation to enshrine them into electoral law—as a very high priority.
As I have previously informed the House, the committee's focus over the last five months has been on this issue, and the circumstances surrounding the 1,370 lost votes in the Western Australian Senate election last year.
On the latter point, I plan to update the House in some detail in the coming weeks.
For the rest of this year and early next year, the committee will focus its attention on all of the other aspects of our electoral system, with particular focus on the issues highlighted by the Special Minister of State in his reference to the committee on 5 December of last year.
I move:
That the House take note of the report.
Debate adjourned.
Reference to Federation Chamber
Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (16:28): by leave—I move:
That the order of the day be referred to the Federation Chamber for debate.
Question agreed to.
BILLS
Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
to which the following amendment was moved:
That all the 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 notes the:
(1) program will be deeply flawed in its design and implementation given the poor environmental record of the current Government;
(2) bill provides insufficient protections for participants in the areas of occupational health and safety, workers compensation and rehabilitation;
(3) Government should clarify why participants do not have employee status even though they are to be removed from the social security system and paid an equivalent training wage;
(4) Government must provide assurance that the Green Army Program will not displace or reduce employment opportunities for existing workers;
(5) lack of detail of the training provisions in the program, namely specified minimum hours, provision of accredited recognised training and opportunities for ongoing training and career pathways; and
(6) importance of supporting young people to make the transition to meaningful work and further training opportunities."
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (16:29): It is good to resume my remarks from earlier today. As I said earlier, I think that this Green Army Program really demonstrates a clear philosophical difference when it comes to environmental policy between the government and those opposite, and that difference is no better emphasised than in the respective approaches to emissions reduction. On the government side is the Direct Action Plan, which will have a minimal impact on the economy with a very substantial impact on emissions reduction and will achieve that five per cent target by 2020. Opposite is the carbon tax with huge impacts right across the economy, including the $550 per year that ordinary families have been slugged with. They will have to pay that unfortunate tax.
That is the broader picture on emissions reduction environmental policy. Within that context of a practical approach to fixing environmental problems, the Green Army project is a tremendous example. The Green Army project will involve a huge amount of productive, practical work addressing environmental problems right around Australia. Not only will it provide an environmental benefit but it will also provide an important benefit to the young people of Australia. It provides opportunities for employment for young Australians from 17 to 24 years of age. By getting involved in these projects they know they are doing something great for their local community and their country as well. The government expects 15,000 participants to be involved by 2018 on 1,500 environmental projects. It will, indeed, be a veritable army of people working on these projects.
There is a higher proportion of young people in my electorate than there is in Australia as a whole. The opportunities that are created by the Green Army Program are particularly important and appreciated in my community. The six-month projects with nine young people will be led by a supervisor who will generally have substantial experience in land care and so on. It will be great to see 2,500 people involved in these projects in the next financial year. We are getting very close to the day when these Green Army projects become a reality right around our nation, and that is great to see.
I want to reflect today on two Green Army projects that will be taking place within my electorate. They are projects that I fought for during the election campaign and I was very pleased to make a commitment to those during that campaign. One of the most beautiful regions in my electorate is the area around the Georges River, none more so than the area around Oatley, which is home to Oatley Park, one of the largest urban parks anywhere in Sydney. In Oatley, in the Georges River area, we have the Lime Kiln Bay wetland area. This was established back in 1999 as a very worthy project to effectively capture as many pollutants as possible from stormwater prior to them getting into the Georges River. The function of gross pollutant traps and similar wetlands is to effectively act as a filter. The dirty water comes in from the stormwater and there are things in that water that we do not want in our rivers. We do not want pollutants, detergents or rubbish in our rivers. The role of the pollutant trap at Lime Kiln Bay is to capture much of those pollutants prior to them entering the river.
The wetland has been somewhat successful but there is a lot more that needs to be done. The reality is, if you visit the wetland at Lime Kiln Bay, particularly after heavy rain, you can see the environmental damage that stormwater does to the area: you can see the rubbish that builds up and you can see a slick in the water from the overflow from the man-made gross pollutant trap. Unfortunately, what that means is that on occasion the water in the Georges River near Lime Kiln Bay does not meet the standards that we all want it to. Parts of the Georges River are in very good condition and parts of it are in quite poor condition.
The area around Lime Kiln Bay, particularly after heavy rain, absolutely needs our attention. The Green Army project at Lime Kiln Bay will develop that wetland, plant more vegetation and effectively focus on making it more effective. For a wetland to be effective it needs the right amount of vegetation and the infrastructure to catch those pollutants prior to them getting into the river. Part of the gross pollutant trap is quite thick with reeds and vegetation that is meant to capture the pollutants and part of the area is not. Replanting that vegetation is an important part of the project.
I am looking forward to getting cracking on this. It will complement the great work already being done by local organisations, like the Friends of Oatley, the Oatley Flora and Fauna Conservation Society and the local bushcare group, which does so much great work in conjunction with Hurstville Council. The Lime Kiln Bay project is an important one and is a fantastic product of this very enlightened policy of the Green Army Program.
Another project that we are looking forward to getting started in my electorate is in the Georges River National Park at Padstow. Frankly, the Georges River National Park in Padstow is in an appalling state. There is debris and garbage right around the banks of the river in this area. On a recent trip to this area with some of our local media, those of us present were shocked by the very poor quality of the environment at Padstow. The site below Alfords Point Bridge, which is well known to residents in my electorate from Illawong across to Padstow, has been neglected for some time and there is an unfortunate consequence of that.
We have three important priorities for the clean-up at Padstow. Firstly, the project will remove the significant piles of building and household waste that is on the walking tracks that run down to the Georges River in this area and along the beachfront. As I say, this is an area which urgently needs attention. We will also improve the walking track between Bushland Drive and the beach area. Because of the physical environment, the amount of rubbish and the fact that this track is overgrown and very rarely used, it is not a place that the community can enjoy at the moment. One of the great practical outcomes of this project will be not only the environmental benefit but also the amenity benefit. Once we clean up this area and make it more usable, it will, once again, be a place where families can enjoy the banks of the Georges River at Padstow.
There is also some inappropriate vegetation in this region. It is vegetation which is not native and, in and of itself, has caused problems to the natural environment. We will revegetate the area with native species. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, those native species often perform the very useful role of improving the quality of water run-off that ends up in the river.
The Georges River is the environmental jewel in the crown of the Banks electorate and, indeed, much of southern and south-western Sydney. For too long, parts of the Georges River have been neglected. There are over 400 species of fauna in the area. It is, of course, one of the largest urban river systems in Australia. But it has not got the attention that it has deserved in the past. We are certainly looking forward to getting these two projects underway. Further applications are in the works for the Banks electorate, including the beautiful region of Lugarno. As a local member, it is tremendous to be able to bring a practical reality to our environmental policies, in the form of the Green Army program, and to deliver benefits for the people of Banks.
Mr WYATT (Hasluck) (16:40): I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. I was always interested in the program as it operated previously under the Howard government because what I saw was young people being given the opportunity to acquire skills, acquire discipline within a team process and demonstrate for the future that they were very capable young workers who would fit into the workplace in which they sought opportunity. It provided them with a practical experience which enabled them then to convince employers of the future that they were somebody worth considering. Equally, a number of them went into tertiary pathways and undertook studies in the area that had tweaked their interest, and they have gone on to be very successful—some are working with mining companies.
When we talk about the Green Army project, we are talking about a coalition plan aimed at bringing together 15,000 people. It will be the largest standing environmental workforce in Australia's history, providing real and practical solutions to cleaning up riverbanks and creek beds and revegetating sand dunes and mangrove habitat, among other environmental conservation and remediation work.
The Green Army provides an incredible opportunity for young Australians aged 17 to 24 to train and gain experiences and competencies in environmental and heritage conservation. Question time today raised the issue of workforce opportunities. I have heard members opposite find reasons not to support this initiative. But, when we consider young people's pathways into careers, this is one mechanism and one opportunity that will enable them to move into careers. The participants will undertake nationally recognised training qualifications and complete core and elective units which include, for example, Certificate II in Conservation and Land Management, Certificate II in Drainage and Certificate I in Construction. But they will also be dealing with occupational health and safety issues in the context of that training. This will enable individuals to embark on a career in conservation management while participating in projects that generate real benefits for the local environment and the heritage conservation projects across Australia.
I support the sentiment expressed by the member for Banks that there are areas that require some particular focus of attention. Often it is volunteers that do the work. But, when you have an army of people that help you, you increase your capacity to undertake the remediation of our environment. The program will cover costs associated with the involvement of the team, such as participant allowances, team supervisors' wages, uniforms, safety gear, basic equipment such as hand tools, participant training, local transport costs and insurances. The Green Army is an ongoing program that will have 250 projects in 2014-15, 500 projects in 2015-16 and 750 projects in 2016-17.
In my electorate of Hasluck, there are three Green Army projects—one in the north of my electorate centred on Midland, the second in central Wattle Grove and Forrestfield, and the third in the southern corridor of Gosnells and Thornlie. As a member, I am interested in the environment. Certainly, when you consider that Hasluck takes in the suburbs of Guildford, Swan Valley, Kalamunda, Gooseberry Hill, Forrestfield, Wattle Grove and Gosnells, just to name a few, and the bordering foothills of the Darling range, then you have an enriched environment that is unique in its flora and fauna. It is no surprise to people who visit these places that environmental issues are considered by many of my constituents to be of high importance. When I meet with constituents and environmental groups in my electorate I make a point of telling them that I have had a long association with our environment and that we will now have three Green Army projects in Hasluck. I am proud to be a member of this Abbott government in which the minister, Greg Hunt, has given a commitment for this to occur. When we make a commitment and we tell the Australian public that we are going to do something, we deliver on our word.
It was great that Senator Simon Birmingham, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, was able to help me launch the three Green Army projects in my electorate. It was interesting to interact with people involved. I learned of their support for the projects and their surprise at the level of commitment that we were prepared to make to protect the environment and equally the level of commitment that we were prepared to give those people who wanted an opportunity to acquire competencies and skills in conservation. Senator Birmingham joined me at the Tom Bateman reserve in Thornlie, which is part of the southern Green Army project. The City of Gosnells plan for the Tom Bateman reserve is to restore the natural environment, which is currently being used as a dumping ground. During my recent round of meetings with local governments it was concerning to hear that nature reserves were being used as dumping grounds for household, building and garden waste. I am confident that sites such as the Tom Bateman reserve can now be fostered by Green Army teams and, through the support of the community, these community assets can be maintained to the highest standards and their full potential can be realised. I would love to have gone back into those regions some 40,000 years ago to have a look at the natural environment—the waterways, the richness of unique species that would have existed in each area—and examine the relationship the local people had with the environment and the land.
It is important we ensure the nature reserves we have are maintained and preserved to a standard so they can be used and enjoyed by families in the area. The Tom Bateman reserve is a classic example of such a reserve, and. I am pleased that the Green Army Program will help to deliver social and environmental benefits for my electorate. Our collective aim for the Tom Bateman reserve is revegetation through the regeneration of natural bushland and for the construction of walkways to allow people to have safe access to this beautiful natural area.
Another nature reserve in this eastern corridor which will benefit from the Green Army Program is the Mary Carroll Park. This area backs onto the Gosnells Primary School, which has a vested interest in the area becoming a safe and welcoming community space. The program will make the area aesthetically pleasing so that it can again be used by families and the school to enable children to experience the natural bushland. I have learned from my relationship with the friends of the area that walking groups and bird watching groups are already using the site for their activities, so they will benefit immensely.
Mary Carroll Park has a large breeding wetland area. In the wet season, it supports large numbers of waterbirds, songbirds, reptiles, turtles and a reservoir of wetland flora. When the season is dry the animals diminish. The work of Eunice Robinson and her team has resulted in the regeneration of areas that had been destroyed by fire or damaged by people dumping rubbish. They have replanted vegetation natural to the area and in doing so they have revitalised the community's interest in the park. The work that they are doing with the support of the Green Army will see the greater enhancement of a very rich natural wetland, allowing it to be enjoyed by all.
The construction of walkways is important in our wetlands because it means that people do not trample through and damage those areas that are unique to the region. The work of the team will include construction of walkways, mangrove planting and riverbed revegetation. Throughout my term as a member, I have been volunteering to go out and spend time planting the right plants and learning much about the complexity of the interrelatedness between the vegetation and the animals living in the area.
When I was first elected, I saw a group of young people working at Lesmurdie Falls who were graduating from the program of their involvement. Two things stood out. One was the immense pride of having been involved in the program and having acquired the competencies and the confidence to work in an area that they had not been involved in before. I was impressed to hear them talk about what they had learned in school and their ability to apply it as a skill within the context of the work they were doing. When I asked them about the regulated hours of work, all of them said that it had been a great process for them because it had enabled them to commit to a team, to be part of the workforce and to have the opportunity to earn an income. Some of those kids would otherwise have been on the streets and I suspect that some of them would have ended up in incarceration. These were Aboriginal kids who had dropped out of school and had not followed the further pathways that we would normally expect children to follow.
In my own electorate I have an increasing rate of unemployment. If the Green Army provides a framework and a structure that will enable the unemployed to move into a mindset of what it is like to be in the workplace then this legislation will have achieved its aims. These people will not live in poverty, as was suggested by a couple; they will feel as though they are contributing to their environment and also to their community.
The Brixton Street Wetlands is another unique area that is suffering from major degradation despite excellent efforts by the local Friends of Brixton Street Wetlands. Brixton Street Wetlands in Kenwick is an extraordinary mixture of wetlands containing over 320 plant species and more than 20 per cent of Perth's flora in just 0.005 per cent of Perth's area. The work of the green army will preserve, maintain and protect this area of quality. The green army will be working to ensure that the rare and endangered species will have an environment in which they are not competing with local weeds. Over 97 per cent of the bushland on this waterlogged soil had been cleared for agriculture or housing, making Brixton Street Wetlands so important. Therefore, the green army initiative will provide opportunity for preservation and regeneration.
I commend the minister for having the vision to resurrect and to reinstitute the Green Army Program, because, to me, it tackles two key issues. One is that it brings forward our coalition commitment to the environment and to the preservation of the bushlands, the parks, the rivers and the wetlands that are so important in key areas. I think the underlying issue that is even more important is the fact that it is giving an employment pathway and an opportunity to the young people, who may have left school, who have not considered what their career pathway may be. These are young people who, through this program, will be given the opportunity of connecting to a learning course, either within a TAFE setting or, ultimately, within a university. They can then decide what full-time employment they will seek following that training. Some have been left wondering what they are going to do. This provides them with a practical approach, where they become involved.
As detailed by the Minister for Environment, the Hon. Greg Hunt, the Green Army Program will be a voluntary opt-in program that will involve short-term placements in a green army team. Where practicable, participants in the Green Army Program will generally receive a green army allowance as an alternative to receiving income support, and the program will provide work-like experience, activities and training opportunities for young people. Section 38H, to be inserted into the Social Security Act, states:
Despite any other provision of the social security law, a social security benefit or social security pension is not payable to a person if the person is receiving green army allowance.
In essence, they will receive one or the other—not both. We are clear about that. This is consistent with our philosophy of giving people help up, not a hand out.
I commend the bill and I certainly acknowledge the minister's vision and contribution to the two key elements of the environment and future employment pathways for young people.
Mr EWEN JONES (Herbert) (16:55): I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. I come at this bill more from the point of view expressed towards the end of the member for Hasluck's presentation, in relation to this program giving people the opportunity to have a go.
In 2012 Michael Keenan, the then shadow minister for justice, and I held a community forum on youth crime in Townsville. It was held in the Upper Ross suburb of Rasmussen. The Upper Ross is a dormitory suburb of Townsville. There is not much industry or employment there and that means people have to commute each day to and from work. It is also home to a lot of unemployment and to families needing government assistance. It is a beautiful part of Townsville which hugs the Ross River and lies adjacent to the dam wall, which provides Townsville's major water supply.
It was a night of very strong discussion regarding local crime, but what pleased me the most was the way that Townsville people approached the issue. Sure, there were some who thought that youth crime would be best solved by a good flogging, 'locking them up and throwing away the key' or worse, but the great majority of people in attendance recognised that if there was a silver bullet it would have definitely been fired by now; if there was a quick and easy option to solve the problems in our community it would have already been deployed. The fact was, though, that the problems we face with youth crime are multifaceted. One of the biggest concerns for the people in attendance was that children were dropping out of school and drifting into crime. They were dropping out because they had reached high school and were—largely anecdotally speaking, but the statistics back it up—unable to read and write. That left them largely unemployable in a modern Australia. This issue is compounded by generational unemployment. In Townsville there are homes where no-one has had a job—ever. How do we, as people in this place, rationalise how it must be for a young person to understand the message we are trying to give them that they must work hard and study hard for 12 years and, if they do that, they will get a job, and then they go home and they see that that has never happened to anyone in their family? How do we, as the people in this place, get our heads around where that person is and how do we get them to the position where they can participate in something?
So we have a large group of people who have dropped out and disengaged from the system of education and work. This is the same system around which most of us move for our entire lives, people in this place. How do we get these people into the system and keep them there? How do we get them to have a go? How do we offer them a chance for success?
The green army is not the sole answer to these questions—far from it—but it does form part of that answer for some people. What we have to do with youth unemployment and with generational unemployment is break the habit of being at home. The problem you have when you are at home and you have nowhere to go and nothing to do is that you do not keep regular hours. So quite often when you drive around Townsville—you will be coming home from a function at 11.30 at night or 12.30 or 1.30 in the morning—you will see kids on pushbikes riding around Townsville with nowhere to go. They are sleeping all day. How do we break that habit? How do we get them to turn up? How do we get them an opportunity to actually turn up and have a go? What is the motivation for them to say, 'Look, I want something more; I want something better'? How do we get them to recognise what it is to be part of a team? It is difficult because of the way insurance is with sport and the way clubs are forced to jack up administration prices, increasing the cost of getting people into sport. Along with the cost of uniforms and all of those sorts of things, it is so much more expensive now.
When I was a kid, to play in the four-stone-sevens—which, admittedly, was a very long time ago—you turned up in a pair of shorts and were given a jersey, you did not even have boots. The really classy guys had the foam inserts in the football shorts on the sides. At cricket, you did not have gloves. You did not have pads. You had a bat and ball and three stumps at one end, and one stump at the other end, and the batsmen switched over.
As for the unemployed families, to get their kids into team sport costs so much more. It is so prohibitive to get people to turn up, because they have got to have the right equipment. They are not allowed to play unless they have headgear, pads, protectors, bat and all that sort of stuff that goes with it.
A government member: Registration and insurance.
Mr EWEN JONES: Registration and insurance. How do we get those kids to understand what it is to achieve something, when they have been in a situation where no-one has achieved much at all? Once again, this is anecdotally speaking, but I have been in conversation with people who said, 'Sooner or later, I'll go to Stuart. I'll go through Cleveland, and then I'll end up in Stuart. That is what we do.' Those are the things that we have to watch out for. This is not at all everyone on the Green Army; I am talking about one of the issues in relation to the Green Army.
To achieve something; to complete something; to see something before you started and what the finished product must be; to be able to stand back and look at your handiwork and have some pride: what must it be like for people in that situation to be there? I commend the Minister for Environment, Greg Hunt, for following this through. It is an opportunity for young Australians aged 17 to 24 to gain training and experience in environment and heritage conservation. If you talk to Dr Scott Crawford from NQ Dry Tropics in Townsville, you will discover one of the things that they are most worried about is that we are trying to get people employment in conservation, landscape gardening and all those sorts of things where there are not many jobs. That is not the thing that I see out of the Green Army.
What I see out of the Green army is the ability for someone to get up, put their boots on, go to work, do the work, come home and do it again—to break the habit of being around. The Green Army will build on the Howard government's successful Green Corps program, established in 1996. It planted and propagated more than 14 million trees, maintained more than 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks and erected more than 8,000 kilometres of fencing. What did Labor do? Labor scrapped all those things. The initiative was torn apart, rebadged and failed to improve the environment, before being terminated completely in 2012. They had far too many other good programs to install. Young people no longer had the opportunity they once had to gain training and experience. We lost the link to having vital environmental projects undertaken in the local communities. This is something we took to the electorate as a key election promise last year.
There will be 250 projects and approximately 2,500 people undertaking on-the-ground, environmental activities in the first year alone. The Green Army will grow to become Australia's largest ever environmental workforce with 15,000 participants by 2018. We have to continue to make it enthusiastic and engaging. They get the same amount of money at the moment for sitting at home and doing nothing. Why would they turn up to this? Because it is part of something and defines what it is to belong to something. Projects can be carried across urban regional areas and remote Australia on public land, Indigenous held lands and on private land where there has been a clear community environmental heritage benefit.
The coalition government understands that young people need employment and they need a start in life. At the moment, youth unemployment is double the national rate. That means it is harder to get started. And if you cannot get started, it makes it harder to make success, which makes it easier to drift on to irrelevance and other things that you do not want to be involved in. Trainees will receive a training wage, work skills and formal qualifications, so at the end of it, if they push through with this, they will be able to say that they were actually part of something, and this is the piece of paper that says it. We will provide $300 million over four years and a further $222.1 million in 2017-18, and $289.2 million in 2018-19 to re-establish the Green Army.
There have been a lot of members on the other side questioning workplace health and safety and all those sorts of things in relation to this scheme. Can I be very clear: the health and safety of participants engaged in this program will remain governed by the relevant statutes, regulations, by-laws and requirements in respect of workplace health and safety laws. This is not a fly-by-night organisation. This is not a fly-by-night operation. Service providers, the people who win the tenders, are responsible for engaging and managing participants and will hold primary responsibility for the health and safety of the Green Army teams. It is one of the things that Townsville City Council, who will be our local contact on jobs in the seat of Herbert, were very clear about. They were quite worried. They wanted to know whether they would be responsible for participants' uniforms; for participants' turning up, for sick leave and for all those things that go with being part of a job. The answer is no. Townsville City Council are there merely to tell us what they want done; how to get it done, and the end result; and to show us where to go. Project sponsors have shared responsibility for providing a safe-work environment for Green Army teams, including safe access to the site where work is to be carried out. The Commonwealth will also implement a workplace health and safety audit scheme for the Green Army Program, involving independent workplace health and safety audits of service providers and projects.
I will throw the words of the member for Grayndler back to those opposite—there has been relentless negativity from Labor. There have been chants coming from the other side. They have sounded like a vuvuzela, with a chorus of negativity that comes out of their people. They have got their set lines, they just trot them out and they say exactly the same thing. No matter how many times it is repudiated, they have just got to get it out there, because they have already sent it out to their electorate. We could do that but the member for Grayndler would get up here. He would probably come out and say that he had already started this program under Labor's infrastructure program and that he actually turned the first sod a few years ago. That is what we get from the other side.
Insurances will be required to be held by all relevant parties. The Commonwealth will also take out personal accident insurance and public and/or product liability insurance for Green Army participants. This is consistent with practice for the previous National Green Jobs Corps.
The first Townsville project we will get underway is the Booroona Trail and Loam Island clean-up. As I said earlier, the suburb of Rasmussen hugs the Ross River, one of the most beautiful parts of town. Booroona Trail is a lovely part of it, but it is infested with weeds and needs a very strong clean-up. It is a beautiful part of the river walk and it is one of the things the Townsville City Council would love to get to, but they can never seem to get there. Our Green Army project will get in there.
As the local member I would like to say to my Green Army participants that if they turn up and participate I will put on a barbecue every Friday I am in town—a sausage sizzle at the end of work on a Friday afternoon. I will invite local employers who run construction companies or sawmills or are builders, and I will introduce my people from the Green Army projects to those people around town who may be looking for someone. I make no guarantee about jobs, but this is all about an opportunity to get a job and I will do my bit to make sure that the people here get to stand in front of the people who can employ them. This area of Rasmussen has high unemployment and little infrastructure and very few federal government services. Residents have concerns about the level of unemployment in the Upper Ross region.
We have been in contact with the Townsville City Council and they found out exactly how the project was going to run, and the lack of impact it will have on the way the Townsville City Council operates. There will, of course, be some administrative burden, but the payoff at the end will be far greater than that. They are very keen to provide more things, and there are things needed around my electorate, down towards Rowes Bay and along the foreshore.
If you get a chance come to Townsville and see the new Jezzine Barracks redevelopment. It is a spectacular place. Get across to Magnetic Island. They have just had the King of the Island event. Get there and see the heritage trails around the island and the work that can be done over there by the Green Army. This is an opportunity to participate and to succeed. It is an opportunity for people to have a go and break the bad habits and find out what it is like to work for a living and discover the joys of being part of a team and of starting something and finishing it—then stand back and maybe get a job at the end of it. This is what we have to do. This is the Australia we have to be. We have to be a more productive Australia. If we are more productive we will become more affluent and if we are more affluent and more productive in the Upper Ross we will be more inclusive. That is the most important thing in the electorate of Herbert. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (17:10): I commend the member for Herbert, especially for the telling points he made at the end of his speech about what the Green Army project is all about. He understands that this is the government saying to young people, 'We are there to help you. We are there to give you a hand. We are there to try to show you a path that will lead you to get experience in working, which can then lead to you having meaningful employment.' As we all know, the best thing we can do for our young people is give them work. That is what this government is all about.
It is interesting that we are having this debate the day after the budget, because with the budget being handed down last night we saw the Treasurer explain the budget situation quite tellingly. The key thing that came out of it, and it is a sad thing, was the extent of the mess that has been left to us to clean up. That is epitomised in one simple sum—that is, the debt interest bill we will be paying unless we do something to fix the mess: $1 billion per month, if we do not fix up the mess. When it comes to the Green Army it is interesting because there are probably two, three, four or maybe 10 Green Army projects every month that cannot happen because of the interest bill. If you look at it in terms of cancer centres, in terms of new hospitals, or in terms of new schools, $1 billion per month is what the interest bill is, and that is why the Treasurer and this government are united in fixing the budget mess left behind for us. It is so that we can move on and make sure that we have the financial ability to roll out excellent project like these Green Army projects.
I have been very fortunate in the electorate of Wannon because, through the very good work of the Minister for the Environment and his parliamentary secretary, Senator Simon Birmingham, I was able to gain four of these Green Army projects for my electorate. I hate to big-note myself because, Member for Herbert, I am sure there are more coming your way. I must say that I would be more than happy to campaign for you to get some for Magnetic Island. I have walked a few of the trails on the island, and that would be a great Green Army initiative. I look forward to supporting you in approaching the relevant minister and parliamentary secretary on that. But I was extremely fortunate to get four key projects in this area. I thank both the Minister for the Environment and the parliamentary secretary for taking the time to come down to the electorate of Wannon and speak with community groups and farmers and get a good grasp of what the needs are in our local community when it comes to environmental measures.
It is not great big new taxes. That is not what we are looking for. We are not looking for a great big new tax that will cripple our dairy industry. What we are looking for are good practical sustainable projects that will help our local environment on the ground. That is what the Green Army project is all about. It is sensible and practical and not only will it achieve good things on the ground but also it will provide potential pathways for young people into employment. So it is a program that deserves serious commendation.
The four projects that I got approval for in the lead-up to the election are interesting and diverse projects, and I will go through and mention them. The first is a commitment to preserve the Corangamite walking trails. As we all know, walking trails are very important to our local communities, because we want to make sure that the people are fit and active and that they have the space and trails to exercise in and use. But trails are also very important for tourism, because if you have excellent trails, tourists will come and use them. It is fantastic for your local community, but it also brings in income for them, and this is what these Corangamite walking trails will do. So for us to be able to make sure that they are of a very good standard, that they have the right signage on them and that they can become an attraction not only for the local community but also for those outside the local community to come and use is a very good initiative. I congratulate the Corangamite local government for putting forward this proposal, and I hope that this initiative will be a Green Army success story. I was quite happy to support it, because I think it will be.
Another of the proposals was to do with Heytesbury Biofund project, which the parliamentary secretary came down and announced for me. With a local workforce capable of assisting the well-established Biofund project and community planning program, this project involves revegetation works in the Heytesbury region to increase biodiversity, protect waterways, improve water quality and provide buffers against impacts such as nutrition run-off. This project is in the heart of Australia's best dairy producing area. It will work with landowners to make sure we continue to maintain the environment and that when it comes to nutrients and such things the run-offs do not impact on waterways et cetera—another excellent project, and I commend the Heytesbury District Landcare Network for their initiative in putting this project forward. The Heytesbury District Landcare Network is an excellent landcare network. They are engaged in the community, they have active people who are always looking for ways to improve the land in their region, and I commend them for putting this proposal forward.
The next proposal we were able to get is the Goldfields Employment and Learning Centre—trees for the Green Army project. This project is based in Maryborough, in a nursery where they are looking to work with local landcare groups not only to grow the shrubs but to go out and plant them and liaise with landcare groups and farmers to make sure they can be planted on the farms where the shrubs are needed. Once again, the Goldfields Employment and Learning Centre has done a great job in putting this proposal forward. They understand, because they spend a lot of time with young people in the central goldfields area trying to help them in the learning and engagement space. They see this as a key initiative for making sure the young people in that community have another pathway to potential employment—again, an excellent proposal. I look forward to working with them to make sure this project hits the ground running and does the much-needed work that is required in that area to ensure that young people, especially those with socioeconomic disadvantage, have this opportunity to get out there, do some meaningful and worthwhile work, and get the experience that comes with doing that—and then get the self-confidence to be able to go on and find work.
The final proposal is the Moyne Resilient Farms Project. Once again, this was announced by the parliamentary secretary when he came down to Wannon. It will provide landholders in the Moyne Resilient Farms Project with a local workforce capable of assisting with tree planting, weed removal and direct seeding. A key part of the project is that landholders are responsible for securing planting labour externally or providing it for themselves. The Green Army commitment will ensure that landholders with large quantities of trees to plant can access local labour and provide youth with on-hand real job opportunities in the rural landscape, which needs skilled young people to fill future jobs. This is a way of saying to young people, 'Come and get some experience, come and get some practice—especially when it comes to farming—and there are potential opportunities there for you then to join that local workforce.'
One of the things we are finding in the agricultural sector is that there are opportunities there for young people who do want to get work in the agricultural sector. So if you are prepared to engage and you are prepared to say 'Yes, this is the type of work that I want to do', then there are opportunities there, and this project is one way of giving young people some experience of what it is like to work on the land. It is not for everyone; it is not easy. But if you come and do it and like the experience, there are work opportunities there for you. I think that is the key thing. It is encouraging young people and showing them that there are opportunities there, and doing so in a worthwhile way, doing so in a way where they get that sense of pride from being able to say—and I must confess I have done this myself—'I put that tree plantation in.' And one of the things about putting tree plantations in as a young boy is that I have had the joy later in life of going back and seeing those trees fully grown. It is not going to change the earth, but it is a small contribution that you have made, and it is something that gives you great pride. And I must say that even at home on our very small nuisance block, I have planted some trees with my youngest daughter, and I take great pride in watching that plantation grow. Two years ago the trees were up to my knees. They were as high as she was. Now they tower above her and they are higher than me—that is in a couple of years. You get a great sense of achievement in saying that is something which is permanent. That is just one example of what this Green Army project can provide.
I must confess the way the Minister for the Environment has gone out and advocated on behalf of this Green Army Program is a credit to him. He obviously has grasped and understands clearly the benefits this program can bring. He has very much lead the way in going around the countryside and making sure that there are projects right across Australia which are now going to be rolled out since the Australian people made the decision that they wanted to elect a new government to get Australia heading on the right path again. This is another one of those commitments that we took to the election which is now being implemented.
One of the key things about this program is that the policy was well thought out. It is being well laid out and it is not being rushed. So we are going to ensure that it is administered and implemented in the correct way. We are now seeing the tragedy in the evidence at the pink batts royal commission about a program which was rushed when it was implemented, where OH&S was not taken into consideration. What we are seeing here is a minister on top of his brief, a program which is being well thought out and sensible, which will lead to real, tangible benefits. This is important. I hope those on the other side have taken note of that and are starting to understand that, if they ever are given the opportunity again, this is the way to go about developing and implementing policy. I really do hope that they are learning the lessons about what a good, mature, adult government can deliver and how to go about delivering for the Australian people. We see through this program and in particular through the budget last night that the adults are back in charge and this nation is all the better for it.
Mr CHRISTENSEN (Dawson—The Nationals Deputy Whip) (17:25): It is a pleasure to follow on from the member for Wannon to speak on this Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. The bill is yet another example of the Liberal-National government fulfilling the promises and the commitments it made to the Australian people in the last election. We promised we would raise a green army and this bill enables us to do exactly that. I am also proud to say that this bill will enable the government to meet the commitments it made in my electorate of Dawson under this program. These are important commitments because, along with hundreds of other commitments, they will deliver three important things: valuable training to the young, a sense of worth and achievement to participants in the program and real, tangible outcomes for the environment—that is, outcomes the participants can be proud of, as alluded to by the previous speaker, the member for Wannon.
The specific purpose of this bill is to enable variations to the Social Security Act 1991, so as to allow the payment of participants in the Green Army Program. The bill defines the Green Army Program. It inserts a provision for a Green Army payment and defines how recipients of such a payment are to be treated under the nation's social security arrangements. The Liberal-National government has a strong history of delivering for the environment. By that I mean delivering real outcomes for the environment. Making token gestures which do nothing more than attack industries and jobs does not deliver real outcomes for the environment. The Green Army is designed to deliver those real outcomes.
It will build upon the highly successful Green Corps program that was established under the Howard Liberal-National government in 1996. Over the life of the Green Corps program, we saw the propagation and planting of more than 14 million trees, the building of more than 8,000 kilometres of fencing, the clearing of more than 50,000 weeds and the construction or maintenance of more than 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks and boardwalks. Unfortunately under the previous Labor administration, the Rudd-Gillard government, we saw the successful Green Corps program done away with. The Labor government did what they could to break this program. In typical Labor fashion, they saw a solution and created a problem. They tore that program apart. They rebadged it and turned it into something that provided no real or significant benefit. Eventually the program was killed off in 2012.
Unlike the carbon tax, which the Labor Party claimed to have terminated before voting once again in this new parliament to keep, they really did terminate the Green Corps program and the young people no longer had the opportunity to gain valuable skills while helping the environment. Labor took a different approach. They decided to hit families, businesses and the economy with the world's biggest carbon tax, but the carbon tax was a pointless attack on the entire economy. Despite a $7.6 billion tax, which is what the carbon tax collected, emissions for the first 12 months barely changed—by 0.1 per cent. The Green Army will actually return real outcomes to the environment while giving young people dignity, skills and a sense of achievement. There are three components to this Green Army Program. The first component is the service provider. Service providers will be contracted by the government to engage Green Army teams, to deliver training, wages and payments, and to manage the activities of the Green Army teams. They will provide regular progress reports and ensure that projects are completed.
The second component is project sponsors. Project sponsors will be the organisations—such as local councils, community groups and natural resource management groups—that are able to develop suitable projects for the Green Army to undertake. Sponsors can submit their proposals through an application process in which they will be assessed and potentially recommended for action.
The third component, most importantly, is the participants of the Green Army itself—the soldiers, so to speak. The Green Army Program will be targeting young people between the ages of 17 and 24. These young people may be unemployed, they may be school leavers seeking a gap year or they may be graduates. The Green Army Program will provide funding to those individuals who make up the Green Army teams undertaking key environmental project activities.
Project sponsors will be the ones that supply the equipment, the materials and the expertise that will be needed to deliver on the project. One of the most important outcomes for the Green Army Program is training and skill development for young people who may not otherwise have such an opportunity to gain those skills and that training.
In addition to the experience and on-the-job training, another key element of the Green Army Program is the provision of vocational and accredited training. Such training will be delivered by a registered training organisation under the frameworks of the Australian Qualifications Framework. The wide range of projects undertaken through this Green Army Program will link in with a wide range of training opportunities. I can list some of them: land management, conservation, heritage conservation, work readiness, leadership, project and human resource management, and trade skills such as heritage trade skills.
Although many—in fact, most—of these Green Army projects will be hands-on outdoor jobs, they will not be exclusively outdoor projects. Training undertaken in conjunction with Green Army projects does satisfy requirements under the Australian Qualifications Framework and service providers will be responsible for making sure that happens. They can tailor training opportunities to best suit the needs of participants and a training plan can be negotiated on an individual basis. First aid training and workplace health and safety training must be completed by all participants before they start work on Green Army projects.
The workplace health and safety of Green Army participants is particularly important to the Liberal-National government. For this reason, the Department of the Environment will work with service providers to agree on a risk management framework for the delivery of Green Army projects. The service providers will be required to work with sponsors on risk plans for each individual project. Risk plans will be one component of the regular reporting requirement.
So claims made about Green Army participants not having safety protections are just wrong. The health and safety of participants engaged in the program will remain governed by the relevant statutes, by the regulations and by the by-laws and requirements of state and territory laws in regard to workplace health and safety. The Commonwealth will also implement a work health and safety audit scheme for the Green Army Program, involving independent work health and safety audits of service providers and projects. That is very much due diligence and I can only wish that had happened with the pink batts scheme.
The Liberal-National government will provide $525 billion over the next four years to establish that Green Army. Our policy that we took to the election, and which we are acting on here, will raise this Green Army of 15,000 foot soldiers; the largest standing environmental workforce in the nation and in the nation's history. Our army will provide a real and practical solution to cleaning up riverbanks and creek beds, to revegetating sand dunes, to revegetating mangrove habitats and to a range of other environmental conservation remediation work.
In my electorate of Dawson in North Queensland, we have already identified and committed to two Green Army projects. I am very pleased that both of those projects had funding committed to them in last night's budget and they will go ahead. The first project is supporting an organisation called Eco Barge Clean Seas and the program that they operate within the stunning Whitsunday region. Everyone knows about the beautiful Whitsunday: the islands, the beaches and the white sand beach at Whitehaven. What this program does is work on the natural beauty of the island by cleaning up the debris that we find in the water and around those islands.
Since July 2009, through a volunteer effort, this organisation has removed 110,000 kilograms worth of debris from the environment. That was just waste and rubbish that has come out of drains and come off ships—that sort of thing. I happen to have gone out a couple of times with the Eco Barge Clean Seas group—at one stage, with the Prime Minister—to one of the islands to help pick up marine debris that was around the island. We also went out with the Minister for the Environment at one stage to see some of the work they were doing in sorting out all of this rubbish.
They are a group that is doing something very concrete and positive for the environment. They are making a real difference. In fact, in conjunction with Fauna Rescue Whitsundays, the Eco Barge Clean Seas group has just recently launched the Whitsunday Marine Turtle Rescue Centre at their headquarters to ensure that any sick or injured marine turtle is provided with the care that it needs.
The Green Army working with Eco Barge Clean Seas will mean that more work can be done, skills and experience can be learned and there will be better outcomes for the local environment all around. I have made a joke that in this instance, because a lot of the work will be done on the water, it will be the 'green navy' component of the program.
The second project is working with the Don River Improvement Trust in the town of Bowen to fix some of the problems that we have with the Don River. The Don River has a catchment of about 1,200 square kilometres. It goes from the Clarke Range through to Bowen on the coast. It falls 250 metres in about 60 kilometres—a very steep gradient for a river—and it is one of the fastest-flowing rivers in the nation and the fastest-flowing in the tropics. When it rains, this river really runs. We have a flood warning time of about six to nine hours. We have had major floods through the Don in 1970, 1979, 1980, 1988, 1991 and 2008. That is not the result of carbon emissions; it has been going on for a long time before that, throughout the 19th century and into the early 20th. The record flood on this river was 9.7 metres in 1946—believe it or not. Floods have always happened there, but in recent years we have seen a build-up of sand in the river mouth and all along the river. It has been held together through non-native grasses and weeds that are choking the riverbed. Water in its natural course has failed to flush the sand out because of this vegetation. What would normally be a minor flood is now causing a flow of break-outs in certain areas. We had one recently that did millions of dollars' worth of damage to tomato farms. The impact was on the farmers, but it could also fall on residents. There is a potential that the Don River could break out and head towards the Queens Beach district with its sizeable residential community. That would pose a risk to life and property.
The Whitsunday Regional Council is doing a report at the moment on how to mitigate flooding on the Don River. That is several months away but, without a doubt, if we can get a Green Army team in there to do some remedial work by removing the noxious weeds in the river and repairing the riverbank, it will assist in a minor way. We have just had Cyclone Ida, the aftermath of which has been devastating and which I do not want to see again. I am committed to this project but I am also looking for further funding to do more serious work on the Don River. These are just two projects in my electorate that the Green Army will undertake. It is most welcomed by the people of Dawson and by myself. I do commend the government on the Green Army Program. It is delivering on an election commitment and it will result in real outcomes for the environment.
Mrs GRIGGS (Solomon) (17:41): It is my pleasure to follow the member for Dawson, who presented a very interesting discussion of projects in his electorate. I look forward to seeing the progress of those projects. I too rise to support this fantastic coalition election commitment. I am excited to have it begin in my electorate of Solomon.
The Green Army Program will begin in July 2014 and, as the member for Dawson said, it will be Australia's largest ever environmental workforce. Nationally, it will increase to 15,000 participants by 2018 and it will be capable of delivering 1,500 environmental projects on the ground. There is nothing shabby about it: it is a very big ambition and I am absolutely delighted to be part of it. The Green Army project works like this: young local people aged 17 and 24 years who are interested in protecting their local environment while gaining hands-on practical skills and experience will be engaged to carry out projects in an area where the aim is to improve their local environment and, indeed, community.
Local projects may include, but are not limited to: propagation and planting of native seedlings; weed control; revegetation and regeneration of local parks; habitat protection and restoration; improving water quality by cleaning up waterways, which the member for Dawson talked about; revegetation of sand dunes and mangroves; creek bank regeneration; foreshore and beach restoration; construction of boardwalks and walking tracks to protect local wildlife; and cultural heritage conservation.
The coalition is encouraging local organisations to use their imagination and expertise to create unique projects suited to their local surrounds, which is important for my electorate in the Top End of the Territory. Proposed projects will be assessed on a merit basis against its project's environmental benefits, the benefit to the local community and the potential for skills training for the project's participants. As the member for Solomon, I am calling on local organisations and individuals around Darwin and Palmerston to put forward their ideas for local Green Army projects. We want to hear from environmental groups, local community groups, youth organisations, local councils and natural resource management bodies.
While the coalition's Green Army Program aims to improve our local environment, there will be significant benefits to young Territorians as well. This is a very exciting project for the younger generations of Darwin and Palmerston, as it is a real opportunity for them to engage with their local community while gaining real skills which will help them enter the workforce when that time comes. Young people will gain hands-on, practical knowledge and experience, while enhancing their job readiness and increasing their skills base. Green Army projects will engage at least one team supervisor and up to nine participants to complete one project in 20 to 26 weeks. These participants will receive a Green Army allowance throughout the project with the team supervisor employed and paid a wage consistent with the gardening and landscaping services award.
Funding will be provided to each Green Army team for materials and equipment to allow participants to carry out their work. This can provide an alternative to income support for many young Territorians interested in upskilling and engaging in real work experiences while giving back to the local community at the same time. Participants can apply as school leavers and gap year students and, upon completion, there will be opportunities for participants to undertake further education and training as well as potential for employment with councils, Territory national parks or the thousands of environmental businesses across Australia.
Unfortunately, in true Labor style, misleading accusations have been thrown around about the health and safety measures for our Green Army. I heard fellow Territorian the member for Lingiari speaking ill of this project earlier today. Claims that Green Army participants will have no safety protection are incorrect, and it is absolutely irresponsible for those on that side of the House to spread these mistruths. They just cannot seem to get involved in anything that is positive, and this is a positive program for our youth.
The health and safety of Green Army participants will be governed by the relevant work health and safety laws in the Territory. The service providers will also have a responsibility for their Green Army teams and project sponsors will have a duty to provide a safe working environment. Insurance will be required to be held by all relevant parties, and the Commonwealth will also take out personal accident or product liability insurance for Green Army participants. This practice is consistent with the previous National Green Jobs Corp.
I am particularly excited for this project to begin in my electorate. The electorate of Solomon encompasses all of Darwin and Palmerston. We have some of the most beautiful landscapes in the Territory. Territorians are proud of their natural environment. Our local waterways are a source of food, income and recreation. Territory-wide we have some of the most pristine waterways in Australia. As a result, we have a strong passion for preserving our waterways. However, the member for Lingiari does not support this program, so unfortunately only Darwin and Palmerston organisations will be able to apply for this program. I look forward to seeing some constructive submissions from the Territory's environmental bodies as to how the grants program can benefit the people of Darwin and Palmerston.
The coalition has a strong background and much experience in delivering for Australia's environment. I am confident that this Green Army project will build on the Howard government's successful Green Corps program, which was established in 1996. Throughout the life of the Green Corps program participants delivered many local community oriented projects, including propagating and planting more than 14 million trees, erecting more than 8,000 kilometres of fencing, clearing more than 50,000 weeds, and constructing and maintaining more than 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks and boardwalks.
In 2014 we are much more aware of the impact humans are having on our environment and, more than ever, Australians are keen to lend a hand to preserve our natural landscapes. The Northern Territory and the rest of Australia has a natural environment that draws visitors from all over the world who travel thousands of kilometres just to see our amazing natural wonders. In the Territory our tourism industry is well served by our natural attractions. We are blessed with a magnificent harbour, with kilometres of tropical coastline surrounding Darwin and Palmerston. We have the Kakadu National Park covering almost 20,000 square kilometres of natural landscape. We have the Litchfield National Park with its many watering holes and walking tracks. More than ever, it is vital to the Territory that we preserve our environment. What better way to do that than to engage local young Territorians to learn about the environment and possibly develop a career in caring for our local community?
We have much catching up to do due to the Labor government's failure to have an efficient environmental policy that provides actual results. This is typical of the Labor Party—all talk and no action. Labor's approach to the environment was to hit families, businesses and the economy with the carbon tax. The carbon tax was an attack on the entire Australian economy, and it did not even decrease our impact on the environment. Basically, it did not work. Despite a $7.8 billion tax, emissions for the first 12 months barely changed by 0.1 per cent.
Under Labor's watch, the important Green Corps initiative was torn apart, rebadged and failed to improve the environment. Then, in true Labor form, it was dismantled in 2012. Young people no longer had this fantastic opportunity to gain real life skills whilst giving back to their local community and improving the environment in which they lived. The coalition's Green Corps projects reached all corners of the Northern Territory, and the program certainly had a lot of support in Darwin and Palmerston. Significant projects completed in the Territory included the Casuarina Coastal Reserve project in my electorate, which saw the construction of three kilometres of walking track and boardwalk through the mangroves and monsoonal vine thickets along the Casuarina foreshore. A major Landcare group project in Darwin saw weed control, site preparation and tree planting in association with the Atlas moth. A project in Darwin's CBD area aimed to rehabilitate the native plant community of the escarpment, along with Darwin's foremost park within the CBD area. The project tasks included a process of extensive weed eradication, fire danger control and revegetation.
Based on how successful these Green Corps projects were, I have no doubt the Green Army projects in my electorate will be extremely effective and I encourage anyone interested in starting a project to contact my electorate office. The Coalition's Green Army Program will provide, as I said, 150,000 young people with the opportunity to work on local projects and improve their local community. This will be the largest standing environmental workforce in Australia's history. While the youth involvement in this project is a major component of this policy, the objective of the Green Army is to combat land degradation, clean up our waterways, provide real and practical solutions to cleaning up riverbanks and creek beds, revegetate sand dunes, revegetate mangrove habitat and a host of other environmental conservation projects.
We believe in encouraging practical, hands-on, grassroots action in combatting human impact on our environment. This is a fantastic way to harness the knowledge of local communities, encouraging them to identify and fix the local problems. I know we are not short of this knowledge in the electorate of Solomon. We have fantastic community leaders with a passion for environmental awareness, many of whom I have met during my time as the member for Solomon. This approach to environmental issues will foster community spirit, local ownership and teamwork, of which I can proudly say we do so well in Darwin and Palmerston.
I congratulate the minister for his hard work in unravelling the environmental mess that the Labor Party has left us. With an unsuccessful carbon tax and no effective policy to tackle environmental issues on the ground, the Labor Party left the minister with a real mess. I have no doubt that the Green Army project will be a huge success for Australia, and I know it will be a success in Solomon. I cannot wait to see the fabulous projects that I know my constituents will come up with. Once again, Minister Hunt has done an awesome job with this policy. I wholeheartedly support this bill and look forward to the green army starting in July 2014.
Mrs MARKUS (Macquarie) (17:54): I rise today to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. This bill is an important step in the delivery of a key election commitment and also in the pursuit of real outcomes for the environment. The coalition has always been committed to taking direct action on the environment. We recognise that practical work and building on partnerships between bushcare groups and community organisations are what will produce long-term outcomes.
This legislation provides the key framework and structure for the implementation of the Green Army Program across the nation. During the election campaign, there were 150 Green Army projects announced nationwide, with an additional 100 to be rolled out between 2014 and 2015. The Green Army will become Australia's largest ever environmental workforce, building to 15,000 participants by 2018. This means the program will be capable of delivering around 1,500 on-the-ground projects. The projects and initiatives will vary from the clean-up of riverbanks and creek beds to the revegetation of degraded land and mangrove habitat.
Given that the electorate of Macquarie encompasses the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains, with much of it World Heritage listed national parks, this program will be significant for our region and our communities. The effects will be tangible and visible for the community to see and will help to create and conserve areas for families and individuals to enjoy. What is most significant about the Green Army Program is the opportunity it presents for our young people. This voluntary initiative is tailored for 17 to 24yearolds—a critical demographic for our nation. We all know what a challenging situation our young people can find themselves in, particularly when they are transitioning from school to work. In a changing employment landscape, many young people who have so much potential find themselves struggling as they transition from school to work.
The Green Army is an important milestone for providing job opportunities for our young people and a pathway to training and/or employment. Participants in the Green Army can apply as school leavers and gap year students, and the unemployed can also opt to join the Green Army as an alternative to Work for the Dole programs. The Green Army will provide meaningful, practical, hands-on environmental skills, training and experience for thousands of young Australians. The program will boost workforce training and productivity, foster teamwork, local ownership and community spirit.
I was fortunate enough to see firsthand the success of the Green Corps project during the period of the Howard government. There were significant outcomes achieved during this time, both for young people and for the environment. At the time, I had the opportunity to observe and participate in a project at Second Ponds Creek. As a result of that project, many of the participants went on to further training and employment. Unfortunately, when the Labor government came to power, they dismantled the Green Corps and replaced it with the National Green Jobs Corps, which effectively reclassified unemployed people, who continued to receive an income support payment, and then it was abolished altogether.
The Green Army Program will involve six-monthly placements in Green Army teams, providing an alternative to income support for many young Australians interested in engaging in work-like experiences and activities. Up to nine eligible participants and at least one team supervisor will constitute a Green Army team. The projects will run between 20 and 26 weeks. During this period, Green Army participants will have the opportunity to develop job-ready skills and undertake training. It will be the responsibility of the service provider to develop training plans for each of the Green Army participants. Participants will receive a Green Army allowance while participating in the program and the service provider will be responsible for the disbursement of the allowance. Team supervisors will be employed and paid a wage by the service provider. The bill ensures that people receiving a Green Army allowance under the Green Army Program will not also receive a social security benefit or social security pension simultaneously.
I was pleased during the election campaign in Macquarie to announce an important Green Army project within the Blue Mountains, which will begin rollout later this year. The Prince Henry Cliff Walk in the upper Blue Mountains is a beautiful walk that covers the top of the cliff line and most of the major lookouts. This Green Army project will include essential track upgrade of this iconic walk, which was constructed between 1934 and 1936. This will have benefits for the tourist industry within the mountains. I believe this project will provide significant impetus to the ongoing work of volunteer groups, councils and other stakeholders in improving revegetation of bushland and the upgrade of important reserve facilities. It is one of the busiest tourist precincts in the Blue Mountains and provides various connections to the Federal Pass walking track and the tourism precincts in both Leura and Katoomba.
People living and working in the electorate of Macquarie share a passion to see our region thrive and grow. We also share a passion for the environment and for preserving it for future generations. I recently also met with the Hawkesbury City Council to discuss opportunities for other projects to be submitted for round 1 later this year. I am pleased to note that the council have already taken up this opportunity and have submitted ideas for other projects across the region. I believe there is a lot of untapped potential in our region and I look forward to working with the community and bushcare groups in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury to deliver these important projects. I know that this program will deliver long-term results not only for the environment but for our community.
I think it is important to also acknowledge the Greater Western Sydney Conservation Corridor, which the coalition government last night reaffirmed in the budget a commitment of $15 million. This will help to preserve the Cumberland Plain Woodland. This includes $7.5 million in direct funding for the acquisition of threatened land in the Cumberland Conservation Corridor. This commitment will help green urban lands and protect existing green areas in the Greater Western Sydney region. I am pleased to see this come to fruition after many years of hard work. It has been a real team effort to plan and prepare for this project. The protection of green areas within and around the electorate of Macquarie is a vital part of making our local community more liveable and this initiative offers a once in a generation chance to establish a conservation corridor, enhance our urban areas and preserve important habitat for future generations.
I am very pleased to support this bill as it is an important piece of legislation that will help deliver to more young people more work in my electorate and opportunities to learn and grow. The coalition government is getting on with the job of not only building a stronger economy but also providing our young people with a future while protecting, conserving and building on our environmental strengths.
Mr FLETCHER (Bradfield—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) (18:02): I am very pleased to rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Program) Bill 2014. The measures contained within this bill seek to deliver on the government's election commitment to create a 15,000-strong standing Green Army, which will serve as the largest standing environmental workforce in Australia's history. The coalition believes in encouraging hands-on, practical, grassroots environmental action as a means of fixing environmental problems, as well as tapping into the knowledge of local communities and encouraging them to identify and fix their own local problems. This policy approach has great synergy with the successful work I have witnessed on many occasions in my electorate of Bradfield to protect and nourish the vitally important native bush of our area. I am confident, therefore, that the measures contained in this bill will be warmly welcomed in the electorate of Bradfield.
In the brief time available to me this evening I want to touch on three points: firstly, to speak about the vital importance of our natural heritage in the electorate of Bradfield and particularly the importance of native bushland; secondly, to commend the work done by many enthusiastic local volunteers to protect and improve our native bushland; and, thirdly, to speak about the measures contained in this bill and highlight the synergies between the approach that this bill proposes and what is already working very successfully in my electorate of Bradfield as well as in many other parts of the country.
Let me describe the beautiful, natural environment that we are privileged to enjoy in the electorate of Bradfield. In the electorate of Bradfield almost every resident is fortunate to live within just a few minutes of extensive swathes of natural bushland. Whether you back onto the Lane Cove National Park, like many areas such as West Pymble, West Killara and West Lindfield do, whether you back onto the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, as many in the north of Bradfield do, or whether you are between the many nature reserves and pockets of bush all across Bradfield you will know that native bushland is a defining characteristic of Sydney's upper north shore and of my electorate of Bradfield. We are very privileged in Bradfield to live amongst such beautiful native bush. Of course, as we all know, when native bush intermingles with suburban living it can be affected and degraded—rubbish gets dumped in it, weeds infest it and native plants can struggle to survive. In other words, there is a real danger that the unique character of our native bushland can be compromised, for example, by rapid growth by introduced species.
The native bushland of Australia is extremely important to our national identity and to our sense of self, and it is a critical element of our overall environment. Any Australian who has been to other parts of the world where eucalypts have been planted—and I am thinking particularly of California—will know that when they see and smell the eucalypts in those other places that immediate rush of recognition for the home that we all know and love so well. The affection that we all have for our native bushland in Australia is as true in my own electorate as it is all around the country. Indeed, I would venture to say there is a particularly fierce pride in, and affection for, our natural bushland in Bradfield and the remaining native timber, such as turpentine timber and so on. We are very fortunate in Bradfield that we have a thriving community of local bushcare groups who weekend after weekend head into their local patch of natural bushland, whether it be some of the remaining stands of blue gum high forest or some of the other unique pieces of native bushland in Bradfield.
In the second part of my remarks I particularly want to pay tribute to the work of bushcare groups in my electorate, the hardworking volunteers who remove from local bushland rubbish, refuse and noxious weeds to stop them from spreading. Volunteer organisations, such as the Bushcare groups within my electorate—and, of course, around the country—are of vital importance in maintaining the natural heritage of our native bushland. They help to preserve local biodiversity through caring for native plants and animals. They plant native seedlings and they educate and provide training workshops for those who want to know more about maintaining local bushland. Over the last couple of years, as I have come to know the local Bushcare groups better, I myself have had the benefit of being educated and being able to recognise such species as lantana, privet and trad—all of which, of course, are not native. The Bushcare groups do outstanding work and I want to acknowledge the very important contribution that they make.
In Bradfield, we are privileged and fortunate to have a very large number of Bushcare groups. In fact, so far we have identified some 88 groups. I have had the privilege of visiting several of those groups, including the Quarry Creek Bushcare Group in West Pymble, under the leadership of Bill Jones, the Geary's Way Bushcare Group in Killara, led by Hugh Lander, and the Broadway Bushcare Group in Wahroonga, led by Harry Lock. In each case, these leaders and the volunteers working with them were very generous with their time and expertise in sharing with me the stories of the work they do and showing me some of the areas which they have successfully regenerated.
I also want to acknowledge the important work of Ku-ring-gai Council and Hornsby Council in supporting the Bushcare groups and providing important resources and training to underpin their work. But, most importantly, I want to acknowledge the work of the volunteers in the Bushcare groups. The work that these volunteers do is of the highest importance in preserving our environment against the many pressures to which it is subjected by our modern lifestyle. They really do tremendously important work, and I congratulate them on all that they do.
I want to also note here the fact that there is nationally an initiative known as Bushcare's Major Day Out. I recently had the opportunity to meet with representatives of Bushcare's Major Day Out—Linda Watts, Don Wilson and Gail Giles-Gidney—who briefed me on this important national initiative. It is a national day designed to encourage all of us to take part in the restoration and maintenance of our remaining bushland. Key stakeholders in this day include Landcare Australia and, locally, Willoughby Council. I was impressed in the recent meeting that I had with Linda, Don and Gail as to the extent of their work in planning the successful national event to stimulate interest in and support for the restoration of our native bushland.
Thirdly, let me turn to the synergy between some of these effective volunteer activities to protect and improve our natural bushland and the philosophy which underpins the coalition's election commitment to build a 15,000-strong green army—an election commitment which, of course, is given concrete form in the measures contained in the bill before the House this evening. One of the inspirations for the coalition's Green Army is, of course, the very successful Green Corps program implemented in 1996 by the Howard government. That program had the purpose of employing young people in environmental projects to preserve and restore our natural and cultural environment. The thinking of the Abbott government in devising the policy measures which are contained in the bill before the House is that there is a strong case for a nationwide environmental deployment to provide young people, in particular, with access to sustainable employment that encourages hands-on, practical grassroots environmental action as a means of fixing environmental problems. Also, it provides on-the-job training and the opportunity for participants to gain important skills and put their time and effort towards qualifications in land management, park management, landscaping or horticulture.
The former Green Corps program, which I mentioned, was, unfortunately, white-anted—gutted by the previous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor government. They transformed it into a program under which young long-term unemployed Australians were reclassified and continued to receive an income support payment, but actually there was very little done under the modified program—the transformed, gutted, and white-anted program—to help the environment. Labor's program did very little to motivate the long-term unemployed to move into employment. There was no element in its design of targeting those specifically interested in the conservation of our national environment. There was no specific attempt to reach out to people with that particular affinity and enthusiasm to draw them into participating in the program.
The proposed approach that the Abbott government intends to take, as is encapsulated in the measures set out in the bill before the House this evening, is very different, I am pleased to say. This government will take a very different approach to the approach of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor government. We intend that the work that will be available to those who choose to join the Green Army program will have a direct and tangible impact on their local communities and their local bushland. One of the reasons that I enthusiastically support this policy direction, as I spoke about earlier, is the successful outcomes that I have seen from a similar kind of approach in the Bushcare groups working in my own electorate and the work that is done nationally. Of course, the measures contained in this bill are different and distinct, but I simply make the point that there are some clear similarities of philosophy with the successful Green Corps program employed under the Howard government.
The Green Army is intended to undertake work of vital importance to regenerating and preserving areas of our natural bushland and environment. The kinds of projects that it might encompass include propagation and planting of native seedlings, weed control, revegetation and regeneration of local parks, habitat protection and restoration, improving water quality by cleaning up waterways, revegetation of sand dunes and mangroves, creek bank regeneration, foreshore and beach restoration, construction of boardwalks and walking tracks to protect local wildlife, and cultural heritage conservation. In the 2013 election campaign, we were able to announce a substantial number of projects likely to be carried out, or intended to be carried out, under this policy approach. Just to mention a few, there was planting riparian zones for native wildlife in the Kings Bridge to Duck Reach area of the South Esk River in Tasmania; enhancing the health of Victoria's Barham River system between Apollo Bay and the Marengo flora reserve through extensive weed removal, the revegetation of the banks of the river and the installation of pathways, viewing platforms and environmental interpretive signage; and, within the Laura Bay Conservation Park in South Australia, protecting the natural environment of the conservation reserve from soil erosion, stormwater damage and unauthorised access by random off-road vehicles.
A mere itemisation of some of these projects gives one a very real sense there is a lot to do. There are a plethora of projects through which participants in the Green Army Program will be able to do vitally important work to improve and protect our natural environment. The benefits of this program include not only the specific and very substantive and important benefits to the environment but also the benefits to its participants of acquiring vital experience and improving their own capacities and skills. As I have mentioned, a key intent of this program is to make it attractive to those many young people who have a particular affinity with our natural environment and who are motivated to make their own contribution to improve our natural environment.
The program will commence in 2014-15 with the rollout of 250 Green Army projects with approximately 2,500 people undertaking on-the-ground environmental activities. By 30 June 2017 the program will have had 1,500 Green Army projects with 15,000 placements undertaken. This program will be scaled over time. This is a program that will make a real difference to improving the environment of our communities—it will deliver real and tangible benefits for the environment, it will deliver skills to many thousands of young Australians and it will strengthen local community involvement. So, for a whole host of reasons, this is an excellent program. The measures set out in the bill are ones which I warmly commend to the House.
Mr HOGAN (Page) (18:17): I rise to speak in favour of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. I will talk specifically about the two Green Army projects that have already been approved in the electorate of Page even though there are others that are lined up and very keen to get involved in the next round. One of the projects is managed by a group called Rekindling the Spirit with the Jubullum Local Aboriginal Land Council. This project is going to take place out at Tabulam. Rekindling the Spirit aim to regenerate 1,000 acres of land owned by the Jubullum land council at Tabulam, to de-weed the site, to regenerate the river banks and to make the property viable for small-crop farming, which was its previous use. Floods in the area recently have caused significant damage to the river banks and considerable destruction to farming areas and have resulted in the spread of noxious weeds, which now overrun productive farming areas.
Apart from regenerating the land, the community benefit of this project will be the provision of employment for the local Aboriginal community through the re-establishment of small-crop farming. The work will be done with the Rekindling the Spirit community from Lismore who specialise in providing employment and training to Indigenous youth recently released from jail, with the aim of lowering the rate of repeat offending. This will also be done with Tabulam locals. Why would anyone not be in favour of a program like that?
I have had the pleasure of knowing Greg Telford, a very proud local Indigenous man in our community who runs Rekindling the Spirit. As we all know in this chamber, because of the role we play in our communities we get to meet many people. I do not say this is lightly when I say that Greg Telford is one of the most inspirational men I have met in my community. I do not want to divulge too much of his background to you because he may not want me to do so in this chamber. Let me just say this. Greg's path in life was certainly not heading in the right direction as an older teenager. He was in trouble with the law and he certainly had some issues that he needed to deal with. He has turned his life around. He is very much a man who takes personal responsibility for his actions and for who he is. He is a strong man but at the same time he is probably one of the most loving and compassionate men that I have met. Because he is like that he exudes a strength of character and he is an inspiration to all who meet him. What has this resulted in? Greg runs programs in my community that work with Indigenous youth, many of whom have been to jail at a young age. He has broken the cycle for so many of those people in my community. It is awe-inspiring. He sees the value of this Green Army project and the role that it can play in working with youth to teach them to accept personal responsibility. That in itself says a lot for this program.
The other project in my electorate that has already been approved is with EnviTE. Many of you would have heard that Meg Nicholls is the very good operator of EnviTE in my local community. She is managing a project on Susan Island which sits just off Grafton in the middle of the Clarence River. It is a spectacular island. I invite you to visit this beautiful part of the world, Mr Deputy Speaker. You can be mowing your lawn and if you turn around you can almost see the grass growing as quickly as you have mown it. We experience quite a lot of rain, and that means we have so many things growing up there—not only things that we want to grow, but things in our environment and our community that we do not want to grow. We have a lot of noxious weeds. We have species like camphor laurel trees, which, if you do not keep control of them, can completely grow out a whole property; we have lantana and we have vines. You name it, we have it—and it grows really quickly. So, the program we are putting together on Susan Island is going to regenerate the area, it is going to get rid of a lot of these noxious weeds and it is going to make these beautiful public spaces in our community more accessible.
For me, this government—in this, as in most things—is about real solutions. This Green Army Program is about real solutions for environmental issues. Some of the most important environmental issues that we have are often literally in our backyard—whether they be noxious weeds or other things. I will go through some of the attributes of the program, how it is going to work and how, if they wish to, people can get involved.
Obviously, it is voluntary. It will recruit young people between 17 and 24 years of age who are interested in doing this type of work. If you are not interested in working outdoors and if you are not interested in getting out into the environment then obviously it is not a good thing for you to voluntarily get involved with, but a lot of people are interested in this type of thing. It is going to become Australia's largest ever environmental workforce, building to 15,000 participants by 2018.
That in itself is an exciting prospect, and I am sure you agree, Mr Deputy Speaker. There is a twofold benefit to this. Not only will it be providing real environmental solutions to real environmental problems in our communities but the spin-offs for those young men and women who get involved in this program are going to be very exciting. As with the examples I gave before, it is going to make a real difference to the environment and to local communities through projects involving restoring and protecting habitat, weeding, planting, cleaning up creeks and rivers, and restoring places of cultural heritage—again, very exciting.
So what else is this going to achieve? We are going to have young men and women, who are interested and want to get involved and learn new skills, cleaning up the environment and learning practical skills that will help them, hopefully, to move on to a job and gain skills that will be handy in their life. These people are going to get teamwork skills out of this, they are going to learn what it is like to operate in a team and they are going to get the joy of working with other people. One plus one does not necessarily equal two; these people are going to learn you can do so much more in a team that is working together. These people are going to find out about local ownership and community spirit. I mentioned before Greg from Rekindling The Spirit; we know that sometimes when people have challenges or have been to jail, as is the case with a lot of people Greg works with, they need to start to own their environment and they need to start to own some of the things that they do in their community. When they go out and clean things up, when they are involved in beautifying their community or making their community more productive, like that small crop area that they will be working with, they will own it. That ownership and involvement means that not only have they had that teamwork exposure, not only have they had the community spirit exposure, but they will be proud of it and they will learn—in some cases for the first time—what it is like to be productive and the joy of that and all the positives that go along with that.
As I said, this is going to operate for a 20- to 26-week period, with participants undertaking environmental and heritage activities. The program, as we know, is commencing almost as we talk. Two hundred and fifty on-the-ground environmental projects with 2,500 people will be undertaken in the first financial year. By 2017 there will be 1,500 projects with 15,000 placements undertaken.
In my community there have already been two successful applications, as I have said already. This program will make real, tangible differences in the communities of Tabulam and Susan Island, with the restoration work and the small crop activity they want to start in Tabulam, and the public space work in Susan Island in Grafton. The community will see real, tangible results from this project. Once we have everyone out there by 2017-18, with that enormous workforce doing real community work with real community environmental benefits, it is going to be very noticeable across all of our communities that this project is having a great effect.
What types of projects can be applied for? They can be heritage or environmental, but they can be across urban environments as well, across regional and remote Australia and public land—as I have said, one of the projects in my electorate is on Indigenous-held lands—or indeed, where there is a clear community, environmental and/or heritage benefit, they can be on private land.
The program covers costs associated with the involvement of the team; there are allowances, team supervisor wages, uniforms, safety gear, equipment such as hand tools, participant training, local transport costs and insurance. All those types of costs will be covered by the program. There are also budgets for other materials. There has been a bit of discussion about workplace health and safety. Participation in appropriate work health and safety and first aid training processes will be a minimum requirement for participants. Obviously, the type of training will vary depending on the type of work participants are doing—some of them will be using instruments that will require them to have extra training, and that will be catered for. Participants will also gain skills that are sometimes intangible. Participants may or may not learn to use a chainsaw or how to do other environmental things, but crucially they will have to learn how to communicate. They may be learning communication skills as they talk to each other or talk to other people about what they want to do or how they are going to do this together as a team—great skills for life. They will potentially have to read and interpret documentation. They will gain skills in planning, organising themselves and their team, making decisions about what to do and how they will do it, using technology and being able to learn in a range of settings, as well as learning landscaping and many other skills.
This also has the great benefit that they will potentially be able to get formal recognition for the skills that they have learnt through this. As an example, they may be able to get a certificate II in conservation and land management, if they tick the boxes for that type of certificate, or a certificate I in construction, if they are doing some basic construction work. The skills involved in getting some of those certificates are quite involved. When they leave this 26-week program, they will potentially have certificates that they can take with them that make them more work ready, which is just wonderful. They are going to get paid in alignment with the national training wage. It is an allowance, which will range from $600 odd to nearly $1,000 a fortnight, depending on their age and what their educational background is. They will be able to choose, depending on what they are on now with Newstart, which mix they want. They will complete training in first aid, which is another great skill and great certificate to have.
I commend the environment minister for this program, since it was very important to him that people with disabilities be able to join this program. While I am talking about disabilities, I want to share with the House the wonderful success we have had locally. We had a local program in March, of which I was lucky and proud enough to be the ambassador. We set a target of getting 50 people with disabilities a job in our community. We wanted to do 70 but ended up setting it at 50, because we did not want to look as though we had failed if we got 60, even though it would have been a great success. Do you know how many jobs we got in that month for people with disabilities? We found 125 jobs for people with disabilities. It was a wonderful success and a wonderful thing to be the ambassador of. This scheme is open to people with disabilities as well, which is just wonderful.
I want to close off by saying that there is a twofold win with this. People are going to be involved in helping our environment and restoring our environment and learn great skills.
Mr HOWARTH (Petrie) (18:32): I rise today to support the coalition's Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. The coalition's Green Army policy will bring together the largest standing environmental workforce in the nation's history. It is a policy that will deliver real environmental and community benefits to the Petrie electorate. I am proud the coalition government is honouring its election commitment to bring the Green Army projects to life across Australia, but, more importantly, is delivering three important projects which I have been working on in my electorate.
These real and practical solutions, provided by the Green Army projects, will clean up and revegetate mangrove habitats, creek beds, river banks, and provide many other environmental conservation and remediation works. Nationwide, there are hundreds of Green Army projects, and I welcome these three to the Petrie electorate.
The coalition has a strong history of delivering for the environment. We all remember how successful the Howard government's Green Corps program was when it was established in the mid-nineties. The Howard government Green Corps program propagated and planted more than 14 million trees, erected over 8,000 kilometres of fences, eradicated 50,000 weeds and constructed upgrades in the form of 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks and boardwalks. The legislation before the House builds on those successful Green Corps programs and has developed a grass roots environmental action program that supports local heritage and environment conservation projects.
I am passionate about the Green Army projects and the benefits they will deliver for the electorate. This legislation, commencing in the new financial year, will provide young adults aged between 17 and 24 in the Petrie electorate with real on-the-job training. This is important for my electorate, given the high rate of youth unemployment that I inherited. These young people will be provided with an opportunity to gain hands-on, practical skills in carpentry, landscaping and horticulture, whilst at the same time protecting and improving the local environment.
These young people will not only gain these skills and valuable knowledge but be working as part of a group that fosters teamwork, local ownership and community spirit. They will be responsible for turning up for work each day and will learn about commitment and hard work—real transferrable work and life skills that employers are looking for in employees. A key element of the program is the provision of opportunities for vocationally orientated, accredited training delivered by a registered training organisation under the Australian Qualifications Framework. Training may be undertaken in areas such as work readiness, conservation and land management, heritage conservation, leadership, project and human resource management, and trades. I welcome the attention to detail this legislation provides.
The health and safety of Green Army participants will remain governed by relevant statutes, regulations, by-laws and requirements of the state and territory regulations in respect to workplace health and safety laws. Service providers will hold primary responsibility for the health and safety of Green Army teams while the teams undertake Green Army project activities.
Project sponsors have shared responsibility for providing a safe work environment for Green Army teams, including safe access to the site where work is being carried out. The Commonwealth will also implement a workplace health and safety audit scheme for the Green Army Program, which will involve independent workplace health and safety audits of service providers and projects. Insurance will be required to be held by all relevant parties. The Commonwealth will also take up personal accident and public or products liability insurance for Green Army participants. This is consistent with practice for the previous National Green Jobs Corps.
The bill also states that participants will not be considered workers or employees for the purpose of various common laws. So, if a person is receiving a social security pension and the person's partner is receiving a Green Army allowance, some or all of that allowance may not be counted as ordinary income in working out the person's rate of social security pension.
The Green Army projects are great for the Petrie electorate. I must say that I was terribly disappointed when I heard the member for Melbourne speak on this bill, because he made it quite clear that he would not be supporting it. I find it amazing that the member for Melbourne, who represents the Greens, is not willing to support the Green Army project. Whilst I do not have much in common with the Greens, I would have thought they would support this project. I think workers are well protected and I think it will give real practical benefits in each of our electorates. It is something that is definitely worth supporting.
Mr Tehan: They are more pink than green.
Mr HOWARTH: Hear, hear! The Petrie electorate's Green Army projects will have three supervisors and up to 27 participants. This means a total of 30 people will gain valuable, life-long skills and friendships. Projects in my electorate have been guided by local community needs. I encourage environmental groups in my electorate, which I have been working with closely, and others right throughout the electorate to let me know if there are other areas in the Petrie electorate that can benefit from Green Army projects. We will put together a project and get it happening for the benefit of the environment and for the skills that local young people will develop when working on these projects.
I want to detail the three projects, as I believe they will make a real difference to the electorate. The three projects are the North Lakes Reserve project, Osprey House and the Hays Inlet Eco-path. The North Lakes Reserve project will ensure noxious weeds and trees are removed and native trees and vegetation are replanted to enhance the environment for the enjoyment of not just the local people but also the animals living in the area. North Lakes and Mango Hill are some of the fastest-growing areas in Australia. There is a large reserve there—hundreds of acres—where this project will be implemented. Not only will it remove weeds and have native trees and shrubs replanted but there is also a local freshwater creek and habitat that runs through the area and this will be cleaned up. The creek will be restocked with native fish to help provide a biological mosquito control element to the Green Army project.
The second project in my electorate is Osprey House. Osprey House is on the Pine River at Griffin, also known as Dohles Rocks. This project will rehabilitate the northern brackish water lagoon, replant native trees and vegetation and build a timber boardwalk and birdwatching house. It will also provide education benefits to the local community. Again, this project allows Green Army participants to learn valuable carpentry skills, landscaping and horticulture, as well as an understanding of the brackish water ecosystem and local koala habitats. The duration of this project is expected to be six months.
The third Green Army project in Petrie electorate is the Hays Inlet Eco-path. This project will improve the health of the natural landscape and provide greater access for the community and tourists to enjoy the environment. This project is based at Redcliffe. There is a large tourism element in that part of the electorate. It is also close to parklands. It will also improve the environment along the foreshore of Saltwater Creek at Hays Inlet. This project is adjacent to the Clontarf Beach State High School. This school has a very active marine education program that includes a state-of-the-art eco-centre. The boardwalk in this project will give students and teachers easy access to the site, which will create an outdoor classroom. This project is expected to run for 26 weeks, giving participants training in environmental management through revegetation, restoration and weeding work as well as carpentry skills.
I would like to personally thank the Redcliffe Environmental Forum, the Mango Hill and North Lakes Environment Group and the Osprey House team for their tremendous contribution in helping me to establish these Green Army projects in the electorate. It was their knowledge that provided the technical aspects for my submissions to the department for the three projects. These hardworking environmental groups are specialists. They live, work and volunteer in the community and they understand the environmental wants and needs of locals. It was important to me to ensure that these projects had the full support of the community and the local environment groups.
Personally, I am looking forward to being part of future projects that will no doubt be created as a result of the Green Army program—projects that will be inspired by locals who want to care for the beautiful landscapes that surround us and who also want to gain new-found environmental knowledge and skills. As a community we have the responsibility to protect our environment, now and for future generations, and we should not underestimate the part these small local projects play in that. Since being elected I have thoroughly enjoyed working with community groups throughout the electorate.
The bill's overall importance lies in the outline of the details regarding the Green Army allowance—a key factor of these projects to get young people working and give them the experience they need. The specifications presented in the Social Security Legislation (Green Army Programme) Amendment Bill 2014 offer the fairest and most viable means of distributing the Green Army Allowance. This legislation is a win-win for so many in the community. I believe, however, that the most important aspects of these projects is the relationships these young adults will form with each other as a group. Life is certainly about relationships and creating meaningful ones with each other. They will be able to use these skills in the workplace, as well.
I want to see local youths from all backgrounds participating in Green Army projects throughout the electorate. I want Indigenous Australians, school leavers, gap year students, graduates and unemployed job seekers all to take part in these projects, should they choose. If they have a love for the environment, have a good work ethic and want to work as part of a team, then these projects will suit them well. I support the Social Security Legislation (Green Army Programme) Amendment Bill, and I must say it is great to be part of the coalition government, providing good local environmental outcomes for each of our electorates.
Ms O'DWYER (Higgins) (18:45): I am delighted to be speaking on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014 tonight. And I think it is very fitting that in this budget week, where we are focused on the economic future of all Australians, that we also speak about the environmental future that we are going to leave to the next generation as well—the legacy we will leave for them.
Like so many of my constituents in Higgins, I have a great passion for our local environment. In the heart of my electorate of Higgins I have the great Yarra River. This not only is at the heart of my local community but is really at the heart of the Victorian community as well. The Yarra River is a wonderful community asset; it is shared by all members of the community—whether they be rowers or people enjoying a barbeque during the summer months, walkers or slow joggers like myself, or even bike riders along the bike path. It is that wonderful community asset that can be shared by all. But it is an asset that we need to make sure we preserve, and we need to be very active in our preservation of such assets. I am fortunate to have been taken down the Yarra River a number of times by Ian Penrose, the Yarra riverkeeper. During that journey I have witnessed firsthand pollution and the erosion of banks when vegetation has been removed. I have also witnessed the rubbish that has been dumped in our Yarra River. Further up the Yarra, in Gardiners Creek, I have participated on Clean Up Australia Day, in cleaning up that beautiful pristine environment—which was not quite so pristine on the day that I filled two garbage bags with rubbish.
With these assets and with the pollution, the environmental degradation that occurs, and the rubbish that is strewn about, we need to make sure that we clean it up. In so doing, I commend the current work and the investment that has been put in by one of my local councils, the City of Stonnington Council, under the Mayor, Adrian Stubbs, and the CEO, Warren Roberts, who have created wetland environments and undertaken some very serious work on the Yarra River in preserving that wonderful legacy. But the task is a very, very big one, and it is an ongoing one. And it is a bigger one than councils alone need to deal with. It is not just something that we as volunteers need to be able to deal with; it is something that I think we as a community need to take on. And when you consider that we have a very, very high youth unemployment rate—much higher than we would hope in a country such as ours—and you consider the importance of skilling up our young people for the future, we can have a marrying of our environmental initiatives in preserving our local environment and protecting it, and also skilling up young Australians. So I see the Green Army as being able to complement the good work that is already being done in our local communities and strengthening that work through being able to encourage young people to develop new skills while also indulging their love of their local community and local environment—being able to make a practical difference.
The Green Army is one of our key election commitments, and it will be Australia's largest-ever team supporting environmental action across the country, building to 15,000 young Australians by 2018. The Green Army will provide opportunities for young people across Australia to gain training and experience in environmental and Heritage conservation fields and also to explore careers in conservation management while participating in projects that generate real benefits for the environment locally. Under the program, participants will be paid an allowance that is generally higher than the rate of Newstart and Youth Allowance. And there are protections under the existing relevant state and territory legislation to help ensure the safety of all participants involved. Participants will receive accredited training during their 26 weeks of being involved in a Green Army project, which I think is something that will stand them in very good stead for the things they might do in the future, and the future opportunities that might open up to them as a result of that training.
Recently I was fortunate to have the minister attend my electorate to announce the opening of the project proposals for the Green Army. The applications for the project proposals opened in April and are closing in May, with projects commencing rollout from July 2014. In my electorate of Higgins there is going to be a very specific project around the Yarra River and around Gardiners Creek in making sure we can revitalise those natural landmarks by planting native vegetation along the riverbank, cleaning up the garbage, and complementing—as I said before—the good work that is currently being undertaken by the Stonnington Council, the Yarra Riverkeeper Association and volunteer groups further up the Yarra River in Gardiners Creek, such as Friends of Gardiners Creek.
I am very excited that these two projects have already been approved for Higgins. I am very much looking forward to working with community groups and local government to facilitate any additional projects that will help improve our local environment as well. In addition, it is also timely to mention that in the current budget there is provision for even more work to be done on environmental protection in Victoria. There is a specific initiative in the budget of $1 million for the Yarra River, to make sure it can be preserved for future generations. This money will go to a good cause—to again enhance our local environment and to make sure that the good work done by Yarra Riverkeepers along the river is there for the benefit of all Victorians and, in effect, for all Australians.
We build on the very strong foundations that we have in the Liberal Party and in the coalition of strong, practical environmental action. As people who have been taking an interest in the Green Army Program would be aware, the program builds on the history of the Green Corps program, which saw a number of Australians plant more than 14 million trees, clean up their local environment and learn good skills in that process.
The good work going on in the Yarra River is not just particular to my electorate of Higgins. The Yarra River runs through a number of electorates, including the seat of Melbourne in Victoria. It is disappointing for me to hear that that the Green Army initiatives will not be supported by the Greens in this House. One would think those practical initiatives—to preserve our environmental heritage for future generations and to improve our local environment—would be at the very heart of what the Greens stand for; yet it is my understanding that they will be blocking and will not support such practical initiatives. I can only register my strong disappointment and, quite frankly, my surprise that they would not come on board with something that will clearly be of benefit to everyone here.
Mr Tehan: They are 'pink', not 'green'!
Ms O'DWYER: My colleague calls out that it is because they are 'pink' not 'green'—well might he make that comment.
In conclusion, I am delighted to speak in favour of this initiative. In my electorate it will have a very practical consequence. The Stonnington City Council, the Yarra Riverkeeper Association and the Friends of Gardiners Creek Valley will all work together to make the very first of our initiatives of the Green Army come to fruition. I look forward to reporting to the House the many positive impacts, not only for the local environment but also for all of the young people who will be involved in this initiative—the skills they will learn, the training they will receive and the friendships they will make.
Ms MARINO (Forrest—Government Whip) (18:56): The Green Army Program is a key coalition government commitment that we took to the 2013 election. It is a voluntary initiative and it will commence from July 2014. The program will see the recruitment of young people, aged 17 to 24, who are interested in protecting their local environment, while gaining hands-on practical skills, training and experience. It will become Australia's largest ever environmental workforce, building to 15,000 participants by 2018 and capable of delivering on-ground environmental projects.
This program has the capacity to make a real difference to the environment and to the local communities through projects such as restoring and protecting habitat, weeding, planting, cleaning up creeks and rivers and restoring cultural heritage places. The coalition believes in encouraging practical, hands-on grassroots environmental action as a means of fixing environmental problems. It also believes in tapping into the knowledge of local communities, encouraging them to identify and fix their own local problems and to be a part of the ongoing management—that buy-in, that commitment in the longer term.
Clean land is essential for a cleaner environment. Our plan is focused on cleaning up and revegetating urban and regional environments, and other complementary reforms to strengthen natural resource management and delivery right across Australia in land care. The Green Army itself complements the government's direct action approach to climate change. This provides the opportunity for individuals, communities, organisations and companies to help address our environmental challenges and to reduce our emissions on the lowest possible cost basis. Ultimately the Green Army builds on the Howard government's successful Green Corps program that was established in 1996 to employ young people on environmental projects to preserve and restore our natural and cultural environment.
The opportunity that we have with this particular initiative to improve the environmental outcomes should not be underestimated. Just think of 15,000 young people at work. I was fortunate enough to visit the young people who were part of the original Green Corps programs. It was a great initiative. There was a project in Bunbury, in my electorate, that helped to restore healthy ecosystems, to assist with issues such as salinity and erosion. The project enhanced the biodiversity, it controlled weeds and feral animals, and it increased native vegetation. In addition, it enabled the young people involved to gain a better awareness of their actual community itself. That was probably something they had never even thought much about before. It gave them hands-on experience in fencing, revegetation, tree planting and—very importantly in my part of the world—weed control.
One of the things I saw was the sense of pride that they found in themselves. It gave them confidence—that practical knowledge of the environment—that they could actually do things they had never thought they would or never thought they would be capable of. What I saw in those young people was a real change, an absolute change.
I thought that the best way for me to judge this, how much this meant to these young people and what it did for them was to meet them when they first started their program. So before they actually started the work I went to see the launch, if you like, of the program and the group involved. Then I saw them at the end of the program. I saw the growth of these young people as individuals and what turned out to be so frequently their sheer enjoyment from having been involved in something they would never have had access to otherwise.
One thing that came across very clearly to me was their pride in starting and finishing something. Often for the first time in their lives, they had started a project and they had finished it. This gave them opportunities in pursuing an alternative career that they had never thought of. Some of the young people were actually looking at taking on traineeships or a possible career with a local council, or traineeships with environmental groups and organisations.
The other thing they enjoyed, for so many of them who were based in urban areas, was the experience of getting dirty, of actually wearing the work gear and the work boots, and of actually physically working and getting dirty. For others, the enjoyment was simply that they found they enjoyed being part of the team. For some of them it was the first time they had been part of a team. They were doing something new and useful.
Some of the things they did—like the river restoration, the wetland revegetation, the remnant vegetation management, the macroinvertebrate sampling and stormwater management—were just practical things. I saw the growth of the individuals, the new skills and the confidence in their own ability and their far greater awareness of the environment around them.
Like the Green Army, this program provided—and the Green Army will provide—an alternative learning method for some young Australians who are not necessarily suited to doing their learning in a classroom or a standard environment. They are the things that we take for granted, perhaps. This was a type of program that gave great encouragement to young people to do things differently, to learn in a different environment and to use manual, practical skills. We have so many of these great young people who do this so well.
I was delighted to see them at the beginning of the program and at the end to see the changes in these young people. They loved what they did. They grew as people. They saw another career and training opportunity. For some of them, the interesting thing was that they sometimes learned to take instructions for the first time. I found how they responded to that was just so good. I can see some great benefits in this Green Army program. There are environmental benefits and benefits to the individuals.
Our Australian ecosystems are under siege from a range of invasive plant and animal species. This is a real challenge in my electorate, because some of them have become quite common. Feral animals are rife in certain areas; weed species have been overtaking natural ecosystems. What a great idea and a great job for a Green Army. For instance, we have arum lilies along the coast infesting Busselton, Capel and the Margaret River regions. Blackberry, for instance, continues to run rampant in state forests around Balingup and Donnybrook. Cotton bush is unfortunately becoming quite endemic in farming land around Harvey, Dardanup, Capel and Donnybrook-Balingup shires.
I can see some really good work here for some of those 15,000 Green Army participants. They are the part of the workforce that could focus on eradication or control. There is no shortage of work to be done. We see a range of issues right throughout Australia. It is not just in my part of the world. We do need to get serious about invasive species. It is also an opportunity to reinvigorate native ecosystems.
In my part of the world, I can see the Green Army perhaps directed towards managing some of the remaining native wildlife in some of the isolated pockets of vegetation in wildlife corridors. They could even assist with some of the great work that is being done by our Coastcare groups. I could see that being enhanced. Some very good environmental outcomes could potentially be achieved.
It could be and will be a major contributor to the work of climate change adaptation. I think this is a practical way of dealing with climate change adaptation. That is why we need a flexible and adaptable program, such as the Green Army. I would like to see a primary focus on future-proofing vulnerable ecosystems in the Green Army Program. Systems like those are found right throughout the south west of WA.
We have, in my part of the world, one of the world's recognised environmental biodiversity hotspots. It is one of those. It is internationally recognised. There are the jarrah forests in my part of the world; we know about the effects of drying. The jarrah forests and karri forests of the region are susceptible to change, especially from invasive species.
There may be a way to involve volunteers from the Green Army in perhaps something like marine ecology, such as assisting with the development of artificial reefs off the Western Australian coast, which is constantly changing. Australia has a strong history of delivering local environmental programs through all sorts of programs. One of them is Landcare. These programs were developed with strong links to Australian landholders, especially our farming community. The resulting synergy has provided sound local outcomes—local outcomes that work on the ground, and people who live and work in the community are committed to the longer term and stay involved with projects. We know that farmers are the primary Landcare group. It is something to repeat in this place because this fact is frequently overlooked. Our farmers manage vast areas of Australia; in fact, they manage 61 per cent of the nation's land area. It is a statistic that perhaps the member for Grey would know because he comes from a similar area to me. Ninety-three per cent of farmers practise land care on their properties. We often underestimate and undervalue their commitment and their efforts in relation to land care and to the environment.
This program is expected to be delivered by service providers who will be responsible for recruiting, establishing and managing the Green Army teams across Australia. They will work alongside and with communities. What a great result: you have local communities involved with local young people on local projects. I hope that a number of these young people from a particular community go on to work in that community and take an ongoing active role—they will not want to see what they have done go backwards. They will not want to lose what they have achieved and they will develop a direct commitment to their community and the local environment. There will be things they have never thought of and things they will have taken for granted as they passed by. They will gain a lot of knowledge and they will get to work day after day with some wonderful people on simple projects. We have some of the most amazing people with incredible amounts of local knowledge. That knowledge often cannot be taught and cannot be bought; it comes from intergenerational transfer. I see this over and over in our farming group—knowledge about particular land and what happens to it over the various seasons. I am hoping more of that wealth of knowledge will be passed on to the younger generation through this type of program. That sort of knowledge is incredibly valuable not just to the individual farmer but also to the community. We need this local information and we need it to be enduring.
I have many reasons to support this program, especially for the environmental benefits. The thought of 15,000 young people around Australia involved in local projects, working with local people and communities and what they will gain from that and what the environment will gain from their involvement is tremendous. This is a great opportunity and I hope many of our young people take it. I know that Australia will benefit from that.
Mr JOHN COBB (Calare) (19:11): I enjoyed hearing the member for Forrest talking about what will work in her electorate, and she is quite right. As somebody who had a lot to do with the old Green Corps program, I have no doubt that this is going down the right track. Nobody—neither my best friend nor my worst enemy—would ever accuse me of being a greenie, though I am a person of common sense. Looking after land, teaching people how to fence and what to weed and how to get rid of it, all that is common sense. This program will look after land around towns in the main, and that again is common sense. The Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill was, as we heard from this side of the House, a key commitment by our government during the election. It will be a great program. It will put together the largest environmental workforce to deliver projects to the tune of 15,000 participants over the next six years. I hope it closely replicates what happened with the Green Corps. From the other side we have heard some falsehoods, which I will come back to.
I would like to talk a little about what we committed to in Calare during the election and which will take effect from July. Last August I joined with local councils to announce six projects for Calare, including three for the Bathurst Regional Council area, and one each for Blayney, Carbonne and Orange. That represents around $1 million direct funding for Calare with local projects that have been identified by groups and councils. It includes things like cleaning up river banks, creek beds, regenerating remnant vegetation, fencing off areas, clearing up rubbish and weeds—weeds in particular are a huge issue throughout Australia—looking after habitat and controlling pest animals. Pest animal control is a big issue and habitat care—that will please the greenies—is another big issue. We have more than our share of pest animals.
The Green Army Program will target the Blayney Road Common, Mount Panorama precinct, Molong Creek, Boree Creek, Mandagery Creek and Belubula River; creek lines at Dakers Oval, Blayney; Pound Flat, Carcoar and Mandurama Ponds; and the Ploughmans Wetlands and Gosling Creek Reserve precinct. The program will help not only sites around Calare but also local young people who will join the Green Army, get training and skills and learn to work as part of a team. It will commence on 1 July and there will be 250 teams in the first year.
This will depend, as the success of Green Corps did, on having down-to-earth, experienced men who have been involved in agriculture and other things to oversee this. It does not take someone out of university with a wealth of degrees; it takes someone who cares and is good with kids, particularly. Quite often for those kids it will be the first job they have ever had. I assume that in this case that will be the norm. This program will teach them to work as part of a team. It will teach them to work with someone who is good with their hands, experienced, knowledgeable and caring. Those were the kinds of guys we had to oversee Green Corps. It requires a lot of cooperation from councils, in particular, as well as the right person to oversee and lead the team. The feedback I have received in Calare has been overwhelmingly positive for the reasons I have mentioned. It will provide meaningful work for young people and teach them skills. Hopefully, they will gather skills that they will be able to use to make it easier for them to find a job and be part of a team.
I was somewhat disappointed, to be blunt, to find a rather disturbing letter in one of my local newspapers written by an employee of the legal firm Slater & Gordon. I am sure some of you have heard of Slater & Gordon; it has become quite famous—or maybe infamous—in the last couple of years for reasons I will not go into now. Slater & Gordon claimed in the letter that Green Army participants would not be covered by any workers' compensation scheme. Further, the letter went on to say that young workers risk suffering a serious injury which might mean they do not return to work. This is a load of rubbish. It could not be further from the truth. It was disappointing, although perhaps not surprising, that Slater & Gordon did not take the time to get the facts on the program right. I obviously wrote to the paper to correct the record. I pointed out that the health and safety of participants engaged in the program will remain governed by relevant state statutes, regulations, by-laws and requirements in work health and safety laws. I cannot believe it was ever suggested they would not. However, perhaps Slater & Gordon had other reasons for making those utterances.
Further, insurance will be required to be held by all relevant parties. I note that the Commonwealth will also take out personal accident and public liability insurance for Green Army participants. So I am not quite sure where Slater & Gordon were coming from. This is an important point: if a participant is injured, if such a thing should happen while they are involved in a Green Army project, medical costs incurred that are not covered by Medicare will be covered by personal accident insurance to the maximum benefit payable. Participants will continue to be paid their allowance if they require time off from their placement as a result of their injury, in line with the personal leave provisions provided under the Green Army Program.
It was also claimed that participants will be underpaid for the work they do in the Green Army. Again, that is completely untrue. The rate of pay for Green Army participants is significantly higher than the rate they would get on Newstart. Pay rates for the Green Army allowance align with the national training wage. They range from $608.40 to $987 per fortnight, depending on a participant's age and educational level. The pay rate is significantly higher than Newstart, which ranges between $450 and $690 per fortnight, and youth allowance, which ranges from $226.80 to $690 per fortnight. You would think that a legal firm like Slater & Gordon, who specialise, as I understand it, in industrial relations and the Labor Party, would have those figures right at their fingertips. It is an extraordinary thing for them to accuse the government of.
Green Corps was a great program, and I am sure this will be too. It will be great for young people who have left school at whatever age and are not sure what they want to do. They will be able to work as part of a team with a mature, experienced person who will be able to teach them. The help and engagement of councils is absolutely imperative. I know they will be involved. They were in the past and they will be again. I commend the bill to the House because, from my experience, I believe this will be a great program.
Mr RAMSEY (Grey) (19:20): The Green Army initiative is both practical environmentalism and an employment training program. I think that it ticks the boxes on both fronts. I will start by talking about practical environmentalism. It is right and proper that we should be concerned with the big issues of our day. We as a nation should move to curtail our CO2 emissions. We should be concerned about our ocean areas and marine parks and, where appropriate, protect areas that need protecting. But it is also appropriate that we concentrate on local issues. In many cases, they are very pressing.
Australia, for instance—and that is the country we are talking about; it is where we live—is overrun with feral animals and pest plants, all introduced. Since settlement in 1788, we have lost over 100 species to extinction and there are over 1,500 under threat at the moment. That is mainly due to loss of habitat but also fire, flood and invasive plants and animals. I will just concentrate on some of those invasive plants and animals for a moment. For instance, the issue of rabbits is considered by the general population to be dead and buried; it was something that bothered Australia in the fifties and sixties and we dealt with it with the myxomatosis virus. It was a very successful virus. But, like all populations, the resistance levels grew within the rabbit population. Then, about 10 years ago, we got another breather on the rabbits—it was called calicivirus. The regeneration of native shrubbery and other plants was astonishing. We saw plants in the Simpson Desert that we had not seen in certain areas for over 100 years, and that was basically because the rabbits just kept nipping off the shoots as they came up. It is an astonishing thing that a seed could lie there for that long and then bear fruit. We have seen that kind of regeneration, particularly in the arid zones where the calicivirus has been particularly effective. These plants are very susceptible to that type of grazing pressure. But, once again, these rabbits are becoming resistant and we are looking for the next level of control.
We deal with camels throughout the arid regions. There are over one million camels that we do not need in Australia. There are wild dogs. It is debatable as to whether wild dogs are native or not. It has been here for about 30,000 years, but it was certainly introduced. It is a species that has crossbred with what we call town camp dogs, which are causing enormous damage throughout the arid regions and are moving down into the agricultural regions of South Australia. Also, I know that south of Canberra, in fact in the ranges, wild dog packs are causing increasing concern. We have had cane toads, foxes, cats, mice. There are a whole plethora of other animals that cause us enormous problems across Australia.
On a vegetative front, there are things like buffel grass. It may be something that Australians in general have not heard about, but as it is moving south from the tropical regions, where it was planted for cattle feed, it has moved into the arid zones of South Australia and is destroying native plants. Buffel grass burns so hot that it can crack rocks. It burns all the other species out. It is a prolific grower. It burns easily and burns the rest of the vegetation away. It burns mulga trees, for instance. There is also bridal creeper, boxthorn and palm trees. I am just thinking about a creek not so far from Port Pirie where I have one of my electorate offices. A landholder had obviously had a homestead on the creek at some stage and had put a palm tree in the garden—and now the creek is infested with them. There are also willows and pine trees. There are a whole range of agricultural pest plants that, through various other arms of government across Australia, we make difficult for landholders to control by restrictions on the tools they can use to do that.
There are a whole plethora of things out there for a green army to do. But the other thing a green army does is provide training. It also provides an opportunity. This program is voluntary and it runs for six months, so it is a genuine work experience and gives practical skill to those who participate in it. It is aimed at the 17 to 24 age group. The skills progression is good in this program, but one of the highest things that I rate in it is the work experience. You can imagine if you were fronting up to a potential employer and he asked to see your CV. You are 21 years old and there is not a mark on it since you left you school. It really is difficult for the employer to give you a go, because they look at it and think, 'This bloke has not been getting out of bed for four years'—or at least that is what they think. They may be completely wrong, of course, but it just makes it so much more difficult. If a person gets an opportunity in something like a green army project, they can say: 'There was six months work. I have an employment record and I have a reference that goes with that employment record.' So it is an opportunity for people to say they are work-ready and can perform in an open workplace. That will not, in all cases, unlock the door, but it is a chance—and I am all in favour of giving people a chance.
We know that youth unemployment is climbing. The Brotherhood of St Laurence gave us some figures recently. They named Whyalla and Port Lincoln in my electorate as part of the outback. I will not contest their figures, but I do not call Whyalla and Port Lincoln part of the outback. It is in their report, so I presume then that you can include places like Port Pirie and Port Augusta—they are all in my electorate. The Brotherhood of St Laurence tell us that youth unemployment has increased by 67 per cent in the last two years and it is now running at 15.4 per cent. This is a serious problem. So this is what the Green Army initiative is about: the fact that we have a practical environmentalism linked with an employment training program.
I was fortunate enough in the election period to have four programs approved for my electorate: one in Port Lincoln, where we will be developing an existing drainage reserve through the town—an open significant linear space for the city, which will enhance a beautiful part of Port Lincoln that has been overrun with weeds. There will be lawn and irrigation installations, trail creation, planting and a new shelter—all good things for kids to get their teeth into. In Crystal Brook, not very far from Port Pirie, there is a project that has been put up by the Bowman Park Management Committee. Bowman Park was one of the original homesteads when South Australia was first surveyed, and it covered a good portion of land. It would be a very valuable property if it were still together now. It was set up in about 1900. The homestead still exists and there is a park around it. A green army project will make the park more suitable for community use. It will improve biodiversity conditions through weed removal, cleaning up the creeks and picnic areas—it is much the same as we hear about the rest of the green army projects around the nation. It will be good. It will provide a great training opportunity for those who participate.
In Port Augusta, there will be a play space redevelopment in conjunction with arid smart plant propagation. I might point out that Port Augusta is the home of the Arid Lands Botanic Garden. For any of you who might pass through Port Augusta at some stage, I can only suggest you go and have a look at it. What you can do with very little rainfall and Australian plants is actually quite remarkable. The project will be developing these play spaces around the city. I have one more project, which perhaps I will finish at a later time.
Debate interrupted.
COMMITTEES
Standing Committee on Appropriations and Administration
Report
The SPEAKER (19:29): On behalf of the Standing Committee on Appropriations and Administration, I present the committee's report No. 7: Budget estimates 2014-2015.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
ADJOURNMENT
The SPEAKER (19:30): Order! It now being 7.30, I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
Budget
Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (19:30): I rise tonight to acknowledge an extraordinary organisation in my electorate that in recent years has done amazing work with young people who have become disengaged from the community to bring them back into the education system and the workforce. That organisation is called Youth Connections. This extraordinary organisation will unfortunately, after the Abbott-Hockey budget last night, disappear at the end of this year. There has been a savage cut to funding for Youth Connections programs all around the country, and my community and many young people in it will be the poorer for it.
This is an amazing organisation. It works with young people who have fallen in the gap—kids who may have left school and have become completely disengaged or involved in drugs or petty crime and are essentially on a path to nowhere. This is not a compulsory program. These young people volunteer to work with Youth Connections and their programs. They work with them for one and sometimes two years. The success rate of this program is quite phenomenal. They have a success rate of 80 per cent—80 per cent of people who go through the program end up in education or employment, not a week later, a month later or at the end of the program but two years later. Two years after participating in this program 80 per cent of the young people who engage with this organisation are back in the workforce or continuing their education. That is an amazing achievement and it is one that deserves support from a government, not a savage cut.
In Parramatta we have quite a high youth unemployment rate. It is around 16.8 per cent. It varies across the suburbs: in some areas it is much lower and some areas it is much higher. This Youth Connections organisation in a community like Parramatta is absolutely vital. The cost of Youth Connections in the Parramatta-Auburn-Blacktown area is about $700,000 a year. They handle 215 kids at a time within that budget. That is higher than the 195 students they are contracted to take. Again they are punching above their weight and above the level of funding that they receive. I calculate that the cost to the taxpayer per year of this service for each young person is about $3,500. I would contest that that is quite a reasonable investment for the taxpayer to make. For $3,500 they can take a child who is on the pathway to a life without purpose and can bring them back onto a good track—back into the workforce or back into the education system. The savings to the taxpayer over the life of that person would be far in excess of that. This is in many ways false economy. This is cutting a program that works, that makes a difference and that generates an extraordinary return in savings to the taxpayer—and we will see it, unfortunately, disappear in my community at the end of the year.
In addition to that, we also saw the government introduce in the budget last night some quite punitive changes for young people. We saw the changes to Newstart. We saw a policy that sees unemployment benefits for people under 30 delayed for six months. A person in their late 20s who went to university and did a postgrad, got a job, got married, got a mortgage, had two children and is retrenched at the age of 28 or 29 because their company goes offshore, or for other reasons, will now suddenly find themselves having to wait six months before they are eligible for Newstart. My fear—and I have been talking to some service providers in my community and they share my fear—is that we will find in years to come people in their late 20s essentially without funds and homeless. We will have a dramatic increase in the number of people in their 20s who find themselves in appalling circumstances with literally no money.
These are two things that this government did in the budget last night which will have an extraordinary detrimental effect on the young people in Parramatta. I seriously urge the government to reconsider this. It is a serious matter if you suddenly find yourself unemployed in your 20s, literally without funds, and there is a six-month wait. I ask them: where do they go?
Acton, Mr Graeme
Ms LANDRY (Capricornia) (19:35): It is with great sadness that I rise to take this time in the House to reflect on the death of my friend and Central Queensland cattle king Graeme Acton. Mr Acton died on Friday night, a week after a campdrafting accident at Clarke Creek, north-west of Rockhampton. With his passing Australia has lost one of its greatest rural men and Australia's beef capital, Rockhampton, has lost one of its most active, generous and loyal benefactors. Graeme Acton deserves to be honoured up there with Sir Sidney Kidman and the Durack family—Australian cattle pioneers from past centuries. I cannot begin to tell you what a huge loss Graeme's passing is to the nation. He made an extraordinary contribution to the beef industry on a national and international scale. I had so much respect for him. I always valued Graeme and his wise counsel. He called a spade a spade and always had something sensible and valuable to contribute.
The Prime Minister on the weekend paid tribute to Mr Acton, describing him as a proud Queenslander and a great Australian, while our agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce labelled him as a great captain of agricultural industry. Graeme was the founder of the Acton Land and Cattle Company and Acton Super Beef along with his brother Evan. Under Graeme's management, Acton Land and Cattle is now one of Australia's largest, vertically integrated cattle holdings. It has landholdings of over 3.87 million acres, stretching from Rockhampton and Marlborough to the Queensland gulf country and Mount Isa. The Acton herd is made up of about 180,000 cattle. Up to 30,000 head are exported annually to Japan, South Korea, the Middle East and South-East Asia.
I fondly recall one occasion where Graeme and I were exchanging ideas on the future of Australia's beef sector and he sent me out to the middle of a herd of 200 restless bullocks for a photo opportunity. I insisted he come along with me. His skill and knowledge of cattle was incredible to watch. Graeme was a driving force behind Beef Australia—the nation's largest cattle event, which showcases our beef industry to the world.
Our thoughts are with Graeme ' s family, including his wife, Jennie, and his children, Tom, Hayley, Victoria and Laura. To Jennie and Graeme ' s extended family, you have lost a wonderful husband, father and brother. Central Queensland has lost an incredible man who was very generous to the whole community. His passion and energy were tireless. On a local scale, Graeme Acton ' s contribution to Rockhampton, Australia ' s beef capital, can never be matched. One of the Actons ' properties, Paradise Lagoons, outside Rockhampton, is nationally known for its community campdraft facilities. The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, was among those who really enjoyed his time riding with Graeme Acton at Paradise Lagoons.
There will never be another Graeme Acton. Rockhampton and the Central Queensland communities that he so generously supported will never be the same without him. We all owe Graeme and his family a lot for giving so much time and resources to our community. Thank you, Graeme, and thank you to the Acton family. As a nation, we have been privileged to have Graeme Acton contribute to national affairs—more recently, offering important economic advice about Australia ' s rural industries.
Only recently, Graeme was on the advisory panel in Rockhampton that provided input into the Australian government ' s white paper task force on the future competitiveness of Australian agriculture. Only last month, he was among those to put questions about the cattle sector to the Minister for Agriculture, Barnaby Joyce, when the minister came to Rockhampton. Also, he recently addressed a national global food forum with leading business and political leaders in Sydney on the future outlook of Australian food production. Vale Graeme Acton. May peace be with you.
Budget
Mr THISTLETHWAITE ( Kingsford Smith ) ( 19:39 ): Two weeks ago, I met a pensioner at his home in Pagewood in my electorate. He was a man in his 70s who outlined to me his struggles to live his life. He still had a mortgage on his home, which he has lived in for decades. His wife was still at work. He enjoys no luxuries in life—the annual holiday and the odd night out here and there. He has not seen a dentist in years. He told me that his fortnightly fixed income passes through his bank account on the way to his bank to pay his mortgage and to the supermarket to pay for groceries and essential items.
A day earlier I had spoken to a single mum who was dropping off her daughter at the Maroubra Bay primary school. She relied on the schoolkids bonus to help meet the cost of sending her kid to school. She described it as a ' big help ' in meeting the cost of buying uniforms, books, shoes and musical instruments to ensure that her child could participate actively in school activities. She was receiving family tax benefit B. She worked, helped to put food on the table and paid the bills to ensure that her kid did not go without.
These are the battlers of our community. In the wake of last night ' s budget, I cannot stop thinking about that pensioner in Pagewood and his wife, unable to sleep at night and concerned about the fact that he knows that his fortnightly costs are about to increase and his life is about to get a lot harder. I cannot stop thinking about the mother from Maroubra worrying about her kid ' s education and the family budget.
The Abbott government ' s budget does not reflect the struggles of Australian families to make ends meet. There is no sympathy and no concern for families in my community who see most of their monthly pay packet or weekly pay packet disappear into their mortgage or their rent. Those opposite do not seem to realise that pensioners have a set income each two weeks and that a $7 co-payment for a couple of trips to the doctor once a month, or an increase in the payment for prescription medicine, is enough to blow their budget each month and put them over the limit when it comes to their family budget.
It appears that the government is not conscious of the fact that, for many families in my community, the childcare rebate is the difference between having a child in child care and mum and dad being able to work and not having your kid in child care. Freezing the childcare benefit and the childcare rebate is going to make it much more difficult for them to afford child care. I feel for the parents of kids in our community who are living with disabilities, hopeful that their kids would finally get the support that they needed at school through the Gonski funding reforms and the loadings for disabilities. They had their hopes dashed last night by one of the most callous decisions that I have ever seen from a government: to renege on the commitment to fund the disability loading under the Gonski reforms for kids and students at our schools with disabilities.
These are the Australians that government should be trying to help out. The government should not be making their lives harder. Yet, this is exactly what the Abbott government will do with this budget. It will make life harder for Australians. I understand the need for a sustainable budget—to restrain spending and to generate more income to fund education, health and infrastructure. But I also know that some large multinational mining companies are making billion-dollar profits off resources owned by the Australia people, and that asking them to pay a little bit more in tax is not a big ask. I also know that Australians with whopping large superannuation accounts worth more than $2 million earn significant incomes off those superannuation accounts. Asking them to pay a little bit more is not too much. But the Abbott government does not believe that these people should pay a bit more. No, the Abbott government wants to hit the pensioner from Pagewood and the mother from Maroubra. Budgets are about priorities and this government— (Time expired)
Budget
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (19:44): I am very pleased to hear that the member for Kingsford-Smith purports to understand the need for a sustainable budget because I want to talk about that tonight and about how important it is for the people of my electorate. The budget marks the end of an era—an era of irresponsibility. It is a clear contrast between a previous government that always spent like it was someone else's money and a government that treats every dollar of taxpayers' money with respect. There is a clear contrast here. I do not believe that members opposite fundamentally understand how important this is. I do not believe that members opposite are truly committed to running a sustainable budget and truly believe that that is a critical issue for the future of the nation. When you believe that, it influences the way you behave as government and it means that you are cautious about how you spend. It means you do not do things like blow $11 billion on failed border protection policies. It also means that you do not go from having $45 billion in the bank to a couple of hundred billion dollars of debt within just five or six years. I have a sneaking suspicion that members opposite just see numbers on a page and a bunch of graphs, but in their gut they do not believe that budget sustainability is important.
If you go through Labor's recent history in government, you have to go right back to 1989 to find a time when they ran a budget surplus. If it had been one year of deficit you might say that it was a particularly difficult year; if it had been two years, it could have been unfortunate; but 12 or 13 years is just a way of life—it is a structural way of life and a structural way of thinking by those opposite. It is a way of thinking that does not address the structural issues in the budget. It is not easy to address those issues. The government is very conscious of the impact that addressing those structural issues has, but you cannot pretend that those structural issues do not exist if you want to be a serious government governing in the interests of the people of the nation. One approach fritters away money, you never see a spending program that you do not like and you just think of more creative uses of bureaucracy, and the other approach uses government funding in a sensible way to build assets that deliver for the economy over time. It is about investment as opposed to frittering money away. It is about funding infrastructure such as the WestConnex, a fantastic project for the people of my electorate in Banks which will save more than 20 minutes on the trip to the city from Beverly Hills—a huge benefit to productivity in our economy and to family life in my electorate, allowing people to get to and from work quicker. The medical research fund announced last night will be a historic fund. Again, it is a tremendous example of the difference between sending $900 cheques off to people, who may or may not be in the country, and using government resources to build for the future.
We are at our best as a nation when we confront the problems we face. The Howard government did it, to its credit, the Hawke and Keating governments did it on occasion, but the Rudd-Gillard governments never did it—sometimes they just avoided the problem; often they actively made it worse. In my electorate, people are very cautious about how they spend their money. They value the work that they do. They do not simply throw money around like drunken sailors, because if you do that, as a family or as a small business, you get into trouble. So do governments. That is why it is so important for the people in my electorate of Banks and for all the people of Australia that we, as a government, behave in a grown-up fashion and manage the budget like adults. That is precisely what we are doing and the people of Australia deserve no less.
Budget
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (19:49): I rise today to condemn the 2014 Budget delivered yesterday. People say 'Change the government and you change the country'. Last night's budget shines a harsh spotlight on the truth of this. Even battle-hardened politicians and the most cynical in our communities are shocked by the draconian measures introduced in the budget last night. They are shocked by the sheer audacity and by the hypocrisy on display after the promises made before the election. My electorate of Lalor is one of the highest growth areas in Australia. It is also going to be one of the electorates most affected by this budget of broken promises and twisted priorities. Lalor is home to lots of young families and pensioners. We have newly arrived migrants, lots of single families and a high proportion of people living with a disability. We have been hit hard by the closure of the car industry and now we will suffer again.
When I talk to the local service providers in the electorate, people like Carol Muir from Werribee Support and Housing and Jennie Berrera from the Wyndham Community and Education Centre, they talk about the incredible cost of living pressures so many in the community already experience. This budget will only increase those pressures. We can expect more families requiring food vouchers, increased evictions and more homeless people. There are approximately 10,000 age pensioners and 5,000 disability support pensioners in Lalor. We have a 92 per cent bulk-billing rate. We have 3,300 students with a disability in our local schools. The youth unemployment rate is around 35 per cent. These are the people who will be most affected by this budget.
Lalor families will be whacked by broken promises—broken promises such as a $7 GP tax, not just for a visit to the doctor but for blood tests, scans and X-rays; the axing of the schoolkids bonus; less money for our local schools; less money for the Werribee Mercy Hospital; a reduction in the family tax benefit; reducing funding for students with disabilities; cutting carers' payments; and an increase in the price of petrol in an area where we rely heavily on our cars.
On top of that there is no plan for jobs, just cuts to industry innovation funds. Young people in Lalor will suffer also with increases to uni and TAFE fees; with changes making it harder to access youth allowance; with the cutting of apprentice support programs including Tools For Your Trade; by moving under-24-year-olds onto youth allowance, another cut; by changes making those under 30 who lose their job wait six months for assistance; and by cutting programs that support job seekers to find work. The cruellest cuts, though, are for older residents, those on disability support pension and pensioners. There are funding cuts to pensions. We are making people work until they are 70. The GP tax and changes to the PBS will leave many deciding between visiting the doctor and filling the pantry. There will be funding cuts to carers payments and cuts to preventative health programs.
The priorities of this government are clear: let us get the most vulnerable in our community to do the heavy lifting; let us demonise our most vulnerable as taking more than they deserve. Poor, sick people will now pay through the GP tax for medical research that, once Medicare is dismantled, only the rich will be able to afford and will therefore reap the benefit. Families will face increased cost-of-living pressures because of reduced family payments and health care becoming more expensive. They will face a petrol tax every time they get in their car. While families struggle, the top three per cent of taxpayers will contribute a mere $7.70 a week through the debt levy. They will be paid $50,000 when having a baby, while others receive nothing.
The budget has taught us much about this government. They are a government of broken promises and twisted priorities. For my community this is a cruel budget—not just of broken promises but, for many, of broken dreams. And for what? There is no budget emergency, just an excuse to enact this pain and to further embed inequity.
Australia is one of only 10 countries with a AAA credit rating, and the previous Labor government's spending in the last four years was the lowest, as a percentage of GDP, that it had been in this country for 23 years. I will not stand by as this government tells us that we cannot afford to be fair. (Time expired)
Budget
Ms HENDERSON (Corangamite) (19:54): I rise tonight to highlight the investments in jobs that our budget is delivering to the people I represent in Corangamite and to the nation. Despite the difficult decisions that we have had to make, the Australian people would not have forgiven us if we had squibbed the hard decisions. We were duty-bound: we were elected to get Australia back on track, to repair our budget and to restore the nation's finances.
As I write in the Geelong Advertiser tomorrow, our budget shows that our government has a head, a heart and a backbone: a head because we understand the importance of making critical investments in long-term, sustainable jobs, which our economy so desperately needs; a heart because we are caring for those who most need our help, the most vulnerable in our society; and a backbone because we have the courage to tackle Labor's shocking legacy of debt and deficit, even if it does involve some difficult decisions. This is the courage that Labor never had.
One of the first emails I received on budget night concerned the Restart program that we announced, which will provide businesses which take on an unemployed person aged over 50 with a bonus of up to $10,000. This person wrote: 'Even though I am now employed I still wanted to thank you for the help you have offered my generation in getting work. I know firsthand how difficult it is and I am hopeful that my fellow unemployed 50-year-old Australians will be better off in the future.'
The budget reflects our government's determination to deliver a cultural shift in the way we work. Older Australians will be supported where necessary and younger Australians need to earn or learn. Despite what the member for Lalor has said, this is the best thing that we can do for youth unemployment.
The key message in the budget is that Australia must contribute and build. There is no greater demonstration of that than our unbelievable commitment to infrastructure: $50 billion in infrastructure investments over the coming years which will deliver and support $125 billion of construction activity. It is absolutely shameful that one of our most important projects in our region, the East West Link, to which we have committed $3 billion, is being opposed by Labor. The western section, the section that will service the people of Geelong, is being opposed by Labor. Clearly no-one from Labor has ever had to cope with the 'car park'—the two-hour wait to get to Melbourne in peak hour. That is an absolute disgrace.
There are plenty of other initiatives: $482 million for the Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Program to help bring research and business together to develop and commercialise home-grown ideas; $476 million for an industry skills fund; $20,000 available in low-cost loans for apprentices to support their pursuit of a career; Commonwealth funding will be extended to students studying higher education diplomas; and $50 million for manufacturing transition grants. Of course, there is our commitment to abolish the carbon tax, which will save families on average $550 per year, to abolish the mining tax and to deliver a 1.5 per cent cut to the company tax rate.
A number of weeks ago the Prime Minister announced in Geelong a $155 million growth fund. It was very disappointing that the Secretary of Geelong Trades Hall, Tim Gooden, wrote a very deceptive article, 'Jobs scoreboard not looking good so far'. He did not bother to even mention this incredible fund for our region, which was announced in the wake of the end of car manufacturing: $30 million for regional infrastructure and another $60 million for advanced manufacturing, so important for jobs and for opportunity. We are a great city, we are a great region and we have so much opportunity. Frankly the efforts of Mr Gooden and Geelong Trades Hall to talk down our potential, to not convey this important information to members, does his membership no service and they certainly drag down the reputation of our entire region.
We are very proud of our commitment to the jobs growth and investment that we have demonstrated in the budget. Certainly I ask the people of my electorate to look closely at what we are doing, because it is very positive for jobs growth.
House adjourned at 20:00
NOTICES
The following notices were given:
Mr Pyne : To move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring:
(1) when the order of the day for the resumption of debate on the second reading of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015 is called on, a cognate debate take place with the Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2014-2015, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015, Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2013-2014, and Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2013-2014;
(2) at the conclusion of the second reading debate, including a Minister speaking in reply, and thereafter, without delay, the immediate question, or questions, necessary to complete the second reading stage to be put, and when resolved Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015 then being considered in detail and then any question or questions necessary to complete the remaining stages of the Bill to be put without amendment or debate;
(3) at the conclusion of the proceedings on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015, separate questions to be put without further debate on the motions for the second readings and any further motions necessary to conclude consideration of the Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2014-2015, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015, Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2013-2014, and Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2013-2014; and
(4) any variation to this arrangement to be made only by a motion moved by a Minister.
Mr Pyne : To move:
That, in respect of the proceedings on the Tax Laws Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Family Trust Distribution Tax (Primary Liability) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Fringe Benefits Tax Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Income Tax (Bearer Debentures) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Income Tax (First Home Saver Accounts Misuse Tax) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Income Tax (TFN Withholding Tax (ESS)) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Superannuation (Departing Australia Superannuation Payments Tax) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Superannuation (Excess Non-Concessional Contributions Tax) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Superannuation (Excess Untaxed Roll-Over Amounts Tax) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Taxation (Trustee Beneficiary Non-Disclosure Tax) (No. 1) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Taxation (Trustee Beneficiary Non-Disclosure Tax) (No. 2) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Tax Laws Amendment (Interest On Non-Resident Trust Distributions) (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Tax Laws Amendment (Untainting Tax) (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, and the Trust Recoupment Tax Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring:
(1) the resumption of debate on the second readings of the bills being called on together;
(2) at the conclusion of the second reading debate, including a Minister speaking in reply, any questions being put on any amendments moved to motions for the second readings, and then one question being put on the second readings of the bills together;
(3) the consideration in detail stages, if required, on all the bills being taken together;
(4) at the conclusion of the detail stage, one question being put on the bills together and one question being put on the third readings of the bills together; and
(5) any variation to this arrangement to be made only by a motion moved by a Minister.
Mr McCormack : To move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: Development and construction of housing for Defence at RAAF Base Tindal, Northern Territory.
Mr Dutton : To present a Bill for an Act to abolish the Australian National Preventive Health Agency, and for related purposes.
Mr Dutton : To present a Bill for an Act to abolish Health Workforce Australia, and for related purposes.
Mr Baldwin : To present a Bill for an Act to repeal the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act 2006, and for related purposes.
Mr Ciobo : To present a Bill for an Act to amend the law relating to corporations, and for other purposes.
Mr Zappia : To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) 15 June is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day;
(b) elder abuse:
(i) includes physical, mental, emotional, financial, medical and neglect; and
(ii)occurs in all countries throughout the world; and
(c) Australians are living longer and around 14 per cent of the population are aged over 65; and
(2) calls on the federal, state and territory Governments to support initiatives which prevent, or raise awareness about, elderly abuse.
Mr Zappia : To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) no decision has been made by the Government about the replacement of Australia's Collins-class submarines;
(b) Toyota, Ford and Holden will cease car marking in Australia by 2017;
(c) the end of car making will result in a loss of skilled manufacturing jobs and the closure of manufacturing businesses dependent on car making;
(d) communities and regions surrounding existing car manufacturing operations are likely to suffer economic downturns; and
(e) Defence spending on products and military equipment made in Australia provides an alternative to car making for the retention of many manufacturing skills and capacity; and
(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) commit to a Defence spending program that ensures that the new submarines are built in Australia; and
(b) ensure that other Defence spending maximises employment and business opportunities for Australian based industries.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ) took the chair at 09:30.
CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS
Davis, Councillor Nicola
Mr GILES (Scullin) (09:30): I rise today with a heavy heart to speak on the tragic and sudden passing of Councillor Nicola Davis from the City of Whittlesea. As the federal member I think it is appropriate that I say some words about Councillor Davis in this place, Australia's parliament, to mark an extraordinary contribution in a short period of time. I hope today to pay tribute to Nicola's remarkable record of service to the people of Whittlesea and, as best as I can, to the extraordinary person that she was.
In the community a few weeks ago we saw hundreds of people gather together to celebrate Nicola's life and we heard a beautiful eulogy from her friend Councillor Rex Griffin. I hope to emulate that in my small way over the next few minutes. Nicola Davis was elected as a councillor for the City of Whittlesea in November 2012 representing the north ward, one of five new councillors elected at the 2012 local government elections. Nicola was born in the United Kingdom and also lived in South Africa before moving to Australia with her husband, Paul, in 2005. Together with Paul, Nicola ran the Bike n Bean bike shop in South Morang. The Bike n Bean provided a demonstration of Nicola's passions for cycling, for people and for great coffee and of her independent streak more generally.
From the moment I first encountered Nicola I was struck by her passion for life, particularly for her young family and her community, and by her energy, her decency and her warmth, which gave so much to so many. This was a common and lasting impression that Nicola made on people. It is little wonder that she was able to secure election to council as a relative unknown in her first attempt, and once on council she wasted no time in finding ways to serve her community. She represented the City of Whittlesea on the following groups: the Australian Local Government Women's Association; the City of Whittlesea Arts, Cultural and Sporting Grants Program for Young People; the Darebin Creek Management Committee; the Sustainability Programs Advisory Committee; and the Whittlesea and Plenty Valley Tourism Association. This wide array of involvement offers an insight into Nicola's broad interest in issues of gender equity, in opportunities for young people, in small business and in the environment.
Nicola also valued the cultural diversity in the city and would often bring her two young children with her to events so that they too could gain an understanding of, and empathy for, diverse communities. My own son, Daniel, regularly benefited from the company of her beautiful daughters at events. I think back in particular to seeing Nicola in happier times at Meadowglen last year. David Turnbull, the CEO of the City of Whittlesea, described Nicola as conscientious, considerate and caring yet still prepared to speak up on issues she believed in, but always with great respect for others' opinions and feelings. He said that Nicola worked closely with many staff across the organisation to ensure the best outcome for the community. Staff who had the privilege of working with Nicola have commented to me that they found the experience very rewarding. As both a councillor and a colleague Nicola will be sorely missed. Nicola's fellow councillor, Kris Pavlidis, described Nicola as someone who shone through with integrity and high intellect. She said: 'Nicola chose public life for all the right reasons. She was an excellent public representative and was often the voice of reason on council. I've learnt from her, and will ensure her legacy lives on.'
Nicola chose public life for all the right reasons. She was an excellent public representative for her constituency and was often the voice of reason on council. I will conclude with Paul Davis's remarks:
Nicola had packed so much into her 35 years much more than most people do in a lifetime. She brought light and laughter into all of our lives, we are going to miss her deeply. Nicola you will always be in our hearts, we love you so much. Now rest in peace.
Budget
Mr HOWARTH (Petrie) (09:33): Last night's federal budget locked in funding for the delivery of key election commitments in Petrie. The coalition government has delivered a budget that tackles debt and deficit but also, importantly, builds for the future. Building for the future includes the biggest infrastructure investment our nation has ever seen, with $13.4 billion in investment for Queensland alone. In addition to locking in almost $1 billion for the Gateway Motorway North upgrade, the budget reaffirmed the government's commitment to ensuring the Moreton Bay Rail Link becomes a reality for the people of Petrie. The coalition government has allocated $108 million towards the Moreton Bay Rail Link project for the 2014-15 financial year. So, whilst this project has been spoken about before, it is this coalition government that is actually allocating and delivering the funds.
The budget is part of the coalition government's Economic Action Strategy to build a strong and prosperous economy and a safe and secure Australia. Last December I attended the official sod turning of the Moreton Bay Rail Link. Since then, Thiess has been working on the 12.6 kilometre dual track line that will deliver six new rail stations, including four in the Petrie electorate: one at Kippa-Ring, one at Rothwell and two at Mango Hill. It is estimated that thousands of jobs will be created throughout the south-east region and hundreds locally from the Petrie electorate.
The rail link will also attract new investors and business opportunities; however, there are more than just economic benefits from this project the coalition is delivering. This new vital piece of infrastructure will provide a reliable and economical alternative to people commuting to the city. School children and their parents will also benefit, as the rail link provides an additional transport option for children who attend local high schools, including Grace Lutheran, Mueller College, St Benedict's, North Lakes, and The Lakes College.
The Moreton Bay rail link will significantly improve transport access for locals and it will lessen the traffic burden on the Bruce Highway. The new rail link means that people living in suburbs like Rothwell, Mango Hill, North Lakes, Griffin and Deception Bay will no longer have to rely on buses and private vehicles alone to commute to the city. Residents in the electorate understand how vital this rail link is for the region and in 2016 it will become a reality. I am very happy to confirm, again, that in this year's federal budget $108 million has been allocated by this coalition government to deliver the infrastructure.
South East Melbourne Manufacturing Forum
Mr DREYFUS (Isaacs—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business) (09:37): I want to thank representatives of the research, local government and industry sectors for contributing their views at the South East Melbourne Manufacturing Forum in Dandenong on 1 May. My colleagues—Senator Kim Carr; the member for Chisholm, Anna Burke; and the member for Hotham, Clare O'Neil—and I hosted the forum at the city of Greater Dandenong's new civic chambers to respond to local concerns about the impact of the closure of the Australian car industry on manufacturers across south-east Melbourne. Unlike the government, which has no plan and no ideas for the manufacturing sector, Labor cares and Labor is listening.
The Australian manufacturing sector contributes $100 billion to Australia's GDP and employs around 950,000 Australians. South-east Melbourne manufacturers produce nearly half of Victoria's manufacturing output. In the city of Greater Dandenong 22,800 people are employed in manufacturing industries and it is estimated that the automotive industry injected $2.5 billion into the local economy. Manufacturing is a vital part of our community and deserves our support.
The forum commenced with a roundtable discussion between senior representatives from Greater Dandenong, Kingston, Frankston and Monash city councils, representatives of Monash University, the CSIRO, Manufacturing Excellence Taskforce Australia—META, the Australian Industry Group, the South East Melbourne Manufacturers Alliance and Senator Carr, the shadow minister for higher education, research, innovation and industry. The roundtable session was followed by a Q&A forum, where Albert Goller, Chair of META; Professor Xinhua Wu, Director of the Monash Centre for Additive Manufacturing; Mr Tim Piper, Director of the Australian Industry Group, Victoria; Mr Simon Whiteley, President of the South East Melbourne Manufacturers Alliance; and Senator Carr answered questions from more than 80 representatives of manufacturing enterprises based in south-east Melbourne.
Panellists agreed that government must play a role in encouraging business to invest in research and collaborate in building a competitive advantage through innovation. The Abbott government is to be condemned for its cuts of more than $900 million from automotive assistance in last night's budget. This government has slashed programs designed to help create new jobs and assist companies in the automotive supply chain.
Having goaded the Australian car manufacturers into shutting down their operations, the government has now added insult to injury by cutting short or slashing programs designed to help create new jobs and assist companies in the automotive supply chain. The government's paltry $100 million for the so-called Growth Fund and an extra $50 million for the Manufacturing Transition Grants Program does not offset the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars slashed from auto assistance.
Thank you to all who participated in the south-east Melbourne manufacturing forum and, in particular, my special thanks go to John Bennie, CEO of Greater Dandenong City Council, and his staff, for hosting the event.
Bennelong Electorate: Badminton
Bennelong Electorate: The Extra Mile Project
Mr ALEXANDER (Bennelong) (09:40): I rise to inform the House of two different developments in my local Bennelong electorate relating to badminton and charity.
Just recently I was made aware of not one but two world-class badminton players residing in Bennelong. Michael Fariman was recently awarded Australian citizenship after moving here from Indonesia some six years ago. His dream has been to represent his new home at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in July. Michael gave up his full-time job to pursue his passion for badminton and since last year has been ranked the No. 1 men's singles badminton player in Australia—a great achievement. Bennelong also boasts Jennifer Tam, a young lady who has previously received Bennelong Local Sporting Champions Grants. Jennifer may still be a high school student, but she is now the No. 2 ranked women's singles badminton player in Australia. What a fantastic advertisement these two young people are for the sport of badminton.
I will be catching up with both Jennifer and Michael later this week at the Epping YMCA to watch them in action and to wish them both the very best in the coming weeks when the Australian Badminton Team is announced ahead of the Glasgow games. I am very confident that both these talented young players, polite and decent people, will make us proud as sporting ambassadors for Australia.
I also wish to inform the House about a worthwhile community project underway at Arden Anglican School in Bennelong. For the past seven years, students from Arden Anglican School have made annual trips to Cambodia and Vietnam as part of The Extra Mile Project. So far, they have built 100 houses in poverty-stricken areas. This year, a group of 42 year 11 students are preparing to go next month. The students pay their own fares and also raise funds to go directly to the purchase of materials and hardware. Local businesses have become involved by placing donation tins on their counters for customers to donate their loose change to this worthy project.
Recently I visited Arden to join students for their Mystery Monday fundraising activities, where students made a gold coin donation to challenge me in the sport of table tennis. I am much too humble to say who won! As part of the project, students will visit local orphanages and be in other confronting situations during their visit.
I am continually impressed by the social responsibility and awareness of the young people of Bennelong, like these Arden students, and I applaud them for their efforts. Members of the public who would like to support The Extra Mile Project can visit the website, theextramileproject.com.
Gellibrand Electorate: Men's Health
Mr WATTS (Gellibrand) (09:43): I rise today to recognise the launch of an important new men's health initiative in my electorate led by the Western Bulldogs football club and the Macedon Ranges and North Western Melbourne Medicare Local. At present, men living in Melbourne's west are not healthy. There are areas in my electorate where over 50 per cent of men are overweight or obese and where one in three men smoke. The consequences are heart disease, lung disease and the lowest average life expectancy in Victoria. To address this, the Western Bulldogs AFL team have created the Sons of the West community health initiative, which is designed to support men living and working in Melbourne's west.
Partly based on a similar program run successfully by Liverpool Football Club in the UK, the program aims to engage up to 2,000 men in Melbourne's west to promote healthy living and prevent disease. Sons of the West is an innovative example of how to engage men and encourage them to take control of their own health. The 12-week program emphasises activities that are social and fun and alternates training events with barbecues, health checks, comedy nights and DIY training. The men undertaking this programme will train with legends of the Western Bulldogs football team, including Steve Kretiuk, Brad Johnson, Scott West, Doug Hawkins and Tony Liberatore, and learn how to prepare healthy meals from Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food. And, if you get in good enough shape to drop a shirt size, participants will be rewarded with a free Western Bulldogs jersey.
I attended the launch of the Sons of the West and was inspired by the level of enthusiasm felt by the players and the organisers towards the initiative. The Sons of the West health expo is on this Sunday at the VU Whitten Oval between 11 am and 3 pm. I encourage all men in Melbourne's west to get along to it.
I applaud the Western Bulldogs for creating a program that inspires men of Melbourne's west to start looking after their own health, and I would like to thank everyone involved for their hard work in bringing the program to life, including ambassador Shane Delia; Western Bulldogs president, Peter Gordon; Bulldogs staff Shannon Rees and Nick Truelson; as well as Andrew Demetriou, Gerard Healy and Rohan Connolly for their work at the launch. I also commend the support of platinum partners Victoria University and Vic Health.
In particular, I would like to thank a major partner, Macedon Ranges and North Western Melbourne Medicare Local, for providing the funding so that the Sons of the West program can take place. This program is just one example of the fantastic work our Medicare locals do in providing tailored and coordinated support to the healthcare needs of our community. Unfortunately, the benefits of the Sons of the West program do not seem to be appreciated by the Abbott government. Not content with slashing $80 billion from health and education last night, they have taken the axe to Medicare locals as well.
The Sons of the West program is a fantastic health initiative that should have a bright future. It addresses the primary health concerns of men in Melbourne's west in a way that is fun and uniquely designed for men in Melbourne's west. The Abbott government should be encouraging programs like this, not slashing their funding sources and hampering their effectiveness.
Deakin Electorate: Budget
Mr SUKKAR (Deakin) (09:45): I rise today to speak about some aspects of last night's budget for the Deakin electorate. As you know, last night the Treasurer handed down a budget that lays the strong foundations for our country's future. It is a budget that lays the strong foundations for the future of people living in my electorate of Deakin.
It is a budget that calls on everyone to contribute and build; a budget that calls on everyone and every business to join or grow the workforce, to boost productivity and to help build a stronger economy with more investment. We are all playing a part, because we have a huge load to carry. Labor ran up record deficits and left $123 billion in future deficits. If we took no action, Australia would face another 10 years of budget deficits, and debt would hit $667 billion. Every month, the government is paying $1 billion in interest costs on Labor's debt.
Labor's mess means that this government has had to make some difficult but necessary decisions to put the budget on a more sustainable footing. Like Deakin families, who must live within their means, the government cannot continue to borrow and spend. Families in my electorate know how important it is to manage a household, and when I speak to those people and explain the enormity of the debt problem we have inherited from the former government they appreciate the importance of taking measures to get the budget back into the black for their future and, even more importantly, for the future of our children.
The days of borrow and spend must come to an end; the time to contribute and build has begun. We must reduce Labor's deficits, and that is exactly what this budget does. Because of this budget, Labor's deficits have been reduced by $43 billion and debt is forecast to be about $275 billion lower in a decade. We are taking this path back to surplus while honouring our commitments, including reducing the overall tax burden so that families can plan for their future and get ahead. We are also doing this while supporting the most vulnerable.
In this budget, we are redirecting taxpayers' dollars from the unaffordable consumption of today to the productivity enhancing investment of tomorrow. In Deakin, this productive investment of tomorrow includes the government's $3 billion towards the East West Link. This vital road project will not only slash travel times for families in my electorate and help improve productivity, it will also create more than 6,000 jobs. My message to Deakin residents in the coming weeks is that this is a necessary budget for the future of our country.
Canberra Electorate: Budget
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (09:49): Yesterday was a black day for Canberra. Today, Canberrans are wondering why they are doing the heavy lifting for the nation. In this morning's constituency statement, I would like to speak about how my constituents are feeling after last night's budget.
This morning, there are thousands of my constituents who are fearful for their jobs after the Abbott government promised to cut 16,500 public service jobs and increase the efficiency dividend by 0.25 per cent. These are constituents who work at Defence, where some 2,200 jobs will go in the next four years. They work at some of our nation's finest cultural institutions, where dozens if not hundreds of jobs will go, through the merger of the back-end functions. They work at the Australian National Preventive Health Agency, they are scientists at the CSIRO, where there have been massive funding cuts over the last six months, and they are scientists and other academics at the ACT's universities who rely on Research Council funding for their work.
This morning there are thousands of Canberra families hoping and praying that they do not get sick, because the main message out of last night's budget seemed to be: do not get sick unless you are wealthy. These families are wondering what happened to Australia's universal health care and how they are going to find that extra money to pay the GP co-contribution. This morning there are thousands of Canberra families wondering what happened to Tony Abbott's promise that he was on a unity ticket with Labor when it came to education funding. Last night the Abbott government abandoned the Gonski school-funding model beyond the forward estimates. Canberra families, parents, teachers, principals and students are wondering why. They are particularly keen on the Gonski program. They were involved in all the consultations on the Gonski program that took place. They understand the importance of education and they understand the transformative powers of education, which is why they are very concerned about Tony Abbott's promise that he was on a unity ticket regarding education. This morning there are hundreds of thousands of Canberrans wondering how they will afford the extra petrol costs. Canberrans I met while I was doorknocking on the weekend who live in the Lanyon Valley and work in Belconnen and travel around 60 kilometres a day to and from work are wondering how they are going to cope with that extra strain on the family budget. This morning there are over 32,000 university students in the ACT who are wondering how they can afford their degrees, after the budget paved the way not only for an increase in university fees but also for students to pay more of their fees and to start paying back earlier.
Yesterday was a black day for Canberra. I am fearful about our future. I am fearful about the economic prospects for this town. It was a black day.
Lindsay Electorate: Jessica Fox and Western Sydney Wanderers
Ms SCOTT (Lindsay) (09:52): Today it is an enormous privilege to rise in this place. As the member for Lindsay, I am a proud citizen of Western Sydney and am continually proud of the sporting achievements of my local community. If I do say so myself, Western Sydney is in fact the undisputed capital of sport in our country. The Nepean River provides a majestic backdrop for Penrith's own Jessica Fox who, amongst her many achievements, became the first paddler in history to win both the world under-23 K1 and C1 canoe slaloms at the same championship, when she competed at the world under-23 championships held at the Penrith Whitewater Stadium. Creating history yet again has become second nature to our Jessica, who last year also made history by becoming the first female to win gold in both the K1 single kayak and the C1 single canoe events at the 2013 World Cup in Slovenia.
Jessica began her canoeing career in 2005 on the Nepean River, under the watchful eyes of her father, Richard, himself a five-time world champion, and her mother, Miriam, an Olympic medallist. Her wave of success commenced with a gold medal at the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in 2010, followed by an amazing silver medal at the London Olympics in 2012. Double gold at the 2013 Prague world championships created worldwide interest in our Jessica. Jessica is a wonderful ambassador for Penrith and for Australia and I wish her every success in her career, with the Rio Olympic Games in 2016 looming large on her radar.
Today I would also like to acknowledge the amazing success of the Western Sydney Wanderers, a team that has captured the hearts and the minds of our region and in fact of our country. After a stellar second season with the help of the infamous RBB, the Wanderers again made the A-League grand final, this time facing the Brisbane Roar. While the Roar were, unfortunately, the better team on the day, to make both grand finals in the first and second years is an outstanding result and true representation of the determination and grit of the people of Western Sydney. I would like to congratulate the executive chairman, Lyall Gorman; coach, Tony Popovic; and captain, Michael Beauchamp on this amazing success.
I would also like to congratulate No. 21, the outstanding Shinji Ono, who will play his last game for the Wanderers tonight in the Asian Champions League. Good luck against Hiroshima tonight,boys. Like Jessica Fox, I know you will do the people of Western Sydney proud.
National Day of Mourning
Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (09:55): Kane Ammerlaan was a 16-year-old building apprentice when his boss asked him to do some cash work on the weekend. His job was to carry overloaded buckets of concrete up to a roof with no safety harness and no railings. If he carried the buckets half full, his boss would throw concrete at him and send him back down to fill up the bucket. One day the buckets were overloaded and he fell. Concrete went into his eyes. He told his boss it was hurting, but his boss laughed and told him to get back to work. Eventually, he phoned his girlfriend rather than an ambulance and, by the time he got to the hospital, the concrete had set on his eye. He lost 100 per cent vision in his eye.
Tom Takurau, aged 25, lost his legs and then his life in 2008 after an 18-tonne concrete girder slid from a supporting pylon on a section of Brisbane's Eastern Busway being built beside Ipswich Road near Buranda. Mr Takurau's grieving partner, Krystal Ross, said, 'He's not here today because he had faith that the job he was working was earning him an honest day's pay on a safe work site.'
I met Ms Ross and many others at the National Day of Mourning on 28 April 2014. As at the National Day of Mourning, 58 Australian workers had been killed while at work. Annually, the toll is around 200. The National Day of Mourning recognises the importance of all of us working together to ensure that workplaces are safe. One of the organisations that takes that the lead in that is the CFMEU. I commend the CFMEU and other unions working to improve workplace safety, yet it deeply concerns me that CFMEU officials such as Michael O'Connor and Dean Hall are being demonised by this government. It is absolutely vital that for workers like Mr Ammerlaan and Mr Takurau to have a union in their corner making sure that workplaces are safe.
We know that construction work is one of the most hazardous occupations in Australia. Yet from this government we see very little commitment to improving occupational health and safety standards in Australia's workplace. There is little in last night's budget that will work to reduce the toll on Australia's workplaces, that will support the vital work of unions in improving occupational health and safety.
I know all members of this House are committed in their hearts to reducing workplace deaths but I do not see that same commitment when it comes to a policy commitment, when it comes to the bills that this parliament passes and the budgetary choices this government makes. We need to reduce that toll, and that is why the National Day of Mourning is so important.
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
Mr IRONS (Swan) (09:58): As members of this place would know, I have spoken many times about the Forgotten Australians and also about child and sex abuse in the community, and the royal commission that is currently investigating child sex abuse in institutions.
The hearings were held in Perth last week or the week before and, during that time, I visited the royal commission at the Industrial Relations Court and met with Leonie Sheedy,who is the head of the CLAN organisation, which is Care Leavers Australia Network. I would like to share some of the evidence that was given about a particular site, the Castledare Miniature Railway, which is in my electorate in Swan. One witness gave the following evidence to the royal commission:
As the other boys knew that I was Brother Dick's 'pet', they did not include me in their games. I always tried to isolate myself to reduce the risk of them finding out about the sexual abuse. I felt overwhelmingly ashamed and guilty about it. I tried to be as invisible as I could. There were friendship groups but I was not a part of them. At Castledare I never felt safe, as there was always the threat of Brother Dick.
… … …
We were required to undertake unpaid work at Castledare. I recall that the most arduous project I participated in was the construction of a railway which carried trains around Castledare on Open Day.
The irony of that was all the kids built this train and every Sunday, all the parents—not of the kids, but of Perth—would come out and enjoy this fantastic railway we had built. It was just basically kilometres of railway line and just all the rocks and everything that went with it, and sand. But none of them really realised who had built it. It was kids from 7 to 12, every day, day in, day out, whenever there was an opportunity, we built it, and it was just par for the course—we did what we had to do.
But if anyone knew how it got built, I'm sure they would never have used it. It was just ignorance by us, but ignorance by the whole of Perth. You know, we were stuck in the middle of this. They were having fetes and train rides and we were stuck in there. And that's the way life went on.
This account of the evidence that is being given at the royal commission was particularly disturbing, as it was to find out that this map that dates back to 1976 shows a particular part of the miniature railway platform called 'Dick's Dyke'. Leonie Sheedy from CLAN has called for a plaque of recognition to be installed at the Castledare miniature railway site that recognises how it was actually constructed by these young children in the institution. I support this call and would also suggest that they update the history section of their website to reflect these events surrounding the construction of the railway.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.
CONDOLENCES
Harradine, Mr Richard William Brian
Debate resumed on the motion:
That further statements on indulgence on the death of former Senator Brian Harradine be permitted in the Federation Chamber.
Mr FLETCHER (Bradfield—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) (10:01): I am very pleased to have the opportunity to rise briefly to make a statement of condolence in relation to the death of the former senator Brian Harradine. I had the opportunity to meet Senator Harradine and deal with him and members of his staff during the period between 1996 and 2000 when I served on the staff of then coalition minister for communications in the Howard government, Senator Richard Alston. Senator Brian Harradine was a wily and effective negotiator, as has been noted in many of the tributes given to him and given about him since his recent death.
I would like to focus my remarks particularly on the important role Senator Harradine played in the very important policy area of the privatisation of Telstra, a critical step in the path towards deregulating and opening up to greater competition the telecommunications sector in Australia. In 1996 the Howard government had come to power with a promise to privatise one-third of Telstra, with the proceeds to be spent on, amongst other things, the Natural Heritage Trust. The legislation went through the House of Representatives because the coalition of course had a majority in the House. It then fell to the minister with carriage of the legislation, Senator Alston, to see if he could get the legislation through the Senate. This was a daunting challenge, and I just want to quote something I wrote about this in my book Wired Brown Land? Telstra's Battle for Broadband a few years ago. When I spoke with Senator Alston to get his recollections of that period, he said that in essence he was not optimistic that the Senate would pass the legislation but that 'it was such a major policy we were determined to at least show that we had done everything possible to get it through'.
It turned out that the key figure in that negotiating process was Senator Harradine, because if the legislation were to pass the Senate it would require his support and also the support of another Independent, Senator Mal Colston. The Labor Party had made it clear that they were opposed to this privatisation, although when in government they had privatised the Commonwealth Bank, they had privatised Qantas and they had privatised Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, or CSL, and a range of other government business enterprises. But apparently the privatisation of Telstra was anathema; it was poor policy.
But Senator Harradine had a more open mind. Senator Harradine approached the question with a willingness to engage. He did not hold himself out to be an authority or an expert on telecommunications policy, but he was certainly ready to engage and he was, of course, prepared to conscientiously carry out his duty as a senator for Tasmania. So a key question for Senator Harradine was: what would the implications of the arrangements be for Tasmania? That was the question, amongst others, which very properly he sought to answer as he deliberated on the question of whether he would support the government's bill to authorise the privatisation of one-third of Telstra.
During that period in late 1996 there were extensive discussions with Senator Harradine by Senator Alston and members of his staff got involved, as did members of Senator Harradine's staff. I can certainly say from my own personal experience that the tributes that have been offered to Senator Harradine by many, which have noted his ability as a negotiator, his clever and determined and a shrewd style, are observations which certainly gel with my own experience.
I am pretty sure it was on the day that the bill was to be voted upon in the Senate there was an announcement that the government would establish what was to be called the Regional Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund. This announcement provoked a response from New South Wales Senator John Faulkner, who had this to say in a direct attack upon Senator Harradine:
I do not think it is a coincidence, Senator Harradine, that Senator Alston put out a media release headed 'Telstra presence in Tasmania and Queensland'. For you to be so naive to come in here and suggest that we did not see a political deal or suggest that this media release and the government's announcement on the regional telecommunications infrastructure fund was just a coincidence, I think is the most extraordinary flight of fancy on your part.
This illustrates, I think, another important theme in Senator Harradine's career. He started as a Labor man but he was expelled from the Labor Party in 1975 in the culmination of a vicious factional dispute. He carried out his duties as an Independent senator for Tasmania in accordance with what he saw as his obligations and in accordance with his conscience, and he was required to deal with the kind of hostility that I have just exemplified in the quote from some comments by Senator Faulkner from time to time—perhaps, more than from time to time. But throughout all his period as a senator he conducted himself in accordance with his principles and in accordance with what he felt was in the interests of his constituents.
He was, as I have said, a wily and effective negotiator. No less a commentator than former Prime Minister John Howard has remarked upon that. He certainly did not see eye to eye with the coalition on many issues, but when it came to the privatisation of Telstra, after deliberating very carefully, he did support the 1996 bill to privatise one-third of Telstra. The other Independent, Mal Colston, also supported it and, as a result, the legislation received the requisite 39 votes in the Senate so as to pass into law.
I thought it was important to reflect just for a moment on, of the many important things that Senator Harradine deed, his role in contributing to an important outcome in telecommunications policy in Australia. I found it instructive and educational to have the opportunity as an adviser to then Senator Alston to have some dealings with Senator Harradine and I want to note my sadness at his passing and express my condolences to his family and friends.
Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) (10:09): It is a privilege this morning to speak on the condolence motion for Senator Brian Harradine, who died, aged 79, on 14 April. In all respects it was a life well lived. I would like to associate myself with the remarks from the member for Bradfield and also the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the House yesterday.
Although I never knew him personally, what I learned about Senator Harradine I learned from his public persona. Those of us who share a public life in this place recognise the risk of making assumptions about people based on publicity or what we see in the media. But with Senator Harradine I think what you saw was what you got. As I was looking from afar, he struck me as a passionate man, a man of strong personal beliefs and convictions. He also struck me as a wily politician. As the member for Bradfield indicated, he was someone who knew who had voted for him, and he was determined to represent their interests in the Senate to the absolute best of his ability. He was a very significant figure in Australian political life over three decades. He represented Tasmania with an enormous amount of integrity.
I was struck by the comments from others in relation to Senator Harradine on his passing, including former Prime Minister John Howard, who said:
He was a just man, and he identified with principles and stuck with them.
He never deviated. If he gave his word on something, he stuck to it. When he would not give his word on something, you knew you had no hope of getting it.
The Prime Minister in the House yesterday said:
In a long and distinguished career, Brian Harradine was deeply respected for his values and for his principles. He was deeply respected as a man of honour and integrity. He engaged in many fights, but it was never about him; it was always about the cause.
For Brian Harradine, faith and family were everything. So I say to Brian's family, on behalf of the government, to his wife, Marian, to their 13 children, to their 38 grandchildren and to their family and friends: he was a good man. He made a contribution to this country and will be missed.
Most of all I get the sense that Senator Harradine had a very strong sense himself of family and community. So I extend my condolences, on behalf of the people of Gippsland, on his passing. His 13 children, who I know miss him dearly, would have a deep sense of family pride in the way Senator Harradine served our community. To Bede, Anthony, Gemma, Paul, Fiona, Richard, Phillip, Nicola, Cushla, David, Ben, Ann and Mary, I extend my condolences, and to his wife, Marianne. Only they know the sacrifices that a family member makes for a life lived so publicly. I think it was Prime Minister Abbott himself who said on several occasions that members of this place are volunteers when it comes to public life but their families are conscripts to the cause. Our families are so important to us in this place. I recognise Senator Harradine's family in that regard.
As I said, I never had the opportunity to meet Senator Harradine personally, but I do know his daughter Mary and regard her as a very close family friend. Mary actually lives in the same street as I live in in Lakes Entrance. I asked Mary if the family would like to put anything on the public record in relation to Senator Harradine's career. Bede has provided me with some words of remembrance, which I will take the opportunity to read into the Hansard now:
Brian Harradine was a humble man. Throughout life he never sought the praise of others. For some he was a parliamentary colleague: fearless, determined, formidable. For others, he was the perfect gentleman. For countless others, he was the man who assisted them with an immigration problem here, or stopped to help a stranger fix a puncture there, and always with warmth, gentleness and a genuine smile.
For family, he was far more than a man with a three song piano repertoire, who loved a game of cards, and who once had a fifth share in a sixth-rate racehorse. He was a practical witness to self-giving love.
Brian Harradine spoke often about two main themes.
The first was "values and organisation". One without the other: what can one really achieve? The second was the International Labour Organisation's aim "to contribute to the development of an economic and social order in which people can live with freedom and dignity and pursue both their spiritual development and material well-being in conditions of economic security and equal opportunity". This echoed for him the essence of Catholic social teaching, and it was an aspiration he made his own.
Brian always knew the limits of the public life. He himself once spoke whimsically of being a rooster one day, and ending up a feather duster the next. Over the years, many tried to stereotype and pigeon-hole Brian. Yet Brian Harradine—the statesman in the tradition of Thomas Moore—was always far deeper, his vision far broader, than they could ever fathom.
Brian Harradine lived well his 79 years on this earth, his own delicate hold on life ending on 14 April. He was blessed with Marian his wife, an ardent supporter, a confidant who gave wise counsel, a loving wife and mother, and a careful steward of the household. Theirs was a faithful, loving union, sustained by a shared faith, and a love of bushwalking in the Tasmanian wilderness. Their union endured the pressure of public life, the challenges of raising a large family and, in recent years, the cross of Brian's growing infirmity.
It was supremely fitting that the drama of Brian's final struggle took place in the week of Christianity's central drama. How frequently his family heard him recall the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. He reflected upon this often, telling his family how it renewed his own commitment to follow Christ in his personal and public life.
Brian Harradine remained to the very end a faithful servant to family, to friends, to society, and to God. May he rest in peace.
It is a great privilege to read those comments from the Harradine family. It is only fitting that a man who served this place with enormous integrity and left this place with that integrity intact should be recognised through this condolence motion. I thank the House.
Mr HUTCHINSON (Lyons) (10:15): I rise as a fellow Tasmanian to join with others—and I associate my remarks with those of the members who have already contributed to this debate—in paying my respects to a good man and to a life well lived. Brian Harradine was a giant in Tasmanian politics who delivered real benefits for my state and the people thereof. He stands as the longest-serving independent senator in the history of Australia's federation. He made every minute of his 30 years as a senator for Tasmania count. Respected journalist Tony Wright wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald recently, a few days after Mr Harradine passed away last month, that fellow politicians and prime ministers soon discovered that the senator from Tasmania was one of the toughest and wiliest in their midst. When modern politicians are patting themselves on the back for what they see as the new age of Independents and minor parties, Senator Harradine remains the man who wrote the rules for the 'effective power of one', as Tony Wright called it.
His mightiest achievement for his beloved home state was securing massive amounts of funding for Tasmanian telecommunications and the environment that he loved so much. Even in today's terms, the $350 million he negotiated with the Howard government, in exchange for his support in the Senate for the sale of one-third of Telstra, was extraordinary.
He came from humble stock and, to the end of his life, was unashamedly a conservative Catholic who publicly upheld the values that he believed so dearly in. He was born in Quorn, South Australia in 1935 and moved to Tasmania in 1959. He served as an official for the Federated Clerks Union from 1964 to 1976 and as Secretary-General of the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council. In 1968, the federal executive of the Australian Labor Party refused to let Mr Harradine take his seat on the body as a member of the executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. The vote was put again after the former Labor leader Gough Whitlam resigned and demanded a new ballot. He was eventually expelled by the federal executive in 1975 by a majority of one vote. He contested the 1975 election as an independent for the Senate and won comfortably. He remained a senator until deciding not to contest the 2004 election.
Mr Harradine's behaviour could rarely be predicted. He once discarded his shoes and danced with the Indigenous Wik people outside the High Court in Canberra when they won a long-running land rights case that he had helped broker. He was a familiar sight for years around the streets of Tasmanian towns, campaigning in a tiny Fiat car loaded with children. He and his first wife, Barbara, who died in 1980, had six children. He is survived by his second wife, Marian, who was a widow when they married with seven children.
Some of my earliest memories of politics include Brian Harradine. As a young man growing up in Tasmania, he was one of the most identifiable personalities in my formative years. Certainly in this business, we can never please everyone; that is the business of politics. But, indeed, respect comes for standing for something—in Brian Harradine's case, for principles that were based in his strong Christian faith. My condolences go to his wife and to his broader family. May he rest in peace.
Wran, The Hon. Neville, AC, QC
Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (10:19): On 1 May at the Sydney Town Hall, well over a thousand people gathered to farewell a great man and a great Australian. It was a fitting day—1 May, May Day—the day that Labor movements around the world commemorate the struggles that working people have fought to build a better society. It was a fitting venue—the Sydney Town Hall—the town hall where Neville Wran had dominated party conferences for so many years, alternately charming and, you would have to say, sometimes forcing through his views, and the place where he shocked Labor Party members by announcing his retirement well before any of us were ready to see him go. It was a fitting day, it was a fitting venue and there were many fitting tributes on the day from former colleagues, from Labor greats and, most importantly of all, from his family.
I was pretty young in 1978, the year that the 'Wranslide' election happened, but I cannot forget—and I do not think any of us could forget—the feeling of optimism that that Wranslide brought with it and that incredibly catchy jingle, 'Wran's the man'. They had some footage at the service at the town hall of that advertising campaign and kids from different schools singing the words, because it got right into your head and it stayed there—and it stayed there for many decades.
Neville Wran was the outstanding political figure of his time. Bob Ellis said that Neville Wran saved Labor, because he showed New South Wales and he showed the country that Labor governments were responsible, centrist governments; that Labor inhabited the sensible centre and that we could run a strong economy, a decent transport system and a strong health and education system. He made those reforms that recognised the growing population of Sydney's west by moving hospital beds to the west. He was able to manage the state, manage the state economy and manage services professionally in a way that gave people enormous confidence.
But he was also, at the same time, able to push the bounds of what we previously thought possible in politics. His moves on antidiscrimination, gazetting national parks, Aboriginal land rights, consumer protection and decriminalising homosexuality—all of these progressive values were brought into our daily lives in New South Wales by a man who absolutely had the pulse of the people that he represented and governed on behalf of.
Neville Wran was a great leader of the state and he was a great leader of New South Wales Labor. It is said that you could have sold tickets to caucus meetings when Neville Wran was premier. You never knew whether he was going to charm you or dump a bucket on you, but either way it would be effective and it would be entertaining. He absolutely dominated his caucus, and yet he had the ability to say when an issue was going wrong, 'Okay, well this is something we have to reconsider.' He was a great leader because he was able to set a direction that the party followed and that the state progressed along, at the same time as taking people with him.
As well as having that discipline that he insisted on from the Cabinet and from the party, he was also able to capture the public imagination—and I have spoken about the ability he had to both govern in the sensible centre and to progress us and take us forward. He could talk to anyone. He had a connection with voters that was truly extraordinary, and I suppose in some ways—although many of the speakers at the service at the town hall spoke about the enigma of Neville Wran—his ability to connect across the board probably represents something about his own journey in life.
He grew up in very difficult circumstances in Balmain. Famously, he said that Balmain boys do not cry. When you know a little bit about his history, as his very good friend the member for Wentworth does and as people, particularly Rodney Cavalier, spoke about at the Sydney Town Hall, you see the toughness that comes with growing up in difficult circumstances but surrounded by love and the advantages that the support of his siblings and family gave him, despite the difficult economic circumstances that he started with.
Through his intelligence, application and hard work he was able to succeed professionally. He could have done literally anything. His very successful business career after politics shows that too. That journey through his life really gave him the opportunity and the ability to talk to anyone and to relate to anyone. It also I think made him absolutely determined to inhabit the sensible centre of politics. He was asked about capital punishment after a particularly terrible crime and he said, 'Hanging is too good for the bastards,' or something similar. I think that story shows both his ability to understand the impulse that we have after a particularly terrible crime to wreak vengeance but also the intellect he brought to the question of capital punishment. It is a terrific example of how he dealt with many of the controversial issues in public life.
He did not give up on trying to change the country for the better after he retired from politics. He stayed involved and was a sounding-board and very wise captain on the journey towards an Australian republic. His contribution there will continue to have an influence well beyond his life.
I want to finish by saying that his state, New South Wales, and the nation will miss him terribly and owe him a deep debt of gratitude. His friends of course will miss him more and his family most of all. I want to particularly give my condolences to his wife, Jill; his daughter Kim; his son Glenn; his daughter Harriet Wran; and Hugo Wran, his son. They were magnificently brave at the send-off for their father and were magnificently brave during the last years of his life that were very difficult for Neville and took a toll on his family too. We will miss him. He made a great impact on us. He was a great man.
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Minister for Communications) (10:28): Neville Wran was my best friend. I certainly never had a better friend than Neville. I was in business with him for over a decade and we spent pretty much every working day together for well over a decade. He always used to say that he knew me before I knew him because he was a university friend of my mother's. He would regularly assert that he knew me when I was still en ventre ma mere, a legal term he was very fond of. I got to know him when we were two adults, although I was only barely an adult, when I was a young journalist in the press gallery in New South Wales starting in 1975 when Neville was the opposition leader. He was clearly the coming man. He had an urbanity, a wit and eloquence that had no parallel on either side of the house.
The Labor Party in those days was very different to what it is today. It is a much more tertiary educated, sophisticated group of people, albeit from a pretty narrow caste, I suppose—the apparatchik class. In those days the trade union officials in the parliament were horny-handed sons of toil—people who had worked with their hands, like Jack Ferguson, who was Neville's great friend. Neville was this extraordinarily urbane, beautifully dressed, extremely handsome man. Neville was a great heartthrob at university, my mother always told me, and he was a very handsome guy—an actor—and I suppose he could have been a movie star if he had turned his mind to it. So, he was quite remarkable.
Needless to say, it did not take long, despite the family connection, before we were coming to blows with each other. As the member for Sydney intimated, Neville had a take no prisoners approach to opponents. He was scathing—though always funny—in his attacks on his political opponents or opponents in the press. The Abbott government is accused of being critical of the ABC, but nobody could have been more scathing of the ABC than Neville Wran. I got to know him and we got on well, although in a fairly confrontational way sometimes. Towards the end of his premiership I was chatting to him and I said, 'What are you going to do—are you going to get out of politics?' He was quite bored with state politics by that stage. In fact, Neville told me 18 months after he became Premier that he was bored. The tragedy is that he never came to Canberra. It was one of those dreadful accidents of history and timing. He had had an operation on his throat—he had lost his voice and that would have made it difficult. Then Hawke came onto the scene, and the opportunity was no longer there.
I asked him what he was going to do and he mentioned a very good friend of his, Peter Valkenburg. He said he thought he might go into business with Peter. I asked, 'Neville, why would you want to go into business with someone as old as you?' When I was talking to Neville about this, he was exactly the same age I am today. I often think to myself that I was 31 years of age and I thought this bloke was just about knocked up—he was so old. I said to him that we should do something together. Bruce McWilliam and I had just set up our own law firm. I was in the middle of the Spycatcher case and we had a good practice, and I said that maybe there was something we could do together. Anyway, I told him, 'Don't hang around with people your own age, hang around with younger people.' That was definitely good advice.
Anyway, time went on and we worked together and then we set up an investment banking business called Whitlam Turnbull, with me, Nick Whitlam and Neville. Neville used to say it was one of those rare occasions when he was the smallest ego in the room. Nick left us in 1990 but Neville and I continued right through to 1997, and in fact some time after that, and it was a terrific partnership. It was very successful financially, but we had so much fun together. He was the best of men, such a wonderful friend. He was completely and utterly loyal. I have never known anybody whom you could count on more than Neville Wran. If I had to pull anybody out to stick with me in a tight corner, Neville was the most solid. Look at the way he stood by Lionel Murphy when Murphy was going through all of his travails. At one point Neville observed that he thought Murphy was innocent. To my great surprise, he was charged with contempt of court. To this day I do not know how you can be in contempt of court by saying you think somebody is innocent, because everyone is innocent until they are proven guilty. In any event, Neville was convicted in a decision that I must say I thought at the time was clearly wrong in law. It was after Neville was Premier, and he was fined $5,000 or something like that. I asked whether he was going to appeal to the High Court, and he said, 'No, no, son; the Labor Party loves a martyr.' He knew he would win on appeal.
He suffered dreadfully when he was in government because of accusations of corruption, which were baseless. I say they were baseless because the Liberal government that succeeded Labor in 1988 set up ICAC. Again, I must say I urged Nick Greiner not to do that; I had very strong views about star chambers, having represented Packer in the Costigan royal commission. And anyway, Nick set that up and it brought him down. But they certainly did not succeed in even making a coherent allegation against Wran.
Neville was very hurt by all of those allegations, really deeply hurt—that wounded him. He went through the royal commission over the Kevin Humphries rugby league allegations, and it hurt him. I can just say this about Wran: I knew him better. I would say there would be no man outside of his family that would have known Neville better than I did and, certainly, no-one who would have known his affairs better than I did. Neville Wran, when he got out of politics, had a pension and he had a house, and that was it. So all of those allegations about Wran being corrupt were simply baseless. But it is a rough business and I guess one cannot overdo the sympathy for him in that regard because he was a very tough partisan politician himself; he was playing in a rough game.
We had some amazing adventures together. At one point we were involved in a gold project in Siberia. We were financing a gold project in Siberia. Neville came on one trip to Siberia, and at the same time we had another gold project in Ghana. He took me aside after meeting all these bizarre people we encountered in Siberia—large men with guns. I thought it was pretty frightening. He took me aside and said, 'Son, here is the deal: you do Russia, I will do Africa.' So I commuted to Siberia and Neville commuted to Ghana!
We had some success in both of those emerging markets. But where we had a lot of success, frankly, was in China, where we worked together. It was something Neville and I were both very proud of. We got started and set up the first Sino-Western mining project, which is still extant, but was sold a long time ago. It was a big zinc mine in Hebei province. It was back more than 20 years ago, quite an achievement at that time.
He was, as the member for Sydney said, a leading member of the republican movement. In fact, the Australian Republican Movement was founded following a lunch between him and Tom Keneally over a bottle of chardonnay. I just wish they had not said that, because we were always accused of being chardonnay-swilling elitists as a consequence. But he was a key member of the ARM. He recognised that for the republican movement to be successful it could not be seen to be a Labor Party campaign in and of itself. So he was delighted when I became—in fact he encouraged me to become—the chairman of the ARM because, obviously, I had a background in the Liberal Party but at that time was not a member of any political party.
He was a source of extraordinary wisdom, always, in all of our years in the republican campaign. I have to say—and this is a matter of public record—that the ARM was largely funded by Neville and me for years. We were by far the largest financial supporters of it, and kept that campaign going for a very long time. Those people among us who have raised money for political parties know how hard that is; try raising money for something like that, where there is absolutely no power—it is just a constitutional reform agenda.
Neville has often been described as an enigma. I am not quite sure what people mean by that. I would say he was just very circumspect about himself. He did not open his heart generally or widely, but when you got to know him he had a generosity of intimacy that was quite remarkable. His close friends recognised that—and obviously Jill and his children were foremost in that regard. Many of his close friends are no longer with us, Jim McClelland and Lionel Murphy being two obvious examples. But for so many others, he was always the barrister. He always had that legal sheen, that legal shell that he put around himself.
We had an extraordinary time together. I think he was a role model in politics. The member for Sydney said that he made an enormous contribution to the Labor Party, winning in 1976 after Whitlam's catastrophic immolation in 1975. What Wran was able to do was restore Labor's reputation for management. Whatever people may say about Gough Whitlam's government, its passions and its reforms and so forth, it was a hopeless administration—it was mismanagement on an appropriately magnificent Whitlam-esque scale.
Wran was an extremely good manager. He ran a very competent government and he ran surpluses. When he left office the state Treasury was in surplus. Indeed, when Labor was finally defeated after his successor Unsworth was defeated in 1988, they had money in the bank. So it was a very responsible approach to government. He was also totally focused on doing things—and this is a big distinction between him and a number of the Labor governments that succeeded him. Neville was not a professional politician. He did not go into politics because he wanted a job. He was not an apparatchik. He had huge reservations about the way the Labor Party was being taken over by a sort of professional, apparatchik political class, as many of the Labor people of his generation have said elsewhere. He saw his job as being to get in and do things whereas so many of his successors saw the business of politics as simply staying in government. Wran had none of that. He was an absolute activist, whether it was on law reform or on building things, and Darling Harbour has obviously been mentioned. He had a massive commitment to action in government. I think that is a good example for all of us, whatever our politics might be.
It is very sad to say farewell to Neville Wran, but I have to say his last few years were very, very tough. As another old friend of mine once observed, old age is not for sissies, and Neville did it very, very hard. He hated getting old. He hated getting old even before he became ill. He showed great courage in those final years. His fortitude in that time is an example to all of us, although I do not think any of us would want to spend the last few years of our lives in the way Neville did. There is something rather sad of course when great men or great women die at such great ages. We wish everyone a long life. But, of course, Neville Wran ceased to be Premier in 1986, nearly 30 years ago. He became Premier in 1976, nearly 40 years ago. So, so much of what he did, so much of what he stood for and so much of the impact that he had is only remembered. I was reflecting yesterday in the House when the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition both spoke very well about him that neither of them really knew him as a contemporary. Even though we were not contemporaries—he was the same age as my father—I only got to know him closely by an accident of having worked with him for so long.
Farewell Neville Wran. He made an extraordinary contribution to this country. He was a great patriot. I am very sorry that we are not a republic, not least because Neville always said to me that he was worried we would not become a republic in his lifetime. But who knows, we may be able to fulfil his ambition at a later date. At the Constitutional Convention in 1998, Wran was part of the ARM's delegation—one of the elected delegates. Boy, that was a fractious arena. That made the Senate look like child's play with all the different agendas and groups, and people running around. Neville's charm and ability to pull people together was in full force. We would not have got an outcome out of the Constitutional Convention without him. There would not have been a republican movement without him. Sydney would not be the great city it is without him. He was one of the great men of our times, but he was also one of the best of men and he is sadly missed.
Like the member for Sydney, speaking on my own behalf and on Lucy's, who was also a very close friend of Neville's, Neville was family, basically, we pass on our condolences, as we have already, to his children: Kim, his daughter from his first marriage to Marcia; Glenn Wran, Marcia's son; and, of course, Harriet and Hugo, his children with Jill, his widow. All of them have wonderful memories of Neville—we all do.
In closing, I just say this about Neville Wran. It is hard for those of us who saw him in his last years not to have our minds seared by the sheer sadness of his predicament. But we really have to put that aside and we have to remember Neville, as he would want us to remember him—hair full of boot polish, eyes flashing, eloquent, savage, witty, magnificent in his formidable, forensic power. That is the Neville Wran we should always remember. He was such a great man and I miss him terribly.
Mr GRAY (Brand) (10:48): I acknowledge the words of the member for Wentworth, a great personal friend of former Premier Wran and also the words of the member for Sydney. I knew Neville as the president of the Labor Party from the time I became a national official of the Labor Party in 1986, which was of course towards the end of Neville's term as Premier of New South Wales. Frankly, I cannot imagine a modern Labor Party without Neville Wran. It was my view, and I said this to Neville many times, that Neville was single amongst any of the premiers that I ever knew in any state ever. He is the only one who could have been the Prime Minister of Australia. Beyond any doubt, his personal work ethic, his character, his remarkable urbanity, his ability to speak to the most ordinary Australian in the most ordinary circumstances and yet still be a respectful friend of business and princes. He was a truly remarkable man.
As a Labor figure, his ferocious forensic support of the institution of the Labor Party impressed me very early on. He was the President of the Labor Party at the time when we dealt with the expulsion of John Halfpenny. Neville wasn't simply a stickler for natural justice. He could see that to remove something as valuable as a party membership from a person of substantial Labor Party standing such as John Halfpenny would be something that would require a lot of thought.
When the national executive convened over several days to debate the matter of whether or not John Halfpenny should be expelled, it was done by Neville ensuring that John Halfpenny was given legal representation. It was done by ensuring that present at the national executive was legal advice. It was done so that at that national executive meeting the proceedings were not simply recorded, they were transcribed. It was done in a way so as to supply the most magnificent natural justice to John Halfpenny.
The hearings at the national executive carried an immortal passage of debate where it was alleged that John Halfpenny's consistent attacks on the then Prime Minister in the view of Mr Halfpenny and his legal defence did not constitute an attack on the Labor Party. Neville, with his QC's intellect and his Labor heart, turned on John Halfpenny and he said to John Halfpenny: 'You have here described on the whatever date it was in the 1980s the Prime Minister as being an unfit person for the office of the Prime Minister. Was that an attack on the Prime Minister?' John Halfpenny's defence was: 'No, that is not an attack on the Prime Minister; that is an opinion.'
It was then put to Mr Halfpenny that on other occasions when he had questioned government policy in the early 1980s whether that was also an attack on the government or on the Prime Minister. Halfpenny's defence was: 'No, that also was merely an opinion and an interpretation of government policy.' Wran then rounded on Halfpenny and asked a very simple question: 'What about Pearl Harbor? Was that an attack?'
Neville had the ability to level his opponents with one blow that was always clean but you never saw it coming. Neville's ability to sum up the right and the wrong of a situation was uncanny. His attractive nature—the member for Wentworth has described him as I never have heard him described before: he could have been a movie star.
I saw Neville at a farewell function for Graham Richardson nearly 20 years ago in 1994. Neville was one of the star guests, welcoming people into the room. A young woman at that time, Cathi, came into the room, a beautiful young blonde. Neville gave her a wonderful embrace, a kiss, another embrace and another cuddle. Then, after what seemed to me like five minutes, Cathi came over to me and said, 'Isn't he wonderful? He gave me a cuddle.'
Neville had the most attractive personal style but also an eye for beauty, which was quite extraordinary in many different ways. He almost single-handedly ensured that Labor fundraisers provided excellent quality wine and excellent quality food. Those of us who had to attend those fundraisers will be forever in his debt for ensuring that fundraisers became a pleasurable dining experience.
Neville also had an ability as a personal politician to not only turn a room but an ability that quite probably in the business of politics is very akin to what is described as Lyndon Johnson's personal ability as a politician to win you over by affection, by intellect and by knowing you—knowing you better than you even knew yourself.
It was said, in the latter years of the Wran government, that the Wran government had an air of corruption about it. Those allegations deeply hurt Neville Wran. I am so pleased to hear the member for Wentworth describe the way in which Neville Wran departed the premiership of New South Wales—not just with dignity and integrity but with, simply, his house, his pension and a heart of gold.
Neville's mentoring, not just of individuals but of the politics of reform, is extremely important. The personal contributions that the member for Wentworth and Neville made to supporting the republican movement and the referendum in the late 1990s is simply astonishing—quite probably the largest ever single financial contribution to a political process that we have seen in this country, or probably will ever see. And that contribution was made entirely for good purpose. If I had to put a figure on that number today I would guess it to be something substantially in excess of $10 million.
I hope that we see the likes of Neville Wran again. My party needs that. Our country needs that. The great state of New South Wales needs that. To Neville's family, I offer my condolences. To Neville's memory, I thank him from the bottom of my heart for his enduring contribution to public policy and public administration.
Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (10:56): I rise to join the throng of many who express praise and pay tribute for Neville Wran. I do so not as a contemporary, obviously, and not as someone who had the high honour of being a friend, but as someone who, when he was very young, had political consciousness start to emerge very early. In that period Neville Wran loomed large. He was someone who dominated politics at that point in time.
I think it is important that in this place, where we tend to be clouded by the minutiae and the focus on daily skirmish, that we take the time to also regard, respect, acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of those people who have fundamentally changed the lives of others. Neville Wran can certainly, in all those ways, be recognised for that.
It is clearly an understatement to say that he was a giant and that he was a visionary. Born in 1926, he left us on 20 April this year after a battle, which, as the member for Wentworth reflected, was cruel when one considers the history of the contributions, the intellect, and the wit of the person who was forced to succumb to dementia. It is truly cruel.
He spent four terms—16 years—in New South Wales politics, with 10 as premier. He left an unforgettable legacy. He was fittingly described by one eulogist as the architect of modern Sydney. Those of us who had the privilege of living in New South Wales are the beneficiaries of his foresight and tenacity.
As we were reflecting earlier, we in this House would love to end our political careers having made a mark for the betterment of our constituencies. We all hope, in some way, that we will. But Neville Wran would have absolutely no difficulty in seeing the mark he left on his home state. You can easily see the wide evidence of the things he did to make life better in New South Wales. He achieved this by demonstrating the power of a simple agenda—getting transport working better, shifting hospital beds and resources to where they were needed most, balancing the tension between cities and the regions. These types of programs would proudly be described as bread and butter. They improved the quality of life for people across the state, but especially in the part of the world that I grew up in, in western Sydney.
It was not always easy, and the breadth of his leadership talents had to be applied in bringing in contentious, long-lasting reform—the introduction of random breath testing and the phasing out of wood-chipping and sand mining while also increasing the number of national parks, which caused grief to many in the labour movement. He championed race and gender equality. He pushed for the development of Darling Harbour and built the Sydney Entertainment Centre, transforming run-down land into a magnet for tourists and for civic life.
It is almost impossible now to think of Sydney without that massive entertainment quarter, and all those achievements took courage and leadership; qualities that Neville Wran had in spades.
A critical ingredient in his success flowed from his ability to relate—something that was reflected upon by the member for Brand. He revealed through his focus on improving community life and opportunity that ability to relate. From the regions of New South Wales to an emerging metropolis from boardrooms to bus shelters, Neville Wran not only brought his words but he brought his ears, taking stock of diverse views and melding those views into a compelling vision. Not only could he relate to the people he represented but they also could relate to him, because it was his tenacity that attracted and the way he applied that tenacity to improve the quality of his own life.
A Queen's Counsel prior to entering the political sphere, Neville Wran was able to use his obvious sharp intellect to be a political strategist without peer—the Balmain boy done good. Before the label became politically passe, Neville Wran showed us what it meant to be aspirational. Yet, having achieved this, he remained faithful to his past, never forgetting where he came from or his own working-class background. It shaped his policy platform, making sure that people who might not be wealthy themselves would have a richer quality of life. For instance, it was Neville Wran who in 1982 was present with Queen Elizabeth opening Mount Druitt Hospital, a facility that has helped provide people with quality health care for generations, delivering better services to people who needed it most.
As much as Neville Wran had, as I said, a compelling agenda, he also had raw political talent to bring that agenda to life. He was tough. He never took a backwards step, quipping, 'Confession is good for the soul, but it is bad for the reputation.
Wran pioneered changes to the way in which politicians conducted themselves mediawise. For example, he was a master of using the power of media at key points in time—and never a better example than that day in March 1976 when then coalition premier Eric Willis went to announce an early election. Both were campaigning in Monaro, and it was Neville Wran who seized the moment, racing to Canberra to try and steal Willis's thunder via the media. But there was a problem: Neville Wran was not a federal politician and was not entitled to use the television studios inside parliament, and those were the rules of the day. Enter the late, great Peter Harvey who, according to former Wran advisor and author Brian Dale, masterminded a plan to have Wran's message broadcast back to Sydney. It was Peter Harvey who figured that, if you could not get the New South Wales opposition leader in Parliament House, he would broadcast him on the roof of Parliament House—and that was exactly what he did, perching Neville Wran on the beams of the roof of the now Old Parliament House.
If he was not talking politics from the roof of federal parliament, he would be holding press conferences on New South Wales trains, in hospitals—wherever he would have the chance to get his message out. He refashioned the way politics intersected with the media.
Another interesting story I picked up from Brian Dale's memory carries as much weight today as it did back then. According to Dale, almost 40 years to the month, it was another conservative leader proposing a measure that would put pressure on families, particularly those in New South Wales, by introducing a state based fuel tax. It took all of a nanosecond for Wran to knock that idea on the head, vowing Labor would oppose any plans that would impact on New South Wales families in that way. Not surprisingly those plans became an election issue raising anger amongst voters, particularly those who had a high dependency on private transport. The rest, as they say, is history.
It was the combination of all those factors that I have mentioned that propelled Neville Wran into a position to dominate three state elections, most notably being referred to as the 'Wranslides'. In 13 years of leading New South Wales Labor, he never lost an election, he never lost a seat at a by-election. All of those things merged at a critical focus point: the powerfully simple agenda shaped by a vision of what was needed to be done for New South Wales; a desire to shake off the lethargy gripping the state after yawning periods of conservative government melded by a common experience; and a premier relating to his community and they being able to relate to him.
Neville Wran is survived by his wife, Jill, and his five children. New South Wales has survived and prospered largely because of Neville Wran and his Labor values, and we thank him for that.
Mr HAYES (Fowler—Chief Opposition Whip) (11:04): I am very pleased that we have the opportunity to speak on this condolence motion. I rise today to pay my respects to one of the most important and popular figures in the history of NSW politics, the Hon. Neville Kenneth Wran. His contribution to the New South Wales political landscape throughout the 1970s and 1980s, particularly during his decade as the Premier, has left a lasting influence on the state. His time as the Premier represented a time of great reform, change and challenge for New South Wales, with a very strong focus on job creation, improving public transport and the environment. The late Neville Wran was also responsible for initiating significant electoral institutional reform, including four-year electoral terms, public funding and disclosure laws, and pecuniary interests for MPs.
It took Neville Wran four attempts to gain a seat in the New South Wales Legislative Council, but from that time forward he never lost an election or a seat at a by-election. After winning the 1976 election by a single seat, he achieved unprecedented popularity and a string of very strong electorate wins. Winning this election after Labor's crushing federal loss in 1975 gave the party much needed renewed energy and hope, with a view to engaging in reform in the future. Then followed two astonishing 'Wranslide' elections in 1978 and 1981, where the ALP captured around 60 per cent of the two-party preferred vote and a succession of seats which had been dominated by the coalition, particularly in various rural areas. From that point on, things certainly changed rapidly in New South Wales. At that point the Liberal Party was no longer represented in the seats of its previous five leaders. However in 1984, while Labor under Neville Wran won again, it was a more traditional win.
Neville Wran and his deputy at the time, Jack Ferguson, whose son remains in the parliament today, epitomised the grand Labor tradition of pragmatic idealism: while governments must show the courage to tackle reform, they need to bring the people along with them. While the pace of reform often seemed pedestrian at times, particularly to activists outside the parliamentary party, this was maybe an illusion, as any reading of the government's achievements conclusively demonstrates. For starters, consider the Anti-Discrimination Act; public funding of election campaigns; democratic elections for the upper house; fixed four-year parliamentary terms; one vote one value; the XPT trains; the Powerhouse Museum; the University of Western Sydney; and the Eastern Suburbs Railway. New South Wales also led much of Australia, and the world, in liberalising various laws, particularly in respect of same-sex relationships.
Wran governed for the entire state, not just for the inner city elite. One of his early and most controversial actions was to instruct his then health minister, Laurie Brereton, to redistribute hospital beds from the well-supplied and well-maintained inner city and eastern suburbs to the more resource constrained outer suburbs and rural areas, a move that certainly did not endear him to the medical profession or to many in the media; but for those who reside in the outer suburbs of Sydney or in remote and rural areas it was something that will always be appreciated.
He was cultured, charismatic, urbane—he may have been those things to many—but I have got to say he will be remembered as a highly colourful person. As someone who had the wrath of his colourful language bestowed on me once or twice I can say that you remember the conversations.
In those days I worked for an organisation called the Professional Officers Association and we covered many of the professional categories employed in the Public Service. One of the things we always wanted for our people was, obviously, to have the best terms and conditions, as you would rightly expect. But when Neville did not agree with you, you did not walk outside thinking 'Maybe he is just hedging his bets here.' You knew precisely what this man stood for. For a person who grew up in Balmain, was very well educated and excelled at law, in terms of use of abusive language I have never seen anyone better. He may have been cultured and urbane and will be remembered as such, but he was a very forceful, very feisty engager of any conversation, particularly when it was between warring parties. It is a testament to his greatness that he is still fondly remembered in his old seat of Bass Hill. In the words of another famous entity from this place, Diamond Jim McClelland, Neville was 'both smart and lucky' but he will be remembered as a person of courage, daring and a great vision.
With respect to all those who occupy the benches in this house and others, I do not think we should expect to see the likes of Neville Wran again any time soon. On behalf of my local community and those in the south-west of Sydney who were the beneficiaries of many of the decisions that Neville Wran made—from redistributing hospital beds to the creation of and access to Western Sydney University and encouraging young people, particularly those from western Sydney, to go to university to graduate and become a part of the professions—I express my condolences to Neville Wran's wife, Jill, and the other members of his family. I conclude by simply saying that, in losing Neville Wran, we really have lost one of our greats. May he rest in peace.
Mr STEPHEN JONES (Throsby) (11:12): I rise to express my condolences on the passing of the late, great Neville Wran and pass those condolences on to his surviving family. It is true to say, as others have said before me, that New South Wales was indeed a very different place before Neville Wran. We often look back at history, particularly political history, and think that the things that have flowed were in some sense inevitable. Thirty-eight years ago, on 1 May 1976, Neville Wran led Labor to victory in New South Wales. It seems inevitable from the vantage point of history but nothing could have been further from the truth.
Students of Labor history will recall that Neville Wran's election in 1976 came only seven months after the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor government federally—an event that sent reverberations throughout the country. For a Labor leader in our most populous state to stand up not nine months later to become the first Labor premier in that great state after many years in opposition was no mean feat at all.
He showed a way forward for the Labor Party during what were very dark days for us. He galvanised Labor supporters right around the country, heralding one of the most legendary Labor governments in Australian history. I say that he was one of our finest premiers, if not our greatest.
Neville came from pretty humble beginnings. He was one of eight children born to Joseph and Lillian in Paddington in Sydney's inner west. They were very different places, Balmain and Paddington, from what they are today. In the early Wran years, it was a place where locals laboured in the local mine or at the soap factory down at Mort's Dock, now a highly prized residential establishment and a tourist attraction.
Neville was the one who famously quipped, 'Balmain boys don't cry,' referring to the toughness that you needed to grow up in a rough-and-tumble working class area, as it was in those days. This was well before the organic cafes, the designer boutiques and the million-dollar properties that are typical of the place today. This is where Neville Wran began his life. It is where he was instilled with a sense of social democracy that resonated through his famous 10-year term. That term began on 14 May 1976 and ended on 4 July 1986.
It was a decade of sound economic management and progressive social reform, which should be the hallmarks of a modern Labor government. There were significant policy achievements in a raft of areas, from health, as the member for Werriwa has spoken about, through to education, transport, conservation, consumer affairs, Indigenous affairs, the status of women, industrial relations, antidiscrimination, equal opportunity and law reform, arts and heritage protection, the Public Service, and electoral and institutional reform. Neville led a government that forever changed the everyday life of New South Wales.
One of his biggest legacies was new infrastructure spending. Expenditure on capital works exceeded or was equal to the rate of inflation in nine out of ten years during his time in office. The Wran government doubled the land conserved in national parks and secured World Heritage listing for the north-east rainforests. He facilitated outdoor dining, reformed the sale of alcohol and permitted Sunday trading. He oversaw the construction of the Sydney Entertainment Centre, the Powerhouse Museum and the Wharf Theatre and he approved extensions for the State Library, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Australian Museum. These are all things that we take for granted today as a part of our state's enviable cultural identity.
The health and wellbeing of the people of New South Wales was always at the front and centre of the Wran government's reform agenda. There were public health initiatives, such as banning smoking on public transport—something we just take for granted today, but in Neville's day this was a very controversial reform—and introducing lead-free petrol and random breath testing for motorists. These latter two were also very controversial issues but were critical public health reforms introduced by Neville Wran and his Labor government.
He achieved many great things for Sydney, but his presence was always felt very strongly in regions right across New South Wales. He understood what many governments today take for granted—that is, that you cannot win government, particularly in New South Wales, without winning seats in the regions. He understood that there was a Sydney beyond Burwood. He understood that there was a Sydney south of Sutherland and north of North Sydney.
He was very kind to, and a good friend of, my region, the Illawarra of New South Wales, which saw unsurpassed growth and rejuvenation during the Wran era. Steel production at BHP, now BlueScope, was saved by the joint efforts of Bob Hawke and Neville Wran in 1984, when the world and domestic steel industry went through free fall. He ensured there was construction of a new hospital at Shellharbour, which is now a rapid growth area—one of the fastest growing urban areas in New South Wales. He established the State Government Office Block in Wollongong, creating hundreds more jobs, Public Service jobs, outside the Sydney CBD. He ensured there were local workers involved in building components for the Sydney Harbour Tunnel—much of it was constructed at Port Kembla and in Wollongong and was then shipped up to Sydney.
He also left an enormous legacy for the Illawarra in public transport, particularly in my electorate of Throsby. We saw the electrification of the South Coast rail line. Gone were the red rattlers of my childhood—we saw an electrified line between Kiama and the CBD of Sydney. We saw the building of the Dapto bypass, connecting Berkeley to Yallah, opening up new areas for residential development; expanding development at Port Kembla by building a multipurpose berth, coal and grain terminals, kick-starting the economic development of that part of my electorate.
He was the guy who started the Maldon-Dombarton rail link—tragically, it was ended by Nick Greiner, advised by Barry O'Farrell at the time and still at the forefront of one of the infrastructure projects we campaigned for the completion of in our region. Neville started it and he saw the importance of it to the Illawarra and to the economy of New South Wales, opening up the ports of New South Wales to the grain, the coal and the freight terminals of western New South Wales and the rest of the country.
No government—state or federal—has matched Neville Wran's vision. None could be a more reforming government in those tumultuous 10 years. He did a lot more than just balancing the budget and running the trains on time. He was a good man, a successful man, a well-loved Labor premier. New South Wales is truly a different place because of his turn at the helm. He will be deeply missed. Vale, Neville Wran.
Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (11:21): 'Neville Wran, he's our man. He's got this great state moving.' That catchy, punchy election jingle was one of my earliest memories of politics in Australia. I was only four years old when the first Wran government was elected and, through my early years of schooling, I recall Neville Wran as this giant of New South Wales politics, this leader of our state that I, my family and my friends looked up to.
That jingle perfectly described Neville Wran as the leader of New South Wales. Neville was an archetypal Labor leader: born in poverty in Balmain in Sydney, educated at the local Nicholson Street primary school, receiving a scholarship to Fort Street High School with the opportunity to study Shakespeare and Donne. These opportunities of education that had in the past been restricted to the sons and daughters of working-class people were opened up to Neville Wran, and he excelled.
Neville was the personification of that great Labor value of educational opportunity. After finishing high school, he was accepted into the University of Sydney where he studied law. He graduated, became a solicitor and eventually a barrister and was admitted as a Queen's Counsel.
Neville was a hard worker. His street cunning and wit ensured that he always had his Tory adversaries' measure. Neville was a person who never forgot where he came from. His physical presence was felt in the Supreme Court in Phillip Street and the bear pit in Macquarie Street, but his mind was always on the streets of Balmain or Blacktown, Campbelltown or in the homes of those families that lived in Western Sydney.
His understanding, indeed his affinity for the struggles of the workers and they families made him a reformer—but a cautious reformer—a steady-as-she-goes pilot of change, able to read the play like no other, to know when to push change, to push for reform and always when to wait for the right moment, for the right time, to ask the people of New South Wales to accept progress in their state.
His common touch made him one of the most successful leaders of our time, and he changed New South Wales for the better. He made the people of New South Wales feel proud. He lifted the spirit of the state of New South Wales and he did that by his remarkable achievements as a leader of a reforming Labor government. He changed the way the people of New South Wales related to each other. He broke down some of those barriers. He was a great uniter in bringing together the people of New South Wales and lifting their spirits—appealing to a greater humanity, if you like. He did that by improving the rights of the marginalised, migrants, workers, women and people who were gay. He introduced the Anti-Discrimination Act. The first antidiscrimination board in Australia was established by his government. The Ethnic Affairs Commission was established by the Wran government. He created the first office for women. The first female solicitor-general and QC was appointed under the Wran government in Mary Gaudron. He appointed the state's first female minister of the crown. He undertook gay law reform to ensure that homosexuality was decriminalised in New South Wales, and his government introduced the Aboriginal Land Rights Act.
These social reforms, which we see as part and parcel of a civilised Australia today, were bold reforms at the time, but Neville had the understanding of the Australian people and knew how to lead them down the path to a better New South Wales by introducing these reforms. He showed the people of New South Wales how to be better people and how we could work together for a greater humanity.
Neville understood the value of education. Being a scholarship student, he never forgot the fact that he had the opportunities in life that were provided by his foundation in education. In doing so, he founded the University of Western Sydney and established the Premier's Literary Awards. In health, he understood the value of ensuring that resources were available to population growth centres, throughout Sydney in particular, through his Beds to the West program. He had a great affinity for protection and conservation of our nation's natural environment and heritage, creating numerous national parks throughout New South Wales and establishing the Environment Planning and Assessment Act, the Land and Environment Court, the Heritage Act, the Coastal Protection Act and the Historic Houses Trust.
His main aim was to create good well-paid jobs for the citizens of New South Wales. He understood the importance of a strong growing economy and its value in creating jobs for the people of his state. He modernised the railways. His government reformed the coal industry and introduced changes to energy generation in New South Wales that sustained the industry for decades to come. He understood the value of arts and culture to enriching people's lives and in that respect he did not believe that culture and the arts were something that should be confined to the higher echelons of New South Wales society. He took arts to the people—to the masses—by establishing the Riverside Theatre in Parramatta, the Campbelltown Gallery and the Powerhouse Museum. He extended the Art Gallery of New South Wales. His government extended the Australian Museum and the State Library, ensuring that the masses of people in New South Wales had access to arts and culture to enrich their lives.
As the member for Wentworth pointed out earlier, Neville Wran was a founding member of the Australian Republican Movement and a proud advocate for an Australian becoming our head of state. He understood the value of one of us being appointed as our head of state and the value that that would bring to Australian society and Australia's future. He worked hard as a founding member of the Australian Republican Movement and was a generous donor to the cause of an Australian republic.
I have very fond memories of Neville Wran as Premier of New South Wales. For me, he was an icon, a great leader and someone who will be sadly missed by the Labor community throughout Australia. I offer my condolences to Jill and his family. May he rest in peace.
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler) (11:29): I want to join with the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and other members on this condolence motion to a great Australian and a champion of the Australian Labor Party, Mr Neville Wran. Neville Wran was educated at Nicholson Street Public School and Fort Street High School, in my electorate. He went on to study law at the University of Sydney and became a prominent lawyer prior to entering the upper house of the New South Wales parliament in 1970. In 1973 he moved to the electorate of Bass Hill. He became leader of the Australian Labor Party and was elected premier in 1976. That was just after the very significant defeat of the Whitlam Labor government in 1975. It was a time when the Australian Labor Party was going through considerable difficulties. Neville Wran mobilised public support. Neville Wran understood that it was vital that politicians be aware of issues such as costs of living and the concerns of people in their local communities.
At Neville Wran's quite extraordinary send-off at Sydney Town Hall just a month ago, the contributions of former Prime Minister Paul Keating, former Premier Bob Carr, Justice Michael Kirby, Labor historian Rodney Cavalier and members of Neville's family—his wife, Jill, and children, Kim, Harriet and Hugo—were quite remarkable. In addition to those family members, I also give my condolences to Glen Wran, his son, who was the president of the Ashfield branch, in my electorate, of longstanding note, during the time in which I have had the honour of serving in this House as the member for Grayndler. I well recall the extraordinary state conference of the New South Wales ALP at Sydney Town Hall when Neville Wran announced his resignation in June 1986. As I entered the magnificent Sydney Town Hall that morning, the loyal deputy to Neville Wran, Jack Ferguson, pulled me aside and said, 'Take a seat, son; you're about to see history.' I did not know at that time what was coming.
We all know in this place that there are very few secrets in politics. It is indeed remarkable that Neville Wran was able to resign from that high office after serving for a decade as premier of the largest state in Australia and it was kept a secret. The gasps from delegates at that conference were an emotional reaction that will stay with me for as long as I live. It was fitting that Neville Wran chose the floor of a New South Wales ALP conference to announce his resignation. He was of the view that no individual is greater than the movement of which they are a part. From time to time you hear that individuals might like to think that they get here on their own. They do not; they get here because of the support of their family, their community and the political party they represent.
Neville Wran, a giant of the labour movement, never put himself above that movement. His achievements were quite remarkable: the economic transformation of New South Wales into a modern economy, the new railway infrastructure out to the Eastern Suburbs, the electrification of the rail lines to Wollongong and Newcastle, new infrastructure in Sydney's western suburbs and support in regional New South Wales. Those achievements led to the remarkable 'Wran slides' in 1978 and in 1981. This was a time when Labor won seats like Manly and Willoughby, and many seats in regional New South Wales. A two-party preferred vote of higher than 60 per cent is something I suspect might never be seen again.
It was a remarkable performance, which did not come about by doing nothing. It was an endorsement of a reforming, forward-thinking government. It was reforming in terms of the great achievements in infrastructure and economic development and also in the environment whereby, thanks to Neville Wran, the great national parks of the North Coast of New South Wales were saved and protected. He created the Land and Environment Court. He understood that development needed to be balanced with appropriate outcomes in environmental protection. He rebuilt the inner areas of Sydney through the Darling Harbour project and the Sydney Entertainment Centre. The Darling Harbour project on the old Pyrmont sites was very controversial. It was a dilapidated area, which he subjected to urban renewal. As someone who was born during and lived through Neville Wran's premiership, living on Pyrmont Bridge Road, Camperdown, I am very familiar with that area.
Neville Wran established the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs and the most significant land rights legislation anywhere in Australia up to that point. He introduced the Anti-Discrimination Act. He removed the criminalisation of homosexuality. In our time, when there is a modern debate about marriage equality, it is remarkable that just those few years ago to be gay was to risk being jailed because of your sexuality. Neville Wran had the courage to take that on and to lead the nation, to make a real difference to people's lives.
Neville Wran was ahead of the nation on women's rights when he introduced legislation concerning the appointment of women. Before Neville Wran's government, the idea of a woman being appointed to a court was seen to be remarkable and not really appropriate. Neville Wran made sure that women were appointed to all of the highest offices in the New South Wales regime.
Before Neville Wran, the Legislative Council of New South Wales was a bit like the House of Lords in the UK, where the Lords were not elected by the people; they were appointed by each other. Neville Wran went to a referendum and won it to transform, more than a century after the New South Wales parliament was formed, the legislative council into a democratic body. Neville Wran introduced public funding and disclosure laws. Pecuniary interest registers for members of parliament did not exist before Neville Wran in New South Wales.
Regarding some of the laws that were still present in New South Wales before his premiership, the death penalty was still in place in New South Wales prior to it being abolished. The Summary Offences Act, whereby people were picked up and put into jail for the crime of being homeless or for other issues of poverty, essentially, was removed. He was, of course, the longest serving Premier of New South Wales until Bob Carr broke that record.
Neville Wran was someone whom I had the honour of having contact with as the president of Young Labor. At the time, Young Labor was not always compliant with the government of the day. Neville Wran had a wit but also a very sharp way of taking a young fellow, as I was in the Labor Party in those days, and giving him the benefits of his wisdom in a very direct fashion about the need to support his government. He was someone who was larger than life. He was someone who went on to have an extraordinary career in business. He was someone who was prepared to take a young fellow like me aside and give him good advice about the Labor Party.
I am very honoured to be a member of the Australian Labor Party like Neville Wran. Because of my membership of the Labor Party I have enjoyed a better life and privileges that I could not have dreamed of when I was growing up just a few kilometres from where Neville Wran grew up and went to school in our local community. I pay tribute to him and I honour him in this parliament today. I conclude by once again giving my condolences to Jill, who gave such as remarkable eulogy at his farewell, and to his children and all of his friends, colleagues and comrades.
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin) (11:42): I associate myself with the fine words of the member for Grayndler and all the speakers who have spoken before about the passing of such an extraordinary human being and amazing man, Neville Wran. Of course, it was a sad day for Jill and for the kids when Australia lost Neville Wran. It was also a sad day for the country and for his state of New South Wales. From my point of view, it is a sad day for anyone who has a Labor heart, because Neville Wran really was in lots of ways the gold standard for people who care about what Labor can do for our community.
I had the honour and the privilege of working with Neville for six months in 2002. Neville Wran had agreed to write the blueprint for some party reform that we were doing at the time, with Bob Hawke and also Tim Gartrell, who was then the Assistant National Secretary of the Labor Party. The four of us together wrote the party reform blueprint of 2002. The reason I signed up for that as a young PhD student—a young Labor kid, basically—was that I wanted to spend some time going around the country with Neville and Bob, learning from them and helping them come up with some recommendations for how the party conducted itself.
It is a little known fact that this day could have come about 12 years ago. We almost lost Neville one day about 12 years ago when I drove right through a roundabout with Neville in the passenger seat and we narrowly escaped tragedy. It was just outside this building, actually, on one of the many roundabouts in Canberra. I was a young fellow and I was petrified that he would be very angry about it. He looked at me after this car whizzed past, centimetres from us, and just gave me a wink. He gave me a wink to let me know it was all right that I had almost taken him out. I would have been a real villain in the Labor Party if I was responsible for that.
That was the day that the report that Bob and Neville had written was released. My enduring memory of that day, apart from almost taking Neville out on the roundabout, is of later in the day, about one minute before we went out to do our press conference, when we were having some sort of morning tea. Just as Neville was walking out, Jenny Macklin noticed that he had a big dob of cream from the bun that he was eating on his tie. My enduring memory is of Jenny Macklin licking a tissue and cleaning up Neville's tie for him before he went out and gave a press conference on that day, late in 2002.
When I met Neville, I was really struck by two things—and other speakers have spoken about these two sides of his personality. Neville was really the best mix; he had a commanding side and he had a caring side. Those two things were not inconsistent, but they were rare in their intensity in one human being. He was, of course, a commanding presence; he was a huge deal in New South Wales and right around the country because he was so commanding and charismatic. But, at the same time, he never forgot who he cared for and why he was in politics. In many ways, that was the most impressive thing about him.
He was also brutally funny, as other people have spoken about. I remember one time he told me that he was getting a rough time as Premier in the New South Wales parliament. He walked around to the shadow minister who was giving him all this grief and said, 'If you keep this up, I'll tell the whole parliament what you got up to last night.' When he got back to his seat, his colleague said, 'What did he get up to last night?' Neville said, 'I don't know, but he's an awful bastard and so he probably got up to something.' The shadow minister shut up from that point on, which was a funny story. I was also really impressed by what Paul Keating said in his eulogy at the state funeral, that Neville 'had a PhD in poetic profanity', which is something I can recall as well. He was a very creative, ingenious speaker when it came to some of the language he used.
Another thing to appreciate about Neville Wran is that he did not luxuriate in the past. When he was Premier, it was not a case of the older he got the better he was. He was always a forward-looking guy, in my experience. He cared deeply about an Australian republic, for example. He cared deeply about issues beyond his premiership. The fact that he put his hand up to help the Labor Party out in the early 2000s is another example that he was not a guy who rested on his laurels. He had interests that endured and he cared about the future of the country.
Labor history has a whole lot of heroes, and we celebrate our heroes probably better than any political party in the world. From Neville Wran we get the model for long-term reforming state governments, a model that others have picked up. In my own state of Queensland, I know that Wayne Goss is really a bit of a Neville Wran type. A lot of the same legal reform, for example, that Neville did in the eighties in New South Wales was done by Wayne Goss in the late eighties and early nineties in Queensland. Whether it is Wayne Goss or any kind of leader, there has not been a leader of the Labor Party who does not in some way owe something of their style and experience to that model that Neville Wran created in the seventies and eighties in New South Wales. In that sense, his influence extends well beyond New South Wales, and I think that his influence will extend well beyond his sad passing quite recently.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: As a mark of respect, I invite honourable members to rise in their places.
Honourable members having stood in their places—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank honourable members.
BILLS
G20 (Safety and Security) Complementary Bill 2014
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin) (11:49): I rise today to speak on the G20 (Safety and Security) Complementary Bill 2014. As honourable members are aware, the bill clarifies the powers of police officers and appointed persons to ensure safety and security at the Brisbane Airport during the G20 meeting. Of course, the powers of the Queensland Police Service during the event have been determined under Queensland's legislation, but the Commonwealth legislation is required because of the airport, which is a Commonwealth jurisdiction.
I have spoken in this place previously about how important it is that the G20 meeting is being held in Brisbane this year. Engagement with the global economy via the G20 is one of the proudest legacies of the former Labor government. I want to pay tribute to Prime Minister Gillard in particular, to former Treasurer Swan and to former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for the way they conducted our global engagement in the economy, particularly for winning the rights to host the meeting that the whole world will be watching. It is such a crucial meeting. It was by working with the world's 20 largest economies that Australia was able to stare down the worst of the global recession and make it out the other side with three AAA credit ratings in tow. The G20 not only sets the agenda for the biggest economies on earth; it also provides leadership in addressing economic issues that matter to all countries, whether they are members of the G20 or nonmembers.
Attracting the G20 to Brisbane was a key achievement of the former government. For Brisbane, the opportunity to host the world's most important economic forum is a testament to the evolution of Brisbane and the entire south-east corner of Queensland, including my home city of Logan City, into the cosmopolitan metropolises that they are today. It is probably not since the Commonwealth Games in 1982 that Brisbane has hosted an event attracting so much of the world's attention. With this event come substantial opportunities for local residents and for local businesses of all sizes. If you walk through the Brisbane CBD at the moment, you will see plenty of signs of preparation for the G20 leaders meeting in November. Expansion of several major Brisbane hotels is currently underway as the city prepares itself for the influx of approximately 7,000 foreign leaders, staff and media representatives. This has provided Brisbane with employment opportunities and it has provided businesses with opportunities for growth. When the G20 and associated media come to Brisbane in November, so will the chance to show off to the world the fruits of our labour and planning over the last few years.
The G20 also brings substantial volunteering opportunities for Queenslanders. I want to give a big rap to a local man in my electorate, Wayne Ernst. He is a friend of mine from Woodridge, right in the middle of my electorate. He came into the office a couple of weeks ago asking for help with an application to volunteer at the G20 in Brisbane. Wayne is a great fellow. He has a disability but he has got many years of experience as a truck driver, and he was really enthusiastic about getting involved to give back to his community. In the office, we helped Wayne put together a resume and an application to volunteer at the G20 as a transport assistant. The last I heard of it, Wayne has secured an interview with Volunteering Queensland for the G20. Everyone in our office really hopes he gets the opportunity to help out. They would not have a better volunteer. The G20 is a great chance for volunteers to get involved, so I would sincerely encourage interested Brisbanites and Logan City-ites to help out.
Australia has a huge opportunity this year to set the economic agenda for the international community. I have written and spoken in the past about the need to put multilateral trade on the agenda of the G20 and to build on the progress that has happened bilaterally so that we get some proper progress multilaterally as well. The G20 could be used as a chance to take advantage of this progress in other parts of the trade agenda and to sustain the momentum generated by the Trade Facilitation Agreement, which was concluded in Bali in December last year. At the G20 in November, Australia could make a big mark on developing this work program and progressing the critically important elements of Doha.
But it is not just in trade that Australia can make a mark on the world's economic agenda. I have spoken in the past about the need for Australia to formulate a response to the trends of rapid technological advance, globalisation of the workforce and the rise of intergenerational disadvantage. I think there is a big opportunity at the G20 in Brisbane to deal with some of these big issues that are impacting on our economy, and not just the day-to-day or year-to-year aspects of budgeting or the growth agenda.
The 2014 G20 agenda, as announced by the Minister for Foreign Affairs in December last year, needs to be tempered in the light of these modern economic realities, these big new pressures in the global economy. The foreign minister singled out infrastructure and tax avoidance as two particular focus areas for the G20. I believe that this theme needs to be developed further into the notion of inclusive growth—not just growth but what type of growth we want in the 20 biggest economies and beyond so that, as economies grow, they grow together.
On infrastructure, we need to find ways for the world to prioritise productive and inclusive infrastructure so as to achieve economic growth. That includes things like state of the art broadband. We cannot just get into a situation of building old-world infrastructure and not paying attention to the new-world infrastructure that we need—things like the technological advances that the NBN would provide in Australia. The same goes for public transport. We need to make sure that we do not drop the ball on public transport. It was disappointing last night to see in the budget that the government does not seem to care about public transport. Right around the world, the biggest economies need to make sure that we are easing congestion by building public transport infrastructure.
The last area is tax evasion. We do need to make sure that companies around the world are not profit shifting in a way that enables them to avoid tax. We certainly have that issue here in Australia, and it is important that all countries work together so that we get a robust regime, so that profit shifting is minimised and so that companies pay tax in the country where they are making the money.
I have a lot of confidence in Australia's ability to put on a big event like G20 in Brisbane and have it go successfully. A lot of my confidence comes from knowing that the officials working on this in Treasury, the Prime Minister's department and DFAT are some of the best public servants we have. They have a lot of experience with the G20 in particular, and I know they will work very hard to make Australia proud of all the arrangements for this meeting.
There is a real need to get the policy environment right to ensure the safety and security of all the participants at the G20 this year, and that is part of what this legislation is about. With a large number of prominent world leaders in attendance, there is a need for police to be given some extra powers during the course of the event. The Queensland act performs most of this role, as I said before, and we are now talking largely about the arrangements at Brisbane Airport. It is important when drafting this kind of legislation to make sure we draw the correct line between ensuring the safety of our visitors and maintaining the civil liberties of our citizens. It is likely that there will be some inconvenience for people living and working in the Brisbane area. I am certain that any steps that can be taken to minimise this inconvenience will be taken by the organisers, and the benefits to the local area will far outweigh these temporary annoyances and inconveniences.
This legislation also includes a sunset clause, which means that the additional police powers cease on the day after the conclusion of the G20 conference. Because of this, it is likely that we will see this legislation set for repeal on the first repeal day after the G20. Let us hope the government does not count this in their red tape bonfire next autumn.
In conclusion, the opposition will be supporting the passage of this legislation through the parliament as we want to ensure a safe and successful G20 in Brisbane this November. I think all sides of the parliament have an interest in seeing the G20 delivered successfully, and I am sure that whatever work needs to be done in a bipartisan way between all sides of politics will get done. We will happily work with the government to make sure this meeting is delivered successfully. There is a lot at stake, there is a lot to gain and it is a big opportunity for Australia and for Brisbane, and we want it to go well. I commend this bill to the House and I look forward to the big event, the leaders meeting, in November this year.
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (11:58): In preparation for Australia's hosting of the G20, the G20 (Safety and Security) Complementary Bill 2014 will ensure that the Queensland G20 Act validly applies to Commonwealth places at the Brisbane Airport. Brisbane's rapidly growing global reputation as a city of opportunity—indeed, as Bernard Salt said, 'the aspirational capital of Australia'—was affirmed by its selection as the host of the 2014 G20 Leaders Summit, the principal forum for international economic cooperation and decision-making. Over the days of the event, Brisbane will become the capital city of the world, with leaders from the world's most influential economies gathering in our city.
Approximately 4,000 delegates and 3,000 domestic and international media will converge on the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre for the summit—they will be welcomed and won over by Australia's new-world city. Brisbane is an economic powerhouse of the Asia-Pacific region, with innovation and an entrepreneurial heart. It is a city that draws world leaders, international business and investment. It has defied the recent global downturn, and is a leader of Australia's economic growth.
Brisbane offers a potent combination of a business-friendly, stable political environment and a young, educated, multicultural society with stunning surroundings, cultural sophistication and an enviable climate. Brisbane is a magnet to growth industries as well as to major events like the G20 and is a home to internationally renowned scientists and research centres. Brisbane ranked in the top 7 most liveable cities in the world at the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize and has been named one of the top 10 Asian cities of the future by the London Financial Times fDi magazine. A world-class destination for conferences and business events, with first-rate facilities, event services and venues, Brisbane has benefited enormously from ongoing investment in multimillion-dollar infrastructure.
Brisbane will become the ninth host city of the G20 Leaders Summit, joining the elite ranks of cities such as London, Toronto and Seoul. The event brings together leaders and finance ministers from countries which account for more than 85 per cent of global economic output. They will be joined by key officials from the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund. The many attractions of Brisbane include rich cultural and leisure opportunities, friendly locals, affordability, accessibility, alfresco dining and a breathtaking natural backdrop of national parks and island escapes in the picturesque Moreton Bay. With a diversified economy that embraces, rather than depends on, the mining industry, Brisbane is well placed to build on its other strengths in education, tourism, retail, professional services, construction, and IT.
The G20 is an important development in Brisbane's history, and the November 2014 summit will have a long-lasting legacy as important as other game-changing events for the city, such as the Commonwealth Games and Expo '88. Brisbane is already well advanced in leveraging the G20 summit to help position the city as a strong investment, conventions and study destination. The 'Choose Brisbane' campaign, launched in March 2013 by Lord Mayor Graham Quirk, uses G20 images and messages to remind business decision-makers in Asia and Europe that Brisbane is a city significant enough to host the world's leaders. The next phase of the campaign, already seen by two million people in Asia, was launched in Hong Kong in September last year. Research conducted by the Colmar Brunton group shows the campaign has been highly successful in generating positive perceptions of Brisbane in Asia. The campaign was seen by nearly half of all business decision-makers surveyed in Hong Kong. For those who saw the campaign, the likelihood of them considering Brisbane as an investment opportunity doubled from 24 per cent to 47 per cent.
As the G20 summit draws closer, Brisbane Marketing will continue campaigns and messaging to evolve Brisbane's positioning as a serious player in the Asia-Pacific. The campaign was rolled out to Europe in June and to China in September. Marketing has been seen by more than 160 million people around the world online, as well as on billboards and in print—more than 3,000 billboards around the world, and online and print advertising in high-profile business publications. This advertising, with the words 'Brisbane: The 2014 G20 Host City', features a number of 'heroes', including US President Barack Obama and other world leaders; cervical cancer vaccine pioneer Professor Ian Frazer; Brisbane artist Michael Zavros; Shanghai news anchor and Asia Pacific Screen Awards host Chen Lei; BG Group's Catherine Tanna; Phil Larsen of Halfbrick Studios, the developer of the highly-successful Fruit Ninja app; as well as Chinese-American artist Cai Guo-Qiang.
Almost 60,000 people have visited the Choose Brisbane website. This is Brisbane's opportunity to showcase itself as the closest Australian capital city on the eastern seaboard to Asia, ideally placed to become an economic powerhouse in the region. The economic benefits to the city are expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, with an upsurge in trade for local shops, hotels and restaurants along with increased international media coverage of Brisbane. Brisbane is working to ensure the anticipated 3,000 visiting media will be equipped with information to maximise media coverage and return visits by family and friends and is hosting pre- and post-summit media familiarisations to get stories about our city published worldwide. International experience from previous summits suggests Brisbane can expect an upsurge in interest as an international business and meetings destination as a result of the G20.
Other benefits arising from the city's improved international image are expected to include more foreign investment and increased tourism as a result of hosting the summit. Lord Mayor Graham Quirk stated that networking between countries provides new business and research collaborations which can generate innovation, ideas and drive the research agenda for years to come. In Brisbane's case, this could be in areas such as education, the digital economy, hotel development, and the event management and convention business. Already an extra 20 conferences have been booked for Brisbane this year by comparison to 2013, adding an extra $50 million to the city's economic worth.
In 2010 the University of Toronto measured the benefits of previous G20 and G8 conferences. They found that the host city received benefits in the short-term from tourism, accommodation, plane fares and 'advertising'—both written stories and direct advertising. In the longer term, the economic benefit comes from business investment. The authors of the study, Jenilee Guebert and Shamir Tanna, from the University of Toronto found the economic benefits were bigger for the cities with a lower international profile. In general the benefits are much greater for the smaller communities and cities that lack the global visibility and infrastructure that the capital cities of the past several centuries have developed.
Brisbane already plans to boost its $114 billion economy to a $217 billion economy by 2031 and will be able to link trade benefits from the G20 conference to its biennial Asia Pacific Cities Summit, which it last hosted in 2011 and will again in 2015. The global spotlight will be on Brisbane during the G20 Leaders Summit and the city is ready to shine. I commend this bill to the House and extend a warm welcome to Brisbane to all delegates.
Mr DANBY (Melbourne Ports) (12:06): In my comments today about the G20 (Safety and Security) Complementary Bill 2014 it is worth remembering some of the history and context of this bill. Prime Minister Gillard won a place for Australia at the United Nations Security Council, despite the doubts and indecision of her then foreign minister. Former Prime Minister Rudd played a key role in making the G20 the eminent international forum that it has become and making Australia part of it. It is a forum that is probably more important even than the G8 these days—or the G7 as it is going to become.
The summit taking place in Brisbane will be the most significant meeting of world leaders in Australia. This important meeting demands extra security measures, which is why the opposition is supporting this bill. The bill provides a mechanism for dealing with any overlap between provisions in the Queensland act G20 (Safety and Security) Act 2013 and existing Commonwealth legislation. Importantly, the powers are exercisable for a limited period and apply only with respect to certain specified locations, including the Brisbane Airport, which is a Commonwealth property.
The G20 brings world leaders to Australia, and Australia will be responsible for their security. Our planning and our capability for the G20 and Australia's ongoing security capability rely extensively on Australia's security services. Above all, those security services performing their tasks and security for this event will primarily provide that via the use of electronic surveillance, interception and the monitoring tools we know that our security services use. The G20 will not only be protected by some Queensland copper and his dog sweating through the venue before the arrival of the VIPs; the careful intelligence work of our security services will also be the key to it. Of course, it is important to keep our security agencies accountable by ensuring the balance between our security and our liberty when it comes to information gathered about Australian citizens or in Australia. In the former government's examination of how we might do this, I was a strong advocate of data breach legislation that would give citizens the right to individually take legal action against government, or more likely commercial organisations, that improperly access an individual's private data.
In evaluating how Australia is to keep its enviable record of not having a successful terrorist attack on mainland Australia since 9/11 and keeping the G20 safe, we need to remember that the Australian intelligence services are amongst the most closely scrutinised, well governed and well administered in the world. The main checks that currently exist to ensure these services act with appropriate considerations include the ombudsman; the Administrative Appeals Tribunal; the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security, which I had the honour of being a member of; ministers and departmental secretaries; the Chief of the Defence Force; and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, who oversights how these agencies perform. I might say that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is a nonpartisan committee. Rulings by Australia that organisations are terrorist organisations are not made by fiat of the Attorney-General but under a long-ago agreement by all parties and with due consideration of the expert advice that we get.
It was recently recommended that these organisations have dual objectives: to protect the privacy of communications and to enable interception of and access to communications in order to investigate serious crime and threats to national security—in other words, so that the activities of these agencies can be done without overstepping the parameters of their existing legislation, maintaining the privacy of those individuals or organisations who are not intended to come under notice.
Since Mr Snowden began leaking US intelligence secrets last year, there has been a great deal of criticism of the way electronic surveillance has been used to protect the citizens of Western countries. It is an important debate that we need to have about the merits of security versus the desire for e-privacy. In my view, there has been a hysterical debate including allegations of totalitarian style surveillance of citizens in the West. Of course, one does not need to have this dilemma. One can, as we have in Australia to date, both protect individuals' privacy and maintain the security of Australia.
The Financial Review today addresses the old report of October 2013 that the Australian Signals Directorate had offered to share information collected about ordinary Australians with intelligence partners. This allegation confused metadata collected by the ASD as part of its foreign intelligence gathering with domestic surveillance operations. Under the Intelligence Services Act, of course, the ASD is not permitted to intercept domestic communications unless it gets explicit ministerial approval.
In the adult debate about these important issues following the leaking of 100,000 secret documents by the now Russian-based Mr Snowden, President Obama ordered the creation of a Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. One of the doyens of civil liberties in the United States, Professor Geoffrey Stone, joined that advisory group. Professor Stone started off very sceptical of these capabilities that will help protect us in Brisbane as well as, in an ongoing sense, around the world. He said that he had gone into it with severe doubts about the merits of these ideas but he came out after this review with the belief that the NSA 'operates with a high degree of integrity and a deep commitment to the rule of law'. Professor Stone also concluded that the NSA was being 'severely—and unfairly—demonised by its critics'. He said:
Rather than being a rogue agency that was running amok in disregard of the Constitution and laws of the United States, the NSA was doing its job.
That is very much my feeling about agencies here from my experience on the committee. Professor Stone further said:
… I approached my responsibilities as a member of the Review Group with great skepticism about the NSA. I am a long-time civil libertarian, a member of the National Advisory Council of the ACLU … I was skeptical … I came away from my work on the Review Group with a view of the NSA that I found quite surprising. Not only did I find that the NSA had helped to thwart numerous terrorist plots against the United States … since 9/11, but I also found that it is an organization that operates with a high degree of integrity and a deep commitment to the rule of law.
That is exactly my impression of the agencies working here.
Prior to the creation of the review group, there was a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the NSA on the collection of telephony metadata. District Judge William Pauley's judgments are very interesting. He said:
There is no evidence that the Government has used any of the bulk telephony metadata it collected for any purpose other than investigating and disrupting terrorist attacks. While there have been unintentional violations of guidelines, those appear to stem from human error and the incredibly complex computer programs that support this vital tool. And once detected, these violations were self-reported and stopped. The bulk telephony metadata collection program is subject to executive and congressional oversight, as well as continual monitoring by a dedicated group of judges who sit on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Pauley cited the NSA's inability to connect the telephone dots ahead of the September 11 terrorist attacks. He wrote:
[Al-Qaeda's plot] succeeded because conventional intelligence gathering could not detect diffuse filaments connecting al-Qaeda.
No doubt, the bulk telephony metadata collection program vacuums up information about virtually every telephone call to, from, or within the United States … That is by design, as it allows the NSA to detect relationships so attenuated and ephemeral they would otherwise escape notice. As the September 11th attacks demonstrate, the cost of missing such a thread can be horrific.
That is exactly what the pattern is here in Australia. The most important liberal voice in this debate of security versus privacy since the Snowden revelations is President Obama. Obama, of course, is a former civil rights attorney and lecturer in constitutional law. He says he has 'maintained a healthy scepticism towards our surveillance programs after becoming president'. Following the findings of the review group, he said:
Nothing in that initial review … and nothing that I have learned since, indicated that our intelligence community has sought to violate the law or is cavalier about the civil liberties of their fellow citizens ... To the contrary, in an extraordinarily difficult job ... the men and women of the … community ... consistently follow protocols designed to protect the privacy of ordinary people. They're not abusing authorities in order to listen to your private phone calls or read your emails.
Unfortunately, in Australia various assorted critics and occasional wild-eyed journalists have been the shrillest voices in this debate.
There is a need for public officials to explain to the public when undertaking events like the G20 in Brisbane how a democratic society can balance security and civil liberty. When the former government was examining the balance between security and liberty in relation to advances in electronic communication, I was a strong advocate of data-breach legislation that would give citizens the right to individually take legal action against government and more likely commercial organisations that accessed an individual's private data or, in the case of state interception, without judicial authorisation. The issue of commercial exploitation of people's data is something that is, in my view, the main game rather than any claims that there are any Australian state authorities that are abusing their powers.
Every day there are reports of Australian passport holders leaving to fight for jihadi or Hezbollah terrorists in Syria. We need to continue with the existing strict safeguards to allow our security services to access metadata so these individuals can continue to be monitored and their attacks prevented.
In conclusion, in special circumstances such as during the G20 conference, special measures are needed. But to maintain the security of our nation now and into the future, our security services need regulated surveillance powers. The NSA and its Australian equivalent, the ASD, does massive work for the common good. As The Financial Review editorial noted last Friday:
These agencies follow the rule of law, which means we do not have to choose between our security and our liberty. And if some accuse the US of hypocrisy by using the same snooping tactics as China, then well, since when did we object to democracies defending themselves against dictatorships? Edward Snowden and Julian Assange portray themselves as warriors defending the Internet realm of pure freedom. Instead they are dupes that have left us more exposed to a dark online world used by terrorists, dictators, warped loners, and criminal gangs who are far more likely to steal your personal data than any government agency.
It is not fair for political leadership to leave civil servants to defend their responsible actions conducted under the rule of law. It is up to us political leaders to state what these people are doing with our information and the experts doing the monitoring that they are working within the rule of rule, and that we keep a keen eye on these kinds of things via systems we have created such as the independent Inspector-General of Security and Intelligence. But if Australians are going to have this enviable record that I talked about of not having a successful terrorist attack on mainland Australia since September 11, we need to continue to keep this balanced approach that we have at the moment and not fall prey to some of the hysterical writings of Mr Snowden, Mr Assange and some of the 'Snowdenistas' who write for the Australian media.
Mr KEENAN (Stirling—Minister for Justice) (12:19): The government is proud to facilitate and support the passage of the G20 (Safety and Security) Complementary Bill. I thank all members for their contribution to this debate. I would particularly like to thank the members for Cowan and Ryan, who understand the importance of this bill to ensure security for this event. I would like to acknowledge the contribution to this debate of my shadow, the member for Batman, and also acknowledge the support of the opposition. I also acknowledge the contribution of the member for Melbourne Ports. I do not disagree with a lot of what he was saying, but he certainly used an enormous amount of latitude considering that this bill is really an administrative bill, making sure that the Commonwealth and the Queensland laws align in relation to the G20.
Unfortunately the sense that both the government and the opposition brought to this bill has not been shared by the Greens. Unfortunately that is typical, as the Deputy Speaker will well know. I understand that the Greens have indicated that they will vote against this bill in the Senate, which is really quite extraordinary considering that this bill simply makes sure that our law enforcement personnel have the appropriate powers available to them to do their job.
The G20 Leaders Summit is the most important gathering of leaders in Australia. It is a privilege for Australia to be hosting such a gathering of leaders, and it will put Australia within the world spotlight. To suggest that somehow law enforcement personnel should not have access to the powers provided for in the Queensland G20 legislation at a facility as important as Brisbane Airport is quite ludicrous. I hope that the Greens reconsider their position and join the government and opposition in sensibly supporting this legislation.
The G20 Leaders Summit will be a forum for conversations that will shape the course of the global economy in coming years. Hosting an event of this magnitude brings with it great responsibility. The Queensland government has enacted legislation to give police and other authorised persons the powers they will need during the G20 events in Queensland. Those powers are necessary and proportionate to the important task of ensuring the safety and security of our distinguished guests and of course to also protect the public. The bill will ensure that those powers are clear and unambiguous when it comes to Commonwealth places. It will clarify the interaction between Queensland G20 legislation and Commonwealth aviation legislation, which will both apply at Brisbane airport during the G20 Leaders Summit. Brisbane Airport will be the key gateway for our guests as they arrive and depart for the G20 summit. Security arrangements for the event and, in particular, at Brisbane Airport, are paramount. The government is taking all necessary steps to maximise the effectiveness of these security arrangements, and our law enforcement and security agencies stand ready to meet this challenge.
It is vitally important when we are hosting an event of the magnitude of the G20, which will see the world's most powerful people be hosted in Australia, that we provide appropriate security arrangements to guarantee not only the governments that are sending their heads of government to Australia but also the Australian public and the Queensland public that the Australian government and the Queensland government are going to be working in parallel to ensure the safety of the event. It is a very important event for Australia. Held in November this year, it will be a significant event in our national life. I therefore commend this bill to the House as a sensible measure to ensure that the safety and security of this event will proceed without any undue problems.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 12:24